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Written by William Farrand, Senior Research Scientist, Space Science Institute

Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 28, 2026

The span of sols spanned by this blog post is noteworthy in several ways. First, Curiosity became a world-class (for Mars at least) mountaineer by passing the 1 kilometer mark of elevation from its landing site on the floor of Gale crater. This writer was on the Mars Exploration Rover science team and we were excited when the Spirit rover got to the top of Husband Hill in Gusev crater in August 2005. But that was a climb of 106 meters (about 348 feet) above its landing site, and Curiosity has passed 1000 meters (about 0.62 miles). 

Second, Saturday, Aug. 29, marked 5,000 Martian days (or sols) since Curiosity landed on Mars (that’s more than 5,137 Earth days, because a day on Mars lasts 24.6 hours). Congratulations are in order to the engineers and scientists who have made this landmark possible. 

Finally, in terms of its science activities Curiosity is examining a wind-formed, long, narrow, large ripple which has been named “Chocolatal.” Further examination will help determine if this feature could be classified as a “transverse aeolian ridge” or TAR. TARs have been observed across the Martian surface based on orbital imaging. The long axis of a TAR is oriented perpendicular to the local predominant wind direction. While this is not the first potential TAR that has been examined by Curiosity, its location, higher on the slopes of Mount Sharp invites questions about whether it will be composed of the same types of granular materials found in the lower TARs, or whether it has a different range of grain sizes and/or layering. 

Other questions to be addressed include how the ridge formed, whether it is active, how it has migrated, and, if it is immobile, then how has it stabilized?

At the start of the planning week, Curiosity was en route to the sand ripple and encountered interesting science targets along the way. In Monday’s two-sol plan, in-situ examinations were planned of the light-toned bedrock occurring along the rover’s path. Some of the rocks encountered near the rover had dark-toned thick coatings or remnant layers, and these were targeted for chemical examination by the rover’s ChemCam Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument. Mastcam and ChemCam Remote Micro Imager (RMI) mosaics were planned, for layers in buttes along the rover’s path, and on more distant sets of sand ripples.

A midweek planning session took advantage of the last drive, leaving the rover only a few meters from Chocolatal. ChemCam was able to target sand at the base of Chocolatal as well as nearby bedrock. Stand-off Mastcam high-resolution image mosaics of the ripple were also targeted. The drive planned midweek took the rover right into Chocolatal with one of its wheels and then backing off a little, so in the end-of-week plan, contact science could be planned within the trenched region.

The final planning session of the week, which extended through the landmark Sol 5000, involved MAHLI mosaics of the right wall of the trench to see if there is layering, and to assess any variations in grain size. It’s noteworthy that these MAHLI mosaics are being named in honor of our late colleague Paul Geissler, who was one of the foremost experts on the study of Martian TARs and who was working with the MAHLI team before his untimely passing earlier in the year. In-situ APXS measurements were planned of the coarse-grained surface of the ripple, and ChemCam LIBS measurements were planned on the top of Chocolatal, a sinuous feature looking like a “mohawk” haircut (see the accompanying image). LIBS was also planned on a dark band on its flank and at the back of the scuff/trench. Other activities in the three-sol plan included Mastcam mosaics, an AM Navcam dust-devil survey, Navcam suprahorizon survey, and APXS atmospheric measurements.

With 5000 sols of outstanding scientific accomplishments, the Curiosity science and engineering team looks forward to the next 5000 sols.

Eruptions are a regular occurrence at Anak Krakatau, a small volcano between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. Much of its activity remains relatively mild, but it occasionally puts on more impressive and hazardous shows of force. In early September 2026, a booming eruption lasting more than 24 hours sent gas and ash high into the atmosphere, disrupting thousands of flights and degrading air quality in parts of the country, including the capital city of Jakarta.

Satellites passing over the area during the eruption on September 5 captured images of the explosive activity. In the scene above, acquired with the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the NASA-USGS Landsat 8 satellite, a white plume of volcanic gas billows over a brown ash cloud. Below, a wider view captured by the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) on the Suomi NPP satellite shows the volcanic material dispersing over a large area.

Indonesia’s meteorological agency reported that ash had reached altitudes up to 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) to the east of the volcano and 15,000 meters (50,000 feet) to the west by September 6. The presence of ash in the atmosphere prompted the temporary closure of eight airports on Java and Sumatra, disrupting nearly 3,000 flights in and out of the area, according to news reports.

Ashfall affected populated areas, particularly to the east of Anak Krakatau in Jakarta and other parts of West Java, the Indonesian Humanitarian Coordination Platform (IHCP) reported. Volcanic ash poses health risks to people and can irritate the respiratory tract, eyes, and skin. However, this air quality hazard differs from the smoke produced by peatland fires elsewhere in the country in terms of particle characteristics, dispersal patterns, and protection measures, the IHCP noted. 

On September 6, the continuous explosive eruption from Anak Krakatau subsided, though the volcano kept rumbling. It returned to a more typical pattern of Strombolian eruptions, characterized by intermittent spurts of ash and volcanic material. Airports had resumed operation by September 8, but the volcano remained at the second-highest alert level on the country’s scale, as it has been since early July.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey, and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

References & Resources

• ABC News (2026, September 7) Flights to and from Indonesia’s capital resume after volcanic eruption forced a 2-day closure. Accessed September 8, 2026.
• BBC (2026, September 8) Indonesia airports reopen after volcano eruption leaves 340,000 stranded. Accessed September 8, 2026.
• BMKG (2026, September 7) Imbas Sebaran Abu Vulknaik Anak Krakatau, 8 Bandara Ditutup Sementara, BMKG Minta Waspada dan Tenang. Accessed September 8, 2026.
• BMKG (2026, September 6) BMKG Terus Pantau Dampak Erupsi Gunung Anak Krakatau. Accessed September 8, 2026.
• Global Volcanism Program (2026) Krakatau. Accessed September 8, 2026.
• Indonesia Humanitarian Coordination Platform (2026, September 6) Anak Krakatau Eruption, Volcanic Ashfall and Concurrent Forest Fire & Haze Situation. Accessed September 8, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory, Anak Krakatau. Accessed September 8, 2026.

Finding the Overlap

Caradine grew up in the Salt Lake City area, raised by a mother who put him on a snowboard at four and on a rock face not long after. He was the kind of kid who learned to love science not for its own sake, but for what it could do. “Math is an enabling skill,” he says. “It’s not about doing the math. Math has a purpose and it’s useful.”

By the time someone asked young Jaden what he wanted to be, the answer was immediate. “I was building Legos,” he says, “and I just thought — I want to build stuff. I can’t really see myself being anything other than an engineer.”

Right out of high school, Caradine enlisted in the Marines, trained as a mechanic, and shipped out to Japan. During those five years, between the technical work and the distance from home, he started reading books on decision-making, career planning, and long-term thinking. He found a framework he keeps coming back to: ikigai, a Japanese concept that maps the intersection of what you’re good at, what you enjoy, what the world needs, and what you’re paid to do.

“Your ikigai is the thing where all of those overlap,” he says. Engineering was already in the picture. The question was what kind.

Chasing the Signal

The answer arrived through research and a company Caradine stumbled on while scanning the landscape of emerging aerospace technology. They were using magnets to spin a launch system to 14,000 or 15,000 RPM and release small satellites into orbit, recovering the energy on the way down through the same magnetic system. “I thought that was awesome,” he recalls. “So, I started looking into aerospace engineering, and it was a good fit.”

Once he had the field, the destination wasn’t hard to find. Caradine transferred to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach campus to study aerospace engineering and immediately started showing up everywhere he could — satellite conferences at Kennedy Space Center, industry events in Orlando, small satellite gatherings back in Salt Lake City. “I went to all the career fairs, even though I wasn’t looking for a job yet,” he says. “I just wanted to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could.”

At every NASA booth, he asked questions. He learned about Pathways, the program that places undergraduate and graduate students at NASA centers with the potential to convert to full-time civil service positions, but he waited a year to apply. “I hadn’t really done the things I wanted to do in order to write a strong application yet,” he says. He wrote the next application with the intention of using it as a practice run. He got in.

His reason for choosing NASA over industry was simple and firm. “NASA doesn’t work for profit,” he says. “We’re here to remove barriers so that industry can eventually do the things they weren’t able to do before.”

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“Human beings are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and can only be taken one step at a time.”

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Work Worth Doing

At NASA Langley, Caradine is part of the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate, where “we help agency leaders figure out why they should make certain decisions, especially those that have lots of moving parts,” he explains. Specifically, he works with the in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM) team, a group focused on the emerging field of building and maintaining infrastructure in space, rather than simply launching and discarding it.

A major part of his summer was curating the State of Play, a comprehensive document that consolidates everything happening in the ISAM sector across government, academia, and industry into a single, navigable resource.

“Jaden joined the team and immediately contributed to this year’s State of Play update,” says Dale Arney, aerospace engineer and Caradine’s mentor. “He also created an automated tool that will help the team create future updates more quickly.”  

That tool scrapes aerospace news from across the web, compiles relevant updates into organized tables, and produces a readable summary on a regular cadence. “It kind of replaced the need for everyone on the team to spend 30 or 40 minutes every day scrolling through news to keep up,” he says.

“Jaden was constantly looking for ways to improve himself, the team, and our products,” Arney adds. “He was eager to take the lead in trying a number of new processes and ideas to try to make them work for us.” 

No Silos

The thing that surprised Caradine most about NASA Langley had nothing to do with the technical work. He had expected some departmental siloing that could develop in large organizations, where people become experts in narrow areas with limited cross-pollination among teams.

“That’s not something I’ve experienced here,” he says. “We all talk to each other, across all teams. We share resources. We collaborate quite extensively.” He describes a culture that expects everyone to engage with the whole problem, not just their corner of it. “Everyone kind of bounces around on different teams to learn the whole aspect of the problem and support each other.”

For anyone considering the Pathways program, his advice is direct. “Do it,” he says. “Human beings are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. If it seems like too much, break it down. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and can only be taken one step at a time.”

Caradine heads back to Embry-Riddle as a junior this fall, with plans to return to Langley next summer. Grad school is on the horizon, and he’s exploring programs that nurture important analysis skills for SMAB, including decision, strategic, and systems analysis.

“Before coming here, I was trying to do everything and cast a wide net,” he says. “Now I know what I need to know how to do. That’ll give me the opportunity to focus my efforts on the high-value skill sets.”

On Caradine’s Sci-Fi Shelf

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Caradine’s instinct runs more toward fantasy than science fiction, but this one, he says, hits something real.

“I enjoy the leveling aspect — constantly improving, constantly getting better. In books it might be physical strength, but in reality, strength takes on many different forms. Constant improvement is quite rewarding in real life, as it is in books.”

The audiobook production, he adds, is its own experience: full sound design, character actors, the works. “It’s like listening to a movie.”

The team also recently convinced him to start Dune, by Frank Herbert. He’s about halfway through.

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Part of the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
Learn more about our work by visiting our website.

NASA is seeking proposals to advance the technology and infrastructure needed to explore the Moon and establish a Moon Base in the lunar South Pole region.

Announced on Tuesday, Sept. 8, the solicitation targets capability gaps, including power generation, oxygen extraction, and producing materials on the Moon required for construction and operations. These technologies are essential to making humanity’s next great leap in lunar exploration.

“NASA is accelerating the development of key technologies and closing critical gaps needed for long-term human exploration at the Moon,” said Greg Stover, director of NASA’s Advanced Research and Technology Division. “Partnering with industry will strengthen the U.S. industrial base as we mature the capabilities and infrastructure needed for a sustainable lunar presence.”

The NextSTEP-3 Broad Agency Announcement Appendix A: Lunar Enabling Infrastructure Accelerator solicitation aims to mature and demonstrate capabilities in five areas:

• Vertical solar array technology that can provide consistent power generation, management, distribution, and energy storage.
• In-situ resource utilization oxygen from regolith production to extract usable oxygen molecularly bonded to rock and dust covering the Moon’s surface.
• Radioisotope Stirling generator, a type of nuclear energy technology that uses heat from fissile materials to produce electric power for operating spacecraft systems in the darkest, dustiest, and most remote places.
• In-space advanced manufacturing to reduce reliance on resupply missions from Earth and to optimize mission flexibility and resilience on the Moon.
• Innovative nanomaterials production to advance the commercial availability and quality of nanomaterials that can be used in lunar exploration.

The solicitation intends to cultivate U.S.-led capabilities while maintaining full and open competition among private industry, academic institutions, and not‑for‑profit entities, as well as international partners participating through U.S.-led teams. 

NASA may apply insights gained from the resulting contracts of this solicitation, such as technical data, and demonstration results, to shape future acquisition strategies.  

To learn more about NextSTEP-3, visit:

https://go.nasa.gov/4x20o3t

-end-

Rob Margetta
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
robert.j.margetta@nasa.gov

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures a photogenic nebula, N44, in the Large Magellanic Cloud in this Sept. 3, 2026, image. N44 is dominated by two features: a vast central void and a shell of dense, dusty gas. The central void is a ‘superbubble’ spanning roughly 210 by 140 light-years across. The glittering stars at the center of the void are responsible for its creation; through their powerful stellar winds and explosive supernovae, these stars expelled much of the gas from which they were born.

Read more about this cosmic vista.

Image credit: NASA, ESA/Hubble, D. Gouliermis

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