2 min read Webinar 3/25: NASA CSDA Vendor Focus – Satellogic Satellogic satellite imagery of coastal Louisiana shows sediment plumes entering the Gulf of Mexico, illustrating how Earth observation data can monitor coastal and environmental dynamics. Image courtesy of Satellogic Join us on Wednesday, March 25 at 2:00 p.m. EDT (-04:00 UTC) to learn [...]
This article is from the 2025 Technical Update. The NESC has invested significant time and resources to better understand composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV) performance and more importantly, how these complex, high-pressure storage systems can fail. These vessels, which store high pressure propulsion and life-support system fluids on launch vehicles and spacecraft, are ubiquitous at NASA, and failures have [...]
This article is from the 2025 Technical Update. The NESC’s Thermal Control & Protection Technical Discipline Team (TDT) is a resource providing subject matter expertise in active and passive thermal control as well as ascent and entry thermal protection across the spectrum of agency needs. TDT members led or supported a variety of key activities [...]
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captures a detailed view of a relatively fresh crater in this image released on June 3, 2015. The crater has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta. The steep inner slopes are carved by gullies and include possible recurring slope lineae on the equator-facing slopes. This crater is [...]
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./S. Dichiara; IR: NASA/ESA/STScI; Illustration: ERC BHianca 2026 / Fortuna and Dichiara, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Edmonds A fleet of NASA missions has likely uncovered a collision between two ultradense stars in a tiny galaxy buried in a huge stream of gas. Astronomers have never seen this type of explosive [...]
Media are invited to attend the 63rd annual Goddard Space Science Symposium, taking place Thursday, March 12, and Friday, March 13, at the National Housing Center in Washington. The event also will be streamed online. Organized by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) in conjunction with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the symposium [...]
3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA’s Van Allen Probe A is expected to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere almost 14 years after launch. From 2012 to 2019, the spacecraft and its twin, Van Allen Probe B, flew through the Van Allen belts, rings of charged particles trapped by Earth’s magnetic field, to understand how particles were gained and lost. The belts [...]
1 min readPreparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) NASA / Scott Anders / Lillian Gipson / Rich Wahls The purpose of the Subsonic Flight Demonstrator (SFD) project is to engage with industry and other government organizations to identify, select, and mature key airframe technologies, such as new wing designs, that have a high probability [...]
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft lifts off for its first flight Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, from U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. The aircraft’s first flight marks the start of flight testing for NASA’s Quesst mission, the result of years of design, integration, and ground testing and begins a new chapter in [...]
3 Min Read What Is Pi? (Grades 5-8) This article is for students grades 5-8. What is Pi? Pi is a number. You might know it as 3.14 or the symbol π. But it’s way more than that! What Makes Pi Special? Pi is an irrational number. That means it goes on forever and [...]
