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NASA will preview two upcoming spacewalks to complete solar array installation and power augmentation of the International Space Station during a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Oct. 20, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA will stream the event through a variety of platforms. Learn where to watch online:
NASA participants in the news conference include:
United States-based media interested in attending in person must contact the Johnson newsroom no later than 3 p.m., Monday, Oct. 19, at: jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. Media joining by phone should request dial-in details by the same deadline. To ask a question, media must dial in no later than 15 minutes before the start of the news conference.
Thursday, Oct. 29
During U.S. spacewalk 100, NASA astronaut Anil Menon and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Joshua Kutryk will exit the station’s Quest airlock to install and deploy an International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA) on the 2A electrical power channel. The solar array will be the seventh IROSA and will provide additional power to support critical station operations, including its safe and controlled deorbit.
Thursday, Nov. 5
During U.S. spacewalk 101, Menon and Kutryk will install and deploy the eighth and final IROSA on the 3B channel of the space station, completing the power augmentation upgrades.
The final two roll-out solar arrays will complete the space station’s power system augmentation. Together, the eight roll-out arrays will increase available power by up to 30%, boosting the station’s electric power generation capacity from 160 kilowatts to approximately 215 kilowatts.
NASA will share additional coverage details about U.S. spacewalks 100 and 101 closer to each operation on the agency’s live events web page and the space station blog. The spacewalks will be the 285th and 286th conducted in support of space station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.
To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:
-end-
Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones / Anna Schneider
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov / anna.c.schneider@nasa.gov
2026-10-14 19:12
Students in Florida will hear from NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney as they answer prerecorded STEM questions while aboard the International Space Station.
The Earth-to-space call will begin at 12 p.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 16, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel.
This event is hosted by Sally Ride Elementary School in Orlando, Florida, for students in grades K-12, and the community. This unique opportunity aims to deepen understanding of space exploration and enhance awareness of STEM careers.
Media interested in covering the event must RSVP no later than 5 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Oct. 15, to Jenny Morgan at (407) 858-3100, or at jenny.morgan@ocps.net.
For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.
For more information on NASA in-flight calls, visit:
2026-10-14 16:46
Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to break down the cause of a remarkable formation of radio waves they have nicknamed the “Treble Clef” because its distinct shape strongly resembles the musical symbol.
The researchers discovered the Treble Clef is likely caused by an outburst from a supermassive black hole, followed by a collision of two galaxy clusters. A paper describing the findings, led by Andrea Botteon of the National Institute for Astrophysics, or INAF, in Italy, published Wednesday in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal.
An explanation for the Treble Clef has been particularly difficult to find because the formation lies almost directly behind the plane of the Milky Way, meaning that stars, gas, and dust from our home galaxy largely block the view from Earth. However, by using telescopes that can peer through the intervening material, a team of researchers was able to identify what is responsible for this uncommon structure.
NASA’s Chandra and the German Extended RÖntgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (eROSITA) X-ray telescope found diffuse, hot gas at the location of the Treble Clef, showing that a galaxy cluster hosts the object. The researchers also determined the galaxy cluster is, in fact, two clusters in the process of merging. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest structures in the universe, containing hundreds of individual galaxies and huge reservoirs of superheated gas.
This new composite image of the Treble Clef and its cluster shows the multimillion-degree gas detected in X-rays by Chandra and eROSITA in blue, with some of the Chandra data derived from a special technique the authors used to highlight important features in the Chandra data. Radio data shown in red from the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), a large network of radio telescopes in Europe reveals the doppelganger of the musical notation. The final piece of the combined image comes from infrared data obtained by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, appearing mostly white.
The authors concluded that the Treble Clef likely formed in a two-stage process. First, an earlier outburst from a supermassive black hole in the galaxy cluster’s center drove clouds of charged particles and magnetic fields away at close to the speed of light. This led to a type of cosmic crescendo and initially produced bright radio waves that later faded as the particles lost energy. Next, the collision between the two clusters compressed or reenergized the cloud, which became brighter again in radio waves. Shock waves — similar to the sonic booms from supersonic jets — from the collision may have played a role in this reenergizing process.
To reveal evidence for the cluster collision in the Chandra data, the authors used a special technique that examined how much the cluster’s hot gas deviates from a symmetrical shape. Most of the hot gas is symmetrical and shaped approximately like an oval. The authors removed this symmetrical oval shape from the original X-ray image. The remaining X-ray emission in the residual image shows t is brightest on the left and right, and faintest in the center. The new composite image combines both the original X-ray and the residual X-ray images.
The brighter X-rays in the residual image, toward the left and right of the cluster’s center, imply that the collision between the two clusters likely occurred along the left-right direction as seen in the image. The researchers think the direct collision between the two clusters occurred a few hundred million years ago, and the clusters are now moving away from each other.
The resemblance to a treble clef is a case of pareidolia, the phenomenon when people see familiar shapes in random data, since there is no scientific connection to the musical notation.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
To learn more about Chandra, visit:
This release features a composite image of a remarkable radio wave formation that strongly resembles a treble clef musical symbol, hovering in the midst of two colliding galaxy clusters.
Here, galaxies in the galaxy clusters, plus foreground and background stars and galaxies, blanket the image with specks of light set against the blackness of space. At the center of the frame is a large, oval, blue-purple cloud with ragged edges. This is a multimillion-degree gas cloud in the two clusters detected in X-rays by Chandra and eROSITA, the Extended RÖntgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array.
In the middle of the purple field, tilting slightly to our left, is what appears to be a giant treble clef, loosely drawn with a neon pink marker. Like the musical notation for which it’s named, the formation has a strong vertical stroke with a continuous, fluid line swooping back and forth as it moves from top to bottom.
This radio wave formation appears to be the result of a two-stage process. First, charged particles and magnetic fields were driven from a supermassive black hole, producing bright radio waves. Those waves faded and lost energy over time, before being reenergized and compressed when the two galaxy clusters collided.
2026-10-14 15:18
Sunlight illuminates the exhaust plumes of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Dragon spacecraft on Oct. 13, 2026. This visual phenomenon is known as a “jellyfish”; it happens near sunrise or sunset when the exhaust plume from the rocket becomes brightly illuminated, creating a glowing shape resembling a jellyfish.
The mission lifted off at 6:33 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying scientific investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s 35th commercial resupply services mission for NASA. The rocket’s exhaust plumes were visible across the eastern United States.
Image credit: NASA/John Kraus
2026-10-14 14:41
5 min read
If you’ve ever had your car start sluggishly, or not at all, on a particularly frigid winter morning, you know standard batteries do not like extreme cold. That’s why NASA researchers are working to develop a battery that could function in the brutal cold of the Moon’s South Pole, where nighttime temperatures plunge to minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 Celsius).
For future lunar operations, a battery will need to work immediately when warmed up and be able to power everything from an astronaut’s emergency kit to a rover capable of exploring the Moon’s darkest craters — all without posing a fire hazard.
A team of NASA researchers is working to make all that happen. The project is called Solid Power for Extreme Environment Adaptability and Resilience in Space (SPEARS), and it could provide NASA with an important tool to help power humanity’s sustained presence on the Moon through the Artemis campaign.
“Batteries have become an important part of our lives here on Earth, which enable our laptops, cell phones, power tools, and even our vehicles,” said Donald Dornbusch, principal investigator for SPEARS at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, where the project is led. “We will need them on the Moon, too, and these batteries will be required to operate reliably and safely in this harsh environment. That’s why we’re working on this technology.”
Traditional lithium-ion batteries like those in your cell phone and laptop have a critical weakness: they rely on liquid electrolytes. Cool a conventional battery to the Moon’s nighttime temperatures, and that liquid would freeze, potentially damaging the battery. Heat it up too much — say, to daytime lunar temperatures of 212 F (100 C) — and it won’t work until cooled. Expose the liquid to the vacuum of space, and it evaporates.
SPEARS batteries solve these problems by replacing the liquid electrolyte with a solid ceramic- or polymer-based material. This change could unlock several advantages. First and foremost, they could operate in the heat and extreme cold.
During recent thermal vacuum testing at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, small prototype battery cells operated well up to 176 F (80 C), down to minus 76 F (minus 60 C), and with slightly reduced performance down to minus 112 F (minus 80 C).
“We proved for the first time that these cells can work down to minus 80 degrees Celsius,” said Yi Lin, SPEARS testing and research lead at NASA Langley.
Lin also said he’s confident they can improve performance and maybe even expand that range in coming years.
The batteries need to remain reliable through exposure to the Moon’s wild temperature swings between day and night. The thermal vacuum testing showed that after exposure to temperature extremes from 212 F (100 C) to minus 274 F (minus 170 C), SPEARS batteries don’t sustain damage.

Yi Lin
SPEARS testing and research lead
Not even solid-state batteries will function while they’re at a temperature as low as minus 274 F, but because solid electrolytes don’t freeze like a liquid, the batteries can survive the extreme low temperatures.
In order to get the batteries working again after exposure to such cold, small heaters come into play. SPEARS batteries wouldn’t need to be kept warm all the time, just warmed up to operational temperature. That could reduce the need for heavy thermal management systems in spacecraft and lunar habitats, allowing for lighter designs, lower costs, and longer mission durations.
The applications for these solid-state batteries are nearly limitless, from small tools like drills that must operate in shadowed lunar craters, to rovers and emergency power packs for astronauts. They also could provide power solutions for long-duration scientific instruments.
“We can tune the chemistry by using different electrode materials,” said Lin. “Just like the chemistry in your earbuds is different from the chemistry in your phone, which is different from the chemistry in your car, all these chemistries can still function with a solid electrolyte. We can tune for energy, tune for power, tune for durability, depending on the application.”
While SPEARS is designed for space, the technology could be spun off into Earth-based applications. In fact, SPEARS evolved out of a previous battery project Lin and Dornbusch worked on that focused on aeronautic applications.
“The potential market for solid-state batteries is very broad,” said Ji Su, a polymer materials scientist and the task lead at NASA Langley. “Automobiles, cell phones, communication devices, drones — anything that needs a portable power supply.”
The SPEARS project began in 2026 with funding through the Advanced Research and Technology division within the agency’s Research and Technology Mission Directorate. The project is set to focus on technology development in its first stages before potentially shifting toward commercial collaboration. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley is working to develop flight hardware such as test boards and electronics to help prepare the SPEARS batteries for spaceflight and test them in space environments.
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