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Accounts Receivable

ACH Credit Payment

ACH Credit is a payment method that allows a payer to initiate payment through their financial institution through the ACH/Federal Reserve network. ACH Credit allows the payer to control the initiation and timing of payments as well as when the date the funds are sent. Please view the instructions by accessing ACH Credit Payment Instructions.

Payments to NASA

For your convenience and fast results, you have the following options to pay online:
Option 1: Pay Via Bank Account (ACH Direct Debit, also known as electronic check); or
Option 2: Pay Via Plastic Card (any credit or debit card with Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover, debit cards are accepted by Pay.gov).
For information on other payment, options please contact NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) Customer Contact Center: 1.877.677.2123.

NSSC Accounts Receivable does not process checks for returned funds from Grantees.
Grantees should refer to Health and Human Services website for instructions on returning funds.

For other payment options, please contact the Customer Contact Center.

Check Payments
Make checks payable to: NSSC/For the account (s) of [applicable center]
Please include the bill number on your check.
Send all check payments to the following address:
NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC)
Building 1111, Jerry Hlass Road
Stennis Space Center, MS 39529

Credit/Debit Card Payments to NASA

To begin, please go to the Treasury Financial Manual at: https://tfm.fiscal.treasury.gov/v1/p5/c700.html.  
Please reference the following sections for more guidance on the following items: 

Credit Card

Section 7045—Limitations on Card Collection Transactions
Section 7045.10—Transaction Maximums

Debit Card

Section 7010—Scope, Applicability, and Network Rules
Section 7025—Honoring of Cards and Surcharges
Section 7025.10—Honoring of Cards
Section 7025.20—Surcharges

Testing
Agencies wishing to test the new credit card daily dollar value limits can do so using the Vanity emulator. Use the $1.72 amount. The return code will be V2. Please refer to section 10.10 and Appendix A of the Pay.gov Agency Guide to the Collections Service for additional information on using the Vanity emulator.  

Fedwire Payments for NASA

The Federal Reserve Banks provide the Fedwire Funds Service, a real-time gross settlement system that enables participants to initiate funds transfer that are immediate, final, and irrevocable once processed. Depository institutions and certain other financial institutions that hold an account with a Federal Reserve Bank are eligible to participate in the Fedwire Funds Services. There are approximately 7,300 participants who make Fedwire funds transfers. The Fedwire Funds Service is generally used to make large-value, time-critical payments. International and Domestic financial institutions can use Fedwire to send a wire transfer in United States dollars directly to the bank to the United States Treasury, which then forwards the payment to NASA.

The Fedwire Funds Service is a credit transfer service. Participants originate funds transfers by instructing a Federal Reserve Bank to debit funds from its own account and credit funds to the account of another participant. Participants may originate funds transfers online, by initiating a secure electronic message, or off line, via telephone procedures.

The Fedwire Funds Service business day begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the preceding calendar day and ends at 6:30 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, excluding designated holidays. For example, the Fedwire Funds Service opens for Monday at 9:00 p.m. on the preceding Sunday. The deadline for initiating transfers for the benefit of a third party (such as a bank’s customer) is 6:00 p.m. ET each business day. Under certain circumstances, Fedwire Funds Service operating hours may be extended by the Federal Reserve Banks.

For more information, please visit: https://frbservices.org/financial-services/wires/index.html

Sending A Fedwire

Payments can be made through your Financial Institution. Your Financial Institution may charge additional fees for this service which will be incurred by the customer. Please also include a point of contact for your business in case NASA has any questions about the payment once it is received. Include any other identifying information with the payment, such as the bill of collection number, reference numbers and identify where to apply the payment. Customers should use the following instructions that meet their payment requirements.
Note: NASA does not charge the Fedwire fee.

Pay.Gov Payments

Online payments to NASA can be made through Pay.Gov through NASA Online Payment link only. Customers should use the following instructions for Pay.Gov that meet their payment requirements:

1. Reimbursable Customers requesting to make an Advance Payment, please view instructions by accessing NASA Online Payments via Pay.Gov (Advances).
2. Direct Customers (Non-Reimbursable) requesting to make a payment on a Bill of Collection, please view instructions by accessing NASA Online Payments via Pay.Gov (Direct).

3. Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) Customers requesting to make a payment on a SEWP Fee, please view instructions by accessing NASA Online Payments via Pay.Gov (SEWP).
4. Click to view a Pay.Gov Screen Shot Example.

SWIFT Payment

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment is an interbank communications system in which financial institutions worldwide can send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable environment. SWIFT does not facilitate funds transfer; rather, it sends payment orders, which must be settled by correspondent accounts that the institutions have with each other. 
 
Each financial institution, to exchange banking transactions, must have a banking relationship by either being a bank or affiliating itself with one or more. SWIFT is linked to more than 9,000 financial institutions in 209 countries and territories. For payments to NASA, the SWIFT message directs funds to a United States Treasury account, which then references and forwards the payment to a NASA Center. Please view the instructions by accessing SWIFT Payment Instructions.
 
Note: NASA does not charge the SWIFT fee.
 

Foreign Payments

International Treasury Service (ITS) or ITS.gov is a comprehensive payment and collection system.  ITS.gov is the federal government’s single portal for all types of international transactions, including payments and collections. Wire transfers allow for the individualized transmission of funds from single individuals or entities to others while still maintaining the efficiencies associated with the fast and secure movement of money. By using a wire transfer, people in different geographic locations can safely transfer money to locales and financial institutions around the globe.

International wire transfers are monitored by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and agency of the U.S. Treasury tasked with preventing money from going to or coming from countries that are the subject of sanctions by the U.S. government.

Please reference Foreign Currency Accounts and ITS Collection Instructions for more information.

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4 min read

NASA X-ray Telescopes Reveal the “Bones” of a Ghostly Cosmic Hand

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./R. Romani et al. (Chandra); NASA/MSFC (IXPE); Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DECaPS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt)

Rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields, or pulsars, serve as laboratories for extreme physics, offering high-energy conditions that cannot be replicated on Earth. Young pulsars can create jets of matter and antimatter moving away from the poles of the pulsar, along with an intense wind, forming a “pulsar wind nebula”.

In 2001, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory first observed the pulsar PSR B1509-58 and revealed that its pulsar wind nebula (referred to as MSH 15-52) resembles a human hand. The pulsar is located at the base of the “palm” of the nebula. Now Chandra’s data of MSH 15-52 have been combined with data from NASA’s newest X-ray telescope, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) to unveil the magnetic field “bones” of this remarkable structure, as reported in our press release. IXPE stared at MSH 15-52 for 17 days, the longest it has looked at any single object since it launched in December 2021.

By combining data from Chandra and IXPE, astronomers are learning more about how a pulsar is injecting particles into space and shaping its environment. The X-ray data are shown along with infrared data from the Dark Energy Camera in Chile. Young pulsars can create jets of matter and antimatter moving away from the poles of the pulsar, along with an intense wind, forming a “pulsar wind nebula”. This one, known as MSH 15-52, has a shape resembling a human hand and provides insight into how these objects are formed.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./R. Romani et al. (Chandra); NASA/MSFC (IXPE); Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DECaPS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt

In a new composite image, Chandra data are seen in orange (low-energy X-rays), green, and blue (higher-energy X-rays), while the diffuse purple represents the IXPE observations. The pulsar is in the bright region at the base of the palm and the fingers are reaching toward low energy X-ray clouds in the surrounding remains of the supernova that formed the pulsar. The image also includes infrared data from the second data release of the Dark Energy Camera Plane Survey (DECaPS2) in red and blue.

The IXPE data provides the first map of the magnetic field in the ‘hand’. It reveals information about the electric field orientation of X-rays determined by the magnetic field of the X-ray source. This is called “X-ray polarization”.

An additional X-ray image shows the magnetic field map in MSH 15-52. In this image, short straight lines represent IXPE polarization measurements, mapping the direction of the local magnetic field. Orange “bars” mark the most precise measurements, followed by cyan and blue bars with less precise measurements. The complex field lines follow the `wrist’, ‘palm’ and ‘fingers’ of the hand, and probably help define the extended finger-like structures.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./R. Romani et al. (Chandra); NASA/MSFC (IXPE); Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DECaPS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt

The amount of polarization — indicated by bar length — is remarkably high, reaching the maximum level expected from theoretical work. To achieve that strength, the magnetic field must be very straight and uniform, meaning there is little turbulence in those regions of the pulsar wind nebula. 

One particularly interesting feature of MSH 15-52 is a bright X-ray jet directed from the pulsar to the “wrist” at the bottom of the image. The new IXPE data reveal that the polarization at the start of the jet is low, likely because this is a turbulent region with complex, tangled magnetic fields associated with the generation of high-energy particles. By the end of the jet the magnetic field lines appear to straighten and become much more uniform, causing the polarization to become much larger.

A paper describing these results by Roger Romani of Stanford University and collaborators was published in The Astrophysical Journal on October 23, 2023, and is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.16067 IXPE is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency with partners and science collaborators in 12 countries. IXPE is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Ball Aerospace, headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, manages spacecraft operations together with the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder.

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.

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/chandra

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034

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Last Updated

Oct 30, 2023

Related Terms

• Astrophysics
• Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)
• Marshall Space Flight Center
• The Universe

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See SWOT Mission’s Unprecedented View of Global Sea Levels

This animation shows global sea level data collected by the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite from July 26 to Aug. 16. Red and orange indicate higher-than-average ocean heights, while blue represents lower-than-average heights. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Data on sea surface heights around the world from the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission yields a mesmerizing view of the planet’s ocean.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite is sending down tantalizing views of Earth’s water, including a global composite of sea surface heights. The satellite collected the data visualized above during SWOT’s first full 21-day science orbit, which it completed between July 26 and Aug. 16.

SWOT is measuring the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface, providing one of the most detailed, comprehensive views yet of the planet’s oceans and freshwater lakes and rivers. The satellite is a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales).

The animation shows sea surface height anomalies around the world: Red and orange indicate ocean heights that were higher than the global mean sea surface height, while blue represents heights lower than the mean. Sea level differences can highlight ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream coming off the U.S. East Coast or the Kuroshio current off the east coast of Japan. Sea surface height can also indicate regions of relatively warmer water – like the eastern part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean during an El Niño – because water expands as it warms.

The SWOT science team made the measurements using the groundbreaking Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument. With two antennas spread 33 feet (10 meters) apart on a boom, KaRIn produces a pair of data swaths (tracks visible in the animation) as it circles the globe, bouncing radar pulses off the water’s surface to collect surface-height measurements.

“The detail that SWOT is sending back on sea levels around the world is incredible,” said Parag Vaze, SWOT project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The data will advance research into the effects of climate change and help communities around the world better prepare for a warming world.”

More About the Mission

Launched on Dec. 16, 2022, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California, SWOT is now in its operations phase, collecting data that will be used for research and other purposes.

SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and the UK Space Agency. JPL, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations. CSA provided the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, managed the associated launch services.

To learn more about SWOT, visit:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov

2023-156

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Last Updated

Oct 30, 2023

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• Climate Change
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• Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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• SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography)
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NASA C-130 Makes First-Ever Flight to Antarctica for GUSTO Balloon Mission

NASA's Wallops Flight Facility C-130 aircraft delivered the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) payload to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on Oct. 28, 2023. The GUSTO mission will launch on a scientific balloon in December 2023.

Credits: NASA/Scott Battaion

On Oct. 28, 2023, NASA’s C-130 Hercules and crew safely touched down at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, after an around-the-globe journey to deliver the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO). The United States research station, operated by the National Science Foundation, is host to NASA’s Antarctic long-duration balloon campaign in which the GUSTO mission will take a scientific balloon flight beginning December 2023.

The C-130 crew, which has now completed half of the 26,400-nautical-mile round-trip journey, first stopped at Fort Cavazos, Texas, on Oct. 17, to load the GUSTO observatory and members of its instrument team. Additional stops to service the aircraft and for crew rest included Travis Air Force Base (AFB), California; Hickman AFB, Hawaii; Pago Pago, American Samoa; and Christchurch, New Zealand, before finally reaching McMurdo, Antarctica – a mere 800 miles from the South Pole.

Aircraft Office teams prepare the C-130 aircraft for departure at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The aircraft will deliver the agency’s Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) payload to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The GUSTO mission will launch on a scientific balloon in December 2023.

NASA/Terry Zaperach

GUSTO, part of NASA’s Astrophysics Explorers Program, is set to fly aboard a football-stadium-sized, zero-pressure scientific balloon 55 days and beyond, on a mapping mission of a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy and nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. A telescope with carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen emission line detectors will measure the interstellar medium, the cosmic material found between stars, and trace the full lifecycle of that matter. GUSTO’s science observations will be performed in a balloon launch from Antarctica to allow for enough observation time aloft, access to astronomical objects, and solar power provided by the austral summer in the polar region.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Aircraft Office in Wallops Island, Virginia, which manages the C-130, spent nearly a year in coordination efforts preparing for GUSTO’s trip to its launch site. From international clearances with agencies, cargo configurations with NASA’s Balloon Program Office, logistical support with the National Science Foundation at McMurdo, to specialized training on nontraditional navigation systems in Antarctica, the Aircraft Office developed an extensive plan to safely deliver the intricate science payload.

The first-ever mission to Antarctica for the NASA C-130 aircraft presented several long-haul cargo flight challenges. Mission managers and NASA’s Office of International and Interagency Relations (OIIR) started early to stay ahead of coordination of international flight clearances.

“We work very hard to make sure that we execute the mission at a high standard of technical competence and professionalism to maintain NASA’s international reputation,” said John Baycura, Wallops research pilot on the GUSTO mission.

Large time-zone changes challenge the crew’s circadian rhythm. Ninety hours in flight across multiple time zones requires an extra pilot and flight engineer on the mission to share the workload. Mandatory crew rest days at strategic locations, per NASA policy, ensure the crew receives enough time to rest, adjust to the schedule, and proceed safely.

Visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Flickr for more photos.

Unexpected weather also tops the list of most pressing challenges for this type of flight. Oceanic crossings come with the added risk of weather complicated by no radar coverage over the ocean. The crew uses DOD and civilian weather agencies to identify hazardous weather and adjust flight routes, altitude, and timings accordingly. “For the specific case of McMurdo, while en route, we called the weather shop at McMurdo Station to get a forecast update before we reached our ‘safe return’ point. Using a conservative approach, we decided whether to continue to McMurdo Station or return to Christchurch and try again the next day,” said Baycura.

For this mission, no commercial entities supported the final leg to Antarctica. U.S. Air Force C-17’s and the New York Air National Guard LC-130’s that typically transport to McMurdo Station had limited space in their schedules. By using NASA’s C-130 for this specialized cargo mission, “the balloon program gained a dedicated asset with a highly experienced crew and support team. This greatly reduced the standard project risks to schedule, cargo, and cost,” said Baycura.

For more information, visit nasa.gov/wallops.

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Last Updated

Oct 30, 2023

Editor

Jamie Adkins

Contact

Olivia F. Littleton

olivia.f.littleton@nasa.gov

Location

Wallops Flight Facility

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The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA’s Webb

Exquisite, never-before-seen details help unravel the supernova remnant’s puzzling history.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Since the recording of this energetic event in 1054 CE by 11th-century astronomers, the Crab Nebula has continued to draw attention and additional study as scientists seek to understand the conditions, behavior, and after-effects of supernovae through thorough study of the Crab, a relatively nearby example.

Image: Crab Nebula

This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) reveals new details in infrared light. The supernova remnant is comprised of several different components, including doubly ionized sulfur (represented in red-orange), ionized iron (blue), dust (yellow-white and green), and synchrotron emission (white). In this image, colors were assigned to different filters from Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI: blue (F162M), light blue (F480M), cyan (F560W), green (F1130W), orange (F1800W), and red (F2100W).

: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University).

Using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), a team led by Tea Temim at Princeton University is searching for answers about the Crab Nebula’s origins.

“Webb’s sensitivity and spatial resolution allow us to accurately determine the composition of the ejected material, particularly the content of iron and nickel, which may reveal what type of explosion produced the Crab Nebula,” explained Temim.

Image: Webb and Hubble

This side-by-side comparison of the Crab Nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light (right) reveals different details. By studying the recently collected Webb data, and consulting previous observations of the Crab taken by other telescopes like Hubble, astronomers can build a more comprehensive understanding of this mysterious supernova remnant.

: Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (Arizona State University); Webb Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University).

At first glance, the general shape of the supernova remnant is similar to the optical wavelength image released in 2005 from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope: In Webb’s infrared observation, a crisp, cage-like structure of fluffy gaseous filaments are shown in red-orange. However, in the central regions, emission from dust grains (yellow-white and green) is mapped out by Webb for the first time.

Additional aspects of the inner workings of the Crab Nebula become more prominent and are seen in greater detail in the infrared light captured by Webb. In particular, Webb highlights what is known as synchrotron radiation: emission produced from charged particles, like electrons, moving around magnetic field lines at relativistic speeds. The radiation appears here as milky smoke-like material throughout the majority of the Crab Nebula’s interior.

This feature is a product of the nebula’s pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star. The pulsar’s strong magnetic field accelerates particles to extremely high speeds and causes them to emit radiation as they wind around magnetic field lines. Though emitted across the electromagnetic spectrum, the synchrotron radiation is seen in unprecedented detail with Webb’s NIRCam instrument.

Video: Tour of Webb Image

This video tours the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant that lies 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Despite this distance from Earth, the Crab Nebula is a relatively close example of what remains after the explosive death of a massive star. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captures in unprecedented detail the various components that comprise the Crab, including the expanding cloud of hot gas, cavernous filaments of dust, and synchrotron emission. The synchrotron emission is the result of the nebula’s pulsar: a rapidly rotating neutron star that is located in the center.

Transcipt of the Crab Nebula video tour.

To locate the Crab Nebula’s pulsar heart, trace the wisps that follow a circular ripple-like pattern in the middle to the bright white dot in the center. Farther out from the core, follow the thin white ribbons of the radiation. The curvy wisps are closely grouped together, outlining the structure of the pulsar’s magnetic field, which sculpts and shapes the nebula.

At center left and right, the white material curves sharply inward from the filamentary dust cage’s edges and goes toward the neutron star’s location, as if the waist of the nebula is pinched. This abrupt slimming may be caused by the confinement of the supernova wind’s expansion by a belt of dense gas.

The wind produced by the pulsar heart continues to push the shell of gas and dust outward at a rapid pace. Among the remnant’s interior, yellow-white and green mottled filaments form large-scale loop-like structures, which represent areas where dust grains reside.

The search for answers about the Crab Nebula’s past continues as astronomers further analyze the Webb data and consult previous observations of the remnant taken by other telescopes. Scientists will have newer Hubble data to review within the next year or so from the telescope’s reimaging of the supernova remnant. This will mark Hubble’s first look at emission lines from the Crab Nebula in over 20 years, and will enable astronomers to more accurately compare Webb and Hubble’s findings.

Learn More

Want to learn more? Through NASA’s Universe of Learning, part of NASA’s Science Activation program, explore images of the Crab Nebula from other telescopes, a 3D visualization, data sonification, and hands-on activities. These resources and more information about supernova remnants and star lifecycles can be found at NASA’s Universe of Learning.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA’s Universe of Learning materials are based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC65A to the Space Telescope Science Institute, working in partnership with Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Media Contacts

Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Hannah Braun – hbraun@stsci.edu , Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edi
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Downloads

Download full resolution images for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Related Information

Neutron Stars – https://ift.tt/A0zvugL

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Universe Basics – https://ift.tt/QOuxIba

More Webb News – https://ift.tt/U5Y8aVH

More Webb Images – https://ift.tt/V5z2qlQ

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5 min read

NASA’s Modern History Makers: Sarah Tipler

Sarah Tipler poses in front of a mural of NASA astronaut Michael Anderson in Plattsburgh, New York.

Credit: Sarah Tipler

<back to gallery

Growing up, Sarah Tipler always felt out of place. She had trouble with time management, structuring her day, and focusing her attention, but she didn’t know why.

“For all of my undergraduate education, I really struggled to keep up despite understanding the material,” Tipler said. “It took a ton of work to make good grades happen, including asking for extensions and pulling last-minute all-nighters. I used to beat myself up for my apparent lack of self-control.”

Tipler enrolled in college after high school but withdrew after facing depression and other mental health challenges. A few years later, she took another stab at school to become a French teacher but found the career wasn’t for her. After realizing studying computer science and engineering fascinated her, she applied for a Pathways internship at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

“At NASA, I knew that I was working on the kinds of projects that are helping advance humanity’s knowledge of the universe and the world we live in,” she said.

It wasn’t until transitioning to a full-time computer scientist job at Glenn that she finally got some answers about herself.

“At NASA, I was feeling happy, I was in a great place in my life, and I was excited about where I was, but I was still struggling to effectively manage my workload,” she said. “That’s what led me to seek help and obtain a diagnosis of ADHD [attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder], which has really helped me understand a lot of the issues that I’ve had in my life and put a lot of things in a different perspective.”

Tipler’s colleagues provided her encouragement and a support system, and she’s now helping NASA take its next giant leap with the Artemis missions.

Tipler’s team develops code that models the power systems of the International Space Station, the Orion spacecraft, and the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) that will help propel Gateway, NASA’s future lunar space station. This SPACE (or system power analysis for capability evaluation) code can predict how much power is generated by solar arrays and determine whether it is sufficient to support important spacecraft systems, like life support and propulsion.

For example, throughout Gateway’s journey, the solar arrays that generate power for PPE won’t always be able to face the sun and generate maximum energy.

“We need to make sure that when Gateway is using its thrusters, which require a lot of electrical power, we’ll have enough for the rest of the spacecraft,” Tipler explains.

Tipler’s team is also developing a graphical user interface that will make it easier for the Flight Operations Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to use the code.

“It’s an incredible feeling to know that I’m some small part of that giant puzzle,” she said. “It makes all of the challenges and obstacles that I go through feel worth it when I get to sit down and look at things from the big picture.”

Learning to navigate ADHD has been a long journey, Tipler says, but her family, friends, fiancé, and five rambunctious cats have been there to cheer her up and encourage her. In addition, being able to work remotely from her home in northern New York has been critical to her success at work.

“I have found that teleworking and being fully remote has really helped with my ADHD because my focus isn’t always consistent, so this adds a lot more flexibility into my work life and has helped me be the best productive person I can be,” she said.

Ensuring open communication with coworkers and having conversations about expectations has also kept Tipler on the right track, and she has found ways to thrive.

“I think there are some really cool, unique perspectives that people living with different disabilities can bring to the workplace in the ways we think differently or work to overcome obstacles or problems,” she said.

Often, practices that help people with disabilities can be beneficial to all workers, Tipler says, such as offering written agendas and notes instead of just verbal information or being open to new workplace approaches.

“You don’t always need to know what someone is dealing with to make things better for everyone,” she said.

Tipler wants people working to overcome their own obstacles to know that they are not alone and to remind others that some disabilities, like ADHD, can seem invisible.

“Remember that you never know what someone else is going through,” she said. “The best approach is to operate with kindness.”

NASA is in a Golden Era of aeronautics and space exploration. In partnership with commercial and private businesses, NASA is currently making history with significant missions such as Artemis, Quesst, and electrified aviation. The NASA’s Modern History Makers series highlights members of NASA Glenn’s workforce who make these remarkable missions possible.

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NASA Supports Tests of Dust Sensor to Aid Lunar Landings

^{University of Central Florida researchers tested an instrument designed to measure the size and speed of surface particles kicked up by the exhaust from a rocket-powered lander on the Moon or Mars. The four tethered flights on Astrobotic’s Xodiac rocket-powered lander took place in Mojave, California, from Sept. 12 through Oct. 4, 2023. Researchers tested the Ejecta STORM technology’s integration with a lander and operation in flight conditions that simulated the plume effects of a lunar lander.}

^{Credits: Astrobotic}

A research team from the University of Central Florida recently tested an instrument designed to measure the size and speed of surface particles kicked up by the exhaust from a rocket-powered lander on the Moon or Mars. Supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program, researchers evaluated the instrument in a series of flight tests on Astrobotic’s Xodiac rocket-powered lander in Mojave, California.

When spacecraft land on the Moon or Mars, the rocket exhaust plume creates regolith ejecta – abrasive dust and large particles moving at high speeds – that can damage the lander and surrounding structures. Understanding how a rocket engine’s exhaust affects this ejecta will help mission designers plan more effectively for lunar landings by allowing them to model the soil erosion rate, the particle size distribution, and the velocities associated with plume-surface interaction.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida developed the laser-based instrument, named Ejecta STORM (Sheet Tracking, Opacity, and Regolith Maturity), to answer this need while embracing the Flight Opportunities program’s “fly, fix, fly” ethos to quickly advance the technology.

Four tethered flights enabled researchers to test the system’s integration with a lander and operation in flight conditions that simulated the plume effects of a lunar lander. These tests build on data collected during a 2020 flight campaign leveraging Xodiac. These 2020 flight tests, funded by the program’s TechFlights solicitation, allowed researchers to measure the density and size of particles during terrestrial simulations of lunar landings.

Researchers expect the technology to inform model development and reduce risk for future lunar landings, ultimately improving mission design for rover-based planetary science missions, crewed missions to the Moon and other bodies, and in-situ resource utilization. Flight Opportunities is managed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

By Chloe Tuck

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

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NASA Technologies Receive Multiple Nods in TIME Inventions of 2023

As NASA explores, innovates, and inspires through its work, agency inventions aimed at monitoring atmospheric pollution, studying samples from asteroids, extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, and revolutionizing flight have been named TIME’s Inventions of 2023. TIME announced the honorees on Oct. 24.

“For more than 65 years, NASA has innovated for the benefit of humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “From turning carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars, to delivering the largest asteroid sample to Earth, helping improve air quality across North America, and changing the way we fly, our MOXIE, TEMPO, OSIRIS-REx and X-59 Quesst missions are proof that NASA turns science fiction into science fact. It’s all made possible by our world-class workforce who, time after time, show us nothing is beyond our reach when we work together.”

Improving Air Quality Data

NASA graphic showing basic path of TEMPO scanning.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) mission is the first space-based instrument to measure pollution hourly during the daytime across North America, spanning from Mexico City to Northern Canada and coast-to-coast.

Launched in April 2023, TEMPO provides unprecedented daytime measurement and monitoring of major air pollutants. The first-of-its-kind instrument can monitor pollution within a four-square-mile area and is helping climate scientists improve life on Earth by providing openly accessible air quality data for studies of rush hour pollution, the transport of pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the effects of fertilizers, and it also has the potential to help improve air quality alerts.

Making Oxygen on Mars

Technicians lower the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech

In September, a microwave-size device known as MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover generated oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for the 16th and final time. 

Extracting oxygen from the atmospheric resources found on Mars via In-situ Resource Utilization processes will be critical to long-term human exploration of the Red Planet, providing explorers with breathable air and rocket propellant. 

Since Perseverance landed in 2021, MOXIE has proven far more successful than expected, generating more than 130 grams of oxygen, including 9.8 grams on its final run. At its most efficient, MOXIE produced 12 grams of oxygen an hour – twice as much as NASA’s original goals for the instrument – at least 98% purity.

Asteroid Sampler

Curation teams process the sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in a cleanroom, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range.

Photo Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber

On Sept. 24, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returned a sample from asteroid Bennu to Earth. The sample is the first asteroid collected in space by NASA, and the largest ever collected from an asteroid. The rock and dust represent relics of our early solar system and could shed light on the origins of life.

Early analysis of the sample at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston has revealed high carbon content and water, which together could indicate the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock. The Bennu sample will be divided and shared with partner space agencies and other institutions, providing generations of scientists a window about 4.5 billion years into the past.

Quiet Sonic Thumps

The X-59 aircraft is rolled out at Lockheed Martin’s facility in Palmdale, California.

Photo credit: Lockheed Martin

NASA’s X-59 experimental aircraft, the agency’s first purpose-built, supersonic X-plane in decades, is currently scheduled to take to the skies in 2024.

The centerpiece of NASA’s Quesst mission, the agency will fly the X-59 to demonstrate the ability to fly faster than the speed of sound while reducing the typically loud sonic boom to a quieter “sonic thump”. NASA will use the X-59 to provide data to help regulators amend current rules that ban commercial supersonic flight over land, opening the door to greatly reduced flight times.

NASA will fly the X-59 over several U.S. cities in the final phase of the mission, gathering public input to the hushed sonic thumps. 

The TEMPO instrument is managed by NASA Langley’s Science Directorate in collaboration with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. It was built by Ball Aerospace and integrated onto Intelsat 40E by Maxar.

The MOXIE experiment was built Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the project for the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched on Sept. 8, 2016, was led by the University of Arizona. It is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, under the agency’s Science Mission Directorate’s New Frontiers Program. 

The Low-Boom Flight Demonstration project is managed by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, the X-59 Quesst is managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and both efforts are led by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.

For more information about the agency’s missions, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

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