Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket system on Feb. 4, 2025. During the flight test, the capsule at the top detached from the booster and spun at approximately 11 rpm to simulate lunar gravity for the NASA-supported payloads inside.
Blue Origin
The old saying — “Practice makes perfect!” — applies to the Moon too. On Tuesday, NASA gave 17 technologies, instruments, and experiments the chance to practice being on the Moon… without actually going there. Instead, it was a flight test aboard a vehicle adapted to simulate lunar gravity for approximately two minutes.
The test began on February 4, 2025, with the 10:00 a.m. CST launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket system in West Texas. With support from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, the company, headquartered in Kent, Washington, enhanced the flight capabilities of its New Shepard capsule to replicate the Moon’s gravity — which is about one-sixth of Earth’s — during suborbital flight.
“Commercial companies are critical to helping NASA prepare for missions to the Moon and beyond,” said Danielle McCulloch, program executive of the agency’s Flight Opportunities program. “The more similar a test environment is to a mission’s operating environment, the better. So, we provided substantial support to this flight test to expand the available vehicle capabilities, helping ensure technologies are ready for lunar exploration.”
NASA’s Flight Opportunities program not only secured “seats” for the technologies aboard this flight — for 16 payloads inside the capsule plus one mounted externally — but also contributed to New Shepard’s upgrades to provide the environment needed to advance their readiness for the Moon and other space exploration missions.
“An extended period of simulated lunar gravity is an important test regime for NASA,” said Greg Peters, program manager for Flight Opportunities. “It’s crucial to reducing risk for innovations that might one day go to the lunar surface.”
Watch highlights from the Feb. 4, 2025 lunar gravity flight test.
Blue Origin
One example is the LUCI (Lunar-g Combustion Investigation) payload, which seeks to understand material flammability on the Moon compared to Earth. This is an important component of astronaut safety in habitats on the Moon and could inform the design of potential combustion devices there. With support from the Moon to Mars Program Office within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, together with Voyager Technologies, designed LUCI to measure flame propagation directly during the Blue Origin flight.
The rest of the NASA-supported payloads on this Blue Origin flight included seven from NASA’s Game Changing Development program that seek to mitigate the impact of lunar dust and to perform construction and excavation on the lunar surface. Three other NASA payloads tested instruments to detect subsurface water on the Moon as well as to study flow physics and phase changes in lunar gravity. Rounding out the manifest were payloads from Draper, Honeybee Robotics, Purdue University, and the University of California in Santa Barbara.
Flight Opportunities is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and is managed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.
By Nancy Pekar, NASA’s Flight Opportunities program
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Jeremy Frank, left, and Caleb Adams, right, discuss software developed by NASA’s Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy project. The software runs on spacecraft computers, currently housed on a test rack at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and depicts a spacecraft swarm virtually flying in lunar orbit to provide autonomous position navigation and timing services at the Moon.
NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete
Talk amongst yourselves, get on the same page, and work together to get the job done! This “pep talk” roughly describes how new NASA technology works within satellite swarms. This technology, called Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), allows individual spacecraft to make independent decisions while collaborating with each other to achieve common goals – all without human input.
NASA researchers have achievedmultiple firsts in tests of such swarm technology as part of the agency’s DSA project. Managed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, the DSA project develops software tools critical for future autonomous, distributed, and intelligent swarms that will need to interact with each other to achieve complex mission objectives.
“The Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy technology is very unique,” said Caleb Adams, DSA project manager at NASA Ames. “The software provides the satellite swarm with the science objective and the ‘smarts’ to get it done.”
What AreDistributed Space Missions?
Distributed space missions rely on interactions between multiple spacecraft to achieve mission goals. Such missions can deliver better data to researchers and ensure continuous availability of critical spacecraft systems.
Typically, spacecraft in swarms are individually commanded and controlled by mission operators on the ground. As the number of spacecraft and the complexity of their tasks increase to meet new constellation mission designs, “hands-on” management of individual spacecraft becomes unfeasible.
Distributing autonomy across a group of interacting spacecraft allows for all spacecraft in a swarm to make decisions and is resistant to individual spacecraft failures.
The DSA team advanced swarm technology through two main efforts: the development of software for small spacecraft that was demonstrated in space during NASA’s Starling mission, which involved four CubeSat satellites operating as a swarm to test autonomous collaboration and operation with minimal human operation, and a scalability study of a simulated spacecraft swarm in a virtual lunar orbit.
Experimenting With DSA in Low Earth Orbit
The team gave Starling a challenging job: a fast-paced study of Earth’s ionosphere – where Earth’s atmosphere meets space – to show the swarm’s ability to collaborate and optimize science observations. The swarm decided what science to do on their own with no pre-programmed science observations from ground operators.
“We did not tell the spacecraft how to do their science,” said Adams. “The DSA team figured out what science Starling did only after the experiment was completed. That has never been done before and it’s very exciting!”
The accomplishments of DSA onboard Starling include the first fully distributed autonomous operation of multiple spacecraft, the first use of space-to-space communications to autonomously share status information between multiple spacecraft, the first demonstration of fully distributed reactive operations onboard multiple spacecraft, the first use of a general-purpose automated reasoning system onboard a spacecraft, and the first use of fully distributed automated planning onboard multiple spacecraft.
During the demonstration, which took place between August 2023 and May 2024, Starling’s swarm of spacecraft received GPS signals that pass through the ionosphere and reveal interesting – often fleeting – features for the swarm to focus on. Because the spacecraft constantly change position relative to each other, the GPS satellites, and the ionospheric environment, they needed to exchange information rapidly to stay on task.
Each Starling satellite analyzed and acted on its best results individually. When new information reached each spacecraft, new observation and action plans were analyzed, continuously enabling the swarm to adapt quickly to changing situations.
“Reaching the project goal of demonstrating the first fully autonomous distributed space mission was made possible by the DSA team’s development of distributed autonomy software that allowed the spacecraft to work together seamlessly,” Adams continued.
Caleb Adams, Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy project manager, monitors testing alongside the test racks containing 100 spacecraft computers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The DSA project develops and demonstrates software to enhance multi-spacecraft mission adaptability, efficiently allocate tasks between spacecraft using ad-hoc networking, and enable human-swarm commanding of distributed space missions.
NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete
Scaling Up Swarms in Virtual Lunar Orbit
The DSA ground-based scalability study was a simulation that placed virtual small spacecraft and rack-mounted small spacecraft flight computers in virtual lunar orbit. This simulation was designed to test the swarm’s ability to provide position, navigation, and timing services at the Moon. Similar to what the GPS system does on Earth, this technology could equip missions to the Moon with affordable navigation capabilities, and could one day help pinpoint the location of objects or astronauts on the lunar surface.
The DSA lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing study demonstrated scalability of the swarm in a simulated environment. Over a two-year period, the team ran close to one hundred tests of more complex coordination between multiple spacecraft computers in both low- and high-altitude lunar orbit and showed that a swarm of up to 60 spacecraft is feasible.
The team is further developing DSA’s capabilities to allow mission operators to interact with even larger swarms – hundreds of spacecraft – as a single entity.
Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy’s accomplishments mark a significant milestone in advancing autonomous distributed space systems that will make new types of science and exploration possible.
NASA Ames leads the Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy and Starling projects. NASA’s Game Changing Development program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate provides funding for the DSA experiment. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program within the Space Technology Mission Directorate funds and manages the Starling mission and the DSA project.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A team at JPL packed up three small Moon rovers, delivering them in February to the facility where they’ll be attached to a commercial lunar lander in preparation for launch. The rovers are part of a project called CADRE that could pave the way for potential future multirobot missions. NASA/JPL-Caltech
A trio of suitcase-size rovers and their base station have been carefully wrapped up and shipped off to join the lander that will deliver them to the Moon’s surface.
Three small NASA rovers that will explore the lunar surface as a team have been packed up and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, marking completion of the first leg of the robots’ journey to the Moon.
The rovers are part of a technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration), which aims to show that a group of robots can collaborate to gather data without receiving direct commands from mission controllers on Earth. They’ll use their cameras and ground-penetrating radars to send back imagery of the lunar surface and subsurface while testing out the novel software that enables them to work together autonomously.
The CADRE rovers will launch to the Moon aboard IM-3, Intuitive Machines’ third lunar delivery, which has a mission window that extends into early 2026, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Once installed on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, they’ll head to the Reiner Gamma region on the western edge of the Moon’s near side, where the solar-powered, suitcase-size rovers will spend the daylight hours of a lunar day (the equivalent of about 14 days on Earth) carrying out experiments. The success of CADRE could pave the way for potential future missions with teams of autonomous robots supporting astronauts and spreading out to take simultaneous, distributed scientific measurements.
Members of a JPL team working on NASA’s CADRE technology demonstration use temporary red handles to move one of the project’s small Moon rovers to prepare it for transport to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, where it will be attached to the company’s third lunar lander.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Construction of the CADRE hardware — along with a battery of rigorous tests to prove readiness for the journey through space — was completed in February 2024.
To get prepared for shipment to Intuitive Machines’ Houston facility, each rover was attached to its deployer system, which will lower it via tether from the lander onto the dusty lunar surface. Engineers flipped each rover-deployer pair over and attached it to an aluminum plate for safe transit. The rovers were then sealed in protective metal-frame enclosures that were fitted snuggly into metal shipping containers and loaded onto a truck. The hardware arrived safely on Sunday, Feb. 9.
“Our small team worked incredibly hard constructing these robots and putting them to the test, and we have been eagerly waiting for the moment where we finally see them on their way,” said Coleman Richdale, the team’s assembly, test, and launch operations lead at JPL. “We are all genuinely thrilled to be taking this next step in our journey to the Moon, and we can’t wait to see the lunar surface through CADRE’s eyes.”
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages CADRE for the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The technology demonstration was selected under the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, which was established to expedite the development of technologies for sustained presence on the lunar surface. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate manages the CLPS initiative. The agency’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, both supported the project. Motiv Space Systems designed and built key hardware elements at the company’s Pasadena facility. Clemson University in South Carolina contributed research in support of the project.
Three small lunar rovers were packed up at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the first leg of their multistage journey to the Moon. These suitcase-size ro...
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket system on Feb. 4, 2025. During the flight test, the capsule at the top detached from the booster and spun at approximately 11 rpm to simulate lunar gravity for the NASA-supported payloads inside.
Blue Origin
The old saying — “Practice makes perfect!” — applies to the Moon too. On Tuesday, NASA gave 17 technologies, instruments, and experiments the chance to practice being on the Moon… without actually going there. Instead, it was a flight test aboard a vehicle adapted to simulate lunar gravity for approximately two minutes.
The test began on February 4, 2025, with the 10:00 a.m. CST launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable suborbital rocket system in West Texas. With support from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, the company, headquartered in Kent, Washington, enhanced the flight capabilities of its New Shepard capsule to replicate the Moon’s gravity — which is about one-sixth of Earth’s — during suborbital flight.
“Commercial companies are critical to helping NASA prepare for missions to the Moon and beyond,” said Danielle McCulloch, program executive of the agency’s Flight Opportunities program. “The more similar a test environment is to a mission’s operating environment, the better. So, we provided substantial support to this flight test to expand the available vehicle capabilities, helping ensure technologies are ready for lunar exploration.”
NASA’s Flight Opportunities program not only secured “seats” for the technologies aboard this flight — for 16 payloads inside the capsule plus one mounted externally — but also contributed to New Shepard’s upgrades to provide the environment needed to advance their readiness for the Moon and other space exploration missions.
“An extended period of simulated lunar gravity is an important test regime for NASA,” said Greg Peters, program manager for Flight Opportunities. “It’s crucial to reducing risk for innovations that might one day go to the lunar surface.”
Watch highlights from the Feb. 4, 2025 lunar gravity flight test.
Blue Origin
One example is the LUCI (Lunar-g Combustion Investigation) payload, which seeks to understand material flammability on the Moon compared to Earth. This is an important component of astronaut safety in habitats on the Moon and could inform the design of potential combustion devices there. With support from the Moon to Mars Program Office within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, together with Voyager Technologies, designed LUCI to measure flame propagation directly during the Blue Origin flight.
The rest of the NASA-supported payloads on this Blue Origin flight included seven from NASA’s Game Changing Development program that seek to mitigate the impact of lunar dust and to perform construction and excavation on the lunar surface. Three other NASA payloads tested instruments to detect subsurface water on the Moon as well as to study flow physics and phase changes in lunar gravity. Rounding out the manifest were payloads from Draper, Honeybee Robotics, Purdue University, and the University of California in Santa Barbara.
Flight Opportunities is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and is managed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center.
By Nancy Pekar, NASA’s Flight Opportunities program
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