NanoSail-D Stories

Interstellar probes. Lunar drones. Helicopters on Mars. When a group of Caltech graduate students and enthusiasts began conducting rocket-propulsion tests in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco on Oct. 31, 1936, they had no idea that their work marked the inception of the…

Written by Vandi Verma, Chief Engineer for Robotic Operations at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Oct. 12, 2026 Since the last blog update, Perseverance has achieved a major milestone on Mars. On Sol 2006 (Oct. 11, 2026), its odometer reached 45.22…

From orbit, today’s space-based laser instruments measure Earth’s forests and terrain one narrow line at a time. Between those lines are enormous gaps that include millions of acres of land scientists never directly measure. NASA’s CASALS instrument will blend machine…


