| *** JANUARY 2007 *** |
| NASA STARTS EXPERIMENT ON ORBITING GENESAT-1 SATELLITE |
| MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - Scientists today started the biology experiment aboard NASA's GeneSat-1 satellite, which is orbiting Earth. ... the GeneSat-1 status report noted that, "All systems are functioning normally, and we have full two-way radio control. It has been verified that we are collecting experimentdata." Earlier.., another status report from GeneSat scientists said, "The GeneSat-1 biology experiment 'start command' was issued about 4 a.m. PST (2nd pass of the night / morning). Housekeeping data from third pass indicate that payload data is being generated, thus in operation per command. Biology experiment should begin in about 20 minutes (after heaters warm... to operating temperature, and GeneSat-1 emerges from solar eclipse). We should have good indication of initial experiment data after the 7 a.m. PST pass (4th of night.)" GeneSat-1 is a 10-pound satellite carrying bacteria inside a miniature laboratory. "During this mission, we are exposing bacteria to the space environment to see how they are affected," said John Hines, the GeneSat project manager at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. GeneSat-1's onboard micro-laboratory includes sensors and optical systems that can detect proteins that are the products of specific genetic activity. GeneSat-1 was designed and built at NASA Ames Research Center, and the mission is being managed from the center. The satellite was launched.., from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. The NASA satellite was a secondary payload on an Air Force four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket that also delivered the Air Force TacSat 2 satellite to orbit... |
| NASA AND GOOGLE TO BRING SPACE EXPLORATION DOWN TO EARTH |
| MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - NASA Ames Research Center and Google have signed a Space Act Agreement that formally establishes a relationship to work together on a variety of challenging technical problems ranging from large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, to human-computer interfaces. As the first in a series of joint collaborations, Google and Ames will focus on making the most useful of NASA's information available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future. "This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars," said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at Headquarters in Washington. "This innovative combination of information technology and space science will make NASA's space exploration work accessible to everyone," added Griffin. "Partnering with NASA made perfect sense for Google, as it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many computing issues on behalf of our users," said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google. "We're pleased to move forward to collaborate on a variety of technical challenges through the signing of the Space Act Agreement." |