Goddard in the News

Aqua: The progress of the Aqua spacecraft was featured at Spaceflightnow.com. Aqua was launched on May 4 and has been activated successfully tested. The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E). Testing of Aqua's systems, sensors and software will continue until the satellite becomes fully operational in a few months. Aqua will provide date that will help further the understanding of Earth's water cycle.

EOS: Spaceflightnow.com featured an article on a NASA funded study that revealed changing rainfall patterns over much of the United States in the last century have allowed plants to grow more vigorously and absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Landsat: Images from the Landsat 7 satellite are being used to estimate the cost of crop damage from two hail and wind storms that hit west-central Illinois in the summer of 1999. With the use of special software, color-coded images are able to identify changes in ground reflectance pointing out where crops have been destroyed by thunderstorms, tornados and other disasters. The use of Landsat 7 to assess crop damage was a featured article at Missourian.com.

Contract: NASA's selection of Ball Aerospace to build the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) Spacecraft was a featured article at Spaceflight.com. The satellite will be launched into orbit in 2006.