Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
Saltzman outlines plan to reoptimize Space Force for Great Power Competition
-
Similar Topics
-
By Space Force
The inaugural class of Guardian officers graduates from the Officer Training Course at Peterson Space Force Base.
View the full article
-
By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
These maps of Prince George’s County, MD, show surface temperatures collected a few hours apart on July 30, 2023 from the Landsat 9 satellite and the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) instrument. The dark blue spots in the right hand image are likely clouds that formed in the afternoon.Credit: Stephanie Schollaert Uz, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Thousands of Americans are impacted each summer by excessive heat and humidity, some suffering from heat-related illnesses when the body can’t cool itself down. Data from NASA satellites could help local governments reduce the sweltering risks, thanks to a collaboration between NASA scientists and officials in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The effort demonstrates how local officials in other communities could turn to NASA data to inform decisions that provide residents with relief from summer heat.
NASA researchers and their Prince George’s County collaborators reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science that they used the Landsat 8 satellite, jointly operated by NASA and the US Geological Survey, and NASA’s Aqua satellite, to gain insight into surface temperature trends across the county over the past few decades. The data also show how temperatures have responded to changing land use and construction. It is information that county planners and environmental experts hope can aid them in their attempts to remediate and prevent heat dangers in the future. The collaboration may also help the county’s first responders anticipate and prepare for heat-related emergencies and injuries.
Cooperation with Prince George’s County expands on NASA’s historic role, said Stephanie Schollaert Uz, an applications scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one of the study authors. “Applying government satellite data to county-level problems is new here. We’re trying to make it easier for people outside of NASA to use our data, in part by including how-to guides referenced at the end of our paper,” Schollaert Uz said.
In the long run, county officials hope to use NASA satellites to track the negative health impacts that arise from land use and modification. Removal of tree cover and the construction of non-permeable roads, parking lots, and structures that lead to water runoff are among the factors that create heat islands, where temperatures in localized areas soar relative to the surrounding landscape. In addition to the direct dangers of heat for county residents and workers, areas with higher-than-normal temperatures can drive intense local weather events.
“There’s potentially a greater incidence of microbursts,” said Mary Abe of Prince George’s County’s sustainability division. “The atmosphere can become supercharged over hot spots,” causing high winds and flood-inducing rains.
Prince George’s County planners anticipate relying on NASA satellites to determine where residents and county employees are at greater risk, predict how future construction could impact heat dangers, and develop strategies to moderate heat in areas currently experiencing elevated summer temperatures. Efforts might include protecting existing trees and planting new ones. It could include replacing impermeable surfaces (cement, pavement, etc.) with alternatives that let water soak into the ground rather than running off into storm drains. To verify and calibrate the satellite observations crucial for such planning, county experts are considering enlisting residents to act as citizen scientists to collect temperature and weather data on the ground, Abe said.
Eventually, the NASA satellite temperature data could also lead to strategies to curb insect-borne diseases, said Evelyn Hoban, associate director for the Prince George’s County division of environmental health and communicable disease. “Once we know where the higher temperatures are, we can check to see if they create mosquito or tick breeding grounds,” said Hoban, who coauthored the study. “We could then focus our outreach and education, and perhaps prevention efforts, on areas of greater heat and risk.”
A NASA guide is available to aid other communities who hope to duplicate the Prince George’s County study. The guide provides introductions on a variety of NASA satellite and ground-based weather station data. Instructions for downloading and analyzing the data are illustrated in an accompanying tutorial that uses the Prince George’s County study as an example for other communities to follow on their own.
One of the greatest benefits of the collaboration, Abe said, is the boost in credibility that comes from incorporating NASA resources and expertise in the county’s efforts to improve safety and health. “It’s partly the NASA brand. People recognize it and they’re really intrigued by it,” she said. “Working with NASA builds confidence that the decision-making process is based firmly in science.”
By James Riordon
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Media contact: Elizabeth Vlock
NASA Headquarters
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 28, 2025 EditorJames RiordonLocationNASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Earth General Landsat 8 / LDCM (Landsat Data Continuity Mission) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Explore More
3 min read NASA’s ECOSTRESS Detects ‘Heat Islands’ in Extreme Indian Heat Wave
Article 3 years ago 6 min read Landsat Legacy: NASA-USGS Program Observing Earth from Space Turns 50
Article 3 years ago 2 min read NASA’s ECOSTRESS Sees Las Vegas Streets Turn Up the Heat
Article 3 years ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
Video: 00:09:30 In Tenerife, Spain, stands a unique duo: ESA’s Izaña-1 and Izaña-2 laser-ranging stations. Together, they form an optical technology testbed of the European Space Agency that takes the monitoring of space debris and satellites to a new level while maturing new technologies for commercialisation.
Space debris is a threat to satellites and is rapidly becoming a daily concern for satellite operators. The Space Safety Programme, part of ESA Operations, managed from ESOC in Germany, helps develop new technologies to detect and track debris, and to prevent collisions in orbit in new and innovative ways.
One of these efforts takes place at the Izaña station in Tenerife. There, ESA and partner companies are testing how to deliver precise orbit data on demand with laser-based technologies. The Izaña-2 station was recently finalised by the German company DiGOS and is now in use.
To perform space debris laser ranging, Izaña-2 operates as a laser transmitter, emitting high-power laser pulses towards objects in space. Izaña-1 then acts as the receiver of the few photons that are reflected back. The precision of the laser technology enables highly accurate data for precise orbit determination, which in turn is crucial for actionable collision avoidance systems and sustainable space traffic management.
With the OMLET (Orbital Maintenance via Laser momEntum Transfer) project, ESA combines different development streams and possibilities for automation to support European industry with getting two innovative services market-ready: on-demand ephemeris provision and laser-based collision avoidance services for end users such as satellite operators.
A future goal is to achieve collision avoidance by laser momentum transfer, where instead of the operational satellite, the piece of debris will be moved out of the way. This involves altering the orbit of a piece of space debris slightly by applying a small force to the object through laser illumination.
The European Space Agency actively supports European industry in capitalising on the business opportunities that not only safeguard our satellites but also pave the way for the sustainable use of space.
View the full article
-
By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Robert Mosher, HIAD materials and processing lead at NASA Langley, holds up a piece of webbing material, known as Zylon, which comprise the straps of the HIAD.NASA/Joe Atkinson Components of a NASA technology that could one day help crew and cargo enter harsh planetary environments, like that of Mars, are taking an extended trip to space courtesy of the United States Space Force.
On Aug. 21, several pieces of webbing material, known as Zylon, which comprise the straps of the HIAD (Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator) aeroshell developed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, launched to low Earth orbit along with other experiments aboard the Space Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. This trip will help researchers characterize how the Zylon webbing responds to long-duration exposure to the harsh vacuum of space.
The strap material on the HIAD aeroshell serves two purposes – short strap lengths hold together HIAD’s inflatable rings and longer pieces help to distribute the load more evenly across the cone-shaped structure. The HIAD aeroshell technology could allow larger spacecraft to safely descend through the atmospheres of celestial bodies like Mars, Venus, and even Saturn’s moon, Titan.
“We’re researching how HIAD technology could help get humans to Mars. We want to look at the effects of long-term exposure to space – as if the Zylon material is going for a potential six to nine-month mission to Mars,” said Robert Mosher, HIAD materials and processing lead at NASA Langley. “We want to make sure we know how to protect those structural materials in the long term.”
The Zylon straps are visible here during the inflation of LOFTID as part of a November 2022 orbital flight test. LOFTID was a version of the HIAD aeroshell — a technology that could allow larger spacecraft to safely descend through the atmospheres of celestial bodies like Mars, Venus, and even Saturn’s moon, Titan.NASA Flying Zylon material aboard the Space Force’s X-37B mission will help NASA researchers understand what kind of aging might occur to the webbing on a long space journey before it experiences the extreme environments of atmospheric entry, during which it has to retain strength at high temperatures.
Multiple samples are in small canisters on the X-37B. Mosher used two different techniques to put the strap material in the canisters. Some he tightly coiled up, others he stuffed in.
“Typically, we pack a HIAD aeroshell kind of like you pack a parachute, so they’re compressed,” he said. “We wanted to see if there was a difference between tightly coiled material and stuff-packed material like you would normally see on a HIAD.”
Some of the canisters also include tiny temperature and humidity sensors set to collect readings at regular intervals. When the Space Force returns the samples from the X-37B flight, Mosher will compare them to a set of samples that have remained in canisters here on Earth to look for signs of degradation.
The material launched to space aboard the Space Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, seen here earlier this year.Courtesy of the United States Space Force “Getting this chance to have the Zylon material exposed to space for an extended period of time will begin to give us some data on the long-term packing of a HIAD,” Mosher said.
Uninflated HIAD aeroshells can be packed into small spaces within a spacecraft. This results in a decelerator that can be much larger than the diameter of its launch vehicle and can therefore land much heavier loads and deliver them to higher elevations on a planet or other celestial body.
Rigid aeroshells, the sizes of which are dictated by the diameters of their launch vehicles, typically 4.5 to 5 meters, are capable of landing well-equipped, car-sized rovers on Mars. By contrast, an inflatable HIAD, with an 18-20m diameter, could land the equivalent of a small, fully furnished ranch house with a car in the garage on Mars.
NASA’s HIAD aeroshell developments build on the success of the agency’s LOFTID (Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator) mission that launched on Nov. 10, 2022, resulting in valuable insights into how this technology performs under the stress of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere after being exposed to space for a short time period.
Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate/tdm/
About the Author
Joe Atkinson
Public Affairs Officer, NASA Langley Research Center
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 27, 2025 Related Terms
Langley Research Center Space Technology Mission Directorate Technology Demonstration Missions Program Explore More
4 min read Washington State Student Wins 2025 NASA Art Contest
Article 2 days ago 2 min read NASA Tests Tools to Assess Drone Safety Over Cities
Article 5 days ago 4 min read NASA Challenge Winners Cook Up New Industry Developments
Article 1 week ago View the full article
-
By Space Force
The U.S. Space Force, in partnership with SpaceX, successfully launched the eighth mission of the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-8) on a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A.
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.