August 23, 2001

NASA AWARDS CONTRACTS FOR NEW REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENT TECHNOLOGY

NASA awarded funding for 11 new contracts for technology development of innovative Earth Science remote-sensing instruments under its Instrument Incubator Program (IIP).

The objective of the program is to invest in new and innovative technologies that could lead to smaller, less expensive and more efficient flight instruments.

The technologies selected include active and passive techniques for measuring global carbon dioxide, the buildup of which may be a contributor to the global increase in the greenhouse effect. Also selected are instrument technologies for microwave radiometry and advanced radars to measure global precipitation, soil moisture and sea surface salinity, leading to a more accurate understanding of climate change.

In addition, investments will be made in instrument technologies for the measurement of far-infrared thermal radiation, an emerging science area not previously explored, with the potential to better understand the Earth's radiation balance.

Instrument technologies leading to the potential measurement of tropospheric ozone and other gases from space will be advanced by investments in Fabry-Perot interferometer technologies. Geomagnetic measurements enabled from investments in magnetometer technologies can provide a means to study the structure and dynamics of the Earth's interior, leading to better utilization of natural resources including water and land use and the mitigation of natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, flooding, sea level change, and severe storms.

NASA received 64 proposals for technology development efforts and was able to select 11 for funding. The total funds made available for these investigations averages nearly $1 million per year for three years or a total of approximately $29.5 million.

The 11 proposals focus on near term investment to support high-priority measurements in the areas of:

• Atmospheric Chemistry: Tropospheric profiles of O3, CO, NOx
• Solid Earth: Topography and the Deformation of Land and Ice
• Global Carbon Cycle: CO2 Column Abundance and Profile
• Global Water and Energy Cycle: Precipitation Rate, Tropospheric Winds, and Sea Surface Salinity/Soil Moisture
• Climate Variability and Prediction: GPS Altimetry and Ocean Surface Winds Atmospheric Chemistry (Tropospheric profiles); Solid Earth (Topography and the Deformation of Land and Ice); the Global Carbon Cycle; Global Water and Energy Cycle (Precipitation Rate, Tropospheric Winds, and Sea Surface Salinity/Soil Moisture); Climate Variability and Prediction (GPS Altimetry and Ocean Surface Winds).

The investigations selected by NASA's Office of Earth Sciences are:

• James Anderson, Harvard University: ICOS, CAPS and CRDS: New Techniques for Precise, Low-Cost, Airborne, In Situ Mapping of Species for AURA Collaborative Science
• William Heaps, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Fabry-Perot Interferometer for Column CO2
• Eastwood Im, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): The Advanced Precipitation Radar Antenna and Instrument
• Joel Johnson, Ohio State University: Digital Receiver with Interference Suppression for Microwave Radiometry
• Allen M. Larar, NASA Langley Research Center: Tropospheric Trace Species Sensing Fabry-Perot Interferometer
• Robert Menzies, JPL: Laser Absorption Spectrometer for Global-Scale Profiling of Tropospheric Carbon Dioxide
• Mahta Moghaddam, JPL: Dual-Low-Frequency Radar for Soil Moisture Under Vegetation and At-depth
• Martin Mlynczak, NASA Langley Research Center: Far-Infrared Spectroscopy of the Troposphere
• Robert Slocum, Polatomic Inc., Richardson, Texas: Miniature Vector Laser Magnetometer
• Eric Smith, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: Engineering Development of Lightweight Rainfall Radiometer as Candidate for Baseline Global Precipitation Mission Constellation Microwave Radiometer
• William Wilson, JPL: Development of Ultra Stable Microwave Radiometers for Future Sea Surface Salinity Missions

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Contacts:
David Steitz
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
202-358-1730

This text derived from http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2001/index.html

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