GOES-O Satellite Successfully Launched

The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-O, soared into space yesterday after a successful launch from Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The GOES-O spacecraft lifted off at 6:51 p.m. EDT on a Delta IV rocket. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's GOES-O satellite will improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world. The satellite is the second to be launched in the GOES N series of geostationary environmental weather satellites.

"All indications are that GOES-O is in a normal orbit, with all spacecraft systems functioning properly," says Andre Dress, GOES deputy project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "We are proud of our support teams and pleased with the performance of the Delta IV launch vehicle."

Approximately 4 hours and 21 minutes after launch, the spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle. The Universal Space Network Western Australia tracking site in Dongara monitored the spacecraft separation.

On July 7, GOES-O will be placed in its final orbit and renamed GOES-14. Approximately 24 days after launch, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems will turn engineering control over to NASA. About five months later, NASA will transfer operational control of GOES-14 to NOAA. The satellite will be checked out, stored in orbit and available for activation should one of the operational GOES satellites degrade or exhaust its fuel.

NASA contracted with Boeing to build and launch the GOES-O spacecraft. NASA's Launch Services Program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida supported the launch in an advisory role. NOAA manages the GOES program, establishes requirements, provides all funding and distributes environmental satellite data for the United States.

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NASA Selects Northrop Grumman to Build Earth Science Instrument

NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., to support the design, manufacture, assembly, test and calibration of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System, or CERES, Flight Model 6 instrument.

The cost-plus-award fee, incentive fee contract has a maximum value of $44.5 million over 10 years. Northrop Grumman's Aerospace Systems Sector will perform the work at its facility in Redondo Beach.

The CERES instruments are broadband radiometers that scan Earth, observing reflected shortwave and Earth-emitted radiance. These observations are used to measure the time and space distributions of incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing thermal and reflected energy from Earth (known as Earth's radiation budget). The measurements aid in the development of a quantitative understanding of the links between the radiation budget and the properties of the atmosphere and surface that define it, and improve models of Earth's climate system.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is funding the development of the CERES Flight Model 6 under a reimbursable agreement with NASA. It will fly on the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS, C1 mission. NPOESS is a multi-agency program to develop the next generation of polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites that form the basis for weather forecasting, and is co-funded by NOAA and the Department of Defense with NASA as a technology provider. The NPOESS program is managed by the interagency Integrated Program Office.

CERES Flight Model 5 is scheduled for flight on the NPOESS Preparatory Project mission that NASA is implementing in partnership with the NPOESS IPO. Earlier CERES Flight Models are currently flying on NASA's Earth Observing System satellites. This succession of CERES instruments enables the long time series of Earth radiation budget data that is essential to understanding climate change.

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Scientists Fear Rare Dolphin Driven to Extinction By Human Activity

An international research team, including biologists from NOAA Fisheries Service, has reported in an online scientific journal that it had failed to find a single Yangtze River dolphin, or baiji, during a six-week survey in China. The scientists fear the marine mammal is now extinct due to fishing and commercial development, which would make it the first cetacean to vanish as result of human activity.

The research paper, published last month in the online journal Biology Letters, reports that an intensive acoustical and visual survey of the main Yangtze River where the baiji live failed to find what was already considered to be one of the world’s most endangered species.

“The last time these animals were surveyed was in the 1990s when only 13 were found,” says Barbara Taylor, a marine biologist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif., and one of the researchers on the scientific team that was working with local scientists at the invitation of the Chinese government. “This time, we detected no baiji, either visually or acoustically. This would be the first human-caused extinction of a dolphin or whale and it is particularly sad for the last member of a family of a species that is over 20 million years old.”

The baiji is one of only a few dolphin species that is known to have adapted from the ocean to a freshwater environment. The likely cause of the baiji’s decline is from the use of fishing nets with hooks that snag and drown the dolphins as bycatch. Other causes may include habitat degradation.

Scientists are also concerned that this could just be the first of many human-caused extinctions of marine mammals that are under stress around the world.

“We are concerned about several vulnerable species of dolphin and porpoise around the world, including the vaquita," says Nicole Le Boeuf, international fisheries biologist for NOAA Fisheries.

The vaquita is a critically endangered porpoise found only in the uppermost part of Mexico's Gulf of California. Vaquita have been reduced to only a few hundred animals because of accidental deaths in small-scale fishing nets. In addition to the vaquita, many coastal dolphins and porpoises in other parts of the world are highly vulnerable to being accidentally caught in similar fishing gear.

“The vaquita and other highly imperiled marine mammals represent a major conservation challenge,” says Le Boeuf. “There is very real global concern for these species, especially with the all but certain loss of the bajii in China. NOAA and its international partners are working together to lend their support to Mexico and other nations with similar species in their coastal and inland waters."

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NOAA Provides Critical Lead Time for Southeast Tornadoes

Tornadoes that tore across the Southeast on Thursday struck after significant advance warning from NOAA's National Weather Service, according to the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Preliminary Tornado Warning lead times -- the amount of time between the issuance of a Tornado Warning and the touchdown of a tornado -- ranged from 12 to 55 minutes, providing critical time for the emergency message to sound NOAA Weather Radio, commercial radio and television, and tornado sirens, the agency says.

For Enterprise, Ala., the preliminary tornado lead time is 18 minutes, NOAA says.

New storm-based warnings, introduced operationally by NOAA's National Weather Service last month, helped to better pinpoint the path ofyesterday's tornadoes resulting in extended lead times and a reduction inthe area warned, as compared to the previous county-based warning method. The tornado warning that included Enterprise, Ala., included a 71% reduction in areas that did not need the warning.

Starting today teams of National Weather Service meteorologists will beon the ground conducting damage surveys in order to determine the exactwind speed, width and path of each twister.

NOAA is not forecasting another severe weather outbreak in the coming days, but encourages residents across the country to purchase a NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards receiver at electronic retailers or online as an essential method of receiving potentially life-saving severe weather warnings.

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