Repair Kit for NASA’s NICER Mission Heading to Space Station

NASA will deliver a patch kit for NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, on the agency’s Northrop Grumman 21st commercial resupply mission. Astronauts will conduct a spacewalk to complete the repair.

Located near the space station’s starboard solar array, NICER was damaged in May 2023. The mission team delivered the patch kit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in May 2024 so it could be prepped and packed for the upcoming resupply mission.

“It’s incredible that in just one year, we were able to diagnose the problem and then design, build, test, and deliver a solution,” said Steve Kenyon, NICER’s mechanical lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re so excited to see the patches installed during a future spacewalk, return to a more regular operating schedule, and keep doing groundbreaking science.”

From its perch on the station, the washing machine-sized NICER studies the X-ray sky. It has precisely measured superdense stellar remnants called neutron stars, which contain the densest matter scientists can directly observe. It has also investigated mysterious fast radio bursts, observed comets in our solar system, and collected data about Earth’s upper atmosphere.

But in May 2023, NICER developed a “light leak,” where unwanted sunlight began entering the telescope.

Photos taken aboard the station revealed several areas of damage to NICER’s thermal shields. The shields are 500 times thinner than a human hair and filter out infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light while allowing X-rays to pass through. They cover each of NICER’s 56 X-ray concentrators, sets of 24 nested circular mirrors designed to skip X-rays into corresponding detectors. A sunshade tops each concentrator and shield assembly, with a slight gap in between. The sunshades are segmented by six internal struts, resembling a sliced pie.

The largest damage to the shields is around the size of a typical U.S. postage stamp. The other areas are closer in size to pinheads. During the station’s daytime, the damage allows sunlight to reach the detectors, saturating sensors and interfering with NICER’s measurements. The mission team altered their daytime observing strategy to mitigate the effect. The damage does not impact nighttime observations.

“NICER wasn’t designed to be serviced or repaired,” said Keith Gendreau, the mission’s principal investigator at Goddard. “It was installed robotically, and we operate it remotely. When we decided to investigate the possibility of patching the largest damaged areas on the thermal shields, we had to come up with a method that would use the existing parts of the telescope and station toolkits. We couldn’t have done it without all the support and collaboration from our colleagues at Johnson and throughout the space station program.”

The solution, in the end, was simple. The team designed patches, each shaped like a piece of pie, that will slide into the sunshades. A tab at the bottom of each patch will turn into the space between the bottom of the sunshade and the top of the thermal shield, keeping it in place.

Astronauts will install five patches during the spacewalk. They’ll cover the most significant areas of damage and block the sunlight affecting NICER’s X-ray measurements.

The repair kit contains 12 patches in total, allowing for spares if needed. Astronauts will carry the patches in a caddy, a rectangular frame containing two spare sunshades with the patches held inside.

“NICER will be the first X-ray telescope in orbit to be serviced by astronauts and only the fourth science observatory to be repaired overall — joining the ranks of missions like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope,” said Charles Baker, the NICER project systems engineer at Goddard. “It’s been amazing to watch the patch kit come together over the last year. NICER has taught us so many wonderful things about the cosmos, and we’re really looking forward to this next step of its journey.”

The NICER telescope is an Astrophysics Mission of Opportunity within NASA’s Explorers Program, which provides frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations from space utilizing innovative, streamlined, and efficient management approaches within the heliophysics and astrophysics science areas. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate supported the SEXTANT component of the mission, demonstrating pulsar-based spacecraft navigation.

By Jeanette Kazmierczak
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
301-286-1940
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Ames Science Directorate’s Stars of the Month, July 2024

The NASA Ames Science Directorate recognizes the outstanding contributions of (pictured left to right) Ryan T. Scott, Mike Kubo, Ehsan (Sam) Gharib-Nezhad, and Kristen Okorn. Their commitment to the NASA mission represents the talent, camaraderie, and vision needed to explore this world and beyond.

Space Biosciences Star: Ryan T. Scott

Ryan Scott, a Space Biosciences Research Branch (SCR) scientist, serves as the Science Lead for the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) and chairs the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) analysis working group, where he guides the efforts of nearly 200 professionals. He contributed significantly to the Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA) Nature publication package, the largest-ever collection of data for aerospace medicine and space biology.

Space Science Star: Mike Kubo

Mike Kubo is an indispensable member of the Exobiology Branch (STX) with expertise in astrobiology and biogeochemistry who plays a vital role in the conduct of research and outreach.  While always a star in the branch, most recently, Mike saved the day by noticing the imminent failure of a shared research-grade freezer in building N239 that stored irreplaceable samples, and quickly identified a replacement.

Space Science Star: Ehsan (Sam) Gharib-Nezhad

Dr. Ehsan (Sam) Gharib-Nezhad is a data and research scientist with the Planetary Systems Branch (STT). A specialist in exoplanetary atmospheres and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML), Sam was recently selected as lead for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) working group for AI/ML.

Earth Science Star: Kristen Okorn

Kristen Okorn is a Research Scientist with the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute (BAERI), affiliated with the Atmospheric Science Branch (SGG). She is one of the two center coordinators for NASA’s Disasters Response Coordination System, and the PI for the recently awarded NASA Mentoring and Opportunities in STEM with Academic Institutions for Community Success (MOSAICS) seed project focused on year-round hands-on learning and mentoring of three undergraduate students from a minority-serving institution (Whittier College) in the use of low-cost sensors and satellite-based measurements to study regional air pollution.

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Aaron McKinnon

Sols 4259-4260: Kings Canyon Go Again!

Earth planning date: Monday, July 29, 2024

Our weekend drill preload test on the target “Kings Canyon” (shown in the accompanying MAHLI image) didn’t give us the full range of data we need to move forward with the full drilling process. This coming Wednesday, we hope to rerun our preload test on Kings Canyon or somewhere very similar on the same bedrock, and to get APXS and ChemCam analyses in order to determine scientific suitability for drilling. As a result, this plan focused on getting the arm ready to fulfill those diagnostic activities, described by our Science Operations Team Chief Elena in last Friday’s blog. 

In the meantime, we are in such an interesting area that we have a very long liens list (our wish list). Our problem today and probably for the foreseeable future will be a good one – trying to keep below our upper limits on how much of that wish list we are going to try to get in on a given day! 

We have recently seen examples of bedrock slabs or outcrops with a flat, paler toned centre and a rim of darker, greyer material which surrounds the main slab. We saw this about 50 sols ago at the Mammoth Lakes drill site and we see it here too. The relationships between the centre of the slab and the rim are very intriguing and we are keen to understand the interplay between the two textures. Mastcam will take two large mosaics in this area. “Sam Mack Meadow” is a 7×4 mosaic (i.e., 4 rows of 7 images) on an area of crushed grey material, and “Merced Grove” is a 7×6 mosaic on more intact rim material. ChemCam have also planned a LIBS analysis of Merced Grove and one at “Clinch Pass” in the centre of the block. Together these activities will help us to look at relationships here and to compare with previous examples, such as at the Mammoth Lakes drill site.

ChemCam will acquire a passive measurement on “Wilts Col,” a small dark toned float rock about 4 metres away from the rover as part of a continuing campaign to assess the nature of the floats (loose rocks) which are strewn around this part of the crater. ChemCam will also acquire 2 RMI (long distance images) 10×1 mosaics, looking at the stratigraphy and layering of the distant hills – getting a head start on the science assessment before we even get close!

The atmosphere and environment science theme group (ENV) also crammed their section of the plan full of activities. Since landing (almost 12 years ago now!!), the ENV group has been reporting on environmental conditions in Gale, and this plan was no exception. We have some regular DAN passives, REMS activities and a Navcam dust devil movie, and a single Mastcam “Tau” measurement, which looks at dust in the atmosphere.

Written by Catherine O’Connell-Cooper, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick

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GLOBE Alumna and Youth for Habitat Program Lead Named Scientist of the Month in Alaska

As a 16-year old high school graduate, Maggie House decided to leave the military base in Germany where she lived with her family and go to college close to nature in Fairbanks, Alaska. She had lived in many countries and US states and knew she was ready. At the University of Alaska Fairbanks Troth Yeddha’ campus in Fall 2022, Maggie enrolled in a 300-level Watershed Management course, which required all students to implement a Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) project and poster. Maggie’s project focused on using the GLOBE Observer App to monitor the erosion of nearby Cripple Creek, which had a history of mining and made Fairbanks famous for its gold. She and a classmate wrote a funded mini-grant proposal to study how ice was related to erosion. While not on the frozen creek, Maggie worked as a student employee with the NASA Science Activation Program’s Arctic and Earth STEM Integrating GLOBE and NASA (SIGNs) team at the International Arctic Research Center, during which she trained teachers and mentored students at Alaska’s first-ever Student Research Symposium in 2022. Maggie also wrote an article about the symposium, published on the University of Alaska Fairbanks News page: https://www.uaf.edu/news/alaskan-youth-present-research-earth-day-symposium.php

When the ice melted and the symposium ended, Maggie wanted to study the freshwater habitats of the Creek using GLOBE hydrosphere protocols, so she wrote another proposal. Maggie got a full scholarship and grant funding through Biomedical Learning and Student Training (BLaST), supported by the National Institutes of Health. Her work earned recognition in the US Fish and Wildlife Service story, “Natural Flows Return to Cripple Creek” and honors as the December 2023/January 2024 BLaST Scientist of the Month. The story does not stop there. In May, 2024, Maggie House graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and received the first-ever GLOBE internship at the Fairbanks Soil and Water Conservation District, where Maggie House leads the summer Youth for Habitat program for middle school students. Today, you can find Maggie in Cripple Creek near Fairbanks, Alaska, teaching students to learn science by doing science.

“I have a firm belief that the health of our environment is intertwined with the health of humans. I am interested in making science-related issues more understandable, for everyone to be a part of their local community. In my future, I see myself continuing to work towards strengthening the relationship between humans and nature and promoting the conservation of our dependence on one another.” – Maggie House

Arctic and Earth SIGNs created the conditions for Maggie as an undergraduate student to collect OpenSource GLOBE data that contributed to local solutions, to be awarded funding to pursue actionable research, and to be a leader for educators and future learners. Maggie’s data on ice conditions informed the engineering redesign of the Cripple Creek stream restoration project. Her success in using GLOBE protocols and culturally responsive research methods modeled by Arctic and Earth SIGNs gave her the confidence to write a research proposal and be awarded a full undergraduate research scholarship. Maggie was the first person in the world to monitor aquatic invertebrates in Cripple Creek just three weeks after flow was restored to the creek after 85 years. In Arctic and Earth SIGNs, environmental stewardship is a culminating part of the Learning Framework. Now, Maggie leads the stewardship of salmon habitat in Cripple Creek and mentors middle school youth to pursue STEM fields as a GLOBE trainer and mentor. Maggie’s story matters because one person, with a Science Activation support network and a focus on real-world environmental issues, can make a difference.

Arctic & Earth SIGNs is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AC52A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation 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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NASA’s DART Mission Sheds New Light on Target Binary Asteroid System

In studying data collected from NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which in 2022 sent a spacecraft to intentionally collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, the mission’s science team has discovered new information on the origins of the target binary asteroid system and why the DART spacecraft was so effective in shifting Dimorphos’ orbit. 

In five recently published papers in Nature Communications, the team explored the geology of the binary asteroid system, comprising moonlet Dimorphos and parent asteroid Didymos, to characterize its origin and evolution and constrain its physical characteristics. 

“These findings give us new insights into the ways that asteroids can change over time,” said Thomas Statler, lead scientist for Solar System Small Bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This is important not just for understanding the near-Earth objects that are the focus of planetary defense, but also for our ability to read the history of our Solar System from these remnants of planet formation. This is just part of the wealth of new knowledge we’ve gained from DART.”

Olivier Barnouin and Ronald-Louis Ballouz of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, led a paper that analyzed the geology of both asteroids and drew conclusions about their surface materials and interior properties. From images captured by DART and its accompanying LICIACube cubesat – contributed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the team observed the smaller asteroid Dimorphos’ topography, which featured boulders of varying sizes. In comparison, the larger asteroid Didymos was smoother at lower elevations, though rocky at higher elevations, with more craters than Dimorphos. The authors inferred that Dimorphos likely spun off from Didymos in a large mass shedding event.

There are natural processes that can accelerate the spins of small asteroids, and there is growing evidence that these processes may be responsible for re-shaping these bodies or even forcing material to be spun off their surfaces.

Analysis suggested that both Didymos and Dimorphos have weak surface characteristics, which led the team to posit that Didymos has a surface age 40–130 times older than Dimorphos, with the former estimated to be 12.5 million years and the latter less than 300,000 years old. The low surface strength of Dimorphos likely contributed to DART’s significant impact on its orbit.

“The images and data that DART collected at the Didymos system provided a unique opportunity for a close-up geological look of a near-Earth asteroid binary system,” said Barnouin. “From these images alone, we were able to infer a great deal of information on geophysical properties of both Didymos and Dimorphos and expand our understanding on the formation of these two asteroids. We also better understand why DART was so effective in moving Dimorphos.”

Maurizio Pajola, of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome, and co-authors led a paper comparing the shapes and sizes of the various boulders and their distribution patterns on the two asteroids’ surfaces. They determined the physical characteristics of Dimorphos indicate it formed in stages, likely of material inherited from its parent asteroid Didymos. That conclusion reinforces the prevailing theory that some binary asteroid systems arise from shed remnants of a larger primary asteroid accumulating into a new asteroid moonlet.  

Alice Lucchetti, also of INAF, and colleagues found that thermal fatigue — the gradual weakening and cracking of a material caused by heat — could rapidly break up boulders on the surface of Dimorphos, generating surface lines and altering the physical characteristics of this type of asteroid more quickly than previously thought. The DART mission was likely the first observation of such a phenomenon on this type of asteroid. 

Supervised by researcher Naomi Murdoch of ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France, and colleagues, a paper led by students Jeanne Bigot and Pauline Lombardo determined Didymos’ bearing capacity — the surface’s ability to support applied loads — to be at least 1,000 times lower than that of dry sand on Earth or lunar soil. This is considered an important parameter for understanding and predicting the response of a surface, including for the purposes of displacing an asteroid.  

Colas Robin, also of ISAE-SUPAERO, and co-authors analyzed the surface boulders on Dimorphos, comparing them with those on other rubble pile asteroids, including Itokawa, Ryugu and Bennu. The researchers found the boulders shared similar characteristics, suggesting all these types of asteroids formed and evolved in a similar fashion. The team also noted that the elongated nature of the boulders around the DART impact site implies that they were likely formed through impact processing.

These latest findings form a more robust overview of the origins of the Didymos system and add to the understanding of how such planetary bodies were formed. As ESA’s (European Space Agency) Hera mission prepares to revisit DART’s collision site in 2026 to further analyze the aftermath of the first-ever planetary defense test, this research provides a series of tests for what Hera will find and contributes to current and future exploration missions while bolstering planetary defense capabilities. 

Johns Hopkins APL managed the DART mission for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office. NASA provided support for the mission from several centers, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Johnson Space Center in Houston, Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. 

For more information about the DART mission:
https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-defense-dart

News Media Contacts

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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