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By Space Force
Air Force Reservists in space-related career fields interested in volunteering to join the U.S. Space Force as Guardians serving in a part-time capacity can apply.
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By NASA
2 Min Read NASA Seeks Volunteers to Track Artemis II Mission
On the 19th day of the Artemis I mission, Dec. 4, 2022, a camera mounted on the Orion spacecraft captured the Moon just in frame. Credits: NASA NASA seeks volunteers to passively track the Artemis II Orion spacecraft as the crewed mission travels to the Moon and back to Earth.
The Artemis II test flight, a launch of the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft, will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on an approximately 10-day mission around the Moon.
The mission, targeted for no later than April 2026, will rely on NASA’s Near Space Network and Deep Space Network for primary communications and tracking support throughout its launch, orbit, and reentry. However, with a growing focus on commercialization, NASA wants to further understand industry’s tracking capabilities.
This collaboration opportunity builds upon a previous request released by NASA’s SCaN (Space Communication and Navigation) Program during the Artemis I mission, where ten volunteers successfully tracked the uncrewed Orion spacecraft in 2022 on its journey thousands of miles beyond the Moon and back.
During the Artemis I mission, participants – ranging from international space agencies, academic institutions, commercial companies, nonprofits, and private citizens – attempted to receive Orion’s signal and use their respective ground antennas to track and measure changes in the radio waves transmitted by Orion.
This data will help inform our transition to a commercial-first approach, ultimately strengthening the infrastructure needed to support long-term Moon to Mars objectives.
Kevin Coggins
Deputy Associate Administrator for SCaN
“By offering this opportunity to the broader aerospace community, we can identify available tracking capabilities outside the government,” said Kevin Coggins, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for SCaN at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This data will help inform our transition to a commercial-first approach, ultimately strengthening the infrastructure needed to support Artemis missions and our long-term Moon to Mars objectives.”
Read the opportunity announcement here: Responses are due by 5 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 27.
NASA’s SCaN Program serves as the management office for the agency’s space communications and navigation systems. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on SCaN’s two networks, the Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network, to support astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, monitor Earth’s weather, support lunar exploration, and uncover the solar system and beyond.
Artemis II will help confirm the systems and hardware needed for human deep space exploration. This mission is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign and is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions on the Moon’s surface that will help the agency prepare to send American astronauts to Mars.
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Last Updated Aug 27, 2025 EditorGoddard Digital TeamContactJoshua A. Finchjoshua.a.finch@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Commercial Space Artemis Artemis 2 Communicating and Navigating with Missions Space Communications & Navigation Program Explore More
4 min read Volunteers Worldwide Successfully Tracked NASA’s Artemis I Mission
Article 2 years ago 2 min read Working in Tandem: NASA’s Networks Empower Artemis I
Article 3 years ago 3 min read NASA Seeks Commercial Near Space Network Services
NASA is seeking commercial communication and navigation service providers for the Near Space Network.
Article 2 years ago View the full article
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By NASA
Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio Mosaics More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4618-4619: The Boxwork Structures Continue to Call to Us
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Aug. 1, 2025 — Sol 4616, or Martian day 4,616 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 03:36:56 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Written by Ashley Stroupe, Mission Operations Engineer and Rover Planner at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.
Now that we have reached August, our “landiversary” (anniversary of landing — Aug. 5 PDT) is less than a week away! The team is looking forward to being able to celebrate the milestone of our rover becoming a teenager at 13. Today’s image is a beautiful back-lit late afternoon image of the nearby mountains and the distant crater rim. These views make working on Mars never get old!
The first sol of today’s plan is very busy because we will only have data from the first sol down in time for planning on Monday. Today I was working as a Rover Planner, supporting both arm and drive activities. We start first thing with arm activities; we DRT brush and do APXS integration on the target “San Cristóbal,” which is a bedrock target, and the only place in the workspace smooth and flat enough for us to brush.
After a brief nap, we have an extensive imaging campaign. We take Mastcam images of the AEGIS target from the previous plan and two potential vein targets “Rio Satja” and “Río Ichilo.” We then take Mastcam stereo mosaics of boxwork targets “Pontezuelo” and “Catedrales de Tara.” Additionally we have stereo mosaics of “Llanos de Challe,” a transition between the bedrock in the boxwork hollow and the boxwork ridge, a nearby light-toned exposure, and some additional troughs and ridges. ChemCam then takes a LIBS observation of “Airport Domes,” which is another hollow in the boxworks. Finally, we take a ChemCam RMI and a Mastcam of Pontezuelo.
After finishing all the imaging, we continue with the rest of the arm activities. We split the arm activities to accommodate conflicting constraints — both APXS and ChemCam both need to be as early as possible. In this set of arm activities, we begin with MAHLI imaging of the two targets, San Cristóbal and “Salar de Agua Amara,” which consists of delicate branching structures likely made by groundwater.
After another short nap, we do a small adjustment in our position to get another interesting piece of bedrock ridge in our workspace. In order to approach it at a good angle, we first drive parallel to the ridge to be lined up with the target, and then we turn and drive straight to it. Due to constraints on how we like to park at targets, sometimes these shorter drives can be more complicated than longer ones — but today it was simpler. After completing the drive, we unstow the arm to get a clear view of our workspace for Monday’s planning as well as our standard post-drive imaging and then Curiosity goes to sleep for the night.
The second sol of the plan is a bit more leisurely. Around midday, Curiosity will be taking some atmospheric observations, including a Navcam dust-devil survey and a south-facing suprahorizon movie, followed by an AEGIS activity where the rover gets to pick targets and observe them herself. Then, early the next morning, Curiosity will wake up to take some additional atmospheric observations, including Navcam zenith and suprahorizon movies, Navcam line-of-sight toward the crater rim, and a Mastcam solar tau to measure dust in the atmosphere. Finally, she’ll get a short nap before waking up to start the next plan.
Learn more about Curiosity’s science instruments
For more Curiosity blog posts, visit MSL Mission Updates
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Last Updated Aug 05, 2025 Related Terms
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4 min read Curiosity Blog, Sols 4616-4617: Standing Tall on the Ridge
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By NASA
As the Sun approaches the most active part of its eleven-year magnetic cycle this summer, NASA volunteers have been watching it closely. Now they’ve spotted a new trend in solar behavior that will have you reaching for your suntan lotion. It’s all about something called a “Type II” solar radio burst:
“Type II solar radio bursts are not commonly detected in the frequency range between 15 to 30 megahertz,” said Prof. Chuck Higgins, Co-founder of Radio JOVE. “Recently, we’re seeing many of them in that range.”
Let’s unpack that. Our Sun often sprays powerful blasts of radio waves into space. Heliophysicists classify these radio bursts into five different types depending on how the frequency of the radio waves drifts over time. “Type II” solar radio bursts seem to come from solar flares and enormous squirts of hot plasma called coronal mass ejections.
Now, Thomas Freeman, an undergraduate student at Middle Tennessee State University, and other volunteers working on NASA’s Radio JOVE project have observed something interesting about these Type II bursts: they are now showing up at lower frequencies—somewhere in between FM and AM radio.
What does it mean? It means our star is full of surprises! These Radio JOVE observations of the Sun’s radio emissions during solar maximum can be used to extend our knowledge of solar emissions to lower frequencies and, therefore, to distances farther from the Sun.
Radio JOVE is a NASA partner citizen science project in which participants assemble and operate radio astronomy telescopes to gather and contribute data to support scientific studies. Radio JOVE collaborated with SunRISE Ground Radio Lab, organized teams of high school students to observe the Sun, and recently published a paper on these Type II solar radio bursts. Learn more and get involved!
A Type II solar radio burst on April 23rd, 2024, seen as the gently sloping yellow band drifting from 17:49 to 18:02 UTC in the 15-30 MHz radio frequency-time spectrogram. Credit: Tom Ashcraft, Lamy, NM Share
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Last Updated Jul 23, 2025 Related Terms
Citizen Science Heliophysics Explore More
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By NASA
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NASA Citizen Science and Your Career: Stories of Exoplanet Watch Volunteers
Doing NASA Science brings many rewards. But can taking part in NASA citizen science help your career? To find out, we asked participants in NASA’s Exoplanet Watch project about their experiences. In this project, amateur astronomers work together with professionals to track planets around other stars.
First, we heard from professional software programmers. Right away, one of them told us about getting a new job through connections made in the project.
“I decided to create the exoplanet plugin, [for citizen science] since it was quite a lot of manual work to check which transits were available for your location. The exoplanet plugin and its users got me in contact with the Stellar group… Through this group, I got into contact with a company called OurSky and started working for them… the point is, I created a couple of plugins for free and eventually got a job at an awesome company.”
Another participant talked about honing their skills and growing their confidence through Exoplanet Watch.
“There were a few years when I wasn’t actively coding. However, Exoplanet Watch rekindled that spark…. Participating in Exoplanet Watch even gave me the confidence to prepare again for a technical interview at Meta—despite having been thoroughly defeated the first time I tried.”
Teachers and teaching faculty told us how Exoplanet Watch gives them the ability to better convey what scientific research is all about – and how the project motivates students!
“Exoplanet Watch makes it easy for undergraduate students to gain experience in data science and Python, which are absolutely necessary for graduate school and many industry jobs.”
“Experience with this collaborative work is a vital piece of the workforce development of our students who are seeking advanced STEM-related careers or ongoing education in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics) fields after graduation… Exoplanet Watch, in this way, is directly training NASA’s STEM workforce of tomorrow by allowing CUNY (The City University of New York) students to achieve the science goals that would otherwise be much more difficult without its resources.”
One aspiring academic shared how her participation on the science team side of the project has given her research and mentorship experience that strengthens her resume.
“I ended up joining the EpW team to contribute my expertise in stellar variability… My involvement with Exoplanet Watch has provided me with invaluable experience in mentoring a broad range of astronomy enthusiasts and working in a collaborative environment with people from around the world. … Being able to train others, interact in a team environment, and work independently are all critical skills in any work environment, but these specific experiences have also been incredibly valuable towards building my portfolio as I search for faculty positions around the USA.”
There are no guarantees, of course. What you get out of NASA citizen science depends on what you put in. But there is certainly magic to be found in the Exoplanet Watch project. As one student said:
“Help will always be found at Hogwarts, to those who need it.” Exoplanet Watch was definitely Hogwarts for me in my career as an astronomer!”
For more information about NASA and your career, check out NASA’s Surprisingly STEM series highlighting exciting and unexpected jobs at NASA, or come to NASA Career Day, a virtual event for students and educators. Participants must register by September 4, 2025. The interactive platform will be open from September 15-19, with live panels and events taking place on September 18.
Exoplanet Watch volunteer Bryan Martin
Credit: Bryan Martin
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Last Updated Jul 16, 2025 Related Terms
Astrophysics Citizen Science Exoplanet Science Exoplanets Explore More
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