Jump to content

GLOBE Eclipse and Civil Air Patrol: An Astronomical Collaboration


NASA

Recommended Posts

  • Publishers

3 min read

GLOBE Eclipse and Civil Air Patrol: An Astronomical Collaboration

The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) is a volunteer organization that serves as the official civilian auxiliary of the United States Air Force. The organization has an award-winning aerospace education program that promotes Science, Technology Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM)-related careers and activities. The total solar eclipse on 8 April 2024 was a unique opportunity to design a mission for cadets, senior members, and educators to collect atmospheric data in contribution the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program’s GLOBE Eclipse protocol, for which a temporary tool in the GLOBE Observer app made it possible for volunteer observers to document and submit air temperature and cloud data during the eclipse.

For the first time ever, the CAP had cadets and senior members participating in a mission from every wing (US state), in addition to two US territories and 2 Canadian provinces. Over 400 teams with over 3,000 cadets and over 1,000 senior members collected air temperature, clouds, wind, and precipitation for a total of 4 hours before, during, and after the eclipse. This work was led by Capt. Shannon Babb who organized the mission with the aerospace education team led from the Rocky Mountain Region.

The collaboration between GLOBE Eclipse and CAP gave cadets the opportunity to do real, hands-on Earth science and be part of a mission alongside senior members. It also brought in over 40,000 students and more than 600 educators through the Civil Air Patrol’s education sites involving K-12 formal and informal educators at schools, youth organizations, museums and libraries. This unique collaboration was so successful, the CAP wants to continue doing missions alongside citizen science programs at NASA and the GLOBE Program. A 2025 mission is being formulated, focused on contrail formation using the strengths of the CAP in aeronautics and unique cloud observations made using the GLOBE Observer app. Results and announcements of 2025 mission plans were presented at the Civil Air Patrol National Conference on 16-17 August 2024 in San Antonio, Texas, USA.

GLOBE Observer is part of the NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative (NESEC), which is led by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) and supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AE28A. NESEC is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn

https://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/programs/aerospace-education/curriculum/2024-solar-eclipse

Two male cadets wearing solar viewing glasses stare with excitement into the distance.
Civil Air Patrol Cadet observing the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse.
Civil Air Patrol
Two females cadets collecting wind measurements with clouds and palm trees in the background.
Civil Air Patrol Cadets making atmospheric measurements during the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse.
Civil Air Patrol
Two male cadets and a senior member collecting wind measurements surrounded by snow.
Civil Air Patrol Cadets making atmospheric measurements during the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse.
Civil Air Patrol
A female and male cadet stand in front of a tent staring at the sky while wearing solar viewing glasses.
Civil Air Patrol Cadet observing the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse.
Civil Air Patrol
Female cadet looking through a telescope with a solar filter with a Civil Air Patrol Cessna airplane behind her.
Civil Air Patrol Cadet observing the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse.
Civil Air Patrol

View the full article

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Topics

    • By Space Force
      Space Force officials have selected 14 senior master sergeants and 25 master sergeants for promotion in the 24S9 and 25S8 promotion cycles, respectively.

      View the full article
    • By NASA
      4 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      By Wayne Smith
      As NASA plans for humans to return to the Moon and eventually explore Mars, a laser beam welding collaboration between NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and The Ohio State University in Columbus aims to stimulate in-space manufacturing.
      Scientists and engineers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, participating in the laser beam welding study in August, stand in front of the parabolic plane used for testing. From left, Will Evans, Louise Littles, Emma Jaynes, Andrew O’Connor, and Jeffrey Sowards. Not pictured: Zachary Courtright.Casey Coughlin/Starlab-George Washington Carver Science Park The multi-year effort seeks to understand the physical processes of welding on the lunar surface, such as investigating the effects of laser beam welding in a combined vacuum and reduced gravity environment. The goal is to increase the capabilities of manufacturing in space to potentially assemble large structures or make repairs on the Moon, which will inform humanity’s next giant leap of sending astronauts to Mars and beyond.
      “For a long time, we’ve used fasteners, rivets, or other mechanical means to keep structures that we assemble together in space,” said Andrew O’Connor, a Marshall materials scientist who is helping coordinate the collaborative effort and is NASA’s technical lead for the project. “But we’re starting to realize that if we really want strong joints and if we want structures to stay together when assembled on the lunar surface, we may need in-space welding.” The ability to weld structures in space would also eliminate the need to transport rivets and other materials, reducing payloads for space travel. That means learning how welds will perform in space.
      To turn the effort into reality, researchers are gathering data on welding under simulated space conditions, such as temperature and heat transfer in a vacuum; the size and shape of the molten area under a laser beam; how the weld cross-section looks after it solidifies; and how mechanical properties change for welds performed in environmental conditions mimicking the lunar surface.
      “Once you leave Earth, it becomes more difficult to test how the weld performs, so we are leveraging both experiments and computer modeling to predict welding in space while we’re still on the ground,” said O’Connor.
      In August 2024, a joint team from Ohio State’s Welding Engineering and Multidisciplinary Capstone Programs and Marshall’s Materials & Processes Laboratory performed high-powered fiber laser beam welding aboard a commercial aircraft that simulated reduced gravity. The aircraft performed parabolic flight maneuvers that began in level flight, pulled up to add 8,000 feet in altitude, and pushed over at the top of a parabolic arc, resulting in approximately 20 seconds of reduced gravity to the passengers and experiments.
      While floating in this weightless environment, team members performed laser welding experiments in a simulated environment similar to that of both low Earth orbit and lunar gravity. Analysis of data collected by a network of sensors during the tests will help researchers understand the effects of space environments on the welding process and welded material.
      NASA Marshall engineers and scientists, along with their collaborators from Ohio State University, monitor laser beam welding in a vacuum chamber during a Boeing 727 parabolic flight. From left, Andrew O’Connor, Marshall materials scientist and NASA technical lead for the project; Louise Littles, Marshall materials scientist; and Aaron Brimmer, OSU graduate student.Tasha Dixon/Zero-G “During the flights we successfully completed 69 out of 70 welds in microgravity and lunar gravity conditions, realizing a fully successful flight campaign,” said Will McAuley, an Ohio State welding engineering student.
      Funded in part by Marshall and spanning more than two years, the work involves undergraduate and graduate students and professors from Ohio State, and engineers across several NASA centers. Marshall personnel trained alongside the university team, learning how to operate the flight hardware and sharing valuable lessons from previous parabolic flight experiments. NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, developed a portable vacuum chamber to support testing efforts.
      The last time NASA performed welding in space was during the Skylab mission in 1973. Other parabolic tests have since been performed, using low-powered lasers. Practical welding and joining methods and allied processes, including additive manufacturing, will be required to develop the in-space economy. These processes will repurpose and repair critical space infrastructure and could build structures too large to fit current launch payload volumes. In-space welding could expedite building large habitats in low Earth orbit, spacecraft structures that keep astronauts safe on future missions, and more.
      The work is also relevant to understanding how laser beam welding occurs on Earth. Industries could use data to inform welding processes, which are critical to a host of manufactured goods from cars and refrigerators to skyscrapers.
      “We’re really excited about laser beam welding because it gives us the flexibility to operate in different environments,” O’Connor said.
      There has been a resurgence of interest in welding as we look for innovative ways to put larger structures on the surface of the Moon and other planets.
      Andrew O’Connor
      Marshall Space Flight Center materials scientist
      This effort is sponsored by NASA Marshall’s Research and Development funds, the agency’s Science Mission Directorate Biological and Physical Sciences Division of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, and NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, including NASA Flight Opportunities.
      For more information about NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:
      https://www.nasa.gov/marshall
      Joel Wallace
      Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
      256.544.0034
      joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Nov 07, 2024 Related Terms
      Marshall Space Flight Center Explore More
      5 min read NASA, Bhutan Conclude Five Years of Teamwork on STEM, Sustainability
      Article 3 days ago 23 min read The Marshall Star for October 30, 2024
      Article 1 week ago 4 min read NASA Technologies Named Among TIME Inventions of 2024
      Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
    • By Space Force
      The Space Force senior leaders traveled to Europe for meetings with defense and military space leaders from Norway, Sweden, and NATO to reaffirm and strengthen space security cooperation.

      View the full article
    • By European Space Agency
      ESA’s solar eclipse-making Proba-3 mission is about to leave Europe, to head to its launch site in India. The mission’s two spacecraft – which will manoeuvre precisely in Earth orbit so that one casts a shadow onto the other – have departed the facilities of Redwire Space in Kruibeke, Belgium. The pair will be flown to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, near Chennai, for the launch campaign to begin. 
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      4 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the silhouette of the Martian moon Phobos as it passed in front of the Sun on Sept. 30, 2024. The video shows the transit speeded up by four times, followed by the eclipse in real time. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI The tiny, potato-shaped moon Phobos, one of two Martian moons, cast a silhouette as it passed in front of the Sun, creating an eye in Mars’ sky.
      From its perch on the western wall of Mars’ Jezero Crater, NASA’s Perseverance rover recently spied a “googly eye” peering down from space. The pupil in this celestial gaze is the Martian moon Phobos, and the iris is our Sun.
      Captured by the rover’s Mastcam-Z on Sept. 30, the 1,285th Martian day of Perseverance’s mission, the event took place when the potato-shaped moon passed directly between the Sun and a point on the surface of Mars, obscuring a large part of the Sun’s disc. At the same time that Phobos appeared as a large black disc rapidly moving across the face of the Sun, its shadow, or antumbra, moved across the planet’s surface.
      Astronomer Asaph Hall named the potato-shaped moon in 1877, after the god of fear and panic in Greek mythology; the word “phobia” comes from Phobos. (And the word for fear of potatoes, and perhaps potato-shaped moons, is potnonomicaphobia.) He named Mars’ other moon Deimos, after Phobos’ mythological twin brother.
      Roughly 157 times smaller in diameter than Earth’s Moon, Phobos is only about 17 miles (27 kilometers) at its widest point. Deimos is even smaller.
      Rapid Transit
      Because Phobos’ orbit is almost perfectly in line with the Martian equator and relatively close to the planet’s surface, transits of the moon occur on most days of the Martian year. Due to its quick orbit (about 7.6 hours to do a full loop around Mars), a transit of Phobos usually lasts only 30 seconds or so.
      This is not the first time that a NASA rover has witnessed Phobos blocking the Sun’s rays. Perseverance has captured several Phobos transits since landing at Mars’ Jezero Crater in February 2021. Curiosity captured a video in 2019. And Opportunity captured an image in 2004.
      By comparing the various images, scientists can refine their understanding of the moon’s orbit to learn how it’s changing. Phobos is getting closer to Mars and is predicted to collide with it in about 50 million years.
      More About Perseverance
      Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.
      A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
      Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
      The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
      NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
      Space Science Institute produced this video.
      For more about Perseverance:
      https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020
      News Media Contacts
      Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
      NASA Headquarters, Washington
      202-358-1600
      karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
      DC Agle
      Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
      818-393-9011
      agle@jpl.nasa.gov
      2024-150
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Oct 30, 2024 Related Terms
      Perseverance (Rover) Astrobiology Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars 2020 Explore More
      2 min read NASA Brings Drone and Space Rover to Air Show
      Article 47 mins ago 3 min read La NASA lleva un dron y un rover espacial a un espectáculo aéreo
      Article 48 mins ago 4 min read NASA Technologies Named Among TIME Inventions of 2024
      Article 2 hours ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...