NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jennifer Collings

On Thursday, Lesa Roe, NASA Langley's center director, cut into a new chapter for the CLimate Absolute Radiance and REfractivity Observatory (CLARREO) team after the completion of its renovated workspace and a freshly painted mural.

"Just like CLARREO, this mural will inspire everyone that walks into this building," Roe said after using giant scissors to sever a ribbon, signifying the event.

(From left to right) Stephen Sandford, Amanda Cichoracki, Lesa Roe and David Young celebrate the completion of a mural in the new CLARREO office space with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

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Building 1202A, which formerly housed the Aero-Diner, is home to employees working on CLARREO, a next-generation, climate-focused mission. While the refurbished building meets all of the team's needs, an opportunity arose to give the office space a personal touch.

Amanda Cichoracki, the summer student who painted the mural in the cafeteria last year, returned for a second summer to create a mural for CLARREO.

"Bringing some art into a building full of science and engineering helps us to tell our story a little better," said David Young, the project scientist for CLARREO. "The mural is visually striking, and we like that it is the first thing people see when they walk in the door."

As the CLARREO team works toward mission formulation, a diverse group of employees will walk past the mural every day.

Employees from the Science Directorate, Systems Engineering Directorate, Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate, Flight Projects Directorate and Procurement are working alongside each other in the new workspace.

"It's a quick timeline to get a mission together, and we know from experience that co-locating will speed up the process," Young explained.

Co-location is a common practice for projects in their critical early stages. To bring together expertise from so many different backgrounds, there must be constant interaction. To maximize this collaboration, co-location workspaces are arranged with open cubicles and common areas that are full of tables and whiteboards. As the CLARREO team has been hard at work formulating the new mission, Cichoracki has been close by, using members' ideas as inspiration for her mural.

"I've had to do quite a bit of research before I started. I really wanted to capture both the concept and the technical processes of CLARREO in the mural," Cichoracki explained.

Painting the last few stars onto the wall, Cichoracki reflected on what she has learned after spending months in the CLARREO building.

"I've realized that planning for a science mission isn't so different from planning for a mural," she said. "Both require a lot of planning, precision and refining to get the desired end result. Also, much like an artist, a scientist's work is never complete."


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
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