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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov approaches the International Space Station as it orbited 261 miles above Ontario, Canada, near James Bay. NASA published a new report Thursday highlighting 17 agency mechanisms that have directly and indirectly supported the development and growth of the U.S. commercial space sector for the benefit of humanity.
The report, titled Enabling America on the Space Frontier: The Evolution of NASA’s Commercial Space Development Toolkit, is available on the agency’s website.
“This is the most extensive and comprehensive historical analysis produced by NASA on how it has contributed to commercial space development over the decades,” said Alex MacDonald, NASA chief economist. “These efforts have given NASA regular access to space with companies, such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab, modernizing our communications infrastructure, and even led to the first private lunar lander thanks to Intuitive Machines. With commercial space growth accelerating, this report can help agency leaders and stakeholders assess the numerous mechanisms that the agency uses to support this growth, both now and in the future.”
Throughout its history, NASA has supported the development of the commercial space sector, not only leading the way in areas such as satellite communications, launch, and remote sensing, but also developing new contract and operational models to encourage commercial participation and growth. In the last three decades, NASA has seen the results of these efforts with commercial partners able to contribute more to missions across NASA domains, and increasingly innovative agency-led efforts to engage, nurture, and integrate these capabilities. These capabilities support the agency’s mission needs, and have seen a dramatic rise in importance, according to the report.
NASA has nurtured technology, companies, people, and ideas in the commercial space sector, contributing to the U.S. and global economies, across four distinct periods in the agency’s history:
1915–1960: NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), and NASA’s pre-Apollo years. 1961–1980: Apollo era. 1981–2010: Space shuttle era. 2011–present: Post-shuttle commercial era. Each of these time periods are defined by dominant technologies, programs, or economic trends further detailed in the report.
Though some of these mechanisms are relatively recent, others have been used throughout the history of NASA and NACA, leading to some overlap. The 17 mechanisms are as follows:
Contracts and Partnership Agreements Research and Technology Development (R&TD) Dissemination of Research and Scientific Data Education and Workforce Development Workforce External Engagement and Mobility Technology Transfer Technical Support Enabling Infrastructure Launch Direct In-Space Support Standards and Regulatory Framework Support Public Engagement Industry Engagement Venture Capital Engagement Market Stimulation Funding Economic Analysis and Due Diligence Capabilities Narrative Encouragement NASA supports commercial space development in everything from spaceflight to supply chains. Small satellite capabilities have inspired a new generation of space start-ups, while new, smaller rockets, as well as new programs are just starting. Examples include CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services), commercial low Earth orbit destinations, human landing systems, commercial development of NASA spacesuits, and lunar terrain vehicles. The report also details many indirect ways the agency has contributed to the vibrance of commercial space, from economic analyses to student engagement.
The agency’s use of commercial capabilities has progressed from being the exception to the default method for many of its missions. The current post-shuttle era of NASA-supported commercial space development has seen a level of technical development comparable to the Apollo era’s Space Race. Deploying the 17 commercial space development mechanisms in the future are part of NASA’s mission to continue encouraging commercial space activities.
To learn more about NASA’s missions, please visit:
https//:www.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Dec 19, 2024 EditorBill Keeter Related Terms
Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy (OTPS) View the full article
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By NASA
6 Min Read NASA Discovers a Long-Sought Global Electric Field on Earth
The geographic North Pole seen from the Endurance rocket ship at 477 miles (768 kilometers) altitude above the Arctic. The faint red and green streaks at the top of the image are artifacts of lens flare. Credits: NASA Key Points
A rocket team reports the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field: a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields. First hypothesized more than 60 years ago, the ambipolar electric field is a key driver of the “polar wind,” a steady outflow of charged particles into space that occurs above Earth’s poles. This electric field lifts charged particles in our upper atmosphere to greater heights than they would otherwise reach and may have shaped our planet’s evolution in ways yet to be explored.
Using observations from a NASA suborbital rocket, an international team of scientists has, for the first time, successfully measured a planet-wide electric field thought to be as fundamental to Earth as its gravity and magnetic fields. Known as the ambipolar electric field, scientists first hypothesized over 60 years ago that it drove how our planet’s atmosphere can escape above Earth’s North and South Poles. Measurements from the rocket, NASA’s Endurance mission, have confirmed the existence of the ambipolar field and quantified its strength, revealing its role in driving atmospheric escape and shaping our ionosphere — a layer of the upper atmosphere — more broadly.
Understanding the complex movements and evolution of our planet’s atmosphere provides clues not only to the history of Earth but also gives us insight into the mysteries of other planets and determining which ones might be hospitable to life. The paper was published Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in the journal Nature.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Lacey Young
Download this video and related animations from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. An Electric Field Drawing Particles Out to Space
Since the late 1960s, spacecraft flying over Earth’s poles have detected a stream of particles flowing from our atmosphere into space. Theorists predicted this outflow, which they dubbed the “polar wind,” spurring research to understand its causes.
Some amount of outflow from our atmosphere was expected. Intense, unfiltered sunlight should cause some particles from our air to escape into space, like steam evaporating from a pot of water. But the observed polar wind was more mysterious. Many particles within it were cold, with no signs they had been heated — yet they were traveling at supersonic speeds.
“Something had to be drawing these particles out of the atmosphere,” said Glyn Collinson, principal investigator of Endurance at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the paper. Scientists suspected a yet-to-be-discovered electric field could be at work.
The hypothesized electric field, generated at the subatomic scale, was expected to be incredibly weak, with its effects felt only over hundreds of miles. For decades, detecting it was beyond the limits of existing technology. In 2016, Collinson and his team got to work inventing a new instrument they thought was up to the task of measuring Earth’s ambipolar field.
Launching a Rocket from the Arctic
The team’s instruments and ideas were best suited for a suborbital rocket flight launched from the Arctic. In a nod to the ship that carried Ernest Shackleton on his famous 1914 voyage to Antarctica, the team named their mission Endurance. The scientists set a course for Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago just a few hundred miles from the North Pole and home to the northernmost rocket range in the world.
“Svalbard is the only rocket range in the world where you can fly through the polar wind and make the measurements we needed,” said Suzie Imber, a space physicist at the University of Leicester, UK, and co-author of the paper.
On May 11, 2022, Endurance launched and reached an altitude of 477.23 miles (768.03 kilometers), splashing down 19 minutes later in the Greenland Sea. Across the 322-mile altitude range where it collected data, Endurance measured a change in electric potential of only 0.55 volts.
“A half a volt is almost nothing — it’s only about as strong as a watch battery,” Collinson said. “But that’s just the right amount to explain the polar wind.”
The Endurance rocket ship launches from Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. Credit: Andøya Space/Leif Jonny Eilertsen Hydrogen ions, the most abundant type of particle in the polar wind, experience an outward force from this field 10.6 times stronger than gravity. “That’s more than enough to counter gravity — in fact, it’s enough to launch them upwards into space at supersonic speeds,” said Alex Glocer, Endurance project scientist at NASA Goddard and co-author of the paper.
Heavier particles also get a boost. Oxygen ions at that same altitude, immersed in this half-a-volt field, weigh half as much. In general, the team found that the ambipolar field increases what’s known as the “scale height” of the ionosphere by 271%, meaning the ionosphere remains denser to greater heights than it would be without it.
“It’s like this conveyor belt, lifting the atmosphere up into space,” Collinson added.
Endurance’s discovery has opened many new paths for exploration. The ambipolar field, as a fundamental energy field of our planet alongside gravity and magnetism, may have continuously shaped the evolution of our atmosphere in ways we can now begin to explore. Because it’s created by the internal dynamics of an atmosphere, similar electric fields are expected to exist on other planets, including Venus and Mars.
“Any planet with an atmosphere should have an ambipolar field,” Collinson said. “Now that we’ve finally measured it, we can begin learning how it’s shaped our planet as well as others over time.”
By Miles Hatfield and Rachel Lense
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Endurance was a NASA-funded mission conducted through the Sounding Rocket Program at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The Svalbard Rocket Range is owned and operated by Andøya Space. The European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association (EISCAT) Svalbard radar, located in Longyearbyen, made ground-based measurements of the ionosphere critical to interpreting the rocket data. The United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Research Council of Norway (RCN) funded the EISCAT radar for the Endurance mission. EISCAT is owned and operated by research institutes and research councils of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom (the EISCAT Associates). The Endurance mission team encompasses affiliates of the Catholic University of America, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Leicester, U.K., the University of New Hampshire, and Penn State University.
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Last Updated Aug 28, 2024 Related Terms
Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Heliophysics Division Ionosphere Science & Research Sounding Rockets Sounding Rockets Program View the full article
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By NASA
NASA Dr. Irene Duhart Long was the first female and the first minority to hold the position of chief medical officer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as the first African American female to serve in the Senior Executive Service at the center. These distinctions were only two of many firsts in her 31-year-long career at NASA.
While she broke barriers in her own life, she also advocated for others to have more opportunities. She helped create the Spaceflight and Life Sciences Training Program at Kennedy, in partnership with Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a program that encouraged more women and minority college students to explore careers in science. She also motivated and mentored her coworkers, taking a strong interest in their trajectory at NASA.
“One of the admirable qualities of Irene Long was her inclusion mentality regarding women in the workplace,” Kennedy Employee Assistance Counselor Patricia Bell said. “She was a front runner in advocating for women.” Long helped coordinate an educational women’s forum, focused on health, mental well-being and other topics of interest for women. Long died Aug. 4, 2020, at age 69.
For Womens Equality Day, read more about Dr. Long’s legacy at NASA.
Image Credit: NASA
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By NASA
The crew of the Human Exploration Research Analog’s Campaign 7 Mission 1 clasp hands above their simulated space habitat’s elevator shaft.Credit: NASA NASA is funding 11 new studies to better understand how to best support the health and performance of crew members during long-duration spaceflight missions. The awardees will complete the studies on Earth without the need for samples and data from astronauts.
Together, the studies will help measure physiological and psychological responses to physical and mental challenges that astronauts may encounter during spaceflight. The projects will address numerous spaceflight risks related to team performance, communication, living environment, decision-making, blood flow, and brain health. With this information, NASA will better mitigate risks and protect astronaut health and performance during future long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The 11 finalists were selected from 123 proposals in response to the 2024 Human Exploration Research Opportunities available through the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System. Selected proposals originate from 10 institutions, and the cumulative award totals about $14.6 million. The durations of the projects range from one to five years.
The following investigators and teams were selected:
Katya Arquilla, University Of Colorado, Boulder, “Investigating Countermeasures for Communication Delays through the Laboratory-based Exploration Mission Analog” Tripp Driskell, Florida Maxima Corporation, “CADMUS (Crew Adaptive Decision Making Under Stress) and Crew Decision Support System: Development, Validation, and Proof-of-Concept” Christopher Jones, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, “Predicting Operationally Meaningful Performance with Multivariate Biomarkers Using Advanced Algorithms” Jessica Marquez, NASA Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley, California, “Enhancing Performance and Communication for Distributed Teams During Lunar Spacewalks” Shu-Chieh Wu, San Jose State University Research Foundation, California, “Lessening the Impact of Interface Inconsistency Through Goal-Directed Crew Operations” Erika Rashka, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, “Local Psychiatric Digital Phenotyping for Isolated, Constrained, and Extreme (ICE) Environments via Multimodal Sensing” Ana Diaz Artiles, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station, “Dose-response Curves of Cardiovascular and Ocular Variables During Graded Lower Body Negative Pressure in Microgravity Conditions Using Parabolic Flight” Theodora Chaspari, University Of Colorado, Boulder, “A Speech-Based Artificial Intelligence System for Predicting Team Functioning Degradation in HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog) Missions” Ute Fischer, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta, “Supporting Collaboration and Connectedness between Space and Ground at Lunar Latencies” Xiaohong Lu, Louisiana State University, Shreveport, “Space Exposome Converges on Genotoxic Stress to Accelerate Brain Aging and Countermeasures to Mitigate Acute and Late Central Nervous System Risks” Catherine Davis, Henry M. Jackson Foundation For The Advancement of Military Medicine, North Bethesda, Maryland, “NeuroSTAR (Neurobehavioral Changes Following Stressors and Radiation): Predicting Mission Impacts from Analogous Human and Rodent Endpoints” Proposals were independently reviewed by subject matter experts in academia, industry, and government using a dual anonymous peer-review process to assess scientific merit. NASA assessed the top scoring proposals for relevance to the agency’s human research roadmap before final selections were made.
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NASA’s Human Research Program pursues the best methods and technologies to support safe, productive human space travel. Through science conducted in laboratories, ground-based analogs, and the International Space Station, the program scrutinizes how spaceflight affects human bodies and behaviors. Such research continues to drive NASA’s mission to innovate ways that keep astronauts healthy as space exploration expands to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
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