The NASA STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) Internship Program at the University of Texas Center for Space Research places high school students on small, mission-focused research teams mentored by NASA, academic, and industry experts. During summer 2026, the SEES Mission Architecture Tool for Research, Integration, and eXploration (MATRIX) team focused on applying a method for measuring propellant mass in microgravity, where liquid fuel clings to tank walls instead of settling – a challenge central to NASA’s Artemis missions.

The MATRIX team was mentored by Dr. Kevin Crosby, who, along with colleagues at NASA, developed the Modal Propellant Gauging (MPG) approach to microgravity propellant mass gauging at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI. MPG uses the acoustic response of propellant tanks to estimate the mass of fuel inside a tank. The method has been used successfully in several spaceflight experiments and is scheduled for demonstration on the Intuitive Machines IM-3 mission. The IM-3 lander, Trinity, is scheduled to touch down on the Moon in the Reiner Gamma region in 2027. The team developed models for predicting when MPG can take reliable readings during the mission, giving the interns direct experience with a technology preparing for spaceflight and lunar surface operations.

Reconstructing a Lunar Mission from Public Data

The MATRIX team relied entirely on publicly available sources, including Intuitive Machines’ published mission data. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Navigation and Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) provided detailed trajectory records for the IM-1 and IM-2 missions. By comparing the IM-2 spacecraft’s reconstructed flight path with a model of its motion without engine thrust, the team identified engine burns and estimated the change in velocity associated with each burn.

Because a complete IM-3 trajectory is not public, the team wrote a reconstruction algorithm using published IM-1 and IM-2 flight data. To model fluid behavior, the team ran computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to estimate slosh dynamics within the tanks and conducted Monte Carlo simulations to predict the range of possible propellant states.

Identifying Windows for Measurement

The team’s analysis showed that MPG can take reliable readings during the two primary burns, Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) and Powered Descent, and in some cases during Descent Orbit Insertion. The spacecraft’s starting mass had the greatest effect on how long each gauging window lasts. The MATRIX team also identified candidate IM-3 launch opportunities for 2027 and produced a landing analysis for the Reiner Gamma site that showed the distribution of possible landing sites near the target.

Presenting to the Scientific Community

The team briefed the Intuitive Machines propulsion group, walking the engineers through their methods and results and demonstrating that a rigorous analysis of an active lunar mission could be built from public data. The students presented their research, “Computational Models to Estimate Modal Propellant Gauging (MPG) Windows on the Intuitive Machines IM-3 Mission,” at the SEES Annual Symposium and the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium Annual Conference. The team will present again at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting in San Francisco in December 2026.

“This high school team, in a period of less than a month, developed a depth of understanding and facility with advanced methods that rivals advanced graduate students in the field,” said Crosby. “Their work product is exceptional, and their presentation to Intuitive Machines engineers impressed everyone with the sophistication and creativity of their work. The SEES program has consistently provided a unique environment for students to demonstrate they can achieve far more than what is asked of them, even in the most advanced classes.”

The SEES program gives 11th and 12th grade students direct experience with the data, tools, and analytical methods used across the aerospace industry. By applying NASA and commercial mission data to an active lunar mission, the MATRIX team contributed analysis relevant to propellant management, a capability needed for in-space refueling, fuel depots, and sustained exploration of the Moon and beyond. Thank you to all the mentors, project assistants, and volunteers who have made SEES possible for over a decade. 

The SEES Mission Architecture (MATRIX) Team:
Raiymbek Abdy, The Woodlands, TX
Emmanuel Bravo, Boca Raton, FL
Winston Huang, San Francisco, CA
Adrianna Krajnovic, Dallas, TX
Marco Lo Cicero, Tomball, TX
Henry Martin, Milwaukee, WI
Reva Paul, Bethlehem, PA
Swayam Sahoo, North Chelmsford, MA

Project Mentor: Dr. Kevin M. Crosby, Carthage College and Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium
Project Assistant: Mauro Esquivel, mathematics teacher, McAllen, TX

For more information, visit: https://www.csr.utexas.edu/sees-internship/

The SEES project is supported by NASA cooperative agreement award number NNH15ZDA004C and is part of the NASA Science Activation Program portfolio, which connects learners with authentic NASA science experiences through partnerships with educators and community organizations.

"To be clear to the market and to our partners — we're moving out. Good news is there is no gap, only consistent desire to move faster," Marc Andersen said.

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Spotify is letting podcasters charge fans for bonus episodes, early access and more, right inside the app.

Nearly 100 years after the dirigible Graf Zeppelin made the first nonstop airship journey across the Pacific Ocean, another airship has successfully completed a round-trip flight from New Mexico to Japan and back. But the significance of this modern feat was less about the journey's length and more about its purpose: demonstrating how a lighter-than-air platform can act as a cell phone tower in the sky.

The trans-Pacific flight that took place over a month between August and September 2026 was the most notable milestone yet for Sceye, a US aerospace company based near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sceye has developed an uncrewed platform filled with helium for buoyancy and equipped with an electric-powered propeller for active propulsion, allowing it to resist most strong winds and keep hovering over the same location for long periods. The platform also uses top-mounted solar panels and onboard batteries to stay powered for stratospheric operations around the clock.

“We can stay over an area of operation, and we do that in the stratosphere right around 60,000 feet, so we're twice as high as air traffic and we're above the jet stream, and yet 30 times closer than low-Earth orbit satellites,” Mikkel Frandsen, founder and CEO of Sceye, told Ars. “We can fly through day and night until the sun comes up the next morning and recharges the batteries, at which point we're still at the same altitude and still over the same area of operation.”

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Russian drones are suspected of sinking a cargo ship and leaving chemical tankers ablaze near the Black Sea coasts of Bulgaria and Romania, respectively. The latest attacks mean that at least seven ships have been attacked in the exclusive economic zones of NATO member countries—and even within Romania's territorial waters if Russian involvement is confirmed in the case of the chemical tankers.

Such attacks have spurred requests for NATO to redeploy counter-drone systems to provide more protection. In a social media post on October 15, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that NATO had increased "counter-drone capabilities" along the alliance's eastern flank after meeting with the leaders of Bulgaria and Romania.

The latest attacks this week occurred within 24 hours between October 14 and October 15, when the two chemical tankers were set afire after Russian drones were detected in Romanian airspace, according to Deutsche Welle. Both ships were sitting at anchor near the mouth of the Sulina canal that connects the Black Sea to the Danube River, which has become a crucial shipping export route for Ukraine, Reuters reported.

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Suspected Russian drone attacks sank a cargo ship and forced the evacuation of another vessel within two dozen miles of the coast of Bulgaria in the Black Sea on October 13. The latest attacks mean that five ships have been attacked in the exclusive economic zones of NATO member countries—spurring requests for NATO to redeploy counter-drone systems to provide more protection.

Although there is no hard proof that the drone attacks originated from Russia, one of the ships that came under attack was the Ukrainian-operated coastal freighter Chelsea 3, registered under the flag of Malta. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev told the Russian ambassador in Sofia that “it makes no sense for Ukraine to destroy its own ships in the Black Sea, and the results of these strikes favor Russia’s interests,” according to The Associated Press.

All 15 members of the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea 3 were safely evacuated by Bulgarian rescue operations after the ship was reportedly struck by three aerial drones.

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Despite the expansion of Starlink and other communications satellite services, most of the world’s Internet traffic still travels through subsea cables crisscrossing the ocean floors. Those fiber-optic cables coexist with a network of oil and gas pipelines and submarine power cables—and all these crucial links connecting countries and continents now face growing sabotage risks as gray-zone warfare and open conflicts have become widespread.

The rising risks to the world’s invisible infrastructure beneath the waves are the main subject of a new book by Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who leads the Threats to the Global Maritime Order Initiative. Her book, titled Undersea War, explores the modern rise in suspicious incidents in which ships dragging their anchors for unusually long periods have cut or damaged undersea cables and pipelines, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

Braw acknowledges that about 60 percent of undersea cable damage is primarily due to human error during fishing and shipping activities, when weighted nets or anchors drag across the seabed. Natural hazards like storms and undersea landslides also account for a smaller proportion of such incidents. In total, between 150 and 200 cables are damaged each year and usually repaired quickly.

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A study of 367,000 ships finds global GPS spoofing, including Red Sea activity detected months before the MSC…