1. Monday, March 4, 2013: 2-3:30 PM PST (5-6:30 PM EST, 4-5:30 PM CST): We welcome the return of HENRY VANDERBILT to discuss the upcoming Space Access Conference, commercial and NewSpace.
2. Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 7-8:30 PM PST (10-11:30 PM EST, 9-10:30 PM CST): We welcome the return of DR. HENRY HERTZFELD, Professor at GWU and the Space Policy Institute. Dr. Hertzfeld will be talking about commercial space and more.
3. Thursday, March 7, 2013:, 9:30-10:30 AM PST (12:30-1:30 PM EST. We welcome YONATON WINETRAUB, Founder and CTO of SpaceIL. Visit their website for more information: www.spaceil.com.
4. Friday, March 8, 2013, 9:30-11 AM PST (12:30-2 PM EST, 11:30AM-1PM CST): We welcome back DR. RYAN KOBRICK to discuss this year’s Yuri’s Night.
[ Update: These two entries got truncated accidentally:
5. The Friday, March 8, 2013 program from 12-1PM PST, (3-4 PM EST): We welcome back DR. NEIL deGRASSE TYSON to discuss his book “Space Chronicles” now released in paperback.
6. The Sunday, March 10, 2013 program from 9:30-11 AM PDT, (12:30-2 PM EDT): We welcome JOHN OEHLER to discuss his book “Aphrodesia: A novel of Suspense” and the role of smell and its relationship to space. For more information, visit his website, http://johnoehler.com.
WASHINGTON — NASA has selected 24 small satellites to fly as auxiliary payloads aboard rockets planned to launch in 2014, 2015 and 2016. The proposed CubeSats come from universities across the country, a Florida high school, several non-profit organizations and NASA field centers.
CubeSats belong to a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. The cube-shaped satellites measure about 4 inches on each side, have a volume of about 1 quart, and weigh less than 3 pounds.
The selections are from the fourth round of the CubeSat Launch Initiative. After launch, the satellites will conduct technology demonstrations, educational research or science missions. The selected CubeSats will be eligible for flight after final negotiations and an opportunity for flight becomes available.
The following organizations submitted winning satellite proposals:
— The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
— The Discovery Museum and Planetarium, Bridgeport, Conn.
— Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, Ariz.
— Morehead State University, Morehead, Ky., in partnership with the University of California at Berkeley
— Montana State University, Bozeman (2 CubeSats) in partnership with The University of New Hampshire, Durham
— Merritt Island High School, Florida, in partnership with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
— NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
— NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. (3 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., in partnership with the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (3 CubeSats)
— NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida
— Pennsylvania State University, in partnership with the Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, Calif., and the Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.
— Saint Louis University, St. Louis
— Tyvak Nano-Satellites Systems, Irvine, Calif., in partnership with the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
— University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
— University of Colorado, Boulder
— University of Florida, Gainesville, in partnership with Stanford University
— University of Maryland, Baltimore County
— University of Texas, Austin
— Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., in partnership with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, Silver Spring, Md.
In the three previous rounds of the CubeSat initiative, NASA has selected 63 missions for flight. The agency’s Launch Services Program Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) Program has launched 12 CubeSat missions. This year, 22 CubeSat missions are scheduled for flight.
For additional information on NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative program, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/nXOuPI
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.go
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission has discovered a previously unknown third radiation belt around Earth, revealing the existence of unexpected structures and processes within these hazardous regions of space.
Previous observations of Earth’s Van Allen belts have long documented two distinct regions of trapped radiation surrounding our planet. Particle detection instruments aboard the twin Van Allen Probes, launched Aug. 30, quickly revealed to scientists the existence of this new, transient, third radiation belt.
The belts, named for their discoverer, James Van Allen, are critical regions for modern society, which is dependent on many space-based technologies. The Van Allen belts are affected by solar storms and space weather and can swell dramatically. When this occurs, they can pose dangers to communications and GPS satellites, as well as humans in space.
“The fantastic new capabilities and advances in technology in the Van Allen Probes have allowed scientists to see in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles and will provide insight on what causes them to change, and how these processes affect the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere,” said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science in Washington.
This discovery shows the dynamic and variable nature of the radiation belts and improves our understanding of how they respond to solar activity. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, are the result of data gathered by the first dual-spacecraft mission to fly through our planet’s radiation belts.
The new high-resolution observations by the Relativistic Electron Proton Telescope (REPT) instrument, part of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma Suite (ECT) aboard the Van Allen Probes, revealed there can be three distinct, long-lasting belt structures with the emergence of a second empty slot region, or space, in between.
“This is the first time we have had such high-resolution instruments look at time, space and energy together in the outer belt,” said Daniel Baker, lead author of the study and REPT instrument lead at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “Previous observations of the outer radiation belt only resolved it as a single blurry element. When we turned REPT on just two days after launch, a powerful electron acceleration event was already in progress, and we clearly saw the new belt and new slot between it and the outer belt.”
Scientists observed the third belt for four weeks before a powerful interplanetary shock wave from the sun annihilated it. Observations were made by scientists from institutions including LASP; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.; and the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
Each Van Allen Probe carries an identical set of five instrument suites that allow scientists to gather data on the belts in unprecedented detail. The data are important for the study of the effect of space weather on Earth, as well as fundamental physical processes observed around other objects, such as planets in our solar system and distant nebulae.
“Even 55 years after their discovery, the Earth’s radiation belts still are capable of surprising us and still have mysteries to discover and explain,” said Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “We thought we knew the radiation belts, but we don’t. The advances in technology and detection made by NASA in this mission already have had an almost immediate impact on basic science.”
The Van Allen Probes are the second mission in NASA’s Living With a Star Program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. Goddard manages the program. The Applied Physics Laboratory built the spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA.
Bryan Versteeg has developed a very distinctive and impressive style of illustration of future space habitats, asteroid mines, Mars bases and other space facilities. See galleries of his images and videos at Space Habs by Bryan Versteeg.
Go to AMSAT News for the latest headlines about developments in amateur and student satellites and for updates about amateur radio on the ISS.
ANS 062 Weekly AMSAT Bulletin – March 2, 2013:
* Vanderbilt-AMSAT RadFxSat Cubesat Selected for NASA ELaNa Program
* AMSAT Shows New President’s Club Pin
* 5th European CubeSat Symposium, 3-5 June 2013, Brussels – Belgium
* American satellite starts transmitting after being abandoned in 1967
* STRaND-1 Information and Telemetry
* ARISS NEWS
* AMSAT-DC Workshop on Portable Satellite Ground Stations
* AMSAT Forum at ACADIANA ARA Hamfest – Free Admission Coupons for Youth
* Korean OSSI-1 Ham Radio CubeSat Frequency Coordinated
* ARRL Offers Two Sessions of their Teachers Institute
