NASA and NOAA's latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-15, has successfully completed five months of on-orbit testing and has been accepted into service.

The satellite has demonstrated operational readiness of its subsystems, spacecraft instruments and communications services. GOES-15 is the third and final spacecraft in the GOES N-P Series of geostationary environmental weather satellites.

The GOES fleet help NOAA forecasters track life-threatening weather and solar activity that can impact the satellite-based electronics and communications industry. During the checkout period, GOES-15 delivered high-resolution images from space, including the first visible and infrared images of Earth taken by its imager instrument, and the first image of the sun taken by its solar X-ray imager instrument.

"NASA has delivered another exceptional environmental satellite to NOAA and the nation. We set the bar high and met our goals with the help of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems, Lockheed Martin, ITT and United Launch Alliance," said Andre Dress, GOES Deputy Project Manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

NOAA operates two GOES operational satellites (GOES-13 in the east and GOES-11 in the west) that provide weather observations covering more than 50 percent of the Earth's surface. The GOES-15 spacecraft, designed and built by Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems, will be placed in an on-orbit storage location at 105 degrees west longitude should one of the operational GOES satellites degrade or exhaust their fuel. It will share a parking space with GOES-14, currently in the same storage orbit. Both satellites can be made operational within 24 hours to replace an older satellite.

"With more than 35 million Americans living in hurricane-prone areas, we need the reliable, accurate data GOES provide," said Gary Davis, director of the Office of Systems Development at NOAA's Satellite and Information Service.

A six-minute view of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season as seen from space by GOES-12, formerly the East Coast GOES sentinel, is available online. The video highlights NASA technology and NOAA satellite data.

NOAA manages the GOES program, establishes requirements, provides all funding and distributes environmental satellite data for the United States. NASA Goddard procures and manages the design, development and launch of the satellites for NOAA on a cost reimbursable basis.

For more information about the GOES-15 mission and program on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/goes-p

http://goespoes.gsfc.nasa.gov

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov

http://www.osd.noaa.gov/GOES/goes_p.htm

http://www.weather.gov

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/home

Source: NOAA

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Voyager 2 is a robotic probe that was launched decades ago and has proved so far to be one of the most successful research missions ever sent to space by humankind; unfortunately, normal contact was lost with the ship during the early months of 2010 at about 13 light hours distance after some garbled data was sent by Voyager, leading some people to believe that it has been seized by aliens.

Of course, that's a way to think about the issue: an ufo was passing by and for whatever reason, its occupants decided to seize the object sent by Earthlings. Another hypothesis would be to assume that it was the Easter Bunny who pooed on its antenna.

People believe what they want because there is simply no way to go there fast enough and fix the thing. The odds are that the equipment of this probe that has spent many years within a very aggressive environment simply failed. Things do fail after a while, and spacecraft are not the exception.

There is a simple explanation, which is also the most likely: The Voyager uses compression algorithms to pack the data it sends much like what we do with our own computers when we pack or zip a file in order to save space. Voyager does exactly the same when sending a message as when we send email messages with attached files in order to save significant amounts of energy, which is scarce out there. If due to a computer glitch or hardware malfunction after being so long in space, especially in the mostly-unknown outer solar system region, one of the variables used gets randomly altered, then the patterns reconstructed as expected would appear garbled.

Failures that develop following a domino-like patter would cause partial disabilities first, and then propagate until the whole system stops working. In the case of Voyager 2, a micro meteor would do the trick, for example. Such bugs occur sometimes when you unzip a file on Earth: Suddenly the program tells you that there is a CRC error and the file is impossible to read, or something like that. It can also happen in space without any need for alien intervention.

Source: Pablo Edronkin, Andinia.com

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This retreat impacts water supplies to millions of people, increases the likelihood of outburst floods that threaten life and property in nearby areas, and contributes to sea-level rise.

The U.S. Geological Survey, in collaboration with 39 international scientists, published a report on the status of glaciers throughout all of Asia, including Russia, China, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.

"Of particular interest are the Himalaya, where glacier behavior impacts the quality of life of tens of millions of people," said USGS scientist Jane Ferrigno. "Glaciers in the Himalaya are a major source of fresh water and supply meltwater to all of the rivers in northern India."

As glaciers become smaller, water runoff decreases, which is especially important during the dry season when other water sources are limited. Climate change also brings warmer temperatures and earlier water runoff from glaciers, and this combined with spring and summer rains can result in flood conditions. The overall glacier retreat and additional melt can increase the amount of water dammed in the vicinity of a glacier, and the added pressure enhances the likelihood of disastrous outburst flooding.

While most glaciers in Asia are in recession, some glaciers have been found to advance. Some of the advancing glaciers are surge-type glaciers, which move forward more rapidly than average in a short period of time. The reason for this is being studied by glaciologists, and is likely due to unique and local condition

Glacier studies in each area started at different times depending on accessibility of glaciers and scientific interest. For example, the earliest description of glaciers in China was in 630 A.D., while studies in the Caucasus area of Russia began in the mid 1800s and modern studies in Nepal started in the 1950s.

The time period for retreat also differs among each glacier. In Bhutan, 66 glaciers have decreased 8.1 percent over the last 30 years. Rapid changes in the Himalaya is shown in India by the 12 percent retreat of Chhota Shigri Glacier during the last 13 years, as well as retreat of the Gangotri Glacier since 1780, with 12 percent shrinkage of the main stem in the last 16 years.

Glaciers in Russia and in the four republics once part of the Former Soviet Union have the largest area of glaciers in Asia, covering 30,478 square miles, which is about the size of South Carolina. The glaciers of China have the second largest area of glaciers in Asia, covering 22,944 square miles, which is about twice the size of Massachusetts. In Afghanistan, the more than 3,000 small mountain glaciers that occur in the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains provide vital water resources to the region.

"This report was a collaboration between U.S. and foreign authors, the most knowledgeable glaciologists for each geographic region covered," said USGS scientist Richard S. Williams, Jr. "The USGS published historical and modern data authored by local experts. Some analyses of past climate conditions were conducted by studying ice cores from high-mountain areas of Asia."

This report is the 9th in the series of 11 volumes to be published as the USGS Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World. You can view other publications in this series online.

"The Glaciers of Asia" volume is available online.

Source: USGS

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