Apr 3 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-092 - NASA INVESTS IN SMALL BUSINESS INNOVATIVE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY PROPOSALS TO ENABLE FUTURE MISSIONS --WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected 295 research and technology proposals from 216 American small businesses for negotiations that may lead to contract awards worth a combined $38.7 million. The proposals are part of NASA's Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program. SBIR addresses specific technology gaps in agency missions while striving to complement other agency research investments. Numerous NASA efforts, including modern air traffic control systems, Earth-observing spacecraft, human spaceflight and the International Space Station, and NASA's Mars rovers have benefited from the program. The STTR program additionally facilitates the transfer of technology developed by a research institution through the entrepreneurship of a small business. NASA's small business innovation research projects are strong and valuable investments that continue to pay dividends to NASA and the American people, said Michael Gazarik, NASA's associate administrator for space technology in Washington. "If successful, these early stage technology concepts will mature to meet NASA's mission needs while also providing solutions that have wide applicability in the marketplace, potentially becoming new products, services and jobs here in the U.S." This year, NASA issued two concurrent solicitations for Phase I proposals. A general solicitation for both SBIR and STTR sought Phase I proposals in response to a broad range of research topics. A select solicitation was for the SBIR program only and focused on a small group of topics of particular interest to the agency. Innovative research areas among these selected proposals include: -- New technologies to reduce drag on aircraft and thereby increase fuel efficiency during supersonic flight. -- Improved advanced spacesuit life support systems. -- Development of innovative fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles offering unique capabilities for Earth science research and environmental monitoring. -- Innovative concepts and technologies to enable significant increases in the capacity and efficiency of air transportation systems, potentially aiding in on-time arrival, departure and taxiing of airplanes while reducing their fuel consumption, noise and pollution. -- Creating a launch system that provides low-cost, reliable, on-demand, routine space access for small satellites, weighing up to about 44 pounds. -- Developing a rugged laser transmitter for new detection systems to profile Earth's atmospheric ozone. The highly competitive SBIR-STTR program is a three-phase award system. Phase I is a feasibility study to evaluate the scientific and technical merit of an idea. Awards typically are for six months for the SBIR contracts and 12 months for the STTR contracts. The maximum amount is $125,000 for general SBIR and STTR contracts and $200,000 for SBIR select solicitation proposals. Firms successfully completing Phase I are eligible to submit a Phase II proposal, expanding on the results of the developments in Phase I. Phase III is for the commercialization of the results of Phase II and requires the use of private sector or non-SBIR federal funding. For the general SBIR Phase I solicitation, NASA chose 236 proposals worth about $29.4 million. For the select SBIR Phase I solicitation, NASA chose 26 proposals worth about $5.1 million. NASA chose 33 proposals with a value of about $4.1 million for STTR Phase I projects. The three solicitations attracted proposals from 32 states. Selection criteria included technical merit and feasibility, along with experience, qualifications and facilities. Additional criteria included effectiveness of the work plan and commercial potential and feasibility. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., manages the SBIR program for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA's 10 field centers manage individual projects.

RELEASE: 13-096 - NASA ADMINISTRATOR STATEMENT ON ALPHA MAGNETIC SPECTROMETER --WASHINGTON -- The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the first Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) results announced Wednesday at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. AMS is a cosmic ray particle physics detector on the exterior of the International Space Station. It was launched to the space station on space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission on May 16, 2011. "The AMS cosmic ray particle results announced today could help foster a new understanding of the fields of fundamental physics and astrophysics. I am confident that this is only the first of many scientific discoveries enabled by the station that will change our understanding of the universe. Multiple NASA human spaceflight centers around the country played important roles in this work, and we look forward to many more exciting results from AMS. For more than 50 years, NASA has pushed the boundaries beyond Earth to unveil the underlying architecture of the cosmos, revealing new knowledge about our place within it. The International Space Station is a gateway to the universe, teaching us how humans can live, work, and thrive in space as we endeavor to venture deeper into the solar system. It's a remarkable testament that the orbital laboratory could play such an important supporting role in research at the very smallest scale of the physical universe. It's proof positive the space station is humanity's greatest achievement in low-Earth orbit.

RELEASE: 13-097 - NASA FLIES RADAR SOUTH ON WIDE-RANGING SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION --WASHINGTON -- A versatile NASA airborne imaging radar system is showcasing its broad scientific prowess for studying our home planet during a month-long expedition over the Americas. A NASA C-20A piloted aircraft carrying the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is wrapping up studies over the U.S. Gulf Coast, Arizona, and Central and South America. The plane left NASA's Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., on March 7. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena built and manages UAVSAR. The campaign is addressing a broad range of science questions, from the dynamics of Earth's crust and glaciers to the carbon cycle and the lives of ancient Peruvian civilizations. Flights are being conducted over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru. UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometry that sends microwave energy pulses from the sensor on the aircraft to the ground. This technique can detect and measure subtle changes in Earth's surface like those caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and glacier movements. The radar's L-band microwaves can penetrate clouds and the tops of forests, making it invaluable for studying cloud-covered tropical environments and mapping flooded ecosystems. This campaign highlights UAVSAR's versatility for Earth studies, said Naiara Pinto, UAVSAR science coordinator at JPL. In many cases, study sites are being used by multiple investigators. For example, some volcanic sites also have glaciers. The studies also help U.S. researchers establish and broaden scientific collaborations with Latin America."" " Volcano scientists will compare UAVSAR's images taken during this campaign with new imagery collected in 2014 in order to measure very subtle sub-centimeter changes in Earth's surface associated with the movement of magma at depth beneath active volcanoes. These results are expected to improve models used to understand and potentially mitigate volcanic hazards. The volcanoes being studied are in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. UAVSAR glacier data from South America's Andes Mountains will be combined with ground measurements and airborne lidar data to determine how much these glaciers move during summer and from year to year. The U.S. Geological Survey is leading the collaborative project with the Chilean government to understand glacier processes within the context of climate change impacts from human activities. The glaciers being imaged by UAVSAR provide freshwater for the residents of Santiago and water for regional agriculture. This year's study sites include coastal mangroves in Central and South America. "Much of Earth's population lives along coasts, and its livelihood and well-being depend on services provided by marine ecosystems," said JPL's Marc Simard, one of the campaign's many principal investigators. "These regions are among the most fragile on Earth. It is critical to understand how the interactions of human activities and climate change may impact the sustainability of these ecosystems." Another principal investigator, Kyle McDonald, jointly of JPL and the City University of New York, is leading four data collections that will support the mapping of wetlands across the greater Amazon River basin, including Pacaya-Samiria National Park in Peru. "Pacaya-Samiria contains large expanses of flooded palm swamps," McDonald said. "These ecosystems are potential major sources of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas. UAVSAR will help us better understand processes involved with the exchange of methane between Earth's land and atmosphere, and with the contribution of these unique ecosystems to Earth's climate." UAVSAR also is supporting agricultural studies of vineyards in Chile's La Serenas region. The efforts will help scientists at the Universidad de La Serena's Terra Pacific Group better understand the value of soil moisture data in grape and wine production. Another study site in Argentina will be overflown by both UAVSAR and the Argentine sensor SARAT as part of a collaboration between research scientist Thomas Jackson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Argentina's Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales. These studies assist scientists preparing for the launch of NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite in 2014. The radar also is imaging the northern coastal Peruvian desert, where the Moche culture lived almost 2,000 years ago. Researchers are using UAVSAR's vegetation and cloud penetrating capabilities to search for unrecorded archaeological features in an attempt to preserve sensitive sites from encroaching civilization. JPL researcher Sassan Saatchi is using UAVSAR to study the structure, biomass and diversity of tropical cloud forests in the Peruvian Andes and Manu National Park, continuing his work there during the past decade. The data will be used to evaluate how much carbon the forests contain and assess their vulnerability to human and natural disturbances. UAVSAR also is monitoring seasonal land subsidence and uplift in groundwater basins in Arizona's Cochise County for the Arizona Department of Water Resources. Other subsidence studies in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta are aimed at better understanding what causes Gulf Coast subsidence and predicting future subsidence rates. The data can help agencies better manage the protection of infrastructure, including levees in the New Orleans area.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-055 - MEDIA INVITED TO NASA COMMERCIAL PARTNER NEW ROCKET ROLLOUT APRIL 6 --WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. -- News media are invited to cover the scheduled Saturday, April 6, morning rollout of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares launch vehicle to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport's Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. Orbital is testing the Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. A demonstration flight of Antares and Cygnus to the International Space Station is planned for later this year. Following the successful completion of the COTS demonstration mission to the space station, Orbital will conduct eight cargo resupply flights to the orbiting laboratory through NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The rollout, which is scheduled to begin at about 4:45 a.m. EDT, is in preparation for the launch vehicle's test flight later this month. Pad operations to raise the rocket to a vertical position will begin at about 6 a.m. will take two to three hours to complete. The launch window for Antares' test flight is between April 17 and 19. NASA initiatives like COTS are helping develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low-Earth orbit. In parallel, NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with commercial space partners developing capabilities to launch U.S. astronauts from U.S. soil in the next few years.