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A powerful satellite called XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) is set to provide astronomers with a revolutionary look at the X-ray sky. XRISM is led by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in collaboration with NASA and with contributions from ESA (European Space Agency). XRISM detects X-rays with energies ranging from 400 to 12,000 electron volts. (For comparison, the energy of visible light is 2 to 3 electron volts.) This range will provide astrophysicists with new information about some of the universe’s hottest regions, largest structures, and objects with the strongest gravity. The mission has two instruments, Resolve and Xtend. Resolve is a microcalorimeter spectrometer developed in collaboration between JAXA and NASA. When an X-ray hits Resolve’s 6-by-6-pixel detector, its energy causes a tiny increase in temperature. By measuring each individual X-ray’s energy, the instrument provides information about the source, such as its composition, motion, and physical state. To detect these tiny temperature changes, Resolve must operate at just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. It reaches this state in orbit after a multistage mechanical cooling process inside a refrigerator-sized container of liquid helium. XRISM’s second instrument, Xtend, was developed by JAXA. It will give XRISM one of the largest fields of view of any X-ray imaging satellite flown to date, observing an area about 60% larger than the average apparent size of the full moon. The images it collects will complement the data collected by Resolve. Each instrument is at the focus of an XMA (X-ray Mirror Assembly) designed and developed at Goddard. X-ray wavelengths are so short, they can pass straight between the atoms of the dish-shaped mirrors used to capture visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light. Instead, X-ray astronomers use nested curved mirrors turned on their sides. The X-rays skip off the surfaces like stones across a pond and into the detectors. Each of XRISM’s XMAs houses hundreds of concentric, precisely shaped aluminum shells built in quadrants and assembled into a circle. In all, there are over 3,200 individual mirror segments in the two mirror assemblies. After launch, XRISM will begin a months-long calibration phase, during which Resolve will reach its operating temperature.

Between September 2019 and March 2020, wildfires killed billions of animals and decimated more than 200 thousand square kilometers of Australian forest, an area larger than Nebraska. Later, thousands of kilometers away in the Southern Ocean, massive algae blooms covered a surface larger than the area of Australia itself. The connection between these major wildfires and the subsequent explosion of phytoplankton production is an example of the events NASA's upcoming Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help investigate. PACE's suite of instruments will allow scientists to get a clearer picture of carbon as it links land use and fires, atmospheric aerosols and marine communities, and ultimately improves those uncertain the data we put into climate models.

Join the journey as NASA’s Psyche mission team launches in 2023 to explore a unique metallic asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid, likely made largely of nickel-iron metal mixed with rock, could contain metal from the core of a planetesimal (the building block of an early rocky planet) and may offer a unique window into the violent history of collisions and accretion that created the terrestrial planets like Earth. Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. JPL, which is managed by Caltech for NASA, is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.

The 28th SpaceX commercial resupply mission (CRS) is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in June. The scientific experiments and technology demonstrations carried by the Dragon spacecraft include studies of plant adaptation to stress, measuring genetic structures called telomeres, satellite projects designed by students in Canada, and more.

Our next space station crew rotation flight, a launch day simulation for our upcoming Moon mission, and visiting the splashdown recovery crew for Artemis II … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA

Northrop Grumman's 19th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station is carrying scientific investigations including a 3D neuron cell culture to test gene therapy, instruments to monitor plasma density, and an updated potable water dispenser system. The Cygnus spacecraft carrying these experiments to the orbiting laboratory is scheduled to lift off no earlier than August 1 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. Learn more about some of the science that's traveling to the space station on this mission:

Where does space begin? There is no sharp physical boundary that marks the end of atmosphere and the beginning of space. But no matter where you draw the line, Earth’s atmosphere is full of all kinds of interesting stuff. That’s why scientists like Doug Rowland are studying its many layers.