NASA and SpaceX technicians connect NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft to the payload adapter on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA Goddard/Denny Henry
NASA and SpaceX technicians connected NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) spacecraft to the payload adapter on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024,at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Now that PACE is securely attached to the payload adapter, teams will encapsulate the spacecraft inside the protective payload fairings ahead of integration with the Falcon 9 rocket.
The PACE mission will increase our understanding of Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, and climate by delivering hyperspectral observations of microscopic marine organisms called phytoplankton, as well new measurements of clouds and aerosols.
PACE is set to launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida no earlier than 1:33 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb. 6.
Jeroen Rietjens is an instrument scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) and worked on the SPEXone polarimeter. PACE’s SPEXone instrument is a multi-angle polarimeter. It measures the intensity, degree and angle of linear polarization of sunlight reflected back from Earth’s atmosphere, land surface, and ocean.
What is your favorite atmosphere or ocean related book or movie?
I like “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell a lot. It doesn’t have anything to do with clouds except for the title, but it counts. And it concludes with an ‘oceanic’ wisdom when the impact of actions by individuals are compared to insignificant small drops in a limitless ocean: “Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”
Jeroen looking at instrument telemetry in the PACE I&T control room shortly after the integration of SPEXone onto the PACE observatory. Image Credit: Dennis Henry
What is your background?
I have a background in applied physics, and I worked with polarization sensitive instrumentation for my master’s and PhD research. At SRON, I work as an instrument scientist. We are the people who fill the gap between the scientists who have great ideas about what they want to measure, and the engineers who build the hardware that perform these measurements. We specify the instruments and do the analysis and make sure that the hardware will survive in space and perform as the scientists desire.
What are you most looking forward to during launch?
It concludes a long period of tremendous work and I hope that we can experience that with all the people who contributed to PACE.
An image of a sundog, one of the most common types of ice halos. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2014/02/03/reader-pics-sundogs/ Image Credit: Adam Voiland
What is your favorite color and why?
My favorite color is green. The why is more difficult. My second favorite color would be blue, so I think it’s colors from nature that I like.
A glory photographed from 11 km altitude somewhere between Greenland and Canada as Jeroen was coming into the US to watch the 2017 solar eclipse. Image Credit: Jeroen Rietjens
Do you have a favorite atmospheric phenomenon?
I like rainbows a lot! And any other scattering phenomena, such as a glory, or a sundog. The latter occurs in the presence of high clouds with ice crystals: due to refraction by horizontally aligned ice crystals, you can see two additional ‘suns’ at specific angles left and right of the sun.
Jeroen and his wife in their parade costume of 2020. Image Credit: Jeroen Rietjens
What is a fun fact about yourself?
Outside of work, and mainly during the winter period, me and my family participate in the “Vastelaovendj”-activities in my home-village. This is the Limburgse (a Dutch province) carnival, consisting of, among other things, a yearly music contest, open stage, presentation of the Prince Carnival, a ‘peasant’s wedding’ and a parade. It is a lot of fun and I particularly like the role-reversal aspect of this tradition.
What advice would you give to aspiring scientists or engineers who are looking to get where you are today?
Follow your passion. I had a weakness for space. I was playing with a Space Shuttle and Lego rockets when I was young and was always interested in space. Along the way, I lost track of it but it’s not really a coincidence, I think, that I still ended up working at a space research institute. So, follow your passion and try to make work your hobby and I think you have awesome life.
What is one catch-all statement describing the importance of PACE?
PACE will yield unprecedented data sets that will enhance research into climate modeling, understanding clouds and aerosols and their impact on the Earth climate.
An atmospheric treat for Jeroen during a bicycle-ride coming home from work. Image Credit: Jeroen Rietjens
Header image caption: “Very proud to have had the opportunity to pose in the Goddard cleanroom with the fully assembled and tested PACE satellite, which hosts our small SPEXone instrument,” said Rietjens. Image Credit: Dennis Henry
By Erica McNamee, Science Writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Ivona Cetinić is a biological oceanographer in the Ocean Ecology Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
What is your favorite ocean or atmospheric related book or movie?
I’m a science fiction fan. Definitely “Abyss.” I don’t know why, but it’s been my favorite ever since I was a kid. I’m sure there are better ones, but it’s the only one that comes into my head movie wise. For a movie it was always, always, always “Abyss.”
What is your background? What do you do for PACE?
Phytoplankton cannot be hugged, but trees can ?. Image Credit: Mary Jane Perry
I am an oceanographer. I am interested in phytoplankton community structure and how it interacts with the environment, and also how the environment interacts with phytoplankton community structure. That’s how I ended up developing better tools to study phytoplankton.
For PACE, I am in charge of anything that has to do with biogeochemical processes in the oceans. Not just phytoplankton, but also the elements (such as carbon) and energy that phytoplankton move around, and other types of carbon, sediment, or organic material that float around the ocean. So, I take care of those algorithms and make sure that they look nice and pretty once we launch.
What are you most looking forward to during launch?
The launch itself, since I have never been to a single launch. So I’m excited for the countdown, and being surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues, and everybody enjoying that moment.
What are you most looking forward to post launch?
The first light images and the first data. I’m looking forward to getting to start playing with the data as soon as I can get my hands on it. We’ve been testing algorithms and I just want to get some real data!
Microphotographs of phytoplankton species Dictyocha speculum. Image credit: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Dalhousie University, Rajashree Gouda
Do you have a favorite phytoplankton?
I shouldn’t have favorite children! But there is one that I really like a lot – it’s called Dictyocha speculum. It’s really cute. This “guy” looks like a little star, and to me looks a little bit like the star on top of the PACE logo.
Since PACE will be looking at all these different colors of the ocean, do you have a favorite color and why is it your favorite color?
I think you’ll see me in black all the time, which isn’t a color. It’s really hard to define color because the color is dependent on the thing as well as the light that is bouncing off that thing. And when something is black, that means that eats up everything, all the light. There’s nothing coming back towards your eyes, that’s what black is. I think it just kind of goes back to my teenage years everyone was comfortable person in black. But when it comes to real colors, probably purple, lilac, bluish.
What advice would you have for aspiring oceanographers who are interested in working for NASA?
Never give up. Never surrender. Really jump at any opportunity that opens up to you, just because you will never know where it’s going to lead. And it might not lead right to where you want to go, but it’s much better than sitting in one spot and thinking “Oh, what would be happening, where would I be if I didn’t take that opportunity?” Just try to jump on any opportunities out there. I was lucky to have the doors open every time and I was just jumping in everything that was available to me. I think that’s the route that got me to NASA.
Ivona carrying her drum during one of the performances of Batala Washington. Image Credit: Robert Werner
What is a fun fact about yourself? Something that people might not know about you?
I like music a lot, and I play many instruments. Currently, I play drums in an all-women, Afro-Brazilian band.
What is one-catch all statement describing the importance of PACE?
PACE will give us a view of the ocean and atmosphere that we have never had before. It opens up so many possibilities that we don’t even know about. I think PACE is going to give us so much more insight than we expect about the ocean and the atmosphere and interactions between them.
Header image caption: Ivona happily posing with the PACE observatory. Image Credit: Dennis Henry
By Erica McNamee, Science Writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
With the towering structure of the spacecraft just behind clear plastic curtains, engineers, scientists, and others who worked on the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission recently had the chance to see the result of their hard work.
“Your dad does amazing stuff for us. He goes and puts out fires all the time,” Juli Lander, the PACE deputy project manager, said to a teenager waiting with his family to take a picture in front of the satellite.
The spacecraft and its instruments are the culmination of more than eight years of hard work, late nights, and early mornings, she said, and this was their chance to see the finished product right before it traveled to Florida to prep for launch.
“It’s really important for us to let everyone see the great work that their family members have been doing,” Lander said. “Everybody who’s coming through is very excited, even if they’ve been here before.”
At one of the stops on the PACE Friends and Family Day tour at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, guests saw the thermal vacuum chamber where the spacecraft was tested to ensure it could survive in the harsh environment of space. Image Credit: NASA/Kate Ramsayer
More than 550 people came to the PACE Friends and Family day Oct. 28, 2023, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where the spacecraft and its Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) were built. They toured the cleanroom where PACE was assembled and tested, including the giant thermal vacuum chamber where it was subjected to the temperature and pressure extremes of space.
They heard from scientists about what insights the satellite will provide about the ocean, atmosphere, and climate, and got to peer through a microscope to see some of the tiny phytoplankton that PACE will study from space.
“We’re showing off the science that we’re doing with PACE,” said Carina Poulin, a scientist and outreach specialist who was helping with hands-on activities during the event. There were puzzles of colorful ocean waters, a PACE-themed card matching game, cultures of green and yellow and pink phytoplankton and more.
The visitors were asking lots of great questions, Poulin said. “They all know someone who works with PACE, so they’re excited.”
Sabrina Sharmin, who started with the PACE team almost seven years ago and is now a systems engineer with OCI, introduced her enthusiastic guests to coworkers, and pointed out highlights of the cleanroom facility.
“This remarkable spacecraft is a result of countless hours of collaborative effort by the entire team, and I am so proud of all of us,” Sharmin said. “It’s a momentous occasion, being able to showcase the project to friends and family.
Header image caption: PACE engineer Sabrina Sharmin, in center in brown shirt, brought friends and family to see the spacecraft at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The anticipation and excitement within our team for launch is unparalleled,” she said. Image Credit: NASA/Kate Ramsayer
Kate Ramsayer, Strategic Communications Lead for Earth Science Missions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA researcher Joaquin Chaves calls it “ground truthing,” even though land is nowhere in sight.
This spring, Chaves boarded the Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) research cruise for six weeks of sampling water and taking measurements as the ship traversed the Atlantic Ocean. His team, based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, uses that information gathered at sea to verify and improve ocean data from an array of Earth-observing satellites and instruments in orbit.
Upcoming satellites like the PACE, or Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem, mission launching in early 2024, will also use field campaigns like this one to help validate their sensors.
Chaves is preparing to conduct scientific research while onboard. He worked around the clock to collect samples that will help check the accuracy of satellite data. Image Credit: NASA/Joaquin Chaves
These sensors start collecting data soon after launch, but it takes time to ensure that those observations are accurate and reflect what is happening back on Earth. One of the best ways to do this is to send scientists like Chaves into the field.
On the spring cruise, Chaves was joined by another NASA Goddard scientist, Harrison Smith.
“It was a lot of work, always intense,” Chaves said. “Even before you sail, you’re setting up. Every day is a work day, there are no Saturdays or Sundays.”
During their time on the cruise, the NASA team collected two types of data to build mathematical models to validate satellite data. Validation is the practice of checking the accuracy of data before it’s processed and used by NASA and its partners.
The first data type was the optical properties of water.
“Ocean color satellites measure visible light,” Chaves said. “We must try to replicate what they measure.”
Chaves conducting field experiments and validation. Credit: NASA/Joaquin Chaves
In addition to the optical measurements, the NASA scientists also gathered water samples to measure the abundance of phytoplankton pigments and various forms of carbon.
By the end of the campaign, Chaves had collected 700 samples to process, which he is now analyzing back at Goddard.
Chaves and Smith were just two of the research cruise’s passengers, which also included 25 scientists based in the UK, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Chaves said it was one of the best field campaigns he’s been on. The researchers connected with others and talked of future collaborations.
“It’s hard work,” he said. “It remains one of my best experiences at sea because of how modern the ship was, well trained the crew were and the officers are and willing to help.”
The AMT program, which started in 1995, allows researchers from all over the world to study the ocean’s biogeochemistry, ecology, and physical properties during voyages between the United Kingdom and the South Atlantic.
Although PACE was formally authorized in 2015, its concept has been on the minds of NASA Earth scientists for over 21 years.
In 2023, that concept is now an assembled spacecraft at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
This past month, the PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) mission advanced closer to launch, passing a critical review demonstrating final tests for its readiness for observatory integration and testing. PACE will continue preparations for its move to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it is scheduled to launch in January 2024.
“It’s an absolutely huge achievement for the team after having conceived the PACE system architecture, completed the design, implemented and built all the hardware and software systems,” said Mark Voyton, PACE’s Project Manager.
PACE’s solar array deploying in the Goddard cleanroom. Video by Denny Henry, NASA
Once in orbit, PACE will view the atmosphere and ocean surface from space. It will help scientists learn more about the relationships between phytoplankton and the surrounding environment by measuring how light reflects off the ocean and through the atmosphere.
Before any NASA mission can launch, however, it must go through a series of immersive reviews, called key decision points, to show it can operate in space. Getting to this moment has been a long time coming for the team.
Since its inception, PACE has faced many challenges. Last year, for example, one of PACE’s polarimeters, HARP2, experienced parts failures during testing, forcing the team to reevaluate several of its design concepts. Budget-wise, the mission also experienced hurdles related to the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Testing and moving the PACE spacecraft. Image by: Denny Henry, NASA
“It is somewhat difficult to wrap my head around being fewer than 300 days from launch. All the ideas and concepts from the past decade have been turned into reality! It’s been a long strange trip, but one we don’t regret pursuing,” said PACE lead scientist Jeremy Werdell.
PACE team members have remained busy in their preparations. Late last year, the team integrated all three of its scientific instruments onto the spacecraft, thus forming the PACE observatory. The mission most recently also completed testing the deployment of PACE’s solar array.
Next steps for the team will focus on final integration and testing activities at Goddard. This includes vibration and acoustics tests that simulate the launch environment, as well as several months of thermal vacuum tests that simulate the environment of space.
“Once these activities are complete, the observatory will be trucked to Kennedy for additional testing and integration onto the launch vehicle,” Werdell said.
Header image caption: PACE tech Jean Arnett is cleaning the Aronson table. The Aronson table is used to tilt the spacecraft over like in the photo below. Image by: Denny Henry, NASA
By Sara Blumberg, NASA Oceans Communications Lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
