NASA Flies to Antarctica for Largest Airborne Polar Ice Survey

NASA begins a series of flights Oct. 15 to study changes to Antarctica's sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. The flights are part of Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year campaign that is the largest airborne survey ever made of ice at Earth's polar regions.

Researchers will work from NASA's DC-8, an airborne laboratory equipped with laser mapping instruments, ice-penetrating radar and gravity instruments. Data collected from the mission will help scientists better predict how changes to the massive Antarctic ice sheet will contribute to future sea level rise around the world.

The plane, crew and scientists depart Oct. 12 from NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., and fly to Punta Arenas, Chile, where they will be based through mid-November. Seelye Martin of the University of Washington in Seattle leads the mission, with nearly 50 scientists and support personnel involved. The team is planning 17 flights over some of the fastest-changing areas in western Antarctica and its ice-covered coastal waters.

Data collected during the campaign also will help bridge the data gap between NASA's Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite, known as ICESat, which has been in orbit since 2003, and NASA's ICESat-II, scheduled to launch no earlier than 2014. ICESat is nearing the end of its operational lifetime, making the Ice Bridge flights critical for ensuring a continuous record of observations.

"A remarkable change is happening on Earth, truly one of the biggest changes in environmental conditions since the end of the ice age," said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It's not an easy thing to observe, let alone predict what might happen next. Studies like Ice Bridge are key."

Because airborne observations lack the continent-wide coverage a satellite provides, mission planners have selected key targets to study that are most prone to change. Sea ice measurements will be collected from the Amundsen Sea, where local warming suggests the ice may be thinning. Ice sheet and glacier studies will be flown over the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, including Pine Island Glacier, an area scientists believe could undergo rapid changes.

The payload on the DC-8 includes the Airborne Topographic Mapper, a laser altimeter developed at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. It produces elevation maps of the ice surface and previously was flown over the Antarctic in 2002, 2004, and 2008 aboard a Chilean Navy P3 aircraft. By retracing some of those flights, as well as the tracks covered by ICESat, researchers can compare the data sets and determine changes in ice elevation.

Other instruments flying include the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder from the University of Kansas, which measures ice sheet thickness and the varied terrain below the ice. The Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor, developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., maps large areas of sea ice and glacier zones. A gravimeter from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., will give scientists their first opportunity to measure the shape of the ocean cavity beneath floating ice shelves in critical spots of Antarctica. A University of Kansas snow radar will measure the thickness of snow on top of sea ice and glaciers.
NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.; NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.; and the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks also are providing support for the campaign.

NASA also is funding complementary airborne surveys as part of Operation Ice Bridge, including surveys of Alaskan glaciers by scientists from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and an extensive survey of remote regions of East Antarctica by scientists from the University of Texas in Austin, the University of Edinburgh and the Australian Antarctic Division.

The Antarctic flights follow the first Operation Ice Bridge airborne campaign earlier this year over Greenland and the Arctic Ocean. The mission will map key areas in each polar region once a year. Arctic flights resume in spring 2010.

Noctis Labyrinthus

Layers in the lower portion of two neighboring buttes within the Noctis Labyrinthus formation on Mars are visible in this image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Blowing in the Wind – Tunnel, That is, at Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta

Aeronautics can seem like such heady stuff, but NASA staff members at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta used a tool to bring some sky-high concepts down to Earth for Fiesta visitors.

One such tool was the flow-visualization wind tunnel that brings the wind tunnel aeronautical engineering technology down to a more manageable, desktop size.

“Before we fly anything it’s tested in a wind tunnel, regardless of whether it is researched at NASA or with our partners in other government agencies, industry or academia,” said Tony Springer, NASA lead for communication and education.

Visitors at the Balloon Fiesta had an opportunity to experience for themselves the value of wind tunnels and how they work, regardless of how they’re used to test components, concept models or full-size aircraft or automobiles.

In the case of the miniature flow-visualization wind tunnel, a smoke-like vapor is used to demonstrate the airflow around an object placed in the wind tunnel. Wind-tunnel components take incoming air through a honeycomb material that increases the air to provide what researchers call laminar flow, or smooth air.

The model wind tunnel permits people to observe airflow patterns over scale-model aircraft and cars to better visualize what researchers are looking for in their designs. It also shows how the wind tunnel can help those researchers see on the ground a representation of how a concept, shape or component will perform in flight.

“We can show people how air moves over or around an aircraft and explain to them how similar methods are used in launch vehicles and even tall buildings to see how the air is going to flow, or what the aerodynamic characteristics are of the object,” Springer said.

NASA uses wind tunnels at its centers, other government agencies or at industry-partner facilities. The tunnels range in size from a few inches to full-scale tunnels of 80 by 120 feet that can test a full-sized aircraft, he explained.

“Wind tunnels allow you to determine what the aerodynamics of a vehicle are before you actually expend money on a full-scale aircraft. They’re also used to reduce the unknowns, because you don’t want to put a person or some hardware at risk,” Springer said.

The concepts usually start small and get larger as the test article solidifies from data acquired through a number of increasingly complex tests in incrementally larger wind tunnels with bigger and bigger models, Springer said. Researchers essentially start off with a toy, where they can take the wings and flight control surfaces off and they can change out components to determine the optimum aerodynamic range through wind-tunnel tests.

“Every U.S. commercial and military aircraft or launch vehicle has been tested in NASA wind tunnels or uses NASA-developed technology. NASA has gone beyond the fundamental research that defines the concepts to actual application of them in the wind tunnel and following on with flight test,” Springer said.

A number of key modern aircraft technologies were first proven in wind tunnels before undergoing the crucible of flight research.

A team led by Dr. Richard Whitcomb of Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., originated a number of those technologies, including area rule, the supercritical wing and winglets.

Area rule is the concept that a narrowing of the fuselage over the wing reduces aerodynamic drag at transonic speeds.

The supercritical wing, an airfoil shape that reduces drag at speeds just below Mach 1, enables an aircraft to go slightly faster or see an increase in performance as a result of drag reduction. Research flights made at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., with a modified F-8 validated wind-tunnel predictions that aircraft using the supercritical wing experienced increased cruising speed, saw improved fuel efficiency of about 15 percent, and saw better flight range than those featuring conventional wings. As a result, supercritical wings are now common on most modern subsonic military and commercial transports.

Winglets, which were tested on a KC-135 at Dryden, are end plates on the wing that “fool” the wing into behaving as though it had a longer span. In other words, with winglets, the wing is more efficient without the performance penalties of actually having a larger wing. The economic advantages of winglet use eventually led to their adoption on light aircraft, business jets, airliners and heavy military transports.

Another area of wind-tunnel use is icing research, which has made flight safer through use of NASA’s world-class facilities, Springer said.

Aerodynamic drag reduction also is valuable to the design of semi trucks and racecars.

In fact, a research effort led by Ed Saltzman at Dryden on aerodynamic drag on semi trucks revolutionized the trucking industry in the 1970s. That research lead to major design changes resulting in an increase in efficiency and a 20 to 25 percent increase in fuel economy over vehicles that did not feature the aerodynamic improvements.

A professional racing association used the NASA Langley Full Scale Wind Tunnel for a detailed look at aerodynamics on racecar drag reduction. Another area of interest was the impacts of aerodynamics with multiple racecars, Springer said.

New Antenna May Reveal More Clues About Lightning

Launch scrubs are nothing new at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. In fact, there have been 116 space shuttle scrubs; 72 for technical reasons and 45 for inclement weather.

During the summer, bad weather, particularly lightning, seems to strike as the countdown clock nears zero. Maybe it's because Kennedy and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are well within what meteorologists call, "Lightning Alley."

Of course, NASA already can locate lightning strikes when they hit the ground with the Cloud to Ground Lightning Surveillance System, or CGLSS, and the National Lightning Detection Network. The agency also can locate lightning channels in a cloud with the Lightning Detection and Ranging Network, or LDAR II.

But according to Professor Tom Marshall of the University of Mississippi, humans have yet to truly figure out lightning.

So, Marshall and one of his senior students, Lauren Vickers, visited Kennedy to test a new antenna that might someday measure the level of individual lightning flashes and their return strokes. A measurement that could give launch managers information to make their "go-no go" decisions easier... decisions that might save money.

"We're trying to extend some measurement of cloud-to-ground lightning here at Kennedy," Marshall said. "We may find a return stroke is larger, and therefore, one for us to target."

The strength of these strokes might someday determine if future launch vehicles, such as Ares I, must undergo testing if lightning strikes nearby.

"What Professor Marshall's work is going to enable us to do is determine more precisely than we can now exactly where charges are located in clouds and how big those charges are when lightning strikes," said Dr. Frank Merceret, director of research for the Kennedy Weather Office. "The problem lies in the fact that NASA does not know where the charge center is located in the clouds.

"The Lightning Advisory Panel (LAP), which develops and recommends our lightning launch commit criteria (LLCC), has been wrestling with that issue for quite some time and his project may give the panel information that will help provide more accurate lightning readings before a launch."

A launch vehicle traveling through an anvil cloud, a cloud mostly made of ice that forms on top of thunderstorms, can trigger lightning at much lower electric field levels than natural lightning requires. This triggered lightning can damage vehicles or its cargo. In 1987, an Atlas-Centaur rocket was destroyed when its launch triggered such lightning. To prevent such accidents, the LLCC -- a strict set of lightning avoidance rules -- was modified by the LAP.

The LAP, which is made up of top lightning experts from various government agencies and academia, continues to review and modify those criteria for both the Eastern and Western ranges.

Although some launch weather guidelines involving shuttles and expendable rockets may differ because a distinction is made for the individual characteristics of each, the LLCC are identical for all vehicles.

"If the shuttle is on the launch pad and a lightning strike occurs nearby, we need to know the distance from the shuttle and the intensity of the lightning to determine if there are any possible effects on the vehicle. If the lightning was close enough and intense enough, operations, including a launch, will be delayed so the team can ensure the shuttle was not damaged," said Kathy Winters, shuttle launch weather officer.

During shuttle launch countdowns, weather forecasts are provided by the U. S. Air Force Range Weather Operations Facility at Cape Canaveral beginning at launch minus three days in coordination with the NOAA National Weather Service Space Flight Meteorology Group, or SMG, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. These include weather trends and possible effects on launch day.

A formal prelaunch weather briefing is held on launch minus one day to discuss specific weather conditions for all areas of shuttle operations.

Launch weather forecasts, ground operations forecasts and launch weather briefings for the mission management team and the shuttle launch director are prepared by the shuttle launch weather officer.

Forecasts that apply after launch are prepared by SMG. These include all emergency landing forecasts and end-of-mission forecasts presented to the flight director and mission management team.

STEREO Captures Sun's Eruption

The twin STEREO spacecraft (called “Behind” and “Ahead” denoting their relative positions in space), now almost 120 degrees apart, captured this large and dramatic prominence eruption over about a 30-hour period between Sept. 26-27, 2009. Prominences, called filaments when they are viewed against the surface of the Sun, are clouds of cooler gas suspended above the Sun’s surface by magnetic forces. This erupting prominence was large enough that both spacecraft were able to observe it for hours on end, one of the first times that has occurred.



From the Behind perspective (on left) the long filament, darker than the Sun’s surface, can be seen rising up and then breaking away, spreading out above most of the Sun’s surface. As seen from the Ahead spacecraft (right), the filament is seen in profile and is therefore called a prominence. The very large cloud lifts up, breaks away, and heads out into space. This is one of the most spectacular eruptive prominences either SOHO or STEREO have observed.

Atlantis Arrives for Stacking

After its early-morning roll from Orbiter Processing Facility-1, space shuttle Atlantis arrives in the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building in preparation for stacking with its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters.

Black Holes Go 'Mano a Mano'

This image of NGC 6240 contains new X-ray data from Chandra (shown in red, orange, and yellow) that has been combined with an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope originally released in 2008. In 2002, Chandra data led to the discovery of two merging black holes, which are a mere 3,000 light years apart. They are seen as the bright point-like sources in the middle of the image.

Scientists think these black holes are in such close proximity because they are in the midst of spiraling toward each other -- a process that began about 30 million years ago. It is estimated that they holes will eventually drift together and merge into a larger black hole some tens or hundreds of millions of years from now.

Finding and studying merging black holes has become a very active field of research in astrophysics. Since 2002, there has been intense interest in follow-up observations of NGC 6240, as well as a search for similar systems. Understanding what happens when these exotic objects interact with one another remains an intriguing question for scientists.

The formation of multiple systems of supermassive black holes should be common in the universe, since many galaxies undergo collisions and mergers with other galaxies, most of which contain supermassive black holes. It is thought that pairs of massive black holes can explain some of the unusual behavior seen by rapidly growing supermassive black holes, such as the distortion and bending seen in the powerful jets they produce. Also, pairs of massive black holes in the process of merging are expected to be the most powerful sources of gravitational waves in the Universe.

NASA Space Telescope Discovers Largest Ring Around Saturn

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered an enormous ring around Saturn -- by far the largest of the giant planet's many rings.

The new belt lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian system, with an orbit tilted 27 degrees from the main ring plane. The bulk of its material starts about six million kilometers (3.7 million miles) away from the planet and extends outward roughly another 12 million kilometers (7.4 million miles). One of Saturn's farthest moons, Phoebe, circles within the newfound ring, and is likely the source of its material.

Saturn's newest halo is thick, too -- its vertical height is about 20 times the diameter of the planet. It would take about one billion Earths stacked together to fill the ring.

"This is one supersized ring," said Anne Verbiscer, an astronomer at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. "If you could see the ring, it would span the width of two full moons' worth of sky, one on either side of Saturn." Verbiscer; Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland, College Park; and Michael Skrutskie, of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, are authors of a paper about the discovery to be published online tomorrow by the journal Nature.

An artist's concept of the newfound ring is online at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/multimedia/spitzer-20091007a.html .

The ring itself is tenuous, made up of a thin array of ice and dust particles. Spitzer's infrared eyes were able to spot the glow of the band's cool dust. The telescope, launched in 2003, is currently 107 million kilometers (66 million miles) from Earth in orbit around the sun.

The discovery may help solve an age-old riddle of one of Saturn's moons. Iapetus has a strange appearance -- one side is bright and the other is really dark, in a pattern that resembles the yin-yang symbol. The astronomer Giovanni Cassini first spotted the moon in 1671, and years later figured out it has a dark side, now named Cassini Regio in his honor. A stunning picture of Iapetus taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft is online at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08384 .

Saturn's newest addition could explain how Cassini Regio came to be. The ring is circling in the same direction as Phoebe, while Iapetus, the other rings and most of Saturn's moons are all going the opposite way. According to the scientists, some of the dark and dusty material from the outer ring moves inward toward Iapetus, slamming the icy moon like bugs on a windshield.

"Astronomers have long suspected that there is a connection between Saturn's outer moon Phoebe and the dark material on Iapetus," said Hamilton. "This new ring provides convincing evidence of that relationship."

Verbiscer and her colleagues used Spitzer's longer-wavelength infrared camera, called the multiband imaging photometer, to scan through a patch of sky far from Saturn and a bit inside Phoebe's orbit. The astronomers had a hunch that Phoebe might be circling around in a belt of dust kicked up from its minor collisions with comets -- a process similar to that around stars with dusty disks of planetary debris. Sure enough, when the scientists took a first look at their Spitzer data, a band of dust jumped out.

The ring would be difficult to see with visible-light telescopes. Its particles are diffuse and may even extend beyond the bulk of the ring material all the way in to Saturn and all the way out to interplanetary space. The relatively small numbers of particles in the ring wouldn't reflect much visible light, especially out at Saturn where sunlight is weak.

"The particles are so far apart that if you were to stand in the ring, you wouldn't even know it," said Verbiscer.

Spitzer was able to sense the glow of the cool dust, which is only about 80 Kelvin (minus 316 degrees Fahrenheit). Cool objects shine with infrared, or thermal radiation; for example, even a cup of ice cream is blazing with infrared light. "By focusing on the glow of the ring's cool dust, Spitzer made it easy to find," said Verbiscer.

These observations were made before Spitzer ran out of coolant in May and began its "warm" mission.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The multiband imaging photometer for Spitzer was built by Ball Aerospace Corporation, Boulder, Colo., and the University of Arizona, Tucson. Its principal investigator is George Rieke of the University of Arizona.

For additional images relating to the ring discovery and more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer and http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer.

White House to Host Science and Astronomy Night for Students

Local middle school students will have an opportunity to learn about the solar system and the vast universe beyond during an Astronomy Night event on the White House South Lawn at 8 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct 7. The White House will host 150 local students to star gaze and conduct hands-on experiments with astronomers from across the country. President Obama will speak about the importance of science, engineering and math education and his support for astronomy’s capacity to promote a greater awareness of our place in the universe, expand human knowledge and inspire the next generation of explorers.

The event, produced in close collaboration with NASA and with the help of several astronomy organizations across the country, will provide an opportunity for students to learn more about the cosmos as they view stars and other celestial objects through telescopes. More than 20 telescopes of various types will be arranged on the lawn for observing Jupiter, the moon and selected stars. Activities will include interactive presentations, scale models of the solar system and science presentations with samples of meteorites and lunar rocks. NASA's Museum Alliance, a consortium of museums, science centers and planetariums will conduct activities worldwide to coincide with the White House event.

The White House event is part of the International Year of Astronomy, a global celebration of its contributions to society and culture. More than 135 countries will host events and activities to mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first astronomical observations with a telescope.

The event will be live-streamed at WhiteHouse.gov, and in addition there will be a live video chat beforehand with Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, with questions taken via Facebook and Twitter.

Arctic Sea Ice Extent is Third Lowest on Record

U.S. satellite measurements show Arctic sea ice extent in 2009 – the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by floating ice – was the third lowest since satellite measurements were first made in 1979. The ice area at minimum was an increase from the past two years, but still well below the average for the past 30 years.

Arctic sea ice reached its minimum extent around September 12, as shown in the image and video below/above. According to scientists affiliated with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), sea ice coverage dropped to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles) at its minimum. The ice cover was 970,000 square kilometers (370,000 square miles) greater than the record low of 2007 and 580,000 square kilometers (220,000 square miles) greater than 2008.

NSIDC is sponsored by several U.S. government agencies, including NASA. Ice data are derived from measurements made by U.S. Department of Defense and NASA satellites, with key work in interpreting the data and developing the 30-year history done by scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"The changes from year to year are interesting since there has been large variability," said Josefino Comiso, a sea ice expert at NASA Goddard. "But we need to look at several years of data to examine the long-term trends."

"Our three decades of continuous satellite measurements show a rapid decline of about 11.6 percent per decade," Comiso said. Arctic sea ice has declined about 34 percent since measurements were first made in the late 1970s.

The four lowest ice extents on record have occurred between 2005 and 2009, with the record minimum reached during a dramatic drop in ice cover in 2007 that was exacerbated by unusual polar winds.

Several recent studies based on data from NASA’s ICESat and QuikScat satellites have shown that, in addition to shrinking geographic ice coverage, the amount of multi-year ice cover – thicker ice that survives more than one summer -- has been declining in recent years.

"The oceans are crucial to Earth's climate system, since they store huge amounts of heat," said Comiso. "Changes in sea ice cover can lead to circulation changes not just in the Arctic Ocean, but also in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If you change ocean circulation, you change the world's climate."

Changes in the Arctic ice cover could also mean a new paradigm for life in the sea. "The waters at high latitudes are some of the most biologically productive in the world because of the presence of sea ice," Comiso added. "Many of our richest fisheries are the seas around the Arctic Ocean, and we don't know what the consequences might be if the seasonal sea ice disappears in these regions."

NASA Media Briefing to Preview Major Antarctic Research Campaign

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 8, to preview the agency's largest airborne research effort ever to study Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice.

The flights are part of NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year airborne campaign to each of Earth's polar regions that will extend and expand NASA's multi-year record of space-based observations of ice conditions. Advancing scientific understanding of the behavior of polar ice is needed to improve predictions of future sea-level rise brought on by global warming.

The Antarctic flights are set to begin Oct. 15 from Punta Arenas, Chile, and will map regions of the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica that are changing most rapidly. NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory will carry a suite of instruments to measure the surface of the ice, probe beneath the surface to the bedrock below, and measure sea ice in the Weddell and Amundsen seas.

The teleconference participants are:
- Seelye Martin, Operation Ice Bridge chief scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle
- William Krabill, physical scientist at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia
- Thorsten Markus, cryospheric sciences branch head at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
- Robin Bell, geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Sonja Alexander at sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov for dial-in instructions.

NASA Updates Tuesday Space Station News Conference Time

The nine residents of the International Space Station will hold a news conference Tuesday at 8:55 a.m. CDT, 15 minutes earlier than previously announced.

Aboard the station are NASA astronauts Mike Barratt, Nicole Stott and Jeff Williams; Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka, Roman Romanenko and Max Suraev; European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne; Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk; and spaceflight participant Guy Laliberte.

The 30-minute news conference will be divided for U.S. journalists at NASA centers, Canadian media representatives at the Canadian Space Agency's headquarters in Quebec and European reporters. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television.

NASA Honors JFK with Moon Rock to be Displayed at Rice University

On the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, NASA honored President John F. Kennedy with an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his vision and leadership in landing a man on the moon. The Kennedy family has selected Rice University to house and publicly display the award, a lunar sample, at Fondren Library. Kennedy called for a national initiative to go to the moon during a speech given at Rice University on Sept. 12, 1962.

Michael Coats, a former astronaut and director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, will present the moon rock to Rice University President David Leebron on Saturday, Oct. 10, during a halftime ceremony at the Rice versus Navy football game. NASA astronauts George Zamka, a graduate of the Naval Academy, and Danny Olivas, a graduate of Rice, will serve as honorary captains for their alma maters during the game's coin toss.

Game-day attendees can see and touch a moon rock and learn about the space shuttle, International Space Station and future exploration programs by visiting the agency's "Driven to Explore" exhibit. The exhibit will be open from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. CDT at the stadium's Tailgate Owley outside Rice Stadium Gate 3. Zamka and Olivas will sign autographs from 1 to 2 p.m. at the NASA exhibit.

NASA is giving the Ambassador of Exploration Award to the first generation of explorers in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs for realizing America's goal of going to the moon. The award is a moon rock encased in Lucite, mounted for public display. The rock is part of the 842 pounds of lunar samples collected during six Apollo expeditions from 1969 to 1972.

Squyres Wins Carl Sagan Medal for Public Outreach

For his work making NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission a compelling saga for millions of people, Steven W. Squyres, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy and principal scientific investigator for the mission, has received the 2009 Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society.

The Sagan medal recognizes a planetary scientist for excellence in public communication. Squyres will receive the medal during the AAS's Division for Planetary Sciences annual meeting, Oct. 4 to Oct. 9, in Puerto Rico.

Quick to share credit with the entire Mars rover mission team at Cornell and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Squyres said he has always taken seriously the responsibility of giving people -- the taxpayers who have bankrolled the mission -- a clear window into what they are doing on Mars.

"We feel very strongly that the people who pay have a real right to find out in very clear, simple terms what they're getting for their $900 million," Squyres said.

Since January 2004, when the first rover, named Spirit, bounced down on the red planet, the Rover team has maintained a publicly accessible database of images taken by the rovers. Atypical of most NASA missions, the rover mission has allowed people to access data almost immediately. It was a conscious decision by the rover team, Squyres said, to pipeline the data straight to the Web.

"If I'm asleep and you're awake, you can see the pictures from the rover before I do," he said. "And what that has done is it's really enabled people to share in this voyage of exploration."

Squyres hopes these efforts, including a Web site that provides updates of rover activities, has inspired young people to pursue careers in science and engineering.

"NASA does all kinds of wonderful things in space, from cosmology to gamma ray spectroscopy," Squyres said. "But try explaining gamma ray spectroscopy to a third-grader. It's hard. But you know, these are robots looking at rocks. It's not that complicated. What that means is this mission is almost uniquely accessible to people."

As a Cornell graduate student Squyres '78, Ph.D. '81, worked closely with Sagan. "Carl really pioneered, in a very important way, the way in which scientists interact with the media and the public," Squyres said. "To receive an award that's named after him for trying to do the same sort of thing that he did so brilliantly is a real honor."

Opportunity's traverse map through Sol 1942

A-3 Test Stand Construction Moves Forward With Tank Installations

Nine water, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and liquid oxygen (LOX) tanks have been delivered and installed, with five more water tanks scheduled to arrive in upcoming weeks. The two IPA tanks shown on the left and the three LOX tanks shown on the right are 35,000 gallons each. The four water tanks in the center are 39,000 gallons each. All 14 of the tanks will be used by the chemical steam generators units that will be installed on the A-3 stand for creating simulated altitudes of up to 100,000 feet. The IPA and LOX tanks will fuel the generators; the other tanks will provide the water needed to generate the steam necessary for creating the simulated altitudes. The tanks are 65 to 85 feet tall and weigh 270,000 to 320,000 pounds each. The A-3 Test Stand remains on schedule for completion and activation in 2011.

LCROSS Viewer's Guide

Just imagine. A spaceship plunges out of the night sky, hits the ground and explodes. A plume of debris billows back into the heavens, leading your eye to a second ship in hot pursuit. Four minutes later, that one hits the ground, too. It's raining spaceships!

Put on your hard hat and get ready for action, because on Friday, Oct. 9, what you just imagined is really going to happen--and you can have a front row seat.

The impact site is crater Cabeus near the moon's south pole. NASA is guiding the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS for short) and its Centaur booster rocket into the crater's floor for a spectacular double-impact designed to unearth signs of lunar water.



There are two ways to watch the show.

First, turn on NASA TV. The space agency will broadcast the action live from the Moon, with coverage beginning Friday morning at 3:15 am PDT (10:15 UT). The first hour or so, pre-impact, will offer expert commentary, status reports from mission control, camera views from the spacecraft, and telemetry-based animations.

The actual impacts commence at 7:30 am EDT (11:30 UT). The Centaur rocket will strike first, transforming 2200 kg of mass and 10 billion joules of kinetic energy into a blinding flash of heat and light. Researchers expect the impact to throw up a plume of debris as high as 10 km.

Close behind, the LCROSS mothership will photograph the collision for NASA TV and then fly right through the debris plume. Onboard spectrometers will analyze the sunlit plume for signs of water (H2O), water fragments (OH), salts, clays, hydrated minerals and assorted organic molecules.

"If there's water there, or anything else interesting, we'll find it," says Tony Colaprete, the mission's principal investigator.

Next comes the mothership's own plunge. Four minutes after the Centaur "lands," the 700 kg LCROSS satellite will strike nearby, sending another, smaller debris plume over the rim of Cabeus.

The Hubble Space Telescope, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and hundreds of telescopes great and small on Earth will scrutinize the two plumes, looking for signs of water and the unexpected.

And that brings us to the second way to see the show: Grab your telescope.

"We expect the debris plumes to be visible through mid-sized backyard telescopes--10 inches and larger," says Brian Day of NASA/Ames. Day is an amateur astronomer and the Education and Public Outreach Lead for LCROSS. "The initial explosions will probably be hidden behind crater walls, but the plumes will rise high enough above the crater's rim to be seen from Earth."

The Pacific Ocean and western parts of North America are favored with darkness and a good view of the moon at the time of impact. Hawaii is the best place to be, with Pacific coast states of the USA a close second. Any place west of the Mississippi River, however, is a potential observing site.

When the plumes emerge from Cabeus, they will be illuminated by sunshine streaming over the polar terrain. The crater itself will be in the dark, however, permanently shadowed by its own walls. "That's good," says Day. "The crater's shadows will provide a dark backdrop for viewing the sunlit plumes."

In an earlier stage of mission planning, scientists hoped to strike a crater closer to the Moon's limb so that the plumes would billow out against the dark night sky, providing maximum contrast for observers on Earth. However, recent data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Japan's Kaguya spacecraft and India's Chandrayaan-1 probe altered those plans.

"We've just learned that Cabeus may contain relatively-rich deposits of hydrogen and/or frozen water," says Colaprete. "Cabeus is not as close to the lunar limb as we would have liked, but it seems to offer us the best chance of hitting H2O."

The LCROSS team hopes many people—amateurs and professionals alike—will observe and photograph the plumes. "The more eyes the better," says Day. "Remember, we've never done this before. We're not 100% sure what will happen, and big surprises are possible."

Veteran amateur astronomer Kurt Fisher has prepared a 13 MB slideshow to help fellow amateurs locate and witness the plumes: download it . There is also an online LCROSS observer's group where novices can read introductory articles and chat with other observers.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for citizen scientists to join NASA in the process of discovery," says Day, who urges observers to submit their images to the LCROSS Citizen Science Site. "It's a great adventure, and anyone can participate."

The Search For Lunar Water

Just like on Earth, water will be a crucial resource on the moon. Transporting water and other goods from Earth to the moon’s surface is expensive. Finding natural resources, such as water ice, on the moon could help expedite lunar exploration. The LCROSS mission will search for water, using information learned from the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions.

By going to the moon for extended periods of time, a new generation of explorers will learn how to work safely in a harsh environment. A lunar outpost is a stepping stone to future exploration of other bodies in our solar system. The moon also offers many clues about when the planets were formed.

This Month in Exploration - October

Visit "This Month in Exploration" every month to find out how aviation and space exploration have changed throughout the years, improving life for humans on Earth and in space. While reflecting on the events that led to NASA's formation and its rich history of accomplishments, "This Month in Exploration" will reveal where the agency is leading us -- to the moon, Mars and beyond.

100 Years Ago

October 26, 1909: Lt. Frederick E. Humphreys and Lt. Frank P. Lahm became the first Army pilots to fly solo in the Wright Military Flyer at College Park, Maryland.

90 Years Ago

October 8-31, 1919: The United States Air Service initiated the transcontinental reliability and endurance flight project to test its men and aircraft over extended distances. Two groups of aircraft were to fly from New York to San Francisco or from San Francisco to New York, and return. Of the 63 aircraft, 44 completed the westbound journey, 15 completed the eastbound, and 10 planes made the round trip. Seven lives were lost. The Air Service learned that it did not yet possess planes and equipment required for this type of mobility, nor were its pilots trained to fly under hazardous weather conditions.

80 Years Ago

October, 1929: Hermann Oberth was awarded the first REP-Hirsch international prize for his book “Wege zum Raumschiffahrt” (Road to Space Travel). The prize honored works which contributed to starting space travel. In the epilogue of his award-winning book, Oberth wrote "One can see that science and education are capable of bridging national divisions."

60 Years Ago

October 27, 1949: The Unitary Wind Tunnel Act (63 Stat. 936) authorized the $136 million construction of the new National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) facilities, since industry could not subsidize expensive wind tunnels for research in transonic and supersonic flight

50 Years Ago

October 1, 1959: NASA personnel total reached 9,347, one year after its inception, when it replaced the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).

October 8, 1959: The Pioneer IV probe reached its farthest point from the sun at 8 p.m. EST. The Pioneer IV lunar and planetary exploration satellite was the first U.S. satellite to orbit the sun.

45 Years Ago

October 30, 1964: NASA pilot Joseph Walker conducted the first flight in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV). The LLRV provided realistic simulation that was critical for landing a spacecraft on the moon in the Apollo program.

35 Years Ago

October 25, 1974: Michael V. Love piloted an X-24B during the fastest lifting body flight, from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Facility in Edwards, California.. The aircraft reached Mach 1.76 (1164 mph). The information generated from this and other lifting body research flights led to development of the space shuttle program.

30 Years Ago

October 30, 1979: NASA, in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), launched the Magsat satellite at 9:15 a.m. EST, from the Western Space and Missile Center (WSMC). Magsat made the first precise measurements of the Earth’s vector magnetic field and contributed to studies of groundwater, mineral resources and earthquake hazard investigation.

25 Years Ago

October 5, 1984: The Space Shuttle “Challenger” (STS 41-G) launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 7:03 a.m. EST. During this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to walk in space. The shuttle landed at Kennedy on October 13 at 12:26 p.m. EST, ending the mission that lasted for 8 days, 5 hours and 23 minutes. It was also the first flight to include two women astronauts, Sally K. Ride and Kathryn D. Sullivan.

20 Years Ago

October 18, 1989: The crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-34) launched the Galileo spacecraft. Galileo’s mission was to journey to Jupiter and send a probe into its atmosphere. Galileo observed the planet and its satellites for two years beginning in 1995. Galileo's mission ended in 2003 when it passed into Jupiter's shadow and then disintegrated in the planet's dense atmosphere.

15 Years Ago

October 12, 1994: NASA’s Magellan spacecraft burned up in Venus' atmosphere, ending its five-and-a-half-year mission to map the surface and measure the gravity of the planet. Magellan collected radar images of 98% of the planet.

5 Years Ago

October 4, 2004: After making the second of two suborbital flights in one week, SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. SpaceShipOne was funded by Paul G. Allen, designed by Burt Rutan and built by Scaled Composites, LLC. SpaceShipOne is a lifting body propelled via rocket after launch, and uses a non-powered re-entry.

Present Day

October 27, 2009: The Ares I-X flight test, NASA's first test for the Agency's new Constellation launch vehicle, Ares I, is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The Ares I-X flight will provide NASA with an early opportunity to test and verify flight characteristics, hardware, facilities and ground operations associated with the Ares I.

JPL Satellite Data on How Pollution Travels Highlighted in New Study

Data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite were used to create this short video showing plumes of carbon monoxide being transported in Earth's atmosphere around the globe. These observations track carbon monoxide at about 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) above the surface of Earth. In the movie, carbon monoxide emissions from large fires and large urban and industrial areas like northeastern China are visible, and are transported around the globe by weather fronts. The video is narrated by AIRS Science Team Member Wallace McMillan of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

International Science Teams Selected for Aquarius/SAC-D Mission

NASA and Argentina's Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with support from the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovative Production (MinCyT), have selected additional members of the international scientific investigating team for the Aquarius/Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas (SAC)-D mission, scheduled to launch in 2010. The new team members include two from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The joint minimum three-year mission will carry a suite of instruments into space onboard the Argentine-built SAC-D spacecraft. NASA's sensor, Aquarius, is the primary instrument on the mission. Aquarius is designed to provide monthly global maps of how salt concentration varies on the ocean surface - a key indicator of ocean circulation and its role in climate change. Seven CONAE-sponsored instruments will provide environmental data for a wide range of applications, including natural hazards, land processes, epidemiological studies and air quality issues.

NASA and CONAE conducted a joint solicitation and selection of scientific investigations and innovative application demonstration projects using Aquarius/SAC-D observations. NASA selected 15 projects that it will fund over the next four years for a total of $8 million. CONAE/MinCyT selected 15 Argentine projects with participation of scientists from Chile and Brazil, which will be funded for a total of $1.3 million. An additional 10 proposals were selected from scientists in Italy and Japan.

The primary focus of the selected projects is to prepare the scientific community to use Aquarius/SAC-D observations to better understand the interactions between global ocean circulation, the water cycle and Earth's climate. Several projects will concentrate on socio-economic applications of the mission's observations in such areas as fishery management, disease and flood forecasting, and monitoring volcanic eruptions and fires.

The principal investigators for the NASA-funded projects are:

- William Asher, University of Washington, Seattle
- Frederick Bingham, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
- Shannon Brown, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
- Antonio Busalacchi, University of Maryland, College Park
- Ichiro Fukumori, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
- Arnold Gordon, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y.
- Thomas Jackson, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Md.
- W. Linwood Jones, University of Central Florida, Orlando
- Roger Lang, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
- William Large, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo.
- Nikolai Maximenko, University of Hawaii, Honolulu
- Rui Ponte, Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
- Stephen Riser, University of Washington, Seattle
- Douglas Vandemark, University of New Hampshire, Durham
- Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, Calif.

The principal investigators for the CONAE/MinCyT-funded projects are:

- Miguel Bertolami, National University of the Patagonia San Juan Bosco, Chubut, Argentina
- Marcelo Cassini, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Carlos Cotlier, National University of Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
- Dora Goniadzki, National Water Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Raúl Guerrero, National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Haydee Karszenbaum, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Maite Narvarte, Marine Biology Institute Alte. Storni, Chubut, Argentina
- Alberto Piola, Naval Hydrographic Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Gloria Pujol, National Meteorological Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Mirta Raed, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Raúl Rivas, National University of Centro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Cristina Rodriguez, Mariscope Chilena Department of Oceanography, Puerto Montt, Chile
- Hector Salgado, Naval Hydrographic Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Paola Salio, National University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Cristina Serafini, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina

NASA is providing the Aquarius instrument (which was built by JPL), along with launch services and Aquarius science data processing. JPL manages the Aquarius mission for NASA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is providing the Aquarius instrument radiometer. CONAE is providing the SAC-D spacecraft; additional instruments, including optical and thermal cameras, a microwave radiometer and other specific sensors (with participation from Italy, France, Canada and various Argentine institutions); and mission operations.

Launch of Aquarius/SAC-D onboard a Delta II rocket is scheduled for no earlier than May 2010 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Herschel's Multi-Hued View of the Sky

A new image from the Herschel Observatory shows off the observatory's talents for seeing multiple wavelengths of light. The infrared observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important participation from NASA, can use two science instruments simultaneously to see five different "colors" of infrared, which is light that we can't see with our eyes.

The new composite picture features a dark and cool region of our Milky Way galaxy, where material is just beginning to be stirred together into new batches of stars. Much of this region would appear dark in visible-light views, but Herschel can see the very dim infrared glow of cold dust that is only slightly warmer than the coldest temperature theoretically attainable. Herschel's view reveals that this star-forming region is even richer in cold and turbulent material than previously believed.

"Herschel's infrared vision lets us sense the feeble heat from some of the coldest objects in the cosmos," said Paul Goldsmith, the NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Herschel is still in what is called the performance verification phase, in which its instruments are being fine-tuned and checked out. Some routine science observations have begun.

The new image is a combination of data taken with Herschel's photodetector array camera and spectrometer, and its spectral and photometric imaging receiver. By using these two instruments at the same time, Herschel won't need to use as much of its stored liquid coolant, a limited resource expected to last about three-and-a-half years.

In the color-coded image, blue shows warmer dust and red, the coolest, with green representing temperatures in between. The coldest dust can be seen as thin filaments. It is here that stars are in the very earliest stages of their infancy, and can be seen lined up together like glittering beads of water on a blade of grass.

More images like this are expected in the future and will ultimately help astronomers map the "terra incognita," or unknown land, of our Milky Way, as well as other galaxies that are farther away.

Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by consortia of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, supports the United States astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Opportunity Finds Another Meteorite

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found a rock that apparently is another meteorite, less than three weeks after driving away from a larger meteorite that the rover examined for six weeks.

Opportunity used its navigation camera during the mission's 2,022nd Martian day, or sol, (Oct. 1, 2009) to take this image of the apparent meteorite dubbed "Shelter Island." The pitted rock is about 47 centimeters (18.5 inches) long. Opportunity had driven 28.5 meters (94 feet) that sol to approach the rock after it had been detected in images taken after a drive two sols earlier.

Opportunity has driven about 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) since it finished studying the meteorite called "Block Island" on Sept. 11, 2009.

Mariner 10

On Nov. 3, 1973, the Mariner Venus/Mercury 1973 spacecraft, also known as Mariner 10, was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, becoming the first spacecraft designed to use gravity assist. Three months after launch it flew by Venus, changed speed and trajectory, then crossed Mercury's orbit in March 1974.

This photo identifies the spacecraft's science instruments, which were used to study the atmospheric, surface and physical characteristics of Venus and Mercury. This was the sixth in the series of Mariner spacecraft that explored the inner planets beginning in 1962.

Getting Ready

The Ares I-X rocket stands tall inside the massive Vehicle Assembly Building's High Bay 3 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Part of the Constellation Program, the Ares I-X is the test vehicle for the Ares I, which is the essential core of a space transportation system that eventually will carry crewed missions back to the moon, on to Mars and out into the solar system.

Atlantis on Track for November Launch

At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida technicians are back in Orbiter Processing Facility-1 today performing final checks on space shuttle Atlantis. The vehicle is set to move, or rollover, to the Vehicle Assembly Building tomorrow with first motion scheduled for 7 a.m. EDT.

In the VAB, the external tank and solid rocket boosters, now secured in place, also are undergoing final checks and testing.

After Atlantis is joined with the tank and boosters, the giant crawler-transporter will be rolled under the mobile launcher platform. The entire stack now is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39A on Oct. 13.

Meanwhile, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the STS-129 crew members will be reviewing deorbit burn procedures and space station systems manuals, and practicing heat shield repair techniques.

The astronauts are scheduled to fly to Kennedy on Oct. 19 to participate in the three-day Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test, or TCDT. Typically held prior to launch, TCDT gives the crew an opportunity to check the fit of their spacesuits, practice emergency evacuation procedures at the launch pad, review firefighting methods, and participate in briefings on security and range safety.

Preparations for STS-129 Mission in Full Swing
The STS-129 mission will be commanded by Charlie Hobaugh and piloted by Barry Wilmore. Mission Specialists are Robert Satcher, Mike Foreman, Randy Bresnik and Leland Melvin. Wilmore, Satcher and Bresnik will be making their first trips to space.

Atlantis and its crew will deliver parts to the space station, including a spare gyroscope. The mission will feature three spacewalks.

Atlantis also will return station crew member Nicole Stott to Earth and is slated to be the final space shuttle crew rotation flight.

Launch of Atlantis on the STS-129 mission is targeted for 4:04 p.m. EST Nov. 12.

Space Radar Reveals Topography of Tsunami Site

Two color-coded perspective views of the Independent State of Samoa (left) and American Samoa (right), generated with digital elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, illustrate the varying topography of the islands. A tsunami generated by a major undersea earthquake on Sept. 29, 2009, inundated the more heavily populated southern coast of Tutuila, the largest of the islands of American Samoa, with an ocean surge more than 3 meters (10 feet) deep, causing scores of casualties. The tsunami also inundated villages on the southern coast of the Independent State of Samoa with an ocean surge perhaps more than 3 meters (10 feet) deep, and also impacted the more heavily populated northern coasts with a surge measured at nearly 1.5 meters (4 feet) at the capital city of Apia.

Digital topographic data such as those produced by SRTM can be used to aid researchers and planners in predicting which coastal regions are at the most risk from such waves, as well as from the more common storm surges caused by tropical storms and even sea level rise.

International Science Teams Selected for Aquarius/SAC-D Mission

NASA and Argentina's Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with support from the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovative Production (MinCyT), have selected additional members of the international scientific investigating team for the Aquarius/Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas (SAC)-D mission, scheduled to launch in 2010. The new team members include two from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The joint minimum three-year mission will carry a suite of instruments into space onboard the Argentine-built SAC-D spacecraft. NASA's sensor, Aquarius, is the primary instrument on the mission. Aquarius is designed to provide monthly global maps of how salt concentration varies on the ocean surface - a key indicator of ocean circulation and its role in climate change. Seven CONAE-sponsored instruments will provide environmental data for a wide range of applications, including natural hazards, land processes, epidemiological studies and air quality issues.

NASA and CONAE conducted a joint solicitation and selection of scientific investigations and innovative application demonstration projects using Aquarius/SAC-D observations. NASA selected 15 projects that it will fund over the next four years for a total of $8 million. CONAE/MinCyT selected 15 Argentine projects with participation of scientists from Chile and Brazil, which will be funded for a total of $1.3 million. An additional 10 proposals were selected from scientists in Italy and Japan.

The primary focus of the selected projects is to prepare the scientific community to use Aquarius/SAC-D observations to better understand the interactions between global ocean circulation, the water cycle and Earth's climate. Several projects will concentrate on socio-economic applications of the mission's observations in such areas as fishery management, disease and flood forecasting, and monitoring volcanic eruptions and fires.

The principal investigators for the NASA-funded projects are:

- William Asher, University of Washington, Seattle
- Frederick Bingham, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
- Shannon Brown, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
- Antonio Busalacchi, University of Maryland, College Park
- Ichiro Fukumori, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
- Arnold Gordon, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y.
- Thomas Jackson, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Md.
- W. Linwood Jones, University of Central Florida, Orlando
- Roger Lang, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
- William Large, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo.
- Nikolai Maximenko, University of Hawaii, Honolulu
- Rui Ponte, Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.
- Stephen Riser, University of Washington, Seattle
- Douglas Vandemark, University of New Hampshire, Durham
- Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, Calif.

The principal investigators for the CONAE/MinCyT-funded projects are:

- Miguel Bertolami, National University of the Patagonia San Juan Bosco, Chubut, Argentina
- Marcelo Cassini, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Carlos Cotlier, National University of Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina
- Dora Goniadzki, National Water Institute, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Raúl Guerrero, National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Haydee Karszenbaum, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Maite Narvarte, Marine Biology Institute Alte. Storni, Chubut, Argentina
- Alberto Piola, Naval Hydrographic Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Gloria Pujol, National Meteorological Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Mirta Raed, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Raúl Rivas, National University of Centro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Cristina Rodriguez, Mariscope Chilena Department of Oceanography, Puerto Montt, Chile
- Hector Salgado, Naval Hydrographic Service, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Paola Salio, National University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Cristina Serafini, National University of Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina

NASA is providing the Aquarius instrument (which was built by JPL), along with launch services and Aquarius science data processing. JPL manages the Aquarius mission for NASA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., is providing the Aquarius instrument radiometer. CONAE is providing the SAC-D spacecraft; additional instruments, including optical and thermal cameras, a microwave radiometer and other specific sensors (with participation from Italy, France, Canada and various Argentine institutions); and mission operations.

Launch of Aquarius/SAC-D onboard a Delta II rocket is scheduled for no earlier than May 2010 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Earthquake off Samoa Generates Tsunami

On the morning of September 29, 2009, a large undersea earthquake near Samoa generated a destructive tsunami that killed more than 100 people, said news reports. According to measurements from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the magnitude 8.0 quake hit at 6:48 a.m. about 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Apia, the capital of Samoa. The tsunami struck the islands of Savi’i, Upola, and Tutuila minutes later with waves that were 3.1 meters (10 feet) high near Pago Pago (American Samoa) and 1.4 meters (4.6 feet) in Apia, said the USGS. Smaller tsunamis hit other Pacific islands farther away from the quake’s epicenter.

This image shows the location of the earthquake in relation to the islands. The earthquake epicenter, shown by a large black circle, was located on the Pacific tectonic plate near its boundary with the Australian plate (southwest corner of map). Dozens of magnitude 4 and 5 aftershocks, shown by open circles, followed the initial earthquake, continuing until at least September 30th. The knee-shaped area of deep water is the Tonga Trench, a deep canyon on the edge of the Pacific plate. The trench and associated faults are forming as the Pacific Plate moves westward, sinking beneath a complex series of smaller plates on the edge of the Australian plate, the shallower area in the lower left corner of the image. The region around the Tonga Trench is one of the most active earthquake regions in the world, said the USGS.

Surveyor 1

Surveyor 1 was the first in a series of seven U.S. missions to the moon that preceded Apollo; five of the seven missions were successful. Surveyor 1 was launched on May 30, 1966, and landed on June 2, 1966. The mission's objectives were to soft land on the moon and to collect information on the lunar regolith. This first Surveyor spacecraft carried only a television camera system (later missions carried additional instruments). The spacecraft landed on a relatively smooth mare surface in Oceanus Procellarum (the Ocean of Storms). The Surveyor 1 landing site is also one of the areas identified by Project Constellation as a high-priority target for future human lunar exploration.

The scene shows the spacecraft (annotated with an arrow) just south of a subdued 40 m diameter crater and about 110 m northwest of a 190 m diameter crater lined with boulders. The landing site is in the northeast corner of the Flamsteed Ring, a 100 km diameter impact crater almost completely buried by mare lavas such that all that remains exposed is the upper part of the original crater rim.

Surveyor 1 collected over 11,000 images, most during the first lunar day between landing and July 7, 1966. The spacecraft continued to operate until January 7, 1967. The Surveyor images demonstrated that the lunar surface was strong enough to support a landed vehicle or a human. The detailed images also indicated that the surface was composed of a granular material interpreted to be produced by the impact of various size meteors over billions of years.

Expedition 21 Crew Arrives at the International Space Station

Flight Engineers Jeff Williams and Maxim Suraev along with spaceflight participant Guy Laliberté have arrived at the International Space Station. They docked their Soyuz TMA-16 to the aft end of the Zvezda service module at 4:35 a.m. EDT Friday. They launched Wednesday at 3:14 a.m. from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.

The newest station crew members will greet the current residents when they open the hatches as early as 7:25 a.m.

Williams and Suraev are relieving Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Michael Barratt who will depart in several days with their Canadian visitor, Laliberté. The three crew members will enter the Soyuz TMA-14 and undock from the Pirs docking compartment at 9:05 p.m. EDT on Oct. 10. They will land in Kazakhstan about three and a half hours later.

Their departure signifies the end of Expedition 20 and the start of Expedition 21. European astronaut Frank De Winne will have completed his duties as Expedition 20 Flight Engineer and assumed command of the International Space Station. De Winne, of the European Space Agency, arrived at the station May 29, 2009. He is scheduled to return to Earth on Dec. 1, 2009 in the same vehicle in which he arrived, the Soyuz TMA-15, which is attached to Zarya’s Earth-facing port. De Winne’s departure in December will leave Jeff Williams in charge of the station as Expedition 22 commander.

Also continuing their stays aboard the station and transitioning to Expedition 21 are Flight Engineers Nicole Stott, Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk. Thirsk and Romanenko will continue their long-duration stay until they depart with De Winne. Stott who arrived Aug. 30 aboard space shuttle Discovery will return home in November aboard space shuttle Atlantis.

Atlantis is scheduled to be the last space shuttle to transport a station crew member when it leaves the International Space Station with Nicole Stott on the STS-129 mission. The Russian Soyuz spacecraft will continue crew transportation to and from the orbiting laboratory.

Williams, Padalka and De Winne are all space station veterans. For Williams, Expedition 21 is his third stay aboard the station. His first visit was during shuttle mission STS-101 in May 200 and then he served as a flight engineer during Expedition 13 in 2006. Expedition 21 is De Winne’s second station mission. He visited the station as part of a Soyuz taxi mission in late 2002. In addition to commanding Expeditions 19 and 20, Padalka was the Expedition 9 commander in 2004.

Rima Ariadaeus, a Linear Rille

Rima Ariadaeus is one of several linear rille systems nestled in the highlands between Mare Vaporum and Mare Tranquillitatis. Some rilles, such as Vallis Schroteri, were formed by volcanic eruptions. Other rilles, such as Rima Ariadaeus, are believed to be faults that formed as a result of tectonic activity. Some scientists believe that the linear rilles might have formed after large impact events, while others believe that the rilles were formed as a surface manifestation of deep-seated dike systems when the moon was still volcanically active.

Experts agree that Rima Ariadaeus, about 300 km (186.4 mi) long, is a fault system similar to those on Earth. A large portion of Rima Ariadaeus is visible in this subset of an LROC frame (below), and the LROC NAC image (above) shows part of the rille fault scarp. A mare surface is visible in the southwest corner of the image, and a defined contact between the rille wall and the rille floor is visible in the northeast corner of the image. Rima Ariadaeus is 5 km (3.1 mi) wide and disrupts the preexisting geologic features.

The stratigraphic relationships between the rille and other surface features can help determine whether the rille is older or younger than these features with respect to relative age. For example, the rille cross-cuts a ridge in the middle-left of the WAC frame (near the arrow in the WAC image below); this relationship suggests that the rille is younger than the ridge, because the rille changed the shape of the ridge. However, in the LROC NAC image, there are small craters present on the rille floor, which suggests that the rille is older than these superposing craters. These types of observations are used to examine stratigraphic relationships and the relative ages of landforms in this region so that scientists can reconstruct the moon's geologic history.

Water Detected at High Latitudes on the Moon

NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission, took this image of Earth's moon. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.

Small amounts of water were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.

Blue shows the signature of water, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene.

Astro Mike Rockets to a Million on Twitter

In tweet-speak, it might have been called a “twace,” the great space race on Twitter.

Astronaut Mike Massimino became the first human to tweet from space on his final trip to repair the Hubble telescope. It was no contest, however, that he recently also became the first astronaut to reach one million followers on Twitter.

And who says, “In space, no one can hear you tweet?”

On April 1, 2009, it was no fool’s joke that an astronaut joined the Twitter verse. Massimino launched his Twitter to share his space training experience in chirps of no more than 140 characters in length at any given time.

In about two weeks, more than 70 thousand followers were listening. Soon after his launch aboard the space shuttle, he reached 200,000 followers.

Massimino’s mass following nearly doubled after he sent his first tweet from space sharing visual tidbits on his encounters from orbit few humans have ever seen.

But through his eyes, now more than a million people on Earth are getting a glimpse of what living and working in space is like. Massimino tweeted not only on carrying out specific mission activities like shaking lose a bolt during a spacewalk but also on wishing on shooting stars that streaked across India below him, seeing 16 sunrises in 24 hours and eating floating chocolates.

As Massimino approached the one million mark last week, he tweeted, “getting close to a million,” and in less than an hour, he surpassed the mark by a few thousand. According to various twitter statistics, Massimino’s Twitter is ranked 139th by number of followers across all users and is ranked first in Houston, home of NASA’s astronauts.

“I cannot believe we got to one million followers,” said Massimino. “I am thrilled that so many people have been following and responding with such wonderful comments.”

While Twitter and the overall medium that is known as social media is sprawling, there’s a purpose and deeper meaning of having one million followers.

“I tweet because I feel very lucky to have, what in my opinion, is the best job in the world,” Massimino said.

And his followers agree.

“I have learned that there are so many people around the world who really love the space program and have a heartfelt interest in space travel – just like me.”

Some followers add they follow because they seek current space information, more understanding on space exploration and a unique perspective direct from the source that is found no place else on this world.

One follower even admitted enjoying Astro Mike’s “weekend tweets” like the one when he dropped a bag of groceries, forgetting that it won’t float, on adjusting to gravity soon after his return to Earth.

Micro-blogging from microgravity is trending among astronauts as popular topics are on Twitter.

About a dozen astronaut colleagues have joined Massimino and his million plus followers where the bird is the word and are answering the question: “what are you doing?” They offer varied perspectives of both training on Earth and flying in space. Among the NASA astronauts now active on twitter:

• Space Station Expedition 21 Flight Engineer and future Station Commander Jeff Williams, who launched aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan this week, has detailed his training and will provide updates on his flight via twitter, including video and still imagery (@Astro_Jeff).
• Aboard the space station, Expedition 21 Flight Engineer Nicole Stott, who traveled to the complex aboard mission STS-128 in September, is providing insights of her time in space (@Astro_Nicole).
• Astronauts and twins Mark Kelly and Scott Kelly, slated to respectively command the space shuttle and the International Space Station next year, are sharing their unique perspectives with the twitter community -- and with each other -- as they train at locations around the world (Mark Kelly is ; @shuttlecdrkelly; Scott Kelly is @stationcdrkelly).
• Astronaut Jose Hernandez, who just completed his first space flight on shuttle mission STS-128, last month provides NASA's first bilingual twitter in English and Spanish. Hernandez has provided insights on his training and his work inflight, and he is now posting details of his post-mission activities (@Astro_Jose).

More astronauts flying in space and training on Earth are expected to debut on twitter in the near future. All NASA astronauts active on twitter can be followed at @NASA_Astronauts: http://www.twitter.com/nasa_astronauts