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BepiColombo braces for third Mercury flyby
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA has selected Troy Sierra JV, LLC of Huntsville, Alabama, to provide engineering, research, and scientific support at the agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
The Test Facility Operations, Maintenance, and Engineering Services III contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum potential value of approximately $388.3 million. The performance period begins Jan. 1, 2026, with a three-year base period followed by a two-year option, and a potential six-month extension through June 2031.
This contract will provide and manage the engineering, technical, manufacturing, development, operations, maintenance, inspection, and certification support services needed to conduct aerospace testing in NASA Glenn’s facilities and laboratories.
For information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Jan Wittry
Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
216-433-5466
jan.m.wittry-1@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 12, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Glenn Research Center View the full article
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By European Space Agency
To mark its third year of highly productive science, astronomers used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to scratch beyond the surface of the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334), a massive, local star-forming region.
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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
Podcasts General View the full article
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By NASA
Credit: NASA NASA continues to collaborate with global communities to solve complex challenges through crowdsourcing with a series of 25 new NASA Open Innovation Service (NOIS) contracts managed by the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The contract aims to empower NASA’s workforce by actively engaging the public to find creative solutions to difficult space exploration challenges through rapid experimentation with new methodologies, new technologies, and unique perspectives, ensuring NASA remains at the forefront of innovation while accomplishing its missions.
This is the third NOIS contract, managed by NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI), and used by NASA and other government agencies. The NOIS3 contract will provide solutions through multiple crowdsourcing tools and methodologies, which include public prize competitions, freelance tasking, technology searches, and other crowd-based methods.
The total value of the NOIS3 contract is $475 million over 10 years. There is a guaranteed $500 minimum obligation for each contract award. The base contract spans June 5, 2025, through May 31, 2027, and there are two options, the first for three years, and the second for five years. If all options are exercised, work could continue through May 31, 2035.
The awardees are:
Blue Clarity, Vienna, Virginia Capital Consulting Corp., Fairfax, Virginia Challenge Works, London, United Kingdom CrowdPlat Inc., Pleasanton, California Design Interactive Inc., Orlando, Florida DrivenData Inc., Denver Ensemble Government Services, Hyattsville, Maryland Hyperion Technologies, Arlington, Virginia Floor23 Digital, Jackson, Wisconsin Freelancer International, Sydney, Australia HeroX, Wilmington, Delaware HYVE Innovate, Munchen, Germany Innoget, Rockville, Maryland Institute of Competition Sciences, San Francisco Loyal Source Government Services, Orlando, Florida Luminary Labs, New York City National Institute of Aerospace Associates, Hampton, Virginia Randstad Federal, Duluth, Georgia Rios Partners, Arlington, Virginia SecondMuse, Bernalillo, New Mexico TechConnect, Summerville, South Carolina Toffler Associates, Arlington, Virginia Tongal Inc., Los Angeles Topcocder, Indianapolis yet2.com Inc., Waltham, Massachusetts NASA’s CoECI provides guidance on open innovation initiatives, helping define challenges and requirements and formulating and evaluating potential solutions. The center’s end-to-end service allows NASA and other federal agencies to rapidly experiment with new methods and solve critical problems through innovation and collaboration.
Learn more about the NASA Center of Excellence at:
https://www.nasa.gov/coeci
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Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Kelly Humphries
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kelly.o.humphries@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jun 05, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) Johnson Space Center Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program Space Technology Mission Directorate View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:01:20 Listen to the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft as it flew past Mercury on 8 January 2025. This sixth and final flyby used the little planet's gravity to steer the spacecraft on course for entering orbit around Mercury in 2026.
What you can hear in the sonification soundtrack of this video are real spacecraft vibrations measured by the Italian Spring Accelerometer (ISA) instrument. The accelerometer data have been shifted in frequency to make them audible to human ears – one hour of measurements have been sped up to one minute of sound.
BepiColombo is always shaking ever so slightly: fuel is slightly sloshing, the solar panels are vibrating at their natural frequency, heat pipes are pushing vapour through small tubes, and so forth. This creates the eerie underlying hum throughout the video.
But as BepiColombo gets closer to Mercury, ISA detects other forces acting on the spacecraft. Most scientifically interesting are the audible shocks that sound like short, soft bongs. These are caused by the spacecraft responding to entering and exiting Mercury's shadow, where the Sun's intense radiation is suddenly blocked. One of ISA's scientific goals is to monitor the changes in the ‘solar radiation pressure’ – a force caused by sunlight striking BepiColombo as it orbits the Sun and, eventually, Mercury.
The loudest noises – an ominous ‘rumbling’ – are caused by the spacecraft's large solar panels rotating. The first rotation occurs in shadow at 00:17 in the video, while the second adjustment at 00:51 was also captured by one of the spacecraft’s monitoring cameras.
Faint sounds like wind being picked up in a phone call, which grow more audible around 30 seconds into the video, are caused by Mercury's gravitational field pulling the nearest and furthest parts of the spacecraft by different amounts. As the planet's gravity stretches the spacecraft ever so slightly, the spacecraft responds structurally. At the same time, the onboard reaction wheels change their speed to maintain the spacecraft's orientation, which you can hear as a frequency shift in the background.
This is the last time that many of these effects can be measured with BepiColombo's largest solar panels, which make the spacecraft more susceptible to vibrations. The spacecraft module carrying these panels will not enter orbit around Mercury with the mission's two orbiter spacecraft.
The video shows an accurate simulation of the spacecraft and its route past Mercury during the flyby, made with the SPICE-enhanced Cosmographia spacecraft visualisation tool. The inset that appears 38 seconds into the video shows real photographs taken by one of BepiColombo's monitoring cameras.
Read more about BepiColombo's sixth Mercury flyby
Access the related broadcast quality video material.
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