How NASA Goddard Tests Tools Astronauts Will Use to Explore Distant Worlds

When astronauts land again on the surface of another world, their limited resources will allow for a short window of time each day to explore their new surroundings. Instruments designed to quickly reveal the terrain’s chemistry and form will help them understand the environments around them and how they change over time.

To protect precious hours available for extraterrestrial scientific investigations, a team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland — the Goddard Instrument Field Team (GIFT) — is testing and refining the chemical-analyzing and land-surveying tools that will assist future human explorers of places like the Moon and Mars.

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Credits: NASA Goddard/Molly Wasser

Aaron Regberg, astrobiologist from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, wears a clean suit to collect ice samples for DNA detection. In the background, the rest of the Goddard Instrument Field Team collects data and samples on Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland.

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Setting Up the Lidar

Team member Kelsey Young explains the use of the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer. NASA/GSFC

Team member Amy McAdam explains the use of the laser induced-breakdown spectrometer. NASA/GSFC