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Cubesat Launched To Study Lightning
Posted On: December 5, 2013Comments: No Responses
SESDA 3 engineers made significant contributions to the mechanical and electronics design and fabrication of the Firefly ‘cubesat’ satellite, which was launched successfully on November 19, 2013 on a Minotaur rocket from NASA Wallops Flight Facility. Firefly will study Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGF): bursts of extremely high energy photons produced by lightning. Although lightning is […]
MAVEN Launches
Posted On: November 22, 2013Comments: No Responses
NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft was successfully launched on November 18, 2013 from Cape Canaveral. This mission will investigate the Martian upper atmosphere with the objective of understanding the evolution and loss of gases over time, and determining the present state of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Central to achieving these goals […]
Using ‘Excess’ Equipment, SESDA 3 Animates the Martian Landscape
Posted On: November 15, 2013Comments: No Responses
SESDA 3 staff supporting the NASA/GSFC Conceptual Image Lab led the creation of a video that depicts the transition of Mars from an ancient habitable world to a cold desert. The animation was created in collaboration with the new MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) mission spacecraft which is scheduled to be launched on Nov […]
SESDA 3 Engineers at GES DISC Preserve Legacy Data
Posted On: November 15, 2013Comments: No Responses
NASA’s earth observation missions commenced with the TIROS and Nimbus satellites in the 1970s and continue to the present day. NASA’s earth science activities have led to increasingly sophisticated satellite instruments, much larger data volumes, more complex data analyses, and a diverse suite of data products generated with sophisticated data algorithms. The data from these […]
LADEE Launches
Posted On: September 11, 2013Comments: No Responses
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) observatory successfully launched on September 6, 2013 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This robotic mission will study the moon’s atmosphere and dust particles using a suite of advanced instruments, one of which is the Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) that […]
New Catalog of the X-Ray Sky
Posted On: August 19, 2013Comments: No Responses
The XMM-Newton X-ray telescope was launched in December 1999 and has been obtaining deep, sensitive pictures of X-ray emitting sources in space ever since. Using the powerful ALICE supercomputer, scientists at the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre have examined every XMM image and have painstakingly catalogued each and every X-ray source detected by XMM-Newton. This catalog, […]
Large Hole Tears Open Our Sun
Posted On: August 6, 2013Comments: No Responses
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) media personnel produced remarkable images of an extensive coronal hole that appeared to cover almost one quarter of the Sun; one of the largest coronal holes ever observed. The magnetic field lines in a coronal hole extend out into the solar wind rather than coming back down to the Sun’s […]
SESDA Staff Study Oklahoma Tornados
Posted On: June 4, 2013Comments: No Responses
SESDA3 team members working at the GES-DISC used data from missions archived at this center to produce initial quick looks at the formation of the super tornados that impacted the US State of Oklahoma. The news on Monday, May 20, 2013 was dominated by pictures and videos of the massive EF-5 tornado that demolished a […]
SESDA 3 Brings Young Scientists & Engineers to GSFC
Posted On: May 7, 2013Comments: No Responses
The NASA RealWorld-InWorld (RWIW) Engineering Design Challenge, an integrated science, technology, engineering and mathematics program focused on NASA’s forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope, has named the 2012-2013 first place team. A SESDA 3 outreach specialist played a significant role throughout the course of the RWIW program, culminating with a visit that she facilitated from the […]
The Two Tails of Hurricane Isaac
Posted On: May 6, 2013Comments: No Responses
SESDA 3 Scientists contribute to two feature articles on the effects of Hurricane Isaac on the continental US. Prior to the incursion of “Superstorm Sandy” on the East Coast of the United States in October 2012, another hurricane – Isaac – captured headlines and posed a serious danger to the northern coast of the Gulf […]
