Local News Archive - Planetary Geodynamics Lab

SSERVI Award Winners 2022

07/19/2022

Recognizing that science and exploration go hand in hand, NASA created SSERVI in 2013 to advance human exploration of the Moon and other solar system destinations. The SSERVI Awards recognize outstanding achievement in exploration science and recipients have each made unique contributions to NASA’s human exploration efforts. SSERVI Award winners are nominated by their academic peers and are selected by a committee based at SSERVI’s central office. The awards will be presented along with invited lectures from the recipients at the 2022 NASA Exploration Science Forum (NESF) taking place July 19-21. It is our great pleasure to announce this year’s SSERVI award winners. Each is exceptionally deserving, and each is an outstanding member of our community, providing both exceptional science and strong leadership.

Susan Mahan Niebur Early Career Award: Dr. O.J. Tucker and Dr. Kelsey Young

Angioletta Coradini Mid-Career Award: Dr. Carolyn van der Bogert

Michael J. Wargo Exploration Science Award: Dr. Ben Bussey

Eugene Shoemaker Distinguished Scientist Medal Dr. Lisa Gaddis

Each of this year’s winners is exceptionally deserving, and it’s an honor to work with them to help further our great efforts as we get ever closer to what we all hope is a permanent presence on our Moon.

Lynnae Quick - 2021 Harold C. Urey Prize

08/12/2021

The 2021 Harold C. Urey Prize for outstanding achievement in planetary research by an early career scientist is awarded to Dr. Lynnae C. Quick. Dr. Quick’s innovative scientific work focuses on geophysical processes writ large, reaching from the inner solar system, through the asteroid belt, to ocean worlds, and into the exoplanetary realm. She has revisited modeling of (cryo)lava domes on Venus and Europa, was the first to model the formation of Ceres’ “bright spots” via the transport of material from a deep brine reservoir to the surface, has repeatedly provided new insights into plumes on Jupiter’s moon Europa, and shed light on the abundance of extrasolar ocean worlds. In addition to her scientific pursuits, Dr. Quick is exceptionally engaged in the broader research community through her proactive leadership as a co-investigator on several space missions, as a member of the Outer Planets Assessment Group steering committee, the Planetary Science Decadal Survey 2023-2032 panel on ocean worlds and dwarf planets, and the National Society of Black Physicists. Dr. Quick’s advocacy work to diversify the field is particularly notable. She has mentored many early career planetary scientists and is leading the Dragonfly Student and Early Career Investigator Program. Every aspect of Dr. Quick’s career represents a positive outlook for the future of our community.

Poster Blowout 2019 is in the books!

02/27/2019

Photos from this year's Poster Blowout are available now. Congratulations to everyone, especially this year's winners!

Poster Blowout 2018

02/05/2018

Note from the Director:
I would like to thank the Director’s Science Committee for putting on an amazingly successful event where scientists and engineers across Goddard shared their work and made new contacts. The interdisciplinary interactions were especially exciting and crossed all four science disciplines.
Best,
Colleen

Click the title of this news item or the image below for more images from the poster party.

scientists standing in front of a poster

Earth Blog: In New Mexico, Land of Volcanoes

01/11/2018

The Potrillo volcanic field in New Mexico is a perfect analog site for testing the kinds of instruments that future explorers might use to investigate volcanic areas on the Moon, Mars and other rocky planets or moons.

Mysterious Venus, the Forgotten Planet

08/15/2017

Goddard’s Lori Glaze gives a guided tour of Venus in this Library of Congress talk. What do we know about this mysterious planet next door? Which questions remain unanswered and which areas unexplored? What can future spacecraft and instruments tell us?

Goddard Planetary Instruments Win Development, Maturation Funding

07/25/2017

Three instrument proposals led by researchers in Goddard's Solar System Exploration Division were selected for funding by the PICASSO and MatISSE programs. The PICASSO selection was "Development of a Prototype for the Thermal Infrared Composite Imaging Spectrometer (TIRCIS) Instrument," with Terry Hurford as the PI. Selected for MatISSE funds were the "Mars Lidar for Global Climate Measurements from Orbit (MARLI)" with James Abshire as the PI, and "Picture this SELFI: A Maturation Project for a Submillimeter Enceladus Life Fundamentals Instrument (SELFI)" with Gordon Chin as the PI. Read more here.

More Goddard CubeSat Mission Concepts Selected for Study

07/19/2017

Researchers in Code 690 have leadership roles in six studies selected under the Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat Studies (PSDS3) program to develop mission concepts for small satellites. 1. Valeria Cottini, PI: the CubeSat UV Experiment (CUVE); 2. Timothy Stubbs, PI: Bi-sat Observations of the Lunar Atmosphere above Swirls (BOLAS); 3. Tilak Hewagama, PI: Primitive Object Volatile Explorer (PrOVE); 4. Noah Petro, PI: Mini Lunar Volatiles (MiLUV) mission; 5. Mike Collier, PI: Phobos Regolith Ion Sample Mission (PRISM); and 6. Barbara Cohen, co-Investigator: Lunar Water Assessment, Transport, Evolution, and Resource (WATER) mission. Read more here.

Science Jamboree event photos

08/04/2016

The 2016 Science Jamboree was a great success! A collection of 50 photos from the event are available now.

Paul Mahaffy Named Director of the Solar System Exploration Division

12/11/2015

Paul Mahaffy has been named the new Director of Goddard’s Solar System Exploration Division. Paul served for nearly 10 years as Chief of the Planetary Environments Laboratory, leading this group’s study of planetary atmospheres and surface environments with emphases on the modeling of atmospheres and surface environments, advanced instrument development, the study of terrestrial planetary analogs, and the development of space-qualified instruments. Paul is currently Principal Investigator of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation on the Curiosity rover and of the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) on the MAVEN Mars orbiter. He previously participated in a wide range of planetary missions, including those to Jupiter, Saturn, comets, and the moon.

Jacob Bleacher Wins Susan Neibur Early Career Award

07/21/2015

The Susan Mahan Niebur Early Career Award is an annual award given to an early career scientist who has made significant contributions to the science or exploration communities. Recipients of the Susan M. Niebur Early Career Award are researchers who are 10 years out or less from their Ph.D., who have shown excellence in their field and demonstrated meaningful contributions to the science or exploration communities. This year the prize was presented to Jacob E. Bleacher of SSERVI’s RIS4E and DREAM2 teams at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Anne Kinney wins a Presidential Rank Award

08/09/2013

Anne Kinney received a 2012 Presidential Rank Award (Meritorious Executive). These awards are given to high-performing senior career employees for "sustained extraordinary accomplishment." Executives from across Government are nominated by their agency heads, evaluated by citizen panels, and designated by the President. Winners of these awards are deemed to be strong leaders, professionals, or scientists who achieve results and consistently demonstrate strength, integrity, industry, and a relentless commitment to excellence in public service.

Greg Neumann and Frank Lemoine receive Group Achievement Award

09/22/2011

Greg Neumann and Frank Lemoine both received the Group Achievement Award for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) instrument operations. Both are Co-Investigators on the LRO Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument.

Dave Rowlands and Katrice Tanner receive Peer Awards

09/08/2011

Dave Rowlands and Katrice Tanner both received awards at the annual Solar System Exploration Division Peer Awards luncheon, held on Thursday, September 8, 2011. Dave Rowlands was recognized for his work with GEODYN. Katrice was recognized for her dedicated support of all the 698 personnel.

Weijia Kuang awarded 3 month Fellowship

08/19/2011

Weijia Kuang has been selected by the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (600) to receive a Fellowship for a 3-month research residence at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. While at the Institute, Weijia hopes to collaborate with colleagues to integrate geodetic and magnetic data for crustal anomalies.

Chopo Ma Appointed Fellow of the International Association of Geodesy

07/29/2011

In recognition of his contributions to geodetic research, Ma was appointed a Fellow of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) as of July 5, 2011. Ma's research has focused on Very Long Baseline Interferometry for refining the terrestrial and celestial reference frames. He is the chair of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and member of the Directing Board of the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry and the Executive Committee of the Global Geodetic Observing System of the IAG.

Elizabeth Zubritsky

Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx Team!

05/25/2011

Today we heard that the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission was selected as the next New Frontiers class mission. OSIRIS-Rex is a sample return mission to an asteroid that will launch in 2016, and spend over a year exploring 1999 RQ36, acquire samples while providing geologic context, and return to Earth in 2023. GSFC will manage the mission and provide the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS) instrument.

Next Generation Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI)

03/22/2011

First fringes were found Tuesday (3/22/2011) by the Haystack correlater using the VLBI2010 receiver with the Swedish Eleven feed on the Goddard Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory (GGAO) 12-m antenna and the Westford antenna (using the operational S/X-band system).

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