Invited Speakers

SABER – Touching the Future for Over 20 Years

Tuesday, June 13 | 1:00 pm

Dr. Martin G. Mlynczak, NASA Langley Research Center
Dr. Roy Esplin, Utah State University/Space Dynamics Laboratory

The Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument continues to operate nominally on NASA’s Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite after more than 21 years in orbit. Having successfully completed its baseline 2-year mission to explore the least understood region of Earth’s atmosphere – the mesosphere and lower thermosphere – SABER is now expanding our knowledge of global change in the atmospheric region from 60 to 600 km. This expansive region, called ‘Geospace’, is undergoing long-term change due to increasing carbon dioxide (CO2). Unlike the troposphere where the net effect of increasing CO2 is to warm the atmosphere, increasing CO2 in Earth’s upper atmosphere cools Geospace. SABER data recently been used to show that increasing CO2 not only cooling the lower regions of Geospace but is also causing these regions to shrink and contract. As CO2 continues to increase, Geospace is predicted to contract, resulting in longer orbital lifetimes for satellites – and orbital debris. As the number of satellites and the debris populations grows, the long-term climate change of a cooling Geospace is anticipated to become a factor in space law, space policy, the space insurance industry, and the overall space economy. This talk will describe SABER contributions to upper atmosphere science and will review the careful design of the instrument and the many design and characterization factors that have contributed to its ongoing longevity.

Dr. Martin G. Mlynczak, NASA Langley Research Center

Dr. Mlynczak is a Senior Research Scientist in the Climate Science Branch at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. For the past 30 years he has studied the climate and energy balance of the Earth’s whole atmosphere. He has been a team member or investigator on nearly every major satellite project addressing climate including the NASA Earth Science CERES and AIRS instruments, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), and the international Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB) instrument, and the international FORUM mission. He also currently serves as the Principal Investigator of the SABER instrument on the NASA TIMED mission exploring the mesosphere and thermosphere.

He has also led multiple technology development projects for climate sensing including the FIRST, INFLAME, CORSAIR, FORGE, FIREBIB, and FIDTAP projects. He is also an Affiliate Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Mlynczak has received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement (2003), and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (2009). In 2012, he was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the highest honor NASA bestows, for his work in the atmospheric and climate sciences. His has published nearly 260 peer-reviewed journal articles and delivered over 100 invited talks, tutorials, or keynote lectures at national and international science symposia. His work has been cited over 13,000 times. Dr. Mlynczak received the Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1989; the M.S. from the University of Wisconsin in 1984; and the B.S. in physics from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1981.

Dr. Roy W. Esplin, Space Dynamics Laboratory

Dr. Esplin is a Senior Electro-Optical Engineer at the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL). He has 44 years of experience designing, fabricating, and testing electro-optical instruments for space applications. He was the lead SDL electro-optical engineer for the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument. He was also an SDL engineering team member on the Spatial Instrument Spectrometer (SPIRIT) series of instruments (SPIRIT I, SPIRIT II, and SPIRIT III), the Wide-Field Infrared Explorer (WIRE), the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), and the Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) space instrument. All these instruments have flown in space with AWE scheduled to fly December 2023. Dr. Esplin was a team member on two high-altitude aircraft programs—the NASA Ames Enhanced Airborne Simulator (eMAS), which is a Hyperspectral Imager on a NASA ER-2 high-altitude research aircraft, and an Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (AMTM) that measured gravity waves from a Gulfstream high-altitude aircraft as part of the Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment (DEEPWAVE).

Dr. Esplin also served as a team member on many proposals and studies for space instrumentation including the Nitric oxide Infrared Cooling Emissions CubeSat (NICEcube), the Geostationary Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (GIFTS), Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor), and the Doppler Wind and Temperature Sensor (DWTS) for the Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (DYNAMIC) mission.

Dr. Esplin has published four peer-reviewed journal articles and 14 SPIE Proceeding articles. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University in 1978 and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University in 1969.

What Calibration Might Gain from the Art and Science of Anticipatory Intelligence

Wednesday, June 14 | 10:45 am

Mr. Matt Berrett, Director of Analytics, Utah State University/Space Dynamics Laboratory and Co-Founder, Utah State University’s Center for Anticipatory Intelligence

The history of attempts to anticipate challenges and problems — whether faced by a nation, an organization, or a team seeking to ensure the operational success of a sensor — is full of unpleasant surprises. Mr. Berrett will draw on his experiences at CIA, SDL, and USU’s Center for Anticipatory Intelligence to offer ideas for minimizing the frequency or impact of such surprises.

Matt Berrett joined the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) in July 2017 as its Director of Analytics after retiring from the Central Intelligence Agency as an Assistant Director. His intelligence career also featured serving under Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as Director of the President’s Daily Brief, the premier, multiagency enterprise that informs US presidents and their top national security officials on key global developments. His SDL portfolio includes a wide range of strategic thinking and planning as well as continued engagement across the US Intelligence Community. Mr. Berrett also is cofounder of Utah State University’s Center for Anticipatory Intelligence, an aggressively multi-domain approach to anticipating threats and opportunities emerging from the actors and factors that will shape the future. This enterprise will launch the nation’s first Master’s in Anticipatory Intelligence in the fall of 2023 and is a founding member of the Intermountain Intelligence, Industry, and Security Consortium, which features industry partners such as Boeing, AgilePQ, Northrop Grumman, MITRE, Adobe, SDL, Strider, and others.