Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium

Focus Group Co-Facilitator

Jibu Abraham is a member of the Senior Staff in the Air & Missile Defense sector of APL. He has extensive experience in the full cycle development of complex flight related hardware. He has designed, developed and analyzed mechanical/electromechanical components for missile, UAV, and nuclear systems. His experience includes mechanical design, systems engineering, structural analysis, GD&T, and fabrication with rapid prototype systems.

Chief Exploration Scientist of Advanced Exploration Systems

Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate

Dr. Bleacher is a planetary geologist who is currently the Chief Exploration Scientist in NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Division within the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) at NASA headquarters. In this role he is the science advocate for NASA technology and architecture development that is intended to enable human exploration of the Moon, deep space and beyond. He also serves as a primary contact with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and the science community external to NASA. Dr. Bleacher earned a BS in Geosciences from Franklin and Marshall College and Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the Arizona State University. During his Ph.D. research he worked on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Mission by conducting geologic mapping of the initial images acquired of the large Tharsis province volcanoes by the Mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). Dr. Bleacher joined NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) as a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow after which he was hired by NASA as a research scientist. Dr. Bleacher’s research focuses on understanding the volcanic history the Earth, Moon and Mars by remote sensing mapping and field work. Upon joining the NASA workforce he began supporting the Constellation Program Office to conduct studies examining potential landing sites and developing science traverse plans to help define requirements for hardware on the lunar surface. Dr. Bleacher served as a science team member and test subject as a crew member for NASA’s Desert Research and Technology Studies (Desert RATS), which focused on field tests of operations associated with prototype human rovers for the Moon. He has served as the lead for the Goddard Instrument Field team, in which he organized GSFC’s planetary science field research deployments as well as GSFC’s Lead Exploration Scientist, for which he worked to create cross-Center awareness of ongoing human exploration projects. Dr. Bleacher is a co-author on a number of peer reviewed science publications including a cover article for the journal Nature focused on explosive volcanism on Mars as well as the chapter on Mars Volcanism in the Encyclopedia of Volcanoes, 2nd edition. He has served on a series of Special Action Teams (SATs) for the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) and Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) including the Lunar Sample Acquisition and Curation Review, Candidate Scientific Objectives for the Human Exploration of Mars, and Geological Astronaut Training and has served on NASA’s In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Systems Capability Leadership Team. He applies a strong interest in both scientific research and human exploration to his current role at NASA headquarters.

Chief Technologist

NASA

As agency chief technologist, A.C. Charania serves as principal advisor to NASA’s administrator on technology policy and programs. He leads technology innovation at the agency and aligns NASA’s agencywide technology investments with mission needs across its six mission directorates. Charania also oversees technology collaboration with other federal agencies and the private sector while coordinating with external stakeholders. Charania works within NASA’s Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS). He succeeds OTPS Associate Administrator Bhavya Lal, who had been serving as acting agency chief technologist. Charania is an experienced leader in entrepreneurial space and aviation ventures. His private sector work includes projects under contract for NASA, the Air Force, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). His experience spans multiple areas including launch vehicles, hypersonics, human/robotic exploration, lunar landers, planetary defense, small satellites, and aviation autonomy. Before joining NASA, he served as vice president of product strategy at Reliable Robotics, a firm working to bring certified autonomous vehicles to commercial aviation. Charania led overall corporate strategy for the company, including working to mature product fit, leading/conducting market and competitive assessments, and engaging with global customers and partners. He also led program management for their Department of Defense autonomy projects. Prior to Reliable Robotics, Charania worked on advanced development programs at Blue Origin. He helped define their lunar permanence strategy, created and advanced the Blue Moon lunar lander strategy, and engaged with customers and technical partners. He also moved multiple technology projects forward, including many with NASA. Charania previously worked as a strategy and business development leader for the Virgin Galactic (now Virgin Orbit) LauncherOne small satellite launch vehicle program. While there, he advocated for using a 747-400 aircraft to air-launch a rocket carrying payloads to space and then captured a contract for several dozen launches.

LSII Chief Scientist

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Dr. Dana Hurley is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Presently, she is Chief Scientist of APL’s Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative task in support of NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. Her research interests center on understanding the evolution of water and other volatile compounds in planetary environments. Her Ph.D. research at Rice University analyzed Mars Global Surveyor magnetometer and electron reflectometer data to examine the martian space environment and the role that the solar wind interaction has in atmospheric escape at Mars. Next, she began modeling the lunar exosphere and the delivery and retention of water ice in lunar polar regions. As a co-investigator on the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) instrument onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), she examined far ultraviolet spectra to characterize the physical parameters of the lunar exosphere. She built numerical models that reproduced the observed evolution of vapor from impacts on the Moon including the LCROSS and GRAIL spacecraft impacts and impacts from meteoroids. She adapted her exosphere model for application at Mercury and the plumes of Enceladus. Her data analysis experience spanning spectroscopic remote sensing, in situ ion and neutral particle measurements, and magnetic fields allows her to investigate sparse atmospheres and how they interact with planetary surfaces and space plasma environments. In 2016, NASA SSERVI recognized her with the Michael J. Wargo Award for significant contributions through the integration of exploration and planetary science. In addition to research, Dr. Hurley’s management roles at APL include the Assistant Supervisor of the Science and Space Instrumentation Branch and the Strategic Integration Lead for Planetary Sciences. As an active planetary science community leader, Dr. Hurley presently sits on the NASA Planetary Science Advisory Committee and the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences Committee. She was founder and, for its first 6 years, leader of the “Friends of Lunar/NEO Volatiles” Focus Group, which furthers collaboration among the science and engineering professionals interested in lunar volatiles. She is also active in promoting a culture of equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility within APL. More about Dr. Hurley can be found at: https://civspace.jhuapl.edu/people/dana-hurley

Senior Policy Analyst

NASA

Zachary Pirtle, Ph.D., is a researcher, engineer, and policy entrepreneur, who co-chaired the 2018 meeting of the Forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET). He has been engaged with the fPET community since its inception at the 2007 Workshop on Philosophy of Engineering at TU-Delft. With Guru Madhavan and David Tomblin, he co-edited the book Engineering and Philosophy: Reimagining Technology and Social Progress, published in 2021 by Springer Press. His research contributions have ranged from developing a framework for assessing independence among multiple models to help mitigate uncertainty (Pirtle et al, 2018, Pirtle et al 2010), exploring the difference between scientific and engineering models (Pirtle 2010) as well as studying the relationship between law- and non-law-based epistemologies and perceived views on engineering and innovation policy (Pirtle 2013). Separately, he has also researched what role of democratically determined values should have in engineering, including efforts to use public input in engineering decisions (Pirtle and Szajnfarber 2017, Pirtle and Tomblin 2017, Bertrand et al 2017). Separate from his academic research, Pirtle is an engineer and program executive at NASA Headquarters in the Science Mission Directorate. He leads non-traditional commercial approaches to get science and technology payloads to the Moon. He previously served as a program integration engineer at NASA headquarters, which he joined in 2010 as a civil servant. His work there supported integration for the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and associated ground systems. He also served NASA’s Strategic Investments Division, providing technical, strategic and policy guidance for NASA’s exploration programs, and performed major programmatic assessments of the James Webb Space Telescope and Space Launch System. He was a 2020 winner of the NASA Agency Early Career Achievement Medal. Since 2022, he’s also served as a senior policy analyst for the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy.

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