Engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Bohdan Wesely, right, and Eli Hiss, left, complete a fit check of the two halves of a space capsule that will study the clouds of Venus for signs of life.

Led by Rocket Lab of Long Beach, California, and their partners at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Rocket Lab’s Venus mission will be the first private mission to the planet.

NASA’s role is to help the commercial space endeavor succeed by providing expertise in thermal protection of small spacecraft. Invented at Ames, NASA’s Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environment Technology (HEEET) – the brown, textured material covering the bottom of the capsule in this photo – is a woven heat shield designed to protect spacecraft from temperatures up to 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The probe will deploy from Rocket Lab’s Photon spacecraft bus, taking measurements as it descends through the planet’s atmosphere.

Teams at Ames work with private companies, like Rocket Lab, to turn NASA materials into solutions such as the heat shield tailor-made for this spacecraft destined for Venus, supporting growth of the new space economy. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program, part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, supported development of the heat shield for Rocket Lab’s Venus mission.

John Boyd, known to many as Jack and whose career spanned more than seven decades in a multitude of roles across NASA as well as its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), died Feb. 20. He was 99. Born in 1925, and raised in Danville, Virginia, he was a long-time resident of Saratoga, California.

Boyd is being remembered by many across the agency, including Dr. Eugene Tu, director, NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, where Boyd spent most of his career.

“Jack brought an energy, optimism, and team-based approach to solving some of the greatest technological challenges humanity has ever faced, which remains part of our culture to this day,” said Tu. “There are few careers as wide-ranging and impactful as Jack’s.”

In 1947, Boyd began his career at the then-called Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in Moffett Field, California, as an aeronautical engineer working to design and test various wing shapes using the center’s 1-by-3-foot supersonic wind tunnel. Boyd continued conducting research in wind tunnels, testing designs that led to dramatic increases in the efficiency of the supersonic B-58 bomber, as well as the F-102 and F-106 fighters.

In 1958, just before Ames became part of a newly established NASA, Boyd recalled thinking, “Maybe someday we’ll go out into the far blue yonder, and if we do, what are we going to fly? How are we going to bring it back into the atmosphere safely?” He and a team of engineers turned their attention to studying the dynamics of high-speed projectiles in hypervelocity ranges, filled with different mixtures of gases to mimic the atmospheres of Mars and Venus, in preparation for sending spacecraft out into space and safely back again or to the surface of other worlds.

By the mid-60s, Boyd was promoted into leadership and tapped to become deputy director for Aeronautics and Flight Systems at NASA Ames. In the late 1960s, as America was redefining its space exploration goals and sending humans to the Moon, Boyd served as the center’s lead to assist NASA Headquarters in Washington consolidate and create new research programs.

In 1979, Boyd served as the deputy director at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center (now known as NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center) in Edwards, California, and prepared the center for its role as a landing site for the space shuttle. He briefly returned to Ames before heading to NASA Headquarters to be associate administrator for management under James M. Beggs. Boyd left government service in 1985, taking a position as chancellor for research and an adjunct professor of aerodynamics, engineering, and the history of spaceflight for the University of Texas System.

Boyd returned to NASA and California’s Silicon Valley in 1993, inspiring students through educational outreach initiatives, and serving as the senior advisor to the director, senior advisor for history, and the center ombudsman until his retirement in 2020.

Boyd credits his interest in airplanes to a cousin who was a paratrooper and gave him a ride in a biplane in the 1940s. In 1943, he enrolled and became the first in his family to earn a degree with a bachelor of science in aeronautical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was a recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Award, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Award, the NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal, the Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Army Command Medal, and the NASA Headquarters History Award. He also was a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Sloan Fellow at Stanford University.

“The agency and the nation thank and honor Jack as a member of the NASA family and the highest exemplar of a public servant who believed investing in others is the greatest contribution one can make,” added Tu. “He will be deeply missed.”

For more information about NASA Ames, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/ames

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Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov

Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov

In an effort to learn more about astronaut health and the effects of space on the human body, NASA is conducting a new experiment aboard the International Space Station to speed up the detection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, thus improving the health safety not only of astronauts but patients back on Earth.

Infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be difficult or impossible to treat, making antibiotic resistance a leading cause of death worldwide and a global health concern.

Future astronauts visiting the Moon or Mars will need to rely on a pre-determined supply of antibiotics in case of illness. Ensuring those antibiotics remain effective is an important safety measure for future missions.

The Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS) experiment, which is managed by NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, involves astronauts swabbing interior surfaces across the space station and testing those samples for evidence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and in particular Enterococcus faecalis, a type of bacteria commonly found in the human body. The experiment is the first step in a series of work that seeks to better understand how organisms grow in a space environment, and how those similarities and differences might help improve research back on Earth.

“Enterococcus is a type of organism that’s been with us since our ancestors crawled out of the ocean, and is a core member of the human gut,” said Christopher Carr, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and co-principal investigator of GEARS. “It’s able to survive inside and outside of its host, which has allowed it to become the second highest leading cause of hospital-acquired infections. We want to understand how this type of organism is adapting to the space environment.”

The GEARS experiment seeks to improve the detection and identification of these bacteria, building on existing efforts to understand what organisms grow on the station’s surfaces.

“We’ve been monitoring the surfaces of the space station since 2000, but this experiment will give us insight beyond the identities of present organisms, which is currently all that is used for risk assessment,” said Sarah Wallace, a microbiologist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and co-principal investigator of GEARS. “With the station orbiting close to Earth, it’s a low-risk space to evaluate and learn more about the frequency of this bacteria and how it responds to the space environment so we can apply this understanding to missions to the Moon and Mars, where resupplies are more complex.”

Over the next year, astronauts will swab parts of the station and analyze samples by adding an antibiotic to the medium in which the samples will grow. The results will reveal where this and other resistant bacteria are growing and whether they can persist or spread across the station.

The experiment was originally launched to the ISS on the 30^th SpaceX commercial resupply services (CRS) mission in March 2024, and the first round of GEARS testing turned up surprising results: very few resistant bacteria colonies, none of which were E. faecalis. This bodes well for the threat of antibiotic resistance in space.

“There was some cleaning done before swabbing the station, which may have removed some bacteria,” said Carr. To better understand how and where risky bacteria may live, the astronauts paused some cleaning before the second round of swabbing.

“We want the astronauts to have a clean environment, but we also want to test those high-touch areas, so they intentionally and briefly avoided cleaning some areas so we can understand how bacteria may grow or spread on the station.”

This experiment is the first study to perform metagenomic sequencing in space, a method that analyzes all the genetic material in a sample to identify and characterize all organisms that are present, an important research and medical diagnostic capability for future deep space missions.

The GEARS team hopes to create a rapid workflow to analyze bacteria samples, reducing the time between swabbing and test results from days to hours. That workflow could be applied in hospitals and make a huge impact when treating hospital-acquired infections from antibiotic-resistant microbes.

The result could save lives – more than 35,000 people die each year as a result of antibiotic-resistant infections. The issue is personal to Wallace, who lost a family member to a hospital-acquired infection.

“It’s not that uncommon: so many people have experienced this kind of loss,” said Wallace. “A method to give an answer in a matter of hours is huge and profound. It’s my job to keep the crew healthy, but we’re also passionate about bringing that work back down to Earth. I hope we can shine a light on rapidly analyzing bacteria: if we can do this in space, we can do it on Earth, too.”

Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space (GEARS) was funded by the Biological and Physical Sciences Space Biology Program, with pioneering funding and support from the Mars Campaign office.

In Aug. 2024, a team of NASA researchers and partners gathered in Missoula, Montana to test new drone-based technology for localized forecasting, or micrometeorology. Researchers attached wind sensors to a drone, NASA’s Alta X quadcopter, aiming to provide precise and sustainable meteorological data to help predict fire behavior.

Wildfires are increasing in number and severity around the world, including the United States, and wind is a major factor. It leads to unexpected and unpredictable fire growth, public threats, and fire fatalities, making micrometeorology a very effective tool to combat fire.

The campaign was run by NASA’s FireSense project, focused on addressing challenges in wildland fire management by putting NASA science and technology in the hands of operational agencies.

“Ensuring that the new technology will be easily adoptable by operational agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and the National Weather Service was another primary goal of the campaign,” said Jacquelyn Shuman, FireSense project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.

The FireSense team chose the Alta X drone because the U.S. Forest Service already has a fleet of the quadcopters and trained drone pilots, which could make integrating the needed sensors – and the accompanying infrastructure – much easier and more cost-effective for the agency.

The choice of the two sensors for the drone’s payload was also driven by their adoptability.

The first, called a radiosonde, measures wind direction and speed, humidity, temperature, and pressure, and is used daily by the National Weather Service. The other sensor, an anemometer, measures wind speed and direction, and is used at weather stations and airports around the world.

“Anemometers are everywhere, but are usually stationary,” said Robert McSwain, the FireSense uncrewed aerial system (UAS) lead, based at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “We are taking a sensor type that is already used all over the world, and giving it wings.”

Both sensors create datasets that are already familiar to meteorologists worldwide, which opens up the potential applications of the platform.

Current Forecasting Methods: Weather Balloons

Traditionally, global weather forecasting data is gathered by attaching a radiosonde to a weather balloon and releasing it into the air. This system works well for regional weather forecasts. But the rapidly changing environment of wildland fire requires more recurrent, pinpointed forecasts to accurately predict fire behavior. It’s the perfect niche for a drone.

“These drones are not meant to replace the weather balloons,” said Jennifer Fowler, FireSense’s project manager at Langley. “The goal is to create a drop-in solution to get more frequent, localized data for wildfires – not to replace all weather forecasting.”

Drones Provide Control, Repeat Testing, Sustainability

Drones can be piloted to keep making measurements over a precise location – an on-site forecaster could fly one every couple of hours as conditions change – and gather timely data to help determine how weather will impact the direction and speed of a fire.

Fire crews on the ground may need this information to make quick decisions about where to deploy firefighters and resources, draw fire lines, and protect nearby communities.

A reusable platform, like a drone, also reduces the financial and environmental impact of forecasting flights. 

“A weather balloon is going to be a one-off, and the attached sensor won’t be recovered,” Fowler said. “The instrumented drone, on the other hand, can be flown repeatedly.”

The Missoula Campaign

Before such technology can be sent out to a fire, it needs to be tested. That’s what the FireSense team did this summer.

McSwain described the conditions in Missoula as an “alignment of stars” for the research: the complex mountain terrain produces erratic, historically unpredictable winds, and the sparsity of monitoring instruments on the ground makes weather forecasting very difficult. During the three-day campaign, several fires burned nearby, which allowed researchers to test how the drones performed in smokey conditions.

A drone team out of NASA Langley conducted eight data-collection flights in Missoula. Before each drone flight, student teams from the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, and Salish Kootenai College in Pablo, Montana, launched a weather balloon carrying the same type of radiometer.

Once those data sets were created, they needed to be transformed into a usable format. Meteorologists are used to the numbers, but incident commanders on an active fire need to see the data in a form that allows them to quickly understand which conditions are changing, and how. That’s where data visualization partners come in. For the Missoula campaign, teams from MITRE, NVIDIA, and Esri joined NASA in the field.

Measurements from both the balloon and the drone platforms were immediately sent to the on-site data teams. The MITRE team, together with NVIDIA, tested high-resolution artificial intelligence meteorological models, while the Esri team created comprehensive visualizations of flight paths, temperatures, and wind speed and direction. These visual representations of the data make conclusions more immediately apparent to non-meteorologists.

What’s Next?

Development of drone capabilities for fire monitoring didn’t begin in Missoula, and it won’t end there.

“This campaign leveraged almost a decade of research, development, engineering, and testing,” said McSwain. “We have built up a UAS flight capability that can now be used across NASA.”

The NASA Alta X and its sensor payload will head to Alabama and Florida in spring 2025, incorporating improvements identified in Montana. There, the team will perform another technology demonstration with wildland fire managers from a different region.

To view more photos from the FireSense campaign visit: https://nasa.gov/firesense

The FireSense project is led by NASA Headquarters in Washington and sits within the Wildland Fires program, with the project office based at NASA Ames. The goal of FireSense is to transition Earth science and technological capabilities to operational wildland fire management agencies, to address challenges in U.S. wildland fire management before, during, and after a fire. 

The latest edition of NASA’s Spinoff publication, which highlights the successful transfer of agency technology to the commercial sector, is now available online.

For nearly 25 years, NASA has supported crew working in low Earth orbit to learn about the space environment and perform research to advance deep space exploration. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have learned a wealth of lessons and tried out a host of new technologies. This work leads to ongoing innovations benefiting people on Earth that are featured in NASA’s annual publication.  

“The work we do in space has resulted in navigational technologies, lifesaving medical advancements, and enhanced software systems that continue to benefit our lives on Earth,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Technologies developed today don’t just make life on our home planet easier – they pave the way to a sustained presence on the Moon and future missions to Mars.” 

The Spinoff 2025 publication features more than 40 commercial infusions of NASA technologies including: 

• A platform enabling commercial industry to perform science on the space station, including the growth of higher-quality human heart tissue, knee cartilage, and pharmaceutical crystals that can be grown on Earth to develop new medical treatments.  
• An electrostatic sprayer technology to water plants without the help of gravity and now used in sanitation, agriculture, and food safety.  
• “Antigravity” treadmills helping people with a variety of conditions run or walk for exercise, stemming from efforts to improve astronauts’ fitness in the weightlessness of space.  
• Nutritional supplements originally intended to keep astronauts fit and mitigate the health hazards of a long stay in space.  

As NASA continues advancing technology and research in low Earth orbit to establish a sustained presence at the Moon, upcoming lunar missions are already spinning off technologies on Earth. For example, Spinoff 2025 features a company that invented technology for 3D printing buildings on the Moon that is now using it to print large structures on Earth. Another group of researchers studying how to grow lunar buildings from fungus is now selling specially grown mushrooms and plans to build homes on Earth using the same concept.  

Spinoffs produce innovative technologies with commercial applications for the benefit of all. Other highlights of Spinoff 2025 include quality control on assembly lines inspired by artificial intelligence developed to help rovers navigate Mars, innovations in origami based on math for lasers and optical computing, and companies that will help lead the way to hydrogen-based energy building on NASA’s foundation of using liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel.  

“I’ve learned it’s almost impossible to predict where space technology will find an application in the commercial market,” said Dan Lockney, Technology Transfer program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “One thing I can say for sure, though, is NASA’s technology will continue to spin off, because it’s our goal to advance our missions and bolster the American economy.”  

This publication also features 20 technologies available for licensing with the potential for commercialization. Check out the “Spinoffs of Tomorrow” section to learn more.

Spinoff is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and its Technology Transfer program. Tech Transfer is charged with finding broad, innovative applications for NASA-developed technology through partnerships and licensing agreements, ensuring agency investments benefit the nation and the world.  

To read the latest issue of Spinoff, visit: 

https://spinoff.nasa.gov

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Jasmine Hopkins
Headquarters, Washington
321-432-4624
jasmine.s.hopkins@nasa.gov

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.”

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

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 achieved multiple 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 Are Distributed 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.

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. 

NASA has awarded Dynamic Aviation Group Inc. of Bridgewater, Virginia, the Commercial Aviation Services contract to support the agency’s Airborne Science Program. The program provides aircraft and technology to further science and advance the use of Earth observing satellite data, making NASA data about our home planet and innovations accessible to all.

This is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity firm-fixed-price contract with a maximum potential value of $13.5 million. The period of performance began Friday, Jan. 31, and continues through Jan. 30, 2030. 

Under this contract, the company will provide ground and flight crews and services using modified commercial aircraft, including a Beechcraft King Air B200 and Beechcraft King Air A90. Work will include mechanical and electrical engineering services for instrument integration and de-integration, flight planning and real-time tracking, project execution, as well as technical feasibility assessments and cost estimation. Aircraft modifications may include instrumented nosecones, viewing ports, inlets, computing systems, and satellite communications capabilities. 

This work is essential for NASA to conduct airborne science missions, develop and validate earth system models, and support satellite payload calibration. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will administer the agency-wide contract on behalf of the Airborne Science Program in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

To learn more about NASA and agency programs, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

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Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, Calif.
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov

NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley invites media to learn more about Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), a technology that allows individual spacecraft to make independent decisions while collaborating with each other to achieve common goals – without human input. The DSA team achieved multiple firsts during tests of such swarm technology as part of the agency’s project. 

DSA develops software tools critical for future autonomous, distributed, and intelligent spacecraft that will need to interact with each other to achieve complex mission objectives. Testing onboard the agency’s Starling mission resulted in accomplishments including 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, and more. 

DSA’s accomplishments mark a significant milestone in advancing autonomous systems that will make new types of science and exploration possible. 

Caleb Adams, DSA project manager, is available for interview on Wednesday, Feb. 5 and Thursday, Feb. 6. To request an interview, media can contact the Ames Office of Communications by email at arc-dl-newsroom@nasa.gov or by phone at 650-604-4789.  

Learn more about NASA Ames’ world-class research and development in aeronautics, science, and exploration technology at: 

https://www.nasa.gov/ames

-end- 

Tiffany Blake
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley 
650-604-4789 
tiffany.n.blake@nasa.gov  

To receive local NASA Ames news, email local-reporters-request@lists.arc.nasa.gov with “subscribe” in the subject line. To unsubscribe, email the same address with “unsubscribe” in the subject line.  

NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator (SFD) project recently concluded wind tunnel tests of its X-66 semi-span model in partnership with Boeing. The model, designed to represent half the aircraft, allows the research team to generate high-quality data about the aerodynamic forces that would affect the actual X-66.

Test results will help researchers identify areas where they can refine the X-66 design – potentially reducing drag, enhancing fuel efficiency, or adjusting the vehicle shape for better flying qualities.

Tests on the Boeing-built X-66 semi-span model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions so the team could obtain engineering information to influence the design of the aircraft’s wing and provide data for flight simulators.

Semi-span tests take advantage of symmetry. The forces and behaviors on a model of half an aircraft mirror those on the other half. By using a larger half of the model, engineers increase the number of surface pressure measurements. Various sensors were placed on the wing to measure forces and movements to calculate lift, drag, stability, and other important characteristics.

The semi-span tests follow earlier wind tunnel work at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, using a smaller model of the entire aircraft. Engineers will study the data from all of the X-66 wind tunnel tests to determine any design changes that should be made before fabrication begins on the wing that will be used on the X-66 itself.

The SFD project is NASA’s effort to develop more efficient aircraft configurations as the nation moves toward aviation that’s more economically, societally, and environmentally sustainable. The project seeks to provide information to inform the next generation of single-aisle airliners, the most common aircraft in commercial aviation fleets around the world.  Boeing and NASA are partnering to develop the X-66 experimental demonstrator aircraft.

NASA is collaborating with the wildfire community to provide tools for some of the most challenging aspects of firefighting – particularly aerial nighttime operations.  

In the future, agencies could more efficiently use drones, both remotely piloted and fully autonomous, to help fight wildfires. NASA recently tested technologies with teams across the country that will enable aircraft – including small drones and helicopters outfitted with autonomous technology for remote piloting – to monitor and fight wildfires 24 hours a day, even during low-visibility conditions. 

Current aerial firefighting operations are limited to times when aircraft have clear visibility – otherwise, pilots run the risk of flying into terrain or colliding with other aircraft. NASA-developed airspace management technology will enable drones and remotely piloted aircraft to operate at night, expanding the window of time responders have to aerially suppress fires.

“We’re aiming to provide new tools – including airspace management technologies – for 24-hour drone operations for wildfire response,” said Min Xue, project manager of the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project within NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. “This testing will provide valuable data to inform how we mature this technology for eventual use in the field.” 

Over the past year, ACERO researchers developed a portable airspace management system (PAMS) drone pilots can use to safely send aircraft into wildfire response operations when operating drones from remote control systems or ground control stations.  

Each PAMS, roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, is outfitted with a computer for airspace management, a radio for sharing information among PAMS units, and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast receiver for picking up nearby air traffic – all encased in a durable and portable container. 

NASA software on the PAMS allows drone pilots to avoid airborne collisions while remotely operating aircraft by monitoring and sharing flight plans with other aircraft in the network. The system also provides basic fire location and weather information. A drone equipped with a communication device acts as an airborne communication relay for the ground-based PAMS units, enabling them to communicate with each other without relying on the internet.  

To test the PAMS units’ ability to share and display vital information, NASA researchers placed three units in different locations outside each other’s line of sight at a hangar at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Researchers stationed at each unit entered a flight plan into their system and observed that each unit successfully shared flight plans with the others through a mesh radio network. 

Next, researchers worked with team members in Virginia to test an aerial communications radio relay capability. 

Researchers outfitted a long-range vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a camera, computer, a mesh radio, and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast receiver for air traffic information. The team flew the aircraft and two smaller drones at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, purposely operating them outside each other’s line of sight.  

The mesh radio network aboard the larger drone successfully connected with the small drones and multiple radio units on the ground. 

NASA researchers then tested the PAMS units’ ability to coordinate through an aerial communications relay to simulate what it could be like in the field.  

At Monterey Bay Academy Airport in Watsonville, California, engineers flew a winged drone with vertical takeoff and landing capability by Overwatch Aero, establishing a communications relay to three different PAMS units. Next, the team flew two smaller drones nearby.  

Researchers tested the PAMS units’ ability to receive communications from the Overwatch aircraft and share information with other PAMS units. Pilots purposely submitted flight plans that would conflict with each other and intentionally flew the drones outside preapproved flight plans. 

The PAMS units successfully alerted pilots to conflicting flight plans and operations outside preapproved zones. They also shared aircraft location with each other and displayed weather updates and simulated fire location data. 

The test demonstrated the potential for using PAM units in wildfire operations.  

“This testing is a significant step towards improving aerial coordination during a wildfire,” Xue said. “These technologies will improve wildfire operations, reduce the impacts of large wildfires, and save more lives,” Xue said.  

This year, the team will perform a flight evaluation to further mature these wildfire technologies. Ultimately, the project aims to transfer this technology to the firefighting community community. 

This work is led by the ACERO project under NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and supports the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission.  

As air taxis, drones, and other innovative aircraft enter U.S. airspace, systems that communicate an aircraft’s location will be critical to ensure air traffic safety.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires aircraft to communicate their locations to other aircraft and air traffic control in real time using an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. NASA is currently evaluating an ADS-B system’s ability to prevent collisions in a simulated urban environment. Using NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, researchers are investigating how these systems could handle the demands of air taxis flying at low altitudes through cities.  

When operating in urban areas, one particular challenge for ADS-B systems is consistent signal coverage. Like losing cell-phone signal, air taxis flying through densely populated areas may have trouble maintaining ADS-B signals due to distance or interference. If that happens, those vehicles become less visible to air traffic control and other aircraft in the area, increasing the likelihood of collisions.

To simulate the conditions of an urban flight area and better understand signal loss patterns, NASA researchers established a test zone at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Sept. 23 and 24, 2024.

Flying in the agency’s Pilatus PC-12 in a grid pattern over four ADS-B stations, researchers collected data on signal coverage from multiple ground locations and equipment configurations. Researchers were able to pinpoint where signal dropouts occurred from the strategically placed ground stations in connection to the plane’s altitude and distance from the stations. This data will inform future placement of additional ground stations to enhance signal boosting coverage.  

“Like all antennas, those used for ADS-B signal reception do not have a constant pattern,” said Brad Snelling, vehicle test team chief engineer for NASA’s Air Mobility Pathfinders project. “There are certain areas where the terrain will block ADS-B signals and depending on the type of antenna and location characteristics, there are also flight elevation angles where reception can cause signal dropouts,” Snelling said. “This would mean we need to place additional ground stations at multiple locations to boost the signal for future test flights. We can use the test results to help us configure the equipment to reduce signal loss when we conduct future air taxi flight tests.”

The September flights at NASA Armstrong built upon earlier tests of ADS-B in different environments. In June, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland flew the Pilatus PC-12 and found a consistent ADS-B signal between the aircraft and communications antennas mounted on the roof of the center’s Aerospace Communications Facility. Data from these flights helped researchers plan out the recent tests at NASA Armstrong. In December 2020, test flights performed under NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign used an OH-58C Kiowa helicopter and ground-based ADS-B stations at NASA Armstrong to collect baseline signal information.

NASA’s research in ADS-B signals and other communication, navigation, and surveillance systems will help revolutionize U.S. air transportation. Air Mobility Pathfinders researchers will evaluate the data from the three separate flight tests to understand the different signal transmission conditions and equipment needed for air taxis and drones to safely operate in the National Air Space. NASA will use the results of this research to design infrastructure to support future air taxi communication, navigation, and surveillance research and to develop new ADS-B-like concepts for uncrewed aircraft systems.

NASA recently began a series of flight tests with partners to answer an important aviation question: What will it take to integrate remotely piloted or autonomous planes carrying large packages and cargo safely into the U.S. airspace? Researchers tested new technologies in Hollister, California, that are helping to investigate what tools and capabilities are needed to make these kinds of flights routine.  

The commercial industry continues to make advancements in autonomous aircraft systems aimed at making it possible for remotely operated aircraft to fly over communities – transforming the way we will transport people and goods. As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) develops standards for this new type of air transportation, NASA is working to ensure these uncrewed flights are safe by creating the required technological tools and infrastructure. These solutions could be scaled to support many different remotely piloted aircraft – including air taxis and package delivery drones – in a shared airspace with traditional crewed aircraft. 

“Remotely piloted aircraft systems could eventually deliver cargo and people to rural areas with limited access to commercial transportation and delivery services,” said Shivanjli Sharma, aerospace engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “We’re aiming to create a healthy ecosystem of many different kinds of remotely piloted operations. They will fly in a shared airspace to provide communities with better access to goods and services, like medical supply deliveries and more efficient transportation.”  

During a flight test in November, Reliable Robotics, a company developing an autonomous flight system, remotely flew its Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft through pre-approved flight paths in Hollister, California. 

Although a safety pilot was aboard, a Reliable Robotics remote pilot directed the flight from their control center in Mountain View, more than 50 miles away.

Congressional staffers from the United States House and Senate’s California delegation joined NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, Carol Caroll, Ames Aeronautics Director, Huy Tran, and other Ames leadership at Reliable Robotics Headquarters to view the live remote flight.

Researchers evaluated a Collins Aerospace ground-based surveillance system’s ability to detect nearby air traffic and provide the remote pilot with information in order to stay safely separated from other aircraft in the future. 

Initial analysis shows the ground-based radar actively surveilled the airspace during the aircraft’s taxi, takeoff, and landing. The data was transmitted from the radar system to the remote pilot at Reliable Robotics. In the future, this capability could help ensure aircraft remain safely separated across all phases of fight.   

While current FAA operating rules require pilots to physically see and avoid other aircraft from inside the cockpit, routine remotely piloted aircraft will require a suite of integrated technologies to avoid hazards and coordinate with other aircraft in the airspace.  

A radar system for ground-based surveillance offers one method for detecting other traffic in the airspace and at the airport, providing one part of the capability to ensure pilots can avoid collision and accomplish their desired missions. Data analysis from this testing will help researchers understand if ground-based surveillance radar can be used to satisfy FAA safety rules for remotely piloted flights. 

NASA will provide analysis and reports of this flight test to the FAA and standards bodies. 

“This is an exciting time for the remotely piloted aviation community,” Sharma said. “Among other benefits, remote operations could provide better access to healthcare, bolster natural disaster response efforts, and offer more sustainable and effective transportation to both rural and urban communities. We’re thrilled to provide valuable data to the industry and the FAA to help make remote operations a reality in the near future.”  

Over the next year, NASA will work with additional aviation partners on test flights and simulations to test weather services, communications systems, and other autonomous capabilities for remotely piloted flights. NASA researchers will analyze data from these tests to provide a comprehensive report to the FAA and the community on what minimum technologies and capabilities are needed to enable and scale remotely piloted operations. 

This flight test data analysis is led out of NASA Ames under the agency’s Air Traffic Management Exploration project. This effort supports the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility mission research, ensuring the United States stays at the forefront of aviation innovation. 

A small business called Near Earth Autonomy developed a time-saving solution using drones for pre-flight checks of commercial airliners through a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and a partnership with The Boeing Company.

Before commercial airliners are deemed safe to fly before each trip, a pre-flight inspection must be completed. This process can take up to four hours, and can involve workers climbing around the plane to check for any issues, which can sometimes result in safety mishaps as well as diagnosis errors.

With NASA and Boeing funding to bolster commercial readiness, Near Earth Autonomy developed a drone-enabled solution, under their business unit Proxim, that can fly around a commercial airliner and gather inspection data in less than 30 minutes. The drone can autonomously fly around an aircraft to complete the inspection by following a computer-programmed task card based on the Federal Aviation Administration’s rules for commercial aircraft inspection. The card shows the flight path the drone’s software needs to take, enabling aircraft workers with a new tool to increase safety and efficiency.

“NASA has worked with Near Earth Autonomy on autonomous inspection challenges in multiple domains,” says Danette Allen, NASA senior leader for autonomous systems. 

“We are excited to see this technology spin out to industry to increase efficiencies, safety, and accuracy of the aircraft inspection process for overall public benefit.”

The photos collected from the drone are shared and analyzed remotely, which allows experts in the airline maintenance field to support repair decisions faster from any location. New images can be compared to old images to look for cracks, popped rivets, leaks, and other common issues.

The user can ask the system to create alerts if an area needs to be inspected again or fails an inspection. Near Earth Autonomy estimates that using drones for aircraft inspection can save the airline industry an average of $10,000 per hour of lost earnings during unplanned time on the ground.

Over the last six years, Near Earth Autonomy completed several rounds of test flights with their drone system on Boeing aircraft used by American Airlines and Emirates Airlines.

NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, aims to bolster American ingenuity by supporting innovative ideas put forth by small businesses to fulfill NASA and industry needs. These research needs are described in annual SBIR solicitations and target technologies that have significant potential for successful commercialization. 

Small business concerns with 500 or fewer employees, or small businesses partnering with a non-profit research institution such as a university or a research laboratory can apply to participate in the NASA SBIR/STTR program.