NASA's SPoRT Team Tracks Hurricane Sandy

The SPoRT team provided images to the National Weather Service to help forecast Hurricane Sandy. (NASA) 

As Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the east coast, weather experts at the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition, or SPoRT Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville were busy developing information to help forecasters better predict the massive storm.

The SPoRT Center uses Earth Observing System measurements and other satellite data to generate products useful in the analysis of weather events. SPoRT provides these products and data sets to partners within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA's National Weather Service, and private sector organizations like The Weather Channel.

In 2002, NASA established SPoRT, at the Marshall Space Flight Center to facilitate the use of real-time Earth Observing System measurements for short-term weather forecasting. Near real-time satellite imagery is useful for monitoring current conditions and events likely to occur in the next few hours.

SPoRT provides a variety of satellite imagery and unique products from NASA and NOAA satellites such as Terra, Aqua, and the recently launched Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP).These products can be useful for identifying hazards such as severe thunderstorms and tropical cyclones, fog, and snow cover, or help to monitor disasters such as floods and wildfires. SPoRT researchers also incorporate satellite observations of the land surface and profiles of atmospheric temperature and moisture within high resolution weather forecasting models with a goal of improving short-term weather predictions over the next few days.

"SPoRT has been transitioning unique NASA and NOAA research satellite data to numerous National Weather Service forecast offices for the last 10 years to help them improve short-term weather forecasts of hazardous weather conditions like hurricane Sandy," says Dr. Andrew Molthan, a research meteorologist affiliated with the project.

"We work closely with end users to understand their forecast problems and match our data capabilities to those problems."For the last year, several additional National Weather Service Centers of Excellence including the National Hurricane Center, the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, and the Ocean Prediction Center, have used unique multichannel satellite composite products from SPoRT.

The composites are derived from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer or MODIS and the European Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager or SEVIRI instruments to monitor large scale weather systems that pose significant weather threats to the United States.Through partnerships with NOAA's Satellite Proving Grounds, SPoRT provides additional data products from MODIS, SEVIRI, and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite or VIIRS instruments to monitor daily weather events, including then-Hurricane and now post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy. Forecasters are being provided imagery from multiple satellite sensors, including a recently developed "air mass" satellite product, fusing data from two instruments on the Suomi NPP satellite, to help forecasters monitor the development and decay of this storm.

"There are many MODIS and VIIRS images of Sandy available on the web, but SPoRT provides the National Weather Service with MODIS and VIIRS data directly within their decision support systems, allowing use with all of their other tools," said Molthan. "SPoRT creates a number of unique value-added products not available anywhere else."

NASA's Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center continues to provide satellite imagery to the National Weather Service weather forecast office partners and National Centers through core SPoRT activities and collaborations with NOAA's GOES-R and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Proving Grounds. Final images were created by NASA's SPoRT at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, using MODIS and VIIRS data provided courtesy of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

The compositing technique resulting in the false color VIIRS day-night band and infrared imagery was provided by the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, California as part of an ongoing NRL-SPoRT collaboration.

For further information visit: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASAs_SPoRT_Team_Tracks_Hurricane_Sandy_999.html

NASA Seeks Partners to Explore Johnson Structural Testing Research and Development

 HOUSTON -- NASA has released a Request for Information (RFI) to explore the potential interest and use of its unique facilities, labs and technical expertise for structural testing at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The facilities and capabilities could support commercial, government and academic activities, and possibly lead to new technology developments.

The RFI is seeking responses from prospective partners interested in using Johnson's extensive testing facilities to provide high-performance solutions for a variety of structural testing in diverse industries, including aerospace. These solutions can help businesses meet their challenges by helping engineers develop deeper insight in their materials and building processes.

Structure testing capabilities at Johnson include a full range of end-to-end test labs and tools, and the expertise of NASA scientists and engineers in analyzing data and operations. Core areas include material properties and advanced manufacturing techniques research, as well as rapid prototyping or fabrication of aircraft, spaceflight vehicle systems and industrial structures.

Johnson's structural analyses are able to evaluate many different types of designs and can be conducted with environmental conditioning to analyze composites in extreme environments and verify design predictions that may support industry goals.

New partnerships using Johnson structural testing facilities and expertise would be consistent with NASA's missions and are expected to be on a reimbursable basis.

For further information visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/oct/HQ_12-380_JSC_RFI_Structural_Testing.html

NASA NEWS: NASA Rover's First Soil Studies Help Fingerprint Martian Minerals

This graphic shows results of the first analysis of Martian soil by the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) experiment on NASA's Curiosity rover. The image reveals the presence of crystalline feldspar, pyroxenes and olivine mixed with some amorphous (non-crystalline) material. The soil sample, taken from a wind-blown deposit within Gale Crater, where the rover landed, is similar to volcanic soils in Hawaii. The colors in the graphic represent the intensity of the X-rays, with red being the most intense. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ames.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has completed initial experiments showing the mineralogy of Martian soil is similar to weathered basaltic soils of volcanic origin in Hawaii.

The minerals were identified in the first sample of Martian soil ingested recently by the rover. Curiosity used its Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) to obtain the results, which are filling gaps and adding confidence to earlier estimates of the mineralogical makeup of the dust and fine soil widespread on the Red Planet.

"We had many previous inferences and discussions about the mineralogy of Martian soil," said David Blake of NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who is the principal investigator for CheMin. "Our quantitative results provide refined and in some cases new identifications of the minerals in this first X-ray diffraction analysis on Mars."

The identification of minerals in rocks and soil is crucial for the mission's goal to assess past environmental conditions. Each mineral record the conditions under which it formed. The chemical composition of a rock provides only ambiguous mineralogical information, as in the textbook example of the minerals diamond and graphite, which have the same chemical composition, but strikingly different structures and properties.

CheMin uses X-ray diffraction, the standard practice for geologists on Earth using much larger laboratory instruments. This method provides more accurate identifications of minerals than any method previously used on Mars.

X-ray diffraction reads minerals' internal structure by recording how their crystals distinctively interact with X-rays. Innovations from Ames led to an X-ray diffraction instrument compact enough to fit inside the rover.

These NASA technological advances have resulted in other applications on Earth, including compact and portable X-ray diffraction equipment for oil and gas exploration, analysis of archaeological objects and screening of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, among other uses.

"Our team is elated with these first results from our instrument," said Blake. "They heighten our anticipation for future CheMin analyses in the months and miles ahead for Curiosity."

"Much of Mars is covered with dust, and we had an incomplete understanding of its mineralogy," said David Bish, CheMin co-investigator with Indiana University in Bloomington.

"We now know it is mineralogically similar to basaltic material, with significant amounts of feldspar, pyroxene and olivine, which was not unexpected. Roughly half the soil is non-crystalline material, such as volcanic glass or products from weathering of the glass. "

Bish said, "So far, the materials Curiosity has analyzed are consistent with our initial ideas of the deposits in Gale Crater recording a transition through time from a wet to dry environment. The ancient rocks, such as the conglomerates, suggest flowing water, while the minerals in the younger soil are consistent with limited interaction with water."

During the two-year prime mission of the Mars Science Laboratory Project, researchers are using Curiosity's 10 instruments to investigate whether areas in Gale Crater ever offered environmental conditions favourable for microbial life.

For further information visit: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASA_Rovers_First_Soil_Studies_Help_Fingerprint_Martian_Minerals_999.html