Mapping the California Wildfires

More than 1,700 wildfires are burning across the state of California, where dry, windy conditions continue to make it difficult for firefighters to put out the flames. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, a total of 667,863 acres have been burned since June 20, destroying 81 homes while threatening more than 13,000. The costs are estimated to be greater than $200 million.

The United States Forest Service and the National Interagency Fire Center continue to tap all their resources to help contain the fires. In particular, they have called on, once again, NASA to use its unmanned aerial vehicle, Ikhana, equipped with a new thermal-imaging sensor to track the fires. The 12-channel spectral sensor is more sensitive in the thermal range and can track fires with greater accuracy than can current methods to map fires, such as using line scanners. The data from the new sensor is automatically processed onboard the aircraft and then sent to ground stations, where it is incorporated into a Google Earth map.

The data is displayed in an array of colors to let firefighters know where the fire is actively burning, as well as identify areas that are cooling. This helps the firefighters determine where to deploy resources.

Ikhana conducted its first operational mission on July 8; it mapped fires such as the American River Complex, Piute, Clover, Northern Mountain, and BTU Lightning Complex. "The technology is performing flawlessly," says Everett Hinkley, the National Remote Sensing Program's manager at the U.S. Forest Service and a principal investigator on the project to test and develop the sensor. "We are getting updates to the California fire folks within 30 minutes. Never have they had updates this fast. The key ingredient is having satellite communications to be able to push images to a server as they are acquired."

Hinkley has provided Technology Review with exclusive images (see below) taken during yesterday's mission. Use the legend as a guide: the fire's hot, active spots are yellow; warm areas that were recently burned are shades of red; and areas that are cooling are blue.

The American River Complex fire is located in Foresthill, in Placer County.

The Clover fire is located in the South Sierra Wilderness, in Kern County.

The Piute fire, located in Twin Oaks, in the South Sierra Wilderness, has burned 33,152 acres and is 28 percent contained.

Another view of the Piute fire.

Images credit: NASA

NASA Satellite Images Burma Cyclone

NASA has captured the effects of the powerful cyclone that struck the Myanmar coast on Saturday, May 3, using an imaging instrument onboard its Terra satellite. The instrument, called the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), measures the reflective solar radiation and emitted thermal radiation from the earth's surface and atmosphere. Atmospheric scientists are currently using the instrument to study the behavior of clouds and aerosols in our atmosphere so that they can, for example, pinpoint the locations of active fires and track the paths of pollutants.

The instrument scans broad swaths of the earth--about 2,300 kilometers at a time--and is able to image the entire earth in one day. Because it is observing the earth all the time, MODIS is able to capture events that only happen occasionally, like Cyclone Nargis.

Credit: NASA

MODIS captured images of the Myanmar coast before and after Cyclone Nargis struck. The image on the left is the coastline on April 15, and the image on the right was taken May 5, after the cyclone hit the Irrawaddy delta and plowed across the country and through the main city of Rangoon. At landfall, winds were approximately 130 miles per hour, with gusts of 150 to 160 miles per hour, accompanied by a 12-foot wave. In the images, the water is blue or nearly black, vegetation is bright green, bare ground is tan, and clouds are white or light blue.

U.S. diplomats in Burma are estimating that the death toll may reach nearly 100,000, but official reports from the Burmese junta are announcing 22,980 deaths, 42,119 missing, and 1,383 injured.

You can see more images of the cyclone, courtesy of MODIS, here.

A Space-Age Robot

Astronauts are getting a helping hand in servicing the International Space Station (ISS): a 12-by-8-foot two-armed robot that can perform tasks like replacing batteries or damaged parts on the station's exterior. Such risky tasks are currently performed by the astronauts, who are tethered to a robotic arm.

The new robot, named Dextre, was built by the Canadian Space Agency, and is the third and final piece of its Mobile Servicing System for the ISS. According to Pierre Jean, the acting program manager for the Canadian Space Station Program, Dextre is the most sophisticated robot ever to fly in space.

Each of Dextre's two arms extends almost 11 feet and has seven joints so that it can twist and bend more than a human arm. The robot's "hands" are equipped with grippers to grab objects and built-in socket wrenches for bolting down parts. A rack attached to its waist will carry additional robotic tools. Dextre can replace everything from failed devices as small as a phone book to objects weighing as much as 1,000 pounds, in part because it has a sense of touch--it can "feel" the amount of force necessary.

Dextre will connect to either the Canadarm2, a 60-foot robotic arm with seven motorized joints, or a mobile base that runs along rails connected to the station. The Canadarm2 and the mobile base are the two other parts of the Canadian system delivered to the station in 2001 and 2002. Dextre will be operated by the astronauts on the ISS or the mission control center in Houston.

Dextre flew to space onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In the course of the 16-day shuttle mission--the longest flight ever to the station--the astronauts will conduct five space walks, which will include the assembly of the $210 million robot. Dextre will start work on the station in 2009 and have a 15-year working life.

The robot will serve as an important element in continuing to build and maintain the space station, and it can alleviate the risks associated with astronauts going into space to do mundane tasks, but it will not serve as their replacement. Astronauts' expertise and dexterity is still required for complicated tasks during space missions, including the assembly of the Japanese scientific laboratory, Kibo. (Endeavour is also carrying the first part of the lab to the ISS.) Dextre is, however, a significant step in the future of robotics in space.

Hubble's Final Servicing Mission

NASA has announced that the final repair mission for the Hubble Space Telescope will be conducted in August, marking the fifth and final mission to service the telescope. The repair will include the installation of two new science instruments: a spectrograph to probe the "cosmic web," and a camera that generates images over a wide field of view and range of colors. These instruments will give Hubble the means to explore the nature and history of our universe much more efficiently while extending the telescope's orbital life.

The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph will handle the ultraviolet range of the spectrum and replace the current Imaging Spectrograph to explore how the cosmic web has evolved and the role it plays in the formation and evolution of galaxies. The second instrument, called the Wide Field of View Camera 3, will be the first instrument on Hubble that can scan everything from the ultraviolet to the infrared. It will serve to map the history of the universe.

Other repairs to the telescope will include installing batteries, thermal blankets, and a new set of gyroscopes that help stabilize the telescope, and possibly replacing a Fine Guidance Sensor.

From NASA's press release:

"Our goal for this mission is to leave Hubble at the apex of its scientific capabilities," said David Leckrone, Hubble senior project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "Our two new instruments, plus the hoped-for repairs of STIS and ACS, will give astronomers a full 'tool box' with which to attack some really profound problems, ranging from the nature of dark matter and dark energy, to the chemical composition of the atmospheres of planets around other stars."

The new equipment is scheduled to lift off on the Space Shuttle Atlantis for an 11-day mission that will feature five space walks to repair the telescope. Scientists are hopeful that the repairs will extend the operational life of Hubble until at least 2013, when the James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to be deployed. (See "NASA's Next Telescope.")

Columbus Module Heads to Space

When the Shuttle Atlantis launches tomorrow, it will be carrying with it an important addition to the International Space Station (ISS): the Columbus laboratory. The module is a scientific research facility developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) that will significantly expand the station's experimental capabilities. It is also the first piece of real estate on the station that will be controlled by the Europeans, making ISS a truly international collaboration.

The new laboratory will allow scientists to do a wider variety of experiments that they otherwise would not be able to do, says Julie Robinson, the program scientist for ISS at NASA. "For instance," she says, "we need to understand how the human body works in space if we are going to travel beyond Earth orbit. With Columbus we can cluster together the human research facility racks that NASA has built with the European physiology module. What we start getting is an integrated international laboratory."

The Columbus laboratory is approximately seven meters in length and four and a half meters in diameter. It is going to launch with four research racks: a biology lab, for experiments on microorganisms and cells in plants, invertebrates, and even food for exploration; a fluid science lab, for fluid physics experiments; a physiology module, to study the human body; and a rack, to study materials for power, communication, and even aircraft engines.

The module will be able to hold a total of 10 racks, the same number currently available on the United States scientific laboratory on ISS, called Destiny. The two modules are similar in design so that their research racks can be interchangeable. Next year, the third and final research facility, called Kibo, developed by the Japanese for ISS, will launch.

Columbus will be operated by a control center located in Southern Germany that ties into the mission-control centers in Houston and Moscow. It will also have nine centers in different countries throughout Europe that will link to the main control center so that researchers who have experiments onboard can operate Columbus from as close to home as possible, says Alan Thirkettle, the ISS program manager for ESA.

The launch of Columbus is "very exciting for us and will be the first major international program we have done with Canada, Japan, Russia, and America, and I look forward to the discoveries we are going to make," says Thirkettle.

An Inflatable Lunar Habitat

NASA's Constellation Program is planning to return humans to the moon in 2020, and this time around, astronauts will engage in lengthy explorations of the lunar surface, requiring them to remain on the moon for long periods of time. For this purpose, NASA is developing astronaut living quarters that are not only safe and durable, but also lightweight and easy to transport. One concept is an inflatable habitat that offers 384 square feet of living space and resembles a backyard bounce house for children. A prototype of the habitat is being sent to the extreme, harsh environment of Antarctica for testing over the next year.

"Testing the inflatable habitat in one of the harshest, most remote sites on Earth gives us the opportunity to see what it would be like to use for lunar exploration," said Paul Lockhart, director of Constellation Systems for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, in a press release from NASA.

The inflatable habitat is to serve as a safe living space for the astronauts. It's eight feet tall, insulated, and heated, and it has power and is pressurized. It can be taken down and set up in a few hours by four crew members so that astronauts have the freedom to explore more regions of the lunar surface.

The prototype is being shipped to Antarctica's Murdoch Station, where it will be equipped with sensors and monitored by NASA engineers and members of the National Science Foundation, which has partnered with NASA on the project. The company that manufactured the inflatable habitat, ILC Dover, based in Frederica, DE, will also take part in the testing, which is scheduled for January and February 2008.