1 Peter’s Message

Few things illustrate the culture of innovation at Goddard quite like the Internal Research and Development Program, and nothing exemplifies this culture better than the in-person annual Poster Session held this November. It was particularly heartening this year to see how Goddard innovators came together to share ideas and progress and learn about others’ work and explore collaborative opportunities.

Collaboration is my keyword for FY22. When I think about the power of bold ideas coming together across disciplines to open new windows on the universe, I am proud to know I need look no further than our incredible community of innovators. Goddard’s diversity in backgrounds, skills, and experience contributes to a culture of interdisciplinary collaboration. The resulting exchange of ideas generated conversations which participants did not seem to want to end.

With that in mind, I offered a Spontaneous IRAD this year to help build on those poster session discussions and crosspollinating ideas. About a half-dozen innovators came forward to discuss potential collaborations for funding after the session. The goal of these awards is to capitalize on a culture of spontaneity and encourage new ideas any time we can find resources.

Over the last year, Goddard innovators demonstrated the value of collaboration and cooperation to make good ideas reality and build on our center’s strengths in optical navigation, autonomous operations, and other areas.

Both smaller spacecraft and missions and the communications challenges of deep space exploration drive the need for spacecraft to function autonomously. Critical maneuvers require immediate onboard responses from navigation guidance and control systems. In addition, more distant missions find communications bandwidth to Earth stretched thin. Building on Goddard’s autonomous Navigation Guidance and Control software toolkit, IRAD investigators added an eye-opening variety of optical navigation technologies to autonomous operations capabilities (Page 10).

NASA is looking beyond the days dominated by large flagship missions flying a single spacecraft or instrument into the void to provide a single view of the universe. Distributed missions will combine perspectives from multiple spacecraft, capturing light from more of the spectrum to revolutionize missions’ ability to explore everything from Earth to the remotest targets. Goddard innovators across disciplines and lines of business are preparing for the challenges of coordinating spacecraft swarms, disparate sensors, and even visiting multiple destinations. (Page 8)

New investigations harnessed the power of artificial intelligence to design spacecraft hardware, pushed the limits of quantum physics for more sensitive instruments, and developed a dazzling variety of new lasers in multiple bandwidths for everything from navigation to finding water on distant worlds, among others.

Let’s hear it for a great year of innovation and collaboration. It is abundantly clear to me that the IRAD Program embodies some of Goddard’s best and brightest scientists, engineers, and innovators, putting their heads together to achieve leading-edge instruments, missions, and capabilities.

Peter Hughes Chief Technologist NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center