NASA’s New Experimental Antenna Tracks Deep Space Laser

Capable of receiving both radio frequency and optical signals, the DSN’s hybrid antenna has tracked and decoded the downlink laser from DSOC, aboard NASA’s Psyche mission.

An experimental antenna has received both radio frequency and near-infrared laser signals from NASA’s Psyche spacecraft as it travels through deep space. This shows it’s possible for the giant dish antennas of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), which communicate with spacecraft via radio waves, to be retrofitted for optical, or laser, communications.

By packing more data into transmissions, optical communication will enable new space exploration capabilities while supporting the DSN as demand on the network grows.

The 34-meter (112-foot) radio-frequency-optical-hybrid antenna, called Deep Space Station 13, has tracked the downlink laser from NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) technology demonstration since November 2023. The tech demo’s flight laser transceiver is riding with the agency’s Psyche spacecraft, which launched on Oct. 13, 2023.

The hybrid antenna is located at the DSN’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex, near Barstow, California, and isn’t part of the DSOC experiment. The DSN, DSOC, and Psyche are managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“Our hybrid antenna has been able to successfully and reliably lock onto and track the DSOC downlink since shortly after the tech demo launched,” said Amy Smith, DSN deputy manager at JPL. “It also received Psyche’s radio frequency signal, so we have demonstrated synchronous radio and optical frequency deep space communications for the first time.”

In late 2023, the hybrid antenna downlinked data from 20 million miles (32 million kilometers) away at a rate of 15.63 megabits per second – about 40 times faster than radio frequency communications at that distance. On Jan. 1, 2024, the antenna downlinked a team photograph that had been uploaded to DSOC before Psyche’s launch.

Two for One

In order to detect the laser’s photons (quantum particles of light), seven ultra-precise segmented mirrors were attached to the inside of the hybrid antenna’s curved surface. Resembling the hexagonal mirrors of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, these segments mimic the light-collecting aperture of a 3.3-foot (1-meter) aperture telescope. As the laser photons arrive at the antenna, each mirror reflects the photons and precisely redirects them into a high-exposure camera attached to the antenna’s subreflector suspended above the center of the dish.

The laser signal collected by the camera is then transmitted through optical fiber that feeds into a cryogenically cooled semiconducting nanowire single photon detector. Designed and built by JPL’s Microdevices Laboratory, the detector is identical to the one used at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, in San Diego County, California, which acts as DSOC’s downlink ground station.

“It’s a high-tolerance optical system built on a 34-meter flexible structure,” said Barzia Tehrani, communications ground systems deputy manager and delivery manager for the hybrid antenna at JPL. “We use a system of mirrors, precise sensors, and cameras to actively align and direct laser from deep space into a fiber reaching the detector.”

Tehrani hopes the antenna will be sensitive enough to detect the laser signal sent from Mars at its farthest point from Earth (2 ½ times the distance from the Sun to Earth). Psyche will be at that distance in June on its way to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to investigate the metal-rich asteroid Psyche.

The seven-segment reflector on the antenna is a proof of concept for a scaled-up and more powerful version with 64 segments – the equivalent of a 26-foot (8-meter) aperture telescope – that could be used in the future.

An Infrastructure Solution

DSOC is paving the way for higher-data-rate communications capable of transmitting complex scientific information, video, and high-definition imagery in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars. The tech demo recently streamed the first ultra-high-definition video from deep space at record-setting bitrates.

Retrofitting radio frequency antennas with optical terminals and constructing purpose-built hybrid antennas could be a solution to the current lack of a dedicated optical ground infrastructure. The DSN has 14 dishes distributed across facilities in California, Madrid, and Canberra, Australia. Hybrid antennas could rely on optical communications to receive high volumes of data and use radio frequencies for less bandwidth-intensive data, such as telemetry (health and positional information).

“For decades, we have been adding new radio frequencies to the DSN’s giant antennas located around the globe, so the most feasible next step is to include optical frequencies,” said Tehrani. “We can have one asset doing two things at the same time; converting our communication roads into highways and saving time, money, and resources.”

More About the Mission

DSOC is the latest in a series of optical communication demonstrations funded by NASA’s Technology Demonstration Missions (TDM) program and the agency’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages DSOC for TDM within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and SCaN within the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.

For more about NASA’s optical communications projects, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/lasercomms/

News Media Contact

Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov

2024-012

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Telescopes Show the Milky Way’s Black Hole is Ready for a Kick

This artist’s illustration depicts the findings of a new study about the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy called Sagittarius A* (abbreviated as Sgr A*). As reported in our latest press release, this result found that Sgr A* is spinning so quickly that it is warping spacetime — that is, time and the three dimensions of space — so that it can look more like a football.

These results were made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). A team of researchers applied a new method that uses X-ray and radio data to determine how quickly Sgr A* is spinning based on how material is flowing towards and away from the black hole. They found Sgr A* is spinning with an angular velocity that is about 60% of the maximum possible value, and with an angular momentum of about 90% of the maximum possible value.

Black holes have two fundamental properties: their mass (how much they weigh) and their spin (how quickly they rotate). Determining either of these two values tells scientists a great deal about any black hole and how it behaves. In the past, astronomers made several other estimates of Sgr A*’s rotation speed using different techniques, with results ranging from Sgr A* not spinning at all to it spinning at almost the maximum rate.

The new study suggests that Sgr A* is, in fact, spinning very rapidly, which causes the spacetime around it to be squashed down. The illustration shows a cross-section of Sgr A* and material swirling around it in a disk. The black sphere in the center represents the so-called event horizon of the black hole, the point of no return from which nothing, not even light, can escape.

Looking at the spinning black hole from the side, as depicted in this illustration, the surrounding spacetime is shaped like a football. The faster the spin the flatter the football.

The yellow-orange material to either side represents gas swirling around Sgr A*. This material inevitably plunges towards the black hole and crosses the event horizon once it falls inside the football shape. The area inside the football shape but outside the event horizon is therefore depicted as a cavity. The blue blobs show jets firing away from the poles of the spinning black hole. Looking down on the black hole from the top, along the barrel of the jet, spacetime is a circular shape.

A black hole’s spin can act as an important source of energy. Spinning supermassive black holes produce collimated outflows such as jets when their spin energy is extracted, which requires that there is at least some matter in the vicinity of the black hole. Because of limited fuel around Sgr A*, this black hole has been relatively quiet in recent millennia with relatively weak jets. This work, however, shows that this could change if the amount of material in the vicinity of Sgr A* increases.

To determine the spin of Sgr A*, the authors used an empirically based technique referred to as the “outflow method” that details the relationship between the spin of the black hole and its mass, the properties of the matter near the black hole, and the outflow properties. The collimated outflow produces the radio waves, while the disk of gas surrounding the black hole is responsible for the X-ray emission. Using this method, the researchers combined data from Chandra and the VLA with an independent estimate of the black hole’s mass from other telescopes to constrain the black hole’s spin.

The paper describing these results led by Ruth Daly (Penn State University) is published in the January 2024 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and appears online at https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024MNRAS.527..428D/abstract. The other authors are Biny Sebastian (University of Manitoba, Canada), Megan Donahue (Michigan State University), Christopher O’Dea (University of Manitoba), Daryl Haggard (McGill University) and Anan Lu (McGill University).

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations 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 artist’s illustration shows a cross-section of Sagittarius A*, pronounced as “SAJ-ee-TARE-ee-us A-star”, the supermassive black hole near the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

In the middle of the image, the spinning, circular black hole is presented from the side in black. The shape of the surrounding spacetime, pictured in shades of dark yellow, looks as though it has been squashed down, thus resembling the shape of an American football. The swirling gas that surrounds Sagittarius A* is presented on either side of the black hole, within a rectangular-shaped dotted line, indicating the representation is a cross-section view.

The background of the image contains a multitude of faint stars, peeking out from within brooding, dark red, indistinct clouds.

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

NASA’s Hubble Traces ‘String of Pearls’ Star Clusters in Galaxy Collisions

Contrary to what you might think, galaxy collisions do not destroy stars. In fact, the rough-and-tumble dynamics trigger new generations of stars, and presumably accompanying planets.

Now NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has homed in on 12 interacting galaxies that have long, tadpole-like tidal tails of gas, dust, and a plethora of stars. Hubble’s exquisite sharpness and sensitivity to ultraviolet light have uncovered 425 clusters of newborn stars along these tails, looking like strings of holiday lights. Each cluster contains as many as 1 million blue, newborn stars.

Clusters in tidal tails have been known about for decades. When galaxies interact, gravitational tidal forces pull out long streamers of gas and dust. Two popular examples are the Antennae and Mice galaxies with their long, narrow, finger-like projections.

A team of astronomers used a combination of new observations and archival data to get ages and masses of tidal tail star clusters. They found that these clusters are very young – only 10 million years old. And they seem to be forming at the same rate along tails stretching for thousands of light-years.

“It’s a surprise to see lots of the young objects in the tails. It tells us a lot about cluster formation efficiency,” said lead author Michael Rodruck of Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. “With tidal tails, you will build up new generations of stars that otherwise might not have existed.”

The tails look like they are taking a galaxy’s spiral arm and stretching it out into space. The exterior part of the arm gets pulled like taffy from the gravitational tug-of-war between a pair of interacting galaxies.

Before the mergers, the galaxies were rich in dusty clouds of molecular hydrogen that simply may have remained inert. But the clouds got jostled and bumped into each other during the encounters. This compressed the hydrogen to the point where it precipitated a firestorm of star birth.

The fate of these strung-out star clusters is uncertain. They may stay gravitationally intact and evolve into globular star clusters – like those that orbit outside the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. Or they may disperse to form a halo of stars around their host galaxy, or get cast off to become wandering intergalactic stars.

This string-of-pearls star formation may have been more common in the early universe when galaxies collided with each other more frequently. These nearby galaxies observed by Hubble are a proxy for what happened long ago, and therefore are laboratories for looking into the distant past.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble and Webb science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

LEARN MORE:

Media Contacts:

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

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD

Science Contact:

Michael Rodruck
Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA

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NASA Launches New Climate Mission to Study Ocean, Atmosphere

NASA’s satellite mission to study ocean health, air quality, and the effects of a changing climate for the benefit of humanity launched successfully into orbit at 1:33 a.m. EST Thursday.

Known as PACE, the Plankton, Aerosol, Climate, ocean Ecosystem satellite, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. NASA confirmed signal acquisition from the satellite about five minutes after launch, and the spacecraft is performing as expected.

“Congratulations to the PACE team on a successful launch. With this new addition to NASA’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites, PACE will help us learn, like never before, how particles in our atmosphere and our oceans can identify key factors impacting global warming,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Missions like this are supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s climate agenda and helping us answer urgent questions about our changing climate.”

From hundreds of miles above Earth, the PACE mission will study the impact of tiny, often invisible things: microscopic life in water and microscopic particles in the air.

The satellite’s hyperspectral ocean color instrument will allow researchers to measure oceans and other waterbodies across a spectrum of ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. This will enable scientists to track the distribution of phytoplankton and – for the first time from space – identify which communities of these organisms are present on daily, global scales. Scientists and coastal resource managers can use the data to help forecast the health of fisheries, track harmful algal blooms, and identify changes in the marine environment.

The spacecraft also carries two polarimeter instruments, Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 and Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration. These will detect how sunlight interacts with particles in the atmosphere, giving researchers new information on atmospheric aerosols and cloud properties, as well as air quality at local, regional, and global scales.

With the combination of the instrument and the polarimeters, PACE will provide insights into the interactions of the ocean and atmosphere, and how a changing climate affects these interactions.

“Observations and scientific research from PACE will profoundly advance our knowledge of the ocean’s role in the climate cycle,” said Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The value of PACE data skyrockets when we combine it with data and science from our Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission – ushering in a new era of ocean science. As an open-source science mission with early adopters ready to use its research and data, PACE will accelerate our understanding of the Earth system and help NASA deliver actionable science, data, and practical applications to help our coastal communities and industries address rapidly evolving challenges.” 

“It’s been an honor to work with the PACE team and witness firsthand their dedication and tenacity in overcoming challenges, including the global pandemic, to make this observatory a reality,” said Marjorie Haskell, PACE program executive at NASA Headquarters. “The passion and teamwork are matched only by the excitement of the science community for the data this new satellite will provide.”

Earth’s oceans are responding in many ways to climate change – from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. With PACE, researchers will be able to study climate change’s effects on phytoplankton, which play a key role in the global carbon cycle by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into their cellular material. These tiny organisms drive larger aquatic and global ecosystems that provide critical resources for food security, recreation, and the economy.

“After 20 years of thinking about this mission, it’s exhilarating to watch it finally realized and to witness its launch. I couldn’t be prouder or more appreciative of our PACE team,” said Jeremy Werdell, PACE project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The opportunities PACE will offer are so exciting, and we’re going to be able to use these incredible technologies in ways we haven’t yet anticipated. It’s truly a mission of discovery.”

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, managed the launch services for the mission. The PACE mission is managed by NASA Goddard, which also built and tested the spacecraft and the ocean color instrument. The Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 was designed and built by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration was developed and built by a Dutch consortium led by Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Airbus Defence, and Space Netherlands.

For more information on PACE, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/pace

-end-

Faith McKie / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 240-285-5155
faith.d.mckie@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov

Jake Richmond
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
240-713-1618
jacob.a.richmond@nasa.gov

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Jennifer M. Dooren

NASA Sets Coverage for SpaceX, Intuitive Machines First Moon Mission

As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, SpaceX is targeting no earlier than 12:57 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 14, for a Falcon 9 launch of Intuitive Machines’ first lunar lander to the Moon’s surface. Liftoff will be from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  

Live launch coverage will air on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website, with prelaunch events starting Monday, Feb. 12. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms, including social media.

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander is expected to land on the Moon Thursday, Feb. 22. Among the items on its lander, the IM-1 mission will carry NASA science and technology instruments focusing on plume-surface interactions, space weather/lunar surface interactions, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies, and a communication and navigation node for future autonomous navigation technologies. 

Full coverage of this mission is as follows (all times Eastern): 

Monday, Feb. 12 

11 a.m. – Science media teleconference with the following participants:

• Susan Lederer, CLPS project scientist, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
• Farzin Amzajerdian, principal investigator, Navigation Doppler Lidar, NASA’s Langley Research Center
• Tamara Statham, co-principal investigator, Lunar Node-1, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
• Daniel Cremons, deputy principal investigator, Laser Retro-Reflector Array, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
• Nat Gopalswamy, principal investigator, Radio Observations of the Lunar Surface Photoelectron Sheath, NASA Goddard 
• Michelle Munk, principal investigator, Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies, NASA Langley 
• Lauren Ameen, deputy project manager, Radio Frequency Mass Gauge, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website: 

https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Media may ask questions via phone only. For the dial-in number and passcode, media must contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 10 a.m. Feb. 12, at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. The public can submit questions on social media using #AskNASA.

4:30 p.m. – Lunar delivery readiness media teleconference with the following participants: 

• Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for Exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters  
• Debra Needham, program scientist, Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office, NASA Headquarters 
• Trent Martin, vice president, Space Systems, Intuitive Machines 
• William Gerstenmaier, vice president, Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX 
• Arlena Moses, launch weather officer, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s 45th Weather Squadron 

Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website: 

https://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

Media may ask questions via phone only. For the dial-in number and passcode, media must contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 3:30 p.m. Feb. 12, at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov. 

Wednesday, Feb. 14 

12:15 a.m. – NASA TV launch coverage begins 

12:57 a.m. – Launch 

Coverage is subject to change based on real-time operational activities. Follow the Artemis blog for updates. 

NASA launch coverage 
Audio only of the launch coverage will be carried on the NASA “V” circuits, which may be accessed by dialing 321-867-1220, -1240, or -7135. On launch day, the full mission broadcast can be heard on -1220 and -1240, while the countdown net only can be heard on -7135 beginning approximately one hour before the launch broadcast begins. 

On launch day, a “tech feed” of the launch without NASA TV commentary will be carried on the NASA TV media channel. 

NASA website launch coverage 

Launch day coverage of the mission will be available on the NASA website. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates beginning no earlier than 12:15 a.m. Feb. 14, as the countdown milestones occur. On-demand streaming video and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff. For questions about countdown coverage, contact the Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468. Follow countdown coverage on the Artemis blog for updates. 

Attend launch virtually 

Members of the public can register to attend this launch virtually. Registrants will receive mission updates and activities by email. NASA’s virtual guest program for this mission also includes curated launch resources, notifications about related opportunities, and a virtual guest passport stamp following a successful launch. 

Watch, engage on social media 

Let people know you’re following the mission on X, Facebook, and Instagram by using the hashtag #Artemis. You can also stay connected by following and tagging these accounts: 

X: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAArtemis, @NASAMoon 

Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, NASAArtemis 

Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASAArtemis 

In May 2019, the agency awarded a task order for scientific payload delivery to Intuitive Machines. Through Artemis, commercial robotic deliveries will perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities to help NASA explore the Moon in advance of Artemis Generation astronaut missions to the lunar surface, in preparation for future missions to Mars.

NASA is working with several U.S. companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface through the agency’s CLPS initiative. This pool of companies may bid on task orders. A task order award includes payload integration and operations, as well as launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon. CLPS contracts are indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion through 2028. 

For more information about the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, see: 

https://www.nasa.gov/clps

Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo o Messod Bendayan a: antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov o messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov. 

-end- 

Karen Fox / Alise Fisher 
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1275
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov  

Nilufar Ramji  
Johnson Space Center, Houston 
281-483-5111
nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov  

Antonia Jaramillo 
Kennedy Space Center, Florida 
321-501-8425
antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov 

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Roxana Bardan