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NASA Discoveries Highlighted at American Astronomical Society Meeting
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Swept Wing Flow Test model, known as SWiFT, with pressure sensitive paint applied, sports a pink glow under ultraviolet lights while tested during 2023 in a NASA wind tunnel at Langley Research Center in Virginia.NASA / Dave Bowman Many of us grew up using paint-by-number sets to create beautiful color pictures.
For years now, NASA engineers studying aircraft and rocket designs in wind tunnels have flipped that childhood pastime, using computers to generate images from “numbers-by-paint” – pressure sensitive paint (PSP), that is.
Now, advances in the use of high-speed cameras, supercomputers, and even more sensitive PSP have made this numbers-by-paint process 10,000 times faster while creating engineering visuals with 1,000 times higher resolution.
So, what’s the big difference exactly between the “old” capability in use at NASA for more than a decade and the “new?”
“The key is found by adding a single word in front of PSP, namely ‘unsteady’ pressure sensitive paint, or uPSP,” said E. Lara Lash, an aerospace engineer from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
With PSP, NASA researchers study the large-scale effects of relatively smooth air flowing over the wings and body of aircraft. Now with uPSP, they are able to see in finer detail what happens when more turbulent air is present – faster and better than ever before.
In some cases with the new capability, researchers can get their hands on the wind tunnel data they’re looking for within 20 minutes. That’s quick enough to allow engineers to adjust their testing in real time.
Usually, researchers record wind tunnel data and then take it back to their labs to decipher days or weeks later. If they find they need more data, it can take additional weeks or even months to wait in line for another turn in the wind tunnel.
“The result of these improvements provides a data product that is immediately useful to aerodynamic engineers, structural engineers, or engineers from other disciplines,” Lash said.
Robert Pearce, NASA’s associate administrator for aeronautics, who recently saw a demonstration of uPSP-generated data displayed at Ames, hailed the new tool as a national asset that will be available to researchers all over the country.
“It’s a unique NASA innovation that isn’t offered anywhere else,” Pearce said. “It will help us maintain NASA’s world leadership in wind tunnel capabilities.”
A technician sprays unsteady pressure sensitive paint onto the surface of a small model of the Space Launch System in preparation for testing in a NASA wind tunnel.NASA / Dave Bowman How it Works
With both PSP and uPSP, a unique paint is applied to scale models of aircraft or rockets, which are mounted in wind tunnels equipped with specific types of lights and cameras.
When illuminated during tests, the paint’s color brightness changes depending on the levels of pressure the model experiences as currents of air rush by. Darker shades mean higher pressure; lighter shades mean lower pressure.
Cameras capture the brightness intensity and a supercomputer turns that information into a set of numbers representing pressure values, which are made available to engineers to study and glean what truths they can about the vehicle design’s structural integrity.
“Aerodynamic forces can vibrate different parts of the vehicle to different degrees,” Lash said. “Vibrations could damage what the vehicle is carrying or can even lead to the vehicle tearing itself apart. The data we get through this process can help us prevent that.”
Traditionally, pressure readings are taken using sensors connected to little plastic tubes strung through a model’s interior and poking up through small holes in key places, such as along the surface of a wing or the fuselage.
Each point provides a single pressure reading. Engineers must use mathematical models to estimate the pressure values between the individual sensors.
With PSP, there is no need to estimate the numbers. Because the paint covers the entire model, its brightness as seen by the cameras reveals the pressure values over the whole surface.
A four-percent scale model of the Space Launch System rocket is tested in 2017 using unsteady Pressure Sensitive Paint inside the 11-foot by 11-foot Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.NASA / Dominic Hart Making it Better
The introduction, testing, and availability of uPSP is the result of a successful five-year-long effort, begun in 2019, in which researchers challenged themselves to significantly improve the PSP’s capability with its associated cameras and computers.
The NASA team’s desire was to develop and demonstrate a better process of acquiring, processing, and visualizing data using a properly equipped wind tunnel and supercomputer, then make the tool available at NASA wind tunnels across the country.
The focus during a capability challenge was on NASA’s Unitary Plan Facility’s 11-foot transonic wind tunnel, which the team connected to the nearby NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility, both located at Ames.
Inside the wind tunnel, a scale model of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket served as the primary test subject during the challenge period.
Now that the agency has completed its Artemis I uncrewed lunar flight test mission, researchers can match the flight-recorded data with the wind tunnel data to see how well reality and predictions compare.
With the capability challenge officially completed at the end of 2024, the uPSP team is planning to deploy it to other wind tunnels and engage with potential users with interests in aeronautics or spaceflight.
“This is a NASA capability that we have, not only for use within the agency, but one that we can offer industry, academia, and other government agencies to come in and do research using these new tools,” Lash said.
NASA’s Aerosciences Evaluation and Test Capabilities portfolio office, an organization managed under the agency’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, oversaw the development of the uPSP capability.
Watch this uPSP Video
About the Author
Jim Banke
Managing Editor/Senior WriterJim Banke is a veteran aviation and aerospace communicator with more than 40 years of experience as a writer, producer, consultant, and project manager based at Cape Canaveral, Florida. He is part of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications Team and is Managing Editor for the Aeronautics topic on the NASA website.
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Last Updated Jul 03, 2025 EditorJim BankeContactJim Bankejim.banke@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has awarded a contract to MacLean Engineering & Applied Technologies, LLC of Houston to provide simulation and advanced software services to the agency.
The Simulation and Advanced Software Services II (SASS II) contract includes services from Oct. 1, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2030, with a maximum potential value not to exceed $150 million. The contract is a single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quality contract with the capability to issue cost-plus-fixed-fee task orders and firm-fixed-price task orders.
Under the five-year SASS II contract, the awardee is tasked to provide simulation and software services for space-based vehicle models and robotic manipulator systems; human biomechanical representations for analysis and development of countermeasures devices; guidance, navigation, and control of space-based vehicles for all flight phases; and space-based vehicle on-board computer systems simulations of flight software systems. Responsibilities also include astronomical object surface interaction simulation of space-based vehicles, graphics support for simulation visualization and engineering analysis, and ground-based and onboarding systems to support human-in-the-loop training.
Major subcontractors include Tietronix Software Inc. in Houston and VEDO Systems, LLC, in League City, Texas.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Chelsey Ballarte
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
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Last Updated Jul 02, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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By NASA
5 min read
How NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Share Its All-Sky Map With the World
NASA’s SPHEREx mission will map the entire sky in 102 different wavelengths, or colors, of infrared light. This image of the Vela Molecular Ridge was captured by SPHEREx and is part of the mission’s first ever public data release. The yellow patch on the right side of the image is a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that glows in some infrared colors due to radiation from nearby stars. NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s newest astrophysics space telescope launched in March on a mission to create an all-sky map of the universe. Now settled into low-Earth orbit, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) has begun delivering its sky survey data to a public archive on a weekly basis, allowing anyone to use the data to probe the secrets of the cosmos.
“Because we’re looking at everything in the whole sky, almost every area of astronomy can be addressed by SPHEREx data,” said Rachel Akeson, the lead for the SPHEREx Science Data Center at IPAC. IPAC is a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Almost every area of astronomy can be addressed by SPHEREx data.
Rachel Akeson
SPHEREx Science Data Center Lead
Other missions, like NASA’s now-retired WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), have also mapped the entire sky. SPHEREx builds on this legacy by observing in 102 infrared wavelengths, compared to WISE’s four wavelength bands.
By putting the many wavelength bands of SPHEREx data together, scientists can identify the signatures of specific molecules with a technique known as spectroscopy. The mission’s science team will use this method to study the distribution of frozen water and organic molecules — the “building blocks of life” — in the Milky Way.
This animation shows how NASA’s SPHEREx observatory will map the entire sky — a process it will complete four times over its two-year mission. The telescope will observe every point in the sky in 102 different infrared wavelengths, more than any other all-sky survey. SPHEREx’s openly available data will enable a wide variety of astronomical studies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The SPHEREx science team will also use the mission’s data to study the physics that drove the universe’s expansion following the big bang, and to measure the amount of light emitted by all the galaxies in the universe over time. Releasing SPHEREx data in a public archive encourages far more astronomical studies than the team could do on their own.
“By making the data public, we enable the whole astronomy community to use SPHEREx data to work on all these other areas of science,” Akeson said.
NASA is committed to the sharing of scientific data, promoting transparency and efficiency in scientific research. In line with this commitment, data from SPHEREx appears in the public archive within 60 days after the telescope collects each observation. The short delay allows the SPHEREx team to process the raw data to remove or flag artifacts, account for detector effects, and align the images to the correct astronomical coordinates.
The team publishes the procedures they used to process the data alongside the actual data products. “We want enough information in those files that people can do their own research,” Akeson said.
One of the early test images captured by NASA’s SPHEREx mission in April 2025. This image shows a section of sky in one infrared wavelength, or color, that is invisible to the human eye but is represented here in a visible color. This particular wavelength (3.29 microns) reveals a cloud of dust made of a molecule similar to soot or smoke. NASA/JPL-Caltech This image from NASA’s SPHEREx shows the same region of space in a different infrared wavelength (0.98 microns), once again represented by a color that is visible to the human eye. The dust cloud has vanished because the molecules that make up the dust — polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — do not radiate light in this color. NASA/JPL-Caltech
During its two-year prime mission, SPHEREx will survey the entire sky twice a year, creating four all-sky maps. After the mission reaches the one-year mark, the team plans to release a map of the whole sky at all 102 wavelengths.
In addition to the science enabled by SPHEREx itself, the telescope unlocks an even greater range of astronomical studies when paired with other missions. Data from SPHEREx can be used to identify interesting targets for further study by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, refine exoplanet parameters collected from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), and study the properties of dark matter and dark energy along with ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Euclid mission and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
The SPHEREx mission’s all-sky survey will complement data from other NASA space telescopes. SPHEREx is illustrated second from the right. The other telescope illustrations are, from left to right: the Hubble Space Telescope, the retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the retired WISE/NEOWISE mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. NASA/JPL-Caltech The IPAC archive that hosts SPHEREx data, IRSA (NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive), also hosts pointed observations and all-sky maps at a variety of wavelengths from previous missions. The large amount of data available through IRSA gives users a comprehensive view of the astronomical objects they want to study.
“SPHEREx is part of the entire legacy of NASA space surveys,” said IRSA Science Lead Vandana Desai. “People are going to use the data in all kinds of ways that we can’t imagine.”
NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer leads open science efforts for the agency. Public sharing of scientific data, tools, research, and software maximizes the impact of NASA’s science missions. To learn more about NASA’s commitment to transparency and reproducibility of scientific research, visit science.nasa.gov/open-science. To get more stories about the impact of NASA’s science data delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for the NASA Open Science newsletter.
By Lauren Leese
Web Content Strategist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
More About SPHEREx
The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Caltech in Pasadena managed and integrated the instrument. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
To learn more about SPHEREx, visit:
https://nasa.gov/SPHEREx
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amanda.m.adams@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 02, 2025 Related Terms
Open Science Astrophysics Galaxies Jet Propulsion Laboratory SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer) The Search for Life The Universe Explore More
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By NASA
Explore This Section Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions Mars Home 3 min read
An Update From the 2025 Mars 2020 Science Team Meeting
A behind-the-scenes look at the annual Mars 2020 Science Team Meeting
Members of the Mars 2020 Science Team examine post-impact sediments within the Gardnos impact structure, northwest of Oslo, Norway, as part of the June 2025 Science Team Meeting. NASA/Katie Stack Morgan Written by Katie Stack Morgan, Mars 2020 Acting Project Scientist
The Mars 2020 Science Team gathered for a week in June to discuss recent science results, synthesize earlier mission observations, and discuss future plans for continued exploration of Jezero’s crater rim. It was also an opportunity to celebrate what makes this mission so special: one of the most capable and sophisticated science missions ever sent to Mars, an experienced and expert Science Team, and the rover’s many science accomplishments this past year.
We kicked off the meeting, which was hosted by our colleagues on the RIMFAX team at the University of Oslo, with a focus on our most recent discoveries on the Jezero crater rim. A highlight was the team’s in-depth discussion of spherules observed at Witch Hazel Hill, features which likely provide us the best chance of determining the origin of the crater rim rock sequence.
On the second day, we heard status updates from each of the science instrument teams. We then transitioned to a session devoted to “traverse-scale” syntheses. After 4.5 years of Perseverance on Mars and more than 37 kilometers of driving (more than 23 miles), we’re now able to analyze and integrate science datasets across the entire surface mission, looking for trends through space and time within the Jezero rock record. Our team also held a poster session, which was a great opportunity for in-person and informal scientific discussion.
The team’s modern atmospheric and environmental investigations were front and center on Day 3. We then rewound the clock, hearing new and updated analyses of data acquired during Perseverance’s earlier campaigns in Jezero’s Margin unit, crater floor, and western fan. The last day of the meeting was focused entirely on future plans for the Perseverance rover, including a discussion of our exploration and sampling strategy during the Crater Rim Campaign. We also looked further afield, considering where the rover might explore over the next few years.
Following the meeting, the Science Team took a one-day field trip to visit Gardnos crater, a heavily eroded impact crater with excellent examples of impact melt breccia and post-impact sediment fill. The team’s visit to Gardnos offered a unique opportunity to see and study impact-generated rock units like those expected on the Jezero crater rim and to discuss the challenges we have recognizing similar units with the rover on Mars. Recapping our Perseverance team meetings has been one of my favorite yearly traditions (see summaries from our 2022, 2023, and 2024 meetings) and I look forward to reporting back a year from now. As the Perseverance team tackles challenges in the year to come, we can seek inspiration from one of Norway’s greatest polar explorers, Fridtjof Nansen, who said while delivering his Nobel lecture, “The difficult is that which can be done at once; the impossible is that which takes a little longer.”
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By NASA
Credit: NASA/Krystofer Kim Lee esta nota en español aquí.
NASA released the first episode Tuesday of its third season of Universo curioso de la NASA, the agency’s only Spanish-language podcast.
Episodes focus on some of NASA’s top missions and research topics for 2025, bringing the wonder of exploration, space technology, and scientific discoveries to Spanish-speaking audiences around the world.
“NASA Science is literally everywhere, transcending geography and language to provide real time benefits to everyday lives across the globe using our scientific innovations, data, and discoveries from the unique vantage point of space,” said Dr. Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The Universo curioso de la NASA podcast shares NASA’s discoveries with Spanish-speaking communities across the globe, inspiring future explorers to join our journey as we return to the Moon and venture onward to Mars for the benefit of all humanity.”
New episodes will post every month through the end of the year. The first episode, centered on the science objectives of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the Moon, is available at:
https://go.nasa.gov/4l9lmbN
Universo curioso is hosted by Noelia González, communications specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This season introduces co-host Andrés Almeida, technical writer and host of NASA’s Small Steps, Giant Leaps podcast at NASA’s Headquarters. Throughout the season, listeners will celebrate the legacy of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, learn about an upcoming mission to the Sun, and explore dark energy and how the future Roman Space Telescope will study it, among other topics.
Universo curioso de la NASA is a joint initiative of the agency’s Spanish-language communications and audio programs. The new season, as well as previous episodes, are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud and NASA’s website.
Listen to the podcast and download related art materials at:
https://ciencia.nasa.gov/universocurioso
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Last Updated Jul 01, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
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