Astromaterials News
Francis McCubbin, Astromaterials Curator
Volume 6 No. 1 • March 2024
About the Astromaterials Newsletter:
Welcome to the eleventh issue of the Astromaterials Newsletter! The Astromaterials Newsletter is a bi-annual publication produced by the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA Johnson Space Center to inform the sample science community about updates to our policies, collections, and available samples. In particular, the Astromaterials Newsletter will be our exclusive mechanism for announcing new samples or new sample opportunities available to the community across all of our collections, and we publish the Astromaterials Newsletter on the same cadence as the Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter.
The primary aim of the Astromaterials Newsletter is to maximize the science returns from our existing collections through better communication and advertisement of sample availability to the scientific community. A big part of that improved communication is to provide updates to the sample analysis community about what is going on in our labs and at JSC that could impact the collections or the timing of sample allocations. Most importantly, the Astromaterials Newsletter was established to provide a fair and transparent process by which the community receives information about available samples across all our collections. As always, details about all of NASA's Astromaterials samples that are available for request can be found within each respective collection's sample catalog, which are available on our website (https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/). Any new samples announced in this issue will also appear within the appropriate sample catalog on our website.
Astromaterials Data Archiving Announcement from the Astromaterials Data System
The Astromaterials Data System (Astromat) is the primary NASA-sponsored archive for laboratory analyses of returned samples (see NASA's Planetary Science Division's Information and Data Management Policy Supplement to SPD-41A). Astromat supports the extraterrestrial samples community with services that enable sharing, discovery, access, and reuse of data generated by laboratory analysis of astromaterials samples.
The Astromaterials Data Archive (ADA) curates, publishes, and preserves laboratory analytical data acquired as part of NASA's sample return missions and research projects. The ADA accepts data that describe the chemical, physical, petrological, mineralogical, and textural properties of bulk samples, mineral phases, and other components such as chondrules and presolar grains.
The Astromaterials Data Synthesis provides access to nearly 1.3 million analytical values acquired over the past 50+ years on lunar samples, meteorites, and other astromaterials samples curated at ARES. NEWS: You can now sample-specific queries using Astromat's Search app.
Participate! Community events including social gatherings, workshops, and hackathons are planned for 2024 at Goldschmidt and MetSoc. If you have suggestions and ideas for other community engagement including training for Astromat use, please feel free to reach out to the Astromat Team at info@astromat.org and let us know!
Broad updates for the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office
New Charter for Astromaterials Allocation Review Board effective November, 2023 I am happy to report that the charter for the Astromaterials Allocation Review Board has been finalized as of late 2023. You can find a copy of the charter on our website here. This charter outlines a lot of important roles and responsibilities that govern the review of sample requests for NASA Astromaterials. Please reach out to me at francis.m.mccubbin@nasa.gov if you have any questions.
We welcome new personnel in the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office I am happy to announce that Dr. Juliane Gross has joined the team as the Artemis Curation Lead in late 2023. This position is part of the Artemis Internal Science Team, and Juliane is responsible for leading the efforts to prepare for the curation of Artemis samples. Dr. Nicole Lunning has been appointed to the position of OSIRIS-REx Collection Curator. Nicole had been working as the OSIRIS-REx Curation Lead prior to the return of the O-REx samples, and she stepped into the Collection Curator role during the Preliminary Examination phase of OSIRIS-REx. I am also happy to welcome Dr. Jemma Davidson as the Branch Chief for the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office. Jemma started at the helm in February of 2024, and we are all grateful for her leadership as she navigates us through the next decade+ of exciting sample return missions and new collections to onboard at NASA JSC.
Highlights from this issue:
OSIRIS-REx sample catalog is released After a successful landing and a successful (yet eventful) hardware disassembly, we now have an initial catalog being released 6 months after sample return. The release of the O-REx sample catalog marks the first time that investigators outside the OSIRIS-REx science team will be able to request samples for research. You can find more details on the inaugural OSIRIS-REx News page of this issue of the Astromaterials Newsletter.
New Antarctic Meteorites Announced The Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter has announced an additional 126 Antarctic meteorites available for request from the Dominion Range (DOM) 2018/19 season and one recovered from the Allan Hills (ALH) in 2022. Please see the Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter
for all the details.
Thank you for reading the Astromaterials News section of the Astromaterials Newsletter, and I wish you and your families a safe and healthy 2024.