NASA Glenn Invites Phase 1 Proposals for Aerospace Power Systems Laboratory
NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is seeking Phase 1 proposals for the design and construction of the Aerospace Power Systems Laboratory. The principal purpose of this procurement is to deliver a laboratory facility to support the testing and development of power systems, with associated site work, infrastructure, and systems.
The laboratory will provide modern test facilities to advance power research and enable NASA to meet current and future mission needs. Glenn’s expertise in power is crucial to the Artemis program, the Moon Base, and the exploration of Mars and beyond.
Proposals submitted in response to this solicitation are due no later than Oct. 30, 2026, at 1 p.m. EST.
NASA will conduct this acquisition as a full and open competition. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 236220, and the small business size standard of $45 million.
The anticipated contract award date is Dec. 16, 2026. The contract will be performed on-site at NASA Glenn and off-site at the contractor’s facilities.
Proposals for this solicitation are required to be submitted through NASA’s Enterprise File Sharing and Sync Box (EFSS Box), a FedRAMP Moderate certified platform.
All questions regarding this request should be submitted electronically, in writing, to John Christel, contracting officer, at john.a.christel@nasa.gov on or before Oct. 12, 2026. Offerors are encouraged to submit questions as soon as possible for consideration.
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Astronomers Solve Cosmic Cold Case with NASA Hubble Data
NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)
Diligent sleuthing by astronomers uncovered a surprising chemical clue that indicates the white dwarf star HS 0209+0832 may host a second-generation planet. This artist’s concept released on Oct. 5, 2026, depicts that possible explanation.
The white dwarf is the “dead” core of a star that burned through all of its nuclear fuel and lost its outer envelope of gas and dust to space. The second-generation planet formed from that cast-off gas and dust, which is why its chemical content is very different from a planet that formed as its host star was forming.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover Catches Stunning Martian Dawn
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The captivating shapes of wind-carved crags called yardangs are revealed in this zoomed-in crop of a broader panorama captured by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on Aug. 11, 2026. Scientists are eager to learn more about how the yardang layer formed.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
A newly released panorama captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover offers the most detailed view yet of distant, wind-carved Martian cliffs, highlighting features the mission’s scientists have long been waiting to see up close. The scene was snapped at 8:30 a.m. local Mars time, showing striking blue hues in the foreground as bright morning light illuminates crags known as yardangs on the horizon.
The panorama was captured by Curiosity’s Mastcam on Aug. 11, the 4,982nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission, and comprises six individual images that were stitched together after being sent to Earth. Unlike most of Curiosity’s Mastcam images, this one was processed without white balancing, preserving the early morning appearance.
The six shots that make up this panorama, captured by NASA’s Curiosity on Aug. 11, were stitched together after being sent back to Earth. Unlike most images from the rover’s Mastcam, this one was processed without the usual white balancing — an artistic choice that preserves the early morning appearance.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The yardang layer extends roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) across the northwestern reaches of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. In fact, the rover recently passed another milestone in its ascent, reaching 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) of elevation — the most ever climbed on Mars. As it draws ever-closer to the yardangs, mission scientists expect to get even more amazing imagery — and, they hope, answers to how these cliffs were created.
Mount Sharp is made up of layers, each recording a distinct period of Mars’ history. By studying them, scientists have been able to learn more about lakes and streams that covered this part of the Red Planet billions of years ago. Eventually, the water dried up and left salty minerals behind. After new material stopped settling on the mountain, some of it may have been stripped away by wind, giving rise to the yardangs.
This artist’s concept shows Mount Sharp, the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that NASA’s Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The location of the yardang layer, which the rover recently captured from a distance, is indicated by an ellipse annotation on the mountain’s northwestern shoulder.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view looking back at the floor of Gale Crater on Sept. 5, 2026. Just nine days prior, the rover had marked 1 kilometer of elevation gain above the crater floor since beginning its ascent of Mount Sharp in 2014.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“The yardang layer looks out of place. It’s the wrong color, the layers tilt at an odd angle, and it almost appears plastered on,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity project scientist of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “But that’s what makes it exciting to reach. No one is sure exactly what created this layer, but one idea is it may be ash deposited by ancient volcanic eruptions.”
Curiosity is in the second year of its fifth extended mission, which started with an exploration of the spiderweb-like boxwork ridges. The rover will spend most of the next year or so driving through layers enriched with sulfates and carbonates, both signs of ancient drying on the surface. Sometime in 2027, scientists hope to reach the base of the yardangs, where Curiosity will be able to use its robotic arm to collect one-of-a-kind data on these mysterious features.
More about Curiosity
Curiosity was built by NASA JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. NASA JPL leads the mission on behalf of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of its Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.
NASA’s Webb Captures Commotion From Nebula’s Stellar Jets
5 Min Read
NASA’s Webb Captures Commotion From Nebula’s Stellar Jets
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed many protostars and stars within the glowing gases of NGC 7129. Hot, atomic hydrogen gas is shown here in the golden region, while cooler, molecular hydrogen gas, shocked by embedded protostars, is represented in red.
A cauldron of cosmic creation is being revealed in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb has unveiled numerous stars formerly hidden by clouds of dust in a stellar nursery known as NGC 7129, which resides about 3,300 light-years from Earth.
Stars, the engines of elemental creation, have life cycles that begin with their birth in molecular clouds – cold, dense regions of dust and gas. Because of these dusty cocoons, young stars are often impossible to view by many telescopes, particularly those incapable of capturing infrared light. Webb, however, has a high degree of infrared sensitivity, allowing astronomers to peer through that dust and study the beginning of the star life cycle.
Image: NGC 7129 (NIRCam Image)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed many protostars and stars within the glowing gases of NGC 7129. Hot, atomic hydrogen gas is shown here in the golden region, while cooler, molecular hydrogen gas, shocked by embedded protostars, is represented in red.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
The stars from this cluster are in different stages of their development, as the more massive stars form and evolve the fastest. The most massive (and the most mature) is the region’s luminous central star, LkH(alpha) 234 (pronounced Lick-H-alpha). This star, which sports the image’s most prominent diffraction pattern, is a pre-main-sequence star weighing around 5 to 8 times the mass of our Sun. Pre-main-sequence stars like these have mostly finished gathering mass and are contracting under the force of gravity, causing their temperatures to rise. In time, this star will fuse its own hydrogen like our Sun.
The cavity to its left, which appears in gold and spans about 3.5 light-years, is the largest demonstration of the central star’s impact. Outflows from an earlier stage of the star’s life cycle carve into the dense molecular cloud of hydrogen. Both the outflows and the star’s light energize the gas, causing it to glow. While much of this hydrogen gas is blown away, a large amount is also compressed, creating the conditions for even more stars to form.
Interactive: The Colorful Clouds of NGC 7129
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Explore the details of NGC 7129 in to uncover the hidden features and activity within the clouds of this young star-forming region. In this interactive, venture to individual points of interest or follow guided tours through related locations and stories. Launch in full-screen for the complete interactive experience — or view directly in your browser.
NASA and STScI
A few of these stars are visible within the cavity. Several of them are also pre-main-sequence and emit stellar winds. The nearby bow shocks, the curved compressed gas that appears near the stars, are created as those winds push into the energetic gas and create their own, smaller cavities.
Together, the central and embedded stars also create the sharp ridge seen at the top of the golden cavity. Their light generates a hot environment that pushes against the colder and denser molecular gas outside the cavity, and creates a boundary known as a photodissociation region. In this region, the molecules of hydrogen break down into atoms. By influencing the temperature and chemistry of the region, this collection of stars offers insight into how these molecular clouds will gradually erode over millions of years.
The region to the right of the central star narrates a different, but equally chaotic tale. This clumpy matter represented in red hides much younger objects than those on the left: protostars. The protostar stage is earlier than the pre-main-sequence stage and occurs after molecular clouds of gas and dust initially compress and fragment.
As the protostars accumulate matter and increase their mass, they eject outflows of superheated material. These outflows interact with the dense, gray, translucent matter the protostars are wrapped within, creating shocks that cause a textured appearance. The red glow is also the result of the interaction. Multiple outflows from multiple stars overlap from our point of view, leading to the scene’s chaotic look.
Image: NGC 7129 Side-by-Side (Spitzer and Webb Image)
NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope observed the gas and dust within NGC 7129; however, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s improved resolution shows more detailed gas and dust filaments, along with many background galaxies.
More of these protostellar outflows can be seen at the upper left of the image, near a blue-colored nebula. The center of this blue region hosts a protostar surrounded by a donut-shaped disk of material. This disk casts a shadow against the surrounding nebula, reminiscent of a similar structure known as the “Bat Shadow” that was observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Webb’s high spatial resolution reveals many rich structures in the region’s gas, building on research done previously by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope. Astronomers will continue to use this Webb data to study how the stars and protostars in this region influence the surrounding gas and dust.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Related Images & Videos
NGC 7129 (NIRCam Image)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed many protostars and stars within the glowing gases of NGC 7129. Hot, atomic hydrogen gas is shown here in the golden region, while cooler, molecular hydrogen gas, shocked by embedded protostars, is represented in red.
NGC 7129 Side-by-Side (Spitzer and Webb Image)
NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope observed the gas and dust within NGC 7129; however, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s improved resolution shows more detailed gas and dust filaments, along with many background galaxies.
APOD: 2026 October 6 – A Complete Auroral Oval from SMILE
APOD
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