News Releases

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – NASA’s first in-space planetary defense demonstration – will get one chance to hit its target, the small moon in the binary asteroid system Didymos.

What will happen after NASA’s DART spacecraft finally collides with its target asteroid? With myriad potential outcomes, and little known about the asteroid, the answer seems almost impossible to determine. Yet modelers from Johns Hopkins APL are slowly narrowing the range of possibilities, and providing the tools that will be needed to defend Earth from a cataclysmic impact.

Funded by NASA, Space Exploration Sector researchers are working on an instrument that will enable scientists to track and source air pollutants with unprecedented detail — an especially valuable tool as the unanticipated air-quality experiment of COVID-19 lockdowns gradually ends.

APL’s Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis Christine Fox joined several thought leaders across the Johns Hopkins enterprise in a two-day forum to discuss the world order after COVID-19, focusing specifically on technology, the internet, 5G and semiconductors.

As cycling takes off around the globe, APL is again being recognized as a Bicycle Friendly Business by the League of American Bicyclists.

In late 2016, APL received a Missile Defense Agency (MDA) request to develop an advanced prototype of the next-generation mission planning tool, which MDA named Cerberus, in three years. APL demonstrated an initial working version in just twelve months.

Six staff members from APL are among this year’s recipients of Johns Hopkins Diversity Leadership Council Diversity Recognition Awards, which honor individuals and groups for their efforts to advance diversity and inclusion in the Johns Hopkins community.

Five years ago today, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft — designed, built and operated by Johns Hopkins APL — conducted the first close-up exploration of Pluto. Since then, scientists have uncovered numerous surprising, revolutionary and downright unbelievable things about Pluto and its moons that have transformed our view of these distant icy worlds.

As cyber threats to the nation grow and adversaries move with increasing stealth, APL and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are teaming up to help state and local governments enhance their online defenses.

As the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on and a cautious reopening of the state continues, APL staff members remain uniquely focused on hitting their targets. In an unprecedented situation, teams in the Lab’s Space Exploration Sector and Research and Exploratory Development Department are evolving and adapting to ensure the Lab’s critical work remains on time and up to snuff.