The stated purpose is narrow in subject and wide in reach: to review the current state of infrared technology across the 2-1,000 micrometer wavelength range, evaluate existing technologies NASA needs, identify opportunities for investment and collaboration, and set agency-level strategies for near- and far-term science and exploration missions. [S1]
That agenda follows a documented dependency. NASA describes infrared detector technology as critical to future missions that require advanced infrared payloads across its Science, Space Technology and Exploration Mission Directorates, and calls space-qualified infrared detectors a leading item on its critical technology lists. The sensor requirements behind that judgment are set out in four decadal surveys covering Earth science, planetary science and astrobiology, heliophysics, and astronomy and astrophysics. [S1]
Attendance is where the meeting stops being abstract. The invitation reaches NASA centers, NASA headquarters and the wider community of infrared technology developers and stakeholders, but every participant must be a U.S. person. The notice gives the controlled unclassified level of the meeting and possible ITAR material in presentations as the reason, and those terms decide which engineers and supplier staff can be in the room while agency needs are discussed. [S1]
Practical details are already fixed. The meeting runs August 27-28, 2024 in building 180, room 101 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, with the Hilton and Courtyard by Marriott listed as nearby hotels and registration as the step the notice gives for attending. The agenda itself was still marked as coming soon at the time of publication. [S1]
The sharing structure behind the meeting is newer than the meeting. NASA's Engineering and Safety Center, through its Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Discipline Team, recently established an Infrared Detector Community of Practice to promote knowledge sharing among science and engineering practitioners inside and outside the agency. Presentations and a contact list from the interchange are to be collected into a proceedings package available to attendees and NASA stakeholders, which makes the two days the point where that knowledge is assembled and also the boundary of who receives it. [S1]
Source documents
- NASA Infrared Detector Technical Interchangehttps://www.nasa.gov/general/nasa-infrared-detector-technical-interchange-meeting-august-27-28-2024/