Aug 2 2012
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY: 12-260 NASA, LOUISIANA OFFICIALS RENEW PARTNERSHIP WITH NATIONAL CENTER FOR ADVANCED MANUFACTURING
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA and Louisiana leaders Thursday committed to a five-year extension of their partnership in the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing (NCAM). NCAM is a principal NASA resource in Louisiana that supports aerospace manufacturing research, development and innovation critical to the goals of the nation's space program. NCAM was formed in 1999 and includes NASA, NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and the University of New Orleans. This new agreement will expand the NCAM partnership to include Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, which has engineering and research capabilities that can assist NCAM in fulfilling the nation's aerospace technology needs. About 400 of the 2,600 employees at the multi-use, multi-tenant Michoud facility are associated with and benefit from NCAM. The partners strive to improve U.S. competitiveness in aerospace and commercial markets, and enable transfer of technology to industry partners and educational institutions within the partnership and across the nation. NCAM also has a strong education role, sponsoring a consortium of Louisiana research universities developing advanced materials and manufacturing technologies key to the production of aerospace hardware and structures. ?Advanced manufacturing is a matter of fundamental importance to the economic strength and national security of the United States,?NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. ?The President's manufacturing initiative is helping us forge partnerships like this that are closing the gap between research and development activities and the deployment of technological innovations in domestic production of goods. And at NASA, whether we're developing needed technologies for space exploration or advancing the nation's aeronautics capabilities, great ideas are benefiting our nation, creating jobs and making life better here on Earth.? NASA and the state of Louisiana enhanced the NCAM partnership beginning in 2004 with a joint investment of more than $62 million to date. Their key goals are to promote growth of Louisiana's trained aerospace workforce and sustain world-class manufacturing capabilities, such as those at Michoud, where work is under way on elements of NASA's Space Launch System, the heavy-lift vehicle that will usher in a new era of exploration and discovery beyond Earth orbit. "This renewed agreement reflects and amplifies NASA's long commitment to sustaining a strong, technologically trained work force in New Orleans and across Louisiana," said Marshall Center Associate Director Robin Henderson. "The National Center for Advanced Manufacturing has proven itself vital to NASA's work at Michoud and to the agency's overall mission of exploration and discovery." Under the newly restructured NCAM agreement, NASA and its academic and industry partners will continue to work jointly on research, development and test activities to meet future space systems needs. New goals for NCAM are intensive new education outreach across the greater New Orleans region through a partnership with the University of New Orleans and expansion of NCAM research and development activities on a national scale.
RELEASE: 12-262 DUST DOMINATES FOREIGN AEROSOL IMPORTS TO NORTH AMERICA
WASHINGTON -- NASA and university scientists have made the first measurement-based estimate of the amount and composition of tiny airborne particles that arrive in the air over North America each year. With a 3-D view of the atmosphere now possible from satellites, the scientists calculated that dust, not pollution, is the main ingredient of these imports. According to a new analysis of NASA satellite data, 64 million tons of dust, pollution and other particles that have potential climate and human health effects survive a trans-ocean journey to arrive over North America each year. This is nearly as much as the estimated 69 million tons of aerosols produced domestically from natural processes, transportation and industrial sources. The results were published Aug. 2 in the journal Science. "This first-of-a-kind assessment is a crucial step toward better understanding how these tiny but abundant materials move around the planet and impact climate change and air quality," says Hongbin Yu, lead author and an atmospheric scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Observing these microscopic airborne particles and quantifying their global impact on warming or cooling Earth remains one of the most difficult challenges of climate science. Dust and pollution particles rise into the atmosphere and can travel for days across numerous national boundaries before settling to Earth. Data from several research satellites with advanced observing technology developed and launched by NASA enabled the scientists to distinguish particle types and determine their heights in the atmosphere. They combined that information with wind speed data to estimate the amount of pollution and dust arriving over North America. The scientists used data from instruments on NASA's Terra satellite and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite, a joint effort between NASA and the French space agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales. Yu and colleagues estimated that dust crossing the Pacific Ocean accounts for 88 percent, or 56 million tons, of the total particle import to North America every year. Dust movement is particularly active in spring, when the rise of cyclones and strong mid-latitude westerlies boost particle transport across the Pacific. Global aerosol transport models revealed Asia was a primary source of the dust reaching North America. Sixty percent to 70 percent comes from Asia and the remaining 30 percent to 40 percent comes from Africa and the Middle East. Dust particles are fine pieces of minerals that primarily come from dry, desert-like regions. Winds lift these lightweight particles high into the atmosphere where they meet even faster-moving winds capable of transporting them around the planet. Pollution particles, in contrast, come from combustion sources such as wildfires or agricultural fires and fossil fuel burning for power and industry. These particles are emitted close to the ground, making them of prime interest to air quality researchers and managers. High-altitude dust particles are less a concern for human health, but their impact on climate can be significant. One such impact on climate is a cooling effect, brought about by dust and some pollution particles that reflect sunlight back to space. The team calculated that the imported particles account for one third of the reduction in solar radiation, or solar dimming, over North America. "Globally this can mask some of the warming we expect from greenhouse gases," says Lorraine Remer, an atmospheric scientist at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and co-author on the study. Climate change brought about by greenhouse gases could influence the relevance of dust in the future, according to Remer. "Desertification and reclamation, the land use modifications that change the exposure of dusty soils to wind erosion, are going to have a big impact on particle distribution and climate around the planet," she says. The study poses new questions about the magnitude of the particles' indirect effects on local weather and climate. Dust and pollution could alter wind circulation, foster cloud growth and affect rainfall patterns. Soot and dust particles that land on snow, most likely in the western United States, could speed the melt of the snowpack and affect water supplies.
RELEASE: 12-264 NEWEST NASA MARS MISSION CONNECTS PAST AND FUTURE
WASHINGTON -- NASA's newest Mars mission, landing in three days, will draw on support from missions sent to Mars years ago and will contribute to missions envisioned for future decades. "Curiosity is a bold step forward in learning about our neighboring planet, but this mission does not stand alone. It is part of a sustained, coordinated program of Mars exploration," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This mission transitions the program's science emphasis from the planet's water history to its potential for past or present life." As the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft places the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars next week, NASA will be using the Mars Odyssey orbiter, in service since 2001, as a relay for rapidly confirming the landing to Curiosity's flight team and the rest of the world. Earth will be below the Mars horizon from Curiosity's perspective, so the new rover will not be in direct radio contact with Earth. Two newer orbiters also will be recording Curiosity's transmissions, but that data will not be available on Earth until hours later. When Curiosity lands beside a mountain inside a crater at about 1:31 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6 (10:31 p.m. PDT Aug. 5), the 1-ton rover's two-year prime mission on the surface of Mars will begin. However, one of the rover's 10 science instruments, the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), already has logged 221 days collecting data since the spacecraft was launched on its trip to Mars on Nov. 26, 2011. "Our observations already are being used in planning for human missions," said Don Hassler of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., principal investigator for Curiosity's RAD. The instrument recorded radiation spikes from five solar flare events spewing energetic particles from the sun into interplanetary space. Radiation from galactic cosmic rays, originating from supernova explosions and other extremely distant events, accounted for more of the total radiation experienced on the trip than the amount from solar particle events. Inside the spacecraft, despite shielding roughly equivalent to what surrounds astronauts on the International Space Station, RAD recorded radiation amounting to a significant contribution to a NASA astronaut's career-limit radiation dose. Curiosity's main assignment is to investigate whether its study area ever has offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life. To do that, it packs a science payload weighing 15 times as much as the science instruments on previous Mars rovers. The landing target, an area about 12 miles by 4 miles (20 kilometers by 7 kilometers), sits in a safely flat area between less-safe slopes of the rim of Gale Crater and the crater's central peak, informally called Mount Sharp. The target was plotted to be within driving distance of layers on Mount Sharp, where minerals that formed in water have been seen from orbit. "Some deposits right inside the landing area look as though they were deposited by water, too," said John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, project scientist for Curiosity. "We have a great landing site that was a strong science contender for earlier missions, but was not permitted for engineering constraints because no earlier landing could be targeted precisely enough to hit a safe area inside Gale Crater. The science team feels very optimistic about exploration of Mount Sharp and the surrounding region that includes the landing ellipse." Mission engineers designed a sky crane maneuver, lowering Curiosity on nylon cords from a rocket backpack because the rover is too heavy to use the airbag system developed for earlier rovers. "We know it looks crazy," said Adam Steltzner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, leader of the team that developed the system. "It really is the result of careful choices." By designing the aeroshell enclosing Curiosity to create lift and be steerable, engineers were able to build a system that lands much more precisely instead of dropping like a rock. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the Mars Science Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
