2020 R&D Achievements
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inside One - page 1 Message from the Chief Technologist: Progress and Perseverance — Despite the Pandemic Two - page 2 FY20 Achievements At-a-Glance Breakdown of FY20 IRAD and CIF Awards FY20 Agency New Technology Reports (NTRs) Three - page 5 The Best in Innovation: Eftyhia Zesta and Goddard’s Heliophysics Researchers Four - page 8 Significant FY20 Successes: The Fruits of R&D Investment • Successful Mission Applications: OSIRIS-REx Meets Mission Requirements; Acquires New Insights • Mission Awards, Technology Infusion, Phase-A/Step-1 Concept Studies, and Flight Opportunities • Follow-On Funding to Advance Technology-Readiness Levels • Critical Support Capabilities • Patent Applications and Commercialization • Profile in Excellence: Twelfth Mission and Counting About the Cover Five - page 23 During the pandemic, Goddard employees met virtually to Technologies to Watch continue developing their technologies. The Goddard employees shown on the computer monitor include (from top, left to right): Sun Hur-Diaz, Victoria Wu, Sarah Dangelo, Michael Romeo, Noble Hatten, Lauren Schlenker, Steven Hughes, Sean Semper, Andrew Liounis, and Samuel Price. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now….” — Mark Victor Hansen, American Author In the years to come, we’ll likely remember 2020 shops, Innovation Workshops, and our Annual IRAD as the strangest of our lifetimes. We were only six Poster Session, giving our innovators a platform to months into fiscal year 2020 (FY20) when NASA share shuttered its facilities due to the global pandemic, their work. requiring employees to work from home. Although denied access to their labs on center — the life We didn’t miss a beat. blood for many technologists funded by our Inter- This isn’t to say our program wasn’t adversely af- nal Research and Development (IRAD) and Center fected by mandatory stay-at-home telework. How- Innovation Fund (CIF) programs — some principal ever, researchers stepped up and juggled the work investigators received center approval to create they could complete while also caring for loved offices and improvised labs in their homes. They ones, young and old. Others couldn’t complete their projects re-engineered their lives. because they didn’t have access to critical laboratory equip- For those able to work from home, the existing challenges ment; however, Goddard’s Office of the Chief Technologist and less-than-perfect conditions didn’t stop them. In many remained flexible. We allowed researchers to shift their respects, FY20 proved no different than in previous years, focus when it made sense for them to develop more designs at least in terms of results. Our return-on-investment — that and carry out trades, analyses, and other IRAD-related activi- is, the gains in follow-on NASA R&D funding, awarded ties. Consequently, the IRAD program has provided follow-on instrument-development efforts and missions — more than funding to complete these research efforts in FY21. compensated for our initial investment in these investment Even so, I’m awed by what our people managed to accom- areas and exceeded our expectations. plish under difficult circumstances. They persevered. This Using Microsoft (MS) Teams meetings and other virtual report offers a snapshot of what our innovators achieved in collaboration tools, our innovators submitted mission and 2020. To me, they are heroes. instrument proposals and advanced concepts. They submit- ted a record number of New Technology Reports (NTRs) and applied for patents. They forged new partnerships. They secured flight opportunities, won follow-on funding and Phase-A mission studies, and completed technologies used in Peter Hughes simulators and other critical-support capabilities. We even Chief Technologist succeeded in holding virtual IRAD Pre-Collaboration Work- Goddard Space Flight Center 1 Goddard leadership values research and development and, goals. This dual investment in the workforce and innovative thus, is committed to funding and effectively managing God- technologies positions the center to continue winning new dard’s Internal Research and Development (IRAD) program missions and instrument starts in areas important to NASA and the NASA Headquarters-funded Center Innovation and Goddard’s role in Agency missions. Without IRAD and Fund (CIF). CIF funding, Goddard could not maintain its leadership in certain scientific disciplines and technical capabilities. Leadership knows R&D attracts, retains, and cultivates talented scientists and engineers. It creates experts in criti- cal and advanced technologies NASA needs to fulfill its FY20 Program Quick Takes Lines of Business: 8 (See Chart) New Mission Awards: 7 Funding Programs: Heliophysics Flight Opportunities for Re- search and Technology (HFORT); Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Technology Demonstrations: 4 Funding Program: Space Technology Mission Directorate Opportunities Program; SubTec-9; Sound- ing Rocket Program Office Phase-A/Step-1 Studies: 4 Funding Program: Small Explorer; Small Explorer Mission of Opportunity; Heliophysics Flight Opportuni- ties for Research and Technology (HFORT) 2 Award of Follow-On Tech Funding: 12 Follow-On Funding Sources: Instrument Incubator Program (IIP); Develop- ment and Advancement of Lunar Instrumen- tation (DALI); Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Ob- servations (PICASSO); and Heliophysics Technology and Instrument Development for Science (HTIDeS); Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) New Technology Reports (NTRs): 278; up from 205 in FY19 (Goddard Total) Instrument/Mission Design Studies: 10 (IRAD-funded) Breakdown of FY20 IRAD and CIF Awards Science SmallSat Suborbital Platforms and Technology 8 % Range Services 2 % Planetary Astrophysics 20% Science 15% Communication and Heliophysics 13% Navigation 11% Cross Cutting Earth Science 15% Capabilities 16% 3 New Technology Reports (NTRs) Provide Benchmark for Gauging Success NTRs capture information about technical discoveries, By the close of FY20, Goddard technologists filed 278 re- improvements, innovations, and inventions so that NASA ports, far exceeding the 205 submitted in 2019. Of all NASA’s can disseminate these technologies appropriately under 11 field centers, Goddard came in second in the number of its mandated technology-transfer program. Since many of NTRs submitted. these NTRs result from IRAD- or CIF-funded efforts, they also gauge the success of our R&D programs. FY19 & FY20 Agency NTRs GODDARD STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS OFFICE 449 FY 2019 FY 2020 378 278 276 247 201 205 205 205 193 184 153 147 140 140 105 65 63 33 18 17 11 ARC AFRC GRC GSFC HQ JPL JSC KSC LaRC MSFC SSC 4 “It’s exciting to finally see the fruits of our long efforts from all these past years. We are, I believe, the poster child for our IRAD program.” — Eftyhia Zesta, Goddard Heliophysicist The Best in Innovation: Eftyhia Zesta and Goddard’s Heliophysics Researchers The fiscal year proved to be excep- measurements of important physical tionally productive for Goddard’s processes affecting space weather Heliophysics Division and one of its and astronaut safety. star performers: Eftyhia Zesta, who was named FY20’s IRAD Innovator of Dione, HERMES and the Year. the Future Photo Credit: xxxxxxx/NASA Photo Credit: In FY20, many new missions awarded Her latest success is a new, pathfind- to Goddard scientists and engineers ing CubeSat mission called Dione, originated in the Heliophysics Divi- which she is leading. In addition to sion, as did two of the four Phase-A/ flying her fluxgate magnetometer that Step-1 studies. Goddard heliophysi- debuted on the Goddard-developed cists received follow-on funding Dellingr mission in 2017, Dione will fly — valued in the millions of dollars two other IRAD-developed instru- — from the Heliophysics Technol- ments and a third provided by Utah ogy and Instrument Development State University and Virginia Tech. for Science (HTIDes) program and Together, they will study how Earth’s were tapped to provide instruments upper atmospheric layers react to the for the agency’s orbiting lunar sta- ever-changing flow of solar energy tion, Gateway. into the magnetosphere. In a crowd of achievers, Zesta distinguished herself. A pio- In FY20, NASA also selected her fluxgate magnetometer as neer in the field of magnetometry, she dedicated herself to one of three Goddard-developed instruments that will make miniaturizing magnetometers, ubiquitously used instruments up the Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measure- that measure magnetic fields. And because of her success, ment Experiment (HERMES) to fly on NASA’s orbital outpost, she has dramatically expanded the instruments’ use on Gateway. The data will help alert astronauts to severe smaller platforms, thereby enabling simultaneous, multipoint space weather events that could jeopardize their health and safety. 5 “The reason (the miniaturized fluxgate magnetometer) was for drift. Such an instrument would benefit spaceflight as well selected was because of its size, which IRAD paid for,” said as in-situ instruments on Earth. Steven Christe, Zesta’s colleague. “This instrument is good for everything.” “It’s exciting to finally see the fruits of our long efforts from all these past years. We are, I believe, the poster child for And last year, Zesta, with support from NASA’s HTIDeS our IRAD program,” Zesta said. program, started working with her colleagues to develop a self-calibrating