NASA

As NASA scientists study the returned fragments of asteroid Bennu, the team that helped navigate the mission on its journey refines their technology for potential use in future robotic and crewed missions. The optical navigation team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, served as a backup navigation resource for the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission to near-Earth asteroid Bennu. They double-checked the primary navigation team’s work and proved the viability of navigation by visual cues. The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. The sample was collected from the asteroid Bennu in October 2020 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.NASA/Keegan Barber Optical navigation uses observations from cameras, lidar, or other sensors to navigate the way humans do. This works by taking pictures of a target, such as Bennu, and identifying landmarks on the surface. GIANT software – that’s short for the Goddard Image Analysis and Navigation Tool – analyzes those images to provide information, such as precise distance to the target, and to develop three-dimensional maps of potential landing zones and hazards. It can also analyze a spinning object to help calculate the target’s mass and determine its center – critical details to know for a mission trying to enter an orbit. “Onboard autonomous optical navigation is an enabling technology for current and future mission ideas and proposals,” said Andrew Liounis, lead developer for GIANT at Goddard. “It reduces the amount of data that needs to be downlinked to Earth, reducing the cost of communications for smaller missions, and allowing for more science data to be downlinked for larger missions. It also reduces the number of people required to perform orbit determination and navigation on the ground.” Asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on Jan. 19, created by combining two images from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. GIANT optical navigation technology used to process images like these helped establish the size and velocity of the particles. NASA / Goddard / University of Arizona During OSIRIS-REx’s orbit of Bennu, GIANT identified particles flung from the asteroid’s surface. The optical navigation team used images to calculate the particles’ movement and mass, ultimately helping determine they did not pose a significant threat to the spacecraft. Since then, lead developer Andrew Liounis said they have refined and expanded GIANT’s backbone collection of software utilities and scripts. New GIANT developments include an open-source version of their software released to the public, and celestial navigation for deep space travel by observing stars, the Sun, and solar system objects. They are now working on a slimmed-down package to aid in autonomous operations throughout a mission’s life cycle. “We’re also looking to use GIANT to process some Cassini data with partners at the University of Maryland in order to study Saturn’s interactions with its moons,” Liounis said. Other innovators like Goddard engineer Alvin Yew are adapting the software to potentially aid rovers and human explorers on the surface of the Moon or other planets. Adaptation, Improvement Shortly after OSIRIS-REx left Bennu, Liounis’ team released a refined, open-source version for public use. “We considered a lot of changes to make it easier for the user and a few changes to make it run more efficiently,” he said. An intern modified their code to make use of a graphics processor for ground-based operations, boosting the image processing at the heart of GIANT’s navigation. A simplified version called cGIANT works with Goddard’s autonomous Navigation, Guidance, and Control software package, or autoNGC in ways that can be crucial to both small and large missions, Liounis said. Liounis and colleague Chris Gnam developed a celestial navigation capability which uses GIANT to steer a spacecraft by processing images of stars, planets, asteroids, and even the Sun. Traditional deep space navigation uses the mission’s radio signals to determine location, velocity, and distance from Earth. Reducing a mission’s reliance on NASA’s Deep Space Network frees up a valuable resource shared by many ongoing missions, Gnam said. Next on their agenda, the team hopes to develop planning capabilities so mission controllers can develop flight trajectories and orbits within GIANT – streamlining mission design. “On OSIRIS-REx, it would take up to three months to plan our next trajectory or orbit,” Liounis said. “Now we can reduce that to a week or so of computer processing time.” Their innovations have earned the team continuous support from Goddard’s Internal Research and Development program, individual missions, and NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program. “As mission concepts become more advanced,” Liounis said, “optical navigation will continue to become a necessary component of the navigation toolbox.” By Karl B. Hille NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Share Details Last Updated Oct 25, 2023 Related Terms Communicating and Navigating with MissionsGoddard Space Flight CenterOffice of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS)Space Communications & Navigation ProgramTechnologyTechnology for Space Travel Explore More 5 min read NASA’s First Two-way End-to-End Laser Communications System Article 2 hours ago 6 min read NASA’s Webb Makes First Detection of Heavy Element From Star Merger Article 3 hours ago 4 min read Goddard Engineers Improve NASA Lidar Tech for Exploration Lidar technology improvements will help NASA scientists and explorers with remote sensing and surveying, mapping,… Article 1 day ago View the full article

NASA/JPL-Caltech An engineer prepares a small rover for testing in a thermal vacuum chamber on Oct. 24, 2023, at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. This rover is part of the agency’s Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) technology demonstration that’s headed to the Moon as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. CADRE is designed to demonstrate that multiple robots can cooperate and explore together autonomously – without direct input from human mission controllers. Learn more about these miniature rovers. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech View the full article

5 Min Read NASA’s First Two-way End-to-End Laser Communications System NASA's ILLUMA-T payload communicating with LCRD over laser signals. Credits: NASA/Dave Ryan NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions – showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions transmitting terabytes of important data. The International Space Station is getting a “flashy” technology demonstration this November. The ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) payload is launching to the International Space Station to demonstrate how missions in low Earth orbit can benefit from laser communications. Laser communications uses invisible infrared light to send and receive information at higher data rates, providing spacecraft with the capability to send more data back to Earth in a single transmission and expediting discoveries for researchers. NASA’s ILLUMA-T payload was delivered to SpaceX Dragonland, and the team integrated the payload into the Dragon trunk in preparation for its November launch. SpaceX Managed by NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, ILLUMA-T is completing NASA’s first bi-directional, end-to-end laser communications relay by working with the agency’s LCRD (Laser Communications Relay Demonstration). LCRD launched in December 2021 and is currently demonstrating the benefits of laser communications from geosynchronous orbit by transmitting data between two ground stations on Earth in a series of experiments. Some of LCRD’s experiments include studying atmospheric impact on laser signals, confirming LCRD’s ability to work with multiple users, testing network capabilities like delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) over laser links, and investigating improved navigation capabilities. The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) launched in December 2021. Together, LCRD and ILLUMA-T will complete NASA’s first bi-directional end-to-end laser communications system. Dave Ryan Once ILLUMA-T is installed on the space station’s exterior, the payload will complete NASA’s first in-space demonstration of two-way laser relay capabilities. How It Works: ILLUMA-T’s optical module is comprised of a telescope and two-axis gimbal which allows pointing and tracking of LCRD in geosynchronous orbit. The optical module is about the size of a microwave and the payload itself is comparable to a standard refrigerator. NASA’s ILLUMA-T payload in a Goddard cleanroom. The payload will be installed on the International Space Station and demo higher data rates with NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration.Dennis Henry ILLUMA-T will relay data from the space station to LCRD at 1.2 gigabits-per-second, then LCRD will send the data down to optical ground stations in California or Hawaii. Once the data reaches these ground stations, it will be sent to the LCRD Mission Operations Center located at NASA’s White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, New Mexico. After this, the data will be sent to the ILLUMA-T ground operations teams at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There, engineers will determine if the data sent through this end-to-end relay process is accurate and of high-quality. “NASA Goddard’s primary role is to ensure successful laser communications and payload operations with LCRD and the space station,” said ILLUMA-T Deputy Project Manager Matt Magsamen. “With LCRD actively conducting experiments that test and refine laser systems, we are looking forward to taking space communications capabilities to the next step and watching the success of this collaboration between the two payloads unfold.” To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video ILLUMA-T and LCRD demonstrating laser communications. Once ILLUMA-T transmits its first beam of laser light through its optical telescope to LCRD, the end-to-end laser communications experiment begins. After its experimental phase with LCRD, ILLUMA-T could become an operational part of the space station and substantially increase the amount of data NASA can send to and from the orbiting laboratory. Transmitting data to relay satellites is no new feat for the space station. Since its completion in 1998 the orbiting laboratory has relied on the fleet of radio frequency relay satellites known as NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which are part of the agency’s Near Space Network. Relay satellites provide missions with constant contact with Earth because they can see the spacecraft and a ground antenna at the same time. Laser communications could be a game-changer for researchers on Earth with science and technology investigations aboard the space station. Astronauts conduct research in areas like biological and physical sciences, technology, Earth observations, and more in the orbiting laboratory for the benefit of humanity. ILLUMA-T could provide enhanced data rates for these experiments and send more data back to Earth at once. In fact, at 1.2 Gbps, ILLUMA-T can transfer the amount of data equivalent to an average movie in under a minute. The ILLUMA-T / LCRD end-to-end laser communications relay system is one small step for NASA, but one giant leap for space communications capabilities. Together with previous and future demonstrations, NASA is showcasing the benefits laser communications systems can have for both near-Earth and deep space exploration. The goal of these demonstrations is to integrate laser communications as a capability within NASA’s space communications networks: the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network. If you are a mission planner interested in using laser communications, please reach out to scan@nasa.gov. NASA’s Laser Communications Roadmap – proving the technology’s validity in a variety of regimes. NASA / Dave Ryan The ILLUMA-T payload is funded by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ILLUMA-T is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners include the International Space Station program office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. LCRD is led by Goddard and in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. LCRD is funded through NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions program, part of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, and the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. By Kendall Murphy and Katherine Schauer Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD Share Details Last Updated Oct 25, 2023 Editor Related Terms Communicating and Navigating with MissionsGeneralGoddard Space Flight CenterILLUMA-TLaser Communications RelaySpace Communications & Navigation ProgramSpace Communications Technology Explore More 3 min read New Video Highlights Accessibility and Inclusion at NASA Article 2 hours ago 6 min read NASA’s Webb Makes First Detection of Heavy Element From Star Merger Article 2 hours ago 5 min read How NASA Is Protecting Europa Clipper From Space Radiation Article 23 hours ago View the full article

3 Min Read NASA’s Scientists and Volunteers Tackle the October 14 Solar Eclipse In this image captured during the October 14 annular solar eclipse we can see that the disk of the Sun was almost totally blocked by the smaller dark Moon. Between the horns of the crescent is a Baily’s Bead, a spot of sunlight peeking through a valley on the Moon’s apparent edge. Credits: Clinton Lewis, West Kentucky University Did you see October 14th’s solar eclipse? Most of the time we can easily forget that we are on a planet spinning and orbiting in space with other celestial bodies. Watching the Moon move across the face of the Sun reminds us of our place in the solar system. Several NASA science teams and many NASA volunteers used the October 14 eclipse to collect data and test observation protocols, software, hardware, and logistics. They met enthusiastic crowds of people taking in the spectacle and making unique observations. The October eclipse was an “annular” eclipse, meaning that some sunlight always leaked around the edges of the moon. The next solar eclipse, on April 8, 2024, will be a total eclipse. Total eclipses are rare scientific opportunities, so NASA teams used the October eclipse to practice and prepare for the upcoming April eclipse. In New Mexico, the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta rolled right into an Annular Eclipse event! An estimated 100,000 people took in the view of the annular eclipse of the Sun from Albuquerque, which was directly on the path where the eclipse reached its maximum – the path of annularity. The crowd gathered for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and annular eclipse. Credit: Heather Fischer The 3-D NASA logo sits outside an exhibit tent at the Albuquerque Balloon fiesta and subsequent eclipse viewing event. Credit: Heather Fischer Elsewhere in New Mexico, the Eclipse Soundscapes team gathered in the Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary in Sante Fe. The project team deployed eight AudioMoth recording devices the day before the eclipse and retrieved them the day after the eclipse to support research on whether or not eclipses affect life – and sounds – on Earth. They also recruited staff and visitors to the nearby Valles Caldera National Preserve to participate in Eclipse Soundscapes as Observers. Many folks used the prompting worksheets – and eclipse glasses – provided by Eclipse Soundscapes to record and report their multisensory experience of the eclipse. Eclipse Soundscapes Team members Dr. Henry “Trae” Winter and MaryKay Severino, getting ready to deploy an AudioMoth device at the Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary in Sante Fe, NM Credit: MaryKay Severino Valles Caldera Park visitors used the Eclipse Soundscapes worksheet and eclipse glasses distributed by Park Rangers to learn more about the Eclipse Soundscapes project, take notes on what nature changes they heard, saw, or felt during the annular eclipse, and then use a QR code to submit their observations to the project. Credit: MaryKay Severino The SunSketcher team gathered in Odessa, TX, together with other eclipse chasers, to test their new cell phone app. This app will allow volunteers to help measure the size and shape of the Sun during April’s total eclipse. Credit: Clinton Lewis, West Kentucky University In this image captured during the October 14 annular solar eclipse we can see that the disk of the Sun was almost totally blocked by the smaller dark Moon. Between the horns of the crescent is a Baily’s Bead, a spot of sunlight peeking through a valley on the Moon’s apparent edge. Credit: Clinton Lewis, West Kentucky University The Dynamic Eclipse Broadcasting Initiative was also on the move. Project leader Bob Baer, student Nathan Culli, and collaborator Mike Kentrianakis gathered in Midland, TX, for a good view of the annular eclipse. They tested their set-up and managed to successfully broadcast their telescope view from sunny Texas back to their home institution of Southern Illinois University in cloudy Carbondale. The DEB Initiative set up for testing pre-eclipse. Credit: Bob Baer and Mike Kentrianakis Members of the DEB Initiative under their reflective tent in Midland, TX, ready to broadcast their telescope view of the eclipse back to the stadium at their home institution of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Credit: Bob Baer and Mike Kentrianakis. Members of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society, NASA volunteers and others gather in anticipation of the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse. Credit: NASA volunteer Danny Roylance All in all, the day was a great success! On to April 8, 2024 and the total eclipse! More information: Curious about the other eclipse science projects that you can join? Check out this website https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/programs/citizen-science/ and this cool video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1713910355842257261 Want to know more and keep up to date on all the Heliophysics Big Year events? Follow @NASASun on X. Want another chance to see the October 14 annular eclipse? Check out the recording of NASA’s live stream of the eclipse at https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1zqKVqymlNPxB M Websites: https://debinitiative.org/ https://eclipsesoundscapes.org/ https://sunsketcher.org/ NASA’s Citizen Science Program: Learn about NASA citizen science projects Follow on X Follow on Facebook View the full article

3 min read New Video Highlights Accessibility and Inclusion at NASA To promote accessibility and inclusion, NASA’s Mission Support Directorate (MSD) released a video in October 2023 for National Disability Employment Awareness Month. NASA’s mission to explore the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all is made possible through the contributions of its diverse workforce, including employees with disabilities. To promote accessibility and inclusion, NASA’s Mission Support Directorate (MSD) released a video in October 2023 for National Disability Employment Awareness Month. MSD fuels NASA’s Mission Support community, which provides the essential services for NASA’s missions and centers to accomplish their work. Bob Gibbs, the associate administrator of MSD, says the video underscores the importance of accessibility and inclusion at NASA. “People are our special sauce at NASA, and they must have the opportunity to bring who they truly are to work,” says Gibbs. “Inclusion and belonging foster innovation and groundbreaking ideas, and that leads to even greater success.” Titled Explorers, Adventurers, and Innovators with a Disability at NASA, the video features four NASA employees who share their perspectives on accessibility and inclusion at NASA. Featured employees include Gibbs; Theodore (Ted) Gutman, deputy associate administrator for the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity; Dana Bolles, the NASA responsible official for Science.NASA.gov in the Science Mission Directorate; and Jimmy Acevedo, an education outreach specialist in Exploration and Space Communications. The video also shares resources for employees and supervisors to learn about the disability community at NASA, how to access information and resources about disability in the workplace, and how to support accessibility and inclusion at NASA. Accessibility focuses on creating an organization in which all people, including people with disabilities, can fully and independently participate. As one of NASA’s core values, inclusion creates an environment where all employees feel welcome, respected, and engaged. National Disability Employment Awareness Month is an effort to educate the public about the issues related to disability and employment. According to the Library of Congress, it began in 1945 when Congress enacted Public Law 176, declaring the first week of October each year as National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. In 1962, the word “physically” was removed to acknowledge the employment needs and contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities. Some 25 years later, Congress expanded the week to a month and changed the name to National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Visit the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity to learn about NASA’s Resources for Individuals with Disabilities. Discover How You Can Champion Accessibility and Inclusion For a deeper understanding of disability in the workplace, the talented disability community at NASA, and to discover how you can champion accessibility and inclusion, explore: https://www.nasa.gov/careers/individuals-with-disabilities https://www.eeoc.gov https://askjan.org Share Details Last Updated Oct 25, 2023 Related Terms GeneralMission Support Directorate Explore More 6 min read NASA’s Webb Makes First Detection of Heavy Element From Star Merger Article 17 mins ago 5 min read How NASA Is Protecting Europa Clipper From Space Radiation Article 21 hours ago 6 min read Why NASA’s Roman Mission Will Study Milky Way’s Flickering Lights Article 1 day ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

Webb’s study of the second-brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen reveals tellurium. A team of scientists has used multiple space and ground-based telescopes, including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, to observe an exceptionally bright gamma-ray burst, GRB 230307A, and identify the neutron star merger that generated an explosion that created the burst. Webb also helped scientists detect the chemical element tellurium in the explosion’s aftermath. Image: Gamma-Ray Burst 230307A This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument highlights Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) 230307A and its associated kilonova, as well as its former home galaxy, among their local environment of other galaxies and foreground stars. The GRB likely was powered by the merger of two neutron stars. The neutron stars were kicked out of their home galaxy and traveled the distance of about 120,000 light-years, approximately the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy, before finally merging several hundred million years later.Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Levan (Radboud University and University of Warwick). Other elements near tellurium on the periodic table – like iodine, which is needed for much of life on Earth – are also likely to be present among the kilonova’s ejected material. A kilonova is an explosion produced by a neutron star merging with either a black hole or with another neutron star. “Just over 150 years since Dmitri Mendeleev wrote down the periodic table of elements, we are now finally in the position to start filling in those last blanks of understanding where everything was made, thanks to Webb,” said Andrew Levan of Radboud University in the Netherlands and the University of Warwick in the UK, lead author of the study. While neutron star mergers have long been theorized as being the ideal “pressure cookers” to create some of the rarer elements substantially heavier than iron, astronomers have previously encountered a few obstacles in obtaining solid evidence. Long Gamma-Ray Burst Kilonovae are extremely rare, making it difficult to observe these events. Short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), traditionally thought to be those that last less than two seconds, can be byproducts of these infrequent merger episodes. (In contrast, long gamma-ray bursts may last several minutes and are usually associated with the explosive death of a massive star.) The case of GRB 230307A is particularly remarkable. First detected by Fermi in March, it is the second brightest GRB observed in over 50 years of observations, about 1,000 times brighter than a typical gamma-ray burst that Fermi observes. It also lasted for 200 seconds, placing it firmly in the category of long duration gamma-ray bursts, despite its different origin. “This burst is way into the long category. It’s not near the border. But it seems to be coming from a merging neutron star,” added Eric Burns, a co-author of the paper and member of the Fermi team at Louisiana State University. Opportunity: Telescope Collaboration The collaboration of many telescopes on the ground and in space allowed scientists to piece together a wealth of information about this event as soon as the burst was first detected. It is an example of how satellites and telescopes work together to witness changes in the universe as they unfold. After the first detection, an intensive series of observations from the ground and from space, including with Swift, swung into action to pinpoint the source on the sky and track how its brightness changed. These observations in the gamma-ray, X-ray, optical, infrared, and radio showed that the optical/infrared counterpart was faint, evolved quickly, and became very red – the hallmarks of a kilonova. “This type of explosion is very rapid, with the material in the explosion also expanding swiftly,” said Om Sharan Salafia, a co-author of the study at the INAF – Brera Astronomical Observatory in Italy. “As the whole cloud expands, the material cools off quickly and the peak of its light becomes visible in infrared, and becomes redder on timescales of days to weeks.” Image: Killanova – Webb vs Model This graphic presentation compares the spectral data of GRB 230307A’s kilonova as observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and a kilonova model. Both show a distinct peak in the region of the spectrum associated with tellurium, with the area shaded in red. The detection of tellurium, which is rarer than platinum on Earth, marks Webb’s first direct look at an individual heavy element from a kilonova. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI). At later times it would have been impossible to study this kilonova from the ground, but these were the perfect conditions for Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instruments to observe this tumultuous environment. The spectrum has broad lines that show the material is ejected at high speeds, but one feature is clear: light emitted by tellurium, an element rarer than platinum on Earth. The highly sensitive infrared capabilities of Webb helped scientists identify the home address of the two neutron stars that created the kilonova: a spiral galaxy about 120,000 light-years away from the site of the merger. Prior to their venture, they were once two normal massive stars that formed a binary system in their home spiral galaxy. Since the duo was gravitationally bound, both stars were launched together on two separate occasions: when one among the pair exploded as a supernova and became a neutron star, and when the other star followed suit. In this case, the neutron stars remained as a binary system despite two explosive jolts and were kicked out of their home galaxy. The pair traveled approximately the equivalent of the Milky Way galaxy’s diameter before merging several hundred million years later. Scientists expect to find even more kilonovae in the future due to the increasing opportunities to have space and ground-based telescopes work in complementary ways to study changes in the universe. For example, while Webb can peer deeper into space than ever before, the remarkable field of view of NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will enable astronomers to scout where and how frequently these explosions occur. “Webb provides a phenomenal boost and may find even heavier elements,” said Ben Gompertz, a co-author of the study at the University of Birmingham in the UK. “As we get more frequent observations, the models will improve and the spectrum may evolve more in time. Webb has certainly opened the door to do a lot more, and its abilities will be completely transformative for our understanding of the universe.” These findings have been published in the journal Nature. The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency. Media Contacts Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu , Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edi Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. Downloads Download full resolution images for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute. Research results published in the journal Nature. Related Information Neutron Stars – https://universe.nasa.gov/stars/types/#otp_neutron_stars Universe/Stars Basics – https://universe.nasa.gov/stars/basics/ Universe Basics – https://universe.nasa.gov/universe/basics/ More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/ More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/ Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/ En Español Ciencia de la NASA NASA en español Space Place para niños Keep Exploring Related Topics Stars Overview Stars are giant balls of hot gas – mostly hydrogen, with some helium and small amounts of other elements.… How does the universe work? How does the universe work? Understanding the universe’s birth and its ultimate fate are essential first steps to unveil the… The Big Bang Overview The origin, evolution, and nature of the universe have fascinated and confounded humankind for centuries. New ideas and major… Universe Explore the universe: Learn about the history of the cosmos, what it’s made of, and so much more. Share Details Last Updated Oct 25, 2023 Editor Steve Sabia Contact Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms AstrophysicsGalaxies, Stars, & Black HolesGamma-Ray BurstsGeneralGoddard Space Flight CenterJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST)Neutron StarsOrigin & Evolution of the UniverseStarsThe Universe View the full article

3 min read NASA Retires UHF SmallSat Tracking Site Ops at Wallops On Sept. 30, 2023, NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility marked the formal conclusion of the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) Small Satellite (SmallSat) Tracking Operations in Wallops Island, Virginia, placing its workhorse, 60-plus-year-old, 18-meter antenna system in low-level maintenance status. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility UHF operators pose with the 60-plus-year-old antenna at tracking site. From left: Magnus Einarsson, Frank Schaefer, Tim Parks (site lead), Tom Davenport, and Ronnie Thomas. Not pictured: Matt Schneider (TM supervisor), Stephanie Dennis (scheduler), and the numerous operators and technicians who worked at the site over the years.NASA/Danielle Johnson “Since 2011, the Wallops tracking site has tracked more than 25 spacecraft over 16,912 passes,” said Doug Voss, deputy chief of the Range and Mission Management Office at Wallops. “It has been an honor to operate this unique tracking capability in support of the Small Satellite Science community.” Stepping back more than 60 years to 1959, MIT-Lincoln Labs built the dual-band UHF/X-Band antenna system, which included the repurposing of a Twin 5-inch, 38 MK 32 gun mount used extensively by the U.S. Navy in World War II. The mount enabled a precision pointing capability for the UHF antenna. The UHF and X-band antenna system was used for hypersonic missile re-entry plasma physics experiments up to 1965, and then various NASA atmospheric research programs. In 2011, an agreement was established between NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to dedicate the system to UHF SmallSat tracking. SmallSats, which are small spacecraft with a mass less than 180 kilograms or the size of a large kitchen refrigerator, are typically placed in a low-Earth orbit of about 160-320 kilometers above the Earth. The antenna system supported command and high data-rate downlink of these SmallSats, and nanosatellites called CubeSats, for the next decade plus. According to Voss, compared to most other UHF SmallSat communications systems, the Wallops system provided significantly higher data rates. Its precision pointing ability was critical to helping customers find “lost SmallSats.” With the increase of SmallSat missions from 2018 to 2020, the system was upgraded to provide end-to-end connectivity and increased automation. However, with more than a dozen spacecraft being supported and heavy pass schedules, the aging hardware was heavily taxed. As a result, in 2021, significant maintenance issues and obsolete parts created a need to reduce the pass schedule to decrease risk. At the same time, as the need for greater data rates continued to increase, SmallSat/CubeSat markets started to shift away from UHF to other higher frequency bands. “UHF SmallSat tracking operations ended because the customer base has decreased over the years, which has prompted a steady reduction in tracking services. It is anticipated that no new UHF customers are on the horizon,” said Rachel Albertson, project manager for the UHF SmallSat tracking site at Wallops. While the system formally concluded SmallSat tracking operations, future plans include support of special ionospheric radar experiments as a part of an initiative to establish a significantly increased Wallops Geophysical Observatory capability supporting mid-latitude heliophysics research. The system may be called on to support special emergent SmallSat needs. For more information, visit nasa.gov/wallops. Share Details Last Updated Oct 25, 2023 Editor Jamie Adkins Related Terms Wallops Flight Facility Explore More 7 min read To Study Atmosphere, NASA Rockets Will Fly into Oct. Eclipse’s Shadow UPDATE: The three rockets comprising the APEP mission launched on Saturday, Oct. 14th at 10:00am,… Article 4 weeks ago 4 min read Student-Focused Scientific Balloon Mission Inspires Future Generation The fall campaign of NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program is underway at the Columbia Scientific Balloon… Article 2 months ago 4 min read Double Header: NASA Sounding Rockets to Launch Student Experiments NASA's Wallops Flight Facility is scheduled to launch two sounding rockets carrying student developed experiments… Article 3 months ago View the full article

Sea turtle hatchlings emerge from their eggs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.NASA Humans aren’t the only living creatures using NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as their launchpad to the future. This year, a record number of sea turtle hatchlings got their start in nests built on the undisturbed beaches of the Florida spaceport. Biologists counted 13,935 sea turtle nests along Kennedy’s shoreline during the 2023 nesting season, 639 more nests than 2022 and the most found on center in a single year since record-keeping began in 1984. All of those sea turtle nests belong to species identified by the U.S. National Park Service as endangered or threatened, including the green (Chelonia mydas) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta). “All our effort to protect Kennedy’s habitat is bearing fruit,” said NASA Environmental Protection Specialist Jeff Collins. “Kennedy’s use of turtle-friendly lighting and having a properly maintained dune helps to keep our beach dark and that really makes a difference to sea turtle nesting success.” NASA partners to preserve the turtles and other fauna and flora at the spaceport with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore, which share a boundary with Kennedy. Working together, biologists found more than 8,800 nests at Kennedy this year were made by greens, with loggerheads creating almost 5,100. Sea turtle hatchlings make their way from their nests to the Atlantic Ocean at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “Kennedy’s sea turtle nests usually make up around 10% of the number Florida Fish and Wildlife reports in any given year,” said United States Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist Michael Legare. “Brevard, the Florida county where Kennedy is located, is particularly important to the future of loggerheads. That county and five others nearby – Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin, Palm Beach, and Broward – usually report around 80% of all loggerhead nests yearly in the Sunshine State.” Florida normally sees between 40,000 to 84,000 sea turtle nests built annually, according to state Fish and Wildlife data. From the beginning of March through the end of October, the sand on Kennedy’s beaches is marked with the tracks of adult sea turtles as they emerge from the sea and make their way to where they lay their eggs. If all goes well, much smaller sand tracks follow months later when the hatchlings leave their nests and head to the sea, assuming they have the proper guidance to get there. “Giving the sea turtles, especially the hatchlings, nothing but the moon and stars to shine their path to the ocean is one big way humans can help them,” Collins said. “Any other light can disorient them enough to where they’ll never find the ocean, making them easy prey while leading them away from the food and water they need to survive.” Sea turtle hatchlings make their way from their nests to the Atlantic Ocean at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA That is why closing window blinds or removing artificial beach lights are also important for shoreline buildings. “If the lights have to stay, then it’s essential that the bulbs be dimmed or replaced with amber or low wave-length lighting. Such simple things can make the difference between life and death for the turtles,” Legare said. This year’s count includes 26 leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) nests and one Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) nest, one of the world’s most endangered sea turtle species. There were no hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) nests discovered this season at Kennedy. Like the Kemp’s ridley, the endangered hawksbill has been documented at Kennedy in the past, but both species are a rare sight on the spaceport’s beaches. The leatherback, the largest of the sea turtle species that regularly nests at Kennedy, is normally among the first to lay their eggs in March. If any Kemp’s ridley or hawksbills come on shore to build their nests, that usually starts a month or so after the leatherbacks. Greens and loggerheads, the more common sea turtle species at Kennedy, often start nesting in late spring and continue through the summer months into fall. The number of eggs in each nest and how many of them hatch successfully aren’t tracked by state biologists, but on average, greens lay around 110 per nest, with loggerheads (100) and leatherbacks (80) close behind. Hawksbills lay around 160 eggs per nest on average, while Kemp’s ridley average around 100 per nest. Sea turtle hatchlings make their way from their nests to the Atlantic Ocean at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA It generally takes around two months for the sea turtle babies to emerge from their nest once the eggs are inside, but that can vary depending on the species. Sand temperature also plays a big role in determining the sex of the new turtles. Cooler temperatures produce more males and warmer temperatures bring more females. Florida Fish and Wildlife data shows about one of every 1,000 baby turtles makes it to adulthood. “The continued success of sea turtle nests at Kennedy shows that it is possible to explore space while maintaining the ecosystem,” Collins said. “As the spaceport’s launch cadence grows, we will continue our efforts to preserve that balance into the future.” View the full article

On Oct. 24, 1998, NASA launched the Deep Space 1 spacecraft. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Deep Space 1 served as a testbed for 12 new technologies, including solar electric, also known as ion propulsion, for use in future deep space and interplanetary missions. The spacecraft, the first in NASA’s New Millennium program, flew by asteroid Braille and comet Borrelly, returning images and scientific data about the two small bodies. The ion propulsion engine that Deep Space 1 successfully demonstrated allowed the Dawn spacecraft to explore the protoplanet Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres using that technology. The Psyche spacecraft currently on its way to explore the asteroid of the same name, also uses ion propulsion. Future programs such as Gateway will use ion propulsion to enable human lunar exploration. Deep Space 1 completed its mission on Dec. 18, 2001. Left: The fully assembled Deep Space 1 spacecraft prepared for launch. Middle: View of the Deep Space 1 spacecraft’s ion propulsion engine. Right: Launch of Deep Space 1 on a Delta II rocket from Launch Pad 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida. The 12 technologies Deep Space 1 tested included the ion propulsion system; the autonomous navigation system; an autonomous control system; a beacon system that sends simple tones to Earth to advise controllers of spacecraft health; a solar array with concentrator lenses; an integrated camera and imaging spectrometer; an integrated ion and electron spectrometer; a small deep-space transponder; a Ka-band solid-state power amplifier; low-power electronics; a multifunctional structure testing new packaging technology; and a power activation and switching module. Scientists also gathered data on whether the ion engine’s plume interfered with any of the spacecraft’s instruments. The ion engine used xenon gas as its propellant and obtained power from the spacecraft’s high-efficiency solar arrays. Although providing low thrust overall, the engine achieved more thrust than any chemical engine. The Deep Space 1 spacecraft’s primary mission trajectory, including the flyby of asteroid 1992 KD, renamed 9969 Braille. The launch of Deep Space 1 took place atop a Delta II rocket on Oct. 24, 1998, from Launch Pad 17A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, now Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida. After entering an initial parking orbit around the Earth, the rocket’s third stage boosted Deep Space 1 into solar orbit. The initial mission plan included demonstration of the new technologies and a flyby of asteroid 1992 KD, renamed 9969 Braille shortly before the spacecraft’s encounter. On Nov. 10, ground controllers commanded the ion engine to commence firing but it only operated for 4.5 minutes. They tried again on Nov. 24 with the spacecraft 3 million miles from Earth, and this time the engine firing succeeded, running for the planned 14 days. Over the next six months, the spacecraft successfully tested all 12 of its technology demonstrations, completing the activity in June 1999. Left: Illustration of Deep Space 1 and the blue exhaust of its ion propulsion engine. Middle: Blurry image of asteroid 9969 Braille. Right: Highest quality image of comet 19P/Borrelly. Due to an onboard computer crash shortly before the encounter, as well as the inability of the autonomous navigation system to lock onto the darker than expected asteroid, Deep Space 1’s flyby of Braille on July 29, 1999, occurred at a distance of 16 miles instead of the planned 790 feet. Thus, the images the spacecraft returned did not show any detail, while other instruments provided good data. When the spacecraft’s primary mission ended on Sept. 18, 1999, mission managers approved an extended mission to target a flyby of comet 19P/Borrelly. The spacecraft’s star tracker failed on Nov. 11, 1999, putting the comet flyby in jeopardy. Over the next five months, ground controllers built a new attitude control system that did not rely on the star tracker, and the flyby could proceed. Deep Space 1 entered comet Borrelly’s coma on Sept. 22, 2001, and flew by its nucleus at a distance of 1,350 miles. The spacecraft provided the most detailed images of a comet’s nucleus up to that time. Having operated well beyond its expected lifetime and with its attitude control fuel running low, ground controllers turned off the spacecraft on Dec. 18, 2001. Its ion propulsion engine had operated for 16,265 hours, far longer than any previous spacecraft, and provided a total velocity change of three miles per second, the largest achieved by any spacecraft with its own propulsion system. Left: Dawn spacecraft image of dwarf planet Ceres. Middle: Illustration of the Psyche spacecraft during its encounter with the asteroid of the same name. Right: Illustration of Gateway Habitation and Logistics Outpost and Power and Propulsion Element using ion propulsion. The ion propulsion technology that Deep Space 1 demonstrated has found use in interplanetary uncrewed missions and will see use in future human lunar exploration. Launched in 2007, the Dawn spacecraft’s ion propulsion system enabled it to explore two worlds between 2011 and 2018, the protoplanet Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres, entering orbit around each to conduct in-depth studies not otherwise possible. The Psyche spacecraft, currently on its way to explore the asteroid of the same name, also uses ion propulsion. In the arena of future human space exploration, the Gateway, part of NASA-led Artemis missions to return astronauts to the Moon, will establish a human presence in lunar orbit. The Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element plans to use its Advanced Electric Propulsion System to arrive in lunar orbit and to maintain that orbit enabling regular astronaut visits. Explore More 7 min read 30 Years Ago: The STS-58 Spacelab Life Sciences-2 Mission Article 5 days ago 11 min read 55 Years Ago: Nine Months Before the Moon Landing Article 6 days ago 13 min read 60 Years Ago: NASA Selects Its Third Group of Astronauts Article 1 week ago View the full article

5 min read How NASA Is Protecting Europa Clipper From Space Radiation Engineers and technicians are seen closing the vault of NASA’s Europa Clipper in the main clean room of the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at JPL on Oct. 7. The vault will protect the electronics of the spacecraft as it orbits Jupiter. NASA/JPL-Caltech To explore the mysterious ice-encrusted moon Europa, the mission will need to endure bombardment by radiation and high-energy particles surrounding Jupiter. When NASA’s Europa Clipper begins orbiting Jupiter to investigate whether its ice-encased moon, Europa, has conditions suitable for life, the spacecraft will pass repeatedly through one of the most punishing radiation environments in our solar system. Hardening the spacecraft against potential damage from that radiation is no easy task. But on Oct. 7, the mission put the final piece of the spacecraft’s “armor” in place when it sealed the vault, a container specially designed to shield Europa Clipper’s sophisticated electronics. The probe is being put together, piece by piece, in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California ahead of its launch in October 2024. Join team members from NASA’s Europa Clipper mission behind the scenes in a clean room at JPL to learn about the design of the spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech “Closing the vault is a major milestone,” said Kendra Short, Europa Clipper’s deputy flight system manager at JPL. “It means we’ve got everything in there that we have to have in there. We’re ready to button it up.” Just under a half-inch (1 centimeter) thick, the aluminum vault houses the electronics for the spacecraft’s suite of science instruments. The alternative of shielding each set of electronic parts individually would add cost and weight to the spacecraft. “The vault is designed to reduce the radiation environment to acceptable levels for most of the electronics,” said JPL’s Insoo Jun, the co-chair of the Europa Clipper Radiation Focus Group and an expert on space radiation. Punishing Radiation Jupiter’s gigantic magnetic field is 20,000 times as strong as Earth’s and spins rapidly in time with the planet’s 10-hour rotation period. This field captures and accelerates charged particles from Jupiter’s space environment to create powerful radiation belts. The radiation is a constant, physical presence – a kind of space weather – bombarding everything in its sphere of influence with damaging particles. “Jupiter has the most intense radiation environment other than the Sun in the solar system,” Jun said. “The radiation environment is affecting every aspect of the mission.” This illustration depicts NASA’s Europa Clipper as it flies by Jupiter’s moon Europa. The mission is targeting an October 2024 launch.NASA/JPL-Caltech That’s why when the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter in 2030, Europa Clipper won’t simply park in orbit around Europa. Instead, like some previous spacecraft that studied the Jovian system, it will make a wide-ranging orbit of Jupiter itself to move away from the planet and its harsh radiation as much as possible. During those looping orbits of the planet, the spacecraft will fly past Europa nearly 50 times to gather scientific data. The radiation is so intense that scientists believe it modifies the surface of Europa, causing visible color changes, said Tom Nordheim, a planetary scientist at JPL who specializes in icy outer moons – Europa as well as Saturn’s Enceladus. “Radiation on the surface of Europa is a major geologic modification process,” Nordheim said. “When you look at Europa – you know, the reddish-brown color – scientists have shown that this is consistent with radiation processing.” Chaotic Icescape So even as engineers work to keep radiation out of Europa Clipper, scientists like Nordheim and Jun hope to use the space probe to study it. “With a dedicated radiation monitoring unit, and using opportunistic radiation data from its instruments, Europa Clipper will help reveal the unique and challenging radiation environment at Jupiter,” Jun said. Nordheim zeroes in on Europa’s “chaos terrain,” areas where blocks of surface material appear to have broken apart, rotated, and moved into new positions, in many cases preserving preexisting linear fracture patterns. Deep beneath the moon’s icy surface is a vast liquid-water ocean, scientists believe, that could offer a habitable environment for life. Some areas of Europa’s surface show evidence of material transport from the subsurface to the surface. “We need to understand the context of how radiation modified that material,” Nordheim said. “It can alter the chemical makeup of the material.” The Power of Heat Because Europa’s ocean is locked inside an envelope of ice, any possible life forms would not be able to rely directly on the Sun for energy, as plants do on Earth. Instead, they’d need an alternative energy source, such as heat or chemical energy. Radiation raining down on Europa’s surface could help provide such a source by creating oxidants, such as oxygen or hydrogen peroxide, as the radiation interacts with the surface ice layer. Over time, these oxidants could be transported from the surface to the interior ocean. “The surface could be a window into the subsurface,” Nordheim said. A better understanding of such processes could provide a key to unlock more of the Jupiter system’s secrets, he added: “Radiation is one of the things that makes Europa so interesting. It’s part of the story.” More About the Mission Europa Clipper’s main science goal is to determine whether there are places below Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life. The mission’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet. More information about Europa can be found here: europa.nasa.gov News Media Contacts News Media Contacts Gretchen McCartney Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-393-6215 gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov Karen Fox / Alana Johnson NASA Headquarters, Washington 301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501 karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov Written by Pat Brennan Share Details Last Updated Oct 24, 2023 Related Terms EuropaEuropa ClipperGeneralJet Propulsion LaboratoryJupiter MoonsSmall Bodies of the Solar SystemThe Solar System Explore More 6 min read Why NASA’s Roman Mission Will Study Milky Way’s Flickering Lights Article 4 hours ago 2 min read Follow NASA’s Starling Swarm in Real Time Article 20 hours ago 1 min read Dr. Natasha Schatzman Receives the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) 2023 Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Award Article 1 day ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

FAIRMONT – The NASA Independent Verification & Validation Program’s Orion Team received an award for their contributions to the Artemis I Mission during a ceremony hosted at the I-79 Technology Park, in Fairmont. The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Space Flight Awareness (SFA) Award Ceremony is an annual event recognizing employees and teams who have made strides in their role in promoting astronaut safety and mission success. Members of the IV&V Orion Team took home the team award for significant contributions “to improving the quality, reliability, and safety of the Orion Program’s safety and mission critical software in support of the Artemis I Mission.” Members of the IV&V Orion Team pose for a celebratory photo with Astronaut and Scientist Stanley Love at the Space Flight Awareness Awards Ceremony, in Fairmont. Travis Wohlrab GSFC Artemis I was an uncrewed lunar flight test and the first in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration at the Moon and future missions to Mars. The IV&V winners were among those honored at a recent ceremony in Fairmont, West Virginia, with IV&V Program Director Wes Deadrick and NASA Astronaut and Scientist Stanley Love among those speaking at the event. “It’s a treat to be able to come out and shake hands with some of the folks who keep us safe and keep our missions going,” Love said. According to the SFA Program, the IV&V Orion Team identified and helped resolve nearly 3,000 high-severity issues and risks, working closely with its customers in the Orion Program and others. According to the agency, on Artemis missions, Orion will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. “NASA’s human spaceflight missions greatly rely on evolving systems and software, and if the safety for these systems fail then the mission fails,” Deadrick said during the ceremony. “In this regard, both for human spaceflight missions and for science missions, the IV&V Program has become indispensable to Goddard and the agency.” IV&V Program Director Wes Deadrick makes a speech during the Space Flight Awareness Awards Ceremony, in Fairmont.Travis Wohlrab GSFC To learn more about the Artemis Program: Artemis – NASA For more on the SFA Program and Awards, visit: Space Flight Awareness – NASA View the full article

A storm is pictured in the Arabian Sea less than 700 miles off the coast of Oman as the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above.NASA / Jasmin Moghbeli While the International Space Station orbited 260 miles above Earth on Oct. 20, 2023, astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli snapped this image of a storm in the Arabian Sea, less than 700 miles off the coast of Oman. In addition to photographing our planet from the space station, NASA also observes Earth with satellites. These satellites collect data on storms that scientists can then use to create near real-time products to support disaster response. For example, NASA and JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite frequently observes the structure of precipitation within tropical cyclones and hurricanes, and the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM product maps their intense rainfall rates over time to provide situational awareness for potential flood events. Following landfall, optical data collected by the Aqua, Terra, Landsat, or Suomi NPP satellites can map the extent and severity of flooding – and should clouds obscure the region, SAR data from ESA Sentinel satellites or NASA Airborne Science instruments can also be used to detect flooding. In addition to giving insights into how storms form and intensify, NASA satellites also supply key inputs to weather models to help generate life-saving forecasts. Image Credit: NASA/Jasmin Moghbeli View the full article

10 Min Read A Tale of Three Pollutants Freight, smoke, and ozone impact the health of both Chicago residents and communities downwind. A NASA-led mission looks to help by mapping air pollutants at a neighborhood scale. Credits: NASA/Kathleen Gaeta It was a hazy August day on Chicago’s South Side, and Nedra Sims Fears was hosting a small gathering to talk about the air. Interstate-94, which bisects her Chatham neighborhood, hummed nearby. “This was the summer I spent watching summer out my window,” Fears said. That’s because asthma runs in her family, and smoke from wildfires in Canada had wafted into Chicago, making it difficult for her to breathe. Many of her neighbors don’t have air conditioning, which means they don’t have the luxury of shutting their windows against the tiny hazardous particles contained in the smoke. Scott Collis of Argonne National Laboratory, left, and community leader Nedra Sims Fears work to advance urban resilience through science. They collaborated with NASA during the STAQS air quality mission in Chicago. NASA/Kathleen Gaeta The fine particles, called PM2.5, are more than 35 times smaller than a grain of sand and can infiltrate deep into lung tissue. They degrade air quality in Chicago neighborhoods that are already disproportionately exposed to fossil fuel emissions. These include South and West Side neighborhoods located near highways, warehouses, and intermodal facilities, where freight-loaded trains and trucks converge. Thousands of such facilities are spread throughout Illinois, and they are hot spots of diesel exhaust and nitrogen oxides. “Walking down the road, you see truck after truck after truck going into these facilities,” said Fears, who leads the Greater Chatham Initiative to revitalize a host of South Side neighborhoods. “Those neighborhoods live with day-to-day air pollution. It doesn’t take Canada being on fire for them to suffer.” This was the summer I spent watching summer out my window. Nedra Sims Fears Chicago community leader The result is that residents of Chicago and communities downwind are breathing harmful air pollutants including PM2.5, fossil fuel emissions, and smog. These pollutants move throughout the atmosphere and change by the hour, periodically exceeding the levels considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A version of this story plays out in every city in America. In New York and Los Angeles, tailpipe emissions spew from congested streets. In Phoenix, record-breaking heat stokes ozone formation. In port cities like Baltimore and Houston, emissions from ships, as well as oil refineries and chemical plants, contribute to dirty air. While air quality monitors are distributed throughout the country, they are sparse in some regions, which means they cannot tell every neighborhood’s story. A NASA mission aims to change that with new tools to monitor air pollutants from the streets to the stratosphere. STAQing Up Observations NASA and NOAA, among other agencies, worked together this summer through the STAQS and AEROMMA missions to calibrate and validate NASA’s new TEMPO satellite. The satellite and missions combined aim to not only better measure air quality, and the major pollutants that impact it, but also to improve air quality, from street to stratosphere. This effort was documented during the August 2023 campaign leg, which took place over the Chicago region. Credit: NASA/Kathleen Gaeta Several thousand feet above the Fears’ home, one of the largest flying laboratories in the world circled the skies over Chicago. The plane – NASA’s four-engine DC-8 jet – is a storied research craft. Over the past 25 years it has supported field campaigns across all seven continents. On this August 2023 day, it carried 40 researchers and a pack of scientific instruments investigating air pollution over the cities and pasturelands of the Midwest. From his seat over the wing, Barry Lefer watched the city’s iconic skyline rise from Lake Michigan. “Air pollution has dramatically improved across the U.S. in the past few decades due to environmental regulations, but some communities are still hot spots of poor air quality,” said Lefer, head of the Tropospheric Composition Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The researchers onboard – from NASA, NOAA, and multiple universities – converged this summer on cities across North America. In coordinated research campaigns, they studied a range of air pollutants from industrial emissions to volatile chemical products used in cleaning agents and personal care items. Interior view of NASA’s DC-8 plane. Credit: NASA/Kathleen Gaeta NASA’s part of the mission was called STAQS, short for Synergistic TEMPO Air Quality Science, and it focused on Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and Toronto. STAQS included two Gulfstream jets equipped with state-of-the-art sensors and ground crews deployed in mobile research trailers across the country. At the heart of the mission were two overarching questions: How do air pollutants change and move through the atmosphere, and which communities are disproportionately exposed? A Vivid New Picture 2023 was a noteworthy summer for another reason: More than 22,000 miles above Earth’s surface, a new NASA-funded instrument started scanning Earth. TEMPO, short for Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, is the first space-based instrument designed to continuously measure daytime air quality over North America at the resolution of a few square miles. TEMPO launched in April, and NASA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory released its first data maps in August. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument measures sunlight reflected and scattered off the Earth’s surface, clouds and the atmosphere. Gases in the atmosphere absorb the sunlight, and the resulting spectra are then used to determine the amounts of several gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, including nitrogen dioxide. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Kel Elkins TEMPO plus field campaigns like STAQS are giving scientists a more vivid picture of the air pollutants that contribute to disease and premature deaths in the U.S. These include nitrogen oxides, a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion commonly emitted by tailpipes and smokestacks; aerosols such as dust and soot particles; volatile organic compounds; and heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as methane and water vapor. As that new data is gathered and analyzed, air pollution scientists will have details down to a level that matters to people on the street. The data will be freely accessible, Lefer said, and particularly useful to researchers, state agencies, and local policymakers working to develop solutions. “The hope is that the detailed new data we’re collecting will help communities make their air safer to breathe,” Lefer said. Crew member Matt Berry of NASA Armstrong smiles from the communications switchboard of NASA’s DC-8 airplane during a research flight over the Upper Midwest. Credit: NASA/Kathleen Gaeta Ground-level ozone, a main ingredient in smog, is a particularly compelling target for Lefer and the STAQS team. While ozone high in the atmosphere protects Earth from dangerous solar radiation, ground-level ozone aggravates respiratory diseases. It often spikes after rush hour, as nitrogen oxides react with chemicals called volatile organic compounds and sunlight. Each year, ground-level ozone and PM2.5 particles lead to more than 100,000 premature deaths and billions of dollars in annual damages in the U.S, according to the National Weather Service. In the Chicago area, Lake Michigan’s powerful influence on local weather and winds cause ozone plumes to “travel on air currents, causing pollution levels to exceed EPA standards in rural communities hundreds of miles away,” Lefer said. Plume Over the Prairie A short drive up Interstate-94 from Chicago, ozone was on the mind of Todd McKinney, who was scrambling in the dark. A raging Lake Michigan storm had knocked out power in his research trailer nestled in a Wisconsin prairie blooming with wildflowers just across the state line from Illinois. McKinney, a graduate student from the University of Alabama-Huntsville, was trying to get the lights back on before members of a Wisconsin environmental agency arrived for a tour. For much of the summer, he has been living and working in the trailer, which is one part camper van, two parts high-tech laboratory. Its centerpiece is a custom-built lidar for measuring ozone in different layers of the lower atmosphere, also known as the troposphere. The mobile facility is part of NASA’s Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet), a high-powered array of lasers used to identify and locate air pollutants. Is the ozone that we’re seeing coming from an industrial source or the whole city? Is it caused by people idling in their cars at rush hour? We don’t know yet, but we’re working to track it back. Todd McKinney University of Alabama, Huntsville Graduate Student The instruments were originally designed to be stationary. But McKinney said that the development of TEMPO was an inspiration for many researchers, who wanted to get out into the field and contribute real-time data to the summer’s air quality campaign. The trailer he’s working from has been in the making for 10 years – ever since the first announcement of TEMPO. Such ground-based measurements — which also include hourly drone flights and a continual stream of high-altitude weather balloons — help crosscheck the early data coming down from TEMPO in space. Located downwind from Chicago, shoreline areas like Chiwaukee Prairie are occasionally dosed with ozone that has blown in from the city, he said. But the source is often difficult to pinpoint. “Is the ozone that we’re seeing coming from an industrial source or the whole city?” he said. “Is it caused by people idling in their cars at rush hour? We don’t know yet, but we’re working to track it back.” And tracking it back is the first step to developing a solution. Empowering communities Using advanced computer modeling to map air pollution hotspots across Chicago, a research team from Northwestern University found that neighborhoods alongside Lake Michigan experience more ground-level ozone pollution than the rest of the city. The researchers also found that neighborhoods located near highways like I-94 experience twice the concentration of nitrogen dioxide and dust than communities with the best air quality in the city. The growth of online shopping and same-day delivery warehouses comes at a cost to air quality, with nearby homes taking on the burden of pollution. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab “Empowering communities with data is an environmental justice issue,” said Daniel Horton, assistant professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences at Northwestern, who leads this research. He hopes that NASA measurements will inform clean-air solutions, such as the electrification of heavy-duty trucks and buses, and more green space in urban neighborhoods. Chemicals emitted from cars, trucks and factories react with sunlight and heat to form ozone, a key ingredient of smog. Plumes of ozone then get pushed by lake breezes into rural communities. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab Air pollution is not an intractable problem, emphasized Zac Adelman, whose regional consortium works with state agencies in the Upper Midwest to improve air quality. The solution lies in devoting resources where they’ll be most effective. “The question is, what do we control?” said Adelman, executive director of the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium. “What are the sources that we need to be concerned about, and what’s actionable information that we can bring to the state regulators and to the federal government, too?” Empowering communities with data is an environmental justice issue. Daniel Horton Northwestern University professor and researcher “The STAQS campaign and associated monitoring activities that are growing up around it are giving us an opportunity to try to answer those questions,” he added. “That’s a pretty empowering concept, right?” Sacred Space Requires Clean Air Back in her living room, Nedra Fears and atmospheric scientist Scott Collis of Argonne National Laboratory discussed how more trees, open spaces, and green rooftops might improve air quality in hard-hit neighborhoods. It’s part of a project they’re collaborating on called CROCUS, short for Community Research on Climate and Urban Science. Combining scientific research and community guidance, the CROCUS team studies climate challenges in urban Chicago. Community input is critical, Collis said, to identify questions and topics – from localized flooding to heat waves – and ensure that research results directly benefit local residents. The team contributed to the summer’s air quality campaign using a network of sensors deployed throughout the region. CROCUS is funded by the Department of Energy. Air quality is a complicated issue, but for Fears, the goal is simple. She wants to go on morning walks with her husband. She wants her neighbors’ concerns to be heard. Mostly, she wants to breathe clean air in her own living room, not shut the windows against the pollution she can often feel at the back of her throat. “You don’t want that pollution in your house,” she said. “Your house is your sacred space where you can be joyful and well.” Story by Sally Younger. Video and stills by Kathleen Gaeta. Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Earth Science Missions Climate Change NASA is a global leader in studying Earth’s changing climate. Earth Science in Action NASA’s unique vantage point helps us inform solutions to enhance decision-making, improve livelihoods, and protect our planet. Earth Earth—our home planet—is the only place we know of so far that’s inhabited by living things. Share Details Last Updated Oct 24, 2023 Editor Kevin Ward Contact Related Terms Earth Earth Science Earth’s Atmosphere Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) View the full article

Like a sonar using light instead of sound, lidar technology increasingly helps NASA scientists and explorers with remote sensing and surveying, mapping, 3D-image scanning, hazard detection and avoidance, and navigation. Cutting edge innovations by NASA researchers seek to refine lidars into smaller, lighter, more versatile tools for exploration. “There are a lot of flavors of lidar right now,” said Cheryl Gramling, assistant chief for technology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s such an important technology because of the precision and versatility that it offers.” Light detection and ranging, or lidar, is a remote sensing technology related to sonar and radar. Lidar uses pulses of light to measure distances and properties of objects accurately, by measuring the time it takes the light to reflect back to the lidar sensor. Goddard innovators are looking to expand the usefulness of lidar applications in communication and navigation, planetary exploration, and space operations. Here are a few of the current investigations. Foldable, Flat Lidar Optics A prototype origami-pattern deployment sequence is demonstrated by graduate students Brandon Sargent (left) and Carolina Wright (right) of Brigham Young University. It shows the large expansion capability and the flexibility in the overall architecture. Brigham Young University / Larry L. Howell Research engineer Mark Stephen is developing a deployable, segmented telescope to capture the returning light signal using state-of-the-art flat-panel optics organized in foldable, origami-inspired panels. Working with researchers at Brigham Young University, their team seeks to provide future missions with the benefits of lidar technology without the current technologies’ high cost and limited efficiency. Lidar typically is a high-cost technology that may not make the cut for tomorrow’s smaller, lighter, and more efficient missions. Size, weight, and power demands limit the technology’s ability to be implemented in more missions. “Most people want really high performance,” Stephen said, “But they want it in a small, light, and power-efficient package. We’re trying to find the best balance, and cost matters. Often the cost comes more from the size, weight, and power than it does from the actual development if we’re launching something into space. That is where it gets expensive.” Stephen is wrapping up a three-year effort to improve lidars through a Radical Innovation Initiative grant within Goddard’s Internal Research and Development (IRAD) program. Their project has been picked up by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office to fund further improvements. Typically, lidar receivers depend on bulky lenses to capture light, each lens needs a specific curvature and size to bend the light, in addition to the structures which hold the lenses, and other mechanics, Stephen said. Larger lenses are more effective, and that is where lidar technology tends to get heavy. Flat optics use new types of nano-structured materials to manipulate individual photons, he said. These meta-materials allow thin and lightweight optics to perform the same functions as much larger and more expensive three-dimensional counterparts. Silica wafers covered with structures smaller than the wavelengths of incoming light, these “meta-atomic” structures allow the lightweight, flat panel to perform the functions of lenses and mirrors without their bulk.Nano Letters / L. Zhang, S. Chang, X. Chen, Y. Ding, T. Rahman, Y. Duan, M. Stephen, and X. Ni “We are working toward being able to have a family of instruments where we have some flexibility and agility to meet the needs of a given mission,” Stephen said. “We want to develop a tool where you can make a better trade in terms of size, weight and power versus performance.” One Laser, Many Wavelengths Goddard engineer Guangning Yang is looking to improve lidar by producing multiple wavelengths of light from a single beam. Most modern lidars use multiple beams of a single wavelength to increase their accuracy. Yang is the primary investigator for CASALS, or Concurrent Artificially intelligent Spectrometry and Adaptive Lidar System, a lidar technology that can sweep a large area more efficiently. CASALS starts with one laser pulse, but instead of splitting that pulse into the many directions it needs to travel, their technology changes the wavelength of the laser at a very high speed. The different wavelengths of light then exit the laser transmitter at different angles based on their wavelength. This pulse sequence produces a broom-like array sweeping across the object, landscape, or celestial body being studied. “We have improved the efficiency,” Yang said, “and that will allow us to reduce the instrument’s size dramatically.” Along with improvements in efficiency, CASALS is smaller than a typical lidar instrument. Yang said CASALS could help provide higher-density mapping of Earth and of other planets and moons as well as assisting with autonomous descents and landings. Both flat optics and wavelength scanning offer new possibilities for lidar technology and are part of an array of investigations expected to unlock new opportunities in science and navigating distant worlds, Gramling said. By Elizabeth Markham NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Explore More 4 min read New Software Enables Atmospheric Modeling with Greater Resolution Next-generation software is making it easier for researchers, policy makers, and citizen scientists to model… Article 40 mins ago 6 min read Why NASA’s Roman Mission Will Study Milky Way’s Flickering Lights Article 2 hours ago 5 min read NASA’s Dragonfly Tunnel Visions Article 22 hours ago View the full article

3 Min Read New Software Enables Atmospheric Modeling with Greater Resolution – Credits: Randall Martin / Washington University PROJECT High Performance GEOS-Chem SNAPSHOT An ESTO investment in software optimization helps researchers and citizen scientists model air quality and greenhouse gases with greater resolution, allowing them to better understand how global atmospheric trends impact local areas. A data visualization describing atmospheric NO2 concentrations, produced using High Performance GEOS-Chem Image credit: Randall Martin / Washington University Next-generation software is making it easier for researchers, policy makers, and citizen scientists to model air quality and greenhouse gases using NASA meteorological data. This novel software, “High Performance GEOS-Chem,” uses equations representing the Earth’s atmospheric chemistry and boundary conditions from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observation System (GEOS) to represent global atmospheric chemistry across three dimensions at a horizontal spatial resolution of 12 kilometers by 12 kilometers per pixel—an area about one-fifth the size of New York City. For comparison, the original GEOS-Chem model that was developed in 2001 only produced global simulations at a spatial resolution of about 200 by 250 square kilometers – an area about twice as large as the entire state of New Jersey. With this improved resolution, researchers interested in air quality and atmospheric chemistry in specific communities can use models, simulations, and visualizations built with NASA data to better understand how global atmospheric trends impact local areas. GEOS-Chem is an open-source model freely accessible here. More information about High Performance Geos-Chem – including manuals and tutorials – can be found here. “This new generation of High Performance GEOS-Chem offers major advancements for ease of use, computational performance, versatility, resolution, and accuracy,” said Randall Martin, a professor at Washington University’s McKelvey School of Engineering and Primary Investigator for the High Performance GEOS-Chem project. In a recent technical demonstration of their improved GEOS-Chem software, Martin and his team showed two images mapping tropospheric nitrogen dioxide – a pollutant typically produced by burning fossil fuels. The image produced with High Performance GEOS-Chem featured 200 million more grid cells than the image produced with the original GEOS-Chem software. In other words, High Performance GEOS-Chem creates images more resolute by a factor of about 200. “We’re really excited. Many features can be examined that aren’t resolved at all at the coarser resolution,” said Martin. For researchers interested in global air quality and atmospheric composition with local resolution, this new generation of the High Performance GEOS-Chem marks the beginning of a new era for creating descriptive models. Two visualizations using the same data generated by High Performance GEOS-Chem (top) and the original GEOS-Chem software (bottom). High Performance GEOS-Chem created an image more resolute than the original GEOS-Chem software by a factor of 200. (Image credit: Randall Martin / Washington University) Martin and his team added a number of technological innovations to High Performance GEOS-Chem. In particular, they incorporated a cubed-sphere computation grid into their GEOS-Chem software, reducing noise at the poles and allowing for higher resolution. High Performance GEOS-Chem also includes a cloud computing capability. This spreads the resource-intensive computation work of generating detailed atmospheric models across dispersed computing nodes, such as Amazon Web Services. Martin and his team pride themselves on ensuring GEOS-Chem remains an open and accessible tool for anyone interested in simulating atmospheric composition. Their website includes a full suite of tutorial videos, manuals, and guides for using GEOS-Chem effectively. “NASA enabled us to develop this new generation of GEOS-Chem that has both the additional technical performance and offers the ease of use that this large community requires,” said Martin. Future iterations of GEOS-Chem could feature further improvements. Developing a better user interface and increasing the modularity of GEOS-Chem are just a few objectives Martin and his team have in mind. NASA’s Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST), a part of NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), funded this program. PROJECT LEAD Randall Martin, Washington University in St. Louis SPONSORING ORGANIZATION Earth Science Division’s Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program View the full article

5 min read NASA’s Modern History Makers: Maricela Lizcano Maricela Lizcano poses inside NASA Glenn Research Center’s Aerospace Communications Facility.Credit: NASA/Bridget Caswell >back to gallery Maricela Lizcano never dreamed of working for NASA. In fact, she wasn’t planning on furthering her education until she had a revelation in her late twenties. “I was watching one of those forensic shows, and I loved the way they caught the criminals with science,” said Lizcano, research materials engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “I wanted to be able to do that. I realized I should be studying science and engineering.” It took Lizcano about ten years to prepare mentally and financially to go back to school, and during that time, she received some startling news. “I found out that I was losing my sight, and it was very scary,” Lizcano said. “I think that was one of the things that tossed me off the rails. I had so many questions: ‘What am I going to do? How am I going to work or go to school? How quickly am I losing my vision?’ There were no answers.” Lizcano was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a rare genetic eye disease that occurs when fatty material builds up on the macula — the small part of the retina needed for sharp, central vision. “My Stargardt disease started on the outer edges of my macula, and over time, it grew to the center,” Lizcano said. “By the time I was 45 years old, it had pretty much taken all of my central vision, and now I rely on my peripheral vision to see.” Eventually, Lizcano viewed this as another obstacle to hurdle, no different from any others she had experienced in her life. She attended the University of Texas–Pan American, now called the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She started during a second summer session, easing her way to full-time attendance while also holding a job. Because of her new disability, she couldn’t see what professors were writing on the board. She taught herself to listen intently to the topics being discussed in the lecture, then after class, she read the textbook and rewrote the lecture notes using special magnification tools. “It took that much longer, but you learn to adapt,” Lizcano said. “There are certain skills you develop because of the changes you have to make when you have a disability. I learned that I really have to listen.” After five years, Lizcano completed her mechanical engineering degree. She didn’t get a job right away after graduation, so she continued her education and earned master’s and doctorate degrees. “I can’t just look at my disability as some great thing that I really had to overcome,” Lizcano said. “I think a lot of people overcome many obstacles because we are driven by the desire to achieve things. You don’t see the challenges as challenges, you just see them as something to conquer to get to your goal.” In 2010, former President Barack Obama signed an executive order to increase federal employment of individuals with disabilities. The executive order directed executive departments and agencies to improve their efforts to employ workers with disabilities through increased recruitment, hiring, and retention of these individuals. “Through the Workforce Recruitment Program, I had the opportunity to interview with representatives from federal agencies,” Lizcano said. “I heard nothing for a long time, but then suddenly I got an email from NASA Glenn asking if I’d present my research.” She accepted a job as a research materials engineer and now leads a team working on high-voltage materials for electrified aircraft. She collaborates with various universities to develop composite insulation materials and lightweight conductors. Even now working at NASA, Lizcano faces challenges that she finds ways to overcome. She depends on her fellow colleagues to carpool to work and accessibility tools — like the magnifier app — to use her computer. “Understanding my needs allowed me to get over the fact that I lost my independence,” Lizcano said. “It was a mind shift to be all right with asking for help.” Lizcano’s recommends a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics career to anyone looking for a challenge or excitement. “We’re always solving problems. If you’re one of those people who really wants to make a difference in the world, STEM careers are a good place to start,” Lizcano said. “Any challenge that you may have in result of a disability is no different than the challenge you’re trying to solve, and it will give you the motivation and unique skills you need to be successful.” NASA is in a Golden Era of aeronautics and space exploration. In partnership with commercial and private businesses, NASA is currently making history with significant missions such as Artemis, Quesst, and electrified aviation. The NASA’s Modern History Makers series highlights members of NASA Glenn’s workforce who make these remarkable missions possible. Jacqueline Minerd NASA’s Glenn Research Center Explore More 6 min read Lynn Bassford Prioritizes Learning as a Hubble Mission Manager Lynn Bassford levels decades of experience and a desire for self-growth as she helps lead… Article 7 days ago 1 min read Dr. Guy Bluford Reflects on 40th Anniversary of Historic Shuttle Flight Article 1 week ago 3 min read Glenn in the Community Article 1 week ago View the full article

A simulated image of Roman’s observations toward the center of our galaxy, spanning only less than 1 percent of the total area of Roman’s galactic bulge time-domain survey. The simulated stars were drawn from the Besançon Galactic Model.Credit: Matthew Penny (Louisiana State University) NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide one of the deepest-ever views into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy. The mission will monitor hundreds of millions of stars in search of tell-tale flickers that betray the presence of planets, distant stars, small icy objects that haunt the outskirts of our solar system, isolated black holes, and more. Roman will likely set a new record for the farthest-known exoplanet, offering a glimpse of a different galactic neighborhood that could be home to worlds quite unlike the more than 5,500 that are currently known. Roman’s long-term sky monitoring, which will enable these results, represents a boon to what scientists call time-domain astronomy, which studies how the universe changes over time. Roman will join a growing, international fleet of observatories working together to capture these changes as they unfold. Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey will focus on the Milky Way, using the telescope’s infrared vision to see through clouds of dust that can block our view of the crowded central region of our galaxy. Watch this video to learn about time-domain astronomy and how time will be a key element in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s galactic bulge survey. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center “Roman will be an incredible discovery machine, pairing a vast view of space with keen vision,” said Julie McEnery, the Roman senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Its time-domain surveys will yield a treasure trove of new information about the cosmos.” When Roman launches, expected by May 2027, the mission will scour the center of the Milky Way for microlensing events, which occur when an object such as a star or planet comes into near-perfect alignment with an unrelated background star from our viewpoint. Because anything with mass warps the fabric of space-time, light from the distant star bends around the nearer object as it passes close by. The nearer object therefore acts as a natural magnifying glass, creating a temporary spike in the brightness of the background star’s light. That signal lets astronomers know there’s an intervening object, even if they can’t see it directly. In current plans, the survey will involve taking an image every 15 minutes around the clock for about two months. Astronomers will repeat the process six times over Roman’s five-year primary mission for a combined total of more than a year of observations. This artist’s concept shows the region of the Milky Way Roman’s galactic bulge time-domain survey will cover. The higher density of stars in this direction will yield more than 50,000 microlensing events, which will reveal planets, black holes, neutron stars, trans-Neptunian objects, and enable exciting stellar science. The survey will also cover relatively uncharted territory when it comes to planet-finding. That’s important because the way planets form and evolve may be different depending on where in the galaxy they’re located. Our solar system is situated near the outskirts of the Milky Way, about halfway out on one of the galaxy’s spiral arms. A recent Kepler Space Telescope study showed that stars on the fringes of the Milky Way possess fewer of the most common planet types that have been detected so far. Roman will search in the opposite direction, toward the center of the galaxy, and could find differences in that galactic neighborhood, too.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab “This will be one of the longest exposures of the sky ever taken,” said Scott Gaudi, an astronomy professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, whose research is helping inform Roman’s survey strategy. “And it will cover territory that is largely uncharted when it comes to planets.” Astronomers expect the survey to reveal more than a thousand planets orbiting far from their host stars and in systems located farther from Earth than any previous mission has detected. That includes some that could lie within their host star’s habitable zone – the range of orbital distances where liquid water can exist on the surface – and worlds that weigh in at as little as a few times the mass of the Moon. Roman can even detect “rogue” worlds that don’t orbit a star at all using microlensing. These cosmic castaways may have formed in isolation or been kicked out of their home planetary systems. Studying them offers clues about how planetary systems form and evolve. Roman’s microlensing observations will also help astronomers explore how common planets are around different types of stars, including binary systems. The mission will estimate how many worlds with two host stars are found in our galaxy by identifying real-life “Tatooine” planets, building on work started by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). Some of the objects the survey will identify exist in a cosmic gray area. Known as brown dwarfs, they’re too massive to be characterized as planets, but not quite massive enough to ignite as stars. Studying them will allow astronomers to explore the boundary between planet and star formation. Roman is also expected to spot more than a thousand neutron stars and hundreds of stellar-mass black holes. These heavyweights form after a massive star exhausts its fuel and collapses. The black holes are nearly impossible to find when they don’t have a visible companion to signal their presence, but Roman will be able to detect them even if unaccompanied because microlensing relies only on an object’s gravity. The mission will also find isolated neutron stars – the leftover cores of stars that weren’t quite massive enough to become black holes. Astronomers will use Roman to find thousands of Kuiper belt objects, which are icy bodies scattered mostly beyond Neptune. The telescope will spot some as small as about six miles across (about 1 percent of Pluto’s diameter), sometimes by seeing them directly from reflected sunlight and others as they block the light of background stars. This animation compares signals from two planet detection methods: microlensing (top) and transit (bottom) for both high- and low-mass planets. Microlensing creates spikes in a star’s brightness, while transits have the opposite effect. Since both methods involve tracking the amount of light we receive from stars over time, astronomers will be able to use the same data set for both methods. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab A similar type of shadow play will reveal 100,000 transiting planets between Earth and the center of the galaxy. These worlds cross in front of their host star as they orbit and temporarily dim the light we receive from the star. This method will reveal planets orbiting much closer to their host stars than microlensing reveals, and likely some that lie in the habitable zone. Scientists will also conduct stellar seismology studies on a million giant stars. This will involve analyzing brightness changes caused by sound waves echoing through a star’s gaseous interior to learn about its structure, age, and other properties. All of these scientific discoveries and more will come from Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, which will account for less than a fourth of the observing time in Roman’s five-year primary mission. Its broad view of space will allow astronomers to conduct many of these studies in ways that have never been possible before, giving us a new view of an ever-changing universe. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California. Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio By Ashley Balzer NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. ​​Media Contact: Claire Andreoli NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center 301-286-1940 Explore More 9 min read Warped Space-time to Help WFIRST Find Exoplanets Article 4 years ago 6 min read NASA’s Roman Mission Predicted to Find 100,000 Transiting Planets Article 3 years ago 7 min read How NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Will Uncover Lonesome Black Holes Article 3 years ago Share Details Last Updated Oct 24, 2023 Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms AstrophysicsBlack HolesEarth-like ExoplanetsExoplanet Detection MethodsExoplanet ScienceExoplanet TransitsExoplanetsGalaxiesGalaxies, Stars, & Black HolesGalaxies, Stars, & Black Holes ResearchGas Giant ExoplanetsGeneralGravitational MicrolensingKepler / K2MissionsNancy Grace Roman Space TelescopeNeptune-Like ExoplanetsNeutron StarsScience & ResearchStarsStudying ExoplanetsSuper-Earth ExoplanetsTerrestrial ExoplanetsTESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)The Kuiper BeltThe Milky WayThe Solar SystemThe Universe View the full article

The Starling spacecraft are digitally rendered in NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System interactive app, allowing users to track the swarm in real-time and observe their orbits relative to other space missions and celestial bodies.NASA NASA’s Starling CubeSats are zipping through low Earth orbit in the agency’s latest test of robotic swarm technologies for space. The four Starling spacecraft, launched in July 2023, are testing a group of small satellites ability to coordinate and cooperate independently without real-time updates from mission control. NASA invites the public to follow the Starling mission live in NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System 3D visualization, which uses real-time data in an interactive solar system simulation. The positions of the planets, moons, and spacecraft – including Starling – are shown as they travel through space. The Starling mission, managed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, will test multiple flight patterns and autonomous capabilities, including maneuvering to stay together as a group, creating and patching their own communications network, keeping track of each other’s relative position without use of GPS, and autonomously changing their combined science data collection strategy based on the latest readings from onboard sensors. Autonomous technologies are vital to NASA’s space science and exploration goals, especially when exploring environments far from Earth where signal delays make real-time maneuvering impractical or impossible. Satellites and spacecraft operating in a networked, autonomous, and coordinated capacity will help humanity explore the unknown and conduct better science than ever before. NASA’s Ames Research Center leads the Starling project. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology program, based at Ames and within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), funds and manages the Starling mission. Blue Canyon Technologies designed and manufactured the spacecraft buses and is providing mission operations support. Rocket Lab USA, Inc. provided launch and integration services. Partners supporting Starling’s payload experiments include Stanford University’s Space Rendezvous Lab in Stanford, California, Emergent Space Technologies of Laurel, Maryland, CesiumAstro of Austin, Texas, L3Harris Technologies, Inc., of Melbourne, Florida, and NASA Ames – with funding support by NASA’s Game Changing Development program within STMD. For news media: Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to the NASA Ames newsroom. View the full article

NASA NASA, on behalf of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), has awarded a delivery order under the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition IV (Rapid-IV) contract to Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio for the QuickSounder spacecraft. The firm-fixed-price delivery order covers all phases of QuickSounder’s operations to include spacecraft development, integration of NOAA’s Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder Engineering Development Unit, spacecraft shipment, supporting launch operations, three years of mission operations, and eventual spacecraft decommissioning. The total value of the order is $54,973,400 with the period of performance beginning Wednesday, Oct. 25, and scheduled to run until May 2029. QuickSounder is the first project in NOAA’s Near Earth Orbit Network. As a pathfinder mission, QuickSounder will support NOAA’s next generation satellite architecture for its future low Earth orbit program, which will provide mission-critical data to support NOAA’s National Weather Service and the nation’s weather industry. Rapid IV contracts serve as a fast and flexible means for the government to acquire spacecraft and related components, equipment, and services in support of NASA missions and/or other federal government agencies. The spacecraft designs, related items, and services may be tailored, as needed, to meet the unique needs of each mission. The Near Earth Orbit Network is a collaborative mission between NASA and NOAA. NASA will manage the development and launch of the satellites for NOAA, which will operate them and deliver data to users worldwide. NOAA, as the mission lead, provides funding, technical requirements, and post-launch operations. NASA and NOAA will work with commercial partners to design and build the network’s spacecraft and instruments. For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: https://www.nasa.gov -end- Abbey Donaldson Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov Jeremy Eggers Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 757-824-2958 jeremy.l.eggers@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Oct 23, 2023 Location NASA Headquarters Related Terms View the full article

Solicitation Number: NNH16ZCQ001K-CIS March 14, 2022 – Presolicitation March 29, 2022 – Solicitation Released April 12, 2022 – Amendment Published May 5, 2022 – Amendment 02 Published May 27, 2022 – Proposals Due Oct 11, 2022 – Source Selection Statement Posted | Press Release An artist concept of TDRS-M, now named TDRS-13.NASA Solicitation Overview NASA released a solicitation under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to seek industry led capability studies to explore and demonstrate future enhancements and innovative communication capabilities needed for NASA’s communication and navigation missions. These studies and demonstrations are intended to inform NASA and its stakeholders on industry’s telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) capabilities and future innovations and concepts that would enable a commercial TT&C marketplace where NASA is one of many customers. The primary objectives of the upcoming Appendix O to the NextSTEP-2 BAA are as follows: (1) understand innovations and advancements in Radio Frequency (RF) compatibility testing that will lead to efficiencies of Near Space Network radio frequency architectures; (2) address industry best practices, tools, and capabilities related to mission planning and scheduling; (3) understand the barriers, challenges, and solutions associated with integration of optical communications ground terminals into the Near Space Network architecture; and (4) understand innovations and advancements in implementation of software defined radios and cloud computing assets into the Near Space Network architecture. View the full article

1 min read Dr. Natasha Schatzman Receives the Vertical Flight Society (VFS) 2023 Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Award Dr. Natasha Schatzman, NASA Ames Research CenterNASA / Dominic Hart In May 2023, Dr. Natasha Schatzman received the Vertical Flight Society Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Award for her vertical flight research at NASA Ames Research Center. This annual award is given to a VFS member who is thirty-five years old or younger for outstanding contributions to vertical flight technology. The award announcement notes that Dr. Schatzman “was recognized for outstanding vertical lift research (internationally recognized in rotorcraft acoustics and full-scale wind tunnel acoustics testing), for extensive contributions to the VFS technical community and local VFS San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, and for outstanding mentorship in the rotorcraft field.” She began her work at NASA Ames Research Center in 2008 as an intern, and she now oversees various acoustic experimental and computational key aspects of Revolutionary Vertical Life Technology (RVLT) Project, which includes leading rotor acoustic tests in the 40-foot by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center. Dr. Schatzman holds a Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. More information on this award is at:https://gallery.vtol.org/image/APwYX/?fbclid=IwAR0vRoQybkYvWeLGzOuqRhmw7TKuYXD1-EZSYKtgijvxfhzmwP58WIlSzBY About the AuthorSuzanne CisnerosManagement & Program Analyst Share Details Last Updated Oct 23, 2023 Related Terms AeronauticsGeneral Explore More 2 min read NASA Academy at Langley Research Center Article 2 days ago 4 min read First Artemis Crew Trains for Mission Around Moon Article 4 days ago 3 min read All Together Now: Drill Joins Other Moon Rover Science Instruments Article 5 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

5 min read NASA’s Dragonfly Tunnel Visions Dragonfly Team Utilizes Unique NASA Facilities to Shape Its Innovative Titan-bound Rotorcraft Dragonfly team members review the half-scale lander model after it underwent wind tunnel testing at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Pictured are (from left) Art Azarbarzin, Juan Cruz, Wayne Dellinger, Zibi Turtle, Chuck Hebert, Ken Hibbard, Bernadine Juliano and Bruce Owens.Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman With its dense atmosphere and low gravity, Saturn’s moon Titan is a great place to fly. But well before NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft lander soars through Titan’s skies, researchers on Earth – led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland – are making sure their designs and models for the nuclear-powered, car-sized drone will work in a truly unique environment. Artist’s impression of the Dragonfly rotorcraft lander on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and a major target in NASA’s quest to assess habitability and search for potential signs of life beyond Earth on worlds across the solar system.NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben Dragonfly, NASA’s only mission to the surface of another ocean world, is designed to investigate the complex chemistry that is the precursor to life. The vehicle, which APL will build and operate, will be equipped with cameras, sensors and samplers to examine swaths of Titan known to contain organic materials that may, at some point in Titan’s complex history, have come in contact with liquid water beneath the organic-rich, icy surface. To transport those science instruments across the moon, Dragonfly’s four pairs of coaxial rotors (meaning one rotor is stacked above the other) will need to slice through Titan’s dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Four times in the past three years, the mission team has headed to Virginia to test its flight systems in one-of-a-kind facilities at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Mission engineers have conducted two test campaigns in NASA Langley’s 14-by-22-foot Subsonic Tunnel, and two in the 16-foot Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT). They use the Subsonic Tunnel to validate computational fluid dynamics models and data gathered from integrated test platforms – terrestrial drones outfitted with Dragonfly-designed flight electronics. They use the variable-density heavy gas capabilities of the TDT to validate its models under simulated Titan atmospheric conditions — one aerodynamic stability test of the aeroshell that is used to deliver the Lander to a release point above Titan’s surface and one to model the Lander’s rotors aerodynamics. “All of these tests feed into our Dragonfly Titan simulations and performance predictions,” said Ken Hibbard, Dragonfly mission systems engineer at APL. On its latest trip to NASA Langley, in June, the team set up a half-scale Dragonfly lander model, complete with eight rotors, in the 14-by-22 Subsonic Tunnel. Test lead Bernadine Juliano of APL said the campaign focused on two flight configurations: Dragonfly’s descent and transition to powered flight upon arrival at Titan, and forward flight over Titan’s surface. “We tested conditions across the expected flight envelope at a variety of wind speeds, rotor speeds, and flight angles to assess the aerodynamic performance of the vehicle,” she said. “We completed more than 700 total runs, encompassing over 4,000 individual data points. All test objectives were successfully accomplished and the data will help increase confidence in our simulation models on Earth before extrapolating to Titan conditions.” APL engineers are analyzing the 14-by-22 test data with mission flight team partners at the University of Central Florida, Penn State University, Lockheed Martin Sikorsky, NASA Langley and NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. Rick Heisler, the Dragonfly wind tunnel test lead from APL who heads the TDT test campaigns, said each trip to NASA Langley has given the team a chance to hone its technical models and designs and, specifically in the TDT, gain a better idea of how Dragonfly’s rotors will perform in Titan’s exotic atmosphere. “The heavy gas environment in the TDT has a density three-and-a-half times higher than air while operating at sea level ambient pressure and temperature,” Heisler said, “This allows the rotors to operate at near-Titan conditions and better replicate the lift and dynamic loading the actual lander will experience. The data we acquire are used to validate predictions of the lander aerodynamics, aero-structural performance and rotor fatigue life in the harsh cryogenic environment on Titan.” “With Dragonfly, we’re turning science fiction into exploration fact,” Hibbard said. “The mission is coming together piece by piece, and we’re excited for every next step toward sending this revolutionary rotorcraft across the skies and surface of Titan.” Part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, Dragonfly is scheduled to launch no earlier than 2027 and arrive at Titan in the mid-2030s. Principal Investigator Elizabeth Turtle of APL leads a mission team that includes engineers, scientists and specialists from APL as well as NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado; NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California; NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania; University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida; Lockheed Martin Sikorsky in Stratford, Connecticut; Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego; Honeybee Robotics in Pasadena, California; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) in Paris; the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany; and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in Tokyo. Learn more at www.nasa.gov/dragonfly View the full article

1 min read NASA Test Piloting Legends Reunite Former flight test instructor and current NASA test pilot Nils Larson reunited with former student and current astronaut Victor Glover on Oct. 21 during an open house at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.NASA / Dave Bowman Nils Larson, aerospace engineer and test pilot for NASA’s X-59 aircraft, met up with his former student, Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover, on Saturday, Oct. 21 during an open house held at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The pilots originally met more than two decades ago when Larson was an instructor at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School. Larson trained students – including Glover – using the T-38 aircraft. “I always knew Victor would go far. It’s cool to think that far means the Moon,” said Larson, whose current test piloting work is critical to NASA’s Quesst mission. “I was excited to see him picked up as an astronaut, then get to fly to the International Space Station, and now he gets to go to the Moon as part of Artemis II. The sky’s not the limit anymore!” Nearly 40,000 people attended the NASA Langley open house. Larson and Glover reunited at Langley’s hangar where other NASA legends, such as astronauts Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepard, trained on its historic Rendezvous Docking Simulator. The simulator remains a permanent fixture at the hangar. Facebook logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Instagram logo @NASA@NASAaero@NASA_es Linkedin logo @NASA Explore More 2 min read NASA Academy at Langley Research Center Article 2 days ago 5 min read Station Science 101: Growing Plants in Space Article 5 days ago 3 min read The Space Life Sciences Training Program at Ames Research Center The Space Life Sciences Training Program (SLSTP) provides undergraduate students entering their junior or senior… Article 5 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Missions Humans In Space Solar System Exploration Overview Since 1998, NASA’s Solar System Exploration hub has served as a real-time, living encyclopedia of the scientific exploration of… Explore NASA’s History Share Details Last Updated Oct 23, 2023 Editor Lillian Gipson Contact Jim Bankejim.banke@nasa.gov Related Terms AeronauticsAeronautics Research Mission DirectorateAmes Research CenterArmstrong Flight Research CenterGlenn Research CenterJohnson Space CenterLangley Research CenterQuesst (X-59)Quesst: The FlightsQuesst: The MissionQuesst: The ScienceQuesst: The TeamQuesst: The VehicleSupersonic Flight View the full article

Science Launching on SpaceX's 29th Cargo Resupply Mission to the Space Station

NASA astronaut and Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Jasmin Moghbeli works with the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device, or ARED, removing and replacing cables. The device uses adjustable resistive mechanisms to provide crew members a weight load while exercising to maintain muscle strength and mass in microgravity. Students from Baldwin Union Free School District in Baldwin, New York, will have an opportunity this week to hear from an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. The Earth-to-space call will air live at 11 a.m. EDT Friday, Oct. 27, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, an alumnus of Baldwin Union Free School District, will answer prerecorded questions from students. Media interested in covering the event should RSVP no later than 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25, to Mary Furcht at furchtm@baldwinschools.org or 516-434-6012. These educational opportunities for students to speak with astronauts living and working on the space station are provided by the Office of STEM Engagement’s Next Gen STEM project. For almost 23 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts living in space aboard the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Near Space Network. Important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the International Space Station benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration. As part of Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars. Inspiring the next generation of explorers – the Artemis Generation – ensures America will continue to lead in space exploration and discovery. See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the International Space Station at: https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation -end- Katherine Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1288 katherine.m.brown@nasa.gov Sandra Jones Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Oct 23, 2023 Location NASA Headquarters Related Terms Humans in SpaceInternational Space Station (ISS)Missions View the full article