Category: General

Anything and everything space

Going Beyond the Challenge for New and Continued Success

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CO2 Conversion Challenge (2020) – NASA’s Centennial Challenges has an impact far greater than just space travel – just ask Air Co., a Brooklyn-based company that competed and won a three-way tie in the CO2 Conversion Challenge, which ran from 2018 to 2021. Air Co. founders Gregory Constantine (left) and Stafford Sheehan (right) used their innovative idea, which originally existed to convert carbon dioxide into glucose, to create immediately usable hand sanitizer at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Image courtesy of Air Co. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate connects…

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Reaching New Frontiers in Science Supported by Public Participation

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8 min read Reaching New Frontiers in Science Supported by Public Participation A brown dwarf roaming the Milky Way galaxy. Image by citizen scientist/artist William Pendrill. Credit: William Pendrill NASA’s Science Mission Directorate seeks knowledge and answers to profound questions that impact all people. Through competitions, challenges, crowdsourcing, and citizen science activities, NASA collaborates with the public to make scientific discoveries that help us better understand our planet and the space beyond. Multiple NASA science projects were supported through public participation in Fiscal Years 2021 and 2022, spanning pursuits in…

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Inspiring the Next Generation with Student Challenges and Learning Opportunities

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8 min read Inspiring the Next Generation with Student Challenges and Learning Opportunities Creativity and curiosity are strongly tied to NASA’s missions and vision. Many of the agency’s public opportunities foster these traits by engaging students and educators. Participants of all ages and levels, from kindergarten to college, used their imaginations and enthusiasm to solve open innovation challenges related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in fiscal years 2021-2022. Advancing and Encouraging Aerospace Careers Multiple NASA programs partnered with Starburst Accelerator in Los Angeles to launch the 2022…

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Mira cómo la NASA construye su primer vehículo lunar robótico

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Ingenieros y técnicos ensamblan y ponen a prueba el primer vehículo lunar robótico de la NASA en una sala limpia del Centro Espacial Johnson de la NASA en Houston. NASA/Robert Markowitz El público tendrá un asiento de primera fila y en directo para ver cómo el primer rover lunar robótico de la NASA cobra forma en la sala limpia de la Instalación de Pruebas de Integración de Segmentos de Superficie en el Centro Espacial Johnson de la agencia en Houston. Los integrantes de la misión del Vehículo de Exploración Polar…

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Watch NASA Build Its First Robotic Moon Rover

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Engineers assemble and test NASA’s first robotic Moon rover in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA/Robert Markowitz The public now has a live, front row seat to see NASA’s first robotic Moon rover take shape in the Surface Segment Integration and Testing Facility clean room at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Members of VIPER — short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — and the Office of Communications at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, will host watch parties and answer questions…

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NASA Technologies Receive Multiple Nods in TIME Inventions of 2023

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As NASA explores, innovates, and inspires through its work, agency inventions aimed at monitoring atmospheric pollution, studying samples from asteroids, extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, and revolutionizing flight have been named TIME’s Inventions of 2023. TIME announced the honorees on Oct. 24. “For more than 65 years, NASA has innovated for the benefit of humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “From turning carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars, to delivering the largest asteroid sample to Earth, helping improve air quality across North America, and changing the way we fly,…

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NASA’s First Two-way End-to-End Laser Communications System

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5 Min Read NASA’s First Two-way End-to-End Laser Communications System NASA's ILLUMA-T payload communicating with LCRD over laser signals. Credits: NASA/Dave Ryan NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions – showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions transmitting terabytes of important data. The International Space Station is getting a “flashy” technology demonstration this November. The ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) payload is launching to the International Space Station to demonstrate how missions in low Earth…

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How NASA Is Protecting Europa Clipper From Space Radiation

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5 min read How NASA Is Protecting Europa Clipper From Space Radiation Engineers and technicians are seen closing the vault of NASA’s Europa Clipper in the main clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at JPL on Oct. 7. The vault will protect the electronics of the spacecraft as it orbits Jupiter. NASA/JPL-Caltech To explore the mysterious ice-encrusted moon Europa, the mission will need to endure bombardment by radiation and high-energy particles surrounding Jupiter. When NASA’s Europa Clipper begins orbiting Jupiter to investigate whether its ice-encased moon, Europa, has conditions…

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Dr. Natasha Schatzman Receives the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) 2023 Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Award 

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1 min read Dr. Natasha Schatzman Receives the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) 2023 Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Award  Dr. Natasha Schatzman, NASA Ames Research Center NASA / Dominic Hart In May 2023, Dr. Natasha Schatzman received the Vertical Flight Society Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Award for her vertical flight research at NASA Ames Research Center.  This annual award is given to a VFS member who is thirty-five years old or younger for outstanding contributions to vertical flight technology.  The award announcement notes that Dr. Schatzman “was recognized for outstanding vertical lift research (internationally recognized…

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All Together Now: Drill Joins Other Moon Rover Science Instruments

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A team of engineers from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California inspect TRIDENT – short for The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain – shortly after its arrival at the integration and test facility. NASA/Robert Markowitz A team of engineers from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California, inspect TRIDENT – short for The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain – shortly after its arrival at the integration and test facility. In the coming months, the team…

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