LANDSAT DATA CONTINUITY MISSION PRELAUNCH

FROM: NASA
Landsat Data Continuity Mission Prelaunch
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket with the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) spacecraft onboard is seen on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) mission is a collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey that will continue the Landsat program's 40-year data record of monitoring the Earth's landscapes from space. The spacecraft launched Feb. 11.

Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

MARINER 10 SHOWS A CLOUDY VENUS

FROM:  NASA
Mariner 10's Portrait of VenusOn Feb. 5, 1974, Mariner 10 took this first close-up photo of Venus.
Made using an ultraviolet filter in its imaging system, the photo has been color-enhanced to bring out Venus's cloudy atmosphere as the human eye would see it. Venus is perpetually blanketed by a thick veil of clouds high in carbon dioxide and its surface temperature approaches 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Launched on Nov. 3, 1973 atop an Atlas-Centaur rocket, Mariner 10 flew by Venus in 1974. Image Credit-NASA

MAGELLANIC CLOUD AND THE BIRTH OF STARS

FROM: NASA

Large Magellanic Cloud

Nearly 200,000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, floats in space, in a long and slow dance around our galaxy. Vast clouds of gas within it slowly collapse to form new stars. In turn, these light up the gas clouds in a riot of colors, visible in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is ablaze with star-forming regions. From the Tarantula Nebula, the brightest stellar nursery in our cosmic neighborhood, to LHA 120-N 11, part of which is featured in this Hubble image, the small and irregular galaxy is scattered with glowing nebulae, the most noticeable sign that new stars are being born.

Image Credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble

SPACECRAFT ON PARADE

FROM: NASA, NASA PHOTOS
Orion in the Inaugural Parade
The Orion space capsule along with NASA Astronauts Lee Morin, Alvin Drew, Kjell Lindgren, Serena Aunon, Kate Rubins, and Mike Massimino pass the Presidential viewing stand and President Barack Obama during the Inaugural Parade on Monday Jan. 21, 2013, in Washington, D.C.

Orion will carry future astronauts beyond Earth orbit to farther destinations than ever before.

Credit-NASA-Bill Ingalls

BEIJING AIR QUALITY AS SEEN FROM SPACE

FROM: NASA
Air Quality Suffering in China
Residents of Beijing and many other cities in China were warned to stay inside in mid-January 2013 as the nation faced one of the worst periods of air quality in recent history. The Chinese government ordered factories to scale back emissions, while hospitals saw spikes of more than 20 to 30 percent in patients complaining of respiratory issues, according to news reports.

At the time that this Jan. 14 image was taken by satellite, ground-based sensors at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing reported PM2.5 measurements of 291 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Fine, airborne particulate matter (PM) that is smaller than 2.5 microns (about one thirtieth the width of a human hair) is considered dangerous because it is small enough to enter the passages of the human lungs. Most PM2.5 aerosol particles come from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass (wood fires and agricultural burning). The World Health Organization considers PM2.5 to be safe when it is below 25.

Also at the time of the image, the air quality index (AQI) in Beijing was 341. An AQI above 300 is considered hazardous to all humans, not just those with heart or lung ailments. AQI below 50 is considered good. On January 12, the peak of the current air crisis, AQI was 775 the U.S Embassy Beijing Air Quality Monitor—off the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scale—and PM2.5 was 886 micrograms per cubic meter. Image Credit-NASA-Terra - MODIS

PREPARING AN ORION SPACE-CAPSULE

FROM: NASA

Orion Spacecraft
Technicians prepare to fit a special fixture around an Orion capsule inside the high bay of the Operations & Checkout Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The fixture is designed to enable precise pre-launch processing of the Orion spacecraft.

Orion will be the most advanced spacecraft ever designed and carry astronauts farther into space than ever before. It will sustain astronauts during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space and emergency abort capability. Orion will be launched by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS will enable new missions of exploration and expand human presence across the solar system.

Image Credit: NASA

CURRENT STATUS OF THE MARS ROVER MISSION



The NASA Mars rover Curiosity used its left Navigation Camera to record this view of the step down into a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay." Image credit: NASA-JPL-Caltech

FROM: NASA

Mission status report

PASADENA, Calif. -- The NASA Mars rover Curiosity this week is driving within a shallow depression called "Yellowknife Bay," providing information to help researchers choose a rock to drill.

Using Curiosity's percussive drill to collect a sample from the interior of a rock, a feat never before attempted on Mars, is the mission's priority for early 2013. After the powdered-rock sample is sieved and portioned by a sample-processing mechanism on the rover's arm, it will be analyzed by instruments inside Curiosity.

Yellowknife Bay is within a different type of terrain from what the rover has traversed since landing inside Mars' Gale Crater on Aug. 5, PDT (Aug. 6, UTC). The terrain Curiosity has entered is one of three types that intersect at a location dubbed "Glenelg," chosen as an interim destination about two weeks after the landing.

Curiosity reached the lip of a 2-foot (half-meter) descent into Yellowknife Bay with a 46-foot (14-meter) drive on Dec. 11. The next day, a drive of about 86 feet (26.1 meters) brought the rover well inside the basin. The team has been employing the Mast Camera (Mastcam) and the laser-wielding Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) for remote-sensing studies of rocks along the way.

On Dec. 14, Curiosity drove about 108 feet (32.8 meters) to reach rock targets of interest called "Costello" and "Flaherty." Researchers used the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) at the end of the rover's arm to examine the targets. After finishing those studies, the rover drove again on Dec. 17, traveling about 18 feet (5.6 meters) farther into Yellowknife Bay. That brings the mission's total driving distance to 0.42 mile (677 meters) since Curiosity's landing.

One additional drive is planned this week before the rover team gets a holiday break. Curiosity will continue studying the Martian environment from its holiday location at the end point of that drive within Yellowknife Bay. The mission's plans for most of 2013 center on driving toward the primary science destination, a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer) layered mound called Mount Sharp.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity during a two-year prime mission to assess whether areas inside Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbes. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

SOYUZ ROCKET TRAVELS TO THE LAUNCH PAD IN KAZAKHSTAN

 

FROM: NASA

Rocket Rollout

The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad by train, on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Launch of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 23. The rocket will send Expedition 33/34 Flight Engineer Kevin Ford of NASA, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy and Flight Engineer Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin of ROSCOSMOS on a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station.

Image Credit-NASA-Bill Ingalls

FINAL SHUTTLE SPACEWALK

 

FROM:  NASA
The Shuttle Era's Final Spacewalk
Spacewalker Mike Fossum rides on the International Space Station's robotic arm as he carries the Robotic Refueling Mission experiment. This was the final scheduled spacewalk during a shuttle mission.

Image Credit: NASA

TRITON, NEPTUNE'S LARGEST MOON

FROM:  NASA PHOTOS
Montage: Neptune and Triton
This computer generated montage shows Neptune as it would appear from a spacecraft approaching Triton, Neptune's largest moon. The wind and sublimation eroded south polar cap of Triton is shown at the bottom of the Triton image, a cryovolcanic terrain at the upper right, and the enigmatic "cantaloupe terrain" at the upper left. Voyager 2 flew by Triton and Neptune on Aug. 29, 1989.

Credit: NASA 

SOYUZ TMA-03M SPACECRAFT LANDS

The Soyuz TMA-03M spacecraft is seen as it lands with Expedition 31 Commander Oleg Kononenko of Russia and Flight Engineers Don Pettit of NASA and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Sunday, July 1, 2012. Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers returned from more than six months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 30 and 31 crews. Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

IMAGE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

FROM:  NASA
Psychedelic Space
This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit said of the about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure." A total of 18 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create  this composite.
Image Credit: NASA

HOUSTON WORKSHOP MARKS KEY STEP IN PLANNING FUTURE MARS MISSIONS

Photo:  The Famous Face On Mars.  Credit:  NASA.

FROM:  NASA
WASHINGTON -- A recent workshop conducted for NASA by the Lunar and 
Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston, marked a key step in the 
agency's effort to forge a new Mars strategy in the coming decades. A 
report that summarizes the wide range of cutting-edge science, 
technology and mission concepts discussed is available online. 

Held in Houston June 12-14 and attended by scientists and engineers 
worldwide, the meeting was held to seek ideas, concepts and 
capabilities to address critical challenge areas in exploring the Red 
Planet. Discussions provided information for reformulating NASA's 
Mars Exploration Program (MEP) to be responsive to high-priority 
science goals and the challenge of sending humans to Mars orbit in 
the 2030s. 

Participants identified a number of possible approaches to missions 
that can be flown to Mars in the coming decade that would make 
progress toward returning Martian samples -- a top priority of the 
Planetary Science Decadal Survey -- and make significant advances in 
scientific understanding of the planet, developing key technologies 
and advancing knowledge necessary for human exploration on and around 
Mars. 

NASA's Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG), tasked with developing 
options for a reformulated MEP, will consider the workshop inputs in 
addition to budgetary, programmatic, scientific and technical 
constraints. 

"Scientists and engineers came together to present their most creative 
ideas for exploring Mars," said John Grunsfeld, an astronaut, 
astrophysicist and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Great ideas come 
from challenging the best and brightest and igniting their passion 
and determination to succeed." 

The MPPG reports to Grunsfeld, who chairs the agency-wide Mars 
reformulation effort along with William Gerstenmaier, NASA's 
associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission 
Directorate, Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati and Chief Technologist 
Mason Peck. The official draft MPPG report is expected to be 
delivered to NASA for review at the end of the summer. 

Concepts put forth tapped into significant benefits that could be 
gained from technology investments by NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, 
and Office of the Chief Technologist. The participants also stressed 
the importance of establishing international collaboration early in 
the planning process and sustaining it throughout future missions. 

"Future Mars exploration missions will require new concepts and 
technologies," said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space 
Technology Program. "There were many innovative and transformational 
concepts presented at the workshop. With continued investments in 
cutting-edge technology, these will lead to increased capability, 
reduced mission risk and lower mission costs." 

Workshop attendance included almost 200 scientists, engineers and 
graduate students from academia, NASA centers, federal laboratories, 
industry, and international partner organizations. More than 1,600 
people participated online as the workshop proceedings were streamed 
live on the Internet. 

"The LPI workshop provided a broad set of ideas for Mars exploration, 
including synergies between science, human exploration and technology 
development," Gerstenmaier said. "The number of workshop participants 
demonstrates the broad interest in Mars exploration." 

The workshop provided a forum for broad community input on near-term 
mission concepts. Ideas for longer-term activities will be used to 
inform program architecture planning beyond the early 2020s. Workshop 
results represent individual perspectives from members of the 
scientific and technical community. 

"The scientific and technical community has given us quite a range of 
ideas to consider in reformulating the Mars Exploration Program," 
said Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program at 
the agency's headquarters. "Many concepts presented are highly 
relevant to the challenges the MPPG must address." 

NASA will land its most advanced rover, Curiosity, on the surface of 
Mars in August. This mobile science laboratory will assess whether 
the past or present environment on Mars could support life. In 2013, 
NASA will launch the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, 
the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper 
atmosphere. 

FAA & NASA AGREE ON REGULATION OF COMMERCIAL SPACECRAFT

Photo:  Launch Of Commercial Spacecraft SpaceX Dragon To The ISS.    

Credit:  NASA.

FROM:  NASA
WASHINGTON -- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA have 
signed a historic agreement to coordinate standards for commercial 
space travel of government and non-government astronauts to and from 
low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS). The two 
agencies will collaborate to expand efforts that provide a stable 
framework for the U.S. space industry, avoid conflicting requirements 
and multiple sets of standards, and advance both public and crew 
safety. 

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the two agencies 
establishes policy for operational missions to the space station. 
Commercial providers will be required to obtain a license from the 
FAA for public safety. Crew safety and mission assurance will be 
NASA's responsibility. This approach allows both agencies to 
incorporate experience and lessons learned as progress is made. 

"This important agreement between the FAA and NASA will advance our 
shared goals in commercial space travel," said U.S. Transportation 
Secretary Ray LaHood. "Working together, we will assure clear, 
consistent standards for the industry." 

"This agreement is the next step in bringing the business of launching 
Americans back to American soil," Charles Bolden, NASA administrator 
said. "We are fostering private sector innovation while maintaining 
high standards of safety and reliability to re-establish U.S.-crewed 
access to low-Earth orbit, in-sourcing work to American companies and 
encouraging the development of dynamic and cost-effective spaceflight 
capabilities built to last." 

"The Obama administration recognizes the scientific, technological and 
economic benefits of maintaining the United States' leadership in 
space travel and exploration," said FAA Acting Administrator Michael 
Huerta. "This agreement between the FAA and NASA continues and 
advances those vital national interests." 

NASA's Commercial Crew Program aims to facilitate development of a 
U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of 
achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from 
low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The policy 
established in the MOU clarifies for potential commercial providers 
the regulatory environment for operational missions to the orbiting 
laboratory. It also ensures that the two agencies will have 
compatible processes for ensuring public safety. 

The FAA is responsible for regulating and licensing all U.S. private 
companies and individuals involved in commercial space 
transportation. To date, the FAA Office of Commercial Space 
Transportation has licensed 207 successful launches, including two 
non-orbital commercial human space flights in 2004 and the recent 
first launch to the ISS and re-entry of a non-manned commercial 
spacecraft.

A VOYAGER TO INTERSTELLAR SPACE

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech  

FROM:  NASA

Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion – that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system.

"The laws of physics say that someday Voyager will become the first human-made object to enter interstellar space, but we still do not know exactly when that someday will be," said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The latest data indicate that we are clearly in a new region where things are changing more quickly. It is very exciting. We are approaching the solar system's frontier."

The data making the 16-hour-38 minute, 11.1-billion-mile (17.8-billion-kilometer), journey from Voyager 1 to antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network on Earth detail the number of charged particles measured by the two High Energy telescopes aboard the 34-year-old spacecraft. These energetic particles were generated when stars in our cosmic neighborhood went supernova.

"From January 2009 to January 2012, there had been a gradual increase of about 25 percent in the amount of galactic cosmic rays Voyager was encountering," said Stone. "More recently, we have seen very rapid escalation in that part of the energy spectrum. Beginning on May 7, the cosmic ray hits have increased five percent in a week and nine percent in a month."

This marked increase is one of a triad of data sets which need to make significant swings of the needle to indicate a new era in space exploration. The second important measure from the spacecraft's two telescopes is the intensity of energetic particles generated inside the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles the sun blows around itself. While there has been a slow decline in the measurements of these energetic particles, they have not dropped off precipitously, which could be expected when Voyager breaks through the solar boundary.

The final data set that Voyager scientists believe will reveal a major change is the measurement in the direction of the magnetic field lines surrounding the spacecraft. While Voyager is still within the heliosphere, these field lines run east-west. When it passes into interstellar space, the team expects Voyager will find that the magnetic field lines orient in a more north-south direction. Such analysis will take weeks, and the Voyager team is currently crunching the numbers of its latest data set.

"When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the space age was all of 20 years old," said Stone. "Many of us on the team dreamed of reaching interstellar space, but we really had no way of knowing how long a journey it would be -- or if these two vehicles that we invested so much time and energy in would operate long enough to reach it.”

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and 2 are in good health. Voyager 2 is more than 9.1 billion miles (14.7 billion kilometers) away from the sun. Both are operating as part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission, an extended mission to explore the solar system outside the neighborhood of the outer planets and beyond. NASA's Voyagers are the two most distant active representatives of humanity and its desire to explore.

The Voyager spacecraft were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

. 

VENUS PASSES BY THE SUN

FROM:  NASA
This image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows Venus as it nears the disk of
The sun on June 5, 2012.  Venus’s 2012 transit will be the last such event until 2117. Photo:  NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory.

LATE AFTERNOON ON MARS

FROM:  NASA

NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity catches its own late-afternoon shadow in this dramatically lit view eastward across Endeavour Crater on Mars. The rover used the panoramic camera (Pancam) between about 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. local Mars time to record images taken through different filters and combined into this mosaic view. Most of the component images were recorded during the 2,888th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars (March 9, 2012). At that time, Opportunity was spending low-solar-energy weeks of the Martian winter at the Greeley Haven outcrop on the Cape York segment of Endeavour's western rim. In order to give the mosaic a rectangular aspect, some small parts of the edges of the mosaic and sky were filled in with parts of an image acquired earlier as part of a 360-degree panorama from the same location. Opportunity has been studying the western rim of Endeavour Crater since arriving there in August 2011. This crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, or about the same area as the city of Seattle. This is more than 20 times wider than Victoria Crater, the largest impact crater that Opportunity had previously examined. The interior basin of Endeavour is in the upper half of this view. The mosaic combines about a dozen images taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see, such as the dark sandy ripples and dunes on the crater's distant floor. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

NASA ADMINISTRATOR CALLS STATION FOLLOWING SPACEX HISTORIC FEAT

FROM:  NASA
Photo:  SpacX  Prepares For Launch. Credit: NASA  
WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden offered his
congratulations to the International Space Station Expedition 31 crew
and mission flight control teams at NASA's Johnson Space Center in
Houston and SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., following
Friday's successful first-time berthing of a commercial company
spacecraft, SpaceX's Dragon, to the space station.

Bolden talked with NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Joe Acaba, and
European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers during a call to the
space station Friday afternoon live on NASA Television. Bolden told
the crew, "You made history today and have firmly locked into place
the future direction of America's space program."

To view the call between Bolden and the Expedition 31 astronauts,
visit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Smw7rz1FU

At 9:56 a.m. EDT Friday, Pettit used the station's robotic arm to
grapple Dragon. Kuipers then used the arm to attach the capsule to
the station's Harmony node at 11:52 a.m. Acaba completed berthing
operations by remotely bolting the Dragon to Harmony at 12:02 p.m.
The crew members spent the rest of their day preparing to open the
hatches between the two spacecraft on Saturday morning.

The SpaceX demonstration mission to the space station is the second
under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program,
which provides investments intended to lead to regular resupply
missions to the station and stimulate the commercial space industry
in the United States.

RESEARCHER TO HELP DEVELOP USES FOR NEW MATERIALS

Photo:  Solar Sail Testing.  Credit:  NASA
FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARMED WITH SCIENCE
ONR Researcher Tapped For Role In National Materials Genome Initiative 
Written on MAY 26, 2012 AT 7:31 AM by JTOZER
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has selected an Office of Naval Research (ONR) director to serve as co-deputy chair of an interagency subcommittee tasked with speeding the advancement of new materials.

Dr. Julie Christodoulou, division director of naval materials in ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons department, became one of three co-deputy chairs of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee for the Materials Genome Initiative. The subcommittee is supporting the Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness (MGI), part of President Obama’s plan to accelerate the standard decades-long process to discover, mature and manufacture new materials.

Just as the Human Genome Project rejuvenated and spurred the growth of biological sciences by decoding the fundamental building blocks of human genetics, MGI is a national effort to build a materials innovation infrastructure that will accelerate the discovery and incorporation of materials in half the time and at a reduced cost of traditional approaches.

It took nearly 40 years for lithium-ion batteries to go from material discovery and development to mass market consumption.

With investment in the MGI, officials aim to gain efficiency in the scientific discovery process and accelerate commercial adaptation. Scientists supporting the initiative will advance computational tools that encourage collaboration throughout the development, certification, implementation and manufacturing processes of new materials, which will also shorten the transition time into commercial products.

“The purpose is to advance our experimental and computational tools, and to establish data-sharing protocols and ways of working together,” said Christodoulou. “That’s what all of this is about—trying to seed that infrastructure so that people have a way to work in this collaborative environment, which we believe is really going to make a difference in the world of materials science.”

Christodoulou will help oversee the effort with her co-deputy chairs, Dr. Charles Ward of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Dr. Ian Robertson of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Dr. Cyrus Wadia, who is OSTP’s assistant director for clean energy and materials research and development, is the subcommittee chairman.

Federal agencies participating in the initiative include the departments of energy, commerce and defense; the National Institute of Standards and Technology; NSF; and NASA.

ONR has been at the forefront of funding basic research to help scientists discover, improve and incorporate new materials. The MGI will assist in focusing national attention, allowing the collective harnessing of similar but disparate interests, ultimately leading to more rapid advancement of materials for national security needs.
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THE STRATCOM MISSION

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ARMED WITH SCIENCE
A beautiful prominence eruption producing a coronal mass ejection (CME) shot off the east limb (left side) of the sun on April 16, 2012. Such eruptions are often associated with solar flares, and in this case an M1 class (medium-sized) flare occurred at the same time, peaking at 1:45 PM EDT. The CME was not aimed toward Earth. (From NASA Goddard) 

Written on MAY 15, 2012 AT 7:24 AM by JTOZER
Space Weather, satellites and the Sun
When service members go out on patrol, they keep a weather eye out for any dangers or unknown variables that might impact the mission.  When space surveillance specialists go out on the job, they’re keeping an eye on the skies, and in more ways than one.

Space surveillance is a critical part of STRATCOM‘s mission and involves detecting, tracking, cataloging and identifying man-made objects orbiting Earth, i.e. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris.

Space surveillance can predict when and where a decaying space object will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and prevent a returning space object.  To radar, these can look like a missile, and even trigger a false alarm from missile-attack warning sensors of the U.S. and other countries.

Therefore, it’s important that we monitor the skies as much as we monitor anything that impacts us as a nation, and in this case, as a planet.

Space surveillance can also chart the present position of space objects and plot their anticipated orbital paths.  This means detecting new man-made objects in space, producing a running catalog of man-made space objects, determining which country owns a re-entering space object, and  informing NASA whether or not objects may interfere with the space shuttle and Russian Mir space station orbits.

The command accomplishes these tasks through its Space Surveillance Network (SSN) ofU.S. Army, Navy and Air Force operated, ground-based radar’s and optical sensors at 25 sites worldwide.

One of the things that affects our satellites – and something we have to be cognizant of – is space weather, and specifically, solar weather.  Dr. Alex Young, Solar Physicist at theNASA Goddard Space Flight Center, explains how the sun is making scientific waves in our daily lives.