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NASA Invites Media to View Artemis Moon Rocket, Spacecraft at Kennedy
Media are invited to see NASA’s fully assembled Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft in mid-October before its crewed test flight around the Moon next year.
The event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will showcase hardware for the Artemis II lunar mission, which will test capabilities needed for deep space exploration. NASA and industry subject matter experts will be available for interviews.
Attendance is open to U.S. citizens and international media. Media accreditation deadlines are as follows:
- International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 22.
- U.S. media and U.S. citizens representing international media organizations must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Monday, Sept. 29.
Media wishing to take part in person must apply for credentials at:
Credentialed media will receive a confirmation email upon approval, along with additional information about the specific date for the mid-October activities when they are determined. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact the NASA Kennedy newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Prior to the media event, the Orion spacecraft will transition from the Launch Abort System Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy, where it will be placed on top of the SLS rocket. The fully stacked rocket will then undergo complete integrated testing and final hardware closeouts ahead of rolling the rocket to Launch Pad 39B for launch. During this effort, technicians will conduct end-to-end communications checkouts, and the crew will practice day of launch procedures during their countdown demonstration test.
Artemis II will send NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon and back. As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, Artemis will pave the way for new U.S.-crewed missions on the lunar surface ahead in preparation toward the first crewed mission to Mars.
To learn more about the Artemis II mission, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii
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Rachel Kraft / Lauren Low
Headquarters, Washington
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rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov / lauren.e.low@nasa.gov
Tiffany Fairley
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov
NASA Data, Trainings Help Uruguay Navigate Drought
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Lee esta historia en español aquí.
NASA satellite data and trainings helped Uruguay create a drought-response tool that its National Water Authority now uses to monitor reservoirs and guide emergency decisions. A similar approach could be applied in the United States and other countries around the world.
From 2018 to 2023, Uruguay experienced its worst drought in nearly a century. The capital city of Montevideo, home to nearly 2 million people, was especially hard hit. By mid-2023, Paso Severino, the largest reservoir and primary water source for Montevideo, had dropped to just 1.7% of its capacity. As water levels declined, government leaders declared an emergency. They began identifying backup supplies and asked: Was there water left in other upstream reservoirs — mainly used for livestock and irrigation — that could help?
That’s when environmental engineer Tiago Pohren and his colleagues at the National Water Authority (DINAGUA – Ministry of Environment) turned to NASA data and trainings to build an online tool that could help answer that question and improve monitoring of the nation’s reservoirs.
“Satellite data can inform everything from irrigation scheduling in the Great Plains to water quality management in the Chesapeake Bay,” said Erin Urquhart, manager of the water resources program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “NASA provides the reliable data needed to respond to water crises anywhere in the world.”
Learning to Detect Water from SpaceThe DINAGUA team learned about NASA resources during a 2022 workshop in Buenos Aires, organized by the Interagency Science and Applications Team (ISAT). Led by NASA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Department of State, the workshop focused on developing tools to help manage water in the La Plata River Basin, which spans multiple South American countries including Uruguay.
At the workshop, researchers from NASA introduced participants to methods for measuring water resources from space. NASA’s Applied Remote Sensing (ARSET) program also provided a primer on remote sensing principles.
DINAGUA team supervisor Jose Rodolfo Valles León asks a question during a 2022 workshop in Buenos Aires. Other members of the Uruguay delegation — Florencia Hastings, Vanessa Erasun Rodríguez de Líma, Vanessa Ferreira, and Teresa Sastre (current Director of DINAGUA) — sit in the row behind.Organization of American States“NASA doesn’t just deliver data,” said John Bolten, NASA’s lead scientist for ISAT and chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We collaborate with our partners and local experts to translate the data into information that is useful, usable, and relevant. That kind of coordination is what makes NASA’s water programs so effective on the ground, at home and around the world.”
The DINAGUA team brought ideas and provided guidelines to Pohren for a tool that applies Landsat and Sentinel satellite imagery to detect changes in Uruguay’s reservoirs. Landsat, a joint NASA-U.S. Geological Survey mission, provides decades of satellite imagery to track changes in land and water. The Sentinel missions, a part of the European Commission managed Copernicus Earth Observation program and operated by ESA (the European Space Agency), provide complementary visible, infrared, and microwave imagery for surface water assessments.
From a young age, Pohren was familiar with water-related challenges, as floods repeatedly inundated his relatives’ homes in his hometown of Montenegro, Brazil. It was extra motivation for him as he scoured ARSET tutorials and taught himself to write computer code. The result was a monitoring tool capable of estimating the surface area of Uruguay’s reservoirs over time.
A screenshot of the reservoir monitoring tool shows the Paso Severino’s surface water coverage alongside time-series data tracking its variations.Tiago PohrenThe tool draws on several techniques to differentiate the surface water extent of reservoirs. These techniques include three optical indicators derived from the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 satellites:
- Normalized Difference Water Index, which highlights water by comparing how much green and near-infrared light is reflected. Water absorbs infrared light, so it stands out clearly from land.
- Modified Normalized Difference Water Index, which swaps near-infrared with shortwave infrared to improve the contrast and reduce errors when differentiating between water and built-up or vegetated areas.
- Automated Water Extraction Index, which combines four types of reflected light — green, near-infrared, and two shortwave infrared bands — to help separate water from shadows and other dark features.
In 2023, the DINAGUA team used Pohren’s tool to examine reservoirs located upstream from Montevideo’s drinking water intake. But the data told a tough story.
“There was water available in other reservoirs, but it was a very small amount compared to the water demand of the Montevideo metropolitan region,” Pohren said. Simulations showed that even if all of the water were released, most of it would not reach the water intake for Montevideo or the Paso Severino reservoir.
Despite this news, the analysis prevented actions that might have wasted important resources for maintaining productive activities in the upper basin, Pohren said. Then, in August 2023, rain began to refill Uruguay’s reservoirs, allowing the country to declare an end to the water crisis.
From right to left: Tiago Pohren, Vanessa Erasun, and Florencia Hastings at the second ISAT workshop in March 2024.Organization of American StatesThough the immediate water crisis has passed, the tool Pohren created will be useful in the future in Uruguay and around the world. During an ISAT workshop in 2024, he shared his tool with international water resources managers with the hope it could aid their own drought response efforts. And DINAGUA officials still use it to identify and monitor dams, irrigation reservoirs, and other water bodies in Uruguay.
Pohren continues to use NASA training and data to advance reservoir management. He’s currently exploring an ARSET training on how the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission will further improve the system by allowing DINAGUA to directly measure the height of water in reservoirs. He is also following NASA’s new joint mission with ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organization) called NISAR, which launched on July 30. The NISAR satellite will provide radar data that detects changes in water extent, regardless of cloud cover or time of day. “If a drought happens again,” Pohren said, “with the tools that we have now, we will be much more prepared to understand what the conditions of the basin are and then make predictions.”
Environmental engineer Tiago Pohren conducts a field inspection on the Canelón Grande reservoir, the second-largest reservoir serving Montevideo, during the drought.Tiago PohrenBy Melody Pederson, Rachel Jiang
The authors would like to thank Noelia Gonzalez, Perry Oddo, Denise Hill, and Delfina Iervolino for interview support as well as Jerry Weigel for connecting with Tiago about the tool’s development.
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NASA Says Mars Rover Discovered Potential Biosignature Last Year
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A sample collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover from an ancient dry riverbed in Jezero Crater could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life. Taken from a rock named “Cheyava Falls” last year, the sample, called “Sapphire Canyon,” contains potential biosignatures, according to a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
A potential biosignature is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires more data or further study before a conclusion can be reached about the absence or presence of life.
“This finding by Perseverance, launched under President Trump in his first term, is the closest we have ever come to discovering life on Mars. The identification of a potential biosignature on the Red Planet is a groundbreaking discovery, and one that will advance our understanding of Mars,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “NASA’s commitment to conducting Gold Standard Science will continue as we pursue our goal of putting American boots on Mars’ rocky soil.”
NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered leopard spots on a reddish rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls” in Mars’ Jezero Crater in July 2024. Scientists think the spots may indicate that, billions of years ago, the chemical reactions in this rock could have supported microbial life; other explanations are being considered.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie, made up of 62 individual images, on July 23, 2024. A rock nicknamed “Cheyava Falls,” which has features that may bear on the question of whether the Red Planet was long ago home to microscopic life, is to the left of the rover near the center of the image.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSSPerseverance came upon Cheyava Falls in July 2024 while exploring the “Bright Angel” formation, a set of rocky outcrops on the northern and southern edges of Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley measuring a quarter-mile (400 meters) wide that was carved by water rushing into Jezero Crater long ago.
“This finding is the direct result of NASA’s effort to strategically plan, develop, and execute a mission able to deliver exactly this type of science — the identification of a potential biosignature on Mars,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With the publication of this peer-reviewed result, NASA makes this data available to the wider science community for further study to confirm or refute its biological potential.”
The rover’s science instruments found that the formation’s sedimentary rocks are composed of clay and silt, which, on Earth, are excellent preservers of past microbial life. They also are rich in organic carbon, sulfur, oxidized iron (rust), and phosphorous.
“The combination of chemical compounds we found in the Bright Angel formation could have been a rich source of energy for microbial metabolisms,” said Perseverance scientist Joel Hurowitz of Stony Brook University, New York and lead author of the paper. “But just because we saw all these compelling chemical signatures in the data didn’t mean we had a potential biosignature. We needed to analyze what that data could mean.”
First to collect data on this rock were Perseverance’s PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) and SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) instruments. While investigating Cheyava Falls, an arrowhead-shaped rock measuring 3.2 feet by 2 feet (1 meter by 0.6 meters), they found what appeared to be colorful spots. The spots on the rock could have been left behind by microbial life if it had used the raw ingredients, the organic carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus, in the rock as an energy source.
In higher-resolution images, the instruments found a distinct pattern of minerals arranged into reaction fronts (points of contact where chemical and physical reactions occur) the team called leopard spots. The spots carried the signature of two iron-rich minerals: vivianite (hydrated iron phosphate) and greigite (iron sulfide). Vivianite is frequently found on Earth in sediments, peat bogs, and around decaying organic matter. Similarly, certain forms of microbial life on Earth can produce greigite.
The combination of these minerals, which appear to have formed by electron-transfer reactions between the sediment and organic matter, is a potential fingerprint for microbial life, which would use these reactions to produce energy for growth. The minerals also can be generated abiotically, or without the presence of life. Hence, there are ways to produce them without biological reactions, including sustained high temperatures, acidic conditions, and binding by organic compounds. However, the rocks at Bright Angel do not show evidence that they experienced high temperatures or acidic conditions, and it is unknown whether the organic compounds present would’ve been capable of catalyzing the reaction at low temperatures.
The discovery was particularly surprising because it involves some of the youngest sedimentary rocks the mission has investigated. An earlier hypothesis assumed signs of ancient life would be confined to older rock formations. This finding suggests that Mars could have been habitable for a longer period or later in the planet’s history than previously thought, and that older rocks also might hold signs of life that are simply harder to detect.
“Astrobiological claims, particularly those related to the potential discovery of past extraterrestrial life, require extraordinary evidence,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Getting such a significant finding as a potential biosignature on Mars into a peer-reviewed publication is a crucial step in the scientific process because it ensures the rigor, validity, and significance of our results. And while abiotic explanations for what we see at Bright Angel are less likely given the paper’s findings, we cannot rule them out.”
The scientific community uses tools and frameworks like the CoLD scale and Standards of Evidence to assess whether data related to the search for life actually answers the question, Are we alone? Such tools help improve understanding of how much confidence to place in data suggesting a possible signal of life found outside our own planet.
Marked by seven benchmarks, the Confidence of Life Detection, or CoLD, scale outlines a progression in confidence that a set of observations stands as evidence of life. Credit: NASASapphire Canyon is one of 27 rock cores the rover has collected since landing at Jezero Crater in February 2021. Among the suite of science instruments is a weather station that provides environmental information for future human missions, as well as swatches of spacesuit material so that NASA can study how it fares on Mars.
Managed for NASA by Caltech, NASA JPL built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
To learn more about Perseverance visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
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Bethany Stevens / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
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bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
NASA Aims to Keep Fuel Cool Under Pressure with Zero Boil-Off Experiment On NG-23
Space missions rely on cryogenic fluids — extremely cold liquids like liquid hydrogen and oxygen — for both propulsion and life support systems. These fuels must be kept at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures to remain in liquid form; however, solar heating and other sources of heat increase the rate of evaporation of the liquid and cause the pressure in the storage tank to increase. Current storage methods require venting the cryogenic propellant to space to control the pressure in fuel tanks.
NASA’s Zero Boil-Off Tank Noncondensables (ZBOT-NC) experiment is the continuation of Zero Boil-Off studies gathering crucial data to optimize fuel storage systems for space missions. The experiment will launch aboard Northrop Grumman’s 23rd resupply mission to the International Space Station.
When Cold Fuel Gets Too WarmEven with multilayer insulation, heat unavoidably seeps into cryogenic fuel tanks from surrounding structures and the space environment, causing an increase in the liquid temperature and an associated increase in the evaporation rate. In turn, the pressure inside the tank increases. This process is called “boil-off” and the increase in tank pressure is referred to as “self-pressurization.”
Venting excess gas to the environment or space when this process occurs is highly undesirable and becomes mission-critical on extended journeys. If crew members used current fuel storage methods for a years-long Mars expedition, all propellant might be lost to boil-off before the trip ends.
NASA’s ZBOT experiments are investigating active pressure control methods to eliminate wasteful fuel venting. Specifically, active control through the use of jet mixing and other techniques are being evaluated and tested in the ZBOT series of experiments.
The Pressure Control ProblemZBOT-NC further studies how noncondensable gases (NCGs) affect fuel tank behavior when present in spacecraft systems. NCGs don’t turn into liquid under the tank’s operating conditions and can affect tank pressure.
The investigation, which is led out of Glenn Research Center, will operate inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox aboard the space station to gather data on how NCGs affect volatile liquid behavior in microgravity. It’s part of an effort to advance cryogenic fluid management technologies and help NASA better understand low-gravity fluid behavior.
Researchers will measure pressure and temperature as they study how these gases change evaporation and condensation rates. Previous studies indicate the gases create barriers that could reduce a tank’s ability to maintain proper pressure control — a potentially serious issue for extended space missions.
How this benefits space explorationThe research directly supports Mars missions and other long-duration space travel by helping engineers design more efficient fuel storage systems and future space depots. The findings may also benefit scientific instruments on space telescopes and probes that rely on cryogenic fluids to maintain the extremely low temperatures needed for operation.
How this benefits humanityThe investigation could improve tank design models for medical, industrial, and energy production applications that depend on long-term cryogenic storage on Earth.
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NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomenon under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefitting life on Earth.
Dinner is Served!
Dinnertime fare on the International Space Station takes center stage in this Aug. 15, 2025, photo. One tray features shrimp cocktail on whole grain wheat crackers, while the other holds sushi made with seaweed, Spam, tuna, and rice. Both trays are secured with Velcro strips to keep them stable inside the Unity module’s galley. The shrimp and crackers are held in place by condiments, while the sushi stays put thanks to surface tension from its moisture.
Activity aboard the space station will inform long-duration missions like Artemis and future human expeditions to Mars.
Image credit: NASA/Jonny Kim
NASA’s Webb Observes Immense Stellar Jet on Outskirts of Our Milky Way
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A blowtorch of seething gasses erupting from a volcanically growing monster star has been captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Stretching across 8 light-years, the length of the stellar eruption is approximately twice the distance between our Sun and the next nearest stars, the Alpha Centauri system. The size and strength of this particular stellar jet, located in a nebula known as Sharpless 2-284 (Sh2-284 for short), qualifies it as rare, say researchers.
Streaking across space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour, the outflow resembles a double-bladed dueling lightsaber from the Star Wars films. The central protostar, weighing as much as ten of our Suns, is located 15,000 light-years away in the outer reaches of our galaxy.
The Webb discovery was serendipitous. “We didn’t really know there was a massive star with this kind of super-jet out there before the observation. Such a spectacular outflow of molecular hydrogen from a massive star is rare in other regions of our galaxy,” said lead author Yu Cheng of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
Image A: Stellar Jet in Sh2-284 (NIRCam Image) Webb’s image of the enormous stellar jet in Sh2-284 provides evidence that protostellar jets scale with the mass of their parent stars—the more massive the stellar engine driving the plasma, the larger the resulting jet.Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Yu Cheng (NAOJ); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)This unique class of stellar fireworks are highly collimated jets of plasma shooting out from newly forming stars. Such jetted outflows are a star’s spectacular “birth announcement” to the universe. Some of the infalling gas building up around the central star is blasted along the star’s spin axis, likely under the influence of magnetic fields.
Today, while hundreds of protostellar jets have been observed, these are mainly from low-mass stars. These spindle-like jets offer clues into the nature of newly forming stars. The energetics, narrowness, and evolutionary time scales of protostellar jets all serve to constrain models of the environment and physical properties of the young star powering the outflow.
“I was really surprised at the order, symmetry, and size of the jet when we first looked at it,” said co-author Jonathan Tan of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Its detection offers evidence that protostellar jets must scale up with the mass of the star powering them. The more massive the stellar engine propelling the plasma, the larger the gusher’s size.
The jet’s detailed filamentary structure, captured by Webb’s crisp resolution in infrared light, is evidence the jet is plowing into interstellar dust and gas. This creates separate knots, bow shocks, and linear chains.
The tips of the jet, lying in opposite directions, encapsulate the history of the star’s formation. “Originally the material was close into the star, but over 100,000 years the tips were propagating out, and then the stuff behind is a younger outflow,” said Tan.
OutlierAt nearly twice the distance from the galactic center as our Sun, the host proto-cluster that’s home to the voracious jet is on the periphery of our Milky Way galaxy.
Within the cluster, a few hundred stars are still forming. Being in the galactic hinterlands means the stars are deficient in heavier elements beyond hydrogen and helium. This is measured as metallicity, which gradually increases over cosmic time as each passing stellar generation expels end products of nuclear fusion through winds and supernovae. The low metallicity of Sh2-284 is a reflection of its relatively pristine nature, making it a local analog for the environments in the early universe that were also deficient in heavier elements.
“Massive stars, like the one found inside this cluster, have very important influences on the evolution of galaxies. Our discovery is shedding light on the formation mechanism of massive stars in low metallicity environments, so we can use this massive star as a laboratory to study what was going on in earlier cosmic history,” said Cheng.
Unrolling Stellar TapestryStellar jets, which are powered by the gravitational energy released as a star grows in mass, encode the formation history of the protostar.
“Webb’s new images are telling us that the formation of massive stars in such environments could proceed via a relatively stable disk around the star that is expected in theoretical models of star formation known as core accretion,” said Tan. “Once we found a massive star launching these jets, we realized we could use the Webb observations to test theories of massive star formation. We developed new theoretical core accretion models that were fit to the data, to basically tell us what kind of star is in the center. These models imply that the star is about 10 times the mass of the Sun and is still growing and has been powering this outflow.”
For more than 30 years, astronomers have disagreed about how massive stars form. Some think a massive star requires a very chaotic process, called competitive accretion.
In the competitive accretion model, material falls in from many different directions so that the orientation of the disk changes over time. The outflow is launched perpendicularly, above and below the disk, and so would also appear to twist and turn in different directions.
“However, what we’ve seen here, because we’ve got the whole history – a tapestry of the story – is that the opposite sides of the jets are nearly 180 degrees apart from each other. That tells us that this central disk is held steady and validates a prediction of the core accretion theory,” said Tan.
Where there’s one massive star, there could be others in this outer frontier of the Milky Way. Other massive stars may not yet have reached the point of firing off Roman-candle-style outflows. Data from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile, also presented in this study, has found another dense stellar core that could be in an earlier stage of construction.
The paper has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
Related InformationView more: Webb images of other protostar outflows – HH 49/50, L483, HH 46/47, and HH 211
View more: Data visualization of protostar outflows – HH 49/50
Animation Video: “Exploring Star and Planet Formation”
Explore the jets emitted by young stars in multiple wavelengths: ViewSpace Interactive
Read more about Herbig-Haro objects
Related For Kids En Español Related Images & Videos Stellar Jet in Sh2-284 (NIRCam Image)Webb’s image of the enormous stellar jet in Sh2-284 provides evidence that protostellar jets scale with the mass of their parent stars–the more massive the stellar engine driving the plasma, the larger the resulting jet.
Stellar Jet in Sh2-284 (NIRCam Compass Image)This image of the stellar jet in Sh2-284, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.
Immense Stellar Jet in Sh2-284This video shows the relative size of two different protostellar jets imaged by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The first image shown is an extremely large protostellar jet located in Sh2-284, 15,000 light-years away from Earth. The outflows from the massive central prot…
Share Details Last Updated Sep 10, 2025 LocationNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Contact MediaLaura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
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Space Telescope Science Institute
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Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
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What Would It Take to Say We Found Life? We Asked a NASA Expert: Episode 63
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)What Would It Take to Say We Found Life?
We call this the podium test. What would it take for you personally to confidently stand up in front of an international audience and make that claim? When you put it in that way, I think for a lot of scientists, the bar is really high.
So of course, there would be obvious things, you know, a very clear signature of technology or a skeleton or something like that. But we think that a lot of the evidence that we might encounter first will be much more subtle. For example, chemical signs of life that have to be detected above a background of abiotic chemistry. And really, what we see might depend a lot on where we look.
On Mars, for example, the long history of exploration there gives us a lot of context for what we might find. But we’re potentially talking about samples that are billions of years old in those cases, and on Earth, those kinds of samples, the evidence of life is often degraded and difficult to detect.
On the ocean worlds of our outer solar system, so places like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, there’s the tantalizing possibility of extant life, meaning life that’s still alive. But potentially we’re talking about exceedingly small amounts of samples that would have to be analyzed with a relatively limited amount of instrumentation that can be carried from Earth billions of miles away.
And then for exoplanets, these are planets beyond our own solar system. Really, what we’re looking for there are very large magnitude signs of life that can be detectable through a telescope from many light-years away. So changes like the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere or changes in surface color.
So any one of those things, if they rose to the suspicion of being evidence of life, would be really heavily scrutinized in a very sort of specific and custom way to that particular observation. But I think there are also some general principles that we can follow. And the first is just: Are we sure we’re seeing what we think we’re seeing? Many of these environments are not very well known to us, and so we need to convince ourselves that we’re actually seeing a clear signal that represents what we think it represents.
Carl Sagan once said, “Life is the hypothesis of last resort,” meaning that we ought to work hard for such a claim to rule out alternative possibilities. So what are those possibilities? One is contamination. The spacecraft and the instruments that we use to look for evidence of life are built in an environment, Earth, that is full of life. And so we need to convince ourselves that what we’re seeing is not evidence of our own life, but evidence of indigenous life.
If that’s the case, we should ask, should life of the type we’re seeing live there? And finally, we need to ask, is there any other way than life to make that thing, any of the possible abiotic processes that we know and even the ones that we don’t know? And as you can imagine, that will be quite a challenge.
Once we have a piece of evidence in hand that we really do think represents evidence of life, now we can begin to develop hypotheses. For example, do we have separate independent lines of evidence that corroborate what we’ve seen and increase our confidence of life?
Ultimately, all of this has to be looked at hard by the entire scientific community, and in that sense, I think the really operative word in our question is we. What does it take to say we found evidence of life? Because really, the answer, I think, depends on the full scientific community scrutinizing and skepticizing this observation to finally say that we scientists, we as a community and we as humanity found life.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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NASA Partnerships Allow Artificial Intelligence to Predict Solar Events
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) While auroras are a beautiful sight on Earth, the solar activity that causes them can wreak havoc with space-based infrastructure like satellites. Using artificial intelligence to predict these disruptive solar events was a focus of KX’s work with FDL.Credit: Sebastian SaarloosIn the summer of 2024, people across North America were amazed when auroras lit up the night sky across their hometowns, but the same solar activity that makes auroras can cause disruptions to satellites that are essential to systems on Earth. The solution to predicting these solar events and warning satellite operators may come through artificial intelligence.
The Frontier Development Lab of Mountain View, California, is an ongoing partnership between NASA and commercial AI firms to apply advanced machine learning to problems that matter to the agency and beyond. Since 2016, the Frontier Development Lab has applied AI on behalf of NASA in planetary defense, Heliophysics, Earth science, medicine, and lunar exploration.
Through a collaboration with a company called KX Systems, the Frontier Development Lab looked to use proven software in an innovative new way. The company’s flagship data analytics software, called kdb+, is typically used in the financial industry to keep track of rapid shifts in market trends, but the company was exploring how it could be used in space.
Between 2017 and 2019, KX Systems participated in the Frontier Development Lab partnership through NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. Working with NASA scientists, KX applied the capabilities of kdb+ to searching for exoplanets and predicting space weather, areas which could be improved with AI models. One question the Frontier Development Lab worked to answer was whether kdb+ could forecast the kind of space weather that creates the auroras to predict when GPS satellites might experience signal interruption due to the Sun.
By importing several datasets monitoring the ionosphere, solar activity, and Earth’s magnetic field, then applying machine learning algorithms to them, the Frontier Development Lab researchers were able to predict disruptive events up to 24 hours in advance.
While this was a scientific application of AI, KX Systems says some of this development work has made it back into its commercial offerings, as there are similarities between AI models developed to find patterns in satellite signal losses and ones that predict maintenance needs for industrial manufacturing equipment.
A division of FD Technologies plc., KX Systems is a technology company that offers database management and analytics software for customers that need to make decisions quickly. While KX started in 1993, its AI-driven business has grown considerably, and the company credits work done with NASA for accelerating some of its capabilities.
From protecting valuable satellites to keeping manufacturing lines moving at top performance, pairing NASA’s expertise with commercial ingenuity is a combination for success.
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AurorasAuroras, often called the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), are colorful, dynamic, and often visually delicate…
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Artemis II Crew Walks Out for Practice Scenarios
The Artemis II crew (from front left to back right) – pilot Victor Glover, commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and mission specialist Christina Koch – walk out of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
During a two-day training, the crew practiced launch day operations if the Artemis II test flight launches at night.
Join the Artemis II mission and sign up to launch your name aboard the Orion spacecraft and SLS (Space Launch System) rocket alongside the crew.
Through the Artemis program, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars – for the benefit of all.
Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Ami Choi: Unraveling the Invisible Universe
From a young age, Ami Choi — now a research astrophysicist at NASA — was drawn to the vast and mysterious. By the fifth grade, she had narrowed her sights to two career paths: marine biology or astrophysics.
“I’ve always been interested in exploring big unknown realms, and things that aren’t quite tangible,” Choi said. That curiosity has served her all throughout her career.
In addition to conducting research, Ami Choi shares science with the public at various outreach events, including tours at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. This photo captures one tour stop, outside the largest clean room at Goddard.Credit: NASA/Travis WohlrabAs a student at University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois, Choi gravitated toward astrophysics and was fascinated by things like black holes. She studied physics as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, though she says math and physics didn’t necessarily come easily to her.
“I wasn’t very good at it initially, but I really liked the challenge so I stuck with it,” Choi said.
Early opportunities to do research played a pivotal role in guiding her career. As an undergraduate, Choi worked on everything from interacting galaxies to the stuff in between stars in our galaxy, called the interstellar medium. She learned how to code, interpret data, and do spectroscopy, which involves splitting light from cosmic objects into a rainbow of colors to learn about things like their composition.
After college, Choi read an article about physicist Janet Conrad’s neutrino work at Fermilab and was so inspired by Conrad’s enthusiasm and inclusivity that she cold-emailed her to see if there were any positions available in her group.
On October 14, 2023, Ami took a break from a thermal vacuum shift to snap a selfie with a partial eclipse. She was visiting BAE, Inc. in Boulder, Co., where the primary instrument for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was undergoing testing. Credit: Courtesy of Ami Choi“That one email led to a year at Fermilab working on neutrino physics,” Choi said.
She went on to earn a doctorate at the University of California, Davis, where she studied weak gravitational lensing — the subtle warping of light by gravity — and used it to explore dark matter, dark energy, and the large-scale structure of the universe.
Her postdoctoral work took Choi first to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where she contributed to the Kilo-Degree Survey, and later to The Ohio State University, where she became deeply involved in DES (the Dark Energy Survey) and helped lay the groundwork for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission.
“One of my proudest moments came in 2021, when the DES released its third-year cosmology results,” Choi said. “It was a massive team effort conducted during a global pandemic, and I had helped lead as a co-convener of the weak lensing team.”
Choi regularly presents information about NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to fellow scientists and the public. Here, she gives a Hyperwall talk at an AAS (American Astronomical Society) meeting.Credit: Courtesy of Ami ChoiAfter a one-year stint at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where Choi worked on SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer)—an observatory that’s surveying stars and galaxies—she became a research astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She also serves as the deputy Wide Field Instrument scientist for Roman. Choi operates at the intersection of engineering, calibration, and cosmology, helping translate ground-based testing into flight-ready components that will help Roman reveal large swaths of the universe in high resolution.
“I’m very excited for Roman’s commissioning phase — the first 90 days when the spacecraft will begin transmitting data from orbit,” Choi said.
Choi, photographed here in Death Valley, finds joy in the natural world outside of work. She cycles, hikes, and tends a small vegetable garden with a friend from grad school. Credit: Insook Choi (used with permission)She’s especially drawn to so-called systematics, which are effects that can alter the signals scientists are trying to measure. “People sometimes think of systematics as nuisances, but they’re often telling us something deeply interesting about either the physics of something like a detector or the universe itself,” Choi said. “There’s always something more going on under the surface.”
While she’s eager to learn more about things like dark energy, Choi is also looking forward to seeing all the other ways our understanding of the universe grows. “It’s more than just an end goal,” she said. “It’s about everything we learn along the way. Every challenge we overcome, every detail we uncover, is an important discovery too.”
For those who hope to follow a similar path, Choi encourages staying curious, being persistent, and taking opportunities to get involved in research. And don’t let the tricky subjects scare you away! “You don’t have to be perfect at math or physics right away,” she said. “What matters most is a deep curiosity and the tenacity to keep pushing through.”
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
NASA Study: Celestial ‘Accident’ Sheds Light on Jupiter, Saturn Riddle
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) This artist’s concept shows a brown dwarf — an object larger than a planet but not massive enough to kickstart fusion in its core like a star. Brown dwarfs are hot when they form and may glow like this one, but over time they get closer in temperature to gas giant planets like Jupiter. NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. ProctorAn unusual cosmic object is helping scientists better understand the chemistry hidden deep in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmospheres — and potentially those of exoplanets.
Why has silicon, one of the most common elements in the universe, gone largely undetected in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, and gas planets like them orbiting other stars? A new study using observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope sheds light on this question by focusing on a peculiar object that astronomers discovered by chance in 2020 and called “The Accident.”
The results were published on Sept. 4 in the journal Nature.
As shown in this graphic, brown dwarfs can be far more massive than even large gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn. However, they tend to lack the mass that kickstarts nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, causing them to shine. NASA/JPL-CaltechThe Accident is a brown dwarf, a ball of gas that’s not quite a planet and not quite a star. Even among its already hard-to-classify peers, The Accident has a perplexing mix of physical features, some of which have been previously seen in only young brown dwarfs and others seen only in ancient ones. Because of those features, it slipped past typical detection methods before being discovered five years ago by a citizen scientist participating in Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. The program lets people around the globe look for new discoveries in data from NASA’s now-retired NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), which was managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The brown dwarf nicknamed “The Accident” can be seen moving in the bottom left corner of this video, which shows data from NASA’s now-retired NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer), launched in 2009 with the moniker WISE. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Dan CaseldenThe Accident is so faint and odd that researchers needed NASA’s most powerful space observatory, Webb, to study its atmosphere. Among several surprises, they found evidence of a molecule they couldn’t initially identify. It turned out to be a simple silicon molecule called silane (SiH4). Researchers have long expected — but been unable — to find silane not only in our solar system’s gas giants, but also in the thousands of atmospheres belonging to brown dwarfs and to the gas giants orbiting other stars. The Accident is the first such object where this molecule has been identified.
Scientists are fairly confident that silicon exists in Jupiter and Saturn’s atmospheres but that it is hidden. Bound to oxygen, silicon forms oxides such as quartz that can seed clouds on hot gas giants, bearing a resemblance to dust storms on Earth. On cooler gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, these types of clouds would sink far beneath lighter layers of water vapor and ammonia clouds, until any silicon-containing molecules are deep in the atmosphere, invisible even to the spacecraft that have studied those two planets up close.
Some researchers have also posited that lighter molecules of silicon, like silane, should be found higher up in these atmospheric layers, left behind like traces of flour on a baker’s table. That such molecules haven’t appeared anywhere except in a single, peculiar brown dwarf suggests something about the chemistry occurring in these environments.
“Sometimes it’s the extreme objects that help us understand what’s happening in the average ones,” said Faherty, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and lead author on the new study.
Happy accidentLocated about 50 light-years from Earth, The Accident likely formed 10 billion to 12 billion years ago, making it one of the oldest brown dwarfs ever discovered. The universe is about 14 billion years old, and at the time that The Accident developed, the cosmos contained mostly hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of other elements, including silicon. Over eons, elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen forged in the cores of stars, so planets and stars that formed more recently possess more of those elements.
Webb’s observations of The Accident confirm that silane can form in brown dwarf and planetary atmospheres. The fact that silane seems to be missing in other brown dwarfs and gas giant planets suggests that when oxygen is available, it bonds with silicon at such a high rate and so easily, virtually no silicon is left over to bond with hydrogen and form silane.
So why is silane in The Accident? The study authors surmise it is because far less oxygen was present in the universe when the ancient brown dwarf formed, resulting in less oxygen in its atmosphere to gobble up all the silicon. The available silicon would have bonded with hydrogen instead, resulting in silane.
“We weren’t looking to solve a mystery about Jupiter and Saturn with these observations,” said JPL’s Peter Eisenhardt, project scientist for the WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission, which was later repurposed as NEOWISE. “A brown dwarf is a ball of gas like a star, but without an internal fusion reactor, it gets cooler and cooler, with an atmosphere like that of gas giant planets. We wanted to see why this brown dwarf is so odd, but we weren’t expecting silane. The universe continues to surprise us.”
Brown dwarfs are often easier to study than gas giant exoplanets because the light from a faraway planet is typically drowned out by the star it orbits, while brown dwarfs generally fly solo. And the lessons learned from these objects extend to all kinds of planets, including ones outside our solar system that might feature potential signs of habitability.
“To be clear, we’re not finding life on brown dwarfs,” said Faherty. “But at a high level, by studying all of this variety and complexity in planetary atmospheres, we’re setting up the scientists who are one day going to have to do this kind of chemical analysis for rocky, potentially Earth-like planets. It might not specifically involve silicon, but they’re going to get data that is complicated and confusing and doesn’t fit their models, just like we are. They’ll have to parse all those complexities if they want to answer those big questions.”
More about WISE, WebbA division of Caltech, JPL managed and operated WISE for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The mission was selected competitively under NASA’s Explorers Program managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The NEOWISE mission was a project of JPL and the University of Arizona in Tucson, supported by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
For more information about WISE, go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/main/index.html
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory, and an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
News Media ContactsCalla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
cpulliam@stsci.edi
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Envía tu nombre alrededor de la Luna en 2026 con la misión Artemis II de la NASA
Read this press release in English here.
La NASA invita al público a unirse al vuelo de prueba Artemis II de la agencia en el que cuatro astronautas emprenderán un viaje alrededor de la Luna y de regreso a la Tierra para poner a prueba los sistemas y el hardware necesarios para la exploración del espacio profundo. Como parte de la iniciativa de la agencia “Envía tu nombre con Artemis II”, cualquiera puede asegurar su lugar a registrándose antes del 21 de enero.
Los nombres de los participantes en esta iniciativa viajarán en la nave espacial Orion y el cohete Sistema de Lanzamiento Espacial (SLS, por sus siglas en inglés) junto a los astronautas de la NASA Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch y el astronauta de la CSA (Agencia Espacial Canadiense) Jeremy Hansen.
“Artemis II es un vuelo de prueba clave en nuestro esfuerzo por enviar de nuevo a seres humanos a la superficie de la Luna y desarrollar futuras misiones a Marte. También es una oportunidad para inspirar a personas de todo el mundo y darles la oportunidad de acompañarnos mientras lideramos el camino en la exploración humana hacia lugares más profundos en el espacio”, dijo Lori Glaze, administradora asociada interina en la Dirección de Misiones de Desarrollo de Sistemas de Exploración en la sede central de la NASA en Washington.
Los nombres recopilados se incluirán en una tarjeta de memoria SD que será cargada a bordo de Orion antes del lanzamiento. A cambio, los participantes pueden descargar una tarjeta de embarque con su nombre como un recuerdo coleccionable.
Para añadir tu nombre y recibir una tarjeta de embarque en español, visita el sitio web:
https://go.nasa.gov/TuNombreArtemis
Para añadir tu nombre y recibir una tarjeta de embarque en inglés, visita el sitio web:
https://go.nasa.gov/artemisnames
Como parte de una edad de oro de innovación y exploración, el vuelo de prueba Artemis II es el primer vuelo tripulado de la campaña Artemis de la NASA. Tendrá una duración aproximada de 10 días y despegará a más tardar en abril de 2026. Este es otro paso hacia nuevas misiones tripuladas de Estados Unidos a la superficie de la Luna que ayudarán a la agencia a prepararse para enviar a los primeros astronautas estadounidenses a Marte.
Para obtener más información acerca de esta misión, visita el sitio web (en inglés):
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
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Rachel Kraft / María José Viñas
Sede central, Washington
202-358-1600
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov / maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov
Crossroads to the Future – NASA Stennis Grows into a Model Federal City
NASA’s Stennis Space Center is widely known for rocket propulsion testing, especially to support the NASA Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
What may not be so widely known is that the site also is a unique federal city, home to more than 50 federal, state, academic, and commercial tenants and serving as both a model of government efficiency and a powerful economic engine for its region.
“NASA Stennis is a remarkable story of vision and innovation,” Center Director John Bailey said. “That was the case 55 years ago when the NASA Stennis federal city was born, and it remains the case today as we collaborate and grow to meet the needs of a changing aerospace world.”
Apollo YearsNearly four years after its first Saturn V stage test, NASA’s Stennis Space Center faced a crossroads to the future. Indeed, despite its frontline role in supporting NASA’s Apollo lunar effort, it was not at all certain a viable future awaited the young rocket propulsion test site.
In 1961, NASA announced plans to build a sprawling propulsion test site in south Mississippi to support Apollo missions to the Moon. The news was a significant development for the sparsely populated Gulf Coast area.
The new site, located near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, conducted its first hot fire of a Saturn V rocket stage in April 1966. Saturn V testing progressed steadily during the next years. In fall 1969, however, NASA announced an end to Apollo-related testing, leading to an existential crisis for the young test site.
What was to become of NASA Stennis?
An Expanded VisionSome observers speculated the location would close or be reduced to caretaker status, with minimal staffing. Either scenario would deliver a serious blow to the families who had re-located to make way for the site and the local communities who had heavily invested in municipal projects to support the influx of workforce personnel.
Such outcomes also would run counter to assurances provided by leaders that the new test site would benefit its surrounding region and involve area residents in “something great.”
For NASA Stennis manager Jackson Balch and others, such a result was unacceptable. Anticipating the crisis, Balch had been working behind the scenes to communicate – and realize – the vision of a multiagency site supporting a range of scientific and technological tenants and missions.
A Pivotal YearThe months following the Saturn V testing announcement were filled with discussions and planning to ensure the future of NASA Stennis. The efforts began to come to fruition in 1970 with key developments:
- In early 1970, NASA Administrator Thomas Paine proposed locating a regional environmental center at NASA Stennis. U.S. Sen. John C. Stennis (Mississippi) responded with a message of the president, “urgently requesting” that a National Earth Resources and Environmental Data Program be established at the site.
- In May 1970, President Richard Nixon offered assurances that an Earth Resources Laboratory would be established at NASA Stennis and that at least two agencies are preparing to locate operations at the site.
- U.S. congressional leaders earmarked $10 million to enable the location of an Earth Resources Laboratory at NASA Stennis.
- On July 9, 1970, the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Data Buoy Project (now the National Data Buoy Center) announced it was relocating to NASA Stennis, making it the first federal city tenant. The project arrived onsite two months later on September 9.
- On Sept. 9, 1970, NASA officially announced establishment of an Earth Resources Laboratory at NASA Stennis.
By the end of 1970, Balch’s vision was taking shape, but it needed time to grow. The final Saturn V test had been conducted in October – with no new campaign scheduled.
A possibility was on the horizon, however. NASA was building a reusable space shuttle vehicle. It would be powered by the most sophisticated rocket engine ever designed – and the agency needed a place to conduct developmental and flight testing expected to last for decades.
Three sites vied for the assignment. Following presentations and evaluations, NASA announced its selection on March 1, 1971. Space shuttle engine testing would be conducted at NASA Stennis, providing time for the location to grow.
A Collaborative ModelBy the spring of 1973, preparations for the space shuttle test campaign were progressing and NASA Stennis was on its way to realizing the federal city vision. Sixteen agencies and universities were now located at NASA Stennis.
The resident tenants followed a shared model in which they shared in the cost of basic site services, such as medical, security, and fire protection. The shared model freed up more funding for the tenants to apply towards innovation and assigned mission work. It was a model of government collaboration and efficiency.
As the site grew, leaders then began to call for it to be granted independent status within NASA, a development not long in coming. On June 14, 1974, just more than a decade after site construction began, NASA Administrator James Fletcher announced the south Mississippi location would be renamed National Space Technology Laboratories and would enjoy equal, independent status alongside other NASA centers.
“Something Great”For NASA Stennis leaders and supporters, independent status represented a milestone moment in their effort to ensure NASA Stennis delivered on its promise of greatness.
There still were many developments to come, including the first space shuttle main engine test and the subsequent 34-year test campaign, the arrival and growth of the U.S. Navy into the predominant resident presence onsite, the renaming of the center to NASA Stennis, and the continued growth of the federal city.
No one could have imagined it all at the time. However, even in this period of early development, one thing was clear – the future lay ahead, and NASA Stennis was on its way.
Read More About Stennis Space Center Share Details Last Updated Sep 09, 2025 EditorNASA Stennis CommunicationsContactC. Lacy Thompsoncalvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov / (228) 688-3333LocationStennis Space Center Related Terms Explore More 4 min read NASA Stennis Provides Ideal Location for Range of Site Tenants Article 15 hours ago 4 min read NASA Stennis Provides Ideal Setting for Range Operations Article 2 weeks ago 10 min read NASA’s Stennis Space Center Employees Receive NASA Honor Awards Article 4 weeks agoLaunch Your Name Around Moon in 2026 on NASA’s Artemis II Mission
Lee este comunicado de prensa en español aquí.
NASA is inviting the public to join the agency’s Artemis II test flight as four astronauts venture around the Moon and back to test systems and hardware needed for deep space exploration. As part of the agency’s “Send Your Name with Artemis II” effort, anyone can claim their spot by signing up before Jan. 21.
Participants will launch their name aboard the Orion spacecraft and SLS (Space Launch System) rocket alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
“Artemis II is a key test flight in our effort to return humans to the Moon’s surface and build toward future missions to Mars, and it’s also an opportunity to inspire people across the globe and to give them an opportunity to follow along as we lead the way in human exploration deeper into space,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
The collected names will be put on an SD card loaded aboard Orion before launch. In return, participants can download a boarding pass with their name on it as a collectable.
To add your name and receive an English-language boarding pass, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/artemisnames
To add your name and receive a Spanish-language boarding pass, visit:
https://go.nasa.gov/TuNombreArtemis
As part of a Golden Age of innovation and exploration, the approximately 10-day Artemis II test flight, launching no later than April 2026, is the first crewed flight under NASA’s Artemis campaign. It is another step toward new U.S.-crewed missions on the Moon’s surface that will help the agency prepare to send the first astronauts – Americans – to Mars.
To learn more about the mission visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
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Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
NASA Stennis Provides Ideal Location for Range of Site Tenants
If location, location, location is the overarching mantra in real estate, it is small wonder that NASA’s Stennis Space Center is considered a national asset and prime aerospace and technology operations site.
It has long stood as a premier – and the nation’s largest – rocket propulsion test site. With unparalleled test infrastructure and expertise, NASA Stennis has helped power the nation’s human space exploration for almost 60 years. It continues to do so, testing systems and engines for NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
In addition, NASA Stennis is the choice location for a range of agencies, organizations, offices, and companies, all of whom readily attest to the values of the setting. Ask resident tenants to note the value of their NASA Stennis location, and one hears terms like “strategic advantages,” “ideal location,” “local expertise and experience,” “collaborative opportunities,” “hub of innovation,” and “valuable security buffer.”
For the NASA Shared Services Center, its location at the south Mississippi test site provides “substantial strategic advantages” that helps the NSSC maximize its work and provide streamlined business operations for the agency.
Likewise, NASA Stennis provides an ideal location for the North Gulf Institute operated by Mississippi State University, as it conducts frontline work in hurricane forecasting, modeling and assessment, as well as fishery and ecosystem management. The location is strengthened further by the proximity to collaborative partners like the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command and the National Data Buoy Center.
The same holds true for the National Centers for Environmental Information operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A spokesperson said the centers’ mission success is “firmly rooted in its strategic co-location with other federal partners,” including the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the National Data Buoy Center, and the Northern Gulf Institute.
For Relativity Space, the largest NASA Stennis test complex tenant, the “unparalleled infrastructure” at NASA Stennis has been key to enabling the company’s rocket engine testing. “NASA’s Stennis Space Center plays a vital role in getting Terran R to space,” said Clay Walker, vice president of test and launch for Relativity Space. “The infrastructure here allows us to test high-performance engines in ways no other place can.”
Other companies express similar sentiments, citing the unique opportunities NASA Stennis provides, as well as the value of the local workforce. For instance, L3Harris Technologies has operated at NASA Stennis under various names since the 1960s, providing support to the Apollo, Space Shuttle, and, now, Artemis programs. In 2008, Lockheed Martin opened a start-to-finish facility for production of propulsion systems, making use of the various NASA Stennis propulsion test services and resources.
Evolution Space is capitalizing on decades of aerospace experience at NASA Stennis, as well as “world-class” site infrastructure to establish production and test capabilities for solid rocket motors onsite.
Both Mississippi and Louisiana have established technology offices onsite. As a Mississippi Enterprise for Technology statement noted, “The NASA Stennis environment enhances our ability to support emerging technologies, strengthen Mississippi’s technology ecosystem, and contribute to the economic vitality of the region,” said Davis Pace, chief executive officer for the Mississippi Enterprise for Technology.
Meanwhile, the site’s most prominent tenant – the U.S. Navy – operates various offices at NASA Stennis. The Navy’s move to the site began in the 1970s to take advantage of the security provided by the surrounding NASA Stennis acoustical buffer zone. Various Navy functions eventually located continuing operations onsite, including the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the Naval Oceanographic Office, the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School, the Navy Office of Civilian Human Resources, and the Naval Research Laboratory.
In similar fashion, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security credits the “high-quality, secure, and resilient” NASA Stennis site for its decision to location information technology and applications operations onsite.
As the very first NASA Stennis federal city tenant, arriving onsite in September 1970, the National Data Buoy Center has borne witness to it all.
“From its inception, Sen. John Stennis (and other leaders) envisioned a place where America would push the boundaries of the unknown – from the depths of the oceans to the far reaches of space,” said Dr. William Burnett, director of the National Data Buoy Center onsite. “That vision lives on at NASA Stennis, now home to one of the world’s largest concentrations of oceanographers. At the National Data Buoy Center, we proudly carry out our mission to safeguard maritime safety by harnessing the full strength of this unique scientific and technical community.
“We are deeply rooted in the community and grateful to thrive within the collaborative spirit that defines Stennis. It’s an honor to be part of its legacy – and its future.”
Read More About Stennis Space Center Share Details Last Updated Sep 09, 2025 EditorNASA Stennis CommunicationsContactC. Lacy Thompsoncalvin.l.thompson@nasa.gov / (228) 688-3333LocationStennis Space Center Related Terms Explore More 5 min read Crossroads to the Future – NASA Stennis Grows into a Model Federal City Article 15 hours ago 4 min read NASA Stennis Provides Ideal Setting for Range Operations Article 2 weeks ago 10 min read NASA’s Stennis Space Center Employees Receive NASA Honor Awards Article 4 weeks agoLife After Microgravity: Astronauts Reflect on Post-Flight Recovery
Space changes you. It strengthens some muscles, weakens others, shifts fluids within your body, and realigns your sense of balance. NASA’s Human Research Program works to understand—and sometimes even counter—those changes so astronauts can thrive on future deep space missions.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara pedals on the Cycle Ergometer Vibration Isolation System (CEVIS) inside the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.NASAAstronauts aboard the International Space Station work out roughly two hours a day to protect bone density, muscle strength and the cardiovascular system, but the longer they are in microgravity, the harder it can be for the brain and body to readapt to gravity’s pull. After months in orbit, returning astronauts often describe Earth as heavy, loud, and strangely still. Some reacclimate within days, while other astronauts take longer to fully recover.
Adjusting to Gravity
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli after landing in the Gulf of America on March 12, 2024, completing 197 days in space.NASA/Joel KowskyThe crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission— NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov—landed in March 2024 after nearly 200 days in space. One of the first tests volunteer crew members completed was walking with their eyes open and then closed.
“With eyes closed, it was almost impossible to walk in a straight line,” Mogensen said. In space, vision is the primary way astronauts orient themselves, but back on Earth, the brain must relearn how to use inner-ear balance signals. Moghbeli joked her first attempt at the exercise looked like “a nice tap dance.”
“I felt very wobbly for the first two days,” Moghbeli said. “My neck was very tired from holding up my head.” She added that, overall, her body readapted to gravity quickly.
Astronauts each recover on their own timetable and may encounter different challenges. Mogensen said his coordination took time to return. Furukawa noted that he could not look down without feeling nauseated. “Day by day, I recovered and got more stable,” he said.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara after landing in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on April 6, 2024.NASA/Bill IngallsNASA astronaut Loral O’Hara returned in April 2024 after 204 days in space. She said she felt almost completely back to normal a week after returning to Earth. O’Hara added that her prior experience as an ocean engineer gave her insight into space missions. “Having those small teams in the field working with a team somewhere else back on shore with more resources is a good analog for the space station and all the missions we’re hoping to do in the future,” she said.
NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, who flew her first space mission with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10, noted that the brain quickly adapts to weightlessness by tuning out the vestibular system, which controls balance. “Then, within days of being back on Earth, it remembers again—it’s amazing how fast the body readjusts,” she said.
Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio outside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft after landing near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 27, 2023. NASA/Bill IngallsWhen NASA astronaut Frank Rubio landed in Kazakhstan in September 2023, he had just completed a record 371-day mission—the longest single U.S. spaceflight.
Rubio said his body adjusted to gravity right away, though his feet and lower back were sore after more than a year without weight on them. Thanks to consistent workouts, Rubio said he felt mostly recovered within a couple of weeks.
Mentally, extending his mission from six months to a year was a challenge. “It was a mixed emotional roller coaster,” he said, but regular video calls with family kept him grounded. “It was almost overwhelming how much love and support we received.”
Crew-8 astronauts Matt Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Michael Barratt, and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin splashed down in October 2024 after 235 days on station. Dominick found sitting on hard surfaces uncomfortable at first. Epps felt the heaviness of Earth immediately. “You have to move and exercise every day, regardless of how exhausted you feel,” she said.
Barratt, veteran astronaut and board certified in internal and aerospace medicine, explained that recovery differs for each crew member, and that every return teaches NASA something new.
Still a Challenge, Even for Space Veterans
NASA astronaut Suni Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft aboard the SpaceX recovery ship after splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, March 18, 2025. NASA/Keegan BarberVeteran NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore returned from a nine-month mission with Crew-9 in early 2025. Despite her extensive spaceflight experience, Williams said re-adapting to gravity can still be tough. “The weight and heaviness of things is surprising,” she said. Like others, she pushed herself to move daily to regain strength and balance.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit arrives at Ellington Field in Houston on April 20, 2025, after returning to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. NASA/Robert MarkowitzNASA astronaut Don Pettit, also a veteran flyer, came home in April 2025 after 220 days on the space station. At 70 years old, he is NASA’s oldest active astronaut—but experience did not make gravity gentler. During landing, he says he was kept busy, “emptying the contents of my stomach onto the steppes of Kazakhstan.” Microgravity had eased the aches in his joints and muscles, but Earth’s pull brought them back all at once.
Pettit said his recovery felt similar to earlier missions. “I still feel like a little kid inside,” he said. The hardest part, he explained, isn’t regaining strength in big muscle groups, but retraining the small, often-overlooked muscles unused in space. “It’s a learning process to get used to gravity again.”
Recovery happens day by day—with help from exercise, support systems, and a little humor. No matter how long an astronaut is in space, every journey back to Earth is unique.
The Human Research Program help scientists understand how spaceflight environments affect astronaut health and performance and informs strategies to keep crews healthy for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The program studies astronauts before, during, and after spaceflight to learn how the human body adapts to living and working in space. It also collects data through Earth-based analog missions that can help keep astronauts safer for future space exploration.
To learn more about how microgravity affects the human body and develop new ways to help astronauts stay healthy, for example, its scientists conduct bedrest studies – asking dozens of volunteers to spend 60 days in bed with their heads tilted down at a specific angle. Lying in this position tricks the body into responding as it would if the body was in space which allows scientists to trial interventions to hopefully counter some of microgravity’s effects. Such studies, through led by NASA, occur at the German Aerospace Center’s Cologne campus at a facility called :envihab – a combination of “environment” and “habitat.”
Additional Earth-based insights come from the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) and the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Both analogs recreate the remote conditions and scenarios of deep space exploration here on Earth with volunteer crews who agree to live and work in the isolation of ground-based habitats and endure challenges like delayed communication that simulates the type of interactions that will occur during deep space journeys to and from Mars. Findings from these ground-based missions and others will help NASA refine its future interventions, strategies, and protocols for astronauts in space.
NASA and its partners have supported humans continuously living and working in space since November 2000. After nearly 25 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground for training and research for deep space missions, enabling NASA’s Artemis campaign, lunar exploration, and future Mars missions.
Explore More 7 min read A Few Things Artemis Will Teach Us About Living and Working on the Moon Article 6 years ago 3 min read Inside NASA’s New Orion Mission Evaluation Room for Artemis II Article 2 weeks ago 12 min read 15 Ways the International Space Station Benefits Humanity Back on Earth Article 3 years agoPerseverance Meets the Megabreccia
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Perseverance Meets the Megabreccia NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the “Scotiafjellet” workspace on Aug. 31, 2025, using its onboard Left Navigation Camera (Navcam). The camera is located high on the rover’s mast and aids in driving. This image was acquired on Sol 1610, or Martian day 1,610 of the Mars 2020 mission, at the local mean solar time of 14:52:20. NASA/JPL-CaltechWritten by By Henry Manelski, Ph.D. student at Purdue University
Last week, the Perseverance rover began an exciting new journey. Driving northwest of the Soroya ridge, Perseverance entered an area filled with a diverse range of boulders that the science team believes could hold clues to Mars’ early history. The terrain we are exploring is known as megabreccia: a chaotic mixture of broken rock fragments likely produced during ancient asteroid impacts. Some blocks may have originated in the gargantuan Isidis impact event, which created a 1,200-mile-wide crater (about 1,930 kilometers) just east of Jezero. Studying megabreccia could help us link Jezero’s geology to the wider region around Isidis Basin, tying local observations to Mars’ global history.
The rover is now beginning a systematic exploration of these rocks, starting at Scotiafjellet. If they are truly megabreccia, they could contain pieces of deep crustal material, offering a rare glimpse into Mars’ interior. These rocks likely predate the deltaic and volcanic deposits we explored earlier in Jezero Crater, making them some of the oldest accessible rocks Perseverance will ever encounter. They may therefore reveal to what extent water was present on ancient Mars — a key question as we continue our search for signs of past life on the Red Planet. In short, by venturing into this jumbled terrain, Perseverance is giving us a front-row seat to the earliest chapters of Mars’ story.
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NASA Sets Coverage for Northrop Grumman CRS-23, SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch
NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 6:11 p.m. EDT, Sunday, Sept. 14, for the next launch to deliver science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23, or Northrop Grumman CRS-23.
Watch the agency’s launch and arrival coverage on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and more. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Filled with more than 11,000 pounds of supplies, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft, carried on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission will be the first flight of the Cygnus XL, the larger, more cargo-capable version of the company’s solar-powered spacecraft.
Following arrival, astronauts aboard the space station will use the Canadarm2 to grapple Cygnus XL on Wednesday, Sept. 17, before robotically installing the spacecraft to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port for cargo unloading.
Highlights of space station research and technology demonstrations, facilitated by delivery aboard this Cygnus XL, include materials to produce semiconductor crystals in space and equipment to develop improvements for cryogenic fuel tanks. The spacecraft also will deliver a specialized UV light system to prevent the growth of microbe communities that form in water systems and supplies to produce pharmaceutical crystals that could treat cancer and other diseases.
Media interested in speaking to a science subject matter expert should contact Sandra Jones at: sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov. A copy of NASA’s media accreditation policy is available on the agency’s website.
The Cygnus XL spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the orbiting laboratory until March before it departs and burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Northrop Grumman has named the spacecraft the S.S. William “Willie” McCool, in honor of the NASA astronaut who perished in 2003 during the space shuttle Columbia accident.
NASA’s mission coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
Wednesday, Sept. 10:
1 p.m. – International Space Station National Laboratory Science Webinar with the following participants:
- Dr. Liz Warren, associate chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program Research Office
- Phillip Irace, science program director, International Space Station National Laboratory
- Paul Westerhoff, regents professor, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University
- Robert Garmise, director of formulation development; exploratory biopharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers Squibb
- Joel Sercel, founder and CEO, TransAstra Corporation and Mike Lewis, senior vice president, customer innovation, Voyager Technologies
- Mohammad Kassemi, research professor, Case Western University
Media who wish to participate must register for Zoom access no later than one hour before the start of the webinar.
The webinar will be recorded and shared to the International Space Station National Lab’s YouTube channel following the event. Ask questions in advance using social accounts @ISS_CASIS and @Space_Station.
Friday, Sept 12
11:30 a.m. – Prelaunch media teleconference with the following participants:
- Dina Contella, deputy manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
- Dr. Liz Warren, associate chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program Research Office
- Ryan Tintner, vice president, Civil Space Systems, Northrop Grumman
- Jared Metter, director, Flight Reliability, SpaceX
Media who wish to participate by phone must request dial-in information by 5 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 11, by contacting the NASA Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website and YouTube.
5:50 p.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+ and Amazon Prime
6:11 p.m. – Launch
Wednesday, Sept. 17:
5 a.m. – Arrival coverage begins on NASA+ and Amazon Prime
6:35 a.m. – Capture
8 a.m. – Installation coverage begins on NASA+ and Amazon Prime
NASA website launch coverage
Launch day coverage of the mission will be available on the NASA website. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates beginning no earlier than 5:50 p.m. on Sept. 14, as the countdown milestones occur. On-demand streaming video on NASA+ and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff. For questions about countdown coverage, contact the NASA Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468. Follow countdown coverage on our International Space Station blog for updates.
Attend Launch Virtually
Members of the public can register to attend this launch virtually. NASA’s virtual guest program for this mission also includes curated launch resources, notifications about related opportunities or changes, and a stamp for the NASA virtual guest passport following launch.
Watch, Engage on Social Media
Let people know you’re watching the mission on X, Facebook, and Instagram by following and tagging these accounts:
X: @NASA, @NASASpaceOps, @NASAKennedy, @Space_Station, @ISS_CASIS
Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, ISS, ISS National Lab
Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @ISS, @ISSNationalLab
Coverage en Espanol
Did you know NASA has a Spanish section called NASA en Espanol? Check out NASA en Espanol on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for additional mission coverage.
Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo o Messod Bendayan a: antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov o messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov.
Learn more about the mission at:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/nasas-northrop-grumman-crs-23/
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Josh Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Steven Siceloff
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-876-2468
steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones / Joseph Zakrzewski
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / joseph.a.zakrzewski@nasa.gov
NASA to Share Details of New Perseverance Mars Rover Finding
NASA will host a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 10, to discuss the analysis of a rock sampled by the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover last year, which is the subject of a forthcoming science paper.
The sample, called “Sapphire Canyon,” was collected in July 2024 from a set of rocky outcrops on the edges of Neretva Vallis, a river valley carved by water rushing into Jezero Crater long ago.
Audio and visuals of the call will stream on the agency’s website at:
Participants in the teleconference include:
- Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy
- Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Lindsay Hays, Senior Scientist for Mars Exploration, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters
- Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance Project Scientist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
- Joel Hurowitz, planetary scientist, Stony Brook University, New York
To ask questions by phone, members of the media must RSVP no later than two hours before the start of the event to: rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
Since landing in the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater in February 2021, Perseverance has collected 30 samples. The rover still has six empty sample tubes to fill, and it continues to collect detailed information about geologic targets that it hasn’t sampled by using its abrasion tool. Among the rover’s science instruments is a weather station that provides environmental information for future human missions, as well as swatches of spacesuit material so that NASA can study how it fares on Mars.
Managed for NASA by Caltech, JPL built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
To learn more about Perseverance visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance
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Bethany Stevens / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
NASA Astronaut Frank Rubio in Space Station Cupola
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio poses for a picture in the International Space Station’s cupola on Oct. 1, 2022.
Rubio was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017. He trained as a flight engineer and member of the Expedition 68 crew. Rubio, along with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin of Roscosmos, launched Sept. 21, 2022, on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the space station.
While aboard the orbital laboratory, Rubio and his fellow crew members conducted dozens of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations, including growing tomato plants to study hydroponic and aeroponic techniques, participating in crew health experiments, and studying how materials react in microgravity. Research like this and other activity on the orbital outpost will inform long-duration missions like Artemis and future human expeditions to Mars.
Rubio spent 371 days in space, surpassing NASA’s single spaceflight record for continuous days in space made by astronaut Mark Vande Hei. Rubio and his crewmates landed in Kazakhstan on Sept. 27, 2023. Rubio’s mission is the longest single spaceflight by a U.S. astronaut in history.
Image credit: NASA/Frank Rubio
