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NASA Lab Builds New Aircraft to Support Complex Flight Research
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Justin Link, left, and Justin Hall attach an engine onto a subscale aircraft on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Link is a pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems at the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory and Hall is the lab’s chief pilot.NASA/Christopher LC Clark Justin Link turns a subscale aircraft on its side to continue work to mark where the engine cowl will go and where to line it up for attachment on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Link is a pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems at the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory.NASA/Christopher LC Clark Justin Hall, left, and Justin Link attach the wings onto a subscale aircraft on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Hall is chief pilot at the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory and Link is a pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems.NASA/Christopher LC Clark Justin Hall attaches part of the landing gear of a subscale aircraft on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Hall is the chief pilot at the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory.NASA/Christopher LC Clark Justin Link, left, holds the subscale aircraft in place, while Justin Hall manages engine speed during preliminary engine tests on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Link is a pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems at the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory and Hall is the chief pilot.NASA/Christopher LC ClarkNASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, is building a new subscale aircraft to support increasingly complex flight research, offering a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to crewed missions.
The aircraft is being built by Justin Hall, chief pilot at NASA Armstrong’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory, and Justin Link, a small uncrewed aircraft pilot. The duo is replacing the center’s aging MicroCub subscale aircraft with a more capable platform that will save time and reduce costs. The new aircraft spans about 14 feet from wingtip to wingtip, measures nine-and-a-half feet long, and weighs about 60 pounds.
The subscale laboratory accelerates innovation by using small, remotely piloted aircraft to test and evaluate new aerodynamic concepts, technologies, and flight control systems. Named after aerospace pioneer Dale Reed, the lab enables rapid prototyping and risk reduction before transitioning to full-scale or crewed flight testing. Its work plays a key role in increasing technology readiness to support NASA’s missions on Earth and beyond.
Hall and Link are modifying an existing subscale aircraft kit by adding a more powerful engine, an autopilot system, instrumentation, and a reinforced structure. The aircraft will offer greater flexibility for flight experiments, enabling more frequent and affordable testing compared to crewed aircraft.
One example of its potential is the Robust Autonomous Aerial Recapture project, which uses sensors and video with advanced programming to learn and adapt for mid-air capture. The system relies on a magnetic connection mechanism integrated onto the two aircraft.
This capability could support future science missions in which a mothership deploys drones to collect samples, recharge, and redeploy for additional missions, saving fuel, reducing cost, and increasing efficiency. Aerial recapture work is funded by the NASA Armstrong Center Innovation Fund and the Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Share Details Last Updated Sep 24, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactJay Levinejay.levine-1@nasa.gov Related Terms Explore More 3 min read NASA Launches 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Competition Article 18 hours ago 5 min read NASA’s Deep Space Communications Demo Exceeds Project Expectations Article 6 days ago 2 min read NASA Gateways to Blue Skies 2026 Competition Article 6 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASAArmstrong Flight Research Center
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NASA Aircraft Coordinate Science Flights to Measure Air Quality
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NASA Aircraft Coordinate Science Flights to Measure Air Quality NASA Goddard’s G-LiHT flying on the A90 flies over Shenandoah Valley in the US East Coast during the week of August 11-15. Credit: NASA/Shawn SerbinMagic is in the air. No wait… MAGEQ is in the air, featuring scientists from NASA centers across the country who teamed up with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and several other university and government partners and collaborators.
This summer, six planes collectively flew more than 400 hours over the mid-Atlantic United States with a goal of gathering data on a range of objectives, including air quality, forestry, and fire management.
This was part of an effort called MAGEQ, short for Mid-Atlantic Gas Emissions Quantification. Rather than one mission, MAGEQ consists of several individual missions across more than a dozen organizations and agencies, along with university students. Over the course of around six weeks, aircraft flew over cities, wetlands, farms, and coal mining areas.
NASA Goddard’s G-LiHT flying on the A90 flies over the Chesapeake Bay near the Big Annemessex River. Credit: NASA/Shawn Serbin“Each aircraft team is comprised of highly skilled and motivated people who understand how to fly their particular plane to achieve the science they want,” said Glenn Wolfe, research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and project lead for MAGEQ. “The complexity comes in identifying how each platform can complement or supplement the others.”
Coordinating flights required both advanced planning and flexibility to get the best outcome. Weather proved to be a primary challenge for the team, as members worked around cloudy days, wind, and storms to ensure safe flights.
The six aircraft had different objectives and requirements. For example, some carried instruments that needed to fly high to simulate a satellite’s view of the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface and could not measure through clouds. Others were equipped with instruments that directly measured the air particles and could work under the clouds, provided there was no rain.
Despite weather challenges, flight teams worked together to coordinate as many multi-aircraft flight days as possible, meeting the overall objective of the MAGEQ campaign.
The MAGEQ team members pose in front of the P-3 aircraft at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.Credit: NASA/Roy Johnson“It’s been inspiring to see how everybody worked together,” said Lesley Ott, research meteorologist and lead carbon cycle modeler for NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA Goddard. “By collecting data together, not only can we do a better job as scientists in having more complete understanding, we can also do a better job making usable data sets that meets the needs of different stakeholders.”
State resource managers in North Carolina and Virginia, for example, could benefit from this data as they monitor the health of wetlands, which provide resilience to storms, absorb carbon from the atmosphere and support local tourist industries. The data could also help operators at energy-producing facilities detect methane leaks or equipment failures quickly. Faster detection could speed up intervention and minimize waste, as well as lessen environmental impacts. Stakeholders were an integral part of the planning process, Ott said. They made suggestions about measurement sites and data needs that informed the flight planning.
Scientists will also use the measurements to verify satellite data from both public and commercial data providers. Satellites like the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument collect similar data. Scientists can compare the airborne and satellite data to get a more complete picture of the atmosphere. They also will use MAGEQ data to evaluate atmospheric chemistry modeling from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model, which connects atmospheric, oceanic, and land data to help create a more comprehensive picture of Earth science.
The MAGEQ team members from NOAA and NASA pose in front of the Twin Otter aircraft. Credit: NOAA/Steve Brown“Every aircraft does something different and contributes a different type of data,” said Steve Brown, leader of the tropospheric chemistry and atmospheric remote sensing programs at the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. “We’re going to have a lot of work to do at the end of this to put all these data sets together, but we will make the best use of all these measurements.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Share Details Last Updated Sep 24, 2025 EditorJenny MarderContactErica McNameeerica.s.mcnamee@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Explore More 5 min read NASA Earth Scientists Take Flight, Set Sail to Verify PACE Satellite DataFrom sea to sky to orbit, a range of vantage points allow NASA Earth scientists…
Article 1 year ago 2 min read GLOBE-Trotting Science Lands in Chesapeake with NASA eClips Article 2 months ago 4 min read NASA Mission Monitoring Air Quality from Space ExtendedSince launching in 2023, NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution mission, or TEMPO, has been…
Article 3 months agoNASA Data Powers New Tool to Protect Water Supply After Fires
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When wildfires scorch a landscape, the flames are just the beginning. NASA is helping communities across the nation foresee and prepare for what can follow: mudslides, flash flooding, and contaminated surface water supplies.
A new online tool called HydroFlame, built with support from NASA’s Earth Science Division, relies on satellite data, hydrologic modeling, and artificial intelligence to predict how wildfires could affect water resources, from tap water to the rivers and streams where people fish. The project is being developed with the University of Texas at Arlington, Purdue University, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other partners.
For now, the tool includes data only for Montana’s Clark Fork Basin, where it is being piloted. But new applications are underway in California and Utah. Researchers will soon begin fieldwork in Los Angeles County to collect on-the-ground data to refine HydroFlame’s predictive approach — an important step toward expanding it beyond the pilot site.
“As wildfires intensify across the country, so do their ripple effects on regional water resources,” said Erin Urquhart, program manager for NASA’s water resources program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “HydroFlame could help communities in the U.S. see what’s coming and plan for it, before a fire becomes a water crisis.”
That kind of foresight is exactly what local officials are looking for.
“For someone managing a trout fishery or drinking water supply, knowing when a stream might be overwhelmed with debris after a fire can mean the difference between preparedness and a crisis,” said Morgan Valliant, who is part of the project’s advisory group and the associate director of ecosystem services for Missoula Parks and Recreation in Montana. “This tool could let us move from reacting to planning.”
When fire reshapes landIn the wake of a wildfire, charred hillsides are often unstable. With the protective blanket of plants burned away, rain that once soaked gently into the soil can race downhill, sending ash, debris, and sediment into rivers and reservoirs. That runoff can trigger flash floods and contaminate drinking water.
Severe wildfires can also bake soil into a water-repelling crust. With less absorption, the same slopes can swing from drought to destructive floods, and those runoff risks can persist for decades.
HydroFlame, developed by a team led by Adnan Rajib at the University of Texas at Arlington, is built to anticipate those extremes.
“NASA is constantly pushing the boundaries when it comes to sensing and predicting fire,” Rajib said. “But there is still a huge gap when it comes to translating that fire information in terms of water. That’s where HydroFlame comes in.”
The tool will include three components:
- a historical viewer that maps past fire impacts on streamflow and sediment
- a “what-if” scenario builder to simulate future fires
- a predictive tool that generates weekly forecasts using near-real-time satellite data as initial conditions
When a wildfire is identified, the tool will identify how severely areas are burned across watersheds and track shifts in vegetation, soil wetness, and evapotranspiration, or the release of water from the land and plants to the atmosphere. HydroFlame uses data from satellite missions and instruments including MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), Landsat, and SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive).
Those observations, combined with stream records from gauged rivers, feed into simulations of possible fire-driven changes in water flow and quality. A machine-learning component will fill in where gauges are absent, making it possible to predict impacts up to two weeks in advance.
This screenshot shows HydroFlame, a NASA-supported online tool that will help U.S. communities better understand and forecast how wildfires may affect water supplies in their region.A. RajibThe historical viewer, which is publicly accessible, lets users explore how past fires altered streamflow and sediment levels across the basin. The other components are still in development: The prototype of the “what-if” scenario builder tool is expected to launch in December 2025, with the full version planned for May 2026.
HydroFlame’s ability to capture compounding factors — drought before a fire, flooding afterward — and simulate their cascading effects on water systems is what makes it different from other tools, Rajib said. “Many traditional models treat each fire as a one-off,” he said. “HydroFlame looks at the bigger picture.”
Just as important, the tool is built for people who aren’t experts in satellite data.
“It’s a practical starting point for scenario planning,” said Kelly Luis, associate program manager for NASA’s water resources program and an aquatic ecosystem scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The tool’s “what-if” function, she explained, will let water managers, city planners, and other officials apply their local knowledge. For example, they might zero in on the rivers and streams most important to a city’s water supply. “That kind of insight is essential for building solutions that are both scientifically grounded and locally relevant.”
For watershed organizations or local and state agencies with limited staff and resources, that ease of use is crucial — saving time and effort while helping keep costs down.
“These groups need holistic ways to understand potential impacts of fires to their rivers and streams and plan, without always having to bring in someone from the outside,” said Amy Seaman, the executive director of the Montana Watershed Coordination Council. Seaman works with community watershed organizations across Montana and is also part of the project’s advisory group.
This effort is part of a broader NASA focus on understanding how fire reshapes water systems and what that means for American communities.
A real-world trial in Los AngelesRajib’s team put HydroFlame’s predictive capabilities to the test during the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles. As fires burned through the region, researchers ran real-time model simulations using NASA satellite data, tracking changes in vegetation, soil moisture, and burn severity almost as they happened. By the end of the month, the team had generated forecasts for mud and debris flows expected in February.
This false-color Landsat 9 image, acquired Jan. 14, shows burned areas from the 2025 fires in and around Los Angeles, highlighting unburned vegetation (green) and burned land (light to dark brown) using shortwave infrared, near infrared, and visible light. Similar types of NASA fire data are used in HydroFlame.NASA Earth ObservatoryThose predictions turned out to be accurate. In early February, mudflow events struck the areas of Altadena and Sierra Madre in Los Angeles County, following the Eaton Fire. HydroFlame had been run specifically for that fire and flagged both neighborhoods as at risk, Rajib said.
“It wasn’t a formal, data-verified result because we didn’t have ground sensors in place,” Rajib said. “But it was a practical validation. The timing and severity of what we modeled lined up with what occurred.”
Rajib’s team is now working with NASA JPL, the University of California, Merced and Los Angeles County to formally test and expand the tool in the Los Angeles area. The team plans to begin collecting on-the-ground data no earlier than Friday, Sept. 26. That work will include installing stream sensors to measure sediment levels in the county’s streams during California’s rainy season and integrating those data into the tool — a step toward building an early-warning system.
HydroFlame invites those interested in the tool to share their ideas and feedback, and to get involved, through a web form available on the project’s Explore Tools webpage.
About the AuthorEmily DeMarco Share Details Last Updated Sep 24, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms Explore More 4 min read NASA Aircraft Coordinate Science Flights to Measure Air Quality Article 3 hours ago 4 min read NASA’s Webb Explores Largest Star-Forming Cloud in Milky Way Article 7 hours ago 2 min read Hubble Images Celestial Cigar’s Smoldering Heart Article 5 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASAMissions
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Help Map the Moon’s Molten Flows!
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Help Map the Moon’s Molten Flows! Cooled, lava-like flows of impact melt that streamed out of Little Lowell Crater. As a volunteer for the Lunar Melt Citizen Science Project, you’ll help identify and measure rocks and craters in images like this one.Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State UniversityWhen asteroids hit the Moon, the impacts carve out craters and with enough energy and pressure, melt parts of the rocky surface. Often, the white hot, gooey melt (it’s like lava, except that it doesn’t erupt from underground) sloshes around the new crater and surrounding regions. The molten rock cools and hardens into vast rock features called impact melt flow deposits. These flow deposits are sculpture-like abstract art with beautiful lines and textures.
Now, scientists at the Lunar Melt citizen science project are asking for your help mapping these flows. You’ll be marking rocks, measuring the lengths of boulders, and outlining craters and melt deposits in images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.
Your contributions will help reveal how impact melt has changed the Moon’s surface, especially around Little Lowell Crater and Tycho Crater, and help scientists use impact melt flows to learn about the moon’s interior.
Help planetary scientists map the geology of lava-like flows on the Moon! Sign up at mappers.psi.edu, and tell your friends!
Facebook logo @nasascience @nasascience Instagram logo @nasascience Linkedin logo @nasascience Share Details Last Updated Sep 24, 2025 Related Terms Explore More 2 min read Lettuce Find Healthy Space Food! Citizen Scientists Study Space Salads Article 2 days ago 4 min read NASA Interns Apply NASA data to Real-World Problems to Advance Space Research and Aerospace Innovation Article 1 week ago 1 min read Webinar Series: Teaching with EMERGE & GLOBE Mission Mosquito Article 1 week agoAirplane Aerobatics
NASA astronaut Nick Hague watches as Robert Schmidle Pitts Aerobatics perform, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Hague spent 171 days aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 72.
While aboard the orbital laboratory, Hague and fellow NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore completed more than 900 hours of research between more than 150 unique scientific experiments and technology demonstrations. Some of the research conducted included growing microalgae that could convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for the crew to breathe and testing an exercise device to keep crews healthy on long-duration missions.
Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
La NASA y la NOAA lanzan tres naves espaciales para cartografiar la influencia del Sol en el espacio
Read this press release in English here.
La NASA y la Administración Nacional Oceánica y Atmosférica (NOAA, por sus siglas en inglés) lanzaron el miércoles tres nuevas misiones para investigar la influencia del Sol en todo el sistema solar.
A las 7:30 a. m. EDT, un cohete Falcon 9 de SpaceX despegó del Complejo de Lanzamiento 39A del Centro Espacial Kennedy de la NASA en Florida, llevando a bordo las misiones Sonda de Cartografía y Aceleración Interestelar (IMAP, por su acrónimo en inglés) y el Observatorio Carruthers de la Geocorona, ambos de la NASA, y la nave espacial de Seguimiento de la Meteorología Espacial en el Punto de Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1, por sus siglas en inglés) de la NOAA.
“Este exitoso lanzamiento mejora la preparación de nuestro país ante las condiciones meteorológicas espaciales para proteger mejor nuestros satélites, misiones interplanetarias y astronautas que viajan al espacio de los peligros de la meteorología espacial en todo el sistema solar”, afirmó el administrador interino de la NASA, Sean Duffy. “Esta información será fundamental a medida que nos preparamos para futuras misiones a la Luna y Marte con la intención de mantener a Estados Unidos a la vanguardia en el espacio”.
Estas misiones ayudarán a proteger de las duras condiciones de la meteorología espacial tanto a nuestra tecnología basada en tierra como a nuestros exploradores espaciales humanos y robóticos.
“Mientras Estados Unidos se prepara para enviar a seres humanos de vuelta a la Luna y más adelante a Marte, la NASA y la NOAA están proporcionando la guía definitiva de supervivencia interplanetaria para dar apoyo a este épico viaje de la humanidad”, afirmó Nicola Fox, administradora asociada de la Dirección de Misiones Científicas de la sede central de la NASA en Washington. “Nuestros descubrimientos científicos e innovaciones técnicas se incorporan directamente a nuestro plan de acción know-before-you-go (infórmate antes de ir) para garantizar una presencia humana bien preparada, segura y continua en otros mundos”.
Nueva ciencia para proteger a la sociedad
Cada misión investigará los diferentes efectos de la meteorología espacial y el viento solar, el cual es un flujo continuo de partículas emitidas por el Sol, desde su origen en nuestra estrella hasta el espacio interestelar.
“Estas tres misiones únicas nos ayudarán a conocer nuestro Sol y sus efectos sobre la Tierra mejor que nunca”, afirmó Joe Westlake, director de la División de Heliofísica en la sede central de la NASA. “Este conocimiento es fundamental, ya que la actividad solar afecta directamente a nuestra vida cotidiana, desde las redes eléctricas hasta el GPS. Estas misiones nos ayudarán a garantizar la seguridad y la resiliencia de nuestro mundo interconectado”.
La misión IMAP trazará los límites de la heliosfera, una burbuja inflada por el viento solar que protege nuestro sistema solar de los rayos cósmicos galácticos. Esta es una protección clave que contribuye a que nuestro planeta sea habitable. Además, la nave espacial tomará muestras y medirá las partículas del viento solar que fluyen hacia el exterior desde el Sol, así como las partículas energéticas que fluyen hacia el interior desde los límites de nuestro sistema solar y más allá.
“IMAP nos ayudará a comprender mejor cómo el entorno espacial puede perjudicarnos a nosotros y a nuestras tecnologías, y a descubrir la ciencia de nuestro vecindario solar”, afirmó David McComas, investigador principal de la misión IMAP en la Universidad de Princeton, en Nueva Jersey.
El Observatorio Carruthers de la Geocorona es la primera misión dedicada a medir los cambios en la capa más externa de nuestra atmósfera, la exosfera, la cual juega un papel importante en cómo la Tierra responde a la meteorología espacial. Al estudiar la geocorona —el brillo ultravioleta que emite la exosfera cuando la luz del sol la ilumina— la misión Carruthers revelará cómo la exosfera responde a las tormentas solares y cómo cambia con las estaciones. La misión se basa en el legado del primer instrumento que capturó imágenes de la geocorona, el cual viajó a la Luna a bordo de Apolo 16 y fue construido y diseñado por el científico, inventor, ingeniero y educador Dr. George Carruthers.
“La misión Carruthers nos mostrará cómo funciona la exosfera y nos ayudará a mejorar nuestra capacidad para predecir los efectos de la actividad solar aquí en la Tierra”, dijo Lara Waldrop, investigadora principal de la misión en la Universidad de Illinois en Urbana-Champaign.
La nave SWFO-L1 de la NOAA, la primera de su tipo, está diseñada para ser un observatorio de meteorología espacial operativo a tiempo completo. Al vigilar la actividad solar y las condiciones espaciales cerca de la Tierra las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana, sin interrupciones ni obstrucciones, SWFO-L1 proporcionará pronósticos de meteorología espacial más rápidos y precisos que nunca.
“Se trata del primero de una nueva generación de observatorios de meteorología espacial de la NOAA dedicados a operaciones ininterrumpidas, que trabajarán para evitar lagunas en la continuidad. Las observaciones en tiempo real de SWFO-L1 proporcionarán a los operadores los datos fiables necesarios para emitir alertas tempranas, de modo que los responsables de la toma de decisiones puedan actuar con antelación para proteger las infraestructuras vitales, los intereses económicos y la seguridad nacional en la Tierra y en el espacio. Se trata de proteger a la sociedad contra los peligros de la meteorología espacial”, dijo Richard Ullman, subdirector de la Oficina de Observaciones de la Meteorología Espacial de la NOAA
Siguientes pasos
En las horas posteriores al lanzamiento, las tres naves espaciales se desplegaron desde el cohete con éxito y enviaron señales a la Tierra para confirmar que están activas y funcionando correctamente.
Durante los próximos meses, los satélites se dirigirán a su destino, un lugar situado entre la Tierra y el Sol, a unos 1,6 millones de kilómetros de la Tierra, denominado punto de Lagrange 1 (L1). Se espera que lleguen en enero y, una vez completadas las comprobaciones y calibraciones de sus instrumentos, comiencen sus misiones para comprender mejor la meteorología espacial y proteger a la humanidad.
David McComas, de la Universidad de Princeton, dirige la misión IMAP con un equipo internacional formado por 27 instituciones asociadas. El Laboratorio de Física Aplicada de la Universidad Johns Hopkins, ubicado en Laurel, Maryland, construyó la nave espacial y operará la misión.
La misión del Observatorio Carruthers de la Geocorona está dirigida por Lara Waldrop, de la Universidad de Illinois Urbana-Champaign. La ejecución de la misión está a cargo del Laboratorio de Ciencias Espaciales de la Universidad de California, Berkeley, que también diseñó y construyó los dos generadores de imágenes ultravioletas. BAE Systems diseñó y construyó la nave espacial Carruthers.
La División de Proyectos de Exploradores y Heliofísica de la NASA en el Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard de la NASA en Greenbelt, Maryland, gestiona las misiones IMAP y Observatorio Carruthers de la Geocorona para la Dirección de Misiones Científicas de la NASA.
La misión SWFO-L1 está gestionada por la NOAA y desarrollada en colaboración con el centro Goddard de la NASA y socios comerciales. El Programa de Servicios de Lanzamiento de la NASA, con sede en el centro Kennedy de la NASA, gestiona el servicio de lanzamiento de las misiones.
Para obtener más información sobre estas misiones, visite:
-fin-
Abbey Interrante / María José Viñas
Sede central, Washington
301-201-0124
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard, Greenbelt, Maryland
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
Leejay Lockhart
Centro Espacial Kennedy, Florida
321-747-8310
leejay.lockhart@nasa.gov
John Jones-Bateman
Servicio de Satélites e Información de la NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland
202-242-0929
john.jones-bateman@noaa.gov
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4661-4667: Peaking Into the Hollows
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4661-4667: Peaking Into the Hollows NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image of the landscape it is currently navigating — hollows surrounded by ridges. The rover captured the image using its Left Navigation Camera on Sept. 17, 2025 — Sol 4662, or Martian day 4,662 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 05:25:51 UTC. NASA/JPL-CaltechBy Susanne P. Schwenzer, Professor of Planetary Mineralogy at The Open University, UK
Earth planning date: Friday, Sept. 19, 2025
Curiosity is currently driving along the ridges of a very uneven terrain. One of the bigger ridges we nicknamed “Autobahn,” which is the German word for a highway. But the rover didn’t stay on that autobahn, now more officially named “Arare,” for very long. Instead it went on a trip along several of the smaller ridges and even into some hollows. You can get a good impression of the landscape in the image above, or view a wider panorama image here.
Today, I was science operations working group (SOWG) chair, the one responsible for coordinating all the science planning and making sure we stay within power and data budgets. As we have so much to do with imaging ridges and hollows, and the team members are also keeping APXS and LIBS busy planning to investigate the chemistry of the ridge tops, the sides of the ridges, and of course the rocks within the hollows, the demands on power and data volume are high. Alongside the “geo” observations, we are still in aphelion cloud season and want to make sure we capture enough atmospheric and environmental observations, too. In each plan, the DAN instrument and MARDI camera are regularly looking down. DAN informs us about hydrogen in the subsurface underneath the rover, which is most likely associated with water-bearing minerals. MARDI is documenting the rocks underneath the rover, more precisely underneath the left-front wheel.
With so many demands, and the fact that we are just coming out of Martian winter, where cold temperatures demand more heating to keep the rover safe, there was lots of demand on the power budgets all of this week. Thus, myself and my SOWG chair colleagues had many discussions to facilitate. What amazes me each time about our team, though, is how smoothly those discussions go and how deep an understanding we all have developed about the seasonality and cadence of each other’s investigations. It is so nice to see how smooth it has become to — as a team — figure out what has the highest priority on a given planning day.
After a range of good discussions, and luck that the rover was parked in a stable position for each planning cycle, we had many arm activities. APXS and MAHLI focused on measuring and imaging the ridge tops — we call them bedrock — and those bedrocks look very smooth on top of the ridges. Targets “Turbio,” “Río Aguas Blancas,” and “Isiboro” were measured and imaged earlier in the week, and today it was “Colonia Santa Rosa” and “Le Lentias.” (I am learning Spanish as we go; all those names are from the Uyuni region in South America.) We entered the Uyuni quadrangle on sol 4573; you can read all about it in the blog post, ‘Welcome to the Uyuni Quad.’ More chemistry investigations were added by ChemCam using the LIBS instrument on a wide range of smoother bedrock, complementing APXS observations in many places, and then adding chemical information from locations that have more variable features such as veins, nodules and fractures.
Mastcam and ChemCam, through its remote imager, are taking images of many different features in the landscape. You can see its variation in the image at the top of the blog. What we are interested in is the variability of all those features, but also how they relate to each other. Are some features always on top of others, or are the veins cutting across the fractures? Those are the questions that we can answer with the images taken from a distance for the wider context, and then close-up to see all the details. We have taken overview images such as the one in the image above, and we have taken close-up images with the remote micro-imager and, of course, MAHLI. Many of those images come from the sides of the ridges as this allows us to see “into” the rock record, and how the ridges are constructed. If you look at the image above closely, you can see some of this yourself. You can spot some patterns, too. The ridge tops are more smooth, mostly at least. And that’s how the “Autobahn” was nicknamed in the first place! The hollows look more rough and a little more chaotic, too.
With all the excitement about the rocks, we didn’t forget the environmental observations. Those include temperature and wind, but also imaging of the atmosphere for its opacity and looking for dust devils. We are just coming out of the season with the least dust in the atmosphere. That allowed us to do a first for the mission: image rocks outside the crater rim, 90 kilometers away (about 56 miles)! We are very excited about those images taken with the remote micro-imager of ChemCam and with added Mastcam context. They show what’s beyond the crater rim, and what will have been the source region for some of the sediments we saw very early in the mission, when we explored the Peace Vallis Fan! Have a look at the wide overview image, and this close-up of rocks, 90 kilometers away, with the remote micro-imager.
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NASA’s New Astronaut Candidates
NASA’s 2025 astronaut candidate class greets the crowd in this Sept. 22, 2025, image. The group was introduced Monday following a competitive selection process of more than 8,000 applicants from across the United States. The class now will complete nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments supporting future science and exploration missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.
After graduation, the 2025 class will join the agency’s active astronaut corps. Active astronauts are conducting science research aboard the space station while preparing for the transition to commercial space stations and the next great leaps in human exploration at the Moon and Mars. The candidates’ operational expertise, scientific knowledge, and technical backgrounds are essential to advancing NASA’s deep space exploration goals and sustaining a long-term human presence beyond low Earth orbit.
Image credit: NASA/James Blair
The Need to Bake Out Silicone Based Thermal Control Coatings
Background
The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has reviewed flight, ground test, and published data on ultraviolet-induced degradation of silicone based thermal control coatings. Analysis has shown, for at least one silicone coating, that bake-out plays an important role in ultraviolet (UV) degradation, indicating that UV interaction with paint volatiles, and not the structural material, is the primary source of coating discoloration.
Discussion
Spacecraft temperature is primarily determined by the absorptivity and emissivity of the vehicle’s coating. Absorptivity is the fraction of the sun’s irradiance that is absorbed, and emissivity determines the amount of infrared power that is emitted. The combination of these properties, along with additional heat from internal sources and other external radiation sources, determines the spacecraft’s thermal environment. Choosing an appropriate coating, referred to as a thermal control coating, is key to keeping the vehicle within a desired temperature range. However, these coatings can degrade, (i.e., darken), in low earth orbit (LEO), primarily due to solar UV exposure, complicating the choice of coating. Zinc-oxide (ZnO) scatterers in a silicate binder are among the most stable white coatings but suffer from poor adherence. Replacing the silicate with organic silicone improves paint mechanical properties, but optical property measurements of UV exposure stability for ZnO-silicone coatings have been widely divergent. This led to a request that the NESC resolve the variations to better predict the stability of specific ZnO-silicone coatings in LEO. Testing of coupons began in FY25 and will complete in FY26.
Many silicone-based thermal control coatings have been evaluated in ground simulation chambers and tested in space since the mid-1960s [ref 1, 2], demonstrating a wide range of UV degradation rates, sometimes for the same formulation. Ground testing a particular ZnO-silicone coating in two different facilities yielded degradation rates that differed by more than a factor of 6. This is similar to variations seen in a round-robin test of ground UV exposure facilities in the 1960s [ref. 2] and casts doubt as to the usefulness of ground testing to predict flight performance. In this case, consideration of the differences between the two ground tests along with partial retesting, pointed to the presence of volatiles as the source of the difference. In one facility, the samples were baked out prior to testing, removing most of the volatiles in the paint, but in the other facility the samples were not baked out. This indicated that the primary source of absorptivity change was UV interaction, not with the silicone substrate material, nor with the ZnO scatterers, but with the volatiles. In addition, the two facilities had different UV irradiance spectra, which may have contributed to the large degradation variation [ref.3].
A literature search was conducted and, surprisingly, only one paper was found that tested ZnO-silicone paint degradation with and without a prebake [ref. 1]. In this publication, paint S-31 without a bake-out was exposed to 1780 equivalent solar hours (ESH) of UV and saw a change in absorptivity of 0.02, but a sample that was baked at 260°C (500°F) for 1 hour and then exposed to 1780 ESH saw only a change of 0.006. In a second case, two S-33 samples were exposed to 4170 ESH, both with a one hour 150°C prebake out and one with an additional one hour 260°C prebake. The one with the single bake-out saw an absorptivity change of 0.02 and the one with the additional bake-out saw a change of only 0.011, comparable to the “best zinc oxide…silicate paint.”
Testing of ZnO-silicone paints has been conducted on the Materials International Space Station experiment (MISSE), [ref. 4], showing a similar reduction in UV degradation for samples that were baked out prior to flight and those that were not. In MISSE-19, a sample of a ZnO-silicone paint that was baked out showed a net change in absorptivity of 0.011 (Wake position) versus 0.27 for a sample of the same paint in the Zenith position that was not baked out. There is positional variation that may have contributed to this difference, but the removal of volatiles is a likely contributor.
Finally, spacecraft testing of the same ZnO-silicone paint has shown very low UV degradation over extended periods in LEO which is interesting given that the paint on the spacecraft is not baked out. Aerodynamic heating on ascent is insufficient to remove the volatiles, however, surface temperatures while in orbit are sufficient. On the spacecraft, the paint covers an insulative, micrometeor protective layer allowing the paint to heat in sunlight (unlike the MISSE samples that are painted on aluminum disks mounted to an aluminum tray). This heating in orbit provides a nearly continuous bake-out, removing not only residual volatiles, but newly formed volatiles created by UV induced decomposition of longer chain molecules. Comparing outgassing data to the bake-out conditions further supports the proposition that volatiles within the paint, and not the binder or scatterers, discolor under solar UV exposure. Indicating that prebake or, in-flight continuous baking, is a key requirement for long duration performance of a specific family of ZnO-silicone based thermal control coatings.
Figure 1: A UV exposure facility at the Marshall Space Flight Center Figure 2: A post exposure MISSE 2 sample tray [ref. 4]References
1. Ref. Zerlaut, G. A., Y. Harada, and E. H. Tompkins. “41. Ultraviolet Irradiation of White Spacecraft Coatings.” In Symposium on Thermal Radiation of Solids, vol. 55, p. 391. Scientific and Technical Information Division, National Aeronautics andSpace Administration, 1965.
2. Arvesen, J. C., C. B. Neel, and C. C. Shaw. “44. Preliminary Results From a Round- Robin Study of Ultraviolet Degradation of Spacecraft.” In Symposium on Thermal Radiation of Solids, vol. 55, p. 443. Scientific and Technical Information Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1965.
3. ARVESEN, J. “Spectral dependence of ultraviolet-induced degradation of coatings for spacecraft thermal control.” In 2nd Thermophysics Specialist Conference, p. 340. 1967.
4. Kenny, Mike, Robert McNulty, and Miria Finckenor. “Further Analysis of Thermal Control Coatings on MISSE for Aerospace Applications.” In National Space and Missile Materials Symposium, no. M09-0535. 2009.
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