NASA is sending revolutionary technologies to the Moon aboard Intuitive Machines’ second lunar delivery as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface. 

As part of this CLPS flight to the Moon, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate will test novel technologies to learn more about what lies beneath the lunar surface, explore its challenging terrain, and improve in-space communication.  

The launch window for Intuitive Machines’ second CLPS delivery, IM-2, opens no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 26 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After the Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C class lunar lander reaches Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau near the Moon’s South Pole region, it will deploy several NASA and commercial technologies including a drill and mass spectrometer, a new cellular communication network, and a small drone that will survey difficult terrain before returning valuable data to Earth.

Here are five things to know about this unique mission to the Moon, the technologies we are sending, and the teams making it happen!  

1. Lunar South Pole Exploration 

IM-2’s landing site is known as one of the flatter regions in the South Pole region, suitable to meet Intuitive Machines’ requirement for a lit landing corridor and acceptable terrain slope. The landing location was selected by Intuitive Machines using data acquired by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.  

2. New Technology Demonstrations 

NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment, known as PRIME-1, is a suite of two instruments – a drill and mass spectrometer – designed to demonstrate our capability to look for ice and other resources that could be extracted and used to produce propellant and breathable oxygen for future explorers. The PRIME-1 technology will dig up to about three feet below the surface into the lunar soil where it lands, gaining key insight into the soil’s characteristics and temperature while detecting other resources that may lie beneath the surface.  

Data from the PRIME-1 technology demonstration will be made available to the public following the mission, enabling partners to accelerate the development of new missions and innovative technologies.   

3. Mobile Robots

Upon landing on the lunar surface, two commercial Tipping Point technology demonstrations will be deployed near Intuitive Machines’ lander, Tipping Points are collaborations between NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and industry that foster the development of commercial space capabilities and benefit future NASA missions. 

The first is a small hopping drone developed by Intuitive Machines. The hopper, named Grace, will deploy as a secondary payload from the lander and enable high-resolution surveying of the lunar surface, including permanently shadowed craters around the landing site. Grace is designed to bypass obstacles such as steep inclines, boulders, and craters to cover a lot of terrain while moving quickly, which is a valuable capability to support future missions on the Moon and other planets, including Mars. 

4. Lunar Surface Communication

The next Tipping Point technology will test a Lunar Surface Communications System developed by Nokia. This system employs the same cellular technology used here on Earth, reconceptualized by Nokia Bell Labs to meet the unique requirements of a lunar mission. The Lunar Surface Communications System will demonstrate proximity communications between the lander, a Lunar Outpost rover, and the hopper. 

5. Working Together

NASA is working with several U.S. companies to deliver technology and science to the lunar surface through the agency’s CLPS initiative.  

NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate plays a unique role in the IM-2 mission by strategically combining CLPS with NASA’s Tipping Point mechanism to maximize the potential benefit of this mission to NASA, industry, and the nation.  
NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative and Game Changing Development program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate led the maturation, development, and implementation of pivotal in-situ resource utilization, communication, and mobility technologies flying on IM-2.  

Join NASA to watch full mission updates, from launch to landing on NASA+, and share your experience on social media. Mission updates will be made available on NASA’s Artemis blog.  

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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

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

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NASA Space Tech’s Favorite Place to Travel in 2025: The Moon!

NASA Space Technology has big travel plans for 2025, starting with a trip to the near side of the Moon!

Among ten groundbreaking NASA science and technology demonstrations, two technologies are on a ride to survey lunar regolith – also known as “Moon dust” – to better understand surface interactions with incoming lander spacecraft and payloads conducting experiments on the surface. These dust demonstrations and the data they’re designed to collect will help support future lunar missions.  

Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched at 1:11 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company is targeting a lunar landing on Sunday, March 2. 

NASA Space Technology on Blue Ghost Mission 1

NASA’s Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) will lift, transport, and remove particles using electric fields to repel and prevent hazardous lunar dust accumulation on surfaces. The agency’s Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) technology will use stereo imaging to capture the impact of rocket plumes on lunar regolith as the lander descends to the Moon’s surface, returning high-resolution images that will help in creating models to predict regolith erosion – an important task as bigger, heavier payloads are delivered to the Moon in close proximity to each other. 

The EDS and SCALPSS technologies will be delivered to the Moon on Firefly’s first Blue Ghost mission, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Its landing target is a 300-mile-wide basin located on the Moon’s near side, called Mare Crisium – a large, dark, basaltic plain that filled an ancient asteroid impact. First-of-their-kind experiments will deploy after landing to gather important data in a broad spectrum of areas including geophysical characteristics, global navigation, radiation tolerant computing, and the behavior of lunar regolith.

Replicating the Moon’s harsh environment on Earth is a significant challenge because of extreme temperatures, low gravity, radiation, and dusty surface. The CLPS initiative provides unprecedented access to the lunar surface, allowing us to demonstrate technologies in the exact conditions they were designed for. Missions like Blue Ghost Mission 1 are a true game changer for NASA technology advancement and demonstration.”

Michael Johansen

Flight Demonstrations Lead for NASA’s Game Changing Development program

Understanding regolith

The Moon’s dusty environment was one of the greatest challenges astronauts faced during Apollo Moon missions, posing hazards to lunar surface systems, space suits, habitats, and instrumentation. What was learned from those early missions – and from thousands of experiments conducted on Earth and in space since – is that successful surface missions require the ability to eliminate dust from all kinds of systems. Lunar landings, for example, cause lunar dust to disperse in all directions and collect on everything that lands there with it. This is one of the reasons such technologies are important to understand. The SCALPSS technology will study the dispersion of lunar dust, while EDS will demonstrate a solution to mitigate it. 

Getting this new data on lunar regolith with be pivotal for our understanding of the lunar surface. We’ve long known that lunar dust is a huge challenge. The Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative has enabled us to initiate lunar dust mitigation efforts across the agency, working with industry and international partners. The lunar science, exploration, and technology communities are eager to have new quantitative data, and to prove laboratory experiments and develop technology solutions.”

Kristen John

Technical Integration Lead for NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII)

Dust mitigation technology has come a long way, but we still have a lot to learn to develop surface systems and infrastructure for more complex missions. LSII is actively engaged in this effort, working with the lunar community across sectors to expand knowledge and design new approaches for future technologies. Working alongside the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium, LSII has a unique opportunity to take a holistic look at dust’s role in the development of surface infrastructure with other key capability areas including in-situ resource utilization, surface power, and surviving the lunar night.  

Learning from the the Moon benefits Mars science and exploration

Capabilities for minimizing dust interaction are as important for future missions on Mars as it is for missions on the Moon. Like the Moon, Mars is also covered with regolith, also called Martian dust or Martian soil, but the properties are different than lunar regolith, both in shape and mineralogy. The challenges Mars rovers have encountered with Martian regolith have provided great insight into the challenges we will face during lunar surface missions. Learning is interwoven and beneficial to future missions whether hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth, on the Moon, or millions, on Mars.  

Learn more from a planetary scientist about how science factors into lunar dust mitigation technologies:

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NASA awarded new study contracts Thursday to help support life and work on the lunar surface. As part of the agency’s blueprint for deep space exploration to support the Artemis campaign, nine American companies in seven states are receiving awards.

The Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships Appendix R contracts will advance learning in managing everyday challenges in the lunar environment identified in the agency’s Moon to Mars architecture. 

“These contract awards are the catalyst for developing critical capabilities for the Artemis missions and the everyday needs of astronauts for long-term exploration on the lunar surface,” said Nujoud Merancy, deputy associate administrator, Strategy and Architecture Office at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The strong response to our request for proposals is a testament to the interest in human exploration and the growing deep-space economy. This is an important step to a sustainable return to the Moon that, along with our commercial partners, will lead to innovation and expand our knowledge for future lunar missions, looking toward Mars.”

The selected proposals have a combined value of $24 million, spread across multiple companies, and propose innovative strategies and concepts for logistics and mobility solutions including advanced robotics and autonomous capabilities:

• Blue Origin, Merritt Island, Florida – logistical carriers; logistics handling and offloading; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; surface cargo and mobility; and integrated strategies
• Intuitive Machines, Houston, Texas – logistics handling and offloading; and surface cargo and mobility
• Leidos, Reston, Virginia – logistical carriers; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; trash management; and integrated strategies
• Lockheed Martin, Littleton, Colorado – logistical carriers; logistics transfer; and surface cargo and mobility
• MDA Space, Houston – surface cargo and mobility
• Moonprint, Dover, Delaware – logistical carriers
• Pratt Miller Defense, New Hudson, Michigan – surface cargo and mobility
• Sierra Space, Louisville, Colorado – logistical carriers; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; trash management; and integrated strategies
• Special Aerospace Services, Huntsville, Alabama – logistical carriers; logistics handling and offloading; logistics transfer; staging, storage, and tracking; trash management; surface cargo and mobility; and integrated strategies

NASA is working with industry, academia, and the international community to continuously evolve the blueprint for crewed exploration and taking a methodical approach to investigating solutions that set humanity on a path to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

For more on NASA’s mission to return to the Moon, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis

-end-

Cindy Anderson / James Gannon
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cindy.a.anderson@nasa.gov / james.h.gannon@nasa.gov 

Robert Cabana, who served as a NASA associate administrator, astronaut, and a colonel in the United States Marine Corps, received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, recognizing his exceptional achievements and public service to the nation. The award, signed by President Biden, is the highest honor the federal government can grant to a federal civilian employee.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy presented Cabana with the award during a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington on Jan. 10. Cabana most recently served as NASA’s associate administrator, which is the agency’s highest ranking civil servant, from 2021 until he retired from the agency at the end of 2023.

“A true public servant, Bob has spent his entire career in service to his country. I can think of no one more deserving of this rare honor than Bob,” said Nelson. “From his time as a naval aviator to his role as associate administrator of NASA, Bob has dedicated his life to improving his country. I join with President Biden in thanking Bob for his dedication and commitment.”

The award recognized Cabana for his roles as a Marine aviator, test pilot, astronaut and becoming the first American to enter the International Space Station. He was further recognized for continuing to push for the bounds of the possible, launching the James Webb Space Telescope, the Artemis I mission and the Orion spacecraft which will send humans back to the Moon for the first time in decades.

As a NASA astronaut, Cabana flew in space four times, including twice as commander. His final space shuttle flight in 1998 was the first International Space Station assembly mission. Cabana also was the director of the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for more than a decade. There he led its transition from retirement of the space shuttle to a multi-user spaceport once again launching NASA astronauts to low Earth orbit, and for the first time, doing so with commercial partners.  

As NASA associate administrator, Cabana led the agency’s 10 center directors, as well as the mission directorate associate administrators at NASA Headquarters. He was the agency’s chief operating officer for more than 18,000 employees and oversaw an annual budget of more than $25 billion.  

Cabana was selected as an astronaut candidate in June 1985 and completed training in July 1986. He logged 38 days in space during four shuttle missions. Cabana was a pilot aboard space shuttle Discovery on both the STS-41 mission in October 1990 that deployed the Ulysses spacecraft and the STS-53 mission in December 1992. He was the mission commander aboard space shuttle Columbia for the STS-65 mission in July 1994 that conducted experiments as part of the second International Microgravity Laboratory mission. He commanded space shuttle Endeavour for the STS-88 mission in December 1998.

Cabana was appointed a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service in 2000 and served in numerous senior management positions at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, ultimately becoming deputy director. He was named director of NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi in October 2007 and a year later was selected as NASA Kennedy director. 

Born in Minneapolis, Cabana graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He became a naval aviator and graduated with distinction from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in 1981. In his career, Cabana logged over 7,000 hours in more than 50 different kinds of aircraft. He retired as a colonel from the U.S. Marine Corps in September 2000. 

In addition to receiving the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service, Cabana’s accomplishments have been recognized with induction into the Astronaut Hall of Fame and being named an Associate Fellow in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. He has received numerous personal awards and decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award. He also is a recipient of the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement’s National Space Trophy. 

For Cabana’s full bio, visit: 

https://go.nasa.gov/3u9hGB2

-end- 

Meira Bernstein / Jennifer Dooren
Headquarters, Washington
202-615-1747 / 202-358-1600
meira.b.bernstein@nasa.gov / jennifer.m.dooren@nasa.gov