Jan 23 2018
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-011 NASA Honors Its Fallen Heroes, Marks 15th Anniversary of Columbia Accident
NASA will pay will tribute to the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, as well as other NASA colleagues who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery, during the agency's annual Day of Remembrance on Thursday, Jan. 25.
NASA acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, and other agency senior officials, will lead an observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia starting at 10:25 a.m. EST. A wreath-laying ceremony will be held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, followed by observances for the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia crews. Media interested in attending the remembrance event must contact Arlington National Cemetery media relations officer Kerry Meeker at kerry.l.meeker.civ@mail.mil or 703-614-0024 no later than Wednesday, Jan. 24.
Various NASA centers also will hold observances on and leading up to the Day of Remembrance for the public, employees and the families of those lost in service to America’s space program, including Johnson Space Center in Houston and Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Astronauts Memorial Foundation will honor the astronauts who gave their lives for space exploration during a ceremony Jan. 25 at the Astronauts Memorial Foundation, located at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Speakers at the ceremony will include:
- Thad Altman, president and chief executive officer of the Astronauts Memorial Foundation
- Robert Cabana, Kennedy center director
- Eileen Collins, former space shuttle astronaut
- Karen Stevenson, daughter of Charles A. Bassett II
- Sally Kneuven, daughter of Elliot M. See Jr.
- Beth Williams, widow of Clifton C. Williams Jr.
- Brent Adams, son of Michael J. Adams
- Tal Ramon, son of Ilan Ramon
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-014 Celebrating 60 Years of America in Space on Jan. 31
Late in the evening of Jan. 31, 1958, the United States took its first step into space with the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The slender, 30-pound satellite would yield a major scientific discovery -- the Van Allen radiation belts circling our planet -- and ushered in six decades of groundbreaking U.S. space science and human exploration.
In commemoration of this achievement, NASA is supporting events in Florida, California, and Washington, D.C., to mark the 60th anniversary of the launch. The Florida event provides media with the opportunity to visit the historic Explorer 1 launch complex at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Anniversary events spotlight the historical significance of the Explorer 1 mission, the legacy of scientific accomplishments produced by America’s space program, and NASA’s continuing journey of discovery in space.
Six Decades of Earth Science Discoveries Thursday, Jan. 25, 7 p.m. PST NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), von Karman Auditorium, Pasadena, California
America’s very first space science discovery was made by the JPL-built Explorer 1. Join JPL historian Erik Conway, JPL Earth scientists Carmen Boening and Erika Podest and others for a conversation and multimedia journey that spans the dawn of American space science to the latest Earth-observing missions that are providing vital information about our planet. The event will be livestreamed and is open to the public.
The Explorer 1 Mission and the Discovery of Earth's Radiation Belts Wednesday, Jan. 31, 12:30-5:30 p.m. EST National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington
The Space Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine host a celebration of the Explorer 1 mission and the associated discovery of Earth’s radiation belts. Speakers, including NASA Associate Administrator for Science Thomas Zurbuchen, will discuss scientific and technological advances over the past six decades, the history of the mission and radiation belt discoveries, the latest results from NASA’s Van Allen Probes, and space missions observing the Earth system. The event will be live-streamed and is open to the public (advance registration required).
Media Opportunity at Explorer 1 Launch Complex Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2 p.m. EST Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Reporters are invited to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Explorer 1 launch and hear from speakers including Kennedy Space Center Director Robert Cabana and Explorer 1 launch weather officer John Meisenheimer. The event is open to U.S. citizens only. Media must RSVP for this event no later than noon Friday, Jan. 26. All media accreditation requests should be submitted online. For questions about accreditation, email ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov. For additional information about the event, contact Kennedy’s newsroom at 321-867-2468.
A new NASA website is available to provide the public with historical information about Explorer 1. The site contains archival imagery and an interactive timeline of American space science firsts: https://go.nasa.gov/Explorer1
High-resolution imagery and interviews related to the Explorer 1 launch and America’s six decades of space science missions are available for download at: https://explorer1.jpl.nasa.gov/media
America’s space program continues to build on 60 years of scientific exploration and discovery with new missions that will expand our view of the universe, our solar system and our home planet. During the next two years, NASA will launch the first spacecraft to “touch” the Sun, a space observatory that will search for the first light of the early universe, and a mission to explore the deep interior of Mars.
NASA also is leading the next steps of human exploration with missions to the Moon where astronauts will build and test systems needed for challenging voyages deeper into space, including Mars.
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-015 NASA Media Call Previews Upcoming Mission to Explore Atmospheric Border
NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Jan. 24, to discuss the upcoming launch of the agency’s mission to study where Earth’s atmosphere meets space.
The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission is NASA’s first science mission to fly as a hosted instrument aboard a commercial communications satellite launching from French Guiana. The launch window opens at approximately 5:20 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25.
Teleconference participants are:
- Elsayed Talaat, heliophysics chief scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington
- Richard Eastes, principal investigator at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder
- Susan Batiste, systems engineer at LASP/CU
- Katelynn Greer, GOLD research scientist at LASP/CU
For information to participate in the call, media should email their name and affiliation to Karen Fox, Karen.Fox@nasa.gov by 12:45 p.m. Jan. 24.
The teleconference will stream live at: https://www.nasa.gov/live
For visuals to support the briefing, mission video and other media resources, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/mediaresources
Live launch coverage will begin on NASA Television and the agency’s website at 5 p.m. Jan. 25. Coverage will include live-streaming from the Guiana Space Centre launch site and briefings from LASP and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
GOLD will seek to understand what drives change in this region of the upper atmosphere where terrestrial weather in the lower atmosphere interacts with the tumult of solar activity from above, as well as Earth’s magnetic field. Resulting data will improve forecasting models of space weather events that can impact radio communications and GPS signals, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.
The instrument will fly on SES-14, built by Airbus for SES S.A., a Luxembourg-based satellite operator. LASP built the instrument, and the mission is led by the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
