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Flight Opportunities Image Gallery

View the Flight Opportunities image gallery for highlights from flight tests over the years.

The Varda W-4 capsule that launched via SpaceX into low Earth orbit on June 23, 2025. The shield protecting the...
A large, silver, conical-shaped heat shield with segmented panels creating its surface.
NASA’s technical support helped Varda manufacture the C-PICA tiles now in orbit as part of the W-4 capsule.
Transporter 14 during Varda's Winnebago-4 launch
Rocket launch shows rocket separating from the platform.
The World View high altitude balloon sit waiting to launch the TechRise Student Challenge payloads.
A large high-altitude balloon sits inflated against a blue sky.
The Spyder hypersonic launch vehicle blasts off at White Sands Missile Range on June 13, 2025.
A rocket with flames and smoking billowing from its engine prepares to launch.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center worked closely with UP Aerospace on the design, development, and testing of the third and...
Flames an smoke are shooting out of a rocket engine while it is being tested.
Mason Maloney (foreground) and Tom Conboy from Creare LLC monitor their experiment in zero gravity on the May 5, 2025...
A researcher on a parabolic flight floats horizontally next to his experiment.
As part of a series of tethered and free-flight tests in April and May 2025, algorithms developed by San Diego...
PlanetVac is a pneumatic device that attaches to the leg of a lander vehicle and enables fast, simple, and reliable...
Metal legs of a rocket-powered lander surround a fiery rocket plume in midair. The feet of the lander legs have circular openings for regolith sample collection via PlanetVac.
The PlanetVac device, show here, is a pneumatic device that attaches to the leg of a lander vehicle and enables...
A metal pole with an oval "foot" rests on a concrete surface. Tubes run from the foot to a box on the back of the leg.
The launch of the RadPC (Radiation-Tolerant Computing) technology on the Raven Aerostar Thunderhead high-altitude balloon system on 7/21/2021 out of...
High-altitude balloon launch over green fields. The payload being tested is a dark rectangular shape attached to the bottom of the balloon.
A LuGRE (Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment) flight test aboard an UP Aerospace sounding rocket on Oct. 1, 2024, demonstrated the...
Mounted on a white frame reach for launch is a black sounding rocket with blue tip and tail with a U.S. flag emblem and UP Aerospace along its length in front of a blue sky with a few clouds.
Launched from Hurley, South Dakota, an Aerostar International high-altitude balloon flew over several contained and controlled burns carrying three technologies...
Launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket system on Feb. 4, 2025. During the flight test, the capsule at...
Launch of Blue Origins New Shepard suborbital rocket system.
With support from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, Astrobotic tested an engineering model of its hazard detection lidar sensor over the...
Interlune engineers Lexi Humann (left) and Alex Lewandowski (right) with a prototype of Interlune's regolith processing device on a parabolic...
Two researchers float upward while holding onto their experiment on a parabolic flight.
New Shepard clears the tower on the way to space during NS-27. (October 23, 2024)
Rocket launches amongst billowing clouds against a blue sky.
Rocket on slants launcher, square metal box signed by researchers, open end of metal tube housing electronics.
Flight testing of the technologies developed by the three winners of NASA’s TechLeap Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge takes place on...
The FIGARO technology prepares for launch on the Aerostar high-altitude balloon from Baltic, South Dakota on September 26, 2024.
View from below of a metal cube with four inset squares suspended by a frame against a blue sky.
World View high-altitude balloon carrying the ARMAS and CubeSounder technologies prepares to launch on August 31, 2024, from Page, Arizona.
A high-altitude balloon with tethered payload sits on the launching ground.
During an August 29, 2024, commercial suborbital flight supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, University of Florida’s Rob Ferl conducted...
Researcher strapped into seat depresses plunger on tube. Window view is the darkness of space.
(L to R) Dr. Andrew O’Connor and Dr. Louise Littles of NASA Marshall along with Ohio State Univ. Ph.D. student...
Three researchers in blue jumpsuits float in zero gravity next to their experiment. One researcher peers through a round window at the technology.
Phillips Academy student works on experiment to fly on the World View high-altitude balloon.
A young student holds a soldering iron.
Payloads from Purdue University (top) and the University of California, Berkeley, installed on Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity for flight testing...
Two boxes with university and NASA stickers stacked inside spaceplane mounted under circular window
A research team from Redwire tests the fluidics of a pharmaceutical in-space laboratory aboard Zero Gravity Corporation’s G-Force One on...
Four researchers float in zero gravity on a parabolic flight while holding onto their experiment encased in a clear case.
New Shepard’s booster lands on the pad at Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas on December 19, 2023,...
Reusable rocket coming in for a vertical landing, kicking up a plume of dust from the arid ground. The blue sky is full of wispy clouds.
An Aerostar stratospheric balloon carrying the SOLD payload prepares to launch on August 30, 2023.
Aerostar balloon on the tarmac at night.
Parabolic flight campaigns provided testing aboard the G-FORCE ONE May 9-12 and 16-17, 2022.
Researchers float in microgravity while checking experiment.
In the foreground we have two team members adjusting controls for a technology that examines electrostatic resonance in liquid metals-...
Two researchers lie on the floor of a parabolic flight making adjustments to their experiment.
Mother and satellite droplet formation during zero-gravity pipette withdrawal.
Closeup of the tip of a pipette with a droplet falling to a surface.
Researchers from Carthage College tested their noninvasive propellant gauging technology designed to facilitate the transfer and storage of cryogenic propellants...
During flight tests in March and April of 2024, Auburn University researchers gathered data on plume-surface interaction in reduced and...
Astrobotic's Xodiac lander completes a flight test at the Mojave Spaceport. Xodiac is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) reusable terrestrial rocket.
Xodiac lander lifts off tethered to a crane in the dessert.
Students from 20 middle and high schools watched as their experiments launched aboard a high-altitude balloon on June 14, 2023,...
Aerostar’s high-altitude balloon is shown floating above expansive green fields and a small body of water appears in the lower left corner. The sun, low in the sky and out of frame, is casting sunlight through clouds and haze.
Researcher Ben Gorr of the SEAK Lab at Texas A&M University prepares the SNAP technology payload for flight testing on...
A researcher bends forward to reach into a 3D frame to manipulate the technology suspended in the center via mounting hardware and surrounded by black and red wires and a blue cable.
Researchers from MIT conduct microgravity experiments to develop computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models to support designing optimal propellant systems for...
Five researchers run an experiment in microgravity, as indicated by one researcher's floating hair.
In a project led by Purdue University and supported by NASA TechFlights, researchers test various health care-related technologies in microgravity...
People working on experiments on zero-g test flight.
Sara Jennings, chief executive officer of Orion Labs and team lead for the company’s TechLeap project, works on a payload...
A researcher works to assemble a small spacecraft technology payload perched on a wooden tabletop in a ground-based technology facility.
Virgin Galactic VSS Unity Release
Virgin Galactic VSS Unity Release