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Learn Home Science Activation’s PLACES… Earth Science Overview Learning Resources Science Activation Teams SME Map Opportunities More Science Activation Stories Citizen Science 5 min read
Science Activation’s PLACES Team Facilitates Third Professional Learning Institute
The NASA Science Activation program’s Place-Based Learning to Advance Connections, Education, and Stewardship (PLACES) project supports middle and high school educators to engage students in data-rich Earth science learning through the integration of NASA data sets, images, classroom lessons, and other assets. This project draws on a place-based approach as a means to increase “data fluency” — the ability and confidence to make sense of and use data. This means knowing when, how, and why to use data for a specific purpose, such as solving problems and communicating ideas grounded in evidence.
As part of this effort, PLACES facilitated its third Professional Learning (PL) Summer Institute (SI) for 22 educators at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) in Portland, Maine the week of August 12th, 2024. This is the third PL Summer Institute the PLACES team has facilitated, each focusing on engaging educators in place-based, data-rich teaching and learning with NASA data and resources.
The GMRI PL development and facilitation was a collaborative co-design effort between two NASA Science Activation projects (PLACES led by WestEd and the Learning Ecosystems Northeast project led by GMRI) and colleagues from the Concord Consortium and NASA Langley Research Center. During this PL, teachers took part in community science projects developed by GMRI to incorporate youth in ongoing research projects, including a mix of field- and classroom-based experiences that explored the phenomena of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA) and the changes to intertidal crab populations – two invasive species that are proliferating as a result of climate change. During two field-based experiences, teachers gathered primary data using protocols from GMRI’s Ecosystem Investigation Network and the NASA-sponsored program, GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment). Teachers then explored these primary data using Concord Consortium’s Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP) to better understand the geographic and temporal spread of these species. To connect their local experiences to global happenings, teachers then explored secondary data sets, including those sourced from the My NASA Data (MND – also supported by NASA Science Activation as part of the GLOBE Mission Earth project) Earth System Explorer (e.g., Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, salinity, sea surface temperature). The facilitation team also used the MND Data Literacy Cubes to encourage teachers to consider a multitude of diverse questions about place, data, and the phenomena. The GLOBE protocols supplemented existing GMRI data collection protocols, presenting new opportunities for teachers already experienced with HWA and Green Crabs. The MND data and Data Literacy Cubes moved teachers from questions they generated as part of their primary data collection towards new knowledge.
Daily feedback from teachers highlighted their appreciation for the responsiveness of the facilitation team, as well as a growing curiosity and desire for using NASA resources such as protocols from GLOBE and data from MND’s Earth System Explorer. This is exciting to see as the teachers transition from the Summer Institute into a virtual Community of Practice during the school year. The Community of Practice engages them in peer-to-peer collaboration and dialogue as they develop, test, and give feedback on their own place-based, data-rich experiences using NASA data and resources. So far, teachers are planning to tackle a variety of topics ranging from ocean chemistry to human connections to the environment. Teachers indicated their interest in “making place-based experiences meaningful to our unique populations of students and having cultural representation in the classroom,” and focusing on “cross-school collaboration.” Preliminary evaluation data indicated that 76% of teachers thought their experiences with NASA resources during the SI helped them identify ways to bring data into their classroom. 85% of teachers indicated they feel a greater connection to NASA and knowledge of NASA resources for enhancing student understanding and engagement in science. Moving into the fall, teachers will take part in a Community of Practice, where they will work to implement a place-based, data-rich moment in their individual classrooms. In the summer of 2025, teachers will take part in a second summer institute where they will continue to learn more about implementing place-based, data-rich instruction.
The PLACES GMRI Summer Institute was made possible by a large co-design, collaborative effort across our partner organizations. This included:
Facilitation Team: Catherine Bursk (GMRI), Meggie Harvey (GMRI), Sara Salisbury (GMRI), Daniel Damelin (Concord Consortium) In-person Facilitation Support Team: Leigh Peake (GMRI), Karen Lionberger (WestEd), Kristin Hunter-Thomson (Dataspire), Angela Rizzi (NASA Langley) In-Person Team Member Participants: Janet Struble and Kevin Czaikowski (GLOBE, University of Toledo), Svetlana Darche (WestEd) Virtual Observers: Kirsten Daehler, Nicole Wong, Leticia Perez (WestEd), Tracy Ostrom (GLOBE, UC Berkeley), Lori Rubino-Hare (NAU) Additional support: Frieda Reichsman (Concord Consortium), Barbie Buckner and Jessia Taylor (NASA Langley), Sean Ryan (NAU), Lauren Shollenberger (NAU) PLACES is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number 80NSSC22M0005 and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn
Teachers at the GMRI summer institute review NDVI data ranging from 2002 to 2022 and identify patterns and trends. Share
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ICESat-2 Hosts Third Applications Workshop
Introduction
The NASA Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 mission (ICESat-2), launched September 15, 2018, continues the first ICESat mission, delivering invaluable global altimetry data. Notwithstanding its icy acronym, ICESat-2 can do more than measure ice – in fact, the expanded acronym hints at these wider applications. From vegetation to inland surface water to bathymetry, ICESat-2 has emerged as a more versatile mission than originally planned, thanks in part to the ingenuity of research scientists, the Science Team (ST), and users of the data – see Figure 1.
Figure 1. A word cloud designed to highlight terms that occur most frequently in all ICESat-2 publications since 2018. The larger the word, the more often it is used.Figure credit: Aimee Neeley ICESat-2 was among the first NASA missions to develop an applications program that engages both scientists and potential users of the science data to accelerate user uptake. Throughout this program, ICESat-2 has demonstrated the value of Earth Observation data to end users, stakeholders, and decision makers. The ICESat-2 Early Adopter (EA; pre-launch) program, now the Applied User program (post-launch), was created to “promote applications research to provide a fundamental understanding of how ICESat-2 data products can be scaled and integrated into organizations, policy, business, and management activities to improve decision making efforts.” This article summarizes the workshop objectives met through plenary talks, lightning talks, an applied user panel, and a breakout session. The ICESat-2 Applications page contains more about the ICESat-2 Applications Program.
Motivation and Objectives
To meet Applications Program initiatives, the ICESat-2 Applications Team hosted its third Applications workshop June 3–4, 2024 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in a hybrid environment. A total of 113 participants registered for the workshop, representing multiple government agencies, including NASA Centers, non-profit organizations, and academic organizations – see Figure 2. Approximately 20 individuals attended the workshop in person with the majority participating online through the Webex platform. This workshop provided the space to foster collaboration and to encourage the conceptualization of applications not yet exploited.
Figure 2. A ‘donut’ plot showing the proportion of ICESat-2 Applications Workshop attendees identified by institution. This information was provided during the online registration process.Figure credit: Aimee Neeley The objectives of the Applications workshop were to:
provide an overview of the mission status, data products, and support services from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC); build partnerships among applied users, data producers, and end users; foster synergies with all participants, decision makers, and satellite operators; identify new potential applications or products from ICESat-2; review available tools for extracting ICESat-2 data; and understand the challenges faced by applied users, data users, and end users, and identify solutions. The remainder of this article will summarize the meeting highlights. Rather than give a strict chronological survey, the report is organized around the meeting objectives listed above. Readers interested in more details can find the full agenda and slide decks from individual presentations mentioned in this summary on the ICESat-2 Workshop website.
Workshop Overview and Structure
The agenda of the 2024 ICESat-2 Applications workshop was intended to bring together end-users, including ICESat-2 applications developers, satellite operators, and decision makers from government and nongovernmental entities to discuss the current state and future needs of the community – see Figure 3.
On the morning of the first day, the workshop participants contributed to a plenary session and ICESat-2 data tool demonstrations. These presentations were intended to provide a broad overview of the ICESat-2 mission, data, science, and applications. Plenary talks during the afternoon session provided an overview of the Earth Science-to-Action initiative and measuring impacts of science. The afternoon also included lightning talks from participants and an Applied User Panel. The second day consisted of a plenary presentation and more lightning talks from participants. The workshop ended with a thematic breakout session with pre-constructed topics and a report out to create a forum for direct interaction between participants.
Figure 3. Graphic showing the different levels of data available from the NASA Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission.Figure credit: NASA, adapted from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Distributed Active Archive Center’s ICESat-2 page Objective 1: Provide an overview of the status of the mission and current data products and support services from the NSIDC.
To fulfill the first meeting objective, the workshop included a series of overview presentations given by ICESat-2 team members about the status of the ICESat-2 mission and its data products, as well as a review of the NASA Applied Sciences Program.
Aimee Neeley [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)/Science Systems and Applications Inc. (SSAI)—ICESat-2 Mission Applications Lead] and Molly Brown [GSFC/University of Maryland—ICESat-2 Mission Applications Scientist] served as cohosts for the event. Neeley opened the first day with a brief overview of workshop goals, logistics, and the agenda. On the second day she gave a brief overview of the agenda for the day and opened it up for questions.
Thomas Neumann [GSFC—ICESat-2 Project Scientist and Deputy Director of Earth Sciences Division] provided an overview of the ICESat-2 measurement concepts, which includes activity of GPS positioning, pointing angle, altimetry measurements, and ground processing. He continued with an overview of the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument, the wavelength and spatial resolution of the lasers, and the distributed data products. Neumann presented the mission outlook, with an expected lifespan until December 2035.
Walter Meier [University of Colorado, Boulder (UC, Boulder)—NSIDC DAAC Scientist] provided an overview of ICESat-2 data tools and services. He walked the audience through the ICESat-2 data website, as well as the instructional guides that are available for all the tools and services. Meier provided an overview of ICESat-2 standard data products – see Figure 3. Most of the products have a ~45-day latency while quick look data sets have an ~3-day latency. Future data sets include ATL24 and ATL25 and quick look data sets for ATL03, ATL20, and ATL25. Next, he described webinars and tutorials, access tools, and customization services for different users and workflows, including graphical user interfaces and programmatic tools in Earthaccess and the NSIDC website.
Helen Amanda Fricker [Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California (UC), San Diego—ICESat-2 ST Leader and Professor] provided an overview of the ST members and ST goals. Fricker described the ST goals to: 1) provide coordination between the team, project science office, and NASA headquarters; 2) use science talks, posters, and social events to stimulate collaboration within the ST and across disciplines; and 3) maintain the visibility of the ICESat-2 mission through publications, press releases, white papers, open science, and synergies with other missions. Next, Fricker shared the list of ST members that can be found on the ICESat-2 website. She concluded with an overview of a recent publication by Lori Magruder [University of Texas, Austin] and coauthors published in Nature Reviews.
Stephanie Schollaert Uz [NASA GSFC—Applied Sciences Manager] provided an overview of the NASA Applied Science Program, including the current NASA Earth Science Satellite missions that are monitoring Earth systems. The NASA Applied Science Programs “tackle challenges on our home planet in areas for which Earth science information can respond to the urgent needs of our time.” Earth science data products are used to “inform decisions and actions on management, policy and business.” Uz provided examples of applications using Earth science data, including economic activity, active fire mapping, food security, and monitoring air quality – see Figure 4.
Figure 4. Near real-time active fire mapping as well as air quality monitoring and forecasting are available via NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS).Figure credit: FIRMS U.S./Canada Molly E. Brown [University of Maryland—ICESat-2 Mission Applications Scientist] began her presentation by defining the term application in the context of this workshop, which includes “innovative uses of mission data products in decision-making activities for societal benefit.” Brown stated that the ICESat-2 Mission Applications program “works to bring our data products into areas where they can help inform policy or decisions that benefit the public.” End users include the private sector, academia, and government agencies. Brown described the benefits of the program and strategies to extend ICESat-2 to new communities – see Figure 5. Brown concluded with an overview of recent publications and new research efforts to assess the impact of ICESat-2 data.
Figure 5. Strategies to extend ICESat-2 to new communities through activities and trainings such as those hosted by the Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET) program.Figure credit: Molly Brown Mike Jasinski [NASA GSFC, Hydrological Sciences Laboratory—Assistant Chief for Science] provided an overview of ICESat-2 inland water standard and quick look data products, ATL13QL and ATL22QL. ICESat-2 covers approximately one million lakes each year. Jasinski also listed application areas for water resources decision support, including river elevation and discharge, lake and reservoir water balance and management, and validation of Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) data. He provided metrics for each data product and quick look product and the advantages and disadvantages of ATL13 and ATL22 data products.
Mary D. Ari [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of Science—Senior Advisor for Science] provided an overview of the Science Impact Framework (SIF). Ari explained that our partners and public need “evidence to support practice or policy or decision making, accountability for public finds, and research focus to advocate for research priority.” A major goal is to translate findings into practice or action. Next, she presented ways by which impact can be measured, including bibliometrics (quantitative) and value (qualitative). Ari further explained the Science Impact Framework (SIF), which includes five domains of scientific influence: disseminating science, creating awareness, catalyzing action, effecting change, and shaping the future – see Figure 6.
Figure 6. The Science Impact Framework, which allows the impact of scientific work to be quantified and to determine if the science we produce is being put into action.Figure credit: Mary Ari Woody Turner [NASA Headquarters—ICESat-2 Program Applications Lead] provided an overview of NASA’s Earth Science to Action Strategy. Turner explained that NASA’s Earth Science to Action strategy is integral to the Earth Science Division’s 2024–2034 strategic plan. The overall strategy has two objectives: 1) observe, monitor, and understand the Earth System and 2) deliver trusted information to drive Earth resilience activities. He also summarized the “three key pillars” for this new Earth Action paradigm to 1) be user centered, 2) build bridges between research, technology, flight, data, and Earth Action elements, and 3) scale up existing efforts to get NASA data into the hands of end users. Lastly, Turner listed NASA’s core values, including safety, integrity, inclusion, teamwork, excellence, trustworthiness, innovation, and collaboration.
Objective 2: Review available tools for extracting ICESat-2 data for a diverse community.
To achieve this objective, the meeting included a series of presentations in which each speaker described a different tool that is being used to download and analyze ICESat-2 data.
Jessica Scheick [University of New Hampshire] provided an overview of a set of Python tools, named icepyx, that can be used to obtain and manipulate ICESat-2 data. Scheick, who developed icepyx, described how the tools address challenges with ICESat-2 data. Lastly, she performed a live demonstration of icepyx.
Tyler Sutterley [Applied Physics Laboratory/University of Washington] presented a live demonstration of Sliderule, an ICESat-2 plugin module that uses an application programming interface (API) to “query a set of ATL03 input granules for photon heights and locations based on a set of photon-input parameters that select the geographic and temporal extent of the request.”
Joanna D. Millstein [Colorado School of Mines] provided an overview of CryoCloud, which is a “JupyterHub built for NASA cryosphere communities in collaboration with 2i2c.” The goal of CryoCloud is to create a “simple and cost-effective managed cloud environment for training and transitioning new users to cloud workflows and determining community best practices.” CryoCloud makes it possible to “process data faster, minimize downloading and democratize science.” The CryoCloud GitHub provides access to a Slack channel, trainings and tutorials, and community office hours.
Mikala Beig [UC, Boulder—NSIDC User Services] provided and overview of OpenAltimetry, a platform for visualizing and downloading surface elevation data from ICESat and ICESat-2. OpenAltimetry was developed to alleviate the challenges faced by researchers, including the “steep learning curves and heavy demands on computational resources” necessary to download and manipulate large volumes of data. The strengths of OpenAltimetry include fostering user engagement, lowering technical hurdles for visualizing data, and allowing deeper data exploration. Lastly, Beig demonstrated the platform for the audience – see Figure 7.
Figure 7. Searching ICESat-2 tracks in OpenAltimetry, a map-based data visualization and discovery tool for altimetry data.Figure credit: Mikala Beig Objectives 3 and 4: Foster synergies between all participants; Identify new potential applications or products from ATLAS data not currently under investigation.
To meet these two meeting objectives, workshop organizers scheduled a round of lightning talks, where a series of presenters gave five-minute presentations on their research or activities. The talks are distilled below. The reader is directed online to find formal presentation titles and additional information. There was also an applied user panel and a breakout session to facilitate synergies between participants and identify new applications.
Younghyun Koo [Lehigh University/ Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science (CIRES)] described a method to filter landfast ice (or sea ice “fastened” to the coastline) for accurate examination of thermodynamic and dynamic sea ice features using the ICESat-2 ATL10 data product – see Figure 8.
Chandana Gangodagamage [OeilSat—Principal Investigator] described the company’s efforts to track freshwater in the Congo River for the purposes of water resources management and other water-related applications that require river bathymetry data.
Daniel Scherer [Technischen Universität München (TUM), Germany] provided an overview of the ICESat-2 River Surface Slope (IRIS), a global reach-scale water surface slope dataset that provides average and extreme water slopes from ICESat-2 observations. The data can be dowloaded from Zenodo.
Louise Croneborg-Jones [Water In Sight—Chief Executive Officer] described her company’s effort to use satellite data and mobile and cloud technology to digitize river and rainfall observation at scale in Malawi. Water In Sight has emphasized getting local communities involved in monitoring water resources to increase observations of water levels for conservation.
Ravindra Duddu [Vanderbilt University] provided an overview on a project called Modeling Antarctic Iceshelf Calving and Stability (MAGICS), which involves using computation, data, and machine learning to map the rift and crevasse configurations of ice shelves in Antarctica to better understand calving events.
Shawn Serbin [GSFC] discussed use of harmonized above ground products from ICESat-2 and other earth observing platforms, including Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), for terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle reanalysis and near-term, iterative forecasting for North America and the globe.
Wengi Ni-Meister [Hunter College of the City University of New York—ICESat-2 Early Adopter] summarized an effort to retrieve canopy and background reflectivity ratio from ICESat-2 data and use it for the retrieval of vegetation cover and snow distribution in boreal forests.
Morgaine McKibben [GSFC–Plankton, Aerosol, Clouds, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Applications Lead] provided an overview of NASA’s PACE mission, suggesting possible synergies between ICESat-2 and PACE with the intent of opening the door for further discussion on collaboration between the two missions. (To learn more about planned applications for PACE, see Preparing for Launch and Assessing User Readiness: The 2023 PACE Applications Workshop. (Also published in The Earth Observer, Nov–Dec 2023, 35:6, 25–32.)
Anthony Campbell [GSFC/ University of Maryland, Baltimore County] discussed his group’s research into using ICESat-2 data to monitor changes in coastal wetland migration, including coastal elevation and canopy height.
Brian A Campbell [NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility (WFF)—ICESat-2 Mission Education Lead] described the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program’s network of citizen scientists who collect several different kinds of data using the GLOBE Observer app. He highlighted one data type with particular relevance to ICESat-2. GLOBE Trees – see Figure 8 – equips citizen scientists with the tools to take tree height measurements using their mobile devices. These observations could then be compared to data from NASA satellite missions.
Figure 8. NASA’s Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) has developed an app called GLOBE Trees that allows users take measurements of tree height data using a mobile device. Those data can then be uploaded, and scientists can use them to validate satellite tree height measurement (e.g., from ICESat-2/ATLAS).Figure credit: Brian Campbell Caio Hamamura [University of Florida/School of Forest, Fisheries & Geomatics Sciences—Postdoctoral Associate] summarized a literature review his team had conducted of studies using ICESat-2 data for land and vegetation applications as well as results of an assessment of the current capability and limitations of ICESat-2 data for land and vegetation applications – see Figure 9.
Figure 9. Illustration of the ATL18 canopy height product at 1 km (~0.6 mi) spatial resolution at the global scale. The height values represent the median of all ATL18 height estimates within a given grid size of 1 km.Figure credit: Jordan Borak and Ciao Hamamura Jacob Comer [Cultural Site Research and Management Foundation] summarized results from an evaluation of the use of ICESat-2 data for archaeological prospection and documentation of archaeological sites – particularly in the Federal States of Micronesia.
Juradana M. Iqrah [University of Texas at San Antonio] described her group’s effort to obtain high resolution sea ice classification and freeboard information from ICESat-2 ATL03 observations to understand the impact of global warming on the melting and retreat of polar sea ice cover.
Michael MacFerrin [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)—Coastal Digital Elevation (DEM) Model Team] provided an overview of the NOAA/CIRES ICESat-2 Validation of Elevations Reporting Tool (IVERT) tool, which is used to generate land-based validation statistics of digital elevation models (DEM) anywhere in the word using the ATL03 and ATL08 datasets – see Figure 10.
Figure 10. Digital Elevation Model output before and after Hurricane Michael in Florida, October 2018.Figure credit: Michael MacFerrin Gretchen Imahori [NOAA National Geodetic Survey, Remote Sensing Division] presented an overview of satellite derived bathymetry using ICESat-2 data, including the new Level 3 (L3) bathymetry data product (ATL24) that will be available later in 2024 – see Figure 11.
Figure 11. Bathymetry data from ICESat-2 have been used across a wide variety of morphologies [some of which are illustrated in the photos above] and disciplines. Figure credit: Gretchen Imahori and the ICESat-2 bathymetry working group Objectives 5 and 6: Understand the challenges faced by applied, data users, and end users and identify solutions. Build partnerships between applied users, data producers, and end users.
To achieve these two objectives, planners organized an applied user panel and a breakout session as means to foster conversation among participants. The applied user panel consisted of five panelists– three participating virtually and two in-person. The presenters in the session shared their responses to three prepared discussion prompts: 1) an introduction of ICESat-2 data products; 2) use of ICESat-2 data products for their application; and 3) potential data latency impacts. The conversation was brief, but it provided a unique opportunity to hear from experienced applied users.
A breakout session consisted of pre-planned discussion prompts through two virtual breakout groups and one in-person group. Group One discussed questions that covered examination of ice crevassing and rifting, community tools for shallow water mapping, and slope measurement bias and uncertainties. Group Two discussed a variety of current and potential surface water applications, identified challenges using ICEat-2 data, and developed suggestions to increase the accessibility and usability of ICESat-2 data products. Group Three covered a gamut of topics, including potential products for Alaskan and Canadian communities, increased accessibility to products, and applications through central cloud storage systems, central repositories and detailed documentation, and the desire for future topic-specific workshops and focus sessions.
Conclusion
The 2024 NASA ICESat-2 Applications Workshop was the third in a series of workshops – with the first workshop occurring in 2012, six years prior to launch. The EA program was transitioned to the Applied User program, which deployed a post-launch program per the NASA Early Adopter Handbook “that acts as a continuation of the Early Adopter program to engage with Communities of Practice and Potential.” This workshop provided the space to foster collaboration and conceptualization of applications not yet exploited that may be developed using ICESat-2 data products. The workshop met its objectives and created an environment that fostered collaboration between participants. The workshop was a success, and participants requested another one focused on a thematic topic. Updates, future workshops, and other events will be posted on the ICESat-2 ‘Get Involved’ page.
Aimee Renee Neeley
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Science Systems and Applications, Inc.
aimee.neeley@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Sep 17, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
In a series of baseline flights beginning on June 24, 2024, the G-IV aircraft flew over the Antelope Valley to analyze aircraft performance. To accommodate a new radar instrument developed by JPL, NASA’s Airborne Science Program has selected the Gulfstream-IV aircraft to be modified and operated by Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California and will accommodate new instrumentation on board in support of the agency’s science mission directorate. Baseline flights began at NASA Armstrong in June 2024NASA/Carla Thomas In June 2024, a new tail number swept the sky above NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Pilots conducted flights of a Gulfstream IV (G-IV) to evaluate its handling characteristics and to familiarize pilots with it before it begins structural modifications. The research plane is joining the center’s fleet serving NASA’s Airborne Science program.
The G-IV will carry the Next Generation Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR-NG), which sends and receives microwave signals to collect information about Earth’s topographic features and how they change over time. The goal for the team at NASA Armstrong is to modify the G-IV to accommodate three radars simultaneously.
“The AIRSAR-NG will be composed of three different Synthetic Aperture Radar antennas in one instrument to provide new insight into Earth’s surface more efficiently,” said Yunling Lou, principal investigator for the instrument at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The capabilities of this new instrument will facilitate new techniques, such as three-dimensional imaging, that will be useful for future space-borne missions.”
With those and other modifications being made, the G-IV will also be able to accommodate an increased load of science instruments, which could enable NASA to support more dynamic airborne science missions.
“This aircraft will aid Armstrong in continuing our long history of supporting airborne science for the agency and maintain the expertise in conducting successful science missions for years to come,” said Franzeska Becker, the G-IV project manager at NASA Armstrong.
Transferred in February from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the G-IV will undergo additional modifications overseen by NASA Armstrong’s team. Their goal is to enrich the agency’s airborne science program by outfitting the aircraft to function as a more capable and versatile research platform.
The knowledge and expertise of professionals at NASA centers like Armstrong (G-IV, ER-2, C-20) and Langley (777, G-III) will help enable the agency to produce a well-defined and airworthy platform for science instruments and airborne science missions.
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A mirror that was later installed inside the telescope for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor shows a reflection of principal optical engineer Brian Monacelli during an inspection of the mirror’s surface at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on July 17.NASA/JPL-Caltech A technician operates articulating equipment to rotate NEO Surveyor’s aluminum optical bench — part of the spacecraft’s telescope — in a clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on July 17.NASA/JPL-Caltech The mirrors for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope are being installed and aligned, and work on other spacecraft components is accelerating.
NASA’s new asteroid-hunting spacecraft is taking shape at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Called NEO Surveyor (Near-Earth Object Surveyor), this cutting-edge infrared space telescope will seek out the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose a hazard to our planet. In fact, it is the agency’s first space telescope designed specifically for planetary defense.
Targeting launch in late 2027, the spacecraft will travel a million miles to a region of gravitational stability — called the L1 Lagrange point — between Earth and the Sun. From there, its large sunshade will block the glare and heat of sunlight, allowing the mission to discover and track near-Earth objects as they approach Earth from the direction of the Sun, which is difficult for other observatories to do. The space telescope also may reveal asteroids called Earth Trojans, which lead and trail our planet’s orbit and are difficult to see from the ground or from Earth orbit.
NEO Surveyor relies on cutting-edge detectors that observe two bands of infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. Near-Earth objects, no matter how dark, glow brightly in infrared as the Sun heats them. Because of this, the telescope will be able to find dark asteroids and comets, which don’t reflect much visible light. It also will measure those objects, a challenging task for visible-light telescopes that have a hard time distinguishing between small, highly reflective objects and large, dark ones.
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s NEO Surveyor in deep space. The black-paneled angular structure in the belly of the spacecraft is the instrument enclosure that is being built at JPL. The mission’s infrared telescope will be installed inside the enclosure.NASA/JPL-Caltech “NEO Surveyor is optimized to help us to do one specific thing: enable humanity to find the most hazardous asteroids and comets far enough in advance so we can do something about them,” said Amy Mainzer, principal investigator for NEO Surveyor and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “We aim to build a spacecraft that can find, track, and characterize the objects with the greatest chance of hitting Earth. In the process, we will learn a lot about their origins and evolution.”
Coming Into Focus
The spacecraft’s only instrument is its telescope. About the size of a washer-and-dryer set, the telescope’s blocky aluminum body, called the optical bench, was built in a JPL clean room. Known as a three-mirror anastigmat telescope, it will rely on curved mirrors to focus light onto its infrared detectors in such a way that minimizes optical aberrations.
“We have been carefully managing the fabrication of the spacecraft’s telescope mirrors, all of which were received in the JPL clean room by July,” said Brian Monacelli, principal optical engineer at JPL. “Its mirrors were shaped and polished from solid aluminum using a diamond-turning machine. Each exceeds the mission’s performance requirements.”
Monacelli inspected the mirror surfaces for debris and damage, then JPL’s team of optomechanical technicians and engineers attached the mirrors to the telescope’s optical bench in August. Next, they will measure the telescope’s performance and align its mirrors.
Complementing the mirror assembly are the telescope’s mercury-cadmium-telluride detectors, which are similar to the detectors used by NASA’s recently retired NEOWISE (short for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) mission. An advantage of these detectors is that they don’t necessarily require cryogenic coolers or cryogens to lower their operational temperatures in order to detect infrared wavelengths. Cryocoolers and cryogens can limit the lifespan of a spacecraft. NEO Surveyor will instead keep its cool by using its large sunshade to block sunlight from heating the telescope and by occupying an orbit beyond that of the Moon, minimizing heating from Earth.
The telescope will eventually be installed inside the spacecraft’s instrument enclosure, which is being assembled in JPL’s historic High Bay 1 clean room where NASA missions such as Voyager, Cassini, and Perseverance were constructed. Fabricated from dark composite material that allows heat to escape, the enclosure will help keep the telescope cool and prevent its own heat from obscuring observations.
Once it is completed in coming weeks, the enclosure will be tested to make sure it can withstand the rigors of space exploration. Then it will be mounted on the back of the sunshade and atop the electronic systems that will power and control the spacecraft.
“The entire team has been working hard for a long time to get to this point, and we are excited to see the hardware coming together with contributions from our institutional and industrial collaborators from across the country,” said Tom Hoffman, NEO Surveyor’s project manager at JPL. “From the panels and cables for the instrument enclosure to the detectors and mirrors for the telescope — as well as components to build the spacecraft — hardware is being fabricated, delivered, and assembled to build this incredible observatory.”
Assembly of NEO Surveyor can be viewed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via JPL’s live cam.
More About NEO Surveyor
The NEO Surveyor mission marks a major step for NASA toward reaching its U.S. Congress-mandated goal to discover and characterize at least 90% of the near-Earth objects more than 460 feet (140 meters) across that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of our planet’s orbit. Objects of this size can cause significant regional damage, or worse, should they impact the Earth.
The mission is tasked by NASA’s Planetary Science Division within the Science Mission Directorate; program oversight is provided by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which was established in 2016 to manage the agency’s ongoing efforts in planetary defense. NASA’s Planetary Missions Program Office at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center provides program management for NEO Surveyor.
The project is being developed by JPL and is led by principal investigator Amy Mainzer at UCLA. Established aerospace and engineering companies have been contracted to build the spacecraft and its instrumentation, including BAE Systems, Space Dynamics Laboratory, and Teledyne. The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder will support operations, and IPAC-Caltech in Pasadena, California, is responsible for processing survey data and producing the mission’s data products. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
More information about NEO Surveyor is available at:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/neo-surveyor
News Media Contacts
Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
2024-114
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Last Updated Aug 28, 2024 Related Terms
NEO Surveyor (Near-Earth Object Surveyor Space Telescope) Comets Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) Planetary Defense Planetary Defense Coordination Office Explore More
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