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By NASA
Students are recognized for their hard work in STEM-related extended-day programs at their school through a partnership with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Credit: NASA Media are invited to the kickoff event of a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Department of Education at 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 23, at the Wheatley Education Campus in Washington. The interagency project, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, aims to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education during after-school hours.
During the event, media will have the opportunity to learn about the STEM collaboration, hear remarks from leadership, and have one-on-one interviews with NASA and Education Department officials upon request. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to engage in educational activities, as well as participate in an engineering design challenge.
Officials providing remarks at the event include:
Kris Brown, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, Headquarters in Washington Cindy Marten, deputy secretary, U.S. Department of Education Media interested in covering the event must RSVP no later than Friday, Sept. 20, to Abbey Donaldson: abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov.
Through the project, NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and the Education Department will align resources to provide STEM activities, professional development, and funding for after-school programs nationwide. NASA will offer staff training, continuous program support, and opportunities for students to engage with NASA scientists and engineers. The initiative also will include student activities that demonstrate practical applications of STEM concepts.
In May 2023, NASA and the Education Department signed a Memorandum of Understanding, strengthening the collaboration between the two agencies, and expanding efforts to increase access to high-quality STEM and space education to students and schools across the nation. NASA Glenn signed a follow-on Space Act Agreement in 2024 to support the 21st Century Community Learning Centers.
Learn more about how NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement is inspiring the next generation of explorers at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stem
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Abbey Donaldson
Headquarters, Washington
202-269-1600
abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 18, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
STEM Engagement at NASA Learning Resources Opportunities For Students to Get Involved Partner with NASA STEM View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Hera asteroid mission launch kit
Everything you'd ever want to know about ESA's first planetary defence mission
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By NASA
5 Min Read Reinventing the Clock: NASA’s New Tech for Space Timekeeping
The Optical Atomic Strontium Ion Clock is a higher-precision atomic clock that is small enough to fit on a spacecraft. Credits: NASA/Matthew Kaufman Here on Earth, it might not matter if your wristwatch runs a few seconds slow. But crucial spacecraft functions need accuracy down to one billionth of a second or less. Navigating with GPS, for example, relies on precise timing signals from satellites to pinpoint locations. Three teams at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are at work to push timekeeping for space exploration to new levels of precision.
One team develops highly precise quantum clock synchronization techniques to aid essential spacecraft communication and navigation. Another Goddard team is working to employ the technique of clock synchronization in space-based platforms to enable telescopes to function as one enormous observatory. The third team is developing an atomic clock for spacecraft based on strontium, a metallic chemical element, to enable scientific observations not possible with current technology. The need for increasingly accurate timekeeping is why these teams at NASA Goddard, supported by the center’s Internal Research and Development program, hone clock precision and synchronization with innovative technologies like quantum and optical communications.
Syncing Up Across the Solar System
“Society requires clock synchronization for many crucial functions like power grid management, stock market openings, financial transactions, and much more,” said Alejandro Rodriguez Perez, a NASA Goddard researcher. “NASA uses clock synchronization to determine the position of spacecraft and set navigation parameters.”
If you line up two clocks and sync them together, you might expect that they will tick at the same rate forever. In reality, the more time passes, the more out of sync the clocks become, especially if those clocks are on spacecraft traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Rodriguez Perez seeks to develop a new way of precisely synchronizing such clocks and keeping them synced using quantum technology.
Work on the quantum clock synchronization protocol takes place in this lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.NASA/Matthew Kaufman In quantum physics, two particles are entangled when they behave like a single object and occupy two states at once. For clocks, applying quantum protocols to entangled photons could allow for a precise and secure way to sync clocks across long distances.
The heart of the synchronization protocol is called spontaneous parametric down conversion, which is when one photon breaks apart and two new photons form. Two detectors will each analyze when the new photons appear, and the devices will apply mathematical functions to determine the offset in time between the two photons, thus synchronizing the clocks.
While clock synchronization is currently done using GPS, this protocol could make it possible to precisely synchronize clocks in places where GPS access is limited, like the Moon or deep space.
Syncing Clocks, Linking Telescopes to See More than Ever Before
When it comes to astronomy, the usual rule of thumb is the bigger the telescope, the better its imagery.
“If we could hypothetically have a telescope as big as Earth, we would have incredibly high-resolution images of space, but that’s obviously not practical,” said Guan Yang, an optical physicist at NASA Goddard. “What we can do, however, is have multiple telescopes in various locations and have each telescope record the signal with high time precision. Then we can stich their observations together and produce an ultra-high-res image.”
The idea of linking together the observations of a network of smaller telescopes to affect the power of a larger one is called very long baseline interferometry, or VLBI.
For VLBI to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts, the telescopes need high-precision clocks. The telescopes record data alongside timestamps of when the data was recorded. High-powered computers assemble all the data together into one complete observation with greater detail than any one of the telescopes could achieve on its own. This technique is what allowed the Event Horizon Telescope’s network of observatories to produce the first image of a black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks.EHT Collaboration Yang’s team is developing a clock technology that could be useful for missions looking to take the technique from Earth into space which could unlock many more discoveries.
An Optical Atomic Clock Built for Space Travel
Spacecraft navigation systems currently rely on onboard atomic clocks to obtain the most accurate time possible. Holly Leopardi, a physicist at NASA Goddard, is researching optical atomic clocks, a more precise type of atomic clock.
While optical atomic clocks exist in laboratory settings, Leopardi and her team seek to develop a spacecraft-ready version that will provide more precision.
The team works on OASIC, which stands for Optical Atomic Strontium Ion Clock. While current spacecraft utilize microwave frequencies, OASIC uses optical frequencies.
The Optical Atomic Strontium Ion Clock is a higher-precision atomic clock that is small enough to fit on a spacecraft.NASA/Matthew Kaufman “Optical frequencies oscillate much faster than microwave frequencies, so we can have a much finer resolution of counts and more precise timekeeping,” Leopardi said.
The OASIC technology is about 100 times more precise than the previous state-of-the-art in spacecraft atomic clocks. The enhanced accuracy could enable new types of science that were not previously possible.
“When you use these ultra-high precision clocks, you can start looking at the fundamental physics changes that occur in space,” Leopardi said, “and that can help us better understand the mechanisms of our universe.”
The timekeeping technologies unlocked by these teams, could enable new discoveries in our solar system and beyond.
More on cutting-edge technology development at NASA Goddard By Matthew Kaufman, with additional contributions from Avery Truman
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Sep 18, 2024 EditorRob GarnerContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Goddard Technology Communicating and Navigating with Missions Goddard Space Flight Center Technology View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:03:02 From the arrival of Earth-obversation satellite Sentinel-2C in July 2024 and the first fit-check to launch on the from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, this timelapse shows how the third Sentinel 2 satellite was prepared for launch. The last Vega rocket, flight VV24, lifted off on 5 September at 03:50 CEST (4 September 22:50 local time).
Sentinel-2C will provide high-resolution data that is essential to Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme. Developed, built and operated by ESA, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission provides high-resolution optical imagery for a wide range of applications including land, water and atmospheric monitoring.
The mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites flying in the same orbit but 180° apart: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B. Together, they cover all of Earth’s land and coastal waters every five days. Once Sentinel-2C is operational, it will replace its predecessor, Sentinel-2A, following a brief period of tandem observations. Sentinel-2D will eventually take over from Sentinel-2B.
Sentinel-2C was the last liftoff for the Vega rocket – after 12 years of service this was the final flight, the original Vega is being retired to make way for an upgraded Vega-C.
Access the related broadcast quality video material.
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By NASA
Podcast art for Universo curioso de la NASA, the agency’s first podcast in Spanish, which returns for a second season in September 2024. Credits: NASA / Krystofer Kim Read this news release in English here.
Para celebrar el Mes de la Herencia Hispana, la NASA publica nuevos contenidos para Universo curioso de la NASA, el primer pódcast en español de la agencia, que inicia ahora su segunda temporada. La temporada de cinco semanas comienza el martes, con nuevos episodios disponibles semanalmente.
Escucha el avance de la segunda temporada de Universo curioso de la NASA.
En cada episodio, Universo curioso destaca las contribuciones de la fuerza laboral hispana y latina de la NASA al trabajo de la agencia en el ámbito de la exploración de la Tierra y el espacio en beneficio de todos.
“Mediante el pódcast Universo curioso de la NASA, estamos entusiasmados de contar la historia de los esfuerzos de la NASA para que el espacio esté al alcance de más gente de todo el mundo”, dijo Tonya McNair, administradora asociada adjunta de la Dirección de Misiones de Operaciones Espaciales de la NASA en Washington. “En la segunda temporada, escucharán a trabajadores hispanos y latinos de la NASA, como la directora de vuelo Diana Trujillo y el astronauta Marcos Berríos, que ayudan a dirigir algunas de las misiones de exploración espacial más vitales de la agencia e inspiran al mundo a través del descubrimiento.”
Los episodios se centran en algunas de las principales misiones de la NASA, acercando las maravillas de la exploración, la tecnología espacial y los descubrimientos científicos al público hispanohablante del mundo entero.
“Este pódcast pone en relieve la dedicación de la NASA a hacer que el conocimiento esté a disposición de todos, independientemente de su lengua materna”, dijo Shahra Lambert, asesora principal de la NASA para la participación pública. “Al compartir la emoción de las misiones de la NASA en el segundo idioma más hablado en los EE.UU. y en todo el mundo, estamos amplificando nuestro alcance y posiblemente allanando el camino para una fuerza de trabajo en ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas más diversa en el futuro.”
El primer episodio de Universo curioso se emitió en 2021, como parte de la cobertura en español del lanzamiento del telescopio espacial James Webb. En 2023, el programa fue seleccionado como “Programa que nos encanta” por Apple Podcasts Latinoamérica.
Presentado por Noelia González, especialista en comunicaciones del Centro Goddard de Vuelo Espacial de la NASA en Greenbelt, Maryland, en el pódcast invitamos a los oyentes a emprender un viaje a una de las lunas heladas de Júpiter, a oír acerca de los dos primeros años de descubrimientos del telescopio espacial James Webb, así como a conocer la trayectoria de un astronauta de Puerto Rico y de una directora de vuelo colombiana para llegar a la NASA.
Los episodios cubrirán el próximo lanzamiento de Europa Clipper en octubre de 2024, una misión que tiene como objetivo determinar si existen lugares bajo la superficie de la luna helada de Júpiter, Europa, que puedan albergar vida.
A continuación figura la lista completa de los nuevos episodios, así como sus fechas de publicación:
Martes, 17 de septiembre: Avance de la segunda temporada Martes, 24 de septiembre: Diana Trujillo: De Cali a la Luna y Marte Martes, 1 de octubre: Europa Clipper: Un viaje poético a la luna de Júpiter Martes, 8 de octubre: Marcos Berríos: Cómo convertirse en astronauta de la NASA Martes, 15 de octubre: Explorando el cosmos con Webb Universo curioso de la NASA es una iniciativa conjunta de los programas de comunicación en español y de audio de la agencia. La nueva temporada, así como los episodios anteriores, están disponibles en Apple Podcasts, Spotify y el sitio web de la NASA.
Escucha el pódcast en:
https://www.nasa.gov/universo-curioso-de-la-nasa
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María José Viñas / Cheryl Warner
Sede, Washington
240-458-0248 / 202-358-1600
maria-jose.vinasgarcia@nasa.gov / cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov
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