Saturday, 5 April 2025

NASA Selects Finalist Teams for Student Human Lander Challenge

Human Lander Challenge (HuLC) banner.

NASA has selected 12 student teams to develop solutions for storing and transferring the super-cold liquid propellants needed for future long-term exploration beyond Earth orbit.

The agency’s 2025 Human Lander Challenge is designed to inspire and engage the next generation of engineers and scientists as NASA and its partners prepare to send astronauts to the Moon through the Artemis campaign in preparation for future missions to Mars. The commercial human landing systems will serve as the primary mode of transportation that will safely take astronauts and, later, large cargo from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back.

For its second year, the competition invites university students and their faculty advisors to develop innovative, “cooler” solutions for in-space cryogenic, or super cold, liquid propellant storage and transfer systems. These cryogenic fluids, like liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen, must stay extremely cold to remain in a liquid state, and the ability to effectively store and transfer them in space will be increasingly vital for future long-duration missions. Current technology allows cryogenic liquids to be stored for a relatively short amount of time, but future missions will require these systems to function effectively over several hours, weeks, and even months.

The 12 selected finalists have been awarded a $9,250 development stipend to further develop their concepts in preparation for the next stage of the competition.

The 2025 Human Lander Challenge finalist teams are:

  • California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, “THERMOSPRING: Thermal Exchange Reduction Mechanism using Optimized SPRING”
  • Colorado School of Mines, “MAST: Modular Adaptive Support Technology”
  • Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, “Electrical Capacitance to High-resolution Observation (ECHO)”
  • Jacksonville University, “Cryogenic Complex: Cryogenic Tanks and Storage Systems – on the Moon and Cislunar Orbit”
  • Jacksonville University, “Cryogenic Fuel Storage and Transfer: The Human Interface – Monitoring and Mitigating Risks”
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “THERMOS: Translunar Heat Rejection and Mixing for Orbital Sustainability”
  • Old Dominion University, “Structural Tensegrity for Optimized Retention in Microgravity (STORM)”
  • Texas A&M University, “Next-generation Cryogenic Transfer and Autonomous Refueling (NeCTAR)”
  • The College of New Jersey, “Cryogenic Orbital Siphoning System (CROSS)”
  • The Ohio State University, “Autonomous Magnetized Cryo-Couplers with Active Alignment Control for Propellant Transfer (AMCC-AAC)
  • University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, “Efficient Cryogenic Low Invasive Propellant Supply Exchange (ECLIPSE)”
  • Washington State University, “CRYPRESS Coupler for Liquid Hydrogen Transfer”

Finalist teams will now work to submit a technical paper further detailing their concepts. They will present their work to a panel of NASA and industry judges at the 2025 Human Lander Competition Forum in Huntsville, Alabama, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, in June 2025. The top three placing teams will share a total prize purse of $18,000.

“By engaging college students in solving critical challenges in cryogenic fluid technologies and systems-level solutions, NASA fosters a collaborative environment where academic research meets practical application,” said Tiffany Russell Lockett, office manager for the Human Landing System Mission Systems Management Office at NASA Marshall. “This partnership not only accelerates cryogenics technology development but also prepares the Artemis Generation – the next generation of engineers and scientists – to drive future breakthroughs in spaceflight.”

NASA’s Human Lander Challenge is sponsored by the agency’s Human Landing System Program within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace.

For more information on NASA’s 2025 Human Lander Challenge, including team progress, visit the challenge website.

News Media Contact

Corinne Beckinger 
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 
256.544.0034  
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov 



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Friday, 4 April 2025

Hubble Spots Stellar Sculptors in Nearby Galaxy

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Hubble Spots Stellar Sculptors in Nearby Galaxy

A star cluster within a nebula. Thin, pale-blue wisps of clouds fill the background while denser areas of pinkish clouds appear superimposed upon them. The star cluster holds bright-blue stars that illuminate the nebula. Large arcs of dense, reddish-brown dust pressed together by the stars’ radiation, curve around, in front of, and behind the clustered stars. Many orange stars are visible in the background behind the clouds of the nebula.
This dazzling NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the young star cluster NGC 346.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, P. Massey, E. Sabbi, C. Murray, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

As part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, ESA is sharing a new image series revisiting stunning, previously released Hubble targets with the addition of the latest Hubble data and new processing techniques.

This new image showcases the dazzling young star cluster NGC 346. Although both the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble have released images of NGC 346 previously, this image includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.

A star cluster within a nebula. Thin, pale-blue wisps of clouds fill the background while denser areas of pinkish clouds appear superimposed upon them. The star cluster holds bright-blue stars that illuminate the nebula. Large arcs of dense, reddish-brown dust pressed together by the stars’ radiation, curve around, in front of, and behind the clustered stars. Many orange stars are visible in the background behind the clouds of the nebula.
This dazzling NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the young star cluster NGC 346.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, P. Massey, E. Sabbi, C. Murray, M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

NGC 346 is in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that lies 200,000 light-years away in the constellation Tucana. The Small Magellanic Cloud is less rich in elements heavier than helium — what astronomers call metals — than the Milky Way. This makes conditions in the galaxy similar to what existed in the early universe.

NGC 346 is home to more than 2,500 newborn stars. The cluster’s most massive stars, which are many times more massive than our Sun, blaze with an intense blue light in this image. The glowing pink nebula and snakelike dark clouds are sculpted by the luminous stars in the cluster.

Hubble’s exquisite sensitivity and resolution were instrumental in uncovering the secrets of NGC 346’s star formation. Using two sets of observations taken 11 years apart, researchers traced the motions of NGC 346’s stars, revealing them to be spiraling in toward the center of the cluster. This spiraling motion arises from a stream of gas from outside of the cluster that fuels star formation in the center of the turbulent cloud.

The inhabitants of this cluster are stellar sculptors, carving out a bubble within the nebula. NGC 346’s hot, massive stars produce intense radiation and fierce stellar winds that pummel the billowing gas of their birthplace, dispersing the surrounding nebula.

The nebula, named N66, is the brightest example of an H II (pronounced ‘H-two’) region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. H II regions are set aglow by ultraviolet light from hot, young stars like those in NGC 346. The presence of this nebula indicates the young age of the star cluster, as an H II region shines only as long as the stars that power it — a mere few million years for the massive stars pictured here.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

Explore Hubble NGC 346 Images and Science

A star cluster within a nebula. Thin, pale-blue wisps of clouds fill the background while denser areas of pinkish clouds appear superimposed upon them. The star cluster holds bright-blue stars that illuminate the nebula. Large arcs of dense, reddish-brown dust pressed together by the stars’ radiation, curve around, in front of, and behind the clustered stars. Many orange stars are visible in the background behind the clouds of the nebula.

Download the image above

Spatial Distribution of NGC 346 Stars: A black field speckled with white stars, and a large, irregularly shaped patch of purple in the center. Within this purple patch are white stars and other white clumps, along with some thin, dark lanes within the right side of the purple patch. The top half of the purple patch is more densely formed and covered in more white stars and other white clumps than the wispy bottom of the patch. Over the top half of the purple patch is a red spiral with a dashed white line running through its center, like a spine. The red spiral increases in thickness as it approaches the tightest point of the spiral. Beneath the densest part of the spiral is the densest concentration of stars.

NASA’s Hubble Finds Spiraling Stars, Providing Window into Early Universe

Against a dark swath of space, a bright pink, cloudy region is in the center, roughly resembling the shape of a pig.

Young Stars Sculpt Gas with Powerful Outflows in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Against a dark swath of space, a bright cloudy region is in the center, roughly resembling the shape of a pig.

Hubble’s Black and White View

Infant Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Infant Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud

A grouping of large, glowing, and purplish stars dominate the image’s center. Dark ridges of gas and dust are visible around them, with more background stars crowding the view.

Hubble Captures Unique Ultraviolet View of a Spectacular Star Cluster

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Last Updated
Apr 04, 2025
Editor
Andrea Gianopoulos
Contact
Media

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

Bethany Downer
ESA/Hubble Chief Science Communications Officer
bethany.downer@esahubble.org



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NASA Supports Wildland Fire Technology Demonstration

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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

Drones were a key part of testing new technology in support of a prescribed burn in Geneva State Forest, which is about 100 miles south of Montgomery, Alabama. The effort is part of the agency’s multi-year FireSense project, which is aimed at testing technologies that could eventually serve the U.S. Forest Service as well as local, state, and other federal wildland fire agencies. From left are Tim Wallace and Michael Filicchia of the Desert Research Institute in Nevada; Derek Abramson, Justin Hall, and Alexander Jaffe of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards California; and Alana Dachtler of International Met Systems of Kentwood, Michigan.
NASA/Jackie Shuman

Advancements in NASA’s airborne technology have made it possible to gather localized wind data and assess its impacts on smoke and fire behavior. This information could improve wildland fire decision making and enable operational agencies to better allocate firefighters and resources. A small team from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, is demonstrating how some of these technologies work.

Two instruments from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia – a sensor gathering 3D wind data and a radiosonde that measures temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity data – were installed on NASA Armstrong’s Alta X drone for a prescribed burn in Geneva State Forest, which is about 100 miles south of Montgomery, Alabama. The effort is part of the agency’s multi-year FireSense project, which is aimed at testing technologies that could eventually serve the U.S. Forest Service as well as local, state, and other federal wildland fire agencies.

“The objectives for the Alta X portion of the multi-agency prescribed burn include a technical demonstration for wildland fire practitioners, and data collection at various altitudes for the Alabama Forestry Commission operations,” said Jennifer Fowler, FireSense project manager. “Information gathered at the different altitudes is essential to monitor the variables for a prescribed burn.”

Those variables include the mixing height, which is the extent or depth to which smoke will be dispersed, a metric Fowler said is difficult to predict. Humidity must also be above 30% for a prescribed burn. The technology to collect these measurements locally is not readily available in wildland fire operations, making the Alta X and its instruments key in the demonstration of prescribed burn technology.

A drone gathers data from smoke resulting from a prescribed burn in a forest area with dense trees, a lake, and an open grassy area.
A drone from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, flies with a sensor to gather 3D wind data and a radiosonde that measures temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity data from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The drone and instruments supported a prescribed burn in Geneva State Forest, which is about 100 miles south of Montgomery, Alabama. The effort is part of the agency’s multi-year FireSense project, which is aimed at testing technologies that could eventually serve the U.S. Forest Service as well as local, state, and other federal wildland fire agencies.
International Met Systems/Alana Dachtler

In addition to the Alta X flights beginning March 25, NASA Armstrong’s B200 King Air will fly over actively burning fires at an altitude of about 6,500 feet. Sensors onboard other aircraft supporting the mission will fly at lower altitudes during the fire, and at higher altitudes before and after the fire for required data collection. The multi-agency mission will provide data to confirm and adjust the prescribed burn forecast model.

Small, uncrewed aircraft system pilots from NASA Armstrong completed final preparations to travel to Alabama and set up for the research flights. The team – including Derek Abramson, chief engineer for the subscale flight research laboratory; Justin Hall, NASA Armstrong chief pilot of small, uncrewed aircraft systems; and Alexander Jaffe, a drone pilot – will set up, fly, observe airborne operations, all while keeping additional aircraft batteries charged. The launch and recovery of the Alta X is manual, the mission profile is flown autonomously to guarantee the same conditions for data collection.

“The flight profile is vertical – straight up and straight back down from the surface to about 3,000 feet altitude,” Abramson said. “We will characterize the mixing height and changes in moisture, mapping out how they both change throughout the day in connection with the burn.”

In August 2024, a team of NASA researchers used the NASA Langley Alta X and weather instruments in Missoula, Montana, for a FireSense project drone technology demonstration. These instruments were used to generate localized forecasting that provides precise and sustainable meteorological data to predict fire behavior and smoke impacts.

Two men integrate instruments onto a drone.
Justin Link, left, pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems, and Justin Hall, chief pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems, install weather instruments on an Alta X drone at NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Members of the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory used the Alta X to support the agency’s FireSense project in March 2025 for a prescribed burn in Geneva State Forest, which is about 100 miles south of Montgomery, Alabama.
NASA/Steve Freeman

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Sols 4498-4499: Flexing Our Arm Once Again

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Sols 4498-4499: Flexing Our Arm Once Again

A grayscale photo of the Martian surface shows a wide field of flat, dark gray terrain covered with flat, angular, medium-sized rocks poking up through the soil and stretching into the distance. The soil between them appears like soft sand, with a few long, horizontal gouges in the ground at short intervals, leaving stripes of only soil and no rocks, looking like a huge claw had dug across the ground from left to right. In the distance, the horizon is sloped slightly downward from right to left, angled from near the upper right side of the frame to the upper-middle of the left side. Rising from the horizon is a large, rocky outcrop, somewhat volcano-shaped on its left half, and then from its midpoint toward the right it flattens and slopes more gently downward. Beyond that, lighter gray and unfocused in the distance, is a line of what looks like mountainous terrain, filling the background from left to right.
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on March 30, 2025 — Sol 4496, or Martian day 4,496 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 20:12:48 UTC.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University

Earth planning date: Monday, March 31, 2025

Planning today began with two pieces of great news. First, our 50-meter drive (about 164 feet) from the weekend plan completed successfully, bringing us oh-so-close to finally driving out of the small canyon that we’ve been traversing through and toward the “boxwork” structures to our southwest. Second, we passed our “Slip Risk Assessment Process” (SRAP), confirming that all six of Curiosity’s wheels are parked firmly on solid ground. Avid readers of this blog will be familiar with last week’s SRAP challenges, which prevented us from using the rover’s arm for the entire week. With a green light on SRAP, we were finally able to put our suite of contact science instruments back to work today.

The arm gets to work early on the first sol of this plan, with an APXS integration on “Los Osos,” a bedrock target in our workspace, after it has been cleared of the ubiquitous Martian dust by DRT. The rest of our arm activities consist of a series of MAHLI observations later in the afternoon, both of Los Osos and “Black Star Canyon.”

Of course, just because we managed to get contact science in this plan doesn’t mean we’re letting our remote sensing instruments take a break. In fact, we have more than two hours of remote sensing, split between the two sols and the two science teams (Geology and Mineralogy [GEO] and Atmosphere and Environment [ENV]). GEO will be using Mastcam to survey both the highs and the lows of the terrain, with mosaics of “Devil’s Gate” (some stratigraphy in a nearby ledge) and some small troughs close to the rover. We’ll also be getting even more Mastcam images of “Gould Mesa,” an imaging target in many previous plans, as we continue to drive past it. ChemCam gets involved with a LIBS observation of “Fishbowls,” which will also be imaged by Mastcam, a post-drive AEGIS, and two RMI mosaics of Gould Mesa and “Torote Bowl,” which was also imaged over the weekend.

ENV’s activities are fairly typical for this time of year as Curiosity monitors the development of the Aphelion Cloud Belt (ACB) with several Navcam cloud movies, as well as seasonal changes in the amount of dust in and above Gale with Navcam line-of-sight observations and Mastcam taus. We’ll also be taking a Navcam dust devil movie to see if we can catch any cold-weather wind-driven dust movement. ENV also filled this plan with their usual set of REMS, RAD, and DAN observations.

The drive planned today is significantly shorter than the one over the weekend, at just about 10 meters (about 33 feet). This is because we’re driving up a small ridge, which limits our ability to see what’s on the other side. Although our rover knows how to keep itself safe, we still prefer not to drive through terrain that we can’t see in advance, if it can be avoided. Once we’ve got a better eye on what lies in front of us, we will hopefully be able to continue our speedy trek toward the boxwork structures.

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Apr 03, 2025

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Sols 4495-4497: Yawn, Perched, and Rollin’



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NASA Selects Finalist Teams for Student Human Lander Challenge

NASA has selected 12 student teams to develop solutions for storing and transferring the super-cold liquid propellants needed for fut...