Lettuce Find Healthy Space Food! Citizen Scientists Study Space Salads Missions to the Moon and Mars pose nutritional challenges for astronauts. Now, a new paper on space-grown food iMissions to the Moon and Mars pose nutritional challenges for astronauts, but volunteers from NASA’s Open Science Data Repository Analysis Working Groups (OSDR-AWG) are working together to […]
Category: Biological & Physical Sciences
Avatars for Astronaut Health to Fly on NASA’s Artemis II
NASA announced a trailblazing experiment that aims to take personalized medicine to new heights. The experiment is part of a strategic plan to gather valuable scientific data during the Artemis II mission, enabling NASA to “know before we go” back to the lunar surface and on to Mars. The AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog […]
Artemis II Crew Both Subjects and Scientists in NASA Deep Space Research
With Artemis II, NASA is taking the science of living and working in space beyond low Earth orbit. While the test flight will help confirm the systems and hardware needed for human deep space exploration, the crew also will be serving as both scientists and volunteer research subjects, completing a suite of experiments that will […]
NASA Aims to Keep Fuel Cool Under Pressure with Zero Boil-Off Experiment On NG-23
Space missions rely on cryogenic fluids — extremely cold liquids like liquid hydrogen and oxygen — for both propulsion and life support systems. These fuels must be kept at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures to remain in liquid form; however, solar heating and other sources of heat increase the rate of evaporation of the liquid and cause […]
NASA Aims to Keep Fuel Cool Under Pressure with Zero Boil-Off Experiment On NG-23
Space missions rely on cryogenic fluids — extremely cold liquids like liquid hydrogen and oxygen — for both propulsion and life support systems. These fuels must be kept at ultra-low cryogenic temperatures to remain in liquid form; however, solar heating and other sources of heat increase the rate of evaporation of the liquid and cause […]
Bone Loss Research Launches Aboard NASA’s SpaceX-33 Resupply Mission
The 33rd SpaceX commercial resupply services mission for NASA, scheduled to liftoff from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in late August, is heading to the International Space Station with an important investigation for the future of bone health. The experiment will test how microgravity affects bone-forming and bone-degrading cells and explore potential ways […]
Astronauts Plant Seed Pillows in New Space Agriculture Study
When the Crew-11 astronauts launched to the International Space Station on August 1, 2025, they carried with them another chapter in space farming: the latest VEG-03 experiments, complete with seed pillows ready for planting. Growing plants provides nutrition for astronauts, as well as psychological benefits that help maintain crew morale during missions. During VEG-03 MNO, […]
New Research Connects Plant Nutrition and Astronaut Gut Health
New research uncovers the connection between space agriculture and astronaut health. A study published in npj Microgravity shows how analyzing diverse datasets together can reveal insights that might otherwise be missed — in this case, linking space-grown food quality to astronaut nutrition and gut health. The paper reviewed previous studies of plants grown aboard the […]
Mission Accomplished! Artemis ROADS III National Challenge Competitors Celebrate their Achievements
The NASA Science Activation program’s Northwest Earth and Space Sciences Pathways (NESSP) team has successfully concluded the 2024–2025 Artemis ROADS III National Challenge, an educational competition that brought real NASA mission objectives to student teams (and reached more than 1,500 learners) across the country. From December 2024 through May 2025, over 300 teams of upper […]
How Do We Do Research in Zero Gravity? We Asked a NASA Expert: Episode 62
How do we do research in zero gravity? Actually when astronauts do experiments on the International Space Station, for instance, to environment on organisms, that environment is actually technically called microgravity. That is, things feel weightless, but we’re still under the influence of Earth’s gravity. Now, the very microgravity that we’re trying to study up […]