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I Am Artemis: Lili Villarreal

por admin | 4 junio, 2025 - 12:01 pm |4 junio, 2025 Astronomy

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I Am Artemis: Lili Villarreal

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I Am Artemis: Lili Villarreal

Liliana Villarreal, Artemis landing and recovery director with Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), stands in front of the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA) at the turn basin in the Launch Complex 39 area at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Listen to this audio excerpt from Liliana Villarreal, Artemis Landing & Recovery Director:

0:00 / 0:00

Lili Villarreal fell in love with space exploration from an early age when she and her family visited the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. So, it should come as no surprise that when the opportunity came for her to start working on NASA’s Artemis missions to explore the Moon and build the foundation for the first crewed mission to Mars, she jumped at it.

I was like, ‘Wow, we’re going back to the Moon. I mean, how cool would it be to be at the beginning stages of that?’

Liliana Villareal

Artemis Landing & Recovery Director

She currently serves as the Artemis Landing and Recovery Director, helping retrieve the astronauts and Orion spacecraft after they splash down in the Pacific Ocean following their mission in space.

Originally from Cartagena, Colombia, Villarreal moved to Miami, Florida, when she was 10 years old with the goal of one day entering the aerospace industry. In 2007, her dream came true, and she became a part of the NASA team.

Prior to becoming the landing and recovery director, Villarreal served as the deputy flow director for the Artemis I mission, responsible for the integration, stacking, and testing of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center.

Cliff Lanham, fourth from left, ground operations manager with Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), passes the baton to Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis I launch director, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 16, 2022. Joining them from left, are Stacey Bagg, Matt Czech, and Liliana Villareal, with EGS. Next to Blackwell-Thomson are Jeremy Graeber, deputy launch director, and Teresa Annulis.
NASA/Glenn Benson

“I kind of came in about a couple of years before we started processing Artemis I,” Villarreal said. “It took a while to get to the good parts of operations where it’s like, ‘Oh my god, we have everything here, and we’re starting to put everything together. And every day is a different day. Every day we have to figure out, ‘OK, what happened? How are we going to solve it?’ That’s the fun part about being an engineer out here.”

Throughout her NASA career, she’s also had the opportunity to work in the operations division for the International Space Station Program.

Every day I work on the Artemis missions, I imagine how the people who worked on Apollo felt because we are where they were back then.

Liliana Villareal

Artemis Landing & Recovery Director

Currently, she and the team are training for Artemis II – the first crewed mission under Artemis to send four astronauts around the Moon and back. Part of the training includes rehearsing the steps and procedures to make sure they’re ready for crewed flights. This includes conducting underway recovery tests where NASA and U.S. Navy teams practice retrieving astronauts from a representative version of Orion at sea and bringing them and the spacecraft back to the ship.

“I think it’s an amazing thing what we’re doing for humanity,” Villarreal said. “It’s going to better humanity, and it’s a steppingstone to eventually us living in other worlds. And I get to be part of that. You get to be part of that. How cool is that?”

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Antonia Jaramillo

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Jun 04, 2025

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Antonia Jaramillo

Sols 4556-4558: It’s All in a Day’s (box)Work

por admin | 4 junio, 2025 - 12:02 am |4 junio, 2025 Astronomy

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Sols 4556-4558: It’s All in a Day’s (box)Work

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Sols 4556-4558: It’s All in a Day’s (box)Work

A grayscale photo looking down at the Martian surface, showing very rough terrain in front of the Curiosity rover. Light gray, gravel-covered rocks are in bright sunlight in about half the frame, extending up diagonally toward the upper right corner of the image. A shadow silhouette of the rover covers most of the rest of the image, with its mast head and robotic arm appearing very prominently. Portions of the rover itself are shadowed but visible at the bottom of the image.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Right Navigation Camera on June 2, 2025 — Sol 4558, or Martian day 4,558 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 12:23:56 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Earth planning date: Friday, May 30, 2025

When you are scheduled to participate in Science Operations for the rover’s weekend plan, you know it’s going to be a busy morning! Assembling the activities for Friday through Sunday (Sols 4556 through 4558) was no exception. I participated on this shift as the “keeper of the plan” for the geology and mineralogy theme group where I worked with members of the science and instrument teams to compile a set of observations for the rover to complete over the weekend. The rover continues to drive over a surface of shallow, sometimes sand-filled depressions that are separated by raised ridges — informally known as the “boxwork structures.” On this Friday, we were tasked with assessing the ground in our immediate vicinity to determine if the low-lying bedrock in the hollows was suitable for drilling.

With a focus on packing the plan with remote sensing activities to understand the bedrock around us, we used the ChemCam laser to analyze the chemistry of two bedrock targets, “La Tuna Canyon” and “Cooper Canyon,” that were also documented by Mastcam. ChemCam and Mastcam also teamed up to image an interesting dark ridge nearby named “Encinal Canyon.” Mastcam created stereo mosaics to document the nature of the candidate drill sites that were near the rover, in addition to the “Blue Sky Preserve” stereo mosaic that beautifully captured the nature of the boxwork structures in front of us. The environmental theme group included some of their favorite activities in the plan to monitor the clouds, wind, and the atmosphere.

Curiosity has successfully completed numerous long drives (about 20+ meters, or 66 feet and beyond) in the past several weeks but this weekend the rover got a bit of a reprieve — the rover will drive approximately 7 meters (about 23 feet) to get situated in front of a possible drill site. I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing what unfolds on Monday!

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Jun 03, 2025

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America’s First Spacewalk

por admin | 3 junio, 2025 - 6:04 pm |3 junio, 2025 Astronomy

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America’s First Spacewalk

An astronaut in a spacesuit floats almost upside down outside of a spacecraft. Earth's blue water and white clouds are behind the astronaut.

NASA

NASA astronaut Ed White, pilot of the Gemini IV mission, floats in space on June 3, 1965, while performing the first spacewalk by an American. As White floated outside the spacecraft, he used a Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit, informally called a “zip gun.” The device, seen in White’s right hand in this image, expelled pressurized oxygen to provide thrust for controlling his movements outside the capsule.

“You look beautiful, Ed,” remarked fellow crew member astronaut James A. McDivitt, who remained inside the spacecraft, as he began taking pictures of White tumbling around outside his window. “I feel like a million dollars,” White said. “This is the greatest experience. It’s just tremendous.”

Watch video of the first American spacewalk.

Image credit: NASA

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Monika Luabeya

Future Engineers Shine at NASA’s 2025 Lunabotics Robotics Competition

por admin | 3 junio, 2025 - 6:03 pm |3 junio, 2025 Astronomy

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Future Engineers Shine at NASA’s 2025 Lunabotics Robotics Competition

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Future Engineers Shine at NASA’s 2025 Lunabotics Robotics Competition

Group of students from the University of Utah posing with their award

And the winner is… the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The Utah Student Robotics Club won the grand prize Artemis Award on May 22 for NASA’s 2025 Lunabotics Challenge held at The Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.

“Win was our motto for the whole year,” said Brycen Chaney, University of Utah, president of student robotics. “We had a mission objective to take our team and competition a step further, but win was right up front of our minds.”

Lunabotics is an annual challenge where students design and build an autonomous and remote-controlled robot to navigate the lunar surface in support of the Artemis campaign. The students from the University of Utah used their robot to excavate simulated regolith, the loose, fragmented material on the Moon’s surface, as well as built a berm. The students, who competed against 37 other teams, won grand prize for the first time during the Lunabotics Challenge.

“During the 16th annual Lunabotics University Challenge the teams continued to raise the bar on excavating, transporting, and depositing lunar regolith simulant with clever remotely controlled robots,” said Robert Mueller, senior technologist at NASA Kennedy for Advanced Products Development in the agency’s Exploration Research and Technology Programs Directorate, and lead judge and co-founder of the original Lunabotics robotic mining challenge. “New designs were revealed, and each team had a unique design and operations approach.”

Students from University of Illinois Chicago receive first place for the Robotic Construction Award during the 2025 Lunabotics Challenge.

NASA/Isaac Watson

Other teams were recognized for their achievements: The University of Illinois Chicago placed first for the Robotic Construction Award. “It’s a total team effort that made this work,” said Elijah Wilkinson, senior and team captain at the University of Illinois Chicago. “Our team has worked long and hard on this. We have people who designed the robot, people who programmed the robot, people who wrote papers, people who wired the robot; teamwork is really what made it happen.”

The University of Utah won second and the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa came in third place, respectively. The award recognizes the teams that score the highest points during the berm-building operations in the Artemis Arena. Teams are evaluated based on their robot’s ability to construct berms using excavated regolith simulant, demonstrating effective lunar surface construction techniques.

To view the robots in action from the Robot Construction Award winners, please click on the following links: University of Illinois Chicago, University of Utah, University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

Picture shows a group of students from Purdue University holding an award and paper check.

Students from Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana received the Caterpillar Autonomy Award during the 2025 Lunabotics Challenge.
NASA/Isaac Watson

Students from Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana received the Caterpillar Autonomy Award for their work. The University of Alabama placed second, followed by the University of Akron in Ohio. This award honors teams that successfully complete competition activities autonomously. It emphasizes the development and implementation of autonomous control systems in lunar robotics, reflecting real-world applications in remote and automated operations.

An Artemis I flag flown during the Nov. 16, 2022, mission was presented to the University of Illinois Chicago, as well as the University of Virginia in Charlottesville as part of the Innovation Award. The recognition is given to teams for their original ideas, creating efficiency, effective results, and solving a problem.

Dr. Eric Meloche from the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and Jennifer Erickson, professor from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden each received an Artemis Educator Award, a recognition for educators, faculty, or mentors for their time and effort inspiring students.

The University of Utah received the Effective Use of Communications Power Award and the University of Virginia the agency’s Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science Award.

Picture shows college students posing for an award during the 2025 Lunabotics Challenge.

Students from the Colorado School of Mines pose for a photo after receiving a Systems Engineering Award during the 2025 Lunabotics Competition.
NASA/Isaac Watson

Students from the Colorado School of Mines placed first receiving a Systems Engineering Award. University of Virginia in Charlottesville and the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, came in second and third places.