Her position also involves frequent interaction with members of the UC Board of Regents, national laboratory directors, faculty, staff and external constituencies. The university has managed the Los Alamos, Livermore and Berkeley laboratories since their inception. Photo by Fred Rick Laboratory scientists recently finished testing their part of a space instrument designed to give a better understanding of the compositions of comets and asteroids, and delivered the instrument for eventual integration with the NASA spacecraft. Deep Space One mission. The primary role of the mission is to validate new technologies that will allow NASA to better conduct future science missions.
PEPE combines two spectrometers into one package.
Together, the measurements give scientists a better understanding of the state and composition of plasma the spacecraft encounters. PEPE is so versatile that it can be used almost anywhere in our solar system. It can analyze everything from comet and asteroid composition to the compositions of planetary bodies and moons. The Deep Space One mission also will determine if the spacecraft's innovative ion propulsion system will have any adverse affects on the instruments' ability to make space physics measurements. Ion thrusters allow spacecraft to go as much as ten times faster than spacecraft using chemical thrusters.