NASA’s Webb Telescope Improves Simulation Software

The James Webb Space Telescope truly explores the unknown, displaying stunning images of previously unseen corners of the universe only possible because of the telescope’s 21-foot segmented mirror that unfurled and assembled itself in space.

Decades of testing went into the materials, design, and processes needed to develop the largest telescope in space. However, the whole project was too complex to test on the ground, at scale, at minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and in other space-like conditions.

Instead, engineers relied on software simulations to understand how the telescope would behave under different in-space conditions, and that work has helped advance the whole field of integrated computer modeling.

“We pushed everything, all the simulation, just as hard as it would go,” said Erin Elliott, an optical engineer at Ansys, Inc., which makes Ansys Zemax OpticStudio, one of the design software suites used to develop hardware and software for the Webb telescope.

Simulation technology has improved dramatically over the last two decades because of increases in computing power and new ways of accessing offsite computing power as a cloud service. But additional improvements trace back directly to Webb’s development.

Elliott used OpticStudio to support the Webb telescope while working for other NASA contractors, beginning in the early 2000s, before starting work in 2015 for Zemax ¬– which later became Ansys Zemax ¬– headquartered in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.

In the early days, Elliott said, Zemax tweaked its software for the Webb telescope effort. “They made some specific changes for us at the time having to do with handling the coordinate systems of the segments,” she said, referring to the 18 hexagonal segments that make up the telescope’s primary mirror.

Elliott also recalled talking to Zemax leadership numerous times about the need for the software to communicate better with other Microsoft Windows programs. The company introduced an API, or application programming interface, for OpticStudio, which enables the suite to work with other programs and allows for further customization. There were plenty of reasons to add that technology but Webb demands were likely significant among them, Elliott said.

Joseph Howard, an optical engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Webb and its science instrument module were assembled, noted that using several modeling packages helped drive innovation in the field. “It’s important to have multiple software companies out there that can help you not only for cross-checking the modeling, but because they make each other better through competition,” he said.

In addition to improvements made to OpticStudio during Webb telescope development, Ansys Zemax in 2021 introduced the Structural, Thermal, Analysis, and Results (STAR) module, which benefited from the knowledge Elliott gained working on the NASA project.

When a mirror or lens changes shape due to temperature swings, the optics move. Much of the OpticStudio modeling was completed in smaller pieces — engineers would run a thermal simulation independently and add that data to the next optical model, generating more data for the next run.

The STAR module incorporates analyses from other simulation software directly into OpticStudio optical models — an efficiency applicable to telescope and aerospace designs. This feature is also increasingly important for autonomous vehicles, cell phone lenses, and other optics working in tough environments.

Future telescopes and other spacecraft are likely to involve elements of the Webb design. More will travel in segments that must self-assemble in space, and the development of the increasingly complicated robotics and optics will rely on improved modeling software.
“When we built Webb, we knew we couldn’t fully test it on the ground prior to flight, so we depended a whole lot upon modeling and doing analysis to get ready for flight,” Howard said. “The next great observatory will be even more dependent on modeling software.”
Meanwhile, designers of more earthly technologies are already seeing the benefits of an improved OpticStudio, using it to design precision endoscopes, a thermal imager to detect COVID-19 exposures in a crowd, augmented reality displays and headsets, a laser thruster technology for nanosatellites, and, of course, more telescopes.
Elliott also noted that the Webb telescope project trained the next cohort of telescope and optical device builders – those designing and using the telescope’s technological spinoffs.
“The people who built the Hubble Space Telescope were leading the Webb Telescope,” she said. “And now the younger engineers who cut our teeth on this project and learned from it are becoming the group of people who will build the next structures.”
Elliott maintains that the project “was worth it alone for training this huge cohort of young engineers and releasing them into high-tech fields.”

NASA has a long history of transferring technology to the private sector. The agency’s Spinoff publication profiles NASA technologies that have transformed into commercial products and services, demonstrating the broader benefits of America’s investment in its space program. Spinoff is a publication of the Technology Transfer program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD).

For more information on how NASA brings space technology down to Earth, visit:

www.spinoff.nasa.gov

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Loura Hall

Salts and Organics Observed on Ganymede’s Surface by NASA’s Juno

Data collected by NASA’s Juno mission indicates a briny past may be bubbling to the surface on Jupiter’s largest moon.

NASA’s Juno mission has observed mineral salts and organic compounds on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Data for this discovery was collected by the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer aboard the spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon. The findings, which could help scientists better understand the origin of Ganymede and the composition of its deep ocean, were published on Oct. 30 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede is the biggest of Jupiter’s moons and has long been of great interest to scientists due to the vast internal ocean of water hidden beneath its icy crust. Previous spectroscopic observations by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope as well as the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope hinted at the presence of salts and organics, but the spatial resolution of those observations was too low to make a determination.

On June 7, 2021, Juno flew over Ganymede at a minimum altitude of 650 miles (1,046 kilometers). Shortly after the time of closest approach, the JIRAM instrument acquired infrared images and infrared spectra (essentially the chemical fingerprints of materials, based on how they reflect light) of the moon’s surface. Built by the Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, JIRAM was designed to capture the infrared light (invisible to the naked eye) that emerges from deep inside Jupiter, probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below the gas giant’s cloud tops. But the instrument has also been used to offer insights into the terrain of moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (known collectively as the Galilean moons for their discoverer, Galileo).

The JIRAM data of Ganymede obtained during the flyby achieved an unprecedented spatial resolution for infrared spectroscopy – better than 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) per pixel. With it, Juno scientists were able to detect and analyze the unique spectral features of non-water-ice materials, including hydrated sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and possibly aliphatic aldehydes.

“The presence of ammoniated salts suggests that Ganymede may have accumulated materials cold enough to condense ammonia during its formation,” said Federico Tosi, a Juno co-investigator from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome and lead author of the paper. “The carbonate salts could be remnants of carbon dioxide-rich ices.”

Exploring Other Jovian Worlds

Previous modeling of Ganymede’s magnetic field determined the moon’s equatorial region, up to a latitude of about 40 degrees, is shielded from the energetic electron and heavy ion bombardment created by Jupiter’s hellish magnetic field. The presence of such particle fluxes is well known to negatively impact salts and organics.

During the June 2021 flyby, JIRAM covered a narrow range of latitudes (10 degrees north to 30 degrees north) and a broader range of longitudes (minus 35 degrees east to 40 degrees east) in the Jupiter-facing hemisphere.

“We found the greatest abundance of salts and organics in the dark and bright terrains at latitudes protected by the magnetic field,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “This suggests we are seeing the remnants of a deep ocean brine that reached the surface of this frozen world.”

Ganymede is not the only Jovian world Juno has flown by. The moon Europa, thought to harbor an ocean under its icy crust, also came under Juno’s gaze, first in October 2021 and then in September 2022. Now Io is receiving the flyby treatment. The next close approach to that volcano-festooned world is scheduled for Dec. 30, when the spacecraft will come within 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Io’s surface.

More About the Mission

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft.

More information about Juno is available at:

https://www.nasa.gov/juno

News Media Contacts

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

Deb Schmid
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org

Marco Galliani
National Institute for Astrophysics
+39 06 355 33 390
Marco.galliani@inaf.it

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Randal K. Jackson

25 Years Ago: STS-95, John Glenn Returns to Space

On Oct. 29, 1998, NASA astronaut John H. Glenn made history again when he returned to space aboard space shuttle Discovery’s STS-95 mission, nearly 37 years after becoming the first American in orbit during his February 1962 Friendship 7 mission. The seven-member STS-95 crew consisted of Commander Curtis L. Brown, Pilot Steven W. Lindsey, Mission Specialists Stephen K. Robinson, Dr. Scott E. Parazynski, and Pedro F. Duque of the European Space Agency, and Payload Specialists Dr. Chiaki Mukai of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Glenn, who at age 77 became the oldest person to orbit the Earth, a record that stands to this day. During the nine-day mission, they conducted more than 80 experiments, many of them to study how exposure to weightlessness might relate to the aging process.

Left: The STS-95 crew during their introductory press conference. Right: President William J. “Bill” Clinton introduces the STS-95 crew, including Senator John H. Glenn, during a ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Glenn, whom NASA essentially grounded after his historic 1962 mission for fear of losing a national hero in a spaceflight accident, had always dreamed of returning to space. Upon learning about the physiological changes that occur during spaceflight, and how they somewhat resemble those brought about by aging, now Senator Glenn began lobbying NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin for an opportunity to put that theory to the test, by volunteering himself as a subject. Goldin agreed in principle, providing Glenn passed the same physicals as all the other astronauts and that the flight included valuable peer-reviewed research. Glenn did, and teams at NASA working with the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging to put together a research program of experiments to study bone and muscle loss, balance disorders, sleep disturbances, and changes in the immune system. In addition, the mission conducted other experiments in fields such as materials processing, protein crystal growth, cell biology, and plant growth. Also part of the mission, the SPARTAN 201-5 free-flyer pallet carried instruments to study the Sun’s corona and the solar wind. On Jan. 16, 1998, NASA announced that Glenn would fly as a payload specialist on STS-95. On Feb. 13, the agency announced the rest of the STS-95 crew, who held a press conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) on Feb. 20, coincidentally the 36^th anniversary of Glenn’s Friendship 7 flight. During a visit to JSC on April 14, President William J. “Bill” Clinton introduced the STS-95 astronauts.

Left: STS-95 astronauts Steven W. Lindsey, seated left, and Curtis L. Brown; Scott E. Parazynski, standing left, Stephen K. Robinson, Chiaki Mukai of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Pedro F. Duque of the European Space Agency, and John H. Glenn. Middle: The STS-95 crew patch. Right: Liftoff of space shuttle Discovery on the STS-95 mission, returning Glenn to orbit.

Space shuttle Discovery’s 25^th liftoff took place at 2:19 p.m. EDT on Oct. 29, 1998, from Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, carrying a double Spacehab module filled with scientific equipment. Brown, making his fifth trip into space and second as commander, and Pilot Lindsey on his second launch, monitored Discovery’s systems as they climbed into orbit, assisted by Mission Specialist Parazynski, a physician making his third trip into space, serving as the flight engineer. Mission Specialist Duque accompanied them on the flight deck. Mission Specialist Robinson, on his second mission, and Payload Specialists Mukai, also a physician and on her second trip to space, and Glenn experienced launch in the shuttle’s middeck.

Left: View of the Spacehab module and the Canadian robotic arm in Discovery’s payload bay. Middle: The crew’s first view of the interior of the Spacehab module. Right: Chiaki Mukai, left, and Stephen K. Robinson begin activating the Spacehab.

Upon reaching orbit, the crew opened the payload bay doors, thus deploying the shuttle’s radiators. Shortly after, the crew opened the hatch from the shuttle’s middeck, translated down the transfer tunnel, and entered Spacehab for the first time, activating the module and turning on the first experiments. These included the life sciences experiments that Glenn conducted to compare the effects of weightlessness and aging.

Left: Physician astronaut Dr. Scott E. Parazynski, left, prepares to draw a blood sample from John H. Glenn. Middle: Glenn, left, and Parazynski prepare to centrifuge the collected blood sample. Right: Glenn, instrumented for a sleep study, prepares to begin his sleep period.

Left: The STS-95 astronauts use the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator system, or robotic arm, to release the SPARATAN 201-5 free flyer. Middle: Stephen K. Robinson operates the RMS to retrieve the SPARTAN after its four-day autonomous flight. Right: Robinson places the SPARTAN back in the shuttle’s payload bay.

On the mission’s second day, the crew deployed the PANSAT, a small experimental communications satellite built by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Later in the day, Robinson used the Canadian-built Remote Manipulator System (RMS) or robotic arm to grapple the SPARTAN free flyer. He removed it from its cradle in the payload bay and deployed it for its four-day independent mission. It successfully completed its autonomous flight, traveling up to 30 miles from the shuttle. On flight day 6, Robinson used the RMS to capture SPARTAN and placed it back in its cradle in the payload bay.

Left: Stephen K. Robinson processes a sample in the Advanced Gradient Heating Facility (AGHF). Right: John H. Glenn operates the Osteoporosis Experiment in Orbit (OSTEO) payload investigating the behavior of bone cells in microgravity.

Left: Scott E. Parazynski prepares an experiment in the Microgravity Science Glovebox. Right: Chiaki Mukai examines plants grown in the Biological Research in Canisters (BRIC) experiment.

For the remainder of the mission, the seven-member crew busied itself with conducting the 80 experiments in the shuttle’s middeck, the Spacehab, and in the payload bay.

Left: Chiaki Mukai operates the Vestibular Function Experiment Unit (VFEU) investigation the vestibular systems of toadfish. Middle: John H. Glenn removes cartridges from the Advanced Separation (ADSEP) experiment. Right: Steven Lindsey operates the BIOBOX used to store biological samples.

Left: Pedro F. Duque operates the Microencapsulation Electrostatic Processing System (MEPS) experiment. Middle: Chiaki Mukai operates the high-definition camcorder provided by the Japanese company NHK. Right: John H. Glenn takes one of the 2,500 Earth observation images obtained during the STS-95 mission.

A selection of the Earth observation photographs taken by the STS-95 crew. Left: The Hawaiian Islands. Middle left: Houston. Middle right: Florida. Right: Yemen and the Horn of Africa.

Left: STS-95 astronauts, clockwise from lower left, Pedro F. Duque, Chiaki Mukai, Scott E. Parazynski, John H. Glenn, Curtis L. Brown, Steven W. Lindsey, and Stephen K. Robinson. Middle: Brown, left, and Lindsey review entry checklists before donning their launch and entry suits in preparation for returning to Earth. Right: Mukai, left, and Duque help Glenn, center, put on his launch and entry suit for reentry.

On their last day in space, the crew finished the experiments, closed up the Spacehab module, donned their launch and entry suits, and strapped themselves into their seats to prepare for their return to Earth. They fired the shuttle’s Orbital Maneuvering System engines to begin the descent from orbit. Brown piloted Discovery to a smooth landing at KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility on Nov. 7, after completing 134 orbits around the Earth in 8 days, 21 hours, and 44 minutes. The astronauts exited Discovery about one hour after landing and immediately began their postflight data collection to measure their immediate physiological responses after returning to a 1 g environment. Ground crews towed Discovery to the Orbiter Processing Facility to begin preparing it for its next mission, STS-96, the first shuttle docking to the International Space Station. The astronauts returned to Houston’s Ellington Field, where a large crowd of well-wishers, including government officials and the media, welcomed them home.

Left: Space Shuttle Discovery lands at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida to end the nine-day STS-95 mission. Middle: Dignitaries including Isao Uchida, president of Japan’s National Space Development Agency, KSC Director Roy D. Bridges, and NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin greet the returning STS-95 crew after their landing. Right: Dignitaries including Houston Mayor Lee P. Brown, left, U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Administrator Goldin, and Johnson Space Center Director George W.S. Abbey greet the STS-95 crew at Ellington Field in Houston.

Left: U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison addresses the crowd at Ellington Field gathered to welcome the STS-95 crew back to Houston. Right: NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin addresses the crowd at Ellington as the STS-95 astronauts listen.

Enjoy the crew-narrated video about the STS-95 mission.

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Kelli Mars

Daily Minor Planet Volunteers Spot an Asteroid Passing Close to Earth

Volunteers working with The Daily Minor Planet have made the project’s first big discovery: an asteroid passing very near planet Earth. On the night of October 3rd, a telescope for the Catalina Sky Survey snapped four pictures of a far northern section of the sky. The next day, volunteers  H. N. DiRuscio, X. Liao, V. Gonano and E. Chaghafi spotted a clear streak moving through each image and quickly notified the Daily Minor Planet team.

Other telescopes from around the world went on the hunt for this space rock to find where it was heading. Observations of the asteroid came in from New Mexico and Croatia confirming the asteroid’s trajectory. It was found that the asteroid would pass by Earth about twice as far as the moon the next week and that it was about 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter! 

The Catalina Sky Survey is a NASA funded project to find dangerous Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) based at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona. The Daily Minor Planet is a citizen science project hosted by the Zooniverse that asks volunteers to review animated nightly images taken by this survey to determine if they are real asteroids or false detections. The Daily Minor Planet team has already submitted observations of over 1,000 main belt asteroids and a few dozen NEA candidates since it started in May of this year. This is the first one to be independently confirmed and published by the Minor Planet Center.

Fortunately, further observations of this object ruled out any possibility of this asteroid hitting the Earth. But the Daily Minor Planet volunteers continue to search! New data is uploaded after each clear night of observing, so there are always new discoveries to be made. To join the search, visit https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/fulsdavid/the-daily-minor-planet

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Accounts Receivable

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Accounts Receivable

ACH Credit Payment

ACH Credit is a payment method that allows a payer to initiate payment through their financial institution through the ACH/Federal Reserve network. ACH Credit allows the payer to control the initiation and timing of payments as well as when the date the funds are sent. Please view the instructions by accessing ACH Credit Payment Instructions.

Payments to NASA

For your convenience and fast results, you have the following options to pay online:
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For information on other payment, options please contact NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) Customer Contact Center: 1.877.677.2123.

NSSC Accounts Receivable does not process checks for returned funds from Grantees.
Grantees should refer to Health and Human Services website for instructions on returning funds.

For other payment options, please contact the Customer Contact Center.

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Make checks payable to: NSSC/For the account (s) of [applicable center]
Please include the bill number on your check.
Send all check payments to the following address:
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Credit/Debit Card Payments to NASA

To begin, please go to the Treasury Financial Manual at: https://tfm.fiscal.treasury.gov/v1/p5/c700.html.  
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Section 7045—Limitations on Card Collection Transactions
Section 7045.10—Transaction Maximums

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Section 7010—Scope, Applicability, and Network Rules
Section 7025—Honoring of Cards and Surcharges
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Testing
Agencies wishing to test the new credit card daily dollar value limits can do so using the Vanity emulator. Use the $1.72 amount. The return code will be V2. Please refer to section 10.10 and Appendix A of the Pay.gov Agency Guide to the Collections Service for additional information on using the Vanity emulator.  

Fedwire Payments for NASA

The Federal Reserve Banks provide the Fedwire Funds Service, a real-time gross settlement system that enables participants to initiate funds transfer that are immediate, final, and irrevocable once processed. Depository institutions and certain other financial institutions that hold an account with a Federal Reserve Bank are eligible to participate in the Fedwire Funds Services. There are approximately 7,300 participants who make Fedwire funds transfers. The Fedwire Funds Service is generally used to make large-value, time-critical payments. International and Domestic financial institutions can use Fedwire to send a wire transfer in United States dollars directly to the bank to the United States Treasury, which then forwards the payment to NASA.

The Fedwire Funds Service is a credit transfer service. Participants originate funds transfers by instructing a Federal Reserve Bank to debit funds from its own account and credit funds to the account of another participant. Participants may originate funds transfers online, by initiating a secure electronic message, or off line, via telephone procedures.

The Fedwire Funds Service business day begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the preceding calendar day and ends at 6:30 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, excluding designated holidays. For example, the Fedwire Funds Service opens for Monday at 9:00 p.m. on the preceding Sunday. The deadline for initiating transfers for the benefit of a third party (such as a bank’s customer) is 6:00 p.m. ET each business day. Under certain circumstances, Fedwire Funds Service operating hours may be extended by the Federal Reserve Banks.

For more information, please visit: https://frbservices.org/financial-services/wires/index.html

Sending A Fedwire

Payments can be made through your Financial Institution. Your Financial Institution may charge additional fees for this service which will be incurred by the customer. Please also include a point of contact for your business in case NASA has any questions about the payment once it is received. Include any other identifying information with the payment, such as the bill of collection number, reference numbers and identify where to apply the payment. Customers should use the following instructions that meet their payment requirements.
Note: NASA does not charge the Fedwire fee.

Pay.Gov Payments

Online payments to NASA can be made through Pay.Gov through NASA Online Payment link only. Customers should use the following instructions for Pay.Gov that meet their payment requirements:

1. Reimbursable Customers requesting to make an Advance Payment, please view instructions by accessing NASA Online Payments via Pay.Gov (Advances).
2. Direct Customers (Non-Reimbursable) requesting to make a payment on a Bill of Collection, please view instructions by accessing NASA Online Payments via Pay.Gov (Direct).

3. Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) Customers requesting to make a payment on a SEWP Fee, please view instructions by accessing NASA Online Payments via Pay.Gov (SEWP).
4. Click to view a Pay.Gov Screen Shot Example.

SWIFT Payment

Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment is an interbank communications system in which financial institutions worldwide can send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable environment. SWIFT does not facilitate funds transfer; rather, it sends payment orders, which must be settled by correspondent accounts that the institutions have with each other. 
 
Each financial institution, to exchange banking transactions, must have a banking relationship by either being a bank or affiliating itself with one or more. SWIFT is linked to more than 9,000 financial institutions in 209 countries and territories. For payments to NASA, the SWIFT message directs funds to a United States Treasury account, which then references and forwards the payment to a NASA Center. Please view the instructions by accessing SWIFT Payment Instructions.
 
Note: NASA does not charge the SWIFT fee.
 

Foreign Payments

International Treasury Service (ITS) or ITS.gov is a comprehensive payment and collection system.  ITS.gov is the federal government’s single portal for all types of international transactions, including payments and collections. Wire transfers allow for the individualized transmission of funds from single individuals or entities to others while still maintaining the efficiencies associated with the fast and secure movement of money. By using a wire transfer, people in different geographic locations can safely transfer money to locales and financial institutions around the globe.

International wire transfers are monitored by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and agency of the U.S. Treasury tasked with preventing money from going to or coming from countries that are the subject of sanctions by the U.S. government.

Please reference Foreign Currency Accounts and ITS Collection Instructions for more information.

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