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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Dr. Misty Davies receives the prestigious AIAA Fellowship in May 2024 for her contributions to aerospace safety and autonomous systems, recognized at a ceremony in Washington, DC.NASA In May 2024, Dr. Misty Davies joined the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Class of 2024 Fellows at a ceremony in Washington, DC. The AIAA website states that, “AIAA confers Fellow upon individuals in recognition of their notable and valuable contributions to the arts, sciences or technology of aeronautics and astronautics.” The first AIAA Fellows were elected in 1934; since then only 2064 people have been selected for the honor. Dr. Davies has focused her career at NASA Ames Research Center on developing tools and techniques that enable the safety assurance of increasingly autonomous systems. She currently serves as the Associate Chief for Aeronautics Systems in the Intelligent Systems Division at NASA Ames and is the Aerospace Operations and Safety Program (AOSP) Technical Advisor for Assurance and Safety. More information on AIAA Fellows is at https://www.aiaa.org/news/news/2024/02/08/aiaa-announces-class-of-2024-honorary-fellows-and-fellows
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Last Updated Nov 22, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) will transport the next astronauts that land on the Moon, including the first woman and first person of color, beginning with Artemis III. For safety and mission success, the landers and other equipment in development for NASA’s Artemis campaign must work reliably in the harshest of environments.
The Hub for Innovative Thermal Technology Maturation and Prototyping (HI-TTeMP) lab at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, provides engineers with thermal analysis of materials that may be a prototype or in an early developmental stage using a vacuum chamber, back left, and a conduction chamber, right. NASA/Ken Hall Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are currently testing how well prototype insulation for SpaceX’s Starship HLS will insulate interior environments, including propellant storage tanks and the crew cabin. Starship HLS will land astronauts on the lunar surface during Artemis III and Artemis IV.
Marshall’s Hub for Innovative Thermal Technology Maturation and Prototyping (HI-TTeMP) laboratory provides the resources and tools for an early, quick-check evaluation of insulation materials destined for Artemis deep space missions.
“Marshall’s HI-TTeMP lab gives us a key testing capability to help determine how well the current materials being designed for vehicles like SpaceX’s orbital propellant storage depot and Starship HLS, will insulate the liquid oxygen and methane propellants,” said HLS chief engineer Rene Ortega. “By using this lab and the expertise provided by the thermal engineers at Marshall, we are gaining valuable feedback earlier in the design and development process that will provide additional information before qualifying hardware for deep space missions.”
A peek inside the conductive test chamber at NASA Marshall’s HI-TTeMP lab where thermal engineers design, set up, execute, and analyze materials destined for deep space to better understand how they will perform in the cold near-vacuum of space. NASA/Ken Hall On the Moon, spaceflight hardware like Starship HLS will face extreme temperatures. On the Moon’s south pole during lunar night, temperatures can plummet to -370 degrees Fahrenheit (-223 degrees Celsius). Elsewhere in deep space temperatures can range from roughly 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) in direct sunlight to just above absolute zero in the shadows.
There are two primary means of managing thermal conditions: active and passive. Passive thermal controls include materials such as insulation, white paint, thermal blankets, and reflective metals. Engineers can also design operational controls, such as pointing thermally sensitive areas of a spacecraft away from direct sunlight, to help manage extreme thermal conditions. Active thermal control measures that could be used include radiators or cryogenic coolers.
Engineers use two vacuum test chambers in the lab to simulate the heat transfer effects of the deep space environment and to evaluate the thermal properties of the materials. One chamber is used to understand radiant heat, which directly warms an object in its path, such as when heat from the Sun shines on it. The other test chamber evaluates conduction by isolating and measuring its heat transfer paths.
NASA engineers working in the HI-TTeMP lab not only design, set up, and run tests, they also provide insight and expertise in thermal engineering to assist NASA’s industry partners, such as SpaceX and other organizations, in validating concepts and models, or suggesting changes to designs. The lab is able to rapidly test and evaluate design updates or iterations.
NASA’s HLS Program, managed by NASA Marshall, is charged with safely landing astronauts on the Moon as part of Artemis. NASA has awarded contracts to SpaceX for landing services for Artemis III and IV and to Blue Origin for Artemis V. Both landing services providers plan to transfer super-cold propellant in space to send landers to the Moon with full tanks.
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
News Media Contact
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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By NASA
From left to right, Dr. Peter Parker, Astronaut Victor Glover and Dr. Shih-Yung post for a photo after the 2024 Silver Snoopy Awards ceremony.NASA/Mark Knopp Two employees from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia recently earned the prestigious Silver Snoopy award, an honor given to NASA employees and contractors across the agency for outstanding achievements related to astronaut safety or mission success. Dr. Shih-Yung Lin and Dr. Peter Parker received the awards during a Space Flight Awareness (SFA) award ceremony at Langley on Nov. 21. Lin earned the award for exceptional engineering and technical leadership contributions to the Orion program. Parker earned the award for outstanding leadership and technical contributions in support of the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA astronaut Victor Glover visited Langley to present the awards. Glover is currently assigned as the pilot of NASA’s Artemis II mission to the Moon. He piloted the SpaceX Crew 1 mission to the International Space Station in 2018 and served as a flight engineer on expeditions 64 and 65.
“This, for me, feels like how I felt when I received my astronaut pin. This is us giving you our team pin,” said Glover. He later added, “This is something to wear with honor. You are a very special part of our safety and mission assurance culture.”
Astronaut Victor Glover presents the 2024 Silver Snoopy Awards to Dr. Shih-Yung at NASA Langley Research Center.NASA/Angelique Herring The Silver Snoopy is the astronauts’ personal award and is presented to less than one percent of the total NASA workforce annually. The significance of the award was not lost on the honorees, who both brought family members to share in the moment.
“I’m involved with lots of research projects, but they don’t all involve loss of human life,” said Parker. “It definitely is a more prestigious, more impactful, more consequential type of project that I’m being recognized for.”
Lin, who recently retired, echoed that sentiment.
“You set a very high standard in order to achieve the safest conditions for all the astronauts,” he said. “For me, if we get a good mission out of it, or multiple missions, I would consider that my personal lifetime goal for my career. That’s what it means to me.”
Lin and Parker each received a sterling Silver Snoopy lapel pin that has flown in space, plus a certificate of appreciation signed by Glover and an authentication letter. The pins awarded to Langley’s recipients flew aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour during an assembly mission to the International Space Station, STS-118, August 8-21, 2007. The award depicts Snoopy, a character from the “Peanuts” comic strip created by Charles Schulz.
An avid supporter of the U.S. space program, Schulz gave NASA astronauts permission to adopt Snoopy as their personal safety symbol during the Apollo era and has long served to promote excellence in every phase of space flight to help ensure the success of NASA missions. The Snoopy emblem reflects NASA and industry’s sense of responsibility and continuing concern for astronaut flight safety.
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By NASA
Following eight months of intense research, design, and prototyping, six university teams presented their “Inflatable Systems for Lunar Operations” concepts to a panel of judges at NASA’s 2024 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge forum.
The challenge, funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and Office of STEM Engagement, seeks novel ideas from higher education on a new topic each year and supports the agency’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative in developing new approaches and innovative technologies to pave the way for successful exploration on the surface of the Moon. This year, teams were asked to develop low Size, Weight, and Power inflatable technologies, structures and systems that could benefit future Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond.
Taking top honors at this year’s forum receiving the Artemis Award was Northwestern University with National Aerospace Corporation & IMS Engineered Products, with their concept titled METALS: Metallic Expandable Technology for Artemis Lunar Structures. The Artemis Award is given to the team whose concept has the best potential to contribute to and be integrated into an Artemis mission.
The Northwestern University BIG Idea Challenge team developed METALS, an inflatable metal concept for long-term storage of cryogenic fluid on the Moon. The concept earned the Artemis Award, top honors in NASA’s 2024 BIG Idea Challenge.Credit: National Institute of Aerospace The Artemis Award is a generous recognition of the potential impact that our work can have. We hope it can be a critical part of the Artemis Program moving forward. We’re exceptionally grateful to have the opportunity to engage directly with NASA in research for the Artemis Program in such a direct way while we’re still students.”
Julian Rocher
Team co-lead for Northwestern University
METALS is an inflatable system for long term cryogenic fluid storage on the Moon. Stacked layers of sheet metal are welded along their aligned edges, stacked inside a rocket, and inflated once on the lunar surface. The manufacturing process is scalable, reliable, and simple. Notably, METALS boasts superior performance in the harsh lunar environment, including resistance against radiation, abrasion, micrometeorites, gas permeability, and temperature extremes.
Northwestern University team members pose with lunar inflatable prototypes from their METALS project in NASA’s 2024 BIG Idea Challenge. Credit: Northwestern University We learned to ask the right questions, and we learned to question what is the status quo and to go above and beyond and think outside the box. It’s a special mindset for everyone to have on this team… it’s what forces us to innovate.”
Trevor Abbott
Team co-lead for Northwestern University
Arizona State University took home the 2024 BIG Idea Challenge Systems Engineering prize for their project, AEGIS: Inflatable Lunar Landing Pad System. The AEGIS system is designed to deflect the exhaust gasses of lunar landers thereby reducing regolith disturbances generated during landing. The system is deployed on the lunar surface where it uses 6 anchors in its base to secure itself to the ground. Once inflated to its deployed size of 14 m in diameter, AEGIS provides a reusable precision landing zone for incoming landers.
Arizona State University earned the Systems Engineering prize for their BIG Idea Challenge project: AEGIS: Inflatable Lunar Landing Pad System. Arizona State University
This year’s forum was held in tandem with the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium’s (LSIC) Fall Meeting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where students had the opportunity to network with NASA and industry experts, attend LSIC panels and presentations, and participate in the technical poster session. The consortium provides a forum for NASA to communicate technological requirements, needs, and opportunities, and for the community to share with NASA existing capabilities and critical gaps.
We felt that hosting this year’s BIG Idea Forum in conjunction with the LSIC Fall Meeting would be an exciting opportunity for these incredibly talented students to network with today’s aerospace leaders in government, industry, and academia. Their innovative thinking and novel contributions are critical skills required for the successful development of the technologies that will drive exploration on the Moon and beyond.”
Niki Werkheiser
Director of Technology Maturation in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate
In February, teams submitted proposal packages, from which six finalists were selected for funding of up to $150,000 depending on each team’s prototype and budget. The finalists then worked for eight months designing, developing, and demonstrating their concepts. The 2024 BIG Idea program concluded at its annual forum, where teams presented their results and answered questions from judges. Experts from NASA, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and other aerospace companies evaluated the student concepts based on technical innovation, credibility, management, and the teams’ verification testing. In addition to the presentation, the teams provided a technical paper and poster detailing their proposed inflatable system for lunar operations.
Year after year, BIG Idea student teams spend countless hours working on tough engineering design challenges. Their dedication and ‘game-changing’ ideas never cease to amaze me. They all have bright futures ahead of them.”
David Moore
Program Director for NASA’s Game Changing Development program
Second-year mechanical engineering student Connor Owens, left, and electrical engineering graduate student Sarwan Shah run through how they’ll test the sheath-and-auger anchor for the axial vertical pull test of the base anchor in a former shower room in Sun Devil Hall. Image credit: Charlie Leight/ASU News The University of Maryland BIG Idea Challenge team’s Auxiliary Inflatable Wheels for Lunar Rover project in a testing environment University of Maryland Students from University of Michigan and a component of their Cargo-BEEP (Cargo Balancing Expandable Exploration Platform) projectUniversity of Michigan Northwestern University welders prepare to work on their 2024 BIG Idea Challenge prototype, a metal inflatable designed for deployment on the Moon.Northwestern University Brigham Young University’s Untethered and Modular Inflatable Robots for Lunar Operations projectBrigham Young University California Institute of Technology’s PILLARS: Plume-deployed Inflatable for Launch and Landing Abrasive Regolith Shielding projectCalifornia Institute of Technology The Inflatable Systems for Lunar Operations theme allowed teams to submit various technology concepts such as soft robotics, deployable infrastructure components, emergency shelters or other devices for extended extravehicular activities, pressurized tunnels and airlocks, and debris shields and dust protection systems. National Institute of Aerospace NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate sponsors the BIG Idea Challenge through a collaboration between its Game Changing Development program and the agency’s Office of STEM Engagement. It is managed by a partnership between the National Institute of Aerospace and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
Team presentations, technical papers, and digital posters are available on the BIG Idea website.
For full competition details, visit: https://bigidea.nianet.org/2024-challenge
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Abigail Reigner, a systems engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, supports the agency’s research in electrified aircraft propulsion to enable more sustainable air travel. Behind her is a 25% scale model of NASA’s SUbsonic Single Aft eNgine (SUSAN) Electrofan aircraft concept used to test and demonstrate hybrid electric propulsion systems for emission reductions and performance boosts in future commercial aircraft.
Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna Growing up outside of Philadelphia, Abigail Reigner spent most of her childhood miles away from where her family called home, and where there was little trace of her Native American tribe and culture.
Belonging to the Comanche Nation that resides in Lawton, Oklahoma, Reigner’s parents made every effort to keep her connected to her Indigenous heritage and part of a community that would later play a key role in her professional journey.
“My parents were really adamant on making sure my brother and I were still involved in the Native American traditions."
Abigail Reigner
“My parents were really adamant on making sure my brother and I were still involved in the Native American traditions,” Reigner said. “We would go down to Oklahoma often in the summertime, spending time with family and staying immersed in our culture.”
Both her parents come from a teaching background, so Reigner was surrounded by hands-on learning experiences early in life. As a school teacher, her mother would participate in local outreach events each year, talking and interacting with students. Her father, a middle school technology education teacher, taught Reigner how to use computer-aided design (CAD) and helped introduce her to the world of engineering at a young age.
These unique experiences helped spark Reigner’s curiosity for learning about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and connecting with others in her community who shared these interests. Reigner says she never takes her upbringing for granted.
“I feel pretty lucky to have grown up with so many educational opportunities, and I try to use them as a way to give back to my community,” Reigner said.
After participating in various engineering and robotics classes in high school and realizing a career in STEM was the right fit for her, Reigner went on to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering.
During her time there, she joined the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) where she got the unique opportunity to connect with other Indigenous students and mentors in STEM fields and gain leadership experience on projects that eventually set her up for internship opportunities at NASA.
“The opportunities I got through AISES led me to get an internship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the summer of 2021, and then an eight-month co-op the following year working in the center’s materials science division,” Reigner said.
Through AISES, Reigner also met Joseph Connolly, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland who was looking to recruit Indigenous students for full-time positions in the agency. Upon graduating from college, Reigner joined NASA Glenn as an engineer in the summer of 2024.
Abigail Reigner (top far left) and Joseph Connolly (middle far right) pose with NASA employees while staffing a booth at an American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) conference to help recruit Indigenous students to the agency. Credit: Abigail Reigner Today, Reigner works as a systems engineer supporting NASA Glenn’s efforts to test and demonstrate electrified aircraft propulsion technologies for future commercial aircraft as part of the agency’s mission to make air travel more sustainable.
One of the projects she works on is NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD), where she supports risk-reduction testing that enables the project to explore the feasibility of hybrid electric propulsion in reducing emissions and improving efficiency in future aircraft.
“It’s always good to know that you’re doing something that is furthering the benefit of humanity,” Reigner said. “Seeing that unity across NASA centers and knowing that you are a part of something that is accelerating technology for the future is very cool.”
“I really feel like the reason I am here at NASA is because of the success of not just the Native American support group here at Glenn, but also Natives across the agency.”
Abigail Reigner
The growing community of Native Americans at NASA Glenn has fostered several initiatives over the years that have helped recruit, inspire, and retain Indigenous employees.
Leveraging some of the agency’s diversity programs that provide educational STEM opportunities for underrepresented communities, the Native Americans at NASA group has encouraged more students with Indigenous backgrounds to get involved in technical projects while developing the skills needed to excel in STEM fields.
“The Native American support group at NASA has been around since the mid-to-late 1980s and was actually one of the first Native American employee resources groups at the agency,” Connolly said. “Through this, we’ve been able to connect a number of Native employees with senior leaders across NASA and establish more agencywide recruitment efforts and initiatives for Native Americans.”
These initiatives range from support through NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) to help recruit more Indigenous students, to encouraging participation in hands-on learning experiences through projects such as NASA’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI) and the agency’s involvement in the First Nations Launch competition, which helps provide students with opportunities to conduct research while developing engineering and team-building skills.
The efforts of the Native American community at NASA Glenn and across the agency have been successful in not only creating a direct pipeline for Indigenous students into the NASA workforce, but also allowing them to feel seen and represented in the agency, says Connolly.
For Reigner, having this community and resource group at NASA to help guide and support her through her journey has been crucial to her success and important for the future of diversity within the agency.
“I really feel like the reason I am here at NASA is because of the success of not just the Native American support group here at Glenn, but also Natives across the agency,” Reigner said. Without their support and initiatives to recruit and retain students, I wouldn’t be here today.”
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