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The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), which advises NASA and Congress on safety, has released its 2025 annual report on NASA’s performance and challenges.
While the panel acknowledged NASA’s safety achievements, it warned that the agency’s biggest challenges stem from interconnected factors – workforce, acquisition, technical authority, budgets, and the growing complexity of human spaceflight – requiring sustained attention as missions become more ambitious.
“Independent assessments like this will make NASA better,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “The panel’s report underscores areas where we must raise the bar, from how we structure oversight and manage integrated risk to how we declare and learn from anomalies. We are wholly committed to transparency. That’s how we protect crews, earn trust, and keep the Artemis lunar campaign and our transition to a commercial presence in low Earth orbit on a safe, sustainable path.”
This year’s report focused on the following topics:
The panel noted progress on Artemis II readiness and improved oversight through the Moon to Mars Program Office, as well as safe International Space Station operations, advances in astronaut health research, and the first flight of the X-59 Low-Boom Demonstrator. At the same time, it flagged significant challenges, including Artemis III’s high-risk posture, lessons from Boeing’s Starliner test, space station deorbit planning, and systemic concerns.
To respond to these new challenges, the panel recommends NASA:
“We were already on the path to implementing change and this report only adds more urgency,” added Isaacman. “That means recalibrating our acquisition strategy — including a build versus buy versus service procurement approach — restoring core competencies through initiatives like converting contractors to civil servant roles and increasing our launch cadence. We’re also aligning our long-term vision for the agency and industry to guide priorities. This includes clarifying our plans for the Artemis architecture moving forward and accelerating proposals for human landing systems to preserve schedule margin. We’ve already shown what transparency and now accountability looks like — through the Boeing Starliner Program Investigation Team report, we owned our mistakes, classified the mission as a Type A mishap, and launched corrective actions to ensure they never happen again. These steps, along with addressing health and medical risk documentation and overhauling and accelerating programs like X-59, reflect our commitment to live up to the expectations of the world’s most accomplished space agency.”
On Feb. 19, Isaacman held a news conference to present the agency’s findings from the Starliner Crewed Flight Test. Earlier this month, he outlined a new workforce plan to strengthen NASA’s core competencies in technical, engineering, and operational excellence. The agency also is working with both its human landing system industry providers to streamline and accelerate America’s return to the surface of the Moon by 2028.
“The panel commends NASA for its impressive efforts in 2025 to strategically enhance the agency’s risk management posture despite turbulence in the agency’s organizational environment,” said retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan J. Helms, chair of ASAP. “We very sincerely thank NASA’s leaders and workforce for their passionate dedication to space exploration and their unwavering commitment to the safe pursuit of the nation’s lofty aims to the great benefit of the future of humanity.”
The annual report is based on the panel’s 2025 fact-finding and quarterly public meetings; direct observations of NASA operations and decision-making; discussions with NASA management, employees, and contractors; and the panel members’ experiences.
Congress established the panel in 1968 to provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA administrator on safety matters after the 1967 Apollo 1 fire claimed the lives of three American astronauts.
To learn more about the ASAP, and view annual reports, visit:
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Bethany Stevens / Elizabeth Shaw
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.shaw@nasa.gov
2026-02-25 19:44
NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway smiles up at the camera as he enters the International Space Station Feb. 14, 2026, after docking to the orbiting laboratory aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Since Hathaway and fellow Crew-12 members Jessica Meir of NASA, Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency), and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos began their mission on the space station, they have conducted science investigations including scanning their veins to monitor the risk of blood clots and testing balance and orientation in space using virtual reality goggles. The crew will continue to run various experiments and technology demonstrations to benefit life on Earth and in orbit, furthering our journey back to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond.
Keep up with space station activities by visiting the blog.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Williams
2026-02-25 17:26

In late February, people in the Northern Hemisphere can look up for a special sight: six planets will all be visible from clear and dark night skies. New sonifications from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released Feb. 25 will help commemorate this latest “planetary parade.”
Because the planets in our solar system travel around the Sun in the same plane (known as the ecliptic), they will sometimes appear bunched together in the sky when their orbits find them on the same side of the Sun at the same time. When this happens, it looks like the planets have roughly formed a line from our vantage point on Earth.
In Chandra’s sonifications, which translate astronomical data into sound, three of the planets that will be on display – Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus – can be seen and heard in ways that they cannot from Earth.
While Chandra is best known for its X-ray insight into black holes and other extreme objects, the telescope has also played an important role in the exploration of our solar system. The Sun gives off X-rays that travel out into the solar system and can be reflected by planets, moons, and other bodies. This gives astronomers a unique window into certain physics that cannot be discovered through other kinds of telescopes.
The sonification of Jupiter combines X-ray data from Chandra with an infrared image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Woodwind sounds reveal Chandra’s X-ray data, including emission from the planet’s auroras. More instruments join in to represent the planet’s complex cloud layers. Next, through the combination of an optical image from NASA’s Cassini mission and X-rays from Chandra, listeners can experience Saturn like never before. A siren-like sound follows the arc of the rings, and different tones of synthesizers play as the scan passes the planet itself. Finally, listeners can hear the ice giant Uranus through the data collected by Chandra and the W.M. Keck Observatory. The data in this sonification reflects the amount of light detected from the planet and the orientation of its ring.
The process of creating a sonification preserves the integrity of the data, which arrives on Earth as a series of ones and zeroes (binary code), and shifts it into a form that can be processed through hearing. Sonifications expand options for people to explore what telescopes discover in space, an example of NASA’s ongoing commitment to share its data as widely as possible.
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.
For more on the Chandra sonification program, visit:
To learn more about Chandra, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/chandra
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
This release features three sonifications, each focusing on a different planet in our solar system. The sonifications are presented as soundtracks to short videos. Each video features a composite image and an activation line. As the activation line sweeps across the image, it encounters visual elements. These elements are translated into sound, or sonified, according to parameters established by Chandra’s sonification team.
The first sonification focuses on the planet Jupiter. At the center of the associated composite image is the gas giant itself; a seemingly perfect sphere with an atmosphere of latitudinal bands. The bands are different shades of grey, brown, and black, each with its own texture and width. Flanking Jupiter are neon pink and white clouds, representing X-rays from energetic particles in a ring around the planet. In the video, the activation line moves from our left to right. It first encounters a pink cloud, triggering whooshing woodwinds. When the activation line encounters Jupiter, dramatic low notes are triggered. Listen for the dip as the line passes over the Great Red Spot in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere. The activation line continues toward our right, passing more pink X-ray clouds. The largest cloud, the last one encountered, has a bright white core, which translates to loud gusty woodwinds.
The second sonification focuses on the ringed planet, Saturn. In the composite image, the large gas giant fills the frame, its spherical outer layer a pale sandy grey. In this image, the wide bands of rings surrounding the planet are in shades of pale grey and sandy yellow. Here, Saturn is tilted away from us, making the round rings appear oval in shape. Dotting the planet are small pockets of neon blue. These represent reflected X-ray light observed by Chandra. In this video, the activation line moves from our right to left. When the line passes over the rings, a whooshing sounds spreads, conveying the widening middle of the oval shapes. Pockets of neon blue X-ray light trigger synthesizer sounds, with the pitch mapped to each pocket’s vertical position in the image. When the line sweeps across Saturn’s large round body, a low rumbling synth tone is triggered. The volume is linked to brightness, such that the low tone fades when the line reaches the shady side of the planet, on our left.
The third sonification features the planet Uranus. In the composite image, the icy giant is a greenish-blue cyan color, with a blush of neon pink X-rays hovering over its core. Uranus has a collection of very narrow rings, much finer than the wide disk-like rings surrounding Saturn. In this image, the fine rings are near vertical and slightly tilted, creating an oval shape with rounded points at our lower left and upper right. In this sonification, the activation line moves from our left to right. Brightness is mapped to volume and height is mapped to pitch, such that brighter objects at the top of the image sound louder and higher. Here, the curved oval shape of the rings is conveyed as a swooping cello note, with the pitch sliding up as the activation line passes the oval tilted toward our upper right.
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Joel Wallace
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov
2026-02-25 15:58
Certain nutrients critical for human health lack the shelf life needed to span multi-year missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. NASA’s BioNutrients-3 is part of an experiment series testing ways to use microorganisms to produce these nutrients in space and on demand.
The on-demand nature of this experiment is similar to making nutrient-dense fermented foods on Earth, such as how milk is transformed by good bacteria into yogurt. But in this case, there is a focus on producing specific types and quantities of nutrients essential for future space explorers.
Samples from BioNutrients-3, along with other valuable experiments, are set to return from the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft supporting the company’s 33rd commercial resupply mission for NASA. The spacecraft is set to depart the space station on Thursday, Feb. 26 for its return to Earth. Watch NASA’s live coverage of the undocking and departure starting at 11:45 a.m. EST on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and the agency’s YouTube channel.
Once the samples return to Earth, the science team at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will perform analysis procedures. Results from this study can help NASA develop methods to produce vital nutrients that could support human deep space exploration as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign.
NASA’s BioNutrients-3 is part of the Synthetic Biology project, which is funded by the Game Changing Development program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

2026-02-25 15:00

Two heads are better than one in the latest images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which reveal new detail in a mysterious, little-studied nebula surrounding a dying star.
Nebula PMR 1 is a cloud of gas and dust that bears an uncanny resemblance to a brain in a transparent skull, inspiring its nickname, the “Exposed Cranium” nebula. Webb captured its unusual features in both near- and mid-infrared light. The nebula was first revealed in infrared light by a predecessor to Webb, NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, more than a decade ago. Webb’s advanced instruments show detail that enhances the nebula’s brain-like appearance.

The nebula appears to have distinct regions that capture different phases of its evolution — an outer shell of gas that was blown off first and consists mostly of hydrogen, and an inner cloud with more structure that contains a mix of different gases. Both Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) show a distinctive dark lane running vertically through the middle of the nebula that defines its brain-like look of left and right hemispheres. Webb’s resolution shows that this lane could be related to an outburst or outflow from the central star, which typically occurs as twin jets burst out in opposite directions. Evidence for this is particularly notable at the top of the nebula in Webb’s MIRI image, where it looks like the inner gas is being ejected outward.
While there is still much to be understood about this nebula, it’s clear that it is being created by a star near the end of its fuel-burning “life.” In their end stages, stars expel their outer layers. It’s a dynamic and fairly fast process, in cosmic terms. Webb has captured a moment in this star’s decline. What ultimately happens will depend on the mass of the star, which is yet to be determined. If it’s massive enough, it will explode in a supernova. A less massive Sun-like star will continue to shed layers until only its core remains as a dense white dwarf, which will cool off over eons.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
To learn more about Webb, visit:
The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.

The differences in what Webb’s infrared instruments reveal and conceal within the PMR 1 “Exposed Cranium” nebula is apparent in this side-by-side view. More stars and background galaxies shine through NIRCam’s view, while cosmic dust glows more prominently in MIRI’s mid-infrared
Read more: Webb First to Show 4 Dust Shells ‘Spiraling’ Apep
Explore more: ViewSpace: V838 Monocerotis
Watch: NASA’s Universe of Learning Visualization of Eta Carinae
Explore more: SuperStar Eta Carinae
Explore more: ViewSpace: Star Death: Helix Nebula
Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
Leah Ramsay
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland
Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland
2026-02-25 23:49
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