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NASA continued in 2015 to develop new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems and share this unique knowledge with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.
NASA launched in October a new website that brings the world to the world with new images every day of the sunlit side of the Earth, captured by a NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), approximately one million miles away.
About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered with water, making the health of aquatic ecosystems a critical piece of the overall health of our planet. NASA uses the unique vantage point of space and cutting-edge technologies to study the world’s water, providing vital data. Earth scientists and engineers at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland have been studying Lake Erie’s algal blooms for a number of years. But when drinking water was declared contaminated for half a million people in Toledo, NASA stepped up its investigation into the nature of the algal blooms to get answers.
The relationship between oceans and climate also was studied in depth in 2015. Over the summer, NASA released the results of a study of ocean temperature measurements that showed extra heat from greenhouse gases has been trapped in the waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans in recent years, accounting for the slowdown in the global surface temperature trend observed during the past decade.
Satellite measurements gathered by NASA and its partners revealed that seas around the world have risen an average of nearly three inches since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches due to natural variation. An intensive research effort, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to an unavoidable rise of several feet in the future. In November, NASA began research flights for an intensive, five-year investigation into ocean plankton, a tiny sea creature that has an enormous impact on Earth’s climate.
The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III on the International Space Station, or SAGE III on ISS, was shipped to Kennedy Space Center where it is scheduled to launch to the space station in 2016 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. SAGE III will give NASA a new way to monitor Earth’s protective ozone layer and document its ongoing recovery, helping scientists monitor the ozone layer’s gradually improving health.
Technology
NASA wasted no time in 2015 advancing new technologies with the unveiling in January of its Integrated Structural Assembly of Advanced Composites (ISAAC) robotic arm used at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to develop lighter, stronger composite structures and materials for aerospace vehicles.
In June, the agency successfully conducted its second, full-scale flight test of its Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD), a cross-cutting demonstration mission for its rocket-powered, saucer-shaped vehicle. Following up on the 2014 test, this year’s flight served as a crucial milestone for proving two key technologies for landing future robotic and human missions on the surface of Mars.
NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative continued to provide opportunities for small satellite payloads to fly on rockets and to the space station. Two 4.5-pound satellites, launched in December to the International Space Station, will test networking technology critical to future operations of small satellite swarms. These Nodes small satellites will be deployed from the station into low-Earth orbit in early 2016.
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