After 15 Years and 1,000 Tests – Is Orion’s Heat Shield Ready To Take the Heat?
When Artemis I launched on Wednesday, November 16, NASA’s new mega Moon rocket carried the Orion spacecraft – uncrewed, for now – into orbit for…
Ames Research Center News
NASA’s VIPER Lunar Rover Prototype Motors Through Moon-Like Obstacle Course
NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) prototype recently endured the most realistic tests to date of its ability to drive through the most challenging…
NASA Celebrates 3 Years of Astrobee Robotic Free-Flyers Buzzing on Space Station
Three years ago, a pair of robots were launched to the International Space Station (ISS) to help pave the way for the future of robotics…
Gemini III Mission: Contraband Corned Beef and the Early Days of Space Biology
The Gemini III mission carried two remarkable firsts: an astronaut’s smuggled sandwich and NASA’s first fundamental space biology experiment in orbit. The first corned beef…
U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry Visits NASA Ames to Discuss Climate and Innovation
U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, left, and Joe Sacco, NASA’s acting director of the National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC), tour the largest…
Webb Space Telescope Provides New Tools To Search for the Building Blocks of Life on Distant Planets
How NASA in Silicon Valley Will Use Webb to Study Distant Worlds NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is getting ready to give us the best…
NASA VIPER: Artemis Moon Rover’s Wheels Are Ready To Roll
A flat tire would be the last thing you would need on a trip to the Moon. Luckily, NASA’s water-hunting robot – bound for the…
NASA’s Super Guppy Arrives in California With Key Component for Artemis Moon Mission
Crews transported the heat shield skin for a future mission of NASA’s Orion spacecraft — via the agency’s Super Guppy oversize cargo transport aircraft —…
Lunar Crater Named After Black Arctic Explorer Matthew Henson
The International Astronomical Union has named a crater at the Moon’s south pole after the Arctic explorer Matthew Henson, a Black man who in 1909…
NASA’s VIPER Moon Rover To Land Near Nobile Crater at the Lunar South Pole
In 2023, NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole to…
Exploring the Moon: CAPSTONE’s CubeSat Prepares for Lunar Flight
Small spacecraft will play a big role in lunar exploration, including a Moon-bound CubeSat launching later this year. The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and…
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Reveals New Understanding of Rock Record, Evidence of Possible Signs of Ancient Life
A new paper enriches scientists’ understanding of where the rock record preserved or destroyed evidence of Mars’ past and possible signs of ancient life. Today,…
NASA’s Telescope on an Airplane – SOFIA – Offers New Way to Study Earth’s Atmosphere
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, has been used extensively to look many objects…
NASA Taking to the Air and Sea to Study Ocean Eddies
Using scientific instruments aboard a self-propelled ocean glider and several airplanes, this first deployment of the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) mission will deploy its…
Innovative Propulsion System Gets Ready to Study Moon Orbit for NASA’s Artemis Program
In 2021, NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, CubeSat will launch to a never-before-used cislunar orbit near the Moon….
Comet Catalina’s Glowing Tail Indicates Comets Delivered Carbon to Rocky Planets
In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina…
Magnetic “Highway” Fuels Massive Ejection of Gas and Dust Out of the Cigar Galaxy
What’s fueling the massive ejection of gas and dust out of the Cigar galaxy, otherwise known as Messier 82? We know that thousands of stars…
Galaxy Survives Black Hole’s Feast – “Goes Against All the Current Scientific Predictions”
The hungriest of black holes are thought to gobble up so much surrounding material they put an end to the life of their host galaxy….
