Tackling the Global Water Challenge

In a speech on March 22, 2012, marking World Water Day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton launched a new partnership to improve water security. The U.S. Water Partnership is a public-private partnership that seeks to mobilize U.S.-based knowledge, expertise and resources to improve water security around the world, particularly in those countries most in need.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver joined Secretary Clinton and representatives of other U.S. government and private sector entities for the World Water Day event at the U.S. Department of State in Washington as the partnership was announced.As one of the new members of the Partnership, NASA brings a variety of expertise, ingenuity and resources to the challenge.

In response to widespread famines in Africa in the 1980s, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) created an early warning system to provide timely information about drought and famine conditions. The system has since evolved into a worldwide Famine Early Warning System Network that uses data from NASA and others to classify food insecurity levels and alert authorities to predicted crises. NASA's data on long-term changes in rainfall, vegetation, reservoir height and other climate factors enhance USAID's ability to accurately predict food shortages and disseminate these findings to a broad audience around the world.

NASA GRAIL Returns First Student-Selected Moon Images

One of two NASA spacecraft orbiting the moon has beamed back the first student-requested pictures of the lunar surface from its onboard camera. Fourth grade students from the Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Mont., received the honor of making the first image selections by winning a nationwide competition to rename the two spacecraft.

The image was taken by the MoonKam, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students. Previously named Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) A and B, the twin spacecraft are now called Ebb and Flow. Both washing-machine-sized orbiters carry a small MoonKAM camera. Over 60 student–requested images were taken by the Ebb spacecraft from March 15-17 and downlinked to Earth March 20.

"MoonKAM is based on the premise that if your average picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture from lunar orbit may be worth a classroom full of engineering and science degrees," said Maria Zuber, GRAIL mission principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. "Through MoonKAM, we have an opportunity to reach out to the next generation of scientists and engineers. It is great to see things off to such a positive start."

NASA GRACE Data Hit Big Apple on World Water Day

To highlight declines in the world's groundwater supplies, a new visualization of Earth's groundwater reserves, created in part with space data from the joint NASA/German Aerospace Center (DLR) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, debuted on New York's Times Square on March 22, International World Water Day.

The 30-second animation, titled "Visualizing Seasonal and Long-term Changes in Groundwater Levels," will be on display several times each hour through April 22 on Times Square's massive Thomson Reuters and NASDAQ digital signboards. Viewers of the interactive animation are invited to use their mobile devices to submit their city and add a graph to the sign.

Netherlands designer Richard Vijgen developed the animation using GRACE data analyzed by professor Jay Famiglietti, director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling at the University of California, Irvine; and from United States Geological Survey data supplied by Leonard Konikow. Vijgen was the winning entry in an international design visualization competition sponsored by the organization HeadsUP!, in collaboration with Visualizing.org. Founded by digital media artist Peggy Weil, HeadsUp! challenges designers to visualize critical global issues and create a shared sign for the public square.

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NASA Seeks Space Launch System Advanced Development Solutions

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., has issued a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for advanced development proposals to support the nation's next heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). NASA is soliciting proposals from industry and academia for innovative advanced development in areas including concept development, trades and analyses, propulsion, structures, materials, manufacturing, avionics and software. These efforts will focus on affordability and sustainability of the SLS as it evolves from a 70-metric-ton vehicle to a 130-metric-ton vehicle.

"We look forward to hearing from both industry and academia on advanced development solutions that will enable the full capability of the evolved Space Launch System," said Mindy Niedermeyer, the evaluation team chair. "It's an exciting time for NASA. These solutions will create entirely new developments in space technology, taking humans farther in space than ever before."

NASA anticipates making multiple awards in response to this solicitation with approximately $48 million in total funding. Of this total amount, the funding anticipated for the base year (Fiscal Year 2013) is $22 million, with $14.5 million for the first year option (Fiscal Year 2014), and $11.5 million for the second year option (Fiscal Year 15). Total funding to be allocated to academic awards for this NRA is approximately $1.5 million per year. Individual academic awards are expected to be valued up to $250,000 per year.

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Japan Shares Space Station SMILES via Atmospheric Data Distribution

The coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, typically produced by solar flares might pose a danger, if not for the Earth's protective atmosphere and magnetosphere. Using International Space Station research and technology, scientists continue to learn more about the atmosphere, adding important new data to the collective understanding of this important defensive veil.

Atmospheric gasses, held in place by gravity, surround our planet and keep us safe from extreme temperatures, ultraviolet radiation, and the vacuum of space. Meanwhile, the magnetic fields generated by and surrounding the Earth  the magnetosphere help to shield us from the ever-present, solar wind-increased radiation events resulting from CMEs.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, developed a high-precision technology that resides outside the station, mounted on the Japanese Experiment Module–Exposed Facility, or JEM-EF, as part of an investigation to study the chemical makeup of the Earth's middle atmosphere. Known as the Superconducting Submillimeter-Wave Limb-Emission Sounder, or SMILES, this hardware uses a superconducting detector cooled down to 4 Kelvins (-269 degrees Celsius) and is the first of its kind in space.

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Weather Forecasters Balance Experience with Technology

When people talk about a meteorologist cooking up a weather forecast, they may be more right than they realize, said one of the forecasters NASA counts on to predict conditions ahead of a launch."I compare forecasting a lot to cooking, to be honest," said Joel Tumbiolo, a meteorologist with the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron, the unit that handles forecasting for rockets launched at the Eastern Range on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. "In cooking, you have recipes that you follow, but to be a good cook you have to have a certain taste and feel for it, and I feel there's a lot of that in weather forecasting."

The weather team monitors conditions from the ground level to a few thousand feet in the air, a region the rocket will fly through in a minute or two at most. But even a low-hanging cloud can be enough to call off a launch. "If those couple minutes don't go right, bad things happen," Tumbiolo said. "You always wonder, 'How can a rocket going at that velocity be affected by a cloud?' But we've learned through trial and error that it does affect it."

The launch teams quickly learn the impact of weather on a countdown, said Omar Baez, launch director for NASA's Launch Services Program, or LSP."Weather is one of those things you never think about coming into the rocket business and you quickly learn how it affects our business," Baez said. "And it's not just during the launch phase."

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NASA's IceBridge 2012 Arctic Campaign Takes to the Skies

Researchers and flight crew with NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission to study changes in polar ice, began another season of science activity with the start of the 2012 Arctic campaign on March 13. From mid-March through mid-May, a modified P-3 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., will conduct daily missions out of Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland with one flight to Fairbanks, Alaska and back to measure sea and land ice. The campaign will also feature instrument tests, continued international collaboration and educational activities.

After NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite's (ICESat) stopped collecting data in 2009, Operation IceBridge began as a way to continue the multi-year record of ice elevation measurements until the launch of ICESat-2 in 2016. IceBridge gathers data during annual campaigns over the Arctic starting in March and Antarctic starting in October.

IceBridge flights will measure both previously surveyed sites, such as Greenland's Jakobshavn Glacier, and unstudied areas of sea ice, such as the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. "The most important sea ice flights are the transits between Thule and Fairbanks," said IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger.

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NASA Makes Science Communication Competition Interplanetary

NASA, Cheltenham Festivals (UK) and the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS) are pleased to announce a partnership to operate a FameLab competition for the first time. The competition will be held in the fields of astrobiology and planetary sciences, and is open to all scientists working in these diverse areas of research.

FameLab Astrobiology workshops will train scientists and engineers to convey complex scientific concepts to the public. The training, coaching and recognition provided by these events builds the confidence needed to apply communication skills in a wide variety of situations.

Each contestant has the spotlight for only three minutes. No slides, no charts just the power of words and anything you can hold in your hands. A panel of experts in both science and science communication will do the judging.Winners of regional heats will continue to the grand final in Atlanta, Ga. in April at AbSciCon 2012. The winner of the FameLab Astrobiology final will be invited to participate in the International FameLab Final at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival on June 16, 2012.

NASA and CSA Robotic Operations Advance Satellite Servicing

NASA's Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) experiment aboard the International Space Station has demonstrated remotely controlled robots and specialized tools can perform precise satellite-servicing tasks in space. The project marks a milestone in the use of the space station as a technology test bed.

"We and our partners are making important technological breakthroughs," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "As we move ahead toward reaching our exploration goals, we will realize even more benefits from humans and robots working together in space."The Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) robotic handyman, Dextre, successfully completed the tasks March 7-9 on the space station's external RRM module, designed to demonstrate the tools, technologies and techniques needed to robotically refuel and repair satellites.

"The Hubble servicing missions taught us the importance and value of getting innovative, cutting-edge technologies to orbit quickly to deliver great results," said Frank Cepollina, a veteran leader of five Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions and associate director of the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The impact of the space station as a useful technology test bed cannot be overstated. Fresh satellite-servicing technologies will be demonstrated in a real space environment within months instead of years. This is huge. It represents real progress in space technology advancement."

NASA's RXTE Captures Thermonuclear Behavior of Unique Neutron Star

A neutron star is the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city. In October 2010, a neutron star near the center of our galaxy erupted with hundreds of X-ray bursts that were powered by a barrage of thermonuclear explosions on the star's surface. NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) captured the month-long fusillade in extreme detail. Using this data, an international team of astronomers has been able to bridge a long-standing gap between theory and observation.

"In a single month from this unique system, we have identified behavior not seen in observations of nearly 100 bursting neutron stars during the past 30 years," said Manuel Linares, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. He led a study of the RXTE data that will be published in the March 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

On Oct. 10, 2010, the European Space Agency's INTEGRAL satellite detected a transient X-ray source in the direction of Terzan 5, a globular star cluster about 25,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius. The object, dubbed IGR J17480–2446, is classed as a low-mass X-ray binary system, in which the neutron star orbits a star much like the sun and draws a stream of matter from it. As only the second bright X-ray source to be found in the cluster, Linares and his colleagues shortened its moniker to T5X2.

Flying Through a Geomagnetic Storm

Glowing green and red, shimmering hypnotically across the night sky, the aurora borealis is a wonder to behold. Longtime sky watchers say it is the greatest show on Earth.It might be the greatest show in Earth orbit, too. High above our planet, astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been enjoying an up-close view of auroras outside their windows as the ISS flys through geomagnetic storms.

Auroras are caused by solar activity. Gusts of solar wind and coronal mass ejections strike Earth's magnetic field, rattling our planet's protective shell of magnetism. This causes charged particles to rain down over the poles, lighting up the atmosphere where they hit. The physics is akin to what happens in the picture tube of a color TV.

Incoming particles are guided by Earth's magnetic field to a pair of doughnut-shaped regions called "auroral ovals." There's one around the North Pole and one around the South. Sometimes, when solar activity is high, the ovals expand, and the space station orbits right through them.

Bright Is The New Black: New York Roofs Go Cool

On the hottest day of the New York City summer in 2011, a white roof covering was measured at 42 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the traditional black roof it was being compared to, according to a study including NASA scientists that details the first scientific results from the city's unprecedented effort to brighten rooftops and reduce its "urban heat island" effect.

The dark, sunlight-absorbing surfaces of some New York City roofs reached 170 degrees Fahrenheit on July 22, 2011, a day that set a city record for electricity usage during the peak of a heat wave. But in the largest discrepancy of that day, a white roofing material was measured at about 42 degrees cooler. The white roof being tested was a low-cost covering promoted as part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's effort to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030.

On average through the summer of 2011, the pilot white roof surface reduced peak rooftop temperature compared to a typical black roof by 43 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the study, which was the first long-term effort in New York to test how specific white roof materials held up and performed over several years.

Introducing the X-56A MUTT: Who Let the Dog Out

MUTT is one of the Air Force's newest X-planes, designated X-56A. The 7.5-foot-long aircraft has a 28-foot wingspan and will be powered by two 52-pound thrust JetCat P200-SX turbine engines. It is being built in California under contract to Lockheed Martin Corp., which will conduct the flight experiments for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Dryden will oversee the flights for AFRL during summer 2012, and than take ownership of the X-56A MUTT for follow-on research after the Air Force tests are finished in early autumn. “Flexible wings and fuselages can result in significant reductions in the structural weight of aircraft,” says Gary Martin, deputy project manager for NASA's Subsonic Fixed Wing Project at Dryden.

But unlike the short, stiff wings found on most aircraft today, long, thin wings like those on the X-56A are susceptible to uncontrollable vibrations, called flutter, that result from the force of air flowing over them. Thin wings can also be stressed by bending forces from wind gusts and atmospheric turbulence.

Glenn Launch Highlighted Changing World

The Beatles were eight months away from releasing their first single, "Love Me Do," when John Glenn rocketed into space on Feb. 20, 1962, to become the first American to orbit Earth. The flight set NASA on course to meet ever-more ambitious goals. Glenn’s three orbits in five hours was eclipsed on the next flight and each one afterward steadily pushed Americans further out from the cradle of Earth, ultimately leading to a series of landings on the moon from 1969 to 1972.

"The whole program shifted rapidly from, 'Can we do this?' to basic research," Glenn told a packed press conference conducted among the displays and consoles that made up Cape Canaveral's Mercury control center. Fifty years after the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, Glenn, 90, still draws a capacity crowd. He returned to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday to begin a weekend of events celebrating the milestone.

The events come a few days before the 50th anniversary, but that did not diminish the excitement of those on hand to see Glenn. Fellow Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, who served as CapCom during Glenn's mission before flying his own mission three months later, also made the trip to Florida to celebrate NASA's first orbital missions.

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NASA Finds Sea Ice Driving Arctic Air Pollutants

Drastic reductions in Arctic sea ice in the last decade may be intensifying the chemical release of bromine into the atmosphere, resulting in ground-level ozone depletion and the deposit of toxic mercury in the Arctic, according to a new NASA-led study.

The connection between changes in the Arctic Ocean's ice cover and bromine chemical processes is determined by the interaction between the salt in sea ice, frigid temperatures and sunlight. When these mix, the salty ice releases bromine into the air and starts a cascade of chemical reactions called a "bromine explosion." These reactions rapidly create more molecules of bromine monoxide in the atmosphere. Bromine then reacts with a gaseous form of mercury, turning it into a pollutant that falls to Earth's surface.

Bromine also can remove ozone from the lowest layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere. Despite ozone's beneficial role blocking harmful radiation in the stratosphere, ozone is a pollutant in the ground-level troposphere. A team from the United States, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, led by Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., produced the study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres. The team combined data from six NASA, European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency satellites; field observations and a model of how air moves in the atmosphere to link Arctic sea ice changes to bromine explosions over the Beaufort Sea, extending to the Amundsen Gulf in the Canadian Arctic.

NASA Researchers on the Snow Patrol

The sky is gray. It's cold. Three forecast models predicted snow. It's 9:20 pm. Gail Skofronick-Jackson looks out the window of the operations trailer where she and her colleagues are running the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's Cold-season Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx). The DC-8 research plane circles overhead, ready to measure the snowfall.

There's nothing. The sky is still gray. It's still cold. The operations trailer sits in the middle of a field in Egbert, Ontario, Canada where it's surrounded by an acre of scientific instruments, all still, waiting.It's 10:20 pm. The sky is a darker shade of gray. The night is colder. The science team has blank screens showing no active falling snow and a big case of boredom. There's still nothing. They send the DC-8 back to its hanger and pack it in.

"If the models and forecasts were correct we wouldn't be out here," says Skofronick-Jackson. She's the GPM Deputy Project Scientist and a specialist in the remote sensing of snow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. In running GCPEx, she and the team are attempting to simulate the snow measurements that will be made by the GPM satellite mission that launches 2014. They do that by gathering snow data with instruments on the ground and aboard aircraft that fly through and over snowstorms.

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A New Website Sharing Space Station Benefits For Humanity

When the International Space Station was first imagined, the idea was to create an unprecedented research platform to support microgravity investigations for the benefit of all humankind. That goal is now a reality, and researchers have not waited for completion to begin working on studies to build on our knowledge of science and technology in space. Because of this, we can already see some amazing breakthroughs.

So just what has the space station yielded to humankind? You can discover the benefits for yourself, thanks to another international collaborative effort. Working together, the station partners launched the International Space Station Benefits for Humanity website on March 1. This site enables readers to look at the global progress resulting from the knowledge and technologies of the orbiting laboratory.

Camille Alleyne, International Space Station assistant program scientist with NASA, explains the goals behind this new effort. "The website is a great resource for the general public and other stakeholders," Alleyne said. "It communicates the value of the International Space Station as a unique scientific and educational platform that enables discoveries that benefit all humanity."

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NASA Completes GCPEx Snow Study over Canada

NASA's DC-8 airborne science laboratory has returned to its home base in Palmdale, Calif., after completing 13 data-collection flights over the past six weeks during NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement Cold-season Precipitation Experiment, or GCPEx, snow study over Ontario, Canada.

The converted jetliner returned to its home hangar at NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., Feb. 25, after a six-hour flight from Bangor, Maine. The aircraft flew almost 80 hours during its 13 science flights in the mission."The GCPEx mission has been a real success," said Walter Petersen, the Global Precipitation Measurement ground validation scientist at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. "The majority of the mission objectives were accomplished, especially as they pertain to collecting a broad spectrum of snowfall, mixed phase, and even rain precipitation events.

"All indications are that the airborne and ground-based instruments worked very well, meaning we expect to have a robust set of data to analyze toward supporting the development of GPM falling-snow retrieval algorithms," Peterson added. The last science mission Feb. 24, was a 6.8-hour flight over a storm system in the Boston area, followed by multiple passes over the Environment Centre for Atmospheric Research Experiments, or CARE, location in Egbert, Ontario, and atmospheric convection over Lake Ontario. Data on various types of precipitation was collected by the two primary instruments used for this experiment, the APR-2 Airborne Precipitation Radar and the Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer, or CoSMIR.

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