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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
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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 European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:40 Proba-3 artificially created what is normally a rare natural phenomenon: a total solar eclipse.
In a world first, ESA’s Proba-3 satellites flew in perfect formation, blocking the Sun’s bright disc to reveal its fiery corona. This enigmatic outer layer burns millions of degrees hotter than the Sun’s surface and drives the solar storms that can disrupt life on Earth.
With its first artificial eclipse, Proba-3 has captured detailed images of this mysterious region, offering scientists new insights into our star’s behaviour.
Read the full story here.
Access the related broadcast qality footage.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A lot can change in a year for Earth’s forests and vegetation, as springtime and rainy seasons can bring new growth, while cooling temperatures and dry weather can bring a dieback of those green colors. And now, a novel type of NASA visualization illustrates those changes in a full complement of colors as seen from space.
Researchers have now gathered a complete year of PACE data to tell a story about the health of land vegetation by detecting slight variations in leaf colors. Previous missions allowed scientists to observe broad changes in chlorophyll, the pigment that gives plants their green color and also allows them to perform photosynthesis. But PACE now allows scientists to see three different pigments in vegetation: chlorophyll, anthocyanins, and carotenoids. The combination of these three pigments helps scientists pinpoint even more information about plant health. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite is designed to view Earth’s microscopic ocean plants in a new lens, but researchers have proved its hyperspectral use over land, as well.
Previous missions measured broad changes in chlorophyll, the pigment that gives plants their green color and also allows them to perform photosynthesis. Now, for the first time, PACE measurements have allowed NASA scientists and visualizers to show a complete year of global vegetation data using three pigments: chlorophyll, anthocyanins, and carotenoids. That multicolor imagery tells a clearer story about the health of land vegetation by detecting the smallest of variations in leaf colors.
“Earth is amazing. It’s humbling, being able to see life pulsing in colors across the whole globe,” said Morgaine McKibben, PACE applications lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s like the overview effect that astronauts describe when they look down at Earth, except we are looking through our technology and data.”
Anthocyanins, carotenoids, and chlorophyll data light up North America, highlighting vegetation and its health.Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio Anthocyanins are the red pigments in leaves, while carotenoids are the yellow pigments – both of which we see when autumn changes the colors of trees. Plants use these pigments to protect themselves from fluctuations in the weather, adapting to the environment through chemical changes in their leaves. For example, leaves can turn more yellow when they have too much sunlight but not enough of the other necessities, like water and nutrients. If they didn’t adjust their color, it would damage the mechanisms they have to perform photosynthesis.
In the visualization, the data is highlighted in bright colors: magenta represents anthocyanins, green represents chlorophyll, and cyan represents carotenoids. The brighter the colors are, the more leaves there are in that area. The movement of these colors across the land areas show the seasonal changes over time.
In areas like the evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest, plants undergo less seasonal change. The data highlights this, showing comparatively steadier colors as the year progresses.
The combination of these three pigments helps scientists pinpoint even more information about plant health.
“Shifts in these pigments, as detected by PACE, give novel information that may better describe vegetation growth, or when vegetation changes from flourishing to stressed,” said McKibben. “It’s just one of many ways the mission will drive increased understanding of our home planet and enable innovative, practical solutions that serve society.”
The Ocean Color Instrument on PACE collects hyperspectral data, which means it observes the planet in 100 different wavelengths of visible and near infrared light. It is the only instrument – in space or elsewhere – that provides hyperspectral coverage around the globe every one to two days. The PACE mission builds on the legacy of earlier missions, such as Landsat, which gathers higher resolution data but observes a fraction of those wavelengths.
In a paper recently published in Remote Sensing Letters, scientists introduced the mission’s first terrestrial data products.
“This PACE data provides a new view of Earth that will improve our understanding of ecosystem dynamics and function,” said Fred Huemmrich, research professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, member of the PACE science and applications team, and first author of the paper. “With the PACE data, it’s like we’re looking at a whole new world of color. It allows us to describe pigment characteristics at the leaf level that we weren’t able to do before.”
As scientists continue to work with these new data, available on the PACE website, they’ll be able to incorporate it into future science applications, which may include forest monitoring or early detection of drought effects.
By Erica McNamee
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jun 05, 2025 EditorKate D. RamsayerContactKate D. Ramsayerkate.d.ramsayer@nasa.gov Related Terms
Earth Goddard Space Flight Center PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem) Explore More
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