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NASA Ames’ Contributions to OSIRIS-REx

by Gianine Figliozzi

Extraterrestrial rocks and dust – material scooped up from an asteroid – were delivered to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023. A safe landing in the Utah desert for the spacecraft carrying this bounty marked the end of a seven-year journey for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx – short for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer – and the start of two intensive years of sample analysis activities for mission scientists on Earth. 

Over the coming decades, scientists around the world will study the rocks and dust collected from the asteroid Bennu to learn about the formation of the solar system and the delivery of organic molecules to early Earth.

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Artist’s conception of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx about to land on asteroid Bennu.
Credit: NASA

Bennu is also one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids for Earth impact, although the chances of impact in the 22nd century are only one in 1,750. Understanding the physical and chemical properties of asteroids like Bennu will be critical, should humanity need to mitigate impact hazards in the future.

Teams at NASA Ames have played critical roles in preparing the mission for success and will continue to work on the OSIRIS-REx samples once they arrive. They helped design ways for the mission to collect high-quality samples, preserve them in pristine form, and develop a plan for the scientific community to study the essentially irreplaceable asteroid material. Ames experts also advised the mission on its thermal protection system – notably the heat shield that will protect the sample return capsule from the blistering heat of passing through Earth’s atmosphere.

Read on for more details of Ames’ contributions to OSIRIS-REx.

Preparing for an Asteroid Sample: From Canister to Curation 

Ames researcher Scott Sandford has been involved with OSIRIS-REx since the earliest days of the mission. A major area of his work was in the design and testing of the air filter system on the sample return canister that has housed the precious asteroid material during its journey to Earth and will protect it from contamination when it lands on the surface. 

The canister’s air filter was tested in Sandford’s lab before the mission launched. It will keep earthly contaminants out of the sample and, if the asteroid material is releasing any gases, the filter will trap them. If that’s happening, scientists could identify some components of Bennu. Sandford will coordinate a group of scientists in labs around the world to analyze the air filter after its return to Earth.

Sandford also leads the effort to analyze many components of the sample return capsule, both to assess potential sources of contamination in the samples and to assess the performance of the capsule.

Sandford’s sample curation work helped plan how the unique material from Bennu will be used. Three-quarters of it will be made available for study over the coming decades, while the remaining 25% may be distributed to researchers in efficient ways that let them address the mission’s scientific questions.

Withstanding the Heat of Earth Entry

The heat shield thermal protection system (TPS) is made of a material developed at Ames: phenolic-impregnated carbon ablator (PICA). PICA was first flown on NASA’s Stardust mission, which also delivered extraterrestrial material to Earth – from a comet.

The Stardust sample return capsule was nearly identical to that of OSIRIS-REx, so the latter mission was able to use the Earth-entry, descent, and landing systems successfully demonstrated by the earlier mission. Reusing many features of the Stardust capsule design, adjusted for the specific needs of the mission to Bennu, allowed OSIRIS-REx to reduce costs and the thermal protection team to leverage what they had learned from Stardust.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's heat shield is made of a material developed at Ames: phenolic-impregnated carbon ablator (PICA). In this photo, PICA is undergoing testing in Ames' arc jet facility, which simulates atmospheric re-entry conditions, to confirm thermal protection performance for the heat shield's design.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s heat shield is made of a material developed at Ames: phenolic-impregnated carbon ablator (PICA). In this photo, PICA is undergoing testing in Ames’ arc jet facility, which simulates atmospheric re-entry conditions, to confirm thermal protection performance for the heat shield’s design.
Credit: NASA

They then worked with mission partner Lockheed Martin Space – who designed and built the spacecraft and capsule – to integrate the air filter and PICA elements onto the mission. 

Ames helped qualify the PICA to withstand the extremely high temperatures experienced upon entering Earth’s atmosphere. They provided guidance to the mission on the PICA thickness needed to protect the samples and tested the heat shield material under simulated atmospheric re-entry conditions in Ames’ arc jet facilities to confirm thermal protection performance for the design. Ames experts in computational fluid dynamics supplied analysis that validated the aerothermal environments used in those tests. 

Soon after the spacecraft returns, members of Ames’ thermal protection team also plan to laser-scan the OSIRIS-REx heat shield in coordination with colleagues at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Lockheed Martin, or both. What they learn about PICA’s performance, relative to predictions, can support future missions such as Mars Sample Return, that will return samples collected by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover to Earth in the future.

Asteroid Sample Science 

When the OSIRIS-REx capsule lands in the Utah desert, researcher Scott Sandford will be on the ground to help retrieve it. The chances of contaminants like soil and water entering the sample canister inside are extremely low. But, to be absolutely certain no one accidentally studies terrestrial materials thinking they are samples from Bennu, he will help collect samples from the environment where the capsule lands, for comparison with the asteroid material. 

Later, Sandford will perform scientific studies of the Bennu samples themselves. His study will focus on two areas. He’ll assess what, if any, spacecraft-related contaminants got into the samples, such as material coming off the heat shield as it ablated, or “burned off,” during atmospheric entry. Sandford will also probe the samples for any organic compounds. Scientists estimate that Bennu is 4.5 billion years old and contains well-preserved materials, including complex organics, from the early solar system. Finding organics could tell us something about what roles materials of the early solar system may have played in delivering organic “ingredients of life” to the early Earth.

The techniques Sandford uses will allow him to search for compounds inside the Bennu samples. At Ames he’ll use infrared microspectroscopy to detect various kinds of organics in the samples that contain carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. He will also work with colleagues to study samples using the Advanced Light Source facility, a specialized particle accelerator that generates bright beams of X-ray light for scientific research, located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. Both techniques provide information about the kinds of chemical bonds present in the samples’ organic compounds. 

HORIS: A Study of Atmospheric Entry

NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, will manage an experiment taking advantage of the OSIRIS-REx sample arrival to study characteristics of re-entry through an atmosphere. 

Four aircraft and teams at three ground sites will track the capsule’s trajectory on its way to the surface, using imaging and spectroscopy instruments. Data from the project, called Hypervelocity OSIRIS-REx Reentry Imaging & Spectroscopy (HORIS), will be used to validate and develop planetary entry models. 

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Recovery teams participate in field rehearsals in preparation for the retrieval of the asteroid sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, Tuesday, July 18, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. NASA Ames researcher Scott Sandford, second from left, who has been involved with OSIRIS-REx since the earliest days of the mission, will participate in retrieval of the capsule when it lands in the desert on Sep. 24 and, later, will perform scientific studies of the samples from asteroid Bennu.
Credit: NASA Ames/Keegan Barber

NASA’s Earth Science Project Office (ESPO), based at Ames, will provide operational and shipping support to two international ground teams by setting up work sites at three different locations in northern Nevada.  

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provides overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx, including processing the sample when it arrives on Earth, will take place at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (the Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Congratulations to the 2023 Ames Honor Awards Recipients

The honorees will be recognized at the center’s annual Ames Honor Awards ceremony to be held in person on Nov. 1, in the Syvertson Auditorium (N201) at 11 a.m. PDT.  Employees are invited to attend as we celebrate, recognize, and honor the achievements of our colleagues. Thank you to everyone who submitted a nomination for this prestigious award, and congratulations to the deserving recipients

Recipients of the 2023 Ames Honor Awards:

Administrative Assistant Support/Secretary
Lyn C. Bartlett

Administrative Professional
Erin K. Contreras
Trincy D. Lewis
Vanessa R. Westmoreland

Best First Paper
Dahlia D. Pham
Evan T. Kawamura

Contractor Employee
Sonja M. Caldwell, KBR
Athena Chan, Science and Technology Corporation
David Garcia Perez, Science and Technology Corporation
Dominic Hart, MORI Associates
Ignacio Gonzalo Lopez-Francos, KBR
Taejin Park, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute
Sasha V. Weston, Millennium Engineering & Integration Co.
Louis W. Wust, InuTeq, LLC.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility
Kevin L. Jones
Garrett G. Sadler
Dorsa Shirazi
Juan L. Torres-Perez

Education and Outreach
Sarah A. Conley
Denise R. Snow

Engineer
Rodolphe De Rosee
Jesse C. Fusco
Scott T. Miller

Group/Team
Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) Project Team
BioSentinel Mission Operations Team
CapiSorb Visible System ISS Payload & Experiment
ICEE Facility Team
NASA Ames Utility Team
Starling Team
TechEdSat Nano Orbit Workshop
TOSS 4 and RHEL8 Migration Team
VIPER MGRU Rover Team
Voluntary Protection Program Recertification Team

Mentor
Misty D. Davies
Marcie A. Smith
Gloria K. Yamauchi

Partnerships
Sigrid Reinsch

Project Management
Craig D. Burkhard
Kelly E. Kwan

Scientist or Researcher
Thomas P. Greene

Special Appreciation (Non-Ames Employees)
Jeffrey F. Haught, NASA Headquarters

Student
Avraham S. Gileadi, NIFS Intern
Stephanie I. Pass, Intern
Shivang M. Shelat, SJSU Research Foundation

Supervisor/Manager
Susie Go
Lynne H. Martin
Kerry Zarchi

Technical Support/Professional
Randal L. Hobbs
Robert W. Koteskey
Yonghong Shen

Technician
Kevin B. Gregory

Face of NASA: Protocol Officer Carolina Rudisel

“I never would have imagined myself here at NASA. I’m an immigrant. I was originally a Mexican citizen. I was actually born in Mexico, but my parents came over to the U.S. [and I got my green card] when I was two. … My parents originally came over on a worker visa, and so we were migrant workers [when I was] growing up.

Carolina Rudisel
“… I try to tell folks that it’s not where you started. It’s not the mistakes you’ve made. It’s what you do with it, and you can make that change not only for yourself but [also] so others can see you making the change and [know] that anything is possible.” — Carolina Rudisel, Protocol Officer, NASA’s Ames Research Center

“… It was a rough upbringing, and so I knew what my life held for me if I stayed in [my] small town. I knew that I would be stuck, as even now, looking back, some of the people I knew are still stuck. So, I decided that I would join the military because I knew that, for myself, I needed to make a radical change. And so I joined the military, and my life completely turned around. … That’s where I met my husband. We’ve been together 32 years; we’ve been married for 29 years.

“… [Before I joined] the military … I was on the wrong end of the law. I was literally standing in front of a judge who had my fate in their hands. … My recruiter happened to be at my hearing, and so we did a plea bargain and I was let off with a fine. But my life could have been completely different. So I knew the radical change was absolutely necessary for my life.

“… Fast forward: [I] joined the military, got out, and ended up spending most of the time overseas. I lived in Japan — as a matter of fact, both our kids together were born in Japan. [We] lived in Japan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Belgium, and our last post was London.

“… I worked for the Defense Attaché Office, and my co-worker was in the Navy and she was like, ‘There’s a job in NASA in Northern California! You’re from California, right? … You should apply.’ And I [thought], ‘There is no way.’ You know, I’m a businessperson, my background is in business. I was a finance budget analyst. And so, I was like, ‘There’s no way.’ She [said], ‘You should apply. Apply, apply, apply! The worst thing they could say is no.’ And I’m like, ‘You know what? You’re right.’ I applied, came to NASA, [and] actually started off here as the secretary for the center director.

Clues to Psyche Asteroid’s Metallic Nature Found in SOFIA Data

When the asteroid Psyche has its first close-up with a NASA spacecraft, scientists hypothesize they will find a metal-rich asteroid. It could be part or all of the iron-rich interior of a planetesimal, an early planetary building block, that was stripped of its outer rocky shell as it repeatedly collided with other large bodies during the early formation of the solar system.

New research from scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley suggests that is exactly what the agency’s Psyche mission will find.

An artist’s concept depicting the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
An artist’s concept depicting the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Led by Anicia Arredondo, the paper’s first author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and Maggie McAdam, Ames research scientist and principal investigator, the team observed Psyche in Feb. 2022 using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The now-retired observatory was a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry a reflecting telescope. As a flying telescope, SOFIA collected data that was not affected by Earth’s lower atmosphere and made observations from all over the world, including over the oceans.

For the first time, SOFIA was able to gather data from every part of Psyche’s surface. It also allowed the team to collect data about the materials that make up Psyche’s surface – information that could not be gathered from ground-based telescopes.

The Ames team studied the way different wavelengths of light bounce off Psyche. Researchers used a mid-infrared camera, which detects wavelengths in the middle of the electromagnetic spectrum, to observe the asteroid. They measured its emissivity(the amount of energy it radiates) and porosity (how many tiny holes or spaces an object has). Both characteristics can provide clues about the materials that make up an object.

The team observed that Psyche’s emissivity data was mostly flat, meaning there were no spikes or other notable features in its spectra – that is, a chart or a graph that shows the intensity of light the asteroid emits over a range of energies. Similarly flat spectra have been found in laboratory settings when mid-infrared instruments are used on metal objects. This led the researchers to conclude that Psyche is likely a metallic body.

Notably, the team did not observe a spectral feature called the 10-micron plateau, which typically indicates a “fluffy” surface, like lunar regolith. Previous studies of Psyche had observed this feature, which suggests there may be differences between the surface at Psyche’s north pole, which was facing the Earth at the time of the Ames team’s study, and the surface at its south pole, which was the focus of previous studies. The team also proposed that the south pole regolith observed by other researchers could have been ejected from a collision elsewhere on Psyche’s surface. This idea is supported by past observations of Psyche, which found evidence of huge depressions and impact craters across the asteroid.

“With this analysis and the previous studies of Psyche, we have reached the limit of what astronomical observations can teach us about this fascinating asteroid,” said McAdam. “Now we need to physically visit Psyche to study it up close and learn more about what appears to be a very unique planetary body.” NASA’s mission to Psyche will provide that opportunity. The spacecraft is set to launch on Oct. 12, 2023. It will arrive at the asteroid in 2029 and orbit it for at least 26 months.

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NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is shown in a clean room on June 26, 2023, at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

Psyche’s potential to answer many questions about planet formation is a key reason why it was selected for close observation by a spacecraft. Scientists believe that planets like Earth, Mars, and Mercury have metallic cores, but they are buried too far below the planets’ mantles and crusts to see or measure directly. If Psyche is confirmed to be a planetary core, it can help scientists understand what is inside the Earth and other large planetary bodies.

Psyche’s size is also important for advancing scientific understanding of Earth-like planets. It is the largest M-type (metallic) asteroid in our solar system and is long enough to cover the distance from New York City to Baltimore, Maryland. This means Psyche is more likely to show differentiation, which is when the materials inside a planet separate from one another, with the heaviest materials sinking to the middle and forming cores.

“Every time a new study of Psyche is published, it raises more questions,” said Arredondo, who was a postdoctoral researcher at Ames on the SOFIA mission when the Psyche observations were collected. “Our findings suggest the asteroid is very complex and likely holds many other surprises. The possibility of the unexpected is one of the most exciting parts of a mission to study an unexplored body, and we look forward to gaining a more detailed understanding of Psyche’s origins.”

More about the Psyche and SOFIA missions:

Arizona State University leads the Psyche mission. A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL is responsible for the mission’s overall management, system engineering, integration and test, and mission operations. Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, provided the high-power solar electric propulsion spacecraft chassis.

Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is managing the launch service.

SOFIA was a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR. DLR provided the telescope, scheduled aircraft maintenance, and other support for the mission. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley managed the SOFIA program, science, and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft was maintained and operated by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Building 703, in Palmdale, California. SOFIA achieved full operational capability in 2014 and concluded its final science flight on Sept. 29, 2022.

President Biden Lands at NASA Ames, Greeted by Deputy Director

President Joe Biden arrived in California’s Silicon Valley on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023, where he was welcomed by Dr. David Korsmeyer, acting deputy center director at NASA Ames and Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 4, Susan Ellenberg. Biden landed aboard Air Force One  at Moffett Federal Airfield, located at Ames, before departing for a campaign event in the area.

Preside Biden Visit
President Joe Biden  arrived  in California’s Silicon Valley on Tuesday,  Sept. 26, 2023, where he was welcomed by  Dr. David Korsmeyer, acting deputy center director at NASA’s Ames Research Center and Santa Clara County Supervisor, District 4, Susan Ellenberg.
Credit: NASA Ames/Dominic Hart

New Simulations Shed Light on Origins of Saturn’s Rings and Icy Moons

by Frank Tavares

On a clear night, with a decent amateur telescope, Saturn and its series of remarkable rings can be seen from Earth’s surface. But how did those rings come to be? And what can they tell us about Saturn and its moons, one of the potential locations NASA hopes to search for life? A new series of supercomputer simulations has offered an answer to the mystery of the rings’ origins – one that involves a massive collision, back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

rh-t100-tilbatilw-di-t100-tilbatilw-b15v
Still image from a computer simulation of an impact between two icy moons in orbit around Saturn. The collision ejects debris that could evolve into the planet’s iconic and remarkably young rings. The simulation used over 30 million particles, colored by their ice or rock material, run using the open source SWIFT simulation code.
Credit: NASA/Durham University/Glasgow University/Jacob Kegerreis/Luís Teodoro

According to new research by NASA and its partners, Saturn’s rings could have evolved from the debris of two icy moons that collided and shattered a few hundred million years ago. Debris that didn’t end up in the rings could also have contributed to the formation of some of Saturn’s present-day moons.

“There’s so much we still don’t know about the Saturn system, including its moons that host environments that might be suitable for life,” said Jacob Kegerreis, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “So, it’s exciting to use big simulations like these to explore in detail how they could have evolved.”

NASA’s Cassini mission helped scientists understand just how young – astronomically speaking – Saturn’s rings and probably some of its moons are. And that knowledge opened up new questions about how they formed.

To learn more, the research team turned to the Durham University location of the Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) supercomputing facility in the United Kingdom. They modeled what different collisions between precursor moons might have looked like. These simulations were conducted at a resolution more than 100 times higher than previous such studies, using the open-source simulation code, SWIFT, and giving scientists their best insights into the Saturn system’s history.

Saturn’s rings today live close to the planet, within what’s known as the Roche limit – the farthest orbit where a planet’s gravitational force is powerful enough to disintegrate larger bodies of rock or ice that get any closer. Material orbiting farther out could clump together to form moons.

By simulating almost 200 different versions of the impact, the team discovered that a wide range of collision scenarios could scatter the right amount of ice into Saturn’s Roche limit, where it could settle into rings.

And, while alternative explanations haven’t been able to show why there would be almost no rock in Saturn’s rings – they are made almost entirely of chunks of ice – this type of collision could explain that.

“This scenario naturally leads to ice-rich rings,” said Vincent Eke, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics/Institute for Computational Cosmology, at Durham University and a co-author on the paper. “When the icy progenitor moons smash into one another, the rock in the cores of the colliding bodies is dispersed less widely than the overlying ice.” 

Ice and rocky debris would also have hit other moons in the system, potentially causing a cascade of collisions. Such a multiplying effect could have disrupted any other precursor moons outside the rings, out of which today’s moons could have formed.

But what could have set these events in motion, in the first place? Two of Saturn’s former moons could have been pushed into a collision by the usually small effects of the Sun’s gravity “adding up” to destabilize their orbits around the planet. In the right configuration of orbits, the extra pull from the Sun can have a snowballing effect – a “resonance” – that elongates and tilts the moons’ usually circular and flat orbits until their paths cross, resulting in a high-speed impact.

Saturn’s moon Rhea today orbits just beyond where a moon would encounter this resonance. Like the Earth’s Moon, Saturn’s satellites migrate outward from the planet over time. So, if Rhea were ancient, it would have crossed the resonance in the recent past. However, Rhea’s orbit is very circular and flat. This suggests that it did not experience the destabilizing effects of the resonance and, instead, formed more recently.

The new research aligns with evidence that Saturn’s rings formed recently, but there are still big open questions. If at least some of the icy moons of Saturn are also young, then what could that mean for the potential for life in the oceans under the surface of worlds like Enceladus? Can we unravel the full story from the planet’s original system, before the impact, through to the present day? Future research building on this work will help us learn more about this fascinating planet and the icy worlds that orbit it.

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      With Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before, learn how to live and work away from home, and prepare for future human exploration of Mars. NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, exploration ground systems, and Orion spacecraft, along with the HLS, next-generation spacesuits, Gateway lunar space station, and future rovers are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration.
      For more on HLS, visit: 
      https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/human-landing-system
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      Corinne Beckinger 
      Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 
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      Earth (ESD) Earth Home Explore Climate Change Science in Action Multimedia Data For Researchers 14 Min Read NASA’s Brad Doorn Brings Farm Belt Wisdom to Space-Age Agriculture
      This image shows corn cultivation patterns across the U.S. Midwest in 2020, with lands planted in corn marked in yellow. Credits:
      NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin Bradley Doorn grew up in his family’s trucking business, which hauled milk and animal feed across the sprawling plains of South Dakota. Home was Mitchell, a small town famous for its Corn Palace, where murals crafted from corn kernels and husks have adorned its facade since 1892—a tribute to the abundance of the surrounding farmland.
      Trucking was often grueling work for the family, the day breaking early and ending in headlights. Like farming, driving a truck wasn’t just a job; it was the engine of daily life, thrumming through nearly every conversation and decision.
      Brad loved the outdoors, and by the time he started college in the early 1980s, studying geological engineering felt like a natural fit. “I wanted to be out in the field somewhere, working under the big skies of the West,” Brad recalled. But in his sophomore year at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the tuition money dried up.
      Dean Doorn, Brad Doorn’s father, stands beside a milk truck used in the family’s business of hauling milk across South Dakota in the 1960s and ’70s. Credit: B. Doorn Doorn found himself at a crossroads familiar to many in rural America: return to the certainty of a family trade or chart a new route. “That’s when the Army stepped in,” he said. The ROTC program offered a way to continue with school and a path into the world of remote sensing—a field that would come to define his career.
      Brad’s choice to join the Army would eventually place him at the forefront of a mapping revolution, equipping him to see and analyze Earth in ways never possible before the advent of satellites. But more than the technical skills, the military showed him the allure of a life anchored to mission and team.
      Even as his career took him far from Mitchell, Doorn would remain connected to his rural America roots. Today, he leads NASA’s agriculture programs within the agency’s Earth Science Division. “My family wasn’t made up of farmers, but farming was a part of everything growing up,” said Brad. “Even now, working with NASA, that connection to the land—the sense of how weather, crops, and people are tied together—it’s still in everything I do.”
      Amid the dazzle of NASA’s feats exploring the solar system and universe, it’s easy to miss the agency’s quiet work in fields of soy and wheat. But for more than 60 years, the agency has harnessed the power of its satellites to deliver crucial data on temperature, precipitation, crop yields, and more to farmers, policymakers, and food security experts worldwide.
      The Landsat 9 satellite captured this false-color image of Louisiana rice fields in February 2023. Dark blue shows flooded areas, while green indicates vegetation. Grid-like levees separate fields pre-planting. Louisiana is the third largest producer of rice in the U.S. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin From orbit, satellites beam down streams of data—numbers and pixels that, when paired with farmers’ knowledge of the land, can guide growers as they adjust irrigation levels or plan for the next planting. But the satellites don’t just yield data; they tell stories that call for action, enabling nations to brace for droughts, floods, and the prospect of empty grain silos.
      “Under Brad’s guidance, NASA’s agriculture program has become a global leader for satellite-driven solutions, tackling food security and sustainability head-on,” said Lawrence Friedl, the senior engagement officer for NASA Earth Science. Reflecting on years of collaboration, he added: “I am so impressed and grateful for what he and his teams have accomplished.”
      Boots Meet Satellites in the First Gulf War
      Long before Brad began guiding NASA’s agricultural initiatives, he was already navigating tricky terrain, both literal and figurative, with satellite imagery. His career in remote sensing didn’t start with crops, but with the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait.
      As part of the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, Brad led a company at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty) in North Carolina that had just returned from operations in the First Gulf War, in the early 1990s. “I loved being part of a unit, part of something bigger than just me,” Brad recalled. “It felt good to have that purpose and mission.”
      Far from the combat zone, Doorn’s company became cartographers of the invisible. Their task: merge data from the Landsat satellite with the gritty reality of desert warfare depicted on military maps.
      Brad Doorn, then a U.S. Army officer, sits at his desk during his early career in remote sensing. His military experience would later shape his work at NASA, applying satellite technology to real-world challenges. Credit: B. Doorn Landsat, a civilian satellite built by NASA and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey, could see what the soldiers on the ground could not. Its thermal infrared sensor—a camera with a penchant for temperature and moisture—read the desert floor like an ancient script, picking out the cold, soggy signature of mud lurking beneath the desert’s deceptive crust. Each pixel of satellite data became a brushstroke in a new kind of map, keeping tanks out of the mire and the missions on track.
      “It was so neat to see the remote sensing techniques I’d learned about in school actually making a difference,” Doorn said.
      With this knowledge, he helped guide his unit’s shift from analog maps—paper grids and grease pencils—to the emerging world of digital mapping, a leap that sharpened the military’s ability to read the landscape and steer clear of trouble.
      From Desert Muck to Farm Fields
      Brad’s military experience gave him an early look at how satellite data could address tangible, on-the-ground challenges. In the Army, he saw how integrating satellite data into military maps could offer soldiers critical information. That experience set the foundation for his later work at NASA, where he would help develop technology with lasting, practical impacts.
      Consider OpenET, a NASA-funded initiative that uses Landsat data to give farmers insights into water use and irrigation needs at field scale. The ET in OpenET stands not for the little alien who phoned home, but for evapotranspiration. It’s a combination of water evaporating from the ground and water released by plants into the air.
      The program relies on the same thermal technology Doorn used during the Gulf War. Just as cooler, wetter areas in the desert hint at muddy spots, cooler patches in farm fields show where there’s more moisture or plants are releasing more water. These data are key to managing water resources wisely and keeping crops healthy.
      “OpenET has transformed our understanding of water demand,” explained Doorn.
      To better manage water, state officials and farmers in California are using satellite data through OpenET to track evapotranspiration. Here, the colors represent total evapotranspiration for 2023 as the equivalent depth of water in millimeters. Dark blue regions have higher evapotranspiration rates, such as in the Central Valley. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory using openetdata.org In the late 2000s, when a new generation of Landsat satellites was being planned, the thermal infrared imagers were initially left off the drawing board. “Landsat 8’s design caused a lot of consternation in some Western states that were beginning to use the instrument for measuring and monitoring water use,” said Tony Willardson, the executive director of the Western States Water Council, a government entity that advises western governors on water policy.
      Brad played a key role in conveying to NASA the critical need for this technology, both for agriculture and water management, Willardson said. The thermal imager was eventually reinstated and has since “helped to close a gap in western water management.”
      “A lot of the technologies that we are using more and more were developed by NASA,” said Willardson. “We need NASA to be doing even more in Earth science.”
      Sowing Global Food Stability from Space
      Brad ended up serving in the Army for nearly a decade. “You hit that 10-year mark in the military, and you sort of have to decide if you’re staying in for 20 or if you’re getting out,” said Brad. “My wife, Kristen, was able to manage her career as a registered dietician through the first four moves in six years, but eventually it was too much. So, I told her: ‘Your choice. You decide where we go next.’”
      She chose southern Pennsylvania to be closer to her family. Brad was 32 years old, and the couple had two small children at the time—one of whom had had open-heart surgery at 6 weeks old to fix a heart defect. They would go on to have another child.
      In the late 1990s, within a few years of leaving the military, Doorn found himself someplace he had never imagined: sitting behind a desk at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For a boy who had grown up driving trucks across the plains of South Dakota—who had vowed never to work in an office, much less live east of the Mississippi—this was an unexpected detour. But he had long since learned that the best paths are often the ones you don’t see coming.
      At USDA, he moved forward not with a grand plan, but with an instinctive trust in where curiosity and challenge might lead. He rose through the ranks, from a programmer to directing the agency’s international food production analysis program. He was increasingly driven by a conviction that satellite data, if used the right way, could transform how we see the land and the way we feed the world.
      While at USDA, and later at NASA, which he joined in 2009, Brad was instrumental in developing and overseeing the Global Agricultural Monitoring (GLAM) system. This real-time interactive satellite platform delivers massive amounts of ready-to-use satellite data directly to USDA crop analysts, eliminating the burden of data processing and enabling them to focus on rapid crop analysis across the globe. It was a pioneering tool, said Inbal Becker-Reshef, a research professor at University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences, who played a central role in developing the GLAM system.
      At a 2022 Kansas gathering, Brad Doorn presents to farmers about NASA’s Earth Science Division and its activities supporting agriculture. Credit: A. Whitcraft GLAM set the stage for GEOGLAM, a separate, international initiative launched in 2011 by agriculture ministers from the G20—a group of the world’s major economies—partly as a response to global food price volatility. GEOGLAM, which stands for Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring, uses satellite data to monitor global crop conditions, from drought stress to excessive rain, around the world.
      Joseph Glauber, a former USDA chief economist, noted that there was initial uncertainty within USDA about the initiative’s longevity, but he credited Brad’s background with rallying support. Today, GEOGLAM’s monthly crop assessments, produced by over 40 organizations including USDA and NASA, serve as a global consensus on crop conditions, helping governments and humanitarian organizations anticipate food shortages.
      “Even today, the G20 points to GEOGLAM and its sister initiative, the Agricultural Market Information System—which tracks how crop conditions affect markets—as major successes,” Glauber said.
      Harvesting Data Amid Conflict
      Doorn’s work crosses continents. When war broke out between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, it rattled global food markets. The Ukrainian government turned to NASA Harvest—a global food security and agriculture consortium led by the University of Maryland and funded by NASA—for help. As manager of NASA’s agriculture program, Brad was a driving force behind the launch of NASA Harvest in 2017, envisioning it as a program that would harness satellite data to provide timely, actionable insights for global agriculture.
      From orbit, satellites could observe the sown and the harvested wheat, sunflowers, and barley, offering some of the only reliable estimates for fields in the war zone. Satellite imagery revealed that, despite the conflict, more cropland had been planted and harvested in Ukraine than anyone had expected, a finding that helped stabilize volatile global food prices.
      “Brad and the team recognized that providing that type of rapid agricultural assessment for policy support is what NASA Harvest exists for,” said Becker-Reshef, who is the director of the consortium.
      NASA Harvest’s reach stretches well beyond Europe. In sub-Saharan Africa, the consortium collaborates with local and international partners, tracking the health of crops and the creeping spread of drought. This information helps equip governments, aid organizations, and farmers to act before disaster strikes, making each data point a crucial defense against hunger.
      NASA Harvest has since been joined by NASA Acres, founded in 2023 to provide satellite data and tools that help farmers make well-informed decisions for healthier crops and soil in the United States. One project, for example, involves working with farmers in Illinois to manage nitrogen use more effectively, leveraging satellite data to enhance crop yields while reducing environmental impact.
      This image shows corn cultivation patterns across the U.S. Midwest in 2020, with lands planted in corn marked in yellow. The map was built from the Cropland Data Layer product provided by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, which includes data from the USGS National Land Cover Database and from satellites such as Landsat 8. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Lauren Dauphin Friedl noted that Doorn understands the missions of both NASA and the USDA, and with his agricultural roots, he knows the needs of farmers and agricultural businesses firsthand. “Often in meetings, Brad would remind us that the margins for a farmer are in the pennies,” Friedl said. “They wouldn’t be able to afford remote sensing,” so making sure NASA’s satellite information was free and accessible was that much more important.
      “It’s hard to imagine that NASA would have the agriculture program it does without somebody like Brad continuing to advocate and push for this to exist,” said Alyssa Whitcraft, the director of NASA Acres. “He knows how critical it is for satellite data to be accessible and useful to those on the ground. He makes sure we never lose sight of that.”
      An Emissary Between Worlds
      Colleagues say Doorn’s strength lies in his ability to bridge worlds, whether it’s making connections between agencies like NASA and USDA, or connecting such agencies to state water councils or farming communities. His fluency in translating complex science into simple terms makes him equally at ease in whichever world he finds himself.
      “There’s NASA language and there’s farm language,” says Lance Lillibridge, who farms about 1,400 acres of corn and soybeans in Benton County, Iowa, and has helped lead the Iowa Corn Growers Association. “Sometimes you need an interpreter, and Brad’s that guy.” He recalled a meeting where some farmers were skeptical, wary of NASA’s “big brother” eyes in the sky, “but Brad had a way of putting people at ease, keeping everyone focused on the shared goal of better data for better decisions.”
      Brad Doorn speaks during NASA’s “Space for Ag” roadshow in Iowa, July 2023, highlighting NASA’s role in supporting sustainable farming practices. Credit: N. Pepper “One of my favorite memories of Brad,” said Forrest Melton, the OpenET project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, “is an afternoon spent visiting with farmers in western Nebraska, drinking iced tea and talking with them about the challenges facing their family farm.”
      Colleagues describe Brad as a nearly unflappable guide, one who knows the agricultural landscape so well that he makes the impossible seem manageable. They say his calm, approachable style, paired with a ready smile, puts people at ease whether in Washington conference rooms or Midwestern barns. And he listens closely to understand where there may be opportunities to help.
      “Few people in the water and agriculture communities, from the small-scale farmer to the federal government appointee, aren’t familiar with some aspect of the work Brad has enabled over the decades,” said Sarah Brennan, a former deputy program manager for NASA’s water resources programs. “He has supported the development of some of the greatest advancements in using remote sensing in these communities.”
      It’s About the People and the Team
      Doorn’s leadership is less about issuing directives, colleagues say, and more about cultivating growth—in crops, in data systems, and in people. Like a farmer tending to his fields, he nurtures the potential in every project and person he encounters. “Almost everyone who has worked for Brad can point back to the opportunities he provided them that launched their successful careers,” said Brennan.
      Over the years, he’s added layers to this work of creating paths for others to succeed: as president of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, as an adjunct professor at Penn State, and as a youth basketball league director.
      “What I’ve learned, probably in the military and I’ve carried it forward, is that it’s the people that matter,” Brad said. “I had great mentors who believed it’s just as important to help others grow as it is to meet the day’s demands. Those roles shift your focus toward the people around you, and often, the more you give of your time, the more you end up getting back.”
      Young Brad Doorn (front center) stands with his siblings, capturing a family moment in 1960s South Dakota. His youngest brother isn’t pictured. Credit: B. Doorn It has been a long journey from hauling milk and animal feed across the South Dakota plains to surveying them now as a scientist. The tools of his career have changed—from truck routes to satellite orbits, from paper maps to digital data—but his mission remains the same: helping farmers feed the world.
      “Growing up in South Dakota, I saw firsthand the challenges farmers face. Today, I’m proud to help provide the tools and data that can make a real difference in their lives,” Doorn added. “Whether it’s a farmer, an economist, or a military analyst, if you give them the right tools, they’ll take them to places you never even thought about. That’s what excites me—seeing where they go.”
      By Emily DeMarco
      NASA’s Earth Science Division, Headquarters
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