Science Mission Directorate

Ames Research Center's Science Directorate
Ames Research Center
Earth
Earth Science
Earth Science Division
PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem)
Science Mission Directorate
In autumn 2024, California’s Monterey Bay experienced an outsized phytoplankton bloom that attracted fish, dolphins, whales, seabirds, and – for a few weeks in October – scientists.
Posted June 26, 2025
Science-enabling Technology
Earth
Earth Science
Earth Science Division
Earth's Moon
General
Goddard Space Flight Center
Langley Research Center
Lunar Science
Science Instruments
Science Mission Directorate
Small Satellite Missions
Technology
NASA will soon launch a one-of-a-kind instrument, called Arcstone, to improve the quality of data from Earth-viewing sensors in orbit. In this technology demonstration, the mission will measure sunlight reflected from the Moon— a technique called lunar calibration.
Posted June 21, 2025
Heliophysics
Science Mission Directorate
Science-enabling Technology
Technology Highlights
A NASA-sponsored team is creating a new approach to measure magnetic fields by developing a new system that can both take scientific measurements and provide spacecraft attitude control functions.
Posted June 17, 2025
Goddard Space Flight Center
Heliophysics
Heliophysics Division
Ionosphere
Missions
NASA Centers & Facilities
NASA Directorates
Science & Research
Science Mission Directorate
Sounding Rockets
Sounding Rockets Program
The Solar System
The Sun
Uncategorized
Wallops Flight Facility
Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics
NASA is launching rockets from a remote Pacific island to study mysterious, high-altitude cloud-like structures that can disrupt critical communication systems. The mission, called Sporadic-E ElectroDynamics, or SEED, opens its three-week launch window from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on Friday, June 13.
Posted June 12, 2025
Game Changing Development Program
Kennedy Space Center
Science Mission Directorate
Space Technology Mission Directorate
NASA’s RASSOR (Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) manipulates a simulant of regolith – the fragmental material found on the Moon’s surface – during a site preparation test inside of the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on May 27.
Posted June 3, 2025
ISS Research
Biological & Physical Sciences
International Space Station (ISS)
Science & Research
Science Mission Directorate
How do we do research in zero gravity? Actually when astronauts do experiments on the International Space Station, for instance, to environment on organisms, that environment is actually technically called microgravity. That is, things feel weightless, but we’re still under the influence of Earth’s gravity.
Posted May 28, 2025
Dragonfly
Missions
NASA Directorates
Planetary Science
Planetary Science Division
Planets
Saturn
Saturn Moons
Science Mission Directorate
The Solar System
When it descends through the thick golden haze on Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft will find eerily familiar terrain. Dunes wrap around Titan’s equator. Clouds drift across its skies. Rain drizzles. Rivers flow, forming canyons, lakes and seas.  But not everything is as familiar as it seems.
Posted May 22, 2025
Astrophysics
Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
Science Mission Directorate
The Universe
How big is space? Space is really big. Thinking about our solar system, let’s imagine you could get in a car and drive to Pluto at highway speeds. It would take you about 6,000 years to get there. When we start to think about other stars outside of our solar system, we need to think […]
Posted May 21, 2025
Science Mission Directorate
Heliophysics
Heliophysics Division
The Solar System
The Sun
The Sun & Solar Physics
Will the Sun ever burn out? Well, the Sun, just like the stars we see at night, is a star. It’s a giant ball of super hot hydrogen. Gravity squeezes it in and it creates energy, which is what makes the Sun shine. Eventually, it will use up all of that hydrogen. But in the […]
Posted May 15, 2025
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