Code 590 Featured Stories
Explore the latest content from the ETD Mission Engineering & System Analysis Division (MESA)
The Search for Organic Life
Slated for launch in 2024, the Europa Clipper will be the first space mission dedicated to conducting a detailed study of an ocean world outside of our own — a world that likely harbors a salty ocean with twice as much water as Earth beneath its icy crust. Targeting Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, the mission …
Keeping up with Our Ocean
NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is to advance the assessment of ocean health by measuring the distribution of phytoplankton within it. Phytoplankton is a tiny plant/algae that sustains marine life and absorbs CO2 from the air. An important instrument …
Airborne Support
The WASP (Wallops Arc-Second Pointer) team conducts a full range of motion hang test of the X-Calibur x-ray telescope at CSBF (Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility) before it’s flight from Esrange Sweden in 2022. XL-Calibur uses an x-ray polarimeter to study black holes. The telescope …