Four crew members from three space agencies will launch to the International Space Station no earlier than spring 2027 for a long-duration science expedition as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-14 mission.

NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Chris Birch will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Makoto Suwa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Arutyun Kiviryan as mission specialists. After docking, Crew-14 will join the space station’s Expedition 75/76.

This mission is the 14th commercial crew rotation with SpaceX under NASA’s Low Earth Orbit Program. The crew will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars and to benefit people on Earth.

This will be Barron’s second flight to the space station. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017. Barron earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge in England. A commander in the U.S. Navy, Barron earned her submarine warfare officer qualification, deploying three times aboard the USS Maine. She first launched to the space station in 2021 aboard NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission, spending a total of 177 days in space across space station Expeditions 66/67. She completed two spacewalks and served as lead robotics operator for another. Most recently, Barron supported the development of new technologies and operational concepts for NASA’s Artemis program.

Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Birch graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with degrees in mathematics and biochemistry and molecular biophysics. She earned a doctorate in biological engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later taught bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside, and scientific writing and communication at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Birch competed as a decorated track cyclist on the U.S. National Team and was named to the Olympic Long Team for the 2020 Tokyo Games. She has served as a capsule communicator, supporting crews aboard the space station and during the Artemis II mission. Birch was crew lead for Expedition 72, working with flight control teams to help manage daily operations, and served as a crew representative for NASA’s Orion Program, supporting Artemis II mission development and operations. This will be her first spaceflight.

The Crew-14 mission also is the first spaceflight assignment for Suwa. Before JAXA selected him as an astronaut candidate in 2023, Suwa spent nearly a decade with the World Bank Group. Previously, he served in Rwanda as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer before joining the United Nations World Meteorological Organization. Suwa holds a doctorate in geosciences from Princeton University and completed basic training to become certified as an astronaut in 2024.

This mission will be Kiviryan’s first trip to the space station. He graduated from Saint Petersburg Suvorov Military School in 2010 and later studied at the Baltic State Technical University. He graduated in 2015 as an engineer specializing in rocket science and completed training in the operation of computer-controlled machines. Kiviryan was selected for the Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Corps in 2021 and has served as a test cosmonaut since 2023.  

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs that aren’t possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

Learn more about International Space Station research and operations at:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
[email protected] / [email protected]

Anna Schneider / Mary Pfister
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
[email protected] / [email protected]

Source: www.nasa.gov

Spacecraft propulsion traditionally relies on volatile fuels and separate, bulky systems for different types of maneuvering in space. NASA is working to change that paradigm. Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, recently completed a rigorous series of environmental and physical tests on a new small satellite designed to make spaceflight safer and more efficient.

The ASCENT (Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic) Propulsion Dual Mode mission is a flight demonstration of a spacecraft about the size of a large shoebox. The mission will test a single, integrated propulsion system that uses a common fuel tank to feed two different types of engines.

Typically, spacecraft carry two separate propulsion systems to navigate: a high-thrust chemical system for rapid movements like entering orbit, and a low-thrust electric system for highly efficient, slow maneuvers like maintaining a position. This requires multiple fuel tanks and heavy plumbing, which eats up valuable space and weight.

The spacecraft being developed uses a single non-toxic propellant called ASCENT. By feeding both a high-thrust combustion engine and low-thrust electrospray thrusters from one central tank, the spacecraft saves critical mass and volume. For future missions, this means more room for scientific instruments and the ability to launch on smaller, less expensive rockets.

Bringing this concept to flight requires a nationwide collaborative effort. While NASA Marshall manages the mission, the spacecraft relies on electrospray thrusters developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a chemical propulsion module built by Plasma Processes, and a spacecraft bus integrated by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“There are a lot of odds and ends, and a lot of small challenges and some big ones,” said Nehemiah Williams, the demonstration’s project manager at NASA Marshall. “But ensuring the functionality of the propulsion system across all these different teams is what makes the mission successful.”

Before a spacecraft can safely operate in the harsh environment of low Earth orbit, it must pass a battery of tests on the ground. Over the past few months, the engineering team at Marshall has put the flight hardware through its paces inside the center’s Small Spacecraft Servicing and Integration Lab.

To verify the integrity of the unified propulsion system, the team conducted extensive leak testing. Engineers performed a pressurized helium leak test of the spacecraft inside a vacuum chamber to ensure the integrity of the spacecraft’s seals, successfully proving those seals were working as intended. Because the system shares a single tank of ASCENT propellant to feed two different thruster types, ensuring that the fuel lines and valves are perfectly sealed is vital for mission safety and success.

The team also subjected the spacecraft to thermal vacuum testing. Space is an unforgiving environment characterized by a total lack of air and extreme temperature swings. By placing the spacecraft inside a specialized vacuum chamber that mimics these harsh conditions, engineers can ensure that the electronics, thrusters, and mechanical systems will operate normally once in orbit.

Additionally, the spacecraft underwent a spin test. Just like a tire on a car, a spacecraft needs to be perfectly balanced. The spin test measures the spacecraft’s mass properties and center of gravity. This validates the CubeSat’s ability to stably fly and maintain the correct attitude, allowing its antennas to communicate with Earth and its solar panels to accurately catch the Sun’s rays.

With the environmental and physical testing now complete, the mission is entering its final stages of preparation. The team will complete the final system checkouts, integrate the spacecraft’s solar arrays, and ship the hardware to its launch destination.

The ASCENT Propulsion Dual Mode mission is manifested to launch no earlier than October 1 as a payload aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Once deployed into an orbit about 325 miles above Earth, the spacecraft will begin a nine-month mission. After an initial checkout period, the operations team will execute short chemical and electric maneuvers. If successful, the spacecraft will spend several months performing multiple orbit-raising and lowering maneuvers, alternating between its high-thrust and low-thrust engines to prove the dual-mode concept works in space.

The ASCENT Propulsion Dual Mode mission is managed and funded by NASA’s Small Spacecraft & Distributed Systems (SSDS) within the agency’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. SSDS is based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

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After rapidly intensifying, Hurricane Polo spins off Mexico’s Pacific coast on September 23, 2026 (left), over unusually warm waters (right). NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using data from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite and the MUR SST (Multiscale Ultrahigh Resolution Sea Surface Temperature) project.

In mid-September 2026, Hurricane Polo began as a tropical disturbance off the Pacific coast of Mexico. By September 20, it was organized enough to qualify as a tropical depression, and by the next day it was a tropical storm.

From there, Polo launched into a period of rapid intensification that left meteorologists searching for adjectives strong enough to convey what was happening. Some described the storm’s rate of intensification and strength as “jaw-dropping,” others as “astonishing,” and others as “absolute insanity.”  

“Polo went through a period of what can only be described as explosively rapid intensification,” said Gary Partyka, an atmospheric scientist with the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in an email. “This was RAPID, rapid intensification.”

The storm was in an environment that was “near perfect” for strengthening, Partyka said, characterized by weak wind shear, high moisture, warmer ocean temperatures, and high levels of atmospheric instability.

Several observers leaned on extreme rapid intensification—a technical classification meaning the storm’s wind speeds increased at least 60 knots (111 kilometers or 69 miles per hour) within a 24-hour period. By September 22, the storm’s maximum sustained wind speed had risen by 90 knots (167 kilometers per hour or 104 miles per hour) within 24 hours, hitting category 5 strength. In its normally staid forecast discussions, the National Hurricane Center called the intensification “truly remarkable.”

When NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter aircraft flew over the storm on September 22, researchers estimated winds of nearly 285 kilometers (180 miles) per hour. That would make it the third-strongest storm on record in the eastern Pacific by maximum sustained winds and the fastest on record to go from a tropical depression to a category 5 storm, according to some analysts.

On the afternoon of September 23, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image (left), Polo was churning off the coast of Guerrero, southwest of Acapulco. With maximum sustained winds of 230 kilometers (145 miles) per hour, the storm was category 4 strength when the image was acquired, having undergone an eyewall replacement cycle that weakened it slightly.

“The satellite imagery of Polo is very impressive, with the storm’s large, clear eye and extensive outflow pattern,” said Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric scientist at the State University of New York at Albany, who is working on a NASA project that uses satellite data to study tropical cyclone ventilation. “Weak winds above the system and good outflow at the top of the system also contributed to Polo’s rapid intensification.”

As Polo developed, it moved over areas where sea surface temperatures were as high as 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit)—2 to 3 degrees warmer than usual for September 23. Surface waters across much of the region were above 27.8°C (82°F), the temperature generally required to sustain and intensify hurricanes.

The map above (right) is based on data from the Multiscale Ultrahigh Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (MUR SST) project at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which blends satellite measurements from NASA, NOAA, and international missions with observations from ships and buoys. Rather than absolute temperatures, the map shows anomalies—how much warmer or cooler the ocean surface was on September 23, 2026, than the project’s 2003-2014 average for that date.

While the map above conveys temperatures at the water surface, the presence of warm water deeper in the column has likely contributed to the storm’s staying power, Corbosiero added. Sometimes hurricanes churn up cooler water from deep in the column that can slow a storm’s intensification, but in this case the cool water wake behind the storm appears minimal, and measurements and models show high ocean heat content at considerable depths.

Both Partyka and Corbosiero cautioned against attributing Polo’s rapid intensification directly to El Niño’s unusually warm surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Several hurricanes in this region have undergone rapid intensification in the past during La Niña and neutral conditions, Corbosiero noted, including Hurricane Otis in 2023 and Patricia in 2015, both category 5 storms.  

However, the overall amount of tropical cyclone activity in the eastern Pacific does typically increase during El Niño due to changes in large-scale ocean and atmospheric circulation patterns, and that’s what has happened so far in 2026. As of September 24, the accumulated cyclone energy in the region was nearly twice the norm, according to data from Colorado State University.

People tracking sea surface temperature anomalies or other aspects of the storm can do so using NASA’s Worldview browser, a near real-time data viewer from the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) project, and the FLUID tool from GMAO. Forecasters expect Polo to stay over the Pacific until next week, when it may curve toward the northeast and approach Baja California.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using sea surface temperature data from the Multiscale Ultrahigh Resolution (MUR) project, MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview, and storm track data from NOAA’s National Hurricane Center. Story by Adam Voiland.

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September 23, 2026: MODIS Natural Color

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September 23, 2026: MUR Sea Surface Temperatures

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References & Resources

• Colorado State University (2026, September 23) Real-Time Northeast Pacific Ocean Statistics by Storm for 2026. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (2026) Polo. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• Eye on the Tropics (2026, September 23) Polo Puts on a Show Over the Eastern Pacific. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• Forbes (2026, September 22) Explosive Hurricane Polo Could Remain Category 5 For Days. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• Meir, J., via X (2026, September 24) Hurricane Polo is looking massive from the @Space_Station cupola. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• NASA Earthdata Tropical Cyclones. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• National Hurricane Center (2026) Hurricane POLO Advisory Archive. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• Stern, D., et al. (2026) Distinguishing Tropical Cyclone Extreme Rapid Intensification from Ordinary Rapid Intensification. Monthly Weather Review, 154(10), 2133-2149.
• The Washington Post (2026, September 22) Hurricane Polo intensified to a Category 5 in less than a day. Accessed September 24, 2026.
• Yale Climate Connections (2026, September 23) Powerful Hurricane Polo threatens Mexico with torrential rain as Pacific tropics erupt. Accessed September 24, 2026.

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Côte d’Ivoire signed the Artemis Accords on Thursday, becoming the 75th signatory and marking a major milestone for this growing coalition. With the signing ceremony in the nation’s largest city, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire joined other like-minded nations and committed to the peaceful, transparent, and responsible exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

“The United States and Côte d’Ivoire already cooperate on Earth,” said NASA’s Deputy Administrator Matt Anderson. “Today, we expand that partnership beyond it. Joining the Artemis Accords opens new opportunities for our scientists, engineers, and institutions to work together as humanity returns to the Moon and prepares for what comes next. We’ve aligned on the principles. The opportunities are in front of us. And now we can get to work.”

The nation’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Adama Diawara signed on behalf of the country in a ceremony held during Africa Space Expo ASPEX 2026. Chargé d’affaires Junaid Munir from the U.S. Department of State witnessed the ceremony.

“This is a great achievement, and important for Côte d’Ivoire’s ambitions and for the rest of the African Union members,” said Director General of the Space Agency of Côte d’Ivoire Tidiane Outtara.

Côte d’Ivoire has expanded its involvement in space science and technology through years of international cooperation. Since 2019, the National Office of Technical Development of Côte d’Ivoire and NASA have collaborated on Earth observation and geodesy, a field that measures Earth’s shape, gravity, and movement. Together, the partners have advanced global geodetic networks, improved space‑based measurement techniques, and increased understanding of how Earth’s systems interact.

The country later established the Space Agency of Côte d’Ivoire in 2025 to coordinate national efforts in Earth observation, space weather, astronomy, satellite navigation, and communications.

In 2020, NASA and the State Department joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords, responding to the growing interest in lunar activities by both governments and private companies. The Artemis Accords are the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing transparency, safety, and coordination among nations as they explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond, committing nations to:

• Explore peaceably and transparently
• Render aid to those in need
• Enable access to scientific data
• Ensure activities do not interfere with those of others
• Preserve historically significant sites and artifacts by developing best practices

By signing the Artemis Accords, nations open the door to opportunities for future lunar exploration with NASA, advancing humanity’s return to the Moon, and shaping the Golden Age of exploration and innovation.

Learn more about the Artemis Accords at: 

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords

Source: www.nasa.gov

For more information, contact Donald S. Parker, Kennedy Space Center, [email protected]

Download the PDF version

Improper casting and forging processes in the manufacture of aluminum alloy 2219 can lead to microstructural defects that result in a sub-optimal response to anodic surface treatments and an increase in corrosion susceptibility. This Technical Bulletin communicates the risks of improper casting and recommends a homogenizing step followed by multidirectional deformation after conventional direct chill casting, especially for larger castings. 09/24/26 DOC ID: 20260008373

Background
Aluminum 2219 is an age-hardenable, over-saturated, aluminum-copper alloy developed by Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) in 1954, for service up to 600 °F. Numerous aerospace applications include launch and space vehicles including space shuttle fuel tanks, and International Space Station human-rated pressurized modules. It has excellent cryogenic properties, weldability, workability, and mechanical properties at low and high temperatures [1].

Problem/Issue Description
Casting 2219 aluminum alloy ingots is a specialized process used to manufacture large-scale structures that are subsequently forged or rolled into final product forms. The as-cast ingot internal defects may include disparate grain sizes, macrosegregation of alloying elements, and residual banded and clustered copper-rich intermetallics, which can lead to unsatisfactory mechanical and corrosion properties including low ductility, low strength, and a non-uniform distribution of material properties in the final product form. [2,11,12]

These defects can be somewhat mitigated with post-casting processes, including mechanical deformation, solution treatment, quenching, and aging. However, if ingots already possess unrecoverable discontinuities such as interdendritic segregation, banded and clustered large copper intermetallics, and disparate grain sizes, no subsequent thermos-mechanical processing will remedy the deficiencies in properties, especially for larger ingot sizes.

Homogenization as an Essential Step
Homogenization after casting greatly improves the final properties’ subsequent mechanical processing. Studies show that Fick’s laws of diffusion drive the highly concentrated copper atoms out of the interdendritic boundary zones, distributing them evenly across the aluminum matrix grains; residual phases are dissolved into the matrix, and degree of segregation of all elements reduces dramatically. Homogenization processing parameters need to be optimized for ingot cross-section thickness to ensure proper and uniform thermal response. Wang et al., who focused on homogenization, effectively used a temperature and time of 535 °C for 10 hours [3].

Homogenization optimization variables include the melting point, amount and dissolution rate of the eutectic phase, ingot size, grain size and copper content. Several researchers demonstrated that tools such as X-ray Diffraction (XRD) or Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) are valuable tools for defining and verifying the homogenization step [3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Improvement of microstructure and mechanical properties of homogenized aluminum 2219 is well documented. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images from a study examining aluminum 2219 with varying amounts of copper show change in the morphology of grain boundaries after homogenizing in Figure 1.

The table below lists the results of Wang et al. who examined nonhomogenized and homogenized 2219, which were forged and treated to the T6 temper. The homogenized 2219 is clearly superior [3].

Thermomechanical Deformation Mechanical deformation such as forging — specifically, upset forging — and rolling, followed by solution treatment and aging, have been shown to drastically improve the aluminum 2219 microstructure by creating well distributed smaller-sized Al2Cu particles and significantly smaller grains leading to improved and less anisotropic mechanical properties. In one example of many studies, superior mechanical and microstructural properties were developed with a higher temperature multidirectional forging at 510 °C followed by warm rolling at 240 °C.

The upset forging and rolling followed by solution treatment and aging led to significantly reduced area fraction of coarse Al2Cu particles (5.5% to 1.0%) due to dissolution into the matrix. Grain size was reduced (230 micrometers to 58.6 micrometers) through increased storage energy and nucleation from the lower temperature rolling. Lastly, a uniformly distributed θ’ phase was increased by 118%.  These changes in microstructure led to better strength, elongation and fracture properties[10].

Recommendation/Guidance
Homogenization after conventional direct chill casting is imperative to optimize the final properties of aluminum 2219 and should be explicitly included in procurement specifications. In addition, verification of effectiveness of the homogenization step is also recommended and could include before and after micrographs, DSC or XRD measurements. The initial micrographs are useful to verify a high-quality ingot. Multi-directional deformation is also important to aid fracturing of coarse particles, distribution of the Al2Cu and intermetallic phases, recrystallization, and nucleation of new grains leading to improved mechanical properties.

References
1. NASA-CR-74545

2. NASA-CR-123777

 3. Wang et al., Materials 2018, 11, 914.

4. Chen et al., Metals 2020, 10, 197.

5. Zhang et al., Journal of Materials Research and Technology 2023, 27, 7470.

6. Gupta et al., Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, 2006, 45, No. 3.

7. Xu et al., Metals 2021, 11, 174.

8. Zhang et al., Advanced Engineering Materials, 2024, 26.

9. Lin et al., Materials 2023, 16, 433.

10. Zhang et al., Journal of Materials Research and Technology 2023, 22, 1136.

11. NASA-TM-20230018439 12. NASA-TM-20240000329

Source: www.nasa.gov

In this Aug. 27, 2026, image, an Alta-X drone flies an advanced guidance and navigation system known as the Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) experiment near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

Researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston developed SPLICE, which successfully completed simulated lunar descent and landing maneuvers during recent testing. Its technologies provide safe and precise landing for the Moon, Mars, icy worlds, and other destinations using specialized navigation, guidance, and processing techniques. It enables landing in hard-to-reach and unknown areas that are of high scientific interest.

Image credit: NASA/Ryan Kline

Source: www.nasa.gov

The Republic of Croatia became the 74th signatory to the Artemis Accords on Wednesday during a ceremony in the capital city of Zagreb with NASA and U.S. Department of State officials present.

“It is my privilege to welcome the Republic of Croatia as the latest signatory of the Artemis Accords,” said NASA Deputy Matt Anderson in pre-recorded remarks during the ceremony. “Joining the Artemis Accords opens another chapter. We’ve aligned on the principles. The opportunities to contribute are growing. And now we can look toward what the United States and Croatia can accomplish together beyond Earth. Humanity’s opportunities in space are endless, and we are proud to welcome Croatia to the Artemis Accords community.”

Croatia’s Minister of Science, Education, and Youth Radovan Fuchs signed on behalf of the country. U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Nicole McGraw and Gregory Mann, NASA Europe representative, attended event.

“Croatian scientists and companies are demonstrating growing interest in the space industry,” said Fuchs. “We have therefore decided to expand our international cooperation by joining the Artemis Accords. This international agreement has been recognized as a key opportunity for the robust development of Croatia’s scientific community, the introduction of new technologies, and the strengthening of the economy.”

Croatia marked a major milestone with the successful launch of its first satellite, CroCube, on Dec. 21, 2024. The satellite reached orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, highlighting Croatia’s growing technological capabilities and interest in space collaboration.

NASA and the State Department joined with seven other founding nations to establish the Artemis Accords in 2020, responding to the growing interest in lunar activities by both governments and private companies.

The Artemis Accords are the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing transparency, safety, and coordination among like-minded nations as they explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond, committing nations to:

• Explore peaceably and transparently
• Render aid to those in need
• Enable access to scientific data
• Ensure activities do not interfere with those of others
• Preserve historically significant sites and artifacts by developing best practices

By signing the Artemis Accords, nations open the door to opportunities for future lunar exploration with NASA, advancing humanity’s return to the Moon, and shaping the Golden Age of space exploration and innovation.

Learn more about the Artemis Accords at: 

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords

Source: www.nasa.gov

NASA’s researchers know that when you settle into your seat on a commercial flight, you expect a smooth takeoff, views over the clouds, a steady descent, and hopefully an early arrival at your destination. But when your flight gets delayed on the tarmac instead of lifting off, or it ends up in a holding pattern rather than landing on time, things start to change. Your experience goes from smooth to anxiety-inducing as you worry about making your connection or getting home in time for dinner.

Large airports are among the busiest, most complex environments in aviation, with aircraft, ground crews, and service vehicles sharing crowded taxiways. Researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley recently worked with Boeing to advance three types of field tests – digital taxi information, safe taxiway, and safe runways – that could lead to safer, more efficient runway environments at airports.

During the digital taxi tests, pilots were given taxiway guidance directly on cockpit displays or tablets, instead of verbally from air traffic controllers. Aircraft autonomously followed digital routes while researchers monitored a suite of sensors designed to identify vehicles or other aircraft impeding the taxi path and runway. The system reduced pilot and air traffic controller workloads and the risk of verbal errors.  

Safe runway technology testing can also improve situational awareness for approaching aircraft. While preparing to land a Boeing aircraft during testing, the same sensors successfully flagged a vehicle on the runway, providing additional awareness to ensure pilots could avoid potential collisions or other safety concerns.

Together, these NASA capabilities aim to reduce miscommunication, ease pilot workloads, and keep airport traffic moving smoothly. Future testing will integrate the sensor and digital taxi systems into a simulated air traffic control environment to evaluate how the technologies can benefit overall management of the airspace.

For years, NASA has worked to improve your experience when flying by developing new technologies to modernize the commercial airline system. Key NASA technologies streamline and digitize the flying experience – from the departure gate, to the skies, to your safe arrival at your destination.

“Aviation safety is key to NASA’s research,” said Parimal Kopardekar, director of NASA’s Airspace Operations and Safety project. “Technology that can provide additional autonomy and support a future airspace with multiple aircraft operating in harmony is key to advancing the National Airspace System.”

NASA’s research innovations continue after your flight takes off. Modern flights constantly respond to shifting weather, turbulence, and traffic. Even small changes in direction or altitude can affect when a plane arrives. These changes can force flights into holding patterns while air traffic controllers attempt to rebalance the busy airspace.

NASA’s air traffic management researchers have been working for years to reduce those situations. In a 2025 collaborative effort with Boeing, United Airlines, and international partners, NASA evaluated real‑time trajectory sharing on domestic and transoceanic flights.

During that testing, a United Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft shared frequent flight information with airline operations centers and air traffic control. NASA used the data to understand how frequently those updates should be sent and what details matter most for generating accurate arrival predictions. Better information helps controllers sequence traffic more precisely, which means fewer holding patterns and more direct descents for passengers.

Pre-departure rerouting technology and digital exchange tools developed at NASA allow dispatchers and controllers to see the same digital picture of flights preparing to depart.

When a better route becomes available, controllers could coordinate the change digitally instead of relying on verbal communication between pilots, controllers, and dispatchers. The technology could lead to fewer delays, reduced fuel consumption, and more predictable operations for passengers.

NASA has now transferred the routing technology to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and airlines will continue to test it. These tools build on decades of NASA contributions to national airspace modernization.

In coordination with the FAA, NASA has advanced automation concepts, improved how arrival and departure flows are managed, and introduced data‑driven software that commercial airlines use every day.

By working closely with airlines, manufacturers, and global partners, NASA is helping to improve every phase of flight to make air travel safer and more reliable, now and in the future.

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Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

OriginalAnnotated

The Ghosts of Five Supernovas

Explanation: The ghosts of five supernovas haunt this extraordinary image. It was acquired at Oukaïmeden Observatory in Morocco with approximately 200 hours of observations and shows a large patch of the sky, equivalent to the area of one thousand full moons tiled together, in the constellation of Auriga (the Charioteer). From left to right, the five supernova remnants visible across the field are G181.1+9.5, G182.4+4.3, G179.0+2.6, G180.0−1.7 (Sh2-240, the Spaghetti Nebula), and G178.2−4.2. They are highlighted in the annotated image, together with open cluster M37 and the Tadpole Nebula. As each explosion expanded into space, it created a growing shell of shocked gas and delicate filamentary structures shown in red (hydrogen) and blue (oxygen), respectively. These ancient stellar explosions happened independently; they are at various distances up to about several thousands of light-years away from Earth and have estimated ages up to tens of thousands of years old. Early humans may have seen them as bright new stars, fading over weeks or months.

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Tomorrow’s picture: what’s next?

Date	September 24, 2026
Credit	Stephane Vetter, Yann Sainty
Authors & editors:	Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Source: science.nasa.gov

NASA announced the winners of the Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table Thursday, with the top $300,000 prize being awarded to Chinyere Ukeje of Philadelphia, Pa. for the Adaptive Nourishment Infrastructure (ANI) food system concept. This competition challenged solvers to explore innovative solutions for integrated space food systems that would provide safe, nutritious meals to astronauts living and working in space.   

Mars to Table launched in January 2026 as a follow on to the Deep Space Food Challenge, which NASA ran from 2021-2014 in collaboration with CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The original challenge focused on prototyped novel food production methods, while the 2026 competition asked teams to conceptualize space meals not as individual technology components, but as a complete food-production system that would offer a variety of food with limited crew time and work needed to maintain the food system. After judging 113 submissions by teams hailing from 33 countries and 28 U.S. states, the agency selected five winning teams for the 2026 challenge, awarding a combined $650,000. 

“We’re thrilled to keep advancing the future of space food systems with this challenge,” said Jennifer Edmunson, program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The future of human space exploration will rely on innovative food systems, and it is amazing how much ingenuity this challenge has helped us identify from participants near and far.” 

Currently, astronaut meals are almost entirely cooked, packaged, and sent to the International Space Station from the Space Food Systems Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. A one-way trip to Mars will take at least nine months, so bringing all required meals will not be sustainable for such missions. From shelf stability issues to mass restrictions, pre-packaged foods cannot be the default option for future Martian astronauts.  

In search of viable solutions for future space food operations, teams were tasked with ideating and designing systems in response to a mission scenario that addressed a 15-person astronaut crew for 500 Martian sols, or about 513 Earth days. The challenge focused on surface operations and system integration, and each team delivered a design layout, meal plan, concept of operations, and walkthrough video. 

“The criteria we laid out for this competition were challenging, but intentionally so,” said Mars to Table head judge Dr. Alexander Meyers, who supports NASA Centennial Challenges through Noetic Strategies from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “This challenge spotlights the complexity of a complete space food system and the human ingenuity required to solve these problems. Every new idea presented in this challenge represents a possible new tool in NASA’s plans for the future of space exploration. 

NASA named five winners of the Mars to Table Challenge. These technologies provide NASA with inspirational launching pads for future deep space food systems. 

The first-place winner, Chinyere Ukeje, developed the concept of ANI, a modular food ecosystem combining controlled-environment agriculture, fermentation and fungi cultivation, and closed-loop nutrient recycling through bioreactors with limited Earth-provisioned foods to produce 50% of the food away from Earth. ANI, named after the Nigerian Earth goddess of harvest and fertility, envisions a system that cooks fresh meals daily and has provisions to work through shortages of power, water, equipment, or crew time. 

The second-place prize of $200,000 was awarded to Cislune of Rosemead, Calif. for the Fresh, Ferment, Reserve food infrastructure. The proposed system grows model-selected crops, converts part of the harvest into familiar foods in instrumented culture cassettes, and uses a protected Earth-loaded reserve to supplement in cases of biological variability, utility curtailment, and rejected batches. 

Additional prizes include: 

• Applied Frameworks Award ($50,000): Ohā Kanu from Hilo, Hawaii with ʻOhā Kanu: An Ahupuaʻa-Inspired Food System for Mars 

• Mission Simulation Award ($50,000): Orbital Health Systems, Inc. from Evansville, Ind. with New Lunar Settlers Cookbook (Mars Edition) 

• Human-Centered Design Award ($50,000): Autonomic Resilience Collective from Bentonville, Ark. with Adaptive Endurance and Growth through Integrated Sustenance (AEGIS) Mars 

NASA also recognized one international team: 

• International Winner: Astrofood from Ellezelles, Belgium with Food Resilience Ecosystem for Space Habitats (FRESH) 

The Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table is managed at NASA Marshall by Centennial Challenges, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program within NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. The challenge is also supported by NASA’s Division of Biological and Physical Sciences, Heliophysics Division, Planetary Science Program, Human Research Program, and Earth Science Division.  

Centennial Challenges have a legacy of more than 20 years engaging the public to solve complex problems that benefit NASA’s broader initiatives. Past challenges have spurred advances in robotics, additive manufacturing, power and energy, textiles, chemistry, and biology.  

The Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table is also supported by subject matter experts at NASA Johnson and NASA Kennedy. The Methuselah Foundation and Floor23 Digital support the administration of this challenge.  

To learn more about the challenge, visit: 

go.nasa.gov/marstotable  

Source: www.nasa.gov