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April 3, 2008 - Solar Dynamics Laboratory's Smart Design Fosters Perfect Fit
Imagine a wedding dress or a tailored suit that fit the first time you try it on. That's pretty similar to how engineers felt when the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft bus was lowered onto the propulsion module and it attached on the first try. "It's like lowering a telephone booth over a person," said Gary Davis, SDO propulsion subsystem manager at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The mechanical people made the operation look easy. It's never easy. There are some mechanical things you can never model and predict."
March 3, 2008 - NASA'S SDO Mission to Improve Predictions of Violent Space Weather
About 93 million miles from us lies an immense nuclear furnace spanning 100 Earths. In just one second, it produces enough power to supply the entire United States for nine million years. It is the closest star, our sun. Although its light powers almost all life on Earth, the sun has a dark side. Storms from the sun can knock our finely tuned technological civilization off balance, disrupting satellites, power grids, and radio communication, including the Global Positioning System. Radiation from solar storms can cause cancer in astronauts on unshielded areas, like the moon's surface. Sometime between the end of 2008 and the beginning 2009, NASA will launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to trace these disturbances back to their origin deep within the sun. SDO will discover how the sun builds up and explosively releases magnetic energy, which powers severe space weather.
February 17, 2008 - SDO started its first Comprehensive Performance Test (CPT)
SDO started its first Comprehensive Performance Test (CPT), designed to make sure all of the individual parts of the observatory work and can talk to each other. This series of tests lasts 6 days and will be repeated several more times as SDO is tested under launch and orbital conditions at the Goddard Space Flight Center.
January 2, 2008 - Third Instrument for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Arrives at Goddard
The third and final instrument for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has joined the other two at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) was delivered to Goddard in preparation for SDO's scheduled launch in December 2008. The AIA was designed and built at the Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (ATC), Palo Alto, Calif.
November 16, 2007 - Solar Dynamics Observatory Instrument to Peer Inside the Sun Arrives at Goddard
The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, an instrument for the Solar Dynamics Observatory built by Stanford University and the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif., has arrived at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The imager will use a technique called "helioseismology" to gaze through the Sun at internal processes that will help us to understand the origins of solar weather. It is one of three instruments on the Observatory.
October 19, 2007 - Science - With the Whole Family!
Every month the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland hosts "Family Science Night." It's open to the public and designed for middle school students AND their parents. Part of the idea is to show parents the importance of science - in the hope that they'll encourage kids to take more science and math classes at school. And while black holes CAN be thrilling, Science Night organizers say the most fascinating part of the evening is watching families work together and teach one another. Stephanie Kaye reports.
October 19, 2007 - Science Served Family Style
"Do we have intelligent life?" asks Diana Newman of Upper Marlboro. "It's right here," says Kyle, her 11-year-old son, pointing to a small green stick figure drawn on poster board. The mini alien is surrounded by pompoms, yarn and balloons, which represent planets, comets and asteroids. Kyle's father, Glenn, is also hunched over the model of the universe that the Newmans have created during Family Science Night at NASA's Goddard Visitor Center in Greenbelt. And at a dozen other round tables nearby, more adults and children are spending two hours tackling science-related tasks while learning from one another and NASA program leaders.
October 19, 2007 - SEGway
SEGway is a group of educator-scientists working to present the latest astronomy and space science research to students, teachers, and the general public. SEGway actively collaborates with partners across the United States and has developed E/PO (education and public outreach) programs for a number of NASA space science missions including the EUVE, FAST, RHESSI, CHIPS, STEREO/IMPACT, WISE, and THEMIS satellite missions. SEGway has also been involved with E/PO programs for science projects such as the National Virtual Observatory and Stardust@home.
October 17, 2007 - Peninsula Boys and Girls Clubs to honor several off-campus youth programs
A dozen crickets atop a table: Half of them are crawling and jumping around, while the rest lie still on their sides. Which ones are alive, and which are dead? Stanford students are asked this question and others in preparation for volunteering as a youth mentor for Science in Service, a program housed in the university's Haas Center for Public Service. Articulating the seemingly simple distinction between life and death proves daunting even for those studying science and engineering, according to program director Kelly Beck. But in the process, they learn how to ask the right questions and how to engage young minds in discussions about the whats and whys of the physical world.
September 25, 2007 - SDO Instrument Arrives at Goddard
The University of Colorado at Boulder delivered the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE), the first of three Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) instruments, to Goddard Space Flight Center. EVE will measure how much the Sun.s ultraviolet brightness changes.
September 10, 2007 - NASA prepares solar dynamic observatory
GREENBELT, Md., 10 (UPI) -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing the first of three Solar Dynamic Observatories to monitor the sun's ultraviolet brightness.
The University of Colorado-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics delivered the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE, last week to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
August 28, 2007 - 2nd Annual 21st Century Explorer Podcast Competition
More than any other time in space exploration history, it's an exciting age for educators and students to be part of. Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will return to the moon. This time, we're planning to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. Today's students will be tomorrow's explorers.
April 28, 2007 - The Quest to Predict the Next Space "Hurricane" Season
Violent solar events, like flares and coronal mass ejections, are the hurricanes of space weather, capable of causing havoc with satellites, power grids, and radio communication, including the Global Positioning System. The sun is heading into a new season of turbulent solar activity. Just like its seasonal hurricane predictions, on April 25, 2007, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will issue an update on efforts to predict the sun's next solar cycle.
April 25, 2007 - Scientists Predict Next Solar Cycle Peak
WASHINGTON - The peak of the next sunspot cycle is expected in late 2011 or mid-2012 potentially affecting airline flights, communications satellites and electrical transmissions. But forecasters can't agree on how intense it will be.
March 28, 2007 - Apartment's connections lead to learning
Silver Spring complex offers a variety of educational, health services thanks to partnerships. Herminia Servat, 66, carefully pressed the "Control" and "P" keys on her computer Monday night, just as her instructor prompted, so a flier she had created would print. The Silver Spring resident regularly goes to the Pine Ridge Community Center in her apartment complex to take advantage of the classes it offers.
March 7, 2007 - Family Science Night at GSFC's Visitor Center inspires discovery
Family Science Night at GSFC's Visitor Center inspires discovery and generates enthusiasm in the wide variety of science and engineering research conducted at Goddard. During two hours of exciting hands-on activities, NASA EPO professionals, scientists, and engineers work with local middle school students and their families as they explore various science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) themes.
March 2007 - Squabbling over the Sun
There's more than enough reason to worry about the sun's behavior. Of course, the sun provides us with warmth and light, without which we wouldn't be able to survive. But energetic solar outbursts also disrupt radio links, short-circuit spacecraft electronics, and knock off power grids, resulting in huge economic damage. Moreover, solar panels degrade more quickly as a result of strong solar activity, and satellites in low-Earth orbit experience more atmospheric drag, leading to shorter lifetimes.
December 18, 2006 - Solar Opposites: Forecasts for Sun's Activity Disagree Wildly
The U.S.-led panel charged with predicting the intensity of the next cycle of sunspot activity will have to resolve highly divergent predictions issued this year by two leading solar forecasting modelers, according to solar experts at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.
August 12, 2004 - Solar weather
"When sunspots change, they change everything in the solar system," he says. "When there are a lot of sunspots, there are storms on the sun. Magnetic energy turns to radiation, and it emits charged particles. When that happens, the magnetic field of the Earth is charged by the magnetic field of the sun."
March 24, 2004 - The next great sun-watching spacecraft
Beneath the buffer zone of the atmosphere and magnetic field, Earth is an oasis nourished by the light and heat of the sun. However, the solar fireball can adversely impact our increasingly technology-driven society as well as our climate.
September 30, 2003 - The Dynamic Sun Shines on Goddard
The Dynamic Sun Workshop is the brainchild of Dr. Barbara Thompson, Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Project Scientist here at NASA Goddard. The SDO scientists developed a workshop geared towards engineers who have a desire to do outreach would be a great way to empower NASA employees to get the NASA vision out to the community at large.
August 26, 2002 - NASA Selects Stanford Team To Design And Direct Major Solar Experiment For 2007 Launch
NASA has selected a team of astrophysicists at Stanford University to design and oversee the primary experiment aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) a new research satellite scheduled for launch in August 2007. According to NASA officials, part of SDO's mission is to learn how to predict destructive flares and solar storms generated by the Sun's mysterious magnetic fields. The satellite will be designed to remain in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above Earth for at least five years, providing a constant stream of data about the complex magnetic fields generated deep in the solar interior.
August 21, 2002 - NASA Selects Investigations For Solar Dynamics Observatory
NASA has selected three proposals for implementation for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. The SDO is the first in a series of missions in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO flight instruments will be flown on a NASA-supplied Sun-pointing spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit that NASA intends to launch in August 2007 for a prime mission of five years.
August 19, 2002 - Investigations picked for Solar Dynamics Observatory
NASA has selected three proposals for implementation for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. The SDO is the first in a series of missions in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO flight instruments will be flown on a NASA-supplied Sun-pointing spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit that NASA intends to launch in August 2007 for a prime mission of five years.
August 19, 2002 - Press Release - NASA HQ Announces Instrument Selection for SDO
NASA has selected three proposals for implementation for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. The SDO is the first in a series of missions in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO flight instruments will be flown on a NASA-supplied Sun-pointing spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit that NASA intends to launch in August 2007 for a prime mission of five years.

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