Unlocking the Universe
Expanding The World’s Engineering Boundaries
The ETD provides multidisciplinary engineering expertise for the development of cutting-edge Science and Exploration Systems and technologies. This talented and diverse 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 science and exploration. The ETD achieves this within Goddard’s laboratories and those of the valued present and future partners.
Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor – 2
NASA’s Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor – 2, or TSIS-2, will measure the Sun’s energy input to Earth. Since 1978, various satellites have measured the Sun’s brightness above Earth’s atmosphere. TSIS-2 will add solar irradiance measurements to four decades of continuous data records. Unlike its predecessor TSIS-1, which operates from the International Space Station, TSIS-2 will ride on a free-flying spacecraft…
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
LISA consists of three spacecraft that are separated by millions of miles and trailing tens of millions of miles, more than one hundred times the distance to the Moon, behind the Earth as we orbit the Sun. These three spacecraft relay laser beams back and forth between the different spacecraft and the signals are combined to search for gravitational wave signatures that come from distortions of spacetime…
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 site imaging with real-time Digital Elevation Model (DEM) generation for Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance (PL&HA) maneuvers. HDL enables safe-site landing near targeted surface…
The DAVINCI Mission
The DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission will explore whether the inhospitable surface of Venus could once have been a twin of Earth – a habitable world with liquid water oceans. Due to launch in the early 2030s, NASA’s DAVINCI mission will investigate…
BurstCube
BurstCube is a 6U CubeSat project that is designed to automatically detect gamma-ray transients onboard (astrophysical, solar, and terrestrial) while sending rapid alerts to the ground to enable follow-up observations. BurstCube also increases the sky coverage for short, less than 2 second gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) which in recent years have been proven to be to be produced by binary neutron star mergers…
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS)
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) is a NASA mission aimed at understanding how the Sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields connect and disconnect. These processes known as magnetic reconnection facilitate energy transfers that effect the Earth, Sun and universe. MMS sensors measure charged particle velocities and electric and magnetic fields. Four identical spacecraft orbit the…
Lucy
NASA’s Lucy mission will study the Trojan asteroids for the purpose of helping humanity understand the formation of planets and the solar system. Lucy is the first space mission to study the Trojans and was launched on Oct. 16, 2021. Overall, the mission is a 12-year endeavor with the spacecraft using gravity assistance form Earth. With the help of L’LORRI, an imager onboard the spacecraft, four of the Trojan asteroids…
Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit Satellite (GTOSat)
The Geostationary Transfer Orbit Satellite (GTOSat) is a mission done in collaboration with NASA Langley Research Center, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the Aerospace Corporation Inc. GTOSat’s primary goal is to advance the quantitative understanding of acceleration and loss of relativistic electrons in the Earth’s outer radiation belts. GTOSat…
Parker Solar Probe
The NASA Parker Solar Probe mission is a mission designed to help humanity better understand the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. As such, the primary goals are to examine the acceleration of solar wind through the movement of heat and energy in the Sun’s corona in addition to study solar energetic particles…
Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer (PolSIR)
The Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer (PolSIR) is an instrument that will be used to help understand Earth’s dynamic atmosphere as well as its impact on climate. The PolSIR instrument will study high altitude ice clouds in tropical and sub-tropical regions using identical pairs of radiometers that will fly on two CubeSats (small satellites like portable electric ovens)…
GOES-U Satellite
The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) team received telemetry from GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U), indicating the spacecraft is functioning nominally and is power positive. The NOAA GOES-U satellite has now safely deployed, and NOAA has acquired a signal. GOES-U will take about two weeks to reach geostationary orbit. Once there, the satellite will…
On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM-1)
Similar to how Earth is polluted by plastics, gases and other toxic material that impact the wildlife, space is also polluted with orbital debris. OSAM-1, short for On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1, is a robotic spacecraft tasked with the job of servicing satellites to extend their lifespan in space. OSAM-1 not only refuels these satellites…
CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI)
NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) provides low-cost access to space for many institutions and non-profits in the United States. The initiative is intended to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and technologists by offering a unique opportunity to conduct scientific research and develop novel technologies in space. The ETD’s contribution…
The Capture, Containment and Return System (CCRS)
The Capture, Containment and Retrieval System (CCRS) is a payload that is a part of the joint Mars Sample Return mission between NASA and the European Space Agency. CCRS is made up of a Capture and Containment Module and Earth Return Module which picks up orbiting samples to bring them back to Earth. The work of…
The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE)
The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is a NASA mission that will collect information on the processes behind carbon dioxide exchange in the ocean. By monitoring aerosols in the atmosphere along with plankton on the surface of the ocean, scientists can collect information about the health…
Nancy Grace Roman Telescope (Roman)
Roman is an infrared telescope named after Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018) who was NASA’s first chief astronomer and is known as the ‘Mother of Hubble.’ Roman has two main objectives: discovering the cause of the expansion of the universe and searching for exoplanets. Roman and the James Webb Space Telescope…
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 telescope orbiting in space with 18 mirror segments and…