Gateway’s Lunar I-Hab and HALO modules under construction at a Thales Alenia Space industrial plant in Turin, Italy.
ESA/Stephane Corvaja
The Artemis IV mission is taking shape with major hardware for Gateway, humanity’s first space station to orbit the Moon, progressing in Turin, Italy.
NASA will launch HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), center of image in background, along with the Power and Propulsion Element (not pictured) to lunar orbit ahead of the Artemis IV mission as the first elements of Gateway, the first space station to be assembled around the Moon. During that mission, astronauts will launch in the Orion spacecraft with the Lunar I-Hab, pieces of which are shown here in the foreground, and deliver it to Gateway. Lunar I-Hab is provided by ESA (European Space Agency) with significant hardware contributions from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and is one of four Gateway modules that astronauts will live and work inside as they orbit the Moon.
Thales Alenia Space completed major welding on HALO and began initial fabrication of Lunar I-Hab last year. The company is a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for HALO, and prime contractor to ESA for Lunar I-Hab.
Along with HALO, I-Hab, and the Power and Propulsion Element, two additional Gateway modules provided by ESA and the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre make up the core components of the space station. CSA (Canadian Space Agency) is providing the Canadarm3 advanced external robotic system and fixtures for science instruments.
The international teams of astronauts living, conducting science, and preparing for missions to the lunar South Pole region from Gateway will be the first humans to make their home in deep space.
Gateway’s Lunar I-Hab module under construction at a Thales Alenia Space industrial plant in Turin, Italy.
ESA/Stephane Corvaja
Gateway’s Lunar I-Hab module under construction at a Thales Alenia Space industrial plant in Turin, Italy.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is getting ready for the next big step in the evolution of its main campus in Huntsville, Alabama. Through a series of multi-year infrastructure projects, Marshall is optimizing its footprint to assure its place as a vibrant and vital hub for the aerospace community in the next era.
Near-term plans call for the carefully orchestrated take-down of 19 obsolete and idle structures – among them the 363-foot-tall Dynamic Test Stand, the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, and Neutral Buoyancy Simulator. These facilities are not required for current or future missions, and the demolitions will help the center transition to a more modern, sustainable, and affordable infrastructure.
Test engineers fire up the Saturn I rocket’s first stage (S-1-10) at the Propulsion and Structural Test Facility, or “T-tower,” at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1964.
NASA
“These facilities helped NASA make history – the Dynamic Test Stand was the tallest manmade structure in North Alabama and helped us test both the Saturn V rocket and the space shuttle,” said Joseph Pelfrey, Marshall’s Center Director. “Without these structures, we wouldn’t have the space program we have today. While it is hard to let them go, the most important legacy remaining are the people that built and stewarded these facilities and the missions they enabled. That same bold spirit fuels us, today. We are committed to carrying it forward to inspire the workforce of tomorrow.”
Built in 1964, the Dynamic Test Stand initially was used to test fully assembled Saturn V rockets. In 1978, engineers there also integrated all space shuttle elements for the first time, including the orbiter, external fuel tank, and solid rocket boosters.
The Propulsion and Structural Test Facility – better known at Marshall as the “T-tower” due to its unique shape – was built in 1957 by the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency and transferred to NASA when Marshall was founded in 1960. There, engineers tested components of the Saturn launch vehicles, the Army’s Redstone Rocket, and shuttle solid rocket boosters.
The Neutral Buoyancy Simulator, including its 1.3-million-gallon tank and control room, was built in the late 1960s. From 1969 until its closing in 1997, the facility enabled NASA astronauts and researchers to experience near-weightlessness, conducting underwater testing of space hardware and practice runs for servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. It was replaced in 1997 by a new facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Astronauts conduct underwater testing on the International Space Station’s power module in the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in 1995.
NASA
Honoring the Past, Building the Future
Marshall master planner Justin Taylor said the facilities team looked at every possibility for refurbishing the old sites.
“The upkeep of aging facilities is costly, and we have to put our funding where it does the most good for NASA’s mission,” he said. “These are tough choices, but we have to prioritize function and cost over nostalgia. We’re making way for what’s next.”
To preserve NASA history, the agency has worked with architectural historians over the years on detailed drawings, written histories, and large-format photographs of the sites. Those documents are part of the Library of Congress’s permanent Historic American Engineering Record collection, making their history and accomplishments available to the public for generations to come.
Marshall facilities engineers are still finalizing the details and timeline for the demolitions. Work is expected to begin in late 2024 and end in late 2025. Additionally, to support the center’s employees and all the mission work they are doing, Marshall has a few infrastructure projects in design stages that will include the construction of two state-of-the-art buildings within the decade ahead.
A new Marshall Exploration Facility will offer a two to three story facility at approximately 55,000 square feet located within the 4200 complex. The facility will include an auditorium, along with conferencing, training, retail, and administrative spaces. The new Engineering Science Lab – at approximately 140,000 square feet – will provide a modern, flexible laboratory environment to accommodate a new focus for research and testing capabilities.
Ultimately, NASA’s vision for Marshall is a dynamic, interconnected campus. The center’s master plan features a central greenway connecting its two most densely populated zones – its administrative complex and engineering complex.
“As we look towards the aspirational goals we have as an agency, Marshall’s contributions may look different than our past but be no less important,” said Pelfrey. “And we want our partners, employees, and the community to be part of the evolution with us, bringing complementary skills and capabilities, innovative ideas, and a passion for exploration and discovery.”
To learn more about NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:
Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1300 light-years away. The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. Webb’s new view focuses on the illuminated edge of the top of the nebula’s distinctive dust and gas structure.
This image of part of the Horsehead Nebula, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and released on April 29, 2024, shows the nebula in a whole new light, capturing the region’s complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution. Located roughly 1,300 light-years away, the nebula formed from a collapsing interstellar cloud of material, and glows because it is illuminated by a nearby hot star. The gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the jutting pillar is made of thick clumps of material and therefore is harder to erode. Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead has about 5 million years left before it too disintegrates.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)
The horizon of Mars showing water-ice and dust in the atmosphere, as seen by the NASA’s Mars Odyssey mission on May 9, 2023. To find layers of ice and dust like these in Mars’s atmosphere, participants in the Cloudspotting on Mars project analyze data from a different infrared instrument, the Mars Climate Sounder on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. More information on this image (including an animation) can be found here: https://ift.tt/gqYrZDB.
There’s good news from NASA’s Cloudspotting on Mars project! That’s the project that invites you to help identify exotic clouds high in the Martian atmosphere.
Thanks to your help, the Cloudspotting on Mars project reached ahuge milestone. Another full Mars year, Mars Year 30 (Oct 2009 – Sep 2011), has been completed! That’s the second full Mars year of observations that has been analyzed since the project began.
A new project from the Cloudspotting on Mars team has started its beta testing phase! In this new project, you’ll pick out cloud shapes in data from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) Mission. If you’re willing to help beta test this project and provide feedback before it launches, please send an email to the team. We’ll let everyone know when this project officially launches, of course!
Congratulations to the Cloudspotting on Mars team and all the volunteers who have helped spot Martian clouds!
John F. Kennedy set the tone for NASA’s culture in 1961 during his famous speech on going to the Moon, “We choose to go to the Moon not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone…”
That culture has never faded, even across NASA’s diverse spectrum of missions. The continuous challenge to do what is hard or near impossible includes the requirement for innovation. Innovation is the importance of what we do, but also how we do it. With a goal of improving the way NASA’s workforce engineers its systems, the Systems Engineering (SE) Technical Discipline Team (TDT) has partnered with numerous facets of the NASA workforce to better enable innovation in how we work. Over the past year, three diverse teams made progress toward that goal by looking at the way we levy technical standards, improving understanding and integrated risk (cost, schedule, and technical), reducing project risk by better management of mass growth, and moving SE into the model based digital domain. A brief summary of each team’s efforts follows.
a). MBSE is being applied to help architect the ExMC, which is pushing the boundary of space medical systems to care for future astronauts. b). A proposed Mars sample return mission development project would benefit from using the NASA-endorsed ANSI/AIAA standard: Mass Properties Control for Space Systems
ExMC: Systems Analysis and Integration Using MBSE
Via its Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Infusion And Modernization Initiative (MIAMI), the NESC SE TDT partnered with the Human Research Program’s Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element (https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/elements/exmc) at JSC. ExMC has adopted SE principles and tools (MBSE and the Systems Modeling Language) to develop an initial architecture and requirements for a future exploration medical system. MIAMI is assisting the ExMC work by providing an MBSE modeler who is matrixed to ExMC, one NASA MBSE Community of Practice (CoP) meeting per month dedicated to responding to ExMC’s needs, and any available/needed Agency MBSE infrastructure. In return, MIAMI is receiving modeling lessons learned, feedback to the MIAMI Leadership Team on available MBSE resources, and data needed to communicate MBSE successes and challenges to their SE TDT peers.The partnership has been mutually beneficial to ExMC, the SE TDT, and the greater NASA MBSE community. With MIAMI support, ExMC architected their system model, developed a model management plan, better defined their MBSE hiring and training needs, provided guidance to junior modelers, and developed ideas to push the boundaries of model usage.
As a return benefit, the MBSE community received a sample model architecture, an updated model management plan template, and valuable discussions at the MBSE CoP, where the ExMC presented ideas that had not been considered before. Ideas included the characteristics of good system modelers, how to manage model configuration, and using models with non-modeling tools. Notes from all these lively and well-attended CoP discussions are on the NASA Engineering Network MBSE website (https://nen.nasa.gov/web/mbse/). Beyond this, ExMC’s input on what will be necessary to grow NASA’s MBSE community and capability (e.g., modeler skillsets) continues to inform and ground in reality MIAMI’s recommendations to NASA’s Digital Transformation initiative.
NASA/JPL: Enterprise Approach to Mass Properties Control
In August 2019, a team of NESC and NASA subject matter experts (SME) issued a report regarding mass growth. It included recommendations to initiate the development and sustainment of an expanded mass growth database as an Agency resource and reforms in how programs and projects estimate, manage, and report mass properties based on the NASA-endorsed ANSI/AIAA S-120A-2015 [2019] standard, Mass Properties Control for Space Systems. The intent is to reap the benefits of a more common approach across NASA in managing and controlling mass growth and of using a common terminology among NASA Centers and its contractors. Historical mass growth data, consolidated in a single place, will help programs and projects in establishing Mass Growth Allowance (MGA) factors and mass margins above MGA that can reduce the risk of mass issues and potential cost overruns. To date, the NESC recommendations have resulted in major changes in mass management and control requirements and recommended best practices at JPL and other NASA Centers. Beyond Center-level actions, the NESC has engaged with the Office of the Chief Financial Officer to promote the use of the ANSI/AIAA standard’s terminology and calculations in future data collections for NPR 7120.5-mandated Cost Analysis Data Requirements documents.
New approaches to streamlining design and constructions standards will benefit projects like the Gateway Power and Propulsion and Habitation and Logistics Outpost.
HALO: Modernized Application of Design & Construction Standards
The NASA Technical Standards Process Improvement pilot activity initiated by the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) Project seeks to improve the way that NASA levies and manages technical standards by 1) moving from document-centric to data-centric (databases) management of the requirements; 2) incorporating important attributes into the database so that applicability, tailoring, and information management is streamlined; and 3) providing technical recommendations on acceptable approaches for compliance evidence. The effort is a fleet-leader on how to streamline the standards deployment, assessment, and long-term verification process, while also improving the allocation of resources based on mission risk.
NASA Technical Fellows participated in this review and provided important input and support for the assessment of Design and Construction (D&C) standards for the HALO project. The approach “shredded” the requirements documents into a database of individual requirements with fields to populate describing the requirement type and compliance approach. Overall, the pilot activity is an important first step in properly assessing and flowing D&C standards to NASA’s contractors and partners. NESC systems engineering and integration SMEs reviewed the HALO pilot deployment activity for managing and implementing design and construction standards. The SMEs identified advantages and disadvantages of the pilot activity and offered suggestions for improving the standards streamlining effort in the future.
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The DGEN380 Aero-Propulsion Research Turbofan (DART) is a small-scale jet engine NASA uses to test new aviation technology. DART is seen here inside its host facility, the Aero-Acoustic Propulsion Laboratory at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. This soundproofed chamber ensures researchers can understand the level of noise the engine is producing, as well as keeping the volume low outside.
NASA/Bridget Caswell
Located inside a high-tech NASA laboratory in Cleveland is something you could almost miss at first glance: a small-scale, fully operational jet engine to test new technology that could make aviation more sustainable.
The engine’s smaller size and modestly equipped test stand means researchers and engineers can try out newly designed engine components less expensively compared to using a more costly full-scale jet engine test rig.
Named DGEN380 Aero-Propulsion Research Turbofan, or DART, the engine is tiny enough to fit on a kitchen table, measuring at just 4.3 feet (1.3 meters) long. That’s about half the length of engines used on single-aisle airliners.
DART – not to be confused with NASA’s asteroid redirect mission of the same name – enables the agency to boost its sustainable aviation technology research because of its accessibility.
A hidden gem located inside the Aero-Acoustic Propulsion Laboratory at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the DART engine was made by a French company named Price Induction (now Akira) and was acquired by NASA in 2017.
“DART’s small size makes it appealing,” said Dan Sutliff, who coordinates research for the engine at NASA Glenn. “It’s a great way to explore new technology that hasn’t yet reached the level of a full-scale operation.”
Small Steps Towards Big Goals
Several key NASA activities studying jet engines used DART in the past.
For example, it helped researchers learn more about incorporating materials that can help reduce engine noise. These technologies could be incorporated for use in next-generation airliners to make them quieter.
Now, NASA researchers plan to use the DART engine to investigate ideas that could help develop new ultra-efficient airliners for use during the 2030s and beyond. If all goes well, the technology could proceed to more exhaustive tests involving larger facilities such as NASA’s wind tunnels.
“DART is a critical bridge between a design and a wind tunnel test,” Sutliff said. “Technologies that work well here have a greater chance of achieving successful inclusion on future aircraft engines. The test rig helps NASA save resources and contribute to protecting our environment.”
DART tests are run from the Mobile Control Unit – a large van converted into a high-tech control facility with video monitors reporting live data from the engine. In this image, two engineers supervise an engine test, with the nearest researcher operating DART’s thrust lever.
NASA/Bridget Caswell
Among its features, DART has a high bypass ratio, which is a measure of how much air passes through the turbofan and around the main core of the engine as opposed to entering it. Having a high bypass ratio means that DART is more characteristic of larger high-bypass ratio engines on commercial aircraft.
The DART engine also can test many other aspects of a jet engine including engine noise, operating controls, coatings used to protect engine parts, sensors and other instrumentation, and much more.
John Gould is a member of NASA Aeronautics' Strategic Communications team at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. He is dedicated to public service and NASA’s leading role in scientific exploration. Prior to working for NASA Aeronautics, he was a spaceflight historian and writer, having a lifelong passion for space and aviation.
The SpaceX Cargo Dragon resupply ship is pictured approaching the International Space Station carrying over 7,300 pounds of new science, supplies and solar arrays to replenish the Expedition 65 crew. The Cargo Dragon’s nose cone is open revealing its hatch and forward docking cone.
NASA and its international partners are set to receive scientific research samples and hardware as a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft departs the International Space Station on Sunday, April 28 weather permitting.
The agency will provide coverage of undocking and departure beginning at 12:45 p.m. EDT on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.
Dragon will undock from the station’s zenith port of the Harmony module at 1:05 p.m. and fire its thrusters to move a safe distance away from the station after receiving a command from ground controllers at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.
The spacecraft arrived at the station March 23 and delivered more than 6,000 pounds of research investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware after it launched March 21 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy.
After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will splash down off the coast of Florida. NASA will not broadcast the splashdown, but updates will be posted on the agency’s space station blog.
Dragon will carry back to Earth more than 4,100 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment. Splashing down off the coast of Florida enables quick transportation of the experiments to NASA’s Space Systems Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, allowing researchers to collect data with minimal sample exposure to Earth’s gravity.
Scientific hardware and samples returning to Earth include Flawless Space Fibers-1, which produced more than seven miles of optical fiber aboard the space station. The investigation tests new hardware and processes for producing high-quality optical fibers in space and drew more than half a mile of fiber in one day, surpassing the previous record of 82 feet for the longest fiber manufactured in space.
Other studies include GEARS (Genomic Enumeration of Antibiotic Resistance in Space), which surveys the space station for antibiotic-resistant organisms. Genetic analysis could show how these bacteria adapt to space, providing knowledge that informs measures designed to protect astronauts on future long-duration missions.
Also returning on Dragon is MISSE-18(Materials International Space Station Experiment-18-NASA), which analyzes how exposure to space affects the performance and durability of specific materials and components. MISSE-18 includes coatings, quantum dots, a lunar regolith simulant composite, and other materials. The samples returning home were exposed to the harsh environment of space for six months.
Additionally, samples from Immune Cell Activation will return to Earth for analysis. The ESA (European Space Agency) sponsored experiment seeks to understand whether microgravity influences the incorporation of magnetic nanoparticles into immune and melanoma cells. In this experiment, immune cells were modified with nano-vectors that are intended to carry therapeutic agents specifically to their target cells. Results could help develop novel therapeutics targeting central nervous system diseases and skin cancers such as melanoma.
These are just a few of the hundreds of investigations currently being conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory in the areas of biology and biotechnology, physical sciences, and Earth and space science. Advances in these areas will help keep astronauts healthy during long-duration space travel and demonstrate technologies for future human and robotic exploration beyond low Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars through NASA’s Artemis campaign.
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Learn more about the International Space Station at:
NASA partners with commercial companies to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation of cargo and crew members to and from the International Space Station. A platform for long-duration research in microgravity, the station has operated continuously for more than 23 years, its crew members conducting a broad range of technology demonstrations and thousands of experiments in many scientific fields.
Human Transportation
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program provides systems capable of carrying astronauts to low Earth orbit and the space station through industry partners who design, build, test, and operate these systems. Crew members providing hands-on operation of scientific research is one of the unique advantages of the orbiting laboratory. Human operators monitor events on Earth in real time, swap out experiment samples, observe results firsthand, assess when conditions are favorable for data collection, and troubleshoot and otherwise manage and maintain scientific activities. Crew members also pack experiment samples to return to the ground for detailed analysis.
NASA commercial partner Boeing is launching NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on a Crew Flight Test of its Starliner spacecraft in May 2024. The spacecraft launches to the space station on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This mission paves the way for NASA to certify the Starliner spacecraft for long-duration rotation missions to the space station.
Crew members Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in the Boeing Starliner simulator at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA/Robert Markowitz
SpaceX, another commercial partner, conducted an uncrewed Demo-1 flight in March 2019, and in May 2020, the Demo-2 flight carried NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the space station. The first operational mission, Crew-1, launched in November 2020. Since then, SpaceX has regularly sent crews to the orbiting laboratory for scientific missions. The Dragon spacecraft launches on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Crew-1 launches to the International Space Station in a Dragon spacecraft on Sunday, Nov. 15, 2020.
NASA/Joel Kowsky
NASA’s commercial crew flights have significantly increased the amount of crew time available for research and expanded the potential for commercial use of the orbiting laboratory. More crew members mean more time for scientific research and technology demonstrations, and ultimately, more scientific results. To date, results generated by space station research range from improvements in the development of pharmaceuticals to better disaster response, improved materials manufacturing, advances in robotics, bioprinting human tissue, and more.
NASA astronaut Megan McArthur works with experiment samples with JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.
NASA
By enabling regular rotation of crew members, commercial crew flights also contribute to research on how long-duration missions affect human health, helping to prepare for exploration missions to the Moon and Mars.
Cargo Resupply
Through NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program, partners SpaceX and Northrop Grumman fly cargo to the space station on rockets and spacecraft the companies developed.
Northrop Grumman transports scientific investigations and cargo on its Cygnus spacecraft. The company’s first resupply mission launched in 2013 and it had reached 20 missions by January 2024. When a Cygnus departs from the space station, it disposes of several thousand pounds of waste that burn up during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
A Northrop Grumman Cygnus approaches the International Space Station as they orbit above the south Pacific Ocean.
NASA
Departing Cygnus spacecraft also provide safe platforms to perform research that could create hazards if conducted on the space station, such as the Spacecraft Fire Safety Experiments (Saffire). This eight-year series of investigations studied flame growth and material flammability in space. The experiments were ignited in the cargo vehicles after their departure from the station and before re-entry to Earth, avoiding potential risk to the space station and its crew.
SpaceX launched its first Dragon cargo mission in October 2012 and by March 2024, had sent 30 commercial resupply services missions to the space station. Dragon is a reusable spacecraft that also returns samples from scientific investigations conducted on the space station. Beginning in 2021, these return flights started splashing down near Kennedy rather than in the Pacific Ocean. This capability allows scientists quick access to samples to make additional observations and analyses before the effects of gravity fully kick back in. Many researchers also conduct more in-depth analysis later in their home labs.
A SpaceX Dragon splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. Credit: NASA
NASA also is working with Sierra Space to develop the Dream Chaser spacecraft to transport cargo to and from the space station. The reusable, winged spacecraft is designed to use commercial runways and its cargo is subject to reduced gravitational forces on the return flight. Sierra Space conducted an autonomous atmospheric test flight in 2017.
These commercial partnerships build a strong American commercial space industry, as NASA focuses on developing the next generation of rockets and spacecraft for deep space missions and to put the first woman and first person of color on the Moon.
Melissa Gaskill
International Space Station Research Communications Team
NASA’s Johnson Space Center
Search this database of scientific experiments to learn more about those mentioned above.
It took the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission just 13 minutes to reach low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in February 2024. It took a network of scientists at NASA and research institutions around the world more than 20 years to carefully craft and test the novel instruments that allow PACE to study the ocean and atmosphere with unprecedented clarity.
Neither PACE’s OCI nor HARP2 — a nearly exact copy of the HARP prototype — would exist were it not for NASA’s early investments in novel technologies for Earth observation through competitive grants distributed by the agency’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO). Over the last 25 years, ESTO has managed the development of more than 1,100 new technologies for gathering science measurements.
“All of this investment in the tech development early on basically made it much, much easier for us to build the observatory into what it is today,” said Jeremy Werdell, an oceanographer at NASA Goddard and project scientist for PACE.
Charles “Chuck” McClain, who led the ORCA research team until his retirement in 2013, said NASA’s commitment to technology development is a cornerstone of PACE’s success. “Without ESTO, it wouldn’t have happened. It was a long and winding road, getting to where we are today.”
Left to right: Gerhard Meister, Bryan Monosmith, and Chuck McClain are shown here at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in 2015 with the Ocean Radiometer for Carbon Assessment (ORCA) prototype that led to the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) aboard NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission.
NASA/Bill Hrybyk
It was ORCA that first demonstrated a telescope rotating at a speed of six revolutions per second could synchronize perfectly with an array of charge-coupled devices — microchips that transform telescopic projections into digital images. This innovation made it possible for OCI to observe hyperspectral shades of ocean color previously unobtainable using space-based sensors.
But what made ORCA especially appealing to PACE was its pedigree of thorough testing. “One really important consideration was technology readiness,” said Gerhard Meister, who took over ORCA after McClain retired and serves as OCI instrument scientist. Compared to other ocean radiometer designs that were considered for PACE, “we had this instrument that was ready, and we had shown that it would work.”
Technology readiness also made HARP an appealing solution to PACE’s polarimeter challenge. Mission engineers needed an instrument powerful enough to ensure PACE’s ocean color measurements weren’t jeopardized by atmospheric interference, but compact enough to fly on the PACE observatory platform.
By the time Vanderlei Martins, an atmospheric scientist at UMBC, first spoke to Werdell about incorporating a version of HARP into PACE in 2016, he had proven the technology with AirHARP, an airplane-mounted version of HARP, and was using an ESTO award to prepare HARP CubeSat for space.
HARP2 relies on the same optical system developed through AirHARP and HARP CubeSat. A wide-angle lens observes Earth’s surface from up to 60 different viewing angles with a spatial resolution of 1.62 miles (2.6kilometers) per pixel, all without any moving parts. This gives researchers a global view of aerosols from a tiny instrument that consumes very little energy.
HARP2, short for Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter 2, undergoes calibration testing prior to launch aboard PACE.
NASA/Denny Henry
Were it not for NASA’s early support of AirHARP and HARP CubeSat, said Martins, “I don’t think we would have HARP2 today.” He added: “We achieved every single goal, every single element, and that was because ESTO stayed with us.”
That support continues making a difference to researchers like Jessie Turner, an oceanographer at the University of Connecticut who will use PACE to study algal blooms and water clarity in the Chesapeake Bay.
“For my application that I’m building for early adopters of PACE data, I actually think that polarimeters are going to be really useful because that’s something we haven’t fully done before for the ocean,” Turner said. “Polarimetric data can actually help us see what kind of particles are in the water.”
Without the early development and test-drives of the instruments from McClain’s and Martins’ teams, PACE as we know it wouldn’t exist.
“It all kind of fell in place in a timely manner that allowed us to mature the instruments, along with the science, just in time for PACE,” said McClain.
To explore current opportunities to collaborate with NASA on new technologies for studying Earth, visit ESTO’s open solicitations page here.
