Solver Spotlight: Shobhana Gupta

Shobhana Gupta is a physician scientist and currently serves as the Open Innovation and Community Applications manager with Earth Science Division’s Applied Sciences Program at NASA Headquarters. Shobhana manages crowdsourcing activities including prize competitions to invite talents and experiences outside of the NASA community for the discovery and development of applications of Earth observations for decision-making. She is also a star solver, having provided a number of valuable ideas and solutions to her peers through NASA Spark. NASA Spark as an internal, agency-wide platform that provides NASA employees an unconventional and inventive way to share knowledge and advance projects. Check out what Shobhana has to say about open innovation and the NASA Spark community.

What is your role at NASA?

I serve as the Manager of NASA Earth Action’s Prizes and Challenges Program, where we use crowdsourcing mechanisms to invite talents and experiences outside of the NASA community to participate in the discovery and development of Earth observations-based applications for decision-making.  I also serve as the Associate Program Manager of NASA’s Equity and Environmental Justice Program, to support projects that apply NASA data for advancing awareness and challenges related to human health or environmental outcomes that are unique to, or disproportionately affect, underserved communities, including persons of color, low-income persons, Indigenous persons or members of Tribal nations. I completed my medical and graduate training at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (Department of Microbiology and Immunology) and a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine (Department of Neurology) before joining NASA in 2015 as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow. I supported the Health and Air Quality Program to enhance decision-making about environmental health and infectious diseases, as well as managed NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge Program in 2017.

Why do you like participating on NASA Spark?

I truly believe that the best outcomes can be achieved if we are open and invite collaboration on not just the work we have done, but the work that we are doing. This includes sharing our current challenges and harnessing the knowledge and skills of people from different backgrounds, fields of expertise, and different experiences to find solutions. Instead of trying to find resources or solutions by myself or within my team, NASA Spark allows me to expand my network and benefit from ideas from colleagues across ALL of NASA – that’s incredible!

You’re a multi-time winner! What does that mean to you? Why do you keep coming back and sharing your ideas?

I love participating in NASA Spark campaigns because it is a great way to leverage the work we are doing or have completed for greater impact across NASA.  If we have created a resource that gives another team a head start in their work, it’s a win-win. Our team can show the value of our work, and the other team can save their time and resources.

How can other NASA employees best utilize NASA Spark?

NASA Spark can be the NASA “watercooler” for employees across all programs and centers in the agency.  We can post challenges we are stuck on, ideas we are trying to develop, or any other calls for input to our entire brilliant, skilled, multidisciplinary expert workforce – for free and for minimal effort! We should all sign up to learn about and contribute to new campaigns from our colleagues, including building on ideas that others have submitted. NASA Spark is a great platform to network across the agency – your coworkers are just collaborators waiting to happen!

What does innovation mean to you?

Innovation, to me, is doing something new while constantly moving towards doing better.  Whether it is applying existing tools and ideas in a novel way or developing completely new solutions – innovation should make our work easier and outcomes more impactful. Open innovation by sharing our work and challenges with people from unrelated fields and backgrounds, encouraging them to apply their perspectives to manipulate our questions and share solutions, can in turn empower us to achieve superior outcomes.

If you are a NASA employee and interested in learning more about NASA Spark, visit spark.nasa.gov.

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Sarah Douglas

Teams Add Iconic NASA ‘Worm’ Logo to Artemis II Rocket, Spacecraft

Art and science merge as teams add the NASA “worm” logo on the SLS (Space Launch System) solid rocket boosters and the Orion spacecraft’s crew module adapter at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the agency’s Artemis II mission.

The iconic logo was introduced in 1975 by the firm of Danne & Blackburn as a modern emblem for the agency. It emerged from a nearly 30-year retirement in 2020 for limited use on select missions and products.

NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and prime contractor Jacobs began painting the red logotype onto the segments that form the Moon rocket’s two solid rocket boosters Jan. 22. To do so, crews used a laser projector to first mark off the location of the logo with tape, then applied two coats of paint and finished by adding several coats of clear primer. Each letter of the worm logo measures approximately 6 feet and 10 inches in height and altogether, stretches 25 feet from end to end, or a little less than the length of one of the rocket’s booster motor segments.

The location of the worm logo will be moderately different from where it was during Artemis I. While it will still be located on each of the rocket’s 17 story boosters, the modernist logo will be placed toward the front of the booster systems tunnel cover. The SLS boosters are the largest, most powerful solid propellant boosters ever flown and provide more than 75% of the thrust at launch.

Around the corner inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy, personnel adhered the worm logo and ESA (European Space Agency) insignia Jan. 28 on the spacecraft’s crew module adapter. The adapter houses electronic equipment for communications, power, and control, and includes an umbilical connector that bridges the electrical, data, and fluid systems between the main modules.

In October 2023, technicians joined the crew and service modules together. The crew module will house the four astronauts as they journey around the Moon and back to Earth on an approximately 10-day journey. The spacecraft’s service module, provided by ESA, will supply the vehicle with electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air, and water in space.

NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and first international partner astronaut on the Moon through Artemis. SLS and the Orion spacecraft are central to NASA’s deep space exploration plans, along with advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway space station planned for orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems.

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Elyna N. Niles-Carnes

Hubble Views a Massive Star Forming

This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is teeming with color and activity. It features a relatively close star-forming region known as IRAS 16562-3959, which lies within the Milky Way about 5,900 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.

Observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 make up this image. Its detailed nuance of color is the result of four separate filters. These thin slivers of highly specialized material can slide in front of the instrument’s light sensors, allowing very specific wavelengths of light to pass through with each observation. This is useful because certain wavelengths of light can tell us about the region’s composition, temperature, and density.

At the center of the image, IRAS 16562-3959 likely hosts a massive star – about 30 times the mass of our Sun – that is still in the process of forming. The shadowy clouds appear dark because there is so much light-obscuring dust blocking the near-infrared wavelengths of light Hubble observed. However, near-infrared light does leak out mainly on two sides – upper left and lower right – where a powerful jet from the massive protostar cleared away the dust. Multi-wavelength images like this incredible Hubble scene help us gain a better understanding of how the most massive, brightest stars in our galaxy form.

Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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NASA Welcomes Uruguay Foreign Minister for Artemis Accords Signing

During a ceremony at NASA Headquarters in Washington Thursday, Uruguay became the 36th country to sign the Artemis Accords. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson participated in the signing ceremony for the agency, and Omar Paganini, foreign minister, signed the Artemis Accords on behalf of Uruguay.

The accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations.

Also participating in the event were:

• NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy
• Karen Feldstein, associate administrator for NASA’s Office of International and Interagency Relations
• Kevin Sullivan, U.S. Department of State deputy assistant secretary
• Andrés Augusto Durán Hareau, Uruguayan ambassador to the U.S.
• Heide Fulton, U.S. ambassador to Uruguay

“NASA welcomes Uruguay as the newest member of the Artemis Accords family,” said Nelson. “The United States and Uruguay share a commitment to democracy and peace, and now, we expand these principles in the cosmos to commit to the safe and transparent exploration of space.”

The Artemis Accords were established in 2020 by the United States together with seven other original signatories. Since then, the Accords signatories have held focused discussions on how best to implement the Artemis Accords principles.

“We are honored to have the opportunity to introduce space cooperation as a new chapter in the robust bilateral agenda between Uruguay and the U.S.,” said Paganini. “We are sure that this signing ceremony is not an end in itself, but the beginning of a new bilateral track based on knowledge-intensive activities and new opportunities for our people.”

The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also strengthen the commitment by the United States and signatory nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices NASA and its partners support, including the public release of scientific data.

More countries are expected to sign the accords in the months and years ahead, which are advancing safe, peaceful, and prosperous activities in space. Learn more about the Artemis Accords at:

https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords

-end-

Faith McKie / Roxana Bardan
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
faith.mckie@nasa.gov / roxana.bardan@nasa.gov

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Tiernan P. Doyle