Flight Projects in Operations

The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is a NASA mission that will collect information on the processes behind carbon dioxide exchange in the ocean. By monitoring aerosols in the atmosphere along with plankton on the surface of the ocean, scientists can collect information…

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an observatory that uses infrared light to capture images of the way the universe looked approximately 200 million years after the big bang. Currently, the James Webb Space Telescope is the largest telescope orbiting in space with 18 mirror segments and…

Europa Clipper is a robotic solar-powered spacecraft built to conduct the first detailed investigations of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and make nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine whether there are places below Europa’s surface that could support life. With its solar arrays deployed, Europa Clipper spans more than 100 feet (about 30 meters) – about the…

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission will determine how much of the Martian atmosphere has been lost over time by measuring the current rate of escape to space and gathering enough information about the relevant processes to allow extrapolation backward in time…

Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, spacecraft traveled to a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu (formerly 1999 RQ36). It collected a sample of rocks and dust from Bennu’s surface on October 20, 2020. The spacecraft delivered the…

The NASA Parker Solar Probe mission is a mission designed to help humanity better understand the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. As such, the primary goals are to examine the acceleration of solar wind through the movement of heat and energy in the Sun’s…

NASA’s Lucy mission will study the Trojan asteroids for the purpose of helping humanity understand the formation of planets and the solar system. Lucy is the first space mission to study the Trojans and was launched on Oct. 16, 2021. Overall, the mission is a 12-year endeavor with the spacecraft using gravity assistance form Earth. With the help of…

The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) team received telemetry from GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U), indicating the spacecraft is functioning nominally and is power positive. The NOAA GOES-U satellite has now safely deployed, and NOAA has acquired a signal. GOES-U will…

Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) is a NASA mission aimed at understanding how the Sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields connect and disconnect. These processes known as magnetic reconnection facilitate energy transfers that effect the Earth, Sun and universe. MMS sensors measure charged…

The Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, measures the height of a changing Earth, one laser pulse at a time, 10,000 laser pulses a second. Launched September 15, 2018, ICESat-2 carries a photon-counting laser altimeter that allows scientists to measure the elevation of ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice…

Throughout the history of science, revolutionary instruments propel our understanding with their landmark discoveries. The Hubble Space Telescope is a testament to that concept. Its design, technology and serviceability have made it one of NASA’s most transformative observatories. From determining the…

The PUNCH mission will use four suitcase-sized satellites to observe the Sun and its environment. Working together, the four PUNCH satellites will create a combined field of view and map the region where the Sun’s corona (or outer atmosphere) transitions to the solar wind (the constant outflow of…