Close-up view of the tail section of the modified C-141 Kuiper Airborne Observatory, (KAO) (NASA-714), during its demolition on the N211 apron at Moffett Field, California.

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds fly over NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, during the second phase of its winter training in February 2025 to prepare for the upcoming air show season. The Thunderbirds perform all over the world in F-16 Fighting Falcons, a multi-role fighter jet.

Employees with BAE Systems pose for a photo following the arrival of NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. SPHEREx will use its telescope to provide an all-sky spectral survey, creating a 3D map of the entire sky to help scientists investigate the origins of our universe. Riding along with SPHEREx, NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission will study origins of the Sun’s outflow of material, or the solar wind. Liftoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is targeted for 10:09 p.m. EST (7:09 p.m. PST), Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, from Space Launch Complex 4 East.

Technicians with Exploration Ground Systems prepare to transfer and lift the right forward segment for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket boosters into High Bay 3 inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. The right forward segment will be attached to the center forward segment on mobile launcher 1. The twin solid boosters, five segments on each side, will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artemis II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust during liftoff from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B.

NASA Director for Human Space Flight Programs, Russia, Jay Marschke, presents during a meeting with Roscosmos, and Russian Search and Recovery Forces at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, Friday, April 18, 2025. Teams discussed the readiness for the landing of Expedition 72 NASA astronaut Don Pettit, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA’s F-15D research aircraft is positioned behind the X-59 during electromagnetic compatibility testing at U.S. Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. During this test, the F-15D’s radar and avionics were turned on one at a time while engineers evaluated each signal’s interaction with the X-59 for possible interference. NASA’s Quesst mission will demonstrate quiet supersonic technology that will provide data to help determine an acceptable sound limit in the sky.

The Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial is seen during a wreath laying ceremony that was part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

iss072e593598 (Feb. 4, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams monitors an Astrobee robotic free-flyer outfitted with tentacle-like arms containing gecko-like adhesive pads preparing to grapple a "capture cube." The toaster sized Astrobee, with the experimental grippers attached, demonstrated autonomous detection and capture techniques that may be used to remove space debris and service satellites in low Earth orbit.

Removing the skin from the airframe of the modified C-141 Kuiper Airborne Observatory, (KAO) (NASA-714), on the N211 apron at Moffett Field, California.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, left, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Zubritskiy interact with family and friends as they prepare depart the Cosmonaut Hotel along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov to suit-up for their Soyuz launch to the International Space Station, Tuesday, April 8, 2025 (April 7 Eastern Time), in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The launch will send Kim, Ryzhikov, Zubritskiy on a mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Engineers and technicians with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program prepare to lift the left center center booster segment shown with the iconic NASA “worm” insignia for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. The booster segment is shown attached to a lifting beam ahead of integration onto the mobile launcher. The boosters will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artemis II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust during liftoff from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B.

jsc2025e015693 (3/6/2025) --- An example of cheddar cheese alternative made with Chlorella protein concentrate. The SOPHie’s ON hamSTER (SOPHONSTER) investigation aims to cultivate microalgae (Chlorella sp.) in a space environment to study growth, protein content, and cell wall rigidity under microgravity conditions. Results could elucidate ways to improve plant-based, protein-rich alternatives to cow dairy. Image courtesy of Sophie’s BioNutrients.

jsc2025e015860 (March 7, 2025) --- NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 Pilot Nichole Ayers poses for a portrait in her pressure suit at the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, California. Credit: SpaceX

Artemis II NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman, commander, tours Artemis II operations with Artemis team members inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. For Artemis II, four astronauts will venture around the Moon, the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration through Artemis.

The Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, is seen during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro, background, and NASA Astronaut Kayla Barron, place flowers at the Apollo 1 grave sites of Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee as part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Kevin Metrocavage, NASA Headquarters Space Operations Center (SOC) Manager, Space Operations Mission Directorate, speaks with John Rhys-Davies, the actor best known for his roles as Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Sallah in the Indiana Jones franchise, about the International Space Station in the SOC, Friday, March 28, 2025 at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington, DC. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Rusty Hunt during the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) vehicle operational readiness test in the Multi-Mission Operations Center (MMOC), N240A.

iss072e978997 (April 13, 2025) --- The Moon's light is refracted by the Earth's atmosphere giving it a spheroid shape in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited into a sunset 264 miles above the border between Bolivia and Brazil in South America.

The Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, is seen during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Thursday, March 27, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Casey Swails, left, and Jessica Gregory from NASA’s Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, speak to delegates of the U.S. Senate Youth Program during a fireside chat, Wednesday, March 5, 2025 at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) arrives in Mesa, Arizona, after traveling from Italy, where Thales Alenia Space fabricated its primary structure. Delivered by cargo aircraft to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, HALO will be transported to Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert for final outfitting.

Spacey Casey poses for a photo during the White House Easter Egg Roll, Monday, April 21, 2025, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)

Expedition 73 backup crewmember Sergey Kud-Skverchkov of Roscosmos is seen in quarantine, behind glass, during a press conference, Monday, April 7, 2025 a the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Expedition 73 crew members: NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft on April 8. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

The instrument enclosure for NASA's Near-Earth Object Surveyor is prepared for environmental testing inside the historic Chamber A in the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston in December 2024. Mounted to its articulating platform, on which it was securely positioned during assembly, the 12-foot-long (3.7-meter-long) angular structure was inspected by technicians before being placed inside the testing chamber. Figure A shows the reflective side of the instrument enclosure as it was rotated on the assembly dolly before being transferred to a testing platform. The cavernous opening to Chamber A is in the background. The instrument enclosure is designed to protect the spacecraft's infrared telescope while also removing heat from it during operations. After environmental testing was completed, the enclosure returned to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for further work, after which it will ship to the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) in Logan, Utah, and be joined to the telescope. Both the instrument enclosure and telescope were assembled at JPL. As NASA's first space-based detection mission specifically designed for planetary defense, NEO Surveyor will seek out, measure, and characterize the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose a hazard to Earth. While many near-Earth objects don't reflect much visible light, they glow brightly in infrared light due to heating by the Sun. The spacecraft's telescope, which has an aperture of nearly 20 inches (50 centimeters), features detectors sensitive to two infrared wavelengths in which near-Earth objects re-radiate solar heat. Targeting launch in late 2027, the NEO Surveyor mission is led by Prof. Amy Mainzer at UCLA for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office and is being managed by JPL for the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. BAE Systems, SDL, and Teledyne are among the companies that were contracted to build the spacecraft and its instrumentation. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder will support operations, and Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California, is responsible for producing some of the mission's data products. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26582

A transport truck carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, arrives at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. SPHEREx will enter a polar orbit around Earth and create a 3D map of the entire sky, gathering information about millions of galaxies for scientists to study what happened after the big bang, the history of galaxy evolution, and the origins of water in planetary systems in our galaxy. SPHEREx will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late February 2025.

Dr. Karen St. Germain, NASA director of the Earth Science Division, speaks with John Rhys-Davies, the actor best known for his roles as Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Sallah in the Indiana Jones franchise at the Earth Information Center (EIC), Friday, March 28, 2025 at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington, DC. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick, is seen during an Expedition 71 postflight presentation, Monday, March 3, 2025, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters Building in Washington. Dominick, Michael Barrett, Tracy Dyson, and Jeanette Epps served as part of Expedition 71 aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Teams at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans move a liquid hydrogen tank for the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket into the factory’s final assembly area on April 22. Having recently completed application of the thermal protection system, teams will now continue outfitting the 130-foot-tall tank with critical systems to ready it for its designated Artemis III mission. The propellant tank is one of five major elements that make up the 212-foot-tall rocket stage. The core stage, along with its four RS-25 engines, produce more than two million pounds of thrust to help launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft, astronauts, and supplies beyond Earth’s orbit and to the lunar surface for Artemis.

NASA's SPHEREx observatory will map the entire sky to help scientists answer big-picture questions about the origins of our universe, galaxies, and key ingredients for life in our galaxy, such as water. Operating from low Earth orbit, the telescope will sweep across the sky, taking about 600 exposures each day. Using a technique called spectroscopy, the observatory will image every section of the sky 102 times, each time using a different color filter that blocks all wavelengths except one. By combining those images, the mission will produce a map containing information about the composition of and distance to millions of stars and other objects in our galaxy and hundreds of millions of galaxies beyond. (See an animation of this process, depicted in a still artist's concept above, at spherex.caltech.edu/video/all-sky-survey.) Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx will help scientists study what happened in the first fraction of a second after the big bang, how galaxies formed and evolved, and the origins of water in planetary systems in our galaxy. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26533

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, wearing SpaceX spacesuits, are seen as they prepare to depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building for Launch Complex 39A on NASA's Kennedy Space Center to board the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-10 mission launch, Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission is the tenth crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov are scheduled to launch at 7:48 p.m. EDT, from Launch Complex 39A at the NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Technicians install four solar array wings on NASA’s Artemis II Orion spacecraft inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, March 3, 2025. Each solar array is nearly 23 feet long and can turn on two axes to remain aligned with the Sun for maximum power. Orion’s solar arrays, manufactured and installed by ESA (European Space Agency) and its contractor Airbus, will deliver power to the service module that provides propulsion, thermal control, and electrical power to the spacecraft, as well as air and water for the crew.

NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, is often associated with hot fires coming from the center’s long history of hot fire testing engines and stages that have helped power the nation’s space dreams since the first humans stepped foot on the Moon. However, NASA Stennis turned into a Winter Wonderland Jan. 21 when America’s largest rocket propulsion test site received a historic amount of snow across the unique federal city. Hancock County, where NASA Stennis is located, received five to seven inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service. It marked the most snow the county has received in 61 years. The December 31, 1963, snowfall holds the record at 10 inches of snow for Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

Technicians conduct integration and testing of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites during prelaunch operations inside Astrotech Space Operations on Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025. PUNCH, consisting of four satellites, will produce continuous 3D images of the solar wind and solar storms as it travels from the Sun to Earth to better understand how material in the corona accelerates to become the solar wind that fills the solar system. PUNCH, along with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), a space telescope, will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late February 2025.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites, launches from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. SPHEREx will use its telescope to provide an all-sky spectral survey, creating a 3D map of the entire sky to help scientists investigate the origins of our universe. PUNCH will study origins of the Sun’s outflow of material, or the solar wind, capturing continuous 3D images of the Sun’s corona and the solar wind’s journey into the solar system.

The Artemis II Orion spacecraft sits in the transfer aisle in the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida following successful installation of three spacecraft adapter jettison fairings on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. The fairings encapsulate the service module and protect the solar array wings, shielding them from the heat, wind, and acoustics of launch and ascent, as well as help redistribute the load between Orion and the massive thrust of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket during liftoff and ascent. Once the spacecraft is above the atmosphere, the three fairing panels will separate from the service module reducing the mass of the spacecraft.

iss072e617674 (Feb. 1, 2025) --- Storm clouds rise above the South Pacific Ocean northwest of New Zealand in this photograph from the International Space Station as it orbited 264 miles above.

Artist's concept of a young, newly discovered planet, exposed to observation by a warped debris disk. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26601

Members of NASA’s Landing and Recovery team are seen as they recover the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, as teams practice Artemis recovery operations during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Saturday, March 29, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Students from Tropico Middle School in Rosamond, California, build their own paper planes as part of a project during NASA Aero Fair on April 9, 2025.

iss072e519705 (Jan. 23, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague handles research hardware that is part of the Combustion Integrated Rack that enables safe fuel and flame research aboard the International Space Station.

Tim Stiglets’ work at NASA’s Stennis Space Center gives him a front-row seat to the growth and opportunity potential of NASA Stennis. His work ranges from managing data for how a test stand is configured to tracking the configuration of NASA Stennis buildings and utilities systems that make up the infrastructure for America’s largest rocket propulsion test site.

The Soyuz rocket is seen as the service structure is closed around it at the launch pad at Site 31, Saturday, April 5, 2025, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Expedition 73 crewmembers: NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft on April 8. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

jsc2025e032537 (March 18, 2025) --- Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov smiles as he returns to Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field in Houston after completing a long-duration science mission aboard the International Space Station. After undocking from the orbiting laboratory, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 splashed down at 5:57 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 18, in the Gulf of America near Tallahassee, Florida.

The four solar array wings for the Artemis II Orion spacecraft are installed inside the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 7, 2025. Artemis II is Orion’s first crewed flight test around the Moon under the agency’s Artemis campaign.

Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) arrives in Mesa, Arizona, after traveling from Italy, where Thales Alenia Space fabricated its primary structure. Delivered by cargo aircraft to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, HALO will be transported to Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert for final outfitting.

NASA astronauts Deniz Burnham and Andrew Douglas are seen inside the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full-scale replica of the Orion spacecraft, during a familiarization walkthrough as part of Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Expedition 73 crewmembers NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, left, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy and backup crewmembers Chris Williams of NASA, Sergey Kud-Skverchkov, and Sergey Mikaev of Roscosmos are seen in quarantine, behind glass, during a press conference, Monday, April 7, 2025 a the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Kim, Ryzhikov, Zubritskiy are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft on April 8. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers is photographed in her SpaceX spacesuit inside the crew suit-up room in the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission on Friday, March 14, 2025. Ayers and fellow NASA astronaut Anne McClain, along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov are scheduled to lift off aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket at 7:03 p.m. EDT, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy. Crew-10 is the 10th crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

GMT057_15_11_For POIC_Don Pettit_1056_Mochii sample

iss072e574769 (Jan. 29, 2025) --- Agricultural activity, supported by the Toshka Lakes created by the overflow from nearby Lake Nasser in Egypt, is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 259 miles above.

iss072e423785 (1/3/2025) — A view of the CLINGERS Cubesat connection mechanism aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Flight Tech Demo of Docking/Undocking Cubesats Inside ISS (CLINGERS) uses the International Space Station’s Astrobee robots to demonstrate an adaptor for docking and close approach sensing to connect both active and passive objects in space. These are critical functions to enable applications such as satellite servicing, orbital refueling, spacecraft repair and upgrade, and in-orbit manufacturing.

jsc2025e032670 (March 18, 2025) --- Members of the NASA astronaut corps cheer on Crew-9 as they returned to Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field in Houston on March 18. After undocking from the orbiting laboratory, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 splashed down at 5:57 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 18, in the Gulf of America near Tallahassee, Florida.

Students from Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, Florida, visited the Prototype Development Laboratory at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, April 28, 2025. The STEM participants have an interest in technical trades and learned about the technicians at the Prototype Development Laboratory who design, fabricate, and test protypes, test articles, and test support equipment.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the company’s Dragon spacecraft atop, stands in a vertical position at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday, April 21, in preparation for the 32nd commercial resupply services launch to the International Space Station. Dragon is delivering a variety of science experiments, including a demonstration of refined maneuvers for free-floating robots. Dragon also carries an enhanced air quality monitoring system that could protect crew members on exploration missions to the Moon and Mars, and two atomic clocks to examine fundamental physics concepts such as relativity and test worldwide synchronization of precision timepieces.

iss072e629194 (Feb. 18, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Nick Hague works in a portable glovebag and cleans pumps, replaces components, and installs bio-ink syringes inside the BioFabrication Facility being tested for its capability to print biological, or organ-like, tissues in space and learn how to eventually fabricate human organs off the Earth.

The Soyuz rocket is seen after the service structure was closed around it at the launch pad at Site 31, Saturday, April 5, 2025, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Expedition 73 crewmembers: NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft on April 8. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

The Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, is seen during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Teams recover the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, as they practice Artemis recovery operations during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Saturday, March 29, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Members of the NASA and Department of Defense recovery team work inside the Landing Force Operations Center onboard USS Somerset as they practice Artemis recovery operations during Underway Recovery Test-12 off the coast of California, Saturday, March 29, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA’s Artemis II hardware, the launch vehicle stage adapter, is inside High Bay 4 on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of rocket stacking operations. The cone shaped launch vehicle stage adapter connects the SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket to the upper stage, the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, and protects the rocket’s flight computers, avionics, and electrical devices during launch and ascent during the Artemis missions.

ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, and NASA astronauts Andre Douglas, Deniz Burnham, and Stan Love, right, board boats to deliver them to the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale mockup of the Orion spacecraft, during Underway Recovery Test-12 off the coast of California, Friday, March 28, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

iss072e576564 (Feb. 2, 2025) --- The Soyuz MS-26 crew ship that launched NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner to the International Space Station is pictured docked to the Rassvet module. At right, is a portion of the Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply ship. At left, is the partially obscured Pirs docking compartment.

NASA astronaut and Artemis II backup crew member Andre Douglas is seen with Navy Divers of Explosive Ordnance Disposal Expeditionary Support Unit (EODESU) 1 as he and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, and NASA astronaut Deniz Burnham prepare to take part in Artemis recovery operations as part of Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Thursday, March 27, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA astronauts Andre Douglas (far left), Artemis II backup crew member, and Reid Wiseman, Artemis II commander, pose for a photo during Artemis II tour operations inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA Kennedy on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. For Artemis II, four astronauts will venture around the Moon, the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration through Artemis.

iss072e572188 (Jan. 28, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams works in the Quest airlock readying a pair of spacesuits that she and NASA astronaut Nick Hague will wear durimg a spacewalk to remove radio communications hardware and search for microbes outside the International Space Station.

iss072e742488 (March 2, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Don Pettit injects yellow ink into a ball of water shaped by microgravity and attached to research hardware by surface tension. Pettit was demonstrating simple space physics phenomena inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module.

Expedition 71 NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, left, and Jeanette Epps, speak to students, Wednesday, March 5, 2025, at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Washington. Dominick, Epps, and fellow crewmates Michael Barratt and Tracy Dyson served as part of Expedition 71 aboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Robotics teams gather on the main floor of the 2025 Aerospace Valley FIRST Robotics Competition at Eastside High School in Lancaster, California, adjusting and testing the functions of their robots, on April 3, 2025

Fast boats are deployed during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Thursday, March 27, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov onboard, Friday, March 14, 2025, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission is the tenth crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. McClain, Ayers, Onishi, and Peskov launched at 7:03 p.m. EDT from Launch Complex 39A at the NASA's Kennedy Space Center to begin a six month mission aboard the orbital outpost. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

NASA astronauts Andre Douglas, left, and Deniz Burnham, are seen as they finish putting on their Orion Crew Survival System suits as they prepare to take part in practicing Artemis recovery procedures during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset, Thursday, March 27, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

jsc2025e032821 (3/20/2025) --- Smartphone Video Guidance Sensor (SVGS) proximity maneuvers on the International Space Station. Left: navigation based on color-coded targets, Right: formation flight. Image courtesy of Hector Gutierrez.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, left, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy, right, wave as they depart the Cosmonaut Hotel to suit-up for their Soyuz launch to the International Space Station, Tuesday, April 8, 2025 (April 7 Eastern Time), in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The launch will send Kim, Ryzhikov, Zubritskiy on a mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

iss073e0000701 (April 22, 2025) --- The SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, with its nosecone open, approaches the International Space Station for an automated docking to the Harmony module's space-facing port. Dragon delivered about 6,700 pounds of new science experiments and crew supplies replenishing the Expedition 73 crew.

Expedition 73 crewmembers NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, left, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy seen during the State Commission meeting to approve the Soyuz launch of Expedition 73 to the International Space Station, Monday, April 7, 2025, at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Kim, Ryzhikov, Zubritskiy, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft on April 8. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

NASA astronaut Stan Love gives remarks during a media event where NASA and the Department of Defense discussed the recovery operations that will bring the Artemis II astronauts and the agency’s Orion spacecraft home at the conclusion of next year’s mission around the Moon, Monday, March 31, 2025, onboard USS Somerset at Naval Base San Diego, in California. The teams spent the week practicing the procedures they will use to recover the astronauts after their more than 600,000 mile journey from Earth to the Moon and back on the first crewed mission under the Artemis campaign. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA astronaut Stan Love presents a montage to Capt. Andrew Koy, commanding officer of USS Somerset as NASA and Department of Defense teams participate in Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Saturday, March 29, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

A massive hot spot near the south pole of Io can be seen near the center of this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared imager aboard NASA's Juno on Dec. 27, 2024, during the spacecraft's flyby of the Jovian moon. The hot spot is larger than Earth's Lake Superior. At the time of closest approach during the flyby, Juno came within about 46,200 miles (74,400 kilometers) of the moon. JIRAM, short for Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper, was contributed to the Juno mission by the Italian Space Agency. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26527

Members of NASA and Department of Defense Artemis recovery teams pose for a picture with NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Dinez Burnham, Andre Douglas, Stan Love, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano alongside the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA) during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Saturday, March 29, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program begin integrating the interim cryogenic propulsion stage to the SLS (Space Launch System) launch vehicle stage adapter on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The four-story propulsion system, built by Boeing and ULA (United Launch Alliance), is powered by an RL10 engine that will enable the Orion spacecraft to build up enough speed for the push toward the Moon during the Artemis II crewed test flight.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, and NASA astronauts Dinez Burnham and Andre Douglas look on alongside NASA and Department of Defense teams as Capt. Andrew Koy, commanding officer of USS Somerset addresses them during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Saturday, March 29, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Technicians integrate NASA’s four PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites to the evolved expendable launch vehicle secondary payload adapter array ring inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. PUNCH will study origins of the Sun’s outflow of material, or the solar wind, capturing continuous 3D images of the Sun’s corona and the solar wind’s journey into the solar system. The PUNCH mission is launching as a rideshare with NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:09 p.m. EST (7:09 p.m. PST), Friday, Feb. 28, 2025, at Space Launch Complex 4 East from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Zubritskiy is seen in quarantine, behind glass, during a press conference, Monday, April 7, 2025 a the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Expedition 73 crew members: NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritskiy, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft on April 8. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

At the Thales Alenia Space facility in Turin, Italy, technicians prepare Gateway’s HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost) for transport. The module’s primary structure, fabricated by Thales Alenia Space, will travel to Northrop Grumman’s facility in Gilbert, Arizona, for final outfitting ahead of its launch to lunar orbit.

Engineers and technicians with NASA's Exploration Ground Systems Program transfer the right forward center segment to the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The booster segment is shown attached to a lifting beam on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2025 ahead of integration onto the Mobile Launcher 1. The boosters will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artems II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS (Space Launch System) thrust during liftoff from NASA Kennedy's Launch Pad 39B.

iss072e940709 (April 2, 2025) --- This long duration photograph looks out from a window on the cupola revealing Earth's atmopsheric glow underneath star trails as the International Space Station orbited 258 miles above the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawaii at approximately 8:15 p.m. local time. In the foreground, is the Kibo laboratory module (left), and Kibo's External Platform (center) that houses experiments exposed to the vacuum of space, and a set of the space station's main solar arrays (right).

Teams work to recover the Crew Module Test Article (CMTA), a full scale replica of the Orion spacecraft, as they practice Artemis recovery operations during Underway Recovery Test-12 onboard USS Somerset off the coast of California, Thursday, March 27, 2025. During the test, NASA and Department of Defense teams are practicing to ensure recovery procedures are validated as NASA plans to send the Artemis II astronauts around the Moon and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls and Joel Kowsky)

The SPHEREx observatory sits in a clean room after environmental testing at BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, in late 2024. Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx will create a map of the cosmos like no other. Using a technique called spectroscopy to image the entire sky in 102 wavelengths of infrared light, SPHEREx will gather information about the composition of and distance to millions of galaxies and stars. With this map, scientists will study what happened in the first fraction of a second after the big bang, how galaxies formed and evolved, and the origins of water in planetary systems in our galaxy. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26537

Technicians with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems use a crane in the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare to lift the left forward segment for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Moon rocket boosters on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025. The left forward segment will be transferred into High Bay 3 where it will be attached to the center forward segment on mobile launcher 1. The twin solid boosters, five segments on each side, will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artemis II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust during liftoff from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B.

Europa Clipper, en route to the Jupiter system to investigate the icy moon Europa, swung by Mars on March 1, 2025, to use the planet's gravity to help shape the spacecraft's trajectory. The mission took the opportunity to capture infrared images of the Red Planet using the orbiter's Europa Thermal Imaging System (E-THEMIS) to calibrate the instrument. This picture is a colorized composite of several images captured by E-THEMIS from about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away. Warm colors represent relatively warm temperatures; red areas are about 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), and purple regions are about minus 190 degrees F (minus 125 degrees C). The temperature variations reflect the time of day on Mars, which was noon, with the center of the globe warmest because the Sun was shining directly onto the planet, near the equator, from behind the Europa Clipper spacecraft. The instrument captured the image data in long-wave infrared wavelengths of about 7 to 14 micrometers. Europa Clipper launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 14, 2024, and will arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030 to conduct about 50 flybys of Europa. The mission's main science goal is to determine whether there are places below Europa's surface that could support life. The mission's three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon's icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission's detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26566

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is seen, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Washington. The memorial covers four acres and includes the Stone of Hope, a granite statue of civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. carved by sculptor Lei Yixin. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Members of the media get an up-close look at the integrated twin SLS (Space Launch System) solid rocket boosters for Artemis II inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida during Artemis Media Day on Friday, March 7, 2025. The twin solid boosters will help support the remaining rocket components and the Orion spacecraft during final assembly of the Artemis II Moon rocket and provide more than 75 percent of the total SLS thrust during liftoff from NASA Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39B.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, left, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Zubritskiy and Sergey Ryzhikov, right, are seen as they depart the Cosmonaut Hotel to suit-up for their Soyuz launch to the International Space Station, Tuesday, April 8, 2025 (April 7 Eastern Time), in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The launch will send Kim, Ryzhikov, Zubritskiy on a mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

iss072e808737 (March 21, 2025) --- NASA astronaut and Expedition 72 Flight Engineer Anne McClain works on hardware maintenance tasks inside the International Space Station's Kibo laboratory module. Behind McClain is Kibo's airlock where experiment hardware such as external exposure investigations and CubeSats are staged before being placed outside the orbiting lab into the vacuum of space.

The four solar array wings for the Artemis II Orion spacecraft are installed inside the Operations and Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 7, 2025. Artemis II is Orion’s first crewed flight test around the Moon under the agency’s Artemis campaign.

jsc2025e036186 (4/4/2025) --- A Bacterial Filter Element (BFE) on the International Space Station with an accumulated layer of dust.

Crew members and backup members for NASA’s Artemis II mission and teams from the agency’s Exploration Ground Systems Program participate in emergency egress training at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. Teams trained with the mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs, inside the launch pad terminus area, where the emergency egress baskets carrying the astronauts and flight crew will arrive following their safe exit from the mobile launcher. Originally designed for military applications, the 45,000-pound MRAP offers a mobile bunker for astronauts and ground crews in the unlikely event they must get away from the launch pad quickly in an emergency.

NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro, left in red, and NASA Astronaut Kayla Barron, prepare to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns as part of NASA's Day of Remembrance, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. The wreaths were laid in memory of those men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Blood Moon on March 14, 2025 at Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, OH. Photo Credit: (NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna)