![Neptune Rendering](/sites/default/files/2024-03/IMG-Mission-Ice-Giant.jpg)
Ice Giant Research and Exploration
In the decades since NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft explored the solar system’s ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, APL has made concerted efforts to underscore the scientific value of these planets and provide innovative conceptual missions to return to their azure skies. Through research, workshops, and seminars, APL researchers and engineers are helping establish a framework and community that will maximize the scientific returns of a potential future mission.
![IMAP Spacecraft rendering](/sites/default/files/2024-03/IMG-Mission-IMAP.jpg)
IMAP
NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which APL is building in partnership with Principal Investigator David McComas of Princeton University, will explore our solar neighborhood, called the heliosphere — decoding the messages in particles from the Sun and beyond our cosmic shield.
![Cybersecurity (Credit: Bigstock)](/sites/default/files/2022-12/IMG_Projects_IACD.jpg)
Integrated Adaptive Cyber Defense (IACD)
APL conceptualized, prototyped, and published a framework enabling the integration and automation of diverse cybersecurity solutions to dramatically increase the speed and scale of cyber defense.
![Sonar screen (Credit: Bigstock)](/sites/default/files/2022-12/IMG_Projects_Integrated_Undersea_Surveillance_Bigstock.jpg)
Integrated Undersea Surveillance Systems
We are solving critical challenges for the Navy’s undersea surveillance community, making contributions such as active and passive sonar processing algorithms for inclusion in the Advanced Surveillance Build tactical sonar modernization program.
![Erik Johnson, a machine learning researcher at Johns Hopkins APL, demonstrating how agents are evaluated for lifelong learning on ISC-developed L2Explorer.](/sites/default/files/2023-10/Project-Lifelong-Learning-Machines.jpg)
Lifelong Learning Machines
Enabling intelligent systems that continuously adapt to changing conditions and missions in the real world.
![Astronauts on the lunar surface](/sites/default/files/2024-03/IMG-Mission-Lunar-Surface-Innovation.jpg)
Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative
APL holds a key leadership role in NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII), which aims to spur the development and deployment of technologies enabling humans to live and work on the Moon.
![Lunar Swirls](/sites/default/files/2024-03/IMG-Mission-Lunar-Vertex.jpg)
Lunar Vertex
Lunar Vertex will be the first mission to carry out a comprehensive study of lunar magnetic anomaly and the associated swirl and mini-magnetosphere.
![Brain (Credit: Bigstock)](/sites/default/files/2023-01/IMG_Projects_Mapping-the-Brain_Bigstock.jpg)
Mapping the Brain for Machine Learning
APL leads several test and evaluation efforts for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity’s Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONs) project, launched to develop state-of-the-art machine-learning capabilities by modeling how the brain processes information.
![MESSENGER Spacecraft](/sites/default/files/2024-03/IMG-Mission-MESSENGER.jpg)
MESSENGER
MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) was the first mission to orbit Mercury, shedding unprecedented light on the origins and evolution of the innermost planet.
![Special Operations Forces in an Arctic environment (Credit: U.S. Navy)](/sites/default/files/2023-01/IMG_Projects_Mobile_Communications.jpg)
Mobile Communications
Special Operations Forces (SOF) continue to rely on APL expertise to understand the communications technology landscape, inform requirements development, and identify options for mobile communications capabilities across a variety of operational scenarios.
![Planes in flight (Credit: U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joseph E. Montemarano)](/sites/default/files/2023-01/IMG_Projects_Modeling-Warfighter-Decision-Making-171204-N-WX604-0032.jpg)
Modeling Warfighter Decision-Making
Working with technical consultants and the Navy fighter aircraft community, we created a pilot-behavior model for air-to-air combat.
![Visualization of Earth with networks in Low Earth Orbit (Credit: Bigstock)](/sites/default/files/2024-06/IMG-Mission-NSS-Missions-Hardware.jpg)
National Security Space Missions and Hardware
APL is proud to conceptualize and implement highly classified and critically important spaceflight missions to enable our nation’s security.
![NEAR Spacecraft in front of asteroid](/sites/default/files/2024-03/IMG-Mission-NEAR.jpg)
NEAR
The first launch in NASA’s Discovery program, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) was the first mission to orbit and land on an asteroid.
![Optical physicist Michael Fitch models a prototype high-density diffuse optical imaging system, described in JJ Wathen et al. 2021.](/sites/default/files/2023-10/Project-Neural-Interfaces.jpg)
Neural Interfaces
Directly interfacing with the nervous system to connect humans with intelligent systems.
![Raphael Norman-Tenazas, neuro-AI researcher, tests a robot navigation strategy inspired by the fruit fly connectome.](/sites/default/files/2023-10/Project-Neuroscience-Inspired-AI.jpg)
Neuroscience-Inspired Artificial Intelligence
Developing next-generation learning algorithms that draw inspiration from biological nervous systems to revolutionize intelligent systems.