Studying comet and asteroid samples may seem like science fiction, but it's all in a day's work for NASA Johnson Space Center's Planetary Mission Research Scientist Keiko Nakamura-Messenger, Ph.D.

The Kansai, Japan native began her work with NASA as an intern in 1996 in JSC's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division, which is charged with preserving NASA's collection of extraterrestrial samples, keeping them safe and providing them to the global scientific community for research.

After receiving her doctorate in material science from Japan's Kobe University in September 2002, Nakamura-Messenger returned to JSC as a National Research Council post-doctoral fellow and has been working in the ARES Division ever since. Because the division is a world leader in technology and techniques for handling and studying extraterrestrial material, Nakamura-Messenger has the unique opportunity to be the first to examine some celestial samples.

"I enjoy being able to touch samples from comets and asteroids before anyone else and revealing secrets out of them," Nakamura-Messenger said. "Studying those samples helps us to shape the future sample-return missions to get the best science value given budget restrictions."

She has been involved with past sample return missions, including NASA's Stardust mission, where the spacecraft traveled to a comet and returned dust samples to Earth in 2006. She is currently the Principal Investigator of ARES' coordinated analysis team on cometary particle samples returned by that mission. She also has her sights set on asteroids.

Nakamura-Messenger is NASA curator for the asteroid samples returned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2. In addition, she is a key member of NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), the agency's first asteroid sample-return mission, which will begin its seven-year journey to asteroid Bennu when it launches this September.

"I am the lead of the sample site science team for OSIRIS-REx that is charged with identifying the sites on asteroid Bennu that have the highest science value for sampling," Nakamura-Messenger said. "Once the samples are back on Earth, I will also be taking part in their study and long-term curation at JSC."

This synergy of science and engineering will also be needed for NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) that is under development. It involves sending a robotic mission to a large near-Earth asteroid to collect a multi-ton boulder from its surface and redirect it to a stable orbit around the moon. Once it's there, astronauts will explore it and obtain samples for study on Earth.

Like Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx, samples returned from the ARM mission will improve our understanding of the physical and chemical properties of asteroids, which is essential to being able to avoid possible future collisions between Earth and asteroids.

"Bennu has a 1-in-2,700 chance of hitting Earth sometime between 2100 and 2200," Nakamura-Messenger said. "If it really does approach Earth, we should be able to avoid a collision by future advanced technology. But to develop that technology, we need to understand the physical and chemical properties of the asteroid."

Besides learning how to avoid possible collisions, studying extraterrestrial material returned from these missions will also lead to scientists within ARES and around the world improving their understanding of the formation and history of the solar system.

"Asteroids and comets are time capsules from the very beginnings of our solar system that preserve remnants of stardust, interstellar materials and the first solids to form in the solar system," Nakamura-Messenger said.

"These primitive planetary bodies may hold answers to what the original organic ingredients were on the early Earth that may have led to the emergence of life. These types of studies not only help us to understand how life on Earth began, but also bring us closer to determining the prospects for life emerging on Mars or icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn that may have sub-surface oceans."

Laboratory measurements from extraterrestrial materials also serve as "ground truth" for planetary missions, such as NASA's goal to one day send humans to Mars.

"In many ways, asteroid sample-return missions are pathfinders for other ambitious planetary science missions and human missions to Mars," Nakamura-Messenger said. "The OSIRIS-REx, Hayabusa2 and ARM missions are part of NASA's plan to advance new technologies and spaceflight experience needed for a human mission to the Martian system in the 2030s."

Nakamura-Messenger's life does not revolve solitarily around her work. She also spends her time entertaining her two children, 5-year-old Juliet Aurora and 2-year-old Isaac Apollo, with her husband, who is an astrophysicist at JSC as well. When her children go to bed, she enjoys going to the gym.

She is unique in the fact that few people can balance being a parent while also advancing humanity's aspirations of traveling to Mars but, for Nakamura-Messenger, it's all in a day's work.