Hello, I'm Dr.
Makenzie Lystrup Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Our center began operations in 1959 as NASA's
first space flight center with our main campus in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Today, Goddard comprises six sites across the nation
with more than 10,000 employees.
Our world class multidisciplinary scientific research,
cutting edge engineering and focus technology development have advanced
humanity's understanding of the universe, ranging from our home planet of Earth
to the farthest galaxies billions of light years away.
True to our purpose, our achievements over the past year
have continued to rewrite and redefine astronomy as we know it.
There have been several firsts, many breakthroughs and countless discoveries.
Our success has benefited scientists,
policymakers and other stakeholders worldwide.
And we know full well
that the American public will always be our greatest stakeholder.
While we're committed to the present mission,
the landscape of space exploration is changing,
and we're taking measured steps to ensure our future will be as bright as our past.
This dedication to discovery, regardless of the challenges and opportunities
before us, is as true as when we first opened our gates.
So please enjoy this video journey
through Goddard's top highlights over the past year.
And on behalf of Goddard Space Flight Center and our talented employees,
thank you for your interest in our work as we continue to push the boundaries
of possibility.
We're taking you on a journey of this year's
top highlights at Goddard, starting with the farthest reaches in astrophysics.
Heading back home with planetary science.
Warming up close to our sun with Heliophysics and landing home back on Earth.
Wallops Flight Facility, The Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Katherine Johnson
Independent Verification and Validation Facility.
White Sands Test Facility.
And the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.
All make up the Goddard Space Flight Center.
Constellation.
speaking of constellations from our cosmic backyard
in the solar system to distant galaxies near the dawn of time, NASA's James Webb
Space Telescope has delivered on its promise of revealing the universe
like never before in its first year of science operations.
To celebrate the completion of a successful first year,
NASA released Webb's image of a small star forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi
cloud complex.
Congratulations to the Webb team on winning two Webbys this year,
one for the live covered series from launch to the first images broadcast
and the second for Webb's social media.
here at Goddard, Many key components of the Nancy Grace
Roman Space Telescope are on their way to completion,
The focal plane system
developed at Goddard and housing Roman's eight detectors was integrated
into the Widefield instrument, and environmental testing has begun.
Now, inside Goddard's largest clean room, the spacecraft bus made great progress
as well.
The bus structure harness several avionics boxes, and I&T
batteries are complete and mechanically integrated with electrical integration.
Well underway
in collaboration with NASA and ESA, JAXA launched the XRISM mission
on September 6th to provide astronomers
with a revolutionary new look at the X-ray sky.
With XRISM's improved sensitivity, astrophysicists will gain
new insights into some of the universe's hottest regions and
most energetic objects.
This new NASA
visualization reveals the scale of supermassive black holes.
These monsters lurk in the centers of most big galaxies,
including our own Milky Way, and contain between 100,000
and tens of billions more mass than our sun.
Congratulations to the Hubble team for winning the Webby award for best video;
Science and Education.
The video explains how Hubble has taken over a million
snapshots documenting the universe
and what it takes to process those images.
New in Planetary Science, The OSIRIS-REx team successfully delivered
material from asteroid Bennu to Earth after seven years in deep space.
OSIRIS-REx flew past Earth on September 24th and ejected
its sample return capsule, which stuck the landing at the Department of Defense
Utah Test and Training Range.
A preliminary analysis of the Bennu samples has revealed carbon
and water bearing minerals.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft is continuing its journey as OSIRIS-Apex, an extended
mission to explore another near-Earth asteroid called Apophis.
In other asteroid news.
Lucy captured its first images with a view of the main belt
Asteroid Dinkinesh first of eleven asteroids that the spacecraft
will visit on its 12 year voyage of discovery.
NASA's first return to Venus's
massive atmosphere in decades is underway.
The DAVINCI mission passed its key mission and system requirement
reviews in the past year, and it's on its way to developing a next
generation probe mission to discover a new Venus.
LRO is paving the way for future missions like Artemis by studying volatiles,
which are both scientifically important to understanding the lunar environment
and will provide on the ground resources for future lunar exploration.
Congratulations to Noah Petro and Barbara Cohen, named as Goddard's two
Science leads for the Artemis III and Artemis IV missions respectively,
and to Kelsey Young for her selection as Artemis II survey campaign lead.
The Heliophysics big year is looking bright
turnout for the annular solar eclipse was astounding as communications team
members and scientists from Goddard and other NASA's centers
arrive in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Kerrville, Texas,
to celebrate the eclipse along the path of annularity.
But that's not all.
In April of 2024, a total solar eclipse will give everyone
another chance to observe our star, the Sun, in a unique way,
and to participate in citizen science and other eclipse activities.
While people should never look directly at the Sun without proper eye protection,
safely observing the Sun during an eclipse is a good reminder of the connection
between the Sun and Earth and a good time to learn more about that relationship.
Our star is active and is currently approaching solar maximum,
which means an increase in activity like solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
Understanding the sun's behavior is important
because this upswing of solar activity can impact our lives
and technology on Earth and across the entire solar system.
Our mission to
touch the Sun Parker Solar probe is helping fill in the gaps
in our knowledge of solar, wind and the sun's magnetic fields.
Parker Solar Probe will round out the Heliophysics big year
by making its closest approach to the sun in December 2024.
Although not as hot as the sun, according to scientists at NASA's
Goddard Institute of Space Studies, 2023
was Earth's hottest summer since Global Records began in 1880.
The Canadian wildfire season had an early and aggressive
start saturating the troposphere with smoke.
This animation demonstrates the transport of total column carbon
monoxide that originated due to wildfires burning over North America in early June.
Using the GEOS forward processing system.
Here we can see that emissions from these fires
were transported thousands of miles and had widespread impacts.
Gearing up for launch in 2024.
PACE will help us better understand how the ocean and atmosphere exchange
carbon dioxide
and how aerosols might fuel phytoplankton growth in the surface ocean.
By doing so, it'll take Earth's pulse in new ways for decades to come.
down at the sandy beaches of Virginia.
Northrop Grumman's Antares rocket successfully launched from Wallops
Flight Facility to resupply the International Space Station in August.
this year.
The balloon program office had a successful fall balloon campaign,
launching five balloons carrying numerous scientific payloads,
including Goddard's gamma ray hunting, ComPair instrument
and more than 100 student experiments from the cubes in space.
Also, for balloons.
A super pressure balloon carrying the SuperBit telescope flew for 39 days.
It imaged many galaxies while in flight,
including the Tarantula nebula and the southern Pinwheel Galaxy.
Last but not least, a revolutionary.
NASA flight safety system has enabled a new era of space transportation
with the successful flight of Rocket Lab's Electron rocket on January 24th.
This mission, the first Electron launch from the United States,
was enabled by NASA's work in developing the NASA
Autonomous Flight termination unit, NAFTU, a critical piece
of flight safety technology required for this mission.
wow, 2023 has been a busy year at Goddard Space Flight Center and its campuses.
For more about what else we're up to, check out NASA.gov forward
slash Goddard forward slash annual dash reports.