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Lead Astromaterial Curation Engineer Salvador Martinez III

“My parents came here from Mexico with the vision of giving us a better life than they had but, times were tough. When I was young, there were many days and nights where we had to get by with what we had. My dad worked his way up in the fabrication industry in Houston and when an opportunity came for him to start his own business, he took it. It was “now or never”. Shortly after, things changed. By the time I was in 5^thgrade, our lives took a turn for the better, and going to college all of a sudden became a possibility. But even then, working at NASA felt like it could happen in a dream.

“Growing up here in Houston, you visit Space Center and you look at JSC , and you think, ‘Man, it must be incredible to be a part of NASA and to be a part of one of those amazing missions where you accomplish impossible things and maybe even discover something new about our universe’. I would have never guessed, never predicted, that I would be here. Throughout my career, I just continued to do the best I could and kept learning, striving to get better. 

“It took years but it felt like all of the sudden, I was here and everything, the entire time, was preparing me for my role on the OSIRIS-REx mission. Now, I share a place in history next to a Curation team full of the most talented, intelligent and hard-working individuals in the world and all that we have accomplished is, and will be, a part of NASA forever. I can’t even begin to describe what that means to not only me, but for my family, who did everything they could so that this could even be a possibility. For all of us, it is a dream come true.” 

—Salvador Martinez III, Lead Astromaterial Curation Engineer, Jacobs Technology, NASA’s Johnson Space Center

Image Credit: NASA/James Blair
Interviewer: NASA/Thalia Patrinos

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Thalia K. Patrinos

NASA, US Department of Education Bring STEM to After-School Programs

NASA and the U.S. Department of Education are teaming up to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education during after-school hours. The interagency program aims to reach approximately 1,000 students in more than 60 sites across 10 states to join the program, 21st Century Community Learning Centers.

“Together with the Education Department, NASA aims to create a brighter future for the next generation of explorers,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “We are committed to supporting after-school programs across the country with the tools they need to engage students in the excitement of NASA. Through STEM education investments like this, we aspire to ignite curiosity, nurture potential, and inspire our nation’s future researchers and explorers, and innovators.”

On Monday, NASA and the Education Department kicked off the program at the Wheatley Education Campus in Washington. Students had an opportunity to hear about the interagency collaboration from Kris Brown, deputy associate administrator, NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, and Cindy Marten, deputy secretary, Education Department, as well as participate in an engineering design challenge.

“The 21st Century Community Learning Centers will provide a unique opportunity to inspire students through hands-on learning and real-world problem solving,” said Brown. “By engaging with in learning opportunities with NASA scientists and engineers, students will not only develop the critical thinking and creativity needed to tackle the challenges of tomorrow, but also discover the joy of learning.”

“Through this collaboration between the U.S. Department of Education and NASA, we are unlocking limitless opportunities for students to explore, innovate, and thrive in STEM fields,” said Marten. “The 21st Century Community Learning Centers play a pivotal role in making this vision a reality by providing essential after-school programs that ignite curiosity and empower the next generation of thinkers, problem-solvers, and explorers. Together, we are shaping the future of education and space exploration, inspiring students to reach for the stars.”

NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland will provide NASA-related content and academic projects for students, in-person staff training, continuous program support, and opportunities for students to engage with NASA scientists and engineers. Through engineering design challenges, students will use their creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to help solve real-world challenges that NASA engineers and scientists may face.

In May 2023, NASA and the Education Department signed a Memorandum of Understanding, strengthening collaboration between the two agencies, and expanding efforts to increase access to high-quality STEM and space education to students and schools across the nation. NASA Glenn signed a follow-on Space Act Agreement in 2024 to support the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. The program, managed by the Education Department and funded by Congress, is the only federal funding source dedicated exclusively to afterschool programs.

Learn more about how NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement is inspiring the next generation of explorers at:

https://www.nasa.gov/stem

-end-

Abbey Donaldson
Headquarters, Washington
202-269-1600
abbey.a.donaldson@nasa.gov

Jacqueline Minerd
Glenn Research Center, Cleveland
216-433-6036
jacqueline.minerd@nasa.gov

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Abbey A. Donaldson

New Video Series Spotlights Engineers on NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission

With NASA’s Europa Clipper just weeks away from launch, five short videos give a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the engineers dedicated to making the mission a success.

What does it take to build a massive spacecraft that will seek to determine if a mysterious moon has the right ingredients for life? Find out in a new video series called “Behind the Spacecraft,” which offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into the roles of five engineers working on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, from building the spacecraft’s communications systems to putting it through rigorous tests so the orbiter can meet its science goals in space.

With its launch period opening Thursday, Oct. 10, Europa Clipper is the agency’s first mission dedicated to exploring an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) to the Jupiter system, where it will investigate the gas giant’s moon Europa, which scientists believe contains a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy shell.

The videos are being released here weekly. The first two are already out.

Meet the team:

• Dipak Srinivasan, lead communications systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, makes sure the Europa Clipper team can communicate with the spacecraft. Learn more about his work in the video above.

• Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helped plan Europa Clipper’s trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter safely and has a path to fly by Europa dozens of times. Learn more about Sarah’s work here.

• Jenny Kampmeier, a science systems engineer at JPL, acts as an interface between mission scientists and engineers.

• Andres Rivera, a systems engineer at JPL and first-generation American, works on Europa Clipper’s cruise phase — the journey from Earth to Jupiter.

• Valeria Salazar, an integration and test engineer at JPL who spent her childhood in Mexico, helped test the Europa Clipper spacecraft to ensure its launch readiness.

Upcoming Livestreams and Broadcasts

Europa Clipper experts will answer questions about the mission in a NASA Science Live show airing in English on Tuesday, Oct. 1, and in Spanish on Thursday, Oct. 3. The broadcasts will appear on NASA+, YouTube, Facebook, and X. The Spanish broadcast will be streamed on the NASA en Español YouTube channel. Viewers can submit questions on social media using the hashtag #askNASA or by leaving a comment in the chat section of the Facebook or YouTube stream.

Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission and will fly through the most punishing radiation environment of any planet in the solar system. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and, during multiple flybys of Europa, will collect a wealth of scientific data with nine science instruments and an experiment that uses its telecommunications system to gather gravity data.

More About Europa Clipper

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

To learn more about Europa Clipper, visit:

https://europa.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Val Gratias / Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-318-2141 / 818-393-6215
valerie.m.gratias@jpl.nasa.gov / gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser   
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov  

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Naomi Hartono

Expedition 71 Soyuz Landing

NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson is seen smiling and holding a gifted matryoshka doll outside the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft after she landed with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024. Dyson is returning to Earth after logging 184 days in space as a member of Expeditions 70-71 aboard the International Space Station and Chub and Kononenko return after having spent the last 374 days in space.

Photo Credit: (NASA/GCTC/Pavel Shvets)

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Gary Daines

New Video Series Spotlights Engineers on NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission

With NASA’s Europa Clipper just weeks away from launch, five short videos give a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the engineers dedicated to making the mission a success.

What does it take to build a massive spacecraft that will seek to determine if a mysterious moon has the right ingredients for life? Find out in a new video series called “Behind the Spacecraft,” which offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into the roles of five engineers working on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, from building the spacecraft’s communications systems to putting it through rigorous tests so the orbiter can meet its science goals in space.

With its launch period opening Thursday, Oct. 10, Europa Clipper is the agency’s first mission dedicated to exploring an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) to the Jupiter system, where it will investigate the gas giant’s moon Europa, which scientists believe contains a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy shell.

The videos are being released here weekly. The first two are already out.

Meet the team:

• Dipak Srinivasan, lead communications systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, makes sure the Europa Clipper team can communicate with the spacecraft. Learn more about his work in the video above.

• Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helped plan Europa Clipper’s trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter safely and has a path to fly by Europa dozens of times. Learn more about Sarah’s work here.

• Jenny Kampmeier, a science systems engineer at JPL, acts as an interface between mission scientists and engineers.

• Andres Rivera, a systems engineer at JPL and first-generation American, works on Europa Clipper’s cruise phase — the journey from Earth to Jupiter.

• Valeria Salazar, an integration and test engineer at JPL who spent her childhood in Mexico, helped test the Europa Clipper spacecraft to ensure its launch readiness.

Upcoming Livestreams and Broadcasts

Europa Clipper experts will answer questions about the mission in a NASA Science Live show airing in English on Tuesday, Oct. 1, and in Spanish on Thursday, Oct. 3. The broadcasts will appear on NASA+, YouTube, Facebook, and X. The Spanish broadcast will be streamed on the NASA en Español YouTube channel. Viewers can submit questions on social media using the hashtag #askNASA or by leaving a comment in the chat section of the Facebook or YouTube stream.

Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission and will fly through the most punishing radiation environment of any planet in the solar system. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and, during multiple flybys of Europa, will collect a wealth of scientific data with nine science instruments and an experiment that uses its telecommunications system to gather gravity data.

More About Europa Clipper

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

To learn more about Europa Clipper, visit:

https://europa.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Val Gratias / Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-318-2141 / 818-393-6215
valerie.m.gratias@jpl.nasa.gov / gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser   
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov  

2024-127

Explore More

6 min read

Celebrating 10 Years at Mars with NASA’s MAVEN Mission

A decade ago, on Sept. 21, 2014, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft…

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4 hours ago

3 min read

NASA Develops Process to Create Very Accurate Eclipse Maps

New NASA research reveals a process to generate extremely accurate eclipse maps, which plot the…

Article


4 days ago

6 min read

8 Things to Know About NASA’s Mission to an Ocean Moon of Jupiter

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6 days ago

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Discover More Topics From NASA

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Humans in Space

Climate Change

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Get The Details…
Naomi Hartono