Jan 21 2010
From The Space Library
RELEASE: C10-032
NASA AWARDS CONTRACT FOR SPONSORED RESEARCH AND EDUCATION SUPPORT SERVICES
WASHINGTON -- NASA awards Smart Global Solutions JV LLC of Silver Spring, Md., the Sponsored Research and Education Support Services (SRESS) contract. The cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract has a two-year base ordering period and a three-year optional ordering period. The minimum contract value is $5 million with a maximum value of $100 million. The contractor will provide administrative, logistical, and information technology support for the peer review and project management activities of NASA's sponsored research and education programs. The SRESS contractor supports workshops with research communities to help define objectives, assists in the development of broad agency announcements, receives and manages notices of intent and proposals and assists NASA in various post-selection management functions.
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MEDIA ADVISORY: 10-121
SPACECRAFT REVEALS SMALL SOLAR EVENTS HAVE LARGE SCALE EFFECTS
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, has allowed scientists for the first time to comprehensively view the dynamic nature of storms on the sun. Solar storms have been recognized as a cause of technological problems on Earth since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), one of three instruments aboard SDO, allowed scientists to discover that even minor solar events are never truly small scale. Shortly after AIA opened its doors on March 30, scientists observed a large eruptive prominence on the sun's edge, followed by a filament eruption a third of the way across the star's disk from the eruption. "Even small events restructure large regions of the solar surface, said Alan Title, AIA principal investigator at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif. It's been possible to recognize the size of these regions because of the combination of spatial, temporal and area coverage provided by AIA. The AIA instrument also has observed a number of very small flares that have generated magnetic instabilities and waves with clearly-observed effects over a substantial fraction of the solar surface. The instrument is capturing full-disk images in eight different temperature bands that span 10,000 to 36-million degrees Fahrenheit. This allows scientists to observe entire events that are very difficult to discern by looking in a single temperature band, at a slower rate, or over a more limited field of view. The data from SDO is providing a torrent of new information and spectacular images to be studied and interpreted. Using AIA's high-resolution and nearly continuous full-disk images of the sun, scientists have a better understanding of how even small events on our nearest star can significantly impact technological infrastructure on Earth. Solar storms produce disturbances in electromagnetic fields that can induce large currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing widespread blackouts. The storms can interfere with global positioning systems, cable television, and communications between ground controllers and satellites and airplane pilots flying near Earth's poles. Radio noise from solar storms also can disrupt cell phone service. Launched in Feb. 2010, the spacecraft's commissioning May 14 confirmed all three of its instruments successfully passed an on-orbit checkout, were calibrated and are collecting science data. "We're already at five million images and counting, said Dean Pesnell, the SDO project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. With data and images pouring in from SDO, solar scientists are poised to make discoveries that will rewrite the books on how changes in solar activity have a direct effect on Earth. The observatory is working great, and it's just going to get better. Goddard built, operates and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star Program. The program's goal is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.
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CONTRACT RELEASE: C10-006
NASA SELECTS PROGRAMMATIC AND INSTITUTIONAL LEARNING SERVICES CONTRACTOR
WASHINGTON -- NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has selected Zantech IT Services Inc. of McLean, Va., for the Programmatic and Institutional Learning Services contract. The total value of this fixed price, indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contract is $45 million. The effective ordering period is five years. Zantech IT Services will provide logistical and coordination support services to NASA Headquarters and Goddard for events and will assist in the distribution of administrative, scientific and technical information. Events may include conferences, peer reviews, colloquia, symposia, workshops, tradeshows and various other meeting formats. Events may be held at various locations including local, national, and international sites. Event attendees may include representatives from other agencies, state governments, private industry, research facilities, and U.S. and foreign higher education institutions.
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CONTRACT RELEASE: C10-001
NASA AWARDS GODDARD UNIFIED ENTERPRISE SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY CONTRACT
GREENBELT -- NASA has selected ASRC Primus of Greenbelt, Md., for the Goddard Unified Enterprise Services and Technology (GUEST), Fixed Price-Incentive indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contract. The five-year contract has a minimum value of $2 million and a maximum value of $229 million. ASRC Primus will develop, integrate, sustain, and manage the information technology infrastructure and systems for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in the areas of information systems management, business infrastructure and application development, system administration, and network design. The contract encompasses all phases of information technology project implementation, design and development, integration, operations, maintenance, sustaining engineering, data administration, system administration and management.
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RELEASE: 10-091
NASA'S NEW EYE ON THE SUN DELIVERS STUNNING FIRST IMAGES
WASHINGTON -- NASA's recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is returning early images that confirm an unprecedented new capability for scientists to better understand our sun's dynamic processes. These solar activities affect everything on Earth. Some of the images from the spacecraft show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun's surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution measurements of solar flares in a broad range of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. "These initial images show a dynamic sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research, said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. SDO will change our understanding of the sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society. This mission will have a huge impact on science, similar to the impact of the Hubble Space Telescope on modern astrophysics. Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun. During its five-year mission, it will examine the sun's magnetic field and also provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate. Since launch, engineers have been conducting testing and verification of the spacecraft's components. Now fully operational, SDO will provide images with clarity 10 times better than high-definition television and will return more comprehensive science data faster than any other solar observing spacecraft. SDO will determine how the sun's magnetic field is generated, structured and converted into violent solar events such as turbulent solar wind, solar flares and coronal mass ejections. These immense clouds of material, when directed toward Earth, can cause large magnetic storms in our planet's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere. SDO will provide critical data that will improve the ability to predict these space weather events. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., built, operates and manages the SDO spacecraft for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "I'm so proud of our brilliant work force at Goddard, which is rewriting science textbooks once again. said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NASA. This time Goddard is shedding new light on our closest star, the sun, discovering new information about powerful solar flares that affect us here on Earth by damaging communication satellites and temporarily knocking out power grids. Better data means more accurate solar storm warnings. Space weather has been recognized as a cause of technological problems since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century. These events produce disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing widespread blackouts. These solar storms can interfere with communications between ground controllers, satellites and airplane pilots flying near Earth's poles. Radio noise from the storm also can disrupt cell phone service. SDO will send 1.5 terabytes of data back to Earth each day, which is equivalent to a daily download of half a million songs onto an MP3 player. The observatory carries three state-of the-art instruments for conducting solar research. The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager maps solar magnetic fields and looks beneath the sun's opaque surface. The experiment will decipher the physics of the sun's activity, taking pictures in several very narrow bands of visible light. Scientists will be able to make ultrasound images of the sun and study active regions in a way similar to watching sand shift in a desert dune. The instrument's principal investigator is Phil Scherrer of Stanford University. HMI was built by a collaboration of Stanford University and the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly is a group of four telescopes designed to photograph the sun's surface and atmosphere. The instrument covers 10 different wavelength bands, or colors, selected to reveal key aspects of solar activity. These types of images will show details never seen before by scientists. The principal investigator is Alan Title of the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, which built the instrument. The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment measures fluctuations in the sun's radiant emissions. These emissions have a direct and powerful effect on Earth's upper atmosphere -- heating it, puffing it up, and breaking apart atoms and molecules. Researchers don't know how fast the sun can vary at many of these wavelengths, so they expect to make discoveries about flare events. The principal investigator is Tom Woods of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. LASP built the instrument. "These amazing images, which show our dynamic sun in a new level of detail, are only the beginning of SDO's contribution to our understanding of the sun, said SDO Project Scientist Dean Pesnell of Goddard. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star Program, or LWS, and the crown jewel in a fleet of NASA missions that study our sun and space environment. The goal of LWS is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society. To view the images and learn more about the SDO mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/sdo
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