Demonstration Motor-1 (DM-1) is the first full-scale ground test of the evolved five-segment solid rocket motor of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. The event will take place in Promontory, Utah, and will be used as an opportunity to test several upgrades made from the current solid rocket boosters. Each booster burns six tons of solid propellant every second and together generates almost eight million pounds of thrust.
News Media Contact
Jonathan Deal Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 256-544-0034 jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
Mission Accomplished! Artemis ROADS III National Challenge Competitors Celebrate their Achievements
5 min read
Mission Accomplished! Artemis ROADS III National Challenge Competitors Celebrate their Achievements
The NASA Science Activation program’s Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pathways (NESSP) team has successfully concluded the 2024–2025 Artemis ROADS III National Challenge, an educational competition that brought real NASA mission objectives to student teams (and reached more than 1,500 learners) across the country. From December 2024 through May 2025, over 300 teams of upper elementary, middle, and high school students from 22 states participated, applying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills in exciting and creative ways.
Participants tackled eight Mission Objectives inspired by NASA’s Artemis missions, which aim to return humans to the Moon. Students explored challenges such as:
Designing a water purification system for the Moon inspired by local water cycles
Developing a Moon-based agricultural plan based on experimental results
Programming a rover to autonomously navigate lunar tunnels
Engineering and refining a human-rated water bottle rocket capable of safely returning a “chip-stronaut” to Earth
Envisioning their future careers through creative projects like graphic novels or video interviews
Exploring NASA’s Artemis program through a new Artemis-themed Lotería game
In-person hub events were hosted by Northern Arizona University, Central Washington University, and Montana State University, where teams from Washington, Montana, and Idaho gathered to present their work, collaborate with peers, and experience life on a college campus. Students also had the chance to connect virtually with NASA scientists and engineers through NESSP’s NASA Expert Talks series.
“Artemis ROADS III is NESSP’s eighth ROADS challenge, and I have to say, I think it’s the best one yet. It’s always inspiring to see so many students across the country engage in a truly meaningful STEM experience. I heard from several students and educators that participating in the challenge completely changed their perspective on science and engineering. I believe that’s because this program is designed to let students experience the joy of discovery and invention—driven by both teamwork and personal creativity—that real scientists and engineers love about their work. We also show students the broad range of STEM expertise NASA relies on to plan and carry out a mission like Artemis. Most importantly, it gives them a chance to feel like they are part of the NASA mission, which can be truly transformative.” – Dr. Darci Snowden, Director, NESSP
NESSP proudly recognizes the following teams for completing all eight Mission Objectives and the Final Challenge:
Space Pringles, 3rd-5th Grade, San Antonio, TX
Space Axolotls, 3rd-5th Grade, Roberts, MT
TEAM Wild, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
Pessimistic Penguins, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
Dwarf Planets, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
Astronomical Rovers, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
Cosmic Honeybuns, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
Houston we have a Problem, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
FBI Wanted List, 6th-8th Grade, Eagle Mountain, UT
Lunar Legion, 6th-8th Grade, San Antonio, TX
Artemis Tax-Free Space Stallions, 6th-8th Grade, Egg Harbor, NJ
Aquila, 6th-8th Grade, Gooding, ID
Space Warriors, 6th-8th Grade, Wapato, WA
Team Cygnus, 6th-8th Grade, Red Lodge, MT
Maple RocketMen, 6th-8th Grade, Northbrook, IL
RGB Hawks, 6th-8th Grade, Sagle, ID
The Blue Moon Bigfoots, 6th-8th Grade, Medford, OR
W.E.P.Y.C.K., 6th-8th Grade, Roberts, MT
Lunar Dawgz, 6th-8th Grade, Safford, AZ
ROSEBUD ROCKETEERS, 6th-8th Grade, Rosebud, MT
The Cosmic Titans, 6th-8th Grade, Thomson Falls, MT
The Chunky Space Monkeys, 6th-8th Grade, Naches, WA
ROSEBUD RED ANGUS, 9th-12th Grade, Rosebud, MT
Bulky Bisons, 9th-12th Grade, Council Grove, KS
The Falling Stars, 9th-12th Grade, Thomson Falls, MT
The Roadkillers, 9th-12th Grade, Thomson Falls, MT
The Goshawks, 9th-12th Grade, Thomson Falls, MT
Sequim Cosmic Catalysts, 9th-12th Grade, Sequim, WA
You can see highlights of these teams’ work in the Virtual Recognition Ceremony video on the NESSP YouTube channel. The presentation also features the teams selected to travel to Kennedy Space Center in August of 2025, the ultimate prize for these future space explorers!
In addition to student engagement, the ROADS program provided professional development workshops and NGSS-aligned classroom resources to support K–12 educators. Teachers are invited to explore these materials and register for the next round of workshops, beginning in August 2025: https://nwessp.org/professional-development-registration.
For more information about NESSP, its programs, partners, and the ROADS National Challenge, visit www.nwessp.org or contact info@nwessp.org.
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NASA’s Northwest Earth and Space Science Pathways’ (NESSP) project is supported by NASA cooperative agreement award number 80NSSC22M0006 and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn/about-science-activation/
A water bottle rocket launches into the air carrying its precious chip-stronaut cargo.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Starts Unpacking Boxwork Formations
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Drag your mouse or move your phone to pan around within this 360-degree view to explore the boxwork patterns on Mars that NASA’s Curiosity is investigating for the first time. The rover captured the 291 images that make up this mosaic between May 15 and May 18. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The rover recently drilled a sample from a new region with features that could reveal whether Mars’ subsurface once provided an environment suitable for life.
New images from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover show the first close-up views of a region scientists had previously observed only from orbit. The images and data being collected are already raising new questions about how the Martian surface was changing billions of years ago. The Red Planet once had rivers, lakes, and possibly an ocean. Although scientists aren’t sure why, its water eventually dried up and the planet transformed into the chilly desert it is today.
By the time Curiosity’s current location formed, the long-lived lakes were gone in Gale Crater, the rover’s landing area, but water was still percolating under the surface. The rover found dramatic evidence of that groundwater when it encountered crisscrossing low ridges, some just a few inches tall, arranged in what geologists call a boxwork pattern. The bedrock below these ridges likely formed when groundwater trickling through the rock left behind minerals that accumulated in those cracks and fissures, hardening and becoming cementlike. Eons of sandblasting by Martian wind wore away the rock but not the minerals, revealing networks of resistant ridges within.
The ridges Curiosity has seen so far look a bit like a crumbling curb. The boxwork patterns stretch across miles of a layer on Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain whose foothills the rover has been climbing since 2014. Intriguingly, boxwork patterns haven’t been spotted anywhere else on the mountain, either by Curiosity or orbiters passing overhead.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover viewed this low ridge, which looks a bit like a crumbling curb, on May 16. Scientists think the hardened edges of such ridges — part of the boxwork region the rover is exploring — may have been formed by ancient groundwater.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “As we drive on, we’ll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target.”
Important to the boxwork patterns’ history is the part of the mountain where they’re found. Mount Sharp consists of multiple layers, each of which formed during different eras of ancient Martian climate. Curiosity essentially “time travels” as it ascends from the oldest to youngest layers, searching for signs of water and environments that could have supported ancient microbial life.
The rover is currently exploring a layer with an abundance of salty minerals called magnesium sulfates, which form as water dries up. Their presence here suggests this layer emerged as the climate became drier. Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this scene while looking out across a region filled with boxwork patterns, low ridges that scientists think could have been formed by groundwater billions of years ago.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Scientists hope to gain more insight into why the boxwork patterns formed here, and Mars recently provided some unexpected clues. The bedrock between the boxwork ridges has a different composition than other layers of Mount Sharp. It also has lots of tiny fractures filled with white veins of calcium sulfate, another salty mineral left behind as groundwater trickles through rock cracks. Similar veins were plentiful on lower layers of the mountain, including one enriched with clays, but had not been spotted in the sulfate layer until now.
“That’s really surprising,” said Curiosity’s deputy project scientist, Abigail Fraeman of JPL. “These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp. The team is excited to figure out why they’ve returned now.”
New Terrain, New Findings
On June 8, Curiosity set out to learn about the unique composition of the bedrock in this area, using the drill on the end of its robotic arm to snag a sample of a rock nicknamed “Altadena.” The rover then dropped the pulverized sample into instruments within its body for more detailed analysis.
Drilling additional samples from more distant boxwork patterns, where the mineral ridges are much larger, will help the mission make sense of what they find. The team will also search for organic molecules and other evidence of an ancient habitable environment preserved in the cemented ridges.
As Curiosity continues to explore, it will be leaving a new assortment of nicknames behind, as well. To keep track of features on the planet, the mission applies nicknames to each spot the rover studies, from hills it views with its cameras to specific calcium sulfate veins it zaps with its laser. (Official names, such as Aeolis Mons — otherwise known as Mount Sharp — are approved by the International Astronomical Union.)
The previous names were selected from local sites in Southern California, where JPL is based. The Altadena sample, for instance, bears the name of a community near JPL that was severely burned during January’s Eaton Canyon fire. Now on a new part of their Martian map, the team is selecting names from around Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, Earth’s largest salt flat. This exceptionally dry terrain crosses into Chile’s Atacama Desert, and astrobiologists study both the salt flat and the surrounding desert because of their similarity to Mars’ extreme dryness.
More About Curiosity
Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.
Arsia Mons, one of the Red Planet’s largest volcanoes, peeks through a blanket of water ice clouds in this image captured by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter on May 2, 2025. Odyssey used a camera called the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) to capture this view while studying the Martian atmosphere, which appears here as a greenish haze above the scene. A large crater known as a caldera, produced by massive volcanic explosions and collapse, is located at the summit. At 72 miles (120 kilometers) wide, the Arsia Mons summit caldera is larger than many volcanoes on Earth.
Recent detections of clay-bearing bedrock on Jezero’s crater rim have the Perseverance Science Team excited and eager to sample.
NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of the Laknes abrasion, acquired in the clay-bearing bedrock of the Krokodillen plateau, on the outer slopes of the Jezero crater rim. Perseverance captured the image using its Right Mastcam-Z camera on June 8, 2025 — or, Sol 1529, Martian day 1,529 of the Mars 2020 mission — at the local mean solar time of 12:03:14.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Written by Alex Jones, Ph.D. candidate at Imperial College London
Since finishing its exploration of spherule-rich stratigraphy at Witch Hazel Hill, Perseverance has been exploring the Krokodillen plateau, a relatively low-lying terrain on the outer slopes of the crater rim. It was in these rocks where the SuperCam instrument began detecting signatures of clay-minerals. These minerals, also known as “phyllosilicates,” are an exciting find as they primarily form by extensive interactions between basaltic rocks and liquid water. Phyllosilicates are also excellent at preserving organic materials, if present, by adsorbing them or encapsulating them within their mineral structure.
What’s more, it’s possible that these clay-bearing rocks may be some of the most ancient rocks explored by Perseverance, dating back to a time when Mars may have been warmer and wetter than the present day. Clay-bearing rocks are abundant in the regions around Jezero, and are thought to date to Mars’ Noachian period, around 4 billion years ago. Needless to say, the Science Team were keen to investigate (and eventually sample) these materials.
Perseverance performed an initial toe-dip into this clay-bearing unit back in April, creating the Strong Island abrasion patch, before returning back upslope to Witch Hazel Hill to sample some spherule-bearing rocks. Since then, Perseverance has started exploring this clay-bearing unit more extensively, creating the Laknes abrasion (pictured) on Sol 1526.
Initial data collected by Perseverance suggests that the clay signature may be variable across the Krokodillen plateau. Next, the Science Team plan to rove around to establish a clear geologic context for these rocks, as well as locating a good site for sampling!
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