Jun 29 2009
From The Space Library
NASA announced the selection of nine candidates, from among 3,500 applicants, to form the 2009 astronaut candidate class. The six men and three women made up the first group of astronaut recruits in five years and the twentieth class since the selection of the original Mercury astronauts in 1959. With ages ranging from 30 to 43, the group represented a mix of military and civilian recruits, including a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) technical intelligence officer, two NASA flight surgeons, a space station flight controller, a molecular biologist, two Navy test pilots, a U.S. Air Force test pilot, and the special assistant to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. NASA had scheduled the start of the class’s two-year training for August 2009. With the SSP slated to end in 2010, the likelihood that any member of the 2009 class would fly aboard the Shuttle was extremely low. Therefore, the new astronauts would likely train only for ISS missions and for flight aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicles, as well as aboard the Shuttle’s replacement spacecraft.
NASA, “NASA Selects Nine New Astronauts for Future Space Exploration,” news release 09-149, 29 June 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jun/HQ_09-149_New_Astronauts.html (accessed 22 July 2011); Tariq Malik, “NASA Unveils Astronaut Class that Will Never Fly on Shuttle,” Space.com, 26 June 2009, http://www.space.com/6900-nasa-unveils-astronaut-class-fly-shuttle.html (accessed 25 July 2011).
NASA and Japan released a new digital topographic map of Earth, produced with detailed measurements from the Japanese Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra spacecraft. The map covered the largest portion of Earth mapped to date. Previously, NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, mapping 80 percent of Earth’s landmass, had provided the most complete topographic set of data publicly available. The new ASTER data expanded the coverage to 99 percent, filling in many gaps in the Shuttle mission’s data, including very steep terrain and some desert areas. Michael J. Abrams, ASTER Science Team Leader at NASA’s JPL, explained the map’s value to the Earth sciences and its practical applications, saying that researchers would use the accurate topographic data for city planning, conserving natural resources, energy exploration, engineering, environmental management, firefighting, geology, public works design, and recreation, among many other subjects. NASA and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry planned to contribute the ASTER data to the Group on Earth Observations, an international partnership headquartered at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland. The WMO would use the data in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, a collaborative effort to share and integrate Earth observation data from various instruments and systems, to monitor and forecast global environmental changes.
NASA, “NASA Japan Release Most Complete Topographic Map of Earth,” news release 09-150, 29 June 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jun/HQ_09-150_ASTER_Topographic_Map.html (accessed 22 July 2011).
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