NASA

4 min read NASA Glenn Helps Military Service Members Transition to Civilian Life NASA Glenn Research Center’s Sydney Khamphoune (left) and Sam Yousef pose in front of U.S. and NASA flags.Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna John Glenn. Neil Armstrong. Buzz Aldrin. Jim Lovell. Guion Bluford. These iconic astronauts shared a commonality before they began their careers at NASA: They all served in the United States military. NASA values veterans and their commitment to serving America, and the agency seeks to hire veterans and military spouses, offer career development opportunities, and provide meaningful resources. Each NASA center has a resource group that connects veteran employees and their families with allies, creating a support network to help them through the unique challenges they face. “It’s a complete culture shock coming home from the military and having to relearn how to be a part of a civilian society,” said Samantha Yousef, Veterans Employee Resource Group chair at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Yousef organizes veteran observance events, introduces various programs focused on veteran resources to the center, and meets with group members to discuss how to improve inclusivity and potential outreach activities. One initiative new to NASA Glenn is the Department of Defense SkillBridge program. SkillBridge gives transitioning service members an opportunity to gain civilian work experience through specific industry training, apprenticeships, or internships during their last 180 days of service. “Many soldiers, sailors, and airmen enter the military directly out of high school or college with little to no workforce experience,” Yousef said. “They learn the importance of teamwork, leadership, and dedication to the mission at a young age. However, when it’s time to separate from the military, they’re sometimes lost in transition.” Sydney Khamphoune is Glenn’s most recent SkillBridge fellow. Khamphoune joined the Navy after high school, and because she wanted to learn more about each job on her ship, she was classified as “undesignated.” “Undesignated means you’re subject to the needs of the Navy, and you go wherever they need you,” Khamphoune said. “They put me into the Deck Department, so I was the person painting the side of the ship or pulling the ship in with the lines when we came into port.” Stationed on the USS Oak Hill in Norfolk, Virginia, Khamphoune spent much of her time sweeping water off the deck of the ship and finishing work late into the night, even after her crewmates went to bed. After a year in the Deck Department, she had the opportunity to choose a new role and became a personnel specialist. Like a human resources specialist in the civilian world, Khamphoune provided counseling related to Navy jobs and assisted with personnel transfers, separations, and retirements. She served in Virginia for five years before coming to Ohio to serve at the Department of Defense’s Defense Finance and Accounting Service. She served in the Navy for nine years before deciding it was time to separate. In her Transition Assistance Program — a program that offers support for service members separating from the military — she learned about the SkillBridge program. Sydney Khamphoune is NASA Glenn Research Center’s most recent SkillBridge fellow.Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna. “I saw NASA on the list and immediately applied,” Khamphoune said. “I wasn’t going to apply anywhere else. It was NASA or bust.” Khamphoune was thrilled to receive a phone call ­— on her birthday, no less ­— from NASA assigning her to Glenn’s Procurement Office. In this role, she assists contracting officers, including those that work on contracts for construction or janitorial services, with their daily tasks. “I’m learning so much. I came in with no knowledge, and now I can help the contracting officers,” Khamphoune said. “One contracting officer had a massive list of obligations to complete, and I offered to help. He trained me for two days, and then I knocked out the whole list.” Khamphoune still thinks back to when she first enlisted in the Navy and appreciates where that journey has taken her. “I never imagined being at NASA right now, and since I’ve been here, I’ve gained a lot more confidence,” Khamphoune said. “The environment they’re creating here is great. It doesn’t matter if you’re new or have been here for a while — your opinion has value, and you can bring something new to the table. I feel like this experience is precious and personal because I’m finding out who I am in a different way.” Learn more about SkillBridge and the many routes to a NASA internship. Explore More 5 min read Peter Griffith: Diving Into Carbon Cycle Science Dr. Peter Griffith serves as the director of NASA’s Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Office at… Article 20 hours ago 4 min read NASA Project Manager Helps Makes Impact in Southeast Asia with SERVIR Article 1 day ago 2 min read Native Earth, Native Sky CRS-29 Payload Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) and NASA’s Science Activation Program, Native Earth | Native Sky… Article 6 days ago View the full article

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope have united to study an expansive galaxy cluster known as MACS0416. The resulting panchromatic image combines visible and infrared light to assemble one of the most comprehensive views of the universe ever taken. Located about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth, MACS0416 is a pair of colliding galaxy clusters that will eventually combine to form an even bigger cluster. Image: Galaxy Cluster MACS0416 This panchromatic view of galaxy cluster MACS0416 was created by combining infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with visible-light data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The resulting wavelength coverage, from 0.4 to 5 microns, reveals a vivid landscape of galaxies whose colors give clues to galaxy distances: The bluest galaxies are relatively nearby and often show intense star formation, as best detected by Hubble, while the redder galaxies tend to be more distant, or else contain copious amount of dust, as detected by Webb. The image reveals a wealth of details that are only possible to capture by combining the power of both space telescopes. In this image, blue represents data at wavelengths of 0.435 and 0.606 microns (Hubble filters F435W and F606W); cyan is 0.814, 0.9, and 1.05 microns (Hubble filters F814W, and F105W and Webb filter F090W); green is 1.15, 1.25, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 microns (Hubble filters F125W, F140W, and F160W, and Webb filters F115W and F150W); yellow is 2.00 and 2.77 microns (Webb filters F200W, and F277W); orange is 3.56 microns (Webb filter F356W); and red represents data at 4.1 and 4.44 microns (Webb filters F410M and F444W). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Spain), J. D’Silva (U. Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), J. Summers & R. Windhorst (ASU), and H. Yan (U. Missouri). The image reveals a wealth of details that are only possible to capture by combining the power of both space telescopes. It includes a bounty of galaxies outside the cluster and a sprinkling of sources that vary over time, likely due to gravitational lensing – the distortion and amplification of light from distant background sources. This cluster was the first of a set of unprecedented, super-deep views of the universe from an ambitious, collaborative Hubble program called the Frontier Fields, inaugurated in 2014. Hubble pioneered the search for some of the intrinsically faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected. Webb’s infrared view significantly bolsters this deep look by going even farther into the early universe with its infrared vision. “We are building on Hubble’s legacy by pushing to greater distances and fainter objects,” said Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University, principal investigator of the PEARLS program (Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science), which took the Webb observations. What the Colors Mean To make the image, in general the shortest wavelengths of light were color-coded blue, the longest wavelengths red, and intermediate wavelengths green. The broad range of wavelengths, from 0.4 to 5 microns, yields a particularly vivid landscape of galaxies. Those colors give clues to galaxy distances: The bluest galaxies are relatively nearby and often show intense star formation, as best detected by Hubble, while the redder galaxies tend to be more distant as detected by Webb. Some galaxies also appear very red because they contain copious amounts of cosmic dust that tends to absorb bluer colors of starlight. “The whole picture doesn’t become clear until you combine Webb data with Hubble data,” said Windhorst. Image: Side-by-side Hubble/Webb This side-by-side comparison of galaxy cluster MACS0416 as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light (right) reveals different details. Both images feature hundreds of galaxies, however the Webb image shows galaxies that are invisible or only barely visible in the Hubble image. This is because Webb’s infrared vision can detect galaxies too distant or dusty for Hubble to see. (Light from distant galaxies is redshifted due to the expansion of the universe.) The total exposure time for Webb was about 22 hours, compared to 122 hours of exposure time for the Hubble image.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster While the new Webb observations contribute to this aesthetic view, they were taken for a specific scientific purpose. The research team combined their three epochs of observations, each taken weeks apart, with a fourth epoch from the CANUCS (CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey) research team. The goal was to search for objects varying in observed brightness over time, known as transients. They identified 14 such transients across the field of view. Twelve of those transients were located in three galaxies that are highly magnified by gravitational lensing, and are likely to be individual stars or multiple-star systems that are briefly very highly magnified. The remaining two transients are within more moderately magnified background galaxies and are likely to be supernovae. “We’re calling MACS0416 the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster, both because it’s so colorful and because of these flickering lights we find within it. We can see transients everywhere,” said Haojing Yan of the University of Missouri in Columbia, lead author of one paper describing the scientific results. Finding so many transients with observations spanning a relatively short time frame suggests that astronomers could find many additional transients in this cluster and others like it through regular monitoring with Webb. A Kaiju Star Among the transients the team identified, one stood out in particular. Located in a galaxy that existed about 3 billion years after the big bang, it is magnified by a factor of at least 4,000. The team nicknamed the star system “Mothra” in a nod to its “monster nature,” being both extremely bright and extremely magnified. It joins another lensed star the researchers previously identified that they nicknamed “Godzilla.” (Both Godzilla and Mothra are giant monsters known as kaiju in Japanese cinema.) Interestingly, Mothra is also visible in the Hubble observations that were taken nine years previously. This is unusual, because a very specific alignment between the foreground galaxy cluster and the background star is needed to magnify a star so greatly. The mutual motions of the star and the cluster should have eventually eliminated that alignment. Image: Gravitationally Lensed Galaxy This image of galaxy cluster MACS0416 highlights one particular gravitationally lensed background galaxy, which existed about 3 billion years after the big bang. That galaxy contains a transient, or object that varies in observed brightness over time, that the science team nicknamed “Mothra.” Mothra is a star that is magnified by a factor of at least 4,000 times. The team believes that Mothra is magnified not only by the gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0416, but also by an object known as a “milli-lens” that likely weighs about as much as a globular star cluster.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Spain), J. D’Silva (U. Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), J. Summers & R. Windhorst (ASU), and H. Yan (U. Missouri). The most likely explanation is that there is an additional object within the foreground cluster that is adding more magnification. The team was able to constrain its mass to be between 10,000 and 1 million times the mass of our Sun. The exact nature of this so-called “milli-lens,” however, remains unknown. “The most likely explanation is a globular star cluster that’s too faint for Webb to see directly,” stated Jose Diego of the Instituto de Física de Cantabria in Spain, lead author of the paper detailing the finding. “But we don’t know the true nature of this additional lens yet.” The Yan et al. paper is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. The Diego et al. paper has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The Webb data shown here was obtained as part of PEARLS GTO program 1176. 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. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble and Webb science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C. Media Contacts Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Claire Andreoli – claire.andreoli@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: the Yan et al. paper is accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Research Results: the Diego et al. paper has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Related Information Galaxies Basics – https://universe.nasa.gov/galaxies/basics/ Galaxies Evolution – https://universe.nasa.gov/galaxies/evolution/ Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/ Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/ Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/ Hubble Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble Hubble News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/hubble-news/ Hubble Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/multimedia/hubble-images/ En Español Ciencia de la NASA NASA en español Space Place para niños Keep Exploring Related Topics James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the… Hubble Space Telescope This placeholder has been created to be used in the Topic Cards block. PLEASE DO NOT DELETE IT. This post’s… Galaxies Overview Galaxies consist of stars, planets, and vast clouds of gas and dust, all bound together by gravity. The largest… Universe Explore the universe: Learn about the history of the cosmos, what it’s made of, and so much more. Share Details Last Updated Nov 09, 2023 Editor Steve Sabia Contact Related Terms GalaxiesGalaxies, Stars, & Black HolesGoddard Space Flight CenterHubble Space TelescopeJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST)The Universe View the full article

NASA astronaut candidates visited the agency’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley to learn about the center’s unique facilities and contributions to NASA missions. Pictured here at the Arc Jet Complex, where spacecraft thermal protection materials are tested, are the 10 members of NASA’s current astronaut candidate class and two United Arab Emirates astronauts who are training with NASA.NASA/Dominic Hart NASA’s current class of astronaut candidates toured the agency’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, including a stop at the Arc Jet Complex, on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. In the arc jet facilities, Ames researchers test advanced materials that protect spacecraft from the extremely high temperatures of entering an atmosphere – whether Earth’s, Mars’, or another in our solar system. Among the candidates aiming to join America’s astronaut corps are women and men who will potentially fly on future Artemis missions, performing science on the Moon and exploring the resources it holds. Work performed in the arc jet will help ensure all Artemis astronauts return home safely. For Artemis I, launched in November 2022, material used in the Orion crew module’s heat shield was tested here at Ames. The astronaut candidates – including former Ames intern Deniz Burnham – also visited other Ames facilities, learning about their contributions to Artemis and more. These include wind tunnel testing and supercomputer simulations of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket; development of the Astrobee free-flying robots that could assist future astronauts on missions; space biosciences research that will help keep crew healthy; and flight simulations at the Vertical Motion Simulator, where NASA’s human landing system program partners analyzed and improved early lander concepts to deliver humans to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis missions. View the full article

NASA+ es un servicio de transmisión gratis y sin publicidad, con coberturas en directo y series de video originales. No requiere suscripción. Ya están disponibles el nuevo servicio de programación a la carta y la aplicación actualizada de la NASA, dando paso a un nuevo mundo de contenido original producido por esta agencia espacial para el beneficio de todos. Estas nuevas plataformas digitales son el lugar de aterrizaje de series de videos originales, coberturas en vivo de lanzamientos, contenido para niños, programación en español y las últimas noticias, mientras la NASA continúa mejorando la vida en la Tierra mediante la innovación, la exploración y el descubrimiento. El nuevo servicio de transmisión a demanda está disponible para descargar en la mayoría de las principales plataformas mediante la aplicación de la NASA para dispositivos móviles y tabletas iOS y Android, así como para los reproductores de transmisión multimedia Roku y Apple TV. Los usuarios también pueden ver la programación en línea visitando el sitio web: https://plus.nasa.gov “La NASA es líder en el gobierno federal [de Estados Unidos] en la creación de contenidos inspiradores que llegan a los espectadores dondequiera que estos se encuentren”, dijo la administradora adjunta de la NASA, Pam Melroy. “Estoy emocionada de que hayamos creado una poderosa trifecta con el recientemente renovado sitio web de la NASA, el lanzamiento de NASA+ y la aplicación actualizada de la NASA que muestra los muchos beneficios que nuestros datos pueden tener para toda la humanidad”. Estas plataformas son parte de un esfuerzo para garantizar que el contenido de la agencia sea más accesible, fácil de descubrir y seguro para el público. A principios de este año, la NASA lanzó sus renovados sitios web nasa.gov y science.nasa.gov, así como sus versiones en español NASA.gov/es y ciencia.nasa.gov, creando una nueva central de información para la investigación científica, datos sobre el clima, información sobre programa Artemis y muchos otros contenidos. “La nueva plataforma de programación y la aplicación actualizada de la NASA son los sitios donde el mundo puede acompañarnos en nuestra exploración de lo desconocido”, dijo Marc Etkind, administrador asociado de la Oficina de Comunicaciones en la sede de la NASA. “La NASA es el catalizador de algunas de las mejores historias de la humanidad; y ahora, con nuestra nueva presencia digital, todos tendrán acceso a estas historias las 24 horas del día los siete días de la semana”. Acceso gratuito a las mejores historias de la humanidad Con este servicio de transmisión sin publicidad, sin costo y para toda la familia, los usuarios tendrán acceso a la cobertura en vivo de la NASA, ganadora de varios Premios Emmy, y a panorámicas de las misiones de la agencia, a través de una extensa colección de contenidos originales, incluyendo nuevas series que debutarán en este servicio de transmisión. A partir de hoy, todos pueden disfrutar del contenido original de NASA+, que incluye: Una serie documental que cubre cada imagen del telescopio espacial James Webb, así como una segunda serie que destaca el telescopio espacial más poderoso del mundo, desde los laboratorios hasta su lanzamiento; Programas infantiles animados sobre los planetas, los misterios del universo y mundos intergalácticos; Una serie que relata las historias personales de los astronautas negros de la NASA; Una serie que lleva a los espectadores entre bastidores mientras un grupo de científicos trabaja para traer a la Tierra la primera muestra de un asteroide obtenida por Estados Unidos; Imágenes del cosmos en ultra alta definición con una banda sonora espacial Contenidos en español, los cuales incluyen una serie que destaca a empleados hispanos y latinos de la NASA, contenidos sobre el clima, y más. NASA+ también cubrirá eventos en vivo y directo, para que la gente de todo el mundo pueda ver en tiempo real cómo la agencia lanza astronautas y experimentos científicos al espacio y, más adelante, cómo llevará a la primera mujer y a la primera persona no blanca a la Luna. El universo al alcance de la mano Con más de 30 millones de descargas, la aplicación de la NASA presenta una enorme colección del contenido más reciente de la agencia, que incluye más de 21.000 imágenes, podcasts, noticias, historias destacadas y la cobertura de eventos en vivo y directo. Las nuevas actualizaciones de la aplicación incluyen: Acceso total al servicio de transmisión a la carta de NASA+; Notificaciones automáticas en la nube; Avistamientos y notificaciones que permiten a los usuarios ver sobrevolar la Estación Espacial Internacional; La posibilidad de puntuar fotografías y de explorar y compartir las mejor valoradas; Realidad aumentada que permite a los usuarios ver, rotar y ampliar modelos 3D de cohetes, naves espaciales y vehículos exploradores de la NASA. La aplicación de la NASA está disponible sin costo alguno. Conoce más sobre la aplicación de la NASA en línea. Para estar al día con las últimas noticias y obtener más información sobre la NASA, visita el nuevo sitio web: https://www.nasa.gov / h -fin- Abbey Donaldson / María José Viñas Sede, Washington 202-358-1600 / 240-458-0248 abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov / maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov View the full article

NASA+ is the agency’s no cost, ad-free streaming service featuring live coverage and original video series. No subscription required.Credits: NASA NASA’s new on-demand streaming service and upgraded app are now available, ushering in a new world of original content from the space agency for the benefit of all. These new digital platforms are the landing place of original video series, live launch coverage, kids’ content, Spanish-language programming, and the latest news as NASA continues to improve life on Earth through innovation, exploration, and discovery. The new on-demand streaming service is available to download on most major platforms via the NASA App on iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices, as well as streaming media players Roku and Apple TV. Users also may stream online at: https://plus.nasa.gov “NASA is a leader in the federal government for creating inspirational content that meets people where they are,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “I am excited we have created a powerful trifecta with the recently revamped NASA website, the launch of NASA+, and the updated NASA App that showcases the many benefits our data can have for all humanity.” These platforms are part of an effort to ensure agency content is more accessible, discoverable, and secure for the public. Earlier this year, NASA launched its revamped nasa.gov and science.nasa.gov websites, creating a new homebase for research, climate data, Artemis information, and more. “NASA’s new streaming platform and app are where the world can join us as we explore the unknown,” said Marc Etkind, associate administrator, Office of Communications, NASA Headquarters. “NASA is the catalyst behind some of humanity’s greatest stories; and now, with our new digital presence, everyone will have access to these stories 24/7.” No Cost Access to Humanity’s Greatest Stories Through the ad-free, no cost, and family-friendly streaming service, users will gain access to the agency’s Emmy Award-winning live coverage and views into NASA’s missions through collections of original video series, including new series debuting on the streaming service. Beginning today, everyone can enjoy original NASA+ content, including: A documentary series following each image from the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as a second series highlighting the world’s most powerful space telescope from lab to launch Animated children shows about the planets, mysteries of the universe, and intergalactic worlds A series telling the personal stories of Black NASA astronauts A series that takes viewers behind-the-scenes as a group of scientists work to return America’s first asteroid sample Ultra-high-definition visuals of the cosmos set to a spaced-out soundtrack Spanish-language content, including a series highlighting Hispanic and Latino NASA employees, climate content for kids, and more NASA+ also will stream live event coverage, where people everywhere can watch in real-time as the agency launches science experiments and astronauts to space, and ultimately, the first woman and person of color to the Moon. Turn on, tune in, and space out to relaxing music and ultra-high-definition visuals of the cosmos, from the surface of Mars to a Uranian sunset. Now live on NASA+. Universe at Your Fingertips Downloaded over 30 million times, the NASA app showcases a huge collection of the agency’s latest content, including more than 21,000 images, podcasts, news and feature stories, and live event coverage. The app’s new updates include: Full access to on-demand streaming with NASA+ Cloud push notifications International Space Station sightings and notifications that allows users to watch it pass overhead The ability to rate photos and explore and share the highest rated ones Augmented reality that allows users to view, rotate, and enlarge 3D models of NASA rockets, spacecraft, and rovers The NASA app is available at no cost. Learn more about the NASA App online. To keep up with the latest news from NASA and learn more about the agency, visit the agency’s new website at: https://www.nasa.gov/ -end- Abbey Donaldson Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Location NASA Headquarters Related Terms View the full article

16 Min Read The Marshall Star for November 8, 2023 Still Serving: Honoring Marshall, Michoud Veterans Many members of the workforce at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Michoud Assembly Facility served in the U.S. Armed Forces before beginning their NASA careers, and some are still serving in both capacities today. Their defense careers have been in a range of services, including the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, National Guard, and Reserves. Today, they continue to serve the nation through their work at NASA. As we approach Veterans Day, we pause to acknowledge their military service and hear their stories. Get to know some of our Marshall and Michoud veterans. › Back to Top Marshall’s First Woman Director of Engineering Directorate Celebrates Retirement By Celine Smith Mary Beth Koelbl, the first woman to serve as director of the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, celebrated her retirement among Marshall team members and family Nov. 2. Koelbl retires after serving 37 years at Marshall. Marshall Associate Director, Technical, Larry Leopard gave a speech in honor of Koelbl’s impactful career. Both Leopard and Holder stressed how Koelbl’s personable character and great collaborative efforts made her career and teams successful. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center Associate Director, Technical, Larry Leopard, right, presents Mary Beth Koelbl with bookends for her retirement. Encapsulated in them are flags that were flown in space.NASA/Celine Smith “Mary Beth has provided outstanding public service to not only engineering but to the center,” Leopard said. “She has been a standard for everybody to follow.” Appointed to the position in July 2019, Koelbl helped oversee Marshall’s largest organization, comprised of more than 2,000 civil servants and contractors responsible for the design, testing, evaluation and operation of flight hardware and software associated with space transportation and spacecraft systems, science instruments and payloads now in development at Marshall. The directorate provides critical support to NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program, which is managing the construction and testing of the world’s most powerful rocket. Don Holder was named new director of engineering after previously serving in the role of deputy director under Koelbl. “Mary Beth Koelbl’s positive attitude toward people and caring about their development has benefited the organization tremendously,” Holder said. Prior to this appointment, Koelbl was director of the Propulsion Systems Department from 2015 to 2019. In that position, she also served as NASA’s senior executive overseeing the agency’s chemical propulsion capability, leading work across multiple field centers to effectively develop, mature, and apply chemical propulsion capabilities in support of NASA’s missions. Throughout her NASA career, Koelbl has supported large, complex propulsion systems development and operations efforts for SLS, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and various planetary lander development activities. She also contributed to historic efforts such as the space shuttle main engine technology test bed, the Fastrac 60K engine, all shuttle propulsion elements, the Altair spacecraft, and the Ares launch vehicle upper stage and upper stage engine. Koelbl extends a thanks to her team members and fondly speaks about her career during her retirement celebration held Nov. 2 in the Building 4203 cafeteria.NASA/Celine Smith Koelbl joined Marshall in 1986 as an aerospace engineer in the Turbomachinery and Combustion Devices Branch. She was named deputy group lead of the Engineering Directorate’s Engine Systems Engineering Group in 2000 and group leader in 2003. In 2005, following a center wide reorganization, Koelbl was named branch chief of the Engine and Main Propulsion Systems Branch. She was promoted to division chief of the Propulsion Systems Division in 2011, and later that year was named to the Senior Executive Service position of deputy director of the Propulsion Systems Department. The Senior Executive Service is the personnel system covering most of the top managerial positions in federal agencies. “I have no plans of working after retirement because nothing could be better than this,” Koelbl said in her closing remarks at the reception. A native of Iowa City, Iowa, Koelbl earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1985 from the University of Iowa. She has been the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 2018, NASA Leadership Medal in 2007, Space Flight Awareness Award in 2005, and Silver Snoopy in 1996.​​​​​​​ Koelbl and her husband, Terry, who is also a NASA engineer at Marshall, reside in Madison with their three sons. She plans on enjoying her retirement by spending time with her children and grandchildren. “I’m surely going to miss the people at Marshall – they’re the best,” Koelbl said. Smith, a Media Fusion employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications. › Back to Top Don Holder Named Director of Marshall’s Engineering Directorate Don Holder has been named director of the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. In his new role, Holder will be responsible for the center’s largest organization, comprised of more than 2,000 civil service and contractor personnel, leading the design, testing, evaluation, and operation of flight hardware and software associated with space transportation, spacecraft systems, science instruments, and payloads under development at the center. Don Holder, director of the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA He previously served as the Engineering Directorate’s deputy director. Holder joined Marshall in 1986 as a quality engineer supporting the Shuttle Propulsion Office. Since then, he has served in a multitude of technical leadership roles and has distinguished himself as a subject matter expert in ECLSS (Environmental Control and Life Support Systems). From 1989 to 1999, he served as a water recovery systems engineer supporting the development of water recovery technologies for the International Space Station. Holder supported the ECLSS Project in positions of increasing scope and responsibility, including ECLSS Design team lead, technical assistant, and assistant chief engineer from 2000 to 2008. In 2008, Holder was assigned as a project chief engineer for the space station, providing leadership for Marshall-provided flight hardware. From 2011 to 2013, he served as chief of the Mechanical Fabrication Branch in the Space Systems Department where he led a workforce of engineers and technicians and managed the numerous facilities required to support Marshall’s manufacturing needs. Holder served as deputy chief engineer of the FPPO (Flight Programs and Partnerships Office) from 2013 to 2014 until being appointed to the Senior Level position of FPPO chief engineer in mid-2014 and subsequently Human Exploration Development and Operations chief engineer in 2017. He served as deputy director of the Space Systems Department from May 2019 to February 2021. › Back to Top Lisa Bates Named Deputy Director of Marshall’s Engineering Directorate Lisa Bates has been named deputy director of the Engineering Directorate at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. In her new role, Bates will be jointly responsible for the center’s largest organization, comprised of more than 2,000 civil service and contractor personnel, who design, test, evaluate, and operate flight hardware and software associated with Marshall-developed space transportation and spacecraft systems, science instruments, and payloads. Portrait: Lisa BatesNASA She was previously director of Marshall’s Test Laboratory. Appointed to the position in 2021, Bates provided executive leadership for all aspects of the Laboratory, including workforce, budget, infrastructure, and operations for testing. She joined Marshall in 2008 as the Ares I Upper Stage Thrust Vector Control lead in the Propulsion Department. Since then, she has served in positions of increasing responsibility and authority. From 2009 to 2017, she served as the first chief of the new TVC Branch, which was responsible for defining operational requirements, performing analysis, and evaluating Launch Vehicle TVC systems and TVC components. As the Space Launch System (SLS) Program Executive from 2017 to 2018, Bates supported the NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development as the liaison and advocate of the SLS. Upon returning to MSFC in 2018, she was selected as deputy manager of the SLS Booster Element Office. Bates also served as deputy manager of the SLS Stages Office from 2018 to 2021 where she shared the responsibilities, accountability, and authorities for all activities associated with the requirements definition, design, development, manufacturing, assembly, green run test, and delivery of the SLS Program’s Stages Element. Prior to her NASA career, Bates worked 18 years in private industry for numerous aerospace and defense contractors, including Jacobs Engineering, Marotta Scientific Controls, United Technologies (USBI), United Defense, and Sverdrup Technologies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She was awarded a NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2013 and 2022 and has received numerous group and individual achievement awards. Bates and her husband, Don, reside in Madison and have four children. › Back to Top Michoud Celebrates Family Day 2023 with Treats and No Tricks By Matt Higgins For the second consecutive year, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility hosted Family Day, a day when team members can invite their families to visit “America’s Rocket Factory.” This year’s Family Day was Oct. 28. Thousands attend Michoud Family 2023 on Oct. 28 to observe Artemis production, interact with Michoud tenants, and enjoy Halloween festivities. NASA/Michael DeMocker “Family Day 2023 was a huge success,” said Michoud Director Lonnie Dutreix. “I enjoyed seeing the employees bring their families and seeing the looks of awe and smiling faces all around.” Family Day occurred the weekend before Halloween. Team members and their families had the opportunity to view the latest stages of production in the 43-acre factory, including the fully assembled core stage for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for NASA’s Artemis II mission, and were treated to trunk-or-treat as they exited the factory. Michoud passed out candy and Moon Pies to trick-or-treaters of all ages. “Family Day 2023 was an opportunity to build on last year’s success,” said Heather Keller, Michoud communications strategist and Family Day coordinator. “We even took advantage of the holiday weekend to include a trunk-or-treat for the kids.” NASA astronaut Stan Love, left, and astronaut candidate Jack Hathaway pose for pictures with a young attendee at Michoud Family Day. NASA/Michael DeMocker Mother Nature spared the heavy rains that occurred during Family Day 2022. The lack of rain and threatening skies allowed for more displays and attractions. There were food trucks outside the factory gates, and a Coast Guard Sikorsky MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter landed on the facility grounds. Attendees viewed the distinct orange and white helicopter up close, sat inside, and took pictures. NASA astronaut Stan Love and astronaut candidate Jack Hathaway took pictures with families in front of the SLS core stage for Artemis II in the Final Assembly area. Michoud’s tenants, including its prime contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, set up booths and provided swag for those who passed by. Some tenants included interactive virtual reality displays and science experiments. “With the addition of astronauts, a USCG rescue helicopter, food trucks, and emergency and heavy equipment static displays, there really was something for everyone,” Keller said. Attendees observe a liquid nitrogen demonstration at the Boeing table at Michoud Family Day. NASA/Michael DeMocker Prior to 2022’s celebration, Michoud Family Day hadn’t occurred since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and strong thunderstorms kept many people away in 2022. It meant that this year’s event was the first time many family members had seen Michoud in years and the first for many others. Organizers estimated more than 5,000 attended the event. For Dutreix, it marked one of the final major events of his tenure. He will retire in December. “It’s my last Family Day as director,” he said. “I’m going to miss it, but I’m proud of the family atmosphere we have at Michoud. The workforce looks out for each other, and we’re committed to seeing Artemis succeed.” Higgins, a Manufacturing Technical Solutions Inc. employee, works in communications at Michoud Assembly Facility. › Back to Top Watch Crews Add RS-25 Engines to NASA Artemis II SLS Rocket Artemis II reached a significant milestone as teams fully installed all four RS-25 engines to the 212-foot-tall core stage for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility. During Artemis II, the four engines, arranged like legs on a chair at the bottom of the mega rocket, will fire for eight minutes at launch, producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust to send the Artemis II crew around the Moon. Boeing is the lead contractor for the SLS core stage. Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, is the lead contractor for the SLS engines. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the SLS Program and Michoud. For more information about SLS, visit https://www.nasa.gov/sls. › Back to Top NASA Telescopes Discover Record-breaking Black Hole Astronomers have discovered the most distant black hole yet seen in X-rays, using NASA telescopes. The black hole is at an early stage of growth that had never been witnessed before, where its mass is similar to that of its host galaxy. This result may explain how some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed. By combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team of researchers was able to find the telltale signature of a growing black hole just 470 million years after the big bang. Astronomers found the most distant black hole ever detected in X-rays (in a galaxy dubbed UHZ1) using the Chandra and Webb space telescopes. X-ray emission is a telltale signature of a growing supermassive black hole. This result may explain how some of the first supermassive black holes in the universe formed. These images show the galaxy cluster Abell 2744 that UHZ1 is located behind, in X-rays from Chandra and infrared data from Webb, as well as close-ups of the black hole host galaxy UHZ1.NASA/CXC/SAO/Ákos Bogdán; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare & K. Arcand “We needed Webb to find this remarkably distant galaxy and Chandra to find its supermassive black hole,” said Akos Bogdan of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) who leads a new paper in the journal Nature Astronomy describing these results. “We also took advantage of a cosmic magnifying glass that boosted the amount of light we detected.” This magnifying effect is known as gravitational lensing. Bogdan and his team found the black hole in a galaxy named UHZ1 in the direction of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744, located 3.5 billion light-years from Earth. Webb data, however, has revealed the galaxy is much more distant than the cluster, at 13.2 billion light-years from Earth, when the universe was only 3% of its current age. Then over two weeks of observations with Chandra showed the presence of intense, superheated, X-ray emitting gas in this galaxy – a trademark for a growing supermassive black hole. The light from the galaxy and the X-rays from gas around its supermassive black hole are magnified by about a factor of four by intervening matter in Abell 2744 (due to gravitational lensing), enhancing the infrared signal detected by Webb and allowing Chandra to detect the faint X-ray source. This discovery is important for understanding how some supermassive black holes can reach colossal masses soon after the big bang. Do they form directly from the collapse of massive clouds of gas, creating black holes weighing between about 10,000 and 100,000 Suns? Or do they come from explosions of the first stars that create black holes weighing only between about 10 and 100 Suns? “There are physical limits on how quickly black holes can grow once they’ve formed, but ones that are born more massive have a head start. It’s like planting a sapling, which takes less time to grow into a full-size tree than if you started with only a seed”, said Andy Goulding of Princeton University. Goulding is a co-author of the Nature Astronomy paper and lead author of a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that reports the galaxy’s distance and mass using a spectrum from Webb. Bogdan’s team has found strong evidence that the newly discovered black hole was born massive. Its mass is estimated to fall between 10 and 100 million Suns, based on the brightness and energy of the X-rays. This mass range is similar to that of all the stars in the galaxy where it lives, which is in stark contrast to black holes in the centers of galaxies in the nearby universe that usually contain only about a tenth of a percent of the mass of their host galaxy’s stars. The large mass of the black hole at a young age, plus the amount of X-rays it produces and the brightness of the galaxy detected by Webb, all agree with theoretical predictions in 2017 by co-author Priyamvada Natarajan of Yale University for an “Outsize Black Hole” that directly formed from the collapse of a huge cloud of gas. “We think that this is the first detection of an ‘Outsize Black Hole’ and the best evidence yet obtained that some black holes form from massive clouds of gas,” said Natarajan. “For the first time we are seeing a brief stage where a supermassive black hole weighs about as much as the stars in its galaxy, before it falls behind.” The researchers plan to use this and other results pouring in from Webb and those combining data from other telescopes to fill out a larger picture of the early universe. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope previously showed that light from distant galaxies is highly magnified by matter in the intervening galaxy cluster, providing part of the motivation for the Webb and Chandra observations described here. The paper describing the results by Bogdan’s team appears in Nature Astronomy, and a preprint is available online. The Webb data used in both papers is part of a survey called the Ultradeep Nirspec and nirCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization (UNCOVER). The paper led by UNCOVER team member Andy Goulding appears in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The co-authors include other UNCOVER team members, plus Bogdan and Natarajan. A detailed interpretation paper that compares observed properties of UHZ1 with theoretical models for Outsize Black Hole Galaxies is forthcoming. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. 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. Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. › Back to Top Lucy Discovery Highlighted on ‘This Week at NASA’ NASA’s Lucy spacecraft got a surprise when it flew by asteroid Dinkinesh on Nov. 1 – the first of multiple asteroids Lucy will visit on its 12-year voyage. The mission is featured in “This Week @ NASA,” a weekly video program broadcast on NASA-TV and posted online. Images captured by Lucy revealed that Dinkinesh is not just a single asteroid, as was thought, but a binary pair. The primary aim of the Lucy mission is to survey the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, a never-before-explored population of small bodies that orbit the Sun in two “swarms” that lead and follow Jupiter in its orbit. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. View this and previous episodes at “This Week @NASA” on NASA’s YouTube page. › Back to Top View the full article

5 min read Peter Griffith: Diving Into Carbon Cycle Science Dr. Peter Griffith is the director of NASA’s Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Office. “As a scientist, I started off in the water and then gradually moved to on top of the water, and then ultimately went up into the air and into space, at least with the instrument eyes that we have on the world,” he said. “In some respects, I was a carbon cycle scientist since before it was cool.”NASA / Angeles Miron Name: Peter Griffith Title: Director, NASA Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Office Organization: Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, Code 618 What’s your official role at Goddard? I lead NASA’s Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Office, which is in the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at Goddard. We answer to NASA Headquarters, we support the Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Focus area, and we support different elements of the funded program that comes out of that. To a great extent, we support the terrestrial ecology program, but also ocean biology and biogeochemistry, biodiversity, the Carbon Monitoring System, and some application work. A lot of our work consists of supporting field campaigns. These are activities where dozens and sometimes hundreds of investigators go out into amazing parts of the world and do the work on the ground – or on the water – to have an up-close view of what’s happening in critical parts of the planet and couple that fine-scale information with observations from remote sensing instruments on aircraft and ultimately on satellites. What do you do on a day-to-day basis? One of the really fun things I get to do is coordinate with our teams that are out in the field and the flight crews. We’ve got an aircraft, a relatively small twin-engine turboprop that’s flown in Alaska with an instrument called AVIRIS, a very fancy camera that sees lots of colors and makes images from it that have far more wavelengths than what your cell phone camera has in it. It’s called an imaging spectrometer. We fly that to look at vegetation characteristics and methane emissions across Alaska and some parts of Canada. A couple months ago, I got to go up and spend some time in Fairbanks working with the instrument crew from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the flight crew and fine-tune when and where we would fly each day. I don’t do lab work or very much field work at this point, so an awful lot of it is coordination with scientists and engineers to help us go to the right places and measure the right things. How did your path to Goddard start? I was a kid growing up in the in the Apollo program era, and I lived in my parents’ house on a lake in Central Florida about 50 miles from Cape Canaveral. A lot of my childhood consisted of catching alligators in the lake and watching Saturn V rockets take off. It was very exciting. Because I was a giant nerd with big, thick glasses, being an astronaut was completely off the table, I knew that. But that whole thing about swimming in the lake took me in, ultimately, into being a scuba diver and going into marine biology. As a scientist, I started off in the water and then gradually moved to on top of the water, and then, ultimately went up into the air and into space, at least with the instrument eyes that we have on the world. In some respects, I was a carbon cycle scientist since before it was cool. Peter Griffith, Brian Howard and Xanthe Walker discuss field work in Denali National Park during a 2016 expedition.NASA / Kate Ramsayer Do you have any cool stories from the field? Oh, boy. We have several 100 investigators that have been funded over the years and probably 100 or more who are involved in one way or another, and I probably credit a lot of them for having the coolest stories, But in my own role, I’ve had conversations and consultations with federal and state and local folks in Alaska and Canada about where and when we fly our airborne instruments, so in the course of that, I’ve had the chance to talk with representatives from First Nations about what their concerns are. It’s been really interesting for me, very broadening of my knowledge from my narrow view as a scientist. We like to think we know a lot of things, but in talking with many of our Indigenous partners, I continue to learn that there are a lot of things that we don’t know, and that I don’t know. One of the great things about this job is getting to learn new things all the time. Sometimes it’s about new satellites or new ways of using different kinds of radar and lidar to observe the planet. That is certainly a stimulating part of the job, but another really stimulating part of the job is getting to know people and getting to see their world and hear them explain how they see the world through their eyes. Do you ever miss doing field work? That’s a really good question. It’s a challenge because, there are a lot of sacrifices that you make as a field scientist. It may put you a very long way away from your family, for instance. One of the reasons, actually, that I moved into project management was that it gave me a better work-life balance at a time when I had small kids. It’s been so fun working at Goddard Space Flight Center. There are still times when – and particularly after having to work remotely for a while – that I come on campus and see the great, big NASA emblem on the side of the High Bay Clean Room building and I go, “I can’t believe I get to work here.” Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage. By Ananya Udaygiri NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Media Contact: Rob Garner NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Editor Jessica Evans Contact Rob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.gov Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Carbon CycleEarthEarth ScienceGoddard Space Flight CenterOceansPeople of Goddard Explore More 8 min read John Moisan Studies the Ocean Through the ‘Eyes’ of AI Article 10 months ago 8 min read Andrew Sayer – Takes a World View Article 6 years ago 5 min read Rachel Tilling: Scuba Diving and Camping on Sea Ice Article 2 years ago View the full article

NASA / Caroline Montgomery Casey Denham, aerospace engineer with the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, works with tribal students during a STEM activity at the American Indian Engineering Sciences (AISES) National Conference in Spokane, Washington, Oct. 19-21, 2023. Denham, whose heritage is Meskwaki, was part of a NASA group that presented sessions and shared their passion about their work with more than 3500 attendees. Denham was previously a Pathways Intern at Langley. View our Native American Heritage Month gallery. Image credit: NASA/Caroline Montgomery View the full article

An unusually high tide, called a King Tide, floods a highway on-ramp in Northern California in January 2023. Sea level rise and El Niños can exacerbate this type of flooding.California King Tides Project Such high-tide flooding that inundates roads and buildings along the west coast of the Americas tends to be uncommon outside of El Niño years, but that could change by the 2030s. An analysis by NASA’s sea level change science team finds that if a strong El Niño develops this winter, cities along the western coasts of the Americas could see an increase in the frequency of high-tide flooding that can swamp roads and spill into low-lying buildings. El Niño is a periodic climate phenomenon characterized by higher-than-normal sea levels and warmer-than-average ocean temperatures along the equatorial Pacific. These conditions can spread poleward along the western coasts of the Americas. El Niño, which is still developing this year, can bring more rain than usual to the U.S. Southwest and drought to countries in the western Pacific like Indonesia. These impacts typically occur in January through March. The NASA analysis finds that a strong El Niño could result in up to five instances of a type of flooding called a 10-year flood event this winter in cities including Seattle and San Diego. Places like La Libertad and Baltra in Ecuador could get up to three of these 10-year flood events this winter. This type of flooding doesn’t normally occur along the west coast of the Americas outside of El Niño years. The researchers note that by the 2030s, rising seas and climate change could result in these cities experiencing similar numbers of 10-year floods annually, with no El Niño required. Data from the SWOT satellite shows sea level anomalies – how much higher or lower sea levels are compared to the average height – off the coast of Ecuador and Peru on Aug. 12, 2023, and Oct. 3, 2023. The data indicates the development of an El Niño along the west coast of the Americas.NASA/JPL-Caltech “I’m a little surprised that the analysis found these 10-year events could become commonplace so quickly,” said Phil Thompson, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii and a member of NASA’s sea level change science team, which performed the analysis. “I would have thought maybe by the 2040s or 2050s.” Ten-year floods are those that have a one in 10 chance of occurring in any given year. They’re a measure of how high local sea levels become: The extent of flooding in a particular city or community depends on several factors, including a region’s topography and the location of homes and infrastructure relative to the ocean. Ten-year floods can result in what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration classifies as moderate flooding, with some inundation of roads and buildings, and the possible need to evacuate people or move belongings to higher ground. NASA’s coastal flooding analysis finds that by the 2030s, during strong El Niño years, cities on the west coast of the Americas could see up to 10 of these 10-year flood events. By the 2050s, strong El Niños may result in as many as 40 instances of these events in a given year. Watching Sea Levels Rise Water expands as it warms, so sea levels tend to be higher in places with warmer water. Researchers and forecasters monitor ocean temperatures as well as water levels to spot the formation and development of an El Niño. “Climate change is already shifting the baseline sea level along coastlines around the world,” said Ben Hamlington, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and lead for the agency’s sea level change science team. Sea levels are rising in response to planetary warming, as Earth’s atmosphere and ocean are heating up and ice sheets and shelves melt. This has already increased the number of high-tide, or nuisance, flooding days coastal cities experience throughout the year. Phenomena like El Niños and storm surges, which temporarily boost sea levels, compound these effects. Missions that monitor sea levels, including the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, help to monitor El Niños in the near term. SWOT in particular, collects data on sea levels right up to the coast, which can help to improve sea level rise projections. That kind of information could aid policymakers and planners in preparing their communities for rising seas in the next decades. “As climate change accelerates, some cities will see flooding five to 10 times more often. SWOT will keep watch on these changes to ensure coastal communities are not caught off guard,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT program scientist and director of the ocean physics program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. To learn more about how NASA studies sea level, visit: https://sealevel.nasa.gov/ See how SWOT captures sea levels around the globe News Media Contacts Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. 818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874 jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov 2023-162 Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Related Terms EarthJet Propulsion LaboratoryOceansSWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography)Water on Earth Explore More 4 min read NASA Project Manager Helps Makes Impact in Southeast Asia with SERVIR Article 2 hours ago 5 min read First Science Images Released From ESA Mission With NASA Contributions Article 1 day ago 5 min read NASA’s Curiosity Rover Clocks 4,000 Days on Mars Article 2 days ago View the full article

1 min read Six Growing Beyond Earth Student Teams to Present at the 2023 American Association for Gravitational and Space Research Conference To join Growing Beyond Earth, visit us www.fairchildgarden.org/gbe. Credit: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Congratulations to the six Growing Beyond Earth high school teams who will present their original research at this year’s American Association for Gravitational and Space Research Conference in Washington D.C.! The teams represent Biotech@Richmond Heights (Miami FL), Herbert Henry Dow High School (Midland, MI), iMater Preparatory Academy High School (Hialeah, FL), and Institute for Collaborative Education (New York, NY). The student projects include: Exploring Autonomous Sensing and Watering Systems, Plant Growth and Gene Expression in Simulating Microgravity, 3D Printed Materials Property Impact on Plant Growth, and Optimizing Light to Maximum Anthocyanin Content in Plants. Growing Beyond Earth is a classroom-based citizen science project designed to advance NASA research on growing plants in space. For more information or to get involved, please visit: www.fairchildgarden.org/gbe. Facebook logo @DoNASAScience @DoNASAScience Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Related Terms Citizen Science Earth Science View the full article

1 min read NASA Sounding Rocket Launches into Alaskan Aurora A sounding rocket launched from Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, Nov. 8, 2023, carrying NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s DISSIPATION mission. The rocket launched into aurora and successfully captured data to understand how auroras heat the atmosphere and cause high-altitude winds. The teams continue to support a second sounding rocket launch for BEAM-PIE, a mission for Los Alamos National Laboratory that will use an electron beam to create radio waves, measuring how atmospheric conditions modulate them. The data is key to interpreting measurements from many other missions. NASA’s Sounding Rockets Program, funded by NASA’s Heliophysics Division, is managed at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, under NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Photo Credit: NASA/Lee Wingfield Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Editor Jamie Adkins Contact Sarah A. Fraziersarah.frazier@nasa.gov Related Terms AurorasGoddard Space Flight CenterHeliophysicsSounding RocketsWallops Flight Facility Explore More 5 min read NASA’s Webb Findings Support Long-Proposed Process of Planet Formation Article 29 mins ago 2 min read Calling all Eclipse Enthusiasts: Become a NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassador! By Vivian White, Astronomical Society of the Pacific Are you an astronomy enthusiast or undergraduate… Article 20 hours ago 5 min read NASA’s Lucy Surprises Again, Observes 1st-ever Contact Binary Orbiting Asteroid NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft took images of asteroid Dinkinesh, discovering that the asteroid has the first-ever… Article 20 hours ago View the full article

Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just made a breakthrough discovery in revealing how planets are made. By observing water vapor in protoplanetary disks, Webb confirmed a physical process involving the drifting of ice-coated solids from the outer regions of the disk into the rocky-planet zone. Theories have long proposed that icy pebbles forming in the cold, outer regions of protoplanetary disks — the same area where comets originate in our solar system — should be the fundamental seeds of planet formation. The main requirement of these theories is that pebbles should drift inward toward the star due to friction in the gaseous disk, delivering both solids and water to planets. A fundamental prediction of this theory is that as icy pebbles enter into the warmer region within the “snowline” — where ice transitions to vapor — they should release large amounts of cold water vapor. This is exactly what Webb observed. “Webb finally revealed the connection between water vapor in the inner disk and the drift of icy pebbles from the outer disk,” said principal investigator Andrea Banzatti of Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. “This finding opens up exciting prospects for studying rocky planet formation with Webb!” “In the past, we had this very static picture of planet formation, almost like there were these isolated zones that planets formed out of,” explained team member Colette Salyk of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. “Now we actually have evidence that these zones can interact with each other. It’s also something that is proposed to have happened in our solar system.” Image: Planet-forming Disks Artist’s Concept: This artist’s concept compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is a compact disk, and on the right is an extended disk with gaps. Scientists using Webb recently studied four protoplanetary disks—two compact and two extended. The researchers designed their observations to test whether compact planet-forming disks have more water in their inner regions than extended planet-forming disks with gaps. This would happen if ice-covered pebbles in the compact disks drift more efficiently into the close-in regions nearer to the star and deliver large amounts of solids and water to the just-forming, rocky, inner planets. Current research proposes that large planets may cause rings of increased pressure, where pebbles tend to collect. As the pebbles drift, any time they encounter an increase in pressure, they tend to collect there. These pressure traps don’t necessarily shut down pebble drift, but they do impede it. This is what appears to be happening in the large disks with rings and gaps. This also could have been a role of Jupiter in our solar system — inhibiting pebbles and water delivery to our small, inner, and relatively water-poor rocky planets. NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) Harnessing the Power of Webb The researchers used Webb’s MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument) to study four disks — two compact and two extended — around Sun-like stars. All four of these stars are estimated to be between 2 and 3 million years old, just newborns in cosmic time. The two compact disks are expected to experience efficient pebble drift, delivering pebbles to well within a distance equivalent to Neptune’s orbit. In contrast, the extended disks are expected to have their pebbles retained in multiple rings as far out as six times the orbit of Neptune. The Webb observations were designed to determine whether compact disks have a higher water abundance in their inner, rocky planet region, as expected if pebble drift is more efficient and is delivering lots of solid mass and water to inner planets. The team chose to use MIRI’s MRS (the Medium-Resolution Spectrometer) because it is sensitive to water vapor in disks. The results confirmed expectations by revealing excess cool water in the compact disks, compared with the large disks. Image: Water Abundance Emission Spectrum – Water Abundance: This graphic compares the spectral data for warm and cool water in the GK Tau disk, which is a compact disk without rings, and extended CI Tau disk, which has at least three rings on different orbits. The science team employed the unprecedented resolving power of MIRI’s MRS (the Medium-Resolution Spectrometer) to separate the spectra into individual lines that probe water at different temperatures. These spectra, seen in the top graph, clearly reveal excess cool water in the compact GK Tau disk, compared with the large CI Tau disk. The bottom graph shows the excess cool water data in the compact GK Tau disk minus the cool water data in the extended CI Tau disk. The actual data, in purple, are overlaid on a model spectrum of cool water. Note how closely they align. NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI) As the pebbles drift, any time they encounter a pressure bump — an increase in pressure — they tend to collect there. These pressure traps don’t necessarily shut down pebble drift, but they do impede it. This is what appears to be happening in the large disks with rings and gaps. Current research proposes that large planets may cause rings of increased pressure, where pebbles tend to collect. This also could have been a role of Jupiter in our solar system — inhibiting pebbles and water delivery to our small, inner, and relatively water-poor rocky planets. Solving the Riddle When the data first came in, the results were puzzling to the research team. “For two months, we were stuck on these preliminary results that were telling us that the compact disks had colder water, and the large disks had hotter water overall,” remembered Banzatti. “This made no sense, because we had selected a sample of stars with very similar temperatures.” Only when Banzatti overlaid the data from the compact disks onto the data from the large disks did the answer clearly emerge: the compact disks have extra cool water just inside the snowline, at about ten times closer than the orbit of Neptune. “Now we finally see unambiguously that it is the colder water that has an excess,” said Banzatti. “This is unprecedented and entirely due to Webb’s higher resolving power!” Image: Icy Pebble Drift This graphic is an interpretation of data from Webb’s MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, which is sensitive to water vapor in disks. It shows the difference between pebble drift and water content in a compact disk versus an extended disk with rings and gaps. In the compact disk on the left, as the ice-covered pebbles drift inward toward the warmer region closer to the star, they are unimpeded. As they cross the snow line, their ice turns to vapor and provides a large amount of water to enrich the just-forming, rocky, inner planets. On the right is an extended disk with rings and gaps. As the ice-covered pebbles begin their journey inward, many become stopped by the gaps and trapped in the rings. Fewer icy pebbles are able to make it across the snow line to deliver water to the inner region of the disk.NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI) The team’s results appear in the Nov. 8 edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. 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 in the Nov. 8 edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Related Information More about protoplanetary disks on NASA’s Universe website. 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 James Webb Space Telescope Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the… Planets Our solar system can be divided into three regions: the inner solar system, the outer solar system, and the Kuiper… Exoplanets Overview Most of the exoplanets discovered so far are in a relatively small region of our galaxy, the Milky Way.… Universe Explore the universe: Learn about the history of the cosmos, what it’s made of, and so much more. Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Editor Steve Sabia Contact Related Terms Goddard Space Flight CenterJames Webb Space Telescope (JWST)The Universe View the full article

4 min read NASA Project Manager Helps Makes Impact in Southeast Asia with SERVIR Tony Kim in South Korea’s Songdo Central Park standing in front of the statue “Cruising Together” created by Han Jeong-ho. Tony Kim By Celine Smith “As the seedlings were placed in the water, I felt a moment of déjà vu,” said NASA scientist Tony Kim. “I was taken back to when I was a child playing in similar fields in South Korea. It felt like I was meant to be there bringing space to village with satellite data.” As he looked at rice fields while visiting Bhutan in September 2023, Kim savored the chance to do something meaningful across Southeast Asia and also in his native country. Having seen his childhood home turn from rice fields to a city, Kim knows the importance of sustainably using the land. In Bhutan, Kim and research partners are identifying rice paddies, estimating crop production, predicting shortages, and gauging the health of each harvest. He represents NASA as an international project manager for SERVIR, a partnership between NASA and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development). It is a flagship program for Earth Action in NASA’s Earth Sciences Division, created in 2005 and rooted at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. SERVIR – which means “to serve” in Spanish – aids more than 50 nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in their efforts to address issues like food and water security, droughts, and the negative effects of climate change. SERVIR assists regional, national, and local institutions by using NASA satellite data, models, and products to manage resources sustainably. NASA and USAID launched its SERVIR Mekong hub in 2015 at the ADPC (Asian Disaster Preparedness Center) in Bangkok, Thailand. The hub has been renamed SERVIR Southeast Asia as of this year. Other SERVIR hubs are in the Himalayas, West Africa, and the Amazon. Kim, back row fifth from the right, pictured with other attendees during the 2023 PEER (Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research) Bhutan Symposium where Bhutanese scientists funded by USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development). present their research. Kim’s presentation was, “Advancing STEM in Bhutan through Increased Earth Observation Capacity.” Royal Society for Protection of Nature Bhutan In addition to Bhutan, Kim also traveled back home to Seoul, South Korea – nearly 20 years since his last visit – to represent SERVIR Southeast Asia. “When I went back to Korea, I felt like a kid going back in time,” Kim said. The USAID RDMA (Regional Development Mission for Asia), which funds SERVIR Southeast Asia requested Kim’s presence for a meeting with Korean leaders. He discussed the value of NASA satellite data for environmental decision-making with the Korean Ministry of Environment and USAID RDMA, as well as opportunities for collaboration to solve water issues in the Indo-Pacific region and natural resource management in the Lower Mekong sub-region. “Korea recovered from war in the 1950’s and developed very quickly as a powerhouse for technology products. Now Korea is helping other developing countries in Asia,” Kim said. “I am so proud of my home country and my adopted country (through NASA) helping people around the world to use satellite data in productive ways.” Kim was eight years old in 1974 when his family moved from the southern edge of Seoul to the suburbs of Chicago. “Our parents immigrated to the United States to give us the opportunity to better ourselves through education,” he said. After high school, he went to the University of Illinois, where he pursued a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. After graduation, he joined Marshall as a propulsion engineer, testing cryogenic fluid management techniques for advanced rocket propulsion systems. From there, Kim’s 33-year NASA journey led him through a variety of roles. He served in 1992 as an operations controller for two Spacelab missions. In 1996, he led an operation team for the International Space Station Furnace Facility. From 1998-2001, he was a payload operations manager for space station science payloads. Marshall selected Kim to study at Auburn University in 1997, where he earned his master’s degree in material science. Afterwards, Kim attended the International Space University. Then, he led the ALTUS Cumulus Electrification Study, where an uninhabited aerial vehicle was used to study lightning during a thunderstorm. Tony Kim, SERVIR Science Coordination Office (SCO) Project Manager, International Flagship Program for Earth Action. NASA Kim was selected in 2003 for the NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program to teach a design engineering course at Texas A&M in Kingsville for one year. He spent the next year at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Kim returned to Marshall as a deep throttling rocket engine technology manager and then deputy manager for advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology development. In 2016, Kim served as deputy program manager for Centennial Challenges, NASA’s premier, large-prize program. Kim worked with Bradley University and Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, to conduct NASA’s 3D-printed Habitat Challenge. “SERVIR was the only organization that could have taken me away from Centennial Challenges,” Kim said. I enjoyed working on technology to help people in the future, but there was a more immediate calling for me to help people right now here on Earth with satellite data Tony kim NASA Scientist Kim and his wife, Sonya, live in Huntsville and have three grown children. He said the lessons his parents imparted remain as true today as when he was a small child. “They taught us to work hard, keep your commitments, and care about what you do and the people you do it with,” he said. “If you do those things, you’ll find success.” Jonathan Deal Jonathan Deal NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov 256-544-0034 Share Details Last Updated Nov 08, 2023 Related Terms EarthGeneralMarshall Space Flight CenterPeople of NASASERVIR (Regional Visualization and Monitoring System) Explore More 6 min read Going Beyond the Challenge for New and Continued Success Article 20 hours ago 8 min read Reaching New Frontiers in Science Supported by Public Participation Article 20 hours ago 6 min read Advancing Technology for Aeronautics Article 20 hours ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

Nine-year-old, Luca Pollack of Carlsbad, California, the winner of the kindergarten through fourth grade division of the 2023 Power to Explore student writing challenge, shows off his mission concept. The third Power to Explore Student Challenge from NASA is underway. The writing challenge invites K-12th grade students in the United States to learn about radioisotope power systems, a type of nuclear battery integral to many of NASA’s far-reaching space missions, and then write an essay about a new powered mission for the agency. For more than 60 years, radioisotope power systems have helped NASA explore the harshest, darkest, and dustiest parts of our solar system and has enabled many spacecrafts to conduct otherwise impossible missions in total darkness. Ahead of the next total solar eclipse in the United States in April 2024, which is a momentary glimpse without sunlight and brings attention to the challenge of space exploration without solar power, NASA wants students to submit essays about these systems. Entries should detail where students would go, what they would explore, and how they would use the power of radioisotope power systems to achieve mission success in a dusty, dark, or far away space destination with limited or obstructed access to light. Submissions are due Jan. 26, 2024. “The Power to Explore Student Challenge is part of NASA’s ongoing efforts to engage students in space exploration and inspire interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This technology has been a gamechanger in our exploration capabilities and we can’t wait to see what students – our future explorers – dream up; the sky isn’t the limit, it’s just the beginning.” Judges will review entries in three grade-level categories: K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. Student entries are limited to 250 words and should address the mission destination, mission goals, and describe one of the student’s unique powers that will help the mission. One grand prize winner from each grade category (three total) will receive a trip for two to NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, to learn about the people and technologies that enable NASA missions. Every student who submits an entry will receive a digital certificate and an invitation to a virtual event with NASA experts where they’ll learn about what powers the NASA workforce to dream big and explore. Judges Needed NASA and Future Engineers are seeking volunteers to help judge the thousands of contest entries anticipated to be submitted from around the country. U.S. residents over 18 years old who are interested in offering approximately three hours of their time to review submissions should register to be a judge at the Future Engineers website. The Power to Explore Student Challenge is funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program Office and managed and administered by Future Engineers under the direction of the NASA Tournament Lab, a part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Learn more about the challenge online: Power to Explore Student Challenge -end- Karen Fox / Alana Johnson Headquarters, Washington 301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501 karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov Kristin Jansen Glenn Research Center, Cleveland 216-296-2203 kristin.m.jansen@nasa.gov View the full article

The Artemis Accords describe a shared vision for principles, grounded in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, to create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates space exploration and science for all of humanity to enjoy.Credits: NASA Bulgaria will sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony at 10 a.m. EST on Thursday, Nov. 9, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson will host officials from Bulgaria and the U.S. Department of State for the accords signing ceremony. This event is in-person only. Media interested in attending must RSVP by 7 a.m. on Nov. 9, to the NASA Headquarters newsroom at hq-media@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is online. The Artemis Accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations, including those participating in NASA’s Artemis program. NASA, in coordination with the U.S. Department of State, announced the Artemis Accords in 2020 along with the original signatories. The accords reinforce and implement the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also reinforce the commitment by the United States and partner nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices and norms of responsible behavior that NASA and its partners have supported, including the public release of scientific data. The event will take place at the agency’s James E. Webb Auditorium in the West Lobby inside NASA Headquarters located at 300 E St. SW. Learn more about the Artemis Accords at: https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords -end- Jackie McGuiness / Roxana Bardan Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1600 jackie.mcguinness@nasa.gov / roxana.bardan@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Location NASA Headquarters Related Terms View the full article

Credits: NASA NASA’s Super Guppy arrives in Alabama on Nov. 6, 2023, carrying the heat shield that protected Orion’s crew module during its flight on Artemis I. The one-of-a-kind, turboprop-powered aircraft ferried the heat shield from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Huntsville Regional Airport for transport to the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Technicians at Marshall will use the center’s specialized milling tool to remove the heat shield’s outer layer of ablative material, a protective coating called Avcoat, as part of routine post-flight analysis. Click here to download the NASA b-roll Click here to download the NASA image of the Super Guppy Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis Marshall Space Flight Center Solar System View the full article

NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate connects the public to the agency’s missions and explores creative possibilities for addressing the agency’s research and technology development needs through prizes, challenges, and crowdsourcing opportunities. These challenges bridge NASA’s institutional expertise with the ingenuity of industry experts, universities, and the public at large, resulting in collaborations that help advance space technology solutions. For many solvers, success doesn’t stop when the NASA challenge ends. Past participants have gone on to work with NASA in other ways and take their technology to new heights in the commercial sector. CO2 Conversion Challenge (2020) – NASA’s Centennial Challenges has an impact far greater than just space travel – just ask Air Co., a Brooklyn-based company that competed and won a three-way tie in the CO2 Conversion Challenge, which ran from 2018 to 2021. Air Co. founders Gregory Constantine (left) and Stafford Sheehan (right) used their innovative idea, which originally existed to convert carbon dioxide into glucose, to create immediately usable hand sanitizer at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Image courtesy of Air Co. Commercializing Challenge-Supported CO2 Technology Air Company of Brooklyn, New York, was one of three teams to win the final round of NASA’s CO2 Conversion Challenge, which concluded in August 2021. This challenge asked the public to develop ways to convert carbon dioxide (CO2), an abundant resource on Mars, into sugar, which could be used by astronauts to make products including plastics, adhesives, fuels, food, and medicine. Air Company received a $700,000 award in the final phase of the competition for its thermochemical sugar production. First, CO2 and hydrogen are combined to make methanol, then hydrogen is removed to turn methanol into formaldehyde. The third chemical reaction produces a simple sugar called D-glucose. Since participating in the CO2 Conversion Challenge, Air Company has commercialized its CO2-converting technology in unique ways, producing hand sanitizer, fragrance oil, and even vodka. The CO2 used is sourced from biogenic emissions – mitigating emissions that are released into the atmosphere from ethanol fermentation facilities.1 The company has also gone on to compete in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge and developed a system and processes for turning air, water, electricity, and yeast into food. In May 2023, Air Company was named a winner in Phase 2 of the challenge, receiving a $150,000 prize from NASA and a chance to compete in Phase 3 for a grand prize of $750,000 from a total prize purse of up to $1.5 million. Cross-Program Competitors Advance Lunar Power Solutions Astrobotic Technology, a small business based in Pittsburgh, was named a grand prize winner of Phase 1 of NASA’s Watts on the Moon Challenge in May 2021. The company is no stranger to NASA – in fact, John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic, credits early NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding as “the lifeblood of the company,” starting with its first award in 2009. Astrobotic has also received funding from NASA’s Tipping Point program and was selected to deliver scientific and technology payloads to the Moon as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payloads Services (CLPS) initiative. Having continuous power throughout the lunar day and night during missions on the surface of the Moon is an essential technology asset for long-term crew and scientific exploration. For the Watts on the Moon Challenge, teams were asked to submit ideas for up to three parts of a hypothetical mission scenario: generating power from a plant to harvest water and oxygen from a dark crater on the Moon’s South Pole. Astrobotic received the grand prize in response to the first part of the scenario, proposing a fleet of small rovers that transport power cables between the solar array power source and the rover that operates inside the crater. The team also received a prize for collaborating with Montreal startup Eternal Light Photonics Corp. for a wireless mobile power beaming solution. According to Astrobotic, the prizes contribute to the company’s development of lunar surface power infrastructure.2 In August 2022, the company was selected by NASA to receive $6.2 million to help advance Vertical Solary Array Technology (VSAT) under the agency’s Game Changing Development program.3 Printing Homes for Extraterrestrial Lands and on Earth In November 2022, small business ICON, based in Austin, Texas, received a $57.2 million contract from NASA to develop construction technologies that could support infrastructure such as landing pads, habitats, and roads on the Moon. This effort supports NASA’s Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies (MMPACT) project. Preceding this, the company participated in NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, which ran from 2015 to 2019. This challenge asked competitors to design, develop, and test several areas of 3D printing that could contribute to potential human shelter on Mars. ICON partnered with the Colorado School of Mines in Phase 3: Level 1 of the challenge. The team was named a top ten finalist for their digital representation of a house on Mars using building information modeling software tools. The technology ICON initially developed through the NASA challenge has helped pave several paths for the company. In addition to designing extraterrestrial infrastructure, ICON also impacts global housing by constructing 3D printed homes on Earth. The company created the first 3D printed community of homes in Nacajuca, Mexico.4 Taking its challenge journey full circle, ICON has also released its own global architecture competition open to the public. Global Participation Leads to Mini Rover Missions Based in Budapest, Hungary, Puli Space Technologies is an example of the global collaboration that is possible through prize, challenge, and crowdsourcing opportunities. In 2020, the company participated in the Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload competition, which sought designs for miniature science instruments – about the size of a bar of soap – that could help scout the lunar surface, collecting key information about the Moon, its resources, and the environment. The challenge was sponsored by NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative to cultivate new ideas, spur innovation and enhance the development of capabilities for exploration of the lunar surface. The challenge received 132 entries from 29 countries. Puli Space won first prize in the first iteration of the challenge for its conceptual Puli Lunar Water Snooper (PLWS) to identify hydrogen and all hydrogen-bearing volatiles, like water-ice, on the Moon. Following the challenge, NASA released Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload Challenge, the Sequel, a two-year challenge that asked teams to develop, build, and prototype their miniature rover payloads. Out of the 14 finalists from the original challenge, four teams were chosen to advance to stage 2 of the sequel challenge. As part of the challenge, NASA provided $675,000, which was split between the four teams to fund development. Puli Space placed second in the sequel challenge for developing PLWS. According to Puli Space CEO Tibor Pacher, the connections made in preparing for the challenge led to PLWS’s placement on at least two planned commercial Moon missions.5 Endnotes [1] https://www.aircompany.com/ [2] https://www.astrobotic.com/astrobotic-wins-two-nasa-prizes-for-lunar-power-infrastructure/ [3] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/three-companies-to-help-nasa-advance-solar-array-technology-for-moon [4] https://www.iconbuild.com/projects/3d-printed-homes-in-nacajuca-mexico-with-new-story [5] https://lsic.jhuapl.edu/Resources/files/Newsletters/LSIC-Newsletter_2023_June_v4.pdf Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms General View the full article

8 min read Reaching New Frontiers in Science Supported by Public Participation A brown dwarf roaming the Milky Way galaxy. Image by citizen scientist/artist William Pendrill.Credit: William Pendrill NASA’s Science Mission Directorate seeks knowledge and answers to profound questions that impact all people. Through competitions, challenges, crowdsourcing, and citizen science activities, NASA collaborates with the public to make scientific discoveries that help us better understand our planet and the space beyond. Multiple NASA science projects were supported through public participation in Fiscal Years 2021 and 2022, spanning pursuits in astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics,1 and more. Astrophysics NASA challenges in astrophysics seek to uncover new information about the origin, structure, evolution, and future of the universe, as well as other worlds outside our solar system. Seeking potential planets in the backyard of our solar system, NASA invited the public to examine data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission to discern moving celestial bodies. Human eyes are needed for the task because anomalies in the images often fool image processing technologies. The WISE mission continues to collect data, and the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project is still ongoing. But the project has discovered so far more than 3500 brown dwarfs (balls of gas too small to be considered stars), and one notable citizen scientist himself found 34 ultracool brown dwarfs with companions, now published in The Astronomical Journal. To understand stars better, a citizen science project called Disk Detective 2.0 was launched in 2020 to evaluate disks, or belts, of material around stars. The original 2014 project resulted in the discovery of the longest-lived disks that form planets—dubbed “Peter Pan” disks—as well as the discovery of the youngest nearby disk around a brown dwarf. The relaunch offered a new batch of 150,000 stars in infrared wavelengths from NASA’s WISE mission and other data. As of May 2023, more than 12,000 volunteers had contributed to the project and 14 of those co-authored scientific papers based on their findings. The Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE) is a concept for a mission that would combine a ground-based telescope with a space-based starshade to enable better views of exoplanets from Earth. The Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE) is a concept for a mission that would combine a ground-based telescope with a space-based starshade to enable better views of exoplanets from Earth. As part of early-stage study of this concept, NASA invited the public to develop 3D computer models of a lightweight starshade. Requirements for the starshade design included compact packaging, successful deployment in orbit, and a low-mass structure capable of maintaining its shape and alignment using as little spacecraft fuel as possible. The Ultralight Starshade Structural Design Challenge received 60 entries, and the top five shared a $7,000 prize. First place combined inflatable tubes for compression structures and cables for tension. The Ultralight Starshade Structural Design Challenge asked participants to develop a lightweight starshade structure that could be used as part of the Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE) concept Earth Science One goal of NASA’s Earth science pursuits is to map the connections between Earth’s vital processes and the climate effects of natural and human-caused changes. Multiple competitions are aiding our understanding of these interconnected systems. A worldwide program called Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) has brought educators and students together since 1995, promoting science and learning about the environment. As one of the partner organizations for the program, NASA sponsored the NASA GLOBE Trees Challenge 2022: Trees in a Changing Climate to gather tree height observations. The data collected is compared with space-based observation systems to track tree height and growth rate as an indicator of ecosystem health. Volunteers from around the world have amassed more than 4,700 tree-height observations from over 1,500 locations in 50 countries. A similar data-gathering effort—the Cooperative Open Online Landslide Repository (COOLR)—utilizes a web-based platform developed by NASA to share reports of landslides. The repository’s data is validating a model in development at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland, the Landslide Hazard Assessment for Situational Awareness (LHASA), to map areas of potential landslide hazard in real-time. LHASA incorporates landslide inventories from people around the world in a machine-learning framework to estimate the relative probability of landslide occurrence. To develop more accurate air quality data products from NASA satellite missions, a public competition called NASA Airathon: Predict Air Quality2 asked participants to develop algorithms for estimating daily levels of surface-level air pollutants on Earth. Using NASA satellite data, model outputs, and ground measurements, the public estimated daily levels of particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) across urban areas in the U.S., India, and Taiwan—all of which have readily available satellite data. The contest generated more than 1,200 submissions from over 1,000 participants and awarded $25,000 in prizes. The ocean: it’s Earth’s largest ecosystem and the habitat for coral – one of the planet’s most unique and oldest life forms. While the concept for an iPad game called NeMO-Net could be applied to the search for life across the universe, the current application is assessing the health of coral reefs. Players help NASA classify coral reefs by painting 3D and 2D images of coral captured using the NASA FluidCam instrument, the highest-resolution remote sensing benthic imaging technology capable of removing ocean wave distortion. Data from the painted images feeds into NASA NeMO-Net, the first neural multi-modal observation and training network for global coral reef assessment. With 43,000 unique downloads of the game, there have been 71,000 classifications, of which 56,400 have been reviewed and confirmed by NASA. Planetary Science NASA’s spacecraft, which arrived at Jupiter in 2016, continues to explore the planet and its satellites with a suite of scientific instruments and a camera called JunoCam. The camera takes visible frequency images of Jupiter’s polar regions and its moons.  Via the project website, citizen scientists create images from the raw JunoCam data and post their creations on the Juno website and social media platforms. Early during the prime mission, the project engaged with the public in an online voting campaign to plan image-taking during orbital passes around Jupiter (“perijoves”), but the effort was abandoned after the transition to the 53 day–orbit mission due to unfavorable evolution of the approach geometry. Ideally, when a space rover lands on Mars, it will know where it is safe to drive, land, sleep, and hibernate—without any guidance from a human operator. An early step in developing this capability, AI4Mars, invited the public to label images of Mars terrain taken by the Curiosity rover. The goal is to train a machine learning algorithm to improve the rover’s ability to identify and avoid hazardous terrain, which is essential for autonomous exploration. Over 16,000 volunteers completed more than 632,000 classifications, and a model developed using the data has a total accuracy of 91%. A self-portrait of NASA’s Curiosity rover taken on Sol 2082 (June 15, 2018). A Martian dust storm has reduced sunlight and visibility at the rover’s location in Gale Crater. Self-portraits are created using images taken by Curiosity’s Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA22486 Another ideal capability for a Mars rover is independent analysis of data to avoid the tedious process of data transmission from Mars to Earth and back. In the Mars Spectrometry: Detect Evidence for Past Habitability challenge, NASA engaged the public to build a model to automatically analyze mass spectrometry data from rock and soil samples. Out of 656 entries, a software engineer from Brisbane, Australia, won $15,000 for first place. The second-place winner from the United States received $7,500, and the third-place winner from India won $5,000. Biological and Physical Sciences One of the aims of biological science research at NASA is to understand how biological systems acclimate to spaceflight environments. A unique classroom-based citizen science program called Growing Beyond Earth advances NASA’s research on growing plants in space. In its seventh year, the NASA program provides all the materials needed for the experiments. In total, more than 40,000 participating students and teachers have contributed hundreds of thousands of data points and tested 180 varieties of edible plants. As a result of their efforts, four types of vegetables were grown by NASA off-Earth, and two varieties have been successfully grown on the International Space Station. Heliophysics NASA studies the Sun and its effects on Earth and the solar system—or heliophysics—to increase understanding of how the universe works, how to protect technology and astronauts in space, and how stars contribute to the habitability of planets throughout the universe. SOHO captured this image of a gigantic coronal hole hovering over the sun’s north pole on July 18, 2013. To enable better discovery and tracking of sungrazing comets—the large but faint objects made of dust and ice in close orbit of the Sun—NASA held the NASA SOHO Comet Search. Over $55,000 in prizes was awarded to solutions to reduce background noise in data recorded by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO), one of the instruments on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Hundreds of participants from around the world devised artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches, which led to the discovery of two previously unidentified comets, including a difficult-to-detect non-group comet. The preliminary results we’re already seeing come out of this challenge highlight the value of the open science movement. Katie Baynes NASA's Deputy Chief Science Data Officer Space Apps 2021 In its tenth year, NASA’s 2021 International Space Apps Challenge took place in 320 locations across 162 countries or territories. The hackathon for coders, scientists, designers, storytellers, makers, technologists, and innovators around the world offered 28 different topics to solve using open data from NASA and others. This year’s winners included an app for homeowners to simplify data from NASA’s Prediction of Worldwide Renewable Energy Resources (POWER) web services portal to help make solar panel purchasing decisions and encourage solar energy use. Another winning app detects, quantifies, follows, and projects the movement of plastic debris in the ocean with high accuracy. Endnotes [1] https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-vision [2] https://drivendata.co/blog/nasa-airathon-winners Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms General View the full article

2 min read Calling all Eclipse Enthusiasts: Become a NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassador! By Vivian White, Astronomical Society of the Pacific Eclipse Ambassadors help share information with their communities about how to safely observe the Sun, such as using handheld solar viewers. Los Angeles Astronomical Society/Iraneide De Oliveira Are you an astronomy enthusiast or undergraduate student with a passion for sharing space science? We are excited to share with you a wonderful opportunity to become an official NASA Partner Eclipse Ambassador and help your community experience the awe and wonder of science. In this exciting NASA partnership funded through NASA’s Science Activation program, undergraduate students and experienced eclipse enthusiasts who become Eclipse Ambassadors will pair up to engage and prepare local communities in advance of the April 2024 solar eclipse. All training, partnerships, resources, and connections with local underserved partners will be provided. The program supports community outreach before the upcoming 2024 eclipse in communities off the path of totality. Undergraduates will also receive a stipend and opportunities to further their involvement in NASA programs. If this interests you, apply today. You can also find Eclipse Ambassadors near you via our Eclipse Ambassadors map. We are still recruiting and partnering hundreds of Eclipse Ambassadors across the U.S. through the end of 2023, but don’t hesitate. Your community needs you! What you’ll find when you apply: A supportive network of enthusiasts who regularly share eclipse support A partner in your community (each partnership consists of an undergraduate and an eclipse enthusiast) Materials including solar viewing glasses, activities, handouts, and more Connections to local community centers reaching underserved audiences Regular social hours and presentations from experts in eclipses and communication Opportunities to continue your journey with NASA through collaborations with partners in heliophysics, education, and communication Learn More and Apply People use handmade solar viewers to safely observe the Sun at Faulkner County Library in Arkansas. Darcy Howard Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms 2024 Solar Eclipse Eclipses Heliophysics Heliophysics Division Science Activation Solar Eclipses The Sun Explore More 1 min read One Year of Spritacular Science! Article 1 day ago 2 min read Native Earth, Native Sky CRS-29 Payload Article 4 days ago 5 min read NASA Rocket to See Sizzling Edge of Star-Forming Supernova Article 2 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics Missions Humans in Space Climate Change Solar System View the full article

6 min read Advancing Technology for Aeronautics on Earth The future of flight looks very exciting, and the public is helping NASA see it more clearly. For more than a century, NASA and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, have been the global leader in aeronautics research. NASA’s innovative contributions to aviation benefit the U.S. economy, air transportation system, aviation industry, and passengers and businesses who rely on flight every day. NASA is with you when you fly, and the agency continues to revolutionize research and development activities for the aviation industry of tomorrow. NASA’s public prize competitions, challenges, and crowdsourcing activities illuminate what is on the horizon for air and aviation on Earth. These research and development challenges yield innovative ideas, including future forecasts to inform strategies for the next era of aviation, algorithms to predict runway traffic changes at U.S. airports, and more. Future Forecasts to Prepare for the Next Era of Aeronautics NASA’s vision for aeronautical research for the next 25 years and beyond encompasses a range of technologies for safe, efficient, flexible, and environmentally sustainable air transportation. To prepare for this future, NASA’s Convergent Aeronautics Solutions project conducted a challenge that prompted the public to imagine the state of aviation in 25 years. NASA’s Future-Scaping Our Skies Challenge asked participants to predict and describe future aviation using timelines and storylines, including data sources, references, and multimedia illustrations when possible. The contest awarded $21,000 to nine top winners. Judges evaluated the contest submissions based on their descriptions of possible future scenarios and the key events and trends leading to the proposed outcomes. According to Team Sparkletron, which placed first in the competition, advanced computation and machine learning might be modeling changes in aviation and the future of aviation better than ever. Such models could apply to commercial and personal flying applications. Ground Control Software for Unmanned Aircraft Systems In 2021, more than 873,000 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)—also known as drones—were registered to fly in the United States. With a host of potential applications, including delivery of products, search and rescue, and agricultural monitoring, drone numbers will likely rise.1 Working in partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration for more than 25 years, NASA is researching technologies for traffic management of drones. A large portion of air traffic management is ground control, which manages aircraft on the runways. To help develop ground control software for small drones, NASA asked the public to modify and enhance an existing application through an Unmanned Aircraft Systems Ground Control Station Software Challenge series. During the course of about a year, a series of challenges received 92 entries from 58 countries. Altogether, NASA awarded a total of $30,700 to 47 winners for the development of ground control software for small drones. Personnel from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia lent a drone, and their expertise in flying it, to gather weather data as part of the Learjet 25 flights near Niagara Falls International Airport in New York managed by the team from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.NASA / Jef Janis Algorithms to Predict Runway Traffic Changes at U.S. Airports The National Airspace System (NAS) is undergoing modernization to make flying safer, more efficient, and more predictable2—and NASA is involved in this transformation. The NAS is made up of more than 29 million square miles that include airspace, air navigation facilities, airports and landing areas, and more. To enable more cohesive decision-making in current and future NAS operations, NASA is building a cloud-based Digital Information Platform (DIP) for advanced data-driven digital services. Through DIP, NASA identified a need for algorithms that can accurately predict changes in the configuration of runways at U.S. airports. Runway configuration, or the direction that traffic is moving on runways, can adjust multiple times per day and can significantly impact flight delays and decisions across the NAS.3 The goal of the Run-way Functions: Predict Reconfigurations at U.S. Airports Challenge was to design algorithms to automatically predict airport configuration changes from real-time data sources. Submissions tested using a mock data set of 10 airports, and judges scored the algorithms based on how the predictions compared to the ground truth. The top four solutions, which came from New York University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; University of Maryland, College Park; and Pennsylvania State University, State College, won awards totaling $40,000. NASA’s Digital Information Platform project’s Collaborative Digital Departure Reroute modeling tools are displayed at the NASA/FAA North Texas Research Station.NASA photo by James Blair An App to Uncover How People Operate Autonomous Systems Human-autonomy teaming (HAT) aims to understand how people work together with autonomous systems like drones. For example, how long can a person safely operate a drone piloted by remote control or onboard computers? Can one person effectively operate multiple autonomous vehicles at once? NASA opened the Human-Autonomy Teaming Task Battery (HATTB) App contest to develop software to run an existing battery of tasks that simulate pilot responsibilities during flight. The potential app could support researchers in evaluating the performance of research participants while participants monitored virtual autonomous machines and performed other tasks simultaneously. More than $160,000 was awarded to 33 contest winners. The HATTB app could help NASA and other researchers understand how well people and autonomous systems communicate and collaborate. The app is incorporated into a study by students at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, to examine the effect of time on HAT.4 A More Efficient Wind Tunnel Design to Minimize Downtime NASA facilities are home to a variety of wind tunnels for testing aircraft and spacecraft. By simulating the movement of air around vehicles during flight, NASA uses wind tunnels to test new vehicle shapes, materials, and other design elements. Engineers discuss the preliminary data transferred from the 11×11-foot Transonic Test Section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel for processing at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility and visualized at the NAS Hyperwall facility in near real-time.NASA Ames / Dominic Hart The NASA concept study, “New Wind Tunnel Landscape,” aims to develop new options to support wind tunnel testing in the next 20-50 years. One opportunity for advancement is the test section—the area where researchers place the components, exposing them to airflow. When preparing the test section for a new model, the wind tunnel is unusable due to the time-consuming process. To address the downtime, NASA called on the public through the New Transonic Wind Tunnel Test Section Challenge. This $7,000 competition sought new designs for a wind tunnel facility with test sections capable of efficient, rapid reconfiguration. Winning designs addressed the inefficiency of data and instrumentation system connections that delay reconfiguring the test section, ground-level carts to simplify transferring models to and from the test section, and modular test section containers that include everything needed for a quick swap. Endnotes [1] https://www3.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/utm-factsheet-11-05-15.pdf [2] https://www.faa.gov/nextgen [3] https://www.drivendata.org/competitions/89/competition-nasa-airport-configuration/ [4] https://sites.google.com/odu.edu/odu-reu-transportation/research-projects Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms General View the full article

8 min read Inspiring the Next Generation with Student Challenges and Learning Opportunities Creativity and curiosity are strongly tied to NASA’s missions and vision. Many of the agency’s public opportunities foster these traits by engaging students and educators. Participants of all ages and levels, from kindergarten to college, used their imaginations and enthusiasm to solve open innovation challenges related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in fiscal years 2021-2022. Advancing and Encouraging Aerospace Careers Multiple NASA programs partnered with Starburst Accelerator in Los Angeles to launch the 2022 Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) Space Accelerator Competition. This opportunity set out to engage underrepresented academic communities and help NASA make advancements in the areas of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and the development of autonomous systems. Three selected winning teams received $50,000 prizes and were enrolled in a 10-week accelerator program, operated by Starburst, to help them prepare to commercialize their proposals. The winning teams also participated in trainings with mentors at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern, California. “The goal is not only to invest in the best ideas from MSIs, but to diversify our supplier base in the long term,” said former NASA Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy, and Strategy Bhavya Lal. The 2021 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition asked undergraduate and graduate teams to develop new, innovative concepts that could improve our ability to operate in space. The themes ranged from designing a habitat that can support a crew for 30 days at the lunar South Pole, to developing a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) concept that can deliver a crew from the surface of Mars to a low Mars orbit, to designing architectures to visit Venus and Ceres. Based on concepts outlined in their technical papers, fourteen university teams were selected to present at the 2021 RASC-AL Forum, receiving a $6,000 stipend each to help fund participation. The winning teams from the forum, University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez and University of Texas at Austin, received an additional travel stipend to present their respective concepts, Discovery and Endeavour – Ceres Interplanetary Pathway for Human Exploration and Research (DECIPHER) and Regolith-Volatile Extraction and Return Expedition (ReVERE), at the AIAA ASCEND aerospace conference. Students in grades 6-12 participated in NASA’s TechRise Student Challenge, in which teams worked together to design and build science and technology experiments ahead of suborbital flight tests. In the first challenge, students submitted ideas for experiments that would work on a suborbital rocket with a few minutes of microgravity or a high-altitude balloon with exposure to Earth’s atmosphere and planetary views. In the second challenge, the teams focused solely on high-altitude balloon experiment ideas. Across both years, 117 teams of approximately 1,100 students total were selected to win the challenge, which offered hands-on insight into the design and test process used by NASA-supported researchers. Artemis Student Challenges Photographic coverage of NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (NASA SUITS) Onsite Test Week (OSTEM) The annual Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) Challenge asks U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to design and create spacesuit information displays within augmented reality (AR) environments. During a moonwalk, astronauts will rely on a variety of assets, including their spacesuits, life support systems, geology tools, power systems, and more. An AR display as part of the spacesuit could transform astronauts’ ability to live and work in space by providing data on their assets, potentially enhancing performance, workload, and situational awareness. The students’ contributions will aid the work of NASA’s Human Interface Branch, which supports the agency’s human spaceflight programs, including Artemis, the International Space Station, and commercial partner programs. The Lunabotics Challenge is an opportunity for teams of U.S. university students to engage with the systems engineering process by designing, building, and operating a lunar robot. The teams also conduct public outreach, submit systems engineering papers, and demonstrate their work to a NASA review panel. This challenge is designed to pursue innovations that could be applied to future NASA missions, including Artemis. Awards include scholarship funds, with the top prize of $5,000 awarded to the University of Alabama team in 2022. Lucia Grisanti and Shriya Sawant, NASA’s two national winners for the 2022 Lunabotics Junior contest Two Lunabotics Jr. Challenges also took place in 2022 with separate divisions for grades K-5 and grades 6-12. One national winner from each grade division was selected from approximately 2,300 submitted designs. The prize for the two winners was a virtual discussion for their classrooms with Janet Petro, the director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge taps into the ingenuity of undergraduate and graduate students to help advance capabilities and technologies that could support future NASA missions. Students gain real world experience by incorporating their coursework into aerospace design concepts and working in a team environment. In 2021, teams tackled the challenge of lunar dust and designed, built, and tested their solutions in a simulated lunar environment using nearly $1 million in funding across all teams from NASA and National Space Grant College and Fellowship consortia. The top prize Artemis Award went to Washington State University, whose concept uses a liquid cryogen spray bar and a handheld sprayer to clean dust from spacesuits. Every fall, NASA’s Student Launch accepts proposals from U.S. students from middle school to higher education to participate in a hands-on competition to design, build, launch, and fly payloads and components on high-power rockets in support of NASA research. The challenge that launched in Fall 2022 concluded in April 2023 with the launch of more than 40 rockets, each carrying a scientific payload nearly one-mile-high above ground level. “As a young woman, it’s important to be seen leading a team, managing resources, and meeting critical deadlines with NASA,” said Sindhu Belki, an aerospace engineering major from the University of Alabama. “I’m glad NASA provides this opportunity to be a role model to girls and women interested in space exploration.” Following two years of virtual events, high school and college teams compete in NASA’s Student Launch rocketry competition April 23. Both high school and higher education students participated in the Human Exploration Rover Challenge, an annual competition that asks students to engineer and test human-powered vehicles designed to drive on otherworldly surfaces. Teams competed based on navigating a half-mile obstacle course, conducting mission-specific task challenges, and completing safety and design reviews with NASA engineers. The 2023 competition, which opened in August 2022, included student teams from 16 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, as well as several international teams. Escambia High School of Pensacola, Florida, and University of Alabama in Huntsville placed first in their divisions. “By operating within real-world constraints, students gain authentic knowledge to better imagine and develop innovative technologies which could be used in future NASA missions,” said Kevin McGhaw, Director, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement Southeast Region. Students competing in NASA’s 2022 Human Exploration Rover Challenge work on building their rover. Storytelling for Science and Space The NASA Earth Science in Action Comic Strip Contest invited high school students and the general public over 18 years old to use their artistic abilities to tell Earth science success stories from three story prompts. Each of the prompts highlighted how NASA’s satellite data supported communities and ecosystems at risk. The contest was designed to inspire participants and readers to learn how NASA Earth science makes a difference to communities around the world. The winners received publicity and recognition from the SciArt Exchange and NASA. The future of space exploration is in good hands.” Mike Kincaid Associate Administrator for the NASA Office of STEM Engagement The first and second Power to Explore Student Writing Challenges were open to K-12 students in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 to encourage students to learn more about Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS). The first challenge asked students to learn how RPS provide power at the extremes of our solar system, then to celebrate their own unique power, with 30 total winning essays. The second challenge asked students to dream up a new RPS-powered space mission based on their research. Out of 45 semifinalists, three finalists in each grade category (K-4, 5-8, 9-12) were invited to discuss their mission concepts with a NASA scientist or engineer during an exclusive virtual event. From the finalists, three winners were selected from each category. The Artemis Moon Pod Essay Contest sought creative concepts from K-12 students describing an imagined journey to the Moon – including their crew and the technology they would leave on the lunar surface to help future astronauts. Nearly 14,000 students competed, with three grand prize winners in each of the grade categories (K-4, 5-8, 9-12) winning a trip to view the Artemis I launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “I can’t tell you how inspiring and energizing it’s been to read these essays and see the students’ enthusiasm and creativity in action,” said Mike Kincaid, NASA’s associate administrator for the Office of STEM Engagement. “The future of space exploration is in good hands.” Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms General View the full article

8 min read Collaborating with Public Innovators to Accelerate Space Exploration NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, left, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, right are seen inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft onboard the SpaceX GO Navigator recovery ship shortly after having landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, Florida, Sunday, May 2, 2021. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission was the first crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.NASA/Bill Ingalls With the successful launch and landing of Artemis I in 2022, NASA set the stage for a new era of space exploration. Together, NASA and its partners will lead humanity to the Moon and prepare for the next giant leap: human exploration of Mars. To address the multitude of challenges that come with planning for this new era, NASA is calling on individuals and teams from the public to develop new and innovative approaches. Some of the topics addressed through NASA-sponsored contests, challenges, and competitions include waste management and sustainability in space, astronaut health and wellness, and a host of advanced technology needs for long-term space exploration. Sustainability and Waste Management A round-trip visit to Mars is estimated to take two to three years. During this adventure, astronauts will need abundant supplies with minimal waste. To be as efficient and self-sufficient as possible, they must recycle, repurpose, or reprocess what they have and make what they need. Thanks to NASA competitions, innovators devised ways to manage ash created from trash in microgravity, reuse materials for growing plants, eject waste from a spacecraft, and recycle orbiting space debris. With no landfills in space, NASA is developing a reactor that uses thermal processes to turn trash into water, gas, and ash. To manage the ash produced by the reactor, the agency called on the public and awarded three teams a total of $30,000 as part of the Trash-to-Gas Ash Management Challenge. The first-place winner proposed using ultrasonic waves to automate ash removal from the Orbital Syngas Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR) system, a test rig designed to make use of trash and human waste generated during long-duration spaceflight. Ray Pitts, co-principal investigator for the Orbital Syngas Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR), performs ground testing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The tests are in preparation for a scheduled suborbital flight test later this year, facilitated by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program. Begun as an Early Career Initiative project, OSCAR evaluates technology to make use of trash and human waste generated during long-duration spaceflight. Another way to handle trash in space is to reuse or recycle it. In the Waste to Base Materials Challenge: Sustainable Reprocessing in Space, NASA asked contestants of this competition to submit ideas to convert or repurpose waste into valuable materials like propellant or stock for 3D printing. A winner in the foam packing category proposed a method to recycle packing foam and urine for hydroponics; a winner in the trash category suggested clothing as a growing medium. All teams shared a $24,000 prize. For the non-recyclable waste made during the journey to and from Mars, NASA sought concepts for a jettison mechanism to eject the material from the spacecraft under the Waste Jettison Mechanism Challenge. If not disposed of, the waste will take up crucial space, pose risks to the spacecraft and crew by creating hazards or contaminants, and decrease fuel efficiency. The agency awarded $30,000 for concepts including a scissor-spring-shot, a secure variable energy launcher, a CO2 trash launcher, and a spring-loaded ejection mechanism. With more than 17 million pounds of space debris currently in orbit—sections of rockets and non-operational satellites made of aluminum, titanium, steel, plastics, ceramics, and more—the agency is exploring whether recycling the materials is more cost-effective than launching new materials into space. Through the Orbital Alchemy Challenge, NASA awarded $55,000 in prizes for proposals on how to recycle the objects in orbit. Astronaut Health and Wellness NASA is making plans to protect astronaut health and performance during long-duration space exploration as well as to develop countermeasures for potential problems during such travel. With goals to establish the first long-term presence on the Moon and send the first astronauts to Mars, NASA requested the public’s help to come up with ways to produce food, preserve the integrity of spacesuits, and monitor an astronaut’s cognitive state. During extended space missions, astronauts may produce their own safe, nutritious, and appetizing foods. To devise ideas for novel and game-changing food technologies or systems that could feed astronauts during space travel, NASA held the Deep Space Food Challenge, awarding a total of $450,000 to eight winning U.S. teams. Winning technologies included a system and processes for turning air, water, electricity, and yeast into food and a solution that mimics photosynthesis to produce plant- and mushroom-based ingredients. Deep Space Food Challenge (2023) – Two Challenge finalists prepare samples of their food system to share at the Phase 2 winner’s announcement event in Brooklyn, New York. NASA NASA needs to detect and reduce spacesuit injury risk, but current software solutions are limited. To develop a new solution, NASA conducted the Spacesuit Detection Challenge1 to create software able to detect one or more spacesuits in various environments, discriminate between a person and a spacesuit, and extract suit postures from obscured images. There were five winning programs to label and identify spacesuit motions from video and photos. As space missions move farther away from Earth, the responsibility for space operations shifts from mission control on the ground to astronaut crews in flight. To gauge astronauts’ ability to remember, make real-time decisions, and think several seconds ahead, NASA’s Cognitive State Determination System contest2 asked participants to develop a biometric sensor suite using various inputs to predict cognitive state. Thirty teams received awards through this contest. Managing Payloads, Deliveries, and Storage Aside from managing a sustainable environment and maintaining astronaut health in space, NASA has a host of additional needs to enable future space exploration. Answering NASA’s calls for assistance through various competitions, the public helped devise a plethora of technologies for autonomous observation, nighttime precision landing, docking station flooring, risk prediction using artificial intelligence, advanced scientific sensors, software to analyze images, and programs for modeling shock. With $2 million in total prizes, the Autonomous Observation Challenge No. 1 of the NASA TechLeap Challenge sought observation technologies to detect, track, and establish line-of-sight communications with a lander, rover, or other objects on the Moon’s surface. One of the winning technologies autonomously detects, tracks, and logs nascent wildfires and similar phenomena. Another winning design uses visible and infrared cameras to identify and classify plumes in Earth’s atmosphere using an advanced form of machine learning. Even if the terrain is hazardous and lighting conditions are low, NASA needs to be able to land its spacecraft safely. NASA TechLeap’s Nighttime Precision Landing Challenge No. 1 worth up to $650,000 requested sensing systems to detect hazards from an altitude of 250 meters or higher and with the capability to process the data in real-time to generate a terrain map. One winning system leveraged a light projector to project a grid of reflective points visible to a camera, creating an initial geometry map. It then used light detection and ranging with advanced computer vision, machine learning, robotics, and computing to generate a map of the terrain. Concept image demonstrating the low-light conditions that will be faced by lunar landers during their missions to explore the Moon.NASA A long-duration habitat for use on the Moon, Mars, and during deep space exploration must be capable of attaching to other modules such as pressurized rovers or an airlock. A docking system is needed to join these spacecraft elements even when they are not perfectly aligned, and NASA also needs flexible, strong flooring for use in gravity and microgravity environments. The Spacecraft Docking Adapter with a Flexible but Load-Bearing Floor competition3 awarded five winning designs. NASA’s Game Changing Development (GCD) program advances space technology ideas that could lead to new approaches for future space missions. Wanting to identify project risks before they become actual issues, GCD held the Risky Space Business: NASA Artificial Intelligence Risk Prediction Challenge to design a project management tool that can extract past project risk information and use artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict risks on future projects. Three winners received a total of $50,000. NASA’s Entrepreneurs Challenge seeks fresh ideas in technology that could lead to revolutionary science discoveries to explore and understand the solar system and beyond. In 2021, the program’s focus areas included small satellite technologies that can autonomously recognize scientific phenomena in space and respond as needed; sensors to detect and observe at dramatically reduced size, weight, power, and cost; and instruments to detect biomarkers. After a NASA judging panel selected 10 companies to receive a $10,000 award each, the winners refined their concepts, developed white papers, and gave presentations. The same panel selected seven companies to receive an additional $80,000 in prizes. On a mission to improve understanding of the Moon over many decades—including changes to its surface—NASA held the Image Co-registration Code Challenge4 to devise the initial versions of the Lunar Mission Co-registration Tool. This tool will process lunar images captured under varying lighting conditions or with different spacecraft or camera characteristics and automatically co-register, color balance, and remove distortions. The images are then available to experts for comparison and examination to identify differences over the decades. To reduce the risk of critical spacecraft component failure due to shock, NASA models the propagation of shock as closely as possible. While the agency created standards in the early days of spaceflight based on extensive testing across structures, today’s mathematical methods and high-performance computing tools can provide better models. The Aftershock: NASA Shock Propagation Prediction Challenge awarded four contestants a shared prize of $50,000, including a deep learning model that predicts shock response spectrum values connected to different frequencies and learns different connections and contexts between the input data points. Endnotes [1] https://www.topcoder.com/blog/nasa-spacesuit-detection-challenge/ [2] https://www.topcoder.com/community/nasa/cognitive-state [3] https://grabcad.com/challenges/nasa-challenge-spacecraft-docking-adapter-with-a-flexible-but-load-bearing-floor [4] https://www.topcoder.com/challenges/76c6fb0e-0de3-4d60-b472-37e238e14fc4 Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms General View the full article

4 min read NASA’s Lucy Surprises Again, Observes 1st-ever Contact Binary Orbiting Asteroid It turns out there is more to the “marvelous” asteroid Dinkinesh and its newly discovered satellite than first meets the eye. As NASA’s Lucy spacecraft continued to return data of its first asteroid encounter on Nov. 1, 2023, the team was surprised to discover that Dinkinesh’s unanticipated satellite is, itself, a contact binary – that is, it is made of two smaller objects touching each other. This image shows the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) as NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft departed the system. This image was taken at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, about 6 minutes after closest approach, from a range of approximately 1,010 miles (1,630 km). From this perspective, the satellite is revealed to be a contact binary, the first time a contact binary has been seen orbiting another asteroid. NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL In the first downlinked images of Dinkinesh and its satellite, which were taken at closest approach, the two lobes of the contact binary happened to lie one behind the other from Lucy’s point of view. Only when the team downlinked additional images, captured in the minutes around the encounter, was the true nature of this object revealed. “Contact binaries seem to be fairly common in the solar system,” said John Spencer, Lucy deputy project scientist, of the Boulder, Colorado, branch of the San-Antonio-based Southwest Research Institute. “We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve never seen one orbiting another asteroid. We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!” Lucy’s primary goal is to survey the never-before-visited Jupiter Trojan asteroids. This first encounter with a small, main belt asteroid was only added to the mission in January 2023, primarily to serve as an in-flight test of the system that allows the spacecraft to continually track and image its asteroid targets as it flies past at high speed. The excellent performance of that system at Dinkinesh allowed the team to capture multiple perspectives on the system, which enabled the team to better understand the asteroids’ shapes and make this unexpected discovery. “It is puzzling, to say the least,” said Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy, also from Southwest Research Institute. “I would have never expected a system that looks like this. In particular, I don’t understand why the two components of the satellite have similar sizes. This is going to be fun for the scientific community to figure out.” This second image was taken about 6 minutes after closest approach from a distance of approximately 1,010 miles (1,630 km). The spacecraft traveled around 960 miles (1,500 km) between the two released images. “It’s truly marvelous when nature surprises us with a new puzzle,” said Tom Statler, Lucy program scientist from NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Great science pushes us to ask questions that we never knew we needed to ask.” A diagram showing the trajectory of the NASA Lucy spacecraft (red) during its flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite (gray). “A” marks the location of the spacecraft at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, and an inset shows the L’LORRI image captured at that time. “B” marks the spacecraft’s position a few minutes later at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC), and the inset shows the corresponding L’LORRI view at that time. Overall graphic, NASA/Goddard/SwRI; Inset “A,” NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab); Inset “B,” NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL The team is continuing to downlink and process the remainder of the encounter data from the spacecraft. Dinkinesh and its satellite are the first two of 11 asteroids that Lucy plans to explore over its 12-year journey. After skimming the inner edge of the main asteroid belt, Lucy is now heading back toward Earth for a gravity assist in December 2024. That close flyby will propel the spacecraft back through the main asteroid belt, where it will observe asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025, and then on to the Trojan asteroids in 2027. Lucy’s principal investigator is based out of the Boulder, Colorado, branch of Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission assurance. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built and operates the spacecraft. Lucy is the 13th mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. For more information about NASA’s Lucy mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/lucy By Katherine Kretke Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio Media Contact: Nancy N. Jones NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Editor Jamie Adkins Location Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Asteroids Goddard Space Flight Center Lucy The Solar System Explore More 3 min read NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Captures its 1st Images of Asteroid Dinkinesh NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured its first images with a view of the main belt asteroid… Article 2 months ago View the full article

6 min read Propelling NASA Closer to the Moon and Mars with Open Innovation This artist’s concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA23302 NASA is leading humanity’s return to the Moon through Artemis. Artemis will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon and explore more of the lunar surface than ever before, using innovating technologies for scientific discovery and establishing a long-term presence. The technologies developed and knowledge gained through Artemis will contribute to our next ambitious target: sending humans to Mars. These efforts are fueled by partnerships between NASA, other government agencies, and industry innovators for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiring a new generation of explorers. In addition to these partnerships, NASA also invites the national and global community to participate in Moon to Mars planning through open innovation initiatives. These initiatives tap into the creativity and passion of individuals of all ages and walks of life, helping us explore out-of-the-box solutions to address the agency’s mission-critical needs. Innovating for Power and Energy On the Moon, most exploration activities, life-support systems, and daily operations will require a great deal of energy. The Lunar Tele-Operated Rover-based Configurable Heliostat (Lunar TORCH) Challenge sought designs for a mobile lunar heliostat to redirect solar energy where it is most needed to support Artemis operations. Many of the submitted concepts demonstrated creative and efficient deployable technologies that could supply power to the Moon’s darkest regions. The ORIGAS design won second place in the Lunar TORCH challenge. The $5 million, multiphase Watts on the Moon Challenge sought solutions for power systems that can store energy and deliver continuous, reliable power while also withstanding the Moon’s extreme environment. Early phases of the challenge asked solvers to design system concepts, and Phase 2 Level 1 winners each received $200,000 along with an invite to participate in Level 2 to develop and test key parts of their solutions. The final level of Phase 2 culminated in a demonstration of the developed technologies. Four teams won $400,000 each and moved on to the final level of Phase 2. Sustaining Life on the Moon Water is a vital resource for space exploration and habitation, but it is also scarce; fortunately, lunar ice could serve as a source of water for humans away from home. With a $3.5 million prize pool, the Break the Ice Lunar Challenge seeks innovative approaches to excavating lunar ice and delivering it from a permanently shadowed region near the Moon’s South Pole. Redwire Space, headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, placed first in Phase 1 of the challenge for its proposed two-rover system designed for simplicity and robustness. Phase 2 of the challenge focuses on developing and prototyping technologies that can excavate and transport large loads of icy lunar dirt and can continuously operate for up to 15 days. How astronauts use the bathroom on the Moon is both a common curiosity and a real challenge for NASA to solve. The popular Lunar Loo Challenge and its concurrent Junior challenge for students and younger audiences asked the global community to conceptualize compact toilets that could operate in both microgravity and lunar gravity. The challenge received 2,953 entries from 107 countries, with ideas spanning from a bladeless fan that minimized crew interaction with waste bags to a foldable dry toilet. Almost every submission had innovative ideas, giving NASA a sourcebook for future concept development work. Kevin Kempton NASA Langley Research Center Managing Payloads, Deliveries, and Storage A critical component of Artemis success is delivering payloads of varying mass and volume to the lunar surface and, eventually, Mars. With $25,000 in total prizes, the Lunar Delivery Challenge sought ideas for unloading payloads from commercial lunar landers. The winners conceptualized delivery systems that accounted for conditions on the Moon, the limitations of space delivery, and the different sizes of lunar landers. Through the Advanced Lightweight Lunar Gantry for Operations (ALLGO) Challenge, NASA sought computer-aided design models of a mobile lunar gantry—or support structure—for unloading cargo at a safe distance away from the Artemis Base Camp. Competitors tackled designing the gantry with inflatable components, which could be compactable and easily deployed to the lunar surface. “Almost every submission had innovative ideas, giving NASA a sourcebook for future concept development work,” said Kevin Kempton, the ALLGO study and challenge lead at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Miniature payloads on the lunar surface could play a key role in supporting a sustained lunar presence at a lower cost. For operations on the Moon, small instruments that identify minerals and measure environments could play a key role in supporting a sustained lunar presence, providing valuable information at a lower cost. The Honey, I Shrunk the NASA Payload Challenge was open to the public in 2020 and resulted in 14 teams awarded a total of $160,000 for proposing small science instruments, similar in size to a bar of soap, that could fit on a miniature rover. In the challenge’s second phase, with a prize pool of $800,000, the previously winning teams each delivered one flight unit and two qualification units to NASA for testing. “This challenge was a great opportunity to work with the public to develop miniature payloads for our science and exploration missions,” said Josh Ravich, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, who provided expertise for the challenge teams. Regarding sample storage, NASA has a mission-critical need for cryogenic containment solutions. The ideal model would be lightweight and require low or no power to enable long-term storage and transportation of lunar material samples back to Earth. The $40,000 Lunar Deep Freeze Challenge sought cryogenic containment concepts in two categories: Small Transportable Cryogenic Containment Systems and Innovations for Long-Term Cryogenic Stowage and Transportation. The proposed solutions could support scientific discovery and contribute to our sustained lunar presence. Preparing for a Leap Beyond While many of these challenges have implications for Mars, the MarsXR Challenge specifically targets research on the red planet. This $70,000 challenge asked solvers to develop a new Virtual Reality (XR) environment to help prepare for experiences and situations astronauts could encounter on Mars. After a successful first run, the MarsXR challenge launched a new iteration in 2023. The Cube Quest competition calls for teams to design, build, and deliver flight-qualified small satellites capable of advanced operations near and beyond the Moon. The competition offers $5 million in prizes across three stages, with opportunities that could help open deep space exploration to non-government spacecraft for the first time. This challenge seeks to establish precedence for subsystems that could perform deep-space exploration using small spacecraft. Winners; left to right are Steve Jurczyk, HQ, Second Place; CU-E3, First Place Cislunar Explorers, Third place -Team Miles, and Eugene Tu, Ames Center Director. Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Related Terms General View the full article

3 min read NASA Maps Minerals and Ecosystem Function in Southwest U.S. Regions NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center’s ER-2 aircraft can fly at high altitudes from 20,000-70,000 feet. For the GEMx mission, pilots flew at approximately 65,000 feet, requiring pilots to wear specially designed suits while in flight.NASA/Wade Sisler In September 2023, NASA aircraft began supporting an effort to find and map critical mineral deposits in Western regions of the U.S. Identifying these minerals — often used in everyday products like laptops and cell phones — could help improve environmental processes for mining and geological activities, enhance national security, and boost the economy. This project will continue through Fall 2026. In a collaboration with the USGS (United States Geological Survey), an ER-2 high-altitude aircraft based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, has been supporting GEMx, the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment. The campaign also includes NASA’s Gulfstream V aircraft and a diverse team of engineers, pilots, and scientists from NASA, USGS, and the University of Arizona. “For this mission, we are flying at approximately 65,000 feet to acquire wide swaths of geophysical data with every overflight,” said Kevin Reath, NASA deputy program manager for GEMx. The instruments are flying higher than previous airborne instruments to collect data over a wider area, yet the images collected have finer detail than aa satellite view “It’s thanks to this high-altitude flying capability that we can cover such a large area.” Researchers mounted instruments on the ER-2 and Gulfstream V to collect measurements over the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, including parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. These instruments include NASA’s AVIRIS (Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer), HyTes (Hyperspectral Thermal Emission Spectrometer), and MASTER (MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator). These instruments collect hyperspectral images, or images that use color to convey the geophysical complexities behind seemingly simple or monochromatic surfaces. The visual data that is produced by these optical sensors indicates the constituents and changes of Earth’s surface and atmosphere. “This mission, data, and its respective data products can help the public along with local, state, tribal, and federal agencies make effective decisions regarding management of natural resource deposits including critical mineral resources,” said Dean Riley, a collaborator on the GEMx project from the University of Arizona. “The U.S. depends on a reliable supply of Earth materials to support its economy and national security,” said Raymond Kokaly, research geophysicist with the USGS. “Such materials have been deemed critical minerals because disruption of their supply would have significant negative impacts. Undiscovered deposits of at least some of these critical and strategic minerals almost certainly exist in the United States, but modern geophysical data is needed to increase our knowledge of these resources.” Modern geophysical data is exactly what the GEMx project is procuring. This means data that maps not only the constituents of Earth’s surface and atmosphere, but also how those constituents change over time between 2023 and 2026. “If this mission can successfully identify critical minerals in minable locations in the U.S., we could be less dependent on foreign entities for these critical minerals,” Reath said. Learn more about GEMx Learn more about the ER-2 aircraft Learn more about NASA Armstrong Research Center Share Details Last Updated Nov 07, 2023 Editor Cody S. Lydon Contact Location Armstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms Armstrong Flight Research CenterEarth ScienceEarth Surface & InteriorER-2Science & Research Explore More 3 min read DART Team Earns Smithsonian Michael Collins Trophy for Successful Planetary Defense Test Mission Article 2 hours ago 6 min read Deploying and Demonstrating Navigation Aids on the Lunar Surface NASA is developing lunar navigation beacons to be deployed on spacecraft or the lunar surface… Article 2 hours ago 5 min read First Science Images Released From ESA Mission With NASA Contributions Article 6 hours ago View the full article