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As a former Outreach Intern and volunteer Asteroid Ambassador for NASA's Lucy Mission, I wrote articles, made videos, and used social media to educate the public on the first mission to Jupiter's Trojan asteroids.
Internship Description
Internship Description
June 2020 - August 2020
June 2020 - August 2020
I wrote engineering and science articles for the official website of NASA's Lucy Mission, explaining topics such as flyby sequences, terminal tracking, functions of the spacecraft’s instruments, and the Discovery class mission selection process.
Articles
Articles
An exploration of Lucy's rocket (ULA's Atlas V 401) and how it fits into the history of launch vehicles.
Hide and Seek — Discovering Eurybates' Satellite
How the Lucy science team discovered Eurybates' satellite.
Why are they called Trojan Asteroids?
The story of the discovery of the first Trojan asteroids.
A version of my article with minor updates appears on the official NASA website under the title, "How Were the Trojan Asteroids Discovered and Named?" This version was released to commemorate the anniversary of the discovery of the first Trojan asteroid, and the article was featured on the social media accounts for NASA Goddard, NASA Solar System, NASA's Lucy Mission, and NASA History Office.
An explanation of the meaning and design process for the Lucy Mission's logo.
The Mind-Bogglingly Big Journey Ahead
An explanation of the distance and velocity scales involved in the spacecraft's journey, as well as how flyby sequences are planned. To find many of the relevant values for this article, I also had to extract and run calculations with position and velocity data from Lucy's SPICE kernels using SpiceyPy (a Python wrapper for SPICE).
How to Start a NASA Mission (in Many Not-So-Easy Steps)
An explanation of the NASA Discovery Class mission selection process as experienced by Lucy's PI and Deputy PI.
Instrument Fact Sheets
Exploring occultations and their importance to the Lucy Mission.
Videos
Videos
Talks
Talks
H2O (Here To Observe) Lucy Mission Launch Livestream — October 16, 2021
I co-hosted a virtual Lucy Launch livestream watch party for students at Howard University, University of Puerto Rico, and Virginia State University. My co-hosts were several NASA employees and one of my fellow Lucy Ambassadors. This watch party was the inaugural event for H2O (Here to Observe), a NASA program that pairs students from minority serving institutions with NASA scientists. Before we watched the launch, I gave a presentation explaining an overview of the mission, and then during launch, I answered questions and gave interesting facts about the mission.
A slide from my presentation during the live broadcast of the Lucy Mission launch. Photo courtesy David J. Smith.
Post-Internship Presentation at Southwest Research Institute — October 14, 2020
Following the completion of my Outreach Internship with NASA's Lucy Mission at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), I presented my work to approximately 30 SwRI employees, including the Deputy Principal Investigator of the Lucy Mission. A large portion of the presentation discussed my work writing engineering articles explaining each of the instruments for the mission's official website.
Outreach Presentation at Lucy Science Team Meeting — July 17, 2020
I presented my Lucy Mission Outreach work at a Lucy Mission Science Team meeting. Attendance included several members of mission leadership (such as the mission PI and deputy PI), as well as the instrument PIs, and the founders of the L'SPACE Academy. Organizations represented included the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Southwest Research Institute, Arizona State University, and Northern Arizona University.
A small subset of the people in attendance. Photo courtesy Cathy Olkin.
Social Media
Social Media
Star Wars Day 2021
I made a series of graphics and Twitter/Instagram posts using Star Wars to explain the science of the Lucy Mission. One graphic, shown below, compares the gigantic solar panels on Lucy to those of a Star Wars TIE fighter. Lucy's 23.9 foot-wide (7.3 m) panels will power Lucy as it operates 530 million miles (853 million km) from the Sun — farther from the Sun than any solar-powered spacecraft has operated before. Each post was created for @LucyAmbassadors and shared by @LucyMission.
Choose Your Spacecraft
Artwork I created for NASA's Lucy, OSIRIS-REx, Psyche, and DART Missions. It was used on social media accounts for NASA Solar System, Lucy, and Psyche. The piece was used to advertise a panel with leads from the four missions, and used again on the day of OSIRIS-REx's TAG event to remind the general public that OSIRIS-REx is one of multiple NASA asteroid missions underway.
Valentine's Day Weekend 2021
My artwork was used on the Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts for NASA's Lucy Mission during Valentine's Day Weekend. The image is meant to humorously introduce the general public to the fact that asteroids are classified by their spectral types. The associated caption reads, "Hue know it's true ❤️ Learn more at http://lucy.swri.edu/2018/Asteroid-Taxonomy.html," tying the post to an existing article on asteroid taxonomy.
Other Sites Featuring My Work
Other Sites Featuring My Work
Google Sites
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