NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

New Capabilities

Operates the Curiosity rover mission

For 14 years, the Curiosity rover has looked for organic molecules on Mars by heating samples in a tiny onboard oven. The method works, but it destroys fragile compounds before they can be identified. On April 22, 2026, NASA reported that a different technique—squirting a chemical solvent onto a Martian rock sample before heating it—revealed more than 20 organic molecules the rover had never seen before.

Updated Apr 22

New Capabilities

Leading U.S. operations for SWOT mission

NASA's SWOT satellite caught a magnitude 8.8 Kamchatka earthquake's tsunami in unprecedented detail on July 30, 2025. The waves weren't behaving like a single stable swell—they scattered, interacted, and dispersed across the Pacific basin like nothing scientists expected from textbook models. For 50 years, researchers treated big tsunamis as 'non-dispersive,' meaning they travel as one coherent wave. That assumption just died.

Updated Jan 6