Sep 5 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-305 NASA VOYAGE SET TO EXPLORE LINK BETWEEN SEA SALTINESS AND CLIMATE

WASHINGTON -- A NASA-sponsored expedition is set to sail to the North Atlantic's saltiest spot to get a detailed, 3-D picture of how salt content fluctuates in the ocean's upper layers and how these variations are related to shifts in rainfall patterns around the planet. The research voyage is part of a multi-year mission, dubbed the Salinity Processes in the Upper Ocean Regional Study (SPURS), which will deploy multiple instruments in different regions of the ocean. The new data also will help calibrate the salinity measurements NASA's Aquarius instrument has been collecting from space since August 2011. SPURS scientists aboard the research vessel Knorr leave Sept. 6 from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., and head toward a spot known as the Atlantic surface salinity maximum, located halfway between the Bahamas and the western coast of North Africa. The expedition also is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. The researchers will spend about three weeks on site deploying instruments and taking salinity, temperature and other measurements, before sailing to the Azores to complete the voyage on Oct. 9. They will return with new data to aid in understanding one of the most worrisome effects of climate change -- the acceleration of Earth's water cycle. As global temperatures go up, evaporation increases, altering the frequency, strength, and distribution of rainfall around the planet, with far-reaching implications for life on Earth. "What if the drought in the U.S. Midwest became permanent? To understand whether that could happen we must understand the water cycle and how it will change as the climate continues to warm," said Raymond Schmitt, a physical oceanographer at Woods Hole and principal investigator for SPURS. "Getting that right is going to involve understanding the ocean, because the ocean is the source of most of the water." Oceanographers believe the ocean retains a better record of changes in precipitation than land, and translates these changes into variations in the salt concentration of its surface waters. Scientists studying the salinity records of the past 50 years say they already see the footprint of an increase in the speed of the water cycle. The places in the ocean where evaporation has increased and rain has become scarcer have turned saltier over time, while the spots that now receive more rain have become fresher. This acceleration ultimately may exacerbate droughts and floods around the planet. Some climate models, however, predict less dramatic changes in the global water cycle. "With SPURS we hope to find out why these climate models do not track our observations of changing salinities," said Eric Lindstrom, physical oceanography program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We will investigate to what extent the observed salinity trends are a signature of a change in evaporation and precipitation over the ocean versus the ocean's own processes, such as the mixing of salty surface waters with deeper and fresher waters or the sideways transport of salt." To learn more about what drives salinity, the SPURS researchers will deploy an array of instruments and platforms, including autonomous gliders, sensor-laden buoys and unmanned underwater vehicles. Some will be collected before the research vessel heads to the Azores, but others will remain in place for a year or more, providing scientists with data on seasonal variations of salinity. Some of the devices used during SPURS to explore the Atlantic's saltiest spot will focus on the outer edges of the study area, traveling for hundreds of miles and studying the broadest salinity features. Other instruments will explore smaller areas nested inside the research site, focusing on smaller fluxes of salt in the waters. The suite of ocean instruments will complement data from NASA's salinity-sensing instrument aboard the Aquarius/SAC-D (Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas-D) observatory, and be integrated into real-time computer models that will help guide researchers to the most interesting phenomena in the cruise area. "We'll be able to look at lots of different scales of salinity variability in the ocean, some of which can be seen from space, from a sensor like Aquarius," said David Fratantoni, a physical oceanographer with Woods Hole and a member of the SPURS expedition. "But we're also trying to see variations in the ocean that can't be resolved by current satellite technology." The 2012 SPURS measurements in the North Atlantic will help scientists understand the behavior of other high-salinity regions around the world. A second SPURS expedition in 2015 will investigate low-salinity regions where there is a high input of fresh water, such as the mouth of a large river or the rainy belts near the equator.

RELEASE: 12-307 NASA SELECTS SCIENCE TEAMS FOR ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA has awarded five-year grants totaling almost $40 million to five research teams to study the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. The newly selected teams are from the University of Washington; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and University of Southern California. Average funding to the teams is almost $8 million each. The interdisciplinary teams will become members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), headquartered at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "These research teams join the NASA Astrobiology Institute at an exciting time for NASA's exploration programs," said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "With the Curiosity rover preparing to investigate the potential habitability of Mars and the Kepler mission discovering planets outside our solar system, these research teams will help provide the critical interdisciplinary expertise needed to interpret data from these missions and plan future astrobiology-focused missions." The University of Washington's "Virtual Planetary Laboratory," led by Victoria Meadows, will integrate computer modeling with laboratory and field-work across a range of disciplines to extend knowledge of planetary habitability and astronomical biosignatures in support of NASA missions to study extrasolar planets. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team, led by Roger Summons, will focus on how signs of life are preserved in ancient rocks on Earth, with a focus on the origin and evolution of complex life, and how this knowledge can be applied to studies of Mars using the Curiosity rover. The University of Wisconsin team, led by Clark Johnson, will study how to detect life in modern and ancient environments on Earth and other planetary bodies. The University of Illinois team, led by Nigel Goldenfeld, seeks to define a "universal biology," or fundamental principles underlying the origin and evolution of life anywhere, through an interdisciplinary study of how life began and evolved on Earth. The University of Southern California team, led by Jan Amend, will study life in the subsurface, a potentially habitable environment on other worlds. They will use field, laboratory, and modeling approaches to detect and characterize Earth's subsurface microbial life. "The intellectual scope of astrobiology is breathtaking, from understanding how our planet went from lifeless to living, to understanding how life has adapted to Earth's harshest environments, to exploring other worlds with the most advanced technologies to search for signs of life," NAI Director Carl Pilcher said. "The new teams cover that breadth of astrobiology, and by coming together in the NAI, they will make the connections between disciplines and organizations that stimulate fundamental scientific advances." These five new teams join 10 other teams led by the University of Hawaii; Arizona State University, Tempe; The Carnegie Institution of Washington; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y.; Pennsylvania State University; Georgia Institute of Technology; and teams at Ames; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; and two teams at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

RELEASE: 12-308 NEW NASA BOOK REVEALS PRESSURE SUITS ARE HEIGHT OF FASHION

WASHINGTON -- NASA has published a colorful, picture-filled book that details the development and use of the protective clothing worn by test pilots, astronauts and others as they soar high above Earth. "Dressing for Altitude: U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits -- Wiley Post to Space Shuttle" provides a 526-page survey of the partial- and full-pressure suits designed to keep humans alive at the edge of space since their first use during the years before World War II. Pressure suits are not the spacesuits worn by spacewalking astronauts. The book explores the challenges the clothiers-turned-engineers faced in designing a garment that could be relatively lightweight, flexible, inflatable, and still keep an ejecting pilot safe at high altitude and in the water. "This work is designed to provide the history of the technology and explore the lessons learned through the years of research in creating, testing, and utilizing today's high-altitude suits," said Tony Springer of NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington. Dennis R. Jenkins, a writer, engineer and manager with 30 years of experience working on NASA programs, including the space shuttle, wrote the book and assembled its photographs and illustrations. Jenkins said he became interested in the topic especially after studying the work and dedication of Goodrich and David Clark Company, the two major companies responsible for most of the pressure suit's development through the years. "I knew little about pressure suits going into the book, so the entire process was a learning exercise to me," Jenkins said.

RELEASE: 12-309 NEW NASA SPACE TECHNOLOGY APP EDUCATES USERS AT HYPERSONIC SPEEDS

WASHINGTON -- Want to try your hand at landing an inflatable spacecraft? All you need is a smart phone, a computer or a tablet. NASA has released a new educational computer Web game based on its Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) project. The game can be played on the Internet and Apple and Android mobile devices. HIAD is an innovative inflatable spacecraft technology NASA is developing to allow giant cones of inner tubes stacked together to transport cargo to other planets or bring cargo back from the International Space Station. "This game will help introduce new generations to NASA technologies that may change the way we explore other worlds," said Mary Beth Wusk, HIAD project manager at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "It gives players an idea of some of the engineering challenges rocket scientists face in designing spacecraft, and does it in a fun way." The game's premise is an inflatable heat shield that returns cargo from the space station to Earth. As the HIAD summary puts it, "to successfully guide an inflatable spacecraft through the super heat of atmospheric reentry requires the right stuff. If you inflate too early, your shape is incorrect or your material isn't strong enough - you burn up. And if you get all that right and miss the target the mission is a bust." The game offers four levels of engineering mastery and gives stars for each successful landing. HIAD is more than just a game. It's a real technology being tested in laboratories and in flight. A prototype HIAD launched July 23 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The successful flight test demonstrated that lightweight, yet strong inflatable structures may become a practical way to help us explore other worlds. NASA is developing the technology as part of the Space Technology Program's Game Changing Development Program. NASA's Space Technology Program is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in future science and exploration missions. NASA's technology investments provide cutting-edge solutions for our nation's future.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-168 NASA CREW NEWS CONFERENCE TO PREVIEW SPACE STATION EXPEDITIONS

HOUSTON -- NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will hold an Expedition 34 and 35 crew briefing Thursday, Sept. 13, to preview the upcoming missions aboard the International Space Station. NASA Television and the agency's website will broadcast the briefing live. At 1 p.m.CDT, Expedition 34 and 35 crew members Thomas Marshburn of NASA, Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency and Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency will discuss their mission. They are set to launch to the space station aboard the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft Dec. 5 and return to Earth in May 2013. Marshburn, Hadfield and Romanenko are three of the six crew members comprising Expeditions 34 and 35. When they arrive at the station, they will join NASA astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy. In March 2013 as Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart the station, Hadfield will become the first Canadian commander of the complex for Expedition 35. Following the news conference, interview opportunities with the crew members are available in person, by phone or through Internet videoconferencing. To reserve an interview opportunity, news media representatives must contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7. To participate in the news conferences from a NASA center, U.S. journalists must call that center's public affairs office by 5 p.m. local time Wednesday, Sept. 12. To participate in the briefings by phone, media representatives must call the Johnson newsroom 15 minutes before each briefing. Priority will be given to journalists participating in person; questions by phone will be taken as time permits.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-174 NASA TO HOST TELECONFERENCE ABOUT MARS CURIOSITY ROVER PROGRESS

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT) on Thursday, Sept. 6, to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater. The Mars Science Laboratory is one month into a two-year mission to investigate whether conditions may have been favorable for microbial life.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-175 NASA TELEVISION LIMITED TO PUBLIC CHANNEL DURING PLANNED MAINTENANCE SEPT. 7

WASHINGTON -- NASA Television will perform system maintenance that will affect satellite distribution on Friday, Sept. 7, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. EDT. During this planned outage, only NASA TV's Public Channel (Program 101) will be available.