Caroline Cawthon: Supporting America’s Future in Low Earth Orbit 

Since joining NASA in 2017 as a contractor supporting the International Space Station, Caroline Cawthon has held many roles supporting real-time operations as a certified flight controller, team lead, and lead systems engineer.  

NASA is one of the biggest most impressive networks of engineering, science, and space program expertise in the world and to not leverage that experience in mentorship would be a waste.

Caroline Cawthon

CLDP Engineering and Integration Lead

Now, she is supporting America’s future in orbit as the systems engineering and integration lead for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program engineering technical authority. Cawthon supports the program’s chief engineer office. In this position, she plays a key role in the oversight of phase 1 partner requirements and processes as part of the program’s two-phase approach to support the development of commercial space stations. 

Growing up in military and NASA communities, Cawthon was fascinated with aviation and aerospace from a young age and aspired to become a fighter pilot and engineer. She first met an astronaut while attending Space Camp at the Euro Space Center in Belgium, sparking her interest in human spaceflight and solidifying her goals to work for NASA, make an impact, and be a part of making history. She later earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical and materials engineering and her master’s degree in aeronautics and space systems. 

Cawthon describes the best part of her day as the people she works with, and her passionate and mission-driven team reminds her that the mission she’s working toward will make a difference in the future of human spaceflight.

“Between the program, engineering team, and our industry partners, there are thousands of years of experience with human spaceflight that I get to leverage every day to learn and grow in my role and to help NASA accomplish our mission,” shared Cawthon. 

A recent example of this mission-driven teamwork was the development of the program’s technical standards design evaluation document. As the lead for this task, Cawthon was proud of how everyone’s hard work and contributions came together. 

The biggest lesson Cawthon has learned while working with NASA is to continue being curious, learning, and growing both personally and professionally.  

“NASA is one of the biggest most impressive networks of engineering, science, and space program expertise in the world and to not leverage that experience in mentorship would be a waste,” Cawthon said. 

Outside of work, Cawthon enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and daughter. She and her family also like to be on the road, exploring new places and meeting new people. They enjoy international travel and small weekend adventures like the local zoo and aquarium.  

Learn more about NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program at:

Commercial Space Stations

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Sumer Loggins

NASA Selects Goddard Safety and Mission Assurance Contractor

NASA has selected ARES Technical Services of McLean, Virginia, to provide safety and mission assurance services at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The Safety and Mission Assurance Services III contract is a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with an estimated total value of $226 million. The contract will have a five-year effective ordering period starting on June 1, 2025, with an optional six-month extension period.

Under the contract, the vendor will provide support to the agency’s Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA Goddard. This includes performing independent surveillance, audits, reviews, and assessments of design, development, test, and mission operations activities on site at NASA and supplier facilities.

For information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov

Jacob Richmond
Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland
301-286-6255
jacob.a.richmond@nasa.gov

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Tiernan P. Doyle

NASA Tech Developed for Home Health Monitoring  

Even before we’re aware of heart trouble or related health issues, our bodies give off warning signs in the form of vibrations. Technology to detect these signals has ranged from electrodes and patches to watches. Now, an innovative wall-mounted technology is capable of monitoring vital signs. Advanced TeleSensors Inc. developed the Cardi/o Monitor with an exclusive license from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. 

Over the course of five years, NASA engineers created a small, inexpensive, contactless device to measure vital signs, a challenging task partly because monitoring heart rate requires picking out motions of about one three-thousandth of an inch, which are easily swamped by other movement in the environment.  

By the late 1990s, hardware and computing technology could meet the challenge, and the NASA JPL team created a prototype the size of a thick textbook. It would emit a radio beam toward a stationary person, working similarly to a radar, and algorithms differentiated cardiac and respiratory activity from the “noise” of other movements.  

When Sajol Ghoshal, now CEO of Austin, Texas-based Advanced TeleSensors, participated in a demonstration of the prototype, he saw the potential for in-home monitoring. By then, developing an affordable device was possible due to the miniaturization of sensors and computing technology.  

The Cardi/o Monitor is 3 inches square and mounts to a ceiling or wall. It can detect vital signs from up to 10 feet. Multiple devices can be scattered throughout a house, with a smartphone app controlling settings and displaying all data on a single dashboard. The algorithms NASA developed detect heartbeat and respiration, and the company added heart rate variability detection that indicates stress and sleep apnea.  

If there’s an anomaly, such as a dramatic heart rate increase, an alert in the app calls attention to the situation. Up to six months of data is stored in a secure cloud, making it accessible to healthcare providers. This limits the need for regular in-person visits, which is particularly important for conditions such as infectious diseases, which can put medical professionals and other patients at risk.  

Through the commercialization of this life-preserving technology, NASA is at the heart of advancing health solutions.  

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Sols 4502-4504: Sneaking Past Devil’s Gate

Written by Michelle Minitti, Planetary Geologist at Framework

Earth planning date: Friday, April 4, 2025

We continue to make progress driving up Mount Sharp, each day gaining new perspectives on the spectacular, towering buttes surrounding our path. To get to the next canyon we can ascend, we have to swing around the north end of a small ridgeline, “Devil’s Gate,” which is on the right side of the image above. 

The blocks scattered around the base of Devil’s Gate are ripe with interesting structures, which motivated the acquisition of an RMI mosaic across the ridge. Those blocks are also inconvenient for driving and parking the rover with all six wheels firmly on the ground, the latter of which is needed to be able to unstow the arm for APXS and MAHLI observations. Our last drive ended with our front wheels not quite on solid ground, so we had to forego arm work this weekend. But as you can imagine with the view around us, Devil’s Gate was not the only feature that the team was excited to image. ChemCam added a second RMI mosaic along the base of “Texoli” butte, which you can see the flank of on the left side of the image above. Mastcam planned a mosaic across an expanse of bedrock that looks like rolling waves frozen in place at “Maidenhair Falls.” 

The rocks right in front of the rover were also wonderfully complex in their textures and structures. ChemCam targeted two different textures expressed in the workspace — one across fine layers at “Arroyo Burro” and one across rough, platy, and gray material at “Arroyo Conejo.” Mastcam documented the block containing both these targets with a stereo mosaic that will give us a three-dimensional view of its structures. 

We planned a drive to get us further around the base of Devil’s Gate, after which we will acquire an autonomously-targeted ChemCam LIBS raster and early morning Navcam and Mastcam mosaics looking back on the path we have recently traveled. DAN is scheduled for about seven hours of data collecting across the plan, both during science blocks and our drive. The sky gets a lot of attention in this plan with suites of observations taken at two different times — near midday and early morning — to assess variability across the day. Each window of time had Navcam dust-devil and cloud movies, and measurements of the amount of dust in the atmosphere. The early morning block of observations also had multiple cloud movies cover the full sky. REMS and RAD have regular measurements across the sols. 

See you Monday, when we are a bit farther past Devil’s Gate!

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Connected Learning Ecosystems: Educators Gather to Empower Learners and Themselves

Many educators would agree that despite working and communicating with dozens, even hundreds, of people each year, the role can feel isolating. Learners come and go, leaving educators to question: Was anything retained? Will they take this knowledge home? Will they share it at their after-school activities? How will it ultimately impact their lives and perspectives? What some educators may not fully realize is that they are not alone in their efforts. Their classroom or alternate education space is but one step along a learning pathway that winds through an entire network of educators. Learning pathways take many forms, but are most effective when each stop along the path builds upon what a learner has experienced during previous stops. These networks of educators, known as Connected Learning Ecosystems (CLEs), exist wherever learning takes place. Simply put, CLEs are made up of all the people involved at any point in a youth’s learning journey.

With this in mind, the NASA Science Activation Program’s Learning Ecosystems Northeast (LENE) project has been working to connect and support the regional networks found throughout Maine and the Northeastern United States, with a shared focus on Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics (STEM) education. This inspiring community includes classroom teachers, librarians, 4-H staff, and land trust educators, to name a few, all collaborating to advance education about our changing planet and improve data literacy across a variety of learning environments.

In support of these regional networks, LENE hosts a Connected Learning Ecosystems Gathering twice each year, a multi-day event designed to unite educators who have these shared STEM education goals. These gatherings provide opportunities to reflect on past successes and plan future projects, ultimately benefiting not just the educators, but every learner they reach. They also help strengthen and amplify the lasting and positive impact these educators have on the lives of the youth they support.

This year’s Gathering took place in late February in Orono, ME at the University of Maine (a LENE project partner). The event featured hands-on science activities adaptable to various learning spaces, dedicated reflection time for educators, and collaborative planning sessions to design cross-context learning opportunities for local youth. Participants engaged with NASA’s Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, supported by Jen Bourgeault (GLOBE US Country Coordinator) and Haley Wicklein (GLOBE Assistant US Country Coordinator), who facilitated field data collection and program exploration. NASA Subject Matter Expert Shawn Laatsch from UMaine’s Versant Planetarium led an immersive evening show on the molecular world inside the human body and also previewed other potential field trip shows for students. One highlight of the Gathering was a presentation on climate science and ice core collection by experts Sean Birkel and Daniel Dixon from UMaine’s Climate Change Institute. Educators also participated in a hands-on activity using model ice cores designed by project partner UMaine 4-H. Rounding out the two-day event were deep-dive sessions into various connected learning projects, where educators shared their insights, from idea formation to project execution and reflection.

One educator shared about their experience: “I just want the leadership team to know how grateful I am to be part of this community. As a veteran teacher of 28 years, this is by far the BEST workshop I have ever attended. The passion for evidence-based science among this group is incredible. I feel seen and connected in ways that other workshops have never made possible. I will definitely be a lifelong member and will be bringing more people to CLE workshops. Thank you for making this meaningful and valuable.”

Another educator shared, “During the gathering, I had the opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and make new connections within [my region]. I engaged in insightful conversations with several individuals, discussing shared interests in environmental education, science literacy, and place-based learning…. From these connections, I hope to foster new collaborations that enhance environmental literacy opportunities for students and communities. By working together, I believe we can create interdisciplinary programs that bridge science, sustainability, and civic engagement in meaningful ways.”

Despite the support of regional groups, feelings of isolation persist, particularly in rural areas. These biannual gatherings serve as powerful reminders that this work is happening statewide, and that Connected Learning Ecosystems help establish and strengthen a network to bridge the distance between educators.

These Gatherings are part of ongoing programming organized by Learning Ecosystems Northeast, based at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, that fosters peer communities across the Northeast through which teachers, librarians, and out-of-school educators can collaborate to expand opportunities for youth to engage in data-driven climate investigations and integrate in- and out-of-school learning.

The Learning Ecosystems Northeast project is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AB94A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about Learning Ecosystems Northeast: https://www.learningecosystemsnortheast.org/

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