National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland/Wallops Island, Virginia
Apr. 28, 2000
The Goddard News is published weekly by the Office of Public Affairs, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771
Safety – Our Number One Value
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Goddard's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) program personnel are making final preparations for next week's GOES-L launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff of GOES-L, is tentatively targeted to occur May 3, at 2:27 a.m. EDT from Pad A at Complex 36 on Cape Canaveral. The real-time weather data gathered by GOES satellites, combined with data from Doppler radars and automated surface observing systems, greatly aids weather forecasters in providing better warnings of severe weather. GOES-L will be stored on orbit ready for operation when needed as a replacement for GOES-8 or -10. Goddard manages the design, development and launch of the spacecraft for NOAA. NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service operates the GOES series of satellites. |
The pre-launch press conference will be held at the NASA News Center at KSC on Monday, May 1 at 11:30 a.m. EDT. Participating from Goddard will be Marty Davis, GOES Project Manager. Both the conference and the launch will be carried on NASA TV.
Dr. Yoram Kaufman to Present at This Week's Scientific Colloquium
Dr. Yoram Kaufman of GSFC will speak on "Early Results from EOS Terra."
Conceived in response to real environmental problems, EOS-Terra, in conjunction with other international satellite efforts, fills a major gap in current efforts by providing quantitative global data sets with a resolution smaller than 1 km on the physical, chemical, and biological elements of the earth system. In the talk Dr. Kaufman will review the historical perspective of the Terra mission and the key new elements of the mission. He will present first images that demonstrate the most innovative capability from EOS Terra - water vapor and haze over the Indian Sub-continent, Saharan dust transport over the Atlantic, cloud studies, global spectral land cover including North America views, chlorophyll fluorescence, multi-angle views of clouds and vegetation, global CO maps, stereo multispectral vision with 15-90 m resolution of Mount Fuji and San Francisco. The event will be held in the Bldg. 3 auditorium at 3:30 p.m. on April 28. For more information on the colloquium series, go to: http://lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/users/djt/colloq/
New Views of Earth From Terra Satellite
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The coast of Florida is seen in this view taken by the MODIS instrument on Terra. |
The Earth as seen by Terra. |
NASA's premier Earth Observing System Satellite, Terra, has completed on-orbit checkout
and verification after its December launch and is collecting data that will help us
understand our global environment.
Terra, an international mission and part of NASA's Earth
Sciences enterprise, is opening a new window to the Earth and is providing daily
information on the health of the planet.
The first images collected by the five instruments aboard Terra were premiered at last
week's a press briefing. Visit the Terra project website to view released images at: http://terra.nasa.gov/Gallery/browse.php3
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San Francisco is captured by the ASTER instrument on Terra. |
This thermal infrared false color image of Mauna Loa volcano helps scientists define future eruption hazards and risk. |
| Teams Picked to Develop
Planet Finder Concepts Include GSFC Scientists Goddard scientists are on one of the winning teams, the team led by SVS, Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M., selected to conduct a 2-year long effort to develop mission concepts for the Terrestrial Planet Finder. The Terrestrial Planet Finder is an ambitious mission in NASA's Origins Program that will look for possible life-supporting planets around other stars. |
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Goddard scientists on the SVS team are Bill Danchi, Harvey Moseley and Dan Gezari of code 685; Richard Lyon of code 550. The science team will provide concept formulation, architecture analysis, modeling and simulation, instrument design and science assessment. Lyon is the senior scientist on the science team and will lead the electro-optical analysis and simulation. Gezari is the lead for the science and architecture study.
Finding habitable, Earth-like planets will require developing a whole suite of challenging technologies, including those necessary to fly several 137-inch (3.5 meter) telescopes in a formation so precise that we will know their positions to a fraction of a centimeter, even though the space between them will span a few football fields.
The mission's success will also depend on the ability to cancel out a star's glare so that a planet one million-times fainter can be seen, and will require instruments so sensitive that they can identify the presence of life-sustaining chemicals on a planet up to 50 light years away from Earth.
In the first, eight-month phase of the study, the four contract teams will be busy brainstorming options for detecting and characterizing far-away planets. In December 2000, the best two architectures from each team will be selected for further study in the planned, 11-month Phase 2 study, ending in November 2001.
JPL manages both Terrestrial Planet Finder and the Origins Program on behalf of NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL selected four industrial-academic teams, including SVS an engineering company that specializes in optics and tracking systems mostly for the U.S. military. Other winning proposals came from teams led by Ball Aerospace of Boulder, Colo.; Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif.; and TRW of Redondo Beach, Calif. About 75 scientists from 30 universities and research institutions, 16 industrial firms, and two NASA centers are represented on the teams.
Terrestrial Planet Finder is planned to launch in 2012. Over a five-year period, it will take a look at 250 stars to determine which ones may have orbiting, life-sustaining planets. The mission will also advance our understanding of how planets and their parent stars form by making thousands of images, all with a sharpness 10 to 100 times better than those of the Hubble Space Telescope. More information about Terrestrial Planet Finder can be found at: http://tpf.jpl.nasa.gov
The Origins Program seeks to understand our cosmic roots by detailing how galaxies, stars, planets, and the chemicals necessary for life formed and developed in the universe. Its other primary goal is to search for the presence of life on distant worlds, answering the question "Are we alone?" Details about the Origins Program can be found at: http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov
An international team of cosmologists has released the first detailed images of the universe in its infancy. The images reveal the structure that existed in the universe when it was a tiny fraction of its current age and 1,000 times smaller and hotter than it is today. Detailed analysis of the images is already shedding light on some of cosmology's outstanding mysteries -- the nature of the matter and energy that dominate intergalactic space and whether space is "curved" or "flat."
| The project, dubbed BOOMERANG (Balloon Observations of Millimetric
Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics), obtained the images using an extremely sensitive
telescope suspended from a balloon that circumnavigated the Antarctic in late 1998. The
balloon carried the telescope at an altitude of almost 120,000 feet (37 kilometers) for 10
1/2 days. The results will be published in the April 27 issue of Nature. Today, the universe is filled with galaxies and clusters of galaxies. But 12 to 15 billion years ago, following the Big Bang, the universe was very smooth, incredibly hot and dense. The intense heat that filled the embryonic universe is still detectable today as a faint glow of microwave radiation visible in all directions. This radiation is known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). |
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Since the CMB was first discovered by a ground-based radio telescope in 1965, scientists have eagerly sought to obtain high-resolution images of this radiation. NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite discovered the first evidence for structures, or spatial variations, in the microwave background in 1991.
For ths complete press article visit: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-067.txt
Diversity
Council Web Site
The creation of the Diversity Council is an outgrowth of employee and management recommendations to create a new focus for Goddard's growing diversity. The focus of this council is to facilitate the participation and inclusion of all members of Goddard's workforce in all dimensions of the Center's work and activities.
At the same time that this Council was chartered, a newly chartered Equal Opportunity Council was formed to lead the Center's activities that are associated with representational issues in hiring, promotions and other areas of participation.
For information about the recently established Goddard Diversity Council, including its members and meeting minutes, visit the Changing Workforce Webpage at: http://workforce.gsfc.nasa.gov/a2.html
If you missed the HST 10th anniversary celebration held at Goddard this week, you have an opportunity to view a replay of the afternoon science session and presentations by a panel of HST astronauts who performed servicing EVAs on the Telescope. The Office of Public Affairs has a limited number of copies of the day-long sessions for loan. Please contact Trusilla Steele at 6-5565.
During the T-9 minute
built-in hold, Shuttle managers scrubbed Atlantis' launch attempt this afternoon
due to unacceptable weather conditions at the Transoceanic Abort Landing (TAL) sites.
Flight weather officers reported to flight controllers in Houston, TX that all three TAL sites would not be able to support an unlikely emergency landing. The TAL sites were marginal throughout the day, but managers were hopeful that the site at Ben Guerir, Morocco would improve by launch time. When the decision was made, crosswinds were above acceptable limits and low cloud ceilings were being monitored.
Space Shuttle ground controllers have begun an extended scrub turnaround at Launch Pad 39A, and mission managers are assessing the next available launch opportunity for STS-101. The flight crew will remain overnight at KSC and depart for Houston, TX tomorrow.
The STS-101 press kit is available on the web at: http://shuttlepresskit.com/index.htmlNASA 8 resumed flights on April 17. Employees are encouraged to use the plane if traveling to Langley or Wallops. The flight schedule is posted at: http://www.wff.nasa.gov/pages/nasa8schedule.html
Next Week's Scientific Colloquia Information
Where/When: Bldg. 3 auditorium, Friday, May 5 at 3:30 p.m.Engineering Colloquia Information
Where/When: Bldg. 3 auditorium, Monday, May 1 at 3:30 p.m.
Who: Tom Romig of Today's Plastics
Topic: "Engineering Fun: Creating Kid's Toys"
Craig Valentine, 1999 World Champion Of Public Speaking. Mr. Valentine's presentation will be entitled "Communication for Winners." All are invited to here this presentation on May 10 at 11:30 a.m. in Bldg. 28 Room E210
Craig Valentine is Toastmasters International's 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking. There are more than 170,000 Toastmasters in 68 countries worldwide. Out of an overall field of more than 10,000 contestants, Craig came home with the first prize trophy and a significant amount of national and international recognition.
Currently Mr. Valentine, who speaks internationally, works with individuals and organizations on the art of becoming champions. He speaks to individuals and organizations about maximizing their resources so they can do more, have more, but first of all, become more. Mr. Valentine also shows how influence and effective communication can elevate everything from lives to careers to sales to productivity. The messages stay with and inspire the audience long after he has walked off of the platform. He has become successful and is working with others to do the same. Mr. Valentine is living proof of everything he teaches. Call Dan Mandl on 6-4323 or Ashok Ambardekar on 6-9624 to reserve a spot or get info.
Cinco De Mayo CelebrationThe Goddard Hispanic Heritage Club will host its first annual Cinco de Mayo Celebration on Friday, May 12 at 6:30 p.m. at the Goddard Recreation Center. This celebration of Mexican culture will feature authentic Mexican cuisine, entertainment, and piñatas for the kids. Tickets are $12 for adults and children under 12 are free. For more information or for tickets, please contact Dan Krieger at x6-7913 or visit http://garc.gsfc.nasa.gov/~ghhc
Technology and Development on the African Continent
The African Development and Technology Association, we would like to invite the Goddard community to a roundtable discussion entitled "Technology and Development on the African Continent." The program will be held on May 16, in Bldg. 3 auditorium, beginning at 9 a.m.
The general theme for the discussion will focus on the use of remote sensing and other tools/techniques, for resource management, environmental management, and environmental monitoring, for development on the African continent. The association hope is that the collaboration of subject matter experts (SME), in remote sensing and related fields, will create new synergies and new opportunities for growth and development. They also hope to expose Goddard programs to a wider audience to optimize the use of existing resources, talent, and skills through collaboration. For more information, please contact Hasani Martin 6-8069 or email him at: hmartin@pop200.gsfc.nasa.gov.
Innovative Solutions to Challenging Problems Workshop A NASA one-day workshop in Finite Element Modeling (FEM) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) will be on Thursday, May 18. Please visit the following website for more details: http://femci.gsfc.nasa.gov/workshopUpcoming Launches
For a schedule of launches coming up in the next few months, check out: http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/newsroom/flash/flash.htm
Press Releases from the past week can be found here: Hot Topics
Back to topIf you would like to make comments or ask questions concerning the content of the Goddard News for this week please address your email comment to: Trusilla.Y.Steele.1@gsfc.nasa.gov
If you would like to make comments or ask questions regarding the HTML (on-line) version of Goddard News for this week please address your email comment to: Lynn.A.Jenner
