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By Wayne Smith<\/em><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center honored top contractors, subcontractors, teams, and individuals of fiscal year 2024 at the 38th meeting of Marshall\u2019s Small Business Alliance. The awards honor aerospace companies and leaders who have demonstrated support of the center\u2019s small business programs and NASA\u2019s mission of exploration.<\/p>\n The event took place Sept. 19 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center\u2019s Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville. Around 650 participants from industry and government gathered to network, learn about business opportunities, and recognize outstanding achievements in support of NASA\u2019s mission and the small business community. Those attending represented 32 states and 10 nations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Marshall Small Business Alliance is an outreach tool designed to introduce the business community to the NASA marketplace,\u201d said David Brock, small business specialist for the agency\u2019s Office of Small Business Programs at Marshall. \u201cThose in attendance can gain valuable insight into Marshall\u2019s exciting programs and projects, upcoming procurement opportunities, and get an opportunity to network with Marshall prime contractors.\u201d<\/p>\n Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey welcomed attendees, while Jeramie Broadway, deputy director of Marshall\u2019s Office of Strategic Analysis and Communications, provided an update on the center for fiscal year 2025 and beyond.<\/p>\n Marshall\u2019s Industry & Advocate Awards are presented annually and reflect leadership in business community and sustained achievement in service to NASA\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are excited about this year\u2019s winners,\u201d Brock said. \u201cEach play a key role in helping NASA achieve successes in support of key programs and projects, including the Human Landing System and Space Launch System rocket. Maintaining and sustaining an experienced and competitive industry base is what makes America strong, and small businesses are at the core of those successes.\u201d<\/p>\n Marshall manages the Human Landing System and Space Launch System programs.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s award recipients are:<\/p>\n Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Media Fusion<\/p>\n Small Business Subcontractor of the Yea<\/strong>r<\/p>\n Zin Technologies<\/p>\n Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Jacobs<\/p>\n Mentor-Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Agreement of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Jacobs (mentor) and CodePlus (prot\u00e9g\u00e9)<\/p>\n Procurement Person of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Joseph Tynes \u00a0<\/p>\n Program Person of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Patrick McVay<\/p>\n Small Business Technical Coordinator of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Leah Fox<\/p>\n Technical Person of the Year<\/strong><\/p>\n David Hood<\/p>\n NASA civil service employees nominate eligible individuals and organizations for awards. A panel of NASA procurement and technical officials evaluates each nominee\u2019s business practices, innovative processes, adoption of new technologies and their overall contributions to NASA\u2019s mission and the agency\u2019s Small Business Program.<\/p>\n Award recipients in the following categories become candidates for agency-level Small Business Industry and Advocate Awards:<\/p>\n Learn more about Marshall\u2019s small business initiatives.<\/p>\n Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.<\/em><\/p>\n \u203a Back to Top<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n By Serena Whitfield<\/em><\/p>\n A new flag is reaching for the Moon outside the Huntsville Operations Support Center at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center following a Sept.19 ceremony, marking contributions from center team members toward the launch of NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.<\/p>\n The Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station will carry NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. The mission is scheduled to launch Sept. 28 no earlier than 12:17 p.m. CDT.<\/p>\n Crew-9 will be the first human spaceflight mission to launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This is the ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the orbiting laboratory under NASA\u2019s\u00a0Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The crew will spend approximately five months at the station, conducting more than 200 science and research demonstrations before returning in February 2025.<\/p>\n Once aboard the space station, Hague and Gorbunov will become members of the Expedition 72 crew and perform research, technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities. The pair will join NASA astronauts Don Petitt, Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. Wilmore and Williams, who launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June, will fly home with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025.<\/p>\n The flag raising has been a tradition for missions supported at Marshall\u2019s Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC), as well as a tradition within the CCP to celebrate the successful conclusion of NASA\u2019s Agency Flight Readiness Review prior to launch. The HOSC provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, the CCP, and Artemis missions, as well as science and technology demonstration missions. The Payload Operations Integration Center within HOSC operates, plans, and coordinates the science experiments onboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n The CCP support team at Marshall provides crucial programmatic, engineering, and safety and mission assurance expertise for launch vehicles, spacecraft propulsion, and integrated vehicle performance. Marshall\u2019s role within the CCP is to support certification that the spacecraft and launch vehicle are ready for launch. The support team performs engineering expertise, particularly for propulsion, as well as program management, safety and mission assurance, and spacecraft support.\u00a0<\/p>\n The flag-raising ceremony was a joint effort between the Payload and Mission Operations Division (PMOD) and CCP team. Dave Gwaltney, technical assistant, specialty systems, and Commercial Crew Program representative, gave the introductions. He recognized Brady Doepke, structural analyst for liquid propulsion systems, for his significant contributions in preparation for Crew-9 mission success. Gwaltney said Doepke exemplified leadership and innovation through his guidance of Marshall\u2019s CCP engineering team, which resulted in a successful risk assessment of the updated SpaceX turbine wheel fleet leader acceptance criteria.<\/p>\n Payload and Mission Operations Division Manager Nicole Pelfrey also recognized Thomas \u201cReid\u201d Lawrence as the division\u2019s Crew-9 honoree.<\/p>\n \u201cReid serves dutifully in the HOSC as part of the HOSC\u2019s Data Operations Control Room Operations Engineers,\u201d Pelfrey said. \u201cReid has a number of technical specialties, including his expertise in the Backup Control Center activation procedures. This expertise has been vital over the past year as JSC has worked through power upgrades. He also diligently ensures our ISS payload users receive their data and is a key engineer for the testing, verification, and operation of our HOSC interfaces that support commercial crew communications.\u201d<\/p>\n Whitfield is an intern supporting the Marshall Office of Communications.<\/em><\/p>\n \u203a Back to Top<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center hosted the Rossi Prize Recognition Dinner at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville on Sept. 18. The dinner was held to recognize the IXPE (<\/em>Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer<\/em>) team members honored with the Bruno Rossi Prize, a top prize in high-energy astronomy. From left, Martin Weisskopf, Rossi Prize awardee and NASA emeritus scientist, who served as the principal investigator for IXPE during its development, launch, and commissioning; Paolo Soffitta, Rossi Prize awardee, and the Italian Space Agency\u2019s principal investigator for IXPE; Hashima Hasan, program scientist for IXPE at NASA Headquarters; Andrea Marinucci, IXPE team member and researcher with the Italian Space Agency; and Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey, who provided welcome remarks at the dinner. \u201cThe Bruno Rossi Prize highlights how partnerships and teamwork can push the boundaries of scientific knowledge,\u201d Pelfrey said. \u201cThe (IXPE) mission, a groundbreaking collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency, represents over 30 years of dedicated effort and stands as a testament to the innovative work of a truly multinational team.\u201d (NASA\/Jennifer Deermer)<\/em><\/p>\n Rossi Prize winners Weisskopf and Soffitta, center seated, are joined by a plush goat, the unofficial mascot of the IXPE mission, and other IXPE team members at the Rossi Prize Recognition Dinner. <\/em>Read more<\/em> about the award and the prize winners. (NASA\/Jennifer Deermer)<\/em><\/p>\n \u203a Back to Top<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n By Wayne Smith<\/em><\/p>\n Talk with Shannon Segovia for any length of time and you\u2019ll quickly discover the care and enthusiasm she has for her position as director of the Office of Communications at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center. And that care and enthusiasm extends to those she works with across the center to share news about Marshall missions and team members.<\/p>\n In her role, Segovia oversees a team responsible for media relations and public affairs, digital and social media, stakeholder relations and engagement, internal and employee communications, and executive communications for the center.<\/p>\n \u201cWe manage these activities for the entire center of about 7,000 people, so it is a definitely a very busy job!\u201d said Segovia, a native of Athens, Alabama, who was named as permanent communications director this summer after more than 12 years at Marshall. She was the deputy director of communications starting in June 2023 after working as Marshall\u2019s news chief and public affairs team lead starting in 2019. From 2012 to 2019, Segovia was a public affairs officer at the center. Prior to joining NASA, she was the communications manager for the Tennessee Valley Authority\u2019s Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee.<\/p>\n \u00a0At Marshall, she said it\u2019s the people who continue to be her biggest motivators.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a public servant, I want the people I serve \u2013 the people who follow our channels, listen to the news stories we create, and attend our events \u2013 to know why NASA\u2019s missions are important and critical to the world we live in,\u201d Segovia said. \u201cI am so fortunate to have such a brilliant team, and they motivate me daily with their hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m also motivated by my husband and family because I want to make them proud. I want my nieces and nephews to have a bright future, and I truly believe the work we are doing at NASA will help them do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Question: <\/strong>What excites you most about the future of human space exploration, or your NASA work, and your team\u2019s role it?<\/p>\n Segovia:<\/strong> NASA\u2019s missions depend on public and stakeholder support, and that is what our office does \u2013 ensures people know what we are doing at NASA and specifically at Marshall, why it is important, and how our missions are benefiting humanity. From social media posts to events like the South Star music festival to interviews with media outlets and stakeholder tours, we use every channel we can to tell others about the work we are doing at Marshall and NASA. Our office touches every organization at the center, and it is so exciting to have a front seat to everything we are doing to get humans back to the Moon and on to Mars.<\/p>\n Question: <\/strong>What has been the proudest moment of your career and why?<\/p>\n Segovia:<\/strong> I helped take a team of 12 Marshall female engineers to The Today Show in 2019 for a segment about International Women\u2019s Day. As a public affairs specialist, one of our job duties is to prepare subject matter experts for interviews, making sure they have messages, talking points, and anything else they need. I have never been more proud to be a woman and to work for Marshall than I was that day, seeing how well these women represented NASA and the extraordinary achievements they have made possible. It also made me even more thankful for the job I have \u2013 preparing them to make sure they felt confident and could talk about their work was a wonderful experience. The other moment in my career I will never forget is the Artemis I launch in November 2022. I\u2019ve supported the Space Launch System since I started working at NASA, and seeing that rocket fly was one of the best moments of my career. It was the culmination of so much hard work and sacrifice from so many people and was truly an overwhelming and amazing experience.<\/p>\n Question: <\/strong>Who or what inspired you to pursue an education\/career that led you to NASA and Marshall?<\/p>\n Segovia:<\/strong> My parents have always been my No. 1 fans, encouragers, and supporters. They instilled in me a strong work ethic and the belief I could do anything I wanted to do if I worked hard. They made education a priority for my brothers and I and would do anything to help us succeed. I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful family. My mom always wanted me to do something in the medical field, but a biology course in college changed my mind quickly on that. I wasn\u2019t sure what I wanted to do but had been at school for two years and needed to declare a major. I liked to write and read but didn\u2019t know how to make a career out of that until I went to a journalism class taught by Ms. Bobbie Hurt at the University of North Alabama, and I was hooked. She became my mentor and really taught me how to be a good writer, which has been the foundation for my entire career. I ended up with a double major in journalism and public relations, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.<\/p>\n Question: <\/strong>What advice do you have for employees early in their NASA career or those in new leadership roles?<\/p>\n Segovia:<\/strong> Find people to whom you can go to for advice, who have your back, and can help you accomplish your goals. I\u2019ve had some amazing mentors, teammates, and bosses who have not only supported me but pushed me to do things I wasn\u2019t sure I could do and helped me even when I messed up. I would not be here without them, and I think it is so important to have those people in your entire career, but especially when you are new. Ask for help when you need it. Time flies, so enjoy the season and job you are in. You will know when it is time to move on, but being present and learning from where you are will help you succeed.<\/p>\n Question: <\/strong>What do you enjoy doing with your time while away from work?<\/p>\n Segovia:<\/strong> I love the water \u2013 ocean, river, pool, lake \u2013 I like being outside and water activities. I love to read and travel, and also to spend time with family and friends. I have three nieces and two nephews, and I like to go to their games and activities. I have a 4-year-old terrier mix named Ted and I enjoy taking him on walks and to the park.<\/p>\n Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.<\/em><\/p>\n \u203a Back to Top<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n NASA has awarded a total of $1.5 million to two U.S. teams for their novel technology solutions addressing energy distribution, management, and storage as part of the agency\u2019s\u00a0Watts on the Moon Challenge. The innovations from this challenge aim to support NASA\u2019s Artemis missions, which will establish long-term human presence on the Moon.<\/p>\n This two-phase competition has challenged U.S. innovators to develop breakthrough power transmission and energy storage technologies that could enable long-duration Moon missions to advance the nation\u2019s lunar exploration goals. The final phase of the challenge concluded with a technology showcase and winners\u2019 announcement ceremony Sept. 20 at Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the visitor center for NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center.<\/p>\n \u201cCongratulations to the finalist teams for developing impactful power solutions in support of NASA\u2019s goal to sustain human presence on the Moon,\u201d said Kim Krome-Sieja, acting program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center. \u201cThese technologies seek to improve our ability to explore and make discoveries in space and could have implications for improving power systems on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n The winning teams are:<\/p>\n Four teams were invited to refine their hardware and deliver full system prototypes in the\u00a0final stage of the competition, and three finalist teams completed their technology solutions for demonstration and assessment at Glenn. The technologies were the first power transmission and energy storage prototypes to be tested by NASA in a vacuum chamber mimicking the freezing temperature and absence of pressure found at the permanently shadowed regions of the Lunar South Pole. The simulation required the teams\u2019 power systems to demonstrate operability over six hours of solar daylight and 18 hours of darkness with the user three kilometers (nearly two miles) away from the power source.<\/p>\n During this competition stage, judges scored the finalists\u2019 solutions based on a Total Effective System Mass (TESM) calculation, which measures the effectiveness of the system relative to its size and weight \u2013 or mass \u2013 and the total energy provided by the power source. The highest-performing solution was identified based on having the lowest TESM value \u2013 imitating the challenges that space missions face when attempting to reduce mass while meeting the mission\u2019s electrical power needs.<\/p>\n Team H.E.L.P.S. (High Efficiency Long-Range Power Solution) from University of California, Santa Barbara, won the grand prize for their hardware solution, which had the lowest mass and highest efficiency of all competitors. The technology also featured a special cable operating at 800 volts and an innovative use of energy storage batteries on both ends of the transmission system. They also employed a variable radiation shield to switch between conserving heat during cold periods and disposing of excess heat during high power modes. The final 48-hour test proved their system design effectively met the power transmission, energy storage, and thermal challenges in the final phase of competition.<\/p>\n Orbital Mining Corporation, a space technology startup, received the second prize for its hardware solution that also successfully completed the 48-hour test with high performance. They employed a high-voltage converter system coupled with a low-mass cable and a lithium-ion battery.<\/p>\n \u201cThe energy solutions developed by the challenge teams are poised to address NASA\u2019s space technology priorities,\u201d said Amy Kaminski, program executive for Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing in NASA\u2019s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. \u201cThese solutions support NASA\u2019s\u00a0recently ranked civil space shortfalls, including in the top category of surviving and operating through the lunar night.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\n
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