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By NASA
24 Min Read The Marshall Star for October 16, 2024
Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter
NASA’s Europa Clipper has embarked on its long voyage to Jupiter, where it will investigate Europa, a moon with an enormous subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life. The spacecraft launched at 11:06 a.m. CDT on Oct. 14 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center at 11:06 a.m. CDT on Oct. 14. After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett The largest spacecraft NASA ever built for a mission headed to another planet, Europa Clipper also is the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles on a trajectory that will leverage the power of gravity assists, first to Mars in four months and then back to Earth for another gravity assist flyby in 2026. After it begins orbiting Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times.
“Congratulations to our Europa Clipper team for beginning the first journey to an ocean world beyond Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA leads the world in exploration and discovery, and the Europa Clipper mission is no different. By exploring the unknown, Europa Clipper will help us better understand whether there is the potential for life not just within our solar system, but among the billions of moons and planets beyond our Sun.”
Approximately five minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s second stage fired up and the payload fairing, or the rocket’s nose cone, opened to reveal Europa Clipper. About an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket. Ground controllers received a signal soon after, and two-way communication was established at 12:13 p.m. with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. Mission teams celebrated as initial telemetry reports showed Europa Clipper is in good health and operating as expected.
“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter – including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager – created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”
The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different. Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.
If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined.
“We’re ecstatic to send Europa Clipper on its way to explore a potentially habitable ocean world, thanks to our colleagues and partners who’ve worked so hard to get us to this day,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “Europa Clipper will undoubtedly deliver mind-blowing science. While always bittersweet to send something we’ve labored over for years off on its long journey, we know this remarkable team and spacecraft will expand our knowledge of our solar system and inspire future exploration.”
In 2031, the spacecraft will begin conducting its science-dedicated flybys of Europa. Coming as close as 16 miles to the surface, Europa Clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. As the most sophisticated suite of science instruments NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, they will work in concert to learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and deep interior.
To power those instruments in the faint sunlight that reaches Jupiter, Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. With arrays extended, the spacecraft spans 100 feet from end to end. With propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds.
In all, more than 4,000 people have contributed to Europa Clipper mission since it was formally approved in 2015.
“As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”
Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology. The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, and Langley Research Center. The Planetary Missions Program Office at Marshall executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, managed the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
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Staying the Course: 30 Years of NASA’s Student Rover Challenge
Get ready, get set, and let’s go take a look back at NASA’s 2024 Human Exploration Rover Challenge! Watch as talented student teams from around the world gather in Huntsville for the 30th annual competition to push the boundaries of innovation and engineering. These student teams piloted their human-powered rovers over simulated lunar and Martian terrain for a chance at winning an award during this Artemis student challenge. From jaw-dropping triumphs to unexpected setbacks, this year’s competition was a thrilling ride from start to finish. Buckle up and enjoy the ride as you witness the future of space exploration unfold!
The challenge is managed by NASA’s Southeast Regional Office of STEM Engagement at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Learn more about the challenge.
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Black Hole Destroys Star, Goes After Another, NASA Missions Find
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have identified a supermassive black hole that has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole, as described in our latest press release. This research helps connect two cosmic mysteries and provides information about the environment around some of the bigger types of black holes.
This artist’s illustration shows a disk of material (red, orange, and yellow) that was created after a supermassive black hole (depicted on the right) tore apart a star through intense tidal forces.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Queen’s Univ. Belfast/M. Nicholl et al.; Optical/IR: PanSTARRS, NSF/Legacy Survey/SDSS; Illustration: Soheb Mandhai / The Astro Phoenix; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk This artist’s illustration shows a disk of material (red, orange, and yellow) that was created after a supermassive black hole (depicted on the right) tore apart a star through intense tidal forces. Over the course of a few years, this disk expanded outward until it intersected with another object – either a star or a small black hole – that is also in orbit around the giant black hole. Each time this object crashes into the disk, it sends out a burst of X-rays detected by Chandra. The inset shows Chandra data (purple) and an optical image of the source from Pan-STARRS (red, green, and blue).
In 2019, an optical telescope in California noticed a burst of light that astronomers later categorized as a “tidal disruption event”, or TDE. These are cases where black holes tear stars apart if they get too close through their powerful tidal forces. Astronomers gave this TDE the name of AT2019qiz.
Meanwhile, scientists were also tracking instances of another type of cosmic phenomena occasionally observed across the Universe. These were brief and regular bursts of X-rays that were near supermassive black holes. Astronomers named these events “quasi-periodic eruptions,” or QPEs.
This latest study gives scientists evidence that TDEs and QPEs are likely connected. The researchers think that QPEs arise when an object smashes into the disk left behind after the TDE. While there may be other explanations, the authors of the study propose this is the source of at least some QPEs.
In 2023, astronomers used both Chandra and Hubble to simultaneously study the debris left behind after the tidal disruption had ended. The Chandra data were obtained during three different observations, each separated by about 4 to 5 hours. The total exposure of about 14 hours of Chandra time revealed only a weak signal in the first and last chunk, but a very strong signal in the middle observation.
From there, the researchers used NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) to look frequently at AT2019qiz for repeated X-ray bursts. The NICER data showed that AT2019qiz erupts roughly every 48 hours. Observations from NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and India’s AstroSat telescope cemented the finding.
The ultraviolet data from Hubble, obtained at the same time as the Chandra observations, allowed the scientists to determine the size of the disk around the supermassive black hole. They found that the disk had become large enough that if any object was orbiting the black hole and took about a week or less to complete an orbit, it would collide with the disk and cause eruptions.
This result has implications for searching for more quasi-periodic eruptions associated with tidal disruptions. Finding more of these would allow astronomers to measure the prevalence and distances of objects in close orbits around supermassive black holes. Some of these may be excellent targets for the planned future gravitational wave observatories.
The paper describing these results appears in the Oct. 9 issue of the journal Nature. The first author of the paper is Matt Nicholl of Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
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Revealing the Hidden Universe with Full-shell X-ray Optics at Marshall
The study of X-ray emission from astronomical objects reveals secrets about the universe at the largest and smallest spatial scales. Celestial X-rays are produced by black holes consuming nearby stars, emitted by the million-degree gas that traces the structure between galaxies, and can be used to predict whether stars may be able to host planets hospitable to life. X-ray observations have shown that most of the visible matter in the universe exists as hot gas between galaxies and have conclusively demonstrated that the presence of “dark matter” is needed to explain galaxy cluster dynamics, that dark matter dominates the mass of galaxy clusters, and that it governs the expansion of the cosmos.
A composite X-ray/Optical/Infrared image of the Crab Pulsar. The X-ray image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue and white), reveals exquisite details in the central ring structures and gas flowing out of the polar jets. Optical light from the Hubble Space Telescope (purple) shows foreground and background stars as pinpoints of light. Infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope (pink) traces cooler gas in the nebula. Finally, magnetic field direction derived from X-ray polarization observed by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer is shown as orange lines.Magnetic field lines: NASA/Bucciantini et al; X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA-JPL-Caltech X-ray observations also enable us to probe mysteries of the universe on the smallest scales. X-ray observations of compact objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes allow us to use the universe as a physics laboratory to study conditions that are orders of magnitude more extreme in terms of density, pressure, temperature, and magnetic field strength than anything that can be produced on Earth. In this astrophysical laboratory, researchers expect to reveal new physics at the subatomic scale by conducting investigations such as probing the neutron star equation of state and testing quantum electrodynamics with observations of neutron star atmospheres.
At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a team of scientists and engineers is building, testing, and flying innovative optics that bring the universe’s X-ray mysteries into sharper focus.
Unlike optical telescopes that create images by reflecting or refracting light at near-90-degree angles (normal incidence), focusing X-ray optics must be designed to reflect light at very small angles (grazing incidence). At normal incidence, X-rays are either absorbed by the surface of a mirror or penetrate it entirely. However, at grazing angles of incidence, X-rays reflect very efficiently due to an effect called total external reflection. In grazing incidence, X-rays reflect off the surface of a mirror like rocks skipping on the surface of a pond.
A classic design for astronomical grazing incidence optics is the Wolter-I prescription, which consists of two reflecting surfaces, a parabola and hyperbola (see figure below). This optical prescription is revolved around the optical axis to produce a full-shell mirror (i.e., the mirror spans the full circumference) that resembles a gently tapered cone. To increase the light collecting area, multiple mirror shells with incrementally larger diameters and a common focus are fabricated and nested concentrically to comprise a mirror module assembly (MMA).
Focusing optics are critical to studying the X-ray universe because, in contrast to other optical systems like collimators or coded masks, they produce high signal-to-noise images with low background noise. Two key metrics that characterize the performance of X-ray optics are angular resolution, which is the ability of an optical system to discriminate between closely spaced objects, and effective area, which is the light collecting area of the telescope, typically quoted in units of cm2. Angular resolution is typically measured as the half-power diameter (HPD) of a focused spot in units of arcseconds. The HPD encircles half of the incident photons in a focused spot and measures the sharpness of the final image; a smaller number is better.
Schematic of a full-shell Wolter-I X-ray optic mirror module assembly with five concentrically nested mirror shells. Parallel rays of light enter from the left, reflect twice off the reflective inside surface of the shell (first off the parabolic segment and then off the hyperbolic segment), and converge at the focal plane.NASA Marshall has been building and flying lightweight, full-shell, focusing X-ray optics for over three decades, always meeting or exceeding angular resolution and effective area requirements. Marshall utilizes an electroformed nickel replication technique to make these thin full-shell X-ray optics from nickel alloy.
X-ray optics development at Marshall began in the early 1990s with the fabrication of optics to support NASA’s Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF-S) and then continued via the Constellation-X technology development programs. In 2001, Marshall launched a balloon payload that included two modules each with three mirrors, which produced the first focused hard X-ray images of an astrophysical source by imaging Cygnus X-1, GRS 1915, and the Crab Nebula. This initial effort resulted in several follow-up missions over the next 12 years and became known as the High Energy Replicated Optics (HERO) balloon program.
In 2012, the first of four sounding rocket flights of the Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI) flew with Marshall optics onboard, producing the first focused images of the Sun at energies greater than 5 keV. In 2019 the Astronomical Roentgen Telescope X-ray Concentrator (ART-XC) instrument on the Spectr-Roentgen-Gamma Mission launched with seven Marshall-fabricated X-ray MMAs, each containing 28 mirror shells. ART-XC is currently mapping the sky in the 4-30 keV hard X-ray energy range, studying exotic objects like neutron stars in our own galaxy as well as active galactic nuclei, which are spread across the visible universe. In 2021, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), flew and is now performing extraordinary science with a Marshall-led team using three, 24-shell MMAs that were fabricated and calibrated in-house.
Most recently, in 2024, the fourth FOXSI sounding rocket campaign launched with a high-resolution Marshall MMA. The optics achieved 9.5 arcsecond HPD angular resolution during pre-flight test with an expected 7 arcsecond HPD in gravity-free flight, making this the highest angular resolution flight observation made with a nickel-replicated X-ray optic. Currently Marshall is fabricating an MMA for the Rocket Experiment Demonstration of a Soft X-ray (REDSoX) polarimeter, a sounding rocket mission that will fly a novel soft X-ray polarimeter instrument to observe active galactic nuclei. The REDSoX MMA optic will be 444 mm in diameter, which will make it the largest MMA ever produced by MSFC and the second largest replicated nickel X-ray optic in the world.
The ultimate performance of an X-ray optic is determined by errors in the shape, position, and roughness of the optical surface. To push the performance of X-ray optics toward even higher angular resolution and achieve more ambitious science goals, Marshall is currently engaged in a fundamental research and development effort to improve all aspects of full-shell optics fabrication.
Scientists Wayne Baumgartner, left, crouched, and Nick Thomas, left, standing, calibrate an IXPE MMA in the Marshall 100 m Beamline. Scientist Stephen Bongiorno, right, applies epoxy to an IXPE shell during MMA assembly.NASA Given that these optics are made with the electroformed nickel replication technique, the fabrication process begins with creation of a replication master, called the mandrel, which is a negative of the desired optical surface. First, the mandrel is figured and polished to specification, then a thin layer of nickel alloy is electroformed onto the mandrel surface. Next, the nickel alloy layer is removed to produce a replicated optical shell, and finally the thin shell is attached to a stiff holding structure for use.
Each step in this process imparts some degree of error into the final replicated shell. Research and development efforts at Marshall are currently concentrating on reducing distortion induced during the electroforming metal deposition and release steps. Electroforming-induced distortion is caused by material stress built into the electroformed material as it deposits onto the mandrel. Decreasing release-induced distortion is a matter of reducing adhesion strength between the shell and mandrel, increasing strength of the shell material to prevent yielding, and reducing point defects in the release layer.
Additionally, verifying the performance of these advanced optics requires world-class test facilities. The basic premise of testing an optic designed for X-ray astrophysics is to place a small, bright X-ray source far away from the optic. If the angular size of the source, as viewed from the optic, is smaller than the angular resolution of the optic, the source is effectively simulating X-ray starlight. Due to the absorption of X-rays by air, the entire test facility light path must be placed inside a vacuum chamber.
At the center, a group of scientists and engineers operate the Marshall 100-meter X-ray beamline, a world-class end-to-end test facility for flight and laboratory X-ray optics, instruments, and telescopes. As per the name, it consists of a 100-meter-long vacuum tube with an 8-meter-long, 3-meter-diameter instrument chamber and a variety of X-ray sources ranging from 0.25 – 114 keV. Across the street sits the X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF), a 527-meter-long beamline with an 18-meter-long, 6-meter-diameter instrument chamber. These facilities are available for the scientific community to use and highlight the comprehensive optics development and test capability that Marshall is known for.
Within the X-ray astrophysics community there exist a variety of angular resolution and effective area needs for focusing optics. Given its storied history in X-ray optics, Marshall is uniquely poised to fulfill requirements for large or small, medium- or high-angular-resolution X-ray optics. To help guide technology development, the astrophysics community convenes once per decade to produce a decadal survey. The need for high-angular-resolution and high-throughput X-ray optics is strongly endorsed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s.In pursuit of this goal, Marshall is continuing to advance the state of the art in full-shell optics. This work will enable the extraordinary mysteries of the X-ray universe to be revealed.
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Hubble, New Horizons Team Up for a Simultaneous Look at Uranus
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons spacecraft simultaneously set their sights on Uranus recently, allowing scientists to make a direct comparison of the planet from two very different viewpoints. The results inform future plans to study like types of planets around other stars.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (left) and NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft (right) image the planet Uranus.NASA, ESA, STScI, Samantha Hasler (MIT), Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI) Astronomers used Uranus as a proxy for similar planets beyond our solar system, known as exoplanets, comparing high-resolution images from Hubble to the more-distant view from New Horizons. This combined perspective will help scientists learn more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars with future telescopes.
“While we expected Uranus to appear differently in each filter of the observations, we found that Uranus was actually dimmer than predicted in the New Horizons data taken from a different viewpoint,” said lead author Samantha Hasler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and New Horizons science team collaborator.
Direct imaging of exoplanets is a key technique for learning about their potential habitability, and offers new clues to the origin and formation of our own solar system. Astronomers use both direct imaging and spectroscopy to collect light from the observed planet and compare its brightness at different wavelengths. However, imaging exoplanets is a notoriously difficult process because they’re so far away. Their images are mere pinpoints and so are not as detailed as the close-up views that we have of worlds orbiting our Sun. Researchers can also only directly image exoplanets at “partial phases,” when only a portion of the planet is illuminated by their star as seen from Earth.
Uranus was an ideal target as a test for understanding future distant observations of exoplanets by other telescopes for a few reasons. First, many known exoplanets are also gas giants similar in nature. Also, at the time of the observations, New Horizons was on the far side of Uranus, 6.5 billion miles away, allowing its twilight crescent to be studied – something that cannot be done from Earth. At that distance, the New Horizons view of the planet was just several pixels in its color camera, called the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera.
On the other hand, Hubble, with its high resolution, and in its low-Earth orbit 1.7 billion miles away from Uranus, was able to see atmospheric features such as clouds and storms on the day side of the gaseous world.
“Uranus appears as just a small dot on the New Horizons observations, similar to the dots seen of directly imaged exoplanets from observatories like Webb or ground-based observatories,” Hasler said. “Hubble provides context for what the atmosphere is doing when it was observed with New Horizons.”
The gas giant planets in our solar system have dynamic and variable atmospheres with changing cloud cover. How common is this among exoplanets? By knowing the details of what the clouds on Uranus looked like from Hubble, researchers can verify what is interpreted from the New Horizons data. In the case of Uranus, both Hubble and New Horizons saw that the brightness did not vary as the planet rotated, which indicates that the cloud features were not changing with the planet’s rotation.
In this image, two three-dimensional shapes, top, of Uranus are compared to the actual views of the planet from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, bottom left, and NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft, bottom right. Comparing high-resolution images from Hubble to the smaller view from New Horizons offers a combined perspective that will help researchers learn more about what to expect while imaging planets around other stars with future observatories. NASA, ESA, STScI, Samantha Hasler (MIT), Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI) However, the importance of the detection by New Horizons has to do with how the planet reflects light at a different phase than what Hubble, or other observatories on or near Earth, can see. New Horizons showed that exoplanets may be dimmer than predicted at partial and high phase angles, and that the atmosphere reflects light differently at partial phase.
NASA has two major upcoming observatories in the works to advance studies of exoplanet atmospheres and potential habitability.
“These landmark New Horizons studies of Uranus from a vantage point unobservable by any other means add to the mission’s treasure trove of new scientific knowledge, and have, like many other datasets obtained in the mission, yielded surprising new insights into the worlds of our solar system,” added New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute.
NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch by 2027, will use a coronagraph to block out a star’s light to directly see gas giant exoplanets. NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, in an early planning phase, will be the first telescope designed specifically to search for atmospheric biosignatures on Earth-sized, rocky planets orbiting other stars.
“Studying how known benchmarks like Uranus appear in distant imaging can help us have more robust expectations when preparing for these future missions,” concluded Hasler. “And that will be critical to our success.”
Launched in January 2006, New Horizons made the historic flyby of Pluto and its moons in July 2015, before giving humankind its first close-up look at one of these planetary building block and Kuiper Belt object, Arrokoth, in January 2019. New Horizons is now in its second extended mission, studying distant Kuiper Belt objects, characterizing the outer heliosphere of the Sun, and making important astrophysical observations from its unmatched vantage point in distant regions of the solar system.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Southwest Research Institute, based in San Antonio and Boulder, Colorado, directs the mission via Principal Investigator Alan Stern and leads the science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
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Crew-8 Awaits Splashdown; Expedition 72 Stays Focused on Science
Four International Space Station crew members continue waiting for their departure date as mission managers monitor weather conditions off the coast of Florida. The rest of the Expedition 72 crew stayed focused Oct. 14 on space biology and lab maintenance aboard the orbital outpost.
The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft is pictured through the window of the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft with a vivid green and pink aurora below.NASA NASA and SpaceX mission managers are watching unfavorable weather conditions off the Florida coast right now for the splashdown of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission with NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. The homebound quartet spent Oct. 14 mostly relaxing while also continuing departure preps. Mission teams are currently targeting Dragon Endeavour’s undocking for no earlier than 2:05 a.m. CDT on Oct. 18. The Crew-8 foursome is in the seventh month of their space research mission that began on March 3.
The other seven orbital residents will stay aboard the orbital outpost until early 2025. NASA astronaut Don Pettit is scheduled to return to Earth first in February with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner aboard the Soyuz MS-26 crew ship. Next, station Commander Suni Williams and flight engineer Butch Wilmore are targeted to return home aboard SpaceX Dragon Freedom with SpaceX Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague, all three NASA astronauts, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
Williams had a light duty day Oct. 14 disassembling life support gear before working out for a cardio fitness study. Wilmore installed a new oxygen recharge tank and began transferring oxygen into tanks located in the Quest airlock. Hague collected his blood and saliva samples for incubation and cold stowage to learn how microgravity affects cellular immunity. Pettit also had a light duty day servicing biology hardware including the Cell Biology Experiment Facility, a research incubator with an artificial gravity generator, and the BioLab, which supports observations of microbes, cells, tissue cultures and more.
The Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, the CCP, and Artemis missions, as well as science and technology demonstration missions. The Payload Operations Integration Center within HOSC operates, plans, and coordinates the science experiments onboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
The first flight of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser to the space station is now scheduled for no earlier than May 2025 to allow for completion of spacecraft testing. Dream Chaser, which will launch atop a ULA (United Launch Alliance) Vulcan rocket and later glide to a runway landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, will carry cargo to the orbiting laboratory and stay on board for approximately 45 days on its first mission.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog.
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By NASA
30 Min Read The Marshall Star for October 9, 2024
Marshall Lends Insight, Expertise to Auburn Aerospace Industry Day Event
By Rick Smith
Nearly 500 students and faculty of Auburn University gathered on campus Sept. 30-Oct. 2 to hear lectures from leading NASA propulsion and engineering experts and to talk careers goals and opportunities with representatives of the U.S. space program and various aerospace industry firms.
The Aerospace Industry Day event, exclusively focused on careers supporting rocketry and space exploration, was the first of its kind at Auburn. University spokespersons said they hope to make it an annual expo – and team members from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center helped ensure the kickoff was a success.
Heather Haney, center, test and verification subsystem manager in the Space Launch System Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, discusses aerospace career options with Auburn University faculty and students during Aerospace Industry Day events. Photo courtesy of Auburn University/John Sluis “The event marked a significant milestone for our organization and the university as a whole,” said Austin Miranda, an Auburn aerospace engineering undergraduate and president of Auburn’s chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. “We deeply appreciate NASA’s participation, which significantly enriched the experience for our attendees.”
Marshall managers and engineers in the Space Launch System and Human Landing System programs, the Engineering Directorate, and the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office presented guest lectures, staffed exhibit booths, and met informally with students. The event also included a pair of intensive focus sessions on propulsion engineering, face-to-face networking opportunities between students and NASA and industry leaders, and a career fair with Marshall, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and more than a dozen leading aerospace industry companies.
“As an Auburn alum, it’s always great to be able to return to the plains and engage in activities on campus,” said Josh Whitehead, associate manager of the SLS Stages Element at Marshall. “I was impressed not only with the outstanding faculty who engaged from multiple engineering departments, but also with the engineering students who asked informed, insightful questions about NASA, our missions, and the new technologies we are developing to enable exploration of space.”
Mike Houts, nuclear research manager for NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion Office at Marshall, also was struck by students’ enthusiasm.
“The students’ depth of interest and understanding was impressive,” he said. “Many of them stayed to talk long after events were officially over, and several have already followed up by email. I foresee lots of ‘win-win’ potential moving forward.”
Alex Ifkovits, left, a Marshall liquid engine systems engineer, talks with an Auburn University student during Aerospace Industry Day events, which ran Sept. 30-Oct. 2. The event was the first of its kind at Auburn and is expected to become a perennial mainstay for the engineering curriculum. Photo courtesy of Auburn University/John Sluis Among the aerospace industry participants were representatives from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., Jacobs Technology, Lockheed Martin, Relativity Space, Reliable Microsystems, RTX subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and UTC Aerospace Systems, and Technology Service Corp.
“Everyone was impressed with the level of knowledge and interest from Auburn students, many of whom waited in long lines to ask questions and talk about career opportunities,” said Heather Haney, SLS Program test and verification subsystem manager. “NASA has a great history of collaborating with Auburn to support our nation’s space program, and that was reflected by the excitement on so many faces during the event.”
Auburn has contributed to a number of key Marshall endeavors in recent years, including support for Marshall’s RAMPT (Rapid Analysis and Manufacturing Propulsion Technology) project, refining a variety of additive manufacturing processes, and for a new laser-ablation technology study to develop multi-material 3D printers for use in microgravity. The latter is set to begin testing in spring 2025. Additive manufacturing research at Auburn was pivotal to development of NASA’s 2024 Invention of the Year, an innovative rocket engine thrust chamber liner and fabrication method. Auburn students also are perennial contenders in annual NASA STEM events, including the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge and the Student Launch rocketry competition.
The Aerospace Industry Day event was hosted by Auburn’s Office of Career Development and the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering.
Smith, an Aeyon employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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NASA, SpaceX Secure Europa Clipper Ahead of Hurricane
NASA and SpaceX are standing down from the Oct. 10 launch attempt of the agency’s Europa Clipper mission due to anticipated hurricane conditions in the area.
Hurricane Milton is expected to move east to the Space Coast after making landfall on Florida’s west coast. High winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast. Launch teams have secured NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in SpaceX’s hangar at Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center ahead of the severe weather, and the center began hurricane preparations Oct. 6.
Technicians encapsulated NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside payload fairings Oct. 2 in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center.NASA/Ben Smegelsky “The safety of launch team personnel is our highest priority, and all precautions will be taken to protect the Europa Clipper spacecraft,” said Tim Dunn, senior launch director at NASA’s Launch Services Program.
On Oct. 4, workers transported NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft from the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy to the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in the hangar as part of final launch preparations ahead of its journey to Jupiter’s icy moon. While Europa Clipper’s launch period opens Oct. 10, the window provides launch opportunities until Nov. 6.
Once the storm passes, recovery teams will assess the safety of the spaceport before personnel return to work. Then launch teams will assess the launch processing facilities for damage from the storm.
“Once we have the ‘all-clear’ followed by facility assessment and any recovery actions, we will determine the next launch opportunity for this NASA flagship mission,” Dunn said.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
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Crew Departure Preps Continue Aboard Space Station
The seven NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station relaxed and took a break Oct. 8 before the SpaceX Crew-8 mission leaves. Mission managers are monitoring weather conditions off the coast of Florida with Hurricane Milton.
Expedition 72 flight engineers Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps of NASA and Alexander Grebenkin from Roscosmos are now targeting departure from the orbital outpost aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft for no earlier than 2:05 a.m. CDT on Oct. 13, pending weather. The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) crew is scheduled to call down to Mission Control Center for farewell remarks Oct. 10 at 8:15 a.m. Watch live coverage of both events on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Category 5 Hurricane Milton, packing winds of 175 miles per hour, is viewed in the Gulf of Mexico from the space station as it orbited overhead.NASA Space biology and physics were the focus of research operations for the Expedition 72 crew Oct. 7. NASA flight engineer Nick Hague worked in the Columbus laboratory module swapping filters inside the BioLab’s incubator. BioLab supports the observation of microbes, cells, tissue cultures and more to understand the effects of weightlessness and radiation on organisms. NASA flight engineer Don Pettit set up a laptop computer on the Cell Biology Experiment Facility, a research incubator with an artificial gravity generator, located in the Kibo laboratory module.
Station Commander Suni Williams explored space physics mixing gel samples and observing with a fluorescence microscope how particles of different sizes gel and coarsen. Results are expected to benefit the medicine, food, and cosmetic industries. NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, who has been aboard the station with Williams since June 6, trained to operate advanced life support gear installed in the Microgravity Science Glovebox for a different space physics experiment then relaxed the rest of the day.
The Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, the CCP, and Artemis missions, as well as science and technology demonstration missions. The Payload Operations Integration Center within HOSC operates, plans, and coordinates the science experiments onboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
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Dave Reynolds Named Manager of Space Launch System Booster Office
Dave Reynolds has been named to the Senior Executive Service position of manager of the Space Launch System (SLS) Booster Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, effective immediately. In his role, Reynolds is responsible for the design, development, and flight of the solid rocket boosters for the SLS rocket, NASA’s deep-space flagship rocket, designed for a new era of science and exploration.
Dave Reynolds has been named to the Senior Executive Service position of manager of the Space Launch System (SLS) Booster Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.NASA/Danielle Burleson Reynolds began his NASA career in Marshall’s propulsion systems department in 2004 as a rocket engines component designer. Since 2020, Reynolds has served as the deputy program manager for the SLS Boosters Office. In this role, he was responsible for the execution of two major contracts with a combined value of $7.6 billion. He also served as an alternate to the manager for overseeing the performance, budget, schedule, and discretionary spending for developing, fabricating, and flying the SLS Boosters. Reynolds supervised a team of 31 civil servants and contractors and acted as the representative for the booster element in key SLS program reviews decision boards, milestones, and budget risk assessments.
Reynolds’ previous roles include leading the development program for the SLS Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension effort starting in 2016, officially being selected as the development program manager in 2019. In this role he was responsible for creating the strategic plan and initiating the early development phases for the SLS Block II Booster. He also served as a SLS Booster subsystem manager from 2013-2019 where he was responsible for the management of the SLS motor cases, igniters, and small motors.
From 2012-2013, Reynolds participated in a temporary rotational assignment with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center where he acted as the NASA liaison as a propulsion subject matter expert and supported military intelligence assessments of foreign weapon systems. From 2002-2004, Reynolds was a design engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake, California, where he served as a propulsion designer specializing in the design, fabrication, and testing of U.S. Navy weapons propulsion systems.
Reynolds holds a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering from Brigham Young University and a Master of Business Administration and Management from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He holds two patents for additive manufacturing technologies and has received numerous NASA awards including the Outstanding Leadership Medal, the Exceptional Achievement Medal, and the Silver Snoopy.
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NASA Announces Teams to Compete in International Rover Challenge
By Wayne Smith
NASA has selected 75 student teams to begin an engineering design challenge to build rovers that will compete next spring at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center near the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The competition is one of the agency’s Artemis Student Challenges, encouraging students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
A team competes in the 2024 Human Exploration Rover Challenge as supporters cheer them on.NASA Recognized as NASA’s leading international student challenge, the 31st annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) aims to put competitors in the mindset of NASA’s Artemis campaign as they pitch an engineering design for a lunar terrain vehicle which simulates astronauts piloting a vehicle, exploring the lunar surface while overcoming various obstacles.
Participating teams represent 35 colleges and universities, 38 high schools, and two middle schools from 20 states, Puerto Rico, and 16 other nations from around the world. The 31st annual Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) is scheduled to begin on April 11, 2025. The challenge is managed by NASA’s Southeast Regional Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall.
Following a 2024 competition that garnered international attention, NASA expanded the challenge to include a remote-control division, Remote-Operated Vehicular Research, and invited middle school students to participate. The 2025 HERC Handbook includes guidelines for the new remote-control division and updates for the human-powered division.
NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges reflects the goals of the Artemis campaign, which seeks to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon while establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration.
More than 1,000 students with 72 teams from around the world participated in the 2024 challenge as HERC celebrated its 30th anniversary as a NASA competition. Since its inception in 1994, more than 15,000 students have participated in HERC – with many former students now working at NASA, or within the aerospace industry.
Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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Agency Selects Teams for 2025 Student Launch Challenge
By Wayne Smith
NASA has selected 71 teams from across the U.S. to participate in its 25th annual Student Launch Challenge, one of the agency’s Artemis Student Challenges. The competition is aimed at inspiring Artemis Generation students to explore science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for the benefit of humanity.
As part of the challenge, teams will design, build, and fly a high-powered amateur rocket and scientific payload. They also must meet documentation milestones and undergo detailed reviews throughout the school year.
Students celebrate after a successful performance in the 2024 Student Launch competition at Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama.NASA The nine-month-long challenge will culminate with on-site events starting on April 30, 2025. Final launches are scheduled for May 3, at Bragg Farms in Toney, Alabama, just minutes north of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Teams are not required to travel for their final launch, having the option to launch from a qualified site. Details are outlined in the Student Launch Handbook.
Each year, NASA updates the university payload challenge to reflect current scientific and exploration missions. For the 2025 season, the payload challenge will again take inspiration from the Artemis missions, which seek to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, and pave the way for future human exploration of Mars.
As Student Launch celebrates its 25th anniversary, the payload challenge will include reports from STEMnauts, non-living objects representing astronauts. The STEMnaut crew must relay real-time data to the student team’s mission control via radio frequency, simulating the communication that will be required when the Artemis crew achieves its lunar landing.
University and college teams are required to meet the 2025 payload requirements set by NASA, but middle and high school teams have the option to tackle the same challenge or design their own payload experiment.
Student teams will undergo detailed reviews by NASA personnel to ensure the safety and feasibility of their rocket and payload designs. The team closest to their target will win the Altitude Award, one of multiple awards presented to teams at the end of the competition. Other awards include overall winner, vehicle design, experiment design, and social media presence.
In addition to the engineering and science objectives of the challenge, students must also participate in outreach efforts such as engaging with local schools and maintaining active social media accounts. Student Launch is an all-encompassing challenge and aims to prepare the next generation for the professional world of space exploration.
The Student Launch Challenge is managed by Marshall’s Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM). Additional funding and support are provided by NASA’s OSTEM via the Next Gen STEM project, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, Northrup Grumman, National Space Club Huntsville, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Association of Rocketry, Relativity Space, and Bastion Technologies.
Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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NASA’s Laser Comms Demo Makes Deep Space Record, Completes First Phase
NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration broke yet another record for laser communications this summer by sending a laser signal from Earth to NASA’s Psyche spacecraft about 290 million miles away. That’s the same distance between our planet and Mars when the two planets are farthest apart.
Soon after reaching that milestone on July 29, the technology demonstration concluded the first phase of its operations since launching aboard Psyche on Oct. 13, 2023.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is depicted receiving a laser signal from the Deep Space Optical Communications uplink ground station at JPL’s Table Mountain Facility in this artist’s concept. The DSOC experiment consists of an uplink and downlink station, plus a flight laser transceiver flying with Psyche.NASA/JPL-Caltech “The milestone is significant. Laser communication requires a very high level of precision, and before we launched with Psyche, we didn’t know how much performance degradation we would see at our farthest distances,” said Meera Srinivasan, the project’s operations lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Now the techniques we use to track and point have been verified, confirming that optical communications can be a robust and transformative way to explore the solar system.”
Managed by JPL, the Deep Space Optical Communications experiment consists of a flight laser transceiver and two ground stations. Caltech’s historic 200-inch aperture Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, acts as the downlink station to which the laser transceiver sends its data from deep space. The Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at JPL’s Table Mountain facility near Wrightwood, California, acts as the uplink station, capable of transmitting 7 kilowatts of laser power to send data to the transceiver.
By transporting data at rates up to 100 times higher than radio frequencies, lasers can enable the transmission of complex scientific information as well as high-definition imagery and video, which are needed to support humanity’s next giant leap when astronauts travel to Mars and beyond.
As for the spacecraft, Psyche remains healthy and stable, using ion propulsion to accelerate toward a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The technology demonstration’s data is sent to and from Psyche as bits encoded in near-infrared light, which has a higher frequency than radio waves. That higher frequency enables more data to be packed into a transmission, allowing far higher rates of data transfer.
Even when Psyche was about 33 million miles away – comparable to Mars’ closest approach to Earth – the technology demonstration could transmit data at the system’s maximum rate of 267 megabits per second. That bit rate is similar to broadband internet download speeds. As the spacecraft travels farther away, the rate at which it can send and receive data is reduced, as expected.
This 45-second ultra-high-definition video was streamed via laser from deep space by NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration June 24, when the Psyche spacecraft was 240 million miles from Earth. On June 24, when Psyche was about 240 million miles from Earth – more than 2½ times the distance between our planet and the Sun – the project achieved a sustained downlink data rate of 6.25 megabits per second, with a maximum rate of 8.3 megabits per second. While this rate is significantly lower than the experiment’s maximum, it is far higher than what a radio frequency communications system using comparable power can achieve over that distance.
The goal of Deep Space Optical Communications is to demonstrate technology that can reliably transmit data at higher speeds than other space communication technologies like radio frequency systems. In seeking to achieve this goal, the project had an opportunity to test unique data sets like art and high-definition video along with engineering data from the Psyche spacecraft. For example, one downlink included digital versions of Arizona State University’s “Psyche Inspired” artwork, images of the team’s pets, and a 45-second ultra-high-definition video that spoofs television test patterns from the previous century and depicts scenes from Earth and space.
The technology demonstration beamed the first ultra-high-definition video from space, featuring a cat named Taters, from the Psyche spacecraft to Earth on Dec. 11, 2023, from 19 million miles away. (Artwork, images, and videos were uploaded to Psyche and stored in its memory before launch.)
“A key goal for the system was to prove that the data-rate reduction was proportional to the inverse square of distance,” said Abi Biswas, the technology demonstration’s project technologist at JPL. “We met that goal and transferred huge quantities of test data to and from the Psyche spacecraft via laser.” Almost 11 terabits of data have been downlinked during the first phase of the demo.
The flight transceiver is powered down and will be powered back up on Nov. 4. That activity will prove that the flight hardware can operate for at least a year.
“We’ll power on the flight laser transceiver and do a short checkout of its functionality,” said Ken Andrews, project flight operations lead at JPL. “Once that’s achieved, we can look forward to operating the transceiver at its full design capabilities during our post-conjunction phase that starts later in the year.”
This demonstration is the latest in a series of optical communication experiments funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Technology Demonstration Missions Program managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the agency’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program within the Space Operations Mission Directorate. Development of the flight laser transceiver is supported by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, L3 Harris, CACI, First Mode, and Controlled Dynamics Inc. Fibertek, Coherent, Caltech Optical Observatories, and Dotfast support the ground systems. Some of the technology was developed through NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program.
Psyche is the 14th mission selected as part of NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by Marshall.
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Ancient Oort Cloud Comet to Make First Documented Pass by Earth in Mid-October
By Rick Smith
An ancient celestial traveler will make its first close pass by Earth in mid-October. Mark those calendars – because it won’t be back for another 80,000 years.
The Oort Cloud comet, called C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, was discovered in 2023, approaching the inner solar system on its highly elliptical orbit for the first time in documented human history. It was identified by observers at China’s Tsuchinshan – or “Purple Mountain” – Observatory and an ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in South Africa. The comet was officially named in honor of both observatories.
Comets with long, elliptical orbits around the Sun may reach perihelion – their closest point to our star – too rarely to observe more than once in a lifetime. This comet, Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2), reached perihelion in early February 2015, and isn’t expected to do so again until 2633. Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, which is expected to come within approximately 44 million miles of Earth on Oct. 12, will not enter the inner solar system again for some 80,000 years.NASA/Damian Peach The comet successfully made its closest transit past the Sun on Sept. 27. Scientists surmised it might well break up during that pass, its volatile and icy composition unable to withstand the intense heat of our parent star, but it survived more or less intact – and is now on track to come within approximately 44 million miles of Earth on Oct. 12.
“Comets are more fragile than people may realize, thanks to the effects of passing close to the Sun on their internal water ice and volatiles such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide,” said NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, who leads the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “Comet Kohoutek, which reached the inner solar system in 1973, broke up while passing too close to the Sun. Comet Ison similarly failed to survive the Sun’s intense heat and gravity during perihelion in 2013.”
Though Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be ideally positioned to view from the Southern Hemisphere, spotters above the equator should have a good chance as well. Peak visibility will occur Oct. 9-10, once the half-moon begins to move away from the comet.
Choose a dark vantage point just after full nightfall, Cooke recommended. Looking to the southwest, roughly 10 degrees above the horizon, identify the constellations of Sagittarius and Scorpio. Tsuchinshan-ATLAS should be visible between them. By Oct. 14, the comet may remain visible at the midway point between the bright star Arcturus and the planet Venus.
“And savor the view,” Cooke advised – because by early November, the comet will be gone again for the next 800 centuries.
It’s highly unlikely Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be visible in daylight hours, except perhaps at twilight, Cooke said. In the past 300 years of astronomical observation, only nine previous comets have been bright enough to spot during the day. The last were Comet West in 1976 and, under ideal conditions, Comet Hale-Bopp in 1997.
The brightness of comets is measured on the same scale we use for stars, one that has been in use since roughly 150 B.C., when it was devised by the ancient scholar Hipparchus and refined by the astronomer Ptolemy. Stellar magnitude is measured on a logarithmic scale, which makes a magnitude 1 star exactly 100 times brighter than a magnitude 6 star. The lower the number the brighter the object, making it more likely to be clearly seen, whether by telescope or the naked eye.
Comets traveling through the inner solar system aren’t uncommon, but many never survive a close pass by the Sun. Icy comet ISON, photographed here on Nov. 19, 2013, reached solar perihelion later that month – but couldn’t endure the punishing heat and gravity so close to Earth’s parent star and disintegrated. NASA/Aaron Kingery “Typically, a comet would have to reach a magnitude of –6 to –10 to be seen in daylight,” Cooke said. “That’s extremely rare.”
At peak visibility in the northern hemisphere, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS’s brightness is estimated at between 2 and 4. In comparison, the brightest visible star in the night sky, Sirius, has a magnitude of –1.46. At its brightest, solar reflection from Venus is a magnitude of –4. The International Space Station sometimes achieves a relative brightness of –6.
Comets are often hard to predict because they’re extended objects, Cooke noted, with their brightness spread out and often dimmer than their magnitude suggests. At the same time, they may benefit from a phenomenon called “forward scattering,” which causes sunlight to bounce more intensely off all the gas and debris in the comet’s tail and its coma – the glowing nebula that develops around it during close stellar orbit – and causing a more intense brightening effect for observers.
“If there is a lot of forward scattering, the comet could be as bright as magnitude –1,” Cooke said. That could make it “visible to the unaided eye or truly spectacular with binoculars or a small telescope.”
What will become of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS? Cooke noted that it is not expected to draw too near the planetary giants of our system, but eventually could be flung out of the solar system – like a stone from a sling – due to the gravitational influence of other worlds and its own tenuous bond with the Sun.
But the hardy traveler likely still has miles to go yet. “I learned a long time ago not to gamble on comets,” Cooke said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
Smith, an Aeyon employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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Via NASA Plane, Scientists Find New Gamma-ray Emission in Storm Clouds
There’s more to thunderclouds than rain and lightning. Along with visible light emissions, thunderclouds can produce intense bursts of gamma rays, the most energetic form of light, that last for millionths of a second. The clouds can also glow steadily with gamma rays for seconds to minutes at a time.
NASA’s high-flying ER-2 airplane carries instrumentation in this artist’s impression of the ALOFT mission to record gamma rays (colored purple for illustration) from thunderclouds. Oscar van der Velde Researchers using NASA airborne platforms have now found a new kind of gamma-ray emission that’s shorter in duration than the steady glows and longer than the microsecond bursts. They’re calling it a flickering gamma-ray flash. The discovery fills in a missing link in scientists’ understanding of thundercloud radiation and provides new insights into the mechanisms that produce lightning. The insights, in turn, could lead to more accurate lightning risk estimates for people, aircraft, and spacecraft.
Researchers from the University of Bergen in Norway led the study in collaboration with scientists from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and Goddard Space Flight Center, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and multiple universities in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia, and Europe. The findings were described in a pair of papers in Nature, published Oct. 2.
The international research team made their discovery while flying a battery of detectors aboard a NASA ER-2 research aircraft. In July 2023, the ER-2 set out on a series of 10 flights from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The plane flew figure-eight flight patterns a few miles above tropical thunderclouds in the Caribbean and Central America, providing unprecedented views of cloud activity.
The scientific payload was developed for the Airborne Lightning Observatory for Fly’s Eye Geostationary Lightning Mapper Simulator and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (ALOFT) campaign. Instrumentation in the payload included weather radars along with multiple sensors for measuring gamma rays, lightning flashes, and microwave emissions from clouds.
The researchers had hoped ALOFT instruments would observe fast radiation bursts known as terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs). The flashes, first discovered in 1992 by NASA’s Compton Gamma Ray Observatory spacecraft, accompany some lightning strikes and last only millionths of a second. Despite their high intensity and their association with visible lightning, few TGFs have been spotted during previous aircraft-based studies.
“I went to a meeting just before the ALOFT campaign,” said principal investigator Nikolai Østgaard, a space physicist with the University of Bergen. “And they asked me: ‘How many TGFs are you going to see?’ I said: ‘Either we’ll see zero, or we’ll see a lot.’ And then we happened to see 130.”
However, the flickering gamma-ray flashes were a complete surprise.
NASA’s high-flying ER-2 airplane carries instrumentation in this artist’s impression of the ALOFT mission to record gamma rays (colored purple for illustration) from thunderclouds. NASA/ALOFT team “They’re almost impossible to detect from space,” said co-principal investigator Martino Marisaldi, who is also a University of Bergen space physicist. “But when you are flying at 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) high, you’re so close that you will see them.” The research team found more than 25 of these new flashes, each lasting between 50 to 200 milliseconds.
The abundance of fast bursts and the discovery of intermediate-duration flashes could be among the most important thundercloud discoveries in a decade or more, said University of New Hampshire physicist Joseph Dwyer, who was not involved in the research. “They’re telling us something about how thunderstorms work, which is really important because thunderstorms produce lightning that hurts and kills a lot of people.”
More broadly, Dwyer said he is excited about the prospects of advancing the field of meteorology. “I think everyone assumes that we figured out lightning a long time ago, but it’s an overlooked area … we don’t understand what’s going on inside those clouds right over our heads.” The discovery of flickering gamma-ray flashes may provide crucial clues scientists need to understand thundercloud dynamics, he said.
Turning to aircraft-based instrumentation rather than satellites ensured a lot of bang for research bucks, said the study’s project scientist, Timothy Lang of Marshall.
“If we had gotten one flash, we would have been ecstatic – and we got well over 100,” he said. This research could lead to a significant advance in our understanding of thunderstorms and radiation from thunderstorms. “It shows that if you have the right problem and you’re willing to take a little bit of risk, you can have a huge payoff.”
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NASA SPoRT’s Sea Surface Temperature Data Driving Forecast Accuracy, Timely Weather Support
By Paola Pinto
NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center’s sea surface temperature (SST) product is a pivotal resource for enhancing weather analysis, forecasting, and marine safety at the National Weather Service (NWS) and within the coastal/marine user community.
NASA SPoRT’s viewer displaying the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) product for the continental U.S. NASA Its real-world applications range from improving weather forecasts to enhancing marine safety. What sets this SST product apart from others is its integration of data from multiple satellites, generating a high-resolution 7-day composite at a 2 km resolution. By combining observations from five satellites – three VIIRS and two AVHRR on polar-orbiting satellites like SNPP and MetOp – it achieves around 80% coverage of SST data that are less than two days old, ensuring timely and accurate insights for remote ocean areas, coastal regions, and large lakes. This advanced system supports critical functions such as tropical storm monitoring, visibility forecasts, and ice formation predictions.
David Marsalek, a meteorologist with NOAA’s NWS in Cleveland, Ohio, highlights the value of SST data for the safety of the Great Lakes, particularly for shipping and recreational activities. Marsalek, who has been focused on marine conditions, notes the dual role of SST data in both summer and winter.
“For us at WFO Cleveland, SST data is vital year-round,” Marsalek said. During winter, Marsalek emphasizes the role of SST data in forecasting ice formation. He indicates that in Lake Erie, during colder months, the SST product from NASA SPoRT is crucial for predicting ice formation for Great Lakes interests.
“Our office relies heavily on this data to issue ice outlooks for the pre-ice season in fall and early winter and advisories for situations such as rapid ice growth,” he said. “Without it, we would struggle to provide accurate long-term forecasts, especially as buoys are often removed before ice forms.”
The SPoRT SST product helps his team bridge this gap, enabling them to make informed predictions about ice development.
Brian LaMarre, a meteorologist with NWS in Tampa Bay, Florida, said SPoRT SST data, introduced through a pilot project from 2012 to 2015, has become essential for Tampa Bay’s 24/7 forecasting and warnings. The high-resolution SST data is crucial for maritime navigation, particularly in improving marine channel forecasts and helping forecasters anticipate visibility restrictions due to fog in the Port of Tampa Bay. By integrating the SPoRT SST product with air and dewpoint temperature forecasts, forecasters can diagnose when fog will form due to warm, moist air flowing over cooler SSTs in the channel, especially during the Florida fog season from late fall into early spring. This accurate forecasting is essential for Tampa Bay’s largest port, which handles $18 billion in trade annually. Unanticipated port closures due to fog can have a significant economic impact, halting shipping operations and causing costly delays.
“This data supports decision making for the Coast Guard and harbor pilots,” LaMarre said.
From August, NOAA/NWS/NHC’s predicted track and intensity forecasts and cone of uncertainty for Tropical Storm Ernesto overlaid on top of the latest NASA SPoRT SST Composite in the nowCOAST. NASA/NWS/nowCOAST Additionally, SPoRT SST data aids in assessing water temperature impacts during major weather events like hurricanes, further ensuring the safety and economic viability of the region. LaMarre also highlighted how SST data provides timely temperature forecasts to local organizations focused on marine life rescue. This helps them quickly deploy rescue missions for wildlife, such as sea turtles and manatees, affected by cold water stunning events.
John Kelley and his nowCOAST Team at NOAA’s National Ocean Service Coastal Marine Modeling Branch within the Coast Survey Development Lab have made NASA SPoRT SST composites available via nowCOAST’s web mapping services and GIS-based map viewer for the past nine years. On average, nowCoast receives around 400,000 monthly hits and even higher web traffic during severe weather events; some users include state agencies, the Coast Guard, and marine industry professionals.
“The SPoRT SST composite is integrated with a variety of data and information from NOAA, such as tropical cyclone track and intensity forecasts, lightning strike density maps, and marine weather warnings, to support critical operations like marine navigation, coastal resiliency, and disaster preparedness and response,” Kelley said. Accurate SST data plays a key role in helping vessels navigate safely through shifting ocean temperatures and currents, which can affect fuel efficiency, weather conditions, and route planning. It also supports coastal communities by providing timely data to anticipate severe weather events, such as hurricanes, which can impact ecosystems and infrastructure.
Kelley said SPoRT SST is also used to evaluate the accuracy of short-range predictions from the National Ocean Service operational numerical oceanographic forecast models for both coastal oceans and the Great Lakes. Recently, the composites have been crucial in evaluating lake surface temperature predictions for large, non-Great Lakes inland lakes, where in-situ water temperature observations are often unavailable.
“The SPoRT SST composites provide critical verification data for large lakes where in-situ water temperature observations are not available,” Kelley said.
The SPoRT center was established in 2002 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to transition NASA satellite products and capabilities to the operational weather community to improve short-term weather forecasting.
Pinto is a research associate at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, specializing in communications and user engagement for NASA SPoRT.
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Queen’s Univ. Belfast/M. Nicholl et al.; Optical/IR: PanSTARRS, NSF/Legacy Survey/SDSS; Illustration: Soheb Mandhai / The Astro Phoenix; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have identified a supermassive black hole that has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole, as described in our latest press release. This research helps connect two cosmic mysteries and provides information about the environment around some of the bigger types of black holes.
This artist’s illustration shows a disk of material (red, orange, and yellow) that was created after a supermassive black hole (depicted on the right) tore apart a star through intense tidal forces. Over the course of a few years, this disk expanded outward until it intersected with another object — either a star or a small black hole — that is also in orbit around the giant black hole. Each time this object crashes into the disk, it sends out a burst of X-rays detected by Chandra. The inset shows Chandra data (purple) and an optical image of the source from Pan-STARRS (red, green, and blue).
In 2019, an optical telescope in California noticed a burst of light that astronomers later categorized as a “tidal disruption event”, or TDE. These are cases where black holes tear stars apart if they get too close through their powerful tidal forces. Astronomers gave this TDE the name of AT2019qiz.
Meanwhile, scientists were also tracking instances of another type of cosmic phenomena occasionally observed across the Universe. These were brief and regular bursts of X-rays that were near supermassive black holes. Astronomers named these events “quasi-periodic eruptions,” or QPEs.
This latest study gives scientists evidence that TDEs and QPEs are likely connected. The researchers think that QPEs arise when an object smashes into the disk left behind after the TDE. While there may be other explanations, the authors of the study propose this is the source of at least some QPEs.
In 2023, astronomers used both Chandra and Hubble to simultaneously study the debris left behind after the tidal disruption had ended. The Chandra data were obtained during three different observations, each separated by about 4 to 5 hours. The total exposure of about 14 hours of Chandra time revealed only a weak signal in the first and last chunk, but a very strong signal in the middle observation.
From there, the researchers used NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) to look frequently at AT2019qiz for repeated X-ray bursts. The NICER data showed that AT2019qiz erupts roughly every 48 hours. Observations from NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and India’s AstroSat telescope cemented the finding.
The ultraviolet data from Hubble, obtained at the same time as the Chandra observations, allowed the scientists to determine the size of the disk around the supermassive black hole. They found that the disk had become large enough that if any object was orbiting the black hole and took about a week or less to complete an orbit, it would collide with the disk and cause eruptions.
This result has implications for searching for more quasi-periodic eruptions associated with tidal disruptions. Finding more of these would allow astronomers to measure the prevalence and distances of objects in close orbits around supermassive black holes. Some of these may be excellent targets for the planned future gravitational wave observatories.
The paper describing these results appears in the October 9, 2024 issue of the journal Nature. The first author of the paper is Matt Nicholl (Queen’s University Belfast in Ireland) and the full list of authors can be found in the paper, which is available online at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02181
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description
This release features an artist’s rendering that illustrates the destructive power of a supermassive black hole. The digital image depicts a disk of stellar material surrounding one such black hole. At its outer edge a neighboring star is colliding with and flying through the disk.
The black hole sits halfway down our right edge of the vertical image. It resembles a jet black semicircle with a domed cap of pale blue light. The bottom half of the circular black hole is hidden behind the disk of stellar material. In this illustration, the disk is viewed edge on. It resembles a band of swirling yellow, orange, and red gas, cutting diagonally from our middle right toward our lower left.
Near our lower left, the outer edge of the stellar debris disk overlaps with a bright blue sphere surrounded by luminous white swirls. This sphere represents a neighboring star crashing through the disk. The stellar disk is the wreckage of a destroyed star. An electric blue and white wave shows the hottest gas in the disk.
As the neighboring star crashes through the disk it leaves behind a trail of gas depicted as streaks of fine mist. Bursts of X-rays are released and are detected by Chandra.
Superimposed in the upper left corner of the illustration is an inset box showing a close up image of the source in X-ray and optical light. X-ray light is shown as purple and optical light is white and beige.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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By NASA
20 Min Read The Marshall Star for October 2, 2024
The Fabric of Marshall: Center Hosts Safety Day 2024
By Serena Whitfield
“Safety Woven Throughout the Fabric of Marshall” was the theme for Safety Day at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on Sept. 26.
Kickoff activities were held in Building 4316 and other sites around the center.
“It is crucial to ensure that each of us weaves safety into everything we do, not only at work, but in our daily lives,” Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey said.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Director Joseph Pelfrey, left, with NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei, who was the keynote speaker for Marshall’s Safety Day on Sept. 26. NASA/Krisdon Manecke NASA started the Safety Day tradition following the space shuttle Columbia accident in 2003. Centers across the agency dedicate a day each year for team members to pause and reflect on keeping the work environment safe.
This year’s Safety Day began with a breakfast for employees, which was sponsored by Jacobs and Bastion Technologies. After breakfast, Bill Hill, director of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at Marshall, welcomed center team members before introducing Pelfrey.
“Over the past year, Marshall’s leadership and workforce have highlighted that transparency is an essential cultural attribute of our workforce and center,” Pelfrey said. “It is also important to our core value of safety. Transparency fosters an environment where employees feel comfortable in reporting potential risks or safety concerns without fear of retribution. This openness ensures that issues are addressed early. It builds trust and accountability within our workforce, center, NASA, and external stakeholders.”
NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei talks about his time in space aboard the International Space Station. NASA/Krisdon Manecke Guest speaker Marceleus Venable, a purpose coach, trainer, and author, followed Pelfrey’s remarks, telling team members to be safe by taking care of their physical and mental health. He encouraged them to take the time to pat themselves on the back for all their hard work and to appreciate their fellow workers at Marshall.
NASA astronaut Mark T. Vande Hei was the keynote speaker, encouraging employees to be team players in NASA’s safety mission.
“We need a lot of talented team players to meet the challenges that we have for future space flights,” said Vande Hei, who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009 and most recently served as a flight engineer on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 65 and 66. “Always try to do your best, but make sure that other people around you are doing their best as well and help them do that rather than you standing out as always being the best.”
Peter Wreschinsky, second from left, a Jacobs Space Exploration Group employee, is presented with the Golden Eagle Award during Safety Day. He is joined by his wife, Terri. They are joined by Bill Hill, left, director of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at Marshall, and Jeff Haars, right, Jacobs vice president. The Golden Eagle Award is a part of the Mission Success is in Our Hands initiative, a collaboration between Marshall and Jacobs. Wreschinsky was recognized with the award for voicing concern about a valve impacted by corrosion on the Commercial Crew Program Crew-8 Dragon Capsule. The valve and several others were subsequently replaced. NASA/Serena Whitfield Micah Embry, the Safety Day 2024 chairperson, presented Vande Hei with a certificate for his participation.
Also during the event, Hill awarded the Golden Eagle Award to Peter Wreschinsky, a Jacobs Space Exploration Group employee. The award is part of the Mission Success is in Our Hands safety initiative, a collaboration between Marshall and Jacobs.
More than 400 civil servants and contractors participated in Safety Day, with organizational and vender booths providing information to employees across a variety of safety topics, including Emergency Management Services, fire protection, storm shelters, and more.
“As Marshall continues to be a leader at NASA and across the aerospace industry, … we must always be looking forward to improve our procedures and anticipate potential hazards,” Pelfrey said. “Safety is directly tied to our mission success. Without safety, we cannot achieve the goals we set for ourselves in space exploration, research, and innovation.”
Whitfield is an intern supporting the Marshall Office of Communications.
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Human Lander System Spotlight: Preparing for the First Crewed Lunar Landings for Artemis
The featured business unit for the month of September at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center was Lander Systems. Marshall leads the development of the systems needed to safely land humans on the Moon and, eventually Mars. This includes the Human Landing System Program (HLS), which manages the development of commercial lunar landing systems that will transport astronauts to and from the surface of the Moon as part of the agency’s Artemis campaign.
For Artemis III and Artemis IV, NASA has selected SpaceX’s Starship HLS, while Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander will be used for Artemis V. Having two distinct lunar lander designs, with different approaches to how they meet NASA’s mission needs, provides more robustness while ensuring a regular cadence of Moon landings.
NASA works closely with its industry partners to mature the landers, exercising insight and offering collaboration to ensure astronaut safety and mission success. Through Artemis, NASA aims to land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface while advancing key science and discovery for the benefit of all.
Learn more about HLS and meet some of the NASA Marshall teammates below who are working on the lunar landers:
Amy BuckNASA/Ken Hall Amy Buck has been working with Artemis systems since she first came to Marshall 10 years ago. Previously part of the cryogenic insulation team for the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, Buck is now the materials discipline lead for HLS. In her role, she has the chance to work on nearly every piece of hardware for the two landers as she and her team work with each of the HLS providers to ensure compliance with NASA’s requirements.
“The NASA HLS materials team is vital in supporting the design, testing, and manufacturing of the landers,” Buck said. “Landing on the Moon is central to the larger Artemis mission, and I’m super excited to be part of the Artemis Generation.”
Buck is most excited to see the first woman land on the Moon under Artemis and says she hopes it will inspire young girls – the next generation of engineers and scientists – to go into science and engineering.
Sean UnderwoodNASA/Ken Hall Mission success is all in the details for Sean Underwood, the thermal discipline lead for HLS. The Georgia native works with a team responsible for ensuring that the lunar landers can operate in the Moon’s harsh environment.
“There are unique thermal challenges associated with the Artemis III, IV, and V missions,” Underwood said. “Our primary objective is to manage thermal energy and heating rates, ensuring that HLS components and systems remain within thermal limits across all mission environments.”
Underwood joined Marshall in 2020 and sees his role with Artemis as one that will shape the future of space exploration – and Marshall. “Marshall Space Flight Center has been at the forefront of monumental space projects since its inception,” he said. “Through Artemis, we are ensuring that the legacy of past missions continues to inspire and drive us forward.”
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Innovative Thermal Energy Storage Tanks Keep Marshall Cool – and Save Taxpayer Dollars
By Rick Smith
As any home or business owner in the Southern United States knows, maintaining energy costs while trying to keep cool in the sweltering summer months is no simple challenge.
But one “cool” new infrastructure upgrade at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will reduce the center’s utility costs by approximately $250,000 a year, shrinking Marshall’s environmental footprint and streamlining long-term infrastructure maintenance costs.
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center facilities engineers Connor McLean, left, and Angela Bell assess the readiness of Marshall’s new thermal energy storage tank, which officially goes into operation in October. The tank stands alongside Marshall’s original thermal tank outside Building 4473, where they chill and store water to cool off laboratories, offices, and other buildings during the hot summer months. McLean and Bell lead the tank project on behalf of Marshall’s Office of Center Operations. NASA/Charles Beason It’s called a thermal energy storage tank – 60 feet high, 60 feet in diameter, each unit capable of holding approximately 1.125 million gallons of chilled water – and it represents another milestone for facilities engineers in Marshall’s Office of Center Operations, whose tactics have already reduced center-wide energy expenditure by a dizzying 58.3% since fiscal year 2003.
Thermal energy storage is not a new process; it’s been used for decades to maximize efficiency in temperature control, particularly among industrial facilities and large public venues from hospitals to indoor stadiums. At Marshall, the chilled water serves a critical purpose center-wide, circulating from a central plant via a network of underground pipes to help keep laboratories and other buildings temperate throughout the summer heat.
“The average team member might not realize it’s chilled water, not just air, that keeps our labs, offices, and test facilities cool,” said Marshall facilities engineer Angela Bell, who helped oversee the installation of the second tank. “Our tanks operate at night, when utility prices drop and there is less overall demand on the regional energy grid, then send the chillwater out during the day.”
Marshall’s first tank was built and put into operation in 2008-2009. The second officially goes into service in October, joining its counterpart in creating chilled water overnight. Together, the tanks – situated adjacent to Building 4473 on the corner of Morris and Titan roads – provide an annual energy savings of roughly half a million dollars.
Marshall facilities engineer Connor McLean, who succeeded Bell as project manager for the new tank, noted that each thermal energy storage tank handles approximately 106,000 kilo-BTUs worth of cooling activity per day – or roughly 1,750 times as much cooling capacity as a central air system in a traditional family home.
Even with that considerable output, Marshall’s original tank had been hard-pressed to keep up with demand across the entire center over the past decade and a half, as climate change steadily pushed temperatures to sustained extremes.
“This is a huge stride in critical system redundancy,” McLean said. “Having the second tank enables us to run both concurrently or give one of them some necessary downtime without loss of center-wide functionality. That added capability makes Marshall more resilient and bolsters our confidence in our ability to handle unforeseen challenges.”
The electricity that powers the storage tanks is a mix – hydroelectric, fossil fuels, nuclear, and an increasing amount of renewable energy sources – provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority via the U.S. Army, from whom NASA leases property on Redstone Arsenal.
“The tanks will be tremendous cost-savers for the next 40-50 years,” Bell said. “They allow us to use energy much more efficiently, based on past energy consumption levels – and that allows Marshall to do other things with those dollars.”
Over the past 20 years, Marshall has reinvested energy savings and facilities cost underruns back into center operations, often to fund new, cost-saving overhauls: upgrading facility HVAC systems or replacing obsolete lighting with more efficient LEDs.
“If we didn’t reduce consumption, our projected utility costs would be around $30 million per year,” said Rhonda Truitt, Marshall’s energy and water manager. “Thanks to efficient strategizing, encouraged and championed by Marshall and NASA leadership, we typically operate in the range of just $16-18 million per year.”
Such strategies have enabled Marshall to effectively keep its infrastructure budget flat since the early 2010s – reducing overall energy consumption and replacing outdated facilities with more cost-conscious, environmentally friendly modern buildings, a program known among facilities engineers as “repair by replacement.”
The U.S. Army at Redstone doesn’t employ a central chiller plant of its own, but the Marshall facilities team works “very closely” with their counterparts on the military side.
“We have a great working relationship,” Truitt said. “The real advantage of our system is that by reducing our peak energy demand, it reduces it for all of Redstone – which benefits the rest of the Arsenal and the lower Tennessee Valley.”
The new tank goes into operation just in time for the start of National Energy Awareness Month in October – and Truitt and her team encourage the Marshall workforce to continue to practice sensible energy conservation tactics even as sweat-inducing temperatures subside.
“Turn off lights and computer monitors wherever possible, don’t leave doors or windows propped open, and be mindful of all the small things that can add up over time,” Truitt said. “Our goal is always to help team members do their jobs in the most efficient way possible, to accomplish Marshall’s objectives and conserve our energy budget without impeding the mission.”
Thanks to the center’s new thermal energy storage tank, that should be no sweat.
Smith, an Aeyon employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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Marshall Welcomes Members of the NASA Advisory Council
Rae Ann Meyer, front right, deputy director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, is joined by members of the NASA Advisory Council and NASA Headquarters staff Oct. 1 at Marshall. The group toured various areas across the center during their visit Sept. 30-Oct. 2. Council members are appointed by the NASA administrator to provide advice and make recommendations on programs, policies, and other matters pertaining to the agency’s mission. (NASA/Charles Beason)
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Commercial Crew Program Hangs Expedition 70 Plaque, Highlighting Work Done by Marshall Team
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center continued the tradition of honoring engineers for their exceptional efforts on Commercial Crew Program (CCP) missions to the International Space Station on Sept. 4, with a plaque hanging for Expedition 70 at the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC). Holding their plaques are, from left, Shelby Bates, Ali Reilly, Chris Buckley, Mandy Clayton, Elease Smith, Sara Dennis, Stephanie Stoll, John Griffin, Kylie Keeton, and Blake Parker. Team members are nominated from Marshall, Johnson Space Center, and Kennedy Space Center to hang the plaque of the mission they supported. Expedition 70 – which ended April 5 – researched heart health, cancer treatments, space manufacturing techniques, and more during their long-duration stay in Earth orbit. The HOSC provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, the CCP, and Artemis missions, as well as science and technology demonstration missions. The Payload Operations Integration Center within HOSC operates, plans, and coordinates the science experiments onboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. (NASA/Charles Beason)
Buckley, left, signs an Expedition 70 plaque as Dennis looks on. (NASA/Charles Beason)
Dennis hangs the Expedition 70 plaque inside the Huntsville Operations Support Center. (NASA/Charles Beason)
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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Aboard International Space Station
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived at the International Space Station on Sept. 29 as the SpaceX Dragon Freedom docked to the orbiting complex at 4:30 p.m. CDT, joining Expedition 72 for a five-month science research mission aboard the orbiting laboratory.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 crew joins Expedition 72 aboard the International Space Station.NASA The two crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission launched at 12:17 p.m. CDT Sept. 28 for a science expedition aboard the International Space Station. This is the first human spaceflight mission launched from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the agency’s ninth commercial crew rotation mission to the space station.
The duo joined the space station’s Expedition 72 crew of NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Don Pettit, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexander Grebenkin, Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner. The number of crew aboard the space station increased to 11 for a short time until Crew-8 members Barratt, Dominick, Epps, and Grebenkin depart the space station early this month.
The crewmates will conduct more than 200 scientific investigations, including blood clotting studies, moisture effects on plants grown in space, and vision changes in astronauts during their mission. Following their stay aboard the space station, Hague and Gorbunov will be joined by Williams and Wilmore to return to Earth in February 2025.
With this mission, NASA continues to maximize the use of the orbiting laboratory, where people have lived and worked continuously for more than 23 years, testing technologies, performing science, and developing the skills needed to operate future commercial destinations in low Earth orbit and explore farther from Earth. Research conducted at the space station benefits people on Earth and paves the way for future long-duration missions to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis campaign, and beyond.
Learn more about NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission and the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Follow the space station blog for updates on station activities.
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Keeping the Pace: Marshall Hosts Annual ‘Racin’ the Station’ Duathlon
A costumed gorilla pacer leads a group of runners during “Racin’ the Station” duathlon, a run/bike/run event where the participants “raced” the International Space Station. The event was Sept. 28 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, which is on Redstone Arsenal. “Racin’ the Station” is an annual event where participants try to complete the course faster than it takes the space station to complete one Earth orbit, which is every 91 minutes, 12 seconds. Organizers track the starting location of the space station at the race start, and a costumed pacer keeps up with the station time on the course as a visual marker for participants to stay ahead of. Before the race, organizers drew a to-scale SLS (Space Launch System) Block 1 rocket in chalk onto the Activities Building parking lot near the race transition area. The opening ceremonies featured a video of the Artemis 1 launch, with the race starting with the launch of a model rocket. “The rain was a first for race day since we started this event in 2012,” said Kent Criswell, race organizer for Marshall. “But we still had a safe race with 106 individuals and 13 relay teams finishing.” The event is organized by the Team Rocket Triathlon Club in Huntsville and by the Marshall Association, a professional employee service organization at the Marshall Center whose members include civil service employees, retirees and contractors. Proceeds from the registration fee for the event go to the Marshall Association scholarship fund. Race results can be found here. (NASA/Charles Beason)
Participants take off in the bike portion of the “Racin’ the Station” duathlon. (NASA/Charles Beason)
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NASA Seeks Innovators for Lunar Waste Competition
By Savannah Bullard
A new NASA competition, the LunaRecycle Challenge, is open and offering $3 million in prizes for innovations in recycling material waste on deep space missions.
As NASA continues efforts toward long-duration human space travel, including building a sustained human presence on the Moon through its Artemis missions, the agency needs novel solutions for processing inorganic waste streams like food packaging, discarded clothing, and science experiment materials. While previous efforts focused on the reduction of trash mass and volume, this challenge will prioritize technologies for recycling waste into usable products needed for off-planet science and exploration activities.
NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge will incentivize the design and development of energy-efficient, low-mass, and low-impact recycling solutions that address physical waste streams and improve the sustainability of longer-duration lunar missions. Through the power of open innovation, which draws on the public’s ingenuity and creativity to find solutions, NASA can restructure the agency’s approach to waste management, support the future of space travel, and revolutionize waste treatments on Earth, leading to greater sustainability on our home planet and beyond.
“Operating sustainably is an important consideration for NASA as we make discoveries and conduct research both away from home and on Earth,” said Amy Kaminski, program executive for NASA’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program. “With this challenge, we are seeking the public’s innovative approaches to waste management on the Moon and aim to take lessons learned back to Earth for the benefit of all.”
NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge will offer two competition tracks: a Prototype Build track and a Digital Twin track. The Prototype Build Track focuses on designing and developing hardware components and systems for recycling one or more solid waste streams on the lunar surface. The Digital Twin Track focuses on designing a virtual replica of a complete system for recycling solid waste streams on the lunar surface and manufacturing end products. Offering a Digital Twin track further lowers the barrier of entry for global solvers to participate in NASA Centennial Challenges and contribute to agency missions and initiatives.
Teams will have the opportunity to compete in either or both competition tracks, each of which will carry its own share of the prize purse.
The LunaRecycle Challenge also will address some of the aerospace community’s top technical challenges. In July, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate released a ranked list of 187 technology areas requiring further development to meet future exploration, science, and other mission needs. The results integrated inputs from NASA mission directorates and centers, industry organizations, government agencies, academia, and other interested individuals to help guide NASA’s space technology development and investments. This list and subsequent updates will help inform future Centennial Challenges.
The three technological needs that LunaRecycle will address include logistics tracking, clothing, and trash management for habitation; in-space and on-surface manufacturing of parts and products; and in-space and on-surface manufacturing from recycled and reused materials.
“I am pleased that NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge will contribute to solutions pertaining to technological needs within advanced manufacturing and habitats,” said Kim Krome, acting program manager for agency’s Centennial Challenges, and challenge manager of LunaRecycle. “We are very excited to see what solutions our global competitors generate, and we are eager for this challenge to serve as a positive catalyst for bringing the agency, and humanity, closer to exploring worlds beyond our own.”
NASA has contracted The University of Alabama to be the allied partner for the duration of the challenge. The university, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will coordinate with former Centennial Challenge winner AI Spacefactory to facilitate the challenge and manage its competitors.
To register as a participant in NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge, visit: lunarecyclechallenge.ua.edu.
NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge is led by the agency’s Kennedy Space Center with support from Marshall Space Flight Center. The competition is a NASA’s Centennial Challenge, based at Marshall. Centennial Challenges are part of NASA’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Bullard, a Manufacturing Technical Solutions Inc. employee, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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Fueling Complete on Europa Clipper Spacecraft
Technicians completed loading propellants in the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft Sept. 22, inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
Technicians work to complete operations prior to propellant load for NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on Sept. 11.NASA/Kim Shiflett Housed in the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, Europa Clipper’s propulsion module is an aluminum cylinder 10 feet long and 5 feet wide, and it holds the spacecraft’s array of 24 engines and 6067.6 pounds of propellant in two propulsion tanks, as well as the spacecraft’s helium pressurant tanks. The fuel and oxidizer held by the tanks will flow to the 24 engines, creating a controlled chemical reaction to produce thrust in space during its journey to determine whether there are places below the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, that could support life.
After launch, the spacecraft plans to fly by Mars in February 2025, then back by Earth in December 2026, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum. With help of these “gravity assists,” Europa Clipper will achieve the velocity needed to reach Jupiter in April 2030.
NASA is targeting launch Oct. 10 aboard a Space X Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA Kennedy’s historic Launch Complex 39A.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with NASA JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
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