Cartilage Engineering, Blood Pressure Studies Kick Off Week Aboard Station
NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Chris Williams pose with a pair of spacesuits inside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock.
NASA/Jessica Meir
Cartilage engineering and cardiac research to advance human health on and off the Earth topped Monday’s research schedule aboard the International Space Station. The Expedition 74 crew members also continued spacesuit maintenance and cargo operations aboard the orbital outpost.
NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir was back working inside the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox processing cartilage cell samples to promote their growth in microgravity. NASA flight engineer Jack Hathaway assisted with the biotechnology experiment setting up a fluorescent microscope to view the space-engineered cartilage samples. Meir and Hathaway then packed a selection of samples for preservation in a science freezer and future analysis on Earth. Scientists will analyze the space-grown specimens to learn how to repair and regenerate injured cartilage on Earth and develop advanced fitness techniques for astronauts on a long-term spaceflight.
The duo also joined NASA flight engineer Chris Williams transferring cargo in and out of the Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft from Northrop Grumman. Williams and Meir later worked together collecting hardware from inside the Permanent Multipurpose Module and staging the gear for stowage inside BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Access Module. Hathaway configured a temporary sleep station being installed in the Columbus laboratory module before three new crew members visit the space station next week.
ESA (European Space Agency) flight engineer Sophie Adenot worked throughout Monday on spacesuit maintenance inside the Quest airlock. Adenot spent a couple of hours cleaning cooling loops inside a pair of spacesuits that Williams and Meir wore during a robotics repair spacewalk on June 30. Hathaway joined Adenot at the end of the job and helped her clean up Quest, place protective covers on the spacesuits, and power down spacewalking systems.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, station commander and flight engineer respectively, partnered together on Monday and studied how weightlessness affects blood flow in the tiny vessels, or the micro-circulatory system. They first attached light-based sensors to their forehead, fingers, and toes. Next, they pointed a laser beam at their skin that interacted with the sensors providing signals measuring their blood flow and distribution. Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev also explored how living in space affects the respiratory system by wearing an acoustic sensor around their necks that recorded their rapid exhalation.
Flight engineer Andrey Fedyaev spent most of his shift conducting a photographic survey inside the space station’s Roscosmos segment. Fedyaev photo-documented the condition of stowage areas for future usage as well as inventoried items to secure cargo and other hardware.
As the United States celebrates its semiquincentennial, Freedom 250 highlights how innovation, courage, and scientific leadership have carried America forward — and how NASA continues to expand the frontier for the next generation.
NASA Seeks Industry Input on Second Phase of Commercial Space Stations
Credit: NASA
On Monday, NASA released a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking feedback from American companies on the next phase of its commercial space stations strategy, aimed at ensuring a seamless transition of activities in low Earth orbit from the International Space Station.
“NASA’s review reflects what we’ve been hearing from industry throughout this process. Industry believes it can meet the timelines and that a viable commercial marketplace exists where NASA is one customer among many,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “We’re focused on supporting those efforts, enabling the capabilities that make this transition possible, and doing all we can to ensure the United States maintains a continuous human presence in low Earth orbit.”
The draft RFP builds on the agency’s request for information released March 25. Based on industry’s input, NASA will proceed with its original plan to procure commercial services through FAR-based contract(s) awarded via full and open competition. Industry has indicated there is significant capital investment behind this approach and expressed high confidence in their ability to attract additional capital investment and expand future market opportunities after NASA makes an award.
NASA intends to award firm-fixed-price, multi-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts supporting development, certification, and services. This approach would allow NASA to select two or more contractors through early development, followed by a competitive task order for final design, test, evaluation, as well as certification and services from one or more contractors.
Industry feedback is due Monday, July 27. NASA also will hold an informational industry briefing on Thursday, July 9, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to provide a top-level summary of the documents and expectations.
The draft RFP gives companies the opportunity to review and comment on the planned acquisition approach for future commercial space station services, helping shape the agency’s path forward as it proceeds with its original commercial strategy. This strategy will provide the government with reliable, safe, cost-effective services through commercial partners, enabling NASA to focus on the next step in humanity’s deep space exploration while also continuing to use low Earth orbit as an ideal training environment and proving ground for Artemis missions to the Moon and future human exploration of Mars.
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) has achieved all primary and extended mission objectives.
Credits: NASA
As NASA prepares for a sustained human presence on the Moon, missions will increasingly require spacecraft that can navigate and communicate without a direct connection to Earth.
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, validated and advanced these capabilities.
Designed to test and validate technologies in lunar orbit, CAPSTONE launched in June 2022 and became the first U.S. commercial mission at the Moon. The spacecraft tested operations in three-body orbits around the Moon, using the combined gravity of Earth and the Moon to reduce the fuel needed to maintain a stable lunar path. It became the first spacecraft to fly and characterize this orbit for future exploration and science missions. Owned and operated by Advanced Space, the microwave-sized spacecraft then received a 15-month mission extension, becoming a testbed for advanced communications, networking, autonomous navigation, and software-defined satellite technologies.
Dylan Schmidt, CAPSTONE assembly integration and test lead, right, and Lachlan Moore, systems integration engineer, left, install solar panels onto the CAPSTONE spacecraft at Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., in Irvine, California.
NASA/Dominic Hart
Rather than launch a new satellite, NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate demonstrated that CAPSTONE’s existing hardware could host new applications after launch, transforming the spacecraft into a cost-effective, flexible lunar technology demonstration platform. NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Division will now use the data to demonstrate innovative networking and navigation techniques on future experiments.
“Operating multiple experiments simultaneously aboard the same spacecraft allows NASA to evaluate how these technologies perform together in a real lunar environment,” said Greg Stover, director of the Advanced Research and Technology Division within NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Investments in autonomous operations and resilient communications infrastructure are essential to ensuring U.S. leadership as activity around the Moon continues to increase.”
Two experiments aboard CAPSTONE used software-defined infrastructure to advance two future mission essentials: autonomous navigation and deep space communications. The autonomous Navigation, Guidance, and Control software, or autoNGC, is designed to allow a spacecraft to determine where it is, where it is going, and how to get where it needs to be without waiting for instructions from the ground. While portions of the software had previously flown in Earth orbit, CAPSTONE marked the first time autoNGC was tested at the Moon.
“To really demonstrate that something works, you have to fly it,” said Sun Hur-Diaz, principal investigator for the autoNGC technology development project at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The real environment is key.”
To really demonstrate that something works you have to fly it. The real environment is key.
Sun Hur-Diaz
Principal Investigator for the autoNGC Project, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Researchers also evaluated how autoNGC performed with limited contact to Earth. While NASA’s Deep Space Network antennas were supporting the Artemis II crewed test flight around the Moon, CAPSTONE’s communications window dropped to just a few passes per week.
Those gaps became one of the experiment’s most valuable tests. Without data from Earth, autoNGC determined CAPSTONE’s location using an onboard star tracker camera to image the Moon, Earth, and other celestial bodies. The camera-based system, known as optical navigation, at times outperformed ground-based methods for real-time onboard navigation, advancing technologies for future deep-space missions.
Alongside autonomous navigation testing, CAPSTONE also tested delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN), a communications architecture designed for deep space. Unlike Earth-based internet systems, deep space communications must function despite long delays and frequent signal gaps. The DTN system addresses those challenges by storing information on the spacecraft when no connection is available and automatically forwarding it once communications are restored. With these demonstrations, CAPSTONE became the first to fly the latest DTN protocols beyond Earth orbit and the first to run them in NASA’s core Flight System, an open-source framework that can be implemented on any spacecraft.
In one demonstration, engineers began transmitting data from CAPSTONE to Earth, but the connection ended before the transfer was complete. The spacecraft stored the remaining data until the next communications opportunity, and transmission resumed automatically. Every piece of data made it home.
Artist’s rendering depicting astronauts, habitats, rovers, power systems, and cargo operations supporting sustained human activities at the Moon Base near the lunar South Pole. The technologies CAPSTONE tested may be key to NASA’s growing lunar communications and navigation infrastructure.
NASA
“You can imagine an astronaut walking behind a lunar hill or descending into a crater and temporarily losing connectivity,” said Ben Anderson, a systems engineer for the Near Space Network at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This technology allows that data to be automatically retransmitted once communications are restored.”
In addition to its primary achievements, CAPSTONE’s second life as a software-defined testing platform demonstrated that new technologies can be affordably tested and proven directly in their operational environment.
After nearly four years of technology maturation, NASA’s activities on CAPSTONE concluded in June 2026, while Advanced Space will continue to use the spacecraft as a technology development testbed.
The CAPSTONE spacecraft was designed and built by Terran Orbital and is owned and operated by Advanced Space. NASA’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate managed the mission through the Small Spacecraft and Distributed Systems program, based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Elements of the CAPSTONE technology suite were supported by NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program. The autoNGC and DTN demonstrations conducted during CAPSTONE’s extended mission were managed by NASA’s SCaN Division, based at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
About the Author
Korine Powers
Lead Writer and Communications Strategist
Korine Powers, Ph.D. is a writer for NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program office and covers emerging technologies, commercialization efforts, exploration activities, and more.
NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision
6 min read
NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision
6 Min Read
NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision
The mid-infrared view of Centaurus A from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals dusty structures and hidden activity within the nearby, active galaxy.
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)
In new images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to celebrate its fourth science anniversary, a familiar galaxy transforms into something far richer, and far more complex, than ever seen before. Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity across near- and mid-infrared wavelengths cuts through the thick lanes of dust that obscure Centaurus A’s center in visible light, showing a densely packed tapestry of individual stars and an active, everchanging galaxy. These images mark four years of better-than-anticipated performance and successful science operations for the most powerful space telescope in history.
Centaurus A is 11 million light-years away from Earth, relatively close in cosmic terms. Yet, unlike most nearby galaxies, it is very active, making it a powerful laboratory for understanding how galaxies and black holes grow and evolve together.
Image: Centaurus A (MIRI Image)
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The mid-infrared view of Centaurus A from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals dusty structures and hidden activity within the nearby, active galaxy.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)
At its core sits a supermassive black hole actively feeding on surrounding material. As it does, the black hole launches powerful jets and releases enormous amounts of energy, shaping the galaxy around it. At the same time, Centaurus A bears the scars of a dramatic past: a major collision with another galaxy roughly two billion years ago. The aftermath of that merger is still visible today in its unusual structure and ongoing star formation.
Visible light observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope could not reveal the central region where dust blocked the view, while NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope revealed large scale structures in the infrared without resolving individual stars. Now, Webb brings both clarity and depth, exposing the galaxy’s inner workings star by star.
Interactive: Journey into Centaurus A
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Use this interactive tool to journey into NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of Centaurus A, where dust gives way to a rich landscape of stars and hidden features.
NASA / STScI
“No single telescope tells the whole story,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, division director, Astrophysics, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Discoveries build over time and new observatories expand on the foundations laid by earlier missions. Webb represents the most powerful step forward yet, opening a window into wavelengths and details never before accessible. This allows astronomers to examine structures and processes that other telescopes could not see.”
Dust, awe
Webb’s mid-infrared vision highlights the galaxy’s rich dust structures, which glow in intricate shapes that surprise and even perplex astronomers. A warped, parallelogram-like band cuts across the galaxy’s center, while wisps of material stretch outward like cosmic clouds.
An “S” shaped feature, most notable in the image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is also unusual and invites questions that need further study to answer. What created this shape? How does the black hole influence it? Is it influenced by merger-induced star formation?
Many of the glowing red points in the MIRI image are dust-rich stars or stellar nurseries, where aging stars are shedding material back into space or new stars are forming. This dust is the raw ingredient for future generations of stars and planets, making it central to the ongoing life cycle of the galaxy.
Image: Centaurus A Crop (NIRCam & MIRI)
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In the combined mid- and near-infrared view of Centaurus A, the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope brings out the galaxy’s dense field of millions of stars.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)
Written in its stars
With Webb’s high resolution, astronomers can now study Centaurus A star by star, even in its long-obscured central region. What looks “grainy” in the image from Webb, most obvious in the combined MIRI and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) view, is actually a densely packed field of individual stars, together carrying information about the galaxy’s past.
With Webb’s view of Centaurus A, it becomes a case of galactic archaeology. Each star revealed helps to reconstruct when different events happened: when older stars first formed, when activity slowed down, a burst of star formation during the collision, and stars born from gas stirred in its aftermath. Together, they form a timeline of the galaxy’s evolution.
Dynamic black hole
Webb’s capabilities go beyond imaging. By analyzing light with spectroscopy, astronomers can measure how gas moves within the galaxy.
Early findings from Webb show fast-moving ionized gas flowing outward, likely driven by the black hole’s activity, and warmer molecular hydrogen in a warped rotating disk near the center. These observations help explore one of astronomy’s biggest questions: How does a black hole influence an entire galaxy?
The answer appears to be complex. The black hole can trigger star formation by compressing gas, but also limit it by pushing material away. Centaurus A offers a rare, nearby view of this cosmic interplay.
By tracing dust in never-before-seen detail, resolving millions of stars, and revealing the motion of gas near a supermassive black hole, Webb transforms Centaurus A into a vivid record of cosmic history.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.
Related Images & Videos
Centaurus A (MIRI Image)
The mid-infrared view of Centaurus A from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals dusty structures and hidden activity within the nearby, active galaxy.
Centaurus A Crop (NIRCam and MIRI Image)
In the combined mid- and near-infrared view of Centaurus A, the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope brings out the galaxy’s dense field of millions of stars.
Centaurus A Context Image (ESO and Webb Images)
A ground-based image of nearby galaxy Centaurus A from the European Southern Observatory (top left) puts the near-infrared and mid-infrared views from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope image into context.
Centaurus A (MIRI Compass Image)
Annotated image of the active galaxy Centaurus A captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note …
Centaurus A Crop (NIRCam and MIRI Compass Image)
Annotated image of the active galaxy Centaurus A captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientat…
