Topic: Lori Keesey

NASA Goddard Technologists and Scientists Prepare for a New Era of Human Exploration

March 14, 2019 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – NASA scientists, engineers, and technologists are preparing for a new era of human exploration at the Moon, which includes a new launch system, capsule, and lunar-orbiting outpost that will serve as the jumping-off point for human spaceflight deeper into the Solar System.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is playing a vital role in these initiatives, particularly in the areas of communications and instrument development as evidenced by the recent award of five proposals under NASA’s Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation (DALI) to advance spacecraft-based instrument for use in lunar-landing missions.

The technologies needed for sustainable exploration at the Moon will have to be powerful, multipurpose, and fast, said Jake Bleacher, Chief Scientist for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

Goddard will provide laser communications services to NASA’s Orion vehicle, shown in this artist concept. (NASA)

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NASA looks to advance Nanomaterial-Based Detector Platform

February 18, 2019 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – A NASA technologist is taking miniaturization to the extreme.

Mahmooda Sultana won funding to advance a potentially revolutionary, nanomaterial-based detector platform. The technology is capable of sensing everything from minute concentrations of gases and vapor, atmospheric pressure and temperature, and then transmitting that data via a wireless antenna — all from the same self-contained platform that measures just two-by-three-inches in size.

Under a $2 million technology development award, Sultana and her team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will spend the next two years advancing the autonomous multifunctional sensor platform.

Technologist Mahmooda Sultana holds an early iteration of an autonomous multifunctional sensor platform, which could benefit all of NASA’s major scientific disciplines and efforts to send humans to the Moon and Mars. (NASA/W. Hrybyk)

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NASA researches Ultrafast Laser Machining for Spaceflight Applications

November 5, 2018 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – An ultrafast laser that fires pulses of light just 100 millionths of a nanosecond in duration could potentially revolutionize the way that NASA technicians manufacture and ultimately assemble instrument components made of dissimilar materials.

A team of optical physicists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is experimenting with a femtosecond laser and has already shown that it can effectively weld glass to copper, glass to glass, and drill hair-sized pinholes in different materials.

A Goddard team is using an ultrafast laser to bond dissimilar materials, with the goal of ultimately eliminating epoxies that outgas and contaminate sensitive spacecraft components. Shown here are a few samples (from left to right): silica welded to copper; silica welded to Invar; and sapphire welded to Invar. (NASA/W. Hrybyk)

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NASA to demonstrate Internet in Space with Disruption Tolerant Networking

July 18, 2018 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations and Science Mission Directorates are collaborating to make interplanetary internet a reality.

They’re about to demonstrate Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking, or DTN – a technology that sends information much the same way as conventional internet does. Information is put into DTN bundles, which are sent through space and ground networks to its destination.

NASA’s new Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, or PACE, mission will be the first space mission to use a new communication technology. From left to right are the engineers helping to build the mission: Nga Cao, Steve Feng, Wei Lu, Chris Zincke, and Zoran Kahric. (NASA)

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NASA looks to use Carbon Nanotube Technology for Spaceflight Applications

May 14, 2018 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – An ultra-dark coating comprised of nearly invisible shag rug-like strands made of pure carbon is proving to be highly versatile for all types of spaceflight applications.

In the most recent application of the carbon-nanotube coating, optical engineer John Hagopian, a contractor at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Goddard scientist Lucy Lim are growing an array of miniscule, button-shaped bumps of multi-walled nanotubes on a silicon wafer.

John Hagopian (left) collaborated with instrument scientist Lucy Lim to develop a new instrument that relies on carbon nanotubes to provide the electrons needed to excite minerals contained in an extraterrestrial sample. Larry Hess (right) patterns all the leads and patches where the catalyst for growing nanotubes is deposited. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Bill Hrybyk)

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NASA Optics Experts close to developing Telescope that can search far off Planets for Life

January 30, 2018 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD –  Optics Experts Measure to Picometer Accuracy — a NASA First.

NASA optics experts are well on the way to toppling a barrier that has thwarted scientists from achieving a long-held ambition: building an ultra-stable telescope that locates and images dozens of Earth-like planets beyond the solar system and then scrutinizes their atmospheres for signs of life. 

Babak Saif and Lee Feinberg at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have shown for the first time that they can dynamically detect subatomic- or picometer-sized distortions — changes that are far smaller than an atom — across a five-foot segmented telescope mirror and its support structure.

Goddard optics experts Babak Saif (left) and Lee Feinberg (right), with help from engineer Eli Griff-McMahon an employee of Genesis, have created an Ultra-Stable Thermal Vacuum system that they will use to make picometer-level measurements. (NASA/W. Hrybyk)

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NASA looks into Tethering Two CubeSats to study Swirl Patterns on the Moon

August 11, 2017 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – A novel mission concept involving two CubeSats connected by a thin, miles-long tether could help scientists understand how the Moon got its mysterious “tattoos” — swirling patterns of light and dark found at more than 100 locations across the lunar surface.

NASA’s Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat Studies, or PSDS3, program recently selected a team at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, to further develop a mission concept called the Bi-sat Observations of the Lunar Atmosphere above Swirls, or BOLAS. The study, led by Goddard Principal Investigator Timothy Stubbs, could lead to the first tethered planetary CubeSat mission, Stubbs said.

This artist’s drawing shows how two CubeSats, connected by a miles-long tether, would gather measurements on the moon. (NASA)

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NASA examines possible link between Animal Beachings and Severe Solar Storms

February 3, 2017 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – A long-standing mystery among marine biologists is why otherwise healthy whales, dolphins, and porpoises — collectively known as cetaceans — end up getting stranded along coastal areas worldwide. Could severe solar storms, which affect Earth’s magnetic fields, be confusing their internal compasses and causing them to lose their way?

Although some have postulated this and other theories, no one has ever initiated a thorough study to determine whether a relationship exists — until now.

Veterinarians Rachel Berngartt and Kate Savage volunteer with NMFS’ Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Network during the necropsy of a humpback whale calf that stranded on Baranof Island, Alaska. (Aleria Jensen, NOAA/NMFS/AKFSC)

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NASA to study Neutron stars for groundbreaking Space Navigation Technology

April 8, 2013 |

Written by Lori Keesey
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – Neutron stars have been called the zombies of the cosmos. They shine even though they’re technically dead, occasionally feeding on neighboring stars if they venture too close.

Interestingly, these unusual objects, born when a massive star extinguishes its fuel and collapses under its own gravity, also may help future space travelers navigate to Mars and other distant destinations.

This artist’s rendition shows the NICER/SEXTANT payload that NASA recently selected as its next Explorer Mission of Opportunity. The 56-telescope payload will fly on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

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NASA Develops Super-Black Material That Absorbs Light Across Multiple Wavelength Bands

November 13, 2011 |

Written by Lori Keesey and Ed Campion
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – NASA engineers have produced a material that absorbs on average more than 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that hits it — a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.

The team of engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, reported their findings recently at the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference, the largest interdisciplinary technical meeting in this discipline. The team has since reconfirmed the material’s absorption capabilities in additional testing, said John Hagopian, who is leading the effort involving 10 Goddard technologists.

This close-up view (only about 0.03 inches wide) shows the internal structure of a carbon-nanotube coating that absorbs about 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light that strikes it. A section of the coating, which was grown on smooth silicon, was purposely removed to show the tubes' vertical alignment. (Credit: Stephanie Getty, NASA Goddard)

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