| In this week’s newsletter, discover the NASA science and technology delivered to the lunar surface on Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1; find out the best way to observe March’s Lunar Eclipse; and accept the challenge to design the zero-gravity indicator that will fly around the Moon during the Artemis II mission! Plus, more stories you might have missed. |
| Carrying NASA science and technology, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed on the lunar surface at 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. “This incredible achievement demonstrates how NASA and American companies are leading the way in space exploration for the benefit of all,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro. “We have already learned many lessons—and the technological and science demonstrations onboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will improve our ability to not only discover more science but also to ensure the safety of our spacecraft instruments for future human exploration—both in the short term and long term.” During surface operations, the NASA instruments will test and demonstrate lunar subsurface drilling technology, regolith sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation-tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation methods. The data captured will benefit humanity by providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact Earth. MISSION UPDATES |
 | COMMERCIAL SPACE Lunar Navigation NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on Monday, March 3, when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment, or LuGRE, became the first technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the Moon’s surface. LuGRE’s success indicates that signals from the Global Navigation Satellite System can be received and tracked on the Moon. GPS ON THE MOON |
| HUMANS IN SPACE NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Mission Concludes NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission with agency astronauts Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov is preparing to return to Earth following their science mission aboard the International Space Station. Hague, Williams, and Wilmore completed more than 900 hours of scientific research during their stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. SPACE STATION SCIENCE |  |
 THE SOLAR SYSTEM March’s Lunar Eclipse The Moon will pass into Earth’s shadow and appear to turn red on the night of March 13, or early in the morning on March 14, depending on the time zone. This eclipse will be visible from Earth’s Western Hemisphere and can be viewed without any special equipment. LEARN MORE |  ARTEMIS Moon Mascot Wanted Will you design the zero-gravity indicator that will fly around the Moon during the Artemis II mission? Zero-gravity indicators are small items carried aboard spacecraft that provide a visual indicator for when a spacecraft has reached the weightlessness of microgravity. This challenge is open to creatives of all ages from all over the world. LEARN MORE |
| More NASA News |
 | Data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory indicates a planet may have been destroyed by a white dwarf at the center of a planetary nebula— the first time this has been seen. This discovery could explain a mysterious X-ray signal that astronomers have detected from the Helix Nebula for over 40 years. |
 | Join us virtually for live prelaunch and launch activities for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov to the orbiting laboratory for a science mission of about four months. |
 | The puzzle of predicting how three gravitationally bound bodies move in space has challenged mathematicians for centuries and has been popularized in the novel The Three-Body Problem. There’s no problem, however, with what a team of researchers say is likely a stable trio of icy space rocks in the solar system’s Kuiper Belt, found using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and W. M. Keck Observatory. |
 | On Tuesday, Feb. 25, mission engineers turned off the cosmic ray subsystem experiment aboard Voyager 1 and will shut off Voyager 2’s low-energy charged particle instrument later this month. The farthest-flung human-made objects will be able to take their science-gathering even farther, thanks to these energy-conserving measures. |
 | A NASA and U.S. Geological Survey-supported research and development team, OpenET, is making it easier for farmers and ranchers to manage their water resources with the Farm and Ranch Management Support (FARMS) tool. FARMS puts timely, high-resolution water data directly in the hands of individuals and small farm operators. |
 | Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of researchers has discovered that previously observed variations in brightness of a free-floating planetary-mass object must be the result of a complex combination of atmospheric factors, and cannot be explained by clouds alone. The rapidly rotating, free-floating object roughly 13 times the mass of Jupiter, is located in the Milky Way just 20 light-years from Earth. |
 | This week, we honored a milestone in NASA’s history—the 110th anniversary of the founding of our predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). To celebrate, archival photography is brought to life in this video, providing a deeper look at the contributions of the four research centers where it all began. |
| Do You Know? |
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| Did you know that this Sunday is National Meatball Day? NASA’s round insignia, adopted in 1959, has been called “the meatball” since 1975. Each component of the logo is symbolic of an aspect of NASA’s mission. |
| What is the red, v-shaped element of NASA’s logo based on? A. A snake’s tongue B. A supersonic wing C. Shock waves produced by supersonic flight D. A parasail designed for the Gemini spacecraft’s return from space |
| Find out the answer in next week’s edition of the NASA newsletter! |
 | Last week, we asked where the first laboratory for carrying out aeronautical research was established. The answer? Hampton, Virginia! The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) cooperated with a U.S. Army Air Service project to collocate their research facility with a new airfield. After scouting 15 tracts of land, the U.S. Army chose 1,650 acres just north of the town of Hampton in southeast Virginia for its new airfield. |
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| Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge Do you have a telescope? Would you like to see some of the same night sky objects from the ground that Hubble has from space? We invite you to commemorate the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35th anniversary by accepting our yearlong stargazing challenge! New challenge objects will be featured weekly. This week’s object is Messier 44, or the “Beehive cluster,” a group of about 1,000 stars in the constellation Cancer the Crab. Hubble peered through the far southwestern edge of M44 to capture this image of stars and background galaxies. With the unaided eye from a dark sky site, M44 looks like a hazy light high in the southern sky at around 10 p.m. A pair of binoculars can resolve about 20 of the cluster’s relatively young, blue-white stars. JOIN THE CELEBRATION |
Note: This is a NASA publication re-formatted to fit this screen. Used with permission.