Anita Arnoldt is the electrical lead for PACE at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Arnoldt working on pin retention on PACE. Image credit: Dennis Henry
What do you do for PACE?
I’m an electrical technician. I did all the harness wiring, routing, and thermal work, all the electrical work. I worked with Amy Huong, and together we did the wiring for both OCI and for the PACE spacecraft. We plugged it all in and tested it!
What are you most looking forward to once data starts coming in?
I’m looking forward to making sure everything works. If everyone is happy with the data they collect from all the spacecraft instruments, and everything is working well, then I’ll be happy.
What is your favorite color and why?
Blue, because that’s the color of the ocean and the sky. I just like looking at blue.
Arnoldt and her husband, Jim, in front of PACE for family day. Image credit: Dennis Henry
What’s a fun fact about yourself?
I used to play softball for the Air Force. My husband is retired Air Force, so we were stationed in Italy and so I got to play on the European women’s softball team. I played first base and shortstop. We actually won that year for the European championship!
What advice would you give to aspiring scientists or engineers or technicians who are looking to get where you are today?
Try to learn as much as you can from the people that are around you. Make sure you have a really good team like we did on PACE – I think we had an excellent team from the top down. Everybody contributed so much, we communicated well, and it was just really good working together. And we had a fun time.
What is one catch all statement that you would want the public to know about the importance of PACE?
It’s important to study the climate and climate change to make sure people can make the best decisions – and PACE and OCI are going to help with that.
Header image caption: Arnoldt working on PACE’s solar panels. Image credit: Dennis Henry
By Erica McNamee, Science Writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Amir Ibrahim is the PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) project science lead for atmospheric correction at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
What is your favorite atmospheric or ocean related book or movie?
Following a conference in Canada, Ibrahim decided to take a break and venture into Vancouver Island, dedicating part of his time to exploring Tofino. Credit: Samantha Weltz
My favorite ocean movie is “The Perfect Storm.” I know it’s not a happy movie, but I think it’s a great movie that shows us how mighty the ocean is and how important it is to our lives. The impact of the storm on the ocean also shows us how important our understanding of the interactions between our atmosphere and our oceans are.
What do you do for PACE?
The PACE mission aims to accurately study the ocean and its constituents as observed from space. The Earth’s atmosphere has small particles called aerosols and air molecules that interfere with ocean observations. My role within the PACE mission is developing algorithms to separate that ocean signal from the atmosphere and correct for these atmospheric particles in order to have a more accurate view of the ocean and phytoplankton particles.
What was your favorite part of the launch?
I was fortunate to be able to see the launch at Kennedy Space Center. It was a very joyous moment. I was able to see many years of work come to fruition with the launch of the satellite. I am excited to be able to get the data and attempt to answer all our science questions.
What are you most looking forward to when data starts coming in?
Over the past several years, we have been building a simulator to predict what PACE is expecting to see from space. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort building that simulator in order to run through our algorithms, conduct tests and get ready for the launch. Now what I’m really excited about is actually seeing if all of our algorithms are actually functioning and working on real PACE data. Simulating data is not as much fun as the real stuff.
What is your favorite color and why?
My favorite color is blue because it’s my son’s favorite color, too. Also, growing up by the seaside in the Mediterranean, I loved the blue color of the ocean and the sky above it, and I always wanted to understand why the ocean and sky are so blue. The blue sky comes from sunlight scattered by air molecules, creating a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. Interestingly, that later became part of my work activities, which involves understanding the light in the atmosphere in order to correct for the different colors of the ocean below it.
Ibrahim is taking flying lessons in a small Cessna. Image Credit: Samantha Weltz
What is a fun fact about yourself?
I have a big interest in flying and have taken some flying lessons. One day, I’d love to be a pilot. Maybe when the dust settles from PACE, I’ll be able to go back and take more lessons or fly with an instrument to study the ocean from an airplane!
What advice would you give to aspiring scientists looking to get where you are today?
Ibrahim is in the process of setting up a hyperspectral radiometry system in Long Island Sound for the purpose of validating satellite data. Credit: Robert Foster
The three most important things to me that got me into this position are being passionate and persistent about what I do, networking, and continuously learning. Being dedicated is very important, and if you hit obstacles, you can always get around them with dedication. Connect with various scientists and other people in the field in order to have a network of people who can support you in your career. And finally, as a scientist, you should never stop learning. You have to be humble enough to know that there are things that you don’t know. So, read papers and publications, write, engage with the community, and go to conferences. Those are all really critical things that can help you with your career.
What is a catch-all statement that you would want the public to know about PACE?
PACE will revolutionize our understanding of the ocean and the atmosphere for two reasons; One, PACE will have the first hyperspectral instrument dedicated for ocean color, which is quite unique and has never been done before. And two, it will have multi-angle polarimeters that will improve our understanding of aerosols and the ocean beyond any other instrument that is currently in space. It’s an interdisciplinary mission.
Header image caption: Ibrahim posing with PACE in the integration and testing facility at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Image Credit: Dennis Henry
By Erica McNamee, Science Writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Bridget Seegers is an oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and a team member for NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission.
Bridget captaining her sailboat, Blissfully. That’s the boat name and she is quite blissful while sailing. Image Credit: Azul Gutierrez
What is your favorite atmosphere or ocean related book or movie?
“Life Aquatic” definitely comes to mind. It’s amazingly accurate in how it depicts certain aspects of life on a research vessel. For a book, there’s one called “The Long Way” by Bernard Moitessier. It’s about him sailing solo in a race around the world, way back in the day (1968), which is very interesting.
What is your research about?
I focus on harmful algal blooms. There are a lot of little, teeny organisms called phytoplankton in the ocean and lakes, and sometimes they grow into huge numbers, and we call that a bloom. That can be good because it feeds the food web, but sometimes it can be toxic and cause problems. People monitor those harmful events to reduce human exposure to any of the harmful toxins. I use satellites to monitor for these harmful events and help water quality managers respond to them.
Bridget with PACE ready for launch on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. Image Credit: Bridget Seegers
What was your favorite part of watching the launch?
The PACE team, friends, and families being together sharing all the excitement, hugs, and emotions was my favorite part of launch. It was incredible watching the rocket light up the night as PACE began its journey to space! And, of course, fantastic to hear updates throughout launch and since that all is well with PACE and the instruments. All wonderful experiences!
What are you most looking forward to post-launch?
The data and exactly what we can do with it. There’s been a lot of talks and hopes of what this data will be like, but there’s never been a satellite like PACE. We can imagine all these products, but it’ll be great to see what we actually can do with the products. If we can tell one type of phytoplankton from another, we can hopefully tell some of the more harmful ones from ones that are just average members of the phytoplankton community that aren’t causing problems.
We know that OCI on PACE is going to be able to look at all the colors of the ocean, so what is your favorite color and why?
My favorite color is purple. Why? I don’t know, it just feels right.
Christmas Tree worms from a reef in Rangiora from when Bridget was sailing there. Image Credit: Rory Moore
Do you have a favorite type of phytoplankton or sea creature?
I think my favorite sea creature would be Christmas tree worms. They live on coral reefs and they like pop out and they look like an evergreen tree. They come in all these different colors. When you get close, they like pull themselves in, but then they pop back up. They’re really fun and colorful, and they’re kind of interactive. For phytoplankton, there are a variety of species that bioluminesce and I think that’s pretty magical when you see the ocean light up at night, either with breaking waves or running your hands through it.
Bridget on her surfboard named Purple Rain catching a little wave and waving to a friend on a gray July day along the Southern California coast. Image Credit: Matt Marbach
What is a fun fact about yourself?
I like to sail. I had a friend who solo circumnavigated the globe, so I met him to sail in a variety of places like around French Polynesia, around nearly half of South Africa, and north of the Arctic Circle in this chain of islands called the Lofoten Islands. I was also able to surf north of the Arctic Circle from the sailboat!
What advice would you give to aspiring scientists who are looking to get where you are today?
Bridget with Chloe and Luca at a San Diego elementary school. They are prepping a plankton sample to view on the microscope. Image Credit: Isa Tavera.
Stay curious and be motivated by asking questions. Follow what interests you and what you’re passionate about. It’s not always a direct path and science can be a little bit tedious, so it’s really important to trust yourself and to pursue things that are interesting to you. Ask questions and don’t be afraid to chat with other scientists. Sometimes people think scientists are intimidating, but we’re mostly pretty nice and slightly awkward, so I would have those conversations!
What is one catch-all statement describing the importance of PACE?
Knowledge is power. For both PACE and science in general, the more information we have the better we understand things, and the more able we are to respond to the changing planet in an effective and meaningful way that empowers us.
Header image caption: Bridget with the PACE observatory. Image Credit: Dennis Henry
By Erica McNamee, Science Writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft has successfully made contact with ground stations back on Earth providing teams with early readings of its overall status, health, operation, and capabilities postlaunch.
A full postlaunch assessment review to determine PACE’s readiness to move into the operational phase of its mission will be conducted in the coming weeks.
Information collected throughout PACE’s mission will benefit society in the areas of ocean health, harmful algal bloom monitoring, ecological forecasting, and air quality. PACE also will contribute new global measurements of ocean color, cloud properties, and aerosols, which will be essential to understanding the global carbon cycle and ocean ecosystem responses to a changing climate.
The PACE’s mission is designed to last at least three years, though the spacecraft is loaded with enough propellant to expand that timeline more than three times as long.
To read more about the launch of the PACE mission, please visit:
NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft has separated from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, beginningits science mission from sun-synchronous orbit about 420 miles above the Earth’s surface.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage has successfully landed at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Tonight’s mission marks the fourthcompleted flight for this Falcon 9.
A series of rapid events occurs after launch. After Max Q – the moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket – the nine Merlin engines of the Falcon 9’s first stage will finish their burn and cut off during a phase called MECO or Main Engine Cutoff.
Quickly after MECO, the stage separation sequence occurs. The second stage carrying NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft will continue on its journey to sun-synchronous orbit.
Coming up next, the Falcon 9’s second stage engine ignites, and the protective payload fairings will be jettisoned to reveal NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft to the vacuum of space for the first time.
Meanwhile, the first stage of the rocket begins its recovery journey for a vertical landing at SpaceX Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Landing should occur about eight and a half minutes after liftoff.
Stay right here on the blog for more live mission coverage.
3, 2, 1 … LIFTOFF! A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:33 a.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 8.
The next milestone is Max Q or maximum dynamic pressure – the moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket.
Continue following live coverage of launch milestones here on the blog, or watch live coverageonthe NASA+ streaming service, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA TV through a variety of platforms, including social media.
NASA’s senior launch manager, Tim Dunn, has just given NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission the “go” for launch!
In the next few moments, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s nine Merlin engines will roar to life at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40, sending the PACE spacecraft on the start of its journey to a sun-synchronous orbit to study the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean surface from space.
The astronauts on board the Space Shuttle Columbia took this 70mm picture featuring part of the eastern sea board. The oblique view looks northward from South Florida to the southern Appalachians. Most of the southeastern United States appears in crisp, clear air in the wake of a cold front that has pushed well off the mainland. Only a few jet stream and low-level clouds remain over South Florida and Gulf Stream. Photo credit: NASA
When NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission launches at 1:33 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will follow a little used flight path, or trajectory.
After liftoff, the rocket will head south along the Florida coastline during its powered flight to insert the spacecraft into a sun-synchronous orbit. That means the spacecraft will always be in the same “fixed” position relative to the Sun as it orbits over the Earth’s polar regions.
Provided the nighttime skies over South Florida are clear, millions of residents will be able to look up and see the Falcon 9 overhead within minutes after launch.
