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 [...]
Portrait of Brad FlickCredit: NASA On Monday, NASA announced Bradley Flick, director of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, will retire Thursday, March 19, after a nearly 40-year career advancing aeronautics and flight research. Flick began his NASA journey in 1986 as a flight systems engineer and rose through the ranks to lead [...]
El transportador oruga 2 de la NASA, que traslada el cohete Sistema de Lanzamiento Espacial con la nave espacial Orion de la misión Artemis II de la agencia, llega el 25 de febrero de 2026 al interior del Edificio de Ensamblaje de Vehículos del Centro Espacial Kennedy de la NASA en Florida para solucionar el [...]
NASA’s crawler-transporter 2, carrying the agency’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft, arrives Feb. 25, 2026, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to troubleshoot the flow of helium to the rocket’s upper stage, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage. Once complete, the SLS rocket will [...]
The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) partnered with Materials and Processes and Flammability subject matter experts from the Johnson Space Center, White Sands Test Facility, and the Marshall Space Flight Center to design and develop a test for evaluating the effectiveness of material assemblies to serve as a barrier between a potential cabin ignition [...]
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) Nebula PMR 1 is a cloud of gas and dust that bears an uncanny resemblance to a brain in a transparent skull, inspiring its nickname, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula. Webb captured its unusual features in both near- and mid-infrared light. The nebula was first revealed in infrared light [...]
3 Min Read From Cabbages to Countdowns: NASA Marks 100 Years of Modern Rocketry Photograph of Robert Goddard and his liquid-fueled rocket, prior to its first flight on March 16, 1926, from a farm at Auburn, Mass. Credits: Esther Goddard, Courtesy of Clark University Snow covered the ground that Tuesday morning 100 years ago, [...]
