NASA and SpaceX technicians connected NASA's PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft to the payload adapter on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Now that PACE is securely attached to the payload adapter, teams will encapsulate the spacecraft inside the protective payload fairings …
UPDATE AS OF FEB. 5, 2024: On Feb. 3, NASA's Lucy spacecraft completed the largest planned main engine burn of its 12-year mission. During this deep space maneuver, the main engines operated for over 36 minutes. UPDATE AS OF FEB. 1, 2024: On Jan. 31, NASA's Lucy spacecraft completed the first main engine burn of …
Jeroen Rietjens is an instrument scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) and worked on the SPEXone polarimeter. PACE's SPEXone instrument is a multi-angle polarimeter. It measures the intensity, degree and angle of linear polarization of sunlight reflected back from Earth's atmosphere, land surface, and ocean. What is your favorite atmosphere or ocean …
By Rick Smith Italian astrophysicist Elisabetta Cavazzuti spends her spare time rappelling down steep cliffs and waterfalls. This sport, called "canyoning," combines a sharp respect for physics and precision engineering with a deep love for the beauty of nature. The rest of the time, her focus is on the stars, which demand the same precise, …
Natasha Sadoff is the deputy coordinator for the applications program and PACE. What is your favorite ocean or atmosphere related book or movie? Probably "The Little Mermaid." It's a whole other world with the wildlife (and mermaids) in their own kingdom, so it just makes the ocean very magical. What is your background? I'm a …
Curation team members at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have successfully removed the two fasteners from the sampler head that had prevented the remainder of OSIRIS-REx's asteroid Bennu sample material from being accessed. Steps now are underway to complete the disassembly of the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, or TAGSAM, head to reveal the rest …
Jeremy Werdell is the project scientist for the PACE mission as well as a biological oceanographer in the Ocean Ecology Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. What is your favorite ocean- or atmosphere-related book or movie? "Jaws!" And it's not close. "Jaws." Best movie, without question, ever made. What are you …
Members of the media viewed NASA's PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024, at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Subject matter experts from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Headquarters in Washington, and the agency's Launch Services Program based at Kennedy provided …
NASA's Parker Solar Probe completed its 18th close approach to the Sun on Dec. 28, 2023.
After years of planning, building, and testing, 2024 is the PACE mission's time to shine: Launch is slated for February and the team is eagerly awaiting a wealth of ocean- and atmosphere-related data to dig into soon after. Several PACE scientists closed out 2023 by sharing this enthusiasm for the mission at the American Geophysical …
