Our Work Continued in a Challenging Year

Despite a year dominated by a pandemic, our work at NASA Glenn continued both in helping our health care community respond to the challenges of COVID-19 and in advancing science and technology.

Our collaboration with University Hospitals of Cleveland developed new methods and technologies for decontaminating personal protective equipment (PPE) for aerospace applications and for safeguarding the health of workers caring for patients with coronavirus.

Meanwhile, NASA got to work across the country providing expertise for the pandemic response, while our engineers worked with a local company to update a sterilizing device.

With help from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the company Emergency Products and Research (EP+R) improved its AMBUstat sterilant. Jason Thompson of EP+R tests a new system that lets the AMBUstat G2 device quickly sterilize small spaces, like the inside of a police car. Credits: Emergency Products and Research

Working on space technology didn’t stop either as we continued to prepare a 2021 lunar lander experiment to test new solar power cells.

Researcher Tim Peshek brushes an adhesive onto the top of the PILS payload in order to adhere the solar cells to the front surface of the experiment. Credits: NASA

Experts in our SLOPE lab refined shape memory alloy tires for future rovers and made preparations to continue testing a model of the VIPER rover that will map water ice on the Moon.

Engineers test the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, which will roam around the Moon’s South Pole looking for water ice in the region. Credits: NASA/ Bridget Caswell

Out in space, after undocking from the International Space Station, the fourth Spacecraft Fire Experiment (Saffire) was successfully completed, helping us understand the behavior of fire in different space environments.

Earlier this year, NASA’s eCryo project team evaluated a series of technologies aimed at reducing propellant losses in space for human exploration missions. To test some of these new technologies, the team built a large cryogenic propellant tank called SHIIVER (Structural Heat Intercept, Insulation and Vibration Evaluation Rig) to insulate and protect the fuel when in space.

The SHIIVER tank sits inside the In-Space Propulsion Facility’s vacuum chamber at NASA’s Plum Brook Station. The tank was subjected to the extreme temperatures of space to ensure the new technologies on SHIIVER kept the propellants inside cold and in a liquid state. Credits: NASA

The dedicated team at our Space Environments Complex completed a far-reaching series of tests on the Orion spacecraft. The vehicle will travel to the Moon and back during the first Artemis mission scheduled for late 2021.

And finally, we are incredibly proud of this year’s class of interns, who were the first to serve entirely online. Their ability to adapt to an internship very different than what they expected was very impressive.

Intern Carnell W. Bolden works virtually from his desk in Arlington, Virginia. Credits: NASA

As we approach 2021, we remain committed to move our research forward for the benefit of humanity.

**Nancy Smith Kilkenny
NASA Glenn Research Center**

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