Five Eclipses In NASA History

Meet Our New Flight Directors!

We just hired six new flight directors to join a unique group of individuals who lead human spaceflights from mission control at our Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A flight director manages all human spaceflight missions and related test flights, including International Space Station missions, integration of new American-made commercial spacecraft and developing plans for future Orion missions to the Moon and beyond. 

Only 97 people have served as flight directors, or are in training to do so, in the 50-plus years of human spaceflight. That’s fewer than the over 300 astronauts! We talked with the new class about their upcoming transitions, how to keep calm in stressful situations, the importance of human spaceflight and how to best learn from past mistakes. Here’s what they had to say…

Allison Bollinger

Allison is from Lancaster, Ohio and received a BS in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. She wanted to work at NASA for as long as she can remember. “I was four-and-a-half when Challenger happened,” she said. “It was my first childhood memory.” Something in her clicked that day. “After, when people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said an astronaut.” 

By high school a slight fear of heights, a propensity for motion sickness and an aptitude for engineering shifted her goal a bit. She didn’t want to be an astronaut. “I wanted to train astronauts,” she said. Allison has most recently worked at our Neutral Buoyancy Lab managing the daily operations of the 40-ft-deep pool the astronauts use for spacewalk training! She admits she’ll miss “the smell of chlorine each day. Coming to work at one of the world’s largest pools and training astronauts is an incredible job,” she says. But she’s excited to be back in mission control, where in a previous role she guided astronauts through spacewalks. 

She’s had to make some tough calls over the years. So we asked her if she had any tips for when something… isn’t going as planned. She said, “It’s so easy to think the sky is falling. Take a second to take a deep breath, and then you’ll realize it’s not as bad as you thought.”

Adi Boulos

Adi is from Chicago, Illinois and graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. He joined us in 2008 as a member of the very first group of flight controllers that specialize in data handling and communications and tracking systems aboard the space station. 

Most recently he served as the group lead in the Avionics Trainee group, which he loved. “I was managing newer folks just coming to NASA from college and getting to become flight controllers,” he said. “I will miss getting to mentor them from day one.” But he’s excited to start his new role alongside some familiar faces already in mission control. “It’s a great group of people,” he said of his fellow 2018 flight director class. “The six of us, we mesh well together, and we are all from very diverse backgrounds.” 

As someone who has spent most of his career supporting human spaceflight and cargo missions from mission control, we asked him why human spaceflight is so important. He had a practical take. “It allows us to solve problems we didn’t know we had,” he said. “For example, when we went to the moon, we had to solve all kinds of problems on how to keep humans alive for long-duration flights in space which directly impacts how we live on the ground. All of the new technology we develop for living in space, we also use on the ground.”

Marcos Flores

Marcos is from Caguas, Puerto Rico and earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and an MS in Aerospace Engineering from Purdue University. Spanish is his first language; English is his second. 

The first time he came to the Continental US was on a trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a kid! “I always knew I wanted to work for NASA,” he said. “And I knew I wanted to be an engineer because I liked to break things to try to figure out how they worked.” He joined us in 2010 as an intern in a robotics laboratory working on conceptual designs for an experimental, autonomous land rover. He later transitioned to the space station flight control team, where he has led various projects, including major software transitions, spacewalks and commercial cargo missions! 

He shares his new coworkers’ thoughts on the practical aspects of human spaceflight and believes it’s an expression of our “drive to explore” and our “innate need to know the world and the universe better.” But for him, “It’s more about answering the fundamental questions of where we come from and where we’re headed.”

Pooja Jesrani

Pooja graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a BS in Aerospace Engineering. She began at NASA in 2007 as a flight controller responsible for the motion control system of the International Space Station. She currently works as a Capsule Communicator, talking with the astronauts on the space station, and on integration with the Boeing Starliner commercial crew spacecraft. 

She has a two-year-old daughter, and she’s passionate about motherhood, art, fashion, baking, international travel and, of course, her timing as a new flight director! “Not only have we been doing International Space Station operations continuously, and we will continue to do that, but we are about to launch U.S. crewed vehicles off of U.S. soil for the first time since the space shuttle in 2011. Exploration is ramping up and taking us back to the moon!” she said.” “By the time we get certified, a lot of the things we will get to do will be next-gen.”  

We asked her if she had any advice for aspiring flight directors who might want to support such missions down the road. “Work hard every day,” she said. “Every day is an interview. And get a mentor. Or multiple mentors. Having mentorship while you progress through your career is very important, and they really help guide you in the right direction.”

Paul Konyha

Paul was born in Manhasset, NY, and has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana Tech University, a Master’s of Military Operational Arts and Science from Air University, and an MS in Astronautical Engineering from the University of Southern California. He began his career as an officer in the United States Air Force in 1996 and authored the Air Force’s certification guide detailing the process through which new industry launch vehicles (including SpaceX’s Falcon 9) gain approval to launch Department of Defense (DoD) payloads. 

As a self-described “Star Wars kid,” he has always loved space and, of course, NASA! After retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2016, Paul joined Johnson Space Center as the Deputy Director of the DoD Space Test Program Human Spaceflight Payloads Office. He’s had a rich career in some pretty high-stakes roles. We asked him for advice on handling stress and recovering from life’s occasional setbacks. “For me, it’s about taking a deep breath, focusing on the data and trying not to what if too much,” he said. “Realize that mistakes are going to happen. Be mentally prepared to know that at some point it’s going to happen—you’re going to have to do that self-reflection to understand what you could’ve done better and how you’ll fix it in the future. That constant process of evaluation and self-reflection will help you get through it.”

Rebecca Wingfield

Rebecca is from Princeton, Kentucky and has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky and an MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Houston, Clear Lake. She joined us in 2007 as a flight controller responsible for maintenance, repairs and hardware installations aboard the space station. 

Since then, she’s worked as a capsule communicator for the space station and commercial crew programs and on training astronauts. She’s dedicated her career to human spaceflight and has a special appreciation for the program’s long-term benefits. “As our human race advances and we change our planet in lots of different ways, we may eventually need to get off of it,” she said. “There’s no way to do that until we explore a way to do it safely and effectively for mass numbers of people. And to do that, you have to start with one person.” We asked her if there are any misconceptions about flight directors. She responded, “While they are often steely-eyed missile men and women, and they can be rough around the edges, they are also very good mentors and teachers. They’re very much engaged in bringing up the next generation of flight controllers for NASA.”

Congrats to these folks on leading the future of human spaceflight! 

You can learn more about each of them HERE. 

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What do you do when things don't go according to plan?

Flawless. Gorgeous. Stellar. 

You probably think this post is about you. Well, it could be. 

In this image taken by our Hubble Space Telescope, we see a spiral galaxy with arms that widen as they whirl outward from its bright core, slowly fading into the emptiness of space. Click here to learn more about this beautiful galaxy that resides 70 million light-years away. 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Ho Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

What’s Up for September 2017?

Set your sights beyond the solar system and take a late summertime road trip along the Milky Way!

On September 15 the Cassini spacecraft ends its glorious Saturnian science tour by plunging into the atmosphere of Saturn, becoming forever a part of the ringed planet. Learn more about the end of mission activities HERE. 

This month Saturn is the only prominent evening planet low in the southwest sky. 

Look for it near the constellation Sagittarius. Above and below Saturn--from a dark sky--you can't miss the summer Milky Way spanning the sky from northeast to southwest.

Grab a pair of binoculars and scan the teapot-shaped Sagittarius, where stars and some brighter clumps appear as steam from the teapot. Those bright clumps are near the center of our galaxy, which is full of gas, dust and stars.

Directly overhead is the great Summer Triangle of stars. Vega, Altair and Deneb are in the pretty constellations Lyra, Aquila and Cygnus.

As you gaze toward the northeast you'll see Cassiopeia, the familiar W-shaped constellation...and Perseus. Through your binoculars, look for the Perseus Double Cluster. Both of the clusters are visible with the naked eye, are 7500 light years away, and contain more than 300 blue-white super-giant stars!

Every star and every object you can see with your unaided eye is part of the Milky Way. With one exception: the great Andromeda galaxy, which is faintly visible through binoculars on the opposite side of the night sky from Saturn and the teapot.

You can find out about our missions studying the solar system and universe at: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/index.html

Watch the full What’s Up for September video: 

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What is some advice that really helped you get to where you are now?

This Monday, Aug. 17, marks the final targeted flyby of Dione, one of Saturn’s many moons, in Cassini’s long mission. During this flyby, the science team will conduct a gravity experiment that will contribute to our knowledge of the internal structure of Dione. We will also learn more about its outer ice shell, and will be able to compare this with Saturn’s other icy moons.

Beyond the icy moons, Saturn is adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets, While all four gas giant planets in our solar system have rings -- made of chunks of ice and rock -- none are as spectacular or as complicated as Saturn's. Like the other gas giants, Saturn is mostly a massive ball of hydrogen and helium.

This image of Saturn was taken using an infrared filter. Using this type of filter can help scientists determine the location of clouds in the planet’s atmosphere. The darker areas reveal clouds that are lower in the atmosphere, while the bright areas are higher altitude clouds. 

Since Cassini reached Saturn in 2004, it has captured important data and images. This spacecraft has the ability to “see” in wavelengths that the human eye cannot, and it can “feel” things about magnetic fields and tiny dust particles that no human hand could detect. These heightened “senses” have allowed us to have a better understanding of Saturn, its moons and the solar system.

Learn more about Cassini & Saturn: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

What’s your favorite black hole fact that you like to share with people?

What are you most excited to see on your next flight? Or, what natural phenomena do you enjoy seeing the most? Thank you!

Human Research, Robotic Refueling, Crystallography and More Headed to Orbiting Lab

New science is headed to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Dragon.

Investigations on this flight include a test of robotic technology for refueling spacecraft, a project to map the world’s forests and two student studies inspired by Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” series.

Learn more about the science heading into low-Earth orbit:

The forest is strong with this one: GEDI studies Earth’s forests in 3D

The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is an instrument to measure and map Earth’s tropical and temperate forests in 3D.

The Jedi knights may help protect a galaxy far, far away, but our GEDI will help us study and understand forest changes right here on Earth.

Robotic refueling in space

What’s cooler than cool? Cryogenic propellants, or ice-cold spacecraft fuel! Our Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3) will demonstrate technologies for storing and transferring these special liquids. By establishing ways to replenish this fuel supply in space, RRM3 could help spacecraft live longer and journey farther.

The mission’s techniques could even be applied to potential lunar gas stations at the Moon, or refueling rockets departing from Mars.

Staying strong in space

The Molecular Muscle investigation examines the molecular causes of muscle abnormalities from spaceflight in C. elgans, a roundworm and model organism.

This study could give researchers a better understanding of why muscles deteriorate in microgravity so they can improve methods to help crew members maintain their strength in space.

Investigation studies space-grown crystals for protection against radiation

Perfect Crystals is a study to learn more about an antioxidant protein called manganese superoxide dismutase that protects the body from the effects of radiation and some harmful chemicals.

The station’s microgravity environment allows researchers to grow more perfectly ordered crystals of the proteins. These crystals are brought back to Earth and studied in detail to learn more about how the manganese superoxide dismutase works. Understanding how this protein functions may aid researchers in developing techniques to reduce the threat of radiation exposure to astronauts as well as prevent and treat some kinds of cancers on Earth.

Satellite deployment reaching new heights with SlingShot

SlingShot is a new, cost-effective commercial satellite deployment system that will be tested for the first time.

SlingShot hardware, two small CubeSats, and a hosted payload will be carried to the station inside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and installed on a Cygnus spacecraft already docked to the orbiting laboratory. Later, Cygnus will depart station and fly to a pre-determined altitude to release the satellites and interact with the hosted payload.

Investigation studies accelerated aging in microgravity

Spaceflight appears to accelerate aging in both humans and mice. Rodent Research-8 (RR-8) is a study to understand the physiology of aging and the role it plays on the progression of disease in humans. This investigation could provide a better understanding of how aging changes the body, which may lead to new therapies for related conditions experienced by astronauts in space and people on Earth.

Guardians of the space station: Student contest flies to orbiting lab

The MARVEL ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Space Station Challenge is a joint project between the U.S. National Laboratory and Marvel Entertainment featuring two winning experiments from a contest for American teenage students. For the contest, students were asked to submit microgravity experiment concepts that related to the Rocket and Groot characters from Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” comic book series.

Team Rocket: Staying Healthy in Space

If an astronaut suffers a broken tooth or lost filling in space, they need a reliable and easy way to fix it. This experiment investigates how well a dental glue activated by ultraviolet light would work in microgravity. Researchers will evaluate the use of the glue by treating simulated broken teeth and testing them aboard the station.

Team Groot: Aeroponic Farming in Microgravity

This experiment explores an alternative method for watering plants in the absence of gravity using a misting device to deliver water to the plant roots and an air pump to blow excess water away. Results from this experiment may enable humans to grow fruits and vegetables in microgravity, and eliminate a major obstacle for long-term spaceflight.

These investigation join hundreds of others currently happening aboard the station. For more info, follow @ISS_Research!

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The Shakespearean Moons of Uranus

This weekend marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and we’re highlighting the moons of Uranus; some of which are named after characters from his works.

While most of the moons orbiting other planets take their names from Greek mythology, Uranus’ moons are unique in bing named for Shakespearean characters, along with a couple of them being named for characters from the works of Alexander Pope.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope and improved ground-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered a total of 27 known moons around Uranus.

Here’s a sampling of some of the unique aspects of the moons:

Miranda

Shakespearean work: The Tempest

Miranda, the innermost and smallest of the five major satellites, has a surface unlike any other moon that’s been seen. It has a giant fault canyon as much as 12 times as deep as the Grand Canyon, terraced layers and surfaces that appear very old, and others that look much younger.

Ariel

Shakespearean work: The Tempest

Ariel has the brightest and possibly the youngest surface among all the moons of Uranus. It has a few large craters and many small ones, indicating that fairly recent low-impact collisions wiped out the large craters that would have been left by much earlier, bigger strikes. Intersecting valleys pitted with craters scars its surface.

Oberon

Shakespearean work: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Oberon, the outermost of the five major moons, is old, heavily cratered and shows little signs of internal activity. Unidentified dark material appears on the floors of many of its craters.

Cordelia and Ophelia

Shakespearean works: Cordelia - King Lear; Ophelia - Hamlet

Cordelia and Ophelia are shepherd moons that keep Uranus’ thin, outermost “epsilon” ring well defined.

Between them and miranda is a swarm of eight small satellites unlike any other system of planetary moons. This region is so crowded that astronomers don’t yet understand how the little moons have managed to avoid crashing into each other. They may be shepherds for the planet’s 10 narrow rings, and scientists think there must be still more moons, interior to any known, to confine the edges of the inner rings.

Want to learn more about all of Uranus’s moons? Visit: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/uranus/moons

Check out THIS blog from our Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan, where she reflects on the life and legacy of William Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 1616.

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