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

IMPORTANT DATES

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE, GRAA PRESIDENT: Our July luncheon speaker was Dr. Lisa Muzzuca, Goddard’s Search and Rescue Mission Manager, and her presentation was entitled “NASA Search and Rescue – Using Technology to Save Lives,” or as she prefers, “NASA SAR – 40 Years Strong: How NASA played a critical role in establishing a system that is inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame!”

Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) were developed in the ‘70s that relied on airborne searches for location of downed aircraft or ships in distress. Bernie Trudell, who was assigned to Bill Redisch’s Division and Chuck Cote’s Branch of Goddard’s Applications Directorate, led a study of a “Search and Rescue (SARSAT) orbiting satellite” for global detection of 121.5 MHz ELT distress signals. The only viable SARSAT was on Low Earth Orbit (LEO) spacecraft using a Canadian Doppler positioning technique. In parallel, the Russians were developing their COSPAS satellite system using 406 MHz digital technology ELTs. NASA played a key role in a 1979 MOU between Canada, France, the US, and the Soviet Union to make the systems interoperable. SARSAT, initially flown on a Nimbus spacecraft, was made operational on NOAA LEO spacecraft. In 1984, trials using GOES-7 confirmed that 406 MHz Cospas-Sarsat distress messages could be relayed by a geostationary system for continuous monitoring. ‘Global’ GEO coverage was first achieved in 1995 and declared fully operational by Cospas-Sarsat in 1998. However, LEO spacecraft coming over the site with as long as 90 minutes between overpasses were still needed to determine the location.

A next generation Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) system was envisioned in 1999 to replace the composite LEO-GEO system. The new system uses SAR repeaters on board US, Russian, European, and Chinese GPS satellites that offer continuous global detection with a highly redundant space segment and GPS position accuracy. There are now 19 GPS satellites with proof of concept systems, using triangulation to find location almost instantaneously. They use a dedicated search and rescue ground station located at Goddard.

Dr. Mazzuca led NASA’s design of a second-generation 406 MHz beacon with a more robust signal that is less prone to interference. This revolutionary new beacon reduced the time to detect and locate a distress signal. Victims can now be found more quickly to an increased accuracy of a few meters vs. the previous few kilometers of accuracy. Since the first save in 1982, almost 44,000 lives have been saved globally, including ten thousand Americans. Several hundred lives are saved in the US.

Dr. Mazzuca, a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (the Oscars of government service) in the Promising Innovations Category, was based on her contributions to SAR’s multi-national efforts and her exemplary leadership in developing and testing next-generation emergency locator beacons as well as overcoming challenges with aircraft distress beacons.

On a separate topic, Raquel Marshal, Goddard’s Education Program Manager, who is responsible for coordinating the placement and oversight of over 400 interns each year, also attended our meeting along with 18 interns and their mentors. The interns are undergraduate and graduate students from universities around the country (from as far away as Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque, NM, and as near as Prince George’s Community College in Largo, MD, and majoring in Engineering, Computer Science, Astrophysics, Business, Communications, Finance and Mathematics. They introduced themselves and their mentors and described the exciting work they are doing at Goddard this summer.

POTENTIAL WORK FOR GRAA MEMBERS AS SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS OR REVIEWERS: Linda Baumgart, Director of Human Resources at Cornell Technical Services, LLC in Columbia, MD, attended the July luncheon and extended an excellent opportunity for GRAA members to consider serving as subject matter experts or reviewers on the Evaluations, Assessments, Studies, Services and Support 2 Contract (EASSS 2) on behalf of NASA’s Science Office for Mission Assessments. Ms. Baumgart may be contacted to request additional recruiting information by calling 301-560-2544 and asking to speak with her or emailing her at lbaumgart@cts-llc.com.

THOUGHT FOR AUGUST: As retirees, life is apparently just a series of obstacles preventing us from taking well-earned naps!

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

• Richard D. Carper, of Corvallis, OR, passed away on March 9^th. He came to Goddard in ‘60 after serving for 8 years with the US Army and Department of Defense projects on rocket-powered vehicles and early space flight. His first assignment was in the Data Support Division of the Office of the Assistant Director for Tracking & Data Support. He worked throughout his career at Goddard on space data communications and data processing (in organizations that later became the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate). Throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s and most of the ‘80s he worked on Vanguard III and 20 other projects such as OGO, OAO, ATF and GOES series, HST, and CGRO. From ’87 to ’90 he transferred to the Space Station Freedom Program Office in Reston, VA, and then transferred back to Goddard in ’91 to resume work in the Information Processing Division of the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate until retiring in ’93, after which he continued to consult with NASA entities on domestic and international programs until 2005.
• Clarence E. (Ed) Doll, Jr., of Arlington, VA, passed away on June 26^th. He transferred from the Naval Research Laboratory as a Mathematician shortly after Goddard’s conception and first worked at the Space Computing Center in the Office of the Assistant Director for Tracking & Data Support (which ultimately became the Missions Operations & Data Systems Directorate). Throughout the ‘60s, and ‘70s, he was assigned to several different divisions of essentially the same directorate with its varied titles changing over time. In the early ‘80s he transferred to the Operations Support Computing Division in the Networks Directorate for a few years and then transferred to the Flight Dynamics Division in the Mission Operations & Data Systems Directorate for the remainder of his Goddard career prior to retiring in the late ‘90s.
• Robert G. Stepp, of Port St. Lucie, FL, passed away on February 28^th. He came to Goddard as an Engineering Technician in ’69 and first worked in the Test & Evaluation Division of the Systems Reliability Directorate. From the mid-‘70s through ’89 he worked in the Engineering Services Division of the Engineering Directorate and in ’90 was transferred to the Special Payloads Division and in ’92 the Shuttle Small Payloads Project Office, from which he retired in ’93.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES – IT HAPPENED IN AUGUST: On August 25, 1997, a Delta II rocket launched the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite, aka: Explorer 71, from Cape Canaveral, FL. ACE observes and measures the composition of particles from the solar wind as well as galactic cosmic rays. Its prime objective is to improve measurements of the composition of diverse samples of matter associated with the sun, the interstellar medium, and the galaxy surrounding us. ACE is capable of providing near-real-time solar wind and magnetic field data that aids in forecasting space weather. Advance knowledge of solar wind disturbances leading toward Earth can help mitigate the effects of geomagnetic storms that can overload power grids and disrupt communications on Earth.

UPDATE ON DISSEMINATION OF 2018 MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY: We urgently need the help of GRAA members!!! Due to unexpected difficulties and anomalies with updating both current home addresses and especially email addresses continuing to bounce back to us, we have had to delay the printing and dissemination of the 2018 Membership Directory. If you recall from past years, we have included with the Membership Directory whatever monthly GRAA Newsletter is available at the time of the mailing. As an example, some members who signed up to receive the email version of our newsletters in past years, but later moved to new homes and did not notify us of their new addresses, making it extremely difficult for us to keep our member database updated.

If you have moved or changed your home address or email address in the relatively recent past, please sent us a note as soon as possible to GRAA at P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184 and include your current home address, your current email address (only if you have signed up sometime in the past to receive the email version of the newsletters), as well as your current telephone number so we may easily contact you if we have additional questions. We will make every attempt to ensure the new directory is as accurate as humanly possible.

TREASURER'S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received tax-deductible donations from: JoAnn Clark, Dario Galoppo, Reginald Mitchell (in memory of George Kraft), and Thomas Underwood.