Lee este comunicado de prensa en español aquí.

NASA’s 10 new astronaut candidates were introduced Monday following a competitive selection process of more than 8,000 applicants from across the United States. The class now will complete nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments supporting future science and exploration missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy welcomed the all-American 2025 astronaut candidate class during a ceremony at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“I’m honored to welcome the next generation of American explorers to our agency! More than 8,000 people applied – scientists, pilots, engineers, dreamers from every corner of this nation. The 10 men and women sitting here today embody the truth that in America, regardless of where you start, there is no limit to what a determined dreamer can achieve – even going to space,” said Duffy. “Together, we’ll unlock the Golden Age of exploration.”

The agency’s 24th astronaut class reported for duty at NASA Johnson in mid-September and immediately began their training. Their curriculum includes instruction and skills development for complex operations aboard the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon, and beyond. Specifically, training includes robotics, land and water survival, geology, foreign language, space medicine and physiology, and more, while also conducting simulated spacewalks and flying high-performance jets.

After graduation, the 2025 class will join the agency’s active astronaut corps. Active astronauts are conducting science research aboard the space station while preparing for the transition to commercial space stations and the next great leaps in human exploration at the Moon and Mars. The candidates’ operational expertise, scientific knowledge, and technical backgrounds are essential to advancing NASA’s deep space exploration goals and sustaining a long-term human presence beyond low Earth orbit.

The 2025 astronaut candidates are:

Ben Bailey, 38, chief warrant officer 3, U.S. Army, was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia and is completing a master’s in systems engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Bailey is a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate with more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different rotary and fixed-wing aircraft. At the time of his selection, Bailey was responsible for the developmental testing of emerging technologies aboard Army rotary wing aircraft, specializing in the UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook.

Lauren Edgar, 40, considers Sammamish, Washington, her hometown. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Earth sciences from Dartmouth College, and her master’s and doctorate in geology from the California Institute of Technology. Edgar has served as the deputy principal investigator for the Artemis III Geology Team. In this role, she helped define lunar science goals, geology activities NASA astronauts will conduct, and science operations for NASA’s return to the Moon. She also spent more than 17 years supporting Mars exploration rovers. She was working at the U.S. Geological Survey at the time of her selection.

Adam Fuhrmann, 35, major, U.S. Air Force, is from Leesburg, Virginia, and has accumulated more than 2,100 flight hours in 27 aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35. He holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and master’s degrees in flight test engineering and systems engineering from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and Purdue University, respectively. He has deployed in support of Operations Freedom’s Sentinel and Resolute Support, logging 400 combat hours. At the time of his selection, Fuhrmann served as the director of operations for an Air Force flight test unit.

Cameron Jones, 35, major, U.S. Air Force, is a native of Savanna, Illinois. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California and the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He’s an experienced test pilot with more than 1,600 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft, including 150 combat hours. The majority of his flight time is in the F-22 Raptor. At the time of his selection, Jones was an Air Force Academic Fellow at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Yuri Kubo, 40, is a native of Columbus, Indiana. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University. He spent 12 years working across various teams at SpaceX, including as launch director for Falcon 9 rocket launches, director of avionics for the Starshield program, and director of Ground Segment. Earlier in his career, Kubo was a co-op student at NASA Johnson, where he completed multiple tours supporting the Orion spacecraft, the International Space Station, and the Space Shuttle Program. At the time of his selection, Kubo was the senior vice president of Engineering at Electric Hydrogen.

Rebecca Lawler, 38, is a native of Little Elm, Texas, and a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. She is a former Navy P-3 pilot and experimental test pilot with more than 2,800 flight hours in more than 45 aircraft. Lawler holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the National Test Pilot School. She also is a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate. Lawler also flew as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane hunter and during NASA’s Operation IceBridge. She was a test pilot for United Airlines at the time of selection.

Anna Menon, 39, is from Houston and earned her bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University with a double major in mathematics and Spanish. She also holds a master’s in biomedical engineering from Duke University. Menon previously worked in the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson, supporting medical hardware and software aboard the International Space Station. In 2024, Menon flew to space as a mission specialist and medical officer aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn. The mission saw a new female altitude record, the first commercial spacewalk, and the completion of approximately 40 research experiments. At the time of her selection, Menon was a senior engineer at SpaceX.

Imelda Muller, 34, considers Copake Falls, New York, her hometown. She formerly was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and served as an undersea medical officer after training at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute. Muller earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University and a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Her experience includes providing medical support during Navy operational diving training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. At the time of her selection, Muller was completing a residency in anesthesia at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Erin Overcash, 34, lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy, is from Goshen, Kentucky. She holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and a master’s in bioastronautics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. A U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate, Overcash is an experienced F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot with multiple deployments. She has logged more than 1,300 flight hours in 20 aircraft, including 249 carrier arrested landings. Overcash was part of the Navy’s World Class Athlete Program and trained full-time at the Olympic Training Center with the USA Rugby Women’s National Team. She was training for a squadron department head tour at the time of selection.

Katherine Spies, 43, is a native of San Diego and holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Southern California and a master’s in design engineering from Harvard University. She is a former Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and experimental test pilot, with more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, she served as UH-1Y/AH-1Z project officer and AH-1W platform coordinator during her time on active duty. At the time of her selection, Spies was the director of flight test engineering at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation.

With the addition of these 10 individuals, NASA now has recruited 370 astronaut candidates since selecting the original Mercury Seven in 1959.

“Today, our mission propels us even further as we prepare for our next giant leap with NASA’s newest astronaut candidate class,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA Johnson. “Representing America’s best and brightest, this astronaut candidate class will usher in the Golden Age of innovation and exploration as we push toward the Moon and Mars.”

The astronaut candidates will be available to speak with media virtually and in-person on Tuesday, Oct. 7. Media interested in this limited opportunity should contact the NASA Johnson Newsroom at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. 

Find photos and additional information about the new astronaut candidates at:

https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts

-end-

Bethany Stevens / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Chelsey Ballarte
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
chelsey.n.ballarte@nasa.gov

Written by Melissa Rice, Professor of Planetary Science at Western Washington University

Perseverance accomplished something unusual this week: abrading two dramatically different rocks within the span of a few days. While exploring the Vernodden area along Jezero crater’s rim, the rover has been studying what might be “megablocks,” a variety of ancient crustal materials with clues to Mars’ early geological history.

The target “Peachflya,” abraded on sol 1618, revealed clasts of different mineral compositions. This could mean the rock is a breccia formed from fragments of even older materials that were broken up, transported, and cemented together – possibly during an impact in Mars’ distant past.

Just meters away, the target “Klorne” was abraded on sol 1623 and it tells a completely different story. The fresh surface is greenish, with some dark spots and white veins—evidence of significant chemical alteration. Klorne’s green hue is consistent with the mineral serpentine, and reminiscent of Perseverance’s abrasion of “Serpentine Lake” back on sol 1404.

Next, Perseverance will examine the “Monacofjellet” megablock, which shows yet another distinct spectral signature. Each of these ancient fragments can help the Science Team reconstruct the complex geological processes that shaped early Mars billions of years ago.

• Want to read more posts from the Perseverance team?

  
  
  Visit Mission Updates

• Want to learn more about Perseverance’s science instruments?

  
  
  Visit the Science Instruments page

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As part of the agency’s Artemis campaign, NASA has awarded Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, a CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) task order with an option to deliver a rover to the Moon’s South Pole region. NASA’s VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) will search for volatile resources, such as ice, on the lunar surface and collect science data to support future exploration at the Moon and Mars.

“NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the Moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging U.S. industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “Our rover will explore the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole, traveling to small, permanently shadowed regions to help inform future landing sites for our astronauts and better understand the Moon’s environment – important insights for sustaining humans over longer missions, as America leads our future in space.”

The CLPS task order has a total potential value of $190 million. This is the second CLPS lunar delivery awarded to Blue Origin. Their first delivery – using their Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) robotic lander – is targeted for launch later this year to deliver NASA’s Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies and Laser Retroreflective Array payloads to the Moon’s South Pole region.

With this new award, Blue Origin will deliver VIPER to the lunar surface in late 2027, using a second Blue Moon MK1 lander, which is in production. NASA previously canceled the VIPER project and has since explored alternative approaches to achieve the agency’s goals of mapping potential off-planet resources, like water.

“NASA is committed to studying and exploring the Moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’ve been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals. This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly – supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable.”

The task order, called CS-7, has an award base to design the payload-specific accommodations and to demonstrate how Blue Origin’s flight design will off-load the rover to the lunar surface. There is an option on the contract to deliver and safely deploy the rover to the Moon’s surface. NASA will make the decision to exercise that option after the execution and review of the base task and of Blue Origin’s first flight of the Blue Moon MK1 lander. This unique approach will reduce the agency’s cost and technical risk. The rover has a targeted science window for its 100-day mission that requires a landing by late 2027.

Blue Origin is responsible for the complete landing mission architecture and will conduct design, analysis, and testing of a large lunar lander capable of safely delivering the lunar volatiles science rover to the Moon. Blue Origin also will handle end-to-end payload integration, planning and support, and post-landing payload deployment activities. NASA will conduct rover operations and science planning.

“The search for lunar volatiles plays a key role in NASA’s exploration of the Moon, with important implications for both science and human missions under Artemis,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters. “This delivery could show us where ice is most likely to be found and easiest to access, as a future resource for humans. And by studying these sources of lunar water, we also gain valuable insight into the distribution and origin of volatiles across the solar system, helping us better understand the processes that have shaped our space environment and how our inner solar system has evolved.”

Through CLPS, American companies continue to demonstrate leadership in commercial space advancing capabilities and accomplishing NASA’s goal for a commercial lunar economy. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley led the VIPER rover development and will lead its science investigations, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston provided rover engineering development for Ames.

To learn more about CLPS and Artemis, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/clps

-end-

Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov

Kenna Pell / Nilufar Ramji
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kenna.m.pell@nasa.gov / nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov  

All the pieces are stacking up – literally – for NASA’s first crewed mission of the Artemis program coming in 2026.

Teams are finishing integration of the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II test flight with its launch abort system on Sept. 17 inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 44-foot-tall tower-like abort structure would swiftly carry the four-person crew inside Orion to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency during launch or ascent atop the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket.

Over the next few weeks, teams will complete remaining closeout activities before moving the spacecraft to its final stop before the launch pad: the agency’s Vehicle Assembly Building. There it will be added to the top of the rocket, before the finished stack is rolled out to the launch pad on its way to the Moon.

The abort system is comprised of three solid rocket motors: the jettison, attitude, and abort motors. In the case of an emergency, these motors work together to propel the astronauts inside Orion’s crew module to safety: the abort motor pulls the crew module away from the launch vehicle; the attitude control motor steers and orients the capsule; then the jettison motor ignites to separate the abort system from the crew module prior to parachute deployment. During a normal launch, Orion will shed the abort system and leave it behind once the crew is safely through the most dynamic part of ascent, leaving Orion thousands of pounds lighter for the rest of its journey.

Image credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

In this infrared photograph taken on June 2, 2025, the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California, beams its eight-laser beacon to the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) flight laser transceiver aboard NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. At the time, when Psyche was about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth.

Managed by JPL, DSOC successfully demonstrated that data encoded in laser photons could be reliably transmitted, received, and then decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth out to Mars distances. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the demonstration completed its 65th and final “pass” on Sept. 2, 2025, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal from 218 million miles (350 million kilometers) away.

Text credit: Ian J. O’Neill

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals new details in Messier 82 (M82), home to brilliant stars whose light is shaded by sculptural clouds made of clumps and streaks of dust and gas. This image features the star-powered heart of the galaxy, located just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Popularly known as the Cigar Galaxy, M82 is considered a nearby galaxy.

It’s no surprise that M82 is packed with stars. The galaxy forms stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way. Astronomers call it a starburst galaxy. The intense starbirth period that grips this galaxy gave rise to super star clusters in the galaxy’s heart. Each of these super star clusters holds hundreds of thousands of stars and is more luminous than a typical star cluster. Researchers used Hubble to home in on these massive clusters and reveal how they form and evolve.

Hubble’s previous views of the galaxy captured ultraviolet and visible light in 2012 and near-infrared and visible light in 2006 to celebrate Hubble’s 16th anniversary. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope also imaged this starburst galaxy. Combining the visible and near-infrared light Hubble data with Chandra’s x-ray and Spitzer’s deeper infrared view provides a detailed look at the galaxy’s stars, along with the dust and gas from which stars form. More recently the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its eye toward the galaxy, producing infrared images in 2024 and earlier this year. These multiple views at different wavelengths of light provide us with a more accurate and complete picture of this galaxy so that we can better understand its environment. Each of these NASA observatories delivers unique and complementary information about the galaxy’s physical processes. Combining their data yields insights that enhance our understanding in a way that no single observatory could accomplish alone. This image features something not seen in previously released Hubble images of the galaxy:  data from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys.

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Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

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Of the many roads leading to successful Artemis missions, one is paved with high-tech computing chips called superchips. Along the way, a partnership between NASA wind tunnel engineers, data visualization scientists, and software developers verified a quick, cost-effective solution to improve NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for the upcoming Artemis II mission. This will be the first crewed flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, on an approximately 10-day journey around the Moon.  

A high-speed network connection between high-end computing resources at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility and the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, both located at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, is enabling a collaboration to improve the rocket for the Artemis II mission. During the Artemis I test flight, the SLS rocket experienced higher-than-expected vibrations near the solid rocket booster attach points, caused by unsteady airflow between the gap.

One solution proposed for Artemis II was adding four strakes. A strake is a thin, fin-like structure commonly used on aircraft to improve unsteady airflow and stability. Adding them to the core stage minimizes the vibration of components.

The strake solution comes from previous tests in the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, where NASA engineers applied an Unsteady Pressure Sensitive Paint (uPSP) technique to SLS models. The paint measures changes over time in aerodynamic pressures on air and spacecraft.

It is sprayed onto test models, and high-speed cameras capture video of the fluctuating brightness of the paint, which corresponds to the local pressure fluctuations on the model. Capturing rapid changes in pressure across large areas of the SLS model helps engineers understand the fast-changing environment. The data is streamed to the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility via a high-speed network connection.

“This technique lets us see wind tunnel data in much finer detail than ever before. With that extra clarity, engineers can create more accurate models of how rockets and spacecraft respond to stress, helping design stronger, safer, and more efficient structures,” said Thomas Steva, lead engineer, SLS sub-division in the Aerodynamics Branch at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

For the SLS configuration with the strakes, the wind tunnel team applied the paint to a scale model of the rocket. Once the camera data streamed to the supercomputing facility, a team of visualization and data analysis experts displayed the results on the hyperwall visualization system, giving the SLS team an unprecedented look at the effect of the strakes on the vehicle’s performance. Teams were able to interact with and analyze the paint data.

NASA’s high-end computing capability and facilities, paired with unique facilities at Ames, give us the ability to increase productivity by shortening timelines, reducing costs, and strengthening designs in ways that directly support safe human spaceflight.

Kevin Murphy

NASA’s Chief Science Data Officer

“NASA’s high-end computing capability and facilities, paired with unique facilities at Ames, give us the ability to increase productivity by shortening timelines, reducing costs, and strengthening designs in ways that directly support safe human spaceflight,” said Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer and lead for the agency’s High-End Computing Capability portfolio at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re actively using this capability to help ensure Artemis II is ready for launch.”

Leveraging the high-speed connection between the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel and NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility reduces the typical data processing time from weeks to just hours.

For years, the NASA Advancing Supercomputing Division’s in-house Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics software has helped play a role in designing and certifying the various SLS vehicle configurations.

“Being able to work with the hyperwall and the visualization team allows for in-person, rapid engagement with data, and we can make near-real-time tweaks to the processing,” said Lara Lash, an aerospace engineering researcher in the Experimental Aero-Physics Branch at NASA Ames who leads the uPSP work.

This time, NASA Advanced Supercomputing researchers used the Cabeus supercomputer, which is the agency’s largest GPU-based computing cluster containing 350 NVIDIA superchip nodes. The supercomputer produced a series of complex computational fluid dynamic simulations that helped explain the underlying physics of the strake addition and filled in gaps between areas where the wind tunnel cameras and sensors couldn’t reach.

This truly was a joint effort across multiple teams.

“The beauty of the strake solution is that we were able to add strakes to improve unsteady aerodynamics, and associated vibration levels of components in the intertank,” said Kristin Morgan, who manages the strake implementation effort for the SLS at Marshall.

A team from Boeing is currently installing the strakes on the rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and are targeting October 2025 to complete installation.

Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

To learn more about Artemis, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis

News Media Contact

Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov

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The project has exceeded all of its technical goals after two years, setting up the foundations of high-speed communications for NASA’s future human missions to Mars.

NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology successfully showed that data encoded in lasers could be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth at distances comparable to Mars. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the technology demonstration recently completed its 65th and final pass, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal, from 218 million miles away. 

“NASA is setting America on the path to Mars, and advancing laser communications technologies brings us one step closer to streaming high-definition video and delivering valuable data from the Martian surface faster than ever before,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “Technology unlocks discovery, and we are committed to testing and proving the capabilities needed to enable the Golden Age of exploration.”

Record-breaking technology

Just a month after launch, the Deep Space Optical Communications demonstration proved it could send a signal back to Earth it established a link with the optical terminal aboard the Psyche spacecraft.

“NASA Technology tests hardware in the harsh environment of space to understand its limits and prove its capabilities,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Over two years, this technology surpassed our expectations, demonstrating data rates comparable to those of household broadband internet and sending engineering and test data to Earth from record-breaking distances.”

On Dec. 11, 2023, the demonstration achieved a historic first by streaming an ultra-high-definition video to Earth from over 19 million miles away (about 80 times the distance between Earth and the Moon), at the system’s maximum bitrate of 267 megabits per second. The project also surpassed optical communications distance records on Dec. 3, 2024, when it downlinked Psyche data from 307 million miles away (farther than the average distance between Earth and Mars). In total, the experiment’s ground terminals received 13.6 terabits of data from Psyche.

How it works

Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, the experiment consists of a flight laser transceiver mounted on the Psyche spacecraft, along with two ground stations to receive and send data from Earth. A powerful 3-kilowatt uplink laser at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility transmitted a laser beacon to Psyche, helping the transceiver determine where to aim the optical communications laser back to Earth.

Both Psyche and Earth are moving through space at tremendous speeds, and they are so distant from each other that the laser signal — which travels at the speed of light — can take several minutes to reach its destination. By using the precise pointing required from the ground and flight laser transmitters to close the communication link, teams at NASA proved that optical communications can be done to support future missions throughout the solar system.

Another element of the experiment included detecting and decoding a faint signal after the laser traveled millions of miles. The project enlisted a 200-inch telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County as its primary downlink station, which provided enough light-collecting area to collect the faintest photons. Those photons were then directed to a high-efficiency detector array at the observatory, where the information encoded in the photons could be processed.   

“We faced many challenges, from weather events that shuttered our ground stations to wildfires in Southern California that impacted our team members,” said Abi Biswas, Deep Space Optical Communications project technologist and supervisor at JPL. “But we persevered, and I am proud that our team embraced the weekly routine of optically transmitting and receiving data from Psyche. We constantly improved performance and added capabilities to get used to this novel kind of deep space communication, stretching the technology to its limits.”

Brilliant new era

In another test, data was downlinked to an experimental radio frequency-optical “hybrid” antenna at the Deep Space Network’s Goldstone complex near Barstow, California. The antenna was retrofitted with an array of seven mirrors, totaling 3 feet in diameter, enabling the antenna to receive radio frequency and optical signals from Psyche simultaneously.

The project also used Caltech’s Palomar Observatory and a smaller 1-meter telescope at Table Mountain to receive the same signal from Psyche. Known as “arraying,” this is commonly done with radio antennas to better receive weak signals and build redundancy into the system.

“As space exploration continues to evolve, so do our data transfer needs,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program at the agency’s headquarters. “Future space missions will require astronauts to send high-resolution images and instrument data from the Moon and Mars back to Earth. Bolstering our capabilities of traditional radio frequency communications with the power and benefits of optical communications will allow NASA to meet these new requirements.”

This demonstration is the latest in a series of optical communication experiments funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Technology Demonstration Missions Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the agency’s SCaN program within the Space Operations Mission Directorate. The Psyche mission is led by Arizona State University. Lindy Elkins-Tanton of the University of California, Berkeley is the principal investigator. NASA JPL, managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for the mission’s overall management.

To learn more about the laser communications demo, visit:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/deep-space-optical-communications-dsoc/

News Media Contact

Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov

2025-120

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The commercial aviation industry is a crucial component of the U.S. economy, playing a vital role in transporting people, intermediate/final goods, and driving demand for various goods and services nationwide. This network enhances the quality of life for the whole country and facilitates business interactions within and globally, boosting productivity and prosperity. However, the industry faces numerous challenges, particularly the need to reduce rising operational costs in a growing market to accommodate increased demand in air travel, e-commerce, and cargo sectors. Issues such as aging aircraft and components, technological advancements, and staffing shortages further complicate these challenges, hindering efforts to balance passenger safety with operational efficiency. To address these challenges, the industry needs to swiftly innovate and implement more efficient and resilient aircraft maintenance practices, including the adoption of new technologies. In the 2026 Gateways to Blue Skies Competition, teams will conceptualize novel aviation maintenance advancements that can be implemented by 2035 or sooner with the goal of improving efficiency, safety, and/or costs for the industry. Teams are encouraged to consider high-potential technologies and systems that aren’t currently mainstream or highly regarded as becoming mainstream in the future, imagining beyond the status quo.

Award: $72,000 in total prizes

Open Date: Phase 1 – September 18, 2025; Phase 2 – March 13, 2026

Close Date: Phase 1 – February 16, 2026; Phase 2- May 15, 2026

For more information, visit: https://blueskies.nianet.org/competition/

A black hole is growing at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, according to a team of astronomers. This discovery from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory may help explain how some black holes can reach enormous masses relatively quickly after the big bang.

The black hole weighs about a billion times the mass of the Sun and is located about 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, meaning that astronomers are seeing it only 920 million years after the universe began. It is producing more X-rays than any other black hole seen in the first billion years of the universe.

The black hole is powering what scientists call a quasar, an extremely bright object that outshines entire galaxies. The power source of this glowing monster is large amounts of matter funneling around and entering the black hole.

While the same team discovered it two years ago, it took observations from Chandra in 2023 to discover what sets this quasar, RACS J0320-35, apart. The X-ray data reveal that this black hole appears to be growing at a rate that exceeds the normal limit for these objects.

“It was a bit shocking to see this black hole growing by leaps and bounds,” said Luca Ighina of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the study.

When matter is pulled toward a black hole it is heated and produces intense radiation over a broad spectrum, including X-rays and optical light. This radiation creates pressure on the infalling material. When the rate of infalling matter reaches a critical value, the radiation pressure balances the black hole’s gravity, and matter cannot normally fall inwards any more rapidly. That maximum is referred to as the Eddington limit.

Scientists think that black holes growing more slowly than the Eddington limit need to be born with masses of about 10,000 Suns or more so they can reach a billion solar masses within a billion years after the big bang — as has been observed in RACS J0320-35. A black hole with such a high birth mass could directly result from an exotic process: the collapse of a huge cloud of dense gas containing unusually low amounts of elements heavier than helium, conditions that may be extremely rare.

If RACS J0320-35 is indeed growing at a high rate — estimated at 2.4 times the Eddington limit — and has done so for a sustained amount of time, its black hole could have started out in a more conventional way, with a mass less than a hundred Suns, caused by the implosion of a massive star.

“By knowing the mass of the black hole and working out how quickly it’s growing, we’re able to work backward to estimate how massive it could have been at birth,” said co-author Alberto Moretti of INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera in Italy. “With this calculation we can now test different ideas on how black holes are born.”

To figure out how fast this black hole is growing (between 300 and 3,000 Suns per year), the researchers compared theoretical models with the X-ray signature, or spectrum, from Chandra, which gives the amounts of X-rays at different energies. They found the Chandra spectrum closely matched what they expected from models of a black hole growing faster than the Eddington limit. Data from optical and infrared light also supports the interpretation that this black hole is packing on weight faster than the Eddington limit allows.

“How did the universe create the first generation of black holes?” said co-author Thomas of Connor, also of the Center for Astrophysics. “This remains one of the biggest questions in astrophysics and this one object is helping us chase down the answer.”

Another scientific mystery addressed by this result concerns the cause of jets of particles that move away from some black holes at close to the speed of light, as seen in RACS J0320-35. Jets like this are rare for quasars, which may mean that the rapid rate of growth of the black hole is somehow contributing to the creation of these jets.

The quasar was previously discovered as part of a radio telescope survey using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder, combined with optical data from the Dark Energy Camera, an instrument mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory’s Gemini-South Telescope on Cerro Pachon, Chile was used to obtain the accurate distance of RACS J0320-35.

A paper describing these results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and is available here.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:

https://www.nasa.gov/chandra

https://chandra.si.edu

Visual Description

This release features a quasar located 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, presented as an artist’s illustration and an X-ray image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

In the artist’s illustration, the quasar, RACS J0320-35, sits at our upper left, filling the left side of the image. It resembles a spiraling, motion-blurred disk of orange, red, and yellow streaks. At the center of the disk, surrounded by a glowing, sparking, brilliant yellow light, is a black egg shape. This is a black hole, one of the fastest-growing black holes ever detected. The black hole is also shown in a small Chandra X-ray image inset at our upper right. In that depiction, the black hole appears as a white dot with an outer ring of neon purple.

The artist’s illustration also highlights a jet of particles blasting away from the black hole at the center of the quasar. The streaked silver beam starts at the core of the distant quasar, near our upper left, and shoots down toward our lower right. The blurry beam of energetic particles appears to widen as it draws closer and exits the image.

News Media Contact

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu

Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov

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