![DART Spacecraft Structure Ramps Up Integration and Testing at APL](/sites/default/files/2023-01/Cover_DART_Integration_Testing.jpg)
Press Release
May 19, 2020
Johns Hopkins APL Receives DART Spacecraft Structure and Ramps Up Integration and Testing
On May 15, the primary structure for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft returned to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Now equipped with its chemical propulsion system and elements of its electrical propulsion system — installed at Aerojet Rocketdyne in Redmond, Washington — the spacecraft will remain at APL through final assembly and prelaunch testing.
![Leonard Moss Jr.](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200507_image1_lg.jpg)
Press Release
May 7, 2020
Johns Hopkins APL Names Leonard Moss Chief Security Officer
Leonard Moss Jr. has been named chief security officer and head of the Security Services Department at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
![From left, APL’s Patrick Hill, Kim Cooper and Andy Driesman](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200507b_image1_lg_0.jpg)
Press Release
May 7, 2020
Johns Hopkins APL Team Earns AIAA Space Program Management Award
The Johns Hopkins APL team was lauded for balancing elements from science requirements and budgets to schedule and engineering development for the historic voyage to explore the Sun’s blistering environment and mysterious solar wind.
![An artist’s illustration of WASP-79b, a “hot Jupiter” exoplanet with a strange — and so far unexplainable — phenomenon happening in its atmosphere.](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200505_image1_lg.jpg)
Press Release
May 5, 2020
First Exoplanet Study from Johns Hopkins APL Leaves Researchers Stumped
In the first exoplanet study from Johns Hopkins APL, researchers found that the cloudy atmosphere of WASP-79b, an exoplanet from a solar system nearly 800 light-years away, is almost transparent to blue light, leaving it with a yellow-tinged sky.
![U.S. Navy Operations Specialist 2nd Class Olivia Quinci, from San Diego, California, monitors aircraft aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200504_image4_lg.jpg)
Press Release
May 4, 2020
Johns Hopkins APL Delivers Prototype Defense Planning and Assessment Tool to USS Bunker Hill
In January, the guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) — part of the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group — left San Diego for a scheduled Indo-Pacific deployment. Along with 6,000 service members spread between several ships is a new experimental unit designed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory that could one day change the way the Navy plans for defeating anti-ship missile attacks.
![From left, Beatrice Garcia, Angeline Aguinaldo and Gordon Christie of APL discuss ways to improve a flood mapping and building assessment deep learning algorithm’s performance.](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200428_image1b_lg.jpg)
Press Release
Apr 28, 2020
Fast Company Recognizes Johns Hopkins APL’s Work Among ‘World Changing Ideas’
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory was honored in Fast Company magazine’s 2020 World Changing Ideas awards, with four different Laboratory projects earning nods as finalists.
![Erich Schulze, a mechanical engineer at Johns Hopkins APL, gives a presentation about the science and design of NASA’s SUNRISE 3 mission to a classroom of technology students.](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200424_image1_lg.jpg)
Press Release
Apr 24, 2020
Tech Students Shoot for the Stars in Outreach Program Led by Johns Hopkins APL
With the aid of their teachers and volunteer machinists from APL, students get a rare chance to build space mission hardware in their own classrooms.
![Comet 2I/Borisov, captured here in two separate images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, including one with a background galaxy (left), is the second interstellar object known to enter our solar system.](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200420_image1_lg.jpg)
Press Release
Apr 20, 2020
Interstellar Comet Borisov Likely Comes From a Red Dwarf Star, Researchers Say
Based on its orbit around the Sun, scientists knew Borisov was an interloper from another solar system, the second one ever known to pass through our neighborhood. But it looked very much like any other comet they had seen — until now.
![Venus as captured by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft on June 5, 2007](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200420b_image1_lg.jpg)
Press Release
Apr 20, 2020
“Lucky” MESSENGER Data Upends Long-Held Idea About Venus’ Atmosphere
A Johns Hopkins APL team reports that data fortuitously collected by MESSENGER reveals a sudden rise in nitrogen concentrations at about 30 miles above Venus’ surface, demonstrating the planet’s atmosphere isn’t uniformly mixed, as expected.
![Helen Xun, a third-year medical student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, holds up a 3D-printed ventilator splitter.](/sites/default/files/2023-01/20200415_image1_lg.jpg)
Press Release
Apr 15, 2020
Two Ventilator Concepts Emerge From Design Thinking Workshop Led by Johns Hopkins APL
Experts from across the Johns Hopkins enterprise gathered virtually on March 25 to discuss ways to address the projected shortfall in ventilators required during an anticipated surge of critically ill COVID-19 patients.