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 Featured 5 min readNASA Analysis Confirms a Year of Monthly Temperature Recordsarticle3 days ago Hubble Finds Surprises Around a Star That Erupted 40 Years Ago4 min readHubble Finds Surprises Around a Star That Erupted 40 Years Agoarticle4 days ago The specks in this Mars scene were caused by charged particles6 min readNASA Watches Mars Light Up During Epic Solar Stormarticle4 days ago
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 Highlights Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

	2 min read

		Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

		article

			2 hours ago Voyager 1 Returning Science Data From All Four Instruments

	2 min read

		Voyager 1 Returning Science Data From All Four Instruments

		article

			13 hours ago WL20 group of stars is located in the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region

	5 min read

		NASA’s Webb Reveals Long-Studied Star Is Actually Twins

		article

			18 hours ago
 Highlights A woman with long, wavy hair and a bright smile sits at a round table during a formal event, surrounded by other attendees. She is wearing a brown cardigan and a patterned blouse.

	5 min read

		Lakita Lowe: Leading Space Commercialization Innovations and Fostering STEM Engagement

		article

			2 days ago NASA’s Repository Supports Research of Commercial Astronaut Health

	2 min read

		NASA’s Repository Supports Research of Commercial Astronaut Health

		article

			3 days ago NASA astronaut Doug “Wheels” Wheelock and Axiom Space astronaut Peggy Whitson prepare for a test of full-scale mockups of spacesuits developed by Axiom Space and SpaceX’s Starship human landing system developed for NASA’s Artemis missions to the Moon.

	4 min read

		NASA Astronauts Practice Next Giant Leap for Artemis

		article

			1 week ago
 Highlights NASA Announces New System to Aid Disaster Response

	4 min read

		NASA Announces New System to Aid Disaster Response

		article

			16 hours ago Amendment 21: A.3 Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry: NSPIRES cover page issue and Delay of Proposal Due Date

	2 min read

		Amendment 21: A.3 Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry: NSPIRES cover page issue and Delay of Proposal Due Date

		article

			2 days ago 5 min read

		NASA Analysis Confirms a Year of Monthly Temperature Records

		article

			3 days ago
 Highlights The Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon

	17 min read

		The Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon

		article

			14 hours ago Mars Dunes

	5 min read

		NASA’s Perseverance Fords an Ancient River to Reach Science Target

		article

			21 hours ago Ed Stone, former director of JPL and project scientist for the Voyager mission, died on June 9, 2024. A friend, mentor, and colleague to many, he was known for his straightforward leadership and commitment to communicating with the public.

	5 min read

		Ed Stone, Former Director of JPL, Voyager Project Scientist, Dies

		article

			3 days ago
 Featured Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

	2 min read

		Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

		article

			2 hours ago WL20 group of stars is located in the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region

	5 min read

		NASA’s Webb Reveals Long-Studied Star Is Actually Twins

		article

			18 hours ago Artist's illustration of a star system near the Sun that is close enough to Earth for exoplanets in their habitable zones to be directly imaged using future telescopes.

	4 min read

		Coming in Hot — NASA’s Chandra Checks Habitability of Exoplanets

		article

			2 days ago
 Highlights Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

	2 min read

		Hubble Observes a Cosmic Fossil

		article

			2 hours ago Voyager 1 Returning Science Data From All Four Instruments

	2 min read

		Voyager 1 Returning Science Data From All Four Instruments

		article

			13 hours ago WL20 group of stars is located in the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming region

	5 min read

		NASA’s Webb Reveals Long-Studied Star Is Actually Twins

		article

			18 hours ago
 Highlights Illustration showing several future aircraft concepts flying over a mid-sized city with a handful of skyscrapers.

	7 min read

		ARMD Solicitations

		article

			1 week ago Team “Rumble Ready” from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, comprised of (from left to right) Professor Mark Gonda, Nicole Xie, Junaid Bodla, Jordan Ragsac, Krishi Gajjar, Gerald McAllister III, and Leara Dominguez, took home first place at the 2024 Gateways to Blue Skies Forum held May 30-31 at NASA Ames Research Center. They are standing in a row posing for the photo; the team members are wearing blue t-shirts, black pants, and tennis shoes.

	4 min read

		Winners Announced in Gateways to Blue Skies Aeronautics Competition

		article

			2 weeks ago Graphic shows a possible future General Electric jet engine with exposed fan blades in front of a cut-away-interior view of its core mechanisms -- all part of NASA's HyTEC research project.

	4 min read

		NASA, Industry to Start Designing More Sustainable Jet Engine Core

		article

			4 weeks ago
 Highlights Simulated Roman image full of synthetic galaxies

	6 min read

		NASA’s Roman Mission Gets Cosmic ‘Sneak Peek’ From Supercomputers

		article

			2 days ago Ed Stone, former director of JPL and project scientist for the Voyager mission, died on June 9, 2024. A friend, mentor, and colleague to many, he was known for his straightforward leadership and commitment to communicating with the public.

	5 min read

		Ed Stone, Former Director of JPL, Voyager Project Scientist, Dies

		article

			3 days ago Astronaut-packaged cheese sandwiches

	2 min read

		Food Safety Program for Space Has Taken Over on Earth

		article

			4 days ago
 Featured A team from Iowa accepts its Artemis grand prize award during NASA’s Lunabotics competition on Friday, May 17, 2024, at the Center for Space Education near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.

	5 min read

		Artemis Generation Shines During NASA’s 2024 Lunabotics Challenge

		article
			2 weeks ago
 Highlights Astronaut-packaged cheese sandwiches

	2 min read

		Food Safety Program for Space Has Taken Over on Earth

		article

			4 days ago Aerial view of the coastal launch range of Wallops Flight Facility, showing a blue Atlantic Ocean on the right; white buildings along a tan coastline back up to a green, marshy landscape

	1 min read

		NASA Wallops to Support Sounding Rocket Launch

		article

			4 days ago A woman with long dark hair, wearing a dark top, stands in front of the U.S. flag and a NASA logo on a beige wall.

	5 min read

		From Psychology to Space: Alexandra Whitmire’s Journey and Impact in NASA’s Human Research Program

		article

			3 days ago
 Highlights 2021 Astronaut Candidates Stand in Recognition

	6 min read

		Diez maneras en que los estudiantes pueden prepararse para ser astronautas

		article

			3 months ago Astronaut Marcos Berrios

	4 min read

		Astronauta de la NASA Marcos Berríos

		article

			3 months ago image of an experiment facility installed in the exterior of the space station

	8 min read

		Resultados científicos revolucionarios en la estación espacial de 2023

		article

			4 months ago


4 min read NASA Selects New Technologies for Flight Tests for Future Space Exploration


Nancy J. Pekar
 NASA has selected five space technologies to test on low-gravity-simulating aircraft, high-altitude balloons or suborbital rockets. The opportunity to fly on these vehicles helps advance technologies closer to practical use by taking them from a laboratory environment to the real world. The selections were made for NASA’s Flight Opportunities program which organizes chances to fly and selects experiments for NASA support twice each year. The program selects promising space technologies to test through relatively low-cost ways that simulate spaceflight or just reach the edge of “space” on commercial suborbital launch vehicles, reduced gravity aircraft and high-altitude balloon flights. “These selections allow companies and academia to demonstrate technologies of interest to NASA in a much more realistic environment than what they could get in ground-based simulation facilities,” said Stephan Ord, the program technology manager for NASA’s Flight Opportunities program. “This program is a valuable platform for NASA to mature cutting-edge technologies that have the potential of supporting future agency mission needs.” Two topics were included in this call for research. Under the first topic, which requested demonstration of space technology payloads, NASA selected four proposals: **Protein-Drop Pinning in Microgravity***Amir Hirsa, principal investigator, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York*
	Demonstration of a system for maintaining protein solutions in liquid samples involved in the study of diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s without using a container, which often influences scientific measurements.
**Rapid Calibration of Space Solar Cells in Suborbital Environments***Justin Lee, principal investigator, The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles*
	Demonstration of an automated solar cell calibration platform, using a device attached to a high-altitude balloon to capture the solar spectrum and characterize the performance of the solar cells at high altitude up to 22 miles.
**Guided Parafoil High Altitude Research II***Garrett “Storm” Dunker, principal investigator, Airborne Systems, Pennsauken, New Jersey*
	Demonstration of a new parafoil design that can be used for precision delivery or mid-air retrieval of scientific payloads, tested from a high-altitude balloon. Once the parafoil is deployed at 60,000-foot altitude, it will select its landing point and perform an automatic precision landing.
**Strata-S1 – Refining a Testbed to Evaluate the Behavior of Regolith Under Microgravity Conditions***Adrienne Dove, principal investigator, University of Central Florida, Orlando*
	Demonstration of a regolith compression mechanism with transparent tubes, which contain beads and pebbles that simulate regolith, to evaluate behavior at various gravity levels during suborbital flights. Under the second topic, demonstration of vehicle capability enhancements and onboard research facilities for payload accommodation, NASA selected one proposal: **BioChip SubOrbitalLab: An Automated Microfluidic and Imaging Platform for Live-Cell Investigations in Microgravity***Daniel O’Connell, principal investigator, HNU Phototonics LLC, Kahului, Hawaii*
	Demonstration of an automated platform to visualize in real time how live cells will react to the different phases of a rocket launch. Cell cultures with fluorescent genes will be pumped through channels and recorded by an optical microscope camera during flight. Awards will be made for payload integration and flight costs, as well as limited payload development costs. These investments take technologies from the laboratory to a relevant flight environment, facilitate technology maturation, validate feasibility and reduce technical risks and enable infusion of key space technologies into multiple future space missions. The next call for proposals in this series, called the REDDI Flight Opportunities, will be released by the spring of 2017. The Flight Opportunities program is funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate in Washington and managed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, manages the solicitation and selection of technologies to be tested and demonstrated on commercial flight vehicles. For more information on NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, visit: **https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flight_opportunities/index.html** **Kimberly Williams***Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California*
650-604-2457kimberly.k.williams@nasa.gov **Leslie Williams***Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California*
661-276-3893leslie.a.williams@nasa.gov


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 Page Last Updated:
								Jul 26, 2023
							Page Editor:
								Lee Ann Obringer
												Responsible NASA Official:
							Abigail Bowman