The work we do, and will continue in 2016, helps the United States maintain its world leadership in space exploration and scientific discovery. Here’s an overview of what we have planned for the coming year:
We’re developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery and robotic and human exploration as we expand our presence into the solar system. Its formation and evolution are comparable to Earth, helping us learn more about our own planet’s history and future.
The International Space Station is a unique place – a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. In 2016, we will continue our groundbreaking research on the orbiting laboratory.
Our Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry as companies develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems capable of carrying crews to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. Commercial transportation to and from the station will provide expanded utility, additional research time and broader opportunities of discovery on the orbiting laboratory.
We use the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. In 2016, we will continue to monitor Earth’s vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns.
Sustained investments in NASA technology advances our space exploration, science and aeronautics capabilities. Our technology development also supports the nation’s innovation economy by creating solutions that generate tangible benefits for life on earth. In 2016, we will continue to invest in the future of innovation.
Thanks to our advancements in aeronautics, today’s aviation industry is better equipped than ever to safely and efficiently transport all those passengers to their destinations. In fact, every U.S. aircraft flying today and every U.S. air traffic control tower uses NASA-developed technology in some way. In 2016, we will continue making these breakthroughs in aeronautics.
This year we will continue exploring our solar system and beyond to unravel the mysteries of our universe. We are looking to answer key questions about our home planet, neighboring planets in our solar system and more!
Guess what?! We have a new lead for our science missions, and we’re excited to introduce him to you. Recently, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has named Thomas Zurbuchen as the new head of our organization for science missions. Let’s get to know him…
Zurbuchen was most recently a professor of space science and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was also the university’s founding director of the Center for Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering.
Zurbuchen’s experience includes research in solar and heliospheric physics, experimental space research, space systems and innovation and entrepreneurship.
We asked him a few questions to see what he has in store for science at NASA…let’s take a look:
1. What is your vision for science at NASA?
Right now, I am focusing on my team and I am learning how I can help them achieve the goals we have; to design and build the missions we are currently working on. Once the presidential transition is complete, we will engage in strategic activity with that team. It has been my experience that the best ideas always come from great and diverse teams working together. I intend to do that here as well.
2. What solar system destination are you most eager for NASA to explore?
Tough question to answer. Basically, I want to go where there are answers to the most important questions. One question on my mind is the origin of extraterrestrial life. Some parts of the answer to this question can be answered at Mars, some at Europa or other moons in the outer solar system like Enceladus. Other parts of the answer is around other stars, where we have found thousands of planets…some of which are amazingly similar to Earth!
3. With raw images posted to several websites from our missions, what’s one thing you hope members of the public can help NASA do with that powerful data?
I hope that people all over the world play with the data and find new ways to explore. It’s almost like hanging out in the most amazing libraries talking about nature. Many of the books in this library have never been opened and curious minds can find true treasures in there. I know that there are over a billion data-products NASA is making available about the Earth – it’s a treasure chest!
4. In your opinion, what big science breakthrough from the past informs missions of today?
In science, everything we do builds on successes and also failures of the past. Sometimes we forget our failures or near-failures, which tend to teach us a lot about what to do and what not to do. One of my favorite stories is about the Explorer 1 mission: first they observed almost nothing, until they realized that there was so much radiation that the detectors were chocking. The Van Allen Probes is a mission that are conducting the best exploration today of these radiation belts, discovered by Explorer 1. Our exploration history is full of stories like that.
5. Behind every pretty space image is a team of scientists who analyze all the data to make the discovery happen. What do you wish the public knew about the people and work that goes into each of those pretty pictures?
I wish people knew that every picture they see, every data-set they use, is a product of a team. One of the most exhilarating facts of working in space is to be able to work in teams composed of some of the nicest and most interesting people I have ever met. There are some super-famous people I run with every time we are in the same town, others who like to play music and listen to it, and some who have been in space or climbed mountains.
6. If you were a member of the public, what mission events in the next year would you be most excited about?
The public’s lives will be directly affected by our missions in our Earth Science portfolio. Some of them are done together with NOAA, our sister agency responsible for forecasts. For example, GOES will feature a lightning detector that will enable better predictions of storms. We are also launching CYGNSS in December. This NASA mission, composed of 8 spacecraft will provide unique and high-resolution data designed to provide a deeper understanding and better prediction for hurricanes globally.
7. NASA science rewrites textbooks all the time. What do you hope the kids of tomorrow will know as facts that are merely hypothesis today?
I hope they will know about life elsewhere. They will learn how life evolves, and where there is life today.
8. NASA has explored planets within our solar system. With the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2020, what do you hope we learn about distant worlds?
James Webb is going to allow us to go back in time and look at the first stars and first galaxies. This is something we have never seen – we can only guess what will happen. James Webb is going to allow us to look at many, many more planets around other stars and will allow us to start doing the kind of research that links to the question about how habitable life is there.
9. What sort of elements make for an exciting new science discovery? What do you hope is the next big discovery?
Almost always, an exciting discovery is a surprise. Sometimes, discoveries happen because we are looking for something totally different. The biggest discoveries are the ones that change everything we thought before. All of a sudden, nature wags the finger at us and says “you are wrong!” That is how you know you are up to something new.
I hope the next big discovery tells us about the origin of the 95% of the universe we don’t know enough about. We call these 95% “Dark Energy” and “Dark Matter”, but – to be honest – we really don’t know. So, we are today living in a time where we know with 100% certainty that we don’t know what makes up 95% of our universe.
10. In your opinion, why should people care about the science at NASA?
They should care because we improve and protect lives on Earth. They should also care because we make the world we live in bigger. This is because we find things out we never knew, which creates new opportunities for humankind. Some of these opportunities are near-term – they are patents, innovations, companies or great educations. But, some of them are long-term – they change how we think about life itself.
LaRue Burbank, mathematician and computer, is just one of the many women who were instrumental to NASA missions.
4 Little Known Women Who Made Huge Contributions to NASA
Women have always played a significant role at NASA and its predecessor NACA, although for much of the agency’s history, they received neither the praise nor recognition that their contributions deserved. To celebrate Women’s History Month – and properly highlight some of the little-known women-led accomplishments of NASA’s early history – our archivists gathered the stories of four women whose work was critical to NASA’s success and paved the way for future generations.
What’s next for NASA? In 2019, we’re once again preparing for human missions to the Moon. We’re keeping the promise by developing new systems and spacecraft, making innovations in flight and technology, living and doing science on the International Space Station, and delivering images and discoveries from our home planet, our solar system and beyond.
Just like your phone needs Wi-Fi or data services to text or call – NASA spacecraft need communication services.
Giant antennas on Earth and a fleet of satellites in space enable missions to send data and images back to our home planet and keep us in touch with our astronauts in space. Using this data, scientists and engineers can make discoveries about Earth, the solar system, and beyond. The antennas and satellites make up our space communications networks: the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network.
Check out the top ten moments from our space comm community:
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1. Space communication networks helped the Artemis I mission on its historic journey to the Moon. From the launch pad to the Moon and back, the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network worked hand-in-hand to seamlessly support Artemis I. These networks let mission controllers send commands up to the spacecraft and receive important spacecraft health data, as well as incredible images of the Moon and Earth.
The Pathfinder Technology Demonstration 3 spacecraft with hosted TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) payload communicating with laser links down to Earth. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center
2. Spacecraft can range in size – from the size of a bus to the size of a cereal box. In May 2022, we launched a record-breaking communication system the size of a tissue box. TBIRD showcases the benefits of a laser communications system, which uses infrared light waves rather than radio waves to communicate more data at once. Just like we have upgraded from 3G to 4G to 5G on our phones, we are upgrading its space communications capabilities by implementing laser comms!
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3. The Deep Space Network added a new 34-meter (111-foot) antenna to continue supporting science and exploration missions investigating our solar system and beyond. Deep Space Station 53 went online in February 2022 at our Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex. It is the fourth of six antennas being added to expand the network’s capacity.
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4. You’ve probably seen in the news that there are a lot of companies working on space capabilities. The Near Space Network is embracing the aerospace community’s innovative work and seeking out multiple partnerships. In 2022, we met with over 300 companies in hopes of beginning new collaborative efforts and increasing savings.
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5. Similar to TBIRD, we’re developing laser comms for the International Space Station. The terminal will show the benefits of laser comms while using a new networking technique called High Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking that routes data four times faster than current systems. This year, engineers tested and proved the capability in a lab.
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6. In 2021, we launched the James Webb Space Telescope, a state-of-the-art observatory to take pictures of our universe. This year, the Deep Space Network received the revolutionary first images of our solar system from Webb. The telescope communicates with the network’s massive antennas at three global complexes in Canberra, Australia; Madrid, Spain; and Goldstone, California.
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7. Just like we use data services on our phone to communicate, we’ll do the same with future rovers and astronauts exploring the Moon. In 2022, the Lunar LTE Studies project, or LunarLiTES, team conducted two weeks of testing in the harsh depths of the Arizona desert, where groundbreaking 4G LTE communications data was captured in an environment similar to the lunar South Pole. We’re using this information to determine the best way to use 4G and 5G networking on the Moon.
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8. A new Near Space Network antenna site was unveiled in Matjiesfontein, South Africa. NASA and the South African Space Agency celebrated a ground-breaking at the site of a new comms antenna that will support future Artemis Moon missions. Three ground stations located strategically across the globe will provide direct-to-Earth communication and navigation capabilities for lunar missions.
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9. Quantum science aims to better understand the world around us through the study of extremely small particles. April 14, 2022, marked the first official World Quantum Day celebration, and we participated alongside other federal agencies and the National Quantum Coordination Office. From atomic clocks to optimizing laser communications, quantum science promises to greatly improve our advances in science, exploration, and technology.
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10. We intentionally crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid to test technology that could one day be used to defend Earth from asteroids. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, mission successfully collided with the asteroid Dimorphos at a rate of 4 miles per second (6.1 kilometers per second), with real-time video enabled by the Deep Space Network. Alongside communications and navigation support, the global network also supports planetary defense by tracking near-Earth objects.
We look forward to many more special moments connecting Earth to space in the coming year.
The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made history – not only as the first aircraft to perform powered, controlled flight on another world – but also for exceeding expectations, pushing the limits, and setting the stage for future NASA aerial exploration of other worlds.
Built as a technology demonstration designed to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, Ingenuity performed flight operations from the Martian surface for almost three years. The helicopter ended its mission on Jan. 25, 2024, after sustaining damage to its rotor blades during its 72nd flight.
So, what did we learn from this small but mighty helicopter?
Our leadership hit the road to visit our commercial partners Lockheed Martin,
Sierra Nevada Corp. and Ball Aerospace in Colorado. They were able to
check the status of flight hardware, mission operations and even test virtual reality simulations that help these companies build
spacecraft parts.
Let’s take a look at all the cool technology
they got to see…
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor building our Orion crew vehicle, the only spacecraft designed to take humans into deep space farther than they’ve ever gone before.
Acting NASA Deputy Administrator Lesa Roe and Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot are seen inside the CHIL…the
Collaborative Human Immersive Laboratory at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in
Littleton, Colo. Lockheed Martin’s CHIL enables collaboration between spacecraft
design and manufacturing teams before physically producing hardware.
Cool shades! The ability to visualize
engineering designs in virtual reality offers tremendous savings in time and
money compared to using physical prototypes. Technicians can practice how to assemble and install components, the shop floor can validate tooling and work platform designs, and engineers can visualize performance characteristics like thermal, stress and aerodynamics, just like they are looking at the real thing.
This heat shield, which was used as a test
article for the Mars Curiosity Rover, will now be
used as the flight heat shield for the Mars 2020 rover mission.
Fun fact: Lockheed Martin has built every
Mars heat shield and aeroshell for us since the Viking missions in 1976.
Here you can see Lockheed Martin’s Mission
Support Area. Engineers in this room support six of our robotic planetary
spacecraft: Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Juno, OSIRIS-REx
and Spitzer, which recently revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star, TRAPPIST-1. They work with NASA centers and the mission science teams to
develop and send commands and monitor the health of the spacecraft.
See all the pictures from the Lockheed Martin visit HERE.
Sierra Nevada Corporation
Next, Lightfoot and Roe went to Sierra Nevada Corporation
in Louisville, Colo. to get an update about its Dream Chaser vehicle. This
spacecraft will take cargo to and from the International Space
Station as part of our commercial cargo program.
Here, Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Vice President of Space Exploration Systems Steve Lindsey (who is also a former test pilot and astronaut!) speaks with Lightfoot and Roe about the Dream Chaser Space System simulator.
Lightfoot climbed inside the Dream Chaser simulator where he “flew” the crew version of the spacecraft to a safe landing. This mock-up facility enables approach-and-landing simulations as well as other real-life situations.
See all the images from the Sierra Nevada visit HERE.
Ball Aerospace
Lightfoot and Roe went over to Ball Aerospace to tour its facility. Ball is another one of our commercial aerospace partners and helps builds instruments that are on NASA spacecraft throughout the universe, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Ball designed and built the advanced optical technology and lightweight mirror system that will enable the James Webb Space Telescope to look 13.5 billion years back in time.
Looking into the clean room at Ball Aerospace’s
facility in Boulder, Colo., the team can see the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite. These sensors are used on spacecraft to track ozone measurements.
Here, the group stands in front of a thermal
vacuum chamber used to test satellite optics. The Operation Land Imager-2 is being built for Landsat
9, a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that will
continue the Landsat Program’s 40-year data record monitoring the Earth’s
landscapes from space.
See all the pictures from the Ball Aerospace visit HERE.
We recently marked a decade since a new era began in commercial spaceflight development for low-Earth orbit transportation. We inked agreements in 2006 to develop rockets and spacecraft capable of carrying cargo such as experiments and supplies to and from the International Space Station. Learn more about commercial space HERE.
We’ve made some amazingly advanced software for our space missions, from launching rockets to the International Space Station to landing rovers on Mars. But a lot of that software can be applied to other situations here on the ground. We’ve got hundreds of downloadable programs in the NASA Software Catalog available for public use—and they’re all free.
We’ve rounded up five interesting software programs to get your search started.
1. Take a walk on Mars from your living room
Want to walk around Mars from the comfort of your living room? OnSight can help with that. Our engineers and scientists created this mixed reality software to immerse themselves in a visualization of the terrain around the Curiosity rover, so users feel like they are really walking on the Red Planet. The software can be adapted to visualize other locations, which means it could also help us explore places on Earth, like caves and lava fields. No wonder it was awarded NASA’s 2018 Software of the Year!
2. Enhancing images from space and the doctor’s office
It’s hard to take a perfect picture from space. That’s why our scientists created the Hierarchical Image Segmentation software program – to help us enhance and analyze images taken of Earth from space by the Landsat and Terra missions. But, that isn’t all it can do. Doctors have used the software to analyze medical images, such as X-rays, ultrasounds and mammography images, to reveal important details previously unseen by the human eye.
3. Video game tech helps our engineers build spaceflight hardware
Installing sensitive spaceflight hardware is hardly a time for fun and games. Except when it comes to the Distributed Observer Network, or DON 3.1. This software combines innovative NASA tools with commercial video game technology to train our employees for stressful tasks – like maneuvering important, delicate tools through tight spots when building instruments or spacecraft. DON can be used in many other industries, particularly for overcoming the challenges that face virtual teams collaborating on complex problems.
4. Software helps protect Earth from space junk
Those of us on the ground may imagine space as a peaceful place to float among the stars, but in reality, Earth’s atmosphere is filled with junk. This space debris can cause damage to spacecraft and satellites, including the International Space Station. That’s where the Orbital Debris Engineering Model software program comes in. Thanks to this NASA software, we can study the risks of debris impact to help us protect our orbiting equipment and – more importantly – our planet. Communication companies could use this software to prevent debris damage when launching satellites, saving them a lot of time and money.
5. From exploration missions to your office, this software keeps projects on track
Do you manage complex projects at work? There are a lot of steps and moving pieces in play when it comes to getting a spacecraft from the launchpad into space. Used during the space shuttle missions, the Schedule Test and Assessment Tool 5.0 add-on works with Microsoft Project to automate project data to help us stay on track. It’s one of the more popular programs in our software catalog because it provides quick, clear assessment info that can help with decision making.
These are just a few examples of the software NASA has free and available for the public. To browse the new 2019-2020 catalog online, visit https://software.nasa.gov/.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
It’s almost launch day! On Monday, June 24, the launch window opens for the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program-2 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Among the two dozen satellites on board are four NASA payloads whose data will help us improve satellite design and performance.
Our experts will be live talking about the launch and NASA’s missions starting this weekend.
🛰 Tune in on Sunday, June 23, at 12 p.m. EDT (9 a.m. PDT) for a live show diving into the technology behind our projects.
🚀 Watch coverage of the launch starting at 11 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. PDT) on Monday, June 24
A simulated image of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s future observations toward the center of our galaxy, spanning less than 1 percent of the total area of Roman’s Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey. The simulated stars were drawn from the Besançon Galactic Model.
Exploring the Changing Universe with the Roman Space Telescope
The view from your backyard might paint the universe as an unchanging realm, where only twinkling stars and nearby objects, like satellites and meteors, stray from the apparent constancy. But stargazing through NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will offer a front row seat to a dazzling display of cosmic fireworks sparkling across the sky.
Follow, follow the Sun / And which way the wind blows / When this day is done 🎶 Today, April 8, 2024, the last total solar eclipse until 2045 crossed North America.
