Growing Stem Cells in Space to Improve Cancer and Disease Treatments
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir works on InSPA-StemCellEX-H2 inside the Life Sciences Glovebox. Microgravity samples will be frozen and returned to Earth for further analysis of stem cell expansion in space.
NASA
Expedition 74 astronauts aboard the International Space Station are continuing research efforts to manufacture large quantities of stem cells for therapies on Earth. Previous studies have focused on fine-tuning hardware that allows scientists to produce greater quantities of high-quality stem cells. Now, the InSPA-StemCellEX-H2 investigation is aiming to demonstrate large scale production of blood stem cells for pharmaceutical and clinical use.
Preflight microscopic image of hematopoietic stem cells for the InSPA-StemCellEX-H2 investigation. This investigation aims to produce stem cells in greater numbers with BioServe’s newly developed microgravity bioreactor.
Mayo Clinic
The research uses stem cells derived from the human body to produce large quantities of cells for patient use through a process called “expansion”. Although stem cells can be expanded in labs on Earth, they have limitations. For example, Earth-produced cells lose their ability to form the different cells in our blood system, like red and white blood cells or platelets, which are critical for leukemia patients that receive stem cells to build up their blood system after chemotherapy.
Dr. Tobias Niederwieser, assistant research professor at BioServe Space Technologies within the University of Colorado Boulder says, “The microgravity environment in space is much more suitable for keeping the stem cells in their high-quality state during expansion.” Scientists predict that growing cells in space may lead to higher expansion potential and a lower risk of rejection when used in patients on Earth. This research could create long-term cell supplies for patients suffering from fatal blood disorders, various blood cancers, or severe immune diseases, and enable more reliable and accessible therapies. “The end result is really to benefit patients in hospitals here on Earth,” Dr. Niederwieser says.
Space station research allows scientists and commercial companies around the world to test new technologies and innovative medical solutions that have the potential to greatly benefit life on Earth.
This map of the United States shows the most recent land disturbance detected in Landsat satellite imagery between 1988 and 2022, revealing patterns of both wild and human-directed change.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin, based on data from Qiu, S. et al.
The land is always changing, sometimes by human hands: cities are built, farms expanded, and forests logged. Other changes lie mostly outside people’s control: wildfires burn through communities, and hurricanes reshape coastlines. For most of the past four decades, observations from the Landsat satellite record show that humans have dominated changes to the U.S. landscape. Recent research revealed a shift in that trend, suggesting that disasters might be catching up.
In a NASA-funded study published in Nature Geoscience, scientists analyzed nearly 35 years of data from NASA/USGS Landsat satellites to better understand what has been shaping the continental U.S. landscape. The researchers, led by former Landsat science team member Zhe Zhu, found that “human-directed disturbances” like logging, agricultural expansion, and construction have declined, while “wild disturbances” like wildfires and hurricanes—disasters that can be influenced by human activity but are not controlled by people—have risen in frequency and intensity.
Robert Emberson, associate program manager for the NASA Disasters program and not affiliated with the study, said that understanding the forces transforming the U.S. landscape is critical for future planning. “If you know what’s causing them, you can begin to plan around disasters,” Emberson said. “Any understanding of causal factors impacts the adaptation strategy.”
This research is especially useful for policymakers working to prepare communities for resilience, he said. For example, a region expecting to see increased wildfires could strategically perform prescribed burns, remove brush or dry grass around homes, and construct new buildings with fire-resilient materials.
Reno, Nevada, expands into the previously undeveloped desert landscape in this animation composed of Landsat images acquired between 1985 and 2025.
Landsat Project Science Support/Ross Walter
Between 1988 and 2022, 18 percent of the land area in the continental U.S. was disturbed at least once, the researchers found. Adding repeated disturbances, the cumulative area disturbed rises to almost 700,000 square miles, equivalent to nearly one-third of the continental U.S. Humans drove more than half of that change, clearing or developing over 446,000 square miles of land—that’s bigger than the size of Texas and California combined. For example, the animation above, composed of Landsat images from 1985 to 2025, shows the expansion of Reno, Nevada, into a previously undeveloped desert landscape.
Meanwhile, wild disturbances—disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and landslides—drove much of the remaining change, transforming more than 165,000 square miles of the continental U.S. The Landsat images in the animation below show areas burned by wildfires in Eldorado National Forest west of California’s Lake Tahoe from 1985 to 2025. Major fires in 1992, 2014, and 2022 cleared large swathes of forest, leaving behind bare ground that slowly reforested.
Areas burned by wildland fires in California’s Eldorado National Forest west of Lake Tahoe are visible in this animation composed of Landsat images from between 1985 and 2025.
Landsat Project Science Support/Ross Walter
Although human activity has disturbed a larger cumulative area than wild events, the trends over time are moving in opposite directions. That is, land disturbance caused directly by people has been decreasing, while wild disturbance has been increasing.
Specifically, human-directed land disturbances decreased by nearly 232 square miles (600 square kilometers) each year over the course of the study period. Researchers attribute this change to declines in construction, agricultural expansion, and logging, likely brought about by a combination of policy changes, technological improvements, and the 2008 financial crisis’s effect on construction.
In contrast, land affected by wild disturbances increased by more than 77 square miles (200 square kilometers) per year. Fire, drought-related stress, and wind disturbances all became more frequent, likely due to climate warming and other environmental factors, the study authors wrote.
“What this study basically tells me is that what we’ve been doing is not working,” said Ramakrisna Nemani, a retired NASA scientist and co-author on this study. “We have to go back and come up with new strategies on how to deal with these natural disturbances.”
The study’s findings drew on the deep archive of Landsat data, which has long been a key resource for detecting change on Earth’s surface. Think of it like a “spot-the-difference” game. Historically, identifying differences between images required scientists to manually identify the source of the change; for example, using ground observations combined with satellite imagery to determine whether a bare spot resulted from wildfires or logging. For this study, scientists trained a new machine-learning algorithm to do that differentiation work for them.
They fed the algorithm 40 years of land-change data acquired by satellites, manually inspecting and identifying changes at 50,000 locations. After a decade of work, they developed a product that achieves more than 75 percent accuracy across most disturbance types.
The resulting product details the causes of disturbance across the continental U.S. over the course of nearly 35 years. With this information, communities can analyze the past to better plan for the future. “The USA is entering a new era of disturbance,” the study authors wrote. “The challenge now is to transform our relationship with disturbance from one of control to one of coexistence.”
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, based on data from Qiu, S. et al. Animations by Ross Walter, Landsat Project Science Support. Story by Madeleine Gregory, Landsat Project Science Support.
Spacewalkers Back Inside Station After Science Hardware Work
Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov installs a solar radiation experiment on the outside of the International Space Station during a spacewalk on May 27, 2026.
NASA+
Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 4:23 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, lasting 6 hours, 5 minutes.
Kud-Sverchkov and Mikayev finished their major objectives, including collecting two completed science experiments and installing a new one. They removed a microorganism study from the exterior of the Poisk module and retrieved a cassette from the Nauka module containing data on how semiconductor materials form in microgravity. The crew also installed a device on the Zvezda service module to measure bursts of solar radiation from solar flares.
During the spacewalk, the duo photographed one of two Kurs rendezvous antennas on the Progress 94 cargo spacecraft that failed to deploy following its March launch to the space station. After collecting the imagery, they secured the antenna with a tie‑down for future dynamic operations.
This was the second spacewalk for Kud-Sverchkov and the first for Mikayev. It also was the 279th spacewalk supporting space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
NASA Develops Sensor to Improve Firefighter Safety
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Alabama Forestry Commission wildland firefighter Jason Berry teaches NASA Wildland Fires Technology Program Manager Teresa Kauffman how to drive a fire bulldozer during a stakeholder event April 23-24 in Andalusia, Alabama. NASA FireSense scientists have been working with the AFC to integrate thermal sensors onto these dozers, which notify the dozer operator if the radiant heat from a nearby fire reaches a dangerous threshold.
NASA/Milan Loiacono
With peak wildfire season approaching, scientists with NASA’s FireSense project have created low-cost thermal sensors to install on fire bulldozers that will alert firefighters when heat from a nearby fire reaches a dangerous level. The sensors also provide researchers with important data on what happens beneath the canopy during a fire.
In April, researchers and firefighters gathered in southern Alabama to discuss challenges and advances in firefighting, and to demonstrate the new technology. The event was part of a collaboration between NASA and the Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC). The goal: to make firefighting safer and gather critical data on fire behavior.
“As we try to develop technologies that allow us to understand and respond to wildfires with our partners, ground observations are vital to provide context for what we are seeing from space,” said Ian Brosnan, program manager for wildland fires at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
The Alabama Forestry Commission tests the new thermal sensor developed by NASA’s FireSense project for their fleet of fire dozers, during the initial integration in September 2025. After FireSense scientists installed the sensor, AFC operators drove the dozer next to a test fire, at the distance the dozers normally operate on a fire line. The thermal sensors performed as planned and have since been deployed on active wildfires.
NASA/Ryan Wade
Dozers on the fire line
Firefighters nationwide use bulldozers, colloquially referred to as fire dozers, on the front line of a fire to clear vegetation and to create fire breaks, which slow or stop a wildfire’s spread. This often puts dozers and their operators within feet of the flames.
The AFC is switching its fleet to a model of bulldozer that has an enclosed cab called an “envirocab.” While envirocabs are safer for operators than open cabs, the enclosure makes it more difficult to gauge when radiant heat from the fire has reached a dangerous temperature.
Alabama Forestry Commission fire analyst Ethan Barrett gives an overview of fire dozer operations to scientists and researchers from NASA’s FireSense project and other university and commercial partners during the April event.
NASA/Milan Loiacono
“It’s not so much about what’s going to burn the tractor up as what’s going to shut the tractor down,” said Ethan Barrett, AFC fire analyst. The electrical wiring can short or even melt from high heat, stranding the operator in a dangerous environment.
That’s where NASA comes in. According to Brosnan, developing thermal sensors for the AFC was an opportunity to create technology that has immediate impact on firefighter safety, while also providing scientists with valuable information about what happens on the ground during a fire.
It’s not so much about what’s going to burn the tractor up as what’s going to shut the tractor down.
Ethan barrett
AFC Fire Analyst
How sensors work
The AFC’s requirements for a sensor were simple: it needed to be low-cost and easy to operate.
“We used commercial, off-the-shelf components to make this,” said Jennifer Fowler, science integration manager for the wildland fires program at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “The thermocouple that sits in the window to measure temperature, for example, is the same one used in an oven or a kiln.”
Jennifer Fowler, NASA Wildland Fires science integration manager (left) and Ryan Wade, research scientist with the University of Alabama, Huntsville and NASA FireSense (right) hold a version of the low-cost thermal sensor they developed to install on fire dozers. The sensor uses an off-the-shelf thermocouple, found in ovens and kilns, to read the radiant heat coming in from a nearby fire. When it reaches an unsafe temperature, the sensor triggers a blinking LED light on the dashboard (right), signaling the operator to move away from the fire line.
NASA/Milan Loiacono
That thermocouple is wired to a simple LED light attached to the dashboard that’s directly in the operator’s line of sight. When the thermocouple senses an unsafe temperature, the LED starts blinking. The whole system is powered by AA batteries.
“While installing the second sensor, we realized we needed an extra piece, so we just ran out to the local hardware store to grab it,” said Ryan Wade, research scientist with the University of Alabama, Huntsville and NASA FireSense. “NASA’s expertise in this case comes not in the novelty of the instrument itself, but in figuring out how to solve the problem quickly and integrate that technology into their existing system.”
Fowler installed the first of these sensors in September 2025, and Wade installed the second in March 2026.
“Since their installation, we have run them on wildfires and prescribed burns and they’ve been effective,” Barrett said. “They work exactly as intended, and the operators have said it leads to better situational awareness. Based on the success of this pilot, we are looking at outfitting all the dozers in our fleet.”
Driving fire science forward
Co-developing these thermal sensors is the latest milestone in a relationship the two agencies have been building for more than a year. NASA scientists led training classes on weather and soil moisture with the AFC last spring and worked with AFC ground crews to test airborne instruments on active wildfires.
Moving forward, NASA FireSense and the AFC are planning to integrate the Fire Thermal InfraRed Spectrometer, or FireTIRS, which will measure temperature, spread rate, flame length, fire convection, and gas emissions.
James Thompson, an assistant research professor at University of Texas at Austin and a principal investigator with NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office, tests out locations on a fire dozer where the FireTIRS thermal infrared imager could be mounted. Thompson was part of a stakeholder event held between NASA’s FireSense project and the Alabama Forestry Commission (AFC), which included demonstrating thermal sensors on the AFC’s fire dozers.
Fowler is also evaluating anemometers and compact cameras for the dozers. Anemometers provide data on wind speed and direction, while compact cameras provide data on burn severity, rate of spread, and the type, volume, and consumption of fuels.
The data this suite of instruments can gather would fill an important gap in creating a well-rounded understanding of fire.
“This is the dataset that will get us to the next generation of fire models,” Fowler said. “It gives us the detailed understanding we need to create tools that can give firefighters more advanced notice of what a fire will do. On a wildfire, that extra time is everything.”
To view more photos from the FireSense campaign visit: nasa.gov/firesense
About the Author
Milan Loiacono
Science Communication Specialist
Milan Loiacono is a science communication specialist for the Earth Science Division at NASA Ames Research Center.
Released: NASA Goddard Issues Draft Request for Proposal for the Landsat 10 Spacecraft
Timeline of the Landsat program, beginning with the launch of Landsat 1 in 1972. Landsat 10 is expected to launch in 2031. As the tenth Landsat mission, it will continue the legacy of the Landsat program.
NASA Landsat Project Science Support Team
The Landsat 10 Spacecraft Draft Request for Proposal (DRFP) is available for review via SAM.gov as of May 18, 2026. This solicitation marks a major milestone in continuing the decades-long partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to acquire, archive, and distribute multispectral imagery of Earth’s global landmasses and coastal regions.
Potential offerors may comment on all aspects of the draft solicitation by June 2, 2026. The final Request for Proposal (RFP) is currently expected to be released at the end of June 2026, with proposals due roughly 30 days thereafter.
The scope of work includes the end-to-end design and fabrication of the satellite bus, comprehensive observatory-level performance testing, development of high-fidelity simulators, launch vehicle integration support, and post-launch on-orbit commissioning. Beyond building the bus, the contractor will lead the mechanical and electrical integration of the government-furnished Landsat Instrument Suite (LandIS).
Recently re-architected as a single-observatory, Landsat 10 will fly in a 653-kilometer sun-synchronous, near-polar orbit with a repeating ground track every 18 days. Key technical specifications of this Class C mission require the spacecraft to support a maximum launch mass of 4,000 kilograms, feature advanced onboard autonomy and fault management, and ensure a minimum 5-year design life plus commissioning. Landsat 10 operations will ultimately transition to the USGS following its on-orbit checkout.
Landsat 10 provides improvements in both spectral and spatial capabilities compared to its predecessor missions, Landsats 8 and 9, all while guaranteeing critical data continuity with the legacy archive at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. The mission will ensure that researchers, resource managers, and policymakers worldwide continue to receive consistent, freely available data to monitor natural and human-induced environmental changes for years to come.
