Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with NASA, are taking additive manufacturing to the final frontier by 3D printing the same kind of wheel as the design used by NASA for its robotic lunar rover, demonstrating the technology for specialized parts needed for space exploration.

The additively manufactured wheel was modeled on the existing, light-weight wheels of the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, a mobile robot NASA plans to send in 2024 to map ice and other potential resources at the south pole of the moon.

Solar panel technology has advanced significantly in recent years, to the point where solar energy is the fastest-growing renewable power source. The solar panels we have today are a by-product of those used in space.

If you want to power a satellite or crewed spacecraft, there are only two ways: solar energy or nuclear power. Of the two, only solar energy isn't limited by the amount of fuel you bring on board. As we contemplate traveling to other star systems, this raises the question: will solar panels work near other stars?

Solar panels generate an electric voltage through what is known as the photoelectric effect. The effect was first discovered in the 1800s when scientists noticed that charged metallic planets could give off electrons when exposed to ultraviolet light. This led to the discovery that light consisted of quantum particles known as photons.

The Parker Solar Probe is the little engine that just keeps going and going by the sun. On September 27th, it made its 17th close approach and skimmed just 7.26 million kilometers (4.51 million miles) above the sun's "surface" layer (called the photosphere).

That's just the latest achievement by the probe, which also became the first-ever spacecraft to fly through a coronal mass ejection—and live to tell the story. That CME pass-through occurred on September 5, 2022, during its 13th approach to the sun.

The spacecraft's most recent accomplishment was set up by a gravity-assist flyby of Venus in late August. During the closest approach, the Parker Solar Probe was moving at 635,266 kilometers per hour (394,735 miles per hour).