Shirakawa Village,Gifu Prefecture(白川郷，岐阜県) By Kinhaku On Flickr.

Oddly Satisfying #NASAMoonKits 🌙

What would you take with you to the Moon? 🧳

We’re getting ready for our Green Run Hot Fire test, which will fire all four engines of the rocket that will be used for our Artemis I mission. This test will ensure the Space Launch System rocket is ready for the first and future missions beyond Earth’s orbit, putting us one step closer to landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon!

In celebration of this important milestone, we’ve been asking everyone (yeah, you there!) to dust off your suitcase, get creative, and show us what you would take if you were heading to the Moon!

Take a moment to peruse these #oddlysatisfying #NASAMoonKits submitted by people like you, and let them inspire you to lay out your own masterpiece. Post a picture of what you’d pack for the moon using the hashtag #NASAMoonKit for a chance to be shared by us! ⁣

1. @alexandra4astronaut

A stunning #NASAMoonKit in blue. 💙

2.@timmerman.jess

Looks like a little friend is hoping to catch a ride with this #NASAMoonKit. 🐶

3. @guido_aerus_lombardo

A #NASAMoonKit fit for an explorer. 🧭

4. @melli.jp

Shout out to the monochrome #NASAMoonKit enthusiasts! 🖤

5. @mycactusdress

This #NASAMoonKit is thoughtfully laid out by a true fan. 📚

6. Mar Christian V. Cruz

This geologist’s #NASAMoonKit rocks. ⛏️

7. Nelli

Beauty in simple #NASAMoonKits. ✨

8. @urbanxkoi

This #NASAMoonKit successfully fits into our Expert Mode — a volume of 5” by 8” by 2” (12.7 cm x 20.32 cm x 5.08 cm). The Expert Mode dimensions are based on the amount of space astronauts are allowed when they travel to the International Space Station!

9. PWR Aerospace

Nothing like a cozy #NASAMoonKit. 🧦

10. LEGO

This #NASAMoonKit is clearly for the builder-types! 🧸

How to Show Us What’s In Your #NASAMoonKit:    

There are four social media platforms that you can use to submit your work:

Instagram: Use the Instagram app to upload your photo or video, and in the description include #NASAMoonKit  

Twitter: Share your image on Twitter and include #NASAMoonKit in the tweet  

Facebook: Share your image on Facebook and include #NASAMoonKit in the post  

Tumblr: Share your image in Tumblr and include #NASAMoonKit in the tags

If a #NASAMoonKit post catches our eye, we may share your post on our NASA social media accounts or share it on the Green Run broadcast! 

Click here for #NASAMoonKit Terms and Conditions.  

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Spotted: signs of a planet about 28 million light-years away 🔎 🪐

For the first time, astronomers may have detected an exoplanet candidate outside of the Milky Way galaxy. Exoplanets are defined as planets outside of our Solar System. All other known exoplanets and exoplanet candidates have been found in the Milky Way, almost all of them less than about 3,000 light-years from Earth.

This new result is based on transits, events in which the passage of a planet in front of a star blocks some of the star's light and produces a characteristic dip. Researchers used our Chandra X-ray Observatory to search for dips in the brightness of X-rays received from X-ray bright binaries in the spiral galaxy Messier 51, also called the Whirlpool Galaxy (pictured here). These luminous systems typically contain a neutron star or black hole pulling in gas from a closely orbiting companion star. They estimate the exoplanet candidate would be roughly the size of Saturn, and orbit the neutron star or black hole at about twice the distance of Saturn from the Sun.

This composite image of the Whirlpool Galaxy was made with X-ray data from Chandra and optical light from our Hubble Space Telescope.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/R. DiStefano, et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/Grendler

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Build a Rover, Race a Rover!

Have you ever wanted to drive a rover across the surface of the Moon?

This weekend, students from around the world will get their chance to live out the experience on Earth! At the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, high schoolers and college students operate human-powered rovers that they designed and built as they traverse a simulated world, making decisions and facing obstacles that replicate what the next generation of explorers will face in space.

Though the teams that build the rover can be a few people or a few dozen, in the end, two students (one male, one female) will end up navigating their rover through a custom-built course at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Each duo will push their rover to the limit, climbing up hills, bumping over rocky and gravelly grounds, and completing mission objectives (like retrieving soil samples and planting their team flag) for extra points – all in less than seven minutes.

2019 will mark the 25th year of Rover Challenge, which started life as the Great Moonbuggy Race on July 16, 1994. Six teams braved the rain and terrain (without a time limit) in the Rocket City that first year – and in the end, the University of New Hampshire emerged victorious, powering through the moon craters, boulder fields and other obstacles in eighteen minutes and fifty-five seconds.

When it came time to present that year’s design awards, though, the honors went to the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao, who have since become the only school to compete in every Great Moonbuggy Race and Rover Challenge hosted by NASA Marshall. The second-place finishers in 1994, the hometown University of Alabama in Huntsville, are the only other school to compete in both the first race and the 25th anniversary race in 2019.

Since that first expedition, the competition has only grown: the race was officially renamed the Human Exploration Rover Challenge for 2014, requiring teams to build even more of their rover from the wheels up, and last year, new challenges and tasks were added to better reflect the experience of completing a NASA mission on another planet. This year, almost 100 teams will be competing in Rover Challenge, hailing from 24 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and countries from Bolivia to Bangladesh.

Rover Challenge honors the legacy of the NASA Lunar Roving Vehicle, which made its first excursion on the moon in 1971, driven by astronauts David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo 15. Given the competition’s space race inspiration, it’s only appropriate that the 25th year of Rover Challenge is happening in 2019, the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing.

Interested in learning more about Rover Challenge? Get the details on the NASA Rover Challenge site – then join us at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (entrance is free) or watch live on the Rover Challenge Facebook Page starting at 7 AM CT, this Friday, April 12 and Saturday, April 13. Happy roving!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com  

Dark Energy

This bone-chilling force will leave you shivering alone in terror! An unseen power is prowling throughout the cosmos, driving the universe to expand at a quickening rate. This relentless pressure, called dark energy, is nothing like dark matter, that mysterious material revealed only by its gravitational pull. Dark energy offers a bigger fright: pushing galaxies farther apart over trillions of years, leaving the universe to an inescapable, freezing death in the pitch black expanse of outer space. Download this free poster in English and Spanish and check out the full Galaxy of Horrors.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

On Top of The World – Literally

What’s one perk about applying to #BeAnAstronaut? You’re one step closer to being on top of the world.

Part of the job of a NASA astronaut is a task called spacewalking. Spacewalking refers to any time an astronaut gets out of a vehicle while in space; it is performed for many reasons such as completing repairs outside the International Space Station, conducting science experiments and testing new equipment. 

Spacewalking can last anywhere from five to eight hours, and for that reason, astronauts’ spacesuits are more like mini-spacecraft than uniforms! Inside spacesuits, astronauts have the oxygen they need to breathe, water to drink and a bathroom! 

Spacesuits also protect astronauts from the extreme environment of space. In Earth orbit, conditions can be as cold as minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit. In the sunlight, they can be as hot as 250 degrees. A spacesuit protects astronauts from those extreme temperatures.

To stay safe during spacewalks, astronauts are tethered to the International Space Station. The tethers, like ropes, are hooked to the astronaut and the space station – ensuring the astronaut does not float away into space. 

Spacewalking can be a demanding task. Astronauts can burn anywhere from ~1500-2500 calories during one full assignment. That’s about equal to running 2/3 of a marathon. 

Does spacewalking sound like something you’d be interested in? If so, you might want to APPLY to #BeAnAstronaut! Applications are open until March 31. Don’t miss your chance to! 

Want to learn more about what it takes to be an astronaut? Or, maybe you just want more epic images. Either way, check out nasa.gov/astronauts for all your NASA astronaut needs!

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Setting the Standards for Unmanned Aircraft

From advanced wing designs, through the hypersonic frontier, and onward into the era of composite structures, electronic flight controls, and energy efficient flight, our engineers and researchers have led the way in virtually every aeronautic development. And since 2011, aeronautical innovators from around the country have been working on our Unmanned Aircraft Systems integration in the National Airspace System, or UAS in the NAS, project.  

This project was a new type of undertaking that worked to identify, develop, and test the technologies and procedures that will make it possible for unmanned aircraft systems to have routine access to airspace occupied by human piloted aircraft. Since the start, the goal of this unified team was to provide vital research findings through simulations and flight tests to support the development and validation of detect and avoid and command and control technologies necessary for integrating UAS into the NAS.  

That interest moved into full-scale testing and evaluation to determine how to best integrate unmanned vehicles into the national airspace and how to come up with standards moving forward. Normally, 44,000 flights safely take off and land here in the U.S., totaling more than 16 million flights per year. With the inclusion of millions of new types of unmanned aircraft, this integration needs to be seamless in order to keep the flying public safe.

Working hand-in-hand, teams collaborated to better understand how these UAS’s would travel in the national airspace by using NASA-developed software in combination with flight tests. Much of this work is centered squarely on technology called detect and avoid.  One of the primary safety concerns with these new systems is the inability of remote operators to see and avoid other aircraft.  Because unmanned aircraft literally do not have a pilot on board, we have developed concepts allowing safe operation within the national airspace.  

In order to better understand how all the systems work together, our team flew a series of tests to gather data to inform the development of minimum operational performance standards for detect and avoid alerting guidance. Over the course of this testing, we gathered an enormous amount of data allowing safe integration for unmanned aircraft into the national airspace. As unmanned aircraft are becoming more ubiquitous in our world - safety, reliability, and proven research must coexist.

Every day new use case scenarios and research opportunities arise based around the hard work accomplished by this incredible workforce. Only time will tell how these new technologies and innovations will shape our world.

Want to learn the many ways that NASA is with you when you fly? Visit nasa.gov/aeronautics.



Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Laying the Groundwork for a New Generation of Commercial Supersonic Aircraft

Cabin crew, prepare for takeoff. Engines roar; speed increases. You sip a cold beverage as the aircraft accelerates quietly past Mach 1 or around 600 mph. There’s no indication you’re flying over land faster than the speed of sound except when you glance at your watch upon arrival and see you’ve reached your destination in half the time. You leisurely walk off the plane with ample time to explore, finish a final report or visit a familiar face. This reality is closer than you think.

We’re on a mission to help you get to where you want to go in half the time. Using our single-pilot X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) research aircraft, we will provide rule-makers the data needed to lift current bans on faster-than-sound air travel over land and help enable a new generation of commercial supersonic aircraft.

The X-59 QueSST is unique in shape. Each element of the aircraft’s design will help reduce a loud sonic boom, typically produced by conventional supersonic aircraft, to a gentle sonic thump, making it quieter for people on the ground. To prove the quiet technology works, we will fly the X-59 over select U.S. communities to gauge the public’s response to the sound.

We are working with Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, California, to manufacture the X-59 and are making significant progress, despite the pandemic.

We finished the majority of work on the wing and closed its interior, marking the halfway point on construction of the aircraft. 

The X-59 team at Lockheed Martin completed the final touches by fastening skins to the wing. A special sealant is applied so that fuel can be carried in the wings of the aircraft.

Moving at a steady pace, technicians continue to work on many parts of the aircraft simultaneously. The forebody section of the aircraft will carry the pilot and all the avionics needed to fly the aircraft.

Because of the X-59’s long nose, the pilot will rely on an eXternal Vision System (XVS), rather than a window, for forward-facing visibility. The XVS will display fused images from an advanced computing system and cameras mounted on the upper and lower part of the aircraft’s nose.

The aft part of the aircraft will hold an F414 GE engine and other critical systems. Unlike typical aircraft, the engine inlet will be located on the upper surface of the X-59 and is one of many features that will help reduce the noise heard on the ground.

Over the next several months, the team will merge all three sections together. After final assembly in 2021, the X-59 will undergo numerous tests to ensure structural integrity of the aircraft and that ¬its components work properly. First flight of the aircraft will be in 2022 and community testing will start in 2024, making way for a new market of quiet commercial supersonic aircraft.

Want to learn more about the X-59 and our mission? Visit nasa.gov/X59. 

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com. 

You’ve Heard “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” But Do You Know The Mission It’s From?

It’s the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission! NASA’s “successful failure,”Apollo 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted mid-flight after the rupture of a service module oxygen tank. The crew never landed on the moon, but due to the dedication and ingenuity of Mission Control, made it back to Earth safely. We’ve put some of the most important numbers of the Apollo 13 mission in perspective. Check it out!

Listen to the mission in real time, HERE. 

Follow NASA History on Twitter and Facebook for more interesting information about aerospace history!

Check out the stats of all the Apollo Missions in the free e-book Apollo by the Numbers, HERE.