Sols 4500-4501: Bedrock With a Side of Sand

Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Earth planning date: Wednesday, April 2, 2025 Wow, sol 4500. What an impressive number of sols (Martian days) exploring the Red Planet! This delightfully even sol number made me wonder where the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity was at this point […]

From FIRST Robotics to NASA Rockets: Angel Saenz’s Journey to White Sands

Long before joining NASA’s Test and Evaluation Support Team contract in October 2024, Angel Saenz was already an engineer at heart. A STEM education program at his high school helped unlock that passion, setting him on a path that would eventually lead to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The program […]

Gateway’s First Habitation Module Arrives Stateside

From the mountains of Turin to the deserts of Arizona, a core element of Gateway, humanity’s first lunar space station, is now one step closer to the Moon. As seen in this April 1, 2025, photo, HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), Gateway’s first pressurized module and one of its foundational elements, recently arrived in Gilbert, […]

NASA+ to Stream Nomination Hearing for Next Agency Administrator

Jared Isaacman is set to participate in a hearing to become the next NASA administrator at 10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 9, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The nomination hearing will take place at Russell Senate Office Building in Washington. The agency will stream the hearing on NASA+, and […]

Back to Earth, Forward to the Future: NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Returns  

After months of groundbreaking research, exploration, and teamwork aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 has returned to Earth.   NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, splashed down safely on March 18, 2025, as a pod of dolphins circled the Dragon spacecraft near Tallahassee, Florida.  […]