One of three small lunar rovers — part of a NASA technology demonstration called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) — is prepared for shipping in a clean room on Jan. 29, 2025, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The project is designed to show that a group of robots can collaborate to gather data without receiving direct commands from mission controllers on Earth, paving the way for potential future multirobot missions. The autonomous rovers, plus a base station and camera system, 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. The CADRE hardware was delivered from NASA JPL to Intuitive Machines on Feb. 9, 2025.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Blue mach diamonds from the main engine nozzles and bright exhaust from the solid rocket boosters mark the successful launch of space shuttle Endeavour 25 years ago on Feb. 11, 2000. The STS-99 mission crew – including astronauts from NASA, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), and the European Space Agency (ESA) – were aboard the shuttle.

This mission saw the deployment of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission mast and the antenna turned to its operation position. After a successful checkout of the radar systems, mapping began less than 12 hours after launch. Crewmembers split into two shifts so they could work around the clock.

Also aboard Endeavour was a student experiment called EarthKAM, which took 2,715 digital photos during the mission through an overhead flight-deck window. The NASA-sponsored program lets middle school students select photo targets and receive the images via the Internet. 

Image credit: NASA

Crew aboard space shuttle Columbia captured this image of Mount Everest on Nov. 30, 1996, during the STS-80 mission. STS-80, the final shuttle flight of 1996, was highlighted by the successful deployment, operation, and retrieval of two free-flying research spacecraft.

See more photos from this mission.

Image credit: NASA

The full moon rises over the Superdome and the city of New Orleans, Louisiana on Monday evening, January 13, 2025.

New Orleans is home to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility where several pieces of hardware for the SLS (Space Launch system) are being built. For more than half a century, NASA Michoud has been “America’s Rocket Factory,” the nation’s premiere site for manufacturing and assembly of large-scale space structures and systems.

See more photos from NASA Michoud.

Image credit: NASA/Michael DeMocker

This Feb. 5, 1971, photo gives an excellent view of the Apollo 14 lunar module on the Moon’s surface after landing. At left, we can see that the astronauts – Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell – deployed the U.S. flag before taking this photo of the lunar module.

Shepard and Mitchell touched down in the Fra Mauro highlands region and conducted two moonwalks lasting more than nine hours in total. They set up an experiment package and collected 93 pounds of rock and soil samples to return to waiting scientists on Earth. In the meantime, astronaut Stuart Roosa, who remained in orbit aboard the command module, conducted observations and photography of the lunar surface from orbit. After their 33-hour lunar surface stay, Shepard and Mitchell rejoined Roosa in orbit, and left lunar orbit for the three-day return trip to Earth.

Image credit: NASA

A crane lowers the 112-foot-wide (34-meter-wide) steel framework for the Deep Space Station 23 (DSS-23) reflector dish into position on Dec. 18, 2024, at the Deep Space Network’s (DSN) Goldstone Space Communications Complex near Barstow, California. Once online in 2026, DSS-23 will be the fifth of six new beam waveguide antennas to be added to the network; DSS-23 will boost the DSN’s capacity and enhance NASA’s deep space communications capabilities for decades to come.

The DSN allows missions to track, send commands to, and receive scientific data from faraway spacecraft. More than 100 NASA and non-NASA missions rely on the DSN and Near Space Network, including supporting astronauts aboard the International Space Station and future Artemis missions, supporting lunar exploration, and uncovering the solar system and beyond.

Watch a time-lapse video of construction activities on Dec. 18.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory rests horizontally in this April 2024 image taken at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado. This orientation shows the observatory’s three layers of photon shields – the metallic concentric cones.

Over a two-year planned mission, the SPHEREx Observatory will collect data on more than 450 million galaxies along with more than 100 million stars in the Milky Way in order to explore the origins of the universe.

Tune in at 12 p.m. EST Jan. 31, 2025, to hear agency experts preview the mission. SPHEREx is targeted to launch no earlier than Feb. 27, 2025.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/BAE Systems

This Oct. 29, 2018, image from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captures geysers of gas and dust that occur in springtime in the South Polar region of Mars. As the Sun rises higher in the sky, the thick coating of carbon dioxide ice that accumulated over the winter begins to warm and then turn to vapor. Sunlight penetrates through the transparent ice and is absorbed at the base of the ice layer. The gas that forms because of the warming escapes through weaknesses in the ice and erupts in the form of geysers.

HiRISE, or the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, is a powerful camera that takes pictures covering vast areas of Martian terrain while being able to see features as small as a kitchen table.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

A NASA photographer took this portrait of a curious sandhill crane on March 24, 2021, near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Sandhill cranes are just one of the hundreds of types of birds that call the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which shares space with NASA Kennedy, their home.

See more photos of birds at NASA Kennedy.

Image credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a dusty yet sparkling scene from one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Large Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy situated about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.

Despite being only 10–20% as massive as the Milky Way galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud contains some of the most impressive nearby star-forming regions. The scene pictured here is on the outskirts of the Tarantula Nebula, the largest and most productive star-forming region in the local universe. At its center, the Tarantula Nebula hosts the most massive stars known, weighing roughly 200 times the mass of the Sun.

The section of the nebula shown here features serene blue gas, brownish-orange dust patches, and a sprinkling of multicolored stars. The stars within and behind the dust clouds appear redder than those that are unobscured by dust. Dust absorbs and scatters blue light more than red light, allowing more of the red light to reach our telescopes, which makes the stars appear redder than they are. This image incorporates ultraviolet and infrared light as well as visible light. Using Hubble observations of dusty nebulae in the Large Magellanic Cloud and other galaxies, researchers can study these distant dust grains, helping them better understand the role that cosmic dust plays in the formation of new stars and planets.

NASA astronaut Suni Williams is seen outside the International Space Station during the Jan. 16, 2025, spacewalk where she and fellow NASA astronaut Nick Hague replaced a rate gyro assembly that helps maintain the orientation of the orbital outpost. It was the fourth spacewalk for Hague and the eighth for Williams.

Williams and Hague also installed patches to cover damaged areas of light filters on the NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray telescope, replaced a reflector device on one of the international docking adapters, and checked access areas and connector tools that astronauts will use for future Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer maintenance.

Stay up to date with International Space Station activities by visiting the space station blog.

Image credit: NASA

The Stone of Hope, a granite statue of civil rights movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is seen in this image from Jan. 5, 2025. The statue is part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington.

Dr. King inspired millions to answer the righteous call for racial equality and to build a world where every person is treated equally, with dignity and respect. NASA is committed to innovate for the benefit of humanity and to inspire the world through discovery.

Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the planet Jupiter in a color composite of ultraviolet wavelengths. Released on Nov. 3, 2023, in honor of Jupiter reaching opposition, which occurs when the planet and the Sun are in opposite sides of the sky, this view of the gas giant planet includes the iconic, massive storm called the “Great Red Spot.” Though the storm appears red to the human eye, in this ultraviolet image it appears darker because high altitude haze particles absorb light at these wavelengths. The reddish, wavy polar hazes are absorbing slightly less of this light due to differences in either particle size, composition, or altitude.

Learn more about Hubble and how this type of data can help us learn more about our universe.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Wong (University of California – Berkeley); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Elton W. Miller, chief of aerodynamics at what is now NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, stands in the entrance cone of the Propeller Research Tunnel in this Sept. 9, 1926, photo. In front of the entrance is the Sperry M-1 Messenger, the first full-scale airplane tested in the tunnel.

The Propeller Research Tunnel, or PRT as it came to be known, was only the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ third wind tunnel and the largest one built. The PRT was in fact the largest tunnel built at that time anywhere in the world. Designed to accommodate a full-scale propeller, the throat of the PRT was 20 feet in diameter.

Learn more about the PRT from the report originally published in December 1928.

Image credit: NASA

An adult Alamosaurus sports eclipse glasses outside of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, on April 6, 2024. Two days later, the total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

The NASA Headquarters photo team chose this image as one of the best from 2024. See more of the top 100 from last year on Flickr.

Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

On April 21, 1972, NASA astronaut John W. Young, commander of the Apollo 16 mission, took a far-ultraviolet photo of Earth with an ultraviolet camera. Young’s original black-and-white picture was printed on Agfacontour professional film three times, with each exposure recording only one light level. The three light levels were then colored blue (dimmest), green (next brightest), and red (brightest), resulting in the enhanced-color image seen here.

Dr. George Carruthers, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, developed the ultraviolet camera – the first Moon-based observatory – for Apollo 16. Apollo 16 astronauts placed the observatory on the Moon in April 1972, where it sits today on the Moon’s Descartes highland region, in the shadow of the lunar module Orion.

Image credit: NASA

On Jan. 10, 2025, NASA astronaut Don Pettit posted two images of the Los Angeles fires from the International Space Station. Multiple destructive fires broke out in the hills of Los Angeles County in early January 2025, fueled by a dry landscape and winds that gusted up to 100 miles per hour.

See satellite imagery of the fires.

Image credit: NASA/Don Pettit

In this Dec. 11, 1963, image, technicians prepare a test subject for studies on the Reduced Gravity Walking Simulator at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. This position meant that a person’s legs experienced only one sixth of their weight, which was the equivalent of being on the Moon’s surface. The simulator was used to study the subject while walking, jumping, or running; it also was used to train Apollo astronauts for completing tasks in the unfamiliar lunar environment.

The effect was quite realistic. When asked what it was like to land on the Moon, Neil Armstrong replied, “Like Langley.”

Image credit: NASA

From left, CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jenni Gibbons, NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, and NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman participate in a media day event on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Gibbons and Douglas are Artemis II backup crew members.

The Artemis II test flight will be NASA’s first mission with crew under the Artemis campaign, sending astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back.

Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA photographer Joel Kowsky captured this image of the Monday, April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana. The total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

The NASA Headquarters photo team chose this image as one of the best from 2024. See more of the top 100 from last year on Flickr.

Image Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky