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NASA Employees Named 2025 Service to America Medals Honorees

By NASA

NASA’s Worm logo is displayed in front of the agency’s headquarters in Washington.Credit: NASA Two NASA employees are being honored as part of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, also known as the Sammies, recognizing outstanding federal employees who are addressing many of our country’s greatest challenges.
Rich Burns of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and John Blevins of Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, were selected out of 350 nominees and are among 23 individuals and teams honored for their achievements as federal employees. They will be recognized at a ceremony in Washington on Tuesday, June 17, that also will be live streamed on the Sammies website. The honorees will be commended via videos and presenter remarks and receive medals for their achievements.
Named after the founder of the Partnership for Public Service, the 2025 Service to America Medals awards celebrate federal employees who provided critical public services and made outstanding contributions to the health, safety, and national security of our country.
“Rich and John exemplify the spirit of exploration and service that defines NASA and our nation’s civil servants,” said acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro. “Their leadership, ingenuity, and dedication have not only advanced America’s space program but also inspired the next generation of innovators. We are proud to see their achievements recognized among the very best of federal service.”
Richard Burns, project manager for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and honoree of the 2025 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America MedalsCredit: NASA Burns was the project manager of the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission to collect a sample from an asteroid and oversaw operations from the developmental stage to the successful landing of the spacecraft’s Sample Return Capsule.
The mission launched on Sept. 18, 2016, and after a nearly four-year journey, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully collected a sample from the asteroid Bennu on Oct. 20, 2020, which returned to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, providing scientists with 120 grams of pristine material to study, the largest amount ever collected from an asteroid. Working to solidify OSIRIS-REx as a success, Burns set up multiple partnerships and communicated frequently with scientists, large and small businesses, NASA centers, and others to ensure the mission’s vision was carried out though each phase.
During the mission, Burns had to handle unique challenges that required adapting to new situations. These included improving flight software to help the spacecraft avoid hazardous parts of Bennu’s rocky surface and working with NASA leaders to find a way to best protect the sample collected from Bennu after a large stone propped the collection canister open. Finally, when the sample was set to return to Earth, Burns worked extensively with NASA and military partners to prepare for the landing, focusing on the safety of the public along with the integrity of the sample to ensure the final part of the mission was a success.
Burns helped OSIRIS-REx exceed its objectives all while under the original budget, allowing NASA to share a portion of the sample with more than 80 research projects and make new discoveries about the possible origins of life on our planet. The spacecraft, now known as Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security – Apophis Explorer, is scheduled to rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis in 2029.
“It’s humbling to accept an award based on the achievements of the amazingly talented, dedicated, and innovative OSIRIS-REx team,” Burns said. “I consider myself privileged to be counted among a team of true explorers who let no obstacle stand in the way of discovery.”
John Blevins, chief engineer for the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, stands inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida during the stacking of the Artemis I rocket ahead of its first test flight, which successfully launched from Kennedy on Nov. 16, 2022.Credit: NASA Blevins is the chief engineer for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and is responsible for the various technical decisions that need to be made to ensure each mission is successful. This included calculating structural needs, thermal analyses of the effects, and studies of vibrations, acoustics, propulsion integration, among other work.
Artemis I, the first test flight of the SLS rocket, successfully launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 16, 2022. In the time leading up to and during launch, Blevins led the team integrating the hardware for the mission working to address unexpected events while SLS was on the pad prior to launch. This included significant lightning storms and two hurricanes impacting Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Blevins built a working coalition of engineering teams across the agency that previously did not exist. His ability to forge strong relationships on the various teams across the agency allowed for the successful launch of Artemis I. He continues to lead the engineering team behind SLS as they prepare for Artemis II, the second flight of SLS and the first crewed lunar mission of the 21st century.
“This is a reflection on the hard work and dedication of the entire Artemis Team,” Blevins said. “I am working with an incredibly competent, dedicated team agencywide that goes above and beyond to promote the space exploration goals of our nation. I am honored to accept the award on their behalf.”
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Last Updated Jun 16, 2025 EditorTiernan P. DoyleContactTiernan P. Doyletiernan.doyle@nasa.govLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) Common Exploration Systems Development Division Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Goddard Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center OSIRIS-APEX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Apophis Explorer) Space Launch System (SLS) View the full article

NASA Announces Winners of 2025 Student Launch Competition

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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NASA Seeks Commercial Feedback on Space Communication Solutions

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
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Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA’s Webb

By NASA

Explore Webb Webb News Latest News Latest Images Webb’s Blog Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Webb’s First Images Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 6 Min Read Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA’s Webb
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) A planetary system described as abnormal, chaotic, and strange by researchers has come into clearer view with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), researchers have successfully imaged one of two known planets surrounding the star 14 Herculis, located 60 light-years away from Earth in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The exoplanet, 14 Herculis c, is one of the coldest imaged to date. While there are nearly 6,000 exoplanets that have been discovered, only a small number of those have been directly imaged, most of those being very hot (think hundreds or even thousands of degrees Fahrenheit). The new data suggests 14 Herculis c, which weighs about 7 times the planet Jupiter, is as cool as 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3 degrees Celsius).
Image: 14 Herculis c (NIRCam)
This image of exoplanet 14 Herculis c was taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). A star symbol marks the location of the host star 14 Herculis, whose light has been blocked by a coronagraph on NIRCam (shown here as a dark circle outlined in white). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, W. Balmer (JHU), D. Bardalez Gagliuffi (Amherst College) The team’s results covering 14 Herculis c have been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters and were presented in a press conference Tuesday at the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska.
“The colder an exoplanet, the harder it is to image, so this is a totally new regime of study that Webb has unlocked with its extreme sensitivity in the infrared,” said William Balmer, co-first author of the new paper and graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. “We are now able to add to the catalog of not just hot, young exoplanets imaged, but older exoplanets that are far colder than we’ve directly seen before Webb.”
Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c also provides insights into a planetary system unlike most others studied in detail with Webb and other ground- and space-based `observatories. The central star, 14 Herculis, is almost Sun-like – it is similar in age and temperature to our own Sun, but a little less massive and cooler.
There are two planets in this system – 14 Herculis b is closer to the star, and covered by the coronagraphic mask in the Webb image. These planets don’t orbit each other on the same plane like our solar system. Instead, they cross each other like an ‘X’, with the star being at the center. That is, the orbital planes of the two planets are inclined relative to one another at an angle of about 40 degrees. The planets tug and pull at one another as they orbit the star.
This is the first time an image has ever been snapped of an exoplanet in such a mis-aligned system.
Scientists are working on several theories for just how the planets in this system got so “off track.” One of the leading concepts is that the planets scattered after a third planet was violently ejected from the system early in its formation.
“The early evolution of our own solar system was dominated by the movement and pull of our own gas giants,” added Balmer. “They threw around asteroids and rearranged other planets. Here, we are seeing the aftermath of a more violent planetary crime scene. It reminds us that something similar could have happened to our own solar system, and that the outcomes for small planets like Earth are often dictated by much larger forces.”
Understanding the Planet’s Characteristics With Webb
Webb’s new data is giving researchers further insights into not just the temperature of 14 Herculis c, but other details about the planet’s orbit and atmosphere.
Findings indicate the planet orbits around 1.4 billion miles from the host star in a highly elliptical, or football-shaped orbit, closer in than previous estimates. This is around 15 times farther from the Sun than Earth. On average, this would put 14 Herculis c between Saturn and Uranus in our solar system.
The planet’s brightness at 4.4 microns measured using Webb’s coronagraph, combined with the known mass of the planet and age of the system, hints at some complex atmospheric dynamics at play.
“If a planet of a certain mass formed 4 billion years ago, then cooled over time because it doesn’t have a source of energy keeping it warm, we can predict how hot it should be today,” said Daniella C. Bardalez Gagliuffi of Amherst College, co-first author on the paper with Balmer. “Added information, like the perceived brightness in direct imaging, would in theory support this estimate of the planet’s temperature.”
However, what researchers expect isn’t always reflected in the results. With 14 Herculis c, the brightness at this wavelength is fainter than expected for an object of this mass and age. The research team can explain this discrepancy, though. It’s called carbon disequilibrium chemistry, something often seen in brown dwarfs.
“This exoplanet is so cold, the best comparisons we have that are well-studied are the coldest brown dwarfs,” Bardalez Gagliuffi explained. “In those objects, like with 14 Herculis c, we see carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide existing at temperatures where we should see methane. This is explained by churning in the atmosphere. Molecules made at warmer temperatures in the lower atmosphere are brought to the cold, upper atmosphere very quickly.”
Researchers hope Webb’s image of 14 Herculis c is just the beginning of a new phase of investigation into this strange system.
While the small dot of light obtained by Webb contains a plethora of information, future spectroscopic studies of 14 Herculis could better constrain the atmospheric properties of this interesting planet and help researchers understand the dynamics and formation pathways of the system.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/webb
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Jun 10, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
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How Do We Do Research in Zero Gravity? We Asked a NASA Expert: Episode 62

By NASA

3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
How do we do research in zero gravity?

Actually when astronauts do experiments on the International Space Station, for instance, to environment on organisms, that environment is actually technically called microgravity. That is, things feel weightless, but we’re still under the influence of Earth’s gravity.

Now, the very microgravity that we’re trying to study up there can make experiments actually really kind of difficult for a bunch of different reasons.

First of all, stuff floats. So losing things in the ISS is a very real possibility. For example,
there was a set of tomatoes that was harvested in 2022 put it in a bag and it floated away and we couldn’t find it for eight months.

So to prevent this kind of thing from happening, we use a lot of different methods, such as using enclosed experiment spaces like glove boxes and glove bags. We use a lot of Velcro to stick stuff to.

Another issue is bubbles in liquids. So, on Earth, bubbles float up, in space they don’t float up, they’ll interfere with optical measurements or stop up your microfluidics. So space experiment equipment often includes contraptions for stopping or blocking or trapping bubbles.

A third issue is convection. So on Earth, gravity drives a process of gas mixing called convection and that helps circulate air. But without that in microgravity we worry about some of our experimental organisms and whether they’re going to get the fresh air that they need. So we might do things like adding a fan to their habitat, or if we can’t, we’ll take their habitat and put it somewhere where there might already be a fan on the ISS or in a corridor where we think they are going to be a lot of astronauts moving around and circulating the air.

Yet another issue is the fact that a lot of the laboratory instruments we use on Earth are not designed for microgravity. So to ensure that gravity doesn’t play a factor in how they work, we might do experiments on the ground where we turn them on their side or upside down, or rotate them on a rotisserie to make sure that they keep working.

So, as you can tell, for every experiment that we do on the International Space Station, there’s a whole team of scientists on the ground that has spent years developing the experiment design. And so I guess the answer to how we do research in microgravity is with a lot of practice and preparation.

[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]

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