NASA’s RASSOR (Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) undergoes testing to extract simulated regolith, or the loose, fragmental material on the Moon’s surface, inside of the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 27. Ben Burdess, mechanical engineer at NASA Kennedy, observes RASSOR’s counterrotating drums digging […]
Category: Kennedy Space Center
Top Prize Awarded in Lunar Autonomy Challenge to Virtually Map Moon’s Surface
NASA named Stanford University of California winner of the Lunar Autonomy Challenge, a six-month competition for U.S. college and university student teams to virtually map and explore using a digital twin of NASA’s In-Situ Resource Utilization Pilot Excavator (IPEx). The winning team successfully demonstrated the design and functionality of their autonomous agent, or software that performs […]
NASA Awards Launch Service Task Order for Aspera’s Galaxy Mission
NASA has selected Rocket Lab USA Inc. of Long Beach, California, to launch the agency’s Aspera mission, a SmallSat to study galaxy formation and evolution, providing new insights into how the universe works. The selection is part of NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract. This contract allows the agency to […]
NASA Kennedy Engages STEM Participants
Students from Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, Florida, visited the Prototype Development Laboratory at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, April 28, 2025. The science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) participants are interested in technical trades and had the chance to hear from technicians at the Prototype Development Laboratory who design, fabricate, […]
NASA Kennedy Breathes Life into Moon Soil Testing
As NASA works to establish a long-term presence on the Moon, researchers have reached a breakthrough by extracting oxygen at a commercial scale from simulated lunar soil at Swamp Works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The achievement moves NASA one step closer to its goal of utilizing resources on the Moon and beyond […]
NASA Harvests Lettuce for Space Station Study
Inside a laboratory in the Space Systems Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a payload implementation team member harvests ‘Outredgeous’ romaine lettuce growing in the Advanced Plant Habitat ground unit on Thursday, April 24, 2025. The harvest is part of the ground control work supporting Plant Habitat-07, which launched to the International […]
- Ames Research Center
- Armstrong Flight Research Center
- CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration)
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Johnson Space Center
- Katherine Johnson IV and V Facility
- Kennedy Space Center
- Langley Research Center
- Mars 2020
- Perseverance (Rover)
- robotics
Robots, Rovers, and Regolith: NASA Brings Exploration to FIRST Robotics 2025
What does the future of space exploration look like? At the 2025 FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston, NASA gave student robotics teams and industry leaders a first-hand look—complete with lunar rovers, robotic arms, and real conversations about shaping the next era of discovery. NASA engaged directly with the Artemis Generation, connecting with more than […]
NASA’s Lunar Drill Technology Passes Tests on the Moon
NASA’s PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1) mission was designed to demonstrate technologies to help scientists better understand lunar resources ahead of crewed Artemis missions to the Moon. During the short-lived mission on the Moon, the performance of PRIME-1’s technology gave NASA teams reason to celebrate. “The PRIME-1 mission proved that our hardware works […]
NASA Moon Observing Instrument to Get Another Shot at Lunar Ops
A NASA-developed technology that recently proved its capabilities in the harsh environment of space will soon head back to the Moon to search for gases trapped under the lunar surface thanks to a new Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between NASA and commercial company Magna Petra Corp. The Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO) successfully […]
Animal That Once Lived With Dinosaurs Helps Keep NASA Kennedy In Balance
They’re known as “living fossils”. For over 450 million years, horseshoe crabs have been an ecologically vital part of our planet. They’re one of the few surviving species on Earth dating back to the dinosaurs. At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) is one of more than 1,500 types […]