Engineering and
Technology Directorate
ETD Multimedia
Highlighting ETD supported missions in planetary science, astrophysics, Earth observing, and solar science.
Visit the Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio and the Goddard YouTube Channel for more videos.
Anodizing NICER’s Patches
In April 2024, engineering technician Katrina Harvey prepared patches for NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station. The work took place in the Plating Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight…
Machining NICER’s Patches
This video shows Richard Koenecke, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, creating the body of one of the NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) patches.
Leaders in LIDAR: The Laser is Better
In this first episode, the scientists and engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center embark on a new technological and scientific journey, building and sending a laser altimeter to Mars with the MOLA-1 Instrument.
BurstCube Completes Magnetic Calibration
The BurstCube mission team visits the magnetic calibration chamber at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, in this video. The first shot shows the exterior of the building. The ensuing shots show the interior. The grey beams are made from carbon fiber and are held…
BurstCube Completes Thermal Vacuum Testing at Goddard
This video shows NASA engineers securing the BurstCube satellite in a thermal vacuum chamber for testing. The first shot shows a thermal vacuum chamber lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt…
BurstCube Completes an Open-Sky Test
This video shows engineers conducting an open-sky test of the BurstCube satellite’s GPS at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This CubeSat will detect short gamma-ray bursts, brief flashes of the highest-energy form of light. Dense stellar remnants…
BurstCube Gets Its Solar Panels
BurstCube is a mission developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The spacecraft is slated for takeoff in March 2024 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a resupply mission to the International Space Station.
How NASA Uses Simple Technology to Track Lunar Missions
NASA is using a simple but surprisingly effective technology called Laser Retroreflective Arrays (LRAs) to determine the locations of lunar landers more accurately. They will be attached to landers sent to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) initiative. LRAs are inexpensive, small, and lightweight.
Test, Test, and Retest – Hubble’s Servicing Mission 1 (Frank Cepollina)
Embark on a cosmic odyssey with Frank Cepollina, a driving force behind the success of Hubble’s Servicing Mission 1. Discover firsthand accounts of his instrumental role in the mission, revealing the innovative solutions and relentless determination that revitalized the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Hardware Highlights: Spring 2024
Every day, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope moves closer to completion. This video highlights some of the important hardware milestones from part of this journey. Components and systems are built separately, tested, and then integrated with larger parts of the spacecraft to carefully build the full telescope …
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Hardware Highlights: Winter 2024
In this video, covering the winter of 2024, Goddard’s high-capacity centrifuge goes through tests and then performs tests of the instrument carrier which will hold Roman’s two instruments. The centrifuge is 120 feet across and can spin at over 30 rpm. For the test, the instrument carrier holds test masses for the Wide Field Instrument…
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Hardware Highlights: Fall 2023
In this video, covering the fall of 2023, the instrument carrier which will hold Roman’s two instruments is in Goddard’s largest clean room and has some attachment hardware added to it. The 5.6-foot (1.7-meter) wide high gain antenna, Roman’s main connection to Earth, is more fully integrated with the communication system …