HAMPTON, Va. (NASA PR) — A NASA technology that could one day help land humans on Mars is about to head into final integration and testing before a sub-orbital flight test next year.

Two key components of the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) are complete and recently arrived at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. At Langley, engineers will test the complete system to ensure LOFTID is flight ready.

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (NASA PR) — As any seasoned road-tripper knows, to get the most out of an adventure, a good map helps. It’s no different for NASA’s first lunar robotic rover planned for delivery to the Moon in late 2023 to search for ice and other resources on and below the lunar surface. The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, is part of the agency’s Artemis program. Without a Moon travel guide, VIPER’s mission planners are creating new high resolution, digital elevation maps of the lunar surface.

EDWARDS, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s 2021 Tech Flights solicitation is now open! Tech Flights offers funding opportunities to researchers from U.S.-based industry, academia, and private research institutions to rapidly test technologies on commercial suborbital vehicles with awards up to $650,000 per awardee.

by Abby Tabor
NASA’s Ames Research Center

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — It’s a classic superhero tale: Inconspicuous, underestimated, our hero is revealed to have powers beyond imagination! The hottest and coldest environments on Earth, decades without water, the powerful radiation of space – none of it is any match for…the tardigrade!

TEL AVIV-JAFFA, Israel (Israel Space Agency PR) — Another step in Eytan Stibbe’s journey into space: the Israel Space Agency at the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ramon Foundation announced at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation the scientific experiments that the Israeli astronaut will perform in space as part of a Sky mission. The groundbreaking experiments were selected from technological, scientific and medical fields, and chosen on the basis of their research potential and expected economic impact. 

On Dec. 23, 2020, the Israel Space Agency and the Ramon Foundation announced a call for Israeli scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs, who in recent months have submitted their proposals for experiments to be carried out on the International Space Station as part of the Sky mission. 

The experiments were selected by a scientific and technological committee headed by Inbal Kreiss, a senior figure in the Israeli aerospace industry, and the director of innovation in the aerospace missile systems division. The experiment selection process included training seminars and counseling sessions to adapt the experiments to space conditions and the experimental teams were given access to the scientific and technological platforms at the International Space Station. This morning, the 44 trials selected by the professional committee were announced. 

The craft’s April 25 flight was conducted at speeds and distances beyond what had ever been previously demonstrated, even in testing on Earth.

WRIGHT BROTHERS FIELD, Mars (NASA PR) — NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter continues to set records, flying faster and farther on Sunday, April 25, 2021 than in any tests it went through on Earth. The helicopter took off at 1:31 a.m. EDT (4:31 a.m. PDT), or 12:33 p.m. local Mars time, rising 16 feet (5 meters) – the same altitude as its second flight. Then it zipped downrange 164 feet (50 meters), almost half the length of a football field, reaching a top speed of 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second).

LEXINGTON, Ken. (NASA PR) — Researchers from the University of Kentucky in Lexington have developed a delivery system designed to carry research samples and other small payloads from astronauts on the International Space Station back to Earth. Such delivery systems could aid NASA’s efforts to gather data and test instruments in support of the agency’s goal of returning to the Moon.

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts 2021 Phase II Award
Amount: $500,000

Lynn Rothschild
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field, Calif.

A turtle carries its own habitat. While reliable, it costs energy in transporting mass. NASA makes the same trade-off when it transports habitats and other structures needed for human and other applications on lunar and planetary surfaces “on the back” of its missions. During Phase 1, we identified a novel biology-based solution to in situ production of usable components for space exploration: using fungal mycelial composites to grow structures off-planet, from habitats to furniture.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA encourages researchers to develop and study unexpected approaches for traveling through, understanding, and exploring space. To further these goals, the agency has selected seven studies for additional funding – totaling $5 million – from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. The researchers previously received at least one NIAC award related to their proposals.

by Gianine Figliozzi
NASA’s Ames Research Center

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — BioSentinel gets a step closer to flight. Having completed assembly and a battery of tests, the BioSentinel team at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley is in the final stretch of preparations to ship the spacecraft to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.

BioSentinel’s deep space flight will go past the Moon and into an orbit around the Sun. It’s one of 13 CubeSats that will launch aboard Artemis I, the first flight of the Artemis program’s Space Launch System. Above, inside an anechoic chamber at Ames, quality assurance engineer Austin Bowie inspects BioSentinel’s solar array after completion of a test to determine the effects of electromagnetic spacecraft emissions on spacecraft systems.