Air Data News
• Ricardo Meier
NASA has revealed the new livery of a 13-year-old Boeing 737-700 being converted into a reduced-gravity research aircraft at King Aerospace in Oklahoma. The airframe previously served for years as a classified U.S. Air Force flying testbed before transferring to NASA for its next mission.
NASA
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NASA has revealed the new livery of a 13-year-old Boeing 737-700 being converted into a reduced-gravity research aircraft at King Aerospace in Oklahoma. The airframe previously served for years as a classified U.S. Air Force flying testbed before transferring to NASA for its next mission.
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Firefly Aerospace will carry a Zeno Power radioisotope heating unit on an upcoming Blue Ghost lunar lander mission, potentially launching in 2028 or later. The NASA-supported demonstration is designed to keep lander components operational through the extreme cold of the lunar night.
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NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured the clearest views so far of a new lunar crater created when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage struck the Moon at roughly 8,700 km/h after drifting in space for 19 months. The images document the unexpected impact and its comparatively small crater.
NASA astronaut Anil Menon and French astronaut Sophie Adenot removed a failed antenna during an Aug. 18 spacewalk at the International Space Station, but ran out of time before installing its replacement. The antenna repair will therefore require a subsequent spacewalk or other planned intervention.
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NASA engineers are reworking the power systems aboard the nearly 50-year-old Voyager spacecraft to conserve energy and keep both probes operating in interstellar space. The changes could extend the mission into the early 2030s, preserving an unprecedented source of long-duration data beyond the solar system.
NASA is testing technologies aimed at reducing dependence on Earth-based infrastructure and improving mobility beyond Earth. The agency demonstrated GPS-free optical navigation on its Starling CubeSat swarm, evaluated wheel designs for lunar bases, and developed a fabric-based ground-penetrating-radar antenna for SkyFall Mars helicopters.
An early-stage NASA grant is supporting the concept of spherical “Aerobots” designed to navigate Titan’s caves, offering a potential approach to exploring environments inaccessible to conventional rovers. The proposed demonstration mission would build on the technology-validation model established by Mars’ Ingenuity helicopter.
Speaking to more than 8,000 people at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Aug. 3, 2026, the Artemis II crew thanked NASA and its contractors. The mission’s pilot highlighted the responsibility of manually flying Orion, saying he remained “blown away” by the trust placed in him.
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