NASA’s crawler-transporter 2, carrying NASA’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion spacecraft, arrives Wednesday, 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 roll back to Launch Complex 39B to prepare to launch four [...]
As its team prepared for second flight, NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft underwent engine run testing on Thursday, March 12, 2026, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.Credit: NASA NASA will hold a media teleconference at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 19 to highlight plans for its X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft’s upcoming [...]
2 Min Read SPARCS CubeSat ‘First Light’ Images PIA26731 Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Photojournal Navigation Science Photojournal SPARCS CubeSat ‘First… Photojournal Home Photojournal Search Latest Content Galleries Feedback RSS About Downloads SPARCS CubeSat ‘First Light’ Images PNG (1.73 MB) Description This pair of images shows stars observed by the SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat) space [...]
7 min read To Protect Artemis II Astronauts, NASA Experts Keep Eyes on Sun As four astronauts travel around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission, they will venture beyond Earth’s protective magnetic field. The crew’s spacecraft, Orion, will carry and protect them as they journey into deep space and serves as the main protection against the [...]
Dr. Robert H. Goddard and a liquid oxygen-gasoline rocket in the frame from which it was fired on March 16, 1926, at Auburn, Mass.Esther Goddard, from the Clark University archive From the voyages of spacecraft to the Moon and beyond, to the launches of satellites that help us navigate, communicate, and understand our planet and [...]
Download PDF: A Combination of Techniques Leads to Improved Friction Stir Welding The NESC developed several innovative tools and techniques during an assessment to find the root cause of poor tensile strength and low topography anomalies (LTA) in welds formed using a solid-state welding process called self-reacting friction stir welding (SRFSW). Using a combination of [...]
Download PDF: NESC Develops Method for Estimating Risk When Reducing NDE Performing nondestructive evaluation (NDE) can have both cost and schedule impacts, leading some to question whether descoping (i.e., reducing or eliminating) NDE inspections on certain spaceflight hardware could be possible. However, this approach would be counter to NASA’s Technical Standard NASA-STD-5019A, which outlines the spaceflight [...]
2 min read Volunteers Find Oddly High Solar Flare Rates Patches of the Sun’s surface often show strong magnetic fields. These fields can emerge within a matter of hours, and can decay slowly or quickly, sometimes over days, weeks, or even months. Thanks to a new study about these long-lived active regions, we now [...]
2 min read Extra Extra! Extra Data Stream Added to the Daily Minor Planet! The Daily Minor Planet citizen science project is expanding! In addition to data received nightly from the Catalina Sky Survey’s Mt. Lemmon telescope in Arizona, the project’s science team is now processing images from the Bok 2.3-meter telescope at Kitt [...]
Image Credit: National Institute of Aerospace NASA has selected eight student teams as finalists in the 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Competition, giving them the resources to help address a critical challenge for U.S. aviation: maintenance. Challenges facing the commercial aviation industry include a shortage of qualified maintenance workers and increasing demands to keep complicated aircraft running for longer. With Gateways to Blue Skies, NASA taps into student innovation [...]
