Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

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  • This photo shows the Optical Telescope Assembly for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was recently delivered to the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA/Chris Gunn

    Telescope for Roman Mission Complete, Delivered to Goddard

    NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is one giant step closer to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. The mission has now received its final major delivery: the Optical Telescope Assembly, which includes a 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors…

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  • Carissa Arillo sits at a table with a monitor and a keyboard, wearing a headset. She smiles at the camera. On the screen is code, but it isn't clearly visible. She is wearing a long sleeve dark colored shirt with the NASA worm logo across the front in red. She has long, brown hair and wears glasses.

    Carissa Arillo: Testing Spacecraft, Penning the Owner’s Manuals

    Flight operations engineer Carissa Arillo helped ensure one of the instruments on NASA’s PACE mission made it successfully through its prelaunch testing. She and her group also documented the work rigorously, to ensure…

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  • Matthew Kowalewski stands second from left with three other people. He and the woman in the middle are wearing flight suits.

    Matthew Kowalewski: Aerospace Engineer and Curious About Everything

    Matthew Kowalewski describes himself as “curious about too many things,” but that curiosity comes in handy when engineering instrumentation scheduled to soar through the atmosphere of a moon of Saturn. What do…

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  • Photo of Haghani holding an electronic card from MUSTANG. Noosha Haghani is a systems engineer for the Plankton Aerosol Clouds and Ecosystem (PACE) mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Credit: NASA

    Systems Engineer Noosha Haghani Prepped PACE for Space

    Throughout the life cycles of missions, Goddard engineer Noosha Haghani has championed problem-solving and decision-making to get to flight-ready projects. What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? As the PACE deputy mission…

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  • Leaders in Lidar series teaser video image

    Leaders in Lidar Series

    In this series, we dive into the legacy of Goddard’s lead role in developing laser altimetry, which has revolutionized the way we map our planet, the Moon and other planets. Each chapter looks at the successes and failures of these lidar instruments, beginning with the Mars Observer Laser Altimeter in the late 1980s…

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  • The BurstCube and SNOOPI satellites deploy into space in this photograph.

    NASA’s Mini BurstCube Mission Detects Mega Blast

    The shoebox-sized BurstCube satellite has observed its first gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion in the universe, according to a recent analysis of observations collected over the last several months. “We’re excited to collect science data,” said Sean…

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  • Aaron Vigil stands in front of building with American Flag and NASA meatball. He wears a blue button down shirt.

    Aaron Vigil Helps Give SASS to Roman Space Telescope

    The stars in the big Wyoming skies inspired Aaron Vigil as a child to dream big. Today, he’s a mechanical engineer working on the Solar Array Sun Shield (SASS) for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at Goddard. What do you do and what is most interesting about your…

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  • A woman stands on the left side of the image, seen from the waist up. She wears a white clean suit that covers her arms, torso, and over her head. She also has on a white mask that covers her nose and mouth and blue latex gloves. Behind her and to the right in the image is a large, rectangular piece of equipment - the PACE satellite. The side of the satellite visible is black and reflects light off it. Behind the woman and PACE is a large wall that has a green gridded pattern on it.

    Veronica T. Pinnick Put NASA’s PACE Mission through Its Paces

    To achieve the impossible, Veronica T. Pinnick, who put NASA’s PACE mission through its prelaunch paces, says you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? As the PACE I&T…

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  • Dr. Ariadna Farrés-Basiana is an astrodynamics and solar radiation pressure specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, standing next to a model of the Nancy Roman Space Telescope. Photo courtesy of Ariadna Farrés-Basiana

    There Are No Imaginary Boundaries for Dr. Ariadna Farrés-Basiana

    Dr. Ariadna Farrés-Basiana would look up at the sky and marvel at the immensity of space when she was younger. Now, the bounds are limitless as she helps NASA explore the expansive universe by computing the trajectories and…

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  • NASA mechanical engineer Glenn Bazemore’s creativity extends beyond work to pop culture pursuits as well. “I’m really a nerdy person. I collect Legos and action figures. I go to comic cons,” he said. In this photo, he wears a costume inspired by the television show “The Mandalorian” and the movie “Jurassic Park.” Photo Credit: NASA / Chris Gunn

    Glenn Bazemore: Professional Problem-Solver

    Glenn Bazemore is a mechanical engineer working on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Team. He also aims to become an astronaut. Since childhood, Bazemore has been creating and tinkering. As evidenced through his hobbies just as much as through his work…

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  • The CASBa, Comprehensive Avionic System for Balloons, under development at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, will occupy about 6 by 8 by 6 inches — about the size of a gallon jug of milk — of payload space while offering higher performance than the existing system. CASBa in this digital rendering includes a computing module, power switching unit, dual antenna GPS system and modem. Credit: NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

    Big Science Drives Wallops’ Upgrades for NASA Suborbital Missions

    Large amounts of data collected by today’s sensitive science instruments present a data-handling challenge to small rocket and balloon mission computing systems. “Just generally, science payloads are getting larger and more…

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  • “I have spent the bulk of my career working on thermal analyses for the James Webb Space Telescope.” Courtesy of Kan Yang

    Kan Yang: Translating Science Ideas into Engineering Concepts

    As team lead of the Instrument Design Laboratory, Kan Yang turns science concepts into engineering reality. What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? I work with a team of scientists and engineers to design space flight instrument…

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  • Goddard engineer Murzy Jhabvala holds the heart of his Compact Thermal Imager camera technology – a high-resolution, high-spectral range infrared sensor suitable for small satellites and missions to other solar-system objects.

    Compact Infrared Cameras, Developed at Goddard, Enable New Science

    A new, higher-resolution infrared camera outfitted with a variety of lightweight filters could probe sunlight reflected off Earth’s upper atmosphere and surface, improve forest fire…

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  • Bente Eegholm stands by the NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s primary mirror at L3Harris in Rochester, New York, in 2022, before telescope integration. (The black lines are resistor wires. They will be obscured by the secondary mirror struts).

    Ensuring Space Telescopes Have Stellar Vision

    Bente Eegholm is an optical engineer working to ensure missions like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope have stellar vision. When it launches by May 2027, the Roman mission will shed light on many astrophysics topics…

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  • AR Speeds Spacecraft Construction at Goddard

    Technicians armed with advanced measuring equipment, augmented reality headsets, and QR codes virtually checked the fit of some Roman Space Telescope structures before building or moving them through facilities at NASA’s…

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  • The Odysseus lunar lander in orbit. (Intuitive Machines/AP)

    A New Lunar Era with Help from Goddard’s Core Flight System

    In an unprecedented achievement, Intuitive Machines has become the first private company to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. Their spacecraft, Odysseus, marks the first American lunar landing in over 50 years…

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