NASA in Your Home: How Space-Based Technology Improves Our Daily Lives

NASA's jet propulsion laboratory presents the Von Caren lecture a series of Talks by scientists and Engineers who are exploring our planet our solar system and all that lies [Music] Beyond good evening everyone my name is Gregory Smith from jet propulsion Laboratory Communications and education directorate and I thrilled to be your host for tonight's edition of the Von Carman series most of us don't realize that we utilize devices materials and scientific knowledge every day that was first developed for space-based Missions here at NASA JPL uh tonight we'll be discussing these so-called spin-offs or commercialized NASA JPL Technologies and expertise that benefit the general public we'll explore how a spin-off makes its way from JPL into the world and then do a deep dive on carbon mapper the NASA designed and built instrument at the heart of the carbon mapper coalition's first two satellites uh these spacecraft will pinpoint and measure methane and carbon dioxide sources in communities around the world from low earth orbit to Wade through the multiple questions we hope to receive from you our viewers we have my friend and cooh co-host JPL public Outreach specialist Rachel Zimmerman Brockman hi Rachel hi Greg hi we are so excited to read all of your questions about JPL spin-offs our team will be working behind the scenes to pull up questions that you send us from LinkedIn X YouTube and Facebook if you're on any of those platforms and you don't see a way to ask a question try to refreshen your browser a Q&A box should appear at the end of tonight's presentation I will field some of the questions that you ask to our two speakers we won't have time to answer all of them but we'll answer as many as we can in the time provided we want to hear from you this is your space program thank you Rachel Rachel will return to moderate our Q&A later in the program so make sure you are asking all those questions joining us today we have two speakers who know a thing or two about spin-offs first up we have the manager of the office of Technology transfer here at JPL Daniel broadrick hi Dan hey great great to be here and happy summer Solstice oh happy Solstice very good excellent excellent timing with this talk uh it is next to talk about the spin-off carbon mapper we'll be speaking with JPL research technologist Dr Andrew Thorp thanks for being with us Andrew absolutely it's a pleasure to be here and look forward to the conversation Greg excellent we'll be back to chat with Andrew later in the program uh so Dan let's begin with you what exactly does the office of Technology transfer do here at JPL well Greg we don't want to hide our light under a bushel we want to get our technology out there uh to the public so it can benefit uh everyone as much as possible so we concentrate on uh uh discussions with the commercial sector uh getting it out to uh government sectors that can also use our technology other government agencies besides NASA and also to nonprofit research institutions uh such as universities and other uh foundations that can uh use our technology and we're constantly providing technology to uh uh the commercial sector government sector nonprofits on on a daily basis uh and we're uh trying just trying to benefit people as much as possible with this research that Jers are doing I think people may be surprised to learn that there is a thriving Department here on the lab devoted to supporting spin-offs uh before we go any further how how exactly does a JPL technology or expertise become a spin-off making its way to the general public oh that's very good question uh well of course at first uh starts out with JPL technology uh next slide and um we uh we take a look at that technology and uh this is coming from researchers and many different areas I was really surprised at how many different areas of research Jers are devoted to doing they're working in in metallurg of course in in software and avionics and uh developing new batteries that can operate at you know 200 300 degrees below zero or you know 500 degrees above zero depending on which planet you're on uh and uh we uh take a look at all these Technologies in the technology reports that the researchers send us and the rearch researchers send us these on almost a daily basis as you can imagine and so we go over these reports and uh next SL um we determine do we want to patent this and at this point uh it's probably a good idea to go into the fact that the California Institute of Technology manages the jet propulsion laboratory and so uh keltech uh does a is able to determine whether or not we want to own the patent we are granted software copyrights through all the software that's invented here at JPL and um we uh look at the applications of um of what the technology does and as you can imagine there's all kinds of applications uh some of the applications are uh uh instruments uh techn technology having to do with um remote signaling um avionics um Material Science um signal processing planetary protection and uh uh software and systems uh just it really runs the whole gamut we're I can say that we're a mile wide we also go very very deep on on off these Technologies as well so we we get the the whole dimensional uh system going here um so uh next slide um as I mentioned we we we then look at the intellectual property protection uh sometimes we decide to file a patent application uh and that's especially true if we think that technology is going to need investment from the private sector to commercialize sometimes we feel that the best thing to do is to devote it to the public um it's the best place for it other times we uh we are granted copyright and we'll license the software copyrights to companies and then we'll negotiate a license agreement uh if we decide to protect it with the uh commercial sector or we'll do a a startup company and we've done many many startup companies out of JPL and we'll talk about some of those and uh later a little bit later in the program it's quite a it's quite a process uh what kind of support do we offer outside startups well as I mentioned Caltech does is able to take title to the patents and so we Caltech does provide a lot of resources to our entrepreneurs and so uh it it starts out by typically meeting with the our entrepreneur and residents who came who is an entrepreneur name her name is Julie shonfeld and she worked for a JPL startup named OE waves and sold part of the business to General Motors so she's got she's very sophisticated uh has a Harvard MBA uh knows an awful lot about uh doing startups uh and uh and helping uh folks with their business plans and and ideation and uh getting getting started uh putting a preliminary team together to talk with investors and then once you get those investors uh putting the real you know company together and as you can imagine this is these are startups chaos rules uh so there's all kinds of ways in which this happens uh but that's kind of the general plan and which we which which we go by I this must take this must be a long system of of in of time investment how long does this process usually take do some technologies become spin-offs faster than others well it depends as as we all like to say sometimes uh uh some Ware uh in particular is fully developed here at JPL for an application and it's so developed uh that we can simply license it uh very quickly uh to a company that's interested in using it other times uh we really need to mature the technology and see if it works for new applications and particularly commercial applications that are outside of J what JPL is doing I would say the typical time frame is anywhere from a year to five years um before it really gets uh commercialized and sometimes it takes quite a bit longer because a lot of JPL technology is way ahead of its time and so uh we've got some uh micro mechanical technology that is approaching terahertz speeds and we've talked to folks in Industry about this and they just say well this is this is way ahead of anything that we're doing in the commercial sector but uh best of luck we'll let you know what we're ready for it so it's it runs the gamut so you have to wait for them to catch up a little bit yes we speaking of timelines although not uh strictly a spin-off of JPL Tech in terms of speed probably the fastest version of this process was during the pandemic when JPL engineers and scientists got together to solve the lack of viable respirators in those early days of covid-19 uh they designed tested and received FDA approval and Licensing for their vital respirator which went from first ideation to shipping to hospital in under two months which is incredible uh my colleague Nikki wrick hosted a terrific Von Carman talk on vital last July if viewers would like to uh check out that it's incredible story it is I remember doing that and I remember uh negotiating couple dozen licenses to companies all over the world for that technology amazing uh danam what are some of your favorite spin-offs that JPL has had a hand in bringing to the public well one of my favorites uh is of course uh sitting on my cell phone right now now next slide mine too yeah and this is uh uh this is called um complimentary metal oxide semiconductor uh pixel arrays uh that's a mouthful but what it means is that uh back in the uh 1990s I believe early 1990s quite a while ago some of our researchers said hey we need some lower power imaging technology that we can use on our satellites that won't you know be such a hog on Power and uh industry really like this because they they like the low power but also this seos technology is very compatible with existing semiconductor standards and processes and integrates very well uh with u uh with with computer technology existing computer technology uh so they just gobble it up right away so now this technology is is used in virtually all cell phones and it's used in digital cameras and um it's just uh one of these Technologies that's ubiquitous and we're going to talk about it a little bit later as well in our particular application uh next slide and now we'll talk about the the computer looking back at you uh and looking at your eyes and then your eyes looking at the computer and actually your eyes creating a cursor on the computer who is this good for of course is this good for the disabled and uh JPL collaborated with an IT tracker manufacturer to uh reduce the size and increase the the accuracy and the and the portability and the importantly the affordability of these side trackers so uh you can fit uh a relatively inexpensive uh device on a wheelchair that opens up uh a world to the disabled it's wonderful uh next slide and a lot of people know that uh way you know in the upper atmosphere we've got this thing called the ionosphere it's a basically an electron layer that can interfere with satellites that are helping airplanes uh navigate and and land and and that kind of thing and so JPL has developed worldclass um ionospheric correction technology that the Federal Aviation Administration uses uh so that you can reach your destination uh uh safely and and accurately next slide and uh We've JPL have have made that technology uh GPS technology extremely accurate um there are sensors on the tectonic on the tectonic plates these uh plates are are moving at about a fingernail with per day or a little bit less than that and uh if you're putting the sensors on those plates you can determine location and you combine it with GPS signals you can determine location very very very accurately and 911 responders uh use this information to get where they want to go and and to know exactly where they're at and it can position people within uh really inches and and uh even centimeters of uh where they're going and so they they know exactly where they are uh next slide so in spacecraft uh there are microbes uh usually they're they're hitching a ride from Earth typically uh we do try to clean the space CRA as much as possible but they they they're there and especially in the ISS uh we do have these air filtration systems that catch these microbes and we bring the filters uh down to earth and we look at these microbes and they're they it's very fascinating to look at these microbes because they actually evolve in space and some of these microbes have evolved to uh deal with UV radiation and to more effectively protect themselves from UV radiation and we've actually they use this technology to create more effective sunscreens and and sun and skin lotions that are available uh next slide so I was at the dentist today as a matter of fact that is the honest SC truth and I was looking at my x-rays anybody that's been to the dentist lately probably knows they don't use film for x-rays anymore they use Digital Imaging and that Digital Imaging was uh an offshoot of seos Imaging that we licensed to a company called serona shik serona and now it's used uously in dental offices all over the world and it's great a great technology because you don't need to use as much as many x-rays so less x-ray exposure for you less x-ray exposure for your uh Dental technician uh and the uh uh the x-rays are available much faster so that you and your dentist can look at them like I did this afternoon and um and then you can as transfer the x-rays uh much more quickly in accurately as well so very very very nice and and and also seos imaging has found applications in digital Healthcare uh all over the place especially but especially in x-rays Dan I certainly hope that you uh uh let them know at the dentist office that we helped absolutely xrays of your teeth people need to know this yes sorry next slide I think and sometimes GPS is fantastic technology but there are times especially when you might be in a GPS denied area where the GPS isn't working very well or where you need to use G use a a sensing technology for your orientation which which direction you're facing and GPS can do this but not it's got some troubles doing that and also um where you might need to know what floor of a building you're on uh and so we have a researcher here uh that developed a technology called Magneto quasi Statics and this technology can uh determine what floor you're on in a building what position you're facing and especially for First Responders if uh a first responder is down uh you know and and on the floor and needs medical attention and so right now this has uh been licensed to a startup company called belbo geolocation and they're working very closely with First Responders especially uh fire agencies to test this and and do uh and see what other types of applications that they can use uh including other types of first responder applications next slide and JPL developed some augmented reality technology to develop uh the perseverance Mars Rover and uh fascinating technology you can I remember going into the lab and you could actually walk through the Mars perseverance Rover virtually and look at all the gears and uh electronics and and uh and levers and uh hinges and everything the wheels that was on this it was just fascinating uh to walk through and you can also put yourself in any virtual environment that you want to as well and of course our favorite environment is is on Mars um but it's also very very very good technology and uh we're looking for commercial applications for this as well next slide so a lot of people don't realize we have an awful lot of satellites looking at the Earth even though we've got a lot of you know stuff going up to Mars and Venus and Jupiter uh most of our satellites are actually looking down at Earth and these satellites uh give us terabytes of data just so much data that you really need to visualize it to make sense of it and uh so we've developed software here at JP L for data visualization where you're dealing with just massive amounts of very complex data and it turns out uh that uh many companies um in the commercial sector have the same issue and other government agencies uh have the same issue and and nonprofit foundations that are looking at massive amounts of data have the same issue so uh a company called virtual litics was spun out uh and is uh a very uh doing very well and and thriving uh here in p Adena on on Lake Street last I saw so there and this has turned out to be a very successful company here in Pasadena uh next slide and another U spin out company called Advanced teles sensors has developed technology it's it's a technology for it's microwave technology and they can sense your heart rate your breathing and sleeping with no contact no physical contact no electrodes nothing to hold on to uh and this is now being tested in nursing homes uh so that patients can be monitored all night and get their heart rate and and breathing and uh and tracking other Vital Signs uh uh so they can make sure that they're doing well and healthy and if they need anything that they can set off an alarm and have somebody come help them and this could actually find your way into your home as well because we're looking for other applications as well next slide so JPL has developed a number of methane sensing Technologies and we're going to talk about that a little bit further one of the methane sensing Technologies was used on the perseverance and curiosity Rovers and the general technology uh did a great it was Laser Technology open path laser spectrometer technology that was able to uh detect very very small amounts of methane and it actually uh discovered methane on the mar on the Gil crater on Mars and elsewhere so there is methane on Mars and uh this technology was then reduced in size uh and reduced in cost to the point where you can put it on a uh unstaffed aerial vehicle and uh which is fantastic because now uh we've got another company called cops uh that is putting these these methane gas sensors on uavs uh that is that are then monitoring plants uh they're they're monitoring landfills uh pipelines that might have leaks and other natural sources of methane and as you might know methane is a very nasty greenhouse gas uh very very much much more more potent on a molecu on a per molecu basis uh than carbon dioxide is and Andro can probably talk more about that and so this has uh been a very important uh uh spit out technology and is now being used all over the world the last time I I talked to the CEO of this company cops and he I was surprised at how widely this technology is now being disseminated they're working with PE uh they're working on all five continents uh and uh they've got all kinds of deals with companies that are using this technology to uh determine methane uh leaks and and sensing and uh it's just a wonderful technology for the environment and and for even finding bethane as well fantastic um next slide so as a fory into our next speaker um we've got a couple of other technologies that can do methane and carbon dioxide sensing uh avarest which is on the airplane on the right is was is still being used on airplanes and that's using us as defraction as you might remember from your science class that's when light hits an edge and it it gets um uh sent in a little opposite little Direction in an angle and it gets picked up and by that angle you can figure out what wavelength it is and so Everest is using very very complex defraction sensors that are on airplanes right now and uh Andrew is going to talk about how we're going to up that game and we've also got um spectrometers on the ISS uh that's also looking at methane and so with that I'll uh let Greg introduce our next speaker it's an incredible l and I know it only touches on a tiny fraction of the number of spin-offs JPL has been a part of in our long past uh we have the NASA spin-off website URL uh uh posted below um so folks should be able to check that out to learn a little more um now thank you so much Dan we'll be back chatting with Dan again later in the talk for now let us let's bring Dr Andrew Thorp into the conversation to talk about carbon mapper welcome back Andrew hey Greg uh now research technologist Dr Andrew Thorp what exactly does a research technologist do that's a great question and it's a sort of a complicated uh job job title right so research technologist basically is trying to work with existing technology and also develop future technologies that can answer scientific questions and for the last 10 years or so I've been pushing technologies that can allow us to map greenhous gases in a better way great before we dive into what makes carbon mapper tick we should probably explain what Imaging spectroscopy is and how it works yes absolutely and I think we've got a slide that gives a nice description of how this technology this JPL technology does in fact work what we're showing um in this image here is the sun sending photons down through the atmosphere it's interacting with the atmosphere hitting the ground up to our Imaging spectrometer that's built at the jet propulsion laboratory and the spectrometer itself measures different wavelengths of light from the visible through the short wave infrared and it allows us to generate these uh spectral fingerprints for Diagnostic uh surface and atmosphere components and we've got on the next slide a a zoom in of that figure just to give you a sense for some of these diagnostic spectral fingerprints from things like water um soil and vegetation you can see in different colors the radiance U measured radiances at different wavelengths from the visible around 300 animet all the way through the short wave in at around 2500 ners the focus of of this discussion is really on the gas absorption features that are present for carbon dioxide between 1500 and 1,700 animers and around 2,000 nmet as well as methane that has stronger absorptions between 2200 and 2500 ners and it is these gas absorption features that make uh methane and CO2 greenhouse gases it absorbs photons and and causes uh global warming and greenhouse gas um warming historically how has JPL spacecraft utilized Imaging spectroscopy to study the universe so uh we have a long track record of developing this technology if we go to the next slide you can see uh a few examples of some of the earth observations the spe first spectrometer that was built at the jet propulsion Laboratories AIS back in 1984 uh we followed that with the Airborne visible infrared Imaging spectrometer avarus we're very good at JPL of having acronyms long acronyms at that so this is a long one there uh then this is a very large instrument you see that in the center upper panel the person for scale AIS has been used for a number of different science applications both to characterize the surface as well as the atmosphere and mo sort of a notable um use for Avest was that after the September 11th um you know twin tower sort of catastrophe um we had avarest actually car characterize this the Spectra of of that location um after after that um event uh since then then we've been continuing to build better instruments smaller and higher performing instruments and you can see the avarest Next Generation instrument much smaller there's another person for scale in a bunny suit U Then followed by the snow and water Imaging spectrometer with a hand for scale so smaller even smaller and then what I'm showing in the final two panels there are the spaceborn versions of these types of instruments the first being the Earth surface mineral dust Source investigation called Emit and I'll be showing some results from that later today and then the carbon mapper set of instruments there are two instruments they will be Tanager one and Tanager two um from in space later this year am I correct in saying we have a long history of creating greenhouse gas mapping using this type of instrument absolutely we do um uh but in addition to that we we have characterized um with imaging spectrometers uh the uh planetary surfaces uh of as well so if we go to the next slide um you can see a few examples of some of those observations including Mars the compact reconnaissance Imaging spectrometer prism and mcubed the Moon minerology mapper that was used to identify frozen water uh at the poles of of the Moon and that instrument is not active but it is orbiting uh the the moon currently uh and then finally we've got got M the instrument that is going to be going to Europa um in the future um if we go to the next slide I can talk a little bit about the uh sort of greenhouse gas application uh I've been involved in that since I was a graduate school at UC Santa Barbara began by publishing papers that demonstrated as you see in the upper left there the first set of observations maybe the second set my my dissertation adviser did the first first paper I'll give him credit for that um but followed on um with a second paper just showing that we could do this over uh the ocean as well as over you know land areas for both natural and anthropogenic emissions and then since then over a decade or so we've been really trying to push the science forward um what I'm showing the center panel there is the first methane point source that was observed from space using the Hyperion Satellite by colleague David Thompson at the jet propulsion Laboratory um Airborne campaigns uh we've done a number of those over the years this is an aest nextg campaign from the California methane survey uh when uh Riley Duran uh was the pi he's currently the CEO of carbon mapper but he was at JPL at the time and then since then we've been launching instruments into space like Emit and showing that we can map both methane and CO2 Point sources from space uh and also using Next Generation airborne instruments like avarus 3 to characterize methane emissions this is a nice example from a dairy waste Lagoon if we go to the next slide I can talk a little bit about how these instruments work and how we measure uh these greenhouse gases so we call this type of instrument a push broom scanner uh the idea being that think about pushing a push broom over uh the sidewalk it scans over the surface of the Earth measuring different wavelengths of light from the visible through the shortwave infed over 400 channels in this example and that's visualized as that data Cube that you see in the vert vertical Direction and it provides em provides an 80 kilometer wide image swath with a 60 meter spatial resolution which is really critical for mapping out methane and CO2 Point sources uh the spectral fingerprints themselves are shown on the next slide for methane um and you can see some strong absorption features between you know 2200 and 2500 n as measured by your instrument in purple and it matches nicely with um some modeled results that we have and it is these absorption features that make methane a greenhouse gas but also allows us to generate imagery like I'm showing on the right there for this uh methane emission from a landfill so for each image pixel within the scene we can estimate a concentration enhancement and we can use that to estimate an rate from this example for CO2 we also have spectral fingerprints as shown on the next slide um for three pronounced absorption features that are shown in that figure and that allows us to do a similar type of emission quantification for power plants um and other large CO2 sources and these are two examples of coal fired power plants in in China if we go to the next slide uh this is a uh sort of a video that shows all of the methane plumes that were observed with emit on board the ISS since launch wow and what's pretty uh remarkable is that you can you know you start to see distributions of these plumes in different areas um I will note that you know we don't have full coverage here um because the primary mission of emit was really to focus on arid regions so uh when we first started the mission we were really focused on those AED regions since then we've expanded our targeted areas and we are getting coverage over much of the globe uh and we're starting to see more and more methane plumes in these different areas so carbon mapper will be sort of building off of this success um and launching two instruments um to do this type of work in an even better way um with you know improved sensitivity and improved um repeatability over time um and it really excited about um the carbon mapper program uh it that graphic is really stunning in that you it's hard to not to see that the correlation between uh the findings and areas of great population am I correct in that yeah there there there's definitely a correlation to some degree with population there's also I would probably argue a more of a correlation with oil and gas production um areas in particular um so if you were to zoom in in the United States you would see kind of a cluster of methane plumes in Texas in the peran Basin which is a the largest uh you know oil and gas producing Basin in the United States similarly there's you know uh turkistan is an area that uh has a lot of methane plumes um and you would see that um but absolutely there there is a relationship to uh population centers as well if any of our viewers would like to do a deeper dive into AIT we hosted a terrific Von Carman talk on this subject last April that I invite you all to check out now uh Andrew let's chat about the incredible spin-off carbon mapper first off what is the carbon mapper Coalition absolutely so let's go to the next slide and I'll uh sort of walk through the carbon mapper Coalition um the mission itself um carbon mapper is a nonprofit that delivers actionable and localized methane and CO2 data products um and the carbon mapper is at the Forefront in terms of the integration and organization so they have put together this unique Coalition of private and public sector actors uh with expertise and resources uh to deploy a science-driven sustained and operational decision support service U for Maximum Impact and they've been working with a diverse set of of stakeholders and and individual ual that are uh in in this figure if we go to the technology side of things that's where I'm most involved um the jet propulsion laboratory Imaging spectrometers are uh the core to that technology uh JPL built one of the two instruments and worked very closely with Planet who built the second instrument planet is launching uh those instruments into space after integrating them into their um satellite buses and will be doing the operations on a daily basis for the science uh this is being led by Arizona State University and Arizona the University of Arizona in addition to additional um organizations uh next we have the uh policy side of things so again this is really a mission that's really driving to have policy relevant results and to do so uh car mapper is working very closely with the California air resources board as well as the Rocky Mountain Institute and others and then finally this project is funded through philanthropy and that includes the high tide Foundation the uh Grantham Foundation as well as a Bloomberg philanthropies JPL is involved with building one of these instruments can you talk Andrew a little bit about how carbon mapper was created absolutely and I think I have a a nice slide that will talk a little bit about uh what we've been doing for some time at JPL to support carbon mapper and that is namely uh to build the Imaging spectrometer uh that will be going into space later this year this is one of the two instruments this was the instrument that was built at the jet propulsion laboratory on the left I I'm showing the Imaging spectrometer that gold uh surface there it's about 22 cm in height and you can see three different bipods sort of in a silver color there that are at the top of the spectrometer those bipods are used to get the spectrometer attached to the much larger telescope and you can see that telescope in the figure on the right that sort of black black mass with that sort of aperture for the for the telescope so those get uh mated together and um lots of electronics and other uh pieces of uh equipment and used to make that happen uh so that's sort of the first set of images if we go to the next slide you can see um some of the testing that we did at the jet propulsion Laboratory and this is an example where we actually used the spectrometer to measure methane for the first time and we used a gas cell with methane in it and uh like basically passed light through that cell causing absorption features and then that signal gets measured by the detector array and this is an example of those characteristic spectral fingerprints um for methane particularly very strong one is is visible there from 2200 to 2400 animers a series of them but if you look really carefully there's also a weaker set of absorption features around 1600 nanometers and and that is expected as well so this was a a nice example of uh just measuring methane in the laboratory for the first time before it goes to space and when it will be doing this in an operational sense if we um go to the next slide um thank you uh we've got an image of sort of the completed instrument I guess from the JPL perspective before it was delivered to planet where it will be integrated into their bus and ultimately launched and operated so there's a whole very large team of Engineers and other folks that are involved in this and this is just a picture showing four of those folks getting ready to uh get the instrument delivered to planet and it was delivered a few weeks back this is a good example of a spin-off that isn't personally owned by the public but greatly benefits the public how will carbon mappers findings affect real change in communities around the world yep that is uh really the core of carbon map mappers ethos for for being right is to deliver actionable information on methane and CO2 um emissions the the next fig the next image or animation I would say is a nice example of of sort of how this will work this is the perian Basin in Texas the largest oil and gas operating Basin in the United States and what this IM or this video will show is two different instruments the Tanager one and Tanager two Imaging spectrometers passing over the area providing wall to--all mapping so this is Tanager uh the first Tanager instrument Tanager one uh coming into frame and you can see the coverage of the permium Basin and what it will deliver is point sources within that um image swath Tanager 2 will pass and and continue to mow the lawn and you can see that example uh in the next pass with different point sources of methane in this example shown um and uh by having two different instruments up in space allows for you know improved coverage of this example this perian Basin but also carbon mapper is going to be focusing on areas of interest for both methane and CO2 mapping in a global sense um and and this is really enabled by uh the two Satellite instruments incredible thank you Andrew and the carbon mapper team on what promises to be a profoundly important spin-off to advance new datadriven emission mitigation strategies it's incredible and we wish you all the luck uh I think we should bring Dan broadrick uh back as we turn to my co-host Rachel uh Rachel I imagine you have a T of questions for our two guests what have you got for us I do have some questions that have come in uh the first one is Francine on linkton who asks are there any spin-off technologies that JPL has developed that would help spacecraft navigate around the Moon yes there we have quite a few uh one of our Technologies is called Monty M nte and it's a a flight planning technology uh that we are licensing two other companies uh uh including blue origin and Amazon Kyper and a host of others and it helps you plan your your flight and uh plan um you know how you're going to get to your your destination and we also have a host of Landing Technologies as you can imagine uh We've landed on Mars so many times and it's very difficult because it's uh 7 minutes you know the radio signal takes s minutes to get there on a good day and and um so everything has to be automated uh you can't use a joystick or you can't you know um control things uh you have to uh land autonomously so we have a lot of Landing software as well and we've uh licensed some of our Landing software to private companies uh that are using it for for lunar or other missions yeah great thanks so much for answering that question the next one is from Paul Johnson on uh YouTube who asks can Imaging spectrometers be used for the Sun or is that not an option Andrew I'll let you ATT I'm happy yeah happy to say that um uh to to answer that one so absolutely um spectrometers have been used to characterize uh you know stars um they're they're each one is individually tailored for the task right so the instrument that uh I was describing and for looking at the Earth for greenhouse gases won't be the the right instrument to point at the sun um but folks have developed Imaging spectrometers and spectrometers in general to characterize uh the stars and planets as well for sure great thanks uh the next question is from Natalie Watson on YouTube who asks uh first of all says great technology and then she asks um how do you integrate nanotechnology with the collection of samples from the Moon and Mars [Laughter] you stumped the panel well one thing that we can do is we can look at um we we don't have any samples from Mars I'm sorry to say uh we're working on a Mars sample return Mission and we we do hope that that's going to be uh uh get funded and it's going to be a successful Mission but in terms of lunar samples we have lunar samples and um we in fact have some lunar samples in the bun carbon Museum here at JPL and some of the lunar samples have been uh looked at uh for minerals and for uh uh possible signs of Life which have been found uh and for other purposes as well and typically you know you're looking at uh at these lunar samples using very high um microscopy and uh you're trying to find you know what what is in those lunar samples that can indicate the evolution of the moon and and the characteristics of the Moon and and perhaps uh if there are what kind of minerals and and elements there are on the moon that might be valuable and might be worth researching great thanks so much um let's see uh Wes on Facebook asks MRI and CAT scans owe their Origins to image processing technology from NASA spinoff to if I'm not mistaken so the question is there's kind of a difference between JPL technology and NASA as a whole technology I'm not sure kind of what the delineation there is as to whether this was NASA technology or JPL technology or combination of the two or somebody else I see well I can answer that a little bit I I do know that um MRI technology was actually developed in Scotland at the University of Aberdine uh initially and there were some Nobel Prize winners who uh who received the Nobel Prize and I I believe they were they were Scottish researchers uh I do know that some NASA technology was used uh in terms of the image processing uh for uh medical images uh including CAT scans and possibly MRI scans as well so uh typically you know the there's the old story you see so faras to stand on the shoulders of giants uh usually when you look at technologies that are in use every day you realize that there are you know dozens or hundreds of um contributors to the technology that's that's now being used and that's that's very true and in terms of the technologies that I talked about on Coss Imaging for example you know we handed that off to uh several companies that did tremendous work on getting it to work and getting it to actually work in your cell phones and cameras and instruments um but in terms of NASA versus JPL uh NASA is just one Space Center and there's uh eight other space centers and uh we sometimes uh cooperate and collaborate and uh come up up with new technology together and and sometimes it's uh new technology that jlor has come up with on the road uh so there's uh a host of things that are going on between JPL uh researchers working you know in groups here at JPL and then also working cooperatively and collaboratively with uh other JPL centers and even with other government agencies we we do quite a bit of work with uh the department of energy and um and all kinds of uh agencies that uh uh that that can benefit from from what we have here from our resources and from our researchers yeah speaking of other federal agencies uh bill on X asks I thought Global Positioning Systems or GPS uh was proposed designed created and operated by the US Department of Defense in what sense can GPS be described as NASA technology yeah good question so again yeah you see see so far is's a stand on the shoulders of giants so we we took that GP uh that GPS technology and then um used uh uh what we could to do precise orbit uh determination so if you send a spacecraft up and you want to make sure that uh it's on track uh We've developed some fantastic technology uh that is used in spacecrafts all over the world for that it's called Gypsy and um you can look at you can look that up on um on our website I believe is what you look at and um in terms of what I mentioned for GD GPS that's Global differential GPS and so uh JPL has developed that technology other private companies have developed that technology as well and that's when you taking the GPS signals that are already up there and you're um adding additional information to make it more precise and there's a lot of ways that you can do this one is to use uh cell phone towers uh signals and and do try ulation that's that's one way you can increase the accuracy uh another way is of course as I mentioned the you get the most accuracy using the sensors from on the tectonic plates uh so this is really uh you know taking the existing GPS uh Network and and then doing something with it you know for spacecraft or for emergency responders uh Etc cool uh Peter coic on YouTube asks would there be something like G PS on the moon for upcoming astronaut Expeditions and that sort of thing my understanding is that you can use GPS on the moon uh but we're developing technologies that work um on the moon that might be in GPS denied areas uh that's a good question uh it's uh I I you know spacecrafts use GPS all the time uh for precise orbit determination uh I I don't see why it can't be used on the moon as well but I do I can imagine the GPS signals uh being blocked in certain areas on the moon and and that's why we're developing some of the GPS denied Technologies okay I know you spent a lot of time at the beginning of the talk talking about like some of the examples of of JPL technology but ndu 192 on YouTube asks what technologies the JPL and NASA are developing have the potential for impacting the most people on earth and what about potentially impacting typical daily life and we've given some great examples of you know sunscreen and uh Dental Imaging and and the the cameras in your cell phone but are there any other things that come to mind as like really good examples of uh JPL technology that could impact your daily life yes we we do have some other uh examples as well I I use the of course the the short list given the limited amount of time that we have but one thing I do want to mention is that typically uh the technologies that we're getting into my office and that I'm licensing to companies are actually Industrial Technologies it's companies that come that it's technologies that companies are using um for their uh processes or uh for uh spacecrafts that um may be incorporated into the products that you're using but it's a little bit uh uh Upstream uh from what you're actually uh you know seeing in in your product you may not see it uh you know right away but as we move forward yes of course we're going to see additional Technologies making uh the way into consumer products as well but I would say that typically uh the typical technology that JPL produces is not really supposed to go into consumer products they're supposed to go into to uh to to help us do uh space missions and uh every once in a while uh these Technologies do find their way into consumer products such as cell phone cameras and Medical Imaging and dental Imaging and uh sunscreens and Etc the things that and and FAA um the Federal Aviation Administration is using these signals to correct for the ionosphere for aircraft and and I should say Japan is using our technology for this as well so uh so a lot of times it does we do have technologies that really help people uh here on Earth and and also in in space great thanks so much uh uh the technologies that Andrew is working on uh have the potential to benefit uh Humanity across the globe absolutely and I'm thank you for mentioning that I think um maybe not front of mind for uh daily daily life when it comes to things like sunscreen but but uh really well said I think you know these Technologies are relatively young it's about 10 10 years or so and what we have been seeing with Technologies like Emit and undoubtedly what carbon mapper is going to be able to do and and future Technologies is you know by identifying greenhouse gas emissions of methane and CO2 there's the great potential to offer not only a greater understanding of how greenhouse gases impact climate but also the potential for direct mitigation right and I think that's a concern for a lot of folks um you know trying to figure out how we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions I think uh these Technologies make what is invisible to our eyes very visible and we can quantify them and ultimately by sharing these results with folks that want to do something useful with it we can actually inform sort of policy when it comes to emission mitigation and such and that's really going to be what carbon mapper is really really focusing on going forward and we want to make sure uh we've just put up a slide which has the uh carbon mapper URL on it so people can do a little more uh research on the product uh in the technology themselves so Greg do we have time for one more question I think we have time for one more question wonderful Carrie on LinkedIn asks how did you get into a career with NASA and JPL do you have any advice for students who dream of working there I'll go ahead and start uh with that that one I think um people come to JPL in all sorts of different paths for me me um you know I never thought I would end up at JPL I just happened in graduate school to be working with a professor that worked with data from avarus um and was looped in to the the methane related work that led to some funding that was made available through JPL through my institution Santa Barbara you see Santa Barbara and then ultimately because sort of the field continued to grow there was an opportunity for me to get to get hired um in the engineering side of of things at at JPL even though I'm not an engineer um I am a research technologist and I'm working with Engineers I'm also working on the science side so I would say you know if you're interested in particular aspect of science you know wherever you are in your your educational um Journey right you just you just go for it you look for opportunities uh to maybe uh do internships at JPL or I just look for opportunities to work with people that are working with JPL data and um you never know where you're up I guess and uh I can say that um uh my path was a little bit different um but uh I was working at Caltech and I started working on some JPL projects and I really enjoyed working on the JPL projects and uh uh when I was working on these projects people had confidence in me and I had confidence in them and I was asked if I wanted to uh to lead the office here and um I said yes largely because I really like the the culture here uh the the people are fantastic and uh smart and uh good to work with and uh very uh um just just a one of the best U uh Team cultures I've I've ever uh work worked in so it's just a a wonderful place here here here uh thank you so much Rachel and thanks to all of our viewers for those terrific questions well my friends I'm afraid that is all the time we have tonight I'd like to thank our special guest speakers Dan and Andrew for sharing your expertise and passion with all of us uh thanks to the many Jers who took the time to help me prepare for this talk to my wonderful co-host Rachel for sifting through all of those fantastic questions our amazing social media team for juggling our online presence behind the scenes our incredible audio visual team for making all of this happen and especially thanks to all of you for being passionate about NASA jpl's work and for tuning in tonight be sure to join us for next month's V Von Carmen talk as we celebrate our next generation of lunar rover called Cadre for now remember this is your space program so be involved stay curious and hooray for science good night everyone [Music]

2024-06-21 20:02

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