Luxembourg Leaders Focus on Lunar Exploration at Visit to NASA Ames
Using the Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbeds at NASA’s Ames Research Center, a team created this simulated lunar environment to study lighting conditions experienced at the unexplored poles of the Moon.
NASA/Uland Wong
The challenges of working on the surface of the Moon are at the center of a facility at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The Lunar Lab and Regolith Testbeds help scientists and engineers – from NASA and industry alike – study how well science instruments, robots, and people might be able to safely work, manipulate, navigate, and traverse the tough lunar terrain. On March 7, three visitors from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg – Deputy Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, Minister of the Economy Lex Delles, and Ambassador to the United States Nicole Bintner – learned more about the work happening here.
During the visit, lunar rock and crater features crafted from lunar soil, or regolith, simulant were lit by harsh, low-angle illumination to simulate sunlight conditions at the Moon’s poles. Members of the VIPER mission (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) discussed their work testing optical sensors at the lab for NASA’s water-hunting Moon rover. Engineering versions of VIPER’s hazard-avoidance cameras and lighting system, tested in the facility, were also on display. The lab is managed by NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI).
Acting Deputy Center Director David Korsmeyer, left, Ames Center Director Eugene Tu, Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg Minister of Economy Lex Delles, and Ambassador Nicole Bintner, right, meet at Ames on March 7, 2024.
NASA/Brandon Torres
The Regolith Testbeds enable research applicable to places beyond our Moon as well, including Mercury, asteroids, and regolith-covered moons like Mars’ Phobos.
Luxembourg was one of the first nations to sign the Artemis Accords and has taken steps to enable commercial space exploration. At Ames, the visitors learned about the center’s support of NASA’s Artemis exploration goals, including with VIPER, agency supercomputing resources, and the development of advanced tools for lunar operations.
NASA to Host Boeing Crew Flight Test Preview, News Conferences
Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in T-38 pre-flight activities at Ellington Field. Photo Date: August 16, 2022. Location: Ellington Field, Hangar 276/Flight Line.
Credits: NASA/Robert Markowitz
NASA will preview the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission to the International Space Station by hosting media tours Thursday, March 21, and with news conferences Friday, March 22, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA and Boeing officials will discuss flight test readiness, objectives, and priorities at 10 a.m. EDT March 22, and mission managers will discuss the flight plan, timeline, and details at 11:30 a.m. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will answer questions at 2 p.m. and will be available for individual interviews.
All three news conferences will air live on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’swebsite. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.
Media will have opportunities the afternoon of March 21 to learn more about the flight test, while visiting the Boeing Starliner mockup, experience training in the Starliner simulator, and meet members of the flight control teams who will support the spacecraft’s first crewed flight.
The flight test, currently scheduled to launch early May due to space station scheduling, will transport Wilmore and Williams to the orbiting laboratory for a planned stay of up to two weeks. A United Launch Alliance rocket and the Boeing Starliner spacecraft will launch from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This will be the final media opportunity to speak to the astronauts before they travel to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch.
International media wishing to participate in person or seeking a remote interview with the astronauts must request credentials by 5 p.m. Monday, March 11, by contacting the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. U.S. media interested in attending must request credentials by 6 p.m. Monday, March 18, from the Johnson newsroom. NASA’s media accreditation policy is online.
All media interested in participating in the news conference by phone must contact the Johnson newsroom by 9:45 a.m. March 22. Those wishing to submit questions on social media may do so using #AskNASA.
Thursday, March 21:
11:30 CDT (12:30 p.m. EDT) Media arrival at Johnson Space Center
Briefing participants include (all times Eastern and subject to change based on operations):
Wilmore, a U.S. Navy captain, is a veteran of two spaceflights and has accumulated 178 days in space. Selected as an astronaut in 2000, he served as a flight engineer for Expedition 41 from September to November 2014, then assumed command of Expedition 42 until his return to Earth in March 2015. During this mission, he logged 167 days in space and performed four spacewalks. In 2009, Wilmore served as a pilot aboard space shuttle Atlantis for STS-129. From Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, Wilmore earned degrees from Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Williams, a retired Navy captain, is a veteran of two space station missions, Expedition 14/15 and 32/33, and served as commander of Expedition 33. Selected as an astronaut by NASA in 1998, she has logged 322 days in space, first launching on the space shuttle Discovery with the crew of STS-116, then on a Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft. Williams has completed seven spacewalks, totaling 50 hours and 40 minutes. Williams considers Needham, Massachusetts, to be her hometown and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1987 and Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, in 1995.
Learn more about how NASA innovates for the benefit of humanity through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at:
On Jan. 16, 2020, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured this image of two types of sand dunes on Mars: barchan and linear dunes.
The small dots are called barchan dunes, and from their shape we can tell that they are upwind. The downwind dunes are long and linear. These two types of dune each show the wind direction in different ways: the barchans have a steep slope and crescent-shaped “horns” that point downwind, while the linear dunes are stretched out along the primary wind direction. Linear dunes, however, typically indicate at least two different prevailing winds, which stretch out the sand along their average direction.
Barchan and linear dunes aren’t just a Martian phenomenon – we can also see them on Earth. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have snapped photos of them occurring in Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
NASA to Highlight Artemis, US Space Leadership During Annual Address
Credit: NASA
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will discuss the agency’s goals for the benefit of humanity during the annual State of NASA address on Monday, March 11. The event will coincide with the release of the Biden-Harris Administration’s fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.
The event will air live at 1 p.m. EDT on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA TV can be streamed on a variety of platforms, including social media.
During State of NASA, Nelson will speak about the agency’s plans for promoting U.S. leadership in space exploration, improving life on Earth through innovation, humanity’s return to the Moon under the Artemis campaign, and more. Senior leaders from each of NASA’s mission directorates also will discuss advancements in their areas ranging from aeronautics and science research to space operations.
At 2:30 p.m., Nelson will kick off a media teleconference with Chief Financial Officer Margaret Vo Schaus, who will present information about the fiscal year 2025 funding request for the agency. Media interested in participating in the teleconference must RSVP no later than two hours prior to the start of the call to: hq-media@mail.nasa.gov.
The schedule of activities is based on the president’s budget release on Monday and is subject to change.
The budget proposal for NASA and supporting information will be available online that afternoon at:
NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa
This side of a commemorative plate mounted on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft features U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” It will be affixed with a silicon microchip stenciled with names submitted by the public.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
When it launches in October, the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a richly layered dispatch that includes more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public.
Following in NASA’s storied tradition of sending inspirational messages into space, the agency has special plans for Europa Clipper, which later this year will launch toward Jupiter’s moon Europa. The moon shows strong evidence of an ocean under its icy crust, with more than twice the amount of water of all of Earth’s oceans combined. A triangular metal plate on the spacecraft will honor that connection to Earth in several ways.
At the heart of the artifact is an engraving of U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” along with a silicon microchip stenciled with more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public. The microchip will be the centerpiece of an illustration of a bottle amid the Jovian system – a reference to NASA’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign, which invited the public to send their names with the spacecraft.
A ‘Golden Record’ for Europa
Made of the metal tantalum and about 7 by 11 inches (18 by 28 centimeters), the plate features graphic elements on both sides. The outward-facing panel features art that highlights Earth’s connection to Europa. Linguists collected recordings of the word “water” spoken in 103 languages, from families of languages around the world. The audio files were converted into waveforms (visual representations of sound waves) and etched into the plate. The waveforms radiate out from a symbol representing the American Sign Language sign for “water.”
To hear audio of the spoken languages and see the sign, go to: go.nasa.gov/MakeWaves.
In the spirit of the Voyager spacecraft’s Golden Record, which carries sounds and images to convey the richness and diversity of life on Earth, the layered message on Europa Clipper aims to spark the imagination and offer a unifying vision.
The art on this side of the plate, which will seal an opening of the vault on NASA’s Europa Clipper, features waveforms that are visual representations of the sound waves formed by the word “water” in 103 languages. At center is a symbol representing the American Sign Language sign for “water.”
NASA/JPL-Caltech
“The content and design of Europa Clipper’s vault plate are swimming with meaning,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The plate combines the best humanity has to offer across the universe – science, technology, education, art, and math. The message of connection through water, essential for all forms of life as we know it, perfectly illustrates Earth’s tie to this mysterious ocean world we are setting out to explore.”
Reaching Out to the Cosmos
In 2030, after a 1.6-billion-mile (2.6-billion-kilometer) journey, Europa Clipper will begin orbiting Jupiter, making 49 close flybys of Europa. To determine if there are conditions that could support life, the spacecraft’s powerful suite of science instruments will gather data about the moon’s subsurface ocean, icy crust, thin atmosphere, and space environment. The electronics for those instruments are housed in a massive metal vault designed to protect them from Jupiter’s punishing radiation. The commemorative plate will seal an opening in the vault.
Because searching for habitable conditions is central to the mission, the Drake Equation is etched onto the plate as well – on the inward-facing side. Astronomer Frank Drake developed the mathematical formulation in 1961 to estimate the possibility of finding advanced civilizations beyond Earth. The equation has inspired and guided research in astrobiology and related fields ever since.
Learn more about how Europa Clipper’s vault plate engravings were designed and the inspiration for the plate’s multilayered message. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In addition, artwork on the inward-facing side of the plate will include a reference to the radio frequencies considered plausible for interstellar communication, symbolizing how humanity uses this radio band to listen for messages from the cosmos. These particular frequencies match the radio waves emitted in space by the components of water and are known by astronomers as the “water hole.” On the plate, they are depicted as radio emission lines.
Finally, the plate includes a portrait of one of the founders of planetary science, Ron Greeley, whose early efforts to develop a Europa mission two decades ago laid the foundation for Europa Clipper.
“We’ve packed a lot of thought and inspiration into this plate design, as we have into this mission itself,” says Project Scientist Robert Pappalardo of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It’s been a decades-long journey, and we can’t wait to see what Europa Clipper shows us at this water world.”
Once assembly of Europa Clipper has been completed at JPL, the spacecraft will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for its October launch.
More About the Mission
Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. The mission’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
