NASA
NASA Awards Spaceflight Operations, Systems Organization Contract
NASA has awarded ASCEND Aerospace & Technology of Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Contract for Organizing Spaceflight Mission Operations and Systems (COSMOS), to provide services at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The COSMOS is a single award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract valued at $1.8 billion that begins its five-year base period no earlier than Dec. 1, with two option periods that could extend until 2034. The Aerodyne Company of Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Jacobs Technology Company of Tullahoma, Tennessee, are joint venture partners.
Work performed under the contract will support NASA’s Flight Operation Directorate including the Orion and Space Launch System Programs, the International Space Station, Commercial Crew Program, and the Artemis campaign. Services include Mission Control Center systems, training systems, mockup environments, and training for astronauts, instructors, and flight controllers.
For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:
-end-
Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov
Chelsey Ballarte
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
chelsey.n.ballarte@nasa.gov
Portrait of an Astronaut
NASA Invites Media to Learn About New Missions to Map Sun’s Influence
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 12 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 4, to discuss the agency’s upcoming Sun and space weather missions, IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. The two missions are targeting launch on the same rocket no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23.
The IMAP mission will map the boundaries of our heliosphere, the vast bubble created by the Sun’s wind that encapsulates our entire solar system. As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will explore how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space, as well as chart the range of particles that fill the space between the planets. The IMAP mission also will support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles. These energetic particles can produce hazardous space weather that can impact spacecraft and other NASA hardware as the agency explores deeper into space, including at the Moon under the Artemis campaign.
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will image the ultraviolet glow of Earth’s exosphere, the outermost region of our planet’s atmosphere. This data will help scientists understand how space weather from the Sun shapes the exosphere and ultimately impacts our planet. The first observation of this glow – called the geocorona – was captured during Apollo 16, when a telescope designed and built by George Carruthers was deployed on the Moon.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:
Participants include:
- Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, director, Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
- David J. McComas, IMAP principal investigator, Princeton University
- Lara Waldrop, Carruthers Geocorona Observatory principal investigator, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
To participate in the media teleconference, media must RSVP no later than 11 a.m. on Sept. 4 to Sarah Frazier at: sarah.frazier@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
The IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also launching on this flight will be the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), which will monitor solar wind disturbances and detect and track coronal mass ejections before they reach Earth.
David McComas, professor, Princeton University, leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 27 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, built the spacecraft and will operate the mission. NASA’s IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes Program portfolio.
The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory mission is led by Lara Waldrop from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Mission implementation is led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley, which also designed and built the two ultraviolet imagers. BAE Systems designed and built the Carruthers spacecraft.
The Solar Terrestrial Probes Program Office, part of the Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division at NASA Goddard, manages the IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, manages the launch service for the mission.
To learn more about IMAP, please visit:
-end-
Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
NASA Invites Media to Learn About New Missions to Map Sun’s Influence
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 12 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 4, to discuss the agency’s upcoming Sun and space weather missions, IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. The two missions are targeting launch on the same rocket no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23.
The IMAP mission will map the boundaries of our heliosphere, the vast bubble created by the Sun’s wind that encapsulates our entire solar system. As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will explore how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space, as well as chart the range of particles that fill the space between the planets. The IMAP mission also will support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles. These energetic particles can produce hazardous space weather that can impact spacecraft and other NASA hardware as the agency explores deeper into space, including at the Moon under the Artemis campaign.
NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will image the ultraviolet glow of Earth’s exosphere, the outermost region of our planet’s atmosphere. This data will help scientists understand how space weather from the Sun shapes the exosphere and ultimately impacts our planet. The first observation of this glow – called the geocorona – was captured during Apollo 16, when a telescope designed and built by George Carruthers was deployed on the Moon.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:
Participants include:
- Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, director, Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
- David J. McComas, IMAP principal investigator, Princeton University
- Lara Waldrop, Carruthers Geocorona Observatory principal investigator, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
To participate in the media teleconference, media must RSVP no later than 11 a.m. on Sept. 4 to Sarah Frazier at: sarah.frazier@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
The IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also launching on this flight will be the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), which will monitor solar wind disturbances and detect and track coronal mass ejections before they reach Earth.
David McComas, professor, Princeton University, leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 27 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, built the spacecraft and will operate the mission. NASA’s IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes Program portfolio.
The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory mission is led by Lara Waldrop from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Mission implementation is led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley, which also designed and built the two ultraviolet imagers. BAE Systems designed and built the Carruthers spacecraft.
The Solar Terrestrial Probes Program Office, part of the Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division at NASA Goddard, manages the IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, manages the launch service for the mission.
To learn more about IMAP, please visit:
-end-
Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov
Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
NASA Marsquake Data Reveals Lumpy Nature of Red Planet’s Interior
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Scientists believe giant impacts — like the one depicted in this artist’s concept — occurred on Mars 4.5 billion years ago, injecting debris from the impact deep into the planet’s mantle. NASA’s InSight lander detected this debris before the mission’s end in 2022.NASA/JPL-CaltechRocky material that impacted Mars lies scattered in giant lumps throughout the planet’s mantle, offering clues about Mars’ interior and its ancient past.
What appear to be fragments from the aftermath of massive impacts on Mars that occurred 4.5 billion years ago have been detected deep below the planet’s surface. The discovery was made thanks to NASA’s now-retired InSight lander, which recorded the findings before the mission’s end in 2022. The ancient impacts released enough energy to melt continent-size swaths of the early crust and mantle into vast magma oceans, simultaneously injecting the impactor fragments and Martian debris deep into the planet’s interior.
There’s no way to tell exactly what struck Mars: The early solar system was filled with a range of different rocky objects that could have done so, including some so large they were effectively protoplanets. The remains of these impacts still exist in the form of lumps that are as large as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across and scattered throughout the Martian mantle. They offer a record preserved only on worlds like Mars, whose lack of tectonic plates has kept its interior from being churned up the way Earth’s is through a process known as convection.
A cutaway view of Mars in this artist’s concept (not to scale) reveals debris from ancient impacts scattered through the planet’s mantle. On the surface at left, a meteoroid impact sends seismic signals through the interior; at right is NASA’s InSight lander.NASA/JPL-CaltechThe finding was reported Thursday, Aug. 28, in a study published by the journal Science.
“We’ve never seen the inside of a planet in such fine detail and clarity before,” said the paper’s lead author, Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London. “What we’re seeing is a mantle studded with ancient fragments. Their survival to this day tells us Mars’ mantle has evolved sluggishly over billions of years. On Earth, features like these may well have been largely erased.”
InSight, which was managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, placed the first seismometer on Mars’ surface in 2018. The extremely sensitive instrument recorded 1,319 marsquakes before the lander’s end of mission in 2022.
NASA’s InSight took this selfie in 2019 using a camera on its robotic arm. The lander also used its arm to deploy the mission’s seismometer, whose data was used in a 2025 study showing impacts left chunks of debris deep in the planet’s interior.NASA/JPL-CaltechQuakes produce seismic waves that change as they pass through different kinds of material, providing scientists a way to study the interior of a planetary body. To date, the InSight team has measured the size, depth, and composition of Mars’ crust, mantle, and core. This latest discovery regarding the mantle’s composition suggests how much is still waiting to be discovered within InSight’s data.
“We knew Mars was a time capsule bearing records of its early formation, but we didn’t anticipate just how clearly we’d be able to see with InSight,” said Tom Pike of Imperial College London, coauthor of the paper.
Quake huntingMars lacks the tectonic plates that produce the temblors many people in seismically active areas are familiar with. But there are two other types of quakes on Earth that also occur on Mars: those caused by rocks cracking under heat and pressure, and those caused by meteoroid impacts.
Of the two types, meteoroid impacts on Mars produce high-frequency seismic waves that travel from the crust deep into the planet’s mantle, according to a paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters. Located beneath the planet’s crust, the Martian mantle can be as much as 960 miles (1,550 kilometers) thick and is made of solid rock that can reach temperatures as high as 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius).
Scrambled signalsThe new Science paper identifies eight marsquakes whose seismic waves contained strong, high-frequency energy that reached deep into the mantle, where their seismic waves were distinctly altered.
“When we first saw this in our quake data, we thought the slowdowns were happening in the Martian crust,” Pike said. “But then we noticed that the farther seismic waves travel through the mantle, the more these high-frequency signals were being delayed.”
Using planetwide computer simulations, the team saw that the slowing down and scrambling happened only when the signals passed through small, localized regions within the mantle. They also determined that these regions appear to be lumps of material with a different composition than the surrounding mantle.
With one riddle solved, the team focused on another: how those lumps got there.
Turning back the clock, they concluded that the lumps likely arrived as giant asteroids or other rocky material that struck Mars during the early solar system, generating those oceans of magma as they drove deep into the mantle, bringing with them fragments of crust and mantle.
Charalambous likens the pattern to shattered glass — a few large shards with many smaller fragments. The pattern is consistent with a large release of energy that scattered many fragments of material throughout the mantle. It also fits well with current thinking that in the early solar system, asteroids and other planetary bodies regularly bombarded the young planets.
On Earth, the crust and uppermost mantle is continuously recycled by plate tectonics pushing a plate’s edge into the hot interior, where, through convection, hotter, less-dense material rises and cooler, denser material sinks. Mars, by contrast, lacks tectonic plates, and its interior circulates far more sluggishly. The fact that such fine structures are still visible today, Charalambous said, “tells us Mars hasn’t undergone the vigorous churning that would have smoothed out these lumps.”
And in that way, Mars could point to what may be lurking beneath the surface of other rocky planets that lack plate tectonics, including Venus and Mercury.
More about InSightJPL managed InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight was part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supported spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), supported the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.
News Media ContactsAndrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-110
Share Details Last Updated Aug 28, 2025 Related Terms Explore More 4 min read NASA: Ceres May Have Had Long-Standing Energy to Fuel Habitability Article 1 week ago 4 min read NASA’s Psyche Captures Images of Earth, Moon Article 1 week ago 4 min read US-French SWOT Satellite Measures Tsunami After Massive Quake Article 3 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related TopicsMissions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
NASA Marsquake Data Reveals Lumpy Nature of Red Planet’s Interior
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Scientists believe giant impacts — like the one depicted in this artist’s concept — occurred on Mars 4.5 billion years ago, injecting debris from the impact deep into the planet’s mantle. NASA’s InSight lander detected this debris before the mission’s end in 2022.NASA/JPL-CaltechRocky material that impacted Mars lies scattered in giant lumps throughout the planet’s mantle, offering clues about Mars’ interior and its ancient past.
What appear to be fragments from the aftermath of massive impacts on Mars that occurred 4.5 billion years ago have been detected deep below the planet’s surface. The discovery was made thanks to NASA’s now-retired InSight lander, which recorded the findings before the mission’s end in 2022. The ancient impacts released enough energy to melt continent-size swaths of the early crust and mantle into vast magma oceans, simultaneously injecting the impactor fragments and Martian debris deep into the planet’s interior.
There’s no way to tell exactly what struck Mars: The early solar system was filled with a range of different rocky objects that could have done so, including some so large they were effectively protoplanets. The remains of these impacts still exist in the form of lumps that are as large as 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across and scattered throughout the Martian mantle. They offer a record preserved only on worlds like Mars, whose lack of tectonic plates has kept its interior from being churned up the way Earth’s is through a process known as convection.
A cutaway view of Mars in this artist’s concept (not to scale) reveals debris from ancient impacts scattered through the planet’s mantle. On the surface at left, a meteoroid impact sends seismic signals through the interior; at right is NASA’s InSight lander.NASA/JPL-CaltechThe finding was reported Thursday, Aug. 28, in a study published by the journal Science.
“We’ve never seen the inside of a planet in such fine detail and clarity before,” said the paper’s lead author, Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London. “What we’re seeing is a mantle studded with ancient fragments. Their survival to this day tells us Mars’ mantle has evolved sluggishly over billions of years. On Earth, features like these may well have been largely erased.”
InSight, which was managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, placed the first seismometer on Mars’ surface in 2018. The extremely sensitive instrument recorded 1,319 marsquakes before the lander’s end of mission in 2022.
NASA’s InSight took this selfie in 2019 using a camera on its robotic arm. The lander also used its arm to deploy the mission’s seismometer, whose data was used in a 2025 study showing impacts left chunks of debris deep in the planet’s interior.NASA/JPL-CaltechQuakes produce seismic waves that change as they pass through different kinds of material, providing scientists a way to study the interior of a planetary body. To date, the InSight team has measured the size, depth, and composition of Mars’ crust, mantle, and core. This latest discovery regarding the mantle’s composition suggests how much is still waiting to be discovered within InSight’s data.
“We knew Mars was a time capsule bearing records of its early formation, but we didn’t anticipate just how clearly we’d be able to see with InSight,” said Tom Pike of Imperial College London, coauthor of the paper.
Quake huntingMars lacks the tectonic plates that produce the temblors many people in seismically active areas are familiar with. But there are two other types of quakes on Earth that also occur on Mars: those caused by rocks cracking under heat and pressure, and those caused by meteoroid impacts.
Of the two types, meteoroid impacts on Mars produce high-frequency seismic waves that travel from the crust deep into the planet’s mantle, according to a paper published earlier this year in Geophysical Research Letters. Located beneath the planet’s crust, the Martian mantle can be as much as 960 miles (1,550 kilometers) thick and is made of solid rock that can reach temperatures as high as 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius).
Scrambled signalsThe new Science paper identifies eight marsquakes whose seismic waves contained strong, high-frequency energy that reached deep into the mantle, where their seismic waves were distinctly altered.
“When we first saw this in our quake data, we thought the slowdowns were happening in the Martian crust,” Pike said. “But then we noticed that the farther seismic waves travel through the mantle, the more these high-frequency signals were being delayed.”
Using planetwide computer simulations, the team saw that the slowing down and scrambling happened only when the signals passed through small, localized regions within the mantle. They also determined that these regions appear to be lumps of material with a different composition than the surrounding mantle.
With one riddle solved, the team focused on another: how those lumps got there.
Turning back the clock, they concluded that the lumps likely arrived as giant asteroids or other rocky material that struck Mars during the early solar system, generating those oceans of magma as they drove deep into the mantle, bringing with them fragments of crust and mantle.
Charalambous likens the pattern to shattered glass — a few large shards with many smaller fragments. The pattern is consistent with a large release of energy that scattered many fragments of material throughout the mantle. It also fits well with current thinking that in the early solar system, asteroids and other planetary bodies regularly bombarded the young planets.
On Earth, the crust and uppermost mantle is continuously recycled by plate tectonics pushing a plate’s edge into the hot interior, where, through convection, hotter, less-dense material rises and cooler, denser material sinks. Mars, by contrast, lacks tectonic plates, and its interior circulates far more sluggishly. The fact that such fine structures are still visible today, Charalambous said, “tells us Mars hasn’t undergone the vigorous churning that would have smoothed out these lumps.”
And in that way, Mars could point to what may be lurking beneath the surface of other rocky planets that lack plate tectonics, including Venus and Mercury.
More about InSightJPL managed InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. InSight was part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supported spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), supported the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.
News Media ContactsAndrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2025-110
Share Details Last Updated Aug 28, 2025 Related Terms Explore More 4 min read NASA: Ceres May Have Had Long-Standing Energy to Fuel Habitability Article 1 week ago 4 min read NASA’s Psyche Captures Images of Earth, Moon Article 1 week ago 4 min read US-French SWOT Satellite Measures Tsunami After Massive Quake Article 3 weeks ago Keep Exploring Discover Related TopicsMissions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
NASA, International Astronauts to Address Students from New York
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui will connect with students in New York as they answer prerecorded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) questions aboard the International Space Station.
The Earth-to-space call will begin at 9:20 a.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 5, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel.
Media interested in covering the event must RSVP by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3, to Sara Sloves at: 917-441-1234 or ssloves@thecomputerschool.org.
The Computer School will host this event in New York for middle school students. The goal of this event is to extend learning by exposing students to the real-world experiences and engineering challenges of astronauts working and living aboard the International Space Station.
For nearly 25 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through SCaN’s (Space Communications and Navigation) Near Space Network.
Research and technology investigations taking place aboard the space station benefit people on Earth and lay the groundwork for other agency deep space missions. As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, the agency will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars, inspiring the world through discovery in a new Golden Age of innovation and exploration.
See more information on NASA in-flight calls at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
-end-
Gerelle Dodson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
gerelle.q.dodson@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
NASA, International Astronauts to Address Students from New York
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui will connect with students in New York as they answer prerecorded science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) questions aboard the International Space Station.
The Earth-to-space call will begin at 9:20 a.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 5, and will stream live on the agency’s Learn With NASA YouTube channel.
Media interested in covering the event must RSVP by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 3, to Sara Sloves at: 917-441-1234 or ssloves@thecomputerschool.org.
The Computer School will host this event in New York for middle school students. The goal of this event is to extend learning by exposing students to the real-world experiences and engineering challenges of astronauts working and living aboard the International Space Station.
For nearly 25 years, astronauts have continuously lived and worked aboard the space station, testing technologies, performing science, and developing skills needed to explore farther from Earth. Astronauts communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through SCaN’s (Space Communications and Navigation) Near Space Network.
Research and technology investigations taking place aboard the space station benefit people on Earth and lay the groundwork for other agency deep space missions. As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, the agency will send astronauts to the Moon to prepare for future human exploration of Mars, inspiring the world through discovery in a new Golden Age of innovation and exploration.
See more information on NASA in-flight calls at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
-end-
Gerelle Dodson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
gerelle.q.dodson@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
NASA Scientists Help Maryland County Plan to Beat Summer Heat Risks
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) These maps of Prince George’s County, MD, show surface temperatures collected a few hours apart on July 30, 2023 from the Landsat 9 satellite and the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument. The dark blue spots in the right hand image are likely clouds that formed in the afternoon.Credit: Stephanie Schollaert Uz, NASA Goddard Space Flight CenterThousands of Americans are impacted each summer by excessive heat and humidity, some suffering from heat-related illnesses when the body can’t cool itself down. Data from NASA satellites could help local governments reduce the sweltering risks, thanks to a collaboration between NASA scientists and officials in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The effort demonstrates how local officials in other communities could turn to NASA data to inform decisions that provide residents with relief from summer heat.
NASA researchers and their Prince George’s County collaborators reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science that they used the Landsat 8 satellite, jointly operated by NASA and the US Geological Survey, and NASA’s Aqua satellite, to gain insight into surface temperature trends across the county over the past few decades. The data also show how temperatures have responded to changing land use and construction. It is information that county planners and environmental experts hope can aid them in their attempts to remediate and prevent heat dangers in the future. The collaboration may also help the county’s first responders anticipate and prepare for heat-related emergencies and injuries.
Cooperation with Prince George’s County expands on NASA’s historic role, said Stephanie Schollaert Uz, an applications scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one of the study authors. “Applying government satellite data to county-level problems is new here. We’re trying to make it easier for people outside of NASA to use our data, in part by including how-to guides referenced at the end of our paper,” Schollaert Uz said.
In the long run, county officials hope to use NASA satellites to track the negative health impacts that arise from land use and modification. Removal of tree cover and the construction of non-permeable roads, parking lots, and structures that lead to water runoff are among the factors that create heat islands, where temperatures in localized areas soar relative to the surrounding landscape. In addition to the direct dangers of heat for county residents and workers, areas with higher-than-normal temperatures can drive intense local weather events.
“There’s potentially a greater incidence of microbursts,” said Mary Abe of Prince George’s County’s sustainability division. “The atmosphere can become supercharged over hot spots,” causing high winds and flood-inducing rains.
Prince George’s County planners anticipate relying on NASA satellites to determine where residents and county employees are at greater risk, predict how future construction could impact heat dangers, and develop strategies to moderate heat in areas currently experiencing elevated summer temperatures. Efforts might include protecting existing trees and planting new ones. It could include replacing impermeable surfaces (cement, pavement, etc.) with alternatives that let water soak into the ground rather than running off into storm drains. To verify and calibrate the satellite observations crucial for such planning, county experts are considering enlisting residents to act as citizen scientists to collect temperature and weather data on the ground, Abe said.
Eventually, the NASA satellite temperature data could also lead to strategies to curb insect-borne diseases, said Evelyn Hoban, associate director for the Prince George’s County division of environmental health and communicable disease. “Once we know where the higher temperatures are, we can check to see if they create mosquito or tick breeding grounds,” said Hoban, who coauthored the study. “We could then focus our outreach and education, and perhaps prevention efforts, on areas of greater heat and risk.”
A NASA guide is available to aid other communities who hope to duplicate the Prince George’s County study. The guide provides introductions on a variety of NASA satellite and ground-based weather station data. Instructions for downloading and analyzing the data are illustrated in an accompanying tutorial that uses the Prince George’s County study as an example for other communities to follow on their own.
One of the greatest benefits of the collaboration, Abe said, is the boost in credibility that comes from incorporating NASA resources and expertise in the county’s efforts to improve safety and health. “It’s partly the NASA brand. People recognize it and they’re really intrigued by it,” she said. “Working with NASA builds confidence that the decision-making process is based firmly in science.”
By James Riordon
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Media contact: Elizabeth Vlock
NASA Headquarters
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
NASA Scientists Help Maryland County Plan to Beat Summer Heat Risks
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) These maps of Prince George’s County, MD, show surface temperatures collected a few hours apart on July 30, 2023 from the Landsat 9 satellite and the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument. The dark blue spots in the right hand image are likely clouds that formed in the afternoon.Credit: Stephanie Schollaert Uz, NASA Goddard Space Flight CenterThousands of Americans are impacted each summer by excessive heat and humidity, some suffering from heat-related illnesses when the body can’t cool itself down. Data from NASA satellites could help local governments reduce the sweltering risks, thanks to a collaboration between NASA scientists and officials in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The effort demonstrates how local officials in other communities could turn to NASA data to inform decisions that provide residents with relief from summer heat.
NASA researchers and their Prince George’s County collaborators reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science that they used the Landsat 8 satellite, jointly operated by NASA and the US Geological Survey, and NASA’s Aqua satellite, to gain insight into surface temperature trends across the county over the past few decades. The data also show how temperatures have responded to changing land use and construction. It is information that county planners and environmental experts hope can aid them in their attempts to remediate and prevent heat dangers in the future. The collaboration may also help the county’s first responders anticipate and prepare for heat-related emergencies and injuries.
Cooperation with Prince George’s County expands on NASA’s historic role, said Stephanie Schollaert Uz, an applications scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one of the study authors. “Applying government satellite data to county-level problems is new here. We’re trying to make it easier for people outside of NASA to use our data, in part by including how-to guides referenced at the end of our paper,” Schollaert Uz said.
In the long run, county officials hope to use NASA satellites to track the negative health impacts that arise from land use and modification. Removal of tree cover and the construction of non-permeable roads, parking lots, and structures that lead to water runoff are among the factors that create heat islands, where temperatures in localized areas soar relative to the surrounding landscape. In addition to the direct dangers of heat for county residents and workers, areas with higher-than-normal temperatures can drive intense local weather events.
“There’s potentially a greater incidence of microbursts,” said Mary Abe of Prince George’s County’s sustainability division. “The atmosphere can become supercharged over hot spots,” causing high winds and flood-inducing rains.
Prince George’s County planners anticipate relying on NASA satellites to determine where residents and county employees are at greater risk, predict how future construction could impact heat dangers, and develop strategies to moderate heat in areas currently experiencing elevated summer temperatures. Efforts might include protecting existing trees and planting new ones. It could include replacing impermeable surfaces (cement, pavement, etc.) with alternatives that let water soak into the ground rather than running off into storm drains. To verify and calibrate the satellite observations crucial for such planning, county experts are considering enlisting residents to act as citizen scientists to collect temperature and weather data on the ground, Abe said.
Eventually, the NASA satellite temperature data could also lead to strategies to curb insect-borne diseases, said Evelyn Hoban, associate director for the Prince George’s County division of environmental health and communicable disease. “Once we know where the higher temperatures are, we can check to see if they create mosquito or tick breeding grounds,” said Hoban, who coauthored the study. “We could then focus our outreach and education, and perhaps prevention efforts, on areas of greater heat and risk.”
A NASA guide is available to aid other communities who hope to duplicate the Prince George’s County study. The guide provides introductions on a variety of NASA satellite and ground-based weather station data. Instructions for downloading and analyzing the data are illustrated in an accompanying tutorial that uses the Prince George’s County study as an example for other communities to follow on their own.
One of the greatest benefits of the collaboration, Abe said, is the boost in credibility that comes from incorporating NASA resources and expertise in the county’s efforts to improve safety and health. “It’s partly the NASA brand. People recognize it and they’re really intrigued by it,” she said. “Working with NASA builds confidence that the decision-making process is based firmly in science.”
By James Riordon
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Media contact: Elizabeth Vlock
NASA Headquarters
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
NASA’s Chandra Reveals Star’s Inner Conflict Before Explosion
The inside of a star turned on itself before it spectacularly exploded, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Today, this shattered star, known as the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, is one of the best-known, well-studied objects in the sky.
Over three hundred years ago, however, it was a giant star on the brink of self-destruction. The new Chandra study reveals that just hours before it exploded, the star’s interior violently rearranged itself. This last-minute shuffling of its stellar belly has profound implications for understanding how massive stars explode and how their remains behave afterwards.
Cassiopeia A (Cas A for short) was one of the first objects the telescope looked at after its launch in 1999, and astronomers have repeatedly returned to observe it.
“It seems like each time we closely look at Chandra data of Cas A, we learn something new and exciting,” said Toshiki Sato of Meiji University in Japan who led the study. “Now we’ve taken that invaluable X-ray data, combined it with powerful computer models, and found something extraordinary.”
As massive stars age, increasingly heavy elements form in their interiors by nuclear reactions, creating onion-like layers of different elements. Their outer layer is mostly made of hydrogen, followed by layers of helium, carbon and progressively heavier elements – extending all the way down to the center of the star.
Once iron starts forming in the core of the star, the game changes. As soon as the iron core grows beyond a certain mass (about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun), it can no longer support its own weight and collapses. The outer part of the star falls onto the collapsing core, and rebounds as a core-collapse supernova.
The new research with Chandra data reveals a change that happened deep within the star at the very last moments of its life. After more than a million years, Cas A underwent major changes in its final hours before exploding.
“Our research shows that just before the star in Cas A collapsed, part of an inner layer with large amounts of silicon traveled outwards and broke into a neighboring layer with lots of neon,” said co-author Kai Matsunaga of Kyoto University in Japan. “This is a violent event where the barrier between these two layers disappears.”
This upheaval not only caused material rich in silicon to travel outwards; it also forced material rich in neon to travel inwards. The team found clear traces of these outward silicon flows and inward neon flows in the remains of Cas A’s supernova remnant. Small regions rich in silicon but poor in neon are located near regions rich in neon and poor in silicon.
The survival of these regions not only provides critical evidence for the star’s upheaval, but also shows that complete mixing of the silicon and neon with other elements did not occur immediately before or after the explosion. This lack of mixing is predicted by detailed computer models of massive stars near the ends of their lives.
There are several significant implications for this inner turmoil inside of the doomed star. First, it may directly explain the lopsided rather than symmetrical shape of the Cas A remnant in three dimensions. Second, a lopsided explosion and debris field may have given a powerful kick to the remaining core of the star, now a neutron star, explaining the high observed speed of this object.
Finally, the strong turbulent flows created by the star’s internal changes may have promoted the development of the supernova blast wave, facilitating the star’s explosion.
“Perhaps the most important effect of this change in the star’s structure is that it may have helped trigger the explosion itself,” said co-author Hiroyuki Uchida, also of Kyoto University. “Such final internal activity of a star may change its fate—whether it will shine as a supernova or not.”
These results have been published in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal and are available online.
To learn more about Chandra, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/chandra
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryLearn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
Visual DescriptionThis release features a composite image of Cassiopeia A, a donut-shaped supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth. Included in the image is an inset closeup, which highlights a region with relative abundances of silicon and neon.
Over three hundred years ago, Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, was a star on the brink of self-destruction. In composition it resembled an onion with layers rich in different elements such as hydrogen, helium, carbon, silicon, sulfur, calcium, and neon, wrapped around an iron core. When that iron core grew beyond a certain mass, the star could no longer support its own weight. The outer layers fell into the collapsing core, then rebounded as a supernova. This explosion created the donut-like shape shown in the composite image. The shape is somewhat irregular, with the thinner quadrant of the donut to the upper left of the off-center hole.
In the body of the donut, the remains of the star’s elements create a mottled cloud of colors, marbled with red and blue veins. Here, sulfur is represented by yellow, calcium by green, and iron by purple. The red veins are silicon, and the blue veins, which also line the outer edge of the donut-shape, are the highest energy X-rays detected by Chandra and show the explosion’s blast wave.
The inset uses a different color code and highlights a colorful, mottled region at the thinner, upper left quadrant of Cas A. Here, rich pockets of silicon and neon are identified in the red and blue veins, respectively. New evidence from Chandra indicates that in the hours before the star’s collapse, part of a silicon-rich layer traveled outwards, and broke into a neighboring neon-rich layer. This violent breakdown of layers created strong turbulent flows and may have promoted the development of the supernova’s blast wave, facilitating the star’s explosion. Additionally, upheaval in the interior of the star may have produced a lopsided explosion, resulting in the irregular shape, with an off-center hole (and a thinner bite of donut!) at our upper left.
News Media ContactMegan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
NASA’s Chandra Reveals Star’s Inner Conflict Before Explosion
The inside of a star turned on itself before it spectacularly exploded, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Today, this shattered star, known as the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, is one of the best-known, well-studied objects in the sky.
Over three hundred years ago, however, it was a giant star on the brink of self-destruction. The new Chandra study reveals that just hours before it exploded, the star’s interior violently rearranged itself. This last-minute shuffling of its stellar belly has profound implications for understanding how massive stars explode and how their remains behave afterwards.
Cassiopeia A (Cas A for short) was one of the first objects the telescope looked at after its launch in 1999, and astronomers have repeatedly returned to observe it.
“It seems like each time we closely look at Chandra data of Cas A, we learn something new and exciting,” said Toshiki Sato of Meiji University in Japan who led the study. “Now we’ve taken that invaluable X-ray data, combined it with powerful computer models, and found something extraordinary.”
As massive stars age, increasingly heavy elements form in their interiors by nuclear reactions, creating onion-like layers of different elements. Their outer layer is mostly made of hydrogen, followed by layers of helium, carbon and progressively heavier elements – extending all the way down to the center of the star.
Once iron starts forming in the core of the star, the game changes. As soon as the iron core grows beyond a certain mass (about 1.4 times the mass of the Sun), it can no longer support its own weight and collapses. The outer part of the star falls onto the collapsing core, and rebounds as a core-collapse supernova.
The new research with Chandra data reveals a change that happened deep within the star at the very last moments of its life. After more than a million years, Cas A underwent major changes in its final hours before exploding.
“Our research shows that just before the star in Cas A collapsed, part of an inner layer with large amounts of silicon traveled outwards and broke into a neighboring layer with lots of neon,” said co-author Kai Matsunaga of Kyoto University in Japan. “This is a violent event where the barrier between these two layers disappears.”
This upheaval not only caused material rich in silicon to travel outwards; it also forced material rich in neon to travel inwards. The team found clear traces of these outward silicon flows and inward neon flows in the remains of Cas A’s supernova remnant. Small regions rich in silicon but poor in neon are located near regions rich in neon and poor in silicon.
The survival of these regions not only provides critical evidence for the star’s upheaval, but also shows that complete mixing of the silicon and neon with other elements did not occur immediately before or after the explosion. This lack of mixing is predicted by detailed computer models of massive stars near the ends of their lives.
There are several significant implications for this inner turmoil inside of the doomed star. First, it may directly explain the lopsided rather than symmetrical shape of the Cas A remnant in three dimensions. Second, a lopsided explosion and debris field may have given a powerful kick to the remaining core of the star, now a neutron star, explaining the high observed speed of this object.
Finally, the strong turbulent flows created by the star’s internal changes may have promoted the development of the supernova blast wave, facilitating the star’s explosion.
“Perhaps the most important effect of this change in the star’s structure is that it may have helped trigger the explosion itself,” said co-author Hiroyuki Uchida, also of Kyoto University. “Such final internal activity of a star may change its fate—whether it will shine as a supernova or not.”
These results have been published in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal and are available online.
To learn more about Chandra, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/chandra
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryLearn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
Visual DescriptionThis release features a composite image of Cassiopeia A, a donut-shaped supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth. Included in the image is an inset closeup, which highlights a region with relative abundances of silicon and neon.
Over three hundred years ago, Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, was a star on the brink of self-destruction. In composition it resembled an onion with layers rich in different elements such as hydrogen, helium, carbon, silicon, sulfur, calcium, and neon, wrapped around an iron core. When that iron core grew beyond a certain mass, the star could no longer support its own weight. The outer layers fell into the collapsing core, then rebounded as a supernova. This explosion created the donut-like shape shown in the composite image. The shape is somewhat irregular, with the thinner quadrant of the donut to the upper left of the off-center hole.
In the body of the donut, the remains of the star’s elements create a mottled cloud of colors, marbled with red and blue veins. Here, sulfur is represented by yellow, calcium by green, and iron by purple. The red veins are silicon, and the blue veins, which also line the outer edge of the donut-shape, are the highest energy X-rays detected by Chandra and show the explosion’s blast wave.
The inset uses a different color code and highlights a colorful, mottled region at the thinner, upper left quadrant of Cas A. Here, rich pockets of silicon and neon are identified in the red and blue veins, respectively. New evidence from Chandra indicates that in the hours before the star’s collapse, part of a silicon-rich layer traveled outwards, and broke into a neighboring neon-rich layer. This violent breakdown of layers created strong turbulent flows and may have promoted the development of the supernova’s blast wave, facilitating the star’s explosion. Additionally, upheaval in the interior of the star may have produced a lopsided explosion, resulting in the irregular shape, with an off-center hole (and a thinner bite of donut!) at our upper left.
News Media ContactMegan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
Katie Bisci: Resourcing for Big Science
How are you helping set the stage for the Roman mission?
I’m a deputy project manager for resources on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team, sharing the role with Kris Steeley. Together, we oversee the business team, finance, outreach, scheduling, and more. I focus more on the “down and in” of the day-to-day team — helping the financial team, resource utilization across the project, and support service contracts management — while Kris handles more of the “up and out” external work with center management and NASA Headquarters. Kris and I collaborate on many things as well. The two of us have been together on Roman for many years, and we have definitely become one brain in many aspects of the role. The main goal in the job is programmatics: We need to understand and help along the technical parts of the mission, while also supporting cost and schedule control since Roman is a cost-capped mission. I try to make sure that I partner with our engineers to understand the technical part of Roman as much as possible. I find that I can’t do my job well on the programmatic side without working together closely with our engineers to understand the hardware and testing.
What drew you to NASA? Did you always intend to work here?
I think I always knew I wanted to go into the business and finance side of things, but I thought I’d end up at a big investment bank. I interned at one during college, but it just didn’t feel right for me. After graduating, I worked on corporate events for defense contractors in New York City. Then my husband got a job in Annapolis, Maryland, and I took a leap and applied for a resource analyst job at NASA, where some college friends were working. Looking back, as an oldest daughter it probably should have been obvious that project management would be a good fit! Once I got to NASA, I was really drawn in by the missions and work we do. It was so different from the corporate world. Being able to work on some of the coolest missions with some of the most brilliant minds out there is a gift. Almost 15 years later, I’m still here.
How did your career grow from there?
After serving as a resource analyst in the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, I moved into the center’s Astrophysics Projects Division, where I began working on Roman in 2012, back when it was just a small study called WFIRST (Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope). I could never have imagined at the time what that small study would turn into. People at NASA often say they “grew up” on the James Webb Space Telescope, and for me I definitely “grew up” on Roman. I became the mission business manager, then financial manager, and now a deputy project manager for resources. I feel lucky that most of my career has been spent on Roman. Adding it up, I’ve been on this project for over a decade. I’ve worked with so many amazing people, not just at NASA Goddard, but across the United States. It’s hard to believe we are so close to launching.
What’s been the highlight of your career so far?
Becoming part of the management team on Roman, for sure. Working with the leadership team has been incredible. The best part about Roman is the people. It still cracks me up to look at the plethora of people we have in the same room for our weekly senior staff meeting, from the programmatic and finance types like myself, to engineers leading super complicated integration and test programs, Ph.D.s, and some of the most brilliant science minds I will probably ever know. The Roman team is amazing, and those relationships are what keep me excited to come to work every day.
Has your work influenced your understanding or appreciation of astronomy?
Absolutely. I’ve learned so much just by being around brilliant people like our project scientist Julie McEnery. I even recently gave a talk about Roman at my daughter’s school! Being able to stand up in front of a group of children and talk about what Roman science is going to do is something I never would have been able to do prior to working here. I’ve learned about how the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb, and Roman all build on each other during my time on this project. And it’s really incredible science. I’ve also developed a deep admiration for the engineers who have built Roman. As a business focused person, our engineering team has really helped me understand the different facets of what our engineering team does on Roman. They are so patient with me! It’s really fulfilling to be a small part of something so big.
What advice do you have for others who are interested in doing similar work?
If you’re in finance, don’t just learn the numbers — learn the work behind them. Understand the mission, the tech, the people. That’s what helps you move from analyst to leader. People can tell when you really get what they’re doing, and that’s how you become a better partner and manager.
What’s life like outside NASA?
I have three kids — ages 9, 5, and 3 — so life is busy! When I’m not working, I’m usually at their sports games or chauffeuring them around to one event or another. It’s a little bit of a rat race, but this season of life is also really fun. Recently, my family and I have gotten back into traveling now that my kids are a little bit older. We took a spring break trip to Europe, which was fantastic. Spending time with my family and friends is everything. Whether it’s going to the beach, spending time at the pool, or hanging out on the sideline of a lacrosse game, just like at work it’s being with my people that I thrive on. And maybe one day I will have time for more hobbies again!
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Katie Bisci: Resourcing for Big Science
How are you helping set the stage for the Roman mission?
I’m a deputy project manager for resources on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team, sharing the role with Kris Steeley. Together, we oversee the business team, finance, outreach, scheduling, and more. I focus more on the “down and in” of the day-to-day team — helping the financial team, resource utilization across the project, and support service contracts management — while Kris handles more of the “up and out” external work with center management and NASA Headquarters. Kris and I collaborate on many things as well. The two of us have been together on Roman for many years, and we have definitely become one brain in many aspects of the role. The main goal in the job is programmatics: We need to understand and help along the technical parts of the mission, while also supporting cost and schedule control since Roman is a cost-capped mission. I try to make sure that I partner with our engineers to understand the technical part of Roman as much as possible. I find that I can’t do my job well on the programmatic side without working together closely with our engineers to understand the hardware and testing.
What drew you to NASA? Did you always intend to work here?
I think I always knew I wanted to go into the business and finance side of things, but I thought I’d end up at a big investment bank. I interned at one during college, but it just didn’t feel right for me. After graduating, I worked on corporate events for defense contractors in New York City. Then my husband got a job in Annapolis, Maryland, and I took a leap and applied for a resource analyst job at NASA, where some college friends were working. Looking back, as an oldest daughter it probably should have been obvious that project management would be a good fit! Once I got to NASA, I was really drawn in by the missions and work we do. It was so different from the corporate world. Being able to work on some of the coolest missions with some of the most brilliant minds out there is a gift. Almost 15 years later, I’m still here.
How did your career grow from there?
After serving as a resource analyst in the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, I moved into the center’s Astrophysics Projects Division, where I began working on Roman in 2012, back when it was just a small study called WFIRST (Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope). I could never have imagined at the time what that small study would turn into. People at NASA often say they “grew up” on the James Webb Space Telescope, and for me I definitely “grew up” on Roman. I became the mission business manager, then financial manager, and now a deputy project manager for resources. I feel lucky that most of my career has been spent on Roman. Adding it up, I’ve been on this project for over a decade. I’ve worked with so many amazing people, not just at NASA Goddard, but across the United States. It’s hard to believe we are so close to launching.
What’s been the highlight of your career so far?
Becoming part of the management team on Roman, for sure. Working with the leadership team has been incredible. The best part about Roman is the people. It still cracks me up to look at the plethora of people we have in the same room for our weekly senior staff meeting, from the programmatic and finance types like myself, to engineers leading super complicated integration and test programs, Ph.D.s, and some of the most brilliant science minds I will probably ever know. The Roman team is amazing, and those relationships are what keep me excited to come to work every day.
Has your work influenced your understanding or appreciation of astronomy?
Absolutely. I’ve learned so much just by being around brilliant people like our project scientist Julie McEnery. I even recently gave a talk about Roman at my daughter’s school! Being able to stand up in front of a group of children and talk about what Roman science is going to do is something I never would have been able to do prior to working here. I’ve learned about how the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb, and Roman all build on each other during my time on this project. And it’s really incredible science. I’ve also developed a deep admiration for the engineers who have built Roman. As a business focused person, our engineering team has really helped me understand the different facets of what our engineering team does on Roman. They are so patient with me! It’s really fulfilling to be a small part of something so big.
What advice do you have for others who are interested in doing similar work?
If you’re in finance, don’t just learn the numbers — learn the work behind them. Understand the mission, the tech, the people. That’s what helps you move from analyst to leader. People can tell when you really get what they’re doing, and that’s how you become a better partner and manager.
What’s life like outside NASA?
I have three kids — ages 9, 5, and 3 — so life is busy! When I’m not working, I’m usually at their sports games or chauffeuring them around to one event or another. It’s a little bit of a rat race, but this season of life is also really fun. Recently, my family and I have gotten back into traveling now that my kids are a little bit older. We took a spring break trip to Europe, which was fantastic. Spending time with my family and friends is everything. Whether it’s going to the beach, spending time at the pool, or hanging out on the sideline of a lacrosse game, just like at work it’s being with my people that I thrive on. And maybe one day I will have time for more hobbies again!
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
