Space Biosciences Events

Upcoming Events and Activities

Analysis Working Group Symposium 2024

To explore deeper into space, it is crucial that we learn how our bodies change and adapt to the unique environment of space. The Open Science Data Repository (a combination of GeneLab and Ames Life Sciences Data Archive – ALSDA – datasets) helps scientists understand how the fundamental building blocks of life itself change from exposure to microgravity, radiation, and other aspects of the space environment. The purpose of the Open Science Analysis Working Groups (AWGs) is to optimize the processing of raw omics data from the Open Science Data Repository to maximize the gain of new knowledge from such complex datasets. The AWGs are comprised of scientists with diverse backgrounds and is subdivided into six main areas of expertise (Plant, Animal, Microbes, Multi-omics, ALSDA, and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning – AI/ML). The AWG members focus on establishing consensus pipelines, discuss processed data and analyze GeneLab data that enables new discoveries.

Occurring on May 1 – 2, 2024 from 9 am – 2pm PT, this free virtual event is open to the public and will allow attendees an opportunity to hear about some of the exciting open science stemming from the Analysis Work Group (AWG) community. Under the overarching theme of “Bridging Space Biology and Advanced Technologies,” the symposium will feature keynote addresses from Shawna Pandya, Kellie Gerardi, and Chris Sembroski, along with scientific presentations from AWG members that have expertise in artificial intelligence/machine learning, plant biology, systems biology, microbiology, and space medicine. View the agenda to see more details about the event. Register now to secure your spot!

If you are intrigued by the science occurring in the AWGs, then we would love for you to join! Learn more about how to join the AWGs during the event.

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Elizabeth E. Keller

NASA Leadership to Visit Mexico, Strengthen Cooperation

Lee esta nota de prensa en español aquí.

Continuing their significant engagement with key government officials around the world to deepen ties and strengthen space collaboration, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy will visit Mexico City on Monday, April 22 and Tuesday, April 23. 

Nelson and Melroy will meet with senior Mexican government officials, including President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Mexican Space Agency (AEM) leaders, to strengthen bilateral cooperation across a broad range of innovation and research areas, such as Earth science and exploration. Together, the two nations are working to achieve mutual goals of addressing climate change. 

NASA and AEM also are collaborating on nanosatellite technology demonstrators that will contribute to the future of space exploration. Mexico is a signatory of the Artemis Accords, a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations for the safe, peaceful, and prosperous use of space.

The visit to Mexico coincides with Earth Day on April 22. NASA is engaged in a wide range of activities with Mexican counterparts in Earth science. The administrator and deputy administrator will discuss opportunities for broadening this area of collaboration, including using NASA missions to study air quality and improving water resources management.

Nelson and Melroy also will meet with students in Mexico to discuss science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and their role as members of the Artemis Generation. 

For more information about NASA’s international partnerships, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/oiir/

-end-

Faith McKie
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
faith.d.mckie@nasa.gov  

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Tiernan P. Doyle

NASA’s VIPER Gets Its Head and Neck

In this image from Feb. 12, 2024, engineers lift a mast into place on NASA’s VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) robotic Moon rover. VIPER’s mast and the suite of instruments affixed to it look a lot like the rover’s “neck” and “head.” The mast instruments are designed to help the team of rover drivers and real-time scientists send commands and receive data while the rover navigates around hazardous crater slopes, boulders, and places that risk communications blackouts. The team will use these instruments, along with four science payloads, to scout the lunar South Pole. During its approximately 100-day mission, VIPER seeks to better understand the origin of water and other resources on the Moon, as well as the extreme environment where NASA plans to send astronauts as part of the Artemis campaign.

Learn more about VIPER’s mast and mission.

Image Credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas

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Rachel Hoover

NASA Goddard to Build Quake Detector for Artemis III Moon Landing

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will build a moonquake detector for astronauts to deploy on the Moon in 2026 during the Artemis III mission, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.  

NASA selected the instrument, the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) as one of the first three potential payloads for Artemis III. LEMS is a compact, autonomous seismometer designed to carry out continuous, long-term monitoring of ground motion from moonquakes in the region around the lunar South Pole. The data LEMS gathers will help scientists study the Moon’s internal structure and could help refine our understanding of how the Moon formed.

Planetary scientist Mehdi Benna, of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Center for Space Sciences Technology (CSST), leads the LEMS team at NASA Goddard.

“The LEMS project is the culmination of several years of collaboration between UMBC, University of Maryland, College Park, and NASA Goddard,” Benna said.

Benna began conceptualizing the idea behind the LEMS instrument in 2018 after realizing the need for technology that could withstand the Moon’s harsh conditions to measure lunar geophysical activity for a long duration of time.

The team began developing his idea of a small, self-sustaining station that operates almost like a buoy in the ocean — what Benna calls a “lunar buoy” — that can survive on the surface through the lunar night and operate during the day. In 2018, Benna’s team received funding from NASA’s Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation program to develop LEMS to flight readiness.

LEMS is intended to operate on the lunar surface from three months up to two years and could become a key station in a future global lunar geophysical network.

Moonquakes were first observed after Apollo astronauts placed seismometers on the lunar surface during their missions between 1969 and 1972. Moonquakes’ sources include the same tug of gravity between Earth and the Moon that cause ocean tides. In addition, the Moon trembles as it expands and contracts due to temperature changes, like a house creaking when the weather heats up or cools down.

The Apollo seismic data was collected on the Earth-facing side of the Moon near the lunar equator. “We don’t have seismic data from the lunar South Pole that can inform us on the local and global lunar subsurface structure,” said Naoma McCall, LEMS co-investigator and seismologist at NASA Goddard.

UMBC leads LEM’s science investigation. NASA Goddard will build and operate LEMS. The University of Arizona will supply LEMS’ two state-of-the-art seismometer sensors; Morehead State University in Kentucky will provide LEMS’ telecommunication system and the homebase of the mission’s operation center, and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, will manage the instrument’s data processing and dissemination to the larger scientific community. 

The other candidate instruments selected alongside LEMS are the Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora instrument, led by researchers at Space Lab Technologies in Boulder, Colorado, and the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer instrument, led by researchers at the University of Tokyo and supported by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). 

Together these instruments could collect valuable scientific data about the lunar environment, the lunar interior and how to sustain a long-duration human presence on the Moon, helping prepare NASA to send astronauts to Mars. Final manifesting decisions for Artemis III will be made at a later date.

By Adriana Fraser,
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Edited by Rani Gran,
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Jamie Adkins