Weathering The Storm With Our Global Precipitation Measurement Mission

What Science is Launching to Space?

The tenth SpaceX cargo resupply mission launched to the International Space Station on Feb. 18, and is carrying science ranging from protein crystal growth studies to Earth science payloads. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights heading to the orbiting laboratory.

The CASIS PCG 5 investigation will crystallize a human monoclonal antibody, developed by Merck Research Labs, that is currently undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of immunological disease. Results from this investigation have the potential to improve the way monoclonal antibody treatments are administered on Earth.

Without proteins, the human body would be unable to repair, regulate or protect itself. Crystallizing proteins provides better views of their structure, which helps scientists to better understand how they function. Often times, proteins crystallized in microgravity are of higher quality than those crystallized on Earth. LMM Biophysics 1 explores that phenomena by examining the movement of single protein molecules in microgravity. Once scientists understand how these proteins function, they can be used to design new drugs that interact with the protein in specific ways and fight disease.

Much like LMM Biophysics 1, LMM Biophysics 3 aims to use crystallography to examine molecules that are too small to be seen under a microscope, in order to best predict what types of drugs will interact best with certain kinds of proteins. LMM Biophysics 3 will look specifically into which types of crystals thrive and benefit from growth in microgravity, where Earth’s gravity won’t interfere with their formation. Currently, the success rate is poor for crystals grown even in the best of laboratories. High quality, space-grown crystals could improve research for a wide range of diseases, as well as microgravity-related problems such as radiation damage, bone loss and muscle atrophy.

Nanobiosym Predictive Pathogen Mutation Study (Nanobiosym Genes) will analyze two strains of bacterial mutations aboard the station, providing data that may be helpful in refining models of drug resistance and support the development of better medicines to counteract the resistant strains.

During the Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells investigation, crew members will observe cell growth and morphological characteristics in microgravity and analyze gene expression profiles of cells grown on the station. This information will provide insight into how human cancers start and spread, which aids in the development of prevention and treatment plans. Results from this investigation could lead to the treatment of disease and injury in space, as well as provide a way to improve stem cell production for human therapy on Earth.

The Lightning Imaging Sensor will measure the amount, rate and energy of lightning as it strikes around the world. Understanding the processes that cause lightning and the connections between lightning and subsequent severe weather events is a key to improving weather predictions and saving life and property. 

From the vantage of the station, the LIS instrument will sample lightning over a wider geographical area than any previous sensor.

Future robotic spacecraft will need advanced autopilot systems to help them safely navigate and rendezvous with other objects, as they will be operating thousands of miles from Earth. 

The Raven (STP-H5 Raven) studies a real-time spacecraft navigation system that provides the eyes and intelligence to see a target and steer toward it safely. Research from Raven can be applied toward unmanned vehicles both on Earth and in space, including potential use for systems in NASA’s future human deep space exploration.

SAGE III will measure stratospheric ozone, aerosols, and other trace gases by locking onto the sun or moon and scanning a thin profile of Earth’s atmosphere.

These measurements will allow national and international leaders to make informed policy decisions regarding the protection and preservation of Earth’s ozone layer. Ozone in the atmosphere protects Earth’s inhabitants, including humans, plants and animals, from harmful radiation from the sun, which can cause long-term problems such as cataracts, cancer and reduced crop yield.

Tissue Regeneration-Bone Defect (Rodent Research-4) a U.S. National Laboratory investigation sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, studies what prevents other vertebrates such as rodents and humans from re-growing lost bone and tissue, and how microgravity conditions impact the process. 

Results will provide a new understanding of the biological reasons behind a human’s inability to grow a lost limb at the wound site, and could lead to new treatment options for the more than 30% of the patient.

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Does Webb have resolution to look more closely at nearby objects, like Mars or even Earth? Or just far things?

Looking 50 Years in the Future with NASA Earth Scientists

In the 50 years since the first Earth Day, the view from space has revolutionized our understanding of Earth’s interconnected atmosphere, oceans, freshwater, ice, land, ecosystems and climate that have helped find solutions to environmental challenges.

If NASA’s Earth science has changed this much in 50 years, what will it look like in 50 more years?

We asked some researchers what they thought. Here are their answers, in their own words.

Mahta Moghaddam is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Southern California. She’s building a system that helps sensors sync their measurements.

I am interested in creating new ways to observe the Earth. In particular, my team and I are building and expanding a system that will allow scientists to better study soil moisture. Soil moisture plays a vital role in the water and energy cycle and drives climate and weather patterns. When soil is wet and there is enough solar radiation, water can evaporate and form clouds, which precipitate back to Earth. Soil also feeds us – it nourishes our crops and sustains life on Earth. It’s one of the foundations of life! We need to characterize and study soil in order to feed billions of people now and in the future.

Our novel tool aims to observe changes in soil moisture using sensors that talk to each other and make decisions in real time. For instance, if one sensor in a crop field notes that soil is dry in a plot, it could corroborate it with other sensors in the area and then notify a resource manager or decision maker that an area needs water. Or if a sensor in another location senses that soil moisture is changing quickly due to rain or freeze/thaw activity, it could send a command to launch a drone or even to notify satellites to start observing a larger region. We live in one big, connected world, and can and will use many different scales of observations – local to global – from point-scale in-situ sensors to the scales that can be covered by drones, airplanes, and satellites. In just a few years from now, we might see much more vastly automated systems, with some touching not only Earth observations, but other parts of our lives, like drone deliveries of medical tests and supplies.

Odele Coddington is a scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She’s building an instrument to measure how much solar energy Earth reflects back into space.

My research is focused on the Earth system response to the Sun’s energy. I spend half of my time thinking about the amount and variability of the Sun’s energy, also known as the solar irradiance. I’m particularly interested in the solar spectral irradiance, which is the study of the individual wavelengths of the Sun’s energy, like infrared and ultraviolet. On a bright, clear day, we feel the Sun’s warmth because the visible and infrared radiation penetrate Earth’s atmosphere to reach the surface. Without the Sun, we would not be able to survive. Although we’ve been monitoring solar irradiance for over 40 years, there is still much to learn about the Sun’s variability. Continuing to measure the solar irradiance 50 years from now will be as important as it is today.

I spend the other half of my time thinking about the many processes driven by the Sun’s energy both within the atmosphere and at the surface. I’m excited to build an instrument that will measure the integrated signal of these processes in the reflected solar and the emitted thermal radiation. This is my first foray into designing instrumentation and it has been so invigorating scientifically. My team is developing advanced technology that will measure Earth’s outgoing radiation at high spatial resolution and accuracy. Our instrument will be small from the onset, as opposed to reducing the size and mass of existing technology. In the future, a constellation of these instruments, launched on miniaturized spacecraft that are more flexible to implement in space, will give us more eyes in the sky for a better understanding of how processes such as clouds, wildfires and ice sheet melting, for instance, alter Earth’s outgoing energy.

Sujay Kumar is a research physical scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He works on the Land Information System.

Broadly, I study the water cycle, and specifically the variability of its components. I lead the development of a modeling system called the Land Information System that isolates the land and tries to understand all the processes that move water through the landscape. We have conceptual models of land surface processes, and then we try to constrain them with satellite data to improve our understanding. The outputs are used for weather and climate modeling, water management, agricultural management and some hazard applications.

I think non-traditional and distributed platforms will become more the norm in the future. So that could be things like CubeSats and small sats that are relatively cheaper and quicker than large satellites in terms of how much time it takes to design and launch. One of the advantages is that because they are distributed, you’re not relying on a single satellite and there will be more coverage. I also think we’ll be using data from other “signals of opportunity” such as mobile phones and crowd-sourced platforms. People have figured out ways to, for example, retrieve Earth science measurements from GPS signals.

I feel like in the future we will be designing our sensors and satellites to be adaptive in terms of what the observational needs on the ground are. Say a fire or flood happens, then we will tell the satellite to look over there more intensely, more frequently so that we can benefit. Big data is a buzzword, but it’s becoming a reality. We are going to have a new mission call NISAR that’s going to collect so much data that we really have to rethink how traditional modeling systems will work. The analogy I think of is the development of a self-driving car, which is purely data driven, using tons and tons of data to train the model that drives the car. We could possibly see similar things in Earth science.

Hear from more NASA scientists on what they think the future will bring for Earth science: 

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Welcome Home HERA Mission XVII!

With the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) habitat, we complete studies to prepare us for exploration to asteroids, Mars, and the Moon… here on Earth! The studies are called analogs, and they simulate space missions to study how different aspects of deep space affect humans. During a HERA mission, the crew (i.e., the research participants) live and work very much as astronauts do, with minimal contact with anyone other than Mission Control for 45 days.

The most recent study, Mission XVII, just “returned to Earth” on June 18. (i.e., the participants egressed, or exited the habitat at our Johnson Space Center in Houston after their 45-day study.) We talked with the crew, Ellie, Will, Chi, and Michael, about the experience. Here are some highlights!

Why did you decide to participate in HERA Mission XVII?

HERA Mission VXII participants (from left to right) Ellie, Will, Chi, and Michael.

“My master’s is in human factors,” said Chi, who studies the interaction between humans and other systems at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “I figured this would be a cool way to study the other side of the table and actually participate in an analog.” For Michael, who holds a PhD in aerospace engineering and researches immunology and radio biology, it was an opportunity to experience life as an astronaut doing science in space. “I’ve flown [experiments] on the space station and shuttle,” he said. “Now I wanted to see the other side.” For Will, a geosciences PhD, it provided an opportunity to contribute to space exploration and neuroscience, which he considers two of the biggest fields with the most potential in science. “Here, we have this project that is the perfect intersection of those two things,” he said. And Ellie, a pilot in the Air Force, learned about HERA while working on her master’s thesis on Earth and space analogs and how to improve them for deep-space studies. “A lot of my interests are similar to Chi’s,” she said. “Human factors and physiological aspects are things that I find very fascinating.”

NASA missions all have patches, and HERA Mission XVII is no different. Did you get to design your patch?

HERA Mission VXII patch, which reads “May the Force be with you” in Latin and features Star Wars iconography. It’s a reference to the mission’s start date, May 4th aka Star Wars Day!

“We did!” They said …with a little the help from Michael’s brother, who is a designer. He drew several different designs based on the crew’s ideas. They picked one and worked together on tweaks. “We knew we were going [inside the habitat] on May Fourth,” Michael said. “We knew it would be Star Wars Day. So we did a Star Wars theme.” The patch had to come together fairly quickly though, since a Star Wars Day “launch” wasn’t the initial plan. “We were supposed to start two weeks earlier,” Ellie said. “It just so happened the new start date was May the Fourth!” Along with the Star Wars imagery, the patch includes a hurricane symbol, to pay tribute to hurricane Harvey which caused a previous crew to end their mission early, and an image of the HERA habitat. Will joked that designing the patch was “our first team task.”

How much free time did you have and what did you do with it?

HERA Mission XVII crew looking down the ladders inside the habitat.

“It was a decent amount,” Michael said. “I could have used more on the harder days, but in a way it’s good we didn’t have more because it’s harder to stay awake when you have nothing to do.” (The mission included a sleep reduction study, which meant the crew only got five hours of sleep a night five days a week.) “With the time I did have, I read a lot,” he said. He also drew, kept a journal, and “wrote bad haikus.” Because of the sleep study, Ellie didn’t read as much. “For me, had I tried to read or sit and do anything not interactive, I would have fallen asleep,” she said.

The crew’s art gallery, where they hung drawing and haikus they wrote.

Journaling and drawing were popular ways to pass the time. “We developed a crew art gallery on one of the walls,” Will said. They also played board games—in particular a game where you score points by making words with lettered tiles on a 15×15 grid. (Yes that one!) “Playing [that game] with two scientists wasn’t always fun though,” Ellie joked, referencing some of the more obscure vocabulary words Will and Michael had at the ready. “I was like, ‘What does that word mean?’ ‘Well that word means lava flow,” she said laughing. (The rest of the crew assured us she fared just fine.)

Chi tried reading, but found it difficult due to the dimmed lights that were part of an onboard light study. She took on a side project instead: 1000 paper cranes. “There is a story in Japan—I’m half Japanese—that if you make a 1000 cranes, it’s supposed to grant you a wish,” she said. She gave hers to her grandmother.

The whole crew having dinner together on “Sophisticated Saturdays!” From left to right: Will, Ellie, Chi, and Michael. They’re wearing their Saturday best, which includes the usual research equipment.

On weekends, the crew got eight hours of sleep, which they celebrated with “Sophisticated Saturdays!” “Coming in, we all brought an outfit that was a little fancy,” Ellie said. (Like a tie, a vest, an athletic dress—that kind of thing.) “We would only put it on Saturday evenings, and we’d have dinner on the first level at the one and only table we could all sit at and face each other,” she said. “We would pretend it was a different fancy restaurant every week.”

The table set for a “civilized” Saturday dinner. Once the crew’s hydroponics grew, they were able to add some greenery to the table.

“It was a way to feel more civilized,” Will said, who then offered another great use of their free time: establishing good habits. “I would use the free time to journal, for example. I’d just keep it up every day. That and stretching. Hydrating. Flossing.”

Like real astronauts, you were in contact with Mission Control and further monitored by HERA personnel. Was it weird being on camera all the time?

HERA personnel and the monitors they use for a typical HERA mission.

“I was always aware of it,” Michael said, “but I don’t think it changed my behavior. It’s not like I forgot about it. It was always there. I just wasn’t willing to live paranoid for 45 days.” Ellie agreed. “It was always in the back of my mind,” she said, further adding that they wore microphones and various other sensors. “We were wired all the time,” she said.

After the study, the crew met up with the people facilitating the experiments, sometimes for the first time. “It was really fun to meet Mission Control afterwards,” Will said. “They had just been this voice coming from the little boxes. It was great getting to meet them and put faces to the voices,” he said. “Of course, they knew us well. Very well.”

For more information on HERA, visit our analogs homepage.

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A Mesmerizing Model of Monster Black Holes

Just about every galaxy the size of our Milky Way (or bigger) has a supermassive black hole at its center. These objects are ginormous — hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of the Sun! Now, we know galaxies merge from time to time, so it follows that some of their black holes should combine too. But we haven’t seen a collision like that yet, and we don’t know exactly what it would look like. 

A new simulation created on the Blue Waters supercomputer — which can do 13 quadrillion calculations per second, 3 million times faster than the average laptop — is helping scientists understand what kind of light would be produced by the gas around these systems as they spiral toward a merger.

The new simulation shows most of the light produced around these two black holes is UV or X-ray light. We can’t see those wavelengths with our own eyes, but many telescopes can. Models like this could tell the scientists what to look for. 

You may have spotted the blank circular region between the two black holes. No, that’s not a third black hole. It’s a spot that wasn’t modeled in this version of the simulation. Future models will include the glowing gas passing between the black holes in that region, but the researchers need more processing power. The current version already required 46 days!

The supermassive black holes have some pretty nifty effects on the light created by the gas in the system. If you view the simulation from the side, you can see that their gravity bends light like a lens. When the black holes are lined up, you even get a double lens!

But what would the view be like from between two black holes? In the 360-degree video above, the system’s gas has been removed and the Gaia star catalog has been added to the background. If you watch the video in the YouTube app on your phone, you can moved the screen around to explore this extreme vista. Learn more about the new simulation here. 

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It’s official - we’re headed to do science on the Sun! ☀️

At 11:03 p.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 9, Solar Orbiter, an international collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA, launched aboard United Launch Alliance’s #AtlasV rocket for its journey to our closest star. The spacecraft will help us understand how the Sun creates and controls the constantly changing space environment throughout the solar system. The more we understand about the Sun’s influence on the planets in our solar system and the space we travel through, the more we can protect our astronauts and spacecraft as we journey to the Moon, to Mars and beyond. More here. 

Image Credit: NASA Social participant, Jared Frankle

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Hello!! Its wonderful to be able to ask questions, thank you!

About Perseverance, does it have a self-repair option? And as Curiosity is still operational, will they run missions together? Or will they split up to cover more distance?

Is this a sign that we're close to being able to set foot on Mars?

My final question is how do you receive the messages from such a long distance?

Thanks for all your hard work! 加油/Good luck!

“Is this a sign that we are close to being able to set foot on Mars?”

Five Times Astronaut Peggy Whitson Made History

On April 24, 2017, NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson established the new record for the most time spent in space by an American astronaut. She’s spent more than 76 weeks of her life floating in microgravity!  It’s not the first time in her career at NASA that Whitson has established new milestones: here are just a few.

First NASA Science Officer

Peggy Whitson was the named the first NASA Science Officer aboard the space station in 2002. The position was created to work with the United States research community to understand and meet the requirements and objectives of each space station experiment.

First Female to Command the Space Station… Twice

Whitson became the first female to command the space station during Expedition 16 in 2008. Then Whitson became the first female to command the station twice during her current mission on April 9, 2017.

First Female Chief of the Astronaut Office

In 2009, Whitson became the first female and first non-pilot to achieve the most senior position for active astronauts, Chief of the Astronaut Office.

Most Spacewalks for a Female

On March 30, 2017, Peggy Whitson broke the record for most spacewalks and most time spent spacewalking for female astronauts. Suni Williams had previously held the record at 7 spacewalks.

Most Time In Space By A NASA Astronaut

At 1:27 a.m. ET on April 24, Peggy Whitson set the new record for cumulative time spent in space by an American astronaut. Jeff Williams previously set the record in 2016.

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Chris Williams

Born in New York City, Chris Williams considers Potomac, Maryland, to be his hometown. A private pilot and Eagle Scout, Williams is a board-certified medical physicist and holds a doctorate in physics from MIT. https://go.nasa.gov/49YJJmf

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Wonder what it’s like to fly for NASA Earth science expeditions? Ask our research pilot anything! 

This January, we’re kicking off five new airborne Earth science expeditions aimed at studying our home planet from the land, sea and air. Here’s your chance to hear what it’s like from the cockpit! 

Research pilot Dean “Gucci” Neeley will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Friday, January 10 from 12-1pm ET here on NASA’s Tumblr! Find out what it’s like to fly research aircraft that use the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of Earth, improve lives and safeguard our future! Make sure to ask your question now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask!

Dean Neeley, retired U.S. Air Force officer and pilot, joined our Armstrong Flight Research Center in 2012 as a research pilot. Neeley flies a diverse array of highly modified airborne science, research and mission support aircraft such as the single-seat Lockheed ER-2 high-altitude science jet. The ER-2 collects information about Earth resources, celestial observations, atmospheric chemistry and dynamics and oceanic processes. Neeley has also flown the Gulfstream G-II mission support aircraft, which explores environmentally friendly aircraft concepts, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which observes the solar system and beyond at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths, and the C-20A (G-III) science platform aircraft, which carries our Jet Propulsion Laboratory's synthetic aperture radar. 

Dean Neeley Fun Facts 

Dean’s call sign Gucci came from flying KC-10 “Gucci Boys” before being hired to fly U-2 aircraft. Some say he spends too much time/money on his hair, clothes, cars. 😂

He played drums in two rock bands in the 80s and 90s; Agent Orange and the Defoliants; The Mod Sky Gods.

He spent his years in the Air Force as a reconnaissance squadron commander, wing chief of safety, stealth fighter squadron director and bomber in multiple worldwide aerial combat campaigns.

Dean holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a Master of Aeronautical Science degree.

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