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 their valued present and future partners.
Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH)
The PUNCH mission will use four suitcase-sized satellites to observe the Sun and its environment. Working together, the four PUNCH satellites will create a combined field of view and map the region where the Sun’s corona (or outer atmosphere) transitions to the solar wind (the constant outflow of…
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…
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 arrays deployed, Europa Clipper spans more than 100 feet (about 30 meters) – about the…
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…
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…
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 humans will return to the Moon’s surface since the historic Apollo program in…
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 simultaneously provide powerful capabilities for transformational astrophysics discoveries…
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 of satellites provide communications, meteorological, national security…
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 commercial lunar relay services…
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…
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…
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)
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 on the ExoMars Rover, a joint mission between…
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…
Near Earth Orbit Network (NEON)
NOAA’s Near Earth Orbit Network (NEON) Program will develop future low-Earth orbit (LEO) environmental satellites. Low and medium Earth observations are critical for weather forecasting, environmental observation, and public safety. NEON sets the stage for NOAA to manage future polar and other low Earth and medium Earth orbit…
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 in NOAA’s Near Earth Orbit)…
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 data. To achieve these objectives, the SWFO program is developing…
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 orbit of about 22,000 miles. With this orbit, TDRS remains…
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 dynamics like never before. The animation shows the strength of the turbulent motions of the…
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 have been used in space communications since…
Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T)
NASA is demonstrating laser communications on multiple missions – showcasing the benefits infrared light can have for science and exploration missions…
Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE)
As the Artemis campaign leads humanity to the Moon and eventually Mars, NASA is refining its state-of-the-art navigation and positioning technologies to guide a new era of lunar exploration. A technology demonstration helping pave the way for these developments is the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) payload, a joint effort…
EXCITE (EXoplanet Climate Infrared TElescope)
EXCITE plans to study hot Jupiters, gas giant exoplanets that complete an orbit once every one to two days and have temperatures in the thousands of degrees. The worlds are tidally locked, which means the same side always faces the star. The telescope can determine how molecules in a world’s atmosphere absorb and emit light over the entire orbit…