On 2 March, Italian Chief of Defence General Vincenzo Camporini delivered an inaugural address at the NATO Defense College in Rome to kick off the 116th Senior Course. He was welcomed by LtGen Wolf-Dieter Loeser, Commandant of the College.

In his opening remarks, LtGen Loeser reminded course participants of the importance of deepening their knowledge to meet NATO's current challenges.

General Camporini's address highlighted the primary objective of NATO's new Strategic Concept: to tackle new global threats and, by strengthening Allied solidarity, ensure that NATO is better able to respond to new security challenges.

To achieve NATO's goals, the General said it is essential to develop stronger synergy with key governmental and non-governmental actors on the international stage. In addition, he called for more emphasis on enhancing the relationship between NATO and the European Union. General Camporini's speech was followed by a lively question and answer period.

The six-month Senior Course is the College's core business. It aims to prepare senior officers and civilian officials for high-level positions with the Alliance through in-depth study of the changing international security environment and new, multi-faceted threats and challenges.

More than 80 military personnel and civilians representing 29 NATO and Partner countries are attending the course.

Source: NATO News

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WASHINGTON - U.S. university faculty and students are invited to a weeklong workshop to learn how to build and launch a scientific experiment into space. NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is hosting the RockOn! 2010 workshop June 19-24 in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia. Registrations for the 2010 workshop are being accepted through March 22.

The hands-on workshop teaches participants to build experiments that fly on sounding rockets. During the week, participants will work together in teams of three to construct and integrate a sounding rocket payload from a kit in four days. On the fifth day of the workshop, June 24, their experiments will fly on a NASA Terrier-Orion sounding rocket expected to reach an altitude of 73 miles.

Each experiment will provide valuable scientific data, analyzed as part of the student led science and engineering research. The program engages faculty and students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills critical to NASA's future engineering, scientific, and technical missions.

Approximately 100 faculty and students participated each year in the 2008 and 2009 workshops. All experiments have been successful, completed on time, launched and recovered.

NASA initiated the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program in 1989. The Space Grant national network includes more than 850 affiliates from universities, colleges, industry, museums, science centers, and state and local agencies. The goal is to support and enhance science and engineering education, and research and public outreach efforts for NASA's aeronautics and space projects. These affiliates belong to one of 52 consortia in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

For more information about RockOn! and to register online, visit: http://spacegrant.colorado.edu/rockon

For more information about NASA education programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/education

The Sounding Rockets Program Office at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility will be providing the rocket and launch operations during the workshop. For more information about NASA's sounding rocket program, visit: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code810

Source: NASA

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MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - The NASA World Wind Java computer program developed at the agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., is the winner of NASA's 2009 Software of the Year Award.

Software engineers at Ames created the NASA World Wind Java Software Development Kit and Web Mapping Services Server. NASA World Wind Java is an open-source platform used to display NASA and U.S. Geological Survey data on virtual 3-D globes of Earth and other planets. The displayed information comes from satellites, aerial photography, and topographic and geographic data.

"I am absolutely delighted the NASA World Wind team has been honored with this prestigious award," said Ames Director S. Pete Worden. "The outstanding work of the NASA World Wind team has made a significant and lasting contribution to Ames' technology development portfolio and NASA's leadership in geospatial technology."

NASA World Wind is user-friendly, using button or mouse controls to rotate, pan and zoom through models. The program engages the public to learn more about our planet and NASA technology. To better enable government, commercial enterprises, and individual developers to build the applications they need, the NASA World Wind Java Software Development Kit is released under the NASA Open Source Agreement and allows all users to review and test the software source code.

Patrick Hogan leads the NASA World Wind team, which includes Pat Moran, Tom Gaskins, Paul Collins, Lado Garakanidze, Randolph Kim, Patrick Murris, Jay Parsons, Chris Maxwell and Rick Brownrigg. Members of the software development team received medals during a ceremony in February at the NASA Project Management Challenge Conference in Galveston, Texas.

This year's runners up were the Spacecraft Planet Instrument C-Matrix Events Toolkit from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Copernicus Trajectory Design and Optimization System from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Honorable mentions included the Nondestructive Evaluation Wave and Image Processor Software from NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the Lightning Protection Design and Verification Tool from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the System Identification Programs for AirCraft from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance and the Chief Information Officer sponsor the NASA Software of the Year Competition to identify innovative software technologies that significantly improve the agency's exploration of space and maximize scientific discovery on Earth. A NASA Software Advisory Panel assesses and ranks the entries and reports its findings to NASA's Inventions and Contributions Board.
Ames has won or been a co-winner of the NASA Software of the Year award eight times since it was initiated in 1994.

For more information about NASA's Inventions and Contributions Board, visit: http://icb.nasa.gov

For more information and to download NASA World Wind, visit: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/java

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

Source: NASA

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