“One of my proudest, happiest moments was watching an early-career researcher, who I met first when she was a graduate student conducting research and working on some new, innovative equipment. She was going to give a demonstration to a group of visitors, and as happened with me many times, everything works perfectly until the people show up – and the equipment wouldn’t do anything. So she took a few deep breaths and explained what we would have seen.
“And then she actually became a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellow. And I watched her scientific growth and her confidence increase, and I watched her research transition through different areas until … she finished her postdoc and she got a fellowship to do some additional work in another institution.
“And then we were both at a conference one time, and she pulled me over and she said, ‘Melissa, I just got a call,’ and she got this enormous grant … and I realized, ‘She has launched!’ … It was cool to watch the positive things. It was important for people to be there for her, to help her through the difficult times and tell her she could do it and [say], you know, ‘Just give it some more time.’
“She has become just like a force. She’s become one of the leaders in the astrobiology community, and I got to participate in all of that. And I’m so happy, and I know that there are going to be a ton more people who will follow in her footsteps, and I hope that I can interact with them also.
“… I’ve just seen such tremendous things happen since I’ve been part of the Astrobiology Program, and that’s why I’m pretty confident we’re going to find life elsewhere, because there are just so many brilliant people working on this.”
— Melissa Kirven-Brooks, Exobiology Deputy Branch Chief and Future Workforce Lead of the NASA Astrobiology Program, NASA’s Ames Research Center
Image Credit: NASA / Brandon Torres
Interviewer: NASA / Michelle Zajac
Mat Bevill, the associate chief engineer for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program, stands in front of a four-segment solid rocket booster that powered the space shuttle at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
NASA/Brandon Hancock
Significant events in history keep finding Mat Bevill. As the associate chief engineer for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) Program, Bevill assists the program chief engineer by interfacing with each of the element chief engineers and helping make critical decisions for the development and flight of the SLS mega rocket that will power NASA’s Artemis campaign. With the launch of Artemis II, the first crewed test flight of SLS and the Orion spacecraft, Bevill’s technical leadership and support for the SLS Chief Engineer’s Office will place him, once again, at a notable moment in time.
“Think of me as the assistant coach. While the head coach is on the front line leading the team, I’m on the sidelines providing feedback and advising those efforts,” said Bevill. As a jack-of-all-trades, he enables progress in any way that he can, something he’s familiar with after 37 years with NASA. And, on Nov. 16, 2022, as the SLS rocket roared to life for the first time with the Artemis I test flight, Bevill couldn’t help but reflect on a lifetime of experiences and lessons that led to that moment.
Bevill began his NASA career while he was still attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. During his sophomore year as a mechanical engineer student, he applied for the agency’s internship program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Just a few months before Bevill began his journey with NASA, the Challenger accident occurred, taking the lives of all seven crewmembers in January 1986. Bevill joined the Solid Motor Branch at Marshall as teams across the agency worked to understand the cause of the accident. It was a fast-paced environment, and Bevill had to learn quickly about the solid rocket boosters.
“It was a surreal experience, but I was privileged to work with those people. We were figuring out tough lessons together and working toward a common goal,” Bevill recalls.
Those tough lessons provided Bevill with tremendous hands-on experience related to the solid rocket booster hardware that would not only shape his career, but, later, the SLS rocket. The five-segment solid rocket boosters that provide more than 75% of thrust for SLS to go to the Moon are based on the same four-segment design that powered 135 shuttle missions to low Earth orbit. His experience from his time with the shuttle led him to deputy chief engineer for the SLS Boosters Office.
Just as for Artemis I, Bevill will be standing by and serving as the “assistant coach” for Artemis II as the SLS rocket, once again, takes flight and sends the first crewed Artemis mission around the Moon. “SLS has been the crowning jewel of my career, and I consider myself blessed to be a part of NASA’s history,” Bevill said.
SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.
NASA has selected small business Firelake-Arrowhead NASA Services Joint Venture of Lawrence, Kansas, to acquire construction management, inspection, surveying, and testing services at NASA centers across the country.
The Construction Management, Inspection, Surveying, and Testing (CMIST-II) contract was competed as a Small Business 8(a) set-aside, and the maximum contract value is approximately $38.8 million.
This is a hybrid contract with firm-fixed-price and cost-plus-fixed-fee for base services plus a firm-fixed price indefinite-delivery/indefinite aspect performed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland and Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. It also will have a firm-fixed price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity aspect, which can be performed at any NASA center.
The performance period begins Monday, April 1, and includes a 30-day phase-in period, a two-year base period, a two-year option, a one-year option, and a six-month option, with the potential to extend services through Nov. 30, 2029.
The contractor will manage construction projects and maintenance tasks from initial concepts through completion, including requirements development, design, construction, commissioning, activation, and turnover. Leidos, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, is a subcontractor.
For information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA and Salisbury University (SU) in Maryland signed a collaborative Space Act Agreement Thursday, March 28, 2024, opening new opportunities at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Director Dr. Makenzie Lystrup (right) shakes hands with Salisbury University President Dr. Carolyn R. Lepre during the SU Space Act Agreement signing ceremony held in Salisbury, Md., Thursday, March 28, 2024. Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs for SU Dr. Laurie Couch (left) and NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Director David Pierce stand behind them.
NASA/Jamie Adkins
The agreement forges a formal partnership to identify research and engineering projects and activities at Wallops designed to provide SU students and professors with experiential, hands-on activities.
“Our success at NASA, now and in the future, depends on a dynamic network of partnerships focused on our mission operations and growing the next generation of innovators,” said Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, center director at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “NASA’s partnership with Salisbury University expands our workforce development ecosystem and provides students with real-world experience in critical aerospace career fields.” NASA Goddard manages Wallops Flight Facility for the agency.
The agreement also lays a framework for expanding internship opportunities at Wallops, mentoring, technical expertise to faculty, and support for job fairs and other career development programs aimed to expand awareness of careers in the aerospace industry.
“NASA Wallops has long been at the forefront of space exploration, pioneering breakthroughs that have expanded our understanding of the universe and inspired generations of scientists, engineers, and dreamers,” said Dr. Carolyn Ringer Lepre, SU president. “Together, we will leverage our collective expertise, resources, and ingenuity to tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing our world today.”
Dr. Makenzie Lystrup speaks during the Salisbury University Space Act Agreement signing ceremony held in Salisbury, Md., Thursday, March 28, 2024. The agreement will expand internship opportunities at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, mentoring, technical expertise to faculty, and support for job fairs and other career development programs aimed to expand awareness of careers in the aerospace industry.
NASA/Jamie Adkins
Wallops’ conducts upwards of 50 operational science and technology missions worldwide annually launching on orbital and suborbital rockets, scientific balloons, and flying on airborne science platforms. In addition, NASA’s commercial partners like Rocket Lab are increasing launch operations on the facility.
“Our operations are growing at Wallops underscoring the need for an innovative, skilled workforce to advance our science and technology missions,” said Lystrup. “This agreement is helping us fill a critical workforce need to propel us into the future.”
For more information on programs at Wallops, visit:
Contribute to NASA Research on Eclipse Day – and Every Day
NASA is celebrating the Sun during the Heliophysics Big Year, which extends through the end of 2024. You can get involved to help us learn more about our star and its influence on our planet. With exciting experiments happening during the total solar eclipse that will cross North America on April 8, to widespread investigations going on throughout the year, keep reading to find a project that’s right for you.
The dark band that runs from Mexico into Texas and all the way to Maine and Maritime Canada shows the path of totality for the April 8, 2024, eclipse. This is the area where people on Earth can witness a total eclipse of the Sun. Outside of this path, observers may see a partial eclipse, with the amount of the Sun being blocked by the Moon decreasing with distance from the path.
NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio/Michala Garrison; Eclipse Calculations By Ernie Wright, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
What Is Citizen Science (Also Called Participatory Science)?
NASA defines citizen science as “a form of open collaboration in which individuals or organizations participate in the scientific process in various ways” from collecting and analyzing data to making discoveries and solving problems. ”Citizen” here refers to citizens of planet Earth, and these projects are open to everyone, regardless of country of birth or legal citizenship status.
NASA sponsors citizen science projects across all five areas of research that it pursues: Earth science, planetary science, astrophysics, biological and physical sciences, and heliophysics. And yes, there are a few projects that are focused on the April 8 solar eclipse!
What You Can Do
Depending which project you join, you might:
Observe and record in pictures or words natural phenomena like clouds, animal noises, or a solar eclipse.
Learn how to recognize or classify patterns in data or pictures of a comet or solar jet.
Learn how to build and use scientific equipment like radio telescopes or ham radios.
Your contribution may be a large or small piece of the picture, but what you do as part of a NASA citizen science project is essential to answering the research question or need that the project addresses. And while you’re contributing to science, you might also develop new skills and make friends. You can read about some project participants – and what motivates them – in these profiles.
The Projects
NASA citizen science projects related to the April 8, 2024, eclipse and solar science are presented in four groups below. You can see all NASA citizen science projects onthis website.
Use the tables below to find the project for you! A few notes:
“Minimum time required” refers to how much time it would take you to get up to speed from the start.
“Where” refers to where you need to be in order to participate.
Are you an educator looking for ways to involve your formal or informal students in eclipse-related science? Check out this companion blog post for some tips for educators.
Eclipse Projects That Need You on April 8!
Quick-Start Projects That Require No Special Equipment
Many NASA citizen science projects start out with a straightforward, structured task, but that doesn’t have to be where your contributions end. Some projects offer webinars or host regular video conference calls where enthusiastic volunteers can learn about and participate in the work that comes after data collection or classification. Hundreds of volunteers have become involved in deep ways. Over 450 volunteers have even been recognized for their contributions by being named as co-authors of scientific papers, which are the formal way in which scientists announce new discoveries and ideas.
By Sarah Kirn Citizen Science Strategist, NASA, at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute
¿Quieres ser astronauta, pero no sabes por dónde empezar? ¡Estas son algunas maneras en las que puedes comenzar tu viaje! Incluso si no aeun no reúnes los requisitos para ser astronauta, mediante la Oficina de Participación STEM (ciencia, tecnologÃa, ingenierÃa y matemáticas) de la NASA, u OSTEM, hay formas de participar en las misiones de la NASA. Echa un vistazo a las 10 mejores maneras de ser astronauta:
5. ¡Aprende lo que realmente se necesita para convertirte en astronauta!
Existen muchos mitos y conceptos erróneos sobre lo que se necesita para ser astronauta. Infórmate sobre los hechos y los requisitos, y prepárate para una experiencia fuera de este mundo, literalmente.
6. Una gran variedad de carreras profesionales pueden llevarte al espacio: ¡Encuentra una que te guste!
¿No estás todavÃa a nivel universitario o de posgrado? Nunca es demasiado pronto para involucrarte en áreas de STEM y dar los primeros pasos hacia una carrera fuera de este mundo. Elige clases de ciencias, matemáticas y programación que se alineen con tus objetivos y únete a clubes y actividades relacionadas con STEM fuera del aula. Si tu escuela o comunidad no ofrece un club para lo que te interesa, ¡crea uno!
Two full-scale development model rovers, part of NASA’s Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) technology demonstration, drive in the Mars Yard at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California in this image from August 2023. The project is designed to show that a group of robotic spacecraft can work together as a team to accomplish tasks and record data autonomously – without explicit commands from mission controllers on Earth.
A series of Mars Yard tests with the development models confirmed CADRE hardware and software can work together to accomplish key goals for the project. The rovers drove together in formation and adjusted their plans as a group when faced with unexpected obstacles.
CADRE is slated to arrive at the Reiner Gamma region of the Moon through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The network of robots will spend the daylight hours of a single lunar day – about 14 Earth days – conducting experiments that will test their capabilities.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Gateways to Blue Skies Competition is sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace.
NIA
Eight teams participating in the 2024 Gateways to Blue Skies: Advancing Aviation for Natural Disasters Competition have been selected to present their design concepts to a panel of industry experts at the 2024 Blue Skies Forum, May 30 and 31, 2024 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.
Sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), this year’s Blue Skies Competition asked teams of university students to research and conceptualize aviation-related systems that will aid in natural disaster management, and to submit a five to seven-page proposal and a video summarizing their concept.
“We are thrilled with the diversity of ideas from all the finalists and can see their passion for making a real impact in natural disaster response through new and improved aviation systems,” said Steven Holz, NASA Aeronautics University Innovation Assistant Project Manager and Blue Skies judge and co-chair. “We look forward to seeing their final papers, infographics, and hearing their final presentations at the forum.”
The 2024 Gateways to Blue Skies: Advancing Aviation for Natural Disasters finalist projects represent diverse natural disaster response types, including earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires:
Boston University
Deployable Unmanned Aerial System to Detect and Map Volcanic Ash Clouds
Enhancing Earthquake Disaster Relief with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Advisor: Dr. Haydar Teymourlouei
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Aero-Quake Emergency Response Network
Advisor: Mark Gonda
Cerritos College
F.I.R.E. (Fire Intervention Retardant Expeller)
Advisor: Janet McLarty-Schroeder
Columbia University
AVATARS: Aerial Vehicles for Avalanche Terrain Assessment and Reporting Systems
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Mike Massimino
North Carolina State University
Reconnaissance and Emergency Aircraft for Critical Hurricane Relief (REACHR)
Advisor: Dr. Felix Ewere
University of Texas, Austin
Data Integrated UAV for Wildfire Management
Advisor: Dr. Christian Claudel
As climate change increasingly influences the frequency and severity of natural disasters on a global scale, opportunities to contribute at the intersection of technological advancement, aviation, and natural disasters grow in both number and importance. NASA Aeronautics is dedicated to expanding its efforts to assist commercial, industry, and government partners in advancing aviation-related systems that could help prepare for natural disasters, lessen their impacts, and speed up recovery efforts.
The eight finalist teams each receive $8,000 stipends to facilitate full participation in the Gateways to Blue Skies Forum, which will be held in May in Mountain View and will be livestreamed globally. Winning team members earn a chance to intern at one of NASA’s Aeronautics centers in the 2024-25 academic year.
New NASA Software Simulates Science Missions for Observing Terrestrial Freshwater
A map describing freshwater accumulation (blue) and loss (red), using data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. A new Observational System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) will help researchers design science missions dedicated to monitoring terrestrial freshwater storage. Image Credit: NASA
Image Credit: NASA
From radar instruments smaller than a shoebox to radiometers the size of a milk carton, there are more tools available to scientists today for observing complex Earth systems than ever before. But this abundance of available sensors creates its own unique challenge: how can researchers organize these diverse instruments in the most efficient way for field campaigns and science missions?
To help researchers maximize the value of science missions, Bart Forman, an Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland, and a team of researchers from the Stevens Institute of Technology and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, prototyped an Observational System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) for designing science missions dedicated to monitoring terrestrial freshwater storage.
“You have different sensor types. You have radars, you have radiometers, you have lidars – each is measuring different components of the electromagnetic spectrum,” said Bart Forman, an Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland. “Different observations have different strengths.”
Terrestrial freshwater storage describes the integrated sum of freshwater spread across Earth’s snow, soil moisture, vegetation canopy, surface water impoundments, and groundwater. It’s a dynamic system, one that defies traditional, static systems of scientific observation.
Forman’s project builds on prior technology advancements he achieved during an earlier Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) project, in which he developed an observation system simulation experiment for mapping terrestrial snow.
It also relies heavily on innovations pioneered by NASA’s Land Information System (LIS) and NASA’s Trade-space Analysis Tool for Designing Constellations (TAT-C), two modeling tools that began as ESTO investments and quickly became staples within the Earth science community.
Forman’s tool incorporates these modeling programs into a new system that provides researchers with a customizable platform for planning dynamic observation missions that include a diverse collection of spaceborne data sets.
In addition, Forman’s tool also includes a “dollars-to-science” cost estimate tool that allows researchers to assess the financial risks associated with a proposed mission.
Together, all of these features provide scientists with the ability to link observations, data assimilation, uncertainty estimation, and physical models within a single, integrated framework.
“We were taking a land surface model and trying to merge it with different space-based measurements of snow, soil moisture, and groundwater to see if there was an optimal combination to give us the most bang for our scientific buck,” explained Forman.
While Forman’s tool isn’t the first information system dedicated to science mission design, it does include a number of novel features. In particular, its ability to integrate observations from spaceborne passive optical radiometers, passive microwave radiometers, and radar sources marks a significant technology advancement.
Forman explained that while these indirect observations of freshwater include valuable information for quantifying freshwater, they also each contain their own unique error characteristics that must be carefully integrated with a land surface model in order to provide estimates of geophysical variables that scientists care most about.
Forman’s software also combines LIS and TAT-C within a single software framework, extending the capabilities of both systems to create superior descriptions of global terrestrial hydrology.
Indeed, Forman stressed the importance of having a large, diverse team that features experts from across the Earth science and modeling communities.
“It’s nice to be part of a big team because these are big problems, and I don’t know the answers myself. I need to find a lot of people that know a lot more than I do and get them to sort of jump in and roll their sleeves up and help us. And they did,” said Forman.
Having created an observation system simulation experiment capable of incorporating dynamic, space-based observations into mission planning models, Forman and his team hope that future researchers will build on their work to create an even better mission modeling program.
For example, while Forman and his team focused on generating mission plans for existing sensors, an expanded version of their software could help researchers determine how they might use future sensors to gather new data.
“With the kinds of things that TAT-C can do, we can create hypothetical sensors. What if we double the swath width? If it could see twice as much space, does that give us more information? Simultaneously, we can ask questions about the impact of different error characteristics for each of these hypothetical sensors and explore the corresponding tradeoff.” said Forman.
PROJECT LEAD
Barton Forman, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION
NASA’s Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) program, a part of NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), funded this project
NASA to Launch Sounding Rockets into Moon’s Shadow During Solar Eclipse
NASA will launch three sounding rockets during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, to study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet.
The Atmospheric Perturbations around Eclipse Path (APEP) sounding rockets will launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to study the disturbances in the ionosphere created when the Moon eclipses the Sun. The sounding rockets had been previously launched and successfully recovered from White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, during the October 2023 annular solar eclipse. They have been refurbished with new instrumentation and will be relaunched in April 2024. The mission is led by Aroh Barjatya, a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where he directs the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab.
This photo shows the three APEP sounding rockets and the support team after successful assembly. The team lead, Aroh Barjatya, is at the top center, standing next to the guardrails on the second floor.
NASA/Berit Bland
The sounding rockets will launch at three different times: 45 minutes before, during, and 45 minutes after the peak local eclipse. These intervals are important to collect data on how the Sun’s sudden disappearance affects the ionosphere, creating disturbances that have the potential to interfere with our communications.
This conceptual animation is an example of what observers might expect to see during a total solar eclipse, like the one happening over the United States on April 8, 2024.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
The ionosphere is a region of Earth’s atmosphere that is between 55 to 310 miles (90 to 500 kilometers) above the ground. “It’s an electrified region that reflects and refracts radio signals, and also impacts satellite communications as the signals pass through,” said Barjatya. “Understanding the ionosphere and developing models to help us predict disturbances is crucial to making sure our increasingly communication-dependent world operates smoothly.”
The ionosphere forms the boundary between Earth’s lower atmosphere – where we live and breathe – and the vacuum of space. It is made up of a sea of particles that become ionized, or electrically charged, from the Sun’s energy, or solar radiation. When night falls, the ionosphere thins out as previously ionized particles relax and recombine back into neutral particles. However, Earth’s terrestrial weather and space weather can impact these particles, making it a dynamic region and difficult to know what the ionosphere will be like at a given time.
An animation depicts changes in the ionosphere over a 24-hour period. The red and yellow swaths represent high-density ionized particles during the day. The purple dots represent neutral, relaxed particles at night.
NASA/Krystofer Kim
It’s often difficult to study short-term changes in the ionosphere during an eclipse with satellites because they may not be at the right place or time to cross the eclipse path. Since the exact date and times of the total solar eclipse are known, NASA can launch targeted sounding rockets to study the effects of the eclipse at the right time and at all altitudes of the ionosphere.
As the eclipse shadow races through the atmosphere, it creates a rapid, localized sunset that triggers large-scale atmospheric waves and small-scale disturbances, or perturbations. These perturbations affect different radio communication frequencies. Gathering the data on these perturbations will help scientists validate and improve current models that help predict potential disturbances to our communications, especially high frequency communication.
The animation depicts the waves created by ionized particles during the 2017 total solar eclipse.
MIT Haystack Observatory/Shun-rong Zhang. Zhang, S.-R., Erickson, P. J., Goncharenko, L. P., Coster, A. J., Rideout, W. & Vierinen, J. (2017). Ionospheric Bow Waves and Perturbations Induced by the 21 August 2017 Solar Eclipse. Geophysical Research Letters, 44(24), 12,067-12,073. https://ift.tt/6AoaHfE.
The APEP rockets are expected to reach a maximum altitude of 260 miles (420 kilometers). Each rocket will measure charged and neutral particle density and surrounding electric and magnetic fields. “Each rocket will eject four secondary instruments the size of a two-liter soda bottle that also measure the same data points, so it’s similar to results from fifteen rockets, while only launching three,” explained Barjatya. Three secondary instruments on each rocket were built by Embry-Riddle, and the fourth one was built at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
In addition to the rockets, several teams across the U.S. will also be taking measurements of the ionosphere by various means. A team of students from Embry-Riddle will deploy a series of high-altitude balloons. Co-investigators from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts, and the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, will operate a variety of ground-based radars taking measurements. Using this data, a team of scientists from Embry-Riddle and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory are refining existing models. Together, these various investigations will help provide the puzzle pieces needed to see the bigger picture of ionospheric dynamics.
A sounding rocket is able to carry science instruments between 30 and 300 miles above Earth’s surface. These altitudes are typically too high for science balloons and too low for satellites to access safely, making sounding rockets the only platforms that can carry out direct measurements in these regions.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
When the APEP sounding rockets launched during the 2023 annular solar eclipse, scientists saw a sharp reduction in the density of charged particles as the annular eclipse shadow passed over the atmosphere. “We saw the perturbations capable of affecting radio communications in the second and third rockets, but not during the first rocket that was before peak local eclipse” said Barjatya. “We are super excited to relaunch them during the total eclipse, to see if the perturbations start at the same altitude and if their magnitude and scale remain the same.”
The next total solar eclipse over the contiguous U.S. is not until 2044, so these experiments are a rare opportunity for scientists to collect crucial data.
