NASA Knows – How Can I Get Involved With NASA Research?

NASA provides a variety of pathways for those outside the agency to contribute to authentic and meaningful research. Whether you’re a student pursuing a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics), an educator looking for new ways to engage your classroom, or a citizen scientist enthusiastic about sharing your observations, there’s a wide array of opportunities to get involved in NASA research.

Everybody

People from all around the world can make contributions to NASA research through citizen science projects and other opportunities available to the public.

• Share your observations and take measurements in your part of the world through GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment), an international science and education initiative that engages students, teachers, and the public in collecting and analyzing environmental data.
• Do you have a relevant idea for human health science research that could be performed on the future Gateway lunar space station? Follow these steps to share your idea for consideration.
• The Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program through NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate invites citizen scientists to develop innovations in recycling material waste on deep space missions, develop aids/devices for navigating on the lunar surface during future Artemis missions, and more.
• Do you have the “right stuff” to participate in a simulated deep space mission? NASA’s HERA (the Human Exploration Research Analog) is seeking healthy subjects to participate in 45-day simulations to study the physiological and psychological effects of isolation and confinement on humans to help prepare for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
• Visit the NASA Citizen Science webpage for more opportunities to discover the secrets of the universe, search for life elsewhere, and improve life on Earth and in space.

Middle and High School Students

Students can gain valuable experience while making a difference in the future of aeronautics and exploration.

• Rising high school juniors and seniors are eligible to apply for the four-week Gene Lab for High School Students training program sponsored by NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. The program focuses on collecting and analyzing complex biological data such as genetic codes, and computational biology.
• Through the annual TechRise Student Challenge offered by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, U.S. students in grades 6 to 12 form teams and design an experiment to fly on a suborbital flight platform such as a high-altitude balloon.
• Interested in aviation? The Dream With Us Design Challenge through NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate invites students in grades 6 to 12 to envision new innovations that will improve the safety, sustainability, and accessibility of aviation systems and technology.
• Through NASA internships, U.S. students ages 16 and up can boost their research experience and contribute to NASA’s work with the guidance of an agency mentor.

Undergraduate and Graduate Students

NASA offers a variety of research opportunities for college students preparing to launch their own exciting careers in STEM.

• NASA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) grants competitive awards to enable college and university students within specific U.S. jurisdictions to participate in cutting-edge research projects that address NASA’s challenges and needs.
• The National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project (Space Grant), is a national network of colleges and universities comprising a total of 52 consortia across the U.S. These consortia fund several research opportunities for students attending member colleges and universities. Look up your state’s Space Grant consortium website to discover available opportunities.
• NASA internships are available in a wide range of opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, enabling meaningful contributions to NASA’s missions as well as authentic experience as a part of the agency’s world-class workforce.
• Through the University Student Research Challenge, students are invited to propose their ideas describing innovative new approaches to tackling one of six major research areas as outlined by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
• Students can take part in valuable studies of the ever-changing Earth system through NASA’s Earth Science Division’s Early Career Research (ECR) program. ECR includes the eight-week Student Airborne Research Program, the Climate Change Research Initiative, and more.
• College students at Minority Serving Institutions can contribute to the agency’s exploration goals through many opportunities offered by NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP).

Educators

NASA provides opportunities for educators to participate in authentic aerospace research, as well as to engage their students in research in the classroom.

• Space Grant offers a variety of opportunities for educators, from curriculum enhancement and faculty development to grants enabling teachers to bring NASA research into the classroom. Look up your state’s Space Grant consortium website to discover available opportunities.
• NASA welcomes interns with professional teaching experience to help foster the education and curiosity of students who will shape the future workforce. Visit NASA Internships to learn more and find current opportunities.
• Through NASA’s Climate Change Research Initiative, part of the agency’s Earth Science Division’s Early Career Research Program, high school STEM educators can join a research team led by NASA scientists to focus on a research area related to climate change.

There’s More to Explore

Explore available NASA STEM learning experiences, such as internship roles, student competitions, or engagements with NASA researchers, through NASA’s STEM Gateway platform. Visit NASA’s Learning Resources webpage for the latest news and resources from the agency’s Office of STEM Engagement.

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Sandra May

Sols 4355-4356: Weekend Success Brings Monday Best

Earth planning date: Monday, Nov. 4, 2024

After a spooky week last week, it’s great to see all our weekend plans succeed as planned! We don’t take success for granted as a rover going on 13 years. With all of the science at our fingertips and all the battery power we could need, the team took right advantage of this two-sol touch-and-go Monday plan. We have a bedrock DRT target for APXS and MAHLI named “Epidote Peak” and a MAHLI-only target of a crushed rock we drove over named “Milly’s Foot Path.”

APXS data is better when it’s cold, so we’ve planned the DRT brushing and APXS to start our first sol about 11:14 local Gale time. MAHLI images are usually better in the afternoon lighting, so we’ll leave the arm unstowed and spend some remote science time beforehand, about 12:15 local time. ChemCam starts that off with a LIBS raster over a bedrock block with some interesting light and dark layering, named “Albanita Meadows” and seen here in the the upper-right-ish of this Navcam workspace frame. ChemCam will then take a long-distance RMI mosaic of a portion of the upper Gediz Vallis ridge to the north. Mastcam continues the remote science with an Albanita Meadows documentation image, a 21-frame stereo mosaic of some dark-toned upturned blocks about 5 meters away (about 16 feet), a four-frame stereo mosaic of some polygonal fracture patterns about 20 meters away (about 66 feet), and a mega 44-frame stereo mosaic of Wilkerson butte, upper Gediz Vallis ridge, “Fascination Turret,” and “Pinnacle Ridge” in the distance. That’s a total of 138 Mastcam images! With remote sensing complete, the RSM will stow itself about 14:00 local time to make time for MAHLI imaging. 

Between about 14:15 and 14:30 local time, MAHLI will take approximately 64 images of Epidote Peak and Milly’s Foot Path. Most of the images are being acquired in full shadow, so there is uniform lighting and saturation in the images. We’ll stow the arm at about 14:50 and begin our drive! This time we have an approximately 34-meter drive to the northwest (about 112 feet), bringing us almost all the way to the next dark-toned band in the sulfate unit. But no matter what happens with the drive, we’ll still do some remote science on the second sol including a Mastcam tau observation, a ChemCam LIBS in-the-blind (a.k.a AEGIS: Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science), and some Navcam movies of the sky and terrain. 

Written by Natalie Moore, Mission Operations Specialist at Malin Space Science Systems

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Beyond the Console: Kenneth Attocknie’s Mission to Bridge Cultures at NASA

From the Mission Control Center to community celebrations, Kenneth Attocknie blends safety expertise with a commitment to cultural connection. 

For the past 25 years at NASA, Attocknie has dedicated his career to safeguarding the International Space Station and supporting real-time mission operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston.  

As a principal safety engineer in the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate, Attocknie ensures the safe operation of the space station’s environmental control and life support system. This system is vital for maintaining the life-sustaining environment aboard the orbiting laboratory— a critical foundation for similar systems planned for future Artemis missions. 

As a contractor with SAIC, Attocknie has served as a flight controller, astronaut crew office engineer, and astronaut crew instructor. He joined NASA just as the first two modules of the space station, Zarya and Unity, connected in space on Dec. 6, 1998.  

“I’ve supported the space station ever since and have been blessed to witness the remarkable progression of this amazing orbiting experiment,” he said. “I feel I have found a way to contribute positively to NASA’s mission: to improve life for all people on our planet.” 

He also contributed to closing out the Space Shuttle Program and worked in system safety for the Constellation program. 

As part of SAIC’s Employee Resource Group, Attocknie supports the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement project, which uses project-based learning to inspire high school students from underrepresented communities to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. He continues to advocate for Native Americans as a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, helping NASA engage with college students across Indian Country. 

Attocknie strives to contribute to a space exploration legacy that uplifts and unites cultures, paving the way for a future in human spaceflight that honors and empowers all. 

A member of the Comanche and Caddo tribes of Oklahoma, he has made it his mission to create a cross-cultural exchange between NASA and Native communities to provide opportunities for Natives to visit Johnson.  

One of his proudest moments was organizing a Native American Heritage Month event with NASA’s Equal Opportunity and Diversity Office. The celebration brought together Native dancers and singers from Oklahoma and Texas to honor their heritage at Johnson.  

“Seeing the Johnson community rally around this event was amazing,” said Attocknie. “It was a profound experience to share and celebrate my culture here.” 

Overcoming challenges and setbacks has been part of his NASA experience as well. “Finding and achieving my purpose is always an ongoing journey,” he said. “Accepting what might seem like a regression is the first step of growth. There’s always a lesson to be found, and every disappointment can fuel a new ambition and direction. Ride the waves, be humble, learn lessons, and above all, always keep going.” 

He believes that NASA’s mission is deeply connected to diversity and inclusion. “You can’t truly benefit humankind if you don’t represent humankind,” said Attocknie. “The status quo may feel comfortable, but it leads to stagnation and is the antithesis of innovation.” 

Attocknie’s hope for the Artemis Generation? “A healthier planet, society, and the desire to pass on lessons of stewardship for our environment. All life is precious.” 

He sees NASA as a gateway to a brighter future: “NASA can truly harness its influence to be an example for our planet, not only in the new heavenly bodies we journey to but also in the new human spirits we touch.” 

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Bundling the Best of Heliophysics Education: DigiKits for Physics and Astronomy Teachers

For nearly a decade, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) has been working to bring together resources through its DigiKits–multimedia collections of vetted high-quality resources for teachers and their students. These resources are toolkits, allowing teachers to pick and choose interesting content to support their instruction. As a partner with the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (HEAT), this work has directly supported the bundling of digital content around heliophysics lessons created by the AAPT team.

As an example, AAPT’s most recent DigiKit publication, Auroral Currents Science (Figure 1), was developed for educators of advanced high school students and university physics/astronomy majors. DigiKits materials are collected by digital content specialist, Caroline Hall, who searches for high-quality, open digital content and checks it for accuracy and accessibility. The Auroral Currents DigiKit centers around a lecture tutorial that gives students the opportunity to practice and extend their knowledge of magnetic fields produced by current-carrying wires, and relating those understandings to auroral currents – the primary phenomenon underlying the dramatic auroral light shows seen in the sky over the past months.

The corresponding DigiKit includes a collection of relevant simulations, videos/animations, and other teacher resources for background that can help to teach the content in the primary lesson. The DigiKit highlights NASA’s forthcoming Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission, including an animation of the relationship between the Earth and space, an explanation of Earth’s electrojets and a visualization of the spacecraft. It also includes links to NASA’s ongoing Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft video explanation of magnetic reconnection, among many other useful resources that can be shown in the classroom or explored individually by students. Unique to this DigiKit are recent science news articles covering 2024’s spectacular auroral displays.

The light in the aurora comes from atoms in the ionosphere that have been excited by collisions with electrons that were accelerated between 6000 km and 20000 km above Earth’s surface. Those electrons carry electric currents from space along the magnetic field, but the currents flow horizontally some distance through the ionosphere at about 100-150 km in altitude before returning to space. We call those currents the ionospheric electrojets, and we can see the magnetic effects of the electrojets because electric currents are the source of magnetic fields. The AAPT digikit allows students to explore the magnetic signature of the electrojets and determine the size and location of the currents.

As a result of participation in NASA HEAT, AAPT has produced ten DigiKits, all linked below and available alongside the collection of other tutorials/core resources on the AAPT NASA HEAT page. Although the DigiKits are directed toward teachers, and the lessons are intended for standard classroom contexts, the resources can also be a great introduction to NASA-related concepts and modern science ideas for the general public.

Mechanics

• Sunspots DigiKit
• Coronal Mass Ejections DigiKit
• Solar Energetic Particles DigiKit

Light and Optics

• Star Spectra DigiKit
• Exoplanet Atmospheres DigiKit
• Habitable Zone Planets DigiKit

Magnetism

• Planetary Magnetism DigiKit
• Energy of a Magnetic Field and Solar Flares DigiKit
• Auroral Currents DigiKit

Eclipses

• Eclipse Science DigiKit

Are you an educator curious to learn more? Register for AAPT’s monthly mini webinar series, with the next event on November 9, 2024, featuring the Auroral Currents DigiKit core activity.

NASA HEAT is part of the NASA Science Activation Program portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learn

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U.S. Navy Fleet Training Launch to be Conducted at NASA Wallops

A rocket-propelled target is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during a window Thursday, Nov. 7 to Friday, Nov. 8 between 9:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. EST both days as part of a U.S. Navy Fleet Training exercise.

No real-time launch status updates will be available. The launch will not be livestreamed nor will launch status updates be provided during the countdown. The rocket launch may be visible from the Chesapeake Bay region.

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