TECHNOLOGY MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, NASA GOES FOR MORE
Date:
Fri, 18 Jan 2002 13:20:16 -0500 (EST)
From:
NASANews@hq.nasa.gov
To:
undisclosed-recipients:;

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington Jan. 18, 2002
(Phone: 202/358-1730)

RELEASE: 02-12

TECHNOLOGY MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, NASA GOES FOR MORE

The mission was to validate nine new breakthrough
technologies in the unique environment of space --
technologies that will change the way spacecraft and Earth-
viewing instruments are built and operated in the future.
After a fully successful series of experiments and tests,
NASA's going for more.

The Earth Observing-1 technology-testbed spacecraft was
launched just over a year ago to see how a set of advanced
technologies would fare in the actual space environment --
the final step in validating these new concepts. The
instruments -- ranging from a hyperspectral imager (a
"camera" that views the Earth's surface with spectral
discrimination never before seen) to an X-Band Phased Array
Antenna that sends high volumes of data back to Earth in a
unique "pencil beam" pattern -- all met test objectives with
"flying colors."

A pulsed plasma thruster was tested as a new way of
controlling spacecraft attitude and "pointability," and an
Advanced Land Imager validated a new low-cost way of
providing Landsat-type or better views of Earth from space
with more desirable size, mass and power and improved
performance.

Breakthroughs in carbon composite-structure technologies to
keep spacecraft lightweight and cool, and an advanced,
wideband recorder processor were tested and found fit for use
in future flights. A new lightweight, flexible solar array
also proved a success.

Now that the mission has met all objectives within the one-
year on-orbit goal, mission scientists and the user community
want to keep things going. To accommodate user needs, NASA
has formed a partnership with the United States Geological
Survey (USGS) in Reston, Va., to continue the mission through
the acquisition and provision of mission data based on user
requests.

The EO-1 Extended Mission partnership is modeled on the
successful NASA/USGS Landsat data-purchase model, and
parallels NASA's policy of charging for use of unique NASA
capabilities. EO-1 is one-of-a-kind and no equivalent
commercial source exists; the private sector is part of the
user community that has requested continuing mission
operations.

Under the extended mission agreement, NASA will continue to
command and control EO-1, while USGS will take researchers'
cost-reimbursable orders for spacecraft data. EO-1 price
levels have been set to recover satellite operation, data
processing and customer interface costs, estimated at
approximately $5 million per year.

NASA and USGS believe that data from EO-1 may be valuable in
global land-cover studies, ecosystem monitoring, mineral and
petroleum prospecting, and agricultural crop discrimination
and assessment, among other potential applications. The
extended mission will allow a broad range of users to
experiment and learn from these advanced capabilities. It
also provides an ideal mechanism for technology transfer to
the private sector.

Potential customers for these data include the existing 31
science teams who have been supporting the mission. The
satellite-manufacturing industry; the value-added commercial
remote-sensing community; the Earth Sciences research
community; and federal, state and local agencies, as well as
a variety of national security organizations, all may find
potential use for the new, experimental data unique to EO-1.

NASA and USGS will review EO-1 operations on a monthly basis.
Depending on the demand for EO-1-unique observations and
spacecraft health, satellite decommissioning could occur as
early as this spring or as late as the spring of 2005.

The EO-1 mission is part of the advanced technologies
research conducted by NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, a
long-term research effort dedicated to understanding how
human-induced and natural changes affect our global
environment.

---

http://eo1.usgs.gov

More cool tech, bio, etc., stuff (promising and helpful in future systems and manufacturing, etc.): http://www.nasatech.com
(Husband gets the magazine at work... I like it too. lol)

Marcia