Hello, World! NASA Shares New Home for Roman Space Telescope Updates (News Release)
We’re kicking off the inaugural Roman blog post with a launch update: NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is officially slated to launch on August 30, eight months ahead of schedule and even earlier than previously targeted.
With less than three months to go, the Roman team is now finishing up final tasks. Engineers are currently packing Roman up for a voyage from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, down to the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida later this month.
Once at Kennedy, Roman will move into the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where it will undergo a thorough inspection to verify that all of the observatory’s components traveled well. In the weeks leading up to launch, engineers will perform powered testing and launch rehearsals, load about 290 gallons (roughly 1,100 liters) of hydrazine fuel into the tanks, and install the observatory on the adapter for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that will propel it to its destination in space: the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, which is about four times farther away than the Moon is from Earth.
Next, Roman will be encapsulated in a protective fairing, or nose cone, which will shield the telescope during liftoff and its journey through the atmosphere. Roman will then move to a hangar for integration with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket before rolling out to Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.
All this work will culminate in Roman delivering never-before seen views of the Universe. The observatory will pair a large field of view with crisp infrared vision to survey deep, vast swaths of sky. While the mission was designed with dark energy, dark matter, and planets outside our Solar System in mind, Roman’s unprecedented observational capability will offer practically limitless opportunities for astronomers to explore a broad range of cosmic phenomena.
L.M. Prockter et al. LPI / JPL / SwRI / Richard T. Par
So today marks 5 years since the Trident mission—which involved a Voyager 2-type flyby of Neptune and its main moon Triton—was rejected by NASA in favor of two Venus missions for its Discovery program.
Trident was supposed to launch as early as last October and no later than this October. It would've flew past Neptune and Triton in June 2038. What could've been...
Click here to read a full Blog entry on my reaction to Trident's loss in that competition half a decade ago.
NASA’s Dragonfly Flight System Faces Heat (News Release)
In preparation for the journey to reach the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, the heat shield for NASA’s Dragonfly mission completed thermal-structural testing in the New Mexico desert. Dragonfly team members, including those from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, collaborated with personnel at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to stress-test Dragonfly’s heat shield materials, ensuring that the rotorcraft will be safely delivered through Titan’s dense atmosphere.
Dragonfly’s thermal protection material, made from carbon fiber and a lightweight resin, performed as expected in combined mechanical and thermal testing, even in cases when it was intentionally marred with defects.
Sandia’s Solar Tower test facility houses an array of hundreds of calibrated mirror-like systems to focus energy from the Sun onto a tower holding the test unit. Operators generated temperatures around 4,500° Fahrenheit (nearly 2,500° Celsius) on segments of Dragonfly’s heat shield material. Tests examined tolerance to thermal radiation as well as the rapid change in temperature that researchers expect Dragonfly to experience.
The Sandia test series involved multiple iterations in conditions like those expected during Dragonfly’s entry into Titan’s atmosphere. Additional testing subjected large samples of the heat-shield material to mechanical and thermal stress to simultaneously simulate the pressure of high-speed atmospheric entry and intense thermal conditions. Thermal testing of the heat-shield’s curved shoulder units was also performed.
“We were pleased to see the heat shield material pass these tests, even with the flaws we intentionally included, like those that might naturally occur during fabrication and integration,” said Milad Mahzari, the Dragonfly entry vehicle thermal protection system lead at NASA Ames.
Dragonfly’s heat shield uses a variation of a NASA-invented material called PICA, or Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator. The original PICA material was used to deliver NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to Mars. PICA-D, a new variant of PICA, is planned for flight on Dragonfly and was the focus of this test series.
“We tested the heat shield as a complete system, including the primary PICA-D material, gap fillers, and potential manufacturing defects,” Mahzari said, adding that researchers plan to conduct additional analysis of PICA-D before final construction of the heat shield begins.
Dragonfly rotorcraft integration and testing continues at APL, which designed Dragonfly and leads the mission for NASA. Dragonfly is scheduled to launch in 2028 and reach Titan in 2034 to conduct science across multiple locations, sample surface materials to measure their detailed compositions, and observe geology and meteorology on the only moon in the Solar System known to have a substantial atmosphere.
Communications on board
Work continues to test and integrate Dragonfly’s communications system, including the antennas that will link the rotorcraft to operators back on Earth.
The team recently measured the signal patterns coming from Dragonfly’s largest antenna – its high-gain antenna, or HGA – in an APL test chamber that simulates the space environment. The HGA is a 34.4-inch diameter radial line slot antenna, which uses many small slots working together to create a narrow, focused radio beam.
The technology for this antenna was originally developed for NASA’s DART mission and is also flying on NASA’s twin ESCAPADE spacecraft.
“A simple way to picture the antenna is as a large flat showerhead: energy enters near the center and spreads out through the slots in a controlled pattern,” said Matt Bray, Dragonfly lead antenna designer at APL. “This design provides a low-cost, durable and compact approach to high-efficiency communications in extreme space environments and also provides aerodynamic benefits.”
The HGA, Dragonfly’s primary antenna for transmitting science data, will be attached to the top deck of the lander on a gimbal that allows it to track Earth from various locations on Titan’s surface. It will be covered with Kapton, a thermal insulator, for protection from Titan’s weather and crafted to operate in the moon’s frigid environment, where ambient temperatures are 290° below zero Fahrenheit (179° below zero Celsius).
The HGA will be one of three antennas on Dragonfly designed for operations at Titan. The lander will also fly a medium-gain antenna, primarily as a backup to the HGA, and a low-gain antenna, primarily to transmit status tones during flight as well as for emergency communications.
NASA’s X-59 Prepares for First Supersonic Flight (News Release)
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft is preparing for some of its most significant flights yet. The X-plane is about to begin a new block of test flights that will include its first time flying faster than the speed of sound and other mission-critical objectives.
“What comes next is the first time this one-of-a-kind aircraft will fly supersonic,” said Cathy Bahm, project manager for NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstrator. “We are starting toward the mission conditions test point that X-59 was designed for.”
After months of flights, the X-59 team reviewed their progress in late May and now look towards the aircraft’s next series of flight tests, including higher altitudes and faster speeds. This will give engineers a look at how the X-59 handles under required operational conditions for NASA’s QueSST mission to eventually gather data on quiet supersonic flight.
The team expects the X-59 to fly supersonic – over 630 mph – for the first time at approximately 43,000 feet altitude during a series of test flights in early June, a major milestone for the aircraft. After that, it will conduct a “mission conditions” flight, where it will hit Mach 1.4 (925 mph) at approximately 55,000 feet. That speed and altitude are important because they’re NASA’s performance targets for the X-59 to eventually fly over U.S. communities to demonstrate quiet supersonic flight and collect feedback data about the aircraft’s quiet sonic “thump” from the public.
While the X-59 is designed to fly at supersonic speeds without producing a loud sonic boom, these early flights are not yet intended to demonstrate its quiet supersonic capabilities. The X-59 will be accompanied by a traditional supersonic chase plane, so any quiet thump that it produces in the current phase of testing will be obscured by louder, traditional sonic booms from the chase. In supersonic flights this summer, the chase aircraft will also be outfitted with a specialized shock-sensing probe to take initial measurements of the X-59’s shock waves.
Completed flights
The X-59’s first block of flights successfully met several test goals, generating data for its team to analyze. After making its first flight in October 2025, it entered a scheduled period of maintenance before returning to the skies in March 2026. It has since completed 14 additional flights, marking milestones including:
-- Its first gear swing, or the retraction of its landing gear to show off its sleek design for the first time.
-- Reaching altitudes up to 43,000 feet and near supersonic speeds at Mach 0.95, approximately 627 mph.
-- Marking its first dual-flight day and then making those increasingly routine as the X-59 team increased flight cadence.
-- After a period of moving higher and faster, transitioning into lower and slower test flight conditions so engineers could gather information on the X-59’s behavior across a range of flight conditions.
Data collected during the X-59’s first block of test flights helped teams better assess critical systems, including fuel, hydraulics, environmental controls, and the eXternal Vision System, which is the aircraft’s unique series of cameras that feed into a monitor that allows the pilot to see forward instead of using a traditional windshield. Teams monitored how the aircraft behaved during takeoff, landing, and throughout flight. Strain gauges installed throughout the X-59 collected detailed information on the forces that it experienced, and how its structure responded to them.
Next steps
During the X-59’s upcoming flights, pilots will run through test points while engineers watch the aircraft’s performance — but now in supersonic flight conditions.
“Flying at supersonic speeds is a major milestone for the X-59 team,” Bahm said. “Every step of envelope expansion brings us closer to demonstrating the quiet supersonic capability that is at the heart of the QueSST mission. Completing the first mission-conditions flight is especially meaningful – it’s the moment where we begin validating the aircraft in the environment it was designed for.”
In addition to reaching mission condition during this block of flight tests, the X-59 will also achieve its maximum speed of Mach 1.6 (1,218 mph) and altitude of 60,000 feet.
But just because the aircraft can go that fast doesn’t mean it will always fly supersonic. Testing will continue, including a mix of subsonic and lower-altitude flights so the team can continue monitoring it in varied conditions.
“These flights not only deepen our confidence in the X-59’s performance – they mark our progression toward the future phases of the mission that will ultimately help shape the future of supersonic travel,” Bahm said.
All flights so far and in the upcoming test block are part of Phase 1 of the X-59’s QueSST mission, focused on proving the performance and airworthiness of the aircraft. Some of those flights will include early deployment of equipment, including a probe mounted to one of NASA’s F-15 research aircraft that can measure the X-59’s unique shock wave signature.
Data gathered during those early probing flights will allow engineers to prepare for a new stage of work set to begin later this year: QueSST Phase 2, when teams will begin to measure the aircraft’s supersonic flight signature to verify that it’s producing a quiet supersonic thump, as designed.
“Aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal said, ‘To design a flying machine is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything.’ The 15 X-59 flights we’ve accomplished since March have been everything to this team and the mission,” Bahm said. “Every flight has pushed the boundaries of what’s possible, steadily expanding the envelope and strengthening our confidence in the aircraft.”
But, she said, rather than focusing on past progress, the team is already looking ahead.
“As we look ahead to the upcoming flights, we’re poised to open the envelope even further – moving boldly toward the mission test point this aircraft was built to achieve,” Bahm said. “Flying supersonic and reaching these milestones isn’t just progress; it’s the realization of years of perseverance, innovation and teamwork. Each step brings us closer to Phase 2, and to the future of commercial supersonic flight.”
Today marks one week since I went to the Honda Center in Anaheim to watch Stars on Ice...an event that celebrated top athletes in the figure skating world. This occasion featured all of the Team USA members who won gold medals in the sport at this year's Winter Olympic Games!
The top draw of the night was Alysa Liu, who was the first American since Sarah Hughes in 2002 to win an individual gold medal in figure skating. Joining her was Amber Glenn, Isabeau Levito (the three of them form a dynamic skating trio known as the Blade Angels), Ilia Malinin (the "Quad God"), Madison Chock, her husband and skating partner Evan Bates, as well as Ellie Kam and her skating partner Danny O'Shea.
Along with pictures, I've also posted tweets with videos of some of the performances from seven days ago. In case you're wondering why the photos and videos below aren't exactly DSLR or UHD quality, it's because I sat near the top of the nosebleed section at Honda Center for this event!
Anyways, Stars on Ice was very enjoyable. If this is what it feels like to watch top American Olympians in action, then I definitely need to attend a competition or two at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics!
Of course, it would've helped if I bought tickets to the LA28 Games when they immediately became available over a month ago... Oh well. Happy Saturday!
Richard T. Par
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Amber Glenn skates to the DEADPOOL AND WOLVERINE version of Madonna's 'Like a Prayer' at the Honda Center last night#SOI26pic.twitter.com/QV0UyVpnxb
The Blade Angels (Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito) perform "Golden" from KPOP DEMON HUNTERS at #SOI26 in Anaheim three days ago pic.twitter.com/31NGCeLR2s
NASA’s Psyche Mission Aces Mars Flyby, Targets Metal-Rich Asteroid (News Release)
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This flyby used a gravity assist from Mars to provide a critical boost in speed and to adjust the spacecraft’s orbital plane without using any onboard propellant, sending it on its way towards the metal-rich asteroid Psyche.
The spacecraft is now headed directly towards the asteroid, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. After the Mars flyby, the flight team analyzed radio signals between the spacecraft and NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), the agency’s global system for communicating with interplanetary spacecraft, to confirm that Psyche was on the correct trajectory.
“Although we were confident in our calculations and flight plan, monitoring the DSN’s Doppler signal in real time during the flyby was still exciting,” said Don Han, Psyche’s navigation lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We’ve confirmed that Mars gave the spacecraft a 1,000 mile‑per‑hour boost and shifted its orbital plane by about 1 degree relative to the Sun. We are now on course for arrival at the asteroid Psyche in summer 2029.”
Unique Martian view
In the days running up to and during close approach, all of Psyche’s instruments were powered up for calibration efforts, including its imagers, magnetometers, and gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer. The planetary encounter provided the mission a valuable practice run for when it reaches the asteroid Psyche; as a bonus, it captured Mars images from a rare perspective.
Because Psyche approached Mars from a high phase angle, the planet appeared as a thin crescent in the days running up to the close approach, lit by sunlight reflecting off its surface. In observations from the spacecraft’s multispectral imager, the crescent appeared brighter and extended farther around the planet’s disk than anticipated because of the strong scattering of sunlight through the planet’s dusty atmosphere. As Psyche passed from Mars’ nighttime skies to daytime, it took a rapid series of pictures of the surface around the time of closest approach.
“We’ve captured thousands of images of the approach to Mars and of the planet’s surface and atmosphere at close approach. This dataset provides unique and important opportunities for us to calibrate and characterize the performance of the cameras, as well as test the early versions of our image processing tools being developed for use at the asteroid Psyche,” said Jim Bell, the Psyche imager instrument lead at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe. “As the spacecraft continues its journey after the flyby, we’ll continue calibration imaging of Mars for the rest of the month as it recedes into the distance.”
Bell also leads the Mastcam-Z imaging investigation on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission team, which was among several missions that provided complementary surface and atmospheric imaging as well as navigation data during the flyby to help with calibration efforts. Other missions involved include NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, and Curiosity rover, along with ESA’s (European Space Agency’s)Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
In addition to the imager, early calibration measurements made by Psyche’s magnetometers may have detected Mars’ bow shock as the spacecraft passed the planet. The gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer team was also quickly gathering data to calibrate the instrument by comparing their measurements with the large pool of existing Mars data.
Onward to asteroid Psyche
With Mars in the rearview mirror, the spacecraft will soon resume using its solar-electric propulsion system to make a beeline to the main asteroid belt. When it arrives in August 2029, it will insert itself into orbit around the asteroid Psyche, which is thought to be the partial core of a planetesimal, a building block of an early planet. Through a series of circular orbits that go lower and then higher in altitude around Psyche, which is about 173 miles (280 kilometers) across at its widest point, the spacecraft will map the asteroid and gather science data.
If the asteroid proves to be the metallic core of an ancient planetesimal, it could offer a one-of-a-kind window into the interior of rocky planets like Earth.
“We’ve been anticipating the Mars flyby for years, but now it’s complete. We can thank the Red Planet for giving our spacecraft a critical gravitational slingshot farther into the Solar System,” said Lindy Elkins-Tanton, principal investigator for Psyche at the University of California, Berkeley. “Onward to the asteroid Psyche!”
Getting into the Space Nuclear Power Game with Next-generation Technology (News Release)
Finalized design of Next Gen RTG clears path for deep space missions to outer Solar System.
L3Harris Technologies has finalized the design of a next-generation nuclear-based power source for future NASA deep space missions, marking a crucial advancement in spacecraft power technology.
The Next-Generation Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (Next Gen RTG) cleared its critical design review (CDR) on April 2, 2026, paving the way for a new era of outer Solar System exploration.
“Passing the CDR is an important milestone because it validates that our design meets all the technical requirements and can be manufactured,” said Bill Sack, General Manager, RocketWorks and Power Systems at L3Harris. “It also demonstrates we've successfully re-established this critical capability after years of limited production.”
Flight units could power NASA deep space probes starting in the early 2030s, including a proposed Uranus orbiter that would use two Next Gen RTGs for power and for keeping its temperature-sensitive components warm enough to operate in the frigid environment of the outer Solar System. This dual-purpose capability makes RTGs indispensable for such missions.
What is the Next Gen RTG?
RTGs convert heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into electricity. Necessary for probes that are too far from the Sun to rely on solar power, they have been in use for 60 years. Early versions continue to supply power to NASA’s twin Voyager probes, which were launched in 1977 and are now traveling in interstellar space.
The Next Gen RTG is an evolution of the general-purpose heat source RTGs that supplied power to NASA’s Cassini Saturn orbiter and, more recently, the New Horizons probe, which carried out a Pluto flyby in 2015 and is now exploring the frozen wonders of the Kuiper Belt. Unlike the L3Harris-built Multi-Mission RTGs currently powering NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers, the Next Gen RTGs are optimized for spacecraft operating in the vacuum of space rather than on the surface of a planet.
This distinction is critical for future missions. The vacuum-optimized design allows for more efficient heat rejection and power generation in the deep space environment where missions like the Uranus orbiter will operate. As a result, the Next Gen RTG offers a higher power output at approximately the same weight as the Multi-Mission RTG. With the capability to generate about 250 watts of power at the beginning of its life, each Next Gen RTG will provide reliable, long-duration power for spacecraft exploring the outer reaches of our Solar System.
“The Next Gen RTG represents a significant leap forward in efficiency," added Sack. "We're delivering more power in the same mass envelope, which is critical when every kilogram matters for deep space missions."
Why the Next Gen RTG Matters
The availability of Next Gen RTGs opens the door to a range of ambitious missions that have been on NASA's wish list. Beyond the Uranus orbiter, these power systems could enable:
- Extended missions to Neptune and its moon, Triton
- Kuiper Belt Object explorers that can go beyond the range of the New Horizons spacecraft
- Long-duration missions to the outer planets' moons
- Interstellar precursor missions that push even farther than Voyager 1 and Voyager 2
Restarting Production
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory tapped L3Harris in 2021 to re-establish the key technologies from the heritage system and update the design in response to growing interest in new deep space missions. The contract is expected to end in 2027 with a production readiness review to verify that the next-generation system can be built using the materials and components that have been re-established.
“We are proving we can do it again," said Leo Gard, Space Propulsion & Power Systems Program Manager at L3Harris. “While we didn't build the original generators, we've successfully reconstructed incomplete documentation and identified modern equivalents for obsolete components through creative problem-solving."
A Collaborative Effort
As prime contractor on the Next Gen RTG program, L3Harris is responsible for the main structure and overall system integration. Teledyne Energy Systems Inc. of Hunt Valley, Maryland, makes the thermoelectric couples that convert heat to electricity, while BAE Systems Space and Mission Systems in Boulder, Colorado, is responsible for insulation.
NASA / MIT / TESS and Veselin Kostov (University of Maryland College Park)
NASA’s Planet-Hunting TESS Reveals Dazzling Night Sky (News Release)
NASA’s TESS(Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has released its most complete view of the starry sky to date, filling in gaps from previous observations. Nearly 6,000 colored dots scattered across the image show the locations of either confirmed or candidate exoplanets — worlds beyond our Solar System — identified by the mission as of September 2025 at the end of TESS’s second extended mission.
“Over the last eight years, TESS has become a fire hose of exoplanet science,” said Rebekah Hounsell, a TESS associate project scientist at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s helped us find planets of all different sizes, from tiny Mercury-like ones to those larger than Jupiter. Some of them are even in the habitable zone, where liquid water might be possible on the surface, an important factor in our search for life beyond Earth.”
The TESS mission scans a wide swath of the sky, called a sector, for about a month at a time using its four cameras. These long stares allow the spacecraft to track the brightness changes of tens of thousands of stars, looking for variations in their light that might come from orbiting planets.
Researchers assembled an all-sky mosaic made of 96 sectors observed between April 2018, when TESS began its work, and September 2025.
The blue dots in the image mark the locations of nearly 700 confirmed planets, as of September 9. This menagerie includes worlds that may be covered by volcanoes, are being destroyed by their stars, or orbit two stars — experiencing double sunrises and sunsets each day. The orange dots represent more than 5,000 candidate planets that are awaiting verification.
To date, scientists have confirmed over 6,270 exoplanets using missions like TESS, NASA’s retired Kepler Space Telescope, and other facilities.
Also captured in the mosaic is the bright plane of our Milky Way galaxy, seen as a glowing arc through the center. The bright white ovals in the lower left are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. These satellite galaxies are located 160,000 and 200,000 light-years away, respectively.
“The more we dig into the large TESS dataset, especially using automated algorithms, the more surprises we find,” said Allison Youngblood, the TESS project scientist at NASA Goddard. “In addition to planets, TESS has helped us study rivers of young stars, observe dynamic galactic behavior, and monitor asteroids near Earth. As TESS fills in more of the night sky, there’s no knowing what it might see next.”
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Snaps Selfie in Mars’ Western Frontier (News Release)
The agency’s six-wheeled geologist took a self-portrait during its survey of an ancient landscape that may predate the formation of Jezero Crater itself.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover recently took a self-portrait against a sweeping backdrop of ancient Martian terrain at a location that the science team calls “Lac de Charmes.” Assembled from 61 individual images, the selfie shows Perseverance training its mast on a rocky outcrop on which it had just made a circular abrasion patch, with the western rim of Jezero Crater stretching into the background. The selfie was captured on March 11, the 1,797th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, during the rover’s deepest push west beyond the crater.
Perseverance is in its fifth science campaign, known as the Northern Rim Campaign, of its mission on the Red Planet. The Lac de Charmes region represents some of the most scientifically-compelling terrain that the rover has visited.
“We took this image when the rover was in the ‘Wild West’ beyond the Jezero Crater rim — the farthest west we have been since we landed at Jezero a little over five years ago,” said Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We had just abraded and analyzed the ‘Arathusa’ outcrop, and the rover was sitting in a spot that provided a great view of both the Jezero Rim and the local terrain outside of the crater.”
During abrading, the rover grinds down a portion of the rock’s surface, allowing the science team to analyze what’s inside. The technique enabled the team to determine that the Arathusa outcrop is composed of igneous minerals that likely predate the formation of Jezero Crater. Igneous rocks with large mineral crystals form underground as molten rock cools and solidifies.
Perseverance acquired the selfie — its sixth since landing on Mars in 2021 — using the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera mounted at the end of its robotic arm, which made 62 precision movements over approximately one hour to build the composite image (learn more about how selfies are made).
Significant science
Along with the selfie, Perseverance used Mastcam-Z, located on its mast, to capture a mosaic of the “Arbot” area in Lac de Charmes on April 5, or Sol 1882. Made of 46 images, the panorama offers one of the richest geological vistas of the mission, revealing a windswept landscape of diverse rock textures.
The image provides the team a clear road map for investigating the ridgeline and the area’s ancient rock variety, including what appear to be megabreccia — large fragments (some the size of skyscrapers) hurled by a massive meteorite impact that occurred on the plain called Isidis Planitia about 3.9 billion years ago.
“What I see in this image is excellent exposure of likely the oldest rocks we are going to investigate during this mission,” said Ken Farley, Perseverance’s deputy project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena. “There is a sharp ridgeline visible in the mosaic whose jagged, angular texture contrasts starkly with the rounded boulders in the foreground. We also see a feature that may be a volcanic dike, a vertical intrusion of magma that hardened in place and was left standing as the softer surrounding material eroded away over billions of years.”
The rock color in the mosaic offers less information to the science team than the distinctive textures, which help them differentiate the rock types. Unlike Jezero Crater’s river delta, which is composed of sedimentary rock, some rocks here appear to be extrusive igneous rocks (molten rock that reached the surface as lava flows) and impactites (rocks created or modified by a meteorite impact) believed to have formed before the crater about 4 billion years ago, offering a window into the planet’s deep early crust.
New ballgame, near-marathon distance
“The rover’s study of these really ancient rocks is a whole new ballgame,” said Stack Morgan. “These rocks — especially if they’re from deep in the crust — could give us insights applicable to the entire planet, like whether there was a magma ocean on Mars and what initial conditions eventually made it a habitable planet.”
After studying Arathusa, Perseverance drove northwest to the Arbot area, where it has been analyzing other rocky outcrops. When the team is satisfied with the work accomplished there, the rover will drive south to “Gardevarri,” a site with a notably clear exposure of olivine-bearing rocks. Formed in cooling magma, these types of rocks contain information that can help scientists better understand Mars’ volcanic history and provide context for large-scale geological processes.
From Gardevarri, the rover is expected to head southeast towards a region that the team is calling “Singing Canyon” for more insights into the planet’s early crust.
After more than five years of surface operations, Perseverance has abraded 62 rocks, collected 27 rock cores in its sample tubes (25 sealed, 2 unsealed), and traveled almost 26 miles (42 kilometers) — in other words, just shy of a marathon (26.2 miles, or 42.195 kilometers).
“Having the benefit of four previous rover missions, the Perseverance team has always known our mission was a marathon and not a sprint,” said acting Perseverance project manager Steve Lee at JPL. “We’ve almost reached marathon distance. Our selfie may show that the rover is a bit dusty, but its beauty is more than skin deep. Perseverance is in great shape as we continue our explorations and extend into ultramarathon drive distances.”
NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft is beginning to take shape – literally – with the delivery of the panels that make up the rotorcraft lander’s body. Built from ultra‑lightweight honeycomb panels designed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and manufactured by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, the primary structure is specially designed for the challenges of flight on Saturn’s largest moon Titan.
Each panel uses aluminum face sheets only 0.01 inches thick — much thinner than typically used on spacecraft — to meet the strict mass limits required for powered flight through Titan’s atmosphere. But while the entire frame weighs just 230 pounds, it’s also durable. “The structure is remarkably light and yet strong enough to withstand the intense forces of launch and the entry into Titan’s atmosphere,” said Gordon Maahs, the Dragonfly mechanical systems engineer from APL. “We’ve never built anything like it.”
In early April, the APL team began assembling the fuselage and integrating key structural elements, including the mounting plate and cover for Dragonfly’s power source, a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which will be installed just before launch. Engineers also performed a fit check of the top deck, which carries components of Dragonfly’s telecommunications system.
In May, vibration and static-load tests will be performed on the structure to measure Dragonfly’s response to the dynamic forces of launch (from Earth) and atmospheric entry and landing (on Titan). “The lander is starting to look like Dragonfly,” said Hunter Reeling, Dragonfly’s thermal mechanical integration and test lead from APL. “We’re excited to see the designs coming to life.”
Parachute passes test
In February, the mission achieved a significant milestone with the successful completion of another series of parachute drop tests, key to the development of the parachute decelerator elements of the entry, descent and landing (EDL) system that will decelerate the Dragonfly lander as it descends into Titan’s atmosphere.
Led by Airborne Systems of Santa Ana, California, in coordination with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and conducted in Eloy, Arizona, the test marked the first trials of a full-scale parachute system, including both the drogue and main parachutes. These tests on Earth are designed to closely replicate the environment that Dragonfly will encounter within Titan’s atmosphere.
The team plans to conduct another series of similar design-qualification tests in October before building the flight systems.
Preparing to sample Titan’s surface
Dragonfly’s portable chemistry lab, which will study Titan’s surface composition, is in the final stages of integration and testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This payload, called the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), includes two systems for releasing molecules from samples that Dragonfly will collect: laser desorption and gas chromatography. Once released, the molecules will flow to a mass spectrometer, which will identify them by their masses.
On April 15, engineers completed testing of the laser system, which was integrated within DraMS in February. Using a sample with known compounds, the team confirmed that the laser and mass spectrometer can identify the chemicals in a relevant sample, even in very small amounts.
Over the next few weeks, engineers will install the gas chromatography system into DraMS and carry out similar tests. The gas chromatography system, provided by CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales), works by heating a sample, releasing molecules, and separating them before analysis. Together, the laser- and gas-analysis systems will help Dragonfly detect compounds across a wide range of sizes.
Dragonfly is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2028 for a six-year voyage to Saturn’s moon Titan, where it will spend three years flying from location to location to explore a range of sites to study the chemistry, geology, and atmosphere of the Earthlike moon and ultimately advance our understanding of life’s chemical origins.
New Dragonfly hardware! Last week, leaders from NASA visited our facilities to see the aeroshell and fuel tanks for @NASASolarSystem's Dragonfly, a partnership w/@JHUAPL.
These technologies are critical for the nuclear-powered rotorcraft to safely get to Saturn's moon, Titan. pic.twitter.com/RmKeGVmWti
