NASA Daily News Summary 25 Apr 2000

NASA Daily News Summary

For Release:  April 25, 2000

Media Advisory m00-82

SUMMARY
NEWS RELEASES:
CHANDRA SHOWS NEW WAY TO MEASURE COSMIC DISTANCES 
BOOMERANG NEWS BRIEFING: SATELLITE CHANGE
NASA DEVELOPING SPACE-BASED “SENSOR WEB” — AN “INTERNET” FOR

EARTH OBSERVING SATELLITES
VIDEO
No Video File today due to launch of Space Shuttle Mission STS-101

at 3:52 pm 
LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK
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NEWS RELEASES
CHANDRA SHOWS NEW WAY TO MEASURE COSMIC DISTANCES 
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of scientists has

attacked one of astronomy’s oldest and thorniest problems,

determining the distance to a cosmic object. The scientists

measured the distance to an X-ray source by observing the delay

and smearing (filtering) out of X-ray signals traversing 30,000

light years of interstellar gas and dust.  Chandra “opened a new

world,” said Peter Predehl of the Max-Planck Institute, Garching,

Germany, the lead author on a report to be published in the

European journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.  One of the most

crucial pieces of information needed in astronomy is the distance

to the stars and galaxies.  This information also is among the

most difficult to obtain because, with rare exceptions,

astronomers cannot measure distance directly and must use a

variety of ingenious but uncertain techniques. 
Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  Dolores Beasley

(Phone: 202/358-1753).

Contact at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL:

Steve Roy (Phone: 256/544-6535).

Contact at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge,

MA:  Dr. Wallace Tucker (Phone: 617/496-7998).
For full text, see:

ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-066.txt 
—————————-
BOOMERANG NEWS BRIEFING: SATELLITE CHANGE
     Due to the launch delay of STS 101, the BOOMERANG science

briefing, scheduled for

2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 26 will not be carried live on NASA

Television.  Instead the briefing will be broadcast live on the

KU-band GE3 satellite, transponder 17, horizontal polarization,

frequency 12040 MHz, audio 6.2 and 6.8 MHz.
     Images from the briefing will be on the satellite at 1:55

p.m. EDT and immediately following the news briefing.
     Media who wish to listen to the briefing on the telephone can

call toll-free: 800/369-1775; passcode: Boomerang.  The phone

lines will open at 1:45 p.m. EDT and will be open through the

duration of the news briefing.  A live webcast of the briefing

will be available on: 
Home Page

Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  Dolores Beasley

(Phone: 202/358-1753).

Contact at National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA:  Amber

Jones (Phone: 703/306-1070).
For full text, see:

ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/note2edt/2000/n00-019.txt 
—————————-
NASA DEVELOPING SPACE-BASED “SENSOR WEB” — AN “INTERNET” FOR

EARTH OBSERVING SATELLITES
NASA is taking the first steps toward Internet-like connectivity

among its future Earth sensing satellites with the funding of 30

research proposals from industry, academia, government and NASA

centers in Advanced Information System Technology.  
Known as “Sensor Web,” this is the first in a series of

information technology research initiatives that will help NASA’s

Office of Earth Sciences solve the massive challenge of

collecting, processing, routing and storing Earth science

measurement data.  Of the 117 proposals submitted, the 30 selected

cover a variety of topics ranging from satellite on-board

processing, data collection and analysis, information transmission

and wireless networks, to satellite platform control.
Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  David E. Steitz

(Phone:  202/358-1730).
For full text, see:

ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-065.txt 
—————————-
If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e-

mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list.
Index of 2000 NASA News Releases:

http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2000/index.html
Index of 1999 NASA News Releases:

http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html
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VIDEO
LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK
April 25, Tuesday
9:30 am – Launch Overage and Commentary of STS-101 Begins – KSC

3:52 pm – Launch of STS-101 (Atlantis) – KSC 
April 26, Wednesday

2:00 pm – BOOMERANG (Balloon Observations of Millimetric

          Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics) Briefing – HQ 
During the Space Shuttle Mission, see
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html
for the latest television schedule
—————————–
Unless otherwise noted, ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN.
ANY CHANGES TO THE VIDEO LINE-UP WILL APPEAR ON THE NASA VIDEO

FILE ADVISORY ON THE WEB AT

ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt

WE UPDATE THE ADVISORY THROUGHOUT THE DAY.
The NASA Video File normally airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m.

and midnight Eastern Time.
NASA Television is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees

West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0

megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz.
Refer general questions about the video file to NASA Headquarters,

Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or Fred Brown,

202/358-0713, fred.brown@hq.nasa.gov
During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will

continue to be posted at:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html
For general information about NASA TV see:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/
*****************************
Contract Awards
Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition information

Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html
*****************************
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*****************************
end of daily news summary