Saturday, 24 January 2026

NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission

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NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission

When NASA's Artemis I launches next week on a journey to the moon, no animals or people will be onboard, but it will still carry biology investigations to see how living things react to the deep space environment.
A visual representation of NASA’s Artemis I mission.
Credits: NASA

NASA has selected 34 global volunteers to track the Orion spacecraft during the crewed Artemis II mission’s journey around the Moon.

The Artemis II test flight will launch NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, carrying the Orion spacecraft and a crew of four astronauts, on a mission into deep space. The agency’s second mission in the Artemis campaign is a key step in NASA’s path toward establishing a long-term presence at the Moon and confirming the systems needed to support future lunar surface exploration and paving the way for the first crewed mission to Mars.

While NASA’s Near Space Network and Deep Space Network, coordinated by the agency’s SCaN (Space Communication and Navigation) program , will provide primary communications and tracking services to support Orion’s launch, journey around the Moon, and return to Earth, participants selected from a request for proposals published in August 2025, comprised of established commercial service providers, members of academia, and individual amateur radio enthusiasts will use their respective equipment to passively track radio waves transmitted by Orion during its approximately 10-day journey.

The Orion capsule viewing the Moon during Artemis I.
NASA

“The Artemis II tracking opportunity is a real step toward SCaN’s commercial-first vision. By inviting external organizations to demonstrate their capabilities during a human spaceflight mission, we’re strengthening the marketplace we’ll rely on as we explore farther into the solar system,” said Kevin Coggins, deputy associate administrator for SCaN at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This isn’t about tracking one mission, but about building a resilient, public-private ecosystem that will support the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.”

This isn’t about tracking one mission, but about building a resilient, public-private ecosystem that will support the Golden Age of innovation and exploration.”

KEvin Coggins

KEvin Coggins

NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for SCaN

These volunteers will submit their data to NASA for analysis, helping the agency better assess the broader aerospace community’s tracking capabilities and identify ways to augment future Moon and Mars mission support. There are no funds exchanged as a part of this collaborative effort.

This initiative builds on a previous effort in which 10 volunteers successfully tracked the Orion spacecraft during Artemis I in 2022. That campaign produced valuable data and lessons learned, including implementation, formatting, and data quality variations for Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, which develops communications and data standards for spaceflight. To address these findings, SCaN now requires that all tracking data submitted for Artemis II comply with its data system standards.

Compared to the previous opportunity, public interest in tracking the Artemis II mission has increased. About 47 ground assets spanning 14 different countries will be used for to track the spacecraft during its journey around the Moon.   

Participants List:

Government:

  • Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Canada
  • The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

Commercial:

  • Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd, United Kingdom
  • GovSmart, Charlottesville, Virginia
  • Integrasys + University of Seville, Spain
  • Intuitive Machines, Houston
  • Kongsberg Satellite Services, Norway
  • Raven Defense Corporation, Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Reca Space Agency + University of Douala, Cameroon
  • Rincon Research Corporation & the University of Arizona, Tucson
  • Sky Perfect JSAT, Japan
  • Space Operations New Zealand Limited, New Zealand
  • Telespazio, Italy
  • ViaSat, Carlsbad, California
  • Von Storch Engineering, Netherlands

Individual:

  • Chris Swier, South Dakota
  • Dan Slater, California
  • Loretta A Smalls, California
  • Scott Tilley, Canada

Academia:

  • American University, Washington
  • Awara Space Center + Fukui University of Technology, Japan
  • Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky
  • Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute, Rosman, North Carolina
  • University of California Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, California
  • University of New Brunswick, ECE, Canada
  • University of Pittsburgh, ECE, Pittsburgh
  • University of Zurich – Physics Department, Switzerland

Non-Profit & Amateur Radio Organizations:

  • AMSAT Argentina, Argentina
  • AMSAT Deutschland, Germany
  • Amateur Radio Exploration Ground Station Consortium, Springfield, Illinois
  • CAMRAS, Netherlands
  • Deep Space Exploration Society, Kiowa County, Colorado
  • Neu Golm Ground Station, Germany
  • Observation Radio Pleumur-bodou, France

Artemis II will fly around the Moon to test the systems which will carry astronauts to the lunar surface for economic benefits and scientific discovery in the Golden Age of exploration and innovation.

The networks supporting Artemis receive programmatic oversight from NASA’s SCaN Program office. In addition to providing communications services to missions, SCaN develops the technologies and capabilities that will help propel NASA to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The Deep Space Network is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and the Near Space Network is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Learn more about NASA’s SCaN Program:  

https://www.nasa.gov/scan

About the Author

Katrina Lee

Katrina Lee

Katrina Lee is a writer for the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program office and covers emerging technologies, commercialization efforts, exploration activities, and more.



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Red, Green Light Show

A green and red aurora streams across Earth’s horizon above the city lights of Europe.
NASA/Chris Williams

A green and red aurora streams across Earth’s horizon above the city lights of Europe in this Jan. 19, 2026, photograph, which looks north across Italy toward Germany. The International Space Station was orbiting 262 miles above the Mediterranean Sea at approximately 10:02 p.m. local time when the image was captured.

Also known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), auroras are colorful, dynamic, and often visually delicate displays of an intricate dance of particles and magnetism between the Sun and Earth called space weather. When energetic particles from space collide with atoms and molecules in the atmosphere, they can cause the colorful glow that we call auroras.

Image credit: NASA/Chris Williams



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NASA Finds Lunar Regolith Limits Meteorites as Source of Earth’s Water

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NASA Finds Lunar Regolith Limits Meteorites as Source of Earth’s Water

View from surface of lunar crater. The foreground looks like an expanse of rocky rubble. In the background, lighter-colored, dune-shaped hills rise under a dark sky.
A close-up view of a portion of a “relatively fresh” crater, looking southeast, as photographed during the third Apollo 15 lunar surface moonwalk.
Credit: NASA

A new NASA study of its Apollo lunar soils clarifies the Moon’s record of meteorite impacts and timing of water delivery. These findings place upper bounds on how much water meteorites could have supplied later in Earth’s history.

Research has previously shown that meteorites may have been a significant source of Earth’s water as they bombarded our planet early in the solar system’s development. In a paper published Tuesday in the Proceedings to the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Tony Gargano, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), both in Houston, used a novel method for analyzing the dusty debris that covers the Moon’s surface called regolith. They learned that even under generous assumptions, meteorite delivery since about four billion years ago could only have supplied a small fraction of Earth’s water.

The Moon serves as an ancient archive of the impact history the Earth-Moon system has experienced over billions of years. Where Earth’s dynamic crust and weather erase such records, lunar samples preserve them. The records don’t come without challenge, though. Traditional methods of studying regolith have relied on analyzing metal-loving elements. These elements can get muddied by repeated impacts on the Moon, making it harder to untangle and reconstruct what the original meteoroids contained.

Enter triple oxygen isotopes, high precision “fingerprints” that take advantage of the fact that oxygen, the dominant element by mass in rocks, is unaffected by impact or other external forces. The isotopes offer a clearer understanding of the composition of meteorites that impacted the Earth-Moon system. The oxygen-isotope measurements revealed that at least ~1% by mass of the regolith contained material from carbon-rich meteorites that were partially vaporized when they hit the Moon. Using the known properties of such meteorites allowed the team to calculate the amount of water that would have been carried within.   

“The lunar regolith is one of the rare places we can still interpret a time-integrated record of what was hitting Earth’s neighborhood for billions of years,” said Gargano. “The oxygen-isotope fingerprint lets us pull an impactor signal out of a mixture that’s been melted, vaporized, and reworked countless times.”

The findings have implications for our understanding of water sources on Earth and the Moon. When scaled up by roughly 20 times to account for the substantially higher rate of impacts on Earth, the cumulative water shown in the model made up only a small percent of the water in Earth’s oceans. That makes it difficult to reconcile the hypothesis that late delivery of water-rich meteorites was the dominant source of Earth’s water.

“Our results don’t say meteorites delivered no water,” added co-author Justin Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA Johnson’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division. “They say the Moon’s long-term record makes it very hard for late meteorite delivery to be the dominant source of Earth’s oceans.”

For the Moon, the implied delivery since about 4 billion years ago is tiny on an Earth-ocean scale but is not insignificant for the Moon. The Moon’s accessible water inventory is concentrated in small, permanently shadowed regions at the North and South Poles. These are some of the coldest spots in the solar system and introduce unique opportunities for scientific discovery and potential resources for lunar exploration when NASA lands astronauts on the Moon through Artemis III and beyond.

The samples analyzed for this study came from parts of the Moon near the equator on the side of the Moon facing Earth, where all six Apollo missions landed. The rocks and dust collected more than 50 years ago continue to reveal new insights but are constrained to a small portion of the Moon. Samples delivered through Artemis will open the door for a new generation of discoveries for decades to come.

“I’m part of the next generation of Apollo scientists —people who didn’t fly the missions, but who were trained on the samples and the questions Apollo made possible,” said Gargano. “The value of the Moon is that it gives us ground truth: real, physical material we can measure in the lab and use to anchor what we infer from orbital data and telescopes. I can’t wait to see what the Artemis samples have to teach us and the next generation about our place in the solar system.”

For more information on NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Division, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/astromaterials

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 240-419-1732
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov   

Victoria Segovia
NASA’s Johnson Space Center
281-483-5111
victoria.segovia@nasa.gov


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Friday, 23 January 2026

NASA Conducts Hot Fire of RS-25 Engine

a closer look at vapor clouds escaping towards the sky during hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand
NASA conducts a hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 2063 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on Jan. 22, 2026.
NASA/Chris Russell
a closer look at vapor clouds escaping towards the sky during hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand
NASA conducts a hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 2063 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on Jan. 22, 2026.
NASA/Chris Russell
a reflection of the Fred Haise Test Stand during a hot fire test is captured on nearby body of water
NASA conducts a hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 2063 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on Jan. 22, 2026.
NASA/Chris Russell
a hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 2063 on the Fred Haise Test Stand
NASA conducts a hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 2063 on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on Jan. 22, 2026.
NASA/Chris Russell

NASA successfully conducted a hot fire of RS-25 engine No. 2063 on Jan. 22 at the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, clearing the way for the engine to be installed for the agency’s Artemis IV mission.  

The RS-25 engines help power NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will carry astronauts to the Moon under the Artemis campaign.

Engine No. 2063 originally was installed on the SLS core stage for the Artemis II mission but was removed in 2025 after engineers discovered a hydraulic leak on the engine’s main oxidizer valve actuator, which controls propellant flow into the engine combustion chamber.

Following standard NASA procedures, teams removed the engine from the core stage and replaced the actuator.

Because NASA requires any significantly modified or repaired engine to undergo hot fire testing before flight, teams at NASA Stennis fired the engine for five minutes (300 seconds), at up to 109% of its rated power level in a test known as a confidence test that demonstrates the engine is ready for flight.

The test was conducted by a team of operators from NASA, L3Harris Technologies, and Sierra Lobo, Inc., the NASA Stennis test operations contractor. NASA Stennis provides critical data to L3Harris, the prime engines contractor for the SLS rocket.

With the successful test complete, engine No. 2063 is scheduled to be installed on the SLS core stage for Artemis IV. All RS-25 engines for NASA’s Artemis missions are tested and proven flightworthy at NASA Stennis before flight.

NASA  is targeting as soon as February to send four astronauts around the Moon and back on Artemis II, the first crewed mission under the Artemis campaign. During launch, the SLS rocket will use four RS-25 engines, along with a pair of solid rocket boosters, to help lift the Orion spacecraft and the crew away from Earth using more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust.

Under the Artemis campaign, NASA is returning humans to the Moon for economic benefits, scientific discovery, and to prepare for crewed missions to Mars.

Read Updates at the Artemis Blog


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Winter Grips the Michigan Mitten

A satellite view of the Great Lakes shows a winter landscape, with snow-covered land, ice forming on parts of the lakes, and clouds trialing over open water.
January 20, 2026

A winter chill descended on the Great Lakes region of North America in January 2026. Some of the effects were apparent in this satellite image as newly formed lake ice and a fresh layer of snow. The image, acquired by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite, shows the region on the morning of January 20, 2026.

In the days prior, a winter storm blanketed many parts of western Michigan near the lake with nearly a foot of snow, according to the National Weather Service. West of Walker, snowfall totals surpassed that amount, reaching nearly 14 inches (36 centimeters). The storm’s effects extended beyond Michigan as well, including blizzard conditions in parts of Ontario east of Lake Huron.   

Lake effect snow is common in the Great Lakes area during late fall and winter, occurring when cold air moves over relatively warm, unfrozen water. As the air picks up heat and moisture, it rises to form narrow cloud bands that can produce heavy snowfall.

The air over Lake Erie was still moist enough for clouds to form, though the amount of open water on this lake has decreased sharply in recent days. Around mid-month, during a period of unseasonably warm air temperatures, ice coverage dropped to cover about 2 percent of the lake, according to the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. It then spiked to nearly 85 percent on January 21 after temperatures plummeted.  

The frigid temperatures were brought about by an Arctic cold front that moved across the region. In Cleveland, for instance, the weather service issued a cold weather advisory on January 19 for wind chills as low as minus 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit. On that day, even colder wind chills were reported in the area around Chicago. Forecasts called for another round of cold Arctic air to spill over the Great Plains and Eastern U.S. over the coming weekend, accompanied by heavy snow.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Kathryn Hansen.

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A satellite view of the Great Lakes shows a winter landscape, with snow-covered land, ice forming on parts of the lakes, and clouds trialing over open water.

January 20, 2026

JPEG (3.97 MB)

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NASA’s Day of Remembrance 2026

A wreath with red and white flowers, green leaves, and white ribbon bows rests on a tripod stand with three thin metal legs. It stands in front of the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial. The Memorial has two parts: A polished gray stone headstone with a bronze embossed plaque on it, resting on a small platform of rough gray stone. The plaque has the likeness of Challenger and the crew on it. Behind the memorial, we can see rows of white stone headstones.
NASA/Keegan Barber

The Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial is seen during a wreath laying ceremony that was part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration.

Each January, NASA pauses to honor members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery, including the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. We celebrate their lives, their bravery, and contributions to human spaceflight.

Image credit: NASA/Keegan Barber



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Thursday, 22 January 2026

NASA Invites Media to Crew-10 Visit at Marshall

Official crew portrait for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov.
Official crew portrait for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov. Ayers and Onishi will discuss their recent mission to the International Space Station during a visit to Marshall Space Flight Center on Jan. 23.
Credit: NASA

NASA will host two astronauts at 10 a.m. CST Friday, Jan. 23, for a media opportunity at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, who served as part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission, will  discuss their recent mission to the International Space Station.

Media interested in attending the event must confirm their attendance with Lance D. Davis, lance.d.davis@nasa.gov, and Molly Porter, molly.a.porter@nasa.gov, by 12 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 22 to receive further instructions.

The Crew-10 mission launched March 14 and was NASA’s 11th human spaceflight with SpaceX to the space station for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Aboard the station, the crew completed dozens of experiments and technology demonstrations before safely returning to Earth on Aug. 9, 2025.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program provides reliable access to space, maximizing the use of the station for research and development and supporting future missions beyond low Earth orbit by partnering with private companies to transport astronauts to and from the space station.

The International Space Station remains the springboard to NASA’s next leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, Mars. The agency’s Huntsville Operations Support Center, or HOSC, at Marshall provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, Commercial Crew Program, and other missions.

Within the HOSC, the commercial crew support team provides engineering and safety and mission assurance expertise for launch vehicles, spacecraft propulsion, and integrated vehicle performance. The HOSC’s Payload Operations Integration Center, which operates, plans, and coordinates science experiments aboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, supported the Crew-10 mission, managing communications between the International Space Station crew and researchers worldwide.

Learn more about Crew-10 and agency’s Commercial Crew Program at:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

-end-

Lance D. Davis
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-640-9065
lance.d.davis@nasa.gov  

Molly Porter
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-424-5158
molly.a.porter@nasa.gov

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Jan 21, 2026
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NASA Tests Technology Offering Potential Fuel Savings for Commercial Aviation

4 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

A NASA F-15 research aircraft is parked on a ramp at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, with an experimental wing design mounted beneath its fuselage. The gray and silver test article is positioned vertically, resembling a ventral fin.
NASA’s Cross Flow Attenuated Natural Laminar Flow test article is mounted beneath the agency’s F-15 research aircraft ahead of the design’s high-speed taxi test on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2026, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The 3-foot-tall scale model is designed to increase a phenomenon known as laminar flow and reduce drag, improving efficiency in large, swept wings like those found on most commercial aircraft.
NASA/Christopher LC Clark

NASA researchers have successfully completed a high-speed taxi test of a scale model of a design that could make future aircraft more efficient by improving how air flows across a wing’s surface, saving fuel and money.

On Jan. 12, the Crossflow Attenuated Natural Laminar Flow (CATNLF) test article reached speeds of approximately 144 mph, marking its first major milestone. The 3-foot-tall scale model looks like a fin mounted under the belly of one of the agency’s research F-15B testbed jets. However, it’s a scale model of a wing, mounted vertically instead of horizontally. The setup allows NASA to flight-test the wing design using an existing aircraft.

The CATNLF concept aims to increase a phenomenon known as laminar flow and reduce wind resistance, also known as drag.

A NASA computational study conducted between 2014 and 2017 estimated that applying a CATNLF wing design to a large, long-range aircraft like the Boeing 777 could achieve annual fuel savings of up to 10%.  Although quantifying the exact savings this technology could achieve is difficult, the study indicates it could approach millions of dollars per aircraft each year.

A NASA F-15 research aircraft is parked on a ramp at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, with an experimental wing design mounted beneath its fuselage. The gray and silver test article is positioned vertically, resembling a ventral fin.
NASA’s Cross Flow Attenuated Natural Laminar Flow test article is mounted beneath the agency’s F-15 research aircraft ahead of the design’s high-speed taxi test on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2026, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The 3-foot-tall scale model is designed to increase a phenomenon known as laminar flow and reduce drag, improving efficiency in large, swept wings like those found on most commercial aircraft.
NASA/Christopher LC Clark

“Even small improvements in efficiency can add up to significant reductions in fuel burn and emissions for commercial airlines,” said Mike Frederick, principal investigator for CATNLF at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.

Reducing drag is key to improving efficiency. During flight, a thin cover of air known as the boundary layer forms very near an aircraft’s surface. In this area, most aircraft experience increasing friction, also known as turbulent flow, where air abruptly changes direction. These abrupt changes increase drag and fuel consumption. CATNLF increases laminar flow, or the smooth motion of air, within the boundary layer. The result is more efficient aerodynamics, reduced friction, and less fuel burn.

The CATNLF testing falls under NASA’s Flight Demonstrations and Capabilities project, a part of the agency’s Integrated Aviation Systems Program under the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. The concept of was first developed by NASA’s Advanced Air Transport Technology project, and in 2019, NASA Armstrong researchers developed the initial shape and parameters of the model. The design was later refined for efficiency at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

“Laminar flow technology has been studied and used on airplanes to reduce drag for many decades now, but laminar flow has historically been limited in application,” said Michelle Banchy, Langley principal investigator for CATNLF.

A NASA F-15 research aircraft is parked on a ramp at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Ground crew work beneath the aircraft on an experimental test article, resembling a ventral fin, mounted under the aircraft’s fuselage.
NASA ground crew prepares the agency’s F-15 research aircraft and Cross Flow Attenuated Natural Laminar Flow (CATNLF) test article ahead of its first high-speed taxi test on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2026, at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. The CATNLF design aims to reduce drag on wing surfaces to improve efficiency and, in turn, reduce fuel burn.
NASA/Christopher LC Clark

This limitation is due to crossflow, an aerodynamic phenomenon on angled surfaces that can prematurely end laminar flow. While large, swept wings like those found on most commercial aircraft provide aerodynamic efficiencies, crossflow tendencies remain.

In a 2018 wind tunnel test at Langley, researchers confirmed that the CATNLF design successfully achieved prolonged laminar flow.

“After the positive results in the wind tunnel test, NASA saw enough promise in the technology to progress to flight testing,” Banchy said. “Flight testing allows us to increase the size of the model and fly in air that has less turbulence than a wind tunnel environment, which are great things for studying laminar flow.”

NASA Armstrong’s F-15B testbed aircraft provides the necessary flight environment for laminar flow testing, Banchy said. The aircraft enables researchers to address fundamental questions about the technology while keeping costs lower than alternatives, such as replacing a test aircraft’s wing with a full-scale CATNLF model or building a dedicated demonstrator aircraft.

A white and blue NASA F-15 research aircraft taxis down a runway at Edwards Air Force Base with an experimental wing design mounted beneath the fuselage, resembling a ventral fin. In the background, a desert landscape with mountains and tan buildings stretches as the aircraft moves past.
NASA’s Cross Flow Attenuated Natural Laminar Flow (CATNLF) scale model completes its first major milestone – high-speed taxi test – Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2026, at Edwards Air Force Base in California. NASA’s F-15 research aircraft, with the 3-foot-tall test article mounted on its underside, reached speeds of approximately 144 mph during testing. If successful, the technology could be applied to future commercial aircraft to improve efficiency and potentially reduce fuel consumption.
NASA/Christopher LC Clark

CATNLF currently focuses on commercial aviation, which has steadily increased over the past 20 years, with passenger numbers expected to double in the next 20, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization. Commercial passenger aircraft fly at subsonic speeds, or slower than the speed of sound.

“Most of us fly subsonic, so that’s where this technology would have the greatest impact right now,” Frederick said. NASA’s previous computational studies also confirmed that technology like CATNLF could be adapted for supersonic application.

In the coming weeks, CATNLF is expected to begin its first flight, kicking off a series of test flights designed to evaluate the design’s performance and capabilities in flight.

Looking ahead, NASA’s work on CATNLF could lay the groundwork for more efficient commercial air travel and might one day extend similar capabilities to supersonic flight, improving fuel efficiency at even higher speeds.

“The CATNLF flight test at NASA Armstrong will bring laminar technology one step closer to being implemented on next-generation aircraft,” Banchy said.

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NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission

4 Min Read NASA Selects Participants to Track Artemis II Mission A visual representation of NASA’s Artemis I mission. ...