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Mystery “Rocket Launch” Over West Virginia!
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:00:00 ESA’s state-of-the-art Biomass satellite launched aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 29 April 2025 at 11:15 CEST (06:15 local time).
In orbit, this latest Earth Explorer mission will provide vital insights into the health and dynamics of the world’s forests, revealing how they are changing over time and, critically, enhancing our understanding of their role in the global carbon cycle. It is the first satellite to carry a fully polarimetric P-band synthetic aperture radar for interferometric imaging. Thanks to the long wavelength of P-band, around 70 cm, the radar signal can slice through the whole forest layer to measure the ‘biomass’, meaning the woody trunks, branches and stems, which is where trees store most of their carbon.
Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s annual Student Launch challenge will bring middle school, high school, and college students from around the country together to launch high-powered rockets and payloads. On Saturday, May 3, from 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. CDT (or until the last rocket launches), student teams will convene for the agency’s 25th annual challenge at Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.
Hundreds of students from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico launched amateur rockets near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, during the Agency’s 2024 Student Launch competition. NASA Live streaming will begin at 8:20 a.m. CDT on NASA Marshall YouTube.
Media interested in covering Student Launch events should contact Taylor Goodwin at 938-210-2891.
Winners will be announced June 9 during a virtual awards ceremony once all teams’ flight data has been verified.
Seventy-one teams participated this year; 47 teams are expected to launch in-person. Teams not traveling to Alabama are allowed to conduct final test flights at a qualified launch field near them.
Schedule of Events:
Rocket Fair: Friday, May 2, 2025, 3-6 p.m. at the Von Braun Center East Hall.
A free event for the public to view rockets and meet the student teams.
Launch Day: Saturday, May 3, 2025, gates open at 7 a.m. and the event runs from 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (or until last rocket launch) at Bragg Farms, in Toney, Alabama. This is a free public event with live rocket launches. Please be weather aware. Lawn chairs are recommended. Pets are not permitted.
Back-up Launch Day: Sunday, May 4, 2025, is reserved as a back-up launch day in case of inclement weather. If needed, the event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (or until last rocket launches) at Bragg Farms.
About the Competition
Student Launch provides relevant, cost-effective research and development of rocket propulsion systems and reflects the goals of NASA’s Artemis Program, which will establish the first long-term presence on the Moon and pave the way for eventual Mars missions.
Each year, the payload component changes to reflect current NASA missions. As Student Launch celebrates its 25th anniversary, the payload challenge will include “reports” from STEMnauts, non-living objects representing astronauts. The STEMnaut “crew” must 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.
Eligible teams compete for prizes and awards and are scored in nearly a dozen categories including safety, vehicle design, social media presence, and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) engagement.
Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement hosts Student Launch to encourage students to pursue careers in STEM through real-world experiences. Student Launch is a part of the agency’s Artemis Student Challenges– a variety of activities exposing students to the knowledge and technology required to achieve the goals of the Artemis missions.
In addition to the NASA Office of STEM Engagement’s Next Gen STEM project, NASA 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 provide funding and leadership for the competition.
For more information about Student Launch, please visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/nasa-student-launch/
Taylor Goodwin
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
taylor.goodwin@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Apr 29, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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4 min read NASA Marshall Fires Up Hybrid Rocket Motor to Prep for Moon Landings
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Article 5 days ago 6 min read Building for a Better World: Norfolk Students Bring STEM to Life with NASA Partnership
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By NASA
4 Min Read NASA Marshall Fires Up Hybrid Rocket Motor to Prep for Moon Landings
NASA’s Artemis campaign will use human landing systems, provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin, to safely transport crew to and from the surface of the Moon, in preparation for future crewed missions to Mars. As the landers touch down and lift off from the Moon, rocket exhaust plumes will affect the top layer of lunar “soil,” called regolith, on the Moon. When the lander’s engines ignite to decelerate prior to touchdown, they could create craters and instability in the area under the lander and send regolith particles flying at high speeds in various directions.
To better understand the physics behind the interaction of exhaust from the commercial human landing systems and the Moon’s surface, engineers and scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recently test-fired a 14-inch hybrid rocket motor more than 30 times. The 3D-printed hybrid rocket motor, developed at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, ignites both solid fuel and a stream of gaseous oxygen to create a powerful stream of rocket exhaust.
“Artemis builds on what we learned from the Apollo missions to the Moon. NASA still has more to learn more about how the regolith and surface will be affected when a spacecraft much larger than the Apollo lunar excursion module lands, whether it’s on the Moon for Artemis or Mars for future missions,” said Manish Mehta, Human Landing System Plume & Aero Environments discipline lead engineer. “Firing a hybrid rocket motor into a simulated lunar regolith field in a vacuum chamber hasn’t been achieved in decades. NASA will be able to take the data from the test and scale it up to correspond to flight conditions to help us better understand the physics, and anchor our data models, and ultimately make landing on the Moon safer for Artemis astronauts.”
Fast Facts
Over billions of years, asteroid and micrometeoroid impacts have ground up the surface of the Moon into fragments ranging from huge boulders to powder, called regolith. Regolith can be made of different minerals based on its location on the Moon. The varying mineral compositions mean regolith in certain locations could be denser and better able to support structures like landers. Of the 30 test fires performed in NASA Marshall’s Component Development Area, 28 were conducted under vacuum conditions and two were conducted under ambient pressure. The testing at Marshall ensures the motor will reliably ignite during plume-surface interaction testing in the 60-ft. vacuum sphere at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, later this year.
Once the testing at NASA Marshall is complete, the motor will be shipped to NASA Langley. Test teams at NASA Langley will fire the hybrid motor again but this time into simulated lunar regolith, called Black Point-1, in the 60-foot vacuum sphere. Firing the motor from various heights, engineers will measure the size and shape of craters the rocket exhaust creates as well as the speed and direction the simulated lunar regolith particles travel when the rocket motor exhaust hits them.
“We’re bringing back the capability to characterize the effects of rocket engines interacting with the lunar surface through ground testing in a large vacuum chamber — last done in this facility for the Apollo and Viking programs. The landers going to the Moon through Artemis are much larger and more powerful, so we need new data to understand the complex physics of landing and ascent,” said Ashley Korzun, principal investigator for the plume-surface interaction tests at NASA Langley. “We’ll use the hybrid motor in the second phase of testing to capture data with conditions closely simulating those from a real rocket engine. Our research will reduce risk to the crew, lander, payloads, and surface assets.”
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Credit: NASA 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.
For more information about Artemis, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
News Media Contact
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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By European Space Agency
ESA's Biomass mission is on the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Don’t miss the live coverage of liftoff on Tuesday 29 April, on ESA WebTV. Coverage will start at 10:55 CEST with commentary live from Kourou and ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Germany. The Vega-C rocket carrying Biomass is scheduled for liftoff at 11:15.
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By NASA
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:15 a.m. EDT on April 21 2025, on the company’s 32nd commercial resupply services mission for the agency to the International Space Station.Credit: NASA Following the successful launch of NASA’s SpaceX 32nd Commercial Resupply Services mission, new scientific experiments and supplies are bound for the International Space Station.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, carrying approximately 6,700 pounds of cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA, lifted off at 4:15 a.m. EDT Monday, on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Live coverage of the spacecraft’s arrival will begin at 6:45 a.m., Tuesday, April 22, on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms.
The spacecraft is scheduled to autonomously dock at approximately 8:20 a.m. to the zenith, or space-facing, port of the space station’s Harmony module.
The resupply mission will support dozens of research experiments during Expedition 73. Along with food and essential equipment for the crew, Dragon is delivering a variety of science experiments, including a demonstration of refined maneuvers for free-floating robots. Dragon also carries an enhanced air quality monitoring system that could help protect crew members on exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, and two atomic clocks to examine fundamental physics concepts, such as relativity, and test global synchronization of precision timepieces.
These are just a sample of the hundreds of investigations conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory each year in the areas of biology and biotechnology, physical sciences, and Earth and space science. Such research benefits humanity and helps lay the groundwork for future human exploration through the agency’s Artemis campaign, which will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future missions to Mars.
The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the orbiting laboratory until May, when it will depart and return to Earth with time-sensitive research and cargo, splashing down off the coast of California.
Learn more about the commercial resupply mission at:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/nasas-spacex-crs-32/
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Julian Coltre / Josh Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
julian.n.coltre@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Stephanie Plucinsky / Steven Siceloff
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-876-2468
stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov / steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Apr 21, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
International Space Station (ISS) Commercial Resupply ISS Research Johnson Space Center Kennedy Space Center SpaceX Commercial Resupply View the full article
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