NASA CubeSats Loaded for Launch

Eight CubeSats that are part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative have been integrated into Firefly Aerospace’s deployment hardware and are ready to be encapsulated into the payload fairing of Firefly’s Alpha rocket. The launch, named “Noise of Summer,” will lift off early this summer from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 

University students from several schools, along with some technicians from NASA, brought their small satellites to Firefly for integration with the rocket. The satellites are designed to perform a range of scientific experiments and technical demonstrations including high-speed communications, cosmic ray detection, climate monitoring, and new de-orbiting techniques. 

The CubeSats on the ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite) manifest are: 

• CatSat – University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 
• KUbe-Sat-1 – University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 
• MESAT1 – University of Maine, Orono, Maine 
• R5-S4 – NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas 
• R5-S2-2.0 – NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston 
• SOC-i – University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 
• TechEdSat-11 – NASA’s Ames Research Center, California’s Silicon Valley 
• Serenity – Teachers in Space  

Students are heavily involved in all aspects of their mission from developing, assembling, and testing payloads to working with NASA and the launch vehicle integration teams. The CubeSats are held to rigorous standards like that of the primary spacecraft.  

Firefly Aerospace is one of three companies selected under NASA’s Launch Services Program Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 (VCLS Demo 2) contract awarded in December 2020. These VCLS Demo 2 missions can tolerate a higher level of risk and help create opportunities for new launch vehicles, helping grow the launch vehicle market while increasing access to space for small spacecraft and science missions. 

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Laura Aguiar

Giant Batteries Deliver Renewable Energy When It’s Needed

Solar power is abundant – when the Sun is shining. Wind power is steady – when the wind is blowing. However, creating a steady electricity supply from intermittent power sources is a challenge. NASA was focused on this problem more than 45 years ago when the agency designed a new type of liquid battery during the energy price shocks of the 1970s. While engineers continued over the following decades to develop flow batteries, as they’re now called, the technology has drawn even more attention in recent years, with the urgency of climate change powering a larger-scale transition to renewables like solar and wind.

It’s fair to say that flow batteries today owe something to the major push the technology received in the 1970s when a NASA team of chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineers developed an iron-chromium flow battery at Lewis Research Center – now Glenn Research Center – in Cleveland.

The NASA system involved two tanks of liquid electrolyte solutions, one infused with iron chloride and the other with chromium chloride. These electrolytes were pumped through the battery cell, triggering a chemical reaction through a membrane that separated the two solutions inside the battery. During charge, electrical energy was converted to chemical energy and stored in the electrolyte liquid. To discharge the energy, the process was reversed.

Wilsonville, Oregon-based ESS Inc. built on NASA’s early work as the company developed its own flow batteries using only iron, salt, and water.  When the ESS team began developing its battery in 2011, the company founders wanted to use iron as NASA had. They found they could pair iron with a simple salt solution, which was cheaper to obtain and easier to work with than the chromium mixture NASA had used.

ESS flow batteries are designed for power grids that are increasingly powered by intermittent wind and solar generation. The company’s systems store up to 12 hours of energy and are used to provide backup power to critical community facilities.

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A Bright New Abrasion

Last week, Perseverance arrived at the long-awaited site of Bright Angel, named for being a light-toned rock that stands out in orbital data. The unique color here, as well as the surface characteristics and location on the edge of the ancient river channel Neretva Vallis, made Bright Angel a location of interest for the Mars 2020 Science Team.

After capturing some stunning long-distance images of Bright Angel, Perseverance made the approach to the rocks. Closer camera images, Mastcam-Z, and SuperCam data showed intriguing surface textures on these light-toned rocks that the Science Team is actively working to understand.

After a few days to process the beautiful images and exciting location, Perseverance executed a planned abrasion on the rocks in front of the rover, which can be seen in the above image if you look closely underneath the rover’s arm. This abrasion patch is named “Walhalla Glades” after an ancient archeological site in the Grand Canyon along the Colorado River, a tribute to Bright Angel’s location on the edge of the ancient Neretva Vallis river channel.

Proximity science instruments were deployed to look at the abrasion patch in detail and provide high-resolution geochemical data of these rocks. In the Hazard Avoidance Camera image above, the PIXL instrument is pointed down at the abrasion patch on the rock surface as it performs a scan.

The Science Team will take time to understand all the new data obtained at Bright Angel, comparing it to the past rocks Perseverance has investigated and determining if the area should be included in the sample cache onboard Perseverance. Characterizing the rocks of Bright Angel, connecting them to the surrounding rocks and sediment of Neretva Vallis, and placing them in context with the Crater Rim and Margin units should write an exciting chapter of the history of Jezero crater!

Written by Eleanor Moreland, Ph.D. Student Collaborator at Rice University

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NASA Engineer Honored as Girl Scouts ‘Woman of Distinction’

You’d think a NASA aerospace engineer who spends her days inside a giant dome researching how to make plane engines quieter and spacecraft systems more efficient would have a pretty booked schedule. Still, advocacy and mentoring, especially for women and girls in STEM, is something Danielle Koch always tries to say yes to.

For decades, Koch has tutored students, volunteered as a mentor for engineering challenges, and engaged Pre-K through Ph.D. classes with stories from her career at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Koch also works to recruit women and others from underrepresented groups to the field and find ways to remove barriers to their advancement.

For her efforts, Koch was recently recognized by the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio as a 2024 Woman of Distinction. The award, presented to Koch during a ceremony on May 16, celebrates women whose leadership contributes to the community, providing girls with positive role models. Koch says that diverse people and programs have similarly shaped her own career path.

“None of this is anything I’ve done myself; there are huge groups of people who are making change and making things better for all of us,” Koch said. “Every story I tell about me being a woman at NASA is really a story about them.”

A Pittsburgh native and graduate of Case Western Reserve University, Koch began her career as a test engineer at NASA Glenn in 1990 as the only woman in her work group. While there were women around her, Koch says she did not see many senior-level female engineers or scientists “working ahead of her.” With determination and the “rock-solid” support of colleagues, family, and friends, Koch forged ahead, becoming a research aerospace engineer in NASA Glenn’s Acoustics Branch in 1998.

“She’s somebody that goes above and beyond almost all of the time, while using her knowledge and career to bring others up to her level,” said John Lucero, Koch’s supervisor and the chief of the Acoustics Branch at NASA Glenn.

Koch realized the landscape around her was evolving in 2016 when she sat down in one of NASA Glenn’s biggest conference rooms for the center’s annual Women Ignite workshop. It was the first time she’d seen the space entirely filled with women.

“It was striking,” Koch said. “Learning from each other and being visible to each other, it’s so huge.”

Koch points to insights gleaned from these workshops — which are focused on networking, skill-building, and empowerment — as propelling her forward, along with the center’s Women in STEM Leadership Development Program, launched to help the women of NASA Glenn connect and grow as leaders.

Koch also spotlights the value of the Women at Glenn employee resource group, which organizes events and panels, shares job and volunteer opportunities, and provides a platform for addressing issues in the workplace.

“The employee resource group offers a great sense of community for women at the center,” said Women at Glenn co-chair and aerospace engineer Christine Pastor-Barsi. “When you feel like you’re unique, it’s good to know that there are others out there like you, even if you don’t always see them in the room.”

Koch says she’ll continue working as a mentor in the community and advocating for the diverse range of people who choose to take the leap into the STEM fields.

“It’s difficult to be the only one that’s visibly different in a room; it changes the way you communicate, the way you’re perceived,” Koch said. “It’s really important to reach out to people who are different from us and invite them to consider engineering as a career. We all benefit when we work with someone who’s different from ourselves.”

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• Learn about the Girls in STEM program at NASA Glenn, designed to inspire middle school students’ interest in STEM fields. The event features women working in STEM fields at NASA Glenn, an engaging STEM activity, and tours of NASA Glenn facilities.
• Continue celebrating International Women in Engineering Day with more inspiring stories of Women at NASA.
• Explore content from NASA’s observance of Women’s History Month.
• Discover how to engage with NASA experts.

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Ellen Bausback

NASA’s Chandra Peers Into Densest and Weirdest Stars

The supernova remnant 3C 58 contains a spinning neutron star, known as PSR J0205+6449, at its center. Astronomers studied this neutron star and others like it to probe the nature of matter inside these very dense objects. A new study, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton, reveals that the interiors of neutron stars may contain a type of ultra-dense matter not found anywhere else in the Universe.

In this image of 3C 58, low-energy X-rays are colored red, medium-energy X-rays are green, and the high-energy band of X-rays is shown in blue. The X-ray data have been combined with an optical image in yellow from the Digitized Sky Survey. The Chandra data show that the rapidly rotating neutron star (also known as a “pulsar”) at the center is surrounded by a torus of X-ray emission and a jet that extends for several light-years. The optical data shows stars in the field.

The team in this new study analyzed previously released data from neutron stars to determine the so-called equation of state. This refers to the basic properties of the neutron stars including the pressures and temperatures in different parts of their interiors.

The authors used machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence, to compare the data to different equations of state. Their results imply that a significant fraction of the equations of state — the ones that do not include the capability for rapid cooling at higher masses — can be ruled out.

The researchers capitalized on some neutron stars in the study being located in supernova remnants, including 3C 58. Since astronomers have age estimates of the supernova remnants, they also have the ages of the neutron stars that were created during the explosions that created both the remnants and the neutron stars. The astronomers found that the neutron star in 3C 58 and two others were much cooler than the rest of the neutron stars in the study.

The team thinks that part of the explanation for the rapid cooling is that these neutron stars are more massive than most of the rest. Because more massive neutron stars have more particles, special processes that cause neutron stars to cool more rapidly might be triggered.

One possibility for what is inside these neutron stars is a type of radioactive decay near their centers where neutrinos — low mass particles that easily travel through matter — carry away much of the energy and heat, causing rapid cooling.

Another possibility is that there are types of exotic matter found in the centers of these more rapidly cooling neutron stars.

The Nature Astronomy paper describing these results is available here. The authors of the paper are Alessio Marino (Institute of Space Sciences (ICE) in Barcelona, Spain), Clara Dehman (ICE), Konstantinos Kovlakas (ICE), Nanda Rea (ICE), J. A. Pons (University of Alicante in Spain), and Daniele Viganò (ICE).

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/mission/chandra-x-ray-observatory/

Visual Description

This is an image of the leftovers from an exploded star called 3C 58, shown in X-ray and optical light. At the center of the remnant is a rapidly spinning neutron star, called a pulsar, that presents itself as a bright white object that’s somewhat elongated in shape.

Loops and swirls of material, in shades of blue and purple, extend outward from the neutron star in many directions, resembling the shape of an octopus and its arms.

Surrounding the octopus-like structure is a cloud of material in shades of red that is wider horizontally than it is vertically. A ribbon of purple material extends to the left edge of the red cloud, curling upward at its conclusion. Another purple ribbon extends to the right edge of the red cloud, though it is less defined than the one on the other side. Stars of many shapes and sizes dot the entire image.

News Media Contact

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998

Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center
Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034

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Lee Mohon