"Our agencies have a remarkable opportunity to tackle a variety of environmental issues together," said Administrator Bolden. "Involving students in Earth science and climate research at an early age will encourage a stronger sense of stewardship toward our home planet."

The agreement renews a broad partnership to promote joint efforts to improve environmental and Earth science research, technology, environmental management, and the application of Earth science data, models and technology in environmental decision-making.

Video of the event can be seen on UStream

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The SPoRT project is expanding its reach too. The previous sea surface temperature product covered the Gulf of Mexico and the southern and eastern coastlines of the U.S. The new coverage region will include all of the ocean areas surrounding North America, from the Hawaiian Islands to the middle of the Atlantic, and from Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Alaska to the equator, including the tropical oceans where hurricanes form.

"Our enhanced sea surface temperature product brings in more data, allowing more up-to-date and accurate inputs into weather forecasts," explains Dr. Gary Jedlovec, satellite meteorologist and SPoRT principal investigator. "We're also expanding the coverage area, benefiting more communities along the coastal regions."

"Much of the energy for weather systems comes from the ocean," adds Frank LaFontaine, a SPoRT meteorologist. "That's why the sea surface temperature is so critical to forecasters. Many storm systems like to form and/or intensify over warm water, where there's a lot of potential energy for them to tap."

LaFontaine says that the new product will help even help researchers detect thermal currents and eddies, which are important because clouds tend to form along those lines.

"For instance, tropical depressions often start forming out at sea and strengthen over the warm tropical waters," explains LaFontaine. "Variations in sea surface temperatures in coastal regions can further strengthen or weaken the storm as it makes landfall."

The SPoRT team says the data provided by their new product could help forecasters predict how intense hurricanes or tropical storms will be.

"A hurricane can ramp up offshore in intensity level so quickly, there's not enough time to warn the public," says LaFontaine. "Our product could help with predicting that intensity surge."

The enhanced product achieves its improved level of detail by adding microwave readings from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer, or AMSR, a sensor aboard NASA's Aqua satellite, to the data already in use by the previous version of the SPoRT product. That version incorporated only infrared data from the MODerate-resolution Infrared Spectrometer, also known as MODIS, aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites. The microwave data complements the infrared data in an important way.

"Microwaves can penetrate the clouds, allowing us to take data over both clear and cloudy areas," says Jedlovec. "The old version of our product left gaps where the clouds were."

The data allows the scientists to resolve small changes in the temperatures at the ocean's surface at 1-kilometer, or 0.62 mile, intervals. To put it simply, if the water temperature varies 0.2 degrees Celsius, or 0.36 Fahrenheit, between a 1 kilometer square area and the next, they can detect that difference. This level of detail improves the models used to predict weather.

Hubble, named for groundbreaking astronomer Edwin Hubble, repaid the commitment with some of the most dazzling images the world has seen, along with fresh data that answered a wealth of questions and led to many new ones. The telescope's observations allowed astronomers to set the age of the universe at about 13.7 billion years with a high degree of certainty.

"I never believed in 1990 that the Hubble would end up this great," said Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate and chief scientist for the Hubble program when it launched. "It's changed a lot of thinking and it's changed a lot of what I learned 30 years ago in grad school."

Hubble's discoveries stretch over most aspects of astronomy, but its highlights include proving massive black holes exist and defining the age of the universe. It also proved the existence of something no one has seen -- dark energy.

"Nobody ever knew it existed before Hubble," said Jon Grunsfeld, an astronaut and astronomer who worked on Hubble during two shuttle missions.

The telescope's most unique element, though, is its orbit -- a perch so high above the planet that its pictures are not warped or distorted by the air currents, moisture and other effects from Earth's atmosphere.

"It's that extreme clarity that gives us the feeling we've traveled out into space to see these objects," Grunsfeld said. "It really is our time machine."

From more than 300 miles in space, Hubble looked back in time, showing astronomers what embryonic galaxies looked like almost 14 billion years ago. In some cases, Hubble's instruments picked up light that left stars only 600 million years after the Big Bang. "We're seeing the universe as it was perhaps as a toddler," Grunsfeld said.

An image that is perhaps Hubble's most famous, known as the Hubble Deep Field, was made when the telescope was pointed at a small sliver of space in the constellation Ursa Major, which appeared black and empty. Hubble found it brimming with young galaxies and stars in a kind of photographic time capsule from the universe. Astronomers called it a baby picture of space.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field built on that image in 2003 and 2004 when it used new instruments to pick out galaxies in another section of the sky which would have been too faint for Hubble's previous equipment to detect.

"We always discover things that we never even imagine," Grunsfeld said. "The universe is always more interesting than we give it credit for."

Some of the most notable discoveries were almost lost because Hubble was launched with a tiny flaw in its main mirror. Although the mirror was ground too flat by less than the width of a human hair, that was enough to throw off the focus.

"Little did we know we were launching a telescope that had a mirror that was slightly misshapen," Weiler said. "But we found a way to fix it, which we did, which the astronauts did, in 1993 and for the past 17 years Hubble's been filling the textbooks with new science." Starting with STS-61 in 1993, five teams of astronauts worked on the telescope from the space shuttle. The first installed a set of small mirrors that acted like a contact lens to clarify Hubble's vision. Since then, new instruments have been added, along with new components. Taken together, the servicing missions added years to Hubble's life.

"When we launched it in 1990, we were hoping to get 10 to 15 years out of it," Weiler said. "We're now talking about the 20th anniversary, so we're talking about five years of dividends on our investment, and we should be able to get at least another five years and maybe another seven, eight or nine years."

Astronomers were not the only ones pleased with the life extension. The 12 1/2-ton space telescope reached into the mind and spirit of the general public in an unprecedented way. Images from the telescope have made their way onto stamps, album covers and even into art exhibits.

"I think the unique thing about the Hubble is that it's truly brought science to the general public, especially the school kids," Weiler said. "It's still the most powerful telescope that humans have the ability to use and it has been since it was launched."As much as Hubble became a cornerstone for astronomy, it was also the first element of NASA's Great Observatories program which produced four telescopes that looked at the different kinds of light in the universe. The Hubble was designed to see visible light, which is the same light people see. So Hubble's pictures show the universe as it appears to the human eye.

The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory launched in 1991 to detect gamma ray bursts, some of the most energetic particles known. The Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched in 1999 and surveyed the universe for invisible x-rays. Lastly, the Spitzer Space Telescope went into space in 2003 to look at the cooler heart of space, including dust clouds that are the nursery for stars. The Spitzer was the only NASA “Great Observatory” not launched on a shuttle. Instead, it rode a Delta II.

None of the observatories was meant to study space by themselves. Astronomers instead used one telescope's findings to study it with the others to form a nearly complete picture of a celestial place across the spectrum of light. Ground-based telescopes, which continue to grow in size and sophistication, are also used to study or confirm findings.

Although there won't be any more servicing missions by the shuttle, Weiler and Grunsfeld said the telescope is ready to make more discoveries.

"The telescope still looks in great shape," Grunsfeld said. "It's just a thrill to work on what is by many measures the most productive scientific instrument ever created by humans."

But before you do, you may want to check the latest NASA data about what, exactly, is in the air we breathe.

NASA-funded scientists and medical researchers are working together to tackle the problems of public health associated with bad air quality. Bad air quality can contribute to and aggravate asthma, bronchitis, high blood pressure, and stroke -- to name a few. Air quality-related health problems result in hospital visits that cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually.

Touch the Earth takes a multimedia approach to teach middle school students about the Earth's biomes – areas on Earth with similar climate, soil and vegetation - using sound and visual aids, tactile and colored graphics, large print and Braille. It was developed for Blind and Deaf users as well as students who learn best with a multimedia approach. Published with the support of NASA Headquarters' Office of Earth Science, Education programs, the book was developed by Elissa Levine, a soil scientist who recently retired from the Biospheric Sciences Branch at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., science writer Amy Hansen, tactile graphic creator, Noreen Grice, geographer, Asad Ullah, and producer, Izolda Traktenberg.

"Much of the Earth science that we do at NASA uses remote sensing, which means measuring something about an object without actually being in contact with it. This book brings home the importance of being able to 'touch the Earth' in some way or another," said Eric Brown de Colstoun, Coordinator of Earth Science Education and Public Outreach at Goddard. "This message should resonate strongly with all audiences, including the visually and hearing challenged, on this 40th anniversary of Earth Day."

The book will be on display at the "NASA Village" along with two supplemental DVDs explaining more about the biomes on each continent. One DVD enhances the book's content with pictures and a signing avatar using American Sign Language to help students who are deaf and hearing impaired. The second DVD has the same enhanced content with pictures, voice and music.

"In a way this book should be exciting for a broader audience that hasn't been reached before, whether the children are blind, deaf, or just want other kinds of tools for learning," remarked Hansen. "Hopefully it will give the kids a chance to better understand Earth's biomes and how all systems on the Earth function together."

Visitors to the Earth Day Celebration will be able to view the Earth's continents in tactile graphics, Braille, and color imagery on a full-size poster - another supplementary educational aid included with each copy of Touch the Earth. The book also includes guidance for teachers on how to incorporate its content into National Science Education standards and provides resources for additional information.

"I hope people will touch it and understand the interactive quality of it," Hansen said. "People don't realize how much of the Sahara takes up Africa," she said of a biome description. "I think it's more dramatic to feel that it's almost a third of the continent."

Touch the Earth is the latest in a series of tactile books on NASA science topics including Touch the Universe and Touch the Sun. Individuals can order a copy of the Touch the Earth tactile book from the National Federation of the Blind Independence Market: http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Independence_Market.asp

For more information and a schedule of NASA's Earth Day activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthday

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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 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.”

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.

Throughout Earth Day Week, April 17 through April 25, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., NASA will have presentations and demonstrations at the impressive NASA Village. The Village, adjacent to the Smithsonian Metro station, consists of tents full of high-impact, visually engaging exhibits; presentations; and opportunities to meet NASA Earth scientists. Many other agencies and organizations will be represented through performances and programs on the Earth Day stage.

On April 22, Earth Day will also be Student Day as NASA will host more than 350 middle and high school students from area schools who will get to participate and interact with our scientists, engineers, and educators.

Begun in 1970, Earth Day is the annual celebration of the environment and a time to assess work still needed to protect the natural resources of our planet. NASA maintains the world's largest contingent of dedicated Earth scientists and engineers that lead and assist other agencies in preserving the planet's environment.

For a comprehensive listing of NASA's Earth Day activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthday

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The induction ceremony, which featured former Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy as keynote speaker, was held April 15 in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Digital Fly-By-Wire – or DFBW – flight control technology is a computerized system used today on many civil and military aircraft that provides real-time analysis of control inputs made by pilots. Multiple flight control computers continuously evaluate aircraft speed, weight, atmospheric conditions and other variables to arrive at optimum flight control surface deflections that will achieve what the pilot has requested. Pilot inputs are filtered through a digital computer to the hydraulic actuators that actually move an aircraft's flight controls.

"Digital Fly-By-Wire had its origins in the Apollo program," said NASA Dryden center director David McBride, who received the award on behalf of NASA and the center. "Rugged and reliable flight avionics developed for our space mission to the moon was brought to an aviation application by Neil Armstrong while he served as NASA's Deputy Associate Administrator for Aeronautics after his lunar triumph.

"The validation work performed at Dryden enabled the technology to return to space as the space shuttle flight control system," McBride added. "The application of the technology at Dryden continues to impact the safe and efficient operation of nearly all modern aircraft."

Digital flight control systems improve flight safety through use of redundant systems. They also improve aircraft maneuverability because computers can command adjustments more quickly than human pilots. With DFBW technology, aircraft designers are no longer confined to designing features that make aircraft more stable but less maneuverable.

In airliners, computerized flight controls ensure a smoother ride than traditional hydro-mechanical systems alone can provide.

Digital flight control systems are also more efficient because they are lighter and require less volume aboard aircraft than hydraulic or mechanical controls. This serves to either reduce the amount of fuel required to fly with extra weight or accommodate a larger payload. Digital flight controls also generally require less maintenance than the systems they replace.

Now retired from NASA, the DFBW project’s chief research pilot, Gary Krier, remembers the significance of the work begun 38 years ago.

"We at the Flight Research Center knew that successful implementation of Digital Fly-By-Wire would turn imagination into reality," Krier said. "We could envision control-configured vehicles and aircraft with lightweight, reliable and expandable control systems being enabled by this technology. We were confident we could do it, and do it first.

"Everyone who worked on the program has to be pleased at the recognition of our efforts by the Space Foundation," he added.

NASA’s DFBW flight-test program encompassed 210 research flights over a 13-year period from May 1972 through April 1985. The heart of the system was an off-the-shelf backup digital flight-control computer and inertial sensing unit obtained from the Apollo space flight program that transmitted pilot inputs to control surface actuators. The now-retired test aircraft, a modified Vought F-8C Crusader jet fighter obtained from the Navy for the project, is on public display at NASA Dryden.

In cooperation with NASA, The Space Foundation created the Space Technology Hall of Fame® in 1988 to increase public awareness of the benefits resulting from space exploration programs and to encourage further innovation. To date, 61 technologies have been inducted into the foundation's Hall of Fame, honoring the organizations and individuals who transformed space technology into commercial products that improve the quality of life for all humanity.

Through an innovative program at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, local high school students have the opportunity to make these discoveries firsthand while learning practical math, science and engineering skills. Participants in the BalloonSAT Exploring Program launch a 6-foot diameter weather balloon, complete with experiments and cameras, into the space-like regions of Earth's upper atmosphere.

Exploring with Balloons

The Exploring Program is affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America. This program is designed to give high school students opportunities to experience different potential careers. Throughout the country, students in the Exploring Program learn from various professionals -- like firemen, police officers and medical workers -- about the skills necessary for these jobs. At Glenn, students explore what it's like to be a scientist or engineer in one of four Exploring Posts: Aeronautics, Computer, Human Space Exploration and BalloonSAT. Stephanie Brown-Houston, from the Glenn Educational Program, is the program manager for the Exploring Program ? at Glenn.

The use of weather balloons as satellites (BalloonSAT) first began at Glenn a decade ago as a way of investigating solar cell calibration in space. A small payload which tracked the sun was suspended by a weather balloon and flown to gather data. The balloon served as an inexpensive high-altitude launch system.

The BalloonSAT Exploring Post 632 began in 2004. Dr. David Snyder, a physicist and electrical engineer in the Photovoltaic and Power Technologies branch of the Power & In-Space Propulsion division at Glenn, is the lead advisor for BalloonSAT Exploring Post.

"The overall goal is to give high school kids a chance to explore these professions," Snyder says. "It's about getting them interested in science and space and technology."

Learning by Doing

Each academic year, a group of 10 to 15 high school students join the BalloonSAT Exploring Post. These diverse students, from multiple high schools around the Cleveland area, work together to perform one or two launches every year. When the first launch occurs, it is more of a demonstration launch and takes place early in the program, in the fall. The second launch, which takes place in early spring, is coordinated and executed by the students and features the experiments they designed.

"BalloonSAT attempts to simulate a satellite mission," Snyder says. "We give students the chance to design experiments and fly them with a flight program, and get results."

The students work all year to research, develop, design and fabricate experiments that will be flown when they launch their balloon. In the seven missions that BalloonSAT has flown, dozens of student-designed experiments have been launched 100,000 feet in the air.

Previous experiments have included:

"The idea is to use the balloon as a launch vehicle, and then have a whole mission that's like a satellite mission. There is a lot of science, there is a lot of pre-flight testing and there is designing the flight plan," Snyder says. "There's a wide range of activities in addition to their experiments. It's a whole flight project."

Skills from many fields are developed in the BalloonSAT project, including:

On launch day, all of the students' and their mentors' hard work comes to fruition at the exciting launch. The latex balloon, initially 6-feet in diameter, is launched into the mid-to-upper stratosphere, about 100,000 feet above Earth's surface. The mid-to-upper stratosphere is above 99% of the atmosphere -- much higher than even commercial aircraft fly. The conditions here are similar to conditions on Mars.

The balloon rises at a rate of 1,000 feet a minute, so it takes about 2 hours for the balloon to reach its apex. It then bursts, and returns to Earth in about an hour. The balloon, which expands to about 18-feet in diameter as it passes through different temperatures during its ascent, is typically visible to the naked eye throughout its entire journey.

"It's kind of amazing," Snyder says.

The BalloonSAT team tracks the balloon visually and via GPS and Ham Radio, and collects the deflated balloon after it lands. Then the team starts investigating the results of their carefully-planned experiments, and reviews the footage the cameras on the balloon produced.

The digital cameras installed on the balloon take a picture every 30 seconds. The sideways shots display the atmosphere and some of the ground, while the straight down shots display details of Earth. The photographs are taken by inexpensive, point-and-shoot digital cameras that have been modified to have an external switch rather than the factory-installed button. The resulting images are informational and visually intriguing.

"It's impressive to see the images," Snyder says.

Mentoring Young Scientists

NASA funds the Exploring Program at Glenn, including the BalloonSAT post. A minimum of $1,000 provides supplies for the activities, including the cameras, equipment to build and construct payloads, balloons and helium.

The BalloonSAT Exploring Post has proven so successful that a nation-wide competition for high school students will be hosted by Glenn this May. Winning entries were submitted by schools in Utah, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the students will converge at Glenn to launch their experiments aloft in a balloon.

The pairing of high school STEM students and experienced NASA scientists has proven effective -- many of the students who have participated in the program have gone on to study engineering and related fields in college. This experiential learning, as one of Snyder's Exploring Program students told him, brings science to life.

"She said that this is not just learning in a book. It is a chance to actually do things and have the experience. The hands-on aspect, to her, was very important," Snyder says.

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Last month, eight altitude chamber tests were performed using an Aerojet workhorse engine to gather design data for future lander and in-space engines. Using the altitude chamber, which simulates the space-type vacuum environment, engineers were able to attach a larger nozzle and vary the propellant mixture ratios to test the engine's overall operating capability. This technology could be selected for future use with vehicles designed for transport, descent, or ascent to another planetary body or asteroid.

The nozzle, or large bell-shaped hardware, directs the flow of the combustion products from the liquid methane fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer mixture and accelerates the exhaust gasses to generate thrust. The nozzle material is made of columbium and heats up during the test causing the color change. The nozzle is radiatively cooled and once the engine shuts down, the nozzle returns to its previous color.

Another test objective was to look at the specific impulse, or gas mileage, this engine could provide to a space vehicle. Specific impulse is simply a measurement of the amount of thrust that can be attained per mass of rocket propellant consumed. The higher specific impulse attained improves the overall rocket performance and reduces the weight of propellants that need to be carried on the vehicle.

Overall, the test series was successful and valuable performance data was obtained. Data received from the tests is currently being reviewed to ensure the engine performed as expected on a continual basis with each individual test.

Engineers will continue to vary and refine the engine test parameters to evaluate the technology further. Developing technology is a test-rich process to ensure as many unknowns are worked out on the ground before this technology is put into application in a space environment.

The cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid methane effort is part of the Propulsion and Cryogenics Advanced Development (PCAD) project at Glenn, which is developing cryogenic propulsion technologies for future space exploration missions. The PCAD project is funded by the Exploration Technology Development Program in NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.

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