Right Around the Corner
A Publication for the Baltimore/Washington Area
from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
June 2002

Since the 1960s, NASA has developed polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA-M, the latest in the spacecraft series is scheduled for launch on June 24 from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California.

"The NOAA-M satellite will improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world," said Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., USN (ret.), Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and NOAA Administrator.

Led by Program Manager Karen Halterman, Goddard Space Flight Center is responsible for the procurement and development of the NOAA-M instruments and spacecraft, acquisition of the launch vehicle, launch, and post launch checkout of the satellite. The NOAA satellites carry instruments that observe our Earth and provide global data for NOAA's operational user requirements including short-, medium-, and long-range weather forecasts and other environmental studies. For more information on this upcoming mission visit: http://poes.gsfc.nasa.gov

Ball Aerospace Picked to Provide NPP Spacecraft Bus

Goddard has selected Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation (BATC), Boulder, Colo., to build the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) Spacecraft. Under the terms of the delivery order valued at $94 million (including spacecraft and all associated options) BATC will be responsible for the design and fabrication of the NPP spacecraft bus, integration of the Government-furnished instruments, satellite-level testing, and on-orbit satellite check-out.

NPP is a joint mission with contributions by NASA and NOAA's NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO). NASA is providing the NPP spacecraft, the launch vehicle and one of the three advanced sensors. The delivery order was awarded under NASA/GSFC's Rapid II Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Contract. The contract is for Core Spacecraft Systems. For more information on the Ball Aerospace NPP contract, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2002/h02-96.htm
CONTOUR Set to Launch in Early July

Comets are the most pristine, primitive bodies in the solar system, and it is expected that they retain more evidence of the processes that took place when the solar system formed than do subsequently evolved larger bodies. The Comet Nucleus Tour, or CONTOUR, is a mission intended to greatly expand what is known of comet nuclei and to assess their diversity.

Set to launch in July from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the CONTOUR mission is near and dear to Goddard scientists Dr. Paul Mahaffy and Dr. Hasso Niemann of the Atmospheric Experiment Branch. They are developing the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS). This instrument carries out measurements of the chemical and isotopic composition of the neutral gas and ion species near the nucleus of each comet during the fast CONTOUR flybys. For more details on this mission visit: http://webserver.gsfc.nasa.gov/contour.html

Hubble's Infrared Camera is Back in Business - New Images Released

After more than three years of inactivity, and thanks to a new cryogenic refrigerator, the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) recently debuted various breathtaking views of galaxies in several stages of development.

The first NICMOS test images demonstrate its powerful new capability for making remarkable discoveries unique to space-based near-infrared astronomy. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Creare Corporation, Hanover, N.H built the NICMOS Cooling System.

"The Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 3B is now demonstrated to be a complete success. We had 100 percent servicing mission success, and now we have 100 percent performance success for the newly installed NICMOS Cooling System," said Dr. Ed Cheng, Goddard's HST Development Project Scientist. For more information visit: http://hubblesite.org/go/news   For HST images and releases go to: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html

NASA Homepage Offers Links to NASA En Espanol: Spanish Language Content

One of the most popular Internet web sites of the federal government now offers links to a variety of aerospace news and information in Spanish. The primary web portal for NASA, www.nasa.gov, regularly receives more than 650,000 hits a week and offers links to a variety of agency news and information produced by field centers across the country. To view the mix of project-specific sites and general information about NASA programs go to:
http://www.nasa.gov/hqpao/espanol.html.

NASA Administrator Outlines Agency's Mission

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe outlined the future direction of the agency in a major address recently at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs on the campus of Syracuse University in New York. You can view O'Keefe's address at: http://www.nasa.gov/bios/vision.html

Webby People's Voice Award

Two NASA Web sites have been nominated to receive a Webby Award (http://www.webbyawards.com). The NASA Home Page (http://www.nasa.gov) was nominated in the "Government & Law" category and NASA's Earth Observatory (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov), which is based at Goddard's Laboratory for Atmospheres, has been nominated in the "Science" category. The Webby Awards are chosen by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences -- a diverse group of people including noted business persons, celebrities, and Internet experts. Winners will be announced on June 18.

New Partnerships Set to Reshape NASA Science Modeling

NASA is joining with leading university and government researchers to develop software frameworks that will enable more realistic simulations of natural
phenomena and interpretation of vast quantities of observational data on high-end computers.

Over the next three years, the agency will pay out $22.8 million to 11 investigation teams attacking challenges as diverse as:

· making it possible for many climate and weather modeling groups to share and reuse each other's software,
· creating multi-year earthquake forecasts,
· predicting space weather using real-time observations, and
· uncovering the workings of gamma-ray bursts.

"These agreements represent a major investment in development of the software infrastructure that is needed to support high-end computing applications in the Earth and space sciences," said Dr. Richard Rood, Acting Chief, Earth and Space Data Computing Division at Goddard. "The applications are at the forefront of scientific discovery through computational exper-imentation and also sit at the foundation of the software codes used to assess climate change." For more information on the researchers partnership, go to:http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020419scimodel.html

New On-line Tool Tailors Climate Forecasts to Fit Resource Managers' Needs

A soon-to-be-released online tool, developed through NASA funding, provides "Consumer Reports" type evaluations of seasonal forecasts for water, land and
agricultural managers. By helping users determine what forecasts are right for their needs, this tool could help users make multi-million dollar decisions.

If understood and used properly, long-range forecasts can greatly aid in the management of water, fires, cattle, agriculture, energy and more. For the complete article on the seasonal forecasts of temperatures and precipitation, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020523tool.html

Children Compete in an Odyssey to Solve a NASA-Sponsored Problem

Every year, children from all over the world gather together and compete in a creative problem-solving competition called "Odyssey of the Mind World
Finals," which challenges students to solve long-term problems in topics ranging from science and technology to the creative arts. This year's competition was held at the University of Colorado at Boulder in May.

NASA's Earth Science Enterprise and Earth Observing System Project Science Office are sponsoring one of the long-term challenges for students with an entry called Omer's Earthly Adventures, based on environmental issues. Omer is the raccoon-like Odyssey of the Mind mascot.

NASA had an exhibit at the World Finals, and repre-sentatives Dr. Michael King and Dr. Fritz Hasler of Goddard gave NASA/NOAA Earth Science Electronic Theater presentations. For more information visit: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-release/releases/2002/02-72.htm