NASA Minute: Dec. 05, 2025

This week, President Trump’s nominee for NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, testified before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee; NASA completed the construction of its next major eye on the universe, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope; and teams at the Kennedy Space Center revealed the America 250 emblem on the Solid Rocket Boosters of the Artemis II SLS Rocket.

What is said in the film

Hi, I'm George Alderman, NASA's Deputy Press Secretary here to bring you your NASA Minute. A next-generation space telescope coming together, more progress towards next year's Artemis II mission, and game-changing science for future explorers... Here's what we've been up to this week to keep America leading the way to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. On Wednesday, President Trump's nominee for NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, testified before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, and was met with bipartisan commitments of support. NASA has completed the construction of its next major eye on the universe, The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Teams at NASA Goddard recently joined Roman's inner and outer portions together, resulting in a complete observatory that will now undergo final testing. This telescope is designed to scan the sky 1,000 times faster than Hubble can, to reveal billions of galaxies and solve fundamental mysteries about how the universe works. Roman will launch by May 2027, with the team on track for an early launch as soon as fall 2026. This week, teams at the Kennedy Space Center revealed the America 250 emblem on the solid rocket boosters of the Artemis II SLS rocket. Early next year, this rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft, carrying four astronauts around the Moon.

The addition of the America 250 emblem to this rocket is a symbol of NASA's relentless drive to explore in our nation's 250th year. Right now, engineers at the Kennedy Space Center are running final tests on the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft as preparations intensify for Artemis II, including a planned countdown demonstration test with the crew later this month. And speaking of Artemis II, the entire crew provided blood samples to participate in the AVATAR experiment, which stands for a Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response. This experiment will travel with our astronauts around the moon on the Artemis II mission to help NASA better understand the effects of deep-space travel on the human body, helping us better support future explorers of space. On Tuesday, NASA technology announced that it will fly and test a commercial robotic arm in space with the Fly Foundational Robots mission.

Set to launch in late 2027, this technology demonstration mission aims to unlock capabilities like refueling spacecraft and building habitats to advance America's long term presence in Earth's orbit, on the Moon, and beyond. Aircraft icing, which is where freezing water droplets can accumulate on a plane's wings and other surfaces, can pose a serious risk to passengers and crew. But now, NASA has made its new GlennICE technology available to aircraft engineers across America, giving them the ability to design new aircraft in a way that will dramatically reduce ice buildup, improving the safety of our skies. That's a wrap on this NASA Minute. We'll see you next week!

Where this page came from

This page was imported from [NASA](https://images.nasa.gov/details/NASA Minute Dec. 05, 2025). NASA material is generally not copyrighted and is in the public domain.

Nobody has written it yet — it is the source material at a new address, which is why search engines are asked to skip it and why no one earns from it. It is up for grabs: take it on, and it is yours to rewrite and to earn from.