Jan - Mar 2021 Volume 11 • Issue 1

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 Volume 11 • Issue 1

Collaboration at NASA

www.nasa.gov IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 Volume 11 • Issue 1 In this Issue

Office of the CIO NASA Headquarters 300 E Street SW Message From Washington, D.C. 20546 3 the NASA CIO Chief Information Officer Jeff Seaton (Acting) Editor & Publication Manager Eldora Valentine Graphic & Web Designer Michael Porterfield ICT SCRM Copy Editor 4 Takes a Village Meredith Isaacs

IT Talk is an official publication of the Office of the Chief Information Officer Collaboration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Headquarters, 6 at NASA Washington, D.C. It is published by the OCIO office for all NASA employees and external audiences.

For distribution questions or to suggest a story idea, email: Remote Collaboration [email protected] Tools Support To read IT Talk online visit: www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio/ittalk 8 NASA’s Mission

For more info on the OCIO: v www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio v inside.nasa.gov/ocio (Internal NASA network only) Communications www.nasa.gov/open/ v Program Hosts www.facebook.com/NASAcio 10 Webex Cheer Wall Message from the NASA CIO

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of effective collaboration. Enhanced remote teamwork tools with the accelerated availability of Teams, training sessions, Office 365 mobile applications, and the Teams Audio Conferencing service have allowed our Agency’s mission to successfully continue. Scientists and engineers have been able to collaborate with internal and external partners to develop research proposals, exchange ideas and observations, share data and analysis, and collaboratively develop scientific software applications. In this issue, we’ll look at how collaboration has evolved over the past several months and how we’re preparing for the future of work at NASA. And we will explore how NASA’s Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM) team is playing a pivotal role in lowering the threats and vulnerabilities associated with pro- curing information and communications technologies. We all share a responsibility to protect NASA’s network and understand and manage supply chain risk. And finally, we’ll also highlight some prestigious awards that many of our Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) teammates have earned recently. This is a testament to the great work being done at the Centers that is helping to deliver critical capabilities to enable the NASA mission. I’m proud of how information technology at the Agency is evolving. Keep up the great work! Jeff Seaton NASA Chief Information Officer (Acting)

Arvin Baroni Recognized as a 2020 Rising Star By Whitney Haggins, IT Communication Strategist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology The Government Innovation Awards, presented gathering/retention while creating labor efficien- by Federal Computer Week, Government Com- cies and process visibility. In his five years at puting News, and Washington Technology & JPL, Baroni has proven himself to be not only an Defense Systems, have named Arvin Baroni, a effective project manager, but a trusted part- Product Lifecycle Management Senior Product ner in the process, successfully teaming with Manager in the Information and Technology So- multiple engineering organizations to balance lutions Directorate, as one of their 2020 Rising their needs and priorities to meet their goals. As Stars. Baroni is the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s an ardent advocate for change and process flow (JPL’s) sixth Rising Star honoree since 2010. The improvement, he is passionate about learning Rising Star Award recognizes outstanding early- and serves as a role model to his fellow group career individuals in the first ten years of their members; moreover, he is continuously chal- IT career whose work significantly impacts their lenging the status quo, driving for the highest Arvin Baroni employers. standards in operations, user experience design/ user interface design (UX/UI), application devel- Tasked with managing multiple critical projects opment, and platform consistency. within the Product Lifecycle Management arena, Baroni manages several products heavily used Complete profiles for all the 2020 Rising by the engineering community as part of a cadre Stars can be found at https://fcw.com/ar- of applications for streamlining information ticles/2020/10/16/rising-stars-2020.aspx.

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 3 ICT SCRM Takes a Village By the ICT Supply Chain Risk Management Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

Information Communications Technol- The ICT SCRM analysts play a piv- Here are some easy steps to take ogy (ICT) Supply Chain Risk Manage- otal role in lowering the threats and whenever you need a new ICT supply, ment (SCRM) is a huge title befitting vulnerabilities associated with procur- product, or service: the enormous task that NASA faces ing information and communications 1. Check the Assessed and Cleared maintaining the security of all mission- technologies. The comprehensive List to determine if the item has critical systems that support the assessment process works to iden- already been assessed for risk and Agency. Since we rely extensively on tify malicious software and hardware approved for purchase. computerized information systems and vulnerabilities, counterfeit components electronic data to carry out our wide and poor product designs, manufac- 2. If you cannot locate the item variety of missions, the exploitation turing processes, and maintenance you need, submit a Request for of ICT products and services through procedures. Our process ensures that Investigation (RFI), also known the global supply chain is an emerging only assessed and cleared covered ar- as a Supply Chain Risk Assess- and continuous threat that continues ticles enter the Agency’s supply chain. ment Needed (SCAN) or NF 1823. to grow. Reach out to your Center’s SCRM While the ICT SCRM Team is on the Point of Contact for assistance ICT SCRM is not about hindering pur- front line of supply chain security, it with the form. chases—it is about protecting NASA. takes a village. Protecting NASA’s From design to disposal, NASA’s ICT network and understanding and man- 3. Visit the ICT SCRM website regu- supplies, products, and services are aging supply chain risk is everyone’s larly for the latest SCRM news and susceptible to compromise. When we responsibility. the information you need to know fail to properly assess all ICT pur- to keep our supply chain and our chases for risks, bad things happen. missions safe. (Please note, this Perfectly put by our partners at the link is internal to NASA) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Secu- The ICT SCRM is a service provider of rity Agency (CISA) at the Department the Office of CyberSecurity Services of Homeland Security (DHS), those (OCSS), supporting the OCIO’s Cyber- things are vulnerabilities that “can security & Privacy Division (CSPD). enable data and intellectual property theft, loss of confidence in the integrity of the system, or exploitation to cause system or network failure.”

4 www.nasa.gov Teams’ New Meeting Experience Designed for Focus By Shaina Strom, End User Services Program Office Communications, Marshall Space Flight Center

The End User Services Program Office • Feel closer together with Together • Reduced background noise uses (EUSO) is continually looking at new Mode and impose a shared back- artificial intelligence (AI) noise sup- and enhanced functionality coming ground with meeting participants, pression technology to keep your from Microsoft to implement at NASA making it feel like you are all sitting barking coworkers a little quieter and improve the user experience. in the same room. for your colleagues. Select one of four settings to suppress the right Recently, Microsoft released New • Turn on the Spotlight for speakers amount of background noise. Meeting Experience and additional so that all participants can give features meant to dim distractions their attention to the main speaker. • Meeting chat moderation allows and enhance focus. New Meeting Meeting organizers can lock the organizers to manage participants’ Experience features will eventually be individual video feed so that the ability to chat before, during, or enabled by default, but until then, you speaker has the floor. after the meeting, or if the chat can opt in to use them through your should remain read-only. Upcoming releases give you more settings. Turn them on now to explore. control over how you work in Teams. Visit our O365 Roadmap for the lat- • Use Teams in multiple windows est information on new releases from • Native notifications on Mac and with pop-out meetings, creating Teams (please note this link is internal Windows devices allow you to a new, separate window with the to NASA). choose how you would like to be Controls Menu at the top of the notified through the settings. new window.

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 5 Collaboration at NASA By Barbara Jo Webb, Customer Experience Specialist, Marshall Space Flight Center

This past year has been fun, interesting, of having the correct set of tools to But what about trying to collabo- frustrating, exhausting, and educational. get the job done in an environment rate with partners outside of NASA? We’ve learned to work with spouses that involves remote collaboration. Admittedly, that gets a bit trickier. Due walking through the room, children to the sensitivity of the NASA data, playing in the kitchen, and dogs bark- NASA’s use of Microsoft Teams has extra protocols need to be put in ing in the background. Cats usually shown that we can collaborate internally place to ensure that the data are kept walk between you and your computer with ease. Files and documents are secure and handled properly. Since to ensure that they have been seen. constantly being uploaded to Teams most of you are using Zoom in your Thanks to videoconferencing, we’ve sites. Millions of messages have been personal lives and are already familiar seen how your home office is decorated sent across the Teams chat feature. And with its ease of use, you have repeat- and we’ve learned to work while the we did see you eating that sandwich edly requested access for your use at doorbell is ringing with your Amazon during the Teams meeting yesterday. work as well. The NASA OCIO went to delivery. Simply stated, we’ve learned to work investigating the use cases, the work in a virtual environment, and we’ve Mobile access to VPN is currently functionality of the tool, and the se- learned the necessity of collaboration. in the pilot phase and will soon be curity protocols. Beginning in January available. What will that allow users to 2021, Zoom Webinar will be offered When faced with the situation of do? The mobile VPN access will allow for NASA employees’ use. And while mandatory teleworking, our NASA secure browsing to internal NASA sites there are some restrictions in place to workforce did not just accept the via Edge, mobile access to SharePoint maintain the security needed, Zoom situation—they embraced it with Online sites, and access to collaborate Webinar will be available. determination and helped demon- from mobile devices on files stored on strate to the OCIO the importance a user’s OneDrive account.

6 www.nasa.gov But what else is available? A FISMA-low instance of Slack is and request assistance with selecting For sharing files, we have Box! We’re slated to be available for NASA to the appropriate tool and submitting currently working to bring a Federal collaborate with external partners in the request. Visit Getting Started with Information Security Management Act January 2021. Planning Your Virtual Event for more (FISMA)-moderate instance of Box information. to allow collaboration with external And while virtual collaboration in a partners with credentials from another Microsoft Teams meeting is used on The NASA OCIO team has worked to federal agency. Sensitive But Unclas- a daily basis within NASA, sometimes identify the needs of the workforce sified (SBU)/Personally Identifiable teams and organizations need to con- and provide solutions in a safe envi- Information (PII)–Sensitive data will be nect with larger audiences utilizing ronment to make collaboration pos- allowed in this area. additional capabilities not found in a sible. While not all needs have been Teams meeting. Webex Meetings and answered, investigations continue in If you need to share International Traf- Webex Training now support up to an effort to provide what the workforce fic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)/Export 1,000 attendees, with the ability to use needs to collaborate and continue Administration Regulations (EAR) data, Breakout Rooms for additional ses- work in a secure environment. a pilot project is underway to support sions in a virtual conference or meeting. collaboration regarding the International To start collaborating, visit: Space Station (ISS)/European Space Trying to plan the logistics of a large https://nasa.sharepoint.com/sites/col- Agency (ESA) and allow external vetted meeting or conference and are not laboration. (Please note, all links are Foreign National partners to collaborate sure where to get started? NASA’s internal to NASA.) on ITAR/EAR/SBU/PII-Sensitive docu- OCIO has provided an entire site for ments using Box. you to investigate what is available

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 7 Remote Collaboration Tools Support NASA’s Mission of Exploration By Daniel Horton, End User Services Program Office Communications, Marshall Space Flight Center

Working and collaborating online took on laboration tools would minimize face-to-face requires collaboration between Marshall Space a new meaning in 2020. Instead of being interaction, ensuring a safe launch of crewed Flight Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, the supplementary to onsite work, it has become a commercial flights. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and many others. primary conduit of productivity as remote work Just down the road on the Space Coast, Irvine explained that her team has “continued has become the norm over the last year. launches to another target took place. In July, to excel using our virtual tools—both with the This has been the case for the women and the Perseverance Rover started its journey to mission planning and execution, and even hav- men of NASA, who still have a mission to ex- the Jezero Crater on Mars, thanks in part to ing some virtual celebrations with the team to plore our solar system and return boots to the remote collaboration tools from EUSO. mark milestone events.” Remote collaboration Moon in the coming years. Keeping that task took on a whole new meaning in October, as Michael Haddad is part of the Safety and Mis- on schedule has required many tools enabling the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource sion Assurance Launch Services team on this remote collaboration provided by the End User Identification, Security–Regolith Explorer mission. He continued to work online with his Services Program Office (EUSO). (OSIRIS-REx) craft collected samples from colleagues to ensure that a healthy launch ve- Bennu. During the approach, the whole team One of the most exciting accomplishments of hicle could give Perseverance a smooth ride to spread across the country was able to watch. 2020 was the return of crewed launches from Mars. “Cube-to-cube interaction is something Even while working from home, Irvine de- Kennedy Space Center. In March, Operations that was useful to us onsite, but now it’s been scribed that it was “one of the best moments I Integrator Manager Mike Hess commented replaced by Teams,” explained Haddad. “We’re have experienced in my career.” that “through all of the time of remote work, all using video chat. It’s gotten so common- we haven’t slowed down.” Hess’s Commercial place that we’re used to our kids or dogs being The adaptations required by the past year Crew Program team at Kennedy Space Center part of our team meetings.” have not been an obstruction to the mission. In continued to leverage tools like Microsoft combination, the flexibility of NASA’s workforce These online meetings have also been crucial Teams and Office 365, remotely supporting and the remote collaboration tools provided by in studying other objects in our solar system. flight readiness reviews of crewed launches to EUSO have ensured that 2020 was indeed a One example is with Solveig Irvine of the Plan- the International Space Station. landmark year. From crewed flights to the In- etary Mission Program Office. Irvine has had ternational Space Station, to the exploration of “If anything, the pace of work has accelerated a very busy year, studying both the NEOWISE planets and objects in our solar system, work using many of the standard tools for telework- Comet and the asteroid Bennu as they have has continued at the speed of light. ing,” Hess mentioned. EUSO’s remote col- passed near Earth. Working on these projects

8 www.nasa.gov Technology-Enabled Strategic Partnerships Are Critical to Goddard’s Science Missions By Steve Thornton, Acting Division Chief, Solutions Division, Information Technology and Communications Directorate (Code 730), Goddard Space Flight Center

Congress founded NASA in 1958 as America’s civilian space and aeronautics agency. Central to NASA’s mission are ensuring that space activities are devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all humankind; maximizing the commercial use of space; expand- ing human knowledge of Earth, its atmosphere, and space; using long- range studies to advance science and peaceful space and aeronautic activities; conducting the search for life’s origin, evolution, distribution, and future in the universe; and cooperating with other nations in these pursuits. As such, in this digital age, collaborative strategic partnerships and collaborative science, effectively enabled by technology, are critical to NASA’s mission. Goddard’s scientists and engineers collaborate with internal and external partners to develop research proposals, exchange ideas and observations, share data and data analysis, and collaboratively develop scientific software design and testing capabilities. God- Since COVID-19, effective, secure applications. NASA’s external part- dard is on track for jointly authoring collaboration capabilities have be- ners in the scientific community are over 1,400 publications with non- come even more critical to Goddard’s employed by universities worldwide, NASA collaborators globally. Many of mission. In order to provide value and foreign space agencies, other U.S. these publications are the end-product enable the mission for our scientists, Government agencies, and private of collaborative research and develop- engineers, and flight project director- industry. ment, for which IT is a critical enabler. ate customers, NASA OCIO is work- More than 50 Goddard spacecraft ing to improve large file sharing with Goddard scientists also rely on infor- explore Earth and soar through the external partners, as well as the ability mation technology, including end-user solar system, collecting observa- to easily share identities and creden- devices, inter-connected networks, tions to be parsed and studied by this tials with partners. In October 2020, cloud computing, applications, and global community of scientists in the the Agency started piloting the use of identity management capabilities to disciplines of Earth science, solar sci- Slack to provide NASA project teams collaborate securely with several criti- ence and the Sun-Earth environment, and scientists with a persistent group- cal Federal agency partners, including planetary studies, and astrophysics. chat application that allows them to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Goddard’s Sciences and Exploration share FISMA low data with external Administration (NOAA) and the United Directorate currently has 19 missions partners. The Slack project team is States Geological Survey (USGS). All and projects under study, 30 in devel- working toward a goal to make Slack three agencies collaborate regularly opment, and 222 in operations. Most available NASA-wide by March 2021. around their respective missions and of these include Government, aca- Goddard’s important mission work create standards around Earth science demic, or private-sector partners and has largely continued, despite the data and supporting platforms, such require effective, secure collaboration; pandemic, and technology has been a as cloud computing. workflow integration; and integrated critical enabler for this work.

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 9 Communications Program Hosts Webex Cheer Wall for SpaceX DM-2 and Crew-1 Launches By Sylvester Placid, Communications Strategist, Communications Program, Marshall Space Flight Center

When NASA and SpaceX launched Crew Dragon Demo-2 on May 30 and Crew-1 on November 15, the astronauts were cheered on—virtually—by several hundred personnel from NASA, SpaceX, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), California Polytechnic State University, and other mission partners using an innovative collaboration solution from the Com- munications Program (CP). CP hosted a Webex “cheer wall” that enabled video greetings for the astronauts from people across NASA and our external partners. The Webex sessions were collected and compiled by NASA video production teams for DM-2 and Crew-1.

10 www.nasa.gov JPL IT volunteers support 2020 Congressional App Challenge By Whitney Haggins, IT Communication Strategist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Four members of the AI, Analytics and Valentino Constantinou, Annie Didier, 2020 marked Valentino Constantinou’s Innovation Development (1740) team Anastasia Menshikova, and Hamsa second time as an app challenge served as judges in the 2020 Congres- Venkataram. The submissions were judge. He enjoyed the experience so sional App Challenge for California’s from grades K-12. Judges first individ- much he signed on to participate this 27th district (Judy Chu). The Con- ually reviewed the video submissions year. Constantinou noted an increase gressional App Challenge, an official and then virtually convened to discuss in participation from 2019 and wel- initiative of the U.S. House of Repre- the entries and make recommenda- comed the community involvement. sentatives, is recognized as the largest tions to Rep. Chu based on creativity, The biggest surprise to him was how student computer science competition the importance of the issue/concept the students were much more techni- globally. 2020 was an immense chal- the app attempts to solve, technique, cally savvy than he was at that age, lenge to date, with more than 6,000 and quality of presentation. For An- from the technical content and the students registered for the event. nie Didier, the judging experience quality of their video submissions. Participants were from 308 districts was inspiring, and she is interested Rep. Chu announced the winning across 49 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, in participating as a judge next year. entries in a virtual award ceremony on the Mariana Islands, and Washington, Didier said, “ It’s incredible to see what December 12. D.C. Information on the challenge can these kids have put together. Some be found at https://www.congressio- of them even have apps available on • First Place nalappchallenge.us/about/. the app store and are in use by other Zion Asemota – Help4Med people. There were even a few where I For Rep. Chu’s district, the ITSD judg- • Best Presentation thought, “I need that!” I would love to ing team consisted of Data Scientists Charlie Heatherly, Julia Heatherly, hire some of these kids!” Andrew Smithwick – Red Dungeon • Best Technical Devin Shih, Lewis Polansky, Nicholas Parra – Hoursly • Honorable Mention Jolene Lee, Lauren Hu, Connor Wang, Xiangbo Qi – ClubSpace • Honorable Mention Ariana Pineda – Purity – Gout Diet Management • Honorable Mention Sulekha Kishore – Fruitfull • Honorable Mention Ethan Chantanusart – Common Language Translator

JPL IT volunteer judges (clockwise from top left): Valentino Constantinou, Annie Didier, Hamsa Venkataram, and Anastasia Menshikova (Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA OCIO IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 11 Honor Awards: Kudos to the OCIO Team! By Eldora Valentine, OCIO Communications Manager, NASA Headquarters

Congratulations to the following team members in the NASA Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) for winning awards.

The NASA IT Strategy and Performance Team has won a silver achievement medal in the Agency Honor Awards. Team members include Meredith Isaacs, Lara Petze, and Jon Walsh. This team IT Talk

IT Talk Jan - Mar 2021 Volume 11 • Issue 1 transformed the strategic management of NASA’s information technology (IT) to

better enable NASA’s mis- Meredith Isaacs Jon Walsh sion in alignment with Agency Lara Petze and Federal direction. They supported the NASA CIO and worked with Agency customers to establish a clear IT value proposition and customer-oriented strategy to strengthen performance management and promote effective stewardship of NASA’s IT while implementing repeatable processes to make future ef- forts sustainable and cost-efficient. NASA’s IT Strategic Plan for FY 2018–21 is an outcome-oriented plan based on engagement with diverse stakeholders and first-ever approval through NASA’s IT Council.

Allison Wolff has won a FedScoop 50 award for Most Inspiring Up & Comer. Wolff is an applications architect in OCIO. She worked with NASA’s medical community to develop and deploy a contact tracing and tracking system application during COVID-19. FedScoop 50 Awards celebrate the tireless leaders who have made a lasting impact on the community and the Nation in 2020, particu- larly in regard to how they used technology to respond to and overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 outbreak. For more information about the FedScoop Awards visit https://www.fedscoop.com/list/2020-fedscoop-50/ . Allison Wolff

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of the Chief Information Officer 300 E Street SW Washington, DC 20546 www.nasa.gov