Jump to content

NASA Invites Social Creators for Launch of Two NASA Astrophysical Missions 


Recommended Posts

  • Publishers
Posted
NASA’s SPHEREx observatory
NASA’s SPHEREx observatory undergoes integration and testing at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in April 2024. The space telescope will use a technique called spectroscopy across the entire sky, capturing the universe in more than 100 colors.
BAE Systems

Registration is open for digital content creators to attend the launch of NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission, and NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission. SPHEREx will provide the first all-sky spectral survey, collecting data on more than 450 million galaxies along with more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way in order to explore the origins of the universe. PUNCH is a constellation of four small satellites in low-Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the Sun’s corona to learn how the mass and energy there become solar wind. 

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than February 2025 for the SPHEREx and PUNCH missions launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 

If your passion is to communicate and engage the world online, then this is the event for you! Seize the opportunity to see and share the SPHEREx and PUNCH missions’ launch. 

A maximum of 50 social media users will be selected to attend this one-day event and will be given access similar to news media. 

NASA Social participants will have the opportunity to: 

  • View the launch of the SPHEREx and PUNCH satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.  
  • Tour NASA facilities at Vandenberg Space Force Base. 
  • Meet and interact with SPHEREx and PUNCH subject matter experts. 
  • Meet fellow space enthusiasts who are active on social media. 

NASA Social registration for the SPHEREx and PUNCH launch opens on Monday, Dec. 9, and the deadline to apply is Monday, Dec. 23 at noon ET. All social applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

APPLY NOW 

Do I need to have a social media account to register? 

Yes. This event is designed for people who: 

  • Actively use multiple social networking platforms and tools to disseminate information to a unique audience. 
  • Regularly produce new content that features multimedia elements. 
  • Have the potential to reach a large number of people using digital platforms, or reach a unique audience, separate and distinctive from traditional news media and/or NASA audiences. 
  • Must have an established history of posting content on social media platforms. 
  • Have previous postings that are highly visible, respected, and widely recognized. 

Users on all social networks are encouraged to use the hashtag #NASASocial. Updates and information about the event will be shared via @NASASocial and @NASA_LSP on X and via posts to LSP’s Facebook

How do I register? 

Registration for this event opens Monday, Dec. 9, and closes Monday, Dec. 23 at noon ET. Registration is for one person only (you) and is nontransferable. Each individual wishing to attend must register separately. Each application will be considered on a case-by-case basis. 

Can I register if I am not a U.S. citizen? 

Because of the security restrictions on the Space Force base, registration is limited to U.S. citizens. If you have a valid permanent resident card, you will be processed as a U.S. citizen. 

When will I know if I am selected? 

After registrations have been received and processed, an email with confirmation information and additional instructions will be sent to those selected. We expect to send the acceptance notifications by Jan. 31. 

What are NASA Social credentials? 

All social applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Those chosen must prove through the registration process that they meet specific engagement criteria. 

If you do not make the registration list for this NASA Social, you still can attend the launch offsite and participate in the conversation online.  

What are the registration requirements? 

Registration indicates your intent to travel to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and attend the one-day event in person. You are responsible for your own expenses for travel, accommodations, food, and other amenities. 

Some events and participants scheduled to appear at the event are subject to change without notice. NASA is not responsible for loss or damage incurred as a result of attending. NASA, moreover, is not responsible for loss or damage incurred if the event is cancelled with limited or no notice. Please plan accordingly. 

Vandenberg is a government facility. Those who are selected will need to complete an additional registration step to receive clearance to enter the secure areas. 

IMPORTANT: To be admitted, you will need to provide two forms of unexpired government-issued identification; one must be a photo ID and match the name provided on the registration. Those without proper identification cannot be admitted

For a complete list of acceptable forms of ID, please visit: NASA Credentialing Identification Requirements

All registrants must be at least 18 years old. 

What if the launch date changes? 

Many different factors can cause a scheduled launch date to change multiple times. If the launch date changes, NASA may adjust the date of the NASA Social accordingly to coincide with the new target launch date. NASA will notify registrants of any changes by email. 

If the launch is postponed, attendees will be invited to attend a later launch date. NASA cannot accommodate attendees for delays beyond 72 hours. 

NASA Social attendees are responsible for any additional costs they incur related to any launch delay. We strongly encourage participants to make travel arrangements that are refundable and/or flexible. 

What if I cannot come to Vandenberg Space Force Base? 

If you cannot come to Vandenberg Space Force Base and attend in person, you should not register for the NASA Social. You can follow the conversation online using #NASASocial.  

You can watch the launch on NASA+ or plus.nasa.gov/. NASA will provide regular launch and mission updates on @NASA and @NASA_LSP on X. 

If you cannot make this NASA Social, don’t worry; NASA is planning many other Socials in the near future at various locations! Check back here for updates. 

View the full article

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Topics

    • By Amazing Space
      Live Video from the International Space Station (Seen From The NASA ISS Live Stream)
    • By NASA
      NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23 Launch
    • By NASA
      1 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      NASA Graphics NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, invites innovative companies, government agencies, and organizations to attend Partnership Days, scheduled for Oct. 21-22, 2025, at the center.
      The event offers a unique opportunity to explore collaboration with NASA on cutting-edge research and development in areas such as aerospace, autonomy, sustainability, and more. Attendees will engage with NASA experts and learn how Armstrong’s capabilities can help accelerate innovation and bring transformative technologies to life.
      Space is limited, and RSVP is required by Sept. 26.
      To register, scan the QR code on the event poster or email AFRC-CAL-330-Partnerships@mail.nasa.gov.
      What: NASA Armstrong Partnership Days
      When: Oct. 21-22, 2025
      Where: NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
      Who: Industry leaders, government agencies, and organizations interested in research and development partnerships with NASA
      For information about NASA Armstrong and other agency programs, visit:
      https://www.nasa.gov/armstrong
      -end-
      Dede Dinius
      Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California
      661-276-5701
      darin.l.dinius@nasa.gov
      Explore More
      2 min read NASA Tests Tools to Assess Drone Safety Over Cities
      Article 3 weeks ago 3 min read NASA Uses Wind Tunnel to Test Advanced Air Mobility Aircraft Wing
      Article 1 month ago 3 min read NASA Drop Test Supports Safer Air Taxi Design and Certification
      Article 2 months ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      Artemis II NASA astronauts (left to right) Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen stand in the white room on the crew access arm of the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B as part of an integrated ground systems test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. The test ensures the ground systems team is ready to support the crew timeline on launch day.NASA/Frank Michaux With Artemis II, NASA is taking the science of living and working in space beyond low Earth orbit. While the test flight will help confirm the systems and hardware needed for human deep space exploration, the crew also will be serving as both scientists and volunteer research subjects, completing a suite of experiments that will allow NASA to better understand how human health may change in deep space environments. Results will help the agency build future interventions, protocols, and preventative measures to best protect astronauts on future missions to the lunar surface and to Mars.

      Science on Artemis II will include seven main research areas:

      ARCHeR: Artemis Research for Crew Health and Readiness 

      NASA’s Artemis II mission provides an opportunity to explore how deep space travel affects sleep, stress, cognition, and teamwork — key factors in astronaut health and performance. While these effects are well-documented in low Earth orbit, they’ve never been fully studied during lunar missions.

      Artemis II astronauts will wear wristband devices that continuously monitor movement and sleep patterns throughout the mission. The data will be used for real-time health monitoring and safety assessments, while pre- and post-flight evaluations will provide deeper insights into cognition, behavior, sleep quality, and teamwork in the unique environment of deep space and the Orion spacecraft.

      The findings from the test flight will inform future mission planning and crew support systems, helping NASA optimize human performance for the next era of exploration on the Moon and Mars.

      Immune Biomarkers

      Saliva provides a unique window into how the human immune system functions in a deep space environment. Tracing changes in astronauts’ saliva from before, during, and after the mission will enable researchers to investigate how the human body responds to deep space in unprecedented ways.

      Dry saliva will be collected before, during, and after the mission. It will be blotted onto specialized paper in pocket-sized booklets since equipment needed to preserve wet spit samples in space – including refrigeration – will not be available due to volume constraints. To augment that information, liquid saliva and blood samples will be collected before and after the mission.  
      NASA Astronaut Randy Bresnik prepares to collect a dry saliva sample aboard the International Space Station. The process, which helps scientists investigate how the immune system is affected by spaceflight and will be part of the Artemis II mission, involves blotting saliva onto special paper that’s stored in pocket-sized booklets.Credit: NASA With these wet and dry saliva samples, scientists will gain insights into how the astronauts’ immune systems are affected by the increased stresses of radiation, isolation, and distance from Earth during their deep space flight. They also will examine whether otherwise dormant viruses are reactivated in space, as has been seen previously on the International Space Station with viruses that can cause chickenpox and shingles.

      The information gathered from this study, when combined with data from other missions, will help researchers develop ways to keep crew members safe and healthy as we explore farther and travel for longer periods on deep space missions.

      AVATAR: A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response

      AVATAR is another important component of NASA’s strategy to gain a holistic understanding of how the deep space environment affects humans. Scientists plan to use organ-on-a-chip technology during Artemis II, marking the first time these devices will be used beyond the Van Allen belts.

      Roughly the size of a USB thumb drive, the chips will measure how individual astronauts respond to deep space stressors, including extreme radiation and microgravity. The organ chips will contain cells developed from preflight blood donations provided by crew members to create miniature stand-ins, or “avatars,” of their bone marrow. Bone marrow plays a vital role in the immune system and is particularly sensitive to radiation, which is why scientists selected it for this study.
      An organ chip for conducting bone marrow experiments in space. Credit: Emulate
      A key goal for this research is to validate whether organ chips can serve as accurate tools for measuring and predicting human responses to stressors. To evaluate this, scientists will compare AVATAR data with space station findings, as well as with samples taken from the crew before and after flight.

      AVATAR could inform measures to ensure crew health on future deep space missions, including personalizing medical kits to each astronaut. For citizens on Earth, it could lead to advancements in individualized treatments for diseases such as cancer.

      AVATAR is a demonstration of the power of public-private partnerships. It’s a collaboration between government agencies and commercial space companies: NASA, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences within the National Institutes of Health, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, Space Tango, and Emulate.

      Artemis II Standard Measures

      The crew also will become the first astronauts in deep space to participate in the Spaceflight Standard Measures study, an investigation that’s been collecting data from participating crew members aboard the space station and elsewhere since 2018. The study aims to collect a comprehensive snapshot of astronauts’ bodies and minds by gathering a consistent set of core measurements of physiological response.

      The crew will provide biological samples including blood, urine, and saliva for evaluating nutritional status, cardiovascular health, and immunological function starting about six months before their launch. The crew also will participate in tests and surveys evaluating balance, vestibular function, muscle performance, changes in their microbiome, as well as ocular and brain health. While in space, data gathering will include an assessment of motion sickness symptoms. After landing, there will be additional tests of head, eye, and body movements, among other functional performance tasks. Data collection will continue for a month after their return.

      All this information will be available for scientists interested in studying the effects of spaceflight via request to NASA’s Life Sciences Data Archive. The results from this work could lead to future interventions, technologies, and studies that help predict the adaptability of crews on a Mars mission.

      Radiation Sensors Inside Orion

      During the uncrewed Artemis I mission, Orion was blanketed in 5,600 passive and 34 active radiation sensors. The information they gathered assured researchers Orion’s design can provide protection for crew members from hazardous radiation levels during lunar missions. That doesn’t mean that scientists don’t want more information, however.

      Similar to Artemis I, six active radiation sensors, collectively called the Hybrid Electronic Radiation Assessors, will be deployed at various locations inside the Orion crew module. Crew also will wear dosimeters in their pockets. These sensors will provide warnings of hazardous radiation levels caused by space weather events made by the Sun. If necessary, this data will be used by mission control to drive decisions for the crew to build a shelter to protect from radiation exposure due to space weather. 

      Additionally, NASA has again partnered the German Space Agency DLR for an updated model of their M-42 sensor – an M-42 EXT – for Artemis II. The new version offers six times more resolution to distinguish between different types of energy, compared to the Artemis I version. This will allow it to accurately measure the radiation exposure from heavy ions which are thought to be particularly hazardous for radiation risk. Artemis II will carry four of the monitors, affixed at points around the cabin by the crew.

      Collectively, sensor data will paint a full picture of radiation exposures inside Orion and provide context for interpreting the results of the ARCHeR, AVATAR, Artemis II Standard Measures, and Immune Biomarkers experiments.

      Lunar Observations Campaign

      The Artemis II crew will take advantage of their location to explore the Moon from above. As the first humans to see the lunar surface up close since 1972, they’ll document their observations through photographs and audio recordings to inform scientists’ understanding of the Moon and share their experience of being far from Earth. It’s possible the crew could be the first humans to see certain areas of the Moon’s far side, though this will depend on the time and date of launch, which will affect which areas of the Moon will be illuminated and therefore visible when the spacecraft flies by.

      Spacecraft such as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have been surveying and mapping the Moon for decades, but Artemis II provides a unique opportunity for humans to evaluate the lunar surface from above. Human eyes and brains are highly sensitive to subtle changes in color, texture, and other surface characteristics. Having the crew observe the lunar surface directly – equipped with questions that scientists didn’t even know to ask during Apollo missions – could form the basis for future scientific investigations into the Moon’s geological history, the lunar environment, or new impact sites.
      This visualization simulates what the crew of Artemis II might see out the Orion windows on the day of their closest approach to the Moon. It compresses 36 hours into a little more than a minute as it flies the virtual camera on a realistic trajectory that swings the spacecraft around the Moon’s far side. This sample trajectory is timed so that the far side is fully illuminated when the astronauts fly by, but other lighting conditions are possible depending on the exact Artemis II launch date. The launch is scheduled for no later than April of 2026. NASA Goddard/Ernie Wright
      It will also offer the first opportunity for an Artemis mission to integrate science flight control operations. From their console in the flight control room in mission control, a science officer will consult with a team of scientists with expertise in impact cratering, volcanism, tectonism, and lunar ice, to provide real-time data analysis and guidance to the Artemis II crew in space. During the mission, the lunar science team will be located in mission control’s Science Evaluation Room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. 

      Lessons learned during Artemis II will pave the way for lunar science operations on future missions.

      CubeSats

      Several additional experiments are hitching a ride to space onboard Artemis II in the form of CubeSats – shoe-box-sized technology demonstrations and scientific experiments. Though separate from the objectives of the Artemis II mission, they may enhance understanding of the space environment.

      Technicians install the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) K-Rad Cube within the Orion stage adapter inside the Multi-Payload Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025. The K-Rad Cube, about the size of a shoebox, is one of the CubeSats slated to fly on NASA’s Artemis II test flight in 2026. Credit: NASA Four international space agencies have signed agreements to send CubeSats into space aboard the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, each with their own objectives. All will be released from an adapter on the SLS upper stage into a high-Earth orbit, where they will conduct an orbital maneuver to reach their desired orbit.

      ATENEA – Argentina’s Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales will collect data on radiation doses across various shielding methods, measure the radiation spectrum around Earth, collect GPS data to help optimize future mission design, and validate a long-range communications link.
      K-Rad Cube – The Korea Aerospace Administration will use a dosimeter made of material designed to mimic human tissue to measure space radiation and assess biological effects at various altitudes across the Van Allen radiation belt.
      Space Weather CubeSat – The Saudi Space Agency will measure aspects of space weather, including radiation, solar X-rays, solar energetic particles, and magnetic fields, at a range of distances from Earth.
      TACHELES – The Germany Space Agency DLR will collect measurements on the effects of the space environment on electrical components to inform technologies for lunar vehicles.
      Together, these research areas will inform plans for future missions within NASA’s Artemis campaign. Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
      View the full article
    • By Space Force
      The first Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture Tranche 1 Transport Layer space vehicles successfully launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

      View the full article
  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...