NASA's Open Government Commitment

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Issue 6 November/December 2010 this issue IT Talk Open Government p.1 Copernicus Trajectory p.2 STI Social Media p.3 Encouraging the Next Generation p.4 Building Inspiration p.5 Using Cloud Technology p.6 Future Women of Science p.8 Office of the Chief Information Officer NASA CIO: Linda Y. Cureton NASA’s Open Government Commitment NASA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer Other speakers at the event included NASA’s hosted the Open Government Community Deputy CIO Deborah Diaz and CTO for IT Summit Series on October 13th. Invited Chris Kemp. One theme participants heard speaker Astronaut José Hernández, known through the session was that the Open for his bilingual tweets from space and for Government Initiative requires an approach his 160,000+ Twitter followers, summed to communication where the Government up his remarks by saying that Open Gov- enables the flow of ideas. NASA is working to ernment is about “leveraging resources publish more of its data sets online and create that perhaps the public is not aware are more opportunities to engage the public using available to be used for good causes.” digital tools. “As more data is generated, we Transparency, are witnessing the emergence of new elec- Participation, & He reminded participants that many tools are tronic tools almost daily,” said Diaz. “Agen- available to allow contributions to any cause. cies must look ahead to anticipate change Collaboration As a timely example, Hernández pointed to and efficient use of new technology tools.” his use of Twitter in the days following the The Open Government Chilean mine accident. He communicated to Kemp added the following: “From one con- Directive calls on Execu- his Twitter followers that NASA had resources versation to thousands of conversations, tive Branch agencies to help in the rescue. While efforts were technology enables the conversation and to become more open, already underway for NASA to engage supports the conversation. We’re accountable, and cen- in the effort, finding that if we don’t stand in tered on the principles of Hernandez Deborah Diaz, the way of that conversation, transparency, participa- said his fol- NASA’s Deputy CIO incredible things can happen.” tion, and collaboration. lowers’ aware- NASA has embraced ness added to Participants from as far away this Open Government the momentum as Vienna, Austria exchanged challenge and has a around NASA’s ideas and expertise with others number of Open Govern- involvement in from around the globe and in ment activities underway, the rescue. the meeting room. As many including the creation of as 50 people simultaneously a NASA Participatory provided input for discus- Exploration Office sion topics. The Open to infuse more pub- Government Commu- lic participation into nity Summit Series is an NASA’s mission. For inter-agency collaborative more about NASA’s event hosted monthly by a involvement in the different organization. It is Open Government sponsored and managed Initiative, visit http:// by the Open Forum Foun- Chris Kemp, www.nasa.gov/ Astronaut José Hernández, dation in Washington. NASA’s CTO-IT l open/. l Guest Speaker 2 EAST Contract The Copernicus Trajectory Design Awarded and Optimization System NASA CIO Linda Cure- The Copernicus Trajectory Design and Opti- Center (JSC). The first operational version of ton said “I am extremely mization System represents an innovative and Copernicus was released in March 2006. In pleased to announce the comprehensive approach to on-orbit mission March 2007, JSC assumed control of primary award of the Enterprise design, trajectory analysis, and optimization. development of Copernicus. The JSC devel- Applications Service Copernicus integrates state-of-the-art algo- opment team, lead by Gerald Condon (JSC/ Technologies (EAST) rithms in spacecraft trajectory optimization EG5), includes Jacob Williams (ERC, Inc.), contract to Science and interactive visualization. It allows NASA Dr. Juan Senent (Odyssey Space Research), Applications Interna- engineers to design spacecraft missions to all and Elizabeth Davis (Jacobs Technology). l tional Corporation (SAIC) possible solar system destinations, making use in McLean, VA. SAIC of many types of propulsion systems and any will provide all services number of spacecraft. All of these features are in support of the NASA incorporated within a single software tool that Enterprise Applications can be used interactively via a comprehensive Competency Center. Graphical User Interface (GUI) or passively via This is the first of the external programs. The modular architecture contracts to be awarded of Copernicus allows for the inclusion of new under the NASA Infor- algorithms, models, and techniques as they mation Technology become available. Copernicus can be scaled Infrastructure Integration from a single desktop personal computer (PC) Program (I3P) and is a to computer clusters where no user interac- key milestone. I con- tion or graphical feedback are required. gratulate the entire EAST source evaluation board Copernicus provides continuous visual feed- Low-thrust lunar capture trajectory. and thank them for their back to the analyst regarding the trajectory superb work and dedica- design, thus streamlining the overall process tion to this effort over the and reducing the total development time. This past several months.” contrasts with other tools that only provide feedback at the end of the process. By using Under a Firm Fixed generalized trajectory building blocks, the Price contract, SAIC user can construct a wide range of problems will provide key applica- (e.g., simulation, guidance, targeting, and tion development and optimization). Just a few examples of how Earth-Venus-Venus-Jupiter-Pluto flyby mission. maintenance services Copernicus has been used at NASA include: in support of the NASA Enterprise Applications • Development of the Orion spacecraft on- Competency Center orbit performance for all flight phases (NEACC) in Huntsville, • Trajectory design for the Lunar AL. The contract will CRater Observation and Sens- begin on February 1, ing Satellite (LCROSS) 2011 following a 90-day • Investigation of future piloted and robotic phase-in period. l missions to near-Earth asteroids and Mars. It is currently in use at most NASA Centers, in addition to industry partners and universities. Dr. Cesar Ocampo at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) began developing Coperni- cus in 2001. From 2003 to early 2007, the Copernicus development was a collabora- LCROSS mission design case. tive effort between UT and Johnson Space Making IT Stellar at NASA 3 STI Story Gets Told Through Social Media by Gerald Steeman, LaRC, STI Program Office The NASA Scientific and Technical Informa- tion (STI) program, established over 40 years ago, supports the objectives of NASA’s missions and research by acquiring, preserving, and disseminating NASA’s wide-ranging technical publications. The STI program is best known for the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), which boasts a collection of over a quarter of a million full-text technical reports, directly to YouTube from our Screenr account.” Improve Email papers, and articles and attracts over 3.3 mil- The vintage NACA video and tutorial content lion visits a year from a worldwide audience. have grown a respectable subscriber base. Performance “We have over 3,000 subscribers. Many of our Having a high number The STI Program Office is always looking for videos and tutorials have received the thumbs of items in the pri- new ways to promote awareness of NASA up from viewers,” says Lyall. This positive mary folders (Inbox, STI and assist NASA researchers in discover- experience trumps conventional onsite train- Sent Items, Deleted ing technical literature. Turning to social media ing classes. It is far cheaper, reusable, and Items, Calendar, etc.) seemed to be a low-cost, low-risk option. wider reaching, and it provides anytime/any- can cause your email where support to the Agency and the public. client to take a very The STI Program Office looked to the Cen- long time to open. The ter for AeroSpace Information (CASI), the Using the different social media tools in con- recommended maxi- contractor-operated organization that sup- cert is key to maximizing outreach. “All of mum number of items ports the STI program, to make a claim on our social media accounts are advertised on is 5,000 in any one of the social media cyberscape. Starting in late the STI home page at http://www.sti.nasa. the primary folders. 2009, CASI began using Twitter and Face- gov, and conversely we link to our home page Ideally, the number of book to highlight new STI additions to NTRS. from our social media accounts,” says Lyall. items should be 3,500 Content was easy to come by because an “There is an interplay between the accounts. or fewer for maximum RSS feed for new STI was already in place. For example, when we post a new YouTube performance. There is a Twitter followers have grown to over 1,000 video it automatically puts out a tweet on our desired limit of 10,000 individuals and institutions largely due to the Twitter account linking to the new video.” items in any one of the continuous tweeting of this information. non-primary folders on Social media tools have tremendously the server. Non-primary CASI then turned to YouTube in early 2010. improved CASI’s outreach endeavors and folders are ones that “We requested a YouTube channel via apps. assisted in achieving STI Program Office goals. you create and name, gov,” says Kim Lyall, a CASI outreach special- The effort put into these activities pays out as opposed to pri- ist. “After approval, we created the channel immediate dividends like thumbs-up content mary folders which are and prepopulated the site with some digitized votes and positive comments from follow- automatically created National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ers. “On Twitter, there is an active commu- by the email client.

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