News Releases

Two APL-led missions recently received NASA Group Achievement awards and one team member was given the agency's Exceptional Public Service Medal.

The name that graces some of the world's top research, educational and medical institutions has a new place in space.

Mars once hosted vast lakes, flowing rivers and a variety of other wet environments that had the potential to support life, according to two new studies based on data from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) and other instruments on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

After more than 12 years of successful operations and contributions to two diverse defense missions, the APL-built and -operated Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite is retiring.

After more than 30 years in space, NASA's Voyager 2 continues to make new discoveries and is upending our understanding of the processes at work at the very edges of the sun's influence. The spacecraft has found that exotic particles from outside the solar system dominate the dynamics of this distant region, and that it is far more complex than had been predicted.

Scientists have argued about the origins of Mercury's smooth plains and the source of its magnetic field for over 30 years. Now, analyses of data from the January 2008 flyby of the planet by the MESSENGER spacecraft have shown that volcanoes were involved in plains formation and suggest that its magnetic field is actively produced in the planet's core and is not a frozen relic.

Jim McAdams of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., was named the 2008 Engineer of the Year by the Baltimore Section, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The award is presented to a member of the local chapter who has made a recent, significant contribution in the field of engineering.

Students from middle and high schools across the country are coming to Maryland to show off their engineering skills and compete in the 2008 MESA USA National Engineering Design Competition, June 19-22.

APL, technical direction agent for the Aegis BMD program, performed preflight predictions of the weapon system and missile performance using high-fidelity simulations, and will be updating and validating these simulation models using the collected data to enhance the accuracy of future Aegis BMD system performance predictions.

During a Hawaii-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) flight test today, APL's Standard Missile experts helped test a new layer of defense being added to the Aegis BMD system that will provide sailors with more operational flexibility.