Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
STARCOM executes first JNTC-accredited, largest SPACE FLAG exercise ever
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission sit inside a Dragon training spacecraft at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. Pictured from left: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui (Credit: SpaceX). NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission is set to launch a four-person crew to the International Space Station later this summer. Some of the crew have volunteered to participate in a series of experiments to address health challenges astronauts may face on deep space missions during NASA’s Artemis campaign and future human expeditions to Mars.
The research during Crew-11 includes simulated lunar landings, tactics to safeguard vision, and other human physiology studies led by NASA’s Human Research Program.
Select crew members will participate in a series of simulated Moon landings, before, during, and after their flight. Using a handheld controller and multiple screens, the astronauts will fly through simulated scenarios created to resemble the lunar South Pole region that Artemis crews plan to visit. This experiment allows researchers to evaluate how different gravitational forces may disorient astronauts and affect their ability to pilot a spacecraft, like a lunar lander.
“Even though many landing tasks are automated, astronauts must still know how to monitor the controls and know when to take over to ensure a safe landing,” said Scott Wood, a neuroscientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston coordinating the scientific investigation. “Our study assesses exactly how changes in gravity affect spatial awareness and piloting skills that are important for navigating these scenarios.”
A ground control group completing the same tasks over a similar timeframe will help scientists better understand gravitational effects on human performance. The experiment’s results could inform the pilot training needed for future Artemis crews.
“Experiencing weightlessness for months and then feeling greater levels of gravity on a planet like Mars, for example, may increase the risk of disorientation,” said Wood. “Our goal is to help astronauts adapt to any gravitational change, whether it’s to the Moon, a new planet, or landing back on Earth.”
Other studies during the mission will explore possible ways to treat or prevent a group of eye and brain changes that can occur during long-duration space travel, called spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS).
Some researchers suspect the redistribution of bodily fluids in constant weightlessness may increase pressure in the head and contribute to SANS. One study will investigate fluid pressure on the brain while another will examine how the body processes B vitamins and whether supplements can affect how astronauts respond to bodily fluid shifts. Participating crew members will test whether a daily B vitamin supplement can eliminate or ease symptoms of SANS. Specific crew members also will wear thigh cuffs to keep bodily fluids from traveling headward.
Crew members also will complete another set of experiments, called CIPHER (Complement of Integrated Protocols for Human Exploration Research), which measures how multiple systems within the human body change in space. The study includes vision assessments, MRI scans, and other medical exams to provide a complete overview of the whole body’s response to long-duration spaceflight.
Several other studies involving human health and performance are also a part of Crew-11’s science portfolio. Crew members will contribute to a core set of measurements called Spaceflight Standard Measures, which collects physical data and biological samples from astronauts and stores them for other comparative studies. Participants will supply biological samples, such as blood and urine, for a study characterizing how spaceflight alters astronauts’ genetic makeup. In addition, volunteers will test different exercise regimens to help scientists explore what activities remain essential for long-duration journeys.
After landing, participating crew members will complete surveys to track any discomfort, such as scrapes or bruises, acquired from re-entry. The data will help clarify whether mission length increases injury risks and could help NASA design landing systems on future spacecraft as NASA prepares to travel to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
NASA’s Human Research Program pursues methods and technologies to support safe, productive human space travel. Through science conducted in laboratories, ground-based analogs, and aboard the International Space Station, the program investigates how spaceflight affects human bodies and behaviors. Such research drives NASA’s quest to innovate ways that keep astronauts healthy and mission-ready.
Explore More
2 min read NASA Announces Winners of 2025 Human Lander Challenge
Article 2 weeks ago 4 min read NASA, Australia Team Up for Artemis II Lunar Laser Communications Test
Article 2 weeks ago 3 min read NASA Engineers Simulate Lunar Lighting for Artemis III Moon Landing
Article 3 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Living in Space
Artemis
Human Research Program
Space Station Research and Technology
View the full article
-
-
By European Space Agency
Image: The varied landscape of England’s Lake District is featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article
-
By NASA
To celebrate its third year of revealing stunning scenes of the cosmos in infrared light, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has “clawed” back the thick, dusty layers of a section within the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team released this image of the Cat’s Paw Nebula on July 10, 2025, in honor of the telescope’s third anniversary. Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) revealed never-before-seen structural details and features: Massive young stars carve away at nearby gas and dust, while their bright starlight produces a bright nebulous glow represented in blue. As a consequence of these massive stars’ lively behavior, the local star formation process will eventually come to a stop.
Take a tour through this section of the Cat’s Paw Nebula.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
View the full article
-
By NASA
7 min read
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun
KEY POINTS
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken the closest ever images to the Sun, captured just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. The new close-up images show features in the solar wind, the constant stream of electrically charged subatomic particles released by the Sun that rage across the solar system at speeds exceeding 1 million miles an hour. These images, and other data, are helping scientists understand the mysteries of the solar wind, which is essential to understanding its effects at Earth. On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured stunning new images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. These newly released images — taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before — are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth.
“Parker Solar Probe has once again transported us into the dynamic atmosphere of our closest star,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models. This new data will help us vastly improve our space weather predictions to ensure the safety of our astronauts and the protection of our technology here on Earth and throughout the solar system.”
Parker Solar Probe started its closest approach to the Sun on Dec. 24, 2024, flying just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. As it skimmed through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, in the days around the perihelion, it collected data with an array of scientific instruments, including the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, or WISPR.
Parker Solar Probe has revolutionized our understanding of the solar wind thanks to the spacecraft’s many passes through the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng The new WISPR images reveal the corona and solar wind, a constant stream of electrically charged particles from the Sun that rage across the solar system. The solar wind expands throughout of the solar system with wide-ranging effects. Together with outbursts of material and magnetic currents from the Sun, it helps generate auroras, strip planetary atmospheres, and induce electric currents that can overwhelm power grids and affect communications at Earth. Understanding the impact of solar wind starts with understanding its origins at the Sun.
The WISPR images give scientists a closer look at what happens to the solar wind shortly after it is released from the corona. The images show the important boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field direction switches from northward to southward, called the heliospheric current sheet. It also captures the collision of multiple coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — large outbursts of charged particles that are a key driver of space weather — for the first time in high resolution.
“In these images, we’re seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another,” said Angelos Vourlidas, the WISPR instrument scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which designed, built, and operates the spacecraft in Laurel, Maryland. “We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather.”
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video
This video, made from images taken by Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument during its record-breaking flyby of the Sun on Dec. 25, 2024, shows the solar wind racing out from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab When CMEs collide, their trajectory can change, making it harder to predict where they’ll end up. Their merger can also accelerate charged particles and mix magnetic fields, which makes the CMEs’ effects potentially more dangerous to astronauts and satellites in space and technology on the ground. Parker Solar Probe’s close-up view helps scientists better prepare for such space weather effects at Earth and beyond.
Zooming in on Solar Wind’s Origins
The solar wind was first theorized by preeminent heliophysicist Eugene Parker in 1958. His theories about the solar wind, which were met with criticism at the time, revolutionized how we see our solar system. Prior to Parker Solar Probe’s launch in 2018, NASA and its international partners led missions like Mariner 2, Helios, Ulysses, Wind, and ACE that helped scientists understand the origins of the solar wind — but from a distance. Parker Solar Probe, named in honor of the late scientist, is filling in the gaps of our understanding much closer to the Sun.
At Earth, the solar wind is mostly a consistent breeze, but Parker Solar Probe found it’s anything but at the Sun. When the spacecraft reached within 14.7 million miles from the Sun, it encountered zig-zagging magnetic fields — a feature known as switchbacks. Using Parker Solar Probe’s data, scientists discovered that these switchbacks, which came in clumps, were more common than expected.
When Parker Solar Probe first crossed into the corona about 8 million miles from the Sun’s surface in 2021, it noticed the boundary of the corona was uneven and more complex than previously thought.
As it got even closer, Parker Solar Probe helped scientists pinpoint the origin of switchbacks at patches on the visible surface of the Sun where magnetic funnels form. In 2024 scientists announced that the fast solar wind — one of two main classes of the solar wind — is in part powered by these switchbacks, adding to a 50-year-old mystery.
However, it would take a closer view to understand the slow solar wind, which travels at just 220 miles per second, half the speed of the fast solar wind.
“The big unknown has been: how is the solar wind generated, and how does it manage to escape the Sun’s immense gravitational pull?” said Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “Understanding this continuous flow of particles, particularly the slow solar wind, is a major challenge, especially given the diversity in the properties of these streams — but with Parker Solar Probe, we’re closer than ever to uncovering their origins and how they evolve.”
Understanding Slow Solar Wind
The slow solar wind, which is twice as dense and more variable than fast solar wind, is important to study because its interplay with the fast solar wind can create moderately strong solar storm conditions at Earth sometimes rivaling those from CMEs.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video
This artist’s concept shows a representative state of Earth’s magnetic bubble immersed in the slow solar wind, which averages some 180 to 300 miles per second. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Prior to Parker Solar Probe, distant observations suggested there are actually two varieties of slow solar wind, distinguished by the orientation or variability of their magnetic fields. One type of slow solar wind, called Alfvénic, has small-scale switchbacks. The second type, called non-Alfvénic, doesn’t show these variations in its magnetic field.
As it spiraled closer to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe confirmed there are indeed two types. Its close-up views are also helping scientists differentiate the origins of the two types, which scientists believe are unique. The non-Alfvénic wind may come off features called helmet streamers — large loops connecting active regions where some particles can heat up enough to escape — whereas Alfvénic wind might originate near coronal holes, or dark, cool regions in the corona.
In its current orbit, bringing the spacecraft just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, Parker Solar Probe will continue to gather additional data during its upcoming passes through the corona to help scientists confirm the slow solar wind’s origins. The next pass comes Sept. 15, 2025.
“We don’t have a final consensus yet, but we have a whole lot of new intriguing data,” said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 10, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Missions NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Solar Wind Space Weather Explore More
8 min read NASA’s Webb Scratches Beyond Surface of Cat’s Paw for 3rd Anniversary
Article
5 hours ago
6 min read Smarter Searching: NASA AI Makes Science Data Easier to Find
Article
1 day ago
2 min read Polar Tourists Give Positive Reviews to NASA Citizen Science in Antarctica
Article
1 day ago
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.