Before arriving in Andenes, Norway, on Jan. 3, 2019, Alvaro Guerra and Erica Venkatesulu — both juniors at Pennsylvania State University in State College — had never seen the northern lights. Yet in a few short days, they would launch a rocket right into them. “I’d never done anything like this before,” Guerra said. “I […]
NASA, National Science Foundation Announce Support for White House Stem Engagement Plan
NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with other federal agencies, have committed to a White House-led effort to strengthen education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Charting a Course for Success: A Federal Strategy for STEM Education lays out the federal government’s role in furthering STEM education by working with state and […]
Community College Students Tackle Robotics at NASA Workshop
Whether they’re devising robotic rovers to explore other worlds or networking with veteran agency professionals, students in the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars workshop at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, may be honing lifetime careers crucial to America’s space program. Most of the 36 students visiting Marshall Sept. 25-28 represent minority-serving institutions around the […]
Students Experience The Power Of Controlling Satellites In Space
Earth-bound electronic games can’t compete with actually controlling a squadron of miniature robotic satellites in space. Through the Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient Experimental Satellites- Zero Robotics (SPHERES-Zero-Robotics) challenge, students compete to experience this power and excitement. Using a trio of autonomous satellites on the International Space Station, SPHERES-Zero-Robotics gives students the chance to develop software […]
Student Experiments Soar With Early Morning Launch From Wallops
Approximately 100 undergraduate university and community college students from across the United States were on hand to witness the launch of their experiments and technology demonstration projects on a NASA suborbital rocket at 6:13 a.m., Aug. 14, from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. The Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket launched as the sun was rising over the […]
Cars And Planes Are Safer Thanks To This Tool Developed For Shuttle
On Feb. 1, 2003, just minutes before Space Shuttle Columbia was due to touch down, the spacecraft suffered a catastrophic failure — all because of a piece of foam that had broke off and knocked into the leading edge of the wing during launch 17 days earlier. Getting to that answer — and ensuring that […]
NASA Interns Develop And Release Navigation Software Simulating Star Tracker Navigation
Interning at NASA puts students at the center of innovation and discovery. For two students at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, this meant having the incredible opportunity to not only leave their mark on one of NASA’s most unique testing facilities, but also release their own open source software. Junior engineering interns Greta Studier, […]
Testing The Insight Mars Lander’s Solar Arrays
NASA’s InSight, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is more than a Mars mission – it is a terrestrial planet explorer that will address one of the most fundamental issues of planetary and solar system science – understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) […]
Swarms Of Low-Resource Sensors To Probe The Ionosphere
NASA is sponsoring a team developing a new type of payload to collect ionospheric plasma data at multiple points near a suborbital main payload. These low-resource, easily reproducible payloads—called Bobs—were developed for the NASA Isinglass auroral sounding rocket mission (conducted in February 2017 at the Poker Flat Research Range in Alaska). Much of the current […]
GPS Sensor Web Helps Forecasters Warn Of Monsoon Flash Floods
In the American Southwest and in northwestern Mexico, more than half the annual rainfall often comes in the form of the torrential and unpredictable downpours of the North American monsoon. As in monsoon seasons across the tropics, a summertime reversal of winds carries streams of moisture from over the oceans or, in this case, the […]