By Savannah Bullard Artemis I launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 16, 2022, penning a new era of space exploration and inching the agency closer to sending the first woman and first person of color to the lunar surface. Aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket were 10 small satellites, no…

What does the rise of artificial intelligence mean for the workers of tomorrow? What could it mean for NASA? Leaders from government, academia, and commercial industries gathered earlier this fall to learn, discuss, and collaborate at the inaugural “The Future of Skills in the AI Era” symposium at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon…

Airplane engines are loud – just ask anyone who lives near an airport. Increased air traffic from next-generation aircraft has the potential for even more disruptive noise. Researchers and engineers at NASA are working to reduce noise generated by turbofan engines, but each new design requires certification and testing to understand how much noise it…

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft continues to make progress, most recently moving to the paint barn at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ facility in Palmdale, California. The X-59’s paint scheme will include a mainly white body, a NASA “sonic blue” underside, and red accents on the wings. The paint doesn’t just add cosmetic value. It also…

Through Artemis, NASA plans to explore more of the Moon than ever before with human and robotic missions on the lunar surface. Because future landers will be larger and equipped with more powerful engines than the Apollo landers, mission risks associated with their operation during landing and liftoff is significantly greater. With the agency’s goal to establish a sustained human presence on…

NASA high-end computing plays a key role in taking many agency missions from concept to application in the real world. From increasing accuracy of global weather forecasts for forecast entities (like NOAA) to warn of severe storms, to designs for future air taxis to safely fly people around urban areas, to parachute design tests for…

Astronaut Candidates Visit Ames and Learn about Heat Shields and More On Nov. 8, NASA’s current class of astronaut candidates toured Ames Research Center which included a stop at the Arc Jet Complex. In the arc jet facilities, Ames researchers test advanced materials that protect spacecraft from the extremely high temperatures of entering an atmosphere – whether…

NASA’s current class of astronaut candidates toured the agency’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, including a stop at the Arc Jet Complex, on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. In the arc jet facilities, Ames researchers test advanced materials that protect spacecraft from the extremely high temperatures of entering an atmosphere – whether Earth’s, Mars’,…

The public now has a live, front row seat to see NASA’s first robotic Moon rover take shape in the Surface Segment Integration and Testing Facility clean room at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Members of VIPER — short for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — and the Office of Communications at NASA’s Ames…

A system of seven sweltering planets has been revealed by continued study of data from NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope: Each one is bathed in more radiant heat from their host star per area than any planet in our solar system. Also unlike any of our immediate neighbors, all seven planets in this system, named…