ExperienceNASA IMPACT

Aug 2024 — PresentPart-TimeHuntsville, AL

NASA IMPACT

Research Engineer (AI & Backend)

NASA team prototyping advanced technologies to expand the use of Earth observation data.

Industry
Earth science data systems · Government / Aerospace
Founded
2018
Headquarters
Huntsville, AL, USA (NASA Marshall Space Flight Center)
Notable
Collaborated with IBM Research on geospatial AI foundation models.

30%

Faster data delivery to clients

after I built the new Tasking Management System for NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program.

About

IMPACT (Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team) is part of NASA's Earth Science Data Systems Program, based at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

It prototypes new technologies — including machine learning and AI — to maximize the scientific return of NASA's Earth observation data and improve data discovery and stewardship. Its work spans foundation models, STAC catalogs and data-management best practices.

What I worked on

ProjectData Acquisition Request System

  1. Drove a 30% increase in data delivery speed to clients through the implementation of the new Tasking Management System, significantly improving data ingestion and request handling for the NASA CSDA program.

    • Impact
  2. Initiated and built an agent-based data search project leveraging LLMs with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) using LangChain and LangGraph, enabling users to intelligently search and retrieve specific data from a massive STAC metadata catalog.

    • LangChain
    • LangGraph
    • RAG
  3. Developed a RAG-based automatic metadata file generator for the CSDA program, utilizing local LLM models with Weaviate and ChromaDB as vector databases and maintaining a knowledge graph for NASA Spatiotemporal Asset Catalog compliance.

    • Weaviate
    • ChromaDB
    • Knowledge graph
  4. Managed scalable infrastructure across AWS (S3, EC2, RDS, Lambda, Step Functions) to ensure a robust and highly available system using technologies including Next.js and FastAPI.

    • AWS
    • Next.js
    • FastAPI
  5. Implemented data ingestion pipelines for new vendors, including Satellogic and Maxar DEM, within the CSDA system.

    • Ingestion
  6. Developed and pioneered the new NASA CSDA tasking management system, utilizing a Django/Airflow backend and a React and TypeScript frontend to manage commercial satellite data requests and ingestion.

    • Django
    • Airflow
    • React
    • TypeScript

03 — Life at NASA IMPACT

The people behind the catalogue.

  • CSDA In Person Meeting Group Photo
    Social LifeCSDA Team Meetup
  • impact-hackathon-group-pic
    Social LifeImpact Hackathon Team
  • Ashish Presenting in Hackathon
    Social LifeAshish Presenting in Hackathon
Ask about AshishSite assistant