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NASA NTRS2016

Virtual Microscope Views of the Apollo 11 and 12 Lunar Samples

The Apollo virtual microscope is a means of viewing, over the Internet, polished thin sections of every rock in the Apollo lunar sample collections via software, duplicating many of the functions of a petrological microscope, is described. Images from the Apollo 11 and 12 missions may be viewed at: www.virtualmicroscope.org/content/apollo. Introduction: During the six NASA missions to the Moon from 1969-72 a total of 382 kilograms of rocks and soils, often referred to as "the legacy of Apollo", were collected and returned to Earth. A unique collection of polished thin sections (PTSs) was made from over 400 rocks by the Lunar Sample Curatorial Facility at the Johnson Spacecraft Center (JSC), Houston. These materials have been available for loan to approved PIs but of course they can't be simultaneously investigated by several researchers unless they are co-located or the sample is passed back and forward between them by mail/hand carrying which is inefficient and very risky for irreplaceable material. When The Open University (OU), the world's largest Distance Learning Higher Education Establishment found itself facing a comparable problem (how to supply thousands of undergraduate students with an interactive petrological microscope and a personal set of thin sections), it decided to develop a software tool called the Virtual Microscope (VM). As a result it is now able to make the unique and precious collection of Apollo specimens universally available as a resource for concurrent study by anybody in the world's Earth and Planetary Sciences community. Herein, we describe the first steps of a collaborative project between OU and the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Curatorial Facility to record a PTS for every lunar rock, beginning with those collected by the Apollo 11 and 12 missions. Method: Production of a virtual microscope dedicated to a particular theme divides into four main parts - photography, image processing, building and assembly of virtual microscope components, and publication on a website. Two large research quality microscopes are used to collect all the images required for a virtual microscope. The first is part of an integrated package that utilizes Leica PowerMosaic software and a motorised XYZ stage to generate large area mosaics. It includes a fast acquisition camera and depending on the PTS size normally is used to produce seamless mosaic images consisting of 100-500 individual photographs. If the sample is suitable, three mosaics of each sample are recorded - plane polarised light, between crossed polars and reflected light. In order for the VM to be a true petrological microscope it is necessary to recreate the features of a rotating stage and perform observations using filters to produce polarised light. Thus the petrological VM includes the capability of seeing changes in optical properties (pleochroism and birefringence) during rotation allowing mineral identification. The second microscope in the system provides the functions of the rotating stage. To this microscope we have added a robotically controlled motor to acquire seventy-two images (5 degree intervals) in plane polarised light and between crossed polars. To process the images acquired from the two microscopes involves a combination of proprietary software (Photoshop) and our own in-house code. The final stage involves assembling all the components in an HTML5 environment. Pathfinder investigations: We have undertaken a number of pilot studies to demonstrate the efficacy of the petrological microscope with lunar samples. The first was to make available on-line images collected from the Educational Package of Apollo samples provided by NASA to the UK STFC (Science and Technical Facilities Council) for loan as educational material e.g. for schools. The real PTSs of the samples are now no longer sent out to schools removing the risks associated with transport, accidental breakage and eliminating the possibility of loss. The availability of lunar sample VM-related material was further extended to include twenty-eight specimens from all of the Apollo missions. Some of these samples were made more generally available through an ibook entitled "Moon Rocks: an introduction to the Geology of the Moon," free from the Apple Bookstore. Research possibilities: Although the Virtual Microscope was originally conceived as a teaching aid and was later recognised as a means of public outreach and engagement, we now realize that it also has enormous potential as a high level research tool. Following discussions with the JSC Curators we have received Curation and Analysis Planning Team for Extraterrestrial Materials (CAPTEM) permission to embark on a programme of digitizing the entire lunar sample PTS collection for all three of the above purposes. By the time of the 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) we will have completed 81 rocks collected during the Apollo 11 and 12 missions and the data, with cross-links to the Lunar Sample Compendium will go live on the Web at the 47th LPSC. The VM images of the Apollo 11 (41 VM images) and 12 (40 VM images) missions can be viewed at: http:/www.virtualmicroscope.org/content/apollo. The lunar sample VM will enable large numbers of skilled/unskilled microscopists (professional and amateur researchers, educators and students, enthusiasts and the simply curious non-scientists) to share the information from a single sample. It will mean that all the PTSs already cut, even historical ones, could be available for new joint investigations or private study. The scientific return from the collection will increase exponentially as a result of further debate and discussion. Simultaneously the VM will remove the need for making unnecessary multiple samplings, avoid consignment of delicate/breakable specimens (all of which are priceless) to insecure mail/courier services and reduce direct labour and indirect costs, travel budgets and unproductive travelling time necessary for co-location of collaborating researchers. For the future we have already recognized further potential for virtual technology. There is nothing that a petrologist likes more than to see the original rock as a hand specimen. It is entirely possible to recreate virtual hand specimens with 3-D hard and software, already developed for viewing fossils, located within the Curatorial Facility, http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lsc/index.cfm.

Gibson, E. K.↗
NASA NTRS2016

DiskDetective.org: Finding Homes for Exoplanets Through Citizen Science

The Disk Detective project is scouring the data archive from the WISE all-sky survey to find new debris disks and protoplanetary disks-the dusty dens where exoplanets form and dwell. Volunteers on this citizen science website have already performed 1.6 million classifications, searching a catalog 8x the size of any published WISE survey. We follow up candidates using ground based telescopes in California, Arizona, Chile, Hawaii, and Argentina. We ultimately expect to increase the pool of known debris disks by approx. 400 and triple the solid angle in clusters of young stars examined with WISE, providing a unique new catalog of isolated disk stars, key planet-search targets, and candidate advanced extraterrestrial civilizations. Come to this talk to hear the news about our latest dusty discoveries and the trials and the ecstasy of launching a new citizen science project. Please bring your laptop or smartphone if you like!

debris disks↗
NASA NTRS2016

Bumper 3 Update for IADC Protection Manual

The Bumper code has been the standard in use by NASA and contractors to perform meteoroid/debris risk assessments since 1990. It has undergone extensive revisions and updates [NASA JSC HITF website; Christiansen et al., 1992, 1997]. NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) has applied BUMPER to risk assessments for Space Station, Shuttle, Mir, Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMU) space suits, and other spacecraft (e.g., LDEF, Iridium, TDRS, and Hubble Space Telescope). Bumper continues to be updated with changes in the ballistic limit equations describing failure threshold of various spacecraft components, as well as changes in the meteoroid and debris environment models. Significant efforts are expended to validate Bumper and benchmark it to other meteoroid/debris risk assessment codes. Bumper 3 is a refactored version of Bumper II. The structure of the code was extensively modified to improve maintenance, performance and flexibility. The architecture was changed to separate the frequently updated ballistic limit equations from the relatively stable common core functions of the program. These updates allow NASA to produce specific editions of the Bumper 3 that are tailored for specific customer requirements. The core consists of common code necessary to process the Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris (MMOD) environment models, assess shadowing and calculate MMOD risk. The library of target response subroutines includes a board range of different types of MMOD shield ballistic limit equations as well as equations describing damage to various spacecraft subsystems or hardware (thermal protection materials, windows, radiators, solar arrays, cables, etc.). The core and library of ballistic response subroutines are maintained under configuration control. A change in the core will affect all editions of the code, whereas a change in one or more of the response subroutines will affect all editions of the code that contain the particular response subroutines which are modified. Note that the Bumper II program is no longer maintained or distributed by NASA.

Christiansen, Eric L.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Online Matchmaking: It's Not Just for Dating Sites Anymore! Connecting the Climate Voices Science Speakers Network to Educators

Scientists play an integral role in the development of climate literacy skills - for both teachers and students alike. By partnering with local scientists, teachers can gain valuable insights into the science practices highlighted by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as well as a deeper understanding of cutting-edge scientific discoveries and local impacts of climate change. For students, connecting to local scientists can provide a relevant connection to climate science and STEM skills. Over the past two years, the Climate Voices Science Speakers Network (climatevoices.org) has grown to a robust network of nearly 400 climate science speakers across the United States. Formal and informal educators, K-12 students, and community groups connect with our speakers through our interactive map-based website and invite them to meet through face-to-face and virtual presentations, such as webinars and podcasts. But creating a common language between scientists and educators requires coaching on both sides. In this presentation, we will present the "nitty-gritty" of setting up scientist-educator collaborations, as well as the challenges and opportunities that arise from these partnerships. We will share the impact of these collaborations through case studies, including anecdotal feedback and metrics.

Instructors↗
NASA NTRS2004

Lessons Learned Study Final Report for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate

This report is the final product of a 90-day study performed for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. The study was to assemble lessons NASA has learned from previous programs that could help the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate pursue the Exploration vision. It focuses on those lessons that should have the greatest significance to the Directorate during the formulation of program and mission plans. The study team reviewed a large number of lessons learned reports and data bases, including the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and Rogers Commission reports on the Shuttle accidents, accident reports from robotic space flight systems, and a number of management reviews by the Defense Sciences Board, Government Accountability Office, and others. The consistency of the lessons, findings, and recommendations validate the adequacy of the data set. In addition to reviewing existing databases, a series of workshops was held at each of the NASA centers and headquarters that included senior managers from the current workforce as well as retirees. The full text of the workshop reports is included in Appendix A. A lessons learned website was opened up to permit current and retired NASA personnel and on-site contractors to input additional lessons as they arise. These new lessons, when of appropriate quality and relevance, will be brought to the attention of managers. The report consists of four parts: Part 1 provides a small set of lessons, called the Executive Lessons Learned, that represent critical lessons that the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate should act on immediately. This set of Executive Lessons and their supporting rationale have been reviewed at length and fully endorsed by a team of distinguished NASA alumni; Part 2 contains a larger set of lessons, called the Selected Lessons Learned, which have been chosen from the lessons database and center workshop reports on the basis of their specific significance and relevance to the near-term work of the Exploration Directorate. These lessons frequently support the Executive lessons but are more general in nature; Part 3 consists of the reports of the center workshops that were conducted as part of this activity. These reports are included in their entirety (approximately 200 pages) in Appendix G and have significance for specific managers; Part 4 consists of the remainder of the lessons that have been selected by this effort and assembled into a database for the use of the Explorations Directorate. The database is archived and hosted in the Lessons Learned Knowledge Network, which provides a flexible search capability using a wide variety of search terms. Finally, a spreadsheet lists databases searched and a bibliography identifies reports that have been reviewed as sources of lessons for this task. NASA has been presented with many learning opportunities. We have conducted numerous programs, some extremely successful and others total failures. Most have been documented with a formal lessons learned activity, but we have not always incorporated these learning opportunities into our normal modes of business. For example, the Robbins Report of 2001 clearly indicates that many project failures of the past two decades were the result of violating well documented best practices, often in direct violation of management instructions and directives. An overarching lesson emerges: that disciplined execution in accordance with proven best practices is the greatest single contributor to a successful program. The Lessons Learned task team offers a sincere hope that the lessons presented herein will be helpful to the Exploration Systems Directorate in charting and executing their course. The success of the Directorate and of NASA in general depends on our collective ability to move forward without having to relearn the lessons of those who have gone before.

Van Laak, Jim↗
NASA NTRS2016

SEACIONS During the 2012 Asian Monsoon: A Strategic Approach to Determining Convective Impacts on Tropospheric Ozone and TTL Gravity Waves

Purpose of making ozone and water vapor profiles measurements in SEAC4RS is to give consistent coverage of the vertical structure at fixed sites to (1) complement 2 campaign aircraft sampling; (2) ground-truth satellite measurements of H O and ozone; (3) provide profiles for model evaluation; (4) study processes responsible for day-to-day variability at each site. Revised objective for 2013, due to cancellation of the 2012 and 2013 plans to operate in Southeast Asia: rapidly re-configure the original "SEACIONS," Southeast Asian Consortium for Intensive Ozonesonde Network Study, to a SouthEast American plan (SEACIONS) for collecting daily ozonesonde data during DC-8 and ER-2 flights throughout the southeastern US. As in previous IONS (2004, 2006, 2008), students were trained at St Louis, Tallahassee, Houston, Penn State, Huntsville, Socorro. Images of the soundings and related flight-planning products were posted each day at NASA and Penn State (PSU) websites. With the aircraft based at Ellington Field (Houston), water CFH (cryogenic frost-point hygrometer) sondes in addition to ozonesondes, were to be taken launched at that site.

Thompson, Anne M.↗
NASA NTRS2015

NASA ROVER, Tackling Citizen Science With Grand Challenges and Everyday Problems

ROVER is the Citizen Science arm of the NASA Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) Students' Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL) Project. Since 2007, participants around the world have been making and reporting ground truth observations of clouds to assist in the validation of the NASA CERES satellite instrument. NASA scientists are very interested in learning how clouds affect our atmosphere, weather, and climate (relating to climate change). It is the clouds, in part, that affect the overall temperature and energy balance of the Earth. The more we know about clouds, the more we will know about our Earth as a system and citizen scientists are an important piece of that puzzle! As a ROVER cloud observer, all participants follow simple online tutorials to collect data on cloud type, height, cover and related conditions. Observations are sent to NASA to be matched to similar information obtained from satellites and sent back to participants for comparison and analysis. The supporting ROVER website houses a searchable database archiving all participant reports and matching satellite data. By involving Citizen Scientists in cloud observations and reporting we can gain a valuable set of data that would have been previously unavailable to science teams due to funding, manpower, and resource limitations or would have taken an unreasonable amount of time to collect. Reports from a wide range of Citizen Scientist locations are helpful to assess the satellite data under different conditions. With nothing more than their eyes and an internet connection participants provide a different perspective and analysis of clouds, adding to a more complete picture of what's happening in the atmosphere in which we live.

Crecelius, Sarah↗
NASA NTRS2016

Reference Solutions for Benchmark Turbulent Flows in Three Dimensions

A grid convergence study is performed to establish benchmark solutions for turbulent flows in three dimensions (3D) in support of turbulence-model verification campaign at the Turbulence Modeling Resource (TMR) website. The three benchmark cases are subsonic flows around a 3D bump and a hemisphere-cylinder configuration and a supersonic internal flow through a square duct. Reference solutions are computed for Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equations with the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model using a linear eddy-viscosity model for the external flows and a nonlinear eddy-viscosity model based on a quadratic constitutive relation for the internal flow. The study involves three widely-used practical computational fluid dynamics codes developed and supported at NASA Langley Research Center: FUN3D, USM3D, and CFL3D. Reference steady-state solutions computed with these three codes on families of consistently refined grids are presented. Grid-to-grid and code-to-code variations are described in detail.

Diskin, Boris↗
NASA NTRS2016

Polarized View of Supercooled Liquid Water Clouds

Supercooled liquid water (SLW) clouds, where liquid droplets exist at temperatures below 0 C present a well known aviation hazard through aircraft icing, in which SLW accretes on the airframe. SLW clouds are common over the Southern Ocean, and climate-induced changes in their occurrence is thought to constitute a strong cloud feedback on global climate. The two recent NASA field campaigns POlarimeter Definition EXperiment (PODEX, based in Palmdale, California, January-February 2013) and Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS, based in Houston, Texas in August- September 2013) provided a unique opportunity to observe SLW clouds from the high-altitude airborne platform of NASA's ER-2 aircraft. We present an analysis of measurements made by the Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) during these experiments accompanied by correlative retrievals from other sensors. The RSP measures both polarized and total reflectance in 9 spectral channels with wavelengths ranging from 410 to 2250 nm. It is a scanning sensor taking samples at 0.8deg intervals within 60deg from nadir in both forward and backward directions. This unique angular resolution allows for characterization of liquid water droplet size using the rainbow structure observed in the polarized reflectances in the scattering angle range between 135deg and 165deg. Simple parametric fitting algorithms applied to the polarized reflectance provide retrievals of the droplet effective radius and variance assuming a prescribed size distribution shape (gamma distribution). In addition to this, we use a non-parametric method, Rainbow Fourier Transform (RFT),which allows retrieval of the droplet size distribution without assuming a size distribution shape. We present an overview of the RSP campaign datasets available from the NASA GISS website, as well as two detailed examples of the retrievals. In these case studies we focus on cloud fields with spatial features varying between glaciated and liquid phases at altitudes as high as 10 km, which correspond to temperatures close to the homogeneous freezing temperature of pure water drops (about -35 C or colder). The multimodal droplet size distributions retrieved from RSP data in these cases are consistent with the multi-layer cloud structure observed by correlative Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) measurements.

Clouds↗
NASA NTRS2015

Electromagnetic and Light Scattering by Nonspherical Particles XV: Celebrating 150 Years of Maxwell's Electromagnetics

The 15th Electromagnetic and Light Scattering Conference (ELS-XV) was held in Leipzig, Germany from 21 to 26 of June 2015. This conference built on the great success of the previous meetings held in Amsterdam (1995), Helsinki(1997) [2], New York City(1998) [3], Vigo (1999),Halifax (2000), Gainesville (2002), Bremen (2003), Salobreña (2005), St. Petersburg (2006), Bodrum (2007), Hatfield (2008), Helsinki (2010), Taormina (2011), and Lille as well as the workshops held in Bremen (1996,1998) and Moscow (1997). As usual, the main objective of this conference was to bring together scientists, engineers, and PhD students studying various aspects of electromagnetic scattering and to provide a relaxed atmosphere for in-depth discussion of theory, measurements, and applications. Furthermore, ELS-XV supported the United Nations "Year of Light" and celebrated the150th anniversary of Maxwell's electromagnetics. Maxwell's paper on "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" was published in1865 and has widely been acknowledged as one of the supreme achievements in the history of science. The conference was attended by136 scientists from 22 countries. The scientific program included two plenary lectures, 16 invited reviews, 88 contributed oral talks, and 70 poster presentations. The program and the abstracts of conference presentations are available at the conference website http://www.els-xv-2015.net/home.html. Following the well-established ELS practice and with Elsevier's encouragement, we solicited full-size papers for a topical issue of the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer (JQSRT). The result of this collective effort is now in the reader's hands. As always, every invited review and regular paper included in this topical issue has undergone the same rigorous peer review process as any other manuscript published in the JQSRT.

light scattering↗
NASA NTRS2016

Earthdata Search Usability Study Process

User experience (UX) design is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving various aspects of the user's interaction with an application or website. One aspect of UX design is usability, or the extent to which an application can be used to to accomplish tasks efficiently, effectively, and with satisfaction. NASA's Earthdata Search Client recently underwent a focused usability testing project to measure usability and gain valuable user feedback and insights to increase usability for its end-users. This presentation focuses on the process by which the usability tests were administered and the lessons learned throughout the process.

UI↗
NASA NTRS2015

Developing a Fault Management Guidebook for Nasa's Deep Space Robotic Missions

NASA designs and builds systems that achieve incredibly ambitious goals, as evidenced by the Curiosity rover traversing on Mars, the highly complex International Space Station orbiting our Earth, and the compelling plans for capturing, retrieving and redirecting an asteroid into a lunar orbit to create a nearby a target to be investigated by astronauts. In order to accomplish these feats, the missions must be imbued with sufficient knowledge and capability not only to realize the goals, but also to identify and respond to off-nominal conditions. Fault Management (FM) is the discipline of establishing how a system will respond to preserve its ability to function even in the presence of faults. In 2012, NASA released a draft FM Handbook in an attempt to coalesce the field by establishing a unified terminology and a common process for designing FM mechanisms. However, FM approaches are very diverse across NASA, especially between the different mission types such as Earth orbiters, launch vehicles, deep space robotic vehicles and human spaceflight missions, and the authors were challenged to capture and represent all of these views. The authors recognized that a necessary precursor step is for each sub-community to codify its FM policies, practices and approaches in individual, focused guidebooks. Then, the sub-communities can look across NASA to better understand the different ways off-nominal conditions are addressed, and to seek commonality or at least an understanding of the multitude of FM approaches. This paper describes the development of the "Deep Space Robotic Fault Management Guidebook," which is intended to be the first of NASA's FM guidebooks. Its purpose is to be a field-guide for FM practitioners working on deep space robotic missions, as well as a planning tool for project managers. Publication of this Deep Space Robotic FM Guidebook is expected in early 2015. The guidebook will be posted on NASA's Engineering Network on the FM Community of Practice website so that it will be available to all NASA projects. Future plans for subsequent guidebooks for the other NASA sub-communities are proposed.

Fesq, Lorraine M.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Meteorite Falls Observed in U.S. Weather Radar Data in 2015 and 2016 (To Date)

To date, over twenty meteorite falls have been located in the weather radar imagery of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s NEXRAD radar network. We present here the most prominent events recorded since the last Meteoritical Society meeting, covering most of 2015 and early 2016. Meteorite Falls: The following events produced evidence of falling meteorites in radar imagery and resulted in meteorites recovered at the fall site. Creston, CA (24 Oct 2015 0531 UTC): This event generated 218 eyewitness reports submitted to the American Meteor Society (AMS) and is recorded as event #2635 for 2015 on the AMS website. Witnesses reported a bright fireball with fragmentation terminating near the city of Creston, CA, north of Los Angeles. Sonic booms and electrophonic noise were reported in the vicinity of the event. Weather radar imagery records signatures consistent with falling meteorites in data from the KMUX, KVTX, KHNX and KVBX. The Meteoritical Society records the Creston fall as an L6 meteorite with a total recovered mass of 688g. Osceola, FL (24 Jan 2016 1527 UTC): This daytime fireball generated 134 eyewitness reports on AMS report number 266 for 2016, with one credible sonic boom report. The fireball traveled roughly NE to SW with a terminus location north of Lake City, FL in sparsely populated, forested countryside. Radar imagery shows distinct and prominent evidence of a significant meteorite fall with radar signatures seen in data from the KJAX and KVAX radars. Searchers at the fall site found that recoveries were restricted to road sites by the difficult terrain, and yet several meteorites were recovered. Evidence indicates that this was a relatively large meteorite fall where most of the meteorites are unrecoverable due to terrain. Osceola is an L6 meteorite with 991 g total mass recovered to date. Mount Blanco, TX (18 Feb 2016 0343 UTC): This event produced only 39 eyewitness reports and is recorded as AMS event #635 for 2016. No reports of sonic booms or electrophonic noise are recorded in the AMS eyewitness reports, but videos of the event show a relatively long-lasting fireball with fragmentation. Evidence of falling meteorites is seen in radar imagery from the KAMA and KLBB radars defining a roughly WNW to ESE trend with the dominant wind direction. This event featured favorable search ground composed mostly of farmland and ranchland and was extensively searched. Rather surprisingly, only a single L5 chondrite of 36.2g has been recovered to date.

Fries, Marc↗
NASA NTRS2016

Advances in Rodent Research Missions on the International Space Station

A research platform for rodent experiment on the ISS is a valuable tool for advancing biomedical research in space. Capabilities offered by the Rodent Research project developed at NASA Ames Research Center can support experiments of much longer duration on the ISS than previous experiments performed on the Space Shuttle. NASAs Rodent Research (RR)-1 mission was completed successfully and achieved a number of objectives, including validation of flight hardware, on-orbit operations, and science capabilities as well as support of a CASIS-sponsored experiment (Novartis) on muscle atrophy. Twenty C57BL6J adult female mice were launched on the Space-X (SpX) 4 Dragon vehicle, and thrived for up to 37 days in microgravity. Daily health checks of the mice were performed during the mission via downlinked video; all flight animals were healthy and displayed normal behavior, and higher levels of physical activity compared to ground controls. Behavioral analysis demonstrated that Flight and Ground Control mice exhibited the same range of behaviors, including eating, drinking, exploratory behavior, self- and allo-grooming, and social interactions indicative of healthy animals. The animals were euthanized on-orbit and select tissues were collected from some of the mice on orbit to assess the long-term sample storage capabilities of the ISS. In general, the data obtained from the flight mice were comparable to those from the three groups of control mice (baseline, vivarium and ground controls, which were housed in flight hardware), showing that the ISS has adequate capability to support long-duration rodent experiments. The team recovered 35 tissues from 40 RR-1 frozen carcasses, yielding 3300 aliquots of tissues to distribute to the scientific community in the U.S., including NASAs GeneLab project and scientists via Space Biology's Biospecimen Sharing Program Ames Life Science Data Archive. Tissues also were distributed to Russian research colleagues at the Institute for Biomedical Problems. The expression levels of select genes including albumin, catalase, GAPDH, HMGCoA Reductase, and IGF1 were determined using RNA isolated from the livers by qPCR and no significant differences by one factor ANOVA were found between flight and ground control groups. In addition, some of the liver samples were analyzed for transcriptomic, epigenomic and proteomic profiles; some of the data sets are now available to the scientific community through GeneLabs open science data website. A second long duration mission, Rodent Research-2 (RR-2) was completed on the ISS in 2015; 20 female C57BL6J mice were successfully maintained on the ISS for various durations, with the last group of 5 animals living on-orbit for 54 days. Furthermore, we continue to expand the ISSs capabilities by introducing new on-orbit technologies including blood collection and separation, bone densitometry scanning, muscle grip strength and anesthesia with recovery. In addition, series of ground-based verification testing to fly male mice and increase the total number of mice on-orbit from 20 to 40. Subsequent missions will provide the capability to return live mice from the ISS animals to evaluate recovery on Earth, further expanding operational and science capabilities of the RR project on the ISS.

Choi, S. Y.↗
NASA NTRS2016

An Interdisciplinary Method for the Visualization of Novel High-Resolution Precision Photography and Micro-XCT Data Sets of NASA's Apollo Lunar Samples and Antarctic Meteorite Samples to Create Combined Research-Grade 3D Virtual Samples for the Benefit of Astromaterials Collections Conservation, Curation, Scientific Research and Education

New technologies make possible the advancement of documentation and visualization practices that can enhance conservation and curation protocols for NASA's Astromaterials Collections. With increasing demands for accessibility to updated comprehensive data, and with new sample return missions on the horizon, it is of primary importance to develop new standards for contemporary documentation and visualization methodologies. Our interdisciplinary team has expertise in the fields of heritage conservation practices, professional photography, photogrammetry, imaging science, application engineering, data curation, geoscience, and astromaterials curation. Our objective is to create virtual 3D reconstructions of Apollo Lunar and Antarctic Meteorite samples that are a fusion of two state-of-the-art data sets: the interior view of the sample by collecting Micro-XCT data and the exterior view of the sample by collecting high-resolution precision photography data. These new data provide researchers an information-rich visualization of both compositional and textural information prior to any physical sub-sampling. Since January 2013 we have developed a process that resulted in the successful creation of the first image-based 3D reconstruction of an Apollo Lunar Sample correlated to a 3D reconstruction of the same sample's Micro- XCT data, illustrating that this technique is both operationally possible and functionally beneficial. In May of 2016 we began a 3-year research period during which we aim to produce Virtual Astromaterials Samples for 60 high-priority Apollo Lunar and Antarctic Meteorite samples and serve them on NASA's Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation website. Our research demonstrates that research-grade Virtual Astromaterials Samples are beneficial in preserving for posterity a precise 3D reconstruction of the sample prior to sub-sampling, which greatly improves documentation practices, provides unique and novel visualization of the sample's interior and exterior features, offers scientists a preliminary research tool for targeted sub-sample requests, and additionally is a visually engaging interactive tool for bringing astromaterials science to the public.

Blumenfeld, E. H.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Stewardship of NASA's Earth Science Data and Ensuring Long-Term Active Archives

Program, NASA has followed an open data policy, with non-discriminatory access to data with no period of exclusive access. NASA has well-established processes for assigning and or accepting datasets into one of 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that are parts of EOSDIS. EOSDIS has been evolving through several information technology cycles, adapting to hardware and software changes in the commercial sector. NASA is responsible for maintaining Earth science data as long as users are interested in using them for research and applications, which is well beyond the life of the data gathering missions. For science data to remain useful over long periods of time, steps must be taken to preserve: (1) Data bits with no corruption, (2) Discoverability and access, (3) Readability, (4) Understandability, (5) Usability' and (6). Reproducibility of results. NASAs Earth Science data and Information System (ESDIS) Project, along with the 12 EOSDIS Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), has made significant progress in each of these areas over the last decade, and continues to evolve its active archive capabilities. Particular attention is being paid in recent years to ensure that the datasets are published in an easily accessible and citable manner through a unified metadata model, a common metadata repository (CMR), a coherent view through the earthdata.gov website, and assignment of Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) with well-designed landing product information pages.

Data Management↗
NASA NTRS2016

Interactive Visualization of Near Real Time and Production Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Data Online Using CesiumJS

Advancements in the capabilities of JavaScript frameworks and web browsing technology make online visualization of large geospatial datasets viable. Commonly this is done using static image overlays, prerendered animations, or cumbersome geoservers. These methods can limit interactivity andor place a large burden on server-side post-processing and storage of data. Geospatial data, and satellite data specifically, benefit from being visualized both on and above a three-dimensional surface. The open-source JavaScript framework CesiumJS, developed by Analytical Graphics, Inc., leverages the WebGL protocol to do just that. It has entered the void left by the abandonment of the Google Earth Web API, and it serves as a capable and well-maintained platform upon which data can be displayed. This paper will describe the technology behind the two primary products developed as part of the NASA Precipitation Processing System STORM website: GPM Near Real Time Viewer (GPMNRTView) and STORM Virtual Globe (STORM VG). GPMNRTView reads small post-processed CZML files derived from various Level 1 through 3 near real-time products. For swath-based products, several brightness temperature channels or precipitation-related variables are available for animating in virtual real-time as the satellite-observed them on and above the Earths surface. With grid-based products, only precipitation rates are available, but the grid points are visualized in such a way that they can be interactively examined to explore raw values. STORM VG reads values directly off the HDF5 files, converting the information into JSON on the fly. All data points both on and above the surface can be examined here as well. Both the raw values and, if relevant, elevations are displayed. Surface and above-ground precipitation rates from select Level 2 and 3 products are shown. Examples from both products will be shown, including visuals from high impact events observed by GPM constellation satellites.

satellite precipitation measurement↗
NASA NTRS2016

What's NEW at the GES DISC: Evolution of Data Management and Services for Aura Mission and Beyond

GES DISC world. Aura data usage and trend. Aura data users requests. GES DISC update (before/after); New Access method (ftp to http) with Earthdata Login System, New Website (DISC/Mirador to New Interface), New Giovanni (Giovanni to Now Federated). GES DISC support beyond Aura Mission; Multi-sensor coincident data subsets, Level 2 support (Sub-setter, Visualization), Data List.

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