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At least 577 records · Page 32

Synergistic epistasis enhances the co-operativity of mutualistic interspecies interactions

Abstract Early evolution of mutualism is characterized by big and predictable adaptive changes, including the specialization of interacting partners, such as through deleterious mutations in genes not required for metabolic cross-feeding. We sought to investigate whether these early mutations improve cooperativity by manifesting in synergistic epistasis between genomes of the mutually interacting species. Specifically, we have characterized evolutionary trajectories of syntrophic interactions of Desulfovibrio vulgaris (Dv) with Methanococcus maripaludis (Mm) by longitudinally monitoring mutations accumulated over 1000 generations of nine independently evolved communities with analysis of the genotypic structure of one community down to the single-cell level. We discovered extensive parallelism across communities despite considerable variance in their evolutionary trajectories and the perseverance within many evolution lines of a rare lineage of Dv that retained sulfate-respiration (SR+) capability, which is not required for metabolic cross-feeding. An in-depth investigation revealed that synergistic epistasis across pairings of Dv and Mm genotypes had enhanced cooperativity within SR− and SR+ assemblages, enabling their coexistence within the same community. Thus, our findings demonstrate that cooperativity of a mutualism can improve through synergistic epistasis between genomes of the interacting species, enabling the coexistence of mutualistic assemblages of generalists and their specialized variants.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Energy Improvements of Fire Station 71

Since 2018, the City of Shawnee, Kansas has completed two phases of the State of Kansas Facility Conservation Improvement Program (FCIP), an initiative that guarantees operational cost and energy savings through targeted construction improvements on City facilities and infrastructure. The City is currently in the third phase of this FCIP, where one of the projects included an investment in energy improvements for Fire Station 71 (FS 71). The City partnered with Navitas, an Energy Service Company (ESCO), to implement a Photovoltaic Solar Array on FS71. The purpose of this project was to invest in sustainable building improvements with Energy Conservation Measures (ECM) to bring cost savings to the City and to provide sustainable benefits to the residents of Shawnee. In the first task of the project, Navitas collaborated with the City of Shawnee and the Community Development Department to determine the optimal layout and schedule for the installation of the solar array on FS 71. In the second task of the project, Navitas installed the 99.8 kW DC Photovoltaic solar array system. This system installation comprised of racking, inverters, optimizers, load center, and disconnect, which were all installed at a total ECM price of $\$$247,948. The third task focused on start-up and commissioning of the array. Navitas installed a real-time data analytics information management system integrated with utility meters, which evaluates the operations of the utility system and verifies operation of equipment and ensures optimum operation for energy efficiency. In the final task of this project, this analytics system was used for monitoring and verification, which will continue to be used to evaluate the success of the project for the coming years. The primary goal of the project was to install the 99.8 kW DC PV solar array at FS 71 to demonstrate the viability of solar energy systems in essential municipal facilities. Fire stations are energy demanding structures, as they require a constant intake of power and have a high baseline energy usage. The success of solar arrays on a fire station exemplifies their energy efficiency and effectiveness and displays their potential for application on other city facilities. By installing a solar array at such a facility, the City sought not only to offset electricity usage but also to serve as a model for ECMs in other municipal facilities and infrastructure projects. From an economic standpoint, this project demonstrates the feasibility of renewable energy at the municipal level. The total project cost of $\$$247,948 was split evenly between city funds and award funding, minimizing financial risk while ensuring guaranteed long-term savings. Any excess savings that are beyond the guaranteed minimums remain with the city, which enables future investment in sustainable energy initiatives. This project provides many benefits to the public. In addition to reducing the environmental footprint of city operations, it lowers taxpayer-funded utility spending and improves the energy security of a critical facility. The knowledge gained from this implementation motivates the City to focus on similar efforts across other public facilities in future FCIP phases and other City projects.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Earth's Earliest Ecosystems in the Classroom: The Use of Microbial Mats to Teach General Principles in Microbial Ecology, and Scientific Inquiry

Microbial mats are living examples of the most ancient biological communities on earth, and may also be useful models for the search for life elsewhere. They are centrally important to Astrobiology. In this lecture, we will present an introduction to microbial mats, as well as an introduction to our web-based educational module on the subject of microbial ecology, featuring living mats maintained in a mini "Web Lab" complete with remotely-operable instrumentation. We have partnered with a number of outreach specialists in order to produce an informative and educational web-based presentation, aspects of which will be exported to museum exhibits reaching a wide audience. On our web site, we will conduct regularly scheduled experimental manipulations, linking the experiments to our research activities, and demonstrating fundamental principles of scientific research.

Beboutl, Brad M.↗

NASA SPoRT Initialization Datasets for Local Model Runs in the Environmental Modeling System

The NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center has developed several products for its National Weather Service (NWS) partners that can be used to initialize local model runs within the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Environmental Modeling System (EMS). These real-time datasets consist of surface-based information updated at least once per day, and produced in a composite or gridded product that is easily incorporated into the WRF EMS. The primary goal for making these NASA datasets available to the WRF EMS community is to provide timely and high-quality information at a spatial resolution comparable to that used in the local model configurations (i.e., convection-allowing scales). The current suite of SPoRT products supported in the WRF EMS include a Sea Surface Temperature (SST) composite, a Great Lakes sea-ice extent, a Greenness Vegetation Fraction (GVF) composite, and Land Information System (LIS) gridded output. The SPoRT SST composite is a blend of primarily the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) infrared and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System data for non-precipitation coverage over the oceans at 2-km resolution. The composite includes a special lake surface temperature analysis over the Great Lakes using contributions from the Remote Sensing Systems temperature data. The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory Ice Percentage product is used to create a sea-ice mask in the SPoRT SST composite. The sea-ice mask is produced daily (in-season) at 1.8-km resolution and identifies ice percentage from 0 100% in 10% increments, with values above 90% flagged as ice.

Case, Jonathan L.↗

Spaceflight Biospecimen and Data Sharing in Support of Science Discovery and Exploration

For decades, NASA and international partners have conducted biological experiments in space to understand effects of spaceflight and address potential hazards. To enable spaceflight back to the Moon, and then to Mars and beyond, it is imperative to further understand basic science and health risks associated with spaceflight, along with developing countermeasures. The sending of experiments and organisms into space is a costly endeavor. To maximize scientific return, sharing with the scientific community both space-flown biospecimens and data from completed experiments is essential. New fundamental, applied, and bioinformatic science insights can be gained from specimen and data sharing efforts. Data reuse enables spaceflight health risk modeling, analyzing adverse outcomes across spaceflight hazards, and deep space autonomous support for the flight medical officer. Space-flown biospecimens not required by mission Principal Investigators are regularly archived and made available for scientific request. The largest biorepository of these samples are found within NASA’s Institutional Scientific Collection at Ames Research Center (ISC-ARC), which stores over 32,000 specimens mostly from Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) missions, but also some ground-based analog samples. The Ames Life Sciences Data Archive manages the ISC-ARC. Tissues are predominantly from mice and rats, though samples are also available from bacteria and quail. Only a handful of other similar collections exist worldwide. Rodent biospecimens exposed to simulated space radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory are archived under the purview of NASA HRP Space Radiation Element. Microbial collection and analyses from 20 years of routine environmental monitoring of air, surfaces, and water systems of the ISS were performed to ensure a safe environment for astronauts. Samples from the ISC-ARC, space radiation and microbial collections are searchable and requestable through the NASA Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA). Decades of planetary protection microbial isolates derived from spacecraft bioburden are archived in JPL’s microbial collection. Rodent biospecimens from spaceflight investigations conducted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are archived and available at the JAXA Biorepository at Tsukuba Space Center. The Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems also has a collection of animal, microbial, cellular, and fungi available for research from ground analog experiments. Several data repositories exist for scientists to utilize. The LSDA is the primary NASA source of life sciences research data and information. It contains decades of spaceflight and ground-analog research involving human, microbial, cellular, plant, and animal subjects. Data is collected from NASA-funded investigations through the Human Research Program and the Space Biology Program. The NASA Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health collects and grants access to clinical and occupational health monitoring data from astronauts, with a list and description of data collected available for request through the LSDA. NASA GeneLab at ARC collects genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic data from any species. It is a repository and platform for collaborative open-science bioinformatic approaches. JAXA is establishing an ‘omics-based repository in collaboration with the Tohoku Medical Megabank (ToMMo), called the JAXA-ToMMo Integrated Biobank for Space Life Science. Overall, the sharing of these biospecimen and data resources can assist researchers worldwide in understanding spaceflight effects on biology, along with enabling next generation data science applications for space exploration platforms. Websites: https://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/ ; https://www.nasa.gov/ames/research/space-biosciences/isc-bsp ; https://www.nasa.gov/ames/research/space-biosciences/alsda

Ryan T. Scott↗

Biospecimen and Data Sharing: NASA Institutional Scientific Collection at Ames Research Center (ISC-ARC), and the Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA)

For decades, NASA and international partners have conducted biological experiments in space to understand effects of spaceflight and address potential hazards. To enable spaceflight back to the Moon, and then to Mars and beyond, it is imperative to further understand basic science and health risks associated with spaceflight, along with developing countermeasures. The sending of experiments and organisms into space is a costly endeavor. To maximize scientific return, sharing with the scientific community both space-flown biospecimens and data from completed experiments is essential. New fundamental, applied, and bioinformatic science insights can be gained from specimen and data sharing efforts. Data reuse enables spaceflight health risk modeling, analyzing adverse outcomes across spaceflight hazards, and deep space autonomous support for the flight medical officer.

Data↗

Jobos Bay Water Resources: Using Earth Observations to Analyze Shoreline Changes and Understand the Effects of Sea Level Rise in Southern Puerto Rico

Jobos Bay is located on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, which is known for intense hurricane seasons and increased seasonal storm surge. Scientists at Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (JBNERR) are concerned that sea level rise will exacerbate coastal damage from these weather events. Using NASA Earth observations, our team analyzed coastal change, land use land cover change (LULC), mangrove forest extent, and water quality of Jobos Bay. Using Google Earth Engine, we evaluated coastal change and mangrove forest habitat within the study region by classifying NASA Earth observation imagery. We created historic LULC composite images to observe how land use changes over time and improve understanding of urbanization in the watershed. Leveraging previous water quality studies, our team compared water quality datasets generated by the Optical Reef and Coastal Area Assessment (ORCAA) tool to in situ sensors provided by JBNERR partners to understand the overall quality of water in the study area with respect to turbidity, chlorophyll-a, sea surface temperature, and colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) concentrations. We discovered that 17% of the reserve has shifted from land to water since 1997 and lost 4.85 square kilometers of mangrove habitat over the past decade. Results from this study will inform the scientists of JBNERR and community members of the regional impacts of sea level rise. Being the first comprehensive study done in the estuary in nearly a decade, this serves as a baseline for future conservation efforts and research in the estuary.

Olivia Spencer↗

Solar Pathways in Federal Energy Assistance Programs: Expanding Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP)

How can solar best fit within your LIHEAP or WAP activities? Come join NREL and learn about the various pathways and new resources available to help implement solar in low-income programs. Panelists will share results from a multi-year research project, including survey results on LIHEAP and WAP solar adoption across the United States. This session will highlight case studies from early implementers, key lessons learned and resources developed based on stakeholder feedback for interested organizations. Attendees can expect gain a better understanding of the perceived barriers and opportunities to solar implementation, including the importance of partner coordination and complementary funding sources, and the next steps for how to get started. Additionally, attendees will hear from a local implementer of solar in WAP about their program and process.

Colorado↗

GPM’s 10-Year Achievements in NASA

This presentation provides the NASA perspective on 10 years of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission activity, in conjunction with the Japanese partners. It begins by recalling the U.S. contribution to the design and construction of the GPM Core Observatory, and the role of the GPM Constellation of passive microwave satellites of opportunity. It shows a few selected results, notes the U.S. personnel involved, and points out the importance of field campaigns, then ends with some discussion of the impact that the data are having on the scientific and user community.

George J Huffman↗

Managing Current Earth Observation Needs through User-Driven Implementation of Upcoming Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) Solutions

Since 2016, the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG), an initiative of the U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO), has surveyed federal agencies every two years to identify their satellite earth observation needs. For each expressed need, NASA-led assessment teams coordinate with responding agencies to devise remote sensing solutions that benefit multiple partners and span across a number of thematic areas including, but not limited to, Atmospheric Composition, Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems, Earth Surface and Interior, and Oceans and Cryosphere. Solutions can comprise existing or modified data products as well as the construction of new data products and technologies: since 2016, a multitude of SNWG activities have been theorized and developed, reaching a wide range of users in the science community. Due to an increase in survey responses in 2020 and to assure solution delivery to users within five years of budget appropriations, the SNWG Management Office was established to oversee the assessment of agency needs and the implementation and operations of solution development. The SNWG MO’s unique implementation strategy creates multiple touchpoints with agencies during solution development helping fulfill Earth Science to Action priorities (the 2024 NASA Earth Science Division strategic plan) and ensuring solutions are accessible, usable, and support decision-making for their intended audience. This presentation will outline the ways in which SNWG supports complementary goals of the Decadal Survey, with specific attention on the SNWG MO’s renewed user-centric implementation strategy for upcoming SNWG solutions.

Jenny Wood↗

Multilateral Testing Workshop on Relocatable Portal Monitors

The procurement and deployment of radiation detection equipment is a multi-faceted challenge across the globe. Knowledge sharing of the testing methods used to evaluate equipment for deployment scenarios helps improve the understanding of deployed systems by the global community. The United States Department of Energy’s Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence Office (NSDD) performed a series of characterization measurements in 2019, focused on radiation detection systems that could function as relocatable portal monitors. The capstone activity for this project was a multilateral and cross-disciplinary workshop demonstrating, performing, and refining the techniques used in the characterization measurements with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and global partners. A group of technical experts including representatives from nine countries, the IAEA, and NSDD gathered at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM during September of 2019 for the Operational and Performance Testing and Evaluation of Relocatable Portals Workshop. Over the course of a week, the group discussed the necessity for and process of developing operational and performance requirements, challenges related to deploying radiation detection systems for the countries in attendance, use cases for deploying relocatable radiation detection equipment, and considerations related to testing equipment for appropriate deployment scenarios. All participants were given the opportunity to have hands-on experience with eleven relocatable systems in executing a limited scope characterization test comprised of six test scenarios. At the conclusion of testing, participants reviewed and presented their findings, and the group as a whole compared and contrasted their experiences. Suggested revisions to the test methods and ideas for further collaborations were discussed. This report discusses the logistical and planning considerations for bringing together experts across disciplines in a multilateral workshop on testing of radiation detectors, as well as presenting the testing methods performed, results, and paths forward. Success of workshops related to technical knowledge transfer and improvement of test methods is key to global technical and scientific support of radiation detection deployments.

Erchinger, Jennifer L.↗

Human Systems Integration in Practice: Constellation Lessons Learned

NASA's Constellation program provided a unique testbed for Human Systems Integration (HSI) as a fundamental element of the Systems Engineering process. Constellation was the first major program to have HSI mandated by NASA's Human Rating document. Proper HSI is critical to the success of any project that relies on humans to function as operators, maintainers, or controllers of a system. HSI improves mission, system and human performance, significantly reduces lifecycle costs, lowers risk and minimizes re-design. Successful HSI begins with sufficient project schedule dedicated to the generation of human systems requirements, but is by no means solely a requirements management process. A top-down systems engineering process that recognizes throughout the organization, human factors as a technical discipline equal to traditional engineering disciplines with authority for the overall system. This partners with a bottoms-up mechanism for human-centered design and technical issue resolution. The Constellation Human Systems Integration Group (HSIG) was a part of the Systems Engineering and Integration (SE&I) organization within the program office, and existed alongside similar groups such as Flight Performance, Environments & Constraints, and Integrated Loads, Structures and Mechanisms. While the HSIG successfully managed, via influence leadership, a down-and-in Community of Practice to facilitate technical integration and issue resolution, it lacked parallel top-down authority to drive integrated design. This presentation will discuss how HSI was applied to Constellation, the lessons learned and best practices it revealed, and recommendations to future NASA program and project managers. This presentation will discuss how Human Systems Integration (HSI) was applied to NASA's Constellation program, the lessons learned and best practices it revealed, and recommendations to future NASA program and project managers on how to accomplish this critical function.

Zumbado, Jennifer Rochlis↗

Georgia Disasters II: Evaluating the Impacts of Hurricane Irma on Georgia Heirs Property Owners Using NASA Earth Observations

Heirs property owners are especially vulnerable to natural and manmade disasters. This group of people have inherited property left with no clear title and thus have unclear group ownership with the other legal owners, which are all spouses, children, etc. of past owners. After Hurricane Irma made landfall in Georgia in September of 2017, heirs property owners became more likely to be denied access to federal relief due to the legal status of their property title. To observe how this group was impacted by Hurricane Irma, the NASA DEVELOP team partnered with The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center (The Center), a non-profit law firm that works with heirs properties owners. The team used computer assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) data to identify likely heirs property owners. They cross referenced this map with a flood map produced with surface reflectance and backscatter imagery from Landsat 8 OLI, Sentinel-2 MSI, and Sentinel-1 C-SAR, sensors to identify communities in need of relief or assistance. The flood extent maps were validated against United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hurricane Irma High Water Mark in situ data taken the same day Irma crossed into Georgia. To further evaluate the impacted group, the team correlated the flood and heirs property likelihood maps to FEMA denials based on titles issues. The team’s end products were handed off to the Georgia Heirs Property Law Center for use in community outreach, educational materials, and to help direct where The Center can work to prioritize its limited legal resources.

Shakirah Rogers↗

OpenNEX: An open collaboration platform for the earth science community

Satellite data from the past several decades provide the most consistent record of land-surface processes that form the basis for scientific assessments of the impacts of climate variations and changes on the environment and human social-economical activities. During this time, scientific research on the characterization and assessment of environmental changes had tended to focus on large-scale land-surface changes with significant social-economic impacts. Increasingly, attention is shifting toward changes that occur more locally and that most directly relate to the everyday life of the majority of the population. In addition, there has been needs to develop management and policy decision support systems that are based on local environmental information. Almost at the same time, the advancement in sensor technology has allowed us to collect an unprecedented volume of environmental data. These data must be curated and analyzed to extract useful information for research and decision support purposes. Established in 2013 and funded by NASA, the Open NASA Earth eXchange (OpenNEX; https://opennex.org/ , Jia et al., 2019 ) project partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make available a large amount of Earth observing data, modeling results, and analysis tools on the AWS. OpenNEX provides researchers, developers, educators, and ordinary users with easy access to an integrated Earth science computational and data platform, enabling citizen scientists and application developers to realize the full value of NASA data assets and software tools. To encourage the public's engagement in this project, NASA ran virtual workshops and prize competitions. The virtual workshops provided online lectures and tutorials about how prominent scientists used the data in their research and the tutorials gave examples how to use the tools to interrogate the data in the Amazon cloud. Finally, the prize competitions allowed much wider participation in the OpenNEX project and enable testing the non-traditional projects and out-of-box ideas. OpenNEX has continued to evolve and mature. Here, we highlight new features and functionalities available to the community.

Jian Zhang↗

Partnership for the Revitalization of National Wind Tunnel Force Measurement Capability

Lack of funding and lack of focus on research over the past several years, coupled with force measurement capabilities being decentralized and distributed across the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research centers, has resulted in a significant erosion of (1) capability and infrastructure to produce and calibrate force measurement systems; (2) NASA s working knowledge of those systems; and (3) the quantity of high-quality, full-capability force measurement systems available for use in aeronautics testing. Simultaneously, and at proportional rates, the capability of industry to design, manufacture, and calibrate these test instruments has been eroding primarily because of a lack of investment by the aeronautics community. Technical expertise in this technology area is a core competency in aeronautics testing; it is highly specialized and experience-based, and it represents a niche market for only a few small precision instrument shops in the United States. With this backdrop, NASA s Aeronautics Test Program (ATP) chartered a team to examine the issues and risks associated with the problem, focusing specifically on strain- gage balances. The team partnered with the U.S. Air Force s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) to exploit their combined capabilities and take a national level government view of the problem. This paper describes the team s approach, its findings, and its recommendations, and the current status for revitalizing the government s balance capability with respect to designing, fabricating, calibrating, and using the instruments.

Rhew, Ray D.↗

2015 Annual Report for the Flight Opportunities Program

Welcome to this third edition of the Flight Opportunities program annual report. In this edition, we continue our story of pathfinding NASA's role in the partnership with the U.S. commercial space and space technology R&D communities to advance national space interests and develop technologies critical to NASA's future missions. 2015 was the year in which a planned change to our payload solicitation strategy saw its first tangible result. As you might remember from our 2014 annual report, in 2015 we set out to facilitate a more direct interaction between flight providers and technology developers by providing fixed funding awards to researchers to directly purchase the flight service(s) that best meet their needs. The selection and award of the first six REDDI-F1 flight grants to non-U.S. government researchers was an important milestone in this regard. From now on, using the REDDI-F1 solicitation appendix, the program will enable non-U.S. government researchers to directly purchase flight services on the emerging suborbital market. The same (or similar) commercial flight services will be available to NASA and other U.S. government agencies (OGA) through commercial contracts that NASA has established through our program. For the latter, our program is available to provide campaign management services, similar to the role we play(ed) for technology payloads remaining in our pool from earlier selections. The full impact of this broader strategic change will likely become more visible in the years ahead as our legacy pool gets depleted and we have implemented a new NASA- and OGA-specific call for proposals. One observation that can already be made after two rounds of REDDI-F1 solicitations is that through this change, the list of commercial flight service providers of interest to non-U.S. government researchers has grown from five in 2014 to nine in 2015. On the industry development front, our Announcement of Collaborative Opportunities (ACO) solicitation was promoted to an STMD-wide solicitation and released in 2015 in combination with the Tipping Point solicitation. A total of 22 awards was announced in November 2015, 12 of which are ACO awards, and six of these are funded by Flight Opportunities. Through these ACO awards, the program funds NASA technical expertise and NASA test facilities to aid industry partners in maturing key space technologies, in our case focusing on small launch vehicle technology development. Flight test activity in 2015 saw a steady 13 campaigns with 31 payload-flights (29 unique payloads). Thirteen new payloads were selected into the program in FY2015, and 14 payloads completed flight testing, bringing the total number of completed technology demonstration payloads to 69. Overall, we are pleased with the evolution and growth of the Flight Opportunities program and look forward to continued success in our partnership with the technology R&D community and the commercial space sector.

Flight Testing↗

Analysis of Nuclear Materials on Both Sides of Regulatory Control: from IAEA Safeguards to Global Counter-Nuclear Smuggling

Global nuclear security is dependent upon the sustained and verifiable control of radiological and nuclear (R/N) materials within nuclear facilities, under the administrative purview of national governments. It is the responsibility of each country to account for their R/N materials holdings and to ensure that they do not escape regulatory control and fall into the wrong hands. The Office of Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence (NSDD) is tasked with providing support to foreign partners in developing the tools and expertise to detect, disrupt, and investigate R/N materials encountered out of regulatory control, in such circumstances as at border crossings and other checkpoints, or in the course of routine policework. Thankfully, such incidents are infrequent, and NSDD continues to work bilaterally with partner countries to strengthen their capabilities to combat nuclear smuggling and trafficking incidents in their countries. For the vast majority of R/N materials that remain under regulatory control, however, it is critical that their safe storage and use be independently verified. Even a single loss incident of R/N materials, particularly of special nuclear materials (highly-enriched uranium and plutonium) has the potential to cause a catastrophe. How can the international community be assured that R/N materials currently under national regulatory control remain there?

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEA↗

Earth Remote Sensing Center of Excellence at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

We developed advanced communications and networking capability and satellite reception systems for Earth science to improve the ability of scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) to conduct interdisciplinary research. With matching funds from the SIO Director's office we implemented a "virtual center" utilizing modern networking hardware and software to enhance access for researchers and students to unique satellite and in situ data sets. The center provides facilities and data access to graduate students as well as research scientists at SIO, and outside SIO. Our private sector partners installed and testes and advanced X-band data acquisition system for satellite data capture relevant for Earth science research and applications. Some of the commercial applications of these partners have been developed (or are under development) with NASA SBIR resources. The X-band system collected RADARSAT, ERS-2 and MODIS imagery. Perhaps most importantly, this COE brought together - for the first time - an interdisciplinary team of SIO scientists with interests in Earth remote sensing. The collaboration extended beyond our infrastructure and research accomplishments leading to a dialog that resulted in a report with strong recommendations to the SIO community for enhancing satellite remote sensing at SIO.

Mitchell, B. Greg↗