Our Work | Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Expanding The World’s Engineering Boundaries

The Engineering and Technology Directorate (ETD) provides multidisciplinary engineering expertise for the development of cutting-edge Science and Exploration Systems and technologies. This talented workforce is committed to expanding today’s engineering boundaries through the application of emerging technologies to develop high-performance, cost-effective solutions to the most challenging problems in space exploration. The ETD achieves this within Goddard’s laboratories and those of the valued present and future partners.

Projects in Development

ETD has numerous active efforts supporting a wide range of missions and projects. This is a sampling of some of the ongoing technical efforts to design, build, or test spaceflight hardware to enable NASA’s mission of exploration and American technological leadership.

More Projects in Development

QuickSounder

The QuickSounder mission will support NOAA’s next generation satellite architecture for its future low Earth orbit program, which will provide mission-critical data for the agency’s National Weather Service, the nation’s weather industry, and other users worldwide. QuickSounder is the first small satellite...

Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems (LCRNS)

NASA's Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems (LCRNS) project is an initiative aimed at enabling a robust communication and navigation infrastructure around the Moon. LCRNS is verifying and validating...

Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS)

NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have signed an interagency agreement to collaborate on a satellite servicing demonstration in geosynchronous Earth orbit, where hundreds...

Dragonfly

Dragonfly may be the most ambitious science mission NASA has ever attempted: sending a car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter to explore the surface of a distant ocean world. In a voyage straight out of science fiction, Dragonfly will deliver the most expansive suite of science instruments…

Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA)

An international team of scientists has created a tiny chemistry lab for a rover that will drill beneath the Martian surface looking for signs of past or present life. The toaster oven-sized lab, called the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer or MOMA, is a key instrument…

Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1)

The Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) program sustains NOAA’s foundational set of space-based, space weather observations and measurements collected by legacy missions (DSCOVR and SOHO) to ensure continuity of critical space weather...

Projects in Operation and Historical Missions

ETD’s projects in operation and historical missions demonstrate decades of successful multidisciplinary engineering excellence. Our engineers ensure space situational awareness, safeguard assets and provide data to our stakeholders and decision makers.

More Projects in Operation and Historical Missions

Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS)

The Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) is one of the first three payloads to be a part of Artemis III, NASA’s mission that will send astronauts to explore the region near the lunar South Pole. Artemis III, currently planned to launch in 2026, will be the first time...

Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD)

The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) aims to showcase the unique capabilities of optical communications. Currently, most NASA missions use radio frequency communications to send data to and from spacecraft. Radio waves...

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

NASA supercomputers are shedding light on what causes some of the Sun’s most complex behaviors. Using data from the suite of active Sun-watching spacecraft currently observing the star at the heart of our solar system, researchers can explore solar...

Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS)

NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) provide communications services to NASA’s most storied missions. Since 1983, NASA has launched a constellation of TDRS that reside in geosynchronous orbit, which is a high-altitude...

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an observatory that uses infrared light to capture images of the way the universe looked approximately 200 million years after the big bang. Currently, the James Webb Space Telescope is the largest…

Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper is a robotic solar-powered spacecraft built to conduct the first detailed investigations of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and make nearly 50 flybys of Europa to determine whether there are places below Europa’s surface that could support life. With its solar…

New Technology and IRADs

New technology projects and the Internal Research and Development (IRAD) program drive ETD’s innovation efforts by funding strategic risk-reduction activities, advanced concept development, and high-impact initiatives. Featuring both competitive selection and strategically directed initiatives, these efforts enable our engineering teams to develop cutting-edge technologies and innovative solutions for the most challenging problems in space exploration, advancing our capabilities for future missions.

More New Technology and IRADs

HPSC: Transforming Spaceflight Computing with Radiation-Hardened Multicore Technology

NASA’s High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) project is developing a next generation spaceflight computing system with revolutionary advancements in processing performance, power...

AI Bones – Evolved Structures for Future Exploration

Hardware designed by AI may resemble alien bones, but they weigh less, tolerate more stress, and require a fraction of the time parts designed by humans take to develop. Spacecraft and mission hardware designed by an artificial intelligence may resemble bones...

core Flight System (cFS) and High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) Integration

The integration of NASA's widely adopted core Flight System (cFS) framework with the HPSC ecosystem from the High-Performance Space Flight Computing (HPSC) project creates an immediate pathway for missions to leverage...

Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO)

NASA is further prioritizing its long-running search for life in the universe and laying the groundwork for its next flagship astrophysics mission after the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (slated to launch by May 2027). This observatory would...

Hazard Detection Lidar

Hazard Detection Lidar (HDL) is one of a complement of sensors under development as part of the Safe & Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) Program managed out of Johnson Space Center (JSC). HDL is a hybrid scanning-imaging lidar that performs rapid 3-D landing…

Unlocking the Universe