As NASA prepares to send astronauts to the Moon through the Artemis program, engineers are working on technologies that will give these explorers power – solar power, that is. In space, the harsh radiation and huge temperature changes make for a challenging environment.

Gravity Assist

Gravity Assist: Solar Power for the Moon, with Lyndsey McMillon-Brown

Yaireska Collado-Vega leads a team at NASA’s Goddard Spacecraft Center that is studying the solar weather environment so that robots and people exploring space can be protected. In this episode of Gravity Assist, she describes the excitement and challenges of understanding space weather, and how she got to be a NASA scientist.

Gravity Assist: Meet a Space Weather Scientist, with Yaireska Collado-Vega

To get a more complete understanding of the full history of our solar system, NASA is sending a spacecraft called Lucy to investigate the Trojans, mysterious small objects that share an orbit of the Sun with Jupiter. Principal investigator Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute

Gravity Assist: Lucy and the Space Fossils, with Hal Levison

Janelle Wellons likes to say that she operates “fancy space cameras.” At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she creates commands that allow spacecraft to take valuable scientific data in our solar system and here at planet Earth.

Gravity Assist: Goodbye Saturn, Hello Earth, with Janelle Wellons

The laws of physics get very, very weird in the realm of particles too small for the eye to see. Aboard the International Space Station, an experiment called the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is exploring how the universe works .

Gravity Assist: Freaky Physics on the Space Station, with Ethan Elliott

In honor of National Intern Day, Gravity Assist features Felicia Ragucci, an undergraduate at Dartmouth College who recently completed an internship with NASA’s History Office and the Office of the Chief Scientist. During her time at NASA, Felicia researched the history of the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, an underwater training facility where astron

Gravity Assist: Diving Into NASA History, with NASA Intern Felicia Ragucci

NASA is sending two missions to Venus this decade and participating in a European Space Agency mission there, too. Lori Glaze, director of planetary science at NASA, discusses these missions and why she’s so excited about what we’re about to learn.

Gravity Assist: Onward to Venus, with Lori Glaze

The idea for NASA’s Mars Ingenuity helicopter began at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with a team of dedicated engineers who believed in something seemingly impossible. MiMi Aung served as the project manager on the helicopter, which has now achieved nine flights on Mars.

Gravity Assist: A Dream, a Team, a Chance to Fly on Mars, with MiMi Aung

Scientists will soon have the opportunity to visit a unique object in the asteroid belt called Psyche, which may be the exposed metallic core of a planetary body that stopped growing before it became a big planet like Earth. Dr. Lindy Elkins-Tanton explains.

Gravity Assist: This Asteroid Is Metal, With Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Dr. Jim Green, NASA's director of planetary science, takes you on a guided tour of the solar system and beyond.

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