Web Modernization Picks Up Speed

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

IT Talk

Apr - Jun 2023 Volume 13 • Issue 2
IT Talk

Apr - Jun 2023 Volume 13 • Issue 2

Office of the CIO

NASA Headquarters

Mary W. Jackson Building

300 E Street SW

Washington, D.C. 20546

Chief Information Officer

Jeff Seaton

Editor & Publication Manager

Eldora Valentine

Graphic & Web Designer

Michael Porterfield

Copy Editor

Meredith Isaacs

Mia Roundtree

IT Talk is an official publication of the 

Office of the Chief Information Officer 

of the National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, Headquarters, 

Washington, D.C. It is published 

by the OCIO office for all NASA 

employees and external audiences.

For distribution questions or to 

suggest a story idea, email:

eldora.valentine-1@nasa.gov

To read IT Talk online visit:

www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio/ittalk

For more info on the OCIO:

v www.nasa.gov/offices/ocio

v nasa.sharepoint.com/sites/cio/

 (Internal NASA network only)

v www.nasa.gov/open/

www.facebook.com/NASAcio

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Message From 

the NASA CIO

Beyond Compliance: How 

NASA Uses Section 508 

to Promote Accessibility 

and Inclusion

Web Modernization 

Picks Up Speed

Software-Defined 

Access (SDA) Migrations 

Accelerating Across 

NASA Centers

A Face to Face Visit with 

Michoud Assembly

Facility and Stennis 

Space Center

In this Issue
It gives me great pleasure to boast about the incredible work that occurs every day 

at our NASA centers. A lot of it is showcased online so millions of people around 

the world can learn about our accomplishments in space, science, discovery, and 

exploration. In this issue, we’ll look at NASA’s Web Modernization efforts which 

will improve the way we communicate to the public, minimize cyber vulnerabilities 

through strengthened security, and provide a better online experience for everyone. 

We’ll also look at how NASA and the Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) 

have taken proactive steps to promote awareness and compliance with Section 

508 among the workforce. We are committed to supporting accessibility, inclusion, 

and equal opportunities, making certain our employees with disabilities have equal 

access to all digital content. 

In the world of Digital Transformation, we will explore how Smart Center technology is bringing automation to space. This 

concept not only streamlines sustainability of NASA facilities but makes onsite work with scientists and industry partners 

more productive and efficient. 

And we’ll show you how the Mission Cloud Platform (MCP) represents a NASA-wide investment in cloud infrastructure for 

science acceleration. Some MCP tools are reducing onboarding time and creating efficiencies while improving general science system usability and accessibility.

This issue is filled with terrific examples of the great work happening at the agency. So, I hope you enjoy reading our stories. 

Sincerely,

Jeff Seaton

NASA Chief Information Officer

NASA OCIO IT Talk Apr - Jun 2023 3

Message from the NASA CIO 

Workplace and Collaboration Services (WCS) News and Updates

Check out the latest news from WCS (all links are internal to NASA):

• Defender Quarantine Will Reduce the Spam, 

Phishing, and Spoofing Emails You Receive

• Windows 10 Version 22H2 Update

• Mobile Apps That are Prohibited on Devices 

That Connect to the NASA Network

• Connecting to a Printer/MFD

• New Location for Mission Freeze Information

• Shipping Costs for Hardware Sent To/From an Offsite Location

• Webex 42.10.8 Upgrade Includes 20 New Features

• macOS Ventura (13) In-Place Upgrades

• New Teams Features: Meeting Co-organizers Can Manage 

Breakout Rooms; Chat Messages Can Now Be Scheduled; 

You Can Start a Chat with Distribution Groups; and More

• See What's New with ICAM
4 www.nasa.gov

Smart Centers Aim to Bring Automation to Space

By Alex H. Wagner, Communications Specialist, Digital Transformation, Headquarters

Move over, Alexa: “Smart Centers” are 

the latest NASA innovation that starts 

with fusing data from smart wireless 

sensors with autonomous drone facility 

inspections.

Much like the ubiquitous “smart 

home,” this Digital Transformation 

(DT)–funded project attempts to mature 

and integrate digital technologies that 

will not only streamline sustainability of 

NASA facilities but make onsite work 

with scientists and industry partners 

more productive and efficient. 

During the first proof-of-concept use 

case at a liquid nitrogen facility at 

Langley Research Center, members of 

the Smart Center team coordinated the 

remote piloting of a drone to survey the 

facility for any anomalies using infrared 

sensors.

Using a newly created data structure 

linked to a dashboard visualization of 

this drone flyover, the Smart Center 

team could quickly assess and predict 

when components might need maintenance, rather than relying on a physical 

team to conduct an inspection manually.

“You could think about it [in terms of] 

newer vehicles,” says Rodney Martin, 

Deputy Discovery and Systems Health 

Technical Area Lead at Ames Research Center, who leads the DT Smart 

Centers project. “You actually have 

sensors embedded in newer vehicles 

which show what your tire pressure 

is.” The dashboard the team created 

ultimately reduces the need for periodic inspections, which can be costly, 

time-consuming, dangerous, and 

sometimes even ineffective at monitoring for issues. 

“If you have an inspection team go out 

to perform the inspection manually,” 

says Martin, “bringing equipment with 

them on a periodic basis, say every 

month—sometimes they’ll find something, sometimes they won’t.”

Normally, Martin says, such a manual 

inspection often involves erecting 

scaffolding, adhering to various safety 

protocols, and performing the inspection with handheld devices that “takes 

a very long time.” The drone flight, 

meanwhile, took 15 minutes. Truncating this process will allow NASA employees to conduct more frequent inspections and cut through the growing 

maintenance backlog as the agency’s 

infrastructure ages.

While the goal was never to build a 

Smart Center from scratch, Martin 

says, this prototype effort should 

provide a blueprint for agencywide 

adoption of these technologies when 

funds and resources align. For now, 

the next steps involve determining how 

to scale the data architecture and data 

collection tools like drones. Over the 

course of fiscal year 2023, the Smart 

Center team will create a repeatable 

playbook to enable agencywide adoption. Additionally, they will scale demos 

at another two centers and address 

cyber-physical security concerns.

“Just because we use drones for this 

first proof of concept use case doesn’t 

necessarily mean that they’re always 

going to be useful,” says Martin.

Ultimately, the Smart Centers concept 

will grow to include feeding real-time 

sensor data into digital twins that can 

help us predict operational readiness. 

The team envisions Smart Centers 

acting as a testing ground for potential 

habitat management on other planetary 

surfaces like the Moon or Mars—an 

integral part of NASA’s planned future 

missions.

“Upon setting his boots on the moon, 

Neil Armstrong made the historic 

remark, ‘That’s one small step for man, 

one giant leap for mankind,’” says Martin. “We believe that making progress 

with small steps in the improvement of 

our built infrastructure here on Earth 

can represent a giant leap forward in 

how we shape the future of sustainable 

lunar habitation.”

Dashboard of information gathered 

from the remote-piloted drone survey 

of the liquid nitrogen facility at the 

Langley Research Center.
Beyond Compliance: How NASA Uses Section 

508 to Promote Accessibility and Inclusion

By Courtney Ritz, Agency IT Accessibility Lead, and Hilary Gambale, Strategic Communications Specialist, Code 702, 

Goddard Space Flight Agency (GSFC) 

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act 

of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d), 

is a Federal law that ensures that all 

Federal employees and members of 

the public with disabilities have access 

to Information and Communication 

Technology (ICT). This law requires that 

electronic and information technology 

purchased, developed, maintained, or 

used by Federal agencies be accessible to people with disabilities. The 

importance of Section 508 cannot be 

overstated, as it ensures that everyone 

has equal access to information and 

technology. NASA and the NASA Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) 

have taken proactive steps to promote 

awareness and compliance with Section 

508 among its workforce and is committed to supporting accessibility, inclusion, and equal opportunity, making 

certain its employees with disabilities 

have equal access to all digital content.

Since stepping into my new role as the 

Agency IT Accessibility Lead in OCIO in 

August of 2022, I have worked diligently 

to identify and address accessibility 

issues across NASA and promote best 

practices. Prior to my agency role, I 

served as backup to the Goddard Section 508 Program Manager so stepping 

into the agency role was a natural fit. I 

feel I understand the technology needs 

of people with disabilities, being a user 

of assistive technology myself and losing my eyesight at age five due to a form 

of eye cancer called retinoblastoma.

In the fall of 2022, I partnered with 

NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal 

Opportunity (ODEO) to distribute an 

agencywide Section 508 compliance 

memo to the NASA workforce stressing the importance of making documentation accessible and reminding 

employees that every NASA employee 

or contractor is legally responsible for 

creating or sharing digital content, internally or externally, that is accessible 

for all. I have been finalizing renewal 

of the agency license for Sortsite so 

NASA websites can be scanned for 

quality issues including accessibility 

and usability problems. I have also 

contributed and participated in presentations held by various organizations 

pertaining to the creation of accessible 

electronic documentation, and twice I 

have worked on behalf of the agency 

to submit Nasa’s Section 508 Maturity 

Report to the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB), a biannual requirement that indicates the effectiveness of 

NASA’s Section 508 program. Improved auditing should make the data 

for these reports more accurate, so 

that the agency can better gauge its 

maturity level and know what specific 

areas need the most attention.

With the use of Microsoft O365, OCIO 

is already giving NASA computer users 

the technology to make their digital 

footprint more accessible. O365 allows 

employees to include closed captioning in meetings and presentations. In 

addition, Microsoft Teams enables the 

ability to record meetings with transcripts and captions, and an accessibility checker is provided in O365 applications like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

I’m excited about my job and exploring new and creative ways to fulfill 

NASA’s commitment to IT accessibility 

within the new OCIO structure. This 

includes expanding training resources 

on the various aspects of Section 

508/IT Accessibility, better tracking, 

and resolution of accessibility issues, 

and developing a centralized agency 

process for obtaining assistive technology, including an installation support 

function. Additionally, I am collaborating with Section 508 points of contacts 

across the ten NASA centers to know 

their accessibility needs and to identify 

and fill gaps in coverage. 

At NASA, we strive to work towards 

creating technology that is accessible 

to everyone and providing a more inclusive environment where all employees can participate. I plan to continue 

moving forward building and strengthening our IT accessibility program so 

that existing and future employees can 

be confident that their skills and talents 

can be brought to the table.

If you have 508 questions, I can be 

reached via e-mail at

courtney.l.ritz@nasa.gov.

NASA OCIO IT Talk Apr - Jun 2023 5
Web Modernization Picks Up Speed

Abby Bowman, NASA Web Modernization Lead, Headquarters

From scientists to school children, 

NASA’s online visitors must navigate 

multiple websites with different designs 

and competing content to find the information they seek. This sprawling online footprint presents an opportunity 

for our agency to dramatically improve 

the user experience for our employees, 

partners, and the public we serve. 

Seizing this opportunity, the NASA 

Web Modernization Team (NWMT) was 

established in 2019 in response to the 

21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act (IDEA), a law that tasked Federal agencies with modernizing digital 

experiences for the public. 

Our mission is to serve the agency and 

the public by: 

• Modernizing and improving the 

public’s user experience (UX) on 

www.nasa.gov and other publicfacing websites,

• Meeting or exceeding accessibility 

requirements and best practices, 

to the benefit of all users,

• Improving NASA’s ranking in 

search engine results, making it 

easier for users to find the information they’re seeking,

• Right-sizing the agency’s public 

web footprint to achieve an enhanced cyber-posture and improved focus for communicating 

our messages; and

• Improving the management and 

compliance of NASA’s websites.

In the April 2020 issue of IT Talk, we 

shared details of the NWMT’s agencywide site audit, our vision for a 

redesigned NASA.gov, and our plans 

for consolidating NASA’s public web 

footprint. These efforts have come a 

long way in the last three years, and 

we’re excited to share our progress.

User Research, Design, 

and CMS Selection

The initial audit of the agency’s web 

footprint informed the next phase of 

our web modernization work: user 

research and human-centered design 

in collaboration with Blink UX. 

To learn more about how our external 

audiences perceive NASA and interact 

with its websites, Blink conducted 53 

one-on-one interviews with representative members of the public and collected survey responses from another 

2,633 participants. Researchers also 

worked with more than 150 website 

owners and stakeholders from across 

the agency to understand NASA’s 

mission and the many ways we communicate with the public, from highly 

technical content to inspiring stories 

and majestic imagery.

Based on these findings, the NWMT 

worked with Blink to create the Horizon Design System (HDS), a modular 

toolkit designed to unify NASA.gov. 

HDS was inspired by and developed in 

accordance with the U.S. Web Design 

System as required by IDEA. HDS prototypes were put through their paces 

by real users who tested their navigation, usability, and accessibility.

At the same time, the NWMT set out to 

select a new flagship Content Management System (CMS) that would meet 

all of NASA’s requirements, including 

security, accessibility, search engine 

optimization, and collaboration capabilities. After evaluating more than 60 

CMS options, the NWMT’s developers 

tested prototypes for four CMS candidates and conducted extensive user 

testing with NASA content creators. 

In the end, the NWMT selected WordPress as the agency’s new CMS in 

January 2022.

6 www.nasa.gov
A design prototype from the new Horizon Design System, built to showcase NASA’s inspiring imagery on devices of every size.

Inspirations for the new design system that illustrate NASA’s wide range of stories and digital experiences, from the technical to the majestic.

Technical and Content 

Development

With the CMS determined, it was time 

to roll up our sleeves and start building in earnest. OCIO has been working 

closely with the Office of Communications and the Science Mission Directorate to implement the HDS redesign and WordPress migration of the 

agency’s main websites (www.nasa.

gov and science.nasa.gov). 

Today, the NWMT has onboarded 

more than 250 editors in the new CMS. 

Supported by our web content producers, these editors are working hard to 

optimize migrated content, categorize information according to the new 

topic-based information architecture, 

and create new pages that take full 

advantage of HDS’s modular designs.

Management and Governance

Although we've been focused for the 

last year on implementing the new 

www.nasa.gov, the NWMT continues to 

analyze NASA’s other public websites in 

preparation for future consolidation into 

the flagship. We have partnered with 

OCIO’s Web Managers at each Center 

to collect critical information on NASA’s 

online footprint, which stands at 1,812 

live external sites as of November 2022 

(down 36 percent from the starting audit).

To prevent further sprawl, OCIO is establishing agencywide web governance 

processes, including an annual inventory 

of NASA’s public websites, while implementing a comprehensive NASA web 

policy. This work will be facilitated by 

the newly formed Web Working Group, 

which brings together both IT and communication representatives from each Directorate and Center, as well as subjectmatter experts in key areas such as user 

experience, accessibility, and privacy.

What’s Ahead

Our vision is to inspire humanity 

through a unified, world-class NASA 

web experience, while empowering all 

of NASA’s creators to tell their stories 

via one cohesive platform and design. 

The 2023 launch of the new www.nasa.

gov will be a critical step toward realizing this vision, but our web modernization work will continue for years to 

come as we consolidate the remaining 

NASA websites. 

In the months ahead, the NWMT will 

be rolling out new digital experiences 

to the launchpad and completing our 

pre-countdown checklists. We look forward to introducing our visitors to the 

next era of NASA storytelling and helping them explore the vast collection of 

content produced by the agency. 

We hope you’ll join us on this journey 

of discovery when we launch this year.

(Continued from previous page)

NASA OCIO IT Talk Apr - Jun 2023 7
Software-Defined Access (SDA) Migrations 

Accelerating Across NASA Centers

By Sylvester Placid, AEGIS Communications Team Lead, Marshall Space Flight Center

Migrations to Software-Defined Access (SDA), the innovative approach to 

network security and automation being 

deployed across NASA, are accelerating.

What is SDA?

SDA enables a more secure and efficient enterprise network for NASA 

corporate needs with a programmable, 

zero-trust network architecture providing software-based policy and segmentation from the network edge to applications. SDA enables NASA to deliver 

a policy-driven, intent-based model for 

network and security operations. SDA 

leverages automation to save time and 

create efficiencies, using code to complete repeatable tasks. SDA reduces 

the need for human interaction and 

mitigates the risks of human error.

SDA enhances network security, providing authentication of who (user) and 

what (device) is accessing the network, as well as authorization for what 

can be accessed. Automated access 

control, group-based controls, security policies based on logical grouping 

using micro- and macro-segmentation, 

and more granular security controls 

improve NASA’s security posture.

What can SDA do?

Once SDA is enabled across all NASA 

centers, users and devices can move 

between buildings and centers with no 

configuration required. When a device 

is powered on, the appropriate security 

policy, firewall rules, and network access will be applied automatically.

SDA will be transformative in supporting more connected devices for smarter capabilities across NASA centers.

Hundreds of new security cameras at 

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) 

and Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) 

—two centers currently migrating to 

SDA—will be installed and enabled 

with no network engineering work 

required. These installations would 

typically require the creation of trunk 

networks to be enabled. Recently, a 

group at MSFC was impressed to find 

that a printer that was moved from one 

SDA-enabled building to another was 

automatically connected and functional 

without the need for any configuration.

This capability extends to any device 

on an SDA-enabled network, including 

keycard readers, ClickShare wireless 

presentation devices, uninterruptable power supplies (UPSs), and even 

network-enabled automated external 

defibrillators (AEDs) which can now 

automatically self-diagnose, report battery status, and be located electronically in emergencies.

How is SDA deployed?

To prepare for SDA, network switches 

across NASA centers must be migrated to the SDA enterprise fabric 

network.

8 www.nasa.gov
Network switches connect computers, servers, printers, wireless access 

points (WAPs) and other devices across 

networks, and as these switches are 

migrated to SDA and interconnected to 

pass data to each other, they form the 

SDA fabric network. The SDA project 

team has been hard at work preparing 

NASA for SDA deployment, working in 

sprints to complete migrations.

Which centers have migrated to SDA?

Langley Research Center (LaRC) 

and MSFC have successfully moved 

moderate- to high-risk devices (known 

as Enhanced Operational Technology 

endpoints) to the SDA fabric network 

and have accelerated their migration 

schedules. The SDA project team has 

achieved migration of 10 percent of 

agency switches across five centers 

(LaRC, MSFC, and MAF, as well as 

NASA Headquarters (HQ) and Wallops 

Flight Facility) with 16,000+ devices 

connected to those switches. That 

milestone includes LaRC surpassing the 

80 percent mark for center switches migrated to SDA, while MSFC surpassed 

50 percent in March. The migration 

effort at HQ continues to gain momentum, with plans to achieve nearly 30 

percent in March. At Glenn Research 

Center (GRC) and Stennis Space Center 

(SSC), switch candidates for migration 

have been selected to present to center 

leadership for concurrence and to begin 

migration activities at both centers.

MSFC migrated 100 percent of the 

endpoints in building 4601 (including 

30 WAPs)—this is the largest building 

migrated to SDA at the center, with 

more than 1,000 users and endpoints 

now on the SDA fabric.

LaRC migrated 140 switches (80 percent of in-scope switches completed) 

over the last year, with SDA migration 

completion at LaRC expected in May 

of this year. LaRC completed 120 WAP 

upgrades using a new automated, 

streamlined SDA process also used

at Armstrong Flight Research Center 

(AFRC) and MSFC. This SDA process 

has proven to reduce lead times for 

WAP upgrades by 50 percent. AFRC 

upgraded 70 WAPs in a Center Directorate building in just one week using 

this process.

During the November sprint, the team 

successfully completed 44 migration activities across five centers, breaking the 

record for the number of switches migrated to SDA during a single sprint. The 

SDA project team is continuously improving their processes to more quickly 

migrate all NASA centers to SDA.

(Continued from previous page)

Accelerating Science Research & External Collaboration

By Catherine Tresslar, Customer Experience Lead, Joseph Foster, Program Manager/NASA Official: Cloud Computing Service Line 

The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) 2019–

2024 Strategy for Groundbreaking Science

outlines three strategic goals to enable transformational science throughout the agency:

1. Develop and implement capabilities 

to enable open science,

2. Continuously evolve of data 

and computing systems,

3. And harness the community and 

strategic partnerships for innovation.

The Mission Cloud Platform (MCP), a NASAmanaged, security-enhanced cloud computing 

platform, is delivering on all three of these 

goals and is rapidly accelerating cloud adoption 

for Open Science initiatives across the agency. 

Open-source science is a commitment to the 

open sharing of software, data, and knowledge 

as early as possible in the scientific process. 

MCP enables SMD “as open as possible, as 

closed as necessary.” 

MCP supports two initiatives that directly 

source and promote agency goals and open 

science commitments: AWS Service Workbench and Open Data Registry. The Open Data 

Registry is a collection of datasets hosted by 

Amazon Web Services (AWS). MCP leverages 

a strategic partnership with AWS through a 

NASA Space Act Agreement, which aligns with 

the broader the Amazon Sustainability Data 

Initiative (ASDI) to help researchers, scientists, 

and innovators around the world advance their 

work on sustainability-related research. NASA 

is publishing data to the Open Data Registry to 

honor commitments to open science. NASA has 

published 15 (and counting) high-value data 

sets in the Open Data Registry. 

MCP is building sets of tools to help NASA scientists and external research partners harness 

the power of the cloud to rapidly accelerate the 

research process and knowledge discovery and 

leverage the data in the Open Data Registry 

and other repositories. One such tool is Service 

Workbench, a processing platform optimized 

for cloud-based data that can be sourced from 

the Open Data Registry. Service Workbench is a 

cloud-native tool that enables federated access 

to data, tooling, and compute power across 

NASA. NASA researchers do not have to worry 

about navigating cloud infrastructure themselves and can instead focus on meaningful 

scientific application of SMD data in optimized 

research environments. Research environments 

can be stood up in a matter of minutes, not 

months, and used to conduct experiments with 

peers at partner institutions. Automated baseline setups configured by MCP simplify data 

access and provide budget transparency, allowing NASA to reinvest in cloud best practices 

and achieve research reproducibility. Service 

Workbench abstracts cloud infrastructure from 

the end users and allows them to focus directly 

on the science.

The Mission Cloud Platform represents a 

NASA-wide investment in cloud infrastructure 

for science acceleration. MCP tools such as 

Service Workbench and Open Data Registry are 

reducing onboarding time, creating efficiency, 

and improving general science system usability 

and accessibility. MCP further enables open 

science by offering agencywide services that 

provide cloud-optimized research environments 

for scientists who want access to data and do 

not want or need to know about the underlying 

cloud system complexity. 

What's next? Stay tuned to find out!

NASA OCIO IT Talk Apr - Jun 2023 9
A Face to Face Visit with Michoud Assembly 

Facility and Stennis Space Center

By Dinna Cottrell, Chief Information Officer and Cherie Beech, Business Relations & Outreach Manager, Stennis Space Center

The Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) 

and Stennis Space Center (SSC) 

hosted a face to face meeting for the 

Office of the Chief Information Officer 

(OCIO) leaders. Attendees included 

Jeff Seaton, NASA Chief Information 

Officer (CIO), other agency OCIO leaders, and Center OCIO leaders. 

The meeting kicked off with a visit and 

tour of MAF given by Lionel Dutreix, 

MAF Center Director. The tour included 

the 43-acre climate-controlled facility (2.2 million sq. ft) to view the Space 

Launch System (SLS) and Orion manufacturing. Currently, the core stage II, III, 

and IV are in various stages of manufacturing, with core stage II nearing completion and preparing for installation of 

the RS-25 engines. The OCIO team was 

able to be one of the first to see the new 

Boeing Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) 

production area, as EUS will replace 

the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage 

(ICPS) for Artemis IV and beyond!

The SSC visit included a productive 

meeting with valuable insights along 

with a tour of the SSC Propulsion Test 

Complex, the SSC Aerojet Rocketdyne 

Engine Assembly facility, and the Records Retention Facility. 

The SSC Propulsion Test Complex tour, 

given by Maury Vander, Chief of the 

Test Operations Division, and Jeff Lott, 

Mechanical Branch Chief, gave interesting facts about the facilities and the SSC 

Propulsion Test Program. The tour provided an opportunity for the partipants to 

go onto one of the test stands to obtain 

a close up view to gain an indepth understanding of the test stand operations. 

The guided tour of the SSC Records 

Retention Facility, which is the only NASA 

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) certified records facility, 

provided an overview of the records and 

other artifacts stored for both SSC and 

NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC). 

The facility’s inventory is maintained in 

a custom software, called the Records 

Storage Inventory Database (ReSTID), 

which was developed locally at SSC, and 

is also available as a mobile application. 

SSC OCIO plans to send all physical 

permanent records to NARA this fiscal 

year to meet an Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) deadline. This could 

provide opportunities to the agency with 

storage and digitizing services.

The tour concluded at the SSC Aeroject 

Rocketdyne Engine Assembly facility, 

as Mike McDaniel, General Manager, 

explained and showed the group the 

fascinating facility and the accomplishments made for the Space Launch 

System (SLS) RS-25 flight engines for 

future Artemis missions.

Michoud Assembly Facility

10 www.nasa.gov
Stennis Space Center Propulsion Test Complex

SSC Aeroject Rocketdyne Engine Assembly Facility

NASA OCIO IT Talk Apr - Jun 2023 11
NASA IT SeeIT

NASA IT SeeIT is an innovative, 

executive-level dashboard that provides full transparency into agency 

IT services delivered by Leidos. 

A Focus On Data

There is no shortage of data at 

NASA—the agency collects information and makes decisions that will 

put humankind back on the Moon 

and then to Mars. 

The SeeIT dashboard (links internal to 

NASA) allows NASA to see and learn 

from data, capitalize on synergies, 

and offers a collaborative platform to 

increase situational awareness.

Introducing NASA IT SeeIT

The goal of the NASA IT SeeIT 

dashboard is to bring data elements 

together to provide intelligence and 

spur action. The NASA IT SeeIT 

dashboard provides modules for 

ease of data visualization.

The Overview Module provides a 

quick reference for performance 

health statistics for NASA IT (NEST 

and AEGIS) and consists of a network latency map and a center detail 

pop out. 

The NASA IT SeeIT Mission Freeze 

Module offers an easy-to-digest, 

real-time view of mission freeze 

activity across the agency. The new 

Mission Freeze Calendar is becoming 

the official mission freeze record for 

all OCIO Service Lines and AgencyLevel Offices.

Uniquely designed with the customer 

experience in mind, the at-a-glance 

interface uses modern graphics and 

visuals for intuitive navigation.

SeeIT's Purpose And Promise

SeeIT delivers insightful, real-time 

data captured from a myriad of data 

sources through a thoughtful, easyto-use tool. SeeIT offers an agency 

view and allows you to slice and dice 

data at a granular level. It is designed with a three-clicks-or-fewer 

approach, so you can get what you 

need, when you need it to make the 

best-informed decisions possible to 

support the mission. 

For More Information

Please contact: agency-nasa-itenterprise-contract@mail.nasa.gov

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Office of the Chief Information Officer

Mary W. Jackson Headquarters

300 E Street SW

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov

IT Talk