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NASA’s EMIT Will Explore Diverse Science Questions on Extended Mission
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By NASA
Sasha Weston, project support, Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems program, with the Project and Engineering Support Services II contract with NASA, discusses the program with a participant, right, during Ames Partnership Days on April 29, 2025, at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Through partnerships, the program advances technologies that enable small spacecraft to achieve NASA missions in faster and more affordable ways.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete On April 29, more than 90 representatives from industry, U.S. federal labs, government agencies, and academia gathered at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley to learn about the center’s groundbreaking research and development capabilities. The three-day event provided insight into the many ways to collaborate with NASA, including tapping into the agency’s singular subject matter expertise and gaining access to state-of-the-art facilities at NASA Ames and centers across the country. Partnerships help the agency to advance technological innovation, enable science, and foster the emerging space economy.
Terry Fong, senior scientist for autonomous systems at NASA Ames, summed up the objective of the event when he noted, “I don’t believe anyone – government, academia, industry – has a monopoly on good ideas. It’s how you best combine forces to have the greatest effect.”
Terry Fong, senior scientist at NASA Ames, center, discusses the center’s capabilities in intelligent adaptive systems and potential applications with Jessica Nowinski, chief of the Human Systems Integration division, left, and Alonso Vera, senior technologist, right, on April 29, 2025, at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete Author: Jeanne Neal
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Last Updated May 13, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA astronauts Anne McClain (bottom) and Nichole Ayers (top), both Expedition 73 Flight Engineers, checkout spacesuit hardware in the Quest airlock and review procedures for a May 1 spacewalk. Credit: NASA Johnson Space Center NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain will answer prerecorded questions about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics from students in Bethpage, New York. The two astronauts are currently aboard the International Space Station.
Watch the 20-minute Earth-to-space call at 12:45 p.m. EDT on Friday, May 16, on the NASA STEM YouTube Channel.
Media interested in covering the event must RSVP no later than 5 p.m., Tuesday, May 13, by contacting Francesca Russell at: frussell@syntaxny.com or 516-644-4330.
The event is hosted by Central Boulevard Elementary School. As part of the call, students will highlight their year-long reading program, “Reading is a Blast-Exploring a Universe of Stories.”
For more than 24 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts aboard the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through SCaN’s (Space Communications and Navigation) Near Space Network.
Important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the space station benefit people on Earth and lays the groundwork for other agency missions. As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, the agency will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars; inspiring Artemis Generation explorers and ensuring the United States continues to lead in space exploration and discovery.
See videos of astronauts aboard the space station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
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Gerelle Dodson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
gerelle.q.dodson@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
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Last Updated May 09, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
Explore This Section RPS Home About About RPS About the Program About Plutonium-238 Safety and Reliability For Mission Planners Contact Power & Heat Overview Power Systems Thermal Systems Dynamic Radioisotope Power Missions Overview Timeline News Resources STEM FAQ 3 min read
NASA Selects Winners of the 2024-2025 Power to Explore Challenge
Ten-year-old, Terry Xu of Arcadia, California; 14-year-old, Maggie Hou of Snohomish, Washington; and 17-year-old, Kairat Otorov of Trumbull, Connecticut, winners of the 2024-2025 Power to Explore Student Writing Challenge. NASA/David Lam, Binbin Zheng, The Herald/Olivia Vanni, Meerim Otorova NASA has chosen three winners out of nine finalists in the fourth annual Power to Explore Challenge, a national writing competition designed to teach K-12 students about the enabling power of radioisotopes for space exploration.
“Congratulations to the amazing champions and all of the participants!
Carl Sandifer II
Program Manager, NASA’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program
The essay competition asked students to learn about NASA’s radioisotope power systems (RPS), likened to “nuclear batteries,” which the agency has used discover “moonquakes” on Earth’s Moon and study some of the most extreme of the more than 891 moons in the solar system. In 275 words or less, students dreamed up a unique exploration mission of one of these moons and described their own power to achieve their mission goals.
“I’m so impressed by the creativity and knowledge of our Power to Explore winners,” said Carl Sandifer II, program manager of the Radioisotope Power Systems Program at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
Entries were split into three groups based on grade level, and a winner was chosen from each. The three winners, each accompanied by a guardian, are invited to NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland for a VIP tour of its world-class research facilities this summer.
The winners are:
Terry Xu, Arcadia, California, kindergarten through fourth grade Maggie Hou, Snohomish, Washington, fifth through eighth grade Kairat Otorov, Trumbull, Connecticut, ninth through 12th grade “Congratulations to the amazing champions and all of the participants! Your “super powers” inspire me and make me even more optimistic about the future of America’s leadership in space,” Sandifer said.
The Power to Explore Challenge offered students the opportunity to learn about space power, celebrate their own strengths, and interact with NASA’s diverse workforce. This year’s contest received nearly 2,051 submitted entries from all 50 states, U.S. territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity overseas.
Every student who submitted an entry received a digital certificate and an invitation to the Power Up virtual event held on March 21. There, NASA announced the 45 national semifinalists, and students learned about what powers the NASA workforce.
Additionally, the national semifinalists received a NASA RPS prize pack.
NASA announced three finalists in each age group (nine total) on April 23. Finalists were invited to discuss their mission concepts with a NASA scientist or engineer during an exclusive virtual event.
The challenge is funded by the Radioisotope Power Systems Program Office in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and administered by Future Engineers under a Small Business Innovation Research phase III contract. This task is managed by the NASA Tournament Lab, a part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
For more information on radioisotope power systems visit: https://nasa.gov/rps
Karen Fox / Erin Morton
Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-805-9393
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / erin.morton@nasa.gov
Kristin Jansen
Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
216-296-2203
kristin.m.jansen@nasa.gov
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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA Expands SPHEREx Science Return Through Commercial Partnership
A sectional rendering of NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer). Credits: NASA NASA is partnering with commercial industry to expand our knowledge of Earth, our solar system, and beyond. Recently, NASA collaborated with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) to support data transfer for the agency’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission to explore the origins of the universe.
“Not only is NASA moving toward commercialization, the agency is making technological advancements to existing systems and saving millions of dollars in the process — all while expanding human knowledge through science and exploration missions,” said Kevin Coggins, associate administrator for NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program.
To receive data from missions in space, NASA relies on the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network, a collection of antennas around the globe.
In preparation for the recently-launched SPHEREx observatory, NASA needed to upgrade an antenna on the world’s most remote continent: Antarctica.
Transmitted via NASA’s Near Space Network, this video shows SPHEREx scanning a region of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The shifting colors represent different infrared wavelengths detected by the telescope’s two arrays. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s SCaN program took a novel approach by leveraging its established commercial partnership with KSAT. While upgraded KSAT antennas were added to the Near Space Network in 2023, SPHEREx required an additional Antarctic antenna that could link to online data storage.
To support SPHEREx’s polar orbit, KSAT upgraded its Troll, Antarctica antenna and incorporated their own cloud storage system. NASA then connected KSAT’s cloud to the NASA cloud, DAPHNE+ (Data Acquisition Process and Handling Environment).
As the Near Space Network’s operational cloud services system, DAPHNE+ enables science missions to transmit their data to the network for virtual file storage, processing, and management.
“By connecting the Troll antenna to DAPHNE+, we eliminated the need for large, undersea fiberoptic cables by virtually connecting private and government-owned cloud systems, reducing the project’s cost and complexity,” said Matt Vincent, the SPHEREx mission manager for the Near Space Network at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Each day, SPHEREx downlinks a portion of its 20 gigabits of science data through the Troll antenna, which transfers the files across KSAT’s network of relay satellites to the DAPHNE+ cloud. The cloud system combines and centralizes the data from each antenna, allowing access to all of SPHEREx’s health and science data in one convenient place.
The SPHEREx mission data is transmitted from space to the Troll Satellite Station, relayed through a network of satellites, and stored in the Near Space Network’s cloud system for easily-accessible analysis by scientists around the world.NASA/Dave Ryan With coverage throughout its orbit, SPHEREx transmits its 3D maps of the celestial sky, offering new insight into what happened a fraction of a second after the big bang.
“Missions like SPHEREx use the Near Space Network’s combination of commercial and government antennas,” explained Michael Skube, DAPHNE+ manager at NASA Goddard. “And that is the benefit of DAPHNE+ — it enables the network to pull different sources of information into one central location. The DAPHNE+ system treats government and commercial antennas as part of the same network.”
The partnership is mutually beneficial. NASA’s Near Space Network maintains a data connection with SPHEREx as it traverses both poles and KSAT benefits from its antennas’ integration into a robust global network – no new cables required.
“We were able to find a networking solution with KSAT that did not require us to put additional hardware in Antarctica,” said Vincent. “Now we are operating with the highest data rate we have ever downlinked from that location.”
The upgraded ground station antenna at Troll Satellite Station supports cloud-based space communications, enabling NASA’s Near Space Network to support scientific missions via a wireless cloud network.Kongsberg Satellite Services For NASA, its commercial partners, and other global space agencies, this expansion means more reliable space communications with fewer expenses.
Troll’s successful integration into the Near Space Network is a case study for future private and government partnerships. As SPHEREx measures the collective glow of over 450 million galaxies as far as 10 billion light-years away, SCaN continues to innovate how its discoveries safely return to Earth.
The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive. Funding and oversight for DAPHNE+ and the Near Space Network come from the SCaN program office at NASA Headquarters and operate out of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Troll Satellite Station is owned and operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services and located in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.
About the Author
Korine Powers
Lead Writer and Communications StrategistKorine Powers, Ph.D. is a writer for NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program office and covers emerging technologies, commercialization efforts, exploration activities, and more.
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Last Updated May 06, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
8 Min Read How to Contribute to Citizen Science with NASA
A number of NASA projects use mobile phone apps to put satellite data into the palm of your hand, and allow intrepid citizen scientists to upload data. Credits:
NASA A cell phone, a computer—and your curiosity—is all you need to become a NASA citizen scientist and contribute to projects about Earth, the solar system, and beyond.
Science is built from small grains of sand, and you can contribute yours from any corner of the world.
All you need is a cell phone or a computer with an internet connection to begin a scientific adventure. Can you imagine making a pioneering discovery in the cosmos? Want to help solve problems that could improve life on our planet? Or maybe you dream of helping solve an ancient mystery of the universe? All of this is possible through NASA’s Citizen Science program.
NASA defines citizen science, or participatory science, as “science projects that rely on volunteers,” said Dr. Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist and the Citizen Science Officer in the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.
For decades, volunteers have been supporting NASA researchers in different fields and in a variety of ways, depending on the project. They help by taking measurements, sorting data from NASA missions, and deepening our understanding of the universe and our home planet. It all counts.
“That’s science for you: It’s collaborative,” said Kuchner, who oversees the more than 30 citizen science projects NASA offers. “I connect the public and scientists to get more NASA science done.”
NASA astrophysicist Marc Kuchner is a pioneer in participatory science and today serves as NASA’s Citizen Science program officer. In 2014, Kuchner created the Disk Detective project, which helps NASA scientists study how planets form. Kuchner has also been the principal investigator for some of the agency’s many citizen science projects, but today he oversees the portfolio and promotes volunteer participation around the world.
Credit: David Friedlander A menu of projects for all tastes
Citizen scientists can come from anywhere in the world—they do not have to be U.S. citizens or residents. Volunteers help NASA look for planets in other solar systems, called exoplanets; sort clouds in Earth’s sky; observe solar eclipses; or detect comets and asteroids. Some of those space rocks are even named after the volunteers who helped find them.
Mass participation is key in initiatives that require as many human eyes as possible. “There are science projects that you can’t do without the help of a big team,” Kuchner said. For example, projects that need large datasets from space telescopes—or “things that are physically big and you need people in different places looking from different angles,” he said.
One example is Aurorasaurus, which invites people to observe and classify northern and southern auroras. “We try to study them with satellites, but it really helps to have people on the ground taking photos from different places at different times,” he explained.
“Part of the way we serve our country and humankind is by sharing not just the pretty pictures from our satellites, but the entire experience of doing science,” Kuchner said.
More than 3 million people have participated in the program. Kuchner believes that shows how much people want to be part of what he calls the “roller coaster” of science. “They want to go on that adventure with us, and we are thrilled to have them.”
The dream of discovering
“You can help scientists who are now at NASA and other organizations around the world to discover interesting things,” said Faber Burgos, a citizen scientist and science communicator from Colombia. “Truth be told, I’ve always dreamed of making history.”
Colombian citizen scientist Faber Burgos studied Modern Languages at the Colombian School of Industrial Careers and has a university degree in Classical Archaeology. Today, he is dedicated to disseminating science content through his social media accounts, focusing on children. In 2020, he and his team launched a balloon probe into the stratosphere with a camera that captured the curvature of the Earth, with the aim of demonstrating that the Earth is round. The video of that feat exceeds 97 million views on his Facebook account, earning him a Guinness World Record.
Credit: Courtesy of Faber Burgos Burgos has been involved in two projects for the past four years: the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), which searches the sky for potentially dangerous asteroids, and Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. This project uses data from NASA’s now-completed Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and its follow-up mission, NEOWISE, to search for brown dwarfs and a hypothetical ninth planet.
“There are really amazing participants in this project,” said Kuchner, who helped launch it in 2015. NASA’s WISE and NEOWISE missions detected about 2 billion sources in the sky. “So, the question is: Among those many sources, are any of them new unknowns?” he said.
The project has already found more than 4,000 brown dwarfs. These are Jupiter-sized objects—balls of gas that are too big to be planets, but too small to be stars. Volunteers have even helped discover a new type of brown dwarf.
Participants in the project are also hopeful they’ll find a hypothetical ninth planet, possibly Neptune-sized, in an orbit far beyond Pluto.
The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project asks volunteers to help search for new objects at the edge of our solar system. The assignment is to review images from NASA’s past WISE and NEOWISE missions in search of two types of astronomical objects: brown dwarfs(balls of gas the same size as Jupiter that have too little mass to be considered stars) and low-mass stars. Or, even, the hypothetical ninth planet of our Sun, known as Planet nine, or Planet X. The image shows an artist’s rendering of such a hypothetical world orbiting far from the Sun.
Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) Burgos explained that analyzing the images is easy. “If it’s a moving object, it’s obviously going to be something of interest,” he said. “Usually, when you see these images, everything is still. But if there’s an object moving, you have to keep an eye on it.”
Once a citizen scientist marks the object across the full image sequence, they send the information to NASA scientists to evaluate.
“As a citizen scientist, I’m happy to do my bit and, hopefully, one day discover something very interesting,” he said. “That’s the beauty of NASA—it invites everyone to be a scientist. Here, it doesn’t matter what you are, but your desire to learn.”
The first step
To become a NASA citizen scientist, start by visiting the program’s website. There you’ll find a complete list of available projects with links to their respective sites. Some are available in Spanish and other languages. Many projects are also hosted on the Zooniverse platform, which has been available since 2006.
“Another cool way to get involved is to come to one of our live events,” said Kuchner. These are virtual events open to the public, where NASA scientists present their projects and invite people to participate. “Pick a project you like—and if it’s not fun, pick a different one,” he advised. “There are wonderful relationships to be had if you reach out to scientists and other participants.”
Another way for people to get involved in citizen science is to participate in the annual NASA International Space Apps Challenge, the largest global hackathon. This two-day event creates innovation through international collaboration, providing an opportunity for participants to use NASA’s free and open data and agency partners’ space-based data to tackle real-world problems on Earth and in space. The next NASA International Space Apps Challenge will be October 4-5, 2025.
Credit: NASA Age is not the limit
People of all ages can be citizen scientists. Some projects are kid-friendly, such as Nemo-Net, an iPad game that invites participants to color coral reefs to help sort them. “I’d like to encourage young people to start there—or try a project with one of the older people in their life,” Kuchner said.
Citizen science can also take place in classrooms. In the Growing Beyond Earth project, teachers and students run experiments on how to grow plants in space for future missions. The IASC project also works with high schools to help students detect asteroids.
A student waters small plants inside a Growing Beyond Earth citizen science project grow box.
Credit: NASA Projects by the community, for the community
GLOBE Observer is another initiative with an international network of teachers and students. The platform offers a range of projects—many in Spanish—that invite people to collect data using their cell phones.
One of the most popular is the GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper, which tracks the migration and spread of mosquitoes that carry diseases. “It’s a way to help save lives—tracking the vectors that transmit malaria and Zika, among others,” Kuchner said.
Other GLOBE projects explore everything from ground cover to cloud types. Some use astronomical phenomena visible to everyone. For example, during the 2024 total solar eclipse, participants measured air temperature using their phones and shared that data with NASA scientists.
The full experience of doing science
No prior studies are needed, but many volunteers go on to collaborate on—or even lead—scientific research. More than 500 NASA citizen scientists have co-authored scientific publications.
One of them is Hugo Durantini Luca, from Córdoba, Argentina, who has participated in 17 published articles, with more on the way. For years, he explored various science projects, looking for one where he could contribute more actively.
Durantini Luca participated in one of NASA’s first citizen science projects, launched in 2006: Stardust at home. Still ongoing, this project invites volunteers to participate in the search for evidence of interstellar dust on the aerogel and aluminum foil collectors returned by NASA’s Stardust mission, using an online virtual microscope.
Credit: NASA He participated in NASA’s first citizen science project, Stardust@home, which invites users to search for interstellar dust particles in collectors from the Stardust mission, using a virtual microscope.
In 2014, he discovered Disk Detective, a project that searches for disks around stars, where planets may form. By looking at images from the WISE and NEOWISE missions, participants can help understand how worlds are born and how solar systems evolve.
“And, incidentally, if we find planets or some sign of life, all the better,” said Durantini Luca.
Although that remains a dream, they have made other discoveries—like a new kind of stellar disk called the “Peter Pan Disk,” which appears young even though the star it surrounds is not.
Durantini Luca participated in one of NASA’s first citizen science projects, launched in 2006: Stardust at home. Still ongoing, this project invites volunteers to participate in the search for evidence of interstellar dust on the aerogel and aluminum foil collectors returned by NASA’s Stardust mission, using an online virtual microscope.
Credit: NASA Science in person
In 2016, Durantini Luca got the chance to support Disk Detective with his own observations from the southern hemisphere. He traveled to El Leoncito Astronomical Complex (CASLEO), an observatory in San Juan, Argentina. There, he learned to use a spectrograph—an instrument that breaks down starlight to analyze its composition.
He treasures that experience. “Curiously, it was the first time in my life I used a telescope,” he said.
In 2016, citizen scientist Hugo Durantini Luca traveled for 18 hours to the El Leoncito Astronomical Complex (CASLEO), at the foot of the Andes Mountains. From there, he made observations of a candidate star of the Disk Detective project.
Credit: Luciano García While in-person opportunities are rare, both virtual and physical events help build community. Citizen scientists stay in touch weekly through various channels.
“Several of us are friends already—after so many years of bad jokes on calls,” said Durantini Luca.
“People send me pictures of how they met,” said Kuchner. He said the program has even changed how he does science. “It’s changed my life,” he said. “Science is already cool—and this makes it even cooler.”
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NASA Science Editorial Team
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Last Updated Apr 29, 2025 Related Terms
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