The NASA Ames Science Directorate recognizes the outstanding contributions of (pictured left to right) Danielle Lopez, Jennifer Claudio, and Duncan Mifsud. Their commitment to the NASA mission represents the entrepreneurial spirit, technical expertise, and collaborative disposition needed to explore this world and beyond.
Space Biosciences Star of the Month: Danielle Lopez
Danielle Lopez is the Deputy Project Manager for the Open Science Data Repository with Amentum in the Space Biosciences Division. She is recognized for her management efforts that have been critical to the success of Open Science at NASA including collaborations across directorates at Ames, across NASA centers, and with the public. Danielle has been a critical stabilizing force during challenging and tumultuous times, keeping multiple projects not only on track, but at the forefront of Open Science for the entire Agency.
Space Biosciences Star of the Month: Jennifer Claudio
Jennifer Claudio is a research staff member with Blue Marble Space in the Space Biosciences Division. Jennifer has made outstanding contributions in supporting the 2026 GeneLab for High School (GL4HS) summer program. She is recognized for her efficiency and initiative executing the program. Notably, Jennifer swiftly and successfully overcame a security breach of the GL4HS learning platform, demonstrating her resourcefulness and commitment to the program.
Astrophysics Star of the Month: Duncan Mifsud
Duncan Mifsud is a postdoctoral research scientist for the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAERI) in the Astrophysics Division. Duncan is recognized this month for his exceptional work on the infrared analysis of several laboratory samples produced from the ultraviolet irradiation of soluble organic molecules as well as extraterrestrial sample returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission.
NASA Provides Updates on Moon Base Cargo Landers, Tech Demonstrations
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Artist’s rendering of the Moon’s South Pole region. Glowing points of light scattered across the lunar surface represent surface assets supporting sustained human and robotic operations near the South Pole.
NASA is making progress in building the Moon Base, which will become a resilient outpost near the Moon’s South Pole for science, technology, and eventual human operations. To advance lunar surface infrastructure development, commercial partners such as Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, and Voyager Lunar Systems are working toward delivering landers by 2028. These landers will deliver the foundational architecture for a sustained presence on the Moon. Their progress represents major advances in commercial lunar delivery and lays the groundwork for the systems and surface capabilities the Moon Base will rely on.
Phase I of the Moon Base architecture plan, taking place now through 2029, includes more than twenty robotic landings, with each mission designed to incrementally advance system capabilities and validate operational components for those that follow. Before astronauts arrive, robotic missions will deploy critical scientific instruments that characterize the lunar environment, test new technologies, and begin assembling the infrastructure needed for human habitation.
These early robotic missions also will create opportunities to gather insights and improve the overall reliability of the Moon Base architecture. Recurring deliveries under NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative will play a vital role in building a dependable lunar supply chain, advancing the agency’s efforts toward a permanent human and robotic presence on the Moon.
On Tuesday, NASA released a Moon Base video update offering a closer look at the progress these four companies are making to advance their flights and hardware to further the agency’s Moon Base objectives.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK1 lander is progressing through integrated testing to prepare for its upcoming lunar delivery. This first mission, named Endurance, represents a new class of commercial landers designed to deliver large-scale payloads to the lunar surface. The lander successfully completed an extensive environmental test campaign, including a thermal‑vacuum assessment at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, verifying its capability to perform under lunar‑like conditions.
Teams are advancing through a series of integration milestones that will lead MK1 into its next test campaign. The structure, propulsion elements, and avionics systems are fully assembled, and upcoming assessments will verify the wiring harnesses connections that enable payload integration. The lander completed communications checkouts with NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System and the Deep Space Network. Up next, cryogenic propellants will be loaded as one of the final tests prior to integration for launch. Endurance will demonstrate precision landing capabilities, characterize the lunar environment, and tests autonomous systems for future Moon Base missions.
Firefly Aerospace
Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 2 builds on its first successful lunar landing with a larger, dual‑spacecraft configuration built specifically for operations on the Moon’s far side. Blue Ghost is stacked on top of Elytra, Firefly’s orbital spacecraft, forming a 22‑foot‑tall system nearly three times the height of the spacecraft flown for Blue Ghost Mission 1 in 2025. With the ability to deploy payloads in orbit and on the lunar surface, Elytra brings added versatility to Moon Base logistics and science.
Planned to be the first American landing on the Moon’s far side, Blue Ghost Mission 2 will explore a uniquely quiet region, allowing study of lunar far side geology and the cosmic Dark Ages, a time when newly-formed stars were just becoming visible. Carrying three NASA payloads, the mission aims to advance scientific research and test technologies for future habitation and infrastructure development.
The autonomous landing sequence demonstrated during its first mission exhibits Firefly’s performance in lunar flight and will play a role in supporting mission operations. Reusing subsystems from the previous mission allows Firefly to accelerate development and reduce risk, supporting Moon Base objectives for scalable and repeatable commercial lander capabilities.
Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines’ IM‑3 mission highlights how commercial landers are essential infrastructure to establish the Moon Base. This mission represents Intuitive Machines’ third Nova-C lunar landing on the Moon, and introduces Altus-1, the company’s first lunar data‑relay satellite, which will fly alongside the lander.
Named Trinity, Intuitive Machines’ Nova‑C lander assembly and integration are progressing to help meet the long-term need for regular cargo and science deliveries. The top deck is aligned, and internal wiring is undergoing extensive testing before closeout panels are added. Recently, Intuitive Machines along with the X-Ray Cryogenic Facility crew at NASA’s Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama successfully completed long-range thermal vacuum testing to confirm that Intuitive Machines’ sensors operate accurately under both ends of the thermal range they may encounter during lunar descent. In the coming weeks, teams will complete the final stages of development, including engine integration and hot fire tests.
By deploying Altus-1 in lunar orbit with its three payloads and delivering five NASA payloads along with six commercial and one civil payload to the surface on IM-3, Intuitive Machines aims to advance Moon Base science objectives in Reiner Gamma’s geomagnetic environment, a magnetic anomaly on the lunar surface. The IM-3 mission will be the first to explore the surface of a lunar swirl, enabling robotics and deployed instruments to deepen the scientific investigation of this mysterious region.
Voyager Technologies
Voyager Technologies’ Griffin‑1 lander is undergoing testing in the Environmental Test Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, a critical step toward being ready for its mission to the Moon. Testing at NASA JPL verifies commercial lunar landers meet the precision and durability needed to support Moon Base operations.
Griffin-1, built as an infrastructure‑class lander, plans to launch in late 2026 and will transport the largest commercial payload ever delivered to the lunar surface. Five NASA payloads will be mounted on the Astrolab FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) rover that together will enable the mission objective of advancing surface mobility capabilities, technology demonstrations, and long‑duration lunar operations.
Griffin‑1 recently completed mass properties testing, providing fundamental data for guidance, navigation, control, and flight dynamics. Over the next several weeks, additional environmental tests replicating anticipated conditions, from launch through lunar landing, will further reduce mission risk and strengthen readiness for operations in the lunar environment.
Once environmental testing concludes, Griffin‑1 will return to Voyager’s Lunar System Pittsburgh facility for final assembly. The spacecraft will proceed through final launch-readiness operations before being shipped to Cape Canaveral.
Northrop Grumman
NASA is working with Northrop Grumman to develop three technology demonstration payloads slated for delivery to the lunar surface. These demonstrations build on power and avionics hardware developed for the Gateway program’s HALO (Habitation And Logistics Outpost) module, now being repurposed following NASA’s shift from an orbital-focused lunar strategy to one centered on surface operations. The initial demonstrations will test survive-the-night systems capable of enduring the Moon’s extreme conditions, including multi-day shadow periods. They also will test shared surface power infrastructure designed to support critical payloads or other Moon Base assets, along with essential avionics and power capabilities.
NASA is advancing development of the Moon Base by pursuing long-term lunar exploration and infrastructure initiatives designed to enable a sustained human presence on the Moon, supported by scientific deliveries and commercial lunar landers.
Technicians installed a commemorative plaque, seen in this July 28, 2026, photo, on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The plaque honors the legacy of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer and one of the architects of the agency’s modern science program. It also features a memory card containing a total of 1,350,144 names submitted by people from across the globe, including astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II and Artemis III missions.
This observatory, scheduled to launch Aug. 30, 2026, will be able to block starlight to directly see exoplanets and planet-forming disks, complete a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy, and settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.
APOD: August 4, 2026 – Curious Cometary Knots in the Helix Nebula
APOD
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Smoke streams across eastern Washington, visible in this image captured by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra on August 2, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin
The start of August 2026 saw ongoing and new wildland fires burning in eastern Washington. West of Chelan, the Little Giant fire continued to produce heavy smoke, while a cluster of smaller fires farther east near Spokane affected tens of thousands of people.
The smoke from these and other fires poured east-northeast across the state and into Idaho, Montana, and several Canadian provinces on the morning of August 2, 2026, when NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image.
At that time, the Little Giant fire had burned more than 38,500 acres (15,600 hectares) and was zero percent contained, according to the fire’s incident management team. After lightning ignited the fire on July 15, gusting winds drove the blaze east to Lake Chelan, with spotting reaching the opposite side of the lake. Smoke from the fire was expected to cause unhealthy to very unhealthy air quality in Chelan to the east and unhealthy conditions in Leavenworth and Wenatchee to the south, according to a smoke outlook issued by the U.S. Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program.
Meanwhile, the Spokane Area fires—which include the Old Trails fire, Fairview fire, and Autumn Lane fire—had burned around 5,400 acres (2,200 hectares) since igniting the day before. By the morning of August 3, that number had grown to more than 8,000 acres, according to InciWeb. Preliminary reports indicated more than 600 structures had been destroyed or damaged, and mandatory evacuation orders were in place for parts of Spokane County and Stevens County. Widespread smoke from these and the other fires in the state combined to produce very unhealthy air quality in parts of the two counties.
These fires were part of an active fire season fueled by persistent drought and extreme fire weather. Strong winds, high temperatures, and dry fuels led the National Weather Service to issue Washington’s first-ever “particularly dangerous situation alert” on July 31, a designation typically reserved for the most severe fire conditions.
Drought—declared in the state following a warm winter and low snowpack—left vegetation primed to burn. By the start of August, those conditions had helped fuel more than 1,000 fires that burned about 425,000 acres since the start of the year, the most since 2021, according to the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Of those, 12 large fires remained active, together accounting for more than 200,000 acres burned.
The NASA Disasters Program has been activated to support agencies responding to the fires. The team will be posting maps and data products on its open-access mapping portal as new information becomes available.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.Story by Kathryn Hansen.
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August 2, 2026
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References & Resources
InciWeb (2026, August 3) Little Giant Fire. Accessed August 3, 2026.
