Nasa Goddard - Blog Posts

6 Things You Didn’t Know About Our ‘First’ Space Flight Center

When NASA began operations on Oct. 1, 1958, we consisted mainly of the four laboratories of our predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Hot on the heels of NASA’s first day of business, we opened the Goddard Space Flight Center. Chartered May 1, 1959, and located in Greenbelt, Maryland, Goddard is home to one of the largest groups of scientists and engineers in the world. These people are building, testing and experimenting their way toward answering some of the universe’s most intriguing questions.

To celebrate 60 years of exploring, here are six ways Goddard shoots for the stars.

For the last 60 years, we’ve kept a close eye on our home planet, watching its atmosphere, lands and ocean.

Goddard instruments were crucial in tracking the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica as it grew and eventually began to show signs of healing. Satellites and field campaigns track the changing height and extent of ice around the globe. Precipitation missions give us a global, near-real-time look at rain and snow everywhere on Earth. Researchers keep a record of the planet’s temperature, and Goddard supercomputer models consider how Earth will change with rising temperatures. From satellites in Earth’s orbit to field campaigns in the air and on the ground, Goddard is helping us understand our planet.

We seek to answer the big questions about our universe: Are we alone? How does the universe work? How did we get here?

We’re piecing together the story of our cosmos, from now all the way back to its start 13.7 billion years ago. Goddard missions have contributed to our understanding of the big bang and have shown us nurseries where stars are born and what happens when galaxies collide. Our ongoing census of planets far beyond our own solar system (several thousand known and counting!) is helping us hone in on which ones might be potentially habitable.

We study our dynamic Sun.

Our Sun is an active star, with occasional storms and a constant outflow of particles, radiation and magnetic fields that fill the solar system out far past the orbit of Neptune. Goddard scientists study the Sun and its activity with a host of satellites to understand how our star affects Earth, planets throughout the solar system and the nature of the very space our astronauts travel through.

We explore the planets, moons and small objects in the solar system and beyond. 

Goddard instruments (well over 100 in total!) have visited every planet in the solar system and continue on to new frontiers. What we’ve learned about the history of our solar system helps us piece together the mysteries of life: How did life in our solar system form and evolve? Can we find life elsewhere?

Over 60 years, our communications networks have enabled hundreds of NASA spacecraft to “phone home.”

Today, Goddard communications networks bring down 98 percent of our spacecraft data – nearly 30 terabytes per day! This includes not only science data, but also key information related to spacecraft operations and astronaut health. Goddard is also leading the way in creating cutting-edge solutions like laser communications that will enable exploration – faster, better, safer – for generations to come. Pew pew!

Exploring the unknown often means we must create new ways of exploring, new ways of knowing what we’re “seeing.” 

Goddard’s technologists and engineers must often invent tools, mechanisms and sensors to return information about our universe that we may not have even known to look for when the center was first commissioned.

Behind every discovery is an amazing team of people, pushing the boundaries of humanity’s knowledge. Here’s to the ones who ask questions, find answers and ask questions some more!

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The James Webb Space Telescope: Art + Science Continuing to Inspire

The James Webb Space Telescope – our next infrared space observatory – will not only change what we know, but also how we think about the night sky and our place in the cosmos. This epic mission to travel back in time to look back at the first stars and galaxies has inspired artists from around the world to create art inspired by the mission.

Image Credit: Anri Demchenko

It’s been exactly two years since the opening of the first James Webb Space Telescope Art + Science exhibit at the NASA Goddard Visitor Center.  The exhibit was full of pieces created by artists who had the special opportunity to visit Goddard and view the telescope in person in late 2016. 

Online Submission Image Credit: Tina Saramaga

Since the success of the event and exhibit, the Webb project has asked its followers to share any art they have created that was inspired by the mission. They have received over 125 submissions and counting!  

Image Credit: Enrico Novelli

Online Submission Image Credit: Unni Isaksen

A selection of these submissions will be on display at NASA Goddard’s Visitor Center from now until at least the end of April 2019. The artists represented in this exhibit come not just from around the country, but from around the world, showing how art and science together can bring a love of space down to Earth.

More information about each piece in the exhibit can be found in our web gallery. Want to participate and share your own art? Tag your original art, inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope, on Twitter or Instagram with #JWSTArt, or email us through our website! For more info and rules, see: http://nasa.gov/jwstart.

Webb is the work of hands and minds from across the planet. We’re leading this international project with our partners from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and we’re all looking forward to its launch in 2021. Once in space, Webb will solve mysteries of our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.

Learn more about the James Webb Space Telescope HERE, or follow the mission on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

NASA tested new “eyes” for its next Mars rover mission on a rocket built by Masten Space Systems in Mojave, California, thanks in part to NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, or FOP.

The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is leading development of the Mars 2020 rover and its Lander Vision System, or LVS. In 2014, the prototype vision system launched 1,066 feet (325 meters) into the air aboard Masten’s rocket-powered “Xombie” test platform and helped guide the rocket to a precise landing at a predesignated target. LVS flew as part of a larger system of experimental landing technologies called the Autonomous Descent and Ascent Powered-flight Testbed, or ADAPT.

LVS, a camera-based navigation system, photographs the terrain beneath a descending spacecraft and matches it with onboard maps allowing the craft to detect its location relative to landing hazards, such as boulders and outcroppings.

The system can then direct the craft toward a safe landing at its primary target site or divert touchdown toward better terrain if there are hazards in the approaching target area. Image matching is aided by an inertial measurement unit that monitors orientation.

The Flight Opportunities Program funded the Masten flight tests under the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The program obtains commercial suborbital space launch services to pursue science, technology and engineering to mature technology relevant to NASA’s pursuit of space exploration. The program nurtures the emerging suborbital space industry and allows NASA to focus on deep space.

Andrew Johnson, principal investigator in development of the Lander Vision System development, said the tests built confidence that the vision system will enable Mars 2020 to land safely.

“By providing funding for flight tests, FOP motivated us to build guidance, navigation and control payloads for testing on Xombie,” Johnson said. “In the end we showed a closed loop pinpoint landing demo that eliminated any technical concerns with flying the Lander Vision System on Mars 2020.”

According to “Lander Vision System for Safe and Precise Entry Descent and Landing,” a 2012 abstract co-authored by Johnson for a Mars exploration workshop, LVS enables a broad range of potential landing sites for Mars missions.

Typically, Mars landers have lacked the ability to analyze and react to hazards, the abstract says. To avoid hazards, mission planners selected wide-open landing sites with mostly flat terrain. As a result, landers and rovers were limited to areas with relatively limited geological features, and were unable to access many sites of high scientific interest with more complex and hazardous surface morphology. LVS will enable safe landing at these scientifically compelling Mars landing sites.

An LVS-equipped mission allows for opportunities to land within more challenging environments and pursue new discoveries about Mars. With LVS baselined for inclusion on Mars 2020, the researchers are now focused on building the flight system ahead of its eventual role on the Red Planet.

To learn more about NASA’s flight opportunities program, visit:

https://flightopportunities.nasa.gov/

To read more about NASA’s Mars 2020 rover, visit:

http://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

Is Proxima b another Earth? It’s difficult to answer because no one has actually “seen” this distant planet which orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri right in theGoldilocks Zone. Scientists have merely concluded that Proxima b (which is about 4.2 light years away from Earth) is right where it should be, by observing the regular, subtle changes in Proxima Centauri’s color. Proxima b is tidally locked to its star — which means one side of it is always facing Proxima Centauri, and the other side is perpetually dark. With just an 11.2-year revolution, it lies very close to its star, although red-dwarf stars are not as hot as yellow-dwarves (like our Sun).  There is a possibility that water exists on Proxima b, and that it has an atmosphere protecting it from extreme heat, and scattering heat even to its dark side.  How can we be sure? Harvard’s Avi Loeb and astronomer Laura Kreidberg propose that we use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). UNCERTAINTIES The long-delayed JWST is set to launch by 2018 (originally 2011). Loeb explains that if a rocky planet, like Proxima b, has an atmosphere, it would absorb light from its star and re-emit it as infrared light. Incidentally, the JWST is specifically designed to observe infrared light. The JWST can take photos of infrared light on the surface Proxima b, looking for patterns that would confirm whether or not this exoplanet has water or is covered by an atmosphere. Things aren’t so simple, however. The proposed method may be doable. But there are other factors that have to be considered. For instance, the existence of an atmosphere may not guarantee life, says astrophysicist Ed Turner of Princeton University. Proxima b may be like Venus, with an atmosphere 90 times thicker than ours, and extreme heat. Still, Loeb’s and Kriedberg’s plan is the only option we have for a glimmer of an answer about this “Earth next-door”. References: Business Insider, Scientific American