To understand a changing climate
scientists need sophisticated tools.
So, how do you develop
advanced technologies to study
essential aspects of the climate
during a global pandemic?
With teams socially distant
they’re working from
spare bedrooms and at tables in their backyards.
It's tough!
It’s not easy to turn a wrench from home.
But, uh, we also work with some
very clever, some very innovative people
who have figured out
methodologies to actually test things--
really!-- from home, you know, remotely.
So the longer we’re stuck at home
and the itchier we are to get back to work
the more creative we can get to
finding ways to perform those tests.
We have electrical ground support
equipment that we hook up to the network--
—the computer networks at Goddard--
and we VPN into them…
and we can actually
turn on power supplies
and power up the components from home.
What they’re powering up…is this.
It’s the spacecraft
that headlines NASA’s mission
called PACE.
From orbit it will study
Earth’s oceans, biogeochemistry, ecology,
the carbon cycle, aerosols, and clouds.
PACE is a climate change observatory...
…and climate change continues
even during the pandemic,
so the mission’s research goals
can’t wait.
But that said…
Progress is being made,
but not in the way one typically
thinks about construction of
a satellite observatory.
The technological advances
are great, and they really do help us
but they’re still not as good
as a face-to-face.
It’s been lovely
being home with my wife
and my daughter.
I can’t complain about that!
But it’s not the same
as getting out to work
and seeing everybody.
There’s going to be, probably,
a meaningful cultural shift
in how a project of this size
y’know, somewhere between 400
and 500 people right now
learn how to interact with each other
going forward.
I don’t think meetings will be
structured the same way
and that might actually make us
more productive.
There’s that serendipity
that’s disappeared, and also that
everything has to be planned
ahead of time.
Nothing beats the personal interaction
especially when you’re having to
describe the type of engineering
features that we’re talking about.
It’s really hard sometimes to point out
small pins that we’re referring to.
We really have to be face-to-face
to show you, no, I’m talking
about this specific one.
Virtual meetings do not
take over the importance of that.
I think that me and my co-lead
have been equally productive
because we can do absolutely 100%
of our work remotely.
And I think that moving forward
it’s going to lend to, you know, instead
of just working remotely one day a week
maybe I try doing two days a week.
because it really is working out well.
Eventually we will come to a point
where we need to get back in there
and put things together…the hardware.
The team has done, I would say,
a Herculean effort. There is
a large aspect of the mission
that is more than just
hands-on labor.
There’s a lot of people who are doing that.
But there’s also a lot of people
that have to do paperwork.
You know, drawings, work orders,
procedures, software development,
access to these computer systems
for testing.
It’s just hard-- emotionally, mentally.
This is a difficult thing
to overcome.
True. Spaceflight and scientific research
are all about teamwork,
and this is a tough time to be part of a team.
But this team knows why
this mission matters so much.
The biggest uncertainty in our future
is our climate. And understanding the ocean
that controls a large percentage of that
climate behavior is crucial
and that’s what PACE is going
to bring us, better understanding
of ocean that controls our climate
which is pretty much our house.
And that’s why, pandemic or no pandemic,
this team isn’t slowing down.
I think it’s very challenging to make
any of these people stop work, right?
It goes so much against our natural
desire to want to build, want to achieve,
want to innovate.
I mean, we’re creative people!
That’s why we work at NASA, right?
(music)