NEW FROM NASA
NEW FROM NASA NEWS
Extreme NASA Cuts: NASA closed its Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy; the Office of the Chief Scientist; and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Accessibility branch on March 10 and made a severe reduction in force over the entire Administration. Worse, there are stories that say that NASA has been told to prepare for a 50% reduction in force, which would cause severe damage the Agency for many years to come. Such a draconian cut was labeled “nothing short of an extinction-level event for Space science and exploration by the United States,” by the Planetary Society.
FOLLOW UP: NASA’s proposed 2026 Budget was released on May 2. NASA’s overall budget would be cut 24%, with NASA Science taking a 50% hit. Artemis would take a big hit, too, with the SLS and Orion mission elements being replaced and deletion of the Gateway lunar orbiting station. For more information on this topic, see: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/trump-administration-proposes-slashing-nasa-budget-by-24-percent and https://www.planetary.org/press-releases/the-planetary-society-condemns-damaging-cuts-to-nasa-budget.
NOAA has taking crippling hits, too. They endured a forced RIF, losing 800 employees, greatly diminishing the information flow needed for accurate weather prediction and weather hazard monitoring. For more information on that front, see: https://www.space.com/the-universe/climate-change/scientists-warn-of-consequences-as-over-800-noaa-workers-are-fired-censoring-science-does-not-change-the-facts.
Egad! Lest we forget….
NASA Puts Three on TIME Magazine’s Best Inventions List: For the past two decades, TIME Magazine selects 200 new inventions in a wide variety of fields to promote as the “best” inventions of the year. NASA placed three of the seven selected inventions in the 2024 “Aerospace” category! For the full listing, see: https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2024.
And see the information in the Spinoffs and Tech Transfer sections of A+StW!
NEW FROM NASA FYI
NASA Launches Two Spacecraft: The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) and Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) were launched March 11 from Vandenberg AFB. When fully operational, SPHEREx will create a 3D map of the entire sky every six months that will show the broader setting of the detailed views from the HST and JWST. The data will be used to examine the rapid expansion of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang, how galaxies were formed and have evolved with time, and the presence and composition of the interstellar/intergalactic medium. Its orbit is carefully planned to keep it always in Earth’s shadow (orbiting just above the terminator); doing so would allow a clear view in all directions around the Sun and shield its instruments from direct sunlight, with would inhibit its instruments’ operation.
PUNCH’s job is quite different; it will look sunward rather than outward. It will make observations that would allow 3D modeling of the inner Solar System, the solar corona, and the solar wind. Those data would inform models of coronal mass ejections and other solar outbursts, all of which can have harmful effects on both Earth- and Space-based equipment.
For a summary of the missions, see: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-launches-missions-to-study-sun-universes-beginning; the SPHEREx mission website is here: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/spherex; and the PUNCH mission website is here: https://punch.space.swri.edu
NEW: CNN posted a story with several NASA animations of both missions; Federal Scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Dr. Kate Calvin, NASA’s Chief Scientist, had been slated to attend “a vital global climate report to stop their work, according to a scientist involved in the report – the latest move to withdraw the US from global climate action and research.
“The US had been highly involved in planning for the next installment of the report due out in 2029 from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading scientific authority on climate change.” Dr. Calvin was to co-chair the meeting, which was to lay the cooperative groundwork on mitigating climate change in front of the IPCC’s next report, due in 2029. A presidential decree now bars any U.S. Federal scientist from participation in the conference or the preparation of the report. For more information, see: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/climate/trump-blocks-scientists-ipcc/index.html.
Mars Sample Return Plan C: The Perseverance rover has been exploring the river delta in Mars’ Jezero Crater and the surrounding area for the past five years. It’s returned a ton of important data, and has been collecting samples from a number of areas of particular interest (bad pun) during its travels, in the hopes that they could some day be brought back to Earth for detailed analysis. The difficulty of sample return is huge, as is the cost, and the first two plans for the sample return have been shelved as a consequence. NASA has come up with a “Plan C,” that would use a scaled-down version of “the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), switch to a nuclear-powered landing platform, and then use either its proven skycrane landing system or buy commercial Mars lander services from a U.S. industry partner.” Both Blue Origin and SpaceX are developing heavy-weight landers in support of the Artemis lunar exploration initiative that could serve as vehicles for the martian sample return. In any case, the samples would be returned no earlier than 2035. Another possibility for the sample return comes from an outfit called Rocket Lab, who are developing a three-mission plan that could get the job done four years sooner and for less money. Find out more about all this at: https://aviationweek.com/space/space-exploration/mars-sample-return-take-3.
Apollo 12 Graphic Novel Updated! Tuesday (11/19) was the 55th anniversary of the landing on the Moon of Apollo 12’s LM, Intrepid, with astronauts Pete Conrad and Al Bean aboard. Celebrate this milestone two ways: See the two previous Items of the Week that spotlight the mission here and my personal hero, Al Bean, here. Also, check out the NASA graphic novel of the Apollo 12 mission augmented by info about Artemis (The NASA links to it are dead, but I downloaded it from Wikipedia Commons, and it is listed as being fully in the public domain; you can find it in the “Archive: Other Stuff” section of my website at: https://www.airandspacethisweek.com/otherstuff.
NEW FROM NASA LINKS AND OTHER INFORMATION
JPL’s Theodore von Kármán Lecture Series is an outstanding educational resource. One recent lecture was “Shake & Bake: How Spacecraft Are Tested to Handle the Harsh Environment of Space,” mentioned below. JPL has posted many past von Kármán lectures, covering a wide range of topics; see: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jpl-and-the-community/lecture-series.
Preparing for Space: Space is hostile to people and equipment alike. Have you ever wondered about how NASA makes sure its spacecraft can survive and operate successful in interplanetary Space and on other planets? NASA recently streamed one of the JPL von Kármán Lecture Series entitled “Shake & Bake: How Spacecraft are Tested to Handle the Harsh Environment of Space.” The featured lecturers are Brad Kinter, a Group Supervisor in JPL’s Environmental Thermal Testing unit at JPL and Pete Landry, Systems Integration and Test Engineer at JPL. The lecture is now available on YouTube at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jpl-and-the-community/lecture-series/the-von-karman-lecture-series-2024/may-2024-shake-bake-how-spacecraft-are-tested-to-handle-the-harsh-environment-of-space.
Theodore von Kármán was an aerodynamics expert who came to the USA in 1930, fleeing rising tide of Nazism. He was a member of the National Academy of Science and one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The lecture series named for him routinely offers a number of interesting Space-related lectures, “Shake and Bake,” being one of the most recent. For more information on von Kármán, see: https://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/von-karman-theodore.pdf.
Did you know that NASA has an entire Scientific Visualization Studio at the Goddard Space Flight Center? The data they make relatable is really terrific, check it out at: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov.
Introducing NASA On-Demand Streaming Service: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrlDv-ts2f0&ab_channel=NASA! As only NASA can.
Latest News Releases: https://www.nasa.gov/2025-news-releases
Media Contact Info: https://www.nasa.gov/news/media/info/index.html
JPL News: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news