2026-05-21 13:00
2026-05-21 21:21
2026-05-22 05:43
2026-05-22 00:00
2026-05-21 23:00
2026-05-22 14:34
NASA announced plans Friday to compete the next contract for managing and operating the agency’s federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in Southern California at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), to ensure continued accountability and strong value for U.S. taxpayers.
The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has managed the laboratory since its inception in the 1930s, and previous NASA contracts for its management and operations have been awarded sole source to the university since the facility was transferred from the U.S. Army to NASA in 1958.
The rapid growth of the U.S. space economy indicates there may now be a viable competitive market for programmatic and institutional elements of the FFRDC operations.
Conducting a competition for this contract enables NASA to assess the potential benefits of alternative management approaches to the FFRDC, including opportunities to enhance mission performance, innovation, and overall cost and operational efficiency, consistent with federal competition requirements.
This decision is part of a broader governmentwide and agency effort to find efficiencies, strengthen performance, and drive mission outcomes faster and more affordably.
“The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has delivered some of the most extraordinary scientific and engineering achievements in NASA’s history,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “As America’s space economy evolves, we have a responsibility to the American people and the scientific community to evaluate how we can execute faster, operate more efficiently, and continue to deliver world-class science and engineering at the highest level. The decision to compete this contract reflects NASA’s commitment to strong stewardship of taxpayer resources and positions Jet Propulsion Laboratory to continue driving world-changing scientific discovery and technological innovation for decades to come.”
The work conducted at JPL remains critically important to the agency, and NASA is committed to maintaining continuity for active and future missions throughout the procurement process. NASA also is committed to maintaining the FFRDC’s existing physical location.
This approach is consistent with broader government practices, including at the Department of Energy, which has held full and open competitions for five of its 16 FFRDC management and operations contracts over the past 10 years.
The current contract with Caltech began Oct. 1, 2018, and runs through Sept. 30, 2028, with a potential maximum value of $30 billion, if all options are exercised. NASA has initiated the procurement process to compete the contract. Beginning this process now allows the agency sufficient time to conduct a comprehensive competition and award cycle while maintaining continuity for ongoing missions and laboratory operations.
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
-end-
George Alderman / Cheryl Warner
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
george.a.alderman@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
2026-05-22 14:01
NASA announced Friday an agencywide realignment to increase mission focus and move out on the National Space Policy. These changes position the agency to better deliver on the nation’s highest‑priority objectives with speed and efficiency.
During the Ignition event in late March, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and agency leaders outlined the most pressing objectives to deliver on the next chapter of American leadership in space. President Trump’s Executive Order Ensuring American Space Superiority, otherwise known as the National Space Policy, directed NASA to focus talent and resources on objectives including accelerating the Artemis program, establishing a Moon Base, developing a nuclear space reactor, igniting the orbital economy, and expanding missions of science and discovery.
To support the agency’s ambitious short- and long-term goals, NASA is taking action to increase specialization at centers and integrate mission directorates, elevating delivery of technically excellent work. Some of these actions include:
“This initiative reflects NASA’s extreme focus on executing the mission in direct support of the National Space Policy. We are focusing resources on the most pressing objectives only NASA is capable of undertaking and liberating the workforce from unnecessary bureaucracy and obstacles that impede progress. We aim to rebuild competencies and instill a culture that attracts the best and brightest capable of pursuing the most demanding engineering challenges and moving safely and urgently,” said Isaacman. “There will be no reduction in force, no program cancellations, no closures, but we will achieve cost savings through more efficient execution and taking an active role in delivering the outcomes the world has been waiting for from NASA. This is how we deliver on the mission, meet the moment, and continue to make history on behalf of the American people.”
Mission directorate realignment is as follows:
Additional leadership roles, in alphabetical order, include:
Leadership at unlisted centers remains unchanged.
For more, please visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-leadership
-end-
Bethany Stevens / Camille Gallo
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
bethany.c.stevens@nasa.gov / camille.m.gallo@nasa.gov
2026-05-22 14:00
4 min read

A material recently discovered and tested at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland could help astronauts pack lighter for future missions to the Moon. NASA is researching ways explorers could “live off the land” by harnessing lunar resources, including melting Moon rocks to extract metals for building infrastructure and oxygen for fuel and life support.
As part of a graduate fellowship through the agency’s Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities, Dr. Kevin Yu, who now works as a technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, teamed up with Dr. Jamesa Stokes, a materials research engineer at NASA Glenn, to study how a variety of substances interacted with liquefied Moon dust.

Dr. kevin yu
Technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
About six months into their research, Stokes and Yu realized they’d stumbled across something promising and entirely new. After combining simulated lunar dust with a compound called scandium oxide and heat treating the mixture using a red-hot furnace, they discovered that an unknown material had formed. The researchers checked and double-checked their work, but the material didn’t match any of the more than 1 million substances in their X-ray analysis database.

Nothing about the material had ever been studied before, so the team started from scratch, measuring the substance’s chemical composition. To make small, isolated samples and continue testing how it reacted with molten Moon dust, they used special grinding and mixing equipment in their laboratory to crush up around eight basic oxide components in ethyl alcohol before baking the mixture at more than 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit inside the furnace.
“It’s actually a very cool-looking powder; it goes in pink, almost like strawberry milk,” Yu said. “It has a built-in color indicator, so by the time you’re done with it, it turns to a light beige or tan color, and that’s how you know the reaction has proceeded the way you wanted it to.”

After analyzing their results, the team found that the new substance isn’t corroded too quickly by the molten Moon dirt and can withstand the high temperatures needed to melt it — up to six times hotter than the oven in your kitchen. While it’s made with scandium oxide, which can be expensive, it costs much less than precious metals like platinum that would normally be used in these types of high-temperature processes.
The researchers’ insights could help influence NASA’s designs for a future technology that would extract resources from Moon rocks, and the new material could be used to make the pipes or basins holding molten dust inside this potential technology.
The new material’s characteristics also could prove ideal for making coatings that protect parts inside of jet engines, which can reach similarly scorching temperatures. The researchers found it is lighter, less dense, and better at insulating heat than current state-of-the-art coating materials.
While Yu and Stokes have now completed their initial tests, they hope to fine-tune the material in the future to purify it and make it even more affordable to produce. Materials research will be integral to exploring the harsh environments of the Moon and beyond.

Dr. Jamesa stokes
Materials Research Engineer at NASA Glenn
Studying new materials also advances NASA’s work on Earth.
“I think trying to push what’s possible with materials also allows for a lot of breakthroughs on the terrestrial side. Having a better understanding of materials for all sorts of applications is what gets me excited to go to work in the morning,” Yu said. “That’s why I love NASA’s mission; it’s for the benefit of all.”
This materials research is supported by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
For more information, visit:
2026-05-22 11:37
2 min read
Look closely at this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and you’ll see galaxies of various shapes and sizes clustered together toward the center-left of the image. A few foreground stars shine brightly and are easily distinguished by the spikes that appear to extend outward from each star. These spikes, called diffraction spikes, are the result of how point sources of light (such as stars) bend, or diffract, around the supports for Hubble’s secondary mirror.
Hubble captured this scene of MACS J1141.6-1905 in visible and infrared light. The image includes data from two Hubble observing programs that looked at massive galaxy clusters that shine very brightly in X-rays. Both programs were looking for distant galaxies gravitationally lensed by the cluster. They also wanted to better understand the physical nature of interactions at each cluster’s core. An extra bonus was the addition of Hubble’s visible and infrared observations of these very bright X-ray clusters to its archive.
Hubble’s archive of 1.7 million observations, and counting, is a valuable tool for current and future astronomers. They can mine Hubble’s 36 years of observations and examine the data with new tools, enabling researchers to make new discoveries.
MACS J1141.6-1905 is around four billion light-years away in the constellation Crater (the Cup).
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
2026-05-22 04:01
A powerful supercell storm produced multiple tornadoes across southern Mississippi on May 6, 2026. The longest and most powerful spanned five counties, delivering wind speeds up to 137 miles (220 kilometers) per hour and EF-3 damage, as gauged by the Enhanced Fujita Scale, to several areas.
Part of this tornado’s destructive path was visible to the Landsat 8 satellite when it passed over the area on May 12. Winds snapped, uprooted, and tore bark and branches off trees, creating a brownish track across the landscape. This area, south of Brookhaven in Lincoln County, was one that sustained EF-3 damage. National Weather Service (NWS) post-event damage assessments noted extensive tree damage, a home whose exterior walls collapsed, and a mobile home park “devastated with debris.”
The tornado covered much more ground than is captured in this scene. It began in St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge near the Mississippi River, approximately 60 miles (100 kilometers) west-southwest of Brookhaven. In just over two hours, it traveled nearly 82 miles (132 kilometers), placing it among some of the longest tornadoes recorded in Mississippi. Heavy tree damage occurred along its entire path, NWS surveys found, with several instances of EF-2 structural damage and bent or collapsed transmission towers.
Seven tornadoes occurred in Mississippi on the evening of May 6, according to NWS preliminary data as of May 20. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency received reports of damage to more than 400 homes and dozens of businesses and farm buildings statewide after the storms, according to a news release, the majority of which were in Lincoln County.
The Gulf Coast and other southeastern states are not considered part of what’s commonly known as Tornado Alley, an area encompassing much of the U.S. central and southern plains where supercells tend to form. However, this belt of southeastern states is also tornado-prone, experiencing a relatively high frequency of tornadoes in spring and late autumn. Historically in Mississippi, the most monthly tornadoes—an average of more than seven—occur in April, while May averages just over three. Some recent analyses have found decreases in tornado frequency in the Great Plains and increases in the Southeast over several decades.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.
Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet.

Back-to-back subtropical cyclones in March fueled destructive flash flooding on several of the Hawaiian Islands.

An advancing cold front kicked up a sharp line of sand and other small particles that swept over the high…

Ice in the Hudson River hugged the shore of Manhattan amid a deep freeze.
2026-05-22 14:30
2026-05-22 14:24
2026-05-22 14:03
2026-05-22 13:48
2026-05-22 06:41