Rae Ann Meyer Named Deputy Director of NASA Marshall

Rae Ann Meyer has been selected as deputy director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, effective June 2.

In this role, Meyer will assist in leading Marshall’s nearly 7,000 on-site and near-site civil service and contractor employees and an annual budget of approximately $5 billion. She will also help guide the center as it continues to deliver vital propulsion systems and hardware, flagship launch vehicles, world-class space systems, state-of-the-art engineering technologies and cutting-edge science and research projects and solutions.

“I am thrilled to partner with Rae Ann in leading Marshall into this new era of space exploration,” said Center Director Joseph Pelfrey. “I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside her on Marshall’s executive leadership team for the last couple years, and her dedication, intelligence and care for our teams is unmatched. Marshall has a bright future with Rae Ann in this role.”

Meyer previously served as Marshall’s associate director from 2022-2024, where she led execution and integration of the center’s business operations, mission support enterprise functions, and budget management.

Throughout her NASA career, Meyer has served in multiple leadership positions at Marshall. She was previously deputy manager of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. Named to the Senior Executive Service position in May 2019, she assisted in leading the organization responsible for planning, developing, and executing a broad range of science and technology investigations, programs, projects, and activities in support of NASA’s science, technology, and exploration goals. The office also leads the pursuit of new partnership opportunities with other government agencies and private industry. Meyer helped oversee an annual budget of more than $475 million and managed a diverse, highly technical workforce of approximately 300 civil service and contractor employees.

Among her other roles over the years, she was manager of Marshall’s Science and Technology Partnerships and Formulation Office from 2017-2019, worked a detail as technical advisor in 2016 for the Office of Strategy and Plans at NASA Headquarters in Washington, and was chief of key Engineering Directorate structure and flight analysis divisions at Marshall from 2007-2017. Meyer was manager of the Constellation Support Office in Marshall’s Science and Mission Systems Office from 2006-2007. She led Marshall’s In-Space Propulsion Technology Office from 2004-2006 and was assistant manager of the Space Transfer Technology Project from 2000-2002, managing in-space technology program funding at NASA centers nationwide. Meyer’s NASA career began in 1989 as a control mechanisms engineer in Marshall’s Propulsion Laboratory.

A native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1989. 

Learn more about Marshall’s work to support the nation’s mission in space at:

https://www.nasa.gov/marshall/

Lance Davis
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-640-9065
lance.d.davis @nasa.gov

Hannah Maginot
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-932-1937
hannah.l.maginot @nasa.gov

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Beth Ridgeway

NASA Selects Technology Transfer Services Contractor

NASA has awarded the Consolidated Agency Technology Transfer Services contract to Summit Technologies & Solutions, Inc. in Alexandria, Virginia, to provide support for the agency’s Technology Transfer Program.

The performance-based firm-fixed price contract has a potential mission services value of $26 million and a maximum potential indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity value of $55 million. The contract begins on Saturday, June 1, with a one-year base period followed by four one-year option periods that may be exercised at NASA’s discretion.

Summit Technologies & Solutions will provide NASA tech transfer support at multiple centers including the agency’s headquarters in Washington, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and Stennis Space Center in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, with the potential to support other agency field centers under the enterprise contract.

Under this HUBZone small business set-aside contract, the company will be responsible for supporting NASA’s mission to identify and protect NASA’s intellectual property with commercial potential and transfer those technologies to entrepreneurs, companies, universities, non-profits, business incubators and innovation ecosystems, and state and local governments to create jobs, promote economic development, create technological advantages for American companies, and improve life here on Earth.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov

-end-

Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-774-8357
tiernan.doyle@nasa.gov

Molly Porter
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-424-5158
molly.a.porter@nasa.gov

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Tiernan P. Doyle

What is 3D-MAT?

A thermal protection material for the Artemis Generation

The 3-Dimensional Multifunctional Ablative Thermal Protection System (3D-MAT) is a thermal protection material developed as a critical component of Orion, NASA’s newest spacecraft built for human deep space missions. It is able to maintain a high level of strength while enduring extreme temperatures during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of Artemis missions to the Moon. 3D-MAT has become an essential piece of technology for NASA’s Artemis campaign that will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon and prepare for human expeditions to Mars, for the benefit of all.

The 3D-MAT project emerged from a technical problem in early designs of the Orion spacecraft. The compression pad—the connective interface between the crew module, where astronauts reside, and the service module carrying power, propulsion, supplies, and more—was exhibiting issues during Orion’s first test flight, Exploration Flight Test-1, in 2014. NASA engineers realized they needed to find a new material for the compression pad that could hold these different components of Orion together while withstanding the extremely high temperatures of atmospheric re-entry. Using a 3D weave for NASA heat shield materials had been explored, but after the need for a new material for the compression pad was discovered, development quickly escalated.

This led to the evolution of 3D-MAT, a material woven with quartz yarn and cyanate ester resin in a unique three-dimensional design. The quartz yarn used is like a more advanced version of the fiberglass insulation you might have in your attic, and the resin is essentially a high-tech glue. These off-the-shelf aerospace materials were chosen for their ability to maintain their strength and keep heat out at extremely high temperatures. 3D-MAT is woven together with a specialized loom, which packs the yarns tightly together, and then injected with resin using a unique pressurized process. The result is a high-performance material that is extremely effective at maintaining strength when it’s hot, while also insulating the heat from the spacecraft it is protecting.

Within three years, 3D-MAT went from an early-stage concept to a well-developed material and has now been integrated onto NASA’s flagship Artemis campaign. The use of 3D-MAT in the Orion spacecraft’s compression pad during the successful Artemis I mission demonstrated the material’s essential role for NASA’s human spaceflight efforts. This development was made possible within such a short span of time because of the team’s collaboration with small businesses including Bally Ribbon Mills, which developed the weaving process, and San Diego Composites, which co-developed the resin infusion procedure with NASA.

The team behind its development won the NASA Invention of the Year Award, a prestigious honor recognizing how essential 3D-MAT was for the successful Artemis flight and how significant it is for NASA’s future Artemis missions. The inventor team recognized includes Jay Feldman and Ethiraj Venkatapathy from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Curt Wilkinson of Bally Ribbon Mills, and Ken Mercer of Dynovas.

3D-MAT has applications beyond NASA as well. Material processing capabilities enabled by 3D-MAT have led to other products such as structural parts for Formula One racecars and rocket motor casings. Several potential uses of 3D-MAT in commercial aerospace vehicles and defense are being evaluated based on its properties and performance.

Milestones

• Winner of NASA Invention of the Year Award in 2023
• Flown on Artemis I in 2022
• Being assessed for use by multiple Department of Defense and commercial aerospace entities

Partners

The 3D-MAT project is led out of NASA Ames with the support of various partners, including Bally Ribbon Mills, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Viginia, with the support of the Game Changing Development Program through NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Learn more

• NASA release: First 3D woven composite for NASA thermal protection systems (March 29, 2016)
• NASA release: Advancements in Thermal Protection Materials Change the Game for Orion (April 3, 2015)
• NASA Spinoff release: 3D Weaving Technology Strengthens Spacecraft, Race Cars (2017)

For researchers

• NASA Technology Transfer Program webpage: Multifunctional Ablative Thermal Protection System, 3D-MAT
• Technical paper: “Development of an Ablative 3D Quartz/Cyanate Ester Composite for the Orion Spacecraft Compression Pad,” by Feldman, J. D., Venkatapathy, E., Wilkinson, C., and Mercer, K. J SAMPE TP15-0195, Composites and Advanced Materials Expo, Dallas Convention Center, Dallas, TX, Oct. 2015

For news media

Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to the NASA Ames newsroom.

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Frank Tavares

Galaxies Actively Forming in Early Universe Caught Feeding on Cold Gas

5 Min Read

Galaxies Actively Forming in Early Universe Caught Feeding on Cold Gas

Researchers analyzing data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed three galaxies that may be actively forming when the universe was only 400 to 600 million years old. Webb’s data shows these galaxies are surrounded by gas that the researchers suspect to be almost purely hydrogen and helium, the earliest elements to exist in the cosmos. Webb’s instruments are so sensitive that they were able to detect an unusual amount of dense gas surrounding these galaxies. This gas will likely end up fueling the formation of new stars in the galaxies.

“These galaxies are like sparkling islands in a sea of otherwise neutral, opaque gas,” explained Kasper Heintz, the lead author and an assistant professor of astrophysics at the Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “Without Webb, we would not be able to observe these very early galaxies, let alone learn so much about their formation.”

“We’re moving away from a picture of galaxies as isolated ecosystems. At this stage in the history of the universe, galaxies are all intimately connected to the intergalactic medium with its filaments and structures of pristine gas,” added Simone Nielsen, a co-author and PhD student also based at DAWN.

Image: Galaxy Forming in the Early Universe (Artist’s Concept)

In Webb’s images, the galaxies look like faint red smudges, which is why extra data, known as spectra, were critical for the team’s conclusions. Those spectra show that light from these galaxies is being absorbed by large amounts of neutral hydrogen gas. “The gas must be very widespread and cover a very large fraction of the galaxy,” said Darach Watson, a co-author who is a professor at DAWN. “This suggests that we are seeing the assembly of neutral hydrogen gas into galaxies. That gas will go on to cool, clump, and form new stars.”

The universe was a very different place several hundred million years after the big bang during a period known as the Era of Reionization. Gas between stars and galaxies was largely opaque. Gas throughout the universe only became fully transparent around 1 billion years after the big bang. Galaxies’ stars contributed to heating and ionizing the gas around them, causing the gas to eventually become completely transparent.

By matching Webb’s data to models of star formation, the researchers also found that these galaxies primarily have populations of young stars. “The fact that we are seeing large gas reservoirs also suggests that the galaxies have not had enough time to form most of their stars yet,” Watson added.

This is Only the Start

Webb is not only meeting the mission goals that drove its development and launch – it is exceeding them. “Images and data of these distant galaxies were impossible to obtain before Webb,” explained Gabriel Brammer, a co-author and associate professor at DAWN. “Plus, we had a good sense of what we were going to find when we first glimpsed the data – we were almost making discoveries by eye.”

There remain many more questions to address. Where, specifically, is the gas? How much is located near the centers of the galaxies – or in their outskirts? Is the gas pristine or already populated by heavier elements? Significant research lies ahead. “The next step is to build large statistical samples of galaxies and quantify the prevalence and prominence of their features in detail,” Heintz said.

The researchers’ findings were possible thanks to Webb’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, which includes spectra of distant galaxies from the telescope’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), and was released immediately to support discoveries like this as part of Webb’s Early Release Science (ERS) program.

This work has been published in the May 24, 2024 issue of the journal Science.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Downloads

Right click any image to save it or open a larger version in a new tab/window via the browser’s popup menu.

View/Download full resolution images for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Research Paper: published in the May 24, 2024 issue of the journal Science.

Media Contacts

Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro – rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Claire Blome cblome@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.

Related Information

Infographic: Era of Reionization Infographic

Article: How Webb Can Study the Early Universe

Video: Galaxies through Time

Video: Scientists’ Perspective: Science Snippets

Article: Galaxy Basics

Article: Galaxy Evolution

More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/

More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/

Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

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A Moonlit Moonwalk

NASA astronauts Kate Rubins, foreground, and Andre Douglas execute a nighttime simulated moonwalk in the San Francisco Volcanic Field in Northern Arizona on May 16, 2024, as part of the Joint Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Test Team Field Test 5 (JETT5). The test consisted of four simulated moonwalks that followed operations planned for Artemis III and beyond. During the test, two integrated teams worked together as they practiced end-to-end lunar operations. The field team consisted of astronauts, NASA engineers, and field experts in the Arizona desert conducting the simulated moonwalks, while a team of flight controllers and scientists at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston monitored and guided their activities.

At the conclusion of each simulated moonwalk, the science team, flight control team, crewmembers, and field experts came together to discuss and record lessons learned. NASA will take these lessons and apply them to operations for NASA’s Artemis missions, commercial vendor development, and other technology development. 

See more images from the JETT5 field test.

Image Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel

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Monika Luabeya