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By NASA
Space changes you. It strengthens some muscles, weakens others, shifts fluids within your body, and realigns your sense of balance. NASA’s Human Research Program works to understand—and sometimes even counter—those changes so astronauts can thrive on future deep space missions.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara pedals on the Cycle Ergometer Vibration Isolation System (CEVIS) inside the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.NASA Astronauts aboard the International Space Station work out roughly two hours a day to protect bone density, muscle strength and the cardiovascular system, but the longer they are in microgravity, the harder it can be for the brain and body to readapt to gravity’s pull. After months in orbit, returning astronauts often describe Earth as heavy, loud, and strangely still. Some reacclimate within days, while other astronauts take longer to fully recover.
Adjusting to Gravity
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli after landing in the Gulf of America on March 12, 2024, completing 197 days in space.NASA/Joel Kowsky The crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission— NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov—landed in March 2024 after nearly 200 days in space. One of the first tests volunteer crew members completed was walking with their eyes open and then closed.
“With eyes closed, it was almost impossible to walk in a straight line,” Mogensen said. In space, vision is the primary way astronauts orient themselves, but back on Earth, the brain must relearn how to use inner-ear balance signals. Moghbeli joked her first attempt at the exercise looked like “a nice tap dance.”
“I felt very wobbly for the first two days,” Moghbeli said. “My neck was very tired from holding up my head.” She added that, overall, her body readapted to gravity quickly.
Astronauts each recover on their own timetable and may encounter different challenges. Mogensen said his coordination took time to return. Furukawa noted that he could not look down without feeling nauseated. “Day by day, I recovered and got more stable,” he said.
NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara after landing in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on April 6, 2024.NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara returned in April 2024 after 204 days in space. She said she felt almost completely back to normal a week after returning to Earth. O’Hara added that her prior experience as an ocean engineer gave her insight into space missions. “Having those small teams in the field working with a team somewhere else back on shore with more resources is a good analog for the space station and all the missions we’re hoping to do in the future,” she said.
NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, who flew her first space mission with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10, noted that the brain quickly adapts to weightlessness by tuning out the vestibular system, which controls balance. “Then, within days of being back on Earth, it remembers again—it’s amazing how fast the body readjusts,” she said.
Expedition 69 NASA astronaut Frank Rubio outside the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft after landing near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 27, 2023. NASA/Bill Ingalls When NASA astronaut Frank Rubio landed in Kazakhstan in September 2023, he had just completed a record 371-day mission—the longest single U.S. spaceflight.
Rubio said his body adjusted to gravity right away, though his feet and lower back were sore after more than a year without weight on them. Thanks to consistent workouts, Rubio said he felt mostly recovered within a couple of weeks.
Mentally, extending his mission from six months to a year was a challenge. “It was a mixed emotional roller coaster,” he said, but regular video calls with family kept him grounded. “It was almost overwhelming how much love and support we received.”
Crew-8 astronauts Matt Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Michael Barratt, and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin splashed down in October 2024 after 235 days on station. Dominick found sitting on hard surfaces uncomfortable at first. Epps felt the heaviness of Earth immediately. “You have to move and exercise every day, regardless of how exhausted you feel,” she said.
Barratt, veteran astronaut and board certified in internal and aerospace medicine, explained that recovery differs for each crew member, and that every return teaches NASA something new.
Still a Challenge, Even for Space Veterans
NASA astronaut Suni Williams is helped out of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft aboard the SpaceX recovery ship after splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, March 18, 2025. NASA/Keegan Barber Veteran NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore returned from a nine-month mission with Crew-9 in early 2025. Despite her extensive spaceflight experience, Williams said re-adapting to gravity can still be tough. “The weight and heaviness of things is surprising,” she said. Like others, she pushed herself to move daily to regain strength and balance.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit arrives at Ellington Field in Houston on April 20, 2025, after returning to Earth aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft. NASA/Robert Markowitz NASA astronaut Don Pettit, also a veteran flyer, came home in April 2025 after 220 days on the space station. At 70 years old, he is NASA’s oldest active astronaut—but experience did not make gravity gentler. During landing, he says he was kept busy, “emptying the contents of my stomach onto the steppes of Kazakhstan.” Microgravity had eased the aches in his joints and muscles, but Earth’s pull brought them back all at once.
Pettit said his recovery felt similar to earlier missions. “I still feel like a little kid inside,” he said. The hardest part, he explained, isn’t regaining strength in big muscle groups, but retraining the small, often-overlooked muscles unused in space. “It’s a learning process to get used to gravity again.”
Recovery happens day by day—with help from exercise, support systems, and a little humor. No matter how long an astronaut is in space, every journey back to Earth is unique.
The Human Research Program help scientists understand how spaceflight environments affect astronaut health and performance and informs strategies to keep crews healthy for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The program studies astronauts before, during, and after spaceflight to learn how the human body adapts to living and working in space. It also collects data through Earth-based analog missions that can help keep astronauts safer for future space exploration.
To learn more about how microgravity affects the human body and develop new ways to help astronauts stay healthy, for example, its scientists conduct bedrest studies – asking dozens of volunteers to spend 60 days in bed with their heads tilted down at a specific angle. Lying in this position tricks the body into responding as it would if the body was in space which allows scientists to trial interventions to hopefully counter some of microgravity’s effects. Such studies, through led by NASA, occur at the German Aerospace Center’s Cologne campus at a facility called :envihab – a combination of “environment” and “habitat.”
Additional Earth-based insights come from the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) and the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Both analogs recreate the remote conditions and scenarios of deep space exploration here on Earth with volunteer crews who agree to live and work in the isolation of ground-based habitats and endure challenges like delayed communication that simulates the type of interactions that will occur during deep space journeys to and from Mars. Findings from these ground-based missions and others will help NASA refine its future interventions, strategies, and protocols for astronauts in space.
NASA and its partners have supported humans continuously living and working in space since November 2000. After nearly 25 years of continuous human presence, the space station remains the sole space-based proving ground for training and research for deep space missions, enabling NASA’s Artemis campaign, lunar exploration, and future Mars missions.
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By NASA
Lydia Rodriguez is an office administrator in the Flight Operations Directorate’s Operations Division and Operations Tools and Procedures Branch at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Over nearly two decades, she has supported nine organizations, helping enable NASA’s missions and forming lasting relationships along the way.
Official portrait of Lydia Rodriguez. NASA/Devin Boldt “I’ve had the opportunity to meet many different people at NASA who have become like family,” Rodriguez said. “I enjoy the culture and building relationships with people from all walks of life. I have learned so much from each person I’ve met and worked alongside.”
Her path to NASA began in high school, when her parents encouraged her to apply for a part-time Office Education student position at Johnson. That early opportunity gave her a glimpse into the agency’s culture — one that would inspire her to stay.
Lydia Rodriguez in the Mission Control Center Viewing Room during the Expedition 72 plaque hanging ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Rodriguez takes pride in the practical support she has provided to her colleagues. She spent years in the Engineering Travel Office, helping team members plan their travel around the world. In 2013, the team was honored with a Group Achievement Award.
“I am proud of being confident and able to help others with their bookings and questions,” Rodriguez said.
Her NASA career has also taught her important lessons. Change has been a constant since she joined the center in 2008, and she has learned to adapt.
One of the greatest challenges came after Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when her home was flooded. Rodriguez learned to ask for support and leaned on employee resources at Johnson.
“I’ve learned that I am a resilient individual who takes on new challenges often,” she said. “What has helped me overcome obstacles is focusing on the mission and showing compassion toward people. We are all here for a reason and a purpose, and together we can accomplish greater things.”
Lydia Rodriguez skydiving for the second time in Houston. To the Artemis Generation, Rodriguez hopes to pass on the excitement of being part of the next frontier of space exploration.
“Take full advantage of the opportunities and resources available,” she said. “Meet new people, ask for help, never stop learning, growing, and contributing your experiences. Hopefully it will inspire others to do the same.”
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By NASA
NASA science and American industry have worked hand-in-hand for more than 60 years, transforming novel technologies created with NASA research into commercial products like cochlear implants, memory-foam mattresses, and more. Now, a NASA-funded device for probing the interior of storm systems has been made a key component of commercial weather satellites.
The novel atmospheric sounder was originally developed for NASA’s TROPICS (short for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats), which launched in 2023. Boston-based weather technology company Tomorrow.io integrated the same instrument design into some of its satellites.
NASA’s TROPICS instrument. TROPICS pioneered a novel, compact atmospheric sound now flying aboard a fleet of commercial small satellites created by the weather technology company Tomorrow.io.Credit: Blue Canyon Technologies Atmospheric sounders allow researchers to gather data describing humidity, temperature, and wind speed — important factors for weather forecasting and atmospheric analysis. From low-Earth orbit, these devices help make air travel safer, shipping more efficient, and severe weather warnings more reliable.
Novel tools for Observing Storm Systems
In the early 2000s, meteorologists and atmospheric chemists were eager to find a new science tool that could peer deep inside storm systems and do so multiple times a day. At the same time, CubeSat constellations (groupings of satellites each no larger than a shoebox) were emerging as promising, low-cost platforms for increasing the frequency with which individual sensors could pass over fast-changing storms, which improves the accuracy of weather models.
The challenge was to create an instrument small enough to fit aboard a satellite the size of a toaster, yet powerful enough to observe the innermost mechanisms of storm development. Preparing these technologies required years of careful development that was primarily supported by NASA’s Earth Science Division.
William Blackwell and his team at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, accepted this challenge and set out to miniaturize vital components of atmospheric sounders. “These were instruments the size of a washing machine, flying on platforms the size of a school bus,” said Blackwell, the principal investigator for TROPICS. “How in the world could we shrink them down to the size of a coffee mug?”
With a 2010 award from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), Blackwell’s team created an ultra-compact microwave receiver, a component that can sense the microwave radiation within the interior of storms.
The Lincoln Lab receiver weighed about a pound and took up less space than a hockey puck. This innovation paved the way for a complete atmospheric sounder instrument small enough to fly aboard a CubeSat. “The hardest part was figuring out how to make a compact back-end to this radiometer,” Blackwell said. “So without ESTO, this would not have happened. That initial grant was critical.”
In 2023, that atmospheric sounder was sent into space aboard four TROPICS CubeSats, which have been collecting torrents of data on the interior of severe storms around the world.
Transition to Industry
By the time TROPICS launched, Tomorrow.io developers knew they wanted Blackwell’s microwave receiver technology aboard their own fleet of commercial weather satellites. “We looked at two or three different options, and TROPICS was the most capable instrument of those we looked at,” said Joe Munchak, a senior atmospheric data scientist at Tomorrow.io.
In 2022, the company worked with Blackwell to adapt his team’s design into a CubeSat platform about twice the size of the one used for TROPICS. A bigger platform, Blackwell explained, meant they could bolster the sensor’s capabilities.
“When we first started conceptualizing this, the 3-unit CubeSat was the only game in town. Now we’re using a 6-unit CubeSat, so we have room for onboard calibration,” which improves the accuracy and reliability of gathered data, Blackwell said.
Tomorrow.io’s first atmospheric sounders, Tomorrow-S1 and Tomorrow-S2, launched in 2024. By the end of 2025, the company plans to have a full constellation of atmospheric sounders in orbit. The company also has two radar instruments that were launched in 2023 and were influenced by NASA’s RainCube instrument — the first CubeSat equipped with an active precipitation radar.
More CubeSats leads to more accurate weather data because there are more opportunities each day — revisits — to collect data. “With a fleet size of 18, we can easily get our revisit rate down to under an hour, maybe even 40 to 45 minutes in most places. It has a huge impact on short-term forecasts,” Munchak said.
Having access to an atmospheric sounder that had already flown in space and had more than 10 years of testing was extremely useful as Tomorrow.io planned its fleet. “It would not have been possible to do this nearly as quickly or nearly as affordably had NASA not paved the way,” said Jennifer Splaingard, Tomorrow.io’s senior vice president for space and sensors.
A Cycle of Innovation
The relationship between NASA and industry is symbiotic. NASA and its grantees can drive innovation and test new tools, equipping American businesses with novel technologies they may otherwise be unable to develop on their own. In exchange, NASA gains access to low-cost data sets that can supplement information gathered through its larger science missions.
Tomorrow.io was among eight companies selected by NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program in September 2024 to equip NASA with data that will help improve weather forecasting models. “It really is a success story of technology transfer. It’s that sweet spot, where the government partners with tech companies to really take an idea, a proven concept, and run with it,” Splaingard said.
By Gage Taylor
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Sep 02, 2025 Related Terms
Earth Hurricanes & Typhoons TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) View the full article
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By NASA
5 min read
Close-Up Views of NASA’s DART Impact to Inform Planetary Defense
Photos taken by the Italian LICIACube, short for the LICIA Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids. These offer the closest, most detailed observations of NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) impact aftermath to date. The photo on the left was taken roughly 2 minutes and 40 seconds after impact, as the satellite flew past the Didymos system. The photo on the right was taken 20 seconds later, as LICIACube was leaving the scene. The larger body, near the top of each image is Didymos. The smaller body in the lower half of each image is Dimorphos, enveloped by the cloud of rocky debris created by DART’s impact. NASA/ASI/University of Maryland On Sept. 11, 2022, engineers at a flight control center in Turin, Italy, sent a radio signal into deep space. Its destination was NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft flying toward an asteroid more than 5 million miles away.
The message prompted the spacecraft to execute a series of pre-programmed commands that caused a small, shoebox-sized satellite contributed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), called LICIACube, to detach from DART.
Fifteen days later, when DART’s journey ended in an intentional head-on collision with near-Earth asteroid Dimorphos, LICIACube flew past the asteroid to snap a series of photos, providing researchers with the only on-site observations of the world’s first demonstration of an asteroid deflection.
After analyzing LICIACube’s images, NASA and ASI scientists report on Aug. 21 in the Planetary Science Journal that an estimated 35.3 million pounds (16 million kilograms) of dust and rocks spewed from the asteroid as a result of the crash, refining previous estimates that were based on data from ground and space-based observations.
While the debris shed from the asteroid amounted to less than 0.5% of its total mass, it was still 30,000 times greater than the mass of the spacecraft. The impact of the debris on Dimorphos’ trajectory was dramatic: shortly after the collision, the DART team determined that the flying rubble gave Dimorphos a shove several times stronger than the hit from the spacecraft itself.
“The plume of material released from the asteroid was like a short burst from a rocket engine,” said Ramin Lolachi, a research scientist who led the study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The important takeaway from the DART mission is that a small, lightweight spacecraft can dramatically alter the path of an asteroid of similar size and composition to Dimorphos, which is a “rubble-pile” asteroid — or a loose, porous collection of rocky material bound together weakly by gravity.
“We expect that a lot of near-Earth asteroids have a similar structure to Dimorphos,” said Dave Glenar, a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who participated in the study. “So, this extra push from the debris plume is critical to consider when building future spacecraft to deflect asteroids from Earth.”
The tail of material that formed behind Dimorphos was prominent almost 12 days after the DART impact, giving the asteroid a comet-like appearance, as seen in this image captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in October 2022. Hubble’s observations were made from roughly 6.8 million miles away. NASA, ESA, STScI, Jian-Yang Li (PSI); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale DART’s Star Witness
NASA chose Dimorphos, which poses no threat to Earth, as the mission target due to its relationship with another, larger asteroid named Didymos. Dimorphos orbits Didymos in a binary asteroid system, much like the Moon orbits Earth. Critically, the pair’s position relative to Earth allowed astronomers to measure the duration of the moonlet’s orbit before and after the collision.
Ground and space-based observations revealed that DART shortened Dimorphos’ orbit by 33 minutes. But these long-range observations, made from 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers) away, were too distant to support a detailed study of the impact debris. That was LICIACube’s job.
After DART’s impact, LICIACube had just 60 seconds to make its most critical observations. Barreling past the asteroid at 15,000 miles (21,140 kilometers) per hour, the spacecraft took a snapshot of the debris roughly once every three seconds. Its closest image was taken just 53 miles (85.3 km) from Dimorphos’ surface.
The short distance between LICIACube and Dimorphos provided a unique advantage, allowing the cubesat to capture detailed images of the dusty debris from multiple angles.
The research team studied a series of 18 LICIAcube images. The first images in the sequence showed LICIACube’s head-on approach. From this angle, the plume was brightly illuminated by direct sunlight. As the spacecraft glided past the asteroid, its camera pivoted to keep the plume in view.
This animated series of images was taken by a camera aboard LICIACube 2 to 3 minutes after DART crashed into Dimorphos. As LICIACube made its way past the binary pair of asteroids Didymos, the larger one on top, and Dimorphos, the object at the bottom. The satellite’s viewing angle changed rapidly during its flyby of Dimorphos, allowing scientists o get a comprehensive view of the impact plume from a series of angles. ASI/University of Maryland/Tony Farnham/Nathan Marder As LICIACube looked back at the asteroid, sunlight filtered through the dense cloud of debris, and the plume’s brightness faded. This suggested the plume was made of mostly large particles — about a millimeter or more across — which reflect less light than tiny dust grains.
Since the innermost parts of the plume were so thick with debris that they were completely opaque, the scientists used models to estimate the number of particles that were hidden from view. Data from other rubble-pile asteroids, including pieces of Bennu delivered to Earth in 2023 by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, and laboratory experiments helped refine the estimate.
“We estimated that this hidden material accounted for almost 45% of the plume’s total mass,” said Timothy Stubbs, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard who was involved with the study.
While DART showed that a high-speed collision with a spacecraft can change an asteroid’s trajectory, Stubbs and his colleagues note that different asteroid types, such as those made of stronger, more tightly packed material, might respond differently to a DART-like impact. “Every time we interact with an asteroid, we find something that surprises us, so there’s a lot more work to do,” said Stubbs. “But DART is a big step forward for planetary defense.”
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, managed the DART mission and operated the spacecraft for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office.
By Nathan Marder, nathan.marder@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Aug 21, 2025 Related Terms
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By NASA
Dr. Steven “Steve” Platnick took the NASA agency Deferred Resignation Program (DRP). His last work day was August 8, 2025. Steve spent more than three decades at, or associated with, NASA. While he began his civil servant career at the NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in 2002, his Goddard association went back to 1993, first as a contractor and then as one of the earliest employees of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), a cooperative agreement between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and GSFC’s Earth Science Division. At JCET Steve helped lead the development of the Atmosphere Physics Track curricula. Previously, he had held an NRC post-doctoral fellow at the NASA’s Ames Research Center. Along with his research work on cloud remote sensing from satellite and airborne sensors, Steve served as the Deputy Director for Atmospheres in GSFC’s Earth Sciences Division from January 2015–July 2024.
Dr. Steve Platnick Image credit: NASA During his time at NASA, Steve played an integral role in the sustainability and advancement of NASA’s Earth Observing System platforms and data. In 2008, he took over as the Earth Observing System (EOS) Senior Project Scientist from Michael King. In this role, he led the EOS Project Science Office, which included support for related EOS facility airborne sensors, ground networks, and calibration labs. The office also supported The Earth Observer newsletter, the NASA Earth Observatory, and other outreach and exhibit activities on behalf of NASA Headquarter’s Earth Science Division and Science Mission Directorate (further details below). From January 2003 – February 2010, Steve served as the Aqua Deputy Project Scientist.
Improving Imager Cloud Algorithms
Steve was actively involved in the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Science Team serving as the Lead for the MODIS Atmosphere Discipline Team (cloud, aerosol and clear sky products) since 2008 and as the NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP)/JPSS Atmosphere Discipline Lead/co-Lead from 2012–2020. His research team enhanced, maintained, and evaluated MODIS and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) cloud algorithms that included Level-2 (L2) Cloud Optical/Microphysical Properties components (MOD06 and MYD06 for MODIS on Terra and Aqua, respectively) and the Atmosphere Discipline Team Level-3 (L3) spatial/temporal products (MOD08, MYD08). The L2 cloud algorithms were developed to retrieve thermodynamic phase, optical thickness, effective particle radius, and derived water path for liquid and ice clouds, among other associated datasets. Working closely with longtime University of Wisconsin-Madison colleagues, the team also developed the CLDPROP continuity products designed to bridge the MODIS and VIIRS cloud data records by addressing differences in the spectral coverage between the two sensors; this product is currently in production for VIIRS on Suomi NPP and NOAA-20, as well as MODIS Aqua. The team also ported their CLDPROP code to Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) R-series Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and sister sensors as a research demonstration effort.
Steve’s working group participation included the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Cloud Assessment Working Group (2008–present); the International Cloud Working Group (ICWG), which is part of the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS), and its original incarnation, the Cloud Retrieval Evaluation Working (CREW) since 2009; and the NASA Observations for Modeling Intercomparison Studies (obs4MIPs) Working Group (2011–2013). Other notable roles included Deputy Chair of the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) Science Definition Team (2011–2012) and membership in the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) Science Definition Team (2009–2011), the ABI Cloud Team (2005–2009), and the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Mission Concept Team (2010-2011).
Steve has participated in numerous major airborne field campaigns over his career. His key ER-2 flight scientist and/or science team management roles included the Monterey Area Ship Track experiment (MAST,1994), First (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) Regional Experiment – Arctic Cloud Experiment [FIRE-ACE, 1998], Southern Africa Fire-Atmosphere Research Initiative (SAFARI-2000), Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers – Florida Area Cirrus Experiment (CRYSTAL-FACE, 2002), and Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling (TC4, 2007).
Supporting Earth Science Communications
Through his EOS Project Science Office role, Steve has been supportive of the activities of NASA’s Science Support Office (SSO) and personally participated in many NASA Science exhibits at both national and international scientific conferences, including serving as a Hyperwall presenter numerous times.
For The Earth Observer newsletter publication team in particular, Steve replaced Michael King as Acting EOS Senior Project Scientist in June 2008, taking over the authorship of “The Editor’s Corner” beginning with the May–June 2008 issue [Volume 20, Issue 3]. The Acting label was removed beginning with the January–February 2010 issue [Volume 22, Issue 1]. Steve has been a champion of continuing to retain a historical record of NASA science team meetings to maintain a chronology of advances made by different groups within the NASA Earth Science community. He was supportive of the Executive Editor’s efforts to create a series called “Perspectives on EOS,” which ran from 2008–2011 and told the stories of the early years of the EOS Program from the point of view of those who lived them. He also supported the development of articles to commemorate the 25th and 30th anniversary of The Earth Observer. Later, Steve helped guide the transition of the newsletter from a print publication – the November–December 2022 issue was the last printed issue – to fully online by July 2024, a few months after the publication’s 35th anniversary. The Earth Observer team will miss Steve’s keen insight, historical perspective, and encouragement that he has shown through his leadership for the past 85 issues of print and online publications.
A Career Recognized through Awards and Honors
Throughout his career, Steve has amassed numerous honors, including the Goddard William Nordberg Memorial Award for Earth Science in 2023 and the Verner E. Suomi Award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 2016. He was named an AMS Fellow that same year. He received two NASA Agency Honor Awards – the Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2008 and the Exceptional Service Medal in 2015.
Steve received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in electrical engineering from Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Arizona.
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