NASA Wallops Supports Rocket Lab Launch for NRO From Virginia

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia will support commercial launch provider Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launch no earlier than March 21 at 2:40 a.m. EDT. The four-hour launch window runs through 6:30 a.m.

The mission, named NROL-123, is a dedicated launch for NRO (National Reconnaissance Office). The 59-foot-tall Electron rocket will lift off from Launch Complex 2 at Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island.

For those interested in seeing the launch in person, viewing locations on Chincoteague Island include Robert Reed Park, Curtis Merritt Harbor, and the Beach Road causeway between Chincoteague and Assateague islands. The NASA Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center and grounds will not be open for launch viewing.

The launch may be visible, weather permitting, to residents throughout much of the East Coast of the United States. The launch can also be viewed online through Rocket Lab’s of the event on their YouTube channel. The stream will begin about 40 minutes before the opening of the launch window.

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Jamie Adkins

NASA Challenge Invites Artemis Generation Coders to Johnson Space Center

NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement has selected seven student teams to participate in a culminating event for the 2024 App Development Challenge (ADC), one of the agency’s Artemis Student Challenges, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The coding challenge invites middle and high school student teams to contribute to deep space exploration missions by developing solutions to real-world technical problems.

The ADC, a part of NASA’s Next Gen STEM project, gives students an opportunity to participate in NASA’s endeavors to land American astronauts, including the first woman and the first person of color, on the Moon. Artemis Generation students are prompted to create an application to visualize the Moon’s South Pole region and display essential information for navigating the lunar surface and receiving signals from Earth. NASA will make history by sending the first humans to explore the region near the lunar South Pole on Artemis III.

“Working on this application gave us a simplified understanding and real-world experience of how professionals approach similar problems in the work-field,” stated Team Frostbyte, from North High School in Des Moines, Iowa, “Engaging in this hands-on project has deepened our passion for innovative utilization of technology. Our participation in this challenge has only further affirmed our goals to pursue careers in these fields.”

Over the 10-week challenge, participating teams joined subject matter expert talks, attended ADC office hours, researched lunar landing regions and mathematical concepts, and spent hundreds of hours coding to develop their applications. Additionally, students learned about the complexities of communicating from the lunar surface with Earth-based assets from NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) team.

The following five teams excelled in their application and interview, thereby earning the chance to showcase their work to NASA leadership, tour NASA’s unique facilities, and meet industry leaders, in April 2024 at NASA Johnson:

• Baton Rouge Magnet High School: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Dougherty Valley High School: San Ramon, California
• North High School: Des Moines, Iowa
• Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies: Reseda, California
• Trinity Christian School: Morgantown, West Virginia

In addition, two more schools were selected as honorable mentions to present their work virtually to NASA leadership in April 2024.

• Edison Academy Magnet School: Edison, New Jersey
• Falcon Cove Middle School: Weston, Florida

In addition to being named as Honorable Mentions, Edison Academy Magnet School was awarded Most Realistic Visualization of Technical Features and Falcon Cove Middle School was awarded Best Middle School Team.

“Given that participating in the NASA ADC gave us insights on outreach, technical programming, app development, and working as a team, it has overall made us feel more prepared for future projects and even future jobs,” stated Team Lunarsphere from Baton Rouge Magnet High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Previous Years

ADC 2023: Artemis Generation Coders Earn Invite to Johnson Space Center

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Justin Locke

Vision Statement of the Science Directorate at NASA Ames

Vision

To be a world-leading science organization, which contributes substantially to NASA’s science mission enterprise.

Mission

To provide scientific leadership in research and flight missions, enabled by the excellence of a diverse workforce.

Strategies

Alignment

• Shape, and align with, opportunities emerging from NASA’s strategic goals and elsewhere.

• Foster a culture of entrepreneurship, excellence, and rapid innovation.

Foundation

• Advance scientific research across the entire spectrum from modeling to laboratory experiments, including supporting society.

• Expand our leadership in developing and deploying instruments, as well as pioneering biological, space, and airborne science missions.

Workforce

• Cultivate a diverse next generation to develop into new leaders in scientific research and flight missions.

• Actively seek out and benefit from the strengths and insights that diversity provides.

Connections

• Be a sought-after partner to organizations inside and outside of NASA.

• Promote open knowledge sharing to enable and empower the broader research community.

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Aaron McKinnon

NASA Sets Coverage for Crew Launch; Trio to Join Expedition 70

Three crew members will blast off on Thursday, March 21, to support Expedition 70 aboard the International Space Station. NASA will provide full coverage of launch and crew arrival at the microgravity laboratory.

NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, are scheduled to lift off on the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 9:21 a.m. EDT (6:21 p.m. Baikonur time).

Launch coverage will begin at 8:20 a.m. on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms including social media.

Dyson, Novitskiy, and Vasilevskaya will journey to the station on a two-orbit, three-hour trajectory that will result in a docking to the station’s Prichal module at 12:39 p.m.

Shortly after, hatches between the station and the Soyuz will open and the new crew members will connect with NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin, already living and working aboard the space station.

NASA coverage of the mission is as follows (all times Eastern and are subject to change based on real-time operations):

Thursday, March 21:

• 8:20 a.m. – Launch coverage begins
• 9:21 a.m. – Launch
• 11:30 a.m. – Rendezvous and docking coverage begins
• 12:39 p.m. – Docking
• 2:50 p.m. – Hatch opening and welcome remarks coverage begins

Dyson will spend six months aboard the station as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer, returning to Earth in September with Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Roscosmos, who will complete a year-long mission on the laboratory.

Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will be aboard the station for 12 days, providing the ride home for O’Hara on Tuesday, April 2, aboard Soyuz MS-24 for a parachute-assisted landing on steppe of Kazakhstan. O’Hara will have spent 200 days in space when she returns.

This will be the third spaceflight for Dyson, the fourth for Novitskiy, and the first for Vasilevskaya.

To read more about the International Space Station, its research, and crew, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Joshua Finch / Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

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Tiernan P. Doyle

NASA Selects New Round of Candidates for CubeSat Missions to Station

NASA selected 10 small research satellites across eight states to fly to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s efforts to expand education and science opportunities, support technology advancement, and provide for workforce development.

These small satellites, or CubeSats, use a standard size and form measured in units. One unit (1U) is 10x10x11 centimeters and allows for the modular design of larger CubeSats measuring up to 12U. CubeSats encourage greater collaboration across government, industry, and academia because they are modular and inexpensive to build and launch. The small satellites allow for rapid development and provide a cost-effective means for science investigations and technology demonstrations in space.

This year’s selections include the first project from Delaware, three from minority serving institutions, and a submission from a K-12 school. New participants include the University of Delaware, Oakwood School in California, California State University, Long Beach, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and the University of Chicago.

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) selected the missions, currently planned to launch in 2025 to 2028, in response to a call for proposals on Aug. 7, 2023.

The complete list of organizations and CubeSats chosen during CSLI 15th selection round are:

• University of Louisiana at Lafayette – CAPE-Twiggs (Cajun Advanced Picosatellite Experiment) will serve as a first prototype of a 3U CubeSat designed to contain and launch tethered SlimSat modules into very low-Earth orbit. Having launched successful CubeSat missions in the past, the university’s current project will work with several other schools with little or no experience on the design, build, and operations of their own SlimSat module. CAPE-Twiggs will enhance both STEM education and the ability to conduct regular and collaborative space-based experiments on a larger scale.
• Oakwood School in California – NyanSat is a 2U CubeSat designed and built by a K-12 independent school in rural California. This mission will serve as template for educational outreach and space technology development. NyanSat features several technology development payloads, each designed to test and demonstrate the efficacy of various new systems in the space environment. Included among these are the acoustic spacecraft mapping and sounding payload, aimed at simplifying sensor architectures in spacecraft and providing supplementary mission information, and the cryptographic ledgers in space payload, intended to verify the feasibility of space-based digital notaries for on-Earth and in-geospace transactions.
• University of Hawaii at Manoa – CREPES (CubeSat Relativistic Electron and Proton Energy Separator) aims to study solar energetic particle events and increase our knowledge of the Sun. CREPES will fly a new type of micropattern gaseous detector using gas electron multipliers to amplify the signals of radiation. Data obtained from these measurements is expected to contribute to the understanding of space weather and development of space climatology. The University of Hawaii at Manoa is a minority serving institution and has previously launched a CubeSat with the program.
• California State University, Long Beach – SharkSat-1 seeks to monitor LED-induced blue light pollution across Earth. LED lights are popular due to their cost efficiency, but their impacts are currently being studied by climate and health researchers. Data collected by SharkSat-1 will create a database for experts to create light pollution maps. California State University, Long Beach, is a minority serving institution.
• University of Delaware – DAPPEr (Delaware Atmospheric Plasma Probe Experiment) will map average variations in electron density and temperature versus latitude and time of day in the ionosphere’s F2 layer. Another objective is to determine the preferred size for a Langmuir probe to measure ionospheric electrons from a CubeSat. This is the first CubeSat selection from Delaware for CSLI and aims to provide students with hands-on learning experiences on flight systems.
• Saint Louis University – DARLA-02 (Demonstration of Artificial Reasoning, Learning, and Analysis) will demonstrate autonomous event response on a 3U spacecraft and create a dynamic map of the radio frequency background noise in the amateur ultra-high frequency band. DARLA-02 follows DARLA, which is targeted to launch with CSLI in 2024. This follow-up seeks to double the amount of time the spacecraft can be in science mode in orbit.
• California State Polytechnic University, Pomona – The Pleiades Five mission will be the first to use a commoditized CubeSat architecture to provide effective and sustainable educational opportunities for future generations of the space industry. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, will partner with five other universities and offer a pathway enabling students to design, test, launch, and operate a low-cost educational 1U CubeSat within one academic year. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, is a minority serving institution.
• University of Chicago – PULSE-A (Polarization modUlated Laser Satellite Experiment) will demonstrate a way to increase the speed of space-to-ground communications. PULSE-A also aims to make space-to-ground operations more difficult to intercept and jam through an on-orbit tech demonstration. PULSE-A will use 10 Mbps polarization-keyed laser communications instead of radio frequency for a space to Earth call. Free-space optical communications improves on power, bandwidth, and effective data transfer rates over radio frequency.
• Utah State University – GASRATS (Get Away Special Radio and Antenna Transparency Satellite) will demonstrate a novel transparent patch antenna integrated on top of a solar panel. Having a dual-purpose use of the external surface of a satellite and combining power generation with communications capabilities, tackles the common space mission constraints of power and mass limitations. Utah State University has previously participated in CSLI, deploying GASPACS (Get Away Special Passive Attitude Control Satellite) in early 2022 to test inflatable structures in space.
• NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center – GPDM (Green Propulsion Dual Mode) will test chemical and electrospray capability of the low-toxicity or “green” rocket propellant known as Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic (ASCENT) during an in-space flight demonstration. The project is a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgia Institute of Technology to develop a chemical propulsion subsystem that will include a 3D printed tank, manifold, and propellant management device.

NASA has selected CubeSat missions from 45 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and launched about 160 CubeSats into space on an ELaNa (Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite) manifest.

The CubeSat Launch Initiative is managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For more information about CSLI, visit:

https://go.nasa.gov/CubeSat_initiative

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Elyna N. Niles-Carnes