Space News & Blog Articles

Since the dawn of the Space Age, agencies have relied on powerful arrays of communication antennas positioned worldwide to control, coordinate, and retrieve data from their missions. Today, NASA and its partner agencies rely on the Deep Space Network (DSN) to communicate with the many probes, orbiters, landers, and rovers they have operating beyond Earth. These signals also lead to "spillover," where radio signals reach far beyond robotic missions and propagate for light-years through space.

How do you tell how old an astronomical object is? I mean, the next time the Moon is in the sky, take a look at it. How would you even begin to answer that question?

How can thermoelectric generators (TEGs) help advance future lunar surface habitats? This is what a recent study published in Acta Astronautica hopes to address as a team of researchers from the Republic of Korea investigated a novel technique for improving power efficiency and reliability under the Moon’s harsh conditions. This study has the potential to help mission planners, engineers, and future astronauts develop technologies necessary for deep space human exploration to the Moon and beyond.

Since the turn of the century, the growing impact of Climate Change has inspired plans for space settlement. For many, establishing habitats in space and on other celestial bodies is a matter of survival, of creating "backup locations" for humanity so no single cataclysmic fate could lead to our extinction. This presents many challenges since spaceflight presents numerous hazards, including radiation exposure and the physiological and psychological effects of time spent in microgravity. Ongoing research aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has shown that these effects include muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and genetic changes.

Comets are like the archeological sites of the solar system. They formed early on, and their composition helps us understand what the area around the early Sun was like, potentially even before any planets were formed. A new paper from researchers at a variety of US and European institutions used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) to capture detailed spatial spectral images of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, which is very similar to the famous Halley’s comet, and might hold clues to where the water on the Earth came from.

A set of instruments shut off almost 50 years ago are still producing useful results. It’s the seismometers left by the Apollo missions to monitor moonquakes, which as the name suggests are earthquakes but on the Moon. First off, the Apollo seismometers were the first to reveal that the Moon does indeed have quakes, which is an impressive achievement in its own right. And once we realized that the Moon shakes, we’ve been able to use the natural seismic vibrations produced inside the Moon to map out its interior structure.

The 33rd SpaceX commercial resupply mission will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, August 24th, for the International Space Station (ISS). Along with a regular complement of sundries, this mission will carry numerous science investigations, like a 3D bioprinted implantable medical device, engineered liver tissues, and another 3D metal printing experiment. In addition, the mission will send an important medical investigation examining potential bone density loss, a common health effect that comes from extended periods spent in microgravity.