A near record turnaround time for the acquisition of a spacecraft will culminate soon when NASA’s Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) satellite is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., onboard a Titan II launch vehicle. The June 18 launch is scheduled for 10:15 p.m. EDT. QuikSCAT, built in just over 11 months, is a record for NASA's Office of Earth Science.

QuikScat will study ocean winds using the SeaWinds instrument - a specialized microwave radar that measures near-surface wind speed and direction under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans. The instrument will collect wind-speed and wind direction data in a continuous 1,118 mile-wide band, making approximately 400,000 measurements each day.

QuikSCAT represents a unique collaboration between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., and Goddard. JPL's NSCAT/SeaWinds program office has overall management responsibility and provided a SeaWinds-type scatterometer instrument, while Goddard had the responsibility to procure the satellite under the newly instituted Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quality (ID/IQ) contract. ID/IQ enables a quick acquisition of a science spacecraft bus to support NASA's space science, Earth science and technology needs.

"We're very excited about this collaborative mission with JPL," said Kenneth Schwer, QuikScat Mission Manager at Goddard. "The QuikScat mission has great potential to improve scientific understanding of ocean winds and I know those in the scientific community are anxious about this launch."

QuikSCAT is the first delivery order issued under the ID/IQ procurement method and provides for rapid delivery of satellite core-systems through a "catalog," allowing for shorter turnaround time from mission conception to launch. On Nov. 19, 1997, Goddard awarded the first delivery order under the Rapid Spacecraft Development Office ID/IQ contract to Ball Aerospace Technologies Corp. (BATC) for implementing the NASA Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) mission. The ID/IQ procurement method provides NASA a faster, better, cheaper method for the purchase of satellite systems.

This delivery order included a BATC provided spacecraft bus, integration of the JPL scatterometer instrument and two years of observatory on-orbit operations. This schedule was a significant challenge for the QuikSCAT team because the spacecraft, instrument, ground system, and launch vehicle had to be developed, integrated and launched in approximately one year, something that has not been accomplished previously.

QuikSCAT was initiated to help reduce the ocean-wind vector data gap created by the loss of the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) on the Japanese Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) spacecraft, which ceased functioning when ADEOS failed on June 30, 1997. The QuikSCAT launch should reduce the data gap by about one-half.

Before the loss of ADEOS, NASA was able to obtain valuable data about summer and winter monsoon seasons and the onset of the El Niņo event. The ADEOS-II spacecraft with the follow-on scatterometer is scheduled for launch in 2000.

The total cost for the QuikSCAT mission is approximately $90 million, including $40 million for the spacecraft, $27 million for the Titan II launch vehicle and $23 million to complete instrument development, data processing development and science investigation support.

Measuring ocean winds is important because winds are a driving force for oceanic motions, ranging from small-scale waves to large-scale systems of ocean currents. Winds directly affect the turbulent exchanges of heat, moisture and greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and the ocean. These air-sea exchanges, in turn, determine regional weather patterns and shape global climate. Ocean winds data collected before the loss of the NASA Scatterometer showed great promise in improving scientists' ability to forecast the movement of tropical storm systems -- one reason why NASA wants to bring this capability back on-line as soon as possible.

Scientists will soon have a new tool to search for the "fossil record" of the Big Bang and uncover clues about the evolution of the universe. Scheduled to launch at 11:39 a.m. EDT on June 23 from Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida, NASA's Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) will observe nearby planets and the farthest reaches of the universe and will provide a detailed picture of the immense structure of our own Milky Way galaxy.

The Goddard-managed FUSE mission's primary scientific focus will be the study of hydrogen and deuterium (a different form of hydrogen), which were created shortly after the Big Bang. With this information, astronomers in effect will be able to look back in time at the infant universe.

By examining these earliest relics of the birth of the universe, astronomers hope to better understand the processes that led to the formation and evolution of stars, including our solar system. Ultimately, scientists hope data from FUSE will allow them to make a huge leap of understanding about how the primordial elements were created and have been distributed since the beginning of time.

"We think that as stars age deuterium is destroyed," said NASA's Dr. George Sonneborn, of Goddard, the FUSE project scientist. "Mapping deuterium throughout the Milky Way will give us a better understanding of how elements are mixed, distributed and destroyed."

"The big questions are these: Do we understand the origins of the universe, and do we understand how galaxies evolve?" said Dr. Kenneth Sembach, a FUSE science team member from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. "Because FUSE can observe ultraviolet light that other telescopes can't, we can test in unique ways how deuterium and other elements are circulated within galaxies. That in turn may test the limits of the Big Bang theory."

Among the cosmic questions FUSE will tackle are:

-- What were conditions like in the first few minutes after the Big Bang? Will studying the "fossil remnant" deuterium change current theories of the Big Bang?

-- How are the elements dispersed throughout galaxies, and how does this affect the way galaxies evolve?

-- What are the properties of the interstellar gas clouds out of which stars and planets form?

-- Does the Milky Way have a vast galactic fountain that gives birth to stars, spews hot gas, circulates elements and churns out cosmic material over and over?

FUSE was developed for NASA by Johns Hopkins, which has the primary responsibility for all aspects of the project. NASA is responsible for the launch. FUSE is the first NASA mission of this scope that has been developed and operated entirely by a university. Dr. Warren Moos, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins, is Principal Investigator for FUSE.

The 3,000-pound FUSE satellite consists of two sections: the spacecraft and the science instrument. The spacecraft, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Germantown, Md., contains all elements necessary for powering and pointing the satellite. The spacecraft and the science instrument each have their own computers, which coordinate the activities of the satellite.

The FUSE science instrument, built by Johns Hopkins, consists of telescope mirrors, a spectrograph, which breaks ultraviolet light into its component colors for study, and an electronic guide camera. Johns Hopkins built the FUSE instrument in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency, which provided the camera; the French Space Agency, which provided a component of the spectrograph; the University of Colorado, Boulder; the University of California, Berkeley; and Swales Aerospace, Beltsville, MD. The FUSE mission and science control center is located on the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus, Baltimore, with support from Interface and Controls Systems and AlliedSignal Technical Services Corp., both of Columbia, Md.

FUSE will be launched aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket into a circular orbit 477 miles (768 kilometers) above Earth, and will orbit about every 100 minutes. The satellite must operate on its own most of the time, moving from target to target, identifying star fields, centering objects in the spectrograph apertures and performing the observations. The three-year FUSE mission costs $204 million.

Goddard manages FUSE, one of the first missions in NASA's Origins program, for NASA Headquarters Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.

Information on the FUSE mission and NASA's Origins program can be found at:

http://fuse.pha.jhu.edu

Timothy A. Klein of Goddard received the Arthur S. Flemming Award June 10 for his outstanding work in the federal government.

The 50^th Annual Arthur S. Flemming Awards program selected 11 people from all areas of the federal service for this year’s awards. Awards are presented to those individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the federal government and who have less than 15 years of service.

Klein is the Program Business Manager for the New Millennium/Earth Observing Program at Goddard. In this position, he is responsible for all financial, budget, analysis, future mission planning, procurement and general business activities for all flight missions and advanced technology developments for New Millennium activities at Goddard.

Klein was recognized for his exceptional leadership and sustained accomplishments in providing expertise in project and program management, resources management and administration for flight projects at Goddard. The NASA employee has "demonstrated outstanding leadership skills, resourcefulness and dedication in helping the Goddard Center overcome some of its most difficult project management challenges. His success at reducing uncosted obligations, returning over $50 million in savings for use by other NASA missions, shows his commitment to the American taxpayer to make the most efficient use of public funds. His abilities in project management and control allowed several NASA missions, threatened with cancellation, to be successfully launched and operated."

Klein joined NASA in June 1986 as a Presidential Management Intern. He progressed through a series of increasingly responsible management and staff positions before assuming his current job. In addition to his financial management background, Klein has hands-on experience in launch vehicle integration, launch site ground processing for expendable launch vehicles, flight hardware transportation and handling, international and U.S. Customs, procurement and facilities.

In 1984 Klein received a bachelor of arts degree in Public Affairs from The George Washington University. Two years later he received a master’s degree in Public Administration, also from George Washington.

Polar is the second mission of NASA’s Global Geospace Science initiative that focuses on the global flow of energy of wind from the Sun. Launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on a Delta rocket Feb. 24, 1996, Polar was the first electrically neutralized satellite equipped to observe the Earth’s polar cap and lobe plasma environments. Goddard also provides mission operations and processing of payload data.

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