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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lights the evening sky along Florida’s Space Coast in February 2025. The rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying a commercial lander bound for the surface of the Moon. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux
Thank You for Reading INSIGHT

Newsletter ends as APPEL KS moves website to new location and redoubles focus on internal audience.

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Episode graphic showing an illustration of a gamma-ray burst. It's depicted by a bright, purple burst of energy shooting from a point in space. The text above reads "159: StarBurst: Gamma-ray Hunter." Credit: NASA
Podcast Episode 159: StarBurst: Gamma-ray Hunter

StarBurst, a satellite the size of a washing machine, aims to detect the initial blast of gamma-rays, the most powerful bursts of energy in the universe. These huge explosions can occur when dense neutron stars collide, forging metals like gold and platinum. These metals are some of the building blocks of planets — like Earth.

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Thumbnail image for the podcast episode with text that reads Small Steps, Giant Leaps. #158: Hubble an Engineering Marvel. All in white lettering. The right third of the image is an image of the Hubble Space Telescope in space. Credit: NASA
Podcast Episode 158: Hubble: An Engineering Marvel

The Hubble Space Telescope has changed humanity’s understanding of the universe. Now in orbit for 35 years, it remains a remarkable feat of engineering.

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Photo from below of a drone flying against a deep-blue sky. The drone is white with a pointed red nosecone. Credit: Don Richey
Podcast Episode 157: Fighting Wildland Fires with Drones

Fighting wildland fires by air at night is especially hazardous. NASA’s ACERO Project aims to make firefighting safer – day or night – with drones and smarter airspace management.

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June 2025 INSIGHT Now Available

Don’t miss the latest issue of INSIGHT, APPEL Knowledge Services’ online publication featuring our new podcast episodes, columns, articles, lessons learned and more. We invite you to read it today on our website.

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Podcast episode graphic showing a composite image of a supernova remnant in purple coloring. The text above it says #156: A New Era of X-ray Astronomy with IXPE
Podcast Episode 156: A New Era of X-ray Astronomy with IXPE

IXPE, or the Infrared X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, is NASA’s first space telescope dedicated to studying X-ray polarization from extreme objects like black holes and quasars.

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Podcast title graphic with the text that reads #155: Risk Management at NASA. Illustration of Europa Clipper spacecraft above Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The surface is blue and icy. Jupiter, partially lit, looms in the background. The spacecraft reflects the Sun's light. Credit: NASA
Podcast Episode 155: Risk Management at NASA

Big or small, we all take risks nearly every day. But how does NASA manage it? Dr. Mary Skow, NASA’s first agency risk management officer, explains.

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This artist's illustration shows the sky crane maneuver that delivered NASA's Curiosity rover to the surface of Mars in 2012, concluding what is known as the “seven minutes of terror”—the nail-biting descent through the thin Martian atmosphere. Credit: NASA
NASA’s Robust Risk Management Approach Enables Engineers to Address Challenges

Continuous, integrated risk management process enables NASA to develop missions with complex, state-of-the-art engineering systems designed to achieve ambitious science objectives. 

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SPHEREx, an anagram for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, will create a map of the cosmos like no other. Using a technique called spectroscopy to image the entire sky in 102 wavelengths of infrared light, SPHEREx will gather information about the composition of and distance to millions of galaxies and stars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/BAE Systems
May 2025 INSIGHT Now Available

Don’t miss the latest issue of INSIGHT, APPEL Knowledge Services’ online publication featuring our new podcast episodes, columns, articles, lessons learned and more. We invite you to read it today on our website.

Read More