Women In Exploration: From Human Computers To All-Woman Spacewalks
Women in Exploration: From Human Computers to All-Woman Spacewalks
Since the 19th century, women have been making strides in areas like coding, computing, programming and space travel, despite the challenges they have faced. Sally Ride joined NASA in 1983 and five years later she became the first female American astronaut. Ride's accomplishments paved the way for the dozens of other women who became astronauts, and the hundreds of thousands more who pursued careers in science and technology. Just last week, we celebrated our very first #AllWomanSpacewalk with astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir.
Here are just a couple of examples of pioneers who brought us to where we are today:
The Conquest of the Sound Barrier
Pearl Young was hired in 1922 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA’s predecessor organization, to work at its Langley site in support in instrumentation, as one of the first women hired by the new agency. Women were also involved with the NACA at the Muroc site in California (now Armstrong Flight Research Center) to support flight research on advanced, high-speed aircraft. These women worked on the X-1 project, which became the first airplane to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Young was the first woman hired as a technical employee and the second female physicist working for the federal government.
The Human Computers of Langley
The NACA hired five women in 1935 to form its first “computer pool”, because they were hardworking, “meticulous” and inexpensive. After the United States entered World War II, the NACA began actively recruiting similar types to meet the workload. These women did all the mathematical calculations – by hand – that desktop and mainframe computers do today.
Computers played a role in major projects ranging from World War II aircraft testing to transonic and supersonic flight research and the early space program. Women working as computers at Langley found that the job offered both challenges and opportunities. With limited options for promotion, computers had to prove that women could successfully do the work and then seek out their own opportunities for advancement.
Revolutionizing X-ray Astronomy
Marjorie Townsend was blazing trails from a very young age. She started college at age 15 and became the first woman to earn an engineering degree from the George Washington University when she graduated in 1951. At NASA, she became the first female spacecraft project manager, overseeing the development and 1970 launch of the UHURU satellite. The first satellite dedicated to x-ray astronomy, UHURU detected, surveyed and mapped celestial X-ray sources and gamma-ray emissions.
Women of Apollo
NASA’s mission to land a human on the Moon for the very first time took hundreds of thousands workers. These are some of the stories of the women who made our recent #Apollo50th anniversary possible:
• Margaret Hamilton led a NASA team of software engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and helped develop the flight software for NASA’s Apollo missions. She also coined the term “software engineering.” Her team’s groundbreaking work was perfect; there were no software glitches or bugs during the crewed Apollo missions.
• JoAnn Morgan was the only woman working in Mission Control when the Apollo 11 mission launched. She later accomplished many NASA “firsts” for women: NASA winner of a Sloan Fellowship, division chief, senior executive at the Kennedy Space Center and director of Safety and Mission Assurance at the agency.
• Judy Sullivan, was the first female engineer in the agency’s Spacecraft Operations organization, was the lead engineer for health and safety for Apollo 11, and the only woman helping Neil Armstrong suit up for flight.
Hidden Figures
Author Margot Lee Shetterly’s book – and subsequent movie – Hidden Figures, highlighted African-American women who provided instrumental support to the Apollo program, all behind the scenes.
• An alumna of the Langley computing pool, Mary Jackson was hired as the agency’s first African-American female engineer in 1958. She specialized in boundary layer effects on aerospace vehicles at supersonic speeds.
• An extraordinarily gifted student, Katherine Johnson skipped several grades and attended high school at age 13 on the campus of a historically black college. Johnson calculated trajectories, launch windows and emergency backup return paths for many flights, including Apollo 11.
• Christine Darden served as a “computress” for eight years until she approached her supervisor to ask why men, with the same educational background as her (a master of science in applied mathematics), were being hired as engineers. Impressed by her skills, her supervisor transferred her to the engineering section, where she was one of few female aerospace engineers at NASA Langley during that time.
Lovelace’s Woman in Space Program
Geraldyn “Jerrie” Cobb was the among dozens of women recruited in 1960 by Dr. William Randolph "Randy" Lovelace II to undergo the same physical testing regimen used to help select NASA’s first astronauts as part of his privately funded Woman in Space Program.
Ultimately, thirteen women passed the same physical examinations that the Lovelace Foundation had developed for NASA’s astronaut selection process. They were: Jerrie Cobb, Myrtle "K" Cagle, Jan Dietrich, Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Jean Hixson, Irene Leverton, Sarah Gorelick, Jane B. Hart, Rhea Hurrle, Jerri Sloan, Gene Nora Stumbough, and Bernice Trimble Steadman. Though they were never officially affiliated with NASA, the media gave these women the unofficial nicknames “Fellow Lady Astronaut Trainees” and the “Mercury Thirteen.”
The First Woman on the Moon
The early space program inspired a generation of scientists and engineers. Now, as we embark on our Artemis program to return humanity to the lunar surface by 2024, we have the opportunity to inspire a whole new generation. The prospect of sending the first woman to the Moon is an opportunity to influence the next age of women explorers and achievers.
This material was adapted from a paper written by Shanessa Jackson (Stellar Solutions, Inc.), Dr. Patricia Knezek (NASA), Mrs. Denise Silimon-Hill (Stellar Solutions), and Ms. Alexandra Cross (Stellar Solutions) and submitted to the 2019 International Astronautical Congress (IAC). For more information about IAC and how you can get involved, click here.
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More Posts from Nasa and Others
INCOMING! Roving scientist to arrive on Mars.
Save the date! One year from today, Feb. 18, 2021, our next rover is set to land on Mars. Get to know #Mars2020 now! Click here.
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Space Radiation: Hazard of Stealth
A human journey to Mars, at first glance, offers an inexhaustible amount of complexities. To bring a mission to the Red Planet from fiction to fact, our Human Research Program has organized hazards astronauts will encounter on a continual basis into five classifications.
The first hazard of a human mission to Mars is also the most difficult to visualize because, well, space radiation is invisible to the human eye. Radiation is not only stealthy, but considered one of the most menacing of the five hazards.
Above Earth’s natural protection, radiation exposure increases cancer risk, damages the central nervous system, can alter cognitive function, reduce motor function and prompt behavioral changes. To learn what can happen above low-Earth orbit, we study how radiation affects biological samples using a ground-based research laboratory.
Exploration to the Moon and Mars will expose astronauts to five known hazards of spaceflight, including radiation. To learn more, and find out what our Human Research Program is doing to protect humans in space, check out the "Hazards of Human Spaceflight" website or check out this week’s episode of “Houston We Have a Podcast,” in which our host Gary Jordan further dives into the threat of radiation with Zarana Patel, a radiation lead scientist at the Johnson Space Center.
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O_o When we peer deep into space, we don't expect to find something staring back at us...
This galactic ghoul, captured by our Hubble Space Telescope, is actually a titanic head-on collision between two galaxies. Each "eye" is the bright core of a galaxy, one of which slammed into another. The outline of the face is a ring of young blue stars. Other clumps of new stars form a nose and mouth.
Although galaxy collisions are common most of them are not head-on smashups like this Arp-Madore system. Get spooked & find out what lies inside this ghostly apparition, here.
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15 Ways the International Space Station is Benefiting Earth
With astronauts living and working aboard the International Space Station, we’re learning a great deal about creating and testing critical systems, maintaining efficient communications and protecting the human body during a deep space mission. While these are critical to our journey to Mars, it is important to also note all the ways in which research conducted and technology tested aboard the orbiting laboratory help us here on Earth.
Here are 15 ways the space station is benefiting life on Earth:
1. Commercializing Low-Earth Orbit
An exciting new commercial pathway is revolutionizing and opening access to space, fostering America’s new space economy in low-Earth orbit. For the first time, the market is expressing what research can and should be done aboard the microgravity laboratory without direct government funding. Our move to purchase commercial cargo resupply and crew transportation to the space station enables U.S. businesses to develop a competitive capability they also can sell as a service to others while freeing our resources for deep space exploration. Private sector participation provides a new model for moving forward in partnership with the government.
2. Supporting Water Purification Efforts Worldwide
Whether in the confines of the International Space Station or a tiny hut village in sub-Saharan Africa, drinkable water is vital for human survival. Unfortunately, many people around the world lack access to clean water. Using technology developed for the space station, at-risk areas can gain access to advanced water filtration and purification systems, making a life-saving difference in these communities. The Water Security Corporation, in collaboration with other organizations, has deployed systems using NASA water-processing technology around the world.
3. Growing High-Quality Protein Crystals
There are more than 100,000 proteins in the human body and as many as 10 billion in nature. Every structure is different, and each protein holds important information related to our health and to the global environment. The perfect environment in which to study these structures is space. Microgravity allows for optimal growth of the unique and complicated crystal structures of proteins leading to the development of medical treatments. An example of a protein that was successfully crystallized in space is hematopoietic prostaglandin D synthase (H-PGDS), which may hold the key to developing useful drugs for treating muscular dystrophy. This particular experiment is an example of how understanding a protein’s structure can lead to better drug designs. Further research is ongoing.
4. Bringing Space Station Ultrasound to the Ends of the Earth
Fast, efficient and readily available medical attention is key to survival in a health emergency. For those without medical facilities within easy reach, it can mean the difference between life and death. For astronauts in orbit about 250 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station, that problem was addressed through the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity (ADUM) investigation. Medical care has become more accessible in remote regions by use of small ultrasound units, tele-medicine, and remote guidance techniques, just like those used for people living aboard the space station.
5. Improving Eye Surgery with Space Hardware
Laser surgery to correct eyesight is a common practice, and technology developed for use in space is now commonly used on Earth to track a patient’s eye and precisely direct the laser scalpel. The Eye Tracking Device experiment gave researchers insight into how humans’ frames of reference, balance and the overall control of eye movement are affected by weightlessness. In parallel with its use on the space station, the engineers realized the device had potential for applications on Earth. Tracking the eye’s position without interfering with the surgeon’s work is essential in laser surgery. The space technology proved ideal, and the Eye Tracking Device equipment is now being used in a large proportion of corrective laser surgeries throughout the world.
6. Making Inoperable Tumors Operable with a Robotic Arm
The delicate touch that successfully removed an egg-shaped tumor from Paige Nickason’s brain got a helping hand from a world-renowned arm—a robotic arm, that is. The technology that went into developing neuroArm, the world’s first robot capable of performing surgery inside magnetic resonance machines, was born of the Canadarm (developed in collaboration with engineers at MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates, Ltd. [MDA] for the U.S. Space Shuttle Program) as well as Canadarm2 and Dextre, the Canadian Space Agency’s family of space robots performing the heavy lifting and maintenance aboard the International Space Station. Since Nickason’s surgery in 2008, neuroArm has been used in initial clinical experience with 35 patients who were otherwise inoperable.
7. Preventing Bone Loss Through Diet and Exercise
In the early days of the space station, astronauts were losing about one-and-a-half percent of their total bone mass density per month. Researchers discovered an opportunity to identify the mechanisms that control bones at a cellular level. These scientists discovered that high-intensity resistive exercise, dietary supplementation for vitamin D and specific caloric intake can remedy loss of bone mass in space. The research also is applicable to vulnerable populations on Earth, like older adults, and is important for continuous crew member residency aboard the space station and for deep space exploration to an asteroid placed in lunar orbit and on the journey to Mars.
8. Understanding the Mechanisms of Osteoporosis
While most people will never experience life in space, the benefits of studying bone and muscle loss aboard the station has the potential to touch lives here on the ground. Model organisms are non-human species with characteristics that allow them easily to be reproduced and studied in a laboratory. Scientists conducted a study of mice in orbit to understand mechanisms of osteoporosis. This research led to availability of a pharmaceutical on Earth called Prolia® to treat people with osteoporosis, a direct benefit of pharmaceutical companies using the spaceflight opportunity available via the national lab to improve health on Earth.
9. Developing Improved Vaccines
Ground research indicated that certain bacteria, in particular Salmonella, might become more pathogenic (more able to cause disease) during spaceflight. Salmonella infections result in thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths annually in the United States. While studying them in space, scientists found a pathway for bacterial pathogens to become virulent. Researchers identified the genetic pathway activating in Salmonella bacteria, allowing the increased likelihood to spread in microgravity. This research on the space station led to new studies of microbial vaccine development.
10. Providing Students Opportunities to Conduct Their Own Science in Space
From the YouTube Space Lab competition, the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, and SPHERES Zero Robotics, space station educational activities inspire more than 43 million students across the globe. These tyFrom the YouTube Space Lab competition, the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, and SPHERES Zero Robotics, space station educational activities inspire more than 43 million students across the globe. These types of inquiry-based projects allow students to be involved in human space exploration with the goal of stimulating their studies of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is understood that when students test a hypothesis on their own or compare work in a lab to what’s going on aboard the space station, they are more motivated towards math and science.
11. Breast Cancer Detection and Treatment Technology
A surgical instrument inspired by the Canadian Space Agency’s heavy-lifting and maneuvering robotic arms on the space station is in clinical trials for use in patients with breast cancer. The Image-Guided Autonomous Robot (IGAR) works inside an MRI machine to help accurately identify the size and location of a tumor. Using IGAR, surgeons also will be able to perform highly dexterous, precise movements during biopsies.
12. Monitoring Water Quality from Space
Though it completed its mission in 2015, the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) was an imaging sensor that helped detect water quality parameters such as water clarity, phytoplankton concentrations, light absorption and the distribution of cyanobacteria. HICO was first designed and built by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for the Office of Naval Research to assess water quality in the coastal ocean. Researchers at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the data from HICO and developed a smartphone application to help determine hazardous concentrations of contaminants in water. With the space station’s regular addition of new instruments to provide a continuous platform for Earth observation, researchers will continue to build proactive environmental protection applications that benefit all life on Earth.
13. Monitoring Natural Disasters from Space
An imaging system aboard the station, ISS SERVIR Environmental Research and Visualization System (ISERV), captured photographs of Earth from space for use in developing countries affected by natural disasters. A broader joint endeavor by NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development, known as SERVIR, works with developing nations around the world to use satellites for environmental decision-making. Images from orbit can help with rapid response efforts to floods, fires, volcanic eruptions, deforestation, harmful algal blooms and other types of natural events. Since the station passes over more than 90 percent of the Earth’s populated areas every 24 hours, the ISERV system was available to provide imagery to developing nations quickly, collecting up to 1,000 images per day. Though ISERV successfully completed its mission, the space station continues to prove to be a valuable platform for Earth observation during times of disaster.
14. Describing the Behavior of Fluids to Improve Medical Devices
Capillary Flow Experiments (CFE) aboard the space station study the movement of a liquid along surfaces, similar to the way fluid wicks along a paper towel. These investigations produce space-based models that describe fluid behavior in microgravity, which has led to a new medical testing device on Earth. This new device could improve diagnosis of HIV/AIDS in remote areas, thanks in part to knowledge gained from the experiments.
15. Improving Indoor Air Quality
Solutions for growing crops in space now translates to solutions for mold prevention in wine cellars, homes and medical facilities, as well as other industries around the world. NASA is studying crop growth aboard the space station to develop the capability for astronauts to grow their own food as part of the agency’s journey to Mars. Scientists working on this investigation noticed that a buildup of a naturally-occurring plant hormone called ethylene was destroying plants within the confined plant growth chambers. Researchers developed and successfully tested an ethylene removal system in space, called Advanced Astroculture (ADVASC). It helped to keep the plants alive by removing viruses, bacteria and mold from the plant growth chamber. Scientists adapted the ADVASC system for use in air purification. Now this technology is used to prolong the shelf-life of fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, and winemakers are using it in their storage cellars.
For more information on the International Space Station, and regular updates, follow @Space_Station on Twitter.
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The 2021 Perseid Meteor Shower Is Here!
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
The Perseids are at their peak this week!
The Perseid meteor shower, one of the biggest meteor showers of the year, will be at its brightest early in the morning on Thursday, August 12, 2021 and Friday, August 13, 2021. Read on for some tips on how to watch the night sky this week – and to find out: what exactly are the Perseids, anyway?
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
Your best chance to spot the Perseids will be between 2 AM and dawn (local time) the morning of August 12 or 13. Find a dark spot, avoid bright lights (yes, that includes your phone) and get acclimated to the night sky.
Your eyes should be at peak viewing capacity after about 30 minutes; with a clear, dark sky, you could see more than 40 Perseids an hour! If you’re not an early bird, you can try and take a look soon after sunset (around 9 PM) on the 12th, though you may not see as many Perseids then.
Credit: NASA/MEO
If it’s too cloudy, or too bright, to go skywatching where you are, just stay indoors and watch the Perseids online!
Our Meteor Watch program will be livestreaming the Perseids from Huntsville, Alabama on Facebook (weather permitting), starting around 11 p.m. EDT on August 11 and continuing through sunrise.
So… why are they called the Perseids?
Because all of a meteor shower’s meteors have similar orbits, they appear to come from the same place in the sky – a point called the radiant.
The radiant for the Perseids, as you might guess from the name, is in the constellation Perseus, found near Aries and Taurus in the night sky.
But they’re not actually coming from Perseus, right?
Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Right! The Perseids are actually fragments of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits within our solar system.
If you want to learn more about the Perseids, visit our Watch the Skies blog or check out our monthly “What’s Up” video series. Happy viewing!
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What Would These Astronauts Put in Their #NASAMoonKit?
NASA is hard at work to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon, and we want to know: what would you pack for a trip to the Moon?
We will be soon conducting our last in a series of Green Run tests for the core stage of our Space Launch System (SLS) — the most powerful rocket ever built.
The series of tests is designed to gradually bring the rocket stage and all its systems to life for the first time — ensuring that it’s ready for missions to the Moon through the Artemis program.
To mark this critical time in the history of American spaceflight, we’ve been asking people like you — what would you take with you on a trip to the Moon? Social media users have been regaling us with their images, videos, and illustrations with the hashtag #NASAMoonKit!
Looking for a little inspiration? We asked some of our astronauts and NASA leaders the same question:
1. NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy recently took this photo from the International Space Station and posted it to his Twitter account with this caption:
“If I was on the next mission to the Moon, I would have to bring this tiny spaceman with me! He’s flown with me on all of my missions and was in my uniform pocket for all the SEAL missions I have been a part of. Kind of like a good luck charm.”
2. European Space Agency Astronaut Tim Peake
European Space Agency astronaut Tim Peake asked his two sons what they would take with them to the Moon. This is what they decided on!
3. NASA Astronaut Scott Tingle
Based on previous missions to space, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle would put a can of LiOH, or Lithium Hydroxide, into his #NASAMoonKit.
A LiOH can pulls carbon dioxide out of the air — very important when you're in a closed environment for a long time! Apollo 13 enthusiasts will remember that the astronauts had to turn off their environmental system to preserve power. To keep the air safe, they used LiOH cans from another part of the vehicle, but the cans were round and the fitting was square. Today we have interoperability standards for space systems, so no more square pegs in round holes!
4. NASA Astronaut Drew Morgan
NASA astronaut Drew Morgan received some feedback from his youngest daughter when she was in kindergarten about she would put into her #NASAMoonKit.
5. Head of Human Spaceflight Kathy Lueders
Although Kathy Lueders is not an astronaut, she is the head of human spaceflight at NASA! Her #NASAMoonKit includes activities to keep her entertained as well as her favorite pillow.
6. NASA Astronaut Kenneth Bowersox
NASA astronaut Kenneth Bowersox knows from his past space shuttle experience what the “perfect space food” is — peanut butter. He would also put a hooded sweatshirt in his #NASAMoonKit, for those long, cold nights on the way to the Moon.
7. NASA Astronaut Michael Collins
NASA astronaut Michael Collins has actually made a real-life #NASAMoonKit — when he flew to the Moon on the Apollo 11 mission! But for this time around, he tweeted that would like to bring coffee like he did the first time — but add on a good book.
How to Show Us What’s In Your #NASAMoonKit:
There are four social media platforms that you can use to submit your work:
Instagram: Use the Instagram app to upload your photo or video, and in the description include #NASAMoonKit
Twitter: Share your image on Twitter and include #NASAMoonKit in the tweet
Facebook: Share your image on Facebook and include #NASAMoonKit in the post
Tumblr: Share your image in Tumblr and include #NASAMoonKit in the tags
If your #NASAMoonKit catches our eye, we may share your post on our NASA social media accounts or share it on the Green Run broadcast!
Click here for #NASAMoonKit Terms and Conditions.
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Strap in for a Tour of the Milky Way
The night sky isn’t flat. If you traveled deep into this part of the sky at the speed of the radio waves leaving this tower, here are some places you could reach.
Jupiter: Travel time – 35 minutes, 49 seconds.
The closest object in this view is the planet Jupiter, brilliant now in the evening sky…and gorgeous when seen up close by our Juno spacecraft. Distance on the night this picture was taken: 400 million miles (644 million kilometers).
Saturn: Travel time – one hour and 15 minutes.
The next closest is Saturn, another bright “star” in this summer’s sky. On the right, one of the Cassini spacecraft’s last looks. Distance: 843 million miles (1.3 billion kilometers).
Pluto: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – four hours, 33 minutes.
It’s not visible to the unaided eye, but Pluto is currently found roughly in this direction. Our New Horizons space mission was the first to show us what it looks like. Distance: more than 3 billion miles.
F-type star, HD 169830: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – 123 years.
Within this patch of sky, there’s an F-type star called HD 169830. At this speed, it would take you 123 years to get there. We now know it has at least two planets (one of which is imagined here) — just two of more than 4,000 we've found…so far.
The Lagoon Nebula: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – 4,000 years.
If you look closely, you’ll see a fuzzy patch of light and color here. If you look *really* closely, as our Hubble Space Telescope did, you’ll see the Lagoon Nebula, churning with stellar winds from newborn stars.
Black hole, Sagittarius A*: Light-speed travel time from the radio tower – 26,000 years.
In 26,000 years, after passing millions of stars, you could reach the center of our galaxy. Hidden there behind clouds of dust is a massive black hole. It’s hidden, that is, unless you use our Chandra X-ray Observatory which captured the x-ray flare seen here.
The next time you’re under a deep, dark sky, don’t forget to look up…and wonder what else might be out there.
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Ever want to ask a real life astronaut a question? Here’s your chance!
We are kicking off Hispanic Heritage Month a little early this year, and astronaut Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor will be taking your questions in an Answer Time session on Thursday, September 12 from 12pm - 1pm ET here on NASA’s Tumblr! Find out what it’s like to be a NASA astronaut and learn more about her Cuban-American heritage. Make sure to ask your question now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask!
Dr. Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor began working with NASA as a Flight Surgeon in 2006 and was later selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009. Her first flight was from Jun 6- Dec. 20, 2018 where she served as Flight Engineer on the International Space Station as a member of Expeditions 56 and 57. During these missions, the crew contributed to hundreds of experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science – including investigations into a new cancer treatment!
She has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University, Washington, D.C and a Doctorate of Medicine from The University of Texas - Health Science Center at Houston.
Dr. Auñón-Chancellor Fun Facts:
She spent 2 months in Antarctica from 2010 to 2011 searching for meteorites as part of the ANSMET expedition.
She served as an Aquanaut on the NEEMO 20 mission in the Aquarius underwater laboratory, which is used to prepare for living and working in space.
She logged 197 days in space during Expeditions 56 and 57.
Follow Serena on Twitter at @AstroSerena and follow NASA on Tumblr for your regular dose of space.
A Tiny Satellite Studies Stormy Layers
The gif above shows data taken by an experimental weather satellite of Hurricane Dorian on September 3, 2019. TEMPEST-D, a NASA CubeSat, reveals rain bands in four layers of the storm by taking the data in four different radio frequencies. The multiple vertical layers show where the most warm, wet air within the hurricane is rising high into the atmosphere. Pink, red and yellow show the areas of heaviest rainfall, while the least intense areas of rainfall are in green and blue.
How does an Earth satellite the size of a cereal box help NASA monitor storms?
The goal of the TEMPEST-D (Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems Demonstration) mission is to demonstrate the performance of a CubeSat designed to study precipitation events on a global scale.
If TEMPEST-D can successfully track storms like Dorian, the technology demonstration could lead to a train of small satellites that work together to track storms around the world. By measuring the evolution of clouds from the moment of the start of precipitation, a TEMPEST constellation mission, collecting multiple data points over short periods of time, would improve our understanding of cloud processes and help to clear up one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate models. Knowledge of clouds, cloud processes and precipitation is essential to our understanding of climate change.
What is a CubeSat, anyway? And what’s the U for?
CubeSats are small, modular, customizable vessels for satellites. They come in single units a little larger than a rubix cube - 10cmx10cmx10cm - that can be stacked in multiple different configurations. One CubeSat is 1U. A CubeSat like TEMPEST-D, which is a 6U, has, you guessed it, six CubeSat units in it.
Pictured above is a full-size mockup of MarCO, a 6U CubeSat that recently went to Mars with the Insight mission. They really are about the size of a cereal box!
We are using CubeSats to test new technologies and push the boundaries of Earth Science in ways never before imagined. CubeSats are much less expensive to produce than traditional satellites; in multiples they could improve our global storm coverage and forecasting data.
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What Happened to Mars?
Billions of years ago, Mars was a very different world. Liquid water flowed in long rivers that emptied into lakes and shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm.
Today, Mars is bitter cold. The Red Planet’s thin and wispy atmosphere provides scant cover for the surface below.
Our MAVEN Mission
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is part of our Mars Scout program. This spacecraft launched in November 2013, and is exploring the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.
The purpose of the MAVEN mission is to determine the state of the upper atmosphere of Mars, the processes that control it and the overall atmospheric loss that is currently occurring. Specifically, MAVEN is exploring the processes through which the top of the Martian atmosphere can be lost to space. Scientists think that this loss could be important in explaining the changes in the climate of Mars that have occurred over the last four billion years.
New Findings
Today, Nov. 5, we will share new details of key science findings from our ongoing exploration of Mars during a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT. This event will be broadcast live on NASA Television. Have questions? Use #askNASA during the briefing.
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