SETMO’s New Director

Jason Coker has joined SETMO as its new Director, 

assuming the post this past January. Jason was previously Vice Director for the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center, at Arnold Air Force 

Base in Tennessee. Jason shares his perspectives on 

testing both in this issue’s From the Director note, 

as well as in his welcome message posted on the 

SETMO website, where he points out that demands 

on NASA’s physical testing assets will escalate. 

Deflection Test a Success 

This past October, NASA pronounced the Double 

Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission a complete success. The DART spacecraft targeted the 

asteroid, Dimorphos, altering that body’s orbit. It 

was the first time humans purposefully changed 

the motion of a celestial object, and the first fullscale demonstration of asteroid-deflection technology. Such a capability could mitigate or eliminate 

potential terrestrial asteroid-impact threats should 

one ever be detected.

X-59’s Updated “Eyes”

In late March, NASA engineers completed physical 

installation of an external vision system — XVS — 

on the experimental X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft. Final systems integration 

is ongoing. Because there is no place on the X-59’s 

elongated nose for any windows, a forward-facing multi-camera and display system takes their 

place, while also providing graphical flight data for 

approaches, landings and takeoffs. 

TEMPO Tracks Pollutants

In early April, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the 

Intelsat 40e satellite with NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument

onboard. TEMPO will observe Earth’s atmosphere

in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to determine 

concentrations of many key atmospheric pollutants. 

From geostationary orbit, these observations can be 

made several times each day when North America 

is facing the Sun instead of once per day. 

For a kid growing up in Idaho, the idea of 

American astronauts literally setting foot on 

another planet — specifically, the Moon — 

was riveting. After Apollo 11 landed, I remember standing next to the white picket fence at 

home with my mom, and her looking up and 

saying, “Men are up there, walking ...” Boy, that 

sure did it as far as capturing my imagination 

about space exploration.

And now, here I am, at NASA, the world’s leader 

in that very exploration. It’s an honor to be 

leading a terrific SETMO team that’s helping the 

Agency analyze and prioritize its testing capabilities in support of ongoing missions. 

Testing is what literally gets us — rockets, 

spacecraft, astronauts — off the ground. Without it, we wouldn’t be preparing for another 

return to the Moon, this time in the form of the 

Artemis missions.

A Different,

but Same, Battlefield

When I was a much younger person with space 

on my mind, and passions for astronomy and 

science fiction (still have both!), my father said 

there were only three things that college should 

prepare you for: medicine, law and engineering. 

For me, engineering was unique in what it 

allowed you to do, to create, to build. 

By the time I graduated from college, NASA 

wasn’t then recruiting, but the U.S. Defense 

Department (DoD) was. So there I headed to do 

technical work, putting what I had learned into 

actual practice. Much of what I did during my 

time with DoD prepared me for the opportunity 

here at NASA. I often say I will still fight the 

same war — prioritizing, developing, sustaining 

and maintaining testing infrastructure — just on 

a different battlefield.

What NASA is doing is creating and building 

a robust future in space exploration. Space 

is hard, as the saying goes, but even with 

considerable hurdles to clear, the opportunities 

are vast. With these issues of SETMO’s Horizon 

newsletter, we’re highlighting some of those 

achievements, keeping in mind the central role 

that testing plays in each. 

In This Issue

Speaking of testing’s central role, it’s the people 

that actually make or break a given test. That’s 

why we’re focusing this issue on one of the 

best: Terry Fisher, who is SETMO’s subject matter expert on thermal vacuum chambers. 

As you read about Terry’s life, and his many 

contributions to NASA, you’ll realize just dedicated and focused those working to validate 

and verify complex vehicles and their equally 

complex equipment are and have to be. We’re 

fortunate to have Terry with us to offer his 

advice and guidance based on his decades of 

experience and service.

We also look at the aftermath of the LOFTID 

mission, surely one of the most successful 

demonstrations ever of a proof of concept. As 

the article notes, its success opens up an array 

of opportunities to safely (and economically) 

transport much larger payloads to places on 

planetary bodies that otherwise would be 

difficult to access. LOFTID, of course, relied on 

extensive terrestrial testing, and prior demonstrators, for its dramatic achievement, once 

again proving that all that comes before is 

essential to that which follows.

We also mention in this edition SETMO’s inaugural attendance at the 2023 SciTech Exposition, 

at National Harbor in Maryland. It was our 

first outreach event at such a large gathering 

and won’t be our last: we’re planning to go to 

Orlando in January 2024 for the next SciTech. 

We’ve pinpointed other such conferences that 

our team members will likely attend in fiscal 

year 2024. It’s worthwhile to do so, in terms of 

networking and our own awareness of what’s 

new and upcoming

Jason Coker

NASA SETMO Newsletter | SUMMER 2023

FROM THE DIRECTOR

NEW AND NOTABLE

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration
2

Terry Fisher

Testing complex spacecraft and their components and equipment is not for the faint-hearted. Just ask Terry Fisher, SETMO’s subject 

matter expert for vacuum chambers, facilities 

where severe conditions can be mimicked. 

Hard vacuums must be established, stabilized 

and maintained, as do temperatures that, 

depending on the test, can run anywhere from 

extreme cold to extreme heat. Instruments 

that validate results must be finely calibrated. 

No detail is too small to ignore. 

So: how stressful is it?

“You can’t make a mistake, Terry says. “Tests 

are conducted to verify that what’s tested is 

actually going to work — and survive — in 

space,” he asserts. “When you’re testing a fullsize spacecraft, the one that actually is going 

to fly, there’s no room for error. You have to 

make sure the data collection is perfect and 

conditions in the chamber are perfect as well.” 

Terry says that everything he’s worked on 

has been critical: components for the Mariner, 

Cassini, Galileo, Viking and Voyager missions, 

even the backpacks astronauts wore for EVAs 

on the (now retired) space shuttle fleet. 

“... There’s no room for error. 

You have to make sure the data 

collection is perfect and conditions in the chamber are perfect as well.” 

Terry’s father was an electrician, an occupation that Terry briefly considered, but then 

on second thought ... “I was ready to follow 

in my dad’s footsteps,” he recalls. “But that’s 

the kind of work that requires you to climb 

into attics and go under houses. I thought that 

maybe I should go another way.”

On the Road to NASA

On the Road to NASA

That way would be engineering, a field that 

would end up fascinating Terry. He really liked 

to work with his hands and had a mechanical 

inclination. Working on cars was a natural 

transition. Terry earliest job was at a gas 

station even during college, including making 

oil changes and doing brake jobs.

“When you come down to it, I was a gearhead. 

I loved working on cars; I still do,” he says. 

“Right now, out in my garage, I have a 1940 

Chevrolet I’m restoring.”

Terry’s first job out of college was at Douglas 

Aircraft, an aerospace and defense company originally based in Southern California 

(and, later, part of Boeing). Only there for six 

months before being laid off, he participated 

in thermal stock studies, and altitude and 

vibration testing for components for aircraft 

and missiles. 

A friend of Terry’s told him there were opportunities with NASA, at the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory (JPL), now managed by Cal Tech 

for the Agency. Terry would work for JPL for 

17 years, transitioning to Martin Marietta in 

Denver when the company reached out with 

a hard-to-resist proposition.

“Junior engineering-design positions were hard 

to get at JPL. I was lucky to have gotten a job 

there in the first place,” Terry recalls. “But at 

that time, Martin Marietta was expanding, and 

they made me a great offer, both financially 

and position-wise. I was there for eight years.”

It was only when Terry’s former boss at JPL 

contacted Terry to invite him back as a test 

manager for the Lab’s instrument thermal 

vacuum group that he decided to return. Terry 

would stay with JPL until his official retirement 

in 2005.

Learning and Learning More

An eventual move from Southern California to 

North Carolina to be closer to his wife’s family 

was, as Terry confesses, “a culture shock,” 

For all the intense pace of his work, Terry did 

have time for family, although he remembers 

“it wasn’t easy.” Even so, he was the father 

of four, who themselves had children. Today, 

Terry is the proud grandfather of eight and the 

great-grandfather of seven.

Terry officially retired from NASA in the early 

2000s, but quickly picked up work as a consultant for his old employer, as well as stints at 

NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center and NASA 

Glenn Research Center. 

“If I wasn’t having a good time, 

I’d retire for good and putter 

around my garage ... Bottom 

line is, I still really enjoy the 

work.” 

A few years later, he would begin work with 

the Agency’s Strategic Capability Assessment 

Program, SETMO’s predecessor. It is with 

SETMO that he remains. 

“I’m still having a good time. If I wasn’t having 

a good time, I’d retire for good and putter 

around my garage,” Terry says. “Problem 

solving is a big part of being a good mechanic. 

Bottom line is, I still really enjoy the work.”

Terry, who continues to work for NASA as a 

consultant, lauds both the intelligence of his 

colleagues and the kind of work he continues 

to love. His attitude comes down to a relatively 

simple mantra: always be on the hunt for new 

knowledge: “My philosophy is you have to 

keep learning, from day one to the day you die. 

If there’s a day you haven’t learned something 

new, it’s been a wasted day.”

IN PROFILE Subject Matter Expert | Vacuum Chambers
continued on next page

continued on next page

3

Fans of the Star Trek science fiction franchise have long groused about problematic starship shields that seem to go haywire 

at a moment’s notice, threatening death and 

destruction. Such was not the case with the 

shielding afforded during NASA’s Low-Earth 

Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator 

(LOFTID) mission. 

LOFTED endured the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry unscathed.

“LOFTID was a huge success. We were testing 

materials to mimic the heat pulse experienced 

during re-entry,” explains Tara Tveten, LOFTID 

Deputy Project Manager. “It fully demonstrated you could pack up a soft-goods aeroshell 

that’s light and small, then fully deploy it, and 

then fully protect a payload. It was a first.”

About an hour after a November 2022 launch 

on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, 

LOFTD inflated and deployed in space. After 

being released by the Centaur upper stage, 

the heat shield, or aeroshell, began its perilous re-entry journey through Earth’s atmosphere, entering the atmosphere at more than 

18,000 miles per hour.

“LOFTID was a huge success ... 

[demonstrating] you could fully 

protect a payload. It was a first.”

LOFTID created enough drag to slow to less 

than 80 miles per hour by the end of its 

demonstration. LOFTID’s onboard parachutes 

then deployed, carrying the heat shield to a 

gentle splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

The LOFTID research team recovered its 

aeroshell within a few hours. In addition to 

surviving the intense dynamic pressure and 

heating of re-entry, the aft side of the heat 

shield – opposite LOFTID’s nose – was well 

protected from the extreme temperatures 

of falling back through Earth’s atmosphere, 

proving that inflatable aeroshells can keep 

payloads safe and secure.

“LOFTID was a flight of opportunity,” Tventen 

says. “This is the first time we’ve taken the 

technology out and then back in. It’s the 

largest blunt body that has reentered Earth’s 

atmosphere intact. That was a very cool thing.” 

A Next-Generation Approach

LOFTID is a technology descendant of NASA’s Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) and 

the Agency’s Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic 

Decelerator (HIAD) demonstrator: both concepts 

employ inflatable structures for aerodynamic 

deceleration. Although such research dates 

back to the 1950s, it was not until 2009 that a 

successful IRVE flight test would pave the way 

for a later IRVE/HIAD prototype in 2012, demonstrating the ability to decelerate and stabilize a 

spacecraft during atmospheric entry at speeds 

up to Mach 7. 

NASA also tested a HIAD prototype in 2016, 

which at about 20 feet, or 6 meters, in diameter 

was the largest ever tested at the time.

In 2020, NASA’s Mars 2020 mission used a HIADbased heat shield to protect the Perseverance 

rover during its entry, descent, and landing on 

Mars. The heat shield successfully slowed the 

spacecraft from over 12,000 miles per hour to a 

safe landing speed of about 2 miles per hour.

LOFTID was intended to address the need 

for more cost-effective and efficient methods 

of returning spacecraft from low-Earth orbit. 

The traditional method of using rigid heat 

shields made of metal or composite materials 

is expensive and adds considerable weight. 

Because conventional protections are difficult to 

effectively deploy, inflatable heat shields offer a 

promising solution.

The inflatable heat shield technology used in the 

LOFTID mission was based on a multi-layered, 

flexible fabric design, building upon the earlier 

IRVE/HIAD flight tests, providing a cushion of air 

between the spacecraft and the heat of re-entry 

into Earth’s atmosphere.

Designed to be compact and lightweight, with 

a diameter of a little under 12 feet, or just 3.5 

meters, when fully inflated, LOFTID’s shield 

was stored compactly during launch, and then 

deployed in space using a small gas canister.

IN FOCUS LOFTID Test Proves an Unprecedented Reentry Win

The traditional method of using 

rigid heat shields made of metal or 

composite materials is expensive 

and adds considerable weight. 

Conventional protections are 

difficult to effectively deploy.

Its material consisted of several layers of 

heat-resistant materials, including Kevlar, a 

high-strength synthetic fiber commonly used 

in ballistic vests, and Nextel, a ceramic fiber 

that can withstand high temperatures. The 

layers were sandwiched between an outer 

shell made of thermal insulation and an inner 

layer made of airtight material. 

“We were testing materials to mimic the active 

environment: the heat pulse experienced 

during reentry,” Tveten explains. “We wanted 

to make sure LOFTID could withstand the 

extreme temperatures and pressures.”

Putting LOFTID Through Its 

Testing Paces

Terrestial tests were essential in enabling 

LOFTID’s success. Two years of component 

testing started in August 2020, during which 

time its thermal protection system was extensively stressed and vetted. 

Vibration studies were conducted to make 

sure the vehicle held together during the 

rigors of launch, and electromagnetic interference tests validated that LOFTID’s electronic 

components worked as designed. Its avionics 

boxes underwent evaluation in a thermal 

vacuum chamber, with the final fully integrated and packed aeroshell tested as an entire 

system well before liftoff. 

“Testing and analysis provides you 

the confidence to go forward ... 

You can’t pull off a mission like 

LOFTID without doing your due 

diligence.”

“Testing and analysis provides you the confidence to go forward,” Tventen affirms. “You 

have to do all the testing you can to make sure 
4

In its first formal appearance at a large conference, SETMO attended the AIAA 2023 SciTech 

Exposition, held in late January at the Gaylord 

National Resort and Conference Center, in 

Prince George County, Maryland. 

The annual symposium provides a platform 

for scientists, researchers, and technologists 

to showcase their latest discoveries and 

developments for a wider audience, offering 

opportunities for industry professionals to 

network, exchange ideas, and collaborate on 

future projects.

Event organizers say 5,800 attended, representing 50 countries. Seventy-one exhibitors 

were present, SETMO included, and 780 

technical sessions took place, with 2,700 

presentations in all. 

The convention focused on daily key themes:

• Solving societal grand challenges

• Investing in the future

• Enabling progress through science and

 engineering

• Accelerating confidence in this digital world

• Making science fiction a reality

During the event, NASA Administrator Bill 

Nelson, along with NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy and DARPA Director 

Stefanie Tompkins, announced a partnership 

in the development of DRACO, short for the 

Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar 

Operations.

The DRACO program aims to demonstrate a 

nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) in orbit. NTRs 

use a nuclear reactor to heat fuel to extreme temperatures, funneling it through a 

nozzle to achieve a higher thrust-to-weight 

propellant ratio than either chemical or electric accelerants.

SETMO Joins NASA Exhibitors

SETMO joined colleagues from NASA’s Game 

Changing Program, representatives from the 

Rocket Test Propulsion Program, and personnel from NASA Glenn Research Center and 

the Agency’s Aeronautics Research Mission 

Directorate. The overall NASA booth attracted intense interest, especially during times 

between presentations. 

SETMO’s introductory video played on a loop 

without sound throughout. SETMO stickers 

were the most popular take-homes, and a 

number of the Office’s capabilities “baseball 

cards” — in particular ones highlighting SETMO support of NASA Ames’ Arc Jet Complex 

and space environments test chambers — 

were also pocketed by visitors.

During the event, SETMO introduced a poster 

featuring a cross-country map with images 

and details of the facilities the Office supports. 

Passersby posed questions about where 

facilities were located, exactly what they did, 

and what their role was within NASA. These 

conversations led to discussions about testing, 

its value, why it’s needed, and why testing is 

necessary if space missions are to succeed.

SETMO is planning to attend the 2024 SciTech 

Exhibition, slated to take place in Orlando, 

Florida, January 8-12.

all of NASA’s and stakeholders’ investment 

isn’t wasted, and that the mission has a good 

chance of success. You can’t pull off a mission 

like LOFTID without doing your due diligence.”

Aeroshells like LOFTID could be used in Moon 

and Mars missions to deliver larger payloads. 

The bigger the inflatable shield is, the faster 

it can decelerate and, as an additional bonus, 

land at higher planetary latitudes than is 

currently possible. Both crewed and uncrewed missions could benefit, as equipment 

weights and sizes increase.

Inflatable heat shields also could safeguard 

upper-stage rocket engines so that engines 

remain intact, not breaking into pieces and 

disintegrating from frictional heat, and thus 

holding the ultimate promise of reuse.

“It’s an exciting time,” Tventen says. “We’ve gone 

from playing in the sandbox to working in the 

real world. All the blood, sweat and tears were 

worth it.”

LOFTID Test Proves an Unprecedented Reentry 

IN FOCUS

IN FOCUS

SETMO Attends SciTech ‘23

continued
5

Studying Sticky Regolith

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) 

has expanded the capability of its largest 

thermal vacuum chamber. Part of the 

MSFC’s Environmental Test Facility, the V-20 

chamber will be able to simulate a lunar 

surface environment.

The new capability will provide NASA and 

its partners with a sophisticated means to 

assess how mobile and stationary equipment hold up when exposed to the Moon’s 

surface coating of regolith.

Regolith, while looking superficially like terrestrial dust, is actually an aggregate of tiny 

grains of lunar rock-like material that easily 

sticks to landers, rovers and spacesuits.

Engineers have already prepared a regolith-like simulant bed for scheduled tests, 

slated to be conducted by both NASA and 

the Agency’s commericail partners. 

The Moon’s New Ride

NASA is seeking industry proposals for a 

next-generation lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) 

that will allow Artemis mission astronauts to go farther and conduct more science than ever before during exploration 

of the south polar region of the Moon.

 The LTV will function like a cross between an Apollo-style lunar rover and 

a Mars-style uncrewed rover, allowing 

astronauts while driving to explore and 

sample more of the Moon’s surface 

than otherwise would be the case on 

foot. Its role will be similar to that of an 

uncrewed mobile science exploration 

platform, such as NASA’s Curiosity and 

Perseverance Mars rovers.

NASA won’t own the LTV; rather, the 

Agency will contract the rover as a 

service from the manufacturer, which will 

retain full ownership. 

A Summer Starship Try

The first all-systems-integrated test flight of 

the SpaceX Starship on April 20 — propelled 

by the world’s largest and most powerful 

rocket — ended abruptly when Starship 

was destroyed by ground control after it 

careened off course. Now, pad modifications 

and engine tests are ongoing as SpaceX 

plans for a second test flight in the months 

ahead, reports Chris Bergin, writing for the 

website nasaspaceflight.com.

Bergin notes that SpaceX is aiming to avoid 

the flying concrete of the maiden launch by 

installing a water-cooled steel plate and deluge system under the orbital launch mount. 

Preparation for its installation has been 

ongoing over recent weeks at the launch 

site, ahead of steel plates [being transported 

and installed]. 

Bergin also writes that one of the major 

issues identified on Starship’s first flight 

was related to the efficiency of the flight 

termination system. The system is intended to break apart the vehicle tanks during 

flight should something go wrong. However, 

during that first flight, this system only 

punched holes in the tanks but never broke 

the vehicles apart as planned.

WHAT’S NEXT

Visit us at

https://www.nasa.gov/offices/setmo

www.nasa.gov