GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184

IMPORTANT DATES

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE, GRAA PRESIDENT: Our September speaker was Dr. Anne M. Thompson, Senior Scientist in the Atmospheric Chemistry & Dynamics Laboratory in Goddard’s Earth Sciences Division. Her talk, entitled ”Environmental Success Stories: The View from Space,” provided the latest information on both the Ozone Hole and Global Pollution derived from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA’s Aura satellite. Contrary to popular belief, both of these phenomena are getting better, largely because of the global response starting with the Montreal Protocol on ozone depleting substances in October 1987 and due to new regulations of industrial and automotive emissions in countries around the world. Dr. Thompson showed models of what the ozone situation around the world would have been without the global response in curtailing the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Despite the global improvements, it will take another 60 years to return to the ozone levels of the 1970s as halogens are only flushed from the atmosphere. A new international agreement (Kigali Agreement) calls for phasing out the CFC replacements, which are potent greenhouse gases that produce global warming.

While ozone in the stratosphere protects us from ultraviolet sunlight, ozone in the boundary layer (below 4 kilometers) is a pollutant with effects on health. This ‘bad’ ozone is largely produced from nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), a product of combustion in power plants and cars. High ground resolution NO₂ maps are particularly useful for identifying sources and determining trends. New satellite instruments are now able to focus in on small regions and have identified changes in cities around the world. For example, cities in the eastern US have lowered their NO₂ pollution by an average of ~50% since 2005 and east Asian cities have cut NO₂ by 10 to 40% in the last decade, mainly due to improved power plants and cleaner cars and trucks. As cities have controlled these sources, the satellite data shows growing NO₂ in industrial areas outside the cities where old practices are still running out of control. For example, while NO₂ has decreased by 24% near Seoul, Korea, a nearby petrochemical complex has increased by over 50%. In addition, oil production and natural gas fracking areas have had a 30% increase in NO₂ in the last 10 years. Environmental Protection Agency monitors that measure pollution at the surface show the same changes as the satellite data, lending confidence to the data. Whereas NO₂ has a short-term pollution affect (hours), ozone pollution lasts for days and travels long distances. Asian pollution has traveled as far as the US West Coast. Future satellite sensors on geostationary and low Earth orbit satellites will be able to measure hourly changes in local pollution levels and the impacts they have not only locally but around the world. Dr. Thompson hopes that this awareness will lead to even more improvement in pollution levels all across the world. She suggested the following websites to obtain detailed information on air quality information and ozone measurements: https://airquality.gsfc.nasa.gov and https://ozoneaq.gsfc.nasa.gov.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received tax-deductible donations from: Edward Bielecki, Carol Boquist, Aleta Johnson, Jan Owings, Anne Thompson, and Arthur White.

EXPLORATION & SPACE COMMUNICATIONS PROJECTS DIVISION HELPS DURING HURRICANES: In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and IRMA, NASA is working with national, state and local agencies, including the FEMA, US Coast Guard, US Geological Survey, NOAA, and the National Guard, as well as other partners, to support storm and flooding responses. The division’s space networks have provided telemetry, tracking and command services to domestic and international satellites to better understand the rainfall accumulations of Harvey and Irma and their aftermath. Technology developed by the division’s Search & Rescue (SAR) Office has helped numerous first responders locate and rescue people in distress due to the recent hurricanes. Kudos to the SAR team!

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

• John W. Bryan, of Forest Heights, MD, passed away on August 30^th. He was an Electrical Engineer who transferred from the Naval Research Laboratory shortly after Goddard was opened. In the early ’60s he was assigned to the Advanced Development Division of the Office of Tracking & Data Systems. In the late ’60s, he was assigned to the same division in the Tracking & Data Systems Directorate. In the ’70s, he was assigned to the Trajectory Analysis & Geodynamics Division of the Missions & Data Operations Directorate.
• David A. Cristofalo, of Malabar, FL, passed away on March 19^th. In the early ’70s he was assigned to the Test & Evaluation Division of the Systems Reliability Directorate and in the ’80s he was assigned to the Tracking & Data Relay Satellite System Project in the Flights Projects Directorate.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES – IT HAPPENED IN OCTOBER: On October 26, 2006, a Delta II rocket launched the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission from Cape Canaveral, FL. The mission included two nearly identical spacecraft lagging (STEREO A) and leading (STEREO B) the Earth in heliocentric orbit around the Sun for remote 3-D imaging and radio observations of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Such events are responsible for large solar energetic particle events in interplanetary space and are the primary cause of major geomagnetic storms on the Earth. STEREO data recorded and stored onboard each spacecraft are downlinked through the NASA Deep Space Network on a daily basis. Real-time space weather data are continuously transmitted through a separate system to NASA and non-NASA receiving stations. Over years, both spacecraft continued to separate from each other until on February 6, 2011, the two spacecraft achieved 180 degrees of separation enabling, for the first time, the simultaneous observation of the entire Sun. In 2015, contact was lost for several months when the spacecraft passed behind the Sun. They then started to approach Earth again, with the closest approach occurring sometime in 2023. They will not be recaptured into Earth orbit. The principal benefit of the mission is in capturing stereoscopic images of the Sun. In other words, because the satellites are at different points along the Earth’s orbit, but distant from the Earth, they can photograph parts of the Sun that are not visible from the Earth. The STEREO satellites principally monitor the far side for CMEs – massive bursts of solar wind, solar plasma, and magnetic fields that are sometimes ejected into space and can sometimes disrupt Earth’s communications, airlines, power grids, and satellites. STEREO’s observations are therefore incorporated into forecasts of solar activity provided to such service operators.

GODDARD TEAM BIDS FAREWELL, EXCITEDLY AND EMOTIONALLY, TO THE CASSINI MISSION: Loss of contact with the Cassini spacecraft was received by NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna complex in Canberra, Australia, at 7:55 a.m. on September 15^th. Due to the length of time (about 1-1/2 hours) the signal takes to travel back to Earth, the Cassini spacecraft had already plunged into the atmosphere of Saturn and been destroyed. The Goddard team has been operating Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) two decades and where it was built, with contributions from international partners. It has also uploaded more than 1.4 million commands to CIRS. In return, CIRS has sent almost 2 terabytes’ worth of data and image products. Cassini was launched in 1997 and took an epic seven-year journey to Saturn, including a flyby of Jupiter, and has spent the past 13 years investigating Saturn and its rings and moons. Kudos to the more than 300 scientists and engineers who have worked on CIRS since Cassini was launched!

THOUGHT FOR OCTOBER: As senior citizens, our investment in health insurance over many years is nowadays apparently finally beginning to pay off.