Rock and Roll with NASA ChallengeThe next era of lunar exploration demands a new kind of wheel – one that can sprint across razor-sharp regolith, shrug off extremely cold nights, and keep a rover rolling day after lunar day. The Rock and Roll with NASA Challenge seeks that breakthrough. If you can imagine a lightweight, compliant wheel that stays tough […]
Acting NASA Administrator Duffy Selects Exploration-Focused Associate AdministratorActing NASA Administrator Sean P. Duffy Wednesday named Amit Kshatriya as the new associate administrator of NASA, the agency’s top civil service role. A 20-year NASA veteran, Kshatriya was most recently the deputy in charge of the Moon to Mars Program in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. In […]
Juno Detected the Final Missing Auroral Signature from Jupiter’s Four Largest MoonsJupiter hosts the brightest and most spectacular auroras in the Solar System. Near its poles, these shimmering lights offer a glimpse into how the planet interacts with the solar wind and moons swept by Jupiter’s magnetic field. Unlike Earth’s northern lights, the largest moons of Jupiter create their own auroral signatures in the planet’s atmosphere […]
Interview with Dr. Caleb Scharf_________________________________________________________________________________________ In the following interview, questions from the interviewer, Fred Van Wert, are in bold, and Caleb Scharf’s responses are in regular text. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Let’s begin with your early years. Where you were born, something about your family, what your mother and father did, your early schooling, what got you interested in the career that […]
NASA 2026 Human Lander ChallengeNASA’s Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) is an initiative supporting its Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate’s (ESDMD’s) efforts to explore innovative solutions for a variety of known technology development areas for human landing systems (HLS). Landers are used to safely ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface as part of the mission architecture for NASA’s Artemis […]
Lydia Rodriguez Builds a Career of Service and Support at NASA Lydia Rodriguez is an office administrator in the Flight Operations Directorate’s Operations Division and Operations Tools and Procedures Branch at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Over nearly two decades, she has supported nine organizations, helping enable NASA’s missions and forming lasting relationships along the way. “I’ve had the opportunity to meet many different people […]
What’s Up: September 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASASaturn’s spectacle, a Conjunction, and the Autumnal Equinox Saturn shines throughout the month, a conjunction sparkles in the sky, and we welcome the autumnal equinox. Skywatching Highlights Transcript What’s Up for September? Saturn puts on a spectacular show, a sunrise conjunction shines bright, and we ring in the autumnal equinox. Saturn at Opposition Saturn will […]
Circular Star TrailsOn July 26, 2025, NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers took this long-exposure photograph – taken over 31 minutes from a window inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module – capturing the circular arcs of star trails. In its third decade of continuous human presence, the space station has a far-reaching impact as a microgravity lab […]
Advancing Single-Photon Sensing Image Sensors to Enable the Search for Life Beyond EarthAdvancing Single-Photon Sensing Image Sensors to Enable the Search for Life Beyond Earth A NASA-sponsored team is advancing single-photon sensing Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) detector technology that will enable future NASA astrophysics space missions to search for life on other planets. As part of their detector maturation program, the team is characterizing sensors before, during, and […]
Tech From NASA’s Hurricane-hunting TROPICS Flies on Commercial SatellitesNASA science and American industry have worked hand-in-hand for more than 60 years, transforming novel technologies created with NASA research into commercial products like cochlear implants, memory-foam mattresses, and more. Now, a NASA-funded device for probing the interior of storm systems has been made a key component of commercial weather satellites. The novel atmospheric sounder […]