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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Beth Ridgeway
NASA’s Student Launch competition celebrated its 25th anniversary on May 4, just north of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, bringing together more than 980 middle school, high school, college, and university students from across the U.S. to showcase and launch their high-powered rocketry designs.
The event marked the conclusion of the nine-month challenge where teams designed, built, and launched more than 50 rockets carrying scientific payloads—trying to achieve altitudes between 4,000 and 6,000 feet before executing a successful landing and payload mission.
“This is really about mirroring the NASA engineering design process,” Kevin McGhaw, director of NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement Southeast Region, said. “It gives students hands-on experience not only in building and designing hardware, but in the review and testing process. We are helping to prepare and inspire students to get out of classroom and into the aerospace industry as a capable and energizing part of our future workforce.”
NASA announced James Madison University as the overall winner of the agency’s 2025 Student Launch challenge, followed by North Carolina State University, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville. A complete list of challenge winners can be found on the agency’s Student Launch webpage.
Participants from James Madison University – the overall winner of the 2025 NASA Student Launch competition – stand around their team’s high-powered rocket as it sits on the pad before launching on May 4 event. NASA/Krisdon Manecke Each year, a payload challenge is issued to the university teams, and this year’s task took inspiration from the agency’s Artemis missions, where NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefit, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars. Teams were challenged to include sensor data from STEMnauts, non-living objects representing astronauts. The STEMnaut “crew” had to relay real-time data to the student team’s mission control, just as the Artemis astronaut crew will do as they explore the lunar surface.
Student Launch is one of NASA’s seven Artemis Student Challenges – activities that connect student ingenuity with NASA’s work returning to the Moon under Artemis in preparation for human exploration of Mars.
The competition is managed by Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement. Additional funding and support are provided by the Office of STEM Engagement’s Next Generation STEM project, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Northrup Grumman, National Space Club Huntsville, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Association of Rocketry, Relativity Space, and Bastion Technologies Inc.
To watch the full virtual awards ceremony, please visit NASA Marshall’s YouTube channel.
For more information about Student Launch, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/nasa-student-launch/
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Last Updated Jun 16, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
2 Min Read NASA Seeks Commercial Feedback on Space Communication Solutions
An illustration of a commercial space relay ecosystem. Credits: NASA / Morgan Johnson NASA is seeking information from U.S. and international companies about Earth proximity relay communication and navigation capabilities as the agency aims to use private industry satellite communications services for emerging agency science missions.
“As part of NASA’s Communications Services Project, the agency is working with private industry to solve challenges for future exploration,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s SCaN Program. “Through this effort, NASA missions will have a greater ability to command spacecraft, resolve issues in flight, and bring home more data and scientific discoveries collected across the solar system.”
In November 2024, NASA announced the TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, the agency’s network of satellites relaying communications from the International Space Station, ground controls on Earth, and spacecraft, will support only existing missions.
NASA, as one of many customers, will obtain commercial satellite services rather than owning and operating a replacement for the existing satellite system. As NASA transitions to commercial relay services, the agency will leverage commercial capabilities to ensure support for future missions and stimulate private investment into the Earth proximity region. Commercial service offerings could become available to NASA missions as early as 2028 and will continue to be demonstrated and validated through 2031.
NASA’s SCaN issued a Request for Information on May 30. Responses are due by 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 11.
NASA’s SCaN Program serves as the management office for the agency’s space communications and navigation. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on SCaN’s two networks, the Near Space Network and the Deep Space Network, to support astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, monitor Earth’s weather, support lunar exploration, and uncover the solar system and beyond.
Learn more about NASA’s SCaN Program at:
https://www.nasa.gov/scan
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Last Updated Jun 16, 2025 EditorJimi RussellContactMolly KearnsLocationGlenn Research Center Related Terms
Commercial Space General Glenn Research Center The Future of Commercial Space Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
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By NASA
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025. NASA/Isaac Watson NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) teamed up June 11 and 12 to simulate emergency procedures they would use to rescue the Artemis II crew in the event of a launch emergency. The simulations, which took place off the coast of Florida and were supported by launch and flight control teams, are preparing NASA to send four astronauts around the Moon and back next year as part of the agency’s first crewed Artemis mission.
The team rehearsed procedures they would use to rescue the crew during an abort of NASA’s Orion spacecraft while the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket is still on the launch pad, as well as during ascent to space. A set of test mannequins and a representative version of Orion called the Crew Module Test Article, were used during the tests.
The launch team at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, flight controllers in mission control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, as well as the mission management team, all worked together, exercising their integrated procedures for these emergency scenarios.
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025.NASA/Isaac Watson “Part of preparing to send humans to the Moon is ensuring our teams are ready for any scenario on launch day,” said Lakiesha Hawkins, NASA’s assistant deputy associate administrator for the Moon to Mars Program, and who also is chair of the mission management team for Artemis II. “We’re getting closer to our bold mission to send four astronauts around the Moon, and our integrated testing helps ensure we’re ready to bring them home in any scenario.”
The launch pad abort scenario was up first. The teams conducted a normal launch countdown before declaring an abort before the rocket was scheduled to launch. During a real pad emergency, Orion’s launch abort system would propel Orion and its crew a safe distance away and orient it for splashdown before the capsule’s parachutes would then deploy ahead of a safe splashdown off the coast of Florida.
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for a launch pad abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, June 11, 2025. NASA/Isaac Watson For the simulated splashdown, the test Orion with mannequins aboard was placed in the water five miles east of Kennedy. Once the launch team made the simulated pad abort call, two Navy helicopters carrying U.S. Air Force pararescuers departed nearby Patrick Space Force Base. The rescuers jumped into the water with unique DoD and NASA rescue equipment to safely approach the spacecraft, retrieve the mannequin crew, and transport them for medical care in the helicopters, just as they would do in the event of an actual pad abort during the Artemis II mission.
The next day focused on an abort scenario during ascent to space.
The Artemis recovery team set up another simulation at sea 12 miles east of Kennedy, using the Orion crew module test article and mannequins. With launch and flight control teams supporting, as was the Artemis II crew inside a simulator at Johnson, the rescue team sprung into action after receiving the simulated ascent abort call and began rescue procedures using a C-17 aircraft and U.S. Air Force pararescuers. Upon reaching the capsule, the rescuers jumped from the C-17 with DoD and NASA unique rescue gear. In an actual ascent abort, Orion would separate from the rocket in milliseconds to safely get away prior to deploying parachutes and splashing down.
Teams with NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) rehearse recovery procedures for an ascent abort scenario off the coast of Florida near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, June 12, 2025. NASA/Isaac Watson Rescue procedures are similar to those used in the Underway Recovery Test conducted off the California coast in March. This demonstration ended with opening the hatch and extracting the mannequins from the capsule, so teams stopped without completing the helicopter transportation that would be used during a real rescue.
Exercising procedures for extreme scenarios is part of NASA’s work to execute its mission and keep the crew safe. 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.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Instruments in space are helping scientists map wastewater plumes flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the heavily polluted Tijuana River, seen here with the San Diego sky-line to the north. NOAA Proof-of-concept results from the mouth of the Tijuana River in San Diego County show how an instrument called EMIT could aid wastewater detection.
An instrument built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to map minerals on Earth is now revealing clues about water quality. A recent study found that EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) was able to identify signs of sewage in the water at a Southern California beach.
The authors of the study examined a large wastewater plume at the mouth of the Tijuana River, south of Imperial Beach near San Diego. Every year, millions of gallons of treated and untreated sewage enter the river, which carries pollutants through communities and a national reserve on the U.S.-Mexico border before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. Contaminated coastal waters have been known to impact human health — from beachgoers to U.S. Navy trainees — and harm marine ecosystems, fisheries, and wildlife.
For decades scientists have tracked water quality issues like harmful algal blooms using satellite instruments that analyze ocean color. Shades that range from vibrant red to bright green can reveal the presence of algae and phytoplankton. But other pollutants and harmful bacteria are more difficult to monitor because they’re harder to distinguish with traditional satellite sensors.
A plume spreads out to sea in this image captured off San Diego by the Sentinel-2 satellite on March 24, 2023. Both a spectroradiometer used to analyze water samples (yellow star) and NASA’s EMIT identified in the plume signs of a type of bacterium that can sicken humans and animals.SDSU/Eva Scrivner That’s where EMIT comes in. NASA’s hyperspectral instrument orbits Earth aboard the International Space Station, observing sunlight reflecting off the planet below. Its advanced optical components split the visible and infrared wavelengths into hundreds of color bands. By analyzing each satellite scene pixel by pixel at finer spatial resolution, scientists can discern what molecules are present based on their unique spectral “fingerprint.”
Scientists compared EMIT’s observations of the Tijuana River plume with water samples they tested on the ground. Both EMIT and the ground-based instruments detected a spectral fingerprint pointing to phycocyanin, a pigment in cyanobacteria, an organism that can sicken humans and animals that ingest or inhale it.
‘Smoking Gun’
Many beachgoers are already familiar with online water-quality dashboards, which often rely on samples collected in the field, said Christine Lee, a scientist at JPL in Southern California and a coauthor of the study. She noted the potential for EMIT to complement these efforts.
“From orbit you are able to look down and see that a wastewater plume is extending into places you haven’t sampled,” Lee said. “It’s like a diagnostic at the doctor’s office that tells you, ‘Hey, let’s take a closer look at this.’”
Lead author Eva Scrivner, a doctoral student at the University of Connecticut, said that the findings “show a ‘smoking gun’ of sorts for wastewater in the Tijuana River plume.” Scrivner, who led the study while at San Diego State University, added that EMIT could be useful for filling data gaps around intensely polluted sites where traditional water sampling takes a lot of time and money.
EMIT’s Many Uses
The technology behind EMIT is called imaging spectroscopy, which was pioneered at JPL in the 1980s. Imaging spectrometers developed at JPL over the decades have been used to support areas ranging from agriculture to forest health and firefighting.
When EMIT was launched in July 2022, it was solely aimed at mapping minerals and dust in Earth’s desert regions. That same sensitivity enabled it to spot the phycocyanin pigments off the California coast.
Scrivner hadn’t anticipated that an instrument initially devoted to exploring land could reveal insights about water. “The fact that EMIT’s findings over the coast are consistent with measurements in the field is compelling to water scientists,” she said. “It’s really exciting.”
To learn more about EMIT, visit:
https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/
News Media Contacts
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
Written by Sally Younger
2025-078
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Last Updated Jun 12, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Electrical engineer Nikolas Gibson performs calibration tests on the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) spectrometer, co-developed by NASA’s Ames Research Center and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Gibson works at the Airborne Sensor Facility at Ames, which builds, maintains, miniaturizes, and calibrates instruments.NASA/Milan Loiacono
NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley houses a unique laboratory: the Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF). The engineers at the ASF are responsible for building, maintaining, and operating numerous instruments that get deployed on research aircraft, but one of their most important roles is instrument calibration.
Think of calibration like tuning a piano between performances: A musician uses a tuner to set the standard pitch for each string, ensuring that the piano remains on pitch for every concert.
The “tuners” at ASF include lasers, mirrors, and a light source called an integrating sphere – a hollow sphere about 36 inches in diameter that emits a set amount of light from a hole in the top. By checking an instrument against this baseline between each mission, engineers ensure that the instrument sensors provide accurate, reliable data every time.
In the photo above, electrical engineer Nikolas Gibson performs calibration tests on the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) spectrometer, co-developed by NASA Ames and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
A spectrometer separates light into individual wavelengths, providing researchers with information about the properties of whatever is creating or interacting with that light. The MASTER instrument measures about 50 individual spectral channels, providing data on wavelengths from the visible spectrum through the infrared.
When it comes to calibration, each of these channels functions like a specific key on a piano and needs to be individually checked against the “tuner.” By pointing the instrument’s sensor at a known quantity of light coming from the integrating sphere, the team checks the accuracy of MASTER’s data output and repairs or adjusts the sensor as needed.
In this image, MASTER had returned from an April 2025 scientific campaign observing prescribed fires in Alabama and Georgia with NASA’s FireSense project. It was recalibrated before heading back into the field for the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment, or GEMx, mission in late May 2025, which will use the instrument to help map critical minerals across the southwestern United States.
About the Author
Milan Loiacono
Science Communication SpecialistMilan Loiacono is a science communication specialist for the Earth Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center.
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Last Updated Jun 11, 2025 Related Terms
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