How Nasdaq’s Opening Bell Defied Gravity

For the first time, NASA rang the Nasdaq opening bell from space, a technological feat that has been months in the making.

Less than 48 hours after arriving at the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley rang the Nasdaq opening bell on Tuesday in celebration of the NASA and SpaceX launch, the first commercially built and operated American spacecraft to carry humans to space. The SpaceX Crew Dragon lifted off on Saturday, May 30, launching a new era in human spaceflight.

Nasdaq President and Chief Executive Officer Adena Friedman joined NASA administrators and the astronauts at the ISS for a bell ceremony, which was unlike any other, especially considering most Nasdaq employees are working remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“The main driver for this particular remote bell, similar to most things happening now, was Zoom,” said Ron Baron, senior director of broadcast at Nasdaq. “Because of the Zoom platform, we were able to incorporate all of the participants and speakers within a Zoom session, and then distribute it back to the various networks and social platforms at the open as we would do for a normal bell.”

Baron, who is currently working from home, was first approached about the idea around six months ago, when he learned that Nasdaq and NASA were interested in trying to do a remote bell from the ISS around one of the commercial flights.

“My first reaction was that I almost fell out of my chair and said, “What? You’re kidding, right?”

Even though Nasdaq has done remote videos from China, India, Davos and all across the U.S., Baron said everything about his preparation for the NASA bell ceremony from space was different.

“Normally, before the coronavirus, if we wanted to do a remote bell from anywhere in the world, we would physically have people at that location,” said Baron. “[This bell from space] took myself, my team and other teams out of our comfort zones in terms of how we do these types of productions.”

Because being on-site for this remote bell was not possible, Baron said that, first and foremost, he needed to make sure the internet connection was solid. Then, he had to coordinate a call with all of the participants, including Friedman, NASA administrators and the astronauts at the space station.

“We had to do a lot of rehearsals and testing to get that function to work, and we really had to think outside the box because the space station can’t dial into a Zoom meeting from space. That doesn’t work,” Baron said.

But, by having three phone calls happening simultaneously, the team found a way to make it happen with only a two-second delay in the communications.

After establishing the signal from the satellite vendor working with Nasdaq and NASA, and then sending the signal to MarketSite, Baron used his remote router at home to take “the satellite fiber signal from the space station and route that signal into the Zoom meeting. So even though they were not dialing into Zoom, we added them into the Zoom meeting for the ceremony.”

“The other issue was that once they were in the Zoom meeting, they still were not necessarily part of Zoom,” Baron continued. “We had to get the audio from Adena and the administrators back to the space station, and we set up a separate phone line specifically for audio to be able to feed back to NASA to feed up to the space station.”

Baron acknowledged that it took some time for his team to coordinate that entire process because it had to be what’s called a mix-minus audio feed. “In other words, if the space station starts talking, we can’t have them hear themselves back at the station because then we’d have an audio feedback loop, and that would not sound good.”

“It was definitely a team effort from all of the departments,” said Baron. “It takes a village, as they say, to pull something like this off.”

While Baron said that he “feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and team” now that the ceremony has passed, when asked about the possibility of a bell ceremony from the moon or Mars, he says he’s always up for the challenge.

“Why not? I will volunteer to do a site survey to the moon or Mars,” Baron said with a laugh, adding more seriously, “I don’t see why we couldn’t do it.” 

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