Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA
NASA selected Denmar Technical Services of Nevada to provide aircraft modifications, maintenance, and testing services to the Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The award is a firm-fixed-price contract and will be time and material for any over and above and unforeseen work. This contract has a maximum potential value of $8.4 million, which runs through Feb. 1, 2027.
The contractor will modify a Boeing 737-700 aircraft to perform lunar-gravity parabolic flights to test NASA space equipment. Once modifications are complete, NASA Armstrong will own the aircraft and oversee aircraft operations out of NASA Johnson.
The aircraft will be used to validate astronaut lunar suits and associated crew systems required to support Artemis mission objectives. This can be done with the modified 737 aircraft in an operationally relevant, reduced-gravity environment prior to lunar mission execution.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope stands complete in the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. With its deep, sweeping views of the universe, Roman will observe billions of cosmic objects to explore fundamental questions about dark energy and planets outside our solar system.
Credit: NASA/Scott Wiessinger
Registration is open for media to cover the arrival of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the coming weeks.
The observatory will arrive aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where teams completed its construction, assembly, and testing. Credentialed media will be able to witness the arrival and unloading of the space telescope in its transport container at NASA Kennedy’s turn basin. From there, technicians will move the telescope to the center’s Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility for launch processing.
NASA subject matter experts will be available on site to answer questions about the arrival.
Media interested in participating must apply for credentials at:
To receive credentials, media must apply by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Thursday, June 4. This opportunity is open to U.S. citizens only.
Once approved, credentialed media will receive a confirmation email. Additional information, including the specific date of arrival activities, will follow. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online. For questions about accreditation, please email ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For other questions, please contact Kennedy’s newsroom at: 321-867-2468.
Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a deep, panoramic view of the cosmos, generating never-before-seen pictures that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe. The observatory will usher in a new era of cosmic surveys, unveiling troves of celestial objects, and shedding light on some of the universe’s most profound mysteries, including phenomena we can’t see. Roman also will showcase a test of the most advanced technology ever flown in space to directly image planets around nearby stars, a key step in NASA’s search for life on other worlds.
The Roman telescope is managed at NASA Goddard with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team of scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc., L3Harris Technologies, and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging. Contributions to Roman also are made by ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany.
The agency’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Roman Space Telescope, which will lift off as soon as early September on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A.
For more information about NASA’s Roman telescope, visit:
Venus and Jupiter meet after sunset, the Moon passes in front of Venus, summer begins, and deep-sky treasures rise into view.
Skywatching Highlights
June 9: Venus and Jupiter conjunction
June 11–15: Mercury joins Venus and Jupiter after sunset
June 17: Moon passes in front of Venus & close Moon and Venus pairing
June 21: June solstice & start of astronomical summer
June: Summer Triangle and deep-sky observing targets rise into view
Transcript
Planets gather after sunset, the Moon passes in front of Venus, summer officially begins and deep sky treasures rise into view. That’s What’s Up for June.
Early this month, look west shortly after sunset to see Venus and Jupiter. They are two of the brightest planets in our sky and around June 9th, they’ll appear close together after sunset. This is called a planetary conjunction—when two planets appear near each other from our point of view on Earth, even though they’re still millions of miles apart in space.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
From June 11th through June 15th, Mercury joins the scene, creating a mini parade of planets low in the western sky. This happens because the planets orbit the sun along nearly the same path in our sky, called the ecliptic. So from our point of view on Earth, they sometimes appear to gather in the same part of the sky.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Venus will be the brightest and easiest to spot with Jupiter nearby. Mercury will sit lower toward the horizon, so you will need a clear view to the west to catch it in the glow of twilight.
On June 17th, from some locations the Moon will pass in front of Venus. This is called a lunar occultation. For viewers in the right viewing path, Venus will look like it disappears behind the Moon, then reappears later. The event will be visible from parts of the United States, Canada, Brazil and Venezuela. Outside of the exact viewing path, many skywatchers may still see a close pairing of the Moon and Venus, but this comes with an important safety note. For many viewers this will happen during the daytime.
If you’re trying to observe the occultation, do not point binoculars, a telescope, or a camera near the sun unless you’re using proper solar safety equipment. Looking at or near the sun through optics can cause serious eye injury.
June also brings the summer solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere, the June solstice marks the start of the astronomical summer. In Pacific time, it happens on Sunday, June 21st at 1:24 a.m.
Around the solstice, the Northern Hemisphere gets its longest days and shortest nights of the year.
But here’s a fun fact, the longest day does not usually line up exactly with the earliest sunrise or latest sunset. For example, in Los Angeles, the earliest sunrise comes before the solstice, while the latest sunset comes after it.
And once the sky gets dark, summer brings some favorite targets for telescope users and astrophotographers. First, look for the Summer Triangle, formed by the bright stars Vega, Altair, and Deneb. Inside and around this region are deep sky objects like the Dumbbell Nebula, the Ring Nebula, the North America Nebula, and the Veil Nebula. The Dumbbell Nebula, also known as Messier 27, was the first planetary nebula ever discovered.
These objects are not bright like planets, but with telescopes or long exposure photography, they reveal glowing gas, dying stars, and stellar nurseries in our galaxy.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Here are the phases of the Moon for June. You can stay up to date on all of NASA’s missions exploring the solar system and beyond at science.nasa.gov. I’m Raquel Villanueva from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up this month.
NASA’s C-20A research aircraft takes off from the Edwards Air Force Base runway on an envelope-expansion flight test with the unmanned aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar pod.
NASA/Tony Landis
Five research aircraft will support a Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) mission out of Ellington Field in Houston. Flights are expected from Wednesday, June 3 to Saturday, June 13. During the mission, select maneuvers will be conducted at low altitudes over the Houston area.
Pilots will fly remote sensing payloads in raster patterns, or parallel back-and-forth lines. The instruments flown could help researchers map the movement of the gases and particles that make up Earth’s atmosphere, changes to the lowest part of the atmosphere near the coastline, and the natural processes affecting the land and water in that area. The flights will primarily take place in the Houston area, with some extending over the Gulf of America.
While many of the flights will operate at higher altitudes, a WP-3D Orion will conduct maneuvers as low as 1,000 feet above ground level. Owned and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this aircraft is used as a hurricane hunter and has supported several airborne science missions for NASA. It is equipped with a multitude of scientific instrumentation, radars, and recording systems for both in-flight and remote sensing measurements of the atmosphere, the Earth, and its environment.
The NASA-operated aircraft participating in the mission also are equipped with a variety of remote sensing instruments, including two lidars, a synthetic-aperture radar, an imaging spectrometer, and two spectrometers.
The operations will involve the agency’s Gulfstream V (N95NA), Gulfstream C-20A (N802NA), and Gulfstream III (N520NA), as well as NOAA’s WP-3D Orion (N43RF) and a King Air B200 aircraft (N46L) owned by Dynamic Aviation and contracted by NASA. The flights can be tracked in real time at NASA Airborne Science Program Tracker.
The SARP effort is an eight-week summer internship program that provides undergraduate students with hands-on experience by engaging in field research and data analysis and with access to one or more NASA Airborne Science Program flying science laboratories.
For more information about the NASA Airborne Science program, visit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Sejong Univ./Hur et al; JWST: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team. Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand
This image of Westerlund 2 released on March 19, 2026, features Chandra X-ray Observatory data (pink) and infrared data from NASA’S James Webb Space Telescope (red, orange, green, cyan, and blue). Scores of gleaming stars ringed in neon pink stretch across the frame, highlighting a cluster where stars are between one and three million years old. Brick-orange dust clouds along the bottom edge illustrate the raw materials of this active stellar nursery.
Westerlund 2 resides in a raucous stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Sejong Univ./Hur et al; JWST: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team. Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand
Atmospheric gravity waves generated by Super Typhoon Sinlaku are visible via mesospheric airglow in this nighttime image acquired with the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite on April 12, 2026, Universal Time (April 13 local time).
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison
In mid-April 2026, Super Typhoon Sinlaku churned across the North Pacific Ocean and brought heavy rain and flooding to the Mariana Islands. The storm reached “violent typhoon” status—the highest intensity on the scale used by the Japan Meteorological Agency and roughly equivalent to a category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. Sinlaku was one of only a handful of tropical cyclones of that intensity known to have occurred so early in the year in the region, meteorologists noted.
Sinlaku rapidly intensified over the ocean before its impacts reached land. Around the time of this strengthening, satellites began to detect that the typhoon’s effects also extended upward, into the upper atmosphere.
The nighttime image above, acquired with the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the NOAA-20 satellite, shows atmospheric gravity waves radiating from the typhoon. These waves, resembling ripples on a pond, were made visible to the sensor via airglow in the mesosphere. Airglow occurs when atoms and molecules, excited by sunlight during the day, later emit light to release excess energy.
The release of latent heat near the eyewalls of tropical cyclones is known to drive convection and the formation of tall cumulonimbus clouds. These “hot towers” can rise out of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, and generate waves that propagate into the stratosphere and mesosphere above. An analysis of past tropical cyclones revealed that gravity waves often occur around the time that storms are intensifying. Indeed, in the 24 hours prior to the acquisition of the image above, Sinlaku had strengthened from a category 2 to a category 5 storm.
“We’re seeing waves propagating radially and upward, in a cone-like shape,” said Joan Alexander, senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates. Alexander was surprised to see well-defined waves in the mesospheric airglow above the storm. Winds in the upper atmosphere can dissipate the waves before they reach such high altitudes, Alexander explained, but relatively light stratospheric winds at the storm’s latitude in April 2026 may have helped preserve them.
A relatively low amount of moonlight was fortuitous, as well. The VIIRS day-night band is sensitive to airglow in the mesosphere but also observes reflected moonlight. The Moon was about 25 percent illuminated on April 12, so some light reflected off clouds in the troposphere was visible, but not enough to overpower the signal from the airglow.
Thermal energy from gravity waves produced by Super Typhoon Sinlaku was detected in the stratosphere by the AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite on April 13, 2026.
NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison
Sinlaku’s gravity waves, in addition to appearing high in the atmosphere via airglow, were observed lower in the atmosphere by the AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite. The image above depicts thermal emissions from gravity waves in the stratosphere on April 13. The rippling pattern appeared in April 14 observations, as well, indicating the storm’s continuing effects on the atmosphere.
Observing atmospheric gravity waves, particularly those caused by tropical cyclones, goes beyond scientific curiosity. Practical implications could include improved monitoring of storm development. “We’d like to use gravity waves to tell us if a storm is intensifying,” Alexander said, “which can be difficult to know, especially over the open ocean.” A geostationary satellite with the proper infrared imager would be able to observe gravity waves and track tropical cyclone evolution, she and colleagues have argued.
Furthermore, it’s critical to account for processes in the stratosphere in weather models, said Laura Holt, also a senior research scientist at NorthWest Research Associates. Stratospheric wind patterns are factors in long-term forecasts of the next Northern Hemisphere winter, for example, and tropical cyclones have a disproportionate influence because their sustained, intense convection drives prolonged gravity wave forcing of the stratosphere.
The effect of gravity waves even reaches into the realm of space weather. “For a while, people have seen signatures of hurricanes in ionospheric weather,” Holt said. Gravity waves can lead to traveling ionospheric disturbances—large-scale ripples in plasma density—and in some cases plasma bubbles, both of which can disrupt satellite signals and radio communications. “With space weather in particular,” Holt added, “a single event such as a tropical cyclone can be very important.”
NASA has selected seven companies to provide construction, revitalization, and infrastructure improvements at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The Johnson Space Center Multiple Award Construction Contract supports up to $300 million in upgrades to mission‑support facilities, utilities, and equipment across the NASA Johnson campus. All funds must be obligated by Sept. 30, 2026.
The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity award enables rapid execution of facility projects essential to sustaining astronaut crew training, engineering development, and mission readiness. Task orders will be competed among awardees to ensure fair opportunity and best value to the government.
Contract awardees are:
Coho Construction Management, LLC
Conti Federal Services, LLC
Healtheon, Inc.
HITT Contracting, Inc.
Ross Group Construction Corporation, LLC
Energy EPC Solutions, LLC, doing business as S&B Services
Sauer Construction, LLC
For more information about NASA and its missions, visit:
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 astronauts gather together for a crew portrait wearing their Dragon pressure suits during a suit verification check inside the International Space Station’s Kibo laboratory module. Clockwise from bottom left are, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui.
Credit: NASA
NASA will host a public event featuring three crew members from the agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission at 11 a.m. EDT Monday, June 1. The event, which takes place during the crew’s standard postflight visit, will be held in the Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in the Mary W. Jackson building, 300 E. Street SW in Washington.
The crew members, including NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, will discuss their recent 167-day mission aboard the International Space Station, where they conducted a wide range of science experiments to benefit life on Earth and advance human space exploration as part of International Space Station Expedition 73/74.
The Crew-11 mission lifted off on Aug.1, 2025, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew’s SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the orbital outpost on Aug. 2.
During their mission, the three astronauts, along with crewmate Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, traveled nearly 71 million miles and completed more than 2,670 orbits around Earth. The Crew-11 mission was Fincke’s fourth spaceflight, Yui’s second, and the first for Cardman and Platonov. Fincke has logged 549 days in space, ranking him fourth among all NASA astronauts for cumulative days in space. The crew members returned to Earth on Jan. 15, splashing down off the coast of San Diego.
Along the way, Crew-11 logged hundreds of hours of research, maintenance, and technology demonstrations. The crew members also celebrated the 25th anniversary of continuous human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory on Nov. 2, 2025. Research conducted aboard the space station advances scientific knowledge and demonstrates new technologies that enable us to prepare for human exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Media interested in attending the event must RSVP by 8 a.m., June 1, by emailing the NASA Headquarters newsroom at hq-media@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. Based on the crew’s schedule, NASA will not be able to accommodate interviews.
This opportunity also is part of NASA’s Frontiers Forum: Voices Shaping the Future of Space speaking series designed to convene bold thinkers and senior leaders at the forefront of exploration and innovation. The series will spotlight mission-critical priorities from advancing the Artemis campaign and strengthening commercial partnerships to shaping the future workforce and accelerating breakthrough technologies. The agency will share more details soon.
To learn more about the International Space Station and its research and crews, visit:
The 2026-2030 Landsat Science Team met for their first in-person meeting May 5-7, 2026 at the USGS EROS Center. Front Row: Raquel De Los Reyes, Courtney Bright, Forrest Melton, Michael Campbell , Hankui Zhang Standing: Greg Vaughan, Lin Yan, Mike Wulder, David Frantz, Kyle Knipper, Nimrod Carmon, Dean Hively, Yun Yang, Peter Strobl, David Roy, Morgan Crowley, Ned Bair, Phillip Dennison, Ryan O’Shea, Feng Gao, Medhavy Thankappan, Zhuosen Wang. Not pictured: Martha Anderson, Kimberlee Baldry, Eric Vermote.
USGS
From May 5 to 7, the 2026–2030 Landsat Science Team met for their first in-person meeting at the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center in Sioux Falls, SD. The three-day event, co-moderated by Landsat 8, 9, and 10 Project Scientist Chris Neigh, allowed leaders from USGS and NASA to begin work on a vision for the upcoming five-year period.
Attendees shared their current work and a vision for the future of the Landsat program. Participants received comprehensive status updates on the upcoming Landsat 10 project, the ongoing interagency and international collaboration on the Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) data products, and detailed plans for Collection 3 (C3).
Throughout the event, team members representing funded, international, and federal programs showcased the far-reaching impact of Landsat data across various Earth science disciplines, spanning snow cover mapping, atmospheric correction, water quality monitoring, evapotranspiration, agricultural applications, volcanic monitoring, and more.
The meeting culminated in focused breakout sessions, where experts drafted vital recommendations across four key technical areas to guide future mission data processing:
Surface Reflectance
The surface reflectance working group identified several priorities, including topography and adjacency corrections, Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) correction, and enhanced cloud masking with consistent approaches for HLS data products. Key recommendations included incorporating CMIX2 cloud masking results into future collections and mapping out C3 toolkit dependencies for user-applied corrections.
Temperature and Emissivity
Discussions on land surface temperature and emissivity centered heavily on maintaining archive consistency. The team recommended either maintaining native resolution or standardizing to 60 meters, with additional testing specifically for volcano studies. They endorsed using ASTER GED/CAMEL emissivity datasets and preparing for Landsat 10’s five thermal bands through ECOSTRESS comparison. They also called for better quantification of how atmospheric inputs impact harmonization efforts through collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), RIT, and EROS.
Aquatic Reflectance
Aquatic reflectance experts raised critical concerns regarding Landsat 10’s planned 18-day repeat cycle, noting that it severely limits the monitoring of highly dynamic processes such as harmful algal blooms. The group called for increased investment in validation infrastructure for inland waters coordinated with international CEOS efforts. They also strongly advised against pixelwise algorithm switching to prevent data discontinuities and emphasized the need for strict compliance with CEOS Aquatic Reflectance V2.0 standards.
Projections, Tiling, and the Pixel
Finally, the group reviewing projection and tiling endorsed the USGS pixel grid nesting plan (which spans 10, 15, 20, 30, 60, and 120 meters). However, they recommended further trade analysis to optimize pixel replication errors, manage storage costs, and ensure proper coordination with Sentinel-2 Next Generation. The working group strongly recommended that if these complex grid issues remain unresolved, the program should maintain the Collection 2 approach (UTM and polar stereographic) while continuing to refine Analysis Ready Data (ARD) products for CONUS, Hawaii, and Alaska.
The recommendations generated during these breakout sessions created a roadmap for the new Landsat Science Team, ensuring that the global scientific community continues to receive high-quality, actionable Earth observation data through the end of the decade.
