NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck visited NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on Oct. 15, 2012, to meet with some of the center’s most innovative technologists.

Peck talks with Keith Gendreau about a potentially game-changing “three-in-one” payload that Peck’s organization is funding. Gendreau’s Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology (SEXTANT) would demonstrate two groundbreaking navigation and communications technologies from its proposed berth on the International Space Station, and from the same platform, gather scientific data revealing the physics of dense matter in neutron stars. Credit: NASA Goddard/Bill Hrybyk
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Michael Weiss, head of Goddard’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) mission, fist-bumps NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck when he stopped by for a briefing on LCRD’s progress. The mission will demonstrate the fully operational optical communication system when it flies in 2017. To be housed on a commercial communications satellite, the LCRD payload will communicate with two specially equipped ground stations in California and New Mexico to show megabit-per-second data speeds. Credit: NASA Goddard/Bill Hrybyk
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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.