Welcome 2026 Speaker Jaya Bajpayee
We are delighted to announce that Jaya Bajpayee will be presenting at the Nightscaper Photo Conference!
Deputy Director, Exploration Technology Directorate at NASA Ames Research Center
Jaya Bajpayee serves as the deputy director of Exploration Technology Directorate at NASA’s Ames Research Center. She provides executive leadership, strategic planning and direction of NASA’s advanced supercomputing, human systems integration, intelligent systems, and entry systems and technologies. Previously Jaya served as the director of programs and projects, overseeing SOFIA, VIPER, the small satellite technology program and the small satellite virtual institute. Jaya came to NASA Ames in 2017 as the deputy director of science.
Jaya spent nearly 25 years at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a project manager, designing and building NASA science missions and NOAA geosynchronous operational environmental satellites. She spent 4 years at NASA Headquarters leading on-orbit operations of astrophysics missions.
Jaya enjoys traveling, meeting new people, and photography. She especially enjoys the calm, magical nature of night photography, saying it makes her feel one with the universe.
Jaya’s Presentations
Courtesy NASA
Cameras for the Heavens: Advances in NASA Astrophotography
NASA’s astrophotography has evolved significantly over time.
Early missions, such as the orbiting Astronomical Observatories and High Energy Astrophysics Observatories, paved the way for space-based astronomy. Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy with its high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy capabilities. Launched in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope observes in infrared, enabling studies of the early universe, of star and planetary formation, and of the atmospheres of exoplanets.
Since the inception of the Astrophysics Division at NASA, numerous instruments have been developed and launched, including telescopes, particle detectors, and spectrometers. These instruments enable scientists to study a wide range of celestial objects and phenomena, from the formation of galaxies to the search for exoplanets. Each new mission improves on previous missions by advancing measurement techniques, imaging sensors, telescopes and image processing techniques. This approach of continuous improvement has resulted in a deeper understanding of the universe’s structure and evolution, composition, exoplanet atmospheres and habitability.
In this talk, NASA’a Jaya Bajpayee will discuss improvements in the agency’s astrophotography from the earliest missions to future missions, such as Roman Space Telescope and Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Traveling with NASA: How New Technology Allows Us to Explore the Universe from Earth
Exploration is different in the 21st Century. Images are at the forefront. Cameras are what explore the last frontier.
NASA science discoveries are made primarily by space-based satellites, probes, rovers, and helicopters carrying telescopes and instruments that record images at various wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum. Scientists gain new insights about our home planet, the solar system and the cosmos at large by correlating data from diverse sources.
Some notable results include climate models for Earth and Mars, weather predictions, following the water on Mars to detect possibility of past life, surveying for landing sites for human exploration on the moon and Mars, studying atmospheres of other planets (including those around other star systems), researching the age of the universe, and detecting dark matter—to name just a few examples.
In this special presentation, Jaya Bajpayee of will detail how a number of recent key discoveries were made by diverse imaging techniques. She will also discuss imaging techniques under consideration to enable NASA’s future plans to explore planets in the solar system, to detect habitable worlds around other star systems and even to monitor our home planet.
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