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By NASA
7 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
In the summer 2025 issue of the NASA History Office’s News & Notes newsletter, examples of leadership and critical decision-making in NASA’s history form the unifying theme. Among the topics discussed are NASA’s Shuttle-Centaur program, assessing donations to the NASA Archives, how the discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star catalyzed NASA’s exoplanet program, and Chief of the Medical Operations Office Charles A. Berry’s decisions surrounding crew health when planning the Project Gemini missions.
Volume 42, Number 2
Summer 2025
Featured Articles
From the Chief Historian
By Brian Odom
NASA’s is a history marked by critical decisions. From George Mueller’s 1963 decision for “all up” testing of the Saturn V rocket to Michael Griffin’s 2006 decision to launch a final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, the agency has continually met key inflection points with bold decisions. These choices, such as the decision to send a crewed Apollo 8 mission around the Moon in December 1968, stand at the center of the agency’s national legacy and promote confidence in times of crisis. Continue Reading
Shuttle-Centaur: Loss of Launch Vehicle Redundancy Leads to Discord
By Robert Arrighi
“Although the Shuttle/Centaur decision was very difficult to make, it is the proper thing to do, and this is the time to do it.” With those words on June 19, 1986, NASA Administrator James Fletcher canceled the intensive effort to integrate the Centaur upper stage with the Space Shuttle to launch the Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft. The decision, which was tied to increased safety measures following the loss of Challenger several months earlier, brought to the forefront the 1970s decision to launch all U.S. payloads with the Space Shuttle. Continue Reading
Lewis Director Andy Stofan speaks at the Shuttle-Centaur rollout ceremony on August 23, 1985 at General Dynamics’s San Diego headquarters. Galileo mission crew members Dave Walker, Rick Hauck, and John Fabian were among those on stage. NASA A View into NASA’s Response to the Apollo 1 Tragedy
By Kate Mankowski
On January 27, 1967, Mission AS-204 (later known as Apollo 1) was conducting a simulated countdown when a fire suddenly broke out in the spacecraft, claiming the lives of astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee. The disaster highlighted the risks that come with spaceflight and the work that still needed to be accomplished to meet President Kennedy’s challenge of going to the Moon before the end of the decade. With the complexity of the Apollo spacecraft, discerning the cause of the fire proved to be incredibly difficult. Continue Reading
The Fight to Fund AgRISTARS
By Brad Massey
Robert MacDonald, the manager of NASA’s Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE), was not pleased in January 1978 after he read a draft copy of the U.S. General Accounting Office’s (GAO’s) “Crop Forecasting by Satellite: Progress and Problems” report. The draft’s authors argued that LACIE had not achieved its goals of accurately predicting harvest yields in the mid-1970s. Therefore, congressional leaders should “be aware of the disappointing performance of LACIE to date when considering the future direction of NASA’s Landsat program and the plans of the Department of Agriculture.” Continue Reading
The Hubble Space Telescope: The Right Project at the Right Time
By Jillian Rael
This year, NASA commemorates 35 years of the Hubble Space Telescope’s study of the cosmos. From observations of never-before-seen phenomena within our solar system, to the discovery of distant galaxies, the confirmation of the existence of supermassive black holes, and precision measurements of the universe’s expansion, Hubble has made incredible contributions to science, technology, and even art. Yet, for all its contemporary popularity, the Hubble program initially struggled for congressional approval and consequential funding. For its part, NASA found new ways to compromise and cut costs, while Congress evaluated national priorities and NASA’s other space exploration endeavors against the long-range value of Hubble. Continue Reading
Within the tempestuous Carina Nebula lies “Mystic Mountain.”NASA/ESA/M. Livio/Hubble 20th Anniversary Team Appraisal: The Science and Art of Assessing Donations to the NASA Archives
By Alan Arellano
The major functions of an archivist center include appraising, arranging, describing, preserving, and providing access to historical records and documents. While together these are pillars of archival science, they are more of an art than a science in their application, fundamentally necessitating skilled decision making. Throughout the NASA archives, staff members make these decisions day in and day out. Continue Reading
Orbit Shift: How 50 Pegasi b Helped Pull NASA Toward the Stars in the 1990s
By Lois Rosson
On October 20, 1995, the New York Times reported the detection of a distant planet orbiting a Sun-like star. The star, catalogued as 51 Pegasi by John Flamsteed in the 18th century, was visible to the naked eye as part of the constellation Pegasus—and had wobbled on its axis just enough that two Swiss astronomers were able to deduce the presence of another object exerting its gravitational pull on the star’s rotation. The discovery was soon confirmed by other astronomers, and 51 Pegasi b was heralded as the first confirmed exoplanet orbiting a star similar to our own Sun. Continue Reading
Detail from an infographic about 51 Pegasi b and the significance of its discovery.NASA Four, Eight, Fourteen Days: Charles A. Berry, Gemini, and the Critical Steps to Living and Working in Space
By Jennifer Ross-Nazzal
In 1963, critical decisions had to be made about NASA’s upcoming Gemini missions if the nation were to achieve President John F. Kennedy’s lunar goals. Known as the bridge to Apollo, Project Gemini was critical to landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade and returning him safely to Earth. The project would demonstrate that astronauts could rendezvous and dock their spacecraft to another space vehicle and give flight crews the opportunity to test the planned extravehicular capabilities in preparation for walking on the lunar surface on future Apollo flights. Perhaps most importantly, Gemini had to show that humans could live and work in space for long periods of time, a fiercely debated topic within and outside of the agency. Continue Reading
Dr. Charles Berry prepares to check the blood pressure of James A. McDivitt, Command Pilot for the Gemini IV mission. McDivitt is on the tilt table at the Aero Medical Area, Merritt Island, FL, where he and Gemini IV pilot Edward H. White II underwent preflight physicals in preparation for their four-day spaceflight.NASA Imagining Space: The Life and Art of Robert McCall
By Sandra Johnson
As we walked into Bob McCall’s Arizona home, it quickly became obvious that two talented and creative people lived there. Tasked with interviewing one of the first artists to be invited to join the NASA Art Program, our oral history team quickly realized the session with McCall would include a unique perspective on NASA’s history. We traveled to Arizona in the spring of 2000 to capture interviews with some of the pioneers of spaceflight and had already talked to an eclectic group of subjects in their homes, including a flight controller for both Gemini and Apollo, an astronaut who had flown on both Skylab and Space Shuttle missions, a former NASA center director, and two former Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) who ferried airplanes during WWII. However, unlike most interviews, the setting itself provided a rare glimpse into the man and his inspiration. Continue Reading
Inside the Archives: Biomedical Branch Files
By Alejandra Lopez
The Biomedical Branch Files (1966–2008) in the Johnson Space Center archives showcase the inner workings of a NASA office established to perform testing to provide a better understanding of the impacts of spaceflight on the human body. Ranging from memos and notes to documents and reports, this collection is an invaluable resource on the biomedical research done with NASA’s Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle, and Space Station projects. Files in the collection cover work done by groups within the branch such as the Toxicology, Microbiology, Clinical, and Biochemistry Laboratories. It also reveals the branch’s evolution and changes in its decision-making process over the years. Continue Reading
Dr. Carolyn S. Huntoon, shown here in 1972, became the Biomedical Branch’s first chief in 1977.NASA Download the Summer 2025 Edition More Issues of NASA History News and Notes Share
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Last Updated Jun 20, 2025 EditorMichele Ostovar Related Terms
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By NASA
3 Min Read NASA Engineers Simulate Lunar Lighting for Artemis III Moon Landing
Better understanding the lunar lighting environment will help NASA prepare astronauts for the harsh environment Artemis III Moonwalkers will experience on their mission. NASA’s Artemis III mission will build on earlier test flights and add new capabilities with the human landing system and advanced spacesuits to send the first astronauts to explore the lunar South Pole and prepare humanity to go to Mars.
Using high-intensity lighting and low-fidelity mock-ups of a lunar lander, lunar surface, and lunar rocks, NASA engineers are simulating the Moon’s environment at the Flat Floor Facility to study and experience the extreme lighting condition. The facility is located at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
NASA engineers inside the Flat Floor Facility at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, mimic lander inspection and assessment tasks future Artemis astronauts may do during Artemis III. Lights are positioned at a low angle to replicate the strong shadows that are cast across the lunar South Pole. NASA/Charles Beason “The goal is really to understand how shadows will affect lander visual inspection and assessment efforts throughout a future crewed mission,” said Emma Jaynes, test engineer at the facility. “Because the Flat Floor Facility is similar to an inverted air hockey table, NASA and our industry partners can rearrange large, heavy structures with ease – and inspect the shadows’ effects from multiple angles, helping to ensure mission success and astronaut safety for Artemis III.”
Data and analysis from testing at NASA are improving models Artemis astronauts will use in preparation for lander and surface operations on the Moon during Artemis III. The testing also is helping cross-agency teams evaluate various tools astronauts may use.
The 86-foot-long by 44-foot-wide facility at NASA is one of the largest, flattest, and most stable air-bearing floors in the world, allowing objects to move across the floor without friction on a cushion of air.
Test teams use large, 12-kilowatt and 6-kilowatt lights to replicate the low-angle, high contrast conditions of the lunar South Pole. Large swaths of fabric are placed on top of the epoxy floor to imitate the reflective properties of lunar regolith. All the mock-ups are placed on air bearings, allowing engineers to easily move and situate structures on the floor.
The Flat Floor Facility is an air-bearing floor, providing full-scale simulation capabilities for lunar surface systems by simulating zero gravity in two dimensions. Wearing low-fidelity materials, test engineers can understand how the extreme lighting of the Moon’s South Pole could affect surface operations during Artemis III. NASA/Charles Beason “The Sun is at a permanent low angle at the South Pole of the Moon, meaning astronauts will experience high contrasts between the lit and shadowed regions,” Jaynes said. “The color white can become blinding in direct sunlight, while the shadows behind a rock could stretch for feet and ones behind a lander could extend for miles.”
The laboratory is large enough for people to walk around and experience this phenomenon with the naked eye, adding insight to what NASA calls ‘human in-the-loop testing.
NASA is working with SpaceX to develop the company’s Starship Human Landing System to safely send Artemis astronauts to the Moon’s surface and back to lunar orbit for Artemis III.
Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars – for the benefit of all.
For more information about Artemis missions, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
News Media Contact
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 17, 2025 EditorLee MohonContactCorinne M. Beckingercorinne.m.beckinger@nasa.govLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory perfected aerogel for the Stardust mission. Under Stardust, bricks of aerogel covered panels on a spacecraft that flew behind a comet, with the microporous material “soft catching” any particles that might strike it and preserving them for return to Earth.NASA Consisting of 99% air, aerogel is the world’s lightest solid. This unique material has found purpose in several forms — from NASA missions to high fashion.
Driven by the desire to create a 3D cloud, Greek artist, Ioannis Michaloudis, learned to use aerogel as an artistic medium. His journey spanning more than 25 years took him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge; Shivaji University in Maharashtra, India, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
A researcher at MIT introduced Michaloudis to aerogel after hearing of his cloud-making ambition, and he was immediately intrigued. Aerogel is made by combining a polymer with a solvent to create a gel and flash-drying it under pressure, leaving a solid filled with microscopic pores.
Scientists at JPL chose aerogel in the mid-1990s to enable the Stardust mission, with the idea that a porous surface could capture particles while flying on a probe behind a comet. Aerogel worked in lab tests, but it was difficult to manufacture consistently and needed to be made space-worthy. NASA JPL hired materials scientist Steve Jones to develop a flight-ready aerogel, and he eventually got funding for an aerogel lab.
The aerogel AirSwipe bag Michaloudis created for Coperni’s 2024 fall collection debut appears almost luminous in its model’s hand. The bag immediately captured the world’s attention.Coperni
The Stardust mission succeeded, and when Michaloudis heard of it, he reached out to JPL, where Jones invited him to the lab. Now retired, Jones recalled, “I went through the primer on aerogel with him, the different kinds you could make and their different properties.” The size of Jones’ reactor, enabling it to make large objects, impressed Michaloudis. With tips on how to safely operate a large reactor, he outfitted his own lab with one.
In India, Michaloudis learned recipes for aerogels that can be molded into large objects and don’t crack or shrink during drying. His continued work with aerogels has created an extensive art portfolio.
Michaloudis has had more than a dozen solo exhibitions. All his artwork involves aerogel, drawing attention with its unusual qualities. An ethereal, translucent blue, it casts an orange shadow and can withstand molten metals.
In 2020, Michaloudis created a quartz-encapsulated aerogel pendant for the centerpiece of that year’s collection from French jewelry house Boucheron. Michaloudis also captured the fashion and design world’s attention with a handbag made of aerogel, unveiled at Coperni’s 2024 fall collection debut.
NASA was a crucial step along the way. “I am what I am, and we made what we made thanks to the Stardust project,” said Michaloudis.
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Advancing new hazard detection and precision landing technologies to help future space missions successfully achieve safe and soft landings is a critical area of space research and development, particularly for future crewed missions. To support this, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) is pursuing a regular cadence of flight testing on a variety of vehicles, helping researchers rapidly advance these critical systems for missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
“These flight tests directly address some of NASA’s highest-ranked technology needs, or shortfalls, ranging from advanced guidance algorithms and terrain-relative navigation to lidar-and optical-based hazard detection and mapping,” said Dr. John M. Carson III, STMD technical integration manager for precision landing and based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Since the beginning of this year, STMD has supported flight testing of four precision landing and hazard detection technologies from many sectors, including NASA, universities, and commercial industry. These cutting-edge solutions have flown aboard a suborbital rocket system, a high-speed jet, a helicopter, and a rocket-powered lander testbed. That’s four precision landing technologies tested on four different flight vehicles in four months.
“By flight testing these technologies on Earth in spaceflight-relevant trajectories and velocities, we’re demonstrating their capabilities and validating them with real data for transitioning technologies from the lab into mission applications,” said Dr. Carson. “This work also signals to industry and other partners that these capabilities are ready to push beyond NASA and academia and into the next generation of Moon and Mars landers.”
The following NASA-supported flight tests took place between February and May:
Suborbital Rocket Test of Vision-Based Navigation System
Identifying landmarks to calculate accurate navigation solutions is a key function of Draper’s Multi-Environment Navigator (DMEN), a vision-based navigation and hazard detection technology designed to improve safety and precision of lunar landings.
Aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket system, DMEN collected real-world data and validated its algorithms to advance it for use during the delivery of three NASA payloads as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. On Feb. 4, DMEN performed the latest in a series of tests supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, which is managed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
During the February flight, which enabled testing at rocket speeds on ascent and descent, DMEN scanned the Earth below, identifying landmarks to calculate an accurate navigation solution. The technology achieved accuracy levels that helped Draper advance it for use in terrain-relative navigation, which is a key element of landing on other planets.
New Shepard booster lands during the flight test on February 4, 2025.Blue Origin High-Speed Jet Tests of Lidar-Based Navigation
Several highly dynamic maneuvers and flight paths put Psionic’s Space Navigation Doppler Lidar (PSNDL) to the test while it collected navigation data at various altitudes, velocities, and orientations.
Psionic licensed NASA’s Navigation Doppler Lidar technology developed at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and created its own miniaturized system with improved functionality and component redundancies, making it more rugged for spaceflight. In February, PSNDL along with a full navigation sensor suite was mounted aboard an F/A-18 Hornet aircraft and underwent flight testing at NASA Armstrong.
The aircraft followed a variety of flight paths over several days, including a large figure-eight loop and several highly dynamic maneuvers over Death Valley, California. During these flights, PSNDL collected navigation data relevant for lunar and Mars entry and descent.
The high-speed flight tests demonstrated the sensor’s accuracy and navigation precision in challenging conditions, helping prepare the technology to land robots and astronauts on the Moon and Mars. These recent tests complemented previous Flight Opportunities-supported testing aboard a lander testbed to advance earlier versions of their PSNDL prototypes.
The Psionic Space Navigation Doppler Lidar (PSNDL) system is installed in a pod located under the right wing of a NASA F/A-18 research aircraft for flight testing above Death Valley near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in February 2025.NASA Helicopter Tests of Real-Time Mapping Lidar
Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, developed a state-of-the-art Hazard Detection Lidar (HDL) sensor system to quickly map the surface from a vehicle descending at high speed to find safe landing sites in challenging locations, such as Europa (one of Jupiter’s moons), our own Moon, Mars, and other planetary bodies throughout the solar system. The HDL-scanning lidar generates three-dimensional digital elevation maps in real time, processing approximately 15 million laser measurements and mapping two football fields’ worth of terrain in only two seconds.
In mid-March, researchers tested the HDL from a helicopter at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with flights over a lunar-like test field with rocks and craters. The HDL collected numerous scans from several different altitudes and view angles to simulate a range of landing scenarios, generating real-time maps. Preliminary reviews of the data show excellent performance of the HDL system.
The HDL is a component of NASA’s Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) technology suite. The SPLICE descent and landing system integrates multiple component technologies, such as avionics, sensors, and algorithms, to enable landing in hard-to-reach areas of high scientific interest. The HDL team is also continuing to test and further improve the sensor for future flight opportunities and commercial applications.
NASA’s Hazard Detection Lidar field test team at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida in March 2025. Lander Tests of Powered-Descent Guidance Software
Providing pinpoint landing guidance capability with minimum propellant usage, the San Diego State University (SDSU) powered-descent guidance algorithms seek to improve autonomous spacecraft precision landing and hazard avoidance. During a series of flight tests in April and May, supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, the university’s software was integrated into Astrobotic’s Xodiac suborbital rocket-powered lander via hardware developed by Falcon ExoDynamics as part of NASA TechLeap Prize’s Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge.
The SDSU algorithms aim to improve landing capabilities by expanding the flexibility and trajectory-shaping ability and enhancing the propellant efficiency of powered-descent guidance systems. They have the potential for infusion into human and robotic missions to the Moon as well as high-mass Mars missions.
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As part of a series of tethered and free-flight tests in April and May 2025, algorithms developed by San Diego State University guided the descent of the Xodiac lander testbed vehicle.Astrobotic By advancing these and other important navigation, precision landing, and hazard detection technologies with frequent flight tests, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate is prioritizing safe and successful touchdowns in challenging planetary environments for future space missions.
Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate/
By: Lee Ann Obringer
NASA’s Flight Opportunities program
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Last Updated May 29, 2025 EditorLoura Hall Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
The next time astronauts land on the Moon, we will watch it in high-definition. The transmission will be in colour, digital and at up to 60 frames per second.
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