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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s EMIT collected this hyperspectral image of the Amazon River in northern Brazil on June 30 as part of an effort to map global ecosystem biodiversity. The instrument was originally tasked with mapping minerals over deserts; its data is now being used in research on a diverse range of topics. NASA/JPL-Caltech The imaging spectrometer measures the colors of light reflected from Earth’s surface to study fields such as agriculture, hydrology, and climate science.
Observing our planet from the International Space Station since July 2022, NASA’s EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) mission is beginning its next act.
At first the imaging spectrometer was solely aimed at mapping minerals over Earth’s desert regions to help determine the cooling and heating effects that dust can have on regional and global climate. The instrument soon added another skill: pinpointing greenhouse gas emission sources, including landfills and fossil fuel infrastructure.
Following a mission extension this year, EMIT is now collecting data from regions beyond deserts, addressing topics as varied as agriculture, hydrology, and climate science.
Imaging spectrometers like EMIT detect the light reflected from Earth, and they separate visible and infrared light into hundreds of wavelength bands — colors, essentially. Scientists use patterns of reflection and absorption at different wavelengths to determine the composition of what the instrument is observing. The approach echoes Isaac Newton’s prism experiments in 1672, in which the physicist discovered that visible light is composed of a rainbow of colors.
Perched on the International Space Station, NASA’s EMIT can differentiate between types of vegetation to help researchers understand the distribution and traits of plant communities. The instrument collected this data over the mid-Atlantic U.S. on April 23.NASA/JPL-Caltech “Breakthroughs in optics, physics, and chemistry led to where we are today with this incredible instrument, providing data to help address pressing questions on our planet,” said Dana Chadwick, EMIT’s applications lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
New Science Projects
In its extended mission, EMIT’s data will be the focus of 16 new projects under NASA’s Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) program, which funds science investigations at universities, research institutions, and NASA.
For example, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research Service are exploring how EMIT can assess climate-smart agricultural practices. Those practices — winter cover crops and conservation tillage — involve protecting cropland during non-growing seasons with either living plants or dead plant matter to prevent erosion and manage nitrogen.
Imaging spectrometers are capable of gathering data on the distribution and characteristics of plants and plant matter, based on the patterns of light they reflect. The information can help agricultural agencies incentivize farmers to use sustainable practices and potentially help farmers manage their fields.
“We’re adding more accuracy and reducing error on the measurements we are supplying to end users,” said Jyoti Jennewein, an Agricultural Research Service research physical scientist based in Fort Collins, Colorado, and a project co-lead.
The USGS-USDA project is also informing analytical approaches for NASA’s future Surface Biology and Geology-Visible Shortwave Infrared mission. The satellite will cover Earth’s land and coasts more frequently than EMIT, with finer spatial resolution.
Looking at Snowmelt
Another new project will test whether EMIT data can help refine estimates of snowpack melting rates. Such an improvement could inform water management in states like California, where meltwater makes up the majority of the agricultural water supply.
Imaging spectrometers like EMIT measure the albedo of snow — the percentage of solar radiation it’s reflecting. What isn’t reflected is absorbed, so the observations indicate how much energy snow is taking in, which in turn helps with estimates of snow melt rates. The instruments also discern what’s affecting albedo: snow-grain size, dust or soot contamination, or both.
For this work, EMIT’s ability to measure beyond visible light is key. Ice is “pretty absorptive at near-infrared and the shortwave infrared wavelengths,” said Jeff Dozier, a University of California, Santa Barbara professor emeritus and the project’s principal investigator.
Other ROSES-funded projects focus on wildflower blooming, phytoplankton and carbon dynamics in inland waters, ecosystem biodiversity, and functional traits of forests.
Dust Impacts
Researchers with EMIT will continue to study the climate effects of dust. When lofted into the air by windstorms, darker, iron-filled dust absorbs the Sun’s heat and warms the surrounding air, while lighter-colored, clay-rich particles do the opposite. Scientists have been uncertain whether airborne dust has overall cooling or warming effects on the planet. Before EMIT, they could only assume the color of particles in a region.
The EMIT mission is “giving us lab-quality results, everywhere we need to know,” said Natalie Mahowald, the mission’s deputy principal investigator and an Earth system scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Feeding the data into Earth system computer models, Mahowald expects to get closer to pinpointing dust’s climate impact as Earth warms.
Greenhouse Gas Detection
The mission will continue to identify point-source emissions of methane and carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gases most responsible for climate change, and observations are available through EMIT’s data portal and the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center.
The EMIT team is also refining the software that identifies and measures greenhouse-gas plumes in the data, and they’re working to streamline the process with machine-learning automation. Aligning with NASA’s open science initiative, they are sharing code with public, private, and nonprofit organizations doing similar work.
“Making this work publicly accessible has fundamentally pushed the science of measuring point-source emissions forward and expanded the use of EMIT data,” said Andrew Thorpe, the JPL research technologist heading the EMIT greenhouse gas effort.
More About EMIT
The EMIT instrument was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California. Launched to the International Space Station in July 2022, EMIT is on an extended three-year mission in which it’s supporting a range of research projects. EMIT’s data products are available at the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center for use by other researchers and the public.
To learn more about the mission, visit:
https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/
How the new NISAR satellite will track Earth’s changing surface A planet-rumbling Greenland tsunami seen from above News Media Contacts
Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Nov 14, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
This photo shows the Optical Telescope Assembly for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was recently delivered to the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.NASA/Chris Gunn NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is one giant step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The mission has now received its final major delivery: the Optical Telescope Assembly, which includes a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors, and supporting structures and electronics. The assembly was delivered Nov. 7. to the largest clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the observatory is being built.
The telescope will focus cosmic light and send it to Roman’s instruments, revealing many billions of objects strewn throughout space and time. Using the mission’s Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera, astronomers will survey the cosmos all the way from the outskirts of our solar system toward the edge of the observable universe. Scientists will use Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument to test new technologies for dimming host stars to image planets and dusty disks around them in far better detail than ever before.
“We have a top-notch telescope that’s well aligned and has great optical performance at the cold temperatures it will see in space,” said Bente Eegholm, optics lead for Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard. “I am now looking forward to the next phase where the telescope and instruments will be put together to form the Roman observatory.”
In this photo, optical engineer Bente Eegholm inspects the surface of the primary mirror for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. This 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) mirror is a major component of the Optical Telescope Assembly, which also contains nine additional mirrors and supporting structures and electronics.NASA/Chris Gunn Designed and built by L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, the assembly incorporates key optics (including the primary mirror) that were made available to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. The team at L3Harris then reshaped the mirror and built upon the inherited hardware to ensure it would meet Roman’s specifications for expansive, sensitive infrared observations.
“The telescope will be the foundation of all of the science Roman will do, so its design and performance are among the largest factors in the mission’s survey capability,” said Josh Abel, lead Optical Telescope Assembly systems engineer at NASA Goddard.
The team at Goddard worked closely with L3Harris to ensure these stringent requirements were met and that the telescope assembly will integrate smoothly into the rest of the Roman observatory.
The assembly’s design and performance will largely determine the quality of the mission’s results, so the manufacturing and testing processes were extremely rigorous. Each optical component was tested individually prior to being assembled and assessed together earlier this year. The tests helped ensure that the alignment of the telescope’s mirrors will change as expected when the telescope reaches its operating temperature in space.
Then, the telescope was put through tests simulating the extreme shaking and intense sound waves associated with launch. Engineers also made sure that tiny components called actuators, which will adjust some of the mirrors in space, move as predicted. And the team measured gases released from the assembly as it transitioned from normal air pressure to a vacuum –– the same phenomenon that has led astronauts to report that space smells gunpowdery or metallic. If not carefully controlled, these gases could contaminate the telescope or instruments.
Upon arrival at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Optical Telescope Assembly for the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope was lifted out of the shipping fixture and placed with other mission hardware in Goddard’s largest clean room. Now, it will be installed onto Roman’s Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman’s two instruments optically aligned. The assembly’s electronics box –– essentially the telescope’s brain –– will be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman’s other electronics.NASA/Chris Gunn Finally, the telescope underwent a month-long thermal vacuum test to ensure it will withstand the temperature and pressure environment of space. The team closely monitored it during cold operating conditions to ensure the telescope’s temperature will remain constant to within a fraction of a degree. Holding the temperature constant allows the telescope to remain in stable focus, making Roman’s high-resolution images consistently sharp. Nearly 100 heaters on the telescope will help keep all parts of it at a very stable temperature.
“It is very difficult to design and build a system to hold temperatures to such a tight stability, and the telescope performed exceptionally,” said Christine Cottingham, thermal lead for Roman’s Optical Telescope Assembly at NASA Goddard.
Now that the assembly has arrived at Goddard, it will be installed onto Roman’s Instrument Carrier, a structure that will keep the telescope and Roman’s two instruments optically aligned. The assembly’s electronics box –– essentially the telescope’s brain –– will be mounted within the spacecraft along with Roman’s other electronics.
With this milestone, Roman remains on track for launch by May 2027.
“Congratulations to the team on this stellar accomplishment!” said J. Scott Smith, the assembly’s telescope manager at NASA Goddard. “The completion of the telescope marks the end of an epoch and incredible journey for this team, and yet only a chapter in building Roman. The team’s efforts have advanced technology and ignited the imaginations of those who dream of exploring the stars.”
Virtually tour an interactive version of the telescope The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Nov 14, 2024 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:06:45 Smile is the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, a brand-new space mission currently in the making. It will study space weather and the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s environment.
Unique about Smile is that it will take the first X-ray images and videos of the solar wind slamming into Earth’s protective magnetic bubble, and its complementary ultraviolet images will provide the longest-ever continuous look at the northern lights.
In this first of several short videos, David Agnolon (Smile Project Manager) and Philippe Escoubet (Smile Project Scientist) talk about the why and the how of Smile. You’ll see scenes of the building and testing of the spacecraft’s payload module by Airbus in Madrid, including the installation of one of the European instruments, the Soft X-ray Imager from the University of Leicester.
Smile is a 50–50 collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). ESA provides the payload module of the spacecraft, which carries three of the four science instruments, and the Vega-C rocket which will launch Smile to space. CAS provides the platform module hosting the fourth science instrument, as well as the service and propulsion modules.
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By European Space Agency
ESA’s Hera mission has completed the first critical manoeuvre on its journey to the Didymos binary asteroid system since launch on 7 October.
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