JSG at JSC

By Scott Eckley, M.S. 2018

September 22, 2017 | Scott Eckley, M.S. 2018

Welcome back to school! This blog post will hopefully be the first of many recounting what grad students were up to over the summer.

Imaging the first light produced after the Big Bang…capturing solar wind… studying pristine rocks from the moon…Sounds like science fiction, right? However, a group of graduate students from the Jackson School were able to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center and witness first-hand the research, instruments, and facilities that you only see in the news and movies or read about in publications.

On July 7th, after months of planning, we were finally in the JSC badging office and escorted to historic building 31. Home for the ARES (Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science) division of NASA, this building houses all of the NASA-held extraterrestrial samples. There are 382 kg of lunar materials (Apollo), thousands of grains from a comet’s tail (Stardust), solar wind (Genesis), cosmic dust, samples returned from an asteroid (Hayabusa), and thousands of meteorites stored in this building.

Extraterrestrial curation at NASA-JSC. Photo by Brandon Shuck
Extraterrestrial curation at NASA-JSC. Photo by Brandon Shuck

After touring the lunar curation lab, genesis lab, and Curiosity Rover’s XRD and SAM mock-up, we left building 31 and headed towards building 32, which was a new building for me and a surprise for all of us. We were escorted through secure doors, led up a few flights of stairs, and turned a corner and behold—the James Webb Space Telescope. Building 32 is home to the world’s largest thermal vacuum chamber, which explains why the telescope travelled from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to JSC. This seven-story vault can be pumped down to mimic the vacuum of space and cooled to 11 K with a gaseous helium and liquid nitrogen shroud. They planned to shut the doors and start the month long process of reaching almost zero pressure and 15 K to test the telescope’s optics the following Monday.

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is more than applicable in this situation, so this blog is supplemented by photographs included below, taken by our very own Brandon Shuck (PhD 2020). Finally, this once-in-a-lifetime experience could not have been possible without one of my mentors from last summer, Dr. Liz Rampe.

 

Processing lab for the lunar samples. Every lunar sample is stored in a vault behind the back wall in its original sealed bag under dry nitrogen. When a scientist’s request to study a sample is approved, the specific sample is passed through a series of locks into one of the prep boxes in this room. There are seven boxes: one for each mission and another for display. Each box will only process samples from its assigned mission. The samples are cut and packaged for shipping in these nitrogen-filled boxes. Photo by Brandon Shuck.
Processing lab for the lunar samples. Every lunar sample is stored in a vault behind the back wall in its original sealed bag under dry nitrogen. When a scientist’s request to study a sample is approved, the specific sample is passed through a series of locks into one of the prep boxes in this room. There are seven boxes: one for each mission and another for display. Each box will only process samples from its assigned mission. The samples are cut and packaged for shipping in these nitrogen-filled boxes. Photo by Brandon Shuck.

 

Display box for lunar samples. This box is the only one that contains samples from multiple missions. The left three are impact breccias while the furthest right one is an anorthosite with melt splashed on it. Photo by Brandon Shuck.
Display box for lunar samples. This box is the only one that contains samples from multiple missions. The left three are impact breccias while the furthest right one is an anorthosite with melt splashed on it. Photo by Brandon Shuck.

 

A mirror panel from the Genesis mission. These mirrors were designed to capture solar wind during its 28-month orbit around the Earth-Sun L1 point. The goal of the Genesis mission was to measure the composition of the Sun by capturing the high-energy particles it emits. Photo by Brandon Shuck.
A mirror panel from the Genesis mission. These mirrors were designed to capture solar wind during its 28-month orbit around the Earth-Sun L1 point. The goal of the Genesis mission was to measure the composition of the Sun by capturing the high-energy particles it emits. Photo by Brandon Shuck.

 

Dr. Liz Rampe (Co-Investigator for CheMin Instrument) with the CheMin instrument mock-up. Dr. Rampe was discussing how CheMin is the only XRD on Mars. It allows the Curiosity rover to analyze mineralogy of Martian soils and rocks to better understand the history of water on Mars. Photo by Brandon Shuck.
Dr. Liz Rampe (Co-Investigator for CheMin Instrument) with the CheMin instrument mock-up. Dr. Rampe was discussing how CheMin is the only XRD on Mars. It allows the Curiosity rover to analyze mineralogy of Martian soils and rocks to better understand the history of water on Mars. Photo by Brandon Shuck.

 

Chamber A. This seven story tall thermal vacuum chamber is currently housing the James Webb Space Telescope. It can mimic the conditions of space by reaching an almost perfect vacuum and temperatures as low as 11 K. The door is 40 feet in diameter and weighs 40 tons. The whole room is a class 1000 clean room. Photo by Brandon Shuck.
Chamber A. This seven story tall thermal vacuum chamber is currently housing the James Webb Space Telescope. It can mimic the conditions of space by reaching an almost perfect vacuum and temperatures as low as 11 K. The door is 40 feet in diameter and weighs 40 tons. The whole room is a class 1000 clean room. Photo by Brandon Shuck.

 

James Webb Space Telescope. Through the multiple windows, we could see the JWST’s 6.5-meter wide mirror array. It will observe infrared wavelengths and hopefully see the beginning of the universe. Photo by Brandon Shuck.
James Webb Space Telescope. Through the multiple windows, we could see the JWST’s 6.5-meter wide mirror array. It will observe infrared wavelengths and hopefully see the beginning of the universe. Photo by Brandon Shuck.

editor’s note: cover photo courtesy of Space Center Houston https://spacecenter.org/attractions/starship-gallery/lunar-samples-vault/



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