Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
Keith Barr was born only months before the historic Apollo 11 landing in 1969. While he was too young to witness that giant leap for mankind, the moment sparked a lifelong fascination that set him on a path to design technology that will carry astronauts farther into space than ever before.
Today, Barr serves as a chief engineer and Orion Docking Lidar Field Test lead at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. He spearheads the field testing of docking lidars for the Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to the Moon on the Artemis III mission. These lidars are critical to enabling Orion to autonomously dock with the human landing system on Artemis III — the mission that will land astronauts near the Moon’s South Pole for the first time in history.
Keith Barr prepares for a wind lidar test flight in one of the U.S. Navy’s Twin Otter aircraft in support of the AC-130 Gunship lidar program. “The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions are some of humanity’s greatest technical achievements,” he said. “To be part of the Artemis chapter is a profound honor.”
In recognition of his contributions, Barr was selected as a NASA Space Flight Awareness Honoree in 2025 for his exceptional dedication to astronaut safety and mission success. Established in 1963, NASA’s Space Flight Awareness Program celebrates individuals who play a vital role in supporting human spaceflight. The award is one of the highest honors presented to the agency’s workforce.
With a career spanning over 25 years at Lockheed Martin, Barr is now recognized as a renowned leader in lidar systems—technologies that use laser light to measure distances. He has led numerous lidar deployments and test programs across commercial aviation, wind energy, and military markets.
In 2019, Barr and his team began planning a multi-phase field campaign to validate Orion’s docking lidars under real-world conditions. They repurposed existing hardware, developed a drone-based simulation system, and conducted dynamic testing at Lockheed Martin facilities in Littleton, Colorado, and Santa Cruz, California.
In Littleton, the team conducted two phases of testing at the Space Operations Simulation Center, evaluating performance across distances ranging from 50 meters to docking. At the Santa Cruz facility, they began much farther out at 6,500 meters and tested down to 10 meters, just before the final docking phase.
Of all these efforts, Barr is especially proud of the ingenuity behind the Santa Cruz tests. To simulate a spacecraft docking scenario, he repurposed a lidar pointing gimbal and test trailer from previous projects and designed a drone-based test system with unprecedented accuracy.
“An often-overlooked portion of any field campaign is the measurement and understanding of truth,” he said. “The system I designed allowed us to record lidar and target positions with accuracy never before demonstrated in outdoor docking lidar testing.”
Testing at the Santa Cruz Facility in California often began before sunrise and continued past sunset to complete the full schedule. Here, a drone hovers at the 10-meter station-keeping waypoint as the sun sets in the background. The test stand at the Santa Cruz Facility had once been used for Agena upper stage rockets—a key piece of hardware used during the Gemini program in the 1960s. “We found a Gemini-era sticker on the door of the test bunker—likely from the time of Gemini VIII, the first space docking completed by Neil Armstrong and David Scott,” Barr said. “This really brought it home to me that we are simply part of the continuing story.”
Keith Barr operates a wind lidar during a live fire test in an AC-130 Gunship aircraft. He is seated next to an open door while flying at 18,000 feet over New Mexico in January 2017. Barr spent more than two decades working on WindTracer—a ground-based Doppler wind lidar system used to measure wind speed and turbulence at airports, wind farms, and in atmospheric research.
The transition from WindTracer to Orion presented new challenges. “Moving onto a space program has a steep learning curve, but I have found success in this new arena and I have learned that I can adapt and I shouldn’t be nervous about the unknown,” he said. “Learning new technologies, applications, and skills keeps my career fun and exciting and I look forward to the next giant leap—whatever it is.”
Keith Barr stands beside the Piper Cherokee 6 aircraft during his time as a captain for New England Airlines. Barr’s passion for flight moves in tandem with his pursuit of innovation. Over his career, he has flown over 1.6 million miles on commercial airlines. “I often joke that I’m on my fourth trip to the Moon and back—just in economy class,” he said.
Before specializing in lidar systems, Barr flew as a captain and assistant chief pilot at New England Airlines, operating small aircraft like the Piper Cherokee 6 and the Britten-Norman Islander.
He also worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, contributing to several NASA airborne missions aimed at unraveling the science behind global ozone depletion.
Keith Barr boards NASA’s DC-8 aircraft at Ames Research Center in California before heading to Salina, Kansas, to support a 1996 research mission studying how airplane emissions affect clouds and the atmosphere. As Barr reflects on his journey, he hopes to pass along a sense of legacy to the Artemis Generation. “We are in the process of writing the next chapter of human space exploration history, and our actions, successes, and troubles will be studied and analyzed well into the future,” he said. “We all need to consider how our actions will shape history.”
Explore More
3 min read NASA, ISRO Research Aboard Fourth Private Astronaut Mission to Station
Article 6 days ago 3 min read I Am Artemis: Lili Villarreal
Lili Villarreal fell in love with space exploration from an early age when her and…
Article 6 days ago 6 min read NASA Tests New Ways to Stick the Landing in Challenging Terrain
Article 2 weeks ago View the full article
-
By USH
On the night of Friday, May 16, something extraordinary lit up the skies over the American Southwest. A brilliant, fast-moving streak of light that captivated onlookers from Arizona to Colorado.
Witnesses in towns such as Safford, Fountain Hills, and Payson, as well as regions of New Mexico and Colorado, were left asking the same question: What exactly did we just see?
Speculation spread rapidly. Some suggested a Chinese rocket launch earlier that day could be responsible, possibly placing satellites into orbit. Others floated more exotic theories: perhaps STEVE, a rare atmospheric light phenomenon similar to the aurora borealis, or even a “light pillar,” formed when light reflects off high-altitude ice crystals.
Attempts to reach officials at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in southern Arizona, and Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque have so far yielded no response.
What if it wasn’t a rocket plume from a Chinese launch at all? What if something entirely different passed near our planet, like a comet or UFO, or perhaps it was a test of a space-based weapon or a directed-energy system?
Whatever it may have been, it remains a strange phenomenon, leaving many to wonder what truly streaked across the sky.
View the full article
-
By NASA
6 min read
NASA Observes First Visible-light Auroras at Mars
On March 15, 2024, near the peak of the current solar cycle, the Sun produced a solar flare and an accompanying coronal mass ejection (CME), a massive explosion of gas and magnetic energy that carries with it large amounts of solar energetic particles. This solar activity led to stunning auroras across the solar system, including at Mars, where NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover made history by detecting them for the first time from the surface of another planet.
The first visible-light image of green aurora on Mars (left), taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. On the right is a comparison image of the night sky of Mars without aurora but featuring the Martian moon Deimos. The moonlit Martian night sky, lit up mostly by Mars’ nearer and larger moon Phobos (outside the frame) has a reddish-brown hue due to the dust in the atmosphere, so when green auroral light is added, the sky takes on a green-yellow tone, as seen in the left image. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI “This exciting discovery opens up new possibilities for auroral research and confirms that auroras could be visible to future astronauts on Mars’ surface.” said Elise Knutsen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway and lead author of the Science Advances study, which reported the detection.
Picking the right aurora
On Earth, auroras form when solar particles interact with the global magnetic field, funneling them to the poles where they collide with atmospheric gases and emit light. The most common color, green, is caused by excited oxygen atoms emitting light at a wavelength of 557.7 nanometers. For years, scientists have theorized that green light auroras could also exist on Mars but suggested they would be much fainter and harder to capture than the green auroras we see on Earth.
Due to the Red Planet’s lack of a global magnetic field, Mars has different types of auroras than those we have on Earth. One of these is solar energetic particle (SEP) auroras, which NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission discovered in 2014. These occur when super-energetic particles from the Sun hit the Martian atmosphere, causing a reaction that makes the atmosphere glow across the whole night sky.
While MAVEN had observed SEP auroras in ultraviolet light from orbit, this phenomenon had never been observed in visible light from the ground. Since SEPs typically occur during solar storms, which increase during solar maximum, Knutsen and her team set their sights on capturing visible images and spectra of SEP aurora from Mars’ surface at the peak of the Sun’s current solar cycle.
Coordinating the picture-perfect moment
Through modeling, Knutsen and her team determined the optimal angle for the Perseverance rover’s SuperCam spectrometer and Mastcam-Z camera to successfully observe the SEP aurora in visible light. With this observation strategy in place, it all came down to the timing and understanding of CMEs.
“The trick was to pick a good CME, one that would accelerate and inject many charged particles into Mars’ atmosphere,” said Knutsen.
That is where the teams at NASA’s Moon to Mars (M2M) Space Weather Analysis Office and the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC), both located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, came in. The M2M team provides real-time analysis of solar eruptions to the CCMC for initiating simulations of CMEs to determine if they might impact current NASA missions. When the simulations suggest potential impacts, the team sends out an alert.
At the University of California, Berkeley, space physicist Christina Lee received an alert from the M2M office about the March 15, 2024, CME. Lee, a member of the MAVEN mission team who serves as the space weather lead, determined there was a notable solar storm heading toward the Red Planet,which could arrive in a few days. She immediately issued the Mars Space Weather Alert Notification to currently operating Mars missions.
“This allows the science teams of Perseverance and MAVEN to anticipate impacts of interplanetary CMEs and the associated SEPs,” said Lee.
“When we saw the strength of this one,” Knutsen said, “we estimated it could trigger aurora bright enough for our instruments to detect.”
A few days later, the CME impacted Mars, providing a lightshow for the rover to capture, showing the aurora to be nearly uniform across the sky at an emission wavelength of exactly 557.7 nm. To confirm the presence of SEPs during the aurora observation, the team looked to MAVEN’s SEP instrument, which was additionally corroborated by data from ESA’s (European Space Agency) Mars Express mission. Data from both missions confirmed that the rover team had managed to successfully catch a glimpse of the phenomenon in the very narrow time window available.
“This was a fantastic example of cross-mission coordination. We all worked together quickly to facilitate this observation and are thrilled to have finally gotten a sneak peek of what astronauts will be able to see there some day,” said Shannon Curry, MAVEN principal investigator and research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder).
The future of aurora on Mars
By coordinating the Perseverance observations with measurements from MAVEN’s SEP instrument, the teams could help each other determine that the observed 557.7 nm emission came from solar energetic particles. Since this is the same emission line as the green aurora on Earth, it is likely that future Martian astronauts would be able to see this type of aurora.
“Perseverance’s observations of the visible-light aurora confirm a new way to study these phenomena that’s complementary to what we can observe with our Mars orbiters,” said Katie Stack Morgan, acting project scientist for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “A better understanding of auroras and the conditions around Mars that lead to their formation are especially important as we prepare to send human explorers there safely.”
On September 21, 2014, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft entered orbit around Mars. The mission has produced a wealth of data about how Mars’ atmosphere responds to the Sun and solar wind NASA/JPL-Caltech More About Perseverance and MAVEN
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio and NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
The MAVEN mission, also part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio, is led by LASP at CU Boulder. It’s managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and was built and operated by Lockheed Martin Space, with navigation and network support from NASA’s JPL.
—
By Willow Reed
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), University of Colorado Boulder
Media Contact:
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated May 14, 2025 Related Terms
Mars Goddard Space Flight Center MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) View the full article
-
By European Space Agency
As the night closed in on Spain and Portugal on 28 April, polar satellites followed the blackout that lasted well into the early hours of the morning in several regions.
View the full article
-
By NASA
5 Min Read NASA 3D Wind Measuring Laser Aims to Improve Forecasts from Air, Space
3D wind measurements from NASA's Aerosol Wind Profiler instrument flying on board a specially mounted aircraft along the East Coast of the U.S. and across the Great Lakes region on Oct. 15, 2024. Credits: NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio Since last fall, NASA scientists have flown an advanced 3D Doppler wind lidar instrument across the United States to collect nearly 100 hours of data — including a flight through a hurricane. The goal? To demonstrate the unique capability of the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP) instrument to gather extremely precise measurements of wind direction, wind speed, and aerosol concentration – all crucial elements for accurate weather forecasting.
Weather phenomena like severe thunderstorms and hurricanes develop rapidly, so improving predictions requires more accurate wind observations.
“There is a lack of global wind measurements above Earth’s surface,” explained Kris Bedka, the AWP principal investigator at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “Winds are measured by commercial aircraft as they fly to their destinations and by weather balloons launched up to twice per day from just 1,300 sites across the globe. From space, winds are estimated by tracking cloud and water vapor movement from satellite images.”
However, in areas without clouds or where water vapor patterns cannot be easily tracked, there are typically no reliable wind measurements. The AWP instrument seeks to fill these gaps with detailed 3D wind profiles.
The AWP instrument (foreground) and HALO instrument (background) was integrated onto the floorboard of NASA’s G-III aircraft. Kris Bedka, project principal investigator, sitting in the rear of the plane, monitored the data during a flight on Sept. 26, 2024. NASA/Maurice Cross Mounted to an aircraft with viewing ports underneath it, AWP emits 200 laser energy pulses per second that scatter and reflect off aerosol particles — such as pollution, dust, smoke, sea salt, and clouds — in the air. Aerosol and cloud particle movement causes the laser pulse wavelength to change, a concept known as the Doppler effect.
The AWP instrument sends these pulses in two directions, oriented 90 degrees apart from each other. Combined, they create a 3D profile of wind vectors, representing both wind speed and direction.
We are measuring winds at different altitudes in the atmosphere simultaneously with extremely high detail and accuracy.
Kris bedka
NASA Research Physical Scientist
“The Aerosol Wind Profiler is able to measure wind speed and direction, but not just at one given point,” Bedka said. “Instead, we are measuring winds at different altitudes in the atmosphere simultaneously with extremely high detail and accuracy.”
Vectors help researchers and meteorologists understand the weather, so AWP’s measurements could significantly advance weather modeling and forecasting. For this reason, the instrument was chosen to be part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Venture Program, which seeks data from new technologies that can fill gaps in current weather forecasting systems. NASA’s Weather Program also saw mutual benefit in NOAA’s investments and provided additional support to increase the return on investment for both agencies.
On board NASA’s Gulfstream III (G-III) aircraft, AWP was paired with the agency’s High-Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) that measures water vapor, aerosols, and cloud properties through a combined differential absorption and high spectral resolution lidar.
Working together for the first time, AWP measured winds, HALO collected water vapor and aerosol data, and NOAA dropsondes (small instruments dropped from a tube in the bottom of the aircraft) gathered temperature, water vapor, and wind data.
The AWP and HALO instrument teams observing incoming data on board NASA’s G-III aircraft over Tennessee while heading south to observe Hurricane Helene. Sept. 26, 2024. NASA/Maurice Cross “With our instrument package on board small, affordable-to-operate aircraft, we have a very powerful capability,” said Bedka. “The combination of AWP and HALO is NASA’s next-generation airborne weather remote sensing package, which we hope to also fly aboard satellites to benefit everyone across the globe.”
The combination of AWP and HALO is NASA's next-generation airborne weather remote sensing package.
kris bedka
NASA Research Physical Scientist
The animation below, based on AWP data, shows the complexity and structure of aerosol layers present in the atmosphere. Current prediction models do not accurately simulate how aerosols are organized throughout the breadth of the atmosphere, said Bedka.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
This visualization shows AWP 3D measurements gathered on Oct. 15, 2024, as NASA’s G-III aircraft flew along the East Coast of the U.S. and across the Great Lakes region. Laser light that returns to AWP as backscatter from aerosol particles and clouds allows for measurement of wind direction, speed, and aerosol concentration as seen in the separation of data layers. NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio “When we took off on this particular day, I thought that we would be finding a clear atmosphere with little to no aerosol return because we were flying into what was the first real blast of cool Canadian air of the fall,” described Bedka. “What we found was quite the opposite: an aerosol-rich environment which provided excellent signal to accurately measure winds.”
During the Joint Venture flights, Hurricane Helene was making landfall in Florida. The AWP crew of two pilots and five science team members quickly created a flight plan to gather wind measurements along the outer bands of the severe storm.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
This video shows monitors tracking the AWP science team’s location in the western outer bands of Hurricane Helene off the coast of Florida with views outside of the aircraft looking at turbulent storm clouds on Sept. 26, 2024. NASA/Kris Bedka “A 3D wind profile can significantly improve weather forecasts, particularly for storms and hurricanes,” said Harshesh Patel, NOAA’s acting Joint Venture Program manager. “NASA Langley specializes in the development of coherent Doppler wind lidar technology and this AWP concept has potential to provide better performance for NOAA’s needs.”
The flight plan of NASA’s G-III aircraft – outfitted with the Aerosol Wind Profiler – as it gathered data across the Southeastern U.S. and flew through portions of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 26, 2024. The flight plan is overlaid atop a NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES) satellite image from that day. NASA/John Cooney The flights of the AWP lidar are serving as a proving ground for possible integration into a future satellite mission.
“The need to improve global 3D wind models requires a space-based platform,” added Patel. “Instruments like AWP have specific space-based applications that potentially align with NOAA’s mission to provide critical data for improving weather forecasting.”
A view of the outer bands of Hurricane Helene off the coast of Florida during NASA’s science flights demonstrating the Aerosol Wind Profiler instrument on Sept. 26, 2024.NASA/Maurice Cross After the NOAA flights, AWP and HALO were sent to central California for the Westcoast & Heartland Hyperspectral Microwave Sensor Intensive Experiment and the Active Passive profiling Experiment, which was supported by NASA’s Planetary Boundary Layer Decadal Survey Incubation Program and NASA Weather Programs. These missions studied atmospheric processes within the planetary boundary layer, the lowest part of the atmosphere, that drives the weather conditions we experience on the ground.
To learn more about lidar instruments at NASA visit:
NASA Langley Research Center: Generations of Lidar Expertise
About the Author
Charles G. Hatfield
Science Public Affairs Officer, NASA Langley Research Center
Share
Details
Last Updated Apr 28, 2025 LocationNASA Langley Research Center Related Terms
General Airborne Science Clouds Langley Research Center Explore More
3 min read Lunar Space Station Module for NASA’s Artemis Campaign to Begin Final Outfitting
Article 3 days ago 4 min read Navigation Technology
Article 3 days ago 3 min read NASA Tracks Snowmelt to Improve Water Management
Article 4 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
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.