HAL Website Search:

Back by popular demand! Ted presented to HAL about the first JPSS mission in January 2021. His 2023 presentation will provide details about JPSS-2, the new mission. JPSS-2 successfully lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Nov. 10, 2022.

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) is the nation's new generation polar-orbiting operational environmental satellite system. JPSS is a collaborative program between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its acquisition agent, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). JPSS provides critical environmental satellite data to support NOAA's ongoing mission to understand and predict changes in the weather, oceans and climate.

Ted Leoutsakos has extensive NASA/DOD and commercial experience with broad end-to-end satellite systems engineering knowledge in complex system integration, testing, operations, training, and ground system development with over a dozen missions under his belt. A life-long Star Trek fan, Ted recalls his dad taking him to the library at age 5 to check out his first read entitled "The Book of Rockets", and the rest is history…

• JPSS Satellite Foundational Training Modules
• JPSS Opscon Video
• JPSS-2 (and LOFTID) Launch Video & Overview

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was the first planetary defense test mission. The DART spacecraft purposefully ran into a small asteroid, Dimorphos, on September 26, 2022, in order to test asteroid deflection. DART was a huge success, changing Dimorphos’s orbital period by around 30 minutes and generating many tons of ejecta. We will discuss planetary defense, the DART mission, initial results from the team and how we are using those results to learn more about Dimorphos, Didymos, and future applications to planetary defense.

Dr. Angela Stickle is a planetary geologist with a background in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, and impact processes on planetary surfaces. She specializes in hypervelocity impact processes and dynamic failure of materials. Dr Stickle is currently a senior research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. She is the Deputy Principal-Investigator for the Mini-RF radar, a Co-I for the LRO-LAMP instrument aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the impact modeling working group lead for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, and a Co-I on the Dragonfly mission. Her research includes analyzing young impact craters on the Moon to better understand ejecta emplacement processes, impact modeling on asteroids and rocky/icy bodies, planetary defense testing, and working to understand and evaluate available technology for future lunar surface missions. Asteroid 36986 Stickle is named in her honor.

Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a dense atmosphere, which supports an Earth-like hydrological cycle of methane clouds, rain, lakes, and seas. Complex organic surface materials may preserve, in a deep freeze, the types of organic chemicals that would have been present on Earth before life developed. The Dragonfly mission to Titan will characterize its habitability and determine how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed in environments known to provide the necessary ingredients for life. The mission comprises a single rotorcraft lander with a sophisticated scientific payload, designed to take advantage of Titan's environment and achieve wide-ranging exploration goals by flying to sites in different geologic settings.

Dr. Melissa Trainer is a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) with expertise in the composition of planetary atmospheres and the production of organic molecules and aerosols via in situ synthesis pathways. Dr. Trainer currently serves as a Deputy Principal Investigator (PI) for the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan, part of the NASA Planetary Science New Frontiers Program. She is also the lead for the Dragonfly Mass Spectrometer (DraMS), which enables the investigation of Titan's surface composition and characterization of potential prebiotic chemistry.