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National Security Space Launch
National Security Space Launch (NSSL), formerly the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, is the US Department of Defense program buying launches for military and intelligence satellites.
National Space Centre
The National Space Centre is a visitor attraction, education and research facility in Leicester, England, opened in 2001, with the Sir Patrick Moore Planetarium and a 42-meter Rocket Tower.
National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program
Space Grant, formally the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, is a NASA-administered network of 52 state-based consortia supporting space science and engineering education since 1989.
National Space Program (Algeria)
The National Space Program (Programme Spatial National, PSN) is Algeria's state program for developing and operating its Earth observation and telecommunications satellites, run by the Algerian Space Agency.
National Space Society
The National Space Society is an independent, nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to creating a spacefaring civilization; formed in 1987, it runs the annual International Space Development Conference.
Nauka (satellite bus)
Nauka (Наука) was a Soviet series of battery-powered scientific sub-satellites, first flown in 1968, carried as containers on Zenit reconnaissance satellites and released for autonomous research flights until 1979.
Nauka (Наука) (ISS module)
Nauka, Russian for "science" and formally the Multipurpose Laboratory Module, is a Russian ISS laboratory module launched in 2021 that briefly pushed the station out of orientation after docking.
Navy Navigation Satellite System
The Navy Navigation Satellite System, known as Transit, was the first operational satellite navigation system, serving the US Navy from 1964 until GPS replaced it in 1996.
NEAR Shoemaker
NEAR Shoemaker, also known as Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, was a NASA spacecraft that became the first to orbit and land on an asteroid, 433 Eros.
Near-rectilinear halo orbit
A near-rectilinear halo orbit is a highly eccentric, nearly polar orbit around the Moon in the combined gravity of Earth and Moon, chosen for NASA's Gateway station.
Nedelin catastrophe
The Nedelin catastrophe, also called the Nedelin disaster, was a 1960 launch pad explosion at Baikonur that killed Strategic Rocket Forces commander Mitrofan Nedelin and dozens of specialists.
Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, formerly called Swift and renamed in 2018 for its first principal investigator, is a NASA space telescope launched in 2004 to rapidly detect and follow up gamma-ray bursts.
NEO Surveyor
NEO Surveyor is a NASA infrared space telescope designed to find near-Earth asteroids and comets that could pose an impact hazard, launching no earlier than September 2027.
NERVA
NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) was a joint NASA and Atomic Energy Commission program, from 1961 to 1973, to develop a nuclear thermal rocket engine.
Network RTK
Network RTK (NRTK) is a real-time satellite positioning technique in which a network of GNSS reference stations streams corrections, extending centimeter accuracy to about 100 km.
Neuroscience in space
Neuroscience in space is the study of how spaceflight environments, chiefly microgravity, radiation, and disrupted day-night cycles, affect the nervous system, producing brain shifts, motion sickness, and altered cognition in astronauts.
Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory
The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, or Neutral Buoyancy Lab, is a large indoor pool at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston where astronauts rehearse spacewalks underwater.
New Glenn
New Glenn, also known as Blue Origin New Glenn, is a heavy-lift rocket by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin that first reached orbit in January 2025.
New Horizons
New Horizons is a NASA spacecraft launched in 2006 that performed the first flyby of Pluto in 2015 and flew by the Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth in 2019.
New Shepard
New Shepard is Blue Origin's fully reusable suborbital rocket, named after astronaut Alan Shepard. First flown in 2015, it carries passengers past the Kármán line on 11-minute flights.
New Space Race
The New Space Race, also called the Second Space Race, is the renewed spaceflight competition since the 2010s, centered on US–China rivalry and commercial reusable rockets.
NewSat Network Communications
NewSat Network Communications, also known as NewSat Limited, was an Australian satellite communications company operating teleports in Perth and Adelaide; its Jabiru-1 satellite was never launched, and it entered receivership in April 2015.
Nike-Cajun
The Nike-Cajun, designated PWN-3, was a two-stage American sounding rocket combining a Nike booster with a Cajun upper stage, flown for upper-atmosphere research from 1956 to 1976.
Nimbus program
The Nimbus program was a series of seven NASA Earth-observation research satellites launched between 1964 and 1978, flying over 30 instruments that pioneered ozone and weather sensing.
NIRCam
NIRCam, the Near-Infrared Camera, is the primary near-infrared imager on the James Webb Space Telescope, covering 0.6 to 5 microns and led by Marcia Rieke.
NIRISS
NIRISS (Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) is a near-infrared camera and slitless spectrograph on the James Webb Space Telescope, provided by the Canadian Space Agency and used to observe exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and distant galaxies.
NIRSpec
NIRSpec, the Near-Infrared Spectrograph, is a science instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope covering 0.6 to 5.3 micrometers, provided by the European Space Agency.
NISAR
NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) is a joint NASA and ISRO satellite launched on July 30, 2025, the first to collect radar data in two microwave bands.
NK-33
The NK-33, also known as the NK-43 in its high-altitude version, is a Soviet oxygen-rich staged combustion rocket engine developed by Kuznetsov for the N1 moon rocket.
NOAA (satellite series)
The NOAA satellite series is a family of American polar-orbiting weather satellites named since NOAA-1 launched in 1970, supplying over 80% of the data used in numerical weather prediction.