The development and implementation of a satellite mission in today’s world brings with it many problems, and it is often the case that many of these are unplanned and unforeseen. Consequently, the success of the mission depends heavily on the degree of preparation and anticipation of problems that has occurred going into the development. Despite […]
Pietro N. Bernasconi is a senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and is currently the observatory principal investigator (PI) and mission scientist of the Stratospheric TeraHertz Observatory balloon program (STO). He obtained a doctorate in natural sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1997. He has worked at […]
Mark Swain is one of the pioneers for methods for spectroscopic detection of molecules in exoplanet atmospheres and he led the discovery team that made the first detection of methane and carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere. He has played a key role in developing calibration methods for exoplanet spectroscopy for Hubble, Spitzer, and ground-based […]
Thomas J. Immel is an associate research physicist at the Space Sciences Laboratory at University of California– Berkeley (UCB). He is the principal investigator for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer mission. Currently, he is the project manager for UCB’s National Science Foundation CubeSat for Ions, Neutrals, Electrons, and Magnetic fields mission, to be launched in June […]
The Swift mission was proposed to the 1998 medium Explorers announcement of opportunity; it was selected for Phase A study in January 1999 and for flight in October 1999. Launched in 2004, the Swift satellite is an astronomical robot that autonomously determines the position of a gamma-ray burst and slews to that position for afterglow […]
WIRE The Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) was a small satellite carrying a cryogenically cooled infrared telescope designed to study starburst galaxies—vast clouds of molecular gas cradling the sites of newborn stars. Developed under NASA’s Small Explorer Program, WIRE was intended to have a four month primary mission. WIRE was launched on a three-stage Pegasus XL […]
Small does not mean easy. James Fanson, the project manager on the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), shares a story about how small missions are more susceptible to forces beyond the project’s control. To learn more, please visit: http://appel.nasa.gov/knowledge-sharing/pi-team-masters-forums/
On April 5, 2006, an initial development test was conducted onboard a sounding rocket flight (41.068) which collected analog ground imagery during the descent portion of the rocket’s trajectory and IMU and GPS data from launch to landing. This data was then used to further develop and test Terrain-Relative Navigation (TRN) computer algorithms. The TRaiNED […]
Keith Gendreau received his PhD in astrophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995, working on X-ray charge-coupled devices and the cosmic X-ray background with the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics mission. He has been at Goddard Space Flight Center since 1995 and was the calibration lead on the X-ray spectrometer instrument on […]
