NASA to Provide Starliner Crew Flight Test Review Findings Today
Credit: NASA
During a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday NASA will discuss the findings of investigations into the 2024 crewed test flight of Boeing Starliner to the International Space Station.
The news conference will stream live on NASA’s YouTube channel. An instant replay will be available online.
NASA participants include:
Administrator Jared Isaacman
Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya
To ask questions during the news conference, media must RSVP no later than 30 minutes prior to the start of the call to the NASA Headquarters newsroom at: hq-media@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
For NASA’s blog and more information about the mission, visit:
Award-Winning NASA Camera Revolutionizes How We See the Invisible
4 Min Read
Award-Winning NASA Camera Revolutionizes How We See the Invisible
A shock wave interacting with a thin layer of fluid at Mach 10 in a wind tunnel, as captured by the Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren (SAFS) system invented in 2020 by researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Compared to conventional Schlieren imaging it eliminates irrelevant features such astunnel boundary layers, off-plane shockwaves, and flow structures from temperature variations outside the wind tunnel.
Credits: NASA/Brett Bathel
Imagine trying to photograph wind. That’s similar to what NASA engineers dealt with during a recent effort to study how air moves around planes, rockets, and other kinds of aerospace vehicles. Air is invisible, but our understanding of how it flows is crucial for building better, safer aircraft.
For 80 years, researchers used a technique called “focused schlieren imaging.” Think of it as a special camera system that can “see” air movement by detecting tiny changes in its density. It’s the same effect that lets you to see heat waves rising from hot pavement on a sunny day — just much more precise.
The Self-Aligned Focusing Schlieren (SAFS) system is a game-changer. It’s a compact, low-cost, easy-to-use visualization tool that is less complex than traditional focusing schlieren systems.
“What makes this breakthrough compelling is the ripple effect,” said NASA’s Brett Bathel, who invented the SAFS alongside fellow engineer Joshua Weisberger at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “When researchers can see and understand air movement in ways that were previously difficult to achieve, it leads to better aircraft designs and safer flights for everyone.”
The SAFS system is an innovative measurement technology the uses cameras and light polarization to visualize flow structures. In this video, the SAFS is showing the middle section of a rocket booster and capturing the complex shock structures along the booster for various angles of attack.
NASA/Brett Bathel
Switching from older systems to SAFS in wind tunnels and other specialized research environments allows aerospace engineers to gather high-speed flow visualization data more efficiently, with less facility downtime, and lower costs. For the aviation industry, it opens doors to new discoveries, potentially revolutionizing how we design everything from commercial airliners to spacecraft.
With SAFS in its toolbox, NASA is also better positioned to meet its mission goals related to efficiency and safety in aviation and space. Researchers are using SAFS to capture flow separation on the High Lift Common Research Model, a tool for improving how accurately we can predict the takeoff and landing performance of new aircraft. And it’s helping them investigate shock cell structures — diamond shapes that form in exhaust plumes — for the Space Launch System model.
The NASA technology is already being used worldwide, adopted by over 50 institutions in more than 8 countries, from Notre Dame to the University of Liverpool. Companies continue to license the technology and commercial versions are hitting the market.
The impact has been so significant that NASA’s researchers earned multiple awards. R&D World gave SAFS a spot on its 2025 R&D 100 Awards, selected by a panel of global experts.
NASA also named the SAFS a 2025 NASA Government Invention of the Year, the highest award the agency gives to groundbreaking technologies.
Giant Leap Ahead
To understand why the SAFS is a big deal, you need to know what researchers were working with before.
The older focused schlieren imaging setup required researchers to have access to both sides of what they were testing. They needed to set up separate grids of light sources on each side and align them perfectly with each other. It’s the equivalent of lining up two window screens on opposite sides of a room so their patterns match exactly.
The SAFS system is an imaging method developed by Brett Bathel and Joshua Weisberger at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It provides researchers with a simple setup for testing than the complex, manual alignment needed with traditional dual-grid setup systems.
NASA/
Setting up one of these systems could take weeks of painstaking adjustments, and if someone accidentally bumped the system or needed to make an adjustment? Start over.
Enter the SAFS system. In 2020, NASA researchers asked a critical question: What would happen if they could eliminate all that complexity by using the properties of light itself?
The solution? Light polarization. Your polarized sunglasses work by filtering light in specific directions. The SAFS system does something similar, using light polarization to create the same effect as the older, cumbersome dual-grid setup. The SAFS system only requires access to one side of the object you’re testing. And, instead of needing two separate grids that must be perfectly aligned, it uses just one grid that does double duty.
What used to take weeks of setup now takes just minutes. Need to make adjustments? No problem. The SAFS system can tweak sensitivity, change its field of view, or adjust focus on the fly. The system is compact and immune to vibrations (goodbye, starting-over-because-someone-walked-by).
Sometimes revolutionary advances come not from adding complexity, but from finding new creative solutions to age-old problems. The SAFS is proof that there’s always room for innovation — and this one is already making its mark on the world.
The work on SAFS was supported through NASA’s Aerosciences Evaluation and Test Capabilities portfolio office and Transformational Tools and Technologies project, which works to develop new computational tools to help predict aircraft performance. The project is part of NASA’s Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program under its Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
This June 5, 2024, image shows lysozyme crystals aboard the International Space Station. Lysozyme is a protein found in bodily fluids like tears, saliva, and milk, and is used as a control compound to demonstrate well-formed crystals. Lysozyme plays a vital role in innate immunity, protecting against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. The crystals were grown with Redwire’s PIL-BOX in a study of the effect of microgravity on various types of crystals production.
Map the Earth’s Magnetic Shield with the Space Umbrella Project
2 min read
Map the Earth’s Magnetic Shield with the Space Umbrella Project
A stream of charged particles known as the solar wind flows from the Sun toward Earth. Here, it meets the Earth’s magnetic fields, which shield our planet like a giant umbrella. The Space Umbrella project needs your help investigating this dynamic region, where NASA’s Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission has been collecting data since 2015. The MMS mission investigates how the Sun and Earth’s magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other in a process that is important to the Sun, other planets, and everywhere in the universe. With the Space Umbrella project, you will help identify when the MMS spacecraft has observed the strongest interactions between the Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. While these interactions can result in beautiful auroras, they also release energy that could disrupt GPS and communications systems and endanger astronauts. Your work will also help scientists better understand solar storms. Understanding these solar storms can contribute to keeping our astronauts and technology safe. To get started, visit the Space Umbrella project website and complete the tutorial. The tutorial will teach you everything you need to know, including how to tell when the satellite is inside Earth’s magnetic field and when the magnetosphere is interacting with the Sun’s particles. Everyone is welcome to participate — no prior experience needed!
Left: An artist’s drawing of Earth’s magnetic field (blue lines) interacting with the Sun’s charged particles (yellow lines). The Earth’s magnetosphere (orange crescent) is created by Earth’s magnetic field. It deflects those particles like an umbrella. Right: NASA MMS mission observations like those volunteers would see while participating in the Space Umbrella project.
NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Learn More and Get Involved
Space Umbrella
Use data from NASA’s Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission to shed light on solar storms.
Small But Mighty Lab Device Could Transform NASA Research
The International Space Station orbits above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal.
A small but mighty piece of lab equipment, about the size of a cellphone, has arrived at the International Space Station after launching with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission. NASA aims to use the off-the-shelf device, called a microplate reader, to conduct vital biological research in space and get real-time access to data.
The immediate benefit of using a microplate reader for space science is speed. Scientists can get data as soon as testing is complete, rather than waiting for samples to be stored, returned to Earth, and analyzed in ground labs. In-situ analysis like this — testing done on-site rather than after sample return — could reduce the delays, complications, and costs of bringing materials back to Earth.
Traditional microplate readers on the ground are typically much larger — often bigger than a microwave — but NASA’s tests will use a version that is not much larger than a cellphone.
For now, the microplate reader device requires a trained astronaut to run tests. But proving commercial lab equipment can work in low Earth orbit could open doors for future automation and even more advanced testing capabilities.
In the future, scientists could test astronaut samples for various molecules during long-duration missions to monitor crew health in deep space. The microplate reader is adaptable — different test kits could support a range of measurements wherever humans explore in space.
Shining light on space biology
The microplate reader uses a wavelength of light to detect color in biological tests. When a target molecule is present in a sample, the test produces a color change. The intensity of that change tells researchers how much of a particular molecule is present.
NASA will initially use samples from the Microgravity Associated Bone Loss-B (MABL-B) investigation — which explores potential ways to prevent bone loss in space — to test the microplate reader on the space station. For this demonstration, the microplate reader will measure a protein called interleukin-6 in samples from the MABL-B investigation. Scientists suspect this protein may contribute to astronaut bone loss.
Operating the device is straightforward. It connects to a tablet or laptop via USB and uses standard 96-well plates — the same format many labs use on Earth. An astronaut runs the test using software to operate the device and get results immediately.
Scientists can monitor the experiment in real-time via video and visually observe the initial readouts. If researchers have instructions for the crew, those are relayed via space station ground personnel communicating with crew. Additionally, a detailed data file can be downlinked quickly from the station and shared with the researchers.
Testing commercial lab equipment using ultimate laboratory
A microplate reader arrived at the orbiting laboratory Feb. 14 with Crew-12. The test kit and samples will launch aboard a future mission to the space station. Once all materials are aboard station, NASA will run the demonstration and compare the results with identical tests conducted on Earth.
“The microplate reader hardware and the kit to measure a protein called Interleukin-6 are both off the shelf — we’re testing these commercially available products in space to accelerate the pace of doing research in orbit,” said Dan Walsh, CERISS program executive for NASA. “Our CERISS effort is building the capabilities and infrastructure needed for a thriving low Earth orbit research economy. Demonstrations like this show how commercial tools can integrate into space station operations and help grow the commercial space industry.”
