NASA'S Next-Generation Communications Satellite Arrives At Kennedy

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA's newest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, known as TDRS-K, arrived Tuesday at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for a Jan. 29 launch. TDRS-K arrived aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 from the Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems assembly facility in El Segundo, Calif.

For almost 30 years, the TDRS spacecraft have provided a reliable communications network for NASA, serving numerous national and international space missions. The TDRS fleet is a space-based communication system used to provide tracking, telemetry, command, and high bandwidth data return services. The satellites provide in-flight communications with spacecraft operating in low-Earth orbit. It has been 10 years since NASA's last TDRS launch.

"This launch will provide even greater capabilities to a network that has become key to enabling many of NASA's scientific discoveries," says Jeffrey Gramling, project manager for TDRS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

TDRS-K will launch to geostationary orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft is the first of three next-generation satellites designed to ensure vital operational continuity for NASA by expanding the lifespan of the fleet. The launch of TDRS-L is scheduled for 2014 and TDRS-M in 2015.

Each of the new satellites has a higher performance solar panel design to provide more spacecraft power. This upgrade will return signal processing for the S-Band multiple access service to the ground -- the same as the first-generation TDRS spacecraft. Ground-based processing allows TDRS to service more customers with different and evolving communication requirements.

The TDRS fleet began operating during the space shuttle era and provides critical communication support from several locations in geostationary orbit to NASA's human spaceflight endeavors, including the International Space Station. The fleet also provides communications support to an array of science missions, as well as various types of launch vehicles. Of the nine TDRS satellites launched, seven are still operational, although four are already beyond their design life. Two have been retired. The second TDRS was lost in 1986 during the space shuttle Challenger accident.

NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Program, part of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, is responsible for the TDRS network. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy is responsible for launch management. United Launch Alliance provides the Atlas V rocket launch service.

NASA's Grail Lunar Impact Site Named for Astronaut Sally Ride

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has named the site where twin agency spacecraft impacted the moon Monday in honor of the late astronaut, Sally K. Ride, who was America's first woman in space and a member of the probes' mission team.

Last Friday, Ebb and Flow, the two spacecraft comprising NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, were commanded to descend into a lower orbit that would result in an impact Monday on a mountain near the moon's north pole. The formation-flying duo hit the lunar surface as planned at 2:28:51 p.m. PST (5:28:51 p.m. EST) and 2:29:21 p.m. PST (5:29:21 p.m. EST) at a speed of 3,760 mph (1.7 kilometers per second). The location of the Sally K. Ride Impact Site is on the southern face of an approximately 1.5 mile- (2.5 -kilometer) tall mountain near a crater named Goldschmidt.

"Sally was all about getting the job done, whether it be in exploring space, inspiring the next generation, or helping make the GRAIL mission the resounding success it is today," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "As we complete our lunar mission, we are proud we can honor Sally Ride's contributions by naming this corner of the moon after her."

The impact marked a successful end to the GRAIL mission, which was NASA's first planetary mission to carry cameras fully dedicated to education and public outreach. Ride, who died in July after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, led GRAIL's MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) Program through her company, Sally Ride Science, in San Diego.

Along with its primary science instrument, each spacecraft carried a MoonKAM camera that took more than 115,000 total images of the lunar surface. Imaging targets were proposed by middle school students from across the country and the resulting images returned for them to study. The names of the spacecraft were selected by Ride and the mission team from student submissions in a nationwide contest.

"Sally Ride worked tirelessly throughout her life to remind all of us, especially girls, to keep questioning and learning," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland. "Today her passion for making students part of NASA's science is honored by naming the impact site for her."

Fifty minutes prior to impact, the spacecraft fired their engines until the propellant was depleted. The maneuver was designed to determine precisely the amount of fuel remaining in the tanks. This will help NASA engineers validate computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.

"Ebb fired its engines for 4 minutes, 3 seconds and Flow fired its for 5 minutes, 7 seconds," said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "It was one final important set of data from a mission that was filled with great science and engineering data."

The mission team deduced that much of the material aboard each spacecraft was broken up in the energy released during the impacts. Most of what remained probably is buried in shallow craters. The craters' size may be determined when NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter returns images of the area in several weeks.

Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow had been orbiting the moon since Jan. 1, 2012. The probes intentionally were sent into the lunar surface because they did not have sufficient altitude or fuel to continue science operations. Their successful prime and extended science missions generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The map will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved.

"We will miss our lunar twins, but the scientists tell me it will take years to analyze all the great data they got, and that is why we came to the moon in the first place," Lehman said. "So long, Ebb and Flow, and we thank you."

JPL manages the GRAIL mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. GRAIL is part of the Discovery Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.

White House Releases Report on Beyond the Border and Regulatory Cooperation Council with Canada

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

WASHINGTON, DC – On December 7, 2011, President Obama and Prime Minister Harper of Canada met at the White House and announced two initiatives to ensure that the vital economic partnership that joins the United States and Canada continues to be the cornerstone of our economic competitiveness and security  -- the Beyond the Border (BTB) Action Plan and the Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) Action Plan.  These Action Plans build on our well-established bilateral cooperation on trade, investment, emergency preparedness, and security.  They also describe specific initiatives with timelines for implementation that promote transparency, efficiency, and the free and secure flow of people and goods.

Today, we are jointly releasing two reports that summarize the significant progress made under these initiatives.  While our efforts are not complete, our two governments have worked together over the past year in a concerted way to advance our perimeter security and economic competitiveness, achieving results that will translate into a significant savings that will improve the lives of residents, visitors, and businesses in both our countries. 

The Beyond the Border Report highlights a number of the objectives achieved over the past year, which both provide economic benefits and enhance security, including:

·         Mutual recognition of our respective air cargo security programs for passenger aircraft, eliminating the need for re-screening, increasing the number of flights that can travel and allowing airports to shorten the time between flights;

·         An operational model for a pilot program to inspect truck cargo well before the border, reducing wait times at the border, and resulting in increased throughput of goods each day; and;

·         Providing additional benefits to trusted travelers, including expedited passenger screening at U.S. airports for Canadian travelers, making it easier to travel to more than one U.S. destination, increasing the number of tourism dollars spent here.

The Regulatory Cooperation Council, in fulfilling its mandate to promote economic growth and job creation, has spurred unprecedented cooperation to provide benefits to our consumers, regulators, and businesses through increased regulatory transparency and coordination while maintaining high standards of public health and safety and environmental protection. The Council has achieved significant progress over the past year, including:

·         Pilot projects for simultaneous submissions to regulators in both countries for approval of crop protection products;

·         In the area of veterinary drugs, simultaneous reviews by U.S. and Canadian regulators for several drug submissions; 

·         A pilot project for the joint inspection of non-U.S. and non-Canadian flagged vessels entering the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, focusing on maritime security and pollution prevention, and monitoring living and working conditions for workers on these ships; and

·         A proposal to align U.S. and Canadian rules on tire safety and occupant restraint systems in frontal impact collisions.

For more than forty years, the increasing integration of the economies of the United States and Canada has been key to our two countries’ prosperity and security.  We intend to continue to work together under these initiatives through 2013, 2014, and beyond to reduce and eliminate barriers to trade and investment, securing our shared competitiveness for the 21st century.

The Republic of Cyprus becomes a CERN Associate Member State

George Demosthenous (left), Minister of Education and Culture of the Republic of Cyprus signs the agreement with CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer (Image: Ministry of Education and Culture, Cyprus)

Geneva, 5 October 2012. The CERN1 Director-General, Rolf Heuer, and the Minister of Education and Culture of the Republic of Cyprus, George Demosthenous, today signed an agreement under which the Republic of Cyprus will become an Associate Member State in the pre-stage to Membership. The agreement will have to be ratified by the Parliament of Cyprus before coming into force.

"We are very happy to welcome the Republic of Cyprus as a new Associate Member State in the pre-stage to Membership," declared CERN's Director-General, Rolf Heuer. "Cypriot physicists have made up a small but very active community at CERN for many years. This new status will enable the country to derive greater benefit from the opportunities offered by CERN, whether through participation in scientific programmes, through industrial development or through education and training."

"It is with great pleasure that I have signed, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Cyprus, our country’s admission to CERN as an Associate Member State in the pre-stage to Membership. We consider this agreement to be the cornerstone of our efforts to support and enhance the Cypriot scientific and research community and we are certain that as an Associate Member our contribution to CERN will not only continue but it will undoubtedly be strengthened", said George Demosthenous, Minister of Education and Culture of the Republic of Cyprus.

In the early 1990s, physicists from the Republic of Cyprus took part in the L3 experiment at CERN's Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider before joining the CMS collaboration, one of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in 1995. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the University of Cyprus and CMS in 1999 under which Cypriot scientists have notably contributed to the development of the solenoid magnet and of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. They are also involved in the physics analyses of the CMS experiment, including in certain searches for the Higgs boson and beauty quarks.

“This Associate Membership shows our young generation that high-calibre research, innovation and education is the right way to stimulate development, pointing to a bright future for Europe. CERN is a living example of European integration and world collaborative spirit”, added Panos Razis, Professor and Leader of the High Energy Physics team at the University of Cyprus. “The dream we set 20 years ago when we founded the first university of the country now becomes a reality.”

The Republic of Cyprus is the third country to accede to the status of Associate Member State in the pre-stage to Membership after Israel in 2011 and Serbia earlier in 2012.

Contact

Emmanuel Tsesmelis, CERN Directorate Office:
Emmanuel.Tsesmelis@cern.ch
+41 (0)76 487 40 57
Footnote(s)

1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania has the status of Candidate for Accession. Israel and Serbia are Associate Member States in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

Professor Agnieszka Zalewska elected President of CERN Council

Agnieszka Zalewska (Image: CERN)

Geneva, 20 September 2012. CERN1 Council today elected Professor Agnieszka Zalewska as its 21st President for a period of one year renewable twice, with a mandate starting on 1 January 2013. Professor Zalewska takes over from Michel Spiro who comes to the conclusion of his three-year term at the end of December.

“I feel particularly honoured to have presided over the CERN Council through a period that has seen the first major results from the LHC,” said Professor Spiro. “But we are just at the start, so while warmly thanking CERN management and personnel for the last three years, I’d like to wish Professor Zalewska all the very best as the LHC adventure continues to unfold.”

Agnieszka Zalewska is a Professor at the H. Niewodniczański Institute of High Energy Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She has a distinguished career in particle physics and a long association with CERN. She received her doctorate in 1975 from the Jagellonian University, Krakow, for work carried out on bubble chamber data from an experiment at CERN. Later, she worked on the DELPHI experiment at CERN’s Large Electron Positron collider, LEP, where she played an important role in the development of silicon tracking detectors. Since 2000, she has been involved with neutrino physics through the ICARUS experiment at Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory, which studies a neutrino beam sent through the Earth from CERN, and has also been involved with feasibility studies for an underground laboratory in Poland. She has been a member of several CERN committees, and has been the Polish scientific delegate to the CERN Council since January 2010.

“The coming years will be fascinating, but demanding, as we prepare the LHC for running at higher energies and implement the updated European Strategy for Particle Physics,” said Zalewska. “CERN and its Council will become my only priority, and I would like to thank the Council members and outgoing President for the confidence they have placed in me.”

About the CERN Council
Footnote(s)

1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Israel and Serbia are Associate Members in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

LHC experiments bring new insight into matter of the primordial universe

Geneva, 13 August 2012. Experiments using heavy ions at CERN1’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are advancing understanding of the primordial universe. The ALICE, ATLAS and CMS collaborations have made new measurements of the kind of matter that probably existed in the first instants of the universe. They will present their latest results at the Quark Matter 2012 conference, which starts today in Washington DC. The new findings are based mainly on the four-week LHC run with lead ions in 2011, during which the experiments collected 20 times more data than in 2010.

Just after the big bang, quarks and gluons – basic building blocks of matter – were not confined inside composite particles such as protons and neutrons, as they are today. Instead, they moved freely in a state of matter known as "quark–gluon plasma". Collisions of lead ions in the LHC, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, recreate for a fleeting moment conditions similar to those of the early universe. By examining a billion or so of these collisions, the experiments have been able to make more precise measurements of the properties of matter under these extreme conditions.

“The field of heavy-ion physics is crucial for probing the properties of matter in the primordial universe, one of the key questions of fundamental physics that the LHC and its experiments are designed to address. It illustrates how in addition to the investigation of the recently discovered Higgs-like boson, physicists at the LHC are studying many other important phenomena in both proton–proton and lead–lead collisions,” said CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer.

At the conference, the ALICE, ATLAS and CMS collaborations will present more refined characterizations of the densest and hottest matter ever studied in the laboratory – 100,000 times hotter than the interior of the Sun and denser than a neutron star.

ALICE will present a wealth of new results on all aspects of the evolution of high-density, strongly interacting matter in both space and time. Important studies deal with “charmed particles”, which contain a charm or anticharm quark. Charm quarks, 100 times heavier than the up and down quarks that form normal matter, are significantly decelerated by their passage through quark–gluon plasma, offering scientists a unique tool to probe its properties. ALICE physicists will report indications that the flow in the plasma is so strong that the heavy charmed particles are dragged along by it. The experiment has also observed indications of a thermalization phenomenon, which involves the recombination of charm and anticharm quarks to form “charmonium”.

“This is only one leading example of the scientific opportunities in reach of the ALICE experiment,” said Paolo Giubellino, spokesperson of the ALICE collaboration. “With more data still being analysed and further data-taking scheduled for next February, we are closer than ever to unravelling the properties of the primordial state of the universe: the quark–gluon plasma.”

In the 1980s, the initial dissociation of charmonium was proposed as a direct signature for the formation of quark–gluon plasma, and first experimental indications of this dissociation were reported from fixed-target experiments at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron in 2000. The much higher energy of the LHC makes it possible for the first time to study similar tightly-bound states of the heavier beauty quarks. The hypothesis was that, depending on their binding energy, some of these states would “melt” in the plasma produced, while others would survive the extreme temperature. The CMS experiment now observes clear signs of the expected sequential suppression of the “quarkonium” (quark–antiquark) states.

“CMS will present important new heavy-ion results not only on quarkonium suppression, but also on bulk properties of the medium and on a variety of studies of jet quenching,” said CMS spokesperson Joseph Incandela. “We are entering an exciting new era of high-precision research on strongly interacting matter at the highest energies produced in the laboratory.”

The quenching of jets is the phenomenon in which highly energetic sprays of particles break up in the dense quark–gluon plasma, giving scientists detailed information about the density and properties of the produced matter. ATLAS will report new findings on jet quenching, including a high-precision study of how the jets fragment in matter, and on the correlations between jets and electroweak bosons. The results are complementary to other exciting ones, including groundbreaking findings on the flow of the plasma.

“We have entered a new phase in which we not only observe the phenomenon of quark–gluon plasma, but where we can also make high-precision measurements using a variety of probes,” said ATLAS spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti. “The studies will contribute significantly to our understanding of the early universe.” 

Jobs & Internships at AHC

The AHC's Internship:

The American Hellenic Council is offering internships throughout the year. The internships are geared towards undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in:
•  US politics with a focus on foreign policy and in particular the area of the Eastern Mediterranean
•  Journalism and idea creation and dissemination.
•  Community-building relations and non-profit fundraising
•  Event management
The responsibilities, workload and nature of each intern's work can be customized based on each intern's interests as well as the needs of the Council at the time after a meeting with the Council's Executive Director. The focus would be to hone the skills that the intern would like to develop further or introduce him/her in new fields/areas of expertise. Examples of an intern's responsibilities are generally:
•  Monitor and help advocate legislation with US Congressional offices.
•  Conduct research on issues of concern
•  Help produce and disseminate ideas, including developing presentations, papers, articles, interviews.
•  Assist with fundraising and community relations
•  Assist with event management
•  Conduct and assist with Social Media and Advocacy campaigns
Eligibility & Qualifications:
We are seeking highly motivated, responsible individuals with strong research and writing skills and excellent oral communication skills.
The internship is open to college students, graduate students and on an exceptional basis, high school seniors. Foreign students are eligible if they have a current student visa and/or work permit. All majors are eligible.
Duration, workload & location:
The duration and workload of the internship varies based on the intern's schedule and availability and the needs of the Council. Internships start a minimum of 10 hours per week and during a recess in the academic year, they can be as high as 30 hours per week. We will try to accommodate the needs of each qualified intern based on his primary academic schedule in advance.
Although we strongly prefer interns who will be able to come to the office for interaction with our staff, remote interns will be considered as long as the differences in time and location can be abridged successfully. We do feel however that both the intern and the AHC would benefit more from real-time in-person exchanges in most cases.
Compensation, Housing & Academic Credit:
The internship is unsalaried and we do not provide housing. We will reimburse the interns for any expenses or mileage incurred. We are currently working with colleges in the area to see if we can create a program that will give our interns Academic Credit but this has not been established as of yet.
What do our interns gain:
Our interns will benefit through an enhanced learning of US foreign policy, American federal politics and international relations. They will be able to learn more about the current political issues surrounding Greece and Cyprus, how governmental and super-governmental bodies work. They will also learn about community-building relations, event management and will benefit through an enhanced network of contacts that they will develop by interacting with our member base.
To apply:
Applicants should email our Executive Director: director@americanhellenic.org
•  Their resume (CV) and their availability as to time and location.
•  Their major and GPA average
•  A brief statement (paragraph) of why they would like to intern at AHC.
•  A past writing sample (article from college/high-school newspaper, essay etc)
*Please apply only if you can dedicate a minimum of 5 weeks and 10 hours per week.
http://www.americanhellenic.org/jobs_internships/ahc_internships.php