Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
If you tell Lauren Best Ameen something is hard and cannot be done, she will likely reply, “Watch me.”
As deputy manager for the Cryogenic Fluid Management Portfolio Project Office at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ameen and her team look for innovative ways to keep rocket fuel cold for long-duration missions. Work in this area could be important in enabling astronauts to go to the Moon and Mars.
Watch the NASA Faces of Technology video that highlights her work:
For more information about NASA’s Cryogenic Fluid Management Program, visit this page.
NASA Glenn Trains Instructors for After-School STEM Program
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
During the21st Century Community Learning Centers workshop, after-school educators learn to build the “Move It” student activity from NASA’s Build, Launch and Recover Student Activity Guide.
Credit: Kristen Marlatt
NASA and the U.S. Department of Education are teaming up to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education during after-school hours. The interagency program strives to reach approximately 1,000 middle school students in more than 60 sites across 10 states to join the program, 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC).
Members of NASA Glenn Research Center’s Office of STEM Engagement traveled to Lansing, Michigan, last month to participate in a two-day professional development training with local after-school educators and facilitators. The training focused on integrating real-world STEM challenges into the 21st CCLC programs.
After-school educators engage in a student activity from NASA’s Build, Launch, and Recover Student Activity Guide. In this challenge, students become engineers and NASA crawler operators while working in teams to design and build a rubber band-powered model of NASA’s crawler-transporter that can carry the most mass possible the farthest distance without failure.
Credit: Kristen Marlatt
“By engaging in NASA learning opportunities, students are challenged to use critical thinking and creativity to solve real-world challenges that scientists and engineers may face,” said Darlene Walker, NASA Glenn’s Office of STEM Engagement director. “Through the 21st CCLC program, NASA and the Department of Education aim to inspire the next generation of explorers and innovators through high-quality educational content that ignites curiosity and fosters a joy of learning for students across the country.”
NASA Glenn education specialists will continue to provide NASA-related content and academic projects for students, in-person staff training, program support, and opportunities for students to engage with NASA scientists and engineers.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA Glenn employees donated 11 boxes of new, unwrapped gifts to the Toys for Tots program.
Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna
NASA’s Glenn Research Center continued a decades-long tradition of participating in the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots program during the 2024 holiday season. On Dec. 9, members of the Marine Corps Reserve (3rd Battalion, 25th Marines) picked up 11 boxes of toys donated by employees from NASA Glenn’s facilities in Cleveland and Sandusky, Ohio.
Marine Corps representatives stand at far left and far right of NASA Glenn’s Associate Director Larry Sivic, left, Center Director Dr. Jimmy Kenyon, center, and Acting Deputy Director Dr. Wanda Peters.
Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna
The Glenn Veterans Employee Resource Group led the donation drive. The Toys for Tots campaign collects and distributes new, unwrapped toys to less fortunate children in the area for Christmas.
Crew Stays Busy with Spacewalk Preps and Advanced Research
The NICER X-ray telescope is reflected on NASA astronaut Nick Hague’s spacesuit helmet visor in this high-flying “space-selfie” taken on Jan. 16, 2025.
The Expedition 72 crew members began the day preparing for the second spacewalk of 2025 outside the International Space Station, this time to remove communications gear and search for potential microbes. The orbital residents also kept up ongoing research studying advanced space navigation, analyzing microbial DNA, and exploring futuristic piloting techniques.
Station Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore worked throughout Tuesday organizing spacewalk tools such as tethers, stowage bags, foot restraints, and more inside the Quest airlock. The duo also reviewed procedures they will use to remove and stow a radio frequency group antenna assembly and swab external station surfaces to test whether microbes can live outside the orbital outpost. They are scheduled to set their spacesuits to battery power signifying the start of their spacewalk at 8 a.m. EST on Thursday, Jan. 30.
Flight Engineers Nick Hague and Don Pettit also took part in the spacewalk preparations. Hague started first as he studied the steps he will take when he helps the spacewalkers in and out of their spacesuits, guides them in and out of Quest, and monitors the duo during the science and maintenance excursion. Later, he joined Pettit and practiced installing the spacesuits’ jetpacks a spacewalker would use to maneuver back to the station in the unlikely event they became untethered from the orbital outpost.
Hague and Pettit were also on science duty keeping up advanced research benefitting humans living on and off the Earth. Hague worked inside the Columbus laboratory module installing the NAVCOM technology demonstration. The space navigation hardware is being tested as a backup solution to the Global Navigation Satellite System in support of future lunar missions. Pettit, in the Harmony module’s maintenance work area, sequenced the DNA of bacteria samples to quickly analyze and identify the microbes that live in space station water systems. The GISMOS biotechnology study increases DNA research on orbit without returning the samples to Earth for analysis and is critical to protecting crew health on spacecraft.
Working in the orbiting lab’s Roscosmos segment, Flight Engineer Alexey Ovchinin wore a sensor-packed cap and explored on a computer how crews may operate spacecraft and robots on future planetary missions. Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner spent his day servicing electronics hardware and unplugging cables inside the Zarya module. Flight Engineer Aleksandr Gorbunov pointed a camera installed with a spectrometer out a window in the Zvezda service module and photographed the effects of natural and man-made disasters on Earth in a variety of wavelengths.
NASA Marshall Invites Media to Local Day of Remembrance Event
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA Marshall will hold a candle-lighting ceremony and wreath placement at 9:30 a.m. CST. The ceremony will include remarks from Larry Leopard, associate director, and Bill Hill, director of Marshall’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.
NASA/ Krisdon Manecke
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, invites media to attend its observance of the agency’s Day of Remembrance at 9:30 a.m. CST Thursday, Jan. 23, in the lobby of Building 4221.
Day of Remembrance honors the members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery.
The event will include brief remarks from NASA Marshall leaders, followed by a candle lighting and moment of silence for the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. Speakers will include:
Larry Leopard, associate director, technical.
Bill Hill, director, Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.
Media interested in attending the event must confirm by 12 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22, with Molly Porter at: molly.a.porter@nasa.gov.
The agency will also pay tribute to its fallen astronauts with special online content, updated on NASA’s Day of Remembrance, at:
