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5 Myths About Becoming an Astronaut

Editor’s Note: This post was updated on March 15, 2024, to reflect new URLs and updated qualifications for applicants.

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to become a NASA astronaut? The term “astronaut” derives from the Greek word meaning “star sailor.”

We’re looking for a new class of astronauts to join the NASA team, and if you’re thinking about applying, there are a few things you should know.

Here are a few myths about becoming an astronaut:

MYTH: All astronauts have piloting experience.

FACT: You don’t need to be a pilot to be an astronaut. Flying experience is not a requirement, but it could be beneficial to have.

MYTH: All astronauts have perfect vision.

FACT: It’s OK if you don’t have 20/20 vision. As of September 2007, corrective surgical procedures of the eye (PRK and LASIK), are now allowed, providing at least one year has passed since the date of the procedure with no permanent adverse aftereffects.

MYTH: All astronauts have advanced degrees, like a PhD.

FACT: While a master’s degree from an accredited university is typically necessary to become an astronaut, an exception exists if you have completed a medical degree or test pilot school.

MYTH: Astronauts are required to have military experience to be selected.

FACT: Military experience is not required to become an astronaut.

MYTH: You must be a certain age to be an astronaut. 

FACT: There are no age restrictions. Astronaut candidates selected in the past have ranged between the ages of 26 and 46, with the average age being 34.

OK, but what are the requirements?

Basic Qualification Requirements

Applicants must meet the following minimum requirements before submitting an application:

Be a U.S. citizen.

Have completed a master’s degree (or foreign equivalent) in an accredited college or university with major study in an appropriate technical field of engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics.

The master’s degree requirement can also be met by having:

Completed at least two years (36 semester hours or 54 quarter hours) in an accredited PhD or related doctoral degree program (or foreign equivalent) with major study in an appropriate technical field of engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics.

Completed a Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, or related medical degree (or foreign equivalent) in an accredited college or university.

Completed or be currently enrolled in a Test Pilot School (TPS) program (nationally or internationally recognized) and will have completed this program by June 2025. (Must submit proof of completion or enrollment.)

If TPS is your only advanced technical degree, you must have also completed a bachelor’s degree or higher (or foreign equivalent) at an accredited college or university with major study in an appropriate technical field of engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science, or mathematics.

Have at least three years of related professional experience obtained after degree completion (or 1,000 Pilot-in-Command hours with at least 850 of those hours in high-performance jet aircraft for pilots). For medical doctors, time in residency can count toward experience and must be completed by June 2025.

Be able to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut physical.

Applications for our next astronaut class are open through April 16! Learn more about our Astronaut Selection Program and check out current NASA astronaut Anne McClain’s advice in “An Astronaut’s Guide to Applying to Be an Astronaut.”

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Image Descriptions 1. GIF showing a first-person view from the cockpit of a T-38 NASA training jet. The camera pans 360 degrees to show the the sky, the jet’s wing, and the astronaut in training wearing a flight helmet. The sky is reflected n the astronaut’s visor. Credit: NASA

2. Two astronauts smiling inside a module aboard the International Space Station. They’re wearing casual clothes. At left, the man is wearing a navy blue crew neck shirt. At right, the woman is wearing a red crew neck shirt. Credit: NASA

3. Four astronauts floating inside a module aboard the International Space Station. The two outermost astronauts are wearing shirts that say M.I.T. on them. The two in the middle have hats that say M.I.T. on them. The second astronaut from the left holds up a red flag representing M.I.T. They’re all smiling. Credit: NASA

4. Two astronauts float inside a module aboard the International Space Station. They’re both wearing t-shirts that say NAVY on them. Credit: NASA

5. GIF showing six International Space Station crew members having a meal together. They’re eating and drinking from food pouches. Credit: NASA

6. A graphic displaying NASA's astronaut requirements, which are detailed in the text below the image. An astronaut in a spacesuit, pointing to the reader, is peeking out of the right side of the image, and the surface of the Moon takes up most of the image's background. "NASA's 2024 Astronaut Recruitment" is in large text in the image's bottom-left corner. Credit: NASA

Solar System 10 Things: Looking Back at Pluto

In July 2015, we saw Pluto up close for the first time and—after three years of intense study—the surprises keep coming. “It’s clear,” says Jeffery Moore, New Horizons’ geology team lead, “Pluto is one of the most amazing and complex objects in our solar system.”

1. An Improving View

These are combined observations of Pluto over the course of several decades. The first frame is a digital zoom-in on Pluto as it appeared upon its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. More frames show of Pluto as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The final sequence zooms in to a close-up frame of Pluto taken by our New Horizons spacecraft on July 14, 2015.

2. The Heart

Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors are enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. The image resolves details and colors on scales as small as 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers). Zoom in on the full resolution image on a larger screen to fully appreciate the complexity of Pluto’s surface features.

3. The Smiles

July 14, 2015: New Horizons team members Cristina Dalle Ore, Alissa Earle and Rick Binzel react to seeing the spacecraft's last and sharpest image of Pluto before closest approach.

4. Majestic Mountains

Just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto's horizon. The backlighting highlights more than a dozen layers of haze in Pluto's tenuous atmosphere. The image was taken from a distance of 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) to Pluto; the scene is 780 miles (1,250 kilometers) wide.

5. Icy Dunes

Found near the mountains that encircle Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia plain, newly discovered ridges appear to have formed out of particles of methane ice as small as grains of sand, arranged into dunes by wind from the nearby mountains.

6. Glacial Plains

The vast nitrogen ice plains of Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia – the western half of Pluto’s “heart”—continue to give up secrets. Scientists processed images of Sputnik Planitia to bring out intricate, never-before-seen patterns in the surface textures of these glacial plains.

7. Colorful and Violent Charon

High resolution images of Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, show a surprisingly complex and violent history. Scientists expected Charon to be a monotonous, crater-battered world; instead, they found a landscape covered with mountains, canyons, landslides, surface-color variations and more.

8. Ice Volcanoes

One of two potential cryovolcanoes spotted on the surface of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft. This feature, known as Wright Mons, was informally named by the New Horizons team in honor of the Wright brothers. At about 90 miles (150 kilometers) across and 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) high, this feature is enormous. If it is in fact an ice volcano, as suspected, it would be the largest such feature discovered in the outer solar system.

9. Blue Rays

Pluto's receding crescent as seen by New Horizons at a distance of 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers). Scientists believe the spectacular blue haze is a photochemical smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules in Pluto's atmosphere. These hydrocarbons accumulate into small haze particles, which scatter blue sunlight—the same process that can make haze appear bluish on Earth.

10. Encore

On Jan. 1, 2019, New Horizons will fly past a small Kuiper Belt Object named MU69 (nicknamed Ultima Thule)—a billion miles (1.5 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto and more than four billion miles (6.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. It will be the most distant encounter of an object in history—so far—and the second time New Horizons has revealed never-before-seen landscapes.

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Astronomers used three of NASA's Great Observatories to capture this multiwavelength image showing galaxy cluster IDCS J1426.5+3508. It includes X-rays recorded by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue, visible light observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in green, and infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope in red. This rare galaxy cluster has important implications for understanding how these megastructures formed and evolved early in the universe.

How Astronomers Time Travel

Let’s add another item to your travel bucket list: the early universe! You don’t need the type of time machine you see in sci-fi movies, and you don’t have to worry about getting trapped in the past. You don’t even need to leave the comfort of your home! All you need is a powerful space-based telescope.

But let’s start small and work our way up to the farthest reaches of space. We’ll explain how it all works along the way.

This animation illustrates how fast light travels between Earth and the Moon. The farther light has to travel, the more noticeable its speed limit becomes.

The speed of light is superfast, but it isn’t infinite. It travels at about 186,000 miles (300 million meters) per second. That means that it takes time for the light from any object to reach our eyes. The farther it is, the more time it takes.

You can see nearby things basically in real time because the light travel time isn’t long enough to make a difference. Even if an object is 100 miles (161 kilometers) away, it takes just 0.0005 seconds for light to travel that far. But on astronomical scales, the effects become noticeable.

This infographic shows how long it takes light to travel to different planets in our solar system.

Within our solar system, light’s speed limit means it can take a while to communicate back and forth between spacecraft and ground stations on Earth. We see the Moon, Sun, and planets as they were slightly in the past, but it's not usually far enough back to be scientifically interesting.

As we peer farther out into our galaxy, we use light-years to talk about distances. Smaller units like miles or kilometers would be too overwhelming and we’d lose a sense of their meaning. One light-year – the distance light travels in a year – is nearly 6 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers). And that’s just a tiny baby step into the cosmos.

The Sun’s closest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away. That means we see it as it was about four years ago. Betelgeuse, a more distant (and more volatile) stellar neighbor, is around 700 light-years away. Because of light’s lag time, astronomers don’t know for sure whether this supergiant star is still there! It may have already blasted itself apart in a supernova explosion – but it probably has another 10,000 years or more to go.

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.

The Carina Nebula clocks in at 7,500 light-years away, which means the light we receive from it today began its journey about 3,000 years before the pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built! Many new stars there have undoubtedly been born by now, but their light may not reach Earth for thousands of years.

An artist’s concept of our Milky Way galaxy, with rough locations for the Sun and Carina nebula marked.

If we zoom way out, you can see that 7,500 light-years away is still pretty much within our neighborhood. Let’s look further back in time…

This stunning image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy NGC 5643. Looking this good isn’t easy; 30 different exposures, for a total of nine hours of observation time, together with Hubble’s high resolution and clarity, were needed to produce an image of such exquisite detail and beauty.

Peering outside our Milky Way galaxy transports us much further into the past. The Andromeda galaxy, our nearest large galactic neighbor, is about 2.5 million light-years away. And that’s still pretty close, as far as the universe goes. The image above shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5643, which is about 60 million light-years away! That means we see it as it was about 60 million years ago.

As telescopes look deeper into the universe, they capture snapshots in time from different cosmic eras. Astronomers can stitch those snapshots together to unravel things like galaxy evolution. The closest ones are more mature; we see them nearly as they truly are in the present day because their light doesn’t have to travel as far to reach us. We can’t rewind those galaxies (or our own), but we can get clues about how they likely developed. Looking at galaxies that are farther and farther away means seeing these star cities in ever earlier stages of development.

The farthest galaxies we can see are both old and young. They’re billions of years old now, and the light we receive from them is ancient since it took so long to traverse the cosmos. But since their light was emitted when the galaxies were young, it gives us a view of their infancy.

This animation is an artist’s concept of the big bang, with representations of the early universe and its expansion.

Comparing how fast objects at different distances are moving away opened up the biggest mystery in modern astronomy: cosmic acceleration. The universe was already expanding as a result of the big bang, but astronomers expected it to slow down over time. Instead, it’s speeding up!

The universe’s expansion makes it tricky to talk about the distances of the farthest objects. We often use lookback time, which is the amount of time it took for an object’s light to reach us. That’s simpler than using a literal distance, because an object that was 10 billion light-years away when it emitted the light we received from it would actually be more than 16 billion light-years away right now, due to the expansion of space. We can even see objects that are presently over 30 billion light-years from Earth, even though the universe is only about 14 billion years old.

This James Webb Space Telescope image shines with the light from galaxies that are more than 13.4 billion years old, dating back to less than 400 million years after the big bang.

Our James Webb Space Telescope has helped us time travel back more than 13.4 billion years, to when the universe was less than 400 million years old. When our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches in a few years, astronomers will pair its vast view of space with Webb’s zooming capabilities to study the early universe in better ways than ever before. And don’t worry – these telescopes will make plenty of pit stops along the way at other exciting cosmic destinations across space and time.

Learn more about the exciting science Roman will investigate on X and Facebook.

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When the Moon's Shadow Falls on Earth

On July 2, 2019, a total solar eclipse will pass over parts of Argentina and Chile.

Solar eclipses happen when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and Earth, casting its shadow onto Earth's surface. Because the Moon’s orbit isn't perfectly in line with the Sun and Earth, its shadow usually passes above or below Earth. But when it lines up just right, we get a solar eclipse!

People in the inner part of the Moon's shadow — the umbra — have the chance to witness a total solar eclipse, while those in the outer part of the shadow — the penumbra — experience a partial solar eclipse.

The path of the total solar eclipse stretches across parts of Chile and Argentina. People outside this path may see a partial eclipse or no eclipse at all.

During a total solar eclipse, the Moon blocks out the Sun's bright face, revealing its comparatively faint outer atmosphere, the corona. The corona is a dynamic region that is thought to hold the answers to questions about the fundamental physics of the Sun — like why the corona is so much hotter than the Sun's surface and how the Sun's constant outflow of material, the solar wind, is accelerated to such high speeds. 

Image Credit: Miloslav Druckmüller, Peter Aniol, Shadia Habbal

Our Parker Solar Probe and the upcoming Solar Orbiter mission from the European Space Agency are exploring these questions by flying through the corona itself and taking unprecedented measurements of the conditions there. Plus, our newly-chosen PUNCH mission will create tiny, artificial eclipses in front of its cameras — using an instrument called a coronagraph — to study structures in the Sun's corona and examine how it generates the solar wind.

Watching the eclipse

It’s never safe to look directly at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed Sun – so you’ll need special solar viewing glasses or an indirect viewing method, like pinhole projection, to watch the eclipse. 

For people in the path of totality, there will be a few brief moments when it is safe to look directly at the eclipse. Only once the Moon has completely covered the Sun and there is no sunlight shining is it safe to look at the eclipse. Make sure you put your eclipse glasses back on or return to indirect viewing before the first flash of sunlight appears around the Moon’s edge.

No matter where you are, you can watch the eclipse online! The Exploratorium will be streaming live views of the eclipse with commentary in both English and Spanish starting at 4 p.m. EDT / 1 p.m. PDT on July 2. Watch with us at nasa.gov/live!

Para más información e actualizaciones en español acerca del eclipse, sigue a @NASA_es en Twitter o vea esta hoja de hechos.

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Our Spacecraft Have Discovered a New Magnetic Process in Space

Just as gravity is one key to how things move on Earth, a process called magnetic reconnection is key to how electrically-charged particles speed through space. Now, our Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, has discovered magnetic reconnection – a process by which magnetic field lines explosively reconfigure – occurring in a new and surprising way near Earth.

Invisible to the eye, a vast network of magnetic energy and particles surround our planet — a dynamic system that influences our satellites and technology. The more we understand the way those particles move, the more we can protect our spacecraft and astronauts both near Earth and as we explore deeper into the solar system.

Earth’s magnetic field creates a protective bubble that shields us from highly energetic particles that stream in both from the Sun and interstellar space. As this solar wind bathes our planet, Earth’s magnetic field lines get stretched. Like elastic bands, they eventually release energy by snapping and flinging particles in their path to supersonic speeds.

That burst of energy is generated by magnetic reconnection. It’s pervasive throughout the universe — it happens on the Sun, in the space near Earth and even near black holes.

Scientists have observed this phenomenon many times in Earth’s vast magnetic environment, the magnetosphere. Now, a new study of data from our MMS mission caught the process occurring in a new and unexpected region of near-Earth space. For the first time, magnetic reconnection was seen in the magnetosheath — the boundary between our magnetosphere and the solar wind that flows throughout the solar system and one of the most turbulent regions in near-Earth space.

The four identical MMS spacecraft — flying through this region in a tight pyramid formation — saw the event in 3D. The arrows in the data visualization below show the hundreds of observations MMS took to measure the changes in particle motion and the magnetic field.

The data show that this event is unlike the magnetic reconnection we’ve observed before. If we think of these magnetic field lines as elastic bands, the ones in this region are much smaller and stretchier than elsewhere in near-Earth space — meaning that this process accelerates particles 40 times faster than typical magnetic reconnection near Earth. In short, MMS spotted a completely new magnetic process that is much faster than what we’ve seen before.

What’s more, this observation holds clues to what’s happening at smaller spatial scales, where turbulence takes over the process of mixing and accelerating particles. Turbulence in space moves in random ways and creates vortices, much like when you mix milk into coffee. The process by which turbulence energizes particles in space is still a big area of research, and linking this new discovery to turbulence research may give insights into how magnetic energy powers particle jets in space.

Keep up with the latest discoveries from the MMS mission: @NASASun on Twitter and Facebook.com/NASASunScience.

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How Well Do You Know Venus?

Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus’ thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect. A permanent layer of clouds traps heat, creating surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead.

How did Venus get its name? It is named for the ancient Roman goddess of love and beauty. It is believed that Venus was named for the most beautiful of the ancient gods because it shone the brightest of the five planets known to ancient astronomers.

Here are a few fun facts that you might not know:

One day on Venus lasts as long as 243 Earth days (aka the time it takes for Venus to rotate or spin once)

Venus is a rocky planet, also known as a terrestrial planet

Venus’ thick and toxic atmosphere is made up mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets

Venus has no moons or rings

More than 40 spacecraft have explored the planet

No evidence of life has been found on Venus. The planet’s extreme high temperatures of almost 480 degrees Celsius (900 degrees Fahrenheit) makes it seem an unlikely place for life as we know it

Venus spins backwards when compared to the other planets. This means that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east

Night Light

Did you know that Venus is the brightest planet in Earth’s dark skies? Only the moon — which is not a planet — is brighter. Venus outshines the other planets because it is closer and its thick cloud cover is excellent at reflecting sunlight.

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4 people are living in an isolated habitat for 30 days. Why? Science!

This 30 day mission will help our researchers learn how isolation and close quarters affect individual and group behavior. This study at our Johnson Space Center prepares us for long duration space missions, like a trip to an asteroid or even to Mars.

The Human Research Exploration Analog (HERA) that the crew members will be living in is one compact, science-making house. But unlike in a normal house, these inhabitants won't go outside for 30 days. Their communication with the rest of planet Earth will also be very limited, and they won’t have any access to internet. So no checking social media kids!

The only people they will talk with regularly are mission control and each other.

The crew member selection process is based on a number of criteria, including the same criteria for astronaut selection.

What will they be doing?

Because this mission simulates a 715-day journey to a Near-Earth asteroid, the four crew members will complete activities similar to what would happen during an outbound transit, on location at the asteroid, and the return transit phases of a mission (just in a bit of an accelerated timeframe). This simulation means that even when communicating with mission control, there will be a delay on all communications ranging from 1 to 10 minutes each way. The crew will also perform virtual spacewalk missions once they reach their destination, where they will inspect the asteroid and collect samples from it. 

A few other details:

The crew follows a timeline that is similar to one used for the ISS crew.

They work 16 hours a day, Monday through Friday. This includes time for daily planning, conferences, meals and exercises.  

They will be growing and taking care of plants and brine shrimp, which they will analyze and document.

But beware! While we do all we can to avoid crises during missions, crews need to be able to respond in the event of an emergency. The HERA crew will conduct a couple of emergency scenario simulations, including one that will require them to maneuver through a debris field during the Earth-bound phase of the mission. 

Throughout the mission, researchers will gather information about cohabitation, teamwork, team cohesion, mood, performance and overall well-being. The crew members will be tracked by numerous devices that each capture different types of data.

Past HERA crew members wore a sensor that recorded heart rate, distance, motion and sound intensity. When crew members were working together, the sensor would also record their proximity as well, helping investigators learn about team cohesion.

Researchers also learned about how crew members react to stress by recording and analyzing verbal interactions and by analyzing “markers” in blood and saliva samples.

In total, this mission will include 19 individual investigations across key human research elements. From psychological to physiological experiments, the crew members will help prepare us for future missions.

UPDATE:

Mission success! After a simulated mission to an asteroid, the crew “splashed down” around 10:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 24 and exited the habitat for the first time in 30 days.

Want a full, 360 degree look at HERA? Check out and explore the inside of the habitat.

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Jessica, first of all, I love you. Second, what's it like being a part of the first class that was 50% female?

Thank you!  The best part is that I think the fact that our class is 50% female simply reflects how far our society has come, and that is a great thing!  To us, there really is no difference on whether or not we are female or male, what backgrounds we come from, etc., we are one team, one family, all contributing to the same cause (which is an extraordinary feeling!).  I’m definitely very proud and honored to be part of the 21st astronaut class.

Hitchhiking a Ride to Space

Have you ever packed for a long trip with a friend and ran out of space in your suitcase? Maybe your friend was nice and let your spare items hitchhike a ride in their bag?  The following science experiments are doing something similar on our Space Launch System rocket.

Our Space Launch System (SLS) will be the most powerful rocket we’ve ever built and will enable astronauts in the Orion spacecraft to travel deeper into the solar system. This advanced launch vehicle will launch astronauts to an asteroid and eventually to Mars, while opening new possibilities for other payloads including robotic scientific missions to places like Mars, Saturn and Jupiter.

The primary goal of SLS and the Orion spacecraft is to launch future crewed, deep space missions. That said, an added bonus of this powerful rocket is the extra science it can carry. On it’s first mission (known as Exploration Mission-1, EM-1) SLS will carry 13 CubeSats (small satellites, each the size of a large shoebox) on its first flight as secondary payloads. These small satellites will perform various in-space experiments. In a way, these 13 CubeSats are ‘space hitchhikers’, catching a ride to deep space where they can gather data valuable to future exploration missions.

How were these 13 experiments selected? Great question. They were selected through a series of announcements of flight opportunities, a public contest and negations with our international partners.

These secondary payloads have a vast array of functions, from taking pictures of asteroids, to using yeast to detect impacts of deep-space radiation. Each month we will highlight one of these experiments on Tumblr and talk about all the exciting science they will do. Just to give you an idea of what these shoebox-sized satellites will do, we’ll give you a preview:

1. NEA Scout

NEA Scout, stands for: Near-Earth Asteroid Scout. This CubeSat will investigate an asteroid, taking pictures and observe its position in space.

2. BioSentinel

BioSentinel will be the first time living organisms have traveled to deep space in more than 40 years. It will use yeast to detect, measure and compare the impact of deep-space radiation on living organisms over long durations in deep space.

3. Lunar Flashlight

This experiment will look for ice deposits and identify locations where resources may be extracted from the lunar surface. It will demonstrate the capability to scout for useful materials and resources from lunar orbit.

4. Skyfire

Lockheed Martin’s Skyfire will perform a lunar flyby, collecting data to address both Moon and Mars Strategic Knowledge Gaps, or gaps in information required to reduce risk, increase effectiveness and improve the design of robotic and human space exploration missions, for surface characterization, remote sensing and site selection.

5. Lunar IceCube

Morehead State University’s Lunar IceCube will look for water in ice, liquid and vapor forms from a very low orbit of only 62 miles above the surface of the moon. The ability to search for useful resources can potentially help astronauts manufacture fuel and necessities to sustain a crew.

6. CuSP

The CubeSat mission to study Solar Particles, or CuSP, will be the first protype of an interplanetary CubeSat space weather station. It will observe space weather events hours before they reach Earth.

7. Luna-H-Map

Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH) will enter a polar orbit around the moon with a low altitude. From there, it will produce maps of near-surface hydrogen.

8, 9, 10. Three Tournament Payloads

Three of the payloads riding along on this journey will be the winners of the Ground Tournaments portion of our CubeQuest Challenge. This challenge is designed to foster innovation in small spacecraft propulsion and communications techniques. Learn more about this challenge HERE.

11, 12, 13. International Partners

The remaining three payloads are reserved for international partners, and will be announced at a later time.

To stay updated on these experiments, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/launching-science-and-technology.html

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What is the most interesting fact that you discovered about Black Holes? And what is the one you would most want to find out?