Space exploration

This artist’s rendering shows the NASA’s Perseverance rover in action exploring the Jezero Crater on Mars. With MIT’s help, Perseverance will dig deeper into questions about life on the Red Planet than ever before.

With Perseverance and a little MOXIE, MIT is going to Mars

Led by MIT researchers, one of the experiments aboard the next mission to the Red Planet aims to generate oxygen from Martian air.

July 29, 2020

New research suggests that next-generation telescopes might look first for hydrogen atmospheres, as hydrogen can be a viable, easily detectable biosignature of life.

Study: Life might survive, and thrive, in a hydrogen world

When searching for extraterrestrial life, astronomers may want to look at planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres.

May 4, 2020

I expected to feel lonely during my six months in space, but it was quite the opposite. Having a daily sense of purpose, countless tasks and experiments to perform, and communication with people all over the world provided so much engagement with the world that loneliness was not a factor. There are some lessons here, perhaps, for everyone who now has to stay at home during this crisis. — Greg C...

A message from MIT astronauts: Accept the mission and find your motivators

To help us navigate this time of social distancing, three MIT astronauts share lessons of isolated living aboard the International Space Station.

March 24, 2020

"In Event of Moon Disaster" reimagines the story of the first moon landing as if the Apollo 11 astronauts had not been able to return to Earth. It was created to highlight the concern about computer-based misinformation, or "deepfakes."

MIT art installation aims to empower a more discerning public

With “In Event of Moon Disaster,” the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality aims to educate the public on deepfakes with an alternative history of the moon landing.

November 25, 2019

Shades of Mars: synthetic samples that mimic different regions of our neighboring world. Used to validate life detection protocols, they were synthesized by Angel Mojarro for the SETG team.

How to detect life on Mars

Scientists from the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes instrument team develop method to detect the tiniest traces of life on other planetary bodies.

June 17, 2019

MIT team that designed BEAVER (Biosphere Engineered Architecture for Viable Extraterrestrial Residence), a proposed Martian greenhouse that could provide 100 percent of the food required by four astronauts for up to two years

MIT team places second in 2019 NASA BIG Idea Challenge

Multilevel Mars greenhouse could provide food to sustain astronauts for several years.

May 20, 2019

Danielle Wood spoke at the Media Lab’s space event, Beyond the Cradle, in March. She will join the faculty full-time in January 2018.

Danielle Wood joins Media Lab faculty

MIT alumna is establishing a new research group aimed at harnessing space engineering to improve life on Earth.

August 28, 2017

Engineers test one of the TESS cameras at the Kavli Institute lab.

TESS mission to discover new planets moves toward launch

Satellite’s cameras have been delivered by MIT researchers and passed NASA inspection.

August 4, 2017

The Managed, Reconfigurable, In-space Nodal Assembly (MARINA), developed by MIT graduate students, recently took first place at NASA's Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts-Academic Linkage Design Competition Forum. MARINA is designed as a habitable commercially owned module for use in low Earth orbit that would be extensible for future use as a Mars transit vehicle.

MIT space hotel wins NASA graduate design competition

Module would serve as a commercially owned space station, featuring a luxury hotel as the primary anchor tenant and NASA as a temporary co-anchor tenant.

June 28, 2017