NASA Astronaut Christina Koch to Join NFL Fans in Philadelphia
NASA astronaut Christina Koch is seen during an event to award the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to the Artemis II crew, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credit: NASA/John Kraus
As part of NASA’s ongoing Inspiration Tour, NASA astronaut Christina Koch will highlight America’s strengths in space exploration and aeronautics innovation at the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Los Angeles Rams game in Philadelphia on Sunday, Oct. 4.
A self-proclaimed Philadelphia sports fan, Koch is an explorer and engineer who spent a total of 338 days in space across two missions, including serving as a mission specialist for the agency’s Artemis II mission earlier this year. On April 1, Koch launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Orion spacecraft on top of the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket as part of Artemis II. Koch and her fellow crew members completed a historic lunar flyby, marking humanity’s return to the vicinity of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
NASA team members will engage with fans at the agency’s Experience Zone, located outside the stadium from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. before the game. Fans can learn more about NASA’s return to the Moon through the agency’s Artemis program, enjoy interactive games, and capture photos at a selfie station and with a large, inflatable NASA logo.
With stops across the nation, NASA’s Inspiration Tour convenes academic, industry, and public sector stakeholders to connect the agency with the people, technologies, and organizations that drive American leadership in space.
The tour will culminate in MAX POWER, a public exposition of American air and space innovation, Saturday, Nov. 7, and Sunday, Nov. 8, on and near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Held in honor of America’s historic 250th anniversary, the multi-day, family-friendly event will showcase the next-generation aircraft, spacecraft, autonomous vehicles, and technologies that will help define the future of transportation in air and space.
For more information about MAX POWER and the agency’s missions, visit:
Heading Home: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Concludes Station Science Mission
5 Min Read
Heading Home: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Concludes Station Science Mission
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission is ending, with the crew scheduled to return in early October. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will head home from the International Space Station after supporting research that benefits life on Earth and prepares humans for missions into deep space.
Here’s a look back at some of their accomplishments:
Orbital transit
NASA/ESA
The crew members look out the window of a Dragon spacecraft during their journey to the space station, a destination that offers a unique vantage point to observe both Earth and the cosmos. Research in microgravity allows the scientific community to experiment through a new perspective, from changes in how cells behave to how materials take shape, space offers new paths to scientific discovery.
Hathaway floats alongside hardware used for crystal growth experiments aboard the orbiting laboratory. Microgravity reveals new details about crystal structures, helping researchers improve the quality and stability of pharmaceuticals. Here, cancer-targeting treatments are crystallized to better understand their properties and help advance cancer therapies on Earth.
Learn more about the Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory (ADSEP-PIL-15).
Boosting quantum science
NASA/Jack Hathaway
Meir works with cables that deliver light used to cool, trap, and study atoms inside the Cold Atom Lab. In microgravity, ultracold atoms can be observed for longer periods, giving scientists a window to peer into the quantum realm. A recent upgrade to the facility increases the number of atoms produced, providing more data to advance quantum technologies such as solar cells and the components that power cell phones and computers.
Adenot holds a small container that houses a bone scaffold made from wood, designed to mimic the structure of real bones and support the growth of bone cells. Since microgravity can accelerate bone loss, it offers a unique opportunity to test how well the scaffold promotes bone regeneration. Insights from this study could protect future space explorers and provide new treatment options for patients with osteoporosis, a disease that affects more than 200 million people globally.
Meir sets up hardware for an investigation that studies soft materials made from tiny particles suspended in water. In microgravity, scientists can study how these particles interact and assemble into structures differently than they do on Earth. Understanding these interactions could help scientists fine-tune the texture, stability, and performance of materials used for growing plants, 3D printing, and producing pharmaceuticals.
Hathaway holds equipment to test for antibiotic-resistant bacteria aboard the space station. Some bacteria can withstand antibiotics, starvation, and disinfection, making them a concern in closed environments like spacecraft. Sequencing DNA in microgravity can reveal how resilient microbes adapt to space, helping scientists identify countermeasures to manage antibiotic‑resistant bacteria during exploration missions while also advancing efforts to combat resistance on Earth.
Learn more about CS-05A: Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS).
Fresh delivery
NASA/Chris Williams
Expedition 74 crew members smile among fresh produce delivered aboard NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 24 mission. Cargo flights bring critical supplies, fresh food, sweet treats, and new science to the space station. The Cygnus XL spacecraft also delivered many research projects, including an instrument that could improve space-weather modeling and a project that could help protect gut-microbiome stability on future exploration missions.
Reshaping cartilage
NASA
Meir works on an investigation that studies how engineered cartilage tissue develops in microgravity, which may help scientists produce medical implants that more closely resemble natural cartilage. For millions of people with cartilage injuries, space-grown tissue could offer treatment options that don’t require transplanting cartilage from another part of the body.
Learn more about Biomimetic Tissue Engineering in Microgravity for Cartilage using Aggregate Rejuvenation, Tension, and Self-Assembly (BEM-CARTS).
Printing meets metal
NASA
Adenot installs the Metal 3D Printer aboard the orbital complex. Several small metal parts have already been 3D printed in microgravity and returned to Earth, where their quality is evaluated against those made on the ground. Producing metal parts on demand in space could give future crews the ability to make or replace what they need far from Earth, reducing reliance on spare parts and resupply missions.
Adenot works to produce intravenous (IV) fluid on demand in microgravity. Commercial IV fluids expire after about 16 months and carrying them on long-duration missions adds weight and takes up valuable space. This system could provide a critical medical resource when resupply is limited and improve access in remote areas or during emergencies on Earth.
Learn more about Intravenous Fluid Generation – Mini (IVGEN Mini).
Multiplying stem cells
NASA
Hathaway takes a selfie as Meir conducts a stem cell investigation in space. Microgravity can help produce larger numbers of clinical-grade stem cells that retain their ability to transform into other cells. Cells used in this experiment could help rebuild blood and immune systems after chemotherapy, advancing care for leukemia and other blood diseases on Earth.
Learn more about the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Expansion in Space: Pathfinder Investigation (InSPA-StemCellEX-H2).
Training bone cells
NASA/Jack Hathaway
Hathaway holds an experiment container that uses bone marrow cells to study how microgravity affects bone and muscle. The research uses structures that mimic parts of bone marrow, and some samples are exposed to vibrations that simulate exercise. Tracking changes in these cells could reveal new ways to combat bone and muscle loss during spaceflight and support bone health on Earth.
An engineering model of NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) descent probe passed a key test that ran from Aug. 28 to Sept. 10, showing it can survive the extreme temperatures of Venus.
NASA/Mike Guinto
The engineering development unit for NASA’s DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) probe is photographed prior to a major thermal evaluation.
The DAVINCI team put the yoga ball-sized vessel into a ceramic-lined chamber with heat-scorched walls and ratcheted up the temperature to 869 F, or 465 C, over the course of about an hour — the same pace the probe will heat up during its descent to the surface of Venus.
DAVINCI will study the origin, evolution, and present state of Venus in unprecedented detail to help determine whether it was once wet and habitable, like Earth.
La NASA abre solicitudes para próxima promoción de directores de vuelo
El equipo de control de vuelo de Artemis II, en la Sala Blanca de Control de Vuelo del centro de control de misiones del Centro Espacial Johnson de la NASA, en Houston, el 10 de abril de 2026, durante el amerizaje y la recuperación de la misión Artemis II. Crédito: NASA/Robert Markowitz
La NASA busca líderes para uno de los puestos más prestigiosos de la Tierra en el ámbito de los vuelos espaciales tripulados: director de vuelo en el control de misión del Centro Espacial Johnson de la agencia, en Houston. Esta función es fundamental para reforzar el liderazgo estadounidense en la exploración espacial, a medida que la NASA allana el camino hacia una presencia humana sostenida en la Luna.
El plazo para presentar solicitudes está abierto desde ahora hasta el lunes 12 de octubre. Los ciudadanos estadounidenses pueden presentar su solicitud en (información en inglés):
Las personas seleccionadas como directores de vuelo de la NASA dirigirán misiones tripuladas a la Estación Espacial Internacional, misiones Artemis a la Luna y, más adelante, las primeras misiones tripuladas a Marte.
Los directores de vuelo dirigen equipos de controladores de vuelo, astronautas y socios comerciales e internacionales en la ejecución de misiones en tiempo real y en la gestión de riesgos. Durante los preparativos de una misión, los directores de vuelo colaboran con los equipos de ingeniería, seguridad y programas para garantizar que los planes operativos se ajusten a las capacidades de la nave espacial y a los objetivos de la misión.
“Estamos en un momento apasionante y decisivo, ya que seguimos dando soporte a las operaciones en la Estación Espacial Internacional mientras construimos la próxima etapa de los vuelos espaciales tripulados con las misiones de Artemis y Base Lunar, y nos preparamos para llegar más lejos que nunca”, dijo Emily Nelson, jefa de directores de vuelo en el centro Johnson. “Alcanzar estos ambiciosos objetivos requiere directores de vuelo que sean expertos en integración, capaces de reunir una amplia variedad de equipos y disciplinas en un esfuerzo de misión claro y unificado. Esta función esencial representa lo mejor de la innovación y el trabajo en equipo”.
Para ser considerados, los candidatos a director de vuelo deben ser ciudadanos estadounidenses y contar con una licenciatura de una institución acreditada en ingeniería, ciencias biológicas, ciencias físicas, informática o matemáticas. También necesitarán una amplia experiencia profesional afín y de responsabilidad creciente, que incluya la toma de decisiones críticas en entornos de alta presión y alto riesgo. Aunque muchos directores de vuelo de la NASA han sido antes controladores de vuelo en el control de misión, no es un requisito para presentar la solicitud.
La NASA prevé anunciar las selecciones antes de que termine el año. Los nuevos directores de vuelo recibirán una amplia formación en control de vuelo y sistemas de naves espaciales, así como en liderazgo operativo y gestión de riesgos.
Obtén más información sobre los directores de vuelo de la NASA y el proceso de solicitud en (información en inglés):
NASA Campaign Explores Clouds Spawned by Wildfires
6 Min Read
NASA Campaign Explores Clouds Spawned by Wildfires
The Wildhorse grass fire in eastern Idaho erupted with a massive pulse of smoke. No one had expected it, but the wildfire had launched what’s known as a pyrocumulonimbus cloud, or pyroCb. It was an elusive weather phenomenon that scientists on NASA’s INSPYRE (INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment) campaign spent weeks this summer hunting across western North America.
Fire-driven weather about the Widemouth 2 fire in Utah, as seen from the NCAR Gulfstream jet during the fourth INSPYRE campaign research flight on Aug. 3.
INSPYRE/Bernadett Weinzierl
Pyrocumulonimbus clouds rise above intense fires, producing lightning and rain along with powerful winds that can whip the flames below into a fury. The largest pyroCbs funnel smoke 30,000 to 50,000 feet (10 to 15 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, as high as the cruising altitudes of commercial jets and even into the stratosphere.
A pyroCb cloud forms when an intense fire funnels a chimney of smoke into the stratosphere above the height of most clouds formed by normal weather patterns.
NASA/Bill Ingalls, NASA/JSC/Mark Sowa
The significance of pyroCbs emerged around the turn of the 21st century, when satellite observations revealed smoke reaching altitudes previously associated with major volcanic eruptions. Once in the stratosphere, pyroCb smoke can spread across continents, circle the globe, and persist far longer than it would in the lower atmosphere.
The NCAR Gulfstream jet, outfitted with instrumentation for studying clouds and smoke over wildfires, sits in its hangar at the National Science Foundation’s NCAR Research Aviation Facility in Broomfield, Colorado.
NASA/Bill Ingalls, NASA/JSC/Mark Sowa
Despite their massive size, pyroCb clouds remain mysterious. But it’s important to understand how they form and connect with the atmosphere, because their smoke can affect climate and weather far from the fires that produced them and long after they’ve extinguished. They also can produce dangerous fire-generated winds.
NASA’s ER-2 taxis on the runway during its deployment at the Great Falls International Airport. The high-flying jet launched from Great Falls, Montana, on flights across western North America and as far north as Alaska during the INSPYRE campaign.
NASA/Milan Loiacono
“We still do not understand if they’re driven by fire energetics, or fire intensity, or by atmospheric conditions above,” said Olga Kalashnikova, a researcher with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who is one of the principal investigators leading INSPYRE, the first aircraft campaign designed specifically around studying pyroCbs.
An ER‑2 aircraft based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, carries a pod full of instruments for the INSPYRE campaign.
NASA/Carla Escamilla
For six weeks this summer, INSPYRE researchers climbed aboard a Gulfstream jet for a series of flights from the plane’s home base at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) near Boulder, Colorado. Scientists collected smoke particles, sampled gases, photographed ice crystals, and monitored radiation passing through clouds and reflected back into space. The aircraft crisscrossed above, below, and through clouds to get a close-up view of fire-induced weather and smoke.
Meanwhile, NASA’s high-flying ER-2 aircraft, loaded with 14 instruments, tracked fire intensity, updraft speeds, smoke, and cloud properties from above, while crews drove trucks equipped with sensors to view the same events from the ground. Ultimately, the team will investigate how wildfire-generated clouds transport smoke upward, how clouds transform particles and gases in smoke, how much reaches the stratosphere, and what happens once it gets there.
From fire forecasts to climate models
Firefighters will benefit from a better understanding of when pyroCbs are likely to develop and how they affect fire conditions on the ground. “A unique thing about pyrocumulonimbus is they are fire-generated weather, meaning the fire makes its own weather,” said Neil Lareau, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who led INSPYRE’s ground observations. “The fire is making its own thunderstorm, and in the process of doing that, it’s also making its own wind.”
A unique thing about pyrocumulonimbus is they are fire-generated weather . . . the fire makes its own weather.
Neil Lareau
University of Nevada
Lareau hopes the research will lead to warnings comparable to the alerts meteorologists issue for severe thunderstorms. For example, he said, a forecast would warn firefighters that a developing cloud could soon produce a dangerous downdraft and wind shift, giving fire managers time to pull personnel off the line.
Ground crews traveled across the western U.S. to monitor wildfires up close during the INSPYRE campaign.
NASA/Milan Loiacono
Additionally, INSPYRE could also improve Earth system models. PyroCbs can carry enormous quantities of smoke into the stratosphere, where particles can persist for months or longer and affect how much solar energy the atmosphere absorbs and how much reaches Earth’s surface. Most numerical prediction models don’t explicitly include the effects of pyroCbs and their smoke injections, said Dave Peterson, a Naval Research Laboratory meteorologist and INSPYRE’s co-principal investigator. Measurements of the particles, gases, and radiation associated with these events will give scientists data to test and improve simulations of their effects on Earth’s weather and climate.
Hunting storms
To study wildfire smoke and clouds, and perhaps catch a pyroCb in action, the INSPYRE team first had to find one. The challenge was getting an aircraft to the right place at the right time. Pyrocumulonimbus clouds can develop in minutes and subside just as quickly, while reaching fires hundreds of miles away takes hours of preparation, flight time, and coordination with air traffic controllers.
Instrumentation racks take the place of passenger seats on the NCAR Gulfstream plane that has been converted from an executive jet to a flying laboratory.
NASA/Katie Jepson
But on Aug. 26, the team got lucky. The Gulfstream was returning from a fire farther west when Sarah Woods, a National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist serving as spotter, got word that the Wildhorse fire was unexpectedly intense.
The fire hadn’t initially attracted much attention. “We knew there was a grass fire there, and everyone’s like, it’s just a grass fire; we’re not going to worry about it,” Peterson said. “And it ended up being the main event.”
We knew there was a grass fire there, and everyone’s like, it’s just a grass fire; we’re not going to worry about it . . . And it ended up being the main event.”
DAVE PETERSON
Naval Research Laboratory
When the flight path neared the Wildhorse fire, Woods spotted the fresh remains of a pyroCb from her cramped jump seat behind the pilots. “It looks just like a big thunderstorm, and so as you approach it, you look for a visual indication of the fire on the ground,” said Woods.
Researchers on an Aug. 26 INSPYRE research flight encountered a pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud that unexpectedly formed over the Wildhorse grass fire in eastern Idaho.
INSPYRE/Chris Kruse
Seeing the fire on the ground far below confirmed that the cloud was fire-generated. At Woods’ request, the pilots swung the plane around and spent the next three hours flying back and forth through the cloud plume and the trail of smoke drifting northwest toward Wyoming.
The chance encounter gave the INSPYRE team measurements of a pyroCb plume roughly an hour after the cloud first erupted. Other flights coordinated between the Gulfstream jet and ER-2 added crucial observations of active fire-driven atmospheric airflow that will help document how the resulting smoke plumes evolve over the days and weeks that follow.
Putting pieces together
Measurements from the Gulfstream and ER-2 will now be combined with satellite and ground observations and compared with models.
“When clouds form, they modify chemistry,” said Kalashnikova, the JPL-based principal investigator. That altered smoke can have different effects on radiation, she said, making it important to understand both how pyroCbs form and the smoke that emerges from them.
In the summer of 2026, the challenge was finding the clouds and collecting the measurements. Now comes the work of understanding what they found.
