Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
NASA Just Crashed A Spacecraft Into An Asteroid Dimorphos - Watch The Epic Moment!
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro and Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla, chair, Executive Board, DLR (German Aerospace Center, or Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), signed an agreement June 16, 2025, to continue a partnership on space medicine research. With this agreement, DLR will provide new radiation sensors aboard the Orion spacecraft during NASA’s Artemis II mission. Scheduled for launch no later than April 2026, Artemis II will mark the first test flight with crew under Artemis.Credit: DLR While attending the Paris Air Show June 16, NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro signed an agreement with DLR (German Aerospace Center, or Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) to continue a partnership in space medicine research. This renewed collaboration builds on previous radiation mitigation efforts for human spaceflight. As NASA advances the Trump-Vance Administration’s goals for exploration on the Moon and Mars, minimizing exposure to space radiation is one of the key areas the agency is working to protect crew on long duration missions.
With this agreement, DLR will leverage its human spaceflight expertise and provide new radiation sensors aboard the Orion spacecraft during NASA’s Artemis II mission, building on previous work in this area during the Artemis I mission. Scheduled for launch no later than April 2026, Artemis II will mark the first test flight with crew under Artemis.
“In keeping with the historic agreements NASA has made with international partners as a part of Artemis, I am pleased to sign a new NASA-DLR joint agreement today, to enable radiation research aboard Artemis II,” said acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro. “The German Aerospace Center has been a valuable partner in Artemis, having previously worked with NASA to test technology critical to our understanding of radiation on humans aboard an Orion spacecraft on Artemis I and providing a CubeSat as part of Artemis II. Following a productive meeting between President Trump and German Chancellor Merz earlier this month, I am excited to build upon our great partnership with Germany.”
During the Artemis II mission’s planned 10-day journey around the Moon and back, four of DLR’s newly developed M-42 extended (M-42 EXT) radiation detectors will be on board, contributing vital data to support astronaut safety. This next-generation device represents a new phase of research as NASA and DLR continue working together to safeguard human health in space.
Under the leadership of President Trump, America’s Artemis campaign has reignited NASA’s ambition, sparking international cooperation and cutting-edge innovation. The continued partnership with DLR and the deployment of their advanced M-42 EXT radiation detectors aboard Artemis II exemplifies how the Trump-Vance Administration is leading a Golden Era of Exploration and Innovation that puts American astronauts on the path to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
“To develop effective protective measures against the impact of space radiation on the human body, comprehensive and coherent radiation measurements in open space are essential,” says Anke Pagels-Kerp, divisional board member for space at DLR. “At the end of 2022, Artemis I carried 12,000 passive and 16 active detectors inside the Helga and Zohar mannequins, which flew aboard the Orion spacecraft as part of DLR’s MARE project. These provided a valuable dataset – the first continuous radiation measurements ever recorded beyond low Earth orbit. We are now excited to take the next step together with NASA and send our upgraded radiation detectors around the Moon on the Artemis II mission.”
Through the Artemis campaign, the agency will establish a long-term presence on the Moon for scientific exploration with our commercial and international partners, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
For more information about Artemis, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis
-end-
Bethany Stevens / Rachel Kraft
Headquarters
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gv / rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Jun 17, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Artemis Artemis 2 NASA Headquarters View the full article
-
By NASA
A NASA-sponsored team is creating a new approach to measure magnetic fields by developing a new system that can both take scientific measurements and provide spacecraft attitude control functions. This new system is small, lightweight, and can be accommodated onboard the spacecraft, eliminating the need for the boom structure that is typically required to measure Earth’s magnetic field, thus allowing smaller, lower-cost spacecraft to take these measurements. In fact, this new system could not only enable small spacecraft to measure the magnetic field, it could replace the standard attitude control systems in future spacecraft that orbit Earth, allowing them to provide the important global measurements that enable us to understand how Earth’s magnetic field protects us from dangerous solar particles.
Photo of the aurora (taken in Alaska) showing small scale features that are often present. Credit: NASA/Sebastian Saarloos
Solar storms drive space weather that threatens our many assets in space and can also disrupt Earth’s upper atmosphere impacting our communications and power grids. Thankfully, the Earth’s magnetic field protects us and funnels much of that energy into the north and south poles creating aurorae. The aurorae are a beautiful display of the electromagnetic energy and currents that flow throughout the Earth’s space environment. They often have small-scale magnetic features that affect the total energy flowing through the system. Observing these small features requires multiple simultaneous observations over a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, which can be accomplished by constellations of small spacecraft.
To enable such constellations, NASA is developing an innovative hybrid magnetometer that makes both direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) magnetic measurements and is embedded in the spacecraft’s attitude determination and control system (ADCS)—the system that enables the satellite to know and control where it is pointing. High-performance, low SWAP+C (low-size, weight and power + cost) instruments are required, as is the ability to manufacture and test large numbers of these instruments within a typical flight build schedule. Future commercial or scientific satellites could use these small, lightweight embedded hybrid magnetometers to take the types of measurements that will expand our understanding of space weather and how Earth’s magnetic field responds to solar storms
It is typically not possible to take research-quality DC and AC magnetic measurements using sensors within an ADCS since the ADCS is inside the spacecraft and near contaminating sources of magnetic noise such as magnetic torque rods—the electromagnets that generate a magnetic field and push against the Earth’s magnetic field to control the orientation of a spacecraft. Previous missions that have flown both DC and AC magnetometers placed them on long booms pointing in opposite directions from the satellite to keep the sensors as far from the spacecraft and each other as possible. In addition, the typical magnetometer used by an ADCS to measure the orientation of the spacecraft with respect to the geomagnetic field does not sample fast enough to measure the high-frequency signals needed to make magnetic field observations.
A NASA-sponsored team at the University of Michigan is developing a new hybrid magnetometer and attitude determination and control system (HyMag-ADCS) that is a low-SWAP single package that can be integrated into a spacecraft without booms. HyMag-ADCS consists of a three-axis search coil AC magnetometer and a three-axis Quad-Mag DC magnetometer. The Quad-Mag DC magnetometer uses machine learning to enable boomless DC magnetometery, and the hybrid search-coil AC magnetometer includes attitude determination torque rods to enable the single 1U volume (103 cm) system to perform ADCS functions as well as collect science measurements.
The magnetic torque rod and search coil sensor (left) and the Quad-Mag magnetometer prototype (right). Credit: Mark Moldwin The HyMag-ADCS team is incorporating the following technologies into the system to ensure success.
Quad-Mag Hardware: The Quad-Mag DC magnetometer consists of four magneto-inductive magnetometers and a space-qualified micro-controller mounted on a single CubeSat form factor (10 x 10 cm) printed circuit board. These two types of devices are commercially available. Combining multiple sensors on a single board increases the instrument’s sensitivity by a factor of two compared to using a single sensor. In addition, the distributed sensors enable noise identification on small satellites, providing the science-grade magnetometer sensing that is key for both magnetic field measurements and attitude determination. The same type of magnetometer is part of the NASA Artemis Lunar Gateway Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES) Noisy Environment Magnetometer in a Small Integrated System (NEMISIS) magnetometer scheduled for launch in early 2027.
Dual-use Electromagnetic Rods: The HyMag-ADCS team is using search coil electronics and torque rod electronics that were developed for other efforts in a new way. Use of these two electronics systems enables the electromagnetic rods in the HyMag-ADCS system to be used in two different ways—as torque rods for attitude determination and as search coils to make scientific measurements. The search coil electronics were designed for ground-based measurements to observe ultra-low frequency signals up to a few kHz that are generated by magnetic beacons for indoor localization. The torque rod electronics were designed for use on CubeSats and have flown on several University of Michigan CubeSats (e.g., CubeSat-investigating Atmospheric Density Response to Extreme driving [CADRE]). The HyMag-ADCS concept is to use the torque rod electronics as needed for attitude control and use the search coil electronics the rest of the time to make scientific AC magnetic field measurements.
Machine Learning Algorithms for Spacecraft Noise Identification: Applying machine learning to these distributed sensors will autonomously remove noise generated by the spacecraft. The team is developing a powerful Unsupervised Blind Source Separation (UBSS) algorithm and a new method called Wavelet Adaptive Interference Cancellation for Underdetermined Platforms (WAIC-UP) to perform this task, and this method has already been demonstrated in simulation and the lab.
The HyMag-ADCS system is early in its development stage, and a complete engineering design unit is under development. The project is being completed primarily with undergraduate and graduate students, providing hands-on experiential training for upcoming scientists and engineers.
Early career electrical engineer Julio Vata and PhD student Jhanene Heying-Melendrez with art student resident Ana Trujillo Garcia in the magnetometer lab testing prototypes. Credit: Mark Moldwin For additional details, see the entry for this project on NASA TechPort .
Project Lead: Prof. Mark Moldwin, University of Michigan
Sponsoring Organization: NASA Heliophysics Division’s Heliophysics Technology and Instrument Development for Science (H-TIDeS) program.
Share
Details
Last Updated Jun 17, 2025 Related Terms
Technology Highlights Heliophysics Science Mission Directorate Science-enabling Technology Explore More
2 min read Hubble Studies a Spiral’s Supernova Scene
Article
4 days ago
5 min read NASA Launching Rockets Into Radio-Disrupting Clouds
Article
5 days ago
2 min read Hubble Captures Starry Spectacle
Article
2 weeks ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
by Dary Felix Garcia
NASA is preparing to make history by sending humans to the Moon’s South Pole. There, astronauts will conduct moonwalks for exploration, science experiments, and prepare humanity for the journey to Mars. Missions of this scale require extensive planning, especially when accounting for emergency scenarios such as a crew member becoming incapacitated.
To address this critical risk, the South Pole Safety Challenge invited the public to develop a compact, effective device capable of safely rescuing astronauts during emergency situations on the Moon’s surface. Given the harsh and unpredictable conditions of the lunar South Pole, the rescue system must be lightweight, easy to use, and able to transport an incapacitated crew member weighing approximately 755 lbs. (343 kg), representing the crew member and their suit, without the help of the lunar rover. It must also be capable of covering up to 1.24 miles (2 kilometers) across slopes as steep as 20 degrees.
“The initiative saved the government an estimated $1,000,000 and more than three years of work had the solutions been produced using in-house existing resources,” said Ryon Stewart, acting Program Manager of NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation. “The effort demonstrated how crowdsourcing provides NASA with a wide diversity of innovative ideas and skills.”
The global challenge received 385 unique ideas from 61 countries. Five standout solutions received a share of the $45,000 prize purse. Each of the selected solutions demonstrated creativity, practicality, and direct relevance to NASA’s needs for future Moon missions.
The global challenge received 385 unique ideas from 61 countries. Five standout solutions received a share of the $45,000 prize purse. Each of the selected solutions demonstrated creativity, practicality, and direct relevance to NASA’s needs for future Moon missions.
First Place: VERTEX by Hugo Shelley – A self-deploying four-wheeled motorized stretcher that converts from a compact cylinder into a frame that securely encases an immobilized crew member for transport up to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers). Second Place: MoonWheel by Chamara Mahesh – A foldable manual trolley designed for challenging terrain and rapid deployment by an individual astronaut. Third Place: Portable Foldable Compact Emergency Stretcher by Sbarellati team – A foldable stretcher compatible with NASA’s Exploration Extravehicular Activity spacesuit. Third Place: Advanced Surface Transport for Rescue (ASTRA) by Pierre-Alexandre Aubé – A collapsible three-wheeled device with a 1.2 mile (2 kilometer) range. Third Place: Getting Rick to Roll! by InventorParents – A rapidly deployable, tool-free design suited for functionality in low gravity settings. NASA is identifying how to integrate some features of the winning ideas into current and future mission designs. Most intriguing are the collapsible concepts of many of the designs that would save crucial mass and volume. Additionally, the submissions offered innovative wheel designs to enhance current concepts. NASA expects to incorporate some features into planning for surface operations of the Moon.
HeroX hosted the challenge on behalf of NASA’s Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program. The NASA Tournament Lab, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate, managed the challenge. The program supports global public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA research and development and other mission needs.
Find more opportunities at https://www.nasa.gov/get-involved/
View the full article
-
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.”
Share
Details
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
-
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/
Share
Details
Last Updated Jun 16, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
Marshall Space Flight Center Find Your Place For Colleges & Universities Learning Resources Explore More
3 min read NASA Announces Teams for 2025 Student Launch Challenge
Article 9 months ago 4 min read 25 Years Strong: NASA’s Student Launch Competition Accepting 2025 Proposals
Article 10 months ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
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.