Crew Works Advanced Science Hardware and Conducts Lab Inspections
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, both Expedtion 73 Flight Engineers, pose for a portrait inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module during science hardware maintenance in Kibo’s airlock.
NASA
Space science hardware once again topped the schedule for the Expedition 73 crew aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday. Life support and electronics maintenance to keep the orbital outpost in tip-top shape filled the rest of the day for the space lab residents.
Spacecraft humidity removal gear and ultra-high temperature physics were the focus for Flight Engineers Jonny Kim of NASA and Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). Kim installed and activated a new technology demonstration in the Harmony module testing the removal of moisture from a spacecraft’s environment for recycling. Results may advance regenerative life support systems on future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond such due to the inability to resupply crews living and working farther away from Earth. Yui worked in the Kibo laboratory module on the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF) processing samples inside the experimental device. ELF uses lasers to safely heat materials to ultra-high temperatures as sensors and cameras measure thermophysical properties difficult to obtain in Earth’s gravity.
NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fincke installed the new Heat Transfer Host 2 fluid physics research hardware inside the Columbus laboratory module. The advanced gear will look at two-phase heat transfer, or condensation when gas turns to liquid, potentially leading to the design of advanced thermal systems for spacecraft carrying humans on deep space missions.
NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman spent her day primarily on life support maintenance first transferring fluids inside the Destiny laboratory module. Afterward, she collected airflow measurements and inspected ventilation systems throughout the space station’s U.S. segment with assistance from Kim. Finally, Cardman inspected cables and insulation for signs of corrosion and degradation in the Unity and Harmony modules. At the beginning of her shift, Cardman spent a few minutes swapping samples cassettes inside the Advanced Sample Experiment Processor-4 for an experiment investigating how to manufacture pharmaceuticals off the Earth.
Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos spent most of his shift replacing power supply components inside the Zarya module. He wrapped up his day jogging on the Zvezda service module’s treadmill for a regularly scheduled space fitness test. Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky concentrated on maintenance throughout Tuesday servicing the Elektron oxygen generator in Zvezda and conducting the yearly inspection inside the Roscosmos segment’s modules for moisture, corrosion, or damage. Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov explored how blood circulates to the microcirculatory system, the smallest blood vessels, in a crew member’s limbs using specialized blood pressure cuffs and electrodes.
During its close flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io on December 30, 2023, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured some of the most detailed imagery ever of Io’s volcanic surface. This image is the NASA Science Image of the Month for October 2025.
NASA, International Partners Deepen Commitment to Artemis Accords
Representatives of the Artemis Accords signatories, including acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy and NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, met Sept. 29, 2025, for a principals meeting during the 76th International Astronautical Congress in Sydney.
Credit: NASA/Max van Otterdyk
NASA, along with leaders from global space agencies and government representatives worldwide, convened on Monday to further the implementation of the Artemis Accords — practical principles designed to guide the responsible exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The meeting was held during the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) taking place in Sydney. In opening remarks, acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy highlighted the five-year anniversary of the Artemis Accords next month.
“When President Trump launched the Artemis Accords in his first term, he made sure American values would lead the way – bringing together a coalition of nations to set the rules of the road in space and ensure exploration remains peaceful. After five years, the coalition is stronger than ever. This is critical as we seek to beat China to the Moon, not just to leave footprints, but this time to stay,” said Duffy.
The United States, led by NASA and the U.S. Department of State, signed the accords on Oct. 13, 2020, with seven other founding nations. The accords were created in response to the growing global interest in lunar activities by governments and private companies. They now comprise 56 country signatories — nearly 30% of the world’s countries.
The event was co-chaired by NASA, the Australian Space Agency, and the UAE Space Agency. Dozens of nations were represented, creating the foundation for future space exploration for the Golden Age of exploration and innovation.
“Australia is a proud founding signatory of the Artemis Accords and is focused on supporting new signatories in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Head of Australian Space Agency Enrico Palermo. “The purpose of the accords is as important — if not more important — as it was when first established. This annual gathering of principals at IAC 2025 is a key opportunity to reaffirm our collective commitment to exploring the Moon, Mars and beyond in a peaceful, safe, and sustainable way.”
During the meeting, leaders discussed recommendations for non-interference in each other’s space activities including transparency on expected launch dates, general nature of activities, and landing locations. They also discussed orbital debris mitigation and disposal management, interoperability of systems for safer and more efficient operations, and the release of scientific data.
In May 2025, the United Arab Emirates hosted an Artemis Accords workshop focused on topics, such as non-interference and space object registration and reporting beyond Earth orbit.
“Through our active participation in the Artemis Accords and by organizing specialised workshops, we aim to reinforce the principles of transparency, sustainability, and innovation in space activities. We are committed to strengthening international partnerships and facilitating the exchange of expertise, thereby contributing to the development of a robust global framework for safe and responsible space exploration, while opening new frontiers for scientific research,” said UAE Minister of Sports and Chairman of UAE Space Agency Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi. “This reflects the UAE’s unwavering commitment to enhancing international cooperation in space exploration and promoting the peaceful use of space.”
More countries are expected to sign the Artemis Accords in the months and years ahead, as NASA continues its work to establish a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space.
What’s Up: October 2025 Skywatching Tips from NASA
A supermoon, and meteor showers from the Draconids and Orionids
A supermoon takes over the sky, the Draconid meteor shower peeks through, and the Orionid meteor shower shines bright.
Skywatching Highlights
Oct. 6: The October supermoon
Oct. 6-10: The Draconid meteor shower
Oct. 21: The Orionid meteor shower peaks (full duration Sept. 26 – Nov. 22)
Transcript
What’s Up for October? A Supermoon takes over, the Draconid meteor shower peeks through, and the Orionid meteors sparkle across the night sky.
The evening of October 6, look up and be amazed as the full moon is bigger and brighter because – it’s a supermoon!
Illustrated infographic showing the difference (as seen from Earth) between perigee, when a supermoon appears, and apogee, when a micromoon appears.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
This evening, the moon could appear to be about 30% brighter and up to 14% larger than a typical full moon. But why?
Supermoons happen when a new moon or a full moon coincides with “perigee,” which is when the moon is at its closest to Earth all month.
So this is an exceptionally close full moon! Which explains its spectacular appearance.
And what timing – while the supermoon appears on October 6th, just a couple of days before on October 4th is “International Observe the Moon Night”!
It’s an annual, worldwide event when Moon enthusiasts come together to enjoy our natural satellite.You can attend or host a moon-viewing party, or simply observe the Moon from wherever you are.
So look up, and celebrate the moon along with people all around the world!
The supermoon will light up the sky on October 6th, but if you luck into some dark sky between October 6th and 10th, you might witness the first of two October meteor showers – the Draconids!
The Draconid meteor shower comes from debris trailing the comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner burning up in Earth’s atmosphere
These meteors originate from nearby the head of the constellation Draco the dragon in the northern sky and the shower can produce up to 10 meteors per hour!
The Draconids peak around October 8th, but if you don’t see any, you can always blame the bright supermoon and wait a few weeks until the next meteor shower – the Orionids!
Sky chart showing the Draconid meteor shower, including the radiant point of the shower and the Draco constellation where the meteors in the shower are often seen and stem from.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Orionid meteor shower, peaking October 21, is set to put on a spectacular show, shooting about 20 meteors per hour across the night sky.
This meteor shower happens when Earth travels through the debris trailing behind Halley’s Comet and it burns up in our atmosphere.
The full duration of the meteor shower stretches from September 26 to November 22, but your best bet to see meteors is on October 21 before midnight until around 2 am.
Sky chart showing the Orionid meteor shower, including the radiant point of the shower and the Orion constellation where the meteors in the shower are often seen and stem from.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
This is because, not only is this night the shower’s peak, it is also the October new moon, meaning the moon will be between the Earth and the Sun, making it dark and invisible to us.
With a moonless sky, you’re much more likely to catch a fireball careening through the night.
So find a dark location after the sun has set, look to the southeast sky (if you’re in the northern hemisphere) and the northeast (if you’re in the southern hemisphere) and enjoy!
Orionid meteors appear to come from the direction of the Orion constellation but you might catch them all across the sky.
Here are the phases of the Moon for October.
You can stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov.
I’m Chelsea Gohd from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up for this month.
NASA Education Specialist Christine Milotte demonstrates heliophysics activities during a teacher professional development event hosted by the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (HEAT) at the Dallas Arboretum, Saturday, April 6, 2024.
Credits: NASA/Keegan Barber
The Sun and Our Lives
On a clear night, you might see thousands of stars in the sky. Most of these stars are dozens or hundreds of light years away from us. A light year is the distance a beam of light travels in a year: about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). This means that for those stars we see at night, it takes their light, which travels at about 186,000 miles per second (or about 300 thousand kilometers per second), dozens or hundreds of years to reach us.
But in the daytime, we only see one star: the Sun. It dominates the daytime sky because it is so close – about 93 million miles (or 150 million kilometers) away. That distance is also called one astronomical unit, and its another unit of measurement astronomers use to record distance in space. But even if 1 astronomical unit seems like a long way, it’s still about 270 thousand times closer than Alpha Centauri, the next nearest star system.
The Sun isn’t just close – it’s also gigantic! The Sun is large enough to fit more than a million Earths inside it, and has more mass than 330 thousand Earths put together. Its light also provides the energy which allows life as we know it to flourish. For these reasons, the Sun is a powerful presence in our lives. We all have a relationship with the Sun, so knowing about it, and about the benefits and hazards of its presence, is essential.
Teaching About the Sun
Autumn is when most students in the United States return for a new school year after summer vacation. This back-to-school time offers a wonderful opportunity to reach students fresh off of a few months of fun in the Sun and capture their imaginations with new information about how our native star works and how it impacts their lives.
To that end, NASA conducts efforts to educate and inform students and educators about the Sun, its features, and the ways it impacts our lives. NASA’s Heliophysics Education Activation Team (HEAT) teaches people of all ages about the Sun, covering everything from how to safely view an eclipse to how to mitigate the effects of geomagnetic storms.
This “Our Dynamic Sun” banner is one of many educational outreach products offered by NASA HEAT. It uses imagery of the Sun at different wavelengths of light to demonstrate the features of our nearest star, and features information about how the Sun interacts with the rest of the Solar System.
NASA HEAT
This often means tailoring lesson plans for educators. By connecting NASA scientists who study Heliophysics with education specialists who align the material to K-12 content standards, HEAT gets Heliophysics out of the lab and into the classroom. Making Sun science accessible lets learners of all ages and backgrounds get involved in and excited about the discovery, and instills a lifelong thirst for knowledge that builds the next generation of scientists.
Since 2007, NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) program and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) have cooperated to offer the Heliophysics Summer School program for doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars. This program aims to foster heliophysics as an integrated science, teaching a new generation of researchers to engage in cross-disciplinary communication while they are still in the early days of their career.
One Way to Get Involved
As part of its efforts to increase awareness of the scientific and social importance of heliophysics, and to both inspire future scientists and spark breakthroughs in heliophysics as a discipline, the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT) is working on a slate of educational materials designed to get students involved with real-world mission data.
My NASA Data, in collaboration with NASA HEAT, has released a new set of resources for educators centered around space weather. My NASA Data supports the use of authentic NASA data as part of classroom learning materials. These materials include lesson plans, mini-lessons (shorter activities for quick engagement), student-facing web-based interactives, and a longer “story map,” which deepens the investigation of the phenomenon over multiple class periods.
These resources are designed to engage learners with data and observations collected during both past and ongoing missions, including the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and more.
One example of this is the educational material published to support outreach efforts focusing on the 2023 and 2024 American solar eclipses. These materials allowed learners to collect their own data on cloud and temperature observations during the eclipses with the GLOBE Observer Eclipse tool. This gave them the chance to participate in the scientific process by contributing meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment.
New Ways to Engage
Groups like HEAT don’t just spark interest in science for the sake of inspiring the next generation of heliophysicists. Just like amateur astronomers can bring in a lot more data than their professional counterparts, citizen scientists can do a lot to support the same institutions that may have inspired them to take up the practice of citizen science. This can mean anything from helping to track sunspots to reporting on the effects of space weather events.
2023 Partial Solar Eclipse Viewing at Camino Real Marketplace with the View the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit. Events like this, which can take place during major events such as eclipses or during impromptu circumstances, offer an excellent opportunity for the public to get involved in and excited about heliophysics.
Photo by Chuck McPartlin
These enthusiasts are also adept at sharing knowledge of heliophysics. Even just one person inspired to buy a telescope with the right solar filter (international standard ISO 12312-2), set it up in a park, and teach their neighbors about the Sun can do amazing work, and there are a lot more of them than there are professional scientists. That means these amateur heliophysicists can reach farther than even the best official outreach.
Whether they take place in the classroom, at conferences, or in online lectures, the efforts of science communicators are a vital part of the work done at NASA. Just as scientists make new discoveries, these writers, teachers, audio and video producers, and outreach specialists are passionate about making those discoveries accessible to the public.
All of this work helps to inspire the scientists of tomorrow, and to instill wonder in the citizen scientists of today. The Sun is a constant and magnificent presence in our lives, and it offers plenty of reasons to be inspired, both now and in the future.
Additional Resources
Lesson Plans & Educator Guides
Explore the Sun Toolkit
The Explore the Sun Toolkit includes postcards, a banner, and slides ideal for informal educators and community events to bring the wonder of NASA Solar Science to your community.
Sun as a Star Activities, Grades 5-12
Educator guide consisting of eight roughly one-hour, hands-on activities adapted from a classroom environment for after-school audiences, and which will work for a variety of audiences.
Interactive Resources
My NASA Data
My NASA Data, a NASA Langley Research Center Science Directorate project, supports the use of authentic NASA Earth data for educators and learners in grades 3-12.
NASA Space Place Sun Page
Videos, games, activities and more for engaging younger students in a variety of space science topics, including resources on the Sun which range from hands-on activities to detailed lessons.
Student HelioViewer: Solar Data Interactive
A user-friendly interactive where students can access NASA data collected by spacecraft about the Sun and its features, including solar flares, magnetic fields, sunspots, and CMEs.
Make a Solar Viewer Activity
Create a simple solar viewer, or pinhole viewer, which works by projecting the image of the Sun through a small hole, to safely observe the Sun with just some paper and aluminum foil.
Webinars & Slide Decks
HBY & Math #3: The Sun Touches Everything
From agriculture to economics, the Sun touches all parts of our lives, especially with the sunlight that allows crops to grow. This webinar looks at sunlight through the year and how it changes.
The Solar Cycle As Seen From Space
Roughly 2-minute video which uses views of the Sun taken by a variety of spacecraft to show how different features of the Sun vary between solar minimum and solar maximum.
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