Scientist John Dorelli explains the MMS mission's orbit and why the four spacecraft fly in a tetrahedron formation. This complex arrangement enables scientists to gather data about magnetic reconnection in 3D.

his visualization shows the proposed orbits of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) during the dayside magnetosheath/magnetopause orbit phase. Then it zooms in to show that there are actually four spacecraft flying in a tetrahedral formation.
Credit: NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio

What's the best way get a sample of an asteroid? Play tag with it! That's the plan for OSIRIS-REx, a NASA spacecraft that will approach the asteroid Bennu in 2018. The collection will be done with an instrument on board called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or, TAGSAM. Learn how it works in this video.

The OSIRIS-REx mission, launching in September 2016, plans to return a sample of asteroid Bennu to Earth in 2023 so that scientists can study pristine material left over from the early solar system. Dante Lauretta, Principal Investigator for OSIRIS-REx, provides an overview of this asteroid sample return mission.

Imagine a technology that would allow space travelers to transmit gigabytes of data per second over interplanetary distances or to navigate to Mars and beyond using powerful beams of light emanating from rotating neutron stars. The concept isn't farfetched.
In fact, Goddard astrophysicists Keith Gendreau and Zaven Arzoumanian plan to fly a multi-purpose instrument on the International Space Station to demonstrate the viability of two groundbreaking navigation and communication technologies and, from the same platform, gather scientific data revealing the physics of dense matter in neutron stars.

Engineers install the flight Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) into the heart of the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Webb Space Telescope's giant primary mirror, arguably its most critical and difficult part, is approaching completion. The 18-segment mirror stands two stories high and is designed to best capture the infrared light Webb seeks. Follow the mirror's journey from rough ore to precisely reflective, gold-coated segments in this video, which details how the mirrors are constructed and tested.

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Earth's cryosphere, one of Earth's six spheres, is composed of all its frozen structures including sea ice, ice caps, and permafrost. Understanding changes in the cryosphere provides scientists with valuable information about the past, present, and future of the planet. Amazingly, 99% of Earth's fresh water is held in two massive ice sheets. ICESat-2 is a satellite designed to help scientists learn more about Earth's ice and the role ice plays in climate.

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Learn how the second generation of the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite, better known as ICESat-2, is being used to map the ice structures in the world's polar regions. Manipulating the distribution of photons by lasers to create accurate images of these frozen structures allows scientists to study their changes and impact on Earth's climate.

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Since its inception in 1958, NASA has relied exclusively on radio frequency (RF)-based communications as the only viable medium for exchanging data between a mission and a spacecraft. Today, with missions demanding communication with higher data rates than ever before, NASA is taking steps to embark on a new era of communication technology. The Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) project will help pave the way, pioneering technologies that will enable the exchange of data through beams of light.

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Plasma Physicist Conrad Schiff updates NASA EDGE on the health and performance of all four spacecraft. With four times the data, NASA is getting an unprecedented look at the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection.

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Four NASA spacecraft have performed a thrilling maneuver to understand the physics of explosive reconnection in Earth's magnetosphere..

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WFIRST, the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope, is a NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. The telescope has a primary mirror that is 2.4 meters in diameter (7.9 feet), and is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror. WFIRST will have two instruments, the Wide Field Instrument, and the Coronagraph Instrument.

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NASA officially is beginning work on an astrophysics mission designed to help unlock the secrets of the universe -- the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

With a view 100 times bigger than that of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, WFIRST will aid researchers in their efforts to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, and explore the evolution of the cosmos. It also will discover new worlds outside our solar system and advance the search for worlds that could be suitable for life.