
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 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.
Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)
JPSS is the nation’s advanced series of polar-orbiting environmental satellites. JPSS includes five polar-orbiting satellites with four or more instruments and a versatile ground system. The satellites currently in orbit are Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20 (JPSS-1), and NOAA-21 (JPSS-2). JPSS-3 and JPSS-4 are currently in…
Ocellus 3D
Next generation autonomous planetary exploration missions require advanced sensing capabilities for choosing proper landing areas for the vehicles. Current tools do not have the capability to allow vehicles outside the range of terrestrial control to autonomously perform safe landing operations. The Ocellus 3D lidar developed…
Landsat NeXt
Landsat Next, expected to launch in late 2030/early 2031, is an innovative Landsat mission that represents a quantum leap in measurement capabilities with improved temporal, spatial, and spectral resolutions. The mission will satisfy global Landsat data user needs and support evolving and emerging applications, all while maintaining…
The Atmosphere Observing System (AOS)
The Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) mission goal is to optimize how we examine links among tiny particles known as “aerosols”, clouds, atmospheric convection, and precipitation. AOS will deliver key data for improved forecasts of weather, air quality and climate. How? By providing unmatched…
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 ever dispatched to another celestial body. Dragonfly will cover…
Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO)
Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) is a collaborative NOAA and NASA program that will provide continuous imagery and data on Earth’s atmosphere, land and ocean for operational forecasts and warnings. NASA will build and launch the GeoXO satellites and NOAA will operate them…
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN)
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission will determine how much of the Martian atmosphere has been lost over time by measuring the current rate of escape to space and gathering enough information about the relevant processes to allow extrapolation backward in time…
OSIRIS-REx
Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx, spacecraft traveled to a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu (formerly 1999 RQ36). It collected a sample of rocks and dust from Bennu’s surface on October 20, 2020. The spacecraft delivered the…
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…
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)
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…
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…
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 whether Venus — a sweltering…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Hubble Space Telescope
Throughout the history of science, revolutionary instruments propel our understanding with their landmark discoveries. The Hubble Space Telescope is a testament to that concept. Its design, technology and serviceability have made it one of NASA’s most transformative observatories. From determining the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA)
The European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover is part of a series of missions designed to study the potential for past life on Mars. The rover will be the first mission to combine the capability to move across the surface and to study Mars at depth. The rover will collect samples with a drill down to a depth of 2 m…
Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2)
The Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, measures the height of a changing Earth, one laser pulse at a time, 10,000 laser pulses a second. Launched September 15, 2018, ICESat-2 carries a photon-counting laser altimeter that allows scientists to measure the elevation of ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice…