A team of about 30 employees checked the satellite's systems and conducted magnetic cleanliness tests. DSCOVR's solar arrays were also successfully deployed, and engineers are currently testing the power-producing panels in a vacuum chamber at Goddard.

"The first time we opened up the spacecraft, it worked perfectly," said Joe Burt, a NASA official overseeing the testing. "It was like it had just been asleep."

The focus of the new would-be mission, which is still unnamed, would be to measure solar wind particles and their effects on the environment around Earth. PlasMag and a solar coronal mass ejection sensor would be likely payloads, but specifics have not yet been finalized.

Data from the redefined DSCOVR mission would be similar to science produced by the Advanced Composition Explorer and the Wind space observatory, which are 11 years old and 14 years old, respectively.

PlasMag would provide a 30-fold improvement in temporal resolution over ACE and Wind, according to scientists.

The solar wind data would be used for operational space weather forecasting by NOAA and the Air Force Weather Agency, according to an Air Force spokesperson.

Officials have not determined the fate of DSCOVR's Earth science instruments, but the mission's principal investigator said a decision to remove the climate instruments would be "appalling."

Francisco Valero, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, still leads a team of scientists in charge of DSCOVR's original science objectives.

Valero said the cost of launching DSCOVR's full set of instruments, which includes payloads designed to monitor the solar wind, would not be much different than the cost of flying a new instrument package geared only toward space environment studies.

"The total cost of the instruments, the science, and the support that will be necessary is about 10 or 15 percent of the total cost (of the mission)," Valero said. "The lost opportunity for science and the waste of taxpayers' money are unconscionable."

The current DSCOVR study was commissioned under the Bush administration, and Valero is appealing to senior government officials in an attempt to salvage the mission's Earth science goals.

"All that needs to be done is to launch the satellite as it is now," Valero said. "Everything is on there. The solar instruments are on. The Earth science instruments are already bolted on the satellite. If they don't start working and spending money to remove things, that would be wonderful."

Valero said he hopes the Obama administration will proceed with DSCOVR as is, but key leadership positions at NASA and NOAA remain unfilled. President Obama has not named a new NASA administrator, and NOAA Administrator nominee Jane Lubchenco is still awaiting Senate confirmation.

Lubchenco declined an interview request until the confirmation process is completed, but she pledged renewed cooperation with NASA during a Senate hearing last month.

"I believe that both NOAA and NASA intend to have the best possible relationship," Lubchenco said.

NASA already handles acquisition and some management duties for NOAA weather satellites. A new DSCOVR mission would also require a strong partnership between the agencies.

President Obama's fiscal year 2010 budget outline proposed $1.3 billion for NOAA satellite programs, an increase over fiscal year 2009 levels, but more details won't be revealed until April.

If DSCOVR is chosen for implementation, the ultimate science payload would have to be balanced with funding concerns, especially the cost of a launch vehicle, according to Davis.

Managers originally wanted to use an Air Force Minotaur 5 rocket to launch the satellite, but engineers found the spacecraft would not fit on that booster.

Depending on its final mass, the spacecraft would likely fly on a Delta 2 or Falcon 9 rocket. Davis stressed those are very preliminary discussions and any final decision is months or years away.

A NASA study from 2007 concluded that DSCOVR could be refurbished, tested and launched aboard a Delta 2 rocket for about $205 million. But that estimate was based on an Earth observation mission using instruments already built.

Launch would probably occur in about 2013, officials said.

But NOAA officials must first finish examining NASA's report and decide whether to pursue the mission.

"If the numbers seem to make sense to us, and the powers-that-be think it's worthwhile, we could potentially ask for funding to do this," Davis said.

If the mission is approved, NASA would prepare the satellite for launch, the Air Force would help fund the launch, and NOAA would operate the spacecraft.

Engineers want to put the craft through a new round of environmental tests to check the satellite's response to the intense sounds, vibrations and temperature swings it would experience during flight.

Some components may have to recertified or replaced, including DSCOVR's reaction wheels, star tracker and flight battery.

"These are preliminary assessments and NOAA and NASA will develop a more definite plan if the decision is made to proceed," a NOAA spokesperson said.

NOAA began considering using DSCOVR for solar wind studies in 2007.

Space Services Inc., a Houston-based company that specializes in launching cremated remains into space, approached the government with a proposal to redevelop the spacecraft for solar observations. Space Services would have sold the data to the government.

Government and commercial organizations were unable to reach an agreement.

NASA finally acted on NOAA's suggestion last year after Congress passed the NASA Authorization Act of 2008.

The bill required NASA to submit its plans for DSCOVR to Congress 180 days after the legislation became law. That deadline is in April.

Steve Cole, a NASA spokesperson, said the congressional report is separate from the NOAA solar wind study, but the work could fulfill the obligation if NOAA chooses to go ahead with the mission.

The Obama administration's transition team also asked NASA officials about the status of the DSCOVR mission.

"NASA came back to us and asked us if we still had interest," Davis said. "We got to the point where NOAA and the Air Force could pay NASA to do this study."

Mission long stalled

DSCOVR was originally approved in October 1998 as a mission to continuously observe the sunlit side of Earth from the L1 point.

The idea was first proposed by former Vice President Al Gore during a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in March 1998. Gore's vision was for the mission to produce live imagery of the full sunlit disk of Earth 24 hours a day. The pictures were to be posted on the Internet.

Gore named the project Triana, after the sailor that first spotted land on Columbus's 1492 voyage to the Americas.

"This new satellite...will allow people around the globe to gaze at our planet as it travels in its orbit around the sun for the first time in history," Gore said in the announcement.

NASA added several instruments to Triana in an attempt to build scientific support for the mission, but the additions drove up the satellite's cost.

The higher price tag caught the attention of the agency's own inspector general. The internal watchdog issued a report in 1999, criticizing Triana's rising cost and expressing concern over the mission's scientific merit.

Triana was originally due to launch on a space shuttle mission in 2000, but Congress ordered NASA to put the project on hold in late 1999 pending a review by the National Research Council.

Congressional Republicans called the satellite an overpriced "screen saver" and criticized the mission as one of Gore's pet projects.

The council, part of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded in March 2000 that Triana was a worthwhile mission that would collect unique data with important applications in climate change research.

The group "found that the Triana mission will complement and enhance data from other missions because of the measurements obtainable at the L1 point in space," according to the report.

Triana's sensors would have measured ozone and cloud distributions, vegetation changes, atmospheric pollution, and the planet's radiation budget. The PlasMag instrument package was also included to study the solar wind.

The independent review team also noted NASA's contention that the project's primary focus was on technology demonstration instead of science.

"However, as an exploratory mission, Triana's focus is the development of new observing techniques, rather than a specific scientific investigation," the report said.

NASA explicitly described Triana's objectives as exploratory. Officials said the spacecraft would have demonstrated the potential for using L1, home to several solar observatories, as a location for Earth science.

Valero acknowledges the satellite's "innovative" observation method, but he contends DSCOVR's mission was rooted in science geared toward climate change research.

DSCOVR's Earth-pointing telescope and radiometers, still bolted to the spacecraft today, are designed to check the planet's thermostat by gauging solar radiation reaching the planet.

The radiation balance would tell scientists whether Earth is warming or cooling based on the difference in energy that is absorbed and released each year, Valero said.

Scientists already know the planet has a radiation imbalance a few times greater than the greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Valero said a deep space Earth observatory would give scientists a new way of studying the planet by facilitating continuous imagery. Other Earth observation satellites fly in low-altitude orbits and collect global data on a timescale of days.

"I am not watching, say, San Francisco, then 10 hours later, New York, and then Denver," Valero said. "I'm looking at the whole thing now."

The new paradigm demonstrated by DSCOVR would be more reliable because using low Earth orbit satellites is like "looking at the forest tree by tree," Valero said.

NASA decided to suspend work on Triana in 2001, months after former President Bush took office following his defeat of Gore in the 2000 election.

"Parts, ground support equipment and documentation were impounded and saved," Cole said.

The spacecraft was transferred to a clean room at Goddard in November 2001, where it was stored under nitrogen purge conditions until it was removed for testing last November.

Cole said earlier reports pegging the cost of DSCOVR's storage in a space age warehouse at $1 million per year were inaccurate. The real cost was closer to several thousand dollars per year, according to Cole.

Triana was renamed DSCOVR before NASA quietly cancelled the mission in 2005, citing the dwindling number of remaining shuttle flights and a lack of funding to refurbish and launch the satellite.

The cancellation came after NASA had spent $97 million on the project, Cole said.

France and Ukraine later proposed launching DSCOVR on Ariane and Tsyklon rockets, but NASA did not accept the offer, according to Valero.

The Ukrainian plan even included a free launch, Valero said.

But federal law restricts NASA payloads launching on foreign rockets.

NASA now relies on the science community for advice for new projects.

After criticism regarding the way NASA selects space and Earth science missions, officials began soliciting regular input from independent scientists.

"It's important to know that NASA is now using input from the broad Earth science community in deciding which missions to pursue in the future," Cole said.

The recommendations come from a decadal survey prepared by a committee of the National Research Council, the same group that reviewed the Triana mission in 2000.

The committee's first decadal survey was submitted in January 2007 to advise NASA on the science community's highest priorities in Earth science.

Cole said the team reviewed a number of proposed missions, but DSCOVR was not among the 17 projects recommended for execution by NASA and NOAA.

NASA also commissioned an ad-hoc science workshop in May 2007 to evaluate DSCOVR's contributions to climate science.

That group concluded that the mission would provide useful data, but "DSCOVR measurements would not fulfill the climate science requirements established in the NRC decadal survey," Cole said.

That scientific verdict led NASA to begin considering other options for DSCOVR. The NASA Authorization Act of 2008 passed last year forced the issue.

The next chapter of DSCOVR's story remains unwritten, and the spacecraft still faces more obstacles before being shot into space, but the long-forgotten satellite has not been this close to launch in more than seven years.

NASA reassembled much of DSCOVR's old team for the tests. Many engineers were not sure if they would ever work on the project again.

The workers are now waiting to hear if they will be called on to bring DSCOVR back to life again, this time for good.

"We sit and wait," Burt said. "There's no next step until we get a mandate."

source: www.spaceflightnow.com

Alaska Airlines Trials Satellite-Based Inflight Wireless Internet Service Satellite-technology from Row 44 to offer passengers b

2/26/2009 5:06 a.m.

SEATTLE — Alaska Airlines today will launch a customer trial of its new satellite-based wireless Internet service. Named Alaska Airlines Inflight Wi-Fi, the service can be used inflight on any Wi-Fi enabled device such as a laptop, smartphone or portable media player.

Onboard Alaska Airlines' specially-equipped Boeing 737-700 passengers will now be able to engage in a range of activities including browsing the Web; accessing online music, games, podcasts and webcasts; sending and receiving e-mail; and connecting to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). The service will be free at the start of the trial, which is scheduled to begin on an afternoon flight between Seattle and San Jose, Calif., and will run for about 60 days. After a successful trial period, the airline will determine the schedule for rolling out the commercial availability of its wireless Internet service to its entire fleet of aircraft.

"We're thrilled to be able to offer our passengers a way to stay connected to what matters most to them while en route to their destinations," said Steve Jarvis, Alaska's vice president of marketing, sales and customer experience. "This is a service that everyone can use, whether it's for business or entertainment. Our service gives passengers a choice in how they spend their time while traveling and enhances the inflight experience."

Alaska Airlines and Row 44 have cooperated for more than two years to bring this service to market. "Alaska Airlines continues its long track record of deploying innovative technologies," said John Guidon, CEO for Row 44. "We are proud to be associated with their team and thrilled that such a forward-thinking airline selected Row 44's inflight satellite broadband service."

The airline conducted extensive ground and inflight tests of the technology prior to the launch of the service trial to ensure the system does not interfere with aircraft navigation equipment. In addition, the aircraft equipment has received complete airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. The service is being offered on a trial basis and has not yet received final Federal Communications Commission approval.

As Henry Harteveldt, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research said in a recent article entitled "Online on High" on CNN.com, "I expect there to be two groups of airlines: those that have announced plans to have Internet access and those that will wonder why they have lost passengers."

Internet for everyone

Alaska Airlines Inflight Wi-Fi works with a broad range of Wi-Fi-enabled devices and will allow business and leisure travelers the convenience of a high-speed network comparable to their office or home connection. The Inflight Wi-Fi splash page contains live news, music, shopping and links to practical services on Alaska's award-winning Web site, alaskaair.com. Additionally, passengers can:

·Browse the Web

·Access online music, games, podcasts, webcasts, etc.

·Instant message friends, family and colleagues

·Send and receive e-mail

·Access corporate networks via VPN

Alaska has long pioneered technology to improve the customer experience. The airline was the first in North America to sell tickets online in 1995 and, four years later, was the first carrier worldwide to offer Internet check-in and boarding passes.

Pricing and availability

Final pricing for the service has not been determined. The airline plans to use customer feedback to design a flexible pricing structure that will be affordable and competitive with other services in the industry.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK), together serve more than 90 cities through an expansive network in Alaska, the Lower 48, Hawaii, Canada and Mexico. Alaska Airlines ranked "Highest in Customer Satisfaction among Traditional Network Carriers (tie)" in the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 North America Airline Satisfaction StudySM. For reservations, visit alaskaair.com. For more news and information, visit the Alaska Airlines/Horizon Air Newsroom at alaskaair.com/newsroom.
source: www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com