NASA Kennedy Team Recognized During White House Sustainability Awards

A team of seven NASA Kennedy employees was recognized by the White House for charging ahead with the expansion of the agency’s sustainable electric vehicle (EV) fleet at Kennedy Space Center. They did so at minimal cost to taxpayers while also offering zero emission EV charging for any workers and visitors willing to pay out of their pocket for the service.

The employees received an honorable mention in the “Electrifying the Federal Fleet” category at the Presidential Federal Sustainability Awards for working with Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the local utility provider, to deploy FPL EVolution EV chargers throughout the center. Three of them attended the June 25 award ceremony inside the Indian Treaty Room at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC.

NASA Kennedy’s first EV chargers were installed in August 2021, but the team’s efforts to add more increased after President Joe Biden issued Executive Order (EO) 14057 in December 2021, which mandates that federal agencies lead the way in creating an American electricity sector with no carbon pollution by the year 2035 and net-zero emissions throughout the economy by 2050.

“The team found a way to help NASA take one step closer toward a future of net-zero carbon emissions,” said Janet Petro, director of the Florida spaceport. “We’re proud of how they created a model for other NASA centers and federal government agencies to follow, leaving a cleaner environment for all of us to enjoy.”

The following employees were recognized, all of whom are part of NASA Kennedy’s Spaceport Integration and Services directorate or the Center Planning & Development Office:

• Gustavo Diaz, Center Services Division Chief
• Matthew Jimenez, Partnership Development Office Chief
• Gerald “Jay” Green, then Branch Chief
• Lisa Williams, then Deputy Chief of Logistics
• Lashanda Battle, Kennedy Sustainability Lead
• Melissa Coleman, Transportation Officer
• Spencer Davis, then Transportation Specialist

The NASA Kennedy team worked closely with FPL to create a customized electrification plan for the center, including design coordination, installation, and operations management for the EV charging infrastructure.

FPL installed 28 dual head charging stations, each of which can charge two vehicles at once, meaning that the center currently has the capacity to charge up to 56 electric vehicles at the same time. An additional 31 stations are scheduled to be operational at Kennedy by September 2024, increasing the center’s charging capacity by up to 118 vehicles simultaneously once they go online.

The FPL EVolution chargers are in the parking lots of various facilities within Kennedy, including the Central Campus Headquarters Building, the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building, the Space Station Processing Facility, Operations Support Buildings I and II, and the Logistics Facility. Those locations were chosen by the NASA Kennedy team following consultations with Kennedy employees.

“This partnership gives NASA Kennedy access to FPL’s charging infrastructure, saving the government about $1 million in construction costs,” said Maria Collura, director of NASA Kennedy’s Spaceport Integration and Services. “It also allowed Kennedy to replace 19 gas-powered vehicles in its fleet with electric models, making this a win-win for the American taxpayer and the environment.”

NASA Kennedy’s FPL EVolution workplace charging stations have been used over 16,000 times since May 2022, leading to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of nearly 230,000 kilograms and a gasoline savings of nearly 40,000 gallons. Personal vehicles make up most of those charging sessions, which users pay for before each charge, so the service comes at no additional cost to taxpayers.

NASA Kennedy is the first of the agency’s centers to offer workplace EV charging for employees and visitors. The team which spearheaded that project is now working with other NASA centers interested in offering the same to their employees and visitors.

To ensure proper use of the chargers and plan future agency-wide transportation efforts, the team collects data from all charging stations and reports it to NASA’s Agency Transportation Officer for inclusion in the yearly Fixing America’s Surface Transportation report submitted to the Department of Energy.

EV chargers are just one way NASA Kennedy is implementing EO 14057’s mandate of zero emissions by 2035. The center also uses hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels such as E85 and biodiesel as part of its comprehensive approach to a cleaner environment.

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Messod C. Bendayan

Langley Celebrates Pride Month: Derek Bramble

Derek Bramble has served in a variety of mission and program support roles over his 14-year career at NASA Langley.  He currently serves as an HR Business Partner in LaRC’s Human Capital Office, where he works closely with a number of organizations across the Center providing them with strategic and operational HR support. Derek previously served as program support for NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program where he supported the Center’s efforts to leverage SBIR funding for critical technology development. Prior to that, he served in LaRC’s Office of Procurement as a supporting Contract Specialist. He holds an MBA from the College of William & Mary and a Bachelors Degree in Communications/Journalism from the University of Miami. For the last 7 years, he’s served as co-Chair of the LEAG (LGBTQ+ Employee Alliance Group) ERG, where he’s worked with Center and Agency leadership to improve awareness of the issues facing the LGBTQ+ community at LaRC. Hailing from the great state of Maryland, he currently lives in Williamsburg, VA with his husband Mike, Siberian Husky Jaxon, and tabby cat CiCi. 

Who or what inspired you to choose your career and why?  

I sort of stumbled into my career at NASA. What started out as a contractor job 14 years ago has evolved and blossomed into a full blown CS career supporting the NASA workforce as an HR professional. My story goes to show that regardless of one’s background and skillsets, there’s a place for anyone and everyone at NASA and there’s considerable room to learn and grow here if you have the interest.  

What do you find most rewarding about working with NASA?    

The people and relationships. Most folks I encounter and work with here are super bright, accomplished, passionate individuals. Getting to know the people behind the Agency’s mission is a real treat and something I never take for granted. As impressive as NASA’s workforce is, I still am reminded that they’re humans with personal lives and hobbies and interests outside of work. It’s finding those little connection points and getting to know people on a somewhat personal level that makes my work and time here so rewarding.  

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?    

What don’t I enjoy doing outside of work is the more appropriate question! I’m pretty active in my downtime, and so I enjoy a variety of activities when not at work – my husband and I are avid boaters and enjoy exploring the local waterways of the Tidewater area. I’m also into wine, fitness, travel, craft cocktails, interior design, and helping craft my neighborhood’s electronic newsletters. 

What advice would you give to someone who might be interested in pursuing a career at NASA?  

To never limit yourself or think that you aren’t good enough for NASA. We work for an esteemed Agency, and its reputation precedes itself. While that’s got its advantages, I think it too often leads some folks out there to think they aren’t cut out for a career here when that couldn’t be further from the truth. It can be intimidating I realize, but we as the Agency’s workforce need to do better at bridging that gap for these folks. Use my career as an example. I started out 14 years ago as a support contractor and never thought I’d still fit in here all this time later. NASA is a special place, it’s a privilege to work here – but don’t for one second think it’s unattainable if you aren’t an aerospace engineer with perfect credentials from some top tier university. The Agency is more diverse and welcoming than that – and we need to do better at telling that story.  

How does your background contribute to your perspective and approach in your role at NASA?   

Experience and a sense of purpose drive my judgment and thought processes – I’m always applying that to how I do my job and accomplish my work. We are all unique creatures with super specific skillsets, experiences, judgments, interests, passions, thought processes, etc. I understand and appreciate diversity of thought and life experience, and truly believe that when working together and using those differently colored lenses we all have and applying them to a work challenge that really creative solutions can be designed and implemented.  

What does Pride month mean to you?  

While I do believe Pride is 365 days a year, the month of June is really a time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community’s achievements toward equality while also spotlighting its ongoing challenges. Trans folks are facing record levels of legislation across the country that target their ability to live full and authentic lives. This legislation is also driving more public hatred and misunderstanding of the community than ever before. NASA has centers in some of these states that are openly hostile towards the trans community – what does that mean for some trans members of our very own workforce who are trying to live their lives and do their jobs? It’s critical that allies, both within and outside of the LGBTQ+ community, educate and advocate on behalf of all community members more than ever before – because today it might be trans folks who are targeted, but tomorrow it could be someone else. Progress is never a guarantee for any marginalized community – when they come for one of us, they can come for all of us.  

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Angelique Herring

Mapping the Red Planet with the Power of Open Science

Mars rovers can only make exciting new discoveries thanks to human scientists making careful decisions about their next stop. The Mars 2020 mission is aimed at exploring the geology of Jezero Crater and seeking signs of ancient microbial life on Mars using the Perseverance rover. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California used novel mapping techniques to direct both the rover and the flights of the Ingenuity helicopter, which rode to Mars on Perseverance — and they did it all with open-source tools. 

JPL mapping specialists Dr. Fred Calef III and Dr. Nathan Williams used geospatial analysis to help the scientific community and NASA science leadership select Jezero Crater as the landing site for Perseverance and Ingenuity. Before the vehicles arrived on Mars, they helped create maps of the terrain using data from orbiting satellites. 

“Maps and images are a common language between different people — scientists, engineers, and management,” Williams said. “They help make sure everyone’s on the same page moving forward, in a united front to achieve the best science that we can.” 

Maps and images are a common language between different people.

Dr. Nathan Williams

NASA JPL Geologist and Systems Engineer

After the mission touched down on Mars in February 2021, the Ingenuity helicopter opportunistically scouted ahead to take photos. The team then generated more detailed maps from both rover and helicopter image data to help plan the Perseverance rover’s path and science investigations.

To enable this full-scale mapping of Mars, Calef created the Multi-Mission Geographic Information System (MMGIS), an open-source web-based mapping interface. Online demos of the software, pre-loaded with Mars imagery taken from orbit, allow visitors to explore the paths of Perseverance, Ingenuity, and the Curiosity rover, a sister Mars mission that landed in 2012.

The open nature of the software was key to the mission’s success. “We have people literally all over the world who are working on the mission, and we need to be able to give them fast and quick access to software and data,” Calef said.

MMGIS aimed to help people understand the full scope of Martian geography. By combining images from orbit and augmenting with images from Perseverance and Ingenuity, the JPL team allows researchers to zoom in to see individual boulders and zoom out to see all of Mars. This variety of viewpoints gives the team a sense of scale and context to properly understand the landscape around the Perseverance rover, and how to optimally achieve their science goals within the available terrain.

The impact of the tools developed by the JPL team went beyond the Mars 2020 mission. The team wanted their software to help other researchers easily visualize their data without needing to be data visualization experts themselves. Thanks to this open-source approach, other teams have now used MMGIS to map Earth and other planetary bodies.

In keeping with this open philosophy, the images taken by Perseverance and Ingenuity over the course of the Mars 2020 mission are freely available to the public. By sharing these data with the rest of the world, the results from the mission can be used to educate, inspire, and enable further research.

It’s being able to share data between people … getting a higher order of science.

Dr. Fred Calef III

NASA JPL Geologist and Data Scientist

As Mars scientists look to the future, with the Perseverance rover team deploying even more advanced tools powered by AI, open science will pave the way for further exploration. JPL is now working on designs for potential future Mars helicopters that are far more capable and complex than Ingenuity. Payload mass, flight range, and affordability are at the forefront of their minds.

Existing open-source tools will help address those concerns. Not only are open-source applications free to use, but the large amount of collaboration in creating and testing them means that they’re often highly reliable.

Ultimately, the JPL team views its work as part of the cycle of open science, using open tools to make its job easier while also developing new features in the tools for others to use in the future. “Every mission is contributing back to the other missions and future missions in terms of new tools and techniques to develop,” Calef said. “It’s not just you working on something. It’s being able to share data between people … getting a higher order of science.”

By Lauren Leese 
Web Content Strategist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer 

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NASA Parachute Sensor Testing Could Make EPIC Mars Landings

Landing rovers and helicopters on Mars is a challenge. It’s an even bigger challenge when you don’t have enough information about how the parachutes are enduring strain during the descent to the surface. Researchers at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, are experimenting with readily available, highly elastic sensors that can be fixed to a parachute during testing to provide the missing data.

Knowing how the canopy material stretches during deployment can enhance safety and performance by quantifying the limits of the fabric and improving existing computer models for more reliable parachutes for tasks such as landing astronauts on Earth or delivering scientific instruments and payloads to Mars. This is the work Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy, or EPIC, seeks to advance the ability to measure the strain on a parachute.

“We are aiming to prove which sensors will work for determining the strain on parachute canopy material without compromising it,” said L.J. Hantsche, project manager. NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the team’s work through the Early Career Initiative project.

Starting with 50 potential sensor candidates, the team narrowed down and tested 10 kinds of different sensors, including commercially available and developmental sensors. The team selected the three most promising sensors for continued testing. Those include a silicone-based sensor that works by measuring a change in storage of electrical charge as the sensor is stretched. It is also easy to attach to data recording systems, Hantsche explained. The second sensor is a small, stretchable braided sensor that measures the change in electrical storage. The third sensor is made by printing with a metallic ink onto a thin and pliable plastic.

Determining methods to bond each of the sensors to super thin and slippery canopy material was hard, Hantsche said. Once the team figured out how to attach the sensors to the fabric, they were ready to begin testing.

“We started with uniaxial testing, where each end of the parachute material is secured and then pulled to failure,” she said. “The test is important because the stretching of the sensor causes its electrical response. Determining the correlation of strain and the sensor response when it is on the fabric is one of our main measurement goals.”

This stage of testing was accomplished in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. A high-speed version of this test, which simulates the speed of the parachute deployment, was performed at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

The team used a bubble test for the sensors, which simulates testing of a 3D parachute. It consists of the fabric sample and a silicone membrane sandwiched between a four-inch-diameter ring and the test structure. When it is pressurized from the inside, the silicone membrane expands the fabric and sensor into a bubble shape. The test is used to validate the sensor’s performance as it bends and is compared to the other test results.

With the EPIC project nearing completion, follow-on work could include temperature tests, developing the data acquisition system for flight, determining if the sensor can be packed with a parachute without adverse effects, and operating the system in flight. The EPIC team is also working with researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to flight test their sensors later this year using the center’s drone test, which drops a capsule with a parachute.

In addition, the EPIC team is partnering with the Entry Systems Modeling Group at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley to propose an all-encompassing parachute project aimed at better understanding parachutes through modeling and test flights. The collaborative NASA project may result in better parachutes that are safer and more dependable for the approaching era of exploration.

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Dede Dinius

Alphabet Soup: NASA’s GOLD Finds Surprising C, X Shapes in Atmosphere

Who knew Earth’s upper atmosphere was like alphabet soup?

NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission has revealed unexpected C- and X-shaped formations in an electrified layer of gas high above our heads called the ionosphere.

While these alphabetical shapes have been observed before, GOLD sees them more clearly than other instruments have and is now finding them where and when scientists didn’t expect. Their surprise appearances prove that we have more to learn about the ionosphere and its effects on communication and navigation signals that pass through it.

Earth’s Dynamic Interface to Space

Extending some 50 to 400 miles overhead, the ionosphere becomes electrically charged during the daytime when sunlight strikes our planet and its energy knocks electrons off atoms and molecules. This creates a soup of charged particles, known as plasma, that allows radio signals to travel over long distances.

Near Earth’s magnetic equator, charged particles are funneled upward and outward along magnetic field lines, creating two dense bands of particles north and south of the equator that scientists call crests. As night falls and the Sun’s energy fades, low-density pockets in the plasma, called bubbles, can form in the ionosphere. Because of their varying density, the crests and bubbles can interfere with radio and GPS signals.

While previous observations provided brief glimpses of crests and bubbles in the ionosphere, GOLD monitors these features over extended periods of time. That’s thanks to its geostationary orbit, which circles our planet at the same rate Earth rotates, allowing GOLD to hover over the Western Hemisphere.

Unexpected X-Shaped Crests from Quiet Conditions

The ionosphere is sensitive to disturbances from both space and terrestrial weather. GOLD has previously revealed that after a solar storm or huge volcanic eruption, the crests in the ionosphere can merge to form an X shape. But now, GOLD has seen an X shape form on multiple occasions when there were no such disturbances — what scientists refer to as “quiet time.”

“Earlier reports of merging were only during geomagnetically disturbed conditions — it is an unexpected feature during geomagnetic quiet conditions,” said Fazlul Laskar, of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), who is the lead author of a paper about this discovery published in April 2024 by the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

These unexpected appearances tell scientists that something else must be involved in forming these X shapes. Computer models suggest that the X could develop when changes in the lower atmosphere pull plasma downward.

“The X is odd because it implies that there are far more localized driving factors,” said Jeffrey Klenzing, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who studies the ionosphere. “This is expected during the extreme events, but seeing it during ‘quiet time’ suggests that the lower atmosphere activity is significantly driving the ionospheric structure.”

C-Shaped Bubbles Point to Strong Turbulence

GOLD has also found surprising C-shaped plasma bubbles that point to other puzzling dynamics influencing the ionosphere.

Most plasma bubbles appear long and straight, forming along magnetic field lines. But some bubbles are curved into C shapes and reverse-C shapes, which scientists think are shaped by terrestrial winds. Computer models suggest a C-shape forms if winds increase with altitude at the magnetic equator and a reverse-C forms if the winds decrease with altitude.

“It’s a little like a tree growing in a windy area,” explains Klenzing. “If the winds are typically to the east, the tree starts to tilt and grow in that direction.”

In a paper published in November 2023 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, LASP scientist Deepak Karan and colleagues report that GOLD has observed C-shaped and reverse-C-shaped plasma bubbles appearing surprisingly close together — as close as about 400 miles apart (roughly the distance between Baltimore and Boston).

“Within that close proximity, these two opposite-shaped plasma bubbles had never been thought of, never been imaged,” said Karan. To have wind patterns change course in such a small area, Karan thinks some sort of strong turbulence — like a vortex, wind shear, or tornado-like activity — is likely at play in the atmosphere.

“The fact that we have very different shapes of bubbles this close together tells us that the dynamics of the atmosphere is more complex than we expected,” Klenzing said.

These close pairings appear to be rare, with only two instances recorded by GOLD so far. Yet because these features can disrupt critical communication and navigation technology, “It’s really important to find out why this is happening,” Karan said. “If a vortex or a very strong shear in the plasma has happened, this will completely distort the plasma over that region. Signals will be lost completely with a strong disturbance like this.”

Scientists hope GOLD’s continued observations, combined with those from other heliophysics missions, can help unlock these mysteries of the ionosphere and their effects on our lives.

By Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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