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By NASA
Learn Home NASA HEAT Student Activity… Heliophysics Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 3 min read
NASA HEAT Student Activity Featured in TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2024
On April 8, 2024, tens of millions experienced a solar eclipse from Mexico through the United States and into Canada. Astronomers, educators, and organizations had been preparing the public for this grand celestial event. Learning from engagement experiences in 2017, the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT) promoted an activity called “Eclipse Essentials: Safe and Stylish Solar Viewing Glasses.” The activity was first tested in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the Balloon Fiesta around the October 2023 annular eclipse. Using solar viewing glasses, a paper plate, some drawing and decoration supplies, visitors – minors and adults alike – crowded around the heliophysics tables in the NASA tent. That positive experience led NASA HEAT to modify and perfect the design of their “face shield” activity before offering trainings to numerous educators and outreach personnel in the weeks leading up to the April 2024 engagement events.
Note: The glasses and the art activity are not only useful for solar eclipses. They can be used anytime to safely observe the Sun. While it is never safe to look directly at the sun with unprotected eyes, eclipse glasses are perfect for observing sunspots!
One proof of positive impact can be found at the Myers Elementary School in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Students from two kindergarten classes, escorted outside by their teachers Amy Johnston and Wendy Sheridan, stared toward the sky with their solar viewing glasses using paper plates to watch the solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024. The paper plates, which helped provide additional safety measures to protect their eyes, were attached to solar eclipse glasses and decorated by each student in their classrooms as a project leading up to the big day. A photo of the students was so captivating that multiple media outlets shared it on or shortly after the day of the eclipse.
The global media brand, TIME, selected a photo of these kindergarten students wearing their NASA HEAT-designed solar eclipse-viewing “face shields” during the April 8th solar eclipse as one of “TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2024”. When sharing about the top 100 photos on Instagram, TIME had this to say:
“Every year the TIME photo department sits down to curate the strongest images that crossed our path over the previous 12 months. And every year, sitting with the images, we find ourselves mulling the ways this collection feels heavier than the last, how the year produced images unlike what we’ve seen before.
But this year something else, a tautness, runs through the collection – the tension of conflict, the anxiety over outcome, anticipation of excitement or in possibility. Somehow, these photographers are able to capture that coiled feeling and hold it within the four walls of a frame. Be it by impeccable timing or intentional framing, they have created a time capsule that feels as if it’s about to be opened.”
NASA HEAT 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
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Kindergarten students at Myers Elementary School in Grand Blanc, Michigan watched the solar eclipse with special solar viewing glasses on Monday, April 8, 2024. The paper plates, which helped provide additional safety for their eyes, were added on and decorated by each student prior to the big day. Jake May/MLive.com/The Flint Journal Share
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Last Updated Jan 13, 2025 Editor NASA Science Editorial Team Related Terms
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft completed its first maximum afterburner test at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. This full-power test, during which the engine generates additional thrust, validates the additional power needed for meeting the testing conditions of the aircraft. The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which aims to overcome a major barrier to supersonic flight over land by reducing the noise of sonic booms.Lockheed Martin Corporation/Garry Tice NASA completed the first maximum afterburner engine run test on its X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft on Dec. 12. The ground test, conducted at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California, marks a significant milestone as the X-59 team progresses toward flight.
An afterburner is a component of some jet engines that generates additional thrust. Running the engine, an F414-GE-100, with afterburner will allow the X-59 to meet its supersonic speed requirements. The test demonstrated the engine’s ability to operate within temperature limits and with adequate airflow for flight. It also showed the engine’s ability to operate in sync with the aircraft’s other subsystems.
The X-59 is the centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, which seeks to solve one of the major barriers to supersonic flight over land by making sonic booms quieter. The X-59’s first flight is expected to occur in 2025.
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Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 EditorDede DiniusContactMatt Kamletmatthew.r.kamlet@nasa.gov Related Terms
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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The six SCALPSS cameras mounted around the base of Blue Ghost will collect imagery during and after descent and touchdown. Using a technique called stereo photogrammetry, researchers at Langley will use the overlapping images to produce a 3D view of the surface. Image courtesy of Firefly. Say cheese again, Moon. We’re coming in for another close-up.
For the second time in less than a year, a NASA technology designed to collect data on the interaction between a Moon lander’s rocket plume and the lunar surface is set to make the long journey to Earth’s nearest celestial neighbor for the benefit of humanity.
Developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) is an array of cameras placed around the base of a lunar lander to collect imagery during and after descent and touchdown. Using a technique called stereo photogrammetry, researchers at Langley will use the overlapping images from the version of SCALPSS on Firefly’s Blue Ghost — SCALPSS 1.1 — to produce a 3D view of the surface. An earlier version, SCALPSS 1.0, was on Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus spacecraft that landed on the Moon last February. Due to mission contingencies that arose during the landing, SCALPSS 1.0 was unable to collect imagery of the plume-surface interaction. The team was, however, able to operate the payload in transit and on the lunar surface following landing, which gives them confidence in the hardware for 1.1.
The SCALPSS 1.1 payload has two additional cameras — six total, compared to the four on SCALPSS 1.0 — and will begin taking images at a higher altitude, prior to the expected onset of plume-surface interaction, to provide a more accurate before-and-after comparison.
These images of the Moon’s surface won’t just be a technological novelty. As trips to the Moon increase and the number of payloads touching down in proximity to one another grows, scientists and engineers need to be able to accurately predict the effects of landings.
How much will the surface change? As a lander comes down, what happens to the lunar soil, or regolith, it ejects? With limited data collected during descent and landing to date, SCALPSS will be the first dedicated instrument to measure the effects of plume-surface interaction on the Moon in real time and help to answer these questions.
“If we’re placing things – landers, habitats, etc. – near each other, we could be sand blasting what’s next to us, so that’s going to drive requirements on protecting those other assets on the surface, which could add mass, and that mass ripples through the architecture,” said Michelle Munk, principal investigator for SCALPSS and acting chief architect for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “It’s all part of an integrated engineering problem.”
Under the Artemis campaign, the agency’s current lunar exploration approach, NASA is collaborating with commercial and international partners to establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. On this CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative delivery carrying over 200 pounds of NASA science experiments and technology demonstrations, SCALPSS 1.1 will begin capturing imagery from before the time the lander’s plume begins interacting with the surface until after the landing is complete.
The final images will be gathered on a small onboard data storage unit before being sent to the lander for downlink back to Earth. The team will likely need at least a couple of months to
process the images, verify the data, and generate the 3D digital elevation maps of the surface. The expected lander-induced erosion they reveal probably won’t be very deep — not this time, anyway.
One of the SCALPSS cameras is visible here mounted to the Blue Ghost lander.Image courtesy of Firefly. “Even if you look at the old Apollo images — and the Apollo crewed landers were larger than these new robotic landers — you have to look really closely to see where the erosion took place,” said Rob Maddock, SCALPSS project manager at Langley. “We’re anticipating something on the order of centimeters deep — maybe an inch. It really depends on the landing site and how deep the regolith is and where the bedrock is.”
But this is a chance for researchers to see how well SCALPSS will work as the U.S. advances human landing systems as part of NASA’s plans to explore more of the lunar surface.
“Those are going to be much larger than even Apollo. Those are large engines, and they could conceivably dig some good-sized holes,” said Maddock. “So that’s what we’re doing. We’re collecting data we can use to validate the models that are predicting what will happen.”
The SCALPSS 1.1 project is funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development Program.
NASA is working with several American companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface under the CLPS initiative. Through this opportunity, various companies from a select group of vendors bid on delivering payloads for NASA including everything from payload integration and operations, to launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon.
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Last Updated Dec 19, 2024 EditorAngelique HerringLocationNASA Langley Research Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Northrop Grumman & NASA Digital Engineering SAA Kick-off meeting at Thompson Space Innovation Center. NASA’s Digital Engineering is paving the way for exciting new possibilities. Their latest Space Act Agreement with Northrop Grumman promises to accelerate progress in space exploration through innovative collaboration.
Under NASA’s HQ Office of the Chief Engineer, Terry Hill the Digital Engineering Program Manager, recently signed a Space Act Agreement with Northrop Grumman Space Sector to explore digital engineering approaches to sharing information between industry partners and NASA. This collaboration aims to support NASA’s mission by advancing engineering practices to reduce the time from concept to flight. By leveraging digital engineering tools, this collaboration could lead to improved design, testing, and simulation processes, It could also help improve how the government and industry write contracts, making it easier and more efficient for them to share information. This would help both sides work together better, handle more complicated missions, and speed up the development of new space technologies.
This collaboration between NASA and Northrop Grumman brings exciting possibilities for the future of space exploration. By embracing digital engineering, both organizations are working toward more efficient, cost-effective missions and solutions to greater challenges. Beyond accelerating mission timelines, the insights and technologies developed through this collaboration could pave the way for groundbreaking advancements in space capabilities.
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