Small Spacecraft Technology Program

NASA Centers & Facilities

Venus

NASA Installs Heat Shield on First Private Spacecraft Bound for Venus

Engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Bohdan Wesely, right, and Eli Hiss, left, complete a fit check of the two halves of a space capsule that will study the clouds of Venus for signs of life. Led by Rocket Lab of Long Beach, California, and their partners at the Massachusetts Institute […]

Posted February 27, 2025

General

NASA Invites Media to Learn about Spacecraft Autonomous Tech Firsts

NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley invites media to learn more about Distributed Spacecraft Autonomy (DSA), a technology that allows individual spacecraft to make independent decisions while collaborating with each other to achieve common goals – without human input.

Posted February 5, 2025

CubeSats

Game Changing Development Program

NASA Demonstrates Software ‘Brains’ Shared Across Satellite Swarms

Talk amongst yourselves, get on the same page, and work together to get the job done! This “pep talk” roughly describes how new NASA technology works within satellite swarms.

Posted February 4, 2025

General

Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC)

Europa Clipper

Game Changing Development Program

Goddard Space Flight Center

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Langley Research Center

Marshall Space Flight Center

Science & Research

Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business

Space Communications & Navigation Program

Space Operations Mission Directorate

Technology

Technology Demonstration

Technology Demonstration Missions Program

NASA Technologies Named Among TIME Inventions of 2024

As NASA continues to innovate for the benefit of humanity, agency inventions that use new structures to harness sunlight for space travel, enable communications with spacecraft at record-breaking distances, and determine the habitability of a moon of Jupiter, were named Wednesday among TIME’s Inventions of 2024.

Posted October 30, 2024

General

CubeSats

Marshall Space Flight Center

Small Satellite Missions

NASA Begins New Deployable Solar Array Tech Demo on Pathfinder Spacecraft

NASA recently evaluated initial flight data and imagery from Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-4 (PTD-4), confirming proper checkout of the spacecraft’s systems including its on-board electronics as well as the payload’s support systems such as the small onboard camera.

Posted October 23, 2024

Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business

Small Satellite Missions

Space Sustainability

Getting SSPICY: NASA Funds Orbital Debris Inspection Mission

NASA is advancing an innovative approach to enabling commercial inspection of defunct, or inoperable, satellites in low Earth orbit, a precursor to capturing and repairing or removing the satellites.

Posted September 25, 2024

General

Langley Research Center

Like a Diamond in the Sky: How to Spot NASA’s Solar Sail Demo in Orbit

Now that its reflective sail has deployed fully open in orbit, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System can be seen in the night sky from many locations across the world! Stargazers can join NASA’s #SpotTheSail campaign by using the NASA app on mobile platforms to find out when the spacecraft will be visible at their location. The app, […]

Posted September 9, 2024

CubeSats

Game Changing Development Program

General

Small Satellite Missions

Tech Demo Missions

Swarming for Success: Starling Completes Primary Mission

After ten months in orbit, the Starling spacecraft swarm successfully demonstrated its primary mission’s key objectives, representing significant achievements in the capability of swarm configurations. Swarms of satellites may one day be used in deep space exploration.

Posted May 29, 2024

General

Langley Research Center

NASA Centers & Facilities