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NASA NTRS2006

Solar Sails

The Solar Sail Propulsion investment area has been one of the three highest priorities within the In-Space Propulsion Technology (ISPT) Project. In the fall of 2003, the NASA Headquarters' Science Mission Directorate provided funding and direction to mature the technology as far as possible through ground research and development from TRL 3 to 6 in three years. A group of experts from government, industry, and academia convened in Huntsville, Alabama to define technology gaps between what was needed for science missions to the inner solar system and the current state of the art in ultra1ightweight materials and gossamer structure design. This activity set the roadmap for development. The centerpiece of the development would be the ground demonstration of scalable solar sail systems including masts, sails, deployment mechanisms, and attitude control hardware and software. In addition, new materials would be subjected to anticipated space environments to quantify effects and assure mission life. Also, because solar sails are huge structures, and it is not feasible to validate the technology by ground test at full scale, a multi-discipline effort was established to develop highly reliable analytical models to serve as mission assurance evidence in future flight program decision-making. Two separate contractor teams were chosen to develop the SSP System Ground Demonstrator (SGD). After a three month conceptual mission/system design phase, the teams developed a ten meter diameter pathfinder set of hardware and subjected it to thermal vacuum tests to compare analytically predicted structural behavior with measured characteristics. This process developed manufacturing and handling techniques and refined the basic design. In 2005, both contractor teams delivered 20 meter, four quadrant sail systems to the largest thermal vacuum chamber in the world in Plum Brook, Ohio, and repeated the tests. Also demonstrated was the deployment and articulation of attitude control mechanisms. In conjunction with these tests, the stowed sails were subjected to launch vibration and ascent vent tests. Other investments studied radiation effects on the solar sail materials, investigated spacecraft charging issues, developed shape measuring techniques and instruments, produced advanced trajectory modeling capabilities, and identified and resolved gossamer structure dynamics issues. Technology validation flight and application to a He1iophysics science mission is on the horizon.

Young, Roy↗
NASA NTRS2017

NASA's Space Launch System: Deep-Space Opportunities for SmallSats

Designed for human exploration missions into deep space, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) represents a new spaceflight infrastructure asset, enabling a wide variety of unique utilization opportunities. While primarily focused on launching the large systems needed for crewed spaceflight beyond Earth orbit, SLS also offers a game-changing capability for the deployment of small satellites to deep-space destinations, beginning with its first flight. Currently, SLS is making rapid progress toward readiness for its first launch in two years, using the initial configuration of the vehicle, which is capable of delivering 70 metric tons (t) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). On its first flight test of the Orion spacecraft around the moon, accompanying Orion on SLS will be small-satellite secondary payloads, which will deploy in cislunar space. The deployment berths are sized for "6U" CubeSats, and on EM-1 the spacecraft will be deployed into cislunar space following Orion separate from the SLS Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage. Payloads in 6U class will be limited to 14 kg maximum mass. Secondary payloads on EM-1 will be launched in the Orion Stage Adapter (OSA). Payload dispensers will be mounted on specially designed brackets, each attached to the interior wall of the OSA. For the EM-1 mission, a total of fourteen brackets will be installed, allowing for thirteen payload locations. The final location will be used for mounting an avionics unit, which will include a battery and sequencer for executing the mission deployment sequence. Following the launch of EM-1, deployments of the secondary payloads will commence after sufficient separation of the Orion spacecraft to the upper stage vehicle to minimize any possible contact of the deployed cubesats to Orion. Currently this is estimated to require approximately 4 hours. The allowed deployment window for the cubesats will be from the time the upper stage disposal maneuvers are complete to up to 10 days after launch. The upper stage will fly past the moon at a perigee of approximately 100km, and this closest approach will occur about 5 days after launch. The limiting factor for the latest deployment time is the available power in the sequencer system. Several NASA Mission Directorates were involved in the development of programs for the competition, selection, and development of EM-1 payloads that support directorate priorities. CubeSat payloads on EM-1 will include both NASA research experiments and spacecraft developed by industry, international and potentially academia partners. The Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Division was allocated five payload opportunities on the EM-1 mission. Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Scout is designed to rendezvous with and characterize a candidate NEA. A solar sail, an innovation the spacecraft will demonstrated for the CubeSat class, will provide propulsion. Lunar Flashlight will use a green propellant system and will search for potential ice deposits in the moon's permanently shadowed craters. BioSentinel is a yeast radiation biosensor, planned to measure the effects of space radiation on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Lunar Icecube, a collaboration with Morehead State University, will prospect for water in ice, liquid, and vapor forms as well as other lunar volatiles from a low-perigee, highly inclined lunar orbit using a compact Infrared spectrometer. Skyfire, a partnership with Lockheed Martin, is a technology demonstration mission that will perform a lunar flyby, collecting spectroscopy, and thermography data to address questions related to surface characterization, remote sensing, and site selection. NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) was allocated three payload opportunities on the EM-1 mission. These slots will be filled via the 2 Centennial Challenges Program, NASA's flagship program for technology prize competitions, which directly engages the public, academia, and industry in open prize competitions to stimulate innovation. The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) was allocated two payload opportunities on the EM-1 mission. The CubeSat Mission to Study Solar Particles (CuSP) payload will study the sources and acceleration mechanisms of solar and interplanetary particles in near-Earth orbit, support space weather research by determining proton radiation levels during Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events and identifying suprathermal properties that could help predict geomagnetic storms. The LunaH-Map payload will help scientists understand the quantity of H-bearing materials in lunar cold traps (~10 km), determine the concentration of H-bearing materials with 1m depth, and constrain the vertical distribution of H-bearing materials. The final three payload opportunities for the EM-1 mission were allocated for NASA's international space agency counterparts. The flight opportunities are intended to benefit the international space agency and NASA as well as further the collective space exploration goals. ArgoMoon is sponsored by ESA/ASI and will fly along with the ICPS on its disposal trajectory to perform proximity operations with the ICPS post-disposal, take external imagery of engineering and historical significance, and perform an optical communications demonstration. EQUULEUS, sponsored by JAXA, will fly to a libration orbit around the Earth-Moon L2 point and demonstrate trajectory control techniques within the Sun-Earth-Moon region for the first time by a nano spacecraft. The mission will also contribute to the future human exploration scenario by understanding the radiation environment in geospace and deep space, characterizing the flux of impacting meteors on the far side of the moon, and demonstrating the future deep space exploration scenario using the "deep space port" at Lagrange points. OMOTENASHI, also sponsored by JAXA, will land the smallest lunar lander to date on the lunar surface to demonstrate the feasibility of the hardware for distributed cooperative exploration system. Small landers will enable multi-point exploration, which is complimentary with large-scale human exploration. Once on the lunar surface, the OMOTENASHI spacecraft will observe the radiation and soil environments of the lunar surface by active radiation measurements and soil shear measurements. Following EM-1, Space Launch System will evolve to the more-powerful Block 1B configuration, which uses a new Exploration Upper Stage to increase the vehicle's LEO payload capability from 70 t to 105 t. With that transition, the Orion Stage Adapter, which will carry the secondary payloads on EM-1, will be phased out, and a new Universal Stage Adapter will be introduced, creating opportunities for flying larger secondary payloads. This paper will provide a brief status of SLS progress toward first launch; an overview of smallsat accommodations, integration, and operations on EM-1; information about the specific payloads flying on that launch; and a discussion of future accommodations and opportunities for secondary payloads on SLS for Exploration Mission-2 and beyond.

Robinson, Kimberly F.↗
NASA NTRS2008

The International Lunar Network

A new lunar science flight projects line has been introduced within NASA s Science Mission Directorate's (SMDs) proposed 2009 budget, including two new robotic missions designed to accomplish key scientific objectives and, when possible, provide results useful to the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) and the Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD) as those organizations grapple with the challenges of returning humans to the Moon. The first mission in this line will be the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an ESMD mission that will acquire key information for human return to the moon activities, which will transition after one year of operations to the SMD Lunar Science Program for a 2-year nominal science mission. The second mission, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) will be launch in 2011 along with the GRAIL Discovery mission to the moon. The third is delivery of two landed payloads as part of the International Lunar Network (ILN). This flight projects line provides a robust robotic lunar science program for the next 8 years and beyond, complements SMD s initiatives to build a robust lunar science community through R&A lines, and increases international participation in NASA s robotic exploration plans. The International Lunar Network is envisioned as a global lunar geophysical network, which fulfills many of the stated recommendations of the recent National Research Council report on The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon [2], but is difficult for any single space agency to accomplish on its own. The ILN would provide the necessary global coverage by involving US and international landed missions as individual nodes working together. Ultimately, this network could comprise 8-10 or more nodes operating simultaneously, while minimizing the required contribution from each space agency. Indian, Russian, Japanese, and British landed missions are currently being formulated and SMD is actively seeking partnership with these and other space agencies to establish the ILN.

Cohen, Barbara A.↗
NASA NTRS2012

NASA Desert RATS 2011 Education Pilot Project and Classroom Activities

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS) is a multi-year series of tests of hardware and operations carried out annually in the high desert of Arizona, as an analog to future exploration activities beyond low Earth orbit [1]. For the past several years, these tests have occurred in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, north of Flagstaff. For the 2011 Desert RATS season, the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) at NASA headquarters provided support to develop an education pilot project that would include student activities to parallel the Desert RATS mission planning and exploration activities in the classroom, and educator training sessions. The development of the pilot project was a joint effort between the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Directorate and the Aerospace Education Services Project (AESP), managed at Penn State University.

Gruener, J. E.↗
NASA NTRS2021

A Dedicated, Long Duration Balloon Mission from Antarctica to Measure the Effects of Low Dose Galactic Cosmic Radiation on Biology

Antarctic long duration balloon missions flown by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD)can be used as a surrogate for the deep space radiation environment, reducing the need to launch orbital experiments to assess the impact of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) on biology. To date, over fifty NASA balloon missions flown from Antarctica have carried scientific payloads from Astrophysics (APD) and Heliophysics (HPD)in SMD. Only two life science experiments have been flown from Antarctica, and both were ride-along (piggyback) opportunities, limiting the sophistication and types of model organisms that can be incorporated into studies. Herein, we argue for establishing a large, dedicated Antarctic balloon mission for the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) Division in SMD to be launched in 2029/2030, with an “omnibus” gondola carrying dozens of independent Space Biology payloads that would receive a sustained exposure to low dose rate GCRs for 30+ days. Our unprecedented, protracted radiation experiment cannot be done using ground-based simulation facilities or in space; it can only be achieved through an Antarctic balloon mission dedicated to BPS Division payloads. By providing more access to radiation research platforms through existing NASA SMD access to Antarctic balloon flight opportunities, the Space Biology community will be better positioned to address unknowns associated with low dose rate GCR exposures in long duration spaceflight.

David J Smith↗
NASA NTRS2007

Science and the Constellation Systems Program Office

An underlying tension has existed throughout the history of NASA between the human spaceflight programs and the external scientific constituencies of the robotic exploration programs. The large human space projects have been perceived as squandering resources that might otherwise be utilized for scientific discoveries. In particular, the history of the relationship of science to the International Space Station Program has not been a happy one. The leadership of the Constellation Program Office, created in NASA in October, 2005, asked me to serve on the Program Manager s staff as a liaison to the science community. Through the creation of my position, the Program Manager wanted to communicate and elucidate decisions inside the program to the scientific community and, conversely, ensure that the community had a voice at the highest levels within the program. Almost all of my technical contributions at NASA, dating back to the Apollo Program, has been within the auspices of what is now known as the Science Mission Directorate. However, working at the Johnson Space Center, where human spaceflight is the principal activity, has given me a good deal of incidental contact and some more direct exposure through management positions to the structures and culture of human spaceflight programs. I entered the Constellation family somewhat naive but not uninformed. In addition to my background in NASA science, I have also written extensively over the past 25 years on the topic of human exploration of the Moon and Mars. (See, for example, Mendell, 1985). I have found that my scientific colleagues generally have little understanding of the structure and processes of a NASA program office; and many of them do not recognize the name, Constellation. In many respects, the international ILEWG community is better informed. Nevertheless, some NASA decision processes on the role of science, particularly with respect to the formulation of a lunar surface architecture, are not well known, even in ILEWG. At the recent annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, I reviewed the evolution of the program as a function of Agency leadership and the constraints put on NASA by the President in his 2004 announcement. I plan to continue my long-time ILEWG tradition of reporting a personal view of the state of development of human exploration of the solar system, this time coming from within the program office tasked to implement the vision for the United States. The current NASA implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration is consistent with certain classical scenarios that have been discussed extensively in the literature. I will discuss the role of science within the Vision, both from official policy and from a de facto interaction. While science goals are not officially driving the implementation of the Vision, the tools of scientific exploration are integral to defining the extraterrestrial design environments. In this respect the sharing of results from international missions to the Moon can make significant contributions to the success of the future human activities.

Mendell, Wendell↗
NASA NTRS2020

Leveraging Partnerships, Science Content, Special Events, and NASA Assets to Help Girl Scouts Earn Space Science Badges

Throughout 2019, NASA celebrated historic anniversaries and announced bold new programs generating excitement about earth and space exploration. One of the most notable events was the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 historic first steps on the Moon. Complementing this anniversary event were the additional activities and events conducted across the agency that highlighted the many science achievements that were attained across all of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Divisions (earth, planetary, heliophysics, and astrophysics). Further excitement was generated through NASA’s Artemis program which plans to send the first woman and next man to the surface of the Moon. NASA continues to inspire the public including learners of all ages around the world. Building on this momentum, in October 2019, the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Science Engagement team partnered with the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto to host an event that enabled Girl Scouts to earn recently released space science badges developed by the Reach for the Stars: NASA Science for Girls Scouts Program. The event celebrated SMD science and highlighted Earth’s Moon and International Observe the Moon Night (InOMN) while facilitating the earning of the NASA inspired space science badges. This event was coordinated and led by the ARES Science Engagement team as part of their collaborative work and involvement in NASA’s SMD Science Activation Program.

Graff, P. V.↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute: Merging Science and Exploration

NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) represents a close collaboration between science, technology and exploration, and was created to enable a deeper understanding of the Moon and other airless bodies. SSERVI is supported jointly by NASA's Science Mission Directorate and Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. The institute currently focuses on the scientific aspects of exploration as they pertain to the Moon, Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and the moons of Mars, but the institute goals may expand, depending on NASA's needs, in the future. The 9 initial teams, selected in late 2013 and funded from 2014-2019, have expertise across the broad spectrum of lunar, NEA, and Martian moon sciences. Their research includes various aspects of the surface, interior, exosphere, near-space environments, and dynamics of these bodies. NASA anticipates a small number of additional teams to be selected within the next two years, with a Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) likely to be released in 2016. Calls for proposals are issued every 2-3 years to allow overlap between generations of institute teams, but the intent for each team is to provide a stable base of funding for a five year period. SSERVI's mission includes acting as a bridge between several groups, joining together researchers from: 1) scientific and exploration communities, 2) multiple disciplines across a wide range of planetary sciences, and 3) domestic and international communities and partnerships. The SSERVI central office is located at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA. The administrative staff at the central office forms the organizational hub for the domestic and international teams and enables the virtual collaborative environment. Interactions with geographically dispersed teams across the U.S., and global partners, occur easily and frequently in a collaborative virtual environment. This poster will provide an overview of the 9 current US teams and international partners, as well as information about outreach efforts and future opportunities to participate in SSERVI.

technology↗
NASA NTRS2011

NEEMO - NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations: On to a NEO

During NEEMO missions, a crew of six Aquanauts lives aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aquarius Underwater Laboratory the world's only undersea laboratory located 5.6 km off shore from Key Largo, Florida. The Aquarius habitat is anchored 62 feet deep on Conch Reef which is a research only zone for coral reef monitoring in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The crew lives in saturation for a week to ten days and conducts a variety of undersea EVAs (Extra Vehicular Activities) to test a suite of long-duration spaceflight Engineering, Biomedical, and Geoscience objectives. The crew also tests concepts for future lunar exploration using advanced navigation and communication equipment in support of the Constellation Program planetary exploration analog studies. The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Directorate and Behavioral Health and Performance (BHP) at NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas support this effort to produce a high-fidelity test-bed for studies of human planetary exploration in extreme environments as well as to develop and test the synergy between human and robotic curation protocols including sample collection, documentation, and sample handling. The geoscience objectives for NEEMO missions reflect the requirements for Lunar Surface Science outlined by the LEAG (Lunar Exploration Analysis Group) and CAPTEM (Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extraterrestrial Materials) white paper [1]. The BHP objectives are to investigate best meas-ures and tools for assessing decrements in cogni-tive function due to fatigue, test the feasibility study examined how teams perform and interact across two levels, use NEEMO as a testbed for the development, deployment, and evaluation of a scheduling and planning tool. A suite of Space Life Sciences studies are accomplished as well, ranging from behavioral health and performance to immunology, nutrition, and EVA suit design results of which will directly support the investigation of open questions and operational concepts that will enable NASA to continue its plan for planetary exploration.

Bell, M. S.↗
DOE OSTI2025

MechBERT: Language Models for Extracting Chemical and Property Relationships about Mechanical Stress and Strain

Language models are transforming materials-aware naturallanguage processing by enabling the extraction of dynamic, context-rich information from unstructured text, thus, moving beyond the limitations of traditional information-extraction methods. Moreover, small language models are on the rise because some of them can perform better than large language models (LLMs) when given domain-specific questionanswer tasks, especially about an application area that relies on a highly specialized vernacular, such as materials science. We therefore present a new class of MechBERT language models for understanding mechanical stress and strain in materials. These employ Bidirectional Encoder Representations for transformer (BERT) architectures. We showcase four MechBERT models, all of which were pretrained on a corpus of documents that are textually rich in chemicals and their stress–strain properties and were fine-tuned on question-answering tasks. We evaluated the level of performance of our models on domain-specific as well as general English-language question-answer tasks and also explored the influence of the size and type of BERT architectures on model performance. We find that our MechBERT models outperform BERT-based models of the same size and maintain relevancy better than much larger BERT-based models when tasked with domain-specific question-answering tasks within the stress–strain engineering sector. These small language models also enable much faster processing and require a much smaller fraction of data to pretrain them, affording them greater operational efficiency and energy sustainability than LLMs.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS2024

Tracking Community Building in Open Science

Open Science is enabled by a vibrant community of researchers who regularly engage with the data, from its production to its organization, curation, archiving, dissemination, analysis, and publication. This presentation will examine community building in open science. The NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) makes data available to the public following the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) principles. OSDR takes open science further with the OS Analysis Working Groups (AWGs) that facilitate community development and promotion. The primary activity of each AWG is to establish and validate analytical processes to generate higher-order data from data housed in OSDR. There are a number of these groups on various topics, including the Animal AWG, Plant AWG, Microbial AWG, Multi-Omics AWG, AI/ML AWG, and the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) AWG. The international volunteers participating in these AWGs come from academia, citizen science initiatives, industry, and government. They include researchers, principal investigators, professors, trained hobbyists, and students from various domains and disciplines. Anyone may request to join the AWGs, and membership requests are vetted monthly by the group organizers before granting admission. Core to membership is demonstrated expertise through records of training, integrity, work in the professed domain(s), and good community standing. Regular virtual meetings are held for each AWG, with a varying cadence depending on the group's needs and goals. AWG communities share their expertise in research including cutting edge tools, software, frameworks, data formats, and libraries accelerating research collectively. This collaborative approach helps community members cross technology gaps and identify emerging challenges. These diverse communities encompass a wide range of individuals hailing from various sectors within the Science Mission Directorate and beyond. They serve as a means to promote and enhance transparency, accessibility, and inclusion. An annual AWG Symposium brings contributors together in person. Participation in AWGs can be synchronous or asynchronous, with some groups performing most of their work in off hours. Participants gain valuable skills and connections that allow them to add value to their communities and new organizations that they join, resulting in an expanded return on investment for the space life science community. Open science is increasingly a federal mandate and initiatives like NASA's Transform to Open Science and instruments like the Decadal Survey of Biological and Physical Sciences in Space demonstrate the need to carefully consider best practices in this domain. Here, we present greater detail about the makeup and participation metrics of the various AWGs affiliated with OSDR and details of successful peer-reviewed publication campaigns.

Christina M Johnson↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Tracking Community Building in Open Science

Open Science is enabled by a vibrant community of researchers who regularly engage with the data, from its production to its organization, curation, archiving, dissemination, analysis, and publication. This presentation will examine community building in open science. The NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) makes data available to the public following the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) principles. OSDR takes open science further with the OS Analysis Working Groups (AWGs) that facilitate community development and promotion. The primary activity of each AWG is to establish and validate analytical processes to generate higher-order data from data housed in OSDR. There are a number of these groups on various topics, including the Animal AWG, Plant AWG, Microbial AWG, Multi-Omics AWG, AI/ML AWG, and the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) AWG. The international volunteers participating in these AWGs come from academia, citizen science initiatives, industry, and government. They include researchers, principal investigators, professors, trained hobbyists, and students from various domains and disciplines. Anyone may request to join the AWGs, and membership requests are vetted monthly by the group organizers before granting admission. Core to membership is demonstrated expertise through records of training, integrity, work in the professed domain(s), and good community standing. Regular virtual meetings are held for each AWG, with a varying cadence depending on the group's needs and goals. AWG communities share their expertise in research including cutting edge tools, software, frameworks, data formats, and libraries accelerating research collectively. This collaborative approach helps community members cross technology gaps and identify emerging challenges. These diverse communities encompass a wide range of individuals hailing from various sectors within the Science Mission Directorate and beyond. They serve as a means to promote and enhance transparency, accessibility, and inclusion. An annual AWG Symposium brings contributors together in person. Participation in AWGs can be synchronous or asynchronous, with some groups performing most of their work in off hours. Participants gain valuable skills and connections that allow them to add value to their communities and new organizations that they join, resulting in an expanded return on investment for the space life science community. Open science is increasingly a federal mandate and initiatives like NASA's Transform to Open Science and instruments like the Decadal Survey of Biological and Physical Sciences in Space demonstrate the need to carefully consider best practices in this domain. Here, we present greater detail about the makeup and participation metrics of the various AWGs affiliated with OSDR and details of successful peer-reviewed publication campaigns.

Christina M Johnson↗
NASA NTRS2014

GeoLab: A Geological Workstation for Future Missions

The GeoLab glovebox was, until November 2012, fully integrated into NASA's Deep Space Habitat (DSH) Analog Testbed. The conceptual design for GeoLab came from several sources, including current research instruments (Microgravity Science Glovebox) used on the International Space Station, existing Astromaterials Curation Laboratory hardware and clean room procedures, and mission scenarios developed for earlier programs. GeoLab allowed NASA scientists to test science operations related to contained sample examination during simulated exploration missions. The team demonstrated science operations that enhance theThe GeoLab glovebox was, until November 2012, fully integrated into NASA's Deep Space Habitat (DSH) Analog Testbed. The conceptual design for GeoLab came from several sources, including current research instruments (Microgravity Science Glovebox) used on the International Space Station, existing Astromaterials Curation Laboratory hardware and clean room procedures, and mission scenarios developed for earlier programs. GeoLab allowed NASA scientists to test science operations related to contained sample examination during simulated exploration missions. The team demonstrated science operations that enhance the early scientific returns from future missions and ensure that the best samples are selected for Earth return. The facility was also designed to foster the development of instrument technology. Since 2009, when GeoLab design and construction began, the GeoLab team [a group of scientists from the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office within the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Directorate at JSC] has progressively developed and reconfigured the GeoLab hardware and software interfaces and developed test objectives, which were to 1) determine requirements and strategies for sample handling and prioritization for geological operations on other planetary surfaces, 2) assess the scientific contribution of selective in-situ sample characterization for mission planning, operations, and sample prioritization, 3) evaluate analytical instruments and tools for providing efficient and meaningful data in advance of sample return and 4) identify science operations that leverage human presence with robotic tools. In the first year of tests (2010), GeoLab examined basic glovebox operations performed by one and two crewmembers and science operations performed by a remote science team. The 2010 tests also examined the efficacy of basic sample characterization [descriptions, microscopic imagery, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses] and feedback to the science team. In year 2 (2011), the GeoLab team tested enhanced software and interfaces for the crew and science team (including Web-based and mobile device displays) and demonstrated laboratory configurability with a new diagnostic instrument (the Multispectral Microscopic Imager from the JPL and Arizona State University). In year 3 (2012), the GeoLab team installed and tested a robotic sample manipulator and evaluated robotic-human interfaces for science operations.

Evans, Cynthia↗
DOE OSTI2020

Rethinking U.S. Biosecurity Strategy for the Decade Ahead (Workshop Summary)

The Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) hosted a workshop titled, “Rethinking U.S. Biosecurity Strategy for the Decade Ahead” on October 27-29, 2020. The workshop included participants from the policy, military, and technical communities in the United States as well as from U.S. allies. The workshop, convened virtually due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, was a close collaboration between CGSR and the Physical Life Sciences (PLS) Directorate at LLNL. While the scope of conference extended beyond current circumstances to include precedents and predictions for both public health and bioweapons, contemporary events weighed heavily on the discussion participants.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2012

Bridging the Gap Between Scientists and Classrooms: Scientist Engagement in the Expedition Earth and Beyond Program

Teachers in today s classrooms need to find creative ways to connect students with science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) experts. These STEM experts can serve as role models and help students think about potential future STEM careers. They can also help reinforce academic knowledge and skills. The cost of transportation restricts teachers ability to take students on field trips exposing them to outside experts and unique learning environments. Additionally, arranging to bring in guest speakers to the classroom seems to happen infrequently, especially in schools in rural areas. The Expedition Earth and Beyond (EEAB) Program [1], facilitated by the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Directorate Education Program at the NASA Johnson Space Center has created a way to enable teachers to connect their students with STEM experts virtually. These virtual connections not only help engage students with role models, but are also designed to help teachers address concepts and content standards they are required to teach. Through EEAB, scientists are able to actively engage with students across the nation in multiple ways. They can work with student teams as mentors, participate in virtual student team science presentations, or connect with students through Classroom Connection Distance Learning (DL) Events.

Graff, P. V.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Ikhana: A NASA UAS Supporting Long Duration Earth Science Missions

The NASA Ikhana unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (San Diego, California) MQ-9 Predator-B modified to support the conduct of Earth science missions for the NASA Science Mission Directorate and, through partnerships, other government agencies and universities. It can carry over 2000 lb of experiment payloads in the avionics bay and external pods and is capable of mission durations in excess of 24 hours at altitudes above 40,000 ft. The aircraft is remotely piloted from a mobile ground control station (GCS) that is designed to be deployable by air, land, or sea. On-board support capabilities include an instrumentation system and an Airborne Research Test System (ARTS). The Ikhana project will complete GCS development, science support systems integration, external pod integration and flight clearance, and operations crew training in early 2007. A large-area remote sensing mission is currently scheduled for Summer 2007.

Cobleigh, Brent R.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Current Status of the International Lunar Network (ILN) Anchor Nodes Mission

NASA's Science Mission Directorate s (SMD) International Lunar Network Anchor Nodes Mission continues its concept development and is scheduled to complete the first formal milestone gate of a Mission Concept Review (MCR) in Autumn 2009. The mission will establish two-four nodes of the International Lunar Network (ILN), a network of lunar geophysical stations envisioned to be emplaced by the many nations collaborating on this joint endeavor. This mission will operate over six years or more and make significant progress in satisfying many of the National Research Council s lunar science objectives, while strategically contributing to the U.S. Vision for Space Exploration Policy's objective for a robust robotic lunar program. This paper will provide a status report on the ILN Anchor Nodes mission and overview of the concept to date, which is being implemented jointly by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Cohen, Barbara A.↗