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By NASA
NASA Stennis Buffer ZoneNASA / Stennis NASA’s Stennis Space Center is widely known for rocket propulsion testing, especially to support the NASA Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
What may not be so widely known is that the site also is a unique federal city, home to more than 50 federal, state, academic, and commercial tenants and serving as both a model of government efficiency and a powerful economic engine for its region.
“NASA Stennis is a remarkable story of vision and innovation,” Center Director John Bailey said. “That was the case 55 years ago when the NASA Stennis federal city was born, and it remains the case today as we collaborate and grow to meet the needs of a changing aerospace world.”
Apollo Years
Nearly four years after its first Saturn V stage test, NASA’s Stennis Space Center faced a crossroads to the future. Indeed, despite its frontline role in supporting NASA’s Apollo lunar effort, it was not at all certain a viable future awaited the young rocket propulsion test site.
In 1961, NASA announced plans to build a sprawling propulsion test site in south Mississippi to support Apollo missions to the Moon. The news was a significant development for the sparsely populated Gulf Coast area.
The new site, located near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, conducted its first hot fire of a Saturn V rocket stage in April 1966. Saturn V testing progressed steadily during the next years. In fall 1969, however, NASA announced an end to Apollo-related testing, leading to an existential crisis for the young test site.
What was to become of NASA Stennis?
An Expanded Vision
Some observers speculated the location would close or be reduced to caretaker status, with minimal staffing. Either scenario would deliver a serious blow to the families who had re-located to make way for the site and the local communities who had heavily invested in municipal projects to support the influx of workforce personnel.
Such outcomes also would run counter to assurances provided by leaders that the new test site would benefit its surrounding region and involve area residents in “something great.”
For NASA Stennis manager Jackson Balch and others, such a result was unacceptable. Anticipating the crisis, Balch had been working behind the scenes to communicate – and realize – the vision of a multiagency site supporting a range of scientific and technological tenants and missions.
A Pivotal Year
The months following the Saturn V testing announcement were filled with discussions and planning to ensure the future of NASA Stennis. The efforts began to come to fruition in 1970 with key developments:
In early 1970, NASA Administrator Thomas Paine proposed locating a regional environmental center at NASA Stennis. U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis (Mississippi) responded with a message of the president, “urgently requesting” that a National Earth Resources and Environmental Data Program be established at the site. In May 1970, President Richard Nixon offered assurances that an Earth Resources Laboratory would be established at NASA Stennis and that at least two agencies are preparing to locate operations at the site. U.S. congressional leaders earmarked $10 million to enable the location of an Earth Resources Laboratory at NASA Stennis. On July 9, 1970, the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Data Buoy Project (now the National Data Buoy Center) announced it was relocating to NASA Stennis, making it the first federal city tenant. The project arrived onsite two months later on September 9. On Sept. 9, 1970, NASA officially announced establishment of an Earth Resources Laboratory at NASA Stennis. Time to Grow
By the end of 1970, Balch’s vision was taking shape, but it needed time to grow. The final Saturn V test had been conducted in October – with no new campaign scheduled.
A possibility was on the horizon, however. NASA was building a reusable space shuttle vehicle. It would be powered by the most sophisticated rocket engine ever designed – and the agency needed a place to conduct developmental and flight testing expected to last for decades.
Three sites vied for the assignment. Following presentations and evaluations, NASA announced its selection on March 1, 1971. Space shuttle engine testing would be conducted at NASA Stennis, providing time for the location to grow.
A Collaborative Model
By the spring of 1973, preparations for the space shuttle test campaign were progressing and NASA Stennis was on its way to realizing the federal city vision. Sixteen agencies and universities were now located at NASA Stennis.
The resident tenants followed a shared model in which they shared in the cost of basic site services, such as medical, security, and fire protection. The shared model freed up more funding for the tenants to apply towards innovation and assigned mission work. It was a model of government collaboration and efficiency.
As the site grew, leaders then began to call for it to be granted independent status within NASA, a development not long in coming. On June 14, 1974, just more than a decade after site construction began, NASA Administrator James Fletcher announced the south Mississippi location would be renamed National Space Technology Laboratories and would enjoy equal, independent status alongside other NASA centers.
“Something Great”
For NASA Stennis leaders and supporters, independent status represented a milestone moment in their effort to ensure NASA Stennis delivered on its promise of greatness.
There still were many developments to come, including the first space shuttle main engine test and the subsequent 34-year test campaign, the arrival and growth of the U.S. Navy into the predominant resident presence onsite, the renaming of the center to NASA Stennis, and the continued growth of the federal city.
No one could have imagined it all at the time. However, even in this period of early development, one thing was clear – the future lay ahead, and NASA Stennis was on its way.
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By NASA
Teams at NASA’s Stennis Space Center conduct a hot fire test of an Aerojet AJ26 rocket engine on the E-1 Test Stand in November 2013.NASA/Stennis If location, location, location is the overarching mantra in real estate, it is small wonder that NASA’s Stennis Space Center is considered a national asset and prime aerospace and technology operations site.
It has long stood as a premier – and the nation’s largest – rocket propulsion test site. With unparalleled test infrastructure and expertise, NASA Stennis has helped power the nation’s human space exploration for almost 60 years. It continues to do so, testing systems and engines for NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
In addition, NASA Stennis is the choice location for a range of agencies, organizations, offices, and companies, all of whom readily attest to the values of the setting. Ask resident tenants to note the value of their NASA Stennis location, and one hears terms like “strategic advantages,” “ideal location,” “local expertise and experience,” “collaborative opportunities,” “hub of innovation,” and “valuable security buffer.”
For the NASA Shared Services Center, its location at the south Mississippi test site provides “substantial strategic advantages” that helps the NSSC maximize its work and provide streamlined business operations for the agency.
Likewise, NASA Stennis provides an ideal location for the North Gulf Institute operated by Mississippi State University, as it conducts frontline work in hurricane forecasting, modeling and assessment, as well as fishery and ecosystem management. The location is strengthened further by the proximity to collaborative partners like the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and the National Data Buoy Center.
The same holds true for the National Centers for Environmental Information operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A spokesperson said the centers’ mission success is “firmly rooted in its strategic co-location with other federal partners,” including the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the National Data Buoy Center, and the Northern Gulf Institute.
For Relativity Space, the largest NASA Stennis test complex tenant, the “unparalleled infrastructure” at NASA Stennis has been key to enabling the company’s rocket engine testing. “NASA’s Stennis Space Center plays a vital role in getting Terran R to space,” said Clay Walker, vice president of test and launch for Relativity Space. “The infrastructure here allows us to test high-performance engines in ways no other place can.”
Other companies express similar sentiments, citing the unique opportunities NASA Stennis provides, as well as the value of the local workforce. For instance, L3Harris Technologies has operated at NASA Stennis under various names since the 1960s, providing support to the Apollo, Space Shuttle, and, now, Artemis programs. In 2008, Lockheed Martin opened a start-to-finish facility for production of propulsion systems, making use of the various NASA Stennis propulsion test services and resources.
Evolution Space is capitalizing on decades of aerospace experience at NASA Stennis, as well as “world-class” site infrastructure to establish production and test capabilities for solid rocket motors onsite.
Both Mississippi and Louisiana have established technology offices onsite. As a Mississippi Enterprise for Technology statement noted, “The NASA Stennis environment enhances our ability to support emerging technologies, strengthen Mississippi’s technology ecosystem, and contribute to the economic vitality of the region,” said Davis Pace, chief executive officer for the Mississippi Enterprise for Technology.
Meanwhile, the site’s most prominent tenant – the U.S. Navy – operates various offices at NASA Stennis. The Navy’s move to the site began in the 1970s to take advantage of the security provided by the surrounding NASA Stennis acoustical buffer zone. Various Navy functions eventually located continuing operations onsite, including the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the Naval Oceanographic Office, the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, the Navy Office of Civilian Human Resources, and the Naval Research Laboratory.
In similar fashion, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security credits the “high-quality, secure, and resilient” NASA Stennis site for its decision to location information technology and applications operations onsite.
As the very first NASA Stennis federal city tenant, arriving onsite in September 1970, the National Data Buoy Center has borne witness to it all.
“From its inception, Sen. John Stennis (and other leaders) envisioned a place where America would push the boundaries of the unknown – from the depths of the oceans to the far reaches of space,” said Dr. William Burnett, director of the National Data Buoy Center onsite. “That vision lives on at NASA Stennis, now home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of oceanographers. At the National Data Buoy Center, we proudly carry out our mission to safeguard maritime safety by harnessing the full strength of this unique scientific and technical community.
“We are deeply rooted in the community and grateful to thrive within the collaborative spirit that defines Stennis. It’s an honor to be part of its legacy – and its future.”
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By NASA
Think of NASA’s Stennis Space Center, and one likely thinks of rocket propulsion testing. The site has a long history of testing to support the nation’s space efforts, including the current Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
However, NASA Stennis also is working to become a key supporter of more terrestrial exploration. Indeed, in terms of unmanned range operations, NASA Stennis has it all – layers of restricted airspace, a closed canal system, and acres upon acres of protected terrain.
Field TestU.S. Naval Research Laboratory personnel conduct a field experiment involving an unmanned aerial system at NASA Stennis in March 2024. (NASA/Danny Nowlin)NASA/Danny Nowlin Marine OperationU.S. Naval Research laboratory personnel conduct tests on The Blue Boat made by Blue Robotics, an unmanned surface vessel, at NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center basin at NASA Stennis on Dec. 19, 2024.NASA/Danny Nowlin Bird’s-Eye ViewAn unmanned aerial system provides a bird’s-eye view of an RS-25 on Feb. 22, 2024, on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA Stennis. NASA The NASA site near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, is an ideal location for all types of air, marine, and ground testing, said Range Operations Manager Jason Peterson. “My job is to understand the customer, and their requirements and limitations, to help them succeed,” he added. “What makes NASA Stennis unique is our federally protected area for users to operate.”
The need to learn about unmanned systems, such as drones or underwater vehicles, in a safe environment is growing as technology advances. Think of it like learning to drive a car in a parking lot before hitting the road.
NASA Stennis has already begun leveraging these capabilities. In 2024, the center established an agreement with Skydweller Aero Inc. to utilize restricted airspace for flight testing of autonomous, solar-powered aircraft. This first-of-its-kind agreement paves the way for future collaborations as NASA Stennis expands its customer-based operations beyond onsite tenants.
An unmanned aerial system provides a panoramic view of the NASA Stennis test complex and canal system. NASA Look to the Sky
NASA Stennis has its own protected airspace, similar to how airports control the skies around them. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) first established this restricted airspace in 1966 and expanded it in 2016 to support both NASA missions and U.S. Department of Defense operations.
NASA Stennis is one of only two non-military restricted airspaces in the nation. It operates two main airspace zones – a propulsion testing area extending from ground level up to 12,000 feet for safely testing rocket engines without interfering with regular air traffic, and an aircraft operations zone covering 100 square miles up to 6,000 feet, with 15 dedicated acres for drone launch and recovery.
NASA Stennis staff provide comprehensive support including safety reviews, coordination between aircraft operators and FAA air traffic controllers, and constant communication with range safety personnel to ensure all operations are conducted safely.
Marine Operations
The centerpiece of the NASA Stennis marine range is its extensive 7.5-mile canal system, protected by a lock-and-dam system that connects to Pearl River tributaries. This network accommodates various marine platforms including traditional watercraft, autonomous underwater vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, unmanned surface vessels, and aerial drones requiring water landing capabilities.
The controlled environment provides protection from adverse weather and interference, making it ideal for testing sensitive or proprietary technologies. The facility is particularly valuable for emerging technologies in autonomous systems, sensor integration, and multi-domain operations where air, surface, and underwater platforms operate in coordination.
Ground Level
NASA Stennis facilities are located on 13,800 acres of fenced-in property, surrounded by an additional 125,000 acres of protected land known as the acoustical buffer zone. This area was established primarily through permanent lease to allow testing of large rocket hardware without disturbing area residents and is closely monitored without permanent habitable structures.
“The location helps reduce hazards to the public when testing new technology,” Peterson said. “With supporting infrastructure for office space, storage, or manufacturing, this makes NASA Stennis a great place to test, train, operate, and even manufacture.”
The NASA Stennis federal city already hosts more than 50 federal, state, academic, public, and private aerospace, technology, and research organizations, with room for more. All tenants share operating costs while pursuing individual missions.
‘Open for Business’
NASA Stennis leaders are keenly aware of the opportunity such unique capabilities afford. The center’s 2024-2028 strategic plan states NASA Stennis will leverage these unique capabilities to support testing and operation of uncrewed systems.
Leaders are working to identify opportunities to maximize site capabilities and develop an effective business model. “NASA Stennis is open for business, and we want to provide a user-friendly range for operators to test vehicles by creating an environment that is safe, cost-effective, and focused on mission success,” Peterson said.
For information about range operations at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, visit:
Range and Airspace Operations – NASA
For information about Stennis Space Center, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/stennis
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By NASA
5 min read
Astronomers Map Stellar ‘Polka Dots’ Using NASA’s TESS, Kepler
Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using observations from NASA missions of orbiting planets crossing their stars’ faces. The model builds on a technique researchers have used for decades to study star spots.
By improving astronomers’ understanding of spotty stars, the new model — called StarryStarryProcess — can help discover more about planetary atmospheres and potential habitability using data from telescopes like NASA’s upcoming Pandora mission.
“Many of the models researchers use to analyze data from exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, assume that stars are uniformly bright disks,” said Sabina Sagynbayeva, a graduate student at Stony Brook University in New York. “But we know just by looking at our own Sun that stars are more complicated than that. Modeling complexity can be difficult, but our approach gives astronomers an idea of how many spots a star might have, where they are located, and how bright or dark they are.”
A paper describing StarryStarryProcess, led by Sagynbayeva, published Monday, August 25, in The Astrophysical Journal.
Watch to learn how a new tool uses data from exoplanets, worlds beyond our solar system, to tell us about their polka-dotted stars.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Download images and videos through NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and now-retired Kepler Space Telescope were designed to identify planets using transits, dips in stellar brightness caused when a planet passes in front of its star.
These measurements reveal how the star’s light varies with time during each transit, and astronomers can arrange them in a plot astronomers call a light curve. Typically, a transit light curve traces a smooth sweep down as the planet starts passing in front of the star’s face. It reaches a minimum brightness when the world is fully in front of the star and then rises smoothly as the planet exits and the transit ends.
By measuring the time between transits, scientists can determine how far the planet lies from its star and estimate its surface temperature. The amount of missing light from the star during a transit can reveal the planet’s size, which can hint at its composition.
Every now and then, though, a planet’s light curve appears more complicated, with smaller dips and peaks added to the main arc. Scientists think these represent dark surface features akin to sunspots seen on our own Sun — star spots.
The Sun’s total number of sunspots varies as it goes through its 11-year solar cycle. Scientists use them to determine and predict the progress of that cycle as well as outbreaks of solar activity that could affect us here on Earth.
Similarly, star spots are cool, dark, temporary patches on a stellar surface whose sizes and numbers change over time. Their variability impacts what astronomers can learn about transiting planets.
Scientists have previously analyzed transit light curves from exoplanets and their host stars to look at the smaller dips and peaks. This helps determine the host star’s properties, such as its overall level of spottiness, inclination angle of the planet’s orbit, the tilt of the star’s spin compared to our line of sight, and other factors. Sagynbayeva’s model uses light curves that include not only transit information, but also the rotation of the star itself to provide even more detailed information about these stellar properties.
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This artist’s concept illustrates the varying brightness of star with a transiting planet and several star spots. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center “Knowing more about the star in turn helps us learn even more about the planet, like a feedback loop,” said co-author Brett Morris, a senior software engineer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “For example, at cool enough temperatures, stars can have water vapor in their atmospheres. If we want to look for water in the atmospheres of planets around those stars — a key indicator of habitability — we better be very sure that we’re not confusing the two.”
To test their model, Sagynbayeva and her team looked at transits from a planet called TOI 3884 b, located around 141 light-years away in the northern constellation Virgo.
Discovered by TESS in 2022, astronomers think the planet is a gas giant about five times bigger than Earth and 32 times its mass.
The StarryStarryProcess analysis suggests that the planet’s cool, dim star — called TOI 3384 — has concentrations of spots at its north pole, which also tips toward Earth so that the planet passes over the pole from our perspective.
Currently, the only available data sets that can be fit by Sagynbayeva’s model are in visible light, which excludes infrared observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. But NASA’s upcoming Pandora mission will benefit from tools like this one. Pandora, a small satellite developed through NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers Program, will study the atmospheres of exoplanets and the activity of their host stars with long-duration multiwavelength observations. The Pandora mission’s goal is to determine how the properties of a star’s light differs when it passes through a planet’s atmosphere so scientists can better measure those atmospheres using Webb and other missions.
“The TESS satellite has discovered thousands of planets since it launched in 2018,” said Allison Youngblood, TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “While Pandora will study about 20 worlds, it will advance our ability to pick out which signals come from stars and which come from planets. The more we understand the individual parts of a planetary system, the better we understand the whole — and our own.”
Facebook logo @NASAUniverse @NASAUniverse Instagram logo @NASAUniverse By Jeanette Kazmierczak
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Alise Fisher
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NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Last Updated Aug 25, 2025 Related Terms
Astrophysics Exoplanet Atmosphere Exoplanets Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research Goddard Space Flight Center Kepler / K2 Stars TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) The Universe View the full article
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Dwarf planet Ceres is shown in these enhanced-color renderings that use images from NASA’s Dawn mission. New thermal and chemicals models that rely on the mission’s data indicate Ceres may have long ago had conditions suitable for life.NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA The dwarf planet is cold now, but new research paints a picture of Ceres hosting a deep, long-lived energy source that may have maintained habitable conditions in the past.
New NASA research has found that Ceres may have had a lasting source of chemical energy: the right types of molecules needed to fuel some microbial metabolisms. Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed on Ceres, the finding supports theories that this intriguing dwarf planet, which is the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may have once had conditions suitable to support single-celled lifeforms.
Science data from NASA’s Dawn mission, which ended in 2018, previously showed that the bright, reflective regions on Ceres’ surface are mostly made of salts left over from liquid that percolated up from underground. Later analysis in 2020 found that the source of this liquid was an enormous reservoir of brine, or salty water, below the surface. In other research, the Dawn mission also revealed evidence that Ceres has organic material in the form of carbon molecules — essential, though not sufficient on its own, to support microbial cells.
The presence of water and carbon molecules are two critical pieces of the habitability puzzle on Ceres. The new findings offer the third: a long-lasting source of chemical energy in Ceres’ ancient past that could have made it possible for microorganisms to survive. This result does not mean that Ceres had life, but rather, that there likely was “food” available should life have ever arisen on Ceres.
This illustration depicts the interior of dwarf planet Ceres, including the transfer of water and gases from the rocky core to a reservoir of salty water. Carbon dioxide and methane are among the molecules carrying chemical energy beneath Ceres’ surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech In the study, published in Science Advances on Aug. 20, the authors built thermal and chemical models mimicking the temperature and composition of Ceres’ interior over time. They found that 2.5 billion years or so ago, Ceres’ subsurface ocean may have had a steady supply of hot water containing dissolved gases traveling up from metamorphosed rocks in the rocky core. The heat came from the decay of radioactive elements within the dwarf planet’s rocky interior that occurred when Ceres was young — an internal process thought to be common in our solar system.
“On Earth, when hot water from deep underground mixes with the ocean, the result is often a buffet for microbes — a feast of chemical energy. So it could have big implications if we could determine whether Ceres’ ocean had an influx of hydrothermal fluid in the past,” said Sam Courville, lead author of the study. Now based at Arizona State University in Tempe, he led the research while working as an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which also managed the Dawn mission.
Catching Chill
The Ceres we know today is unlikely to be habitable. It is cooler, with more ice and less water than in the past. There is currently insufficient heat from radioactive decay within Ceres to keep the water from freezing, and what liquid remains has become a concentrated brine.
The period when Ceres would most likely have been habitable was between a half-billion and 2 billion years after it formed (or about 2.5 billion to 4 billion years ago), when its rocky core reached its peak temperature. That’s when warm fluids would have been introduced into Ceres’ underground water.
The dwarf planet also doesn’t have the benefit of present-day internal heating generated by the push and pull of orbiting a large planet, like Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa do. So Ceres’ greatest potential for habitability-fueling energy was in the past.
This result has implications for water-rich objects throughout the outer solar system, too. Many of the other icy moons and dwarf planets that are of similar size to Ceres (about 585 miles, or 940 kilometers, in diameter) and don’t have significant internal heating from the gravitational pull of planets could have also had a period of habitability in their past.
More About Dawn
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL managed Dawn’s mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn was a project of the directorate’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. JPL was responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Northrop Grumman in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute were international partners on the mission team.
For a complete list of mission participants, visit:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/overview/
News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
2025-108
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 Related Terms
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