NIAC 2021 - Keynote Address

 Keynote Address Moogega Cooper

NIAC is a great mech to push our understanding and beyond…

Parents met in South Korea

Grew up in a home with divorce didn’t have a home developed in science

Didn’t understand why science classes were useful

Once I saw the cosmos, everything improved and I had a purpose for my journey

Spent the school years under Dr. James Russel III and learned how to program, analyze and validate atmospheric data and make a scientific contribution

Langley will always be the home away from home

Continued nasa journey as a postdoc at JPL

Began in the clean room with JPL and understanding the cleanliness of the spacecraft and the clean room

Began working on radar tech dev, then jumped from mission to mission

Also did some outreach work thanks to Mary voyteg

Then met Carl Sagan and he is largely the reason I am here today

Returned toMSL on Curiosity then picked upside work on plasma research to sterilize samples from mars before they are returned dot earth

This rolled into Mars 2020 and eventually lead the mission for planetary protection

Along with Europa Lander and am currently the planetary protection supervisor

History of Rover in-situ science, we are standing on the shoulder of giants

The questions today are enabled by those previous mars rovers, questions, exploration and discoveries

Bulk chemistry was a big deal with sojourner in 1997

Then spirit/opp was abrasion and bulk geochemistry

With curiosity power drilling was added

Now in mars 2020 we are able to take full core samples and see the changes with depth

Potential biomolecueles can be seen there

Prepare for humans on mars and to be able to fly a helicopter on mars

This was fortunately done successfully.

As samples are being collected, they will be deposited on the surface of mars

There is a deep post strategy there that will allow the samples for retrieval

It takes a village to make these missions successful, that is a multi agency effort

We hope the sample will be returned by the 2030s

NASA hardware that leaves … we all need to consider planetary protection

The first component is exploration of planets moons and others, we hope to avoid any earth based microbial contamination, this is the mantra of leave no trace, especially if we are searching for potential ancient life

We need to do so in a way that will protect earths own biosphere

From design through the build through test through the operations

Design something that is cleanable, and keeping it clean, for example with the use of bunny suits

Test these in huge chambers and make sure that the chambers are clean

Sample storage assembly

Tubes taht will touch the martian soil must be pristinely clean

We bake them out and take a sample, by growing the sample on swabs that we collect

We have sterile swabs and would sample the spacecraft with that

Then we archive the microbes and we have a catalogue going back to Atlas

Traditional culturing takes more than seven days to complete

Then we extract the DNA and we take a set to archive and the other part to put it through hybrid sequencing that will tell the ATCGs and what contaminants might be present

Our high throughput sequencing can shorten the process to three days

Against increasing, one example is about 8 months before launch, and the team goes from jet propulsion lab in Southern California to the cape Canaveral preparation for launch, we stack and launch

The aeroshell is actually built by Lockheed Martin

We hopped over to Denver, one thing that happened that we did not anticipate, created an anomaly on the tubes, and one of the flight tubes… about 8 months before launch and components must be installed about 3 months before launch

The issue was fixed and while managing the lab spaces across the coast, we were able to build across the US and test build and launch

With the global pandemic, it was impossible to go back home. Against increasing odds, we were able to come together beyond the pandemic and a dirty set of tubes and work past issues to really get to the launch pad

Have a common goal

Creativity in finding solutions and innovating new paths stem from teams with a. Common goal

Just remind one another that we all have a common goal and we can achieve that successs and issues that were troubleshooted and overcome, and we had to keep in mind we wanted to get to that launch pad with the highest level of integrity possible. I wanted to highlight the importance of having a diverse team, and to say I did this, and while I am the lead, I am nothing without my team, and this tema pictured has thousands of people who supported them as well.

With all those challenges, delivered most comprehensive protection implementation to date

The areas highlighted in yellow are specifically connected to planetary protection

HEPA filtered region means microbial load outside will not be able to enter

There are several things that have been done and we were able to show against all odds and increaseing odds that we were able to meet cleanliness goals with 25.4% margin

Seeing that rocket lift off was on many people’s shoulders that day

Animation of the sample collection sample was vaporized and pulverized so we were able to see an acquired sample there

Sample handling key steps

Measure volume 

Seal with pictures first

See that seal is seated properly and actuated 

Answer the question are we alone out there and that can preserve the blue marble, and remember that our exploration beyond earth should be done in a responsible way

Q: applications to earth?

A: we only understand within our own problem as we can only look at the framework within the earth, we can see that prions actually wreak havoc on the brain from mad cow disease, so there is information of how to treat microbial life

Q: PP considerations for Europa Clipper?

A: Clipper did not use anything new persay, the policy dictates how spacecraft treat going to icy bodies, and you need to go to a model to get that 10^-4 probability, and really tackle that to think outside of the box

Q: Commercial enterprises to conduct NASA explorations?

A: not speaking on behalf of NASA, get into the field and the discipline responsibly, how to t acquire a sample in a way that it will not contaminate the environment it was collected and to return it without contamination here

Q: is it actually worth it for NASA to do this by itself or there talks with other countries or enterprises to conduct their own rules?

A: as long as the country is sending a spacecraft that is going to space, then these rules must be followed by those individual countries

Q: are there any major challenges or hurdles that we see in the near term or the far term?

A: need to communicate effectively and interface the hardware…

Q: C2 resource utilization?

A: we reinforce the rules for planetary protection, as long as you can submit a proposal we use app at a kit to look at the amount of energy as a metric for the amount that are there, can that be improved? Yes, and if you can help us do so, please do that

Q: core samples present before storage?

A: Sherlock can look at the core shavings and look in situ at the top surface and see the geology and mineralogy that will allow us to collect that sample, we want to know what is in the core before it is acquired, initial inspections and volume inspection… we can actually do science in the borehole, that is almost immediate

Q: how to protect the environment when each asteroid only brings 10^13 microbes with them?

A: humans must not go in certain zones of mars while leaving some areas pristine

Q: what are your thoughts on cognition of mars as a whole?

A: what are the ethics of going to mars, is this an extension of colonialism? It is a really tough question to answer and in some way we have to understand our environment? We should do exploration in a way that is more ethical than the ways that are done in the past

Q: are there international standards for PP and what are enforcement actions for violations of PP?

A: lots of much more interesting details of policies and policies that exist within the USA, NASA is not a regulatory agency, so we rely on the FAA, not sure how that works internationally

Q: can we take a small tree?

A: Elon musk wanted to bring a plant to mars, many plants have been brought to the international space station, to understand how plants function and thrive in space if not on earth

Q: do planetary protection policies apply to space corporations such as space

A: yes, they do

Q: natural to bring theory of astrophysics to other ?

A: there is an idea that there could be life on a rock that may have traveled across solar systems to see where ti could go. Even where we would goto expose the hardiest of hardy and expose it to the places it would still live, and could be protected by radiation and kill life off into space.

Q: any other destinations that are of interest to you or the PP community within the solar system?

A: yes, Europa and icy worlds, where we find water there we find life, and make sure our germs are being kept to ourselves because the implications are very high

Q: Venus and the inner planets?

A: demonstrates the ability to evolve, and we are starting to learn in the upper atmosphere that life could exist in that sort of environment

Q: first thing to leave solar system was the voyager system?

A: the thing with voyager and the modeling we talked about earlier with clipper and the ing-radiation leaves so much gamma radiation and for such a long duration of time, will kill most of the microbes that we have on earth, clearly with the record that was placed, possible other intelligent …

Q: can we use plants like a cactus to detect water beneath the surface?

A: how does use of a plant change the environment or the alternative of using a robotic system

Q: what happens if a space company breaks the PP rules or protocol?

A: that is far above the pay grade, and it would be trouble to hypothesize

Q: what do you recommend for those who wish to explore space?

A: if your child doesn’t do well, don’t give up on them. Don’t stay grounded and give people all of the answers that they trust, help me to navigate some tough situations… make sure to stay grounded with someone that you trust

Q: if we do happen to rendezvous with an interstellar object, what to do ourselves?

A: depending on how long you think it has been journeying through space, it might break up,  but you don’t know, handle that with caution, treat everything as a biohazard until proven otherwise

Q: any other defining moments?

A: every moment is a defining moment. There are certain situations that one could find human, being frustrated is a natural human response, how to prevent this in the future… mantra for every day and the scenario to go through

Q: in terms of interstellar exploration, stars to other probes or on their own?

A: Planetary protection officer, is the person who reaches across all of the missions not only with NASA but also with other agencies and organizations

Q: terraforming?

A: terraforming is interesting and is possible as a mechanism that can be terraformed and take care of their own planet, everything is possible but if you are using it as a reason, then it is urged to reassessed the point of view

Q: what constitutes as life? Does microbial life count? What happens if we deem a planet not to bear life but there is some life there?

A: that is the whole scientific process. Bacteria fungi multiple living and nonliving things are considered. If someone comes with additional evidence to say someone is not right, then you would write an academic journal and inquire about that. Results change and understandings change and more information so the view doesn’t support the current understanding, a really interesting position to find ourselves in of course

Q: what additional planetary thoughts are needed for fluidic planets or regions like Europa?

A: think about heat to create a fluidic environment

Q: lots of outreach, do you talk to young children?

A: yes, because elementary and middle school students will often make me take a seat. What is going to be the final answer, involving a lot more people and how to involve commercial entities to make sure they do the right thing

Q: can a clean room be designed for a spacecraft?

A: yes, in fact the spacecraft is designed in a clean room. There is a baseline component and we can see people tracking in the dirt from the California area and how it changes to the east coast and the more wet environment and micro organisms as well

Q: well there be need for a clean room in outer space such as on the moon or mars, being able to contain our microbes so we can keep our germs to ourselves, no way to see a way to build a clean room for ourselves, and we have shown that the ISS is fairly close to a clean room we would not need additional efforts there

Q: given improving biological science, can data be used to resurrect or rebuild an alien microbe?

A: secretions that are at least 20% of micro organisms that are a spike that allow them to puncture other organisms and use their cells as food, so lots of organisms can function on their own

Q: mining in the permanently shadowed regions?

A: the planetary protection requirement changes and the hardware requirements would be more stringent if you are in that region of the moon

NIAC 2021 - Direct Multi-pixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of Exoplanets with a Mission to the Focal Region of the Solar Gravitational Lens

 Slava G. Turyshev

Direct Multipixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of Exoplanets with a Mission to the Focal Region of the Solar Gravitational Lens

Notes by Paul Fischer

Our Challenge: all exoplanets are far, therefore amplification

They are also too small, therefore increased resolution is needed

Direct imaging: only super Jupiters, not suitable to discover an exoearth

The telescope would need to be 90km in diameter, which is not feasible

The solar gravitational lens is therefore is being proposed

SGL provides high-resolution imaging, and this is apparent

Realistic model of the sun

Previous work (1911-2021)

The sun was modeled as a spherically-symmetric point-mass body

The harmonics function effectively with the gravitational field

Astroid caustic and imaging point sources.. allowing image deconstruction

Addressing temporal variability 

Over the diurnal rotation of the image reconstruction, interesting and exciting and can be fully captured in the analysis

Image of the exoplanets-orbital inclination and the required velocity Ono the spacecraft to capture an image

Look at well at the acceleration, 5 microns per second, velocity of 20 meters per second

Essentially the space information is available on the space craft to provide high quality imaging

Scientific req doc can guide the mission documents, and helps lend real mission information there

Image deconstruction and spectroscopy

…

Solar sailing allows the approach of 20-30 astronomical units per year

To explore this possibility the mission will arrive in 2022, voyager one

Flights in 2023 and 2024

Trajectory designed will begin with high earth orbit and tacking against the solar wind like a sailboat, at this point system checks must be performed before moving to autonomous operations

Through the perihelion maximum thermal load will be reached before egress allow return to power and comm

The next year will bring steerable solar sails and the mission will be shown to be realistic and affordable

Q: the studies are essential, what about a planet mixing with the stars in the deep space light across another planet?

A: The narrow field of view of the SGL will allow discovery of many of these planets

Q: How will we know where to look?

A: this will provide a sort of Einstein beacon as the planet emerges from the corona behind the star, the spacecraft will be positioned precisely on the exoplanet

Q: what are the reasons for the original vein-based solar sail design?

A: the design was proposed by an explorer incorporated as an industrial corporate partner. The benefits are obvious, the steering and graceful tacking are not possible with other designs of solar sails, a full analogy to the sail boat is possible

This design essentially uses solar craft anywhere on the solar system this design can also be used to go back and forth between earth, and explore the deep solar systems, and look to interstellar objects

Q: will the solar craft require a jib?

A: all sizable across the different planes of veins and allow steering in the direction that you want to go

Q: what is the next big thing for this study?

A: sagan: “every extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence” we will move full speed to make a reality of this mission, and we will move from public-private partnership into embracing multiple organizations to develop flights in the near future, we will be able to bring pictures back of a planet and demonstrate that it is inhabited, all thanks to NIAC

Q: Have there been any surprises?

A: there has been a very good present from the slow gravitational lens itself, enabling a revelation that the lens gave us, and can follow the ever moving target, seeing the life on an alien planet within our neighborhood.

NIAC 2021 - Construction of CubeSat for Test of Neutrino Detector in Space

 Nickolas Solomey

Notes by Paul Fischer

Wichita State University

Construction of CubeSat for Test of Neutrino Detector in Space

In collaboration with Wichita St. U, UMinn and …

The phase 1 conclusion would determine that you only need a kg or less

The neutrinos on the sun would react with germanium 61 after reaction of galactic rays and cosmic gamma rays, looking for the double delayed incidence, that coincidinnced 

Improve simulations of detector

Build and test prototypes

First neutrino space fraft mission analysis

Constraints of 350 million and less than five years

Prototype detector was surrounded by a veto array and operate in the cosmic ray test stand 

We found exceptional rejection and resolution

Phase 2 demonstrated good energy resolution for gamma and depending on the thresholds in the liquid simulator with less than 2% veto failure rate

Thus the coincidence of the  galactic cosmic events was favorable for use

Distance of spacecraft from sun, as cosmic backgrounds are dominant on earth but neutrino signals exist closer to the sun, allowing exceptionally good science performance

The development of the solar probe plus spacecraft was one and a half billion dollars, and we felt that this detector in space would be functional

In the mid 80’s we designed and launched the gammaray observatory, 25 years later, the galactic plot demonstrates that in 1992 the EGRET spacecraft was groundbreaking by showing gamma ray activity

We hoped to demonstrate that a solar probe would function as it reached close to the sun

So we developed electromagnetic shield with cost and time efficiencies

The shield includes a radiation shield, neutrino detectors and instrument casing that would be deployed within the spacecraft

The mission study was the launch from earth and every time we went around the orbit closer to Venus we went closer and closer to the sun

Mission study: cost for falcon heavy launch, complete spacecraft and five years of operations

Phase three has been to build a cubist with the the eventual goal to measure incidence rays and theorems and a requirement of being within 4kg

The history of the project began in 2015 while NIAC has funded this to 92%

We have a long ways to go…

Q: could this detector function from earth?

A: no, an accelerator beam would be far too narrow with a thousand times too much energy, mostly anti-neutrino reactors and we are looking for solar neutrinos that are more difficult to detect

Q:App to energy in the core of the sun in solar flares?

A: neutrinos with solar flares reach earth only in 8 minutes as opposed to over a thousand years for the energy from the core of the sun

Q: would a balloon flight be adequate?

A: not a high enough altitude to deal with galactic cosmic and gamma ray real rates. the goal of the cube sat is to make sure it works in space, and to ensure it makes these double incidences exist in background events

Q: would the neutrino detector be tested on the cubesat?

A: no. a sodium 22 source could be use, but an intense source would be needed, and that would be prohibitive to safety

Q: launch vehicle selection and if starship has been considered?

A: the falcon heavy was the most cost-effective choice

Q: G-lens could concentrate the …

A: originally there was only a search from dark matter by going far from the sun and taking dark matter close to the sun, we found after a calculation with an undergrad student that we could take only about two times bigger than the moon, then we could get about 8000 times intense neutrinos from the galactic core, allowing a high concentration of the galactic core neutrinos… look at the real-time concentration within the galactic core, or in the planet Neptune or Uranus as a possibility of application

Q: any possibiility of neutrino cores or galactic cores, remember that we go much closer to the sun and any neutrino at seven solar radii, and the discussion over where the neutrino zones are in the sun, and determine if there are dark matter collections within the sun, where is the proton, proton fusion occurring… this internal structure of the helioregions of the sun remains one of the largest questions in the scientific community.

NIAC 2021 - Mini Bee Prototype

 Joel Sercel, PhD

All patent obtained or patent pending

Notes by Paul Fischer

Mini Bee prototype to enable demonstration flight in LEO

With our partners at the Colorado school of mines, the omnivore thruster uses water as propellant and light as an energy source

The intent was to create the transcontinental railroad of space

In the past three months alone, we have been able to secure six billion dollars with private company invvestments of 400 million dollars

We have been able to build on mini bee with worker bee which we expect to over take worker bee

Philip Wahl:

Optical mining spals   with solar energy 

Works in tandem with the NIAC phase ii project

Apis mission concept rendezvous with spacecraft and materials

Worker bee orbital logistics

Introducing worker bee carries customer satellites into space with the omnivore rocket engine

This is a breakthrough solar powered engine

Omnivore advantages are lower cost and higher thrust and can run on virtually any propellant 

Nuclear rocket-like propellant combines for a much safer propellant

The mini bee mission will demonstrate lower earth orbit to demonstrate mining technology

A robotic zipper will capture the asteroid and sunlight spalls the asteroid an freezes volatiles

The mini bee demonstrates asteroids

Honey bee will be used to spall the asteroid in deep space

The ground demonstration of minibee vehicle has been developed

Minibee’s optical adventure uses a actualized potential pointing areas during space craft construction

Use of computer vision to 

Inflatable an rigid reflectors with thin aluminum film and the engineering team has designed a rigid reflector with parabolic hexagonal structures

The inflatable subsystem is not capable of …

The demonstration of open capture bag system at one gram is also used

The omnivore thruster concept uses the same optical system as mining to create thrust through the sun’s energy

The omnivore thruster

MK1 test thruster has operational temperatures ranging from 500-950 degrees celsius

Newtons scale thrust values at the impulse of 1/ms

Testing readings are around 60% of the requirements

Next will come flight qualifications of our flight systems

Finally we hope to launch worker bee 26 months later an min bee about a year later

Q: concentrated UV?

A: the silicon is pretty standard practice the polyimid doesn’t see the light, and was a major design driver

Q: was the YKK zipper company an official collaborate and what was the partnership like?

A: space applications of the zipper tech and how to cross fertilize with that, including space suit familiarity with tech

Q: Difficult to evaluate trajectory?

A: a type of mission design that is totally feasible but not used by nasa, that is more adaptive in nature, however, we should know it well enough, it is a pretty unlikely possibility

Q: what kind of materials are used to construct the bags?

A: something interesting about optics says that the intensity of the light scales with the convergence angle, so the volume of space with high intensity almsot like a light saber, otherwise there is no damage, so when it opens up, to where it hits the bag, the light would not be intense enough to propagate and cause damage to the bag. When you calculate the momentum exchange, it doesn’t require that tough of a bag to handle

Q: can we use smaller bags now that we found asteroids to be smaller than we thought

A: we have found that bulk density of asteroids to be significantly less than original estimates, so we need much larger bags now, 

Q: other insight and advice to NIAC researchers?

A: focus on missions, hire really smart people who are highly collaborative and willing to fail, and encourage failure because only through failure is there growth in learning

Q: what components are actuating the reflectors?

A: M1 reflector and M2 actuated by a system that is motor driven screws and a piston movement, would be nice to come up with a sort of design everywhere, the real magic is not the actuators, but the vision system: it turns out if you have. A big reflector that is focused on a smaller reflector and you can keep the two aligned through a simple computer algorithm, like everything we do this is patent pending. We owe our work all to NASA and NIAC, collaboration in a win=win function

Q: in the future where does this concept go for worker bees?

A: like UPS or Amazon delivering spacecraft where they need to do, in the medium term we hope to create low-cost space tugs, and we can be the low cost standard oil of space, but we are really a vision driven company, and we exist because we think the resources of space vastly outweigh the resources of earth, we wish to support a trillion people and are fundamentally a company built on optimism.

NIAC 2021 - Skylight

 Red Whittaker - Skylight: Lunar Pit Exploration

Unique windows to unknowns to realities below the moon’s surface

Lunar caves could be shelters to the harsh radiation and other realities of the surface

Pits suggest acces to caves

The pit walls reveal the only observable pristine geology on the moon

Mission scenario surface. Robots will make the next great explorations

The operations are necessarily autonomous

No carrying direct to earth radio

This new class of skylight mission will use rovers

Pit rover to the rim of the pit, capture images and generate images

A smaller rover cannot carry communication equipment and must be preprogrammed

The rovers must be distinct from those that came before

They must be compatible with landers, negotiate pit sheet aprons… cameras must extend over into the pit

Pit ranger has a rigidly suspended four wheel drive skid steer

Aggressive slope extent, reverse pivoting to ascend

The model reverses these features for space relevance

Autonomy enables fast exploration

Microrovers cannot move quickly in response to human control. Autonomy allows the rapid movement. This is necessary because there are only 12 days, not 12 years to complete the mission

Both the imagery and plot morphology …

The flyover pit rover is also the model that the rover depends upon

The flyover image like satellite imagery cannot view into total darkness

The autonomy directs the rover to occupy strategic outlooks

Overlooks are ID’d while descending the steep apron

High quality navigation in motion at double the speed required to achieve exploration of any of the largest pits, this increases on speed and accuracy of previous rovers

Three images are captured at short, medium and long exposures

This eliminates burnout, retains lighting, and …

The rover returns to the pit to continue the exploration, this allows series uplink of models to earth

The longer the rover is operational, the higher the fidelity of the model

Skylight preprocesses before transferring to landing for modelling, the small size is negligible compared to the raw imagery that could not possibly be downloaded to earth

Cavern could not possibly be seen from satellites

LiDAR was utilized to create a high precision model to compare the rover to actual geometry of the pit with 2,850 sq m of area

The field experiments generated accurate 3d square models

Significantly advanced towards viability

Near term low cost missions to increase the exploration of lunar caverns

Q: upon fall, still useful?

A: very unlikely, though many of the small pits that are not sheer drops, almost seem to have ramps that is almost a matter of gradation

Q: potential ice that might be present on the moon?

A: yes, great activity in that area, given the ambition for pristine ice though a lighting phenomena as you come closer and closer to the pole, the grazing light makes it harder and harder to discover, just the true polar pits where ice would be accumulated are not yet known to exist

Q: any international partners for this project?

A: Yes, the Japanese with their Selene missions were the first to discover the pits, Hariyamo and Issa were among would like to see the ice on the poles, which everybody wants

Q: everything predicted?

A: yes, the lander is a flyover instrument which acquires those flyover imagery from which a first model is made. It is certainly possible that the light correcting could be added to the flyover imagery

Q: is there any use for the bot before NIAC?

A: every great mission has a …. Spoke earlier on a ramp in addition to the cave discoveries would discern a most likely route, lastly there are many scenarios for lobbing something into a crater and sensing something into a parabolic flight, and passing from a leap is also a scenario

Q: sending down a 6’3” cable, what turned you away from that approach?

A: this always comes up, whether to use a tether, and of course those are viable approaches and the moon diver proposed that approach, part of that is budget, further out, and more involved complexity with increased sulfur line that would come in its time, not in some far out someday, but instead for frequent lunar destination missions…. Also allows a cluster of pits etc.