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
Whether in plants or animals, greenhouse gases or smoke, carbon atoms exist in various compounds as they move through a multitude of pathways within Earth’s system. That’s why NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission – scheduled to launch in January 2024 – was designed to peer down at Earth from space to see those many forms of carbon in a way no other satellite has done before by measuring colors not yet seen from the vantage point of space.
“PACE is standing on the shoulders of some giants, but previous and current satellites are limited in how many colors of the rainbow they can actually see,” said Jeremy Werdell, project scientist for the PACE mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Although one of the primary goals of the mission is to measure the colors on the ocean surface, in the 420 miles (676.5 kilometers) between PACE in orbit and sea level are parts of the complex carbon web that the satellite will also be able to monitor.
The connection between major wildfires and the subsequent explosion of phytoplankton production is an example of the events NASA’s upcoming Plankton, Aerosols, Clouds, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help investigate. PACE’s suite of instruments will allow scientists to get a clearer picture of carbon as it links land use and fires, atmospheric aerosols and marine communities. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Atmosphere
From PACE’s location in space, one of the nearest forms of carbon to detect could be the wispy plumes of smoke and ash rising into the atmosphere from fires. Carbon is a key building block of much life on Earth, including plant life. When burned, the vegetation’s carbon-based molecules transform into other compounds, some of which end up as ash in these plumes.
The instruments on PACE will be able to monitor these smoky clouds, as well as other atmospheric aerosol particles, measuring their characteristics including the relative amount of smoke in different places. Combinations of these measurements made by PACE’s two companion polarimeter instruments, SPEXone and the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter-2 (HARP2), and the detailed color measurements of the smoke made by the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) will also help scientists identify what was burnt.
“Each instrument brings something different,” said Andy Sayer, PACE’s project science lead for atmospheres at NASA Goddard. “Putting them all together though, you’re getting the most information.” Sayer is also a senior research scientist for the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
These measurements help scientists understand more about the balance between the incoming energy from the Sun, the outgoing energy from Earth, and where it may be absorbed in between by things in the atmosphere like these smoke plumes. Even at a local level, PACE can provide information about how smoke affects air quality, impacting communities that may be near fires.
Land
Peering through the smoke particles and other aerosols, PACE can also tell us about the health of terrestrial plants and trees. Even after a devastating wildfire, fresh green plant life begins to grow and thrive. With more spectral bands and colors to see from the upcoming satellite, scientists will be able to understand what kinds of plants are recovering from fires over the years.
“In a time where we’re experiencing unprecedented climate change, we need to be able to understand how global vegetation responds to its environment,” said Fred Huemmrich, research associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a member of the PACE science and applications team.
PACE will be able to monitor the different shades of colors in vegetation, and plant color can be an indicator of health. Just as house plants begin to fade to yellow if they haven’t been watered enough, plant life around the globe changes color as it experiences stress. Healthy plants take up carbon in the form of carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis, while unhealthy plants that can’t complete photosynthesis leave the carbon dioxide roaming around the atmosphere. Given that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, these measurements also play a significant role in understanding climate change in greater detail.
By measuring a full spectrum of color, PACE will view tiny changes in pigment to detect how plants are responding to stressors, helping scientists learn whether they are utilizing the surrounding carbon or not. Previously, these colors were primarily viewed in field studies of specific areas. Stressors like droughts were inferred using weather data, but covering large expanses was difficult.
“For the first time, we’ll really be able to look at changes in the health of plants over the globe,” Huemmrich said. “It will dramatically improve our understanding of how ecosystems function and how they respond to stress.”
Ocean
From plants on land to organisms in the ocean, PACE will view the expanses of water on Earth to measure phytoplankton – the P in its name. With its ability to measure a wide spectrum of colors, PACE will now not only be able to see more across the surface of the ocean but will also help scientists differentiate between phytoplankton species.
“It’s like you were making a painting with really coarse brushes, and now you have thin, fine brushes that help explain so much more in greater detail,” said Ivona Cetinić, an oceanographer in the Ocean Ecology Lab at NASA Goddard.
Phytoplankton, small organisms that live on the surface of the ocean, play a critical role in the food chain and the global carbon cycle. Each type of phytoplankton provides a different pathway in that expansive web of routes that carbon can take, all depending on the characteristics of the plankton. One pathway may lead to the carbon becoming food for a larger species, while another may lead to carbon becoming waste, sinking deeper into the ocean.
Scientists conducting field work have found that types of phytoplankton vary slightly in color and have identified these phytoplankton on small scales. PACE’s ability to measure a full spectrum of color will help scientists tell the difference between phytoplankton on a global scale by seeing more of these colors, deepening the understanding of carbon pathways and quantities.
Though one of PACE’s key goals is to view the ocean, its line of sight looks over the atmosphere and land as well. With these expansive observations, and the massive quantities of data collected, PACE provides the ability to see in what ways the atmosphere, land, and ocean are connected, including with the complex web of carbon pathways.
“I’m energized for this opportunity for discovery that this observatory is offering,” Werdell said. “I have every expectation the world is going to do great things with these data.”
By Erica McNamee, Science Writer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
