http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/community/blogs Latest from Science and Technology: Blog Entries en-us Wednesday, September 8, 2010 8:20:27 AM PDT 44 09-03-2010

[[IMAGE||blog1.jpg||right||hurricane picture]] Yesterday the NASA Global Hawk flew over Hurricane Earl for about 8 hours. It took off from NASA's Dryden facility at Edwards AFB near Mojave, CA at 9 pm the previous evening. After climbing above 50,000 feet to get out of airline traffic lanes, it flew across the southern US to the Gulf and across Florida, and acquired the storm 8 hours later. At that time it had climbed to 60,000 feet. Although the Global Hawk flies itself]]> Friday, September 3, 2010 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=991 11-16-2009

During the Juno Critical Design Review (CDR), a question was raised whether the power cycling of the TWTA (electronics box) on the Telecom Panel could adversely thermal cycle the other electronics boxes mounted around the TWTA. This action item was assigned to me to evaluate the expected thermal cycling affects could be expected during typical operations. Using the Thermal Math Model (TMM) developed earlier, I set the model up for a transient case that would simulate a science pass expected ]]> Monday, November 16, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=651 11-10-2009

Today, it was JPL?s R&TD, DRDF and SURP Poster Conference. This is an annual event organized by the Office of the Chief Scientist and Chief Technologist (OCSCT). It presents the latest advances in science and technology funded by JPL?s discretionary funds, the Research and Technology Development (R&TD), Director's Research and Development Fund (DRDF), and Strategic University Research Partnership (SURP) programs. I was one of the presenters because I received the Lew Allen Award for Excellence last ]]> Tuesday, November 10, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=644 11-02-2009

This MOHAVE 2009 Campaign was a great opportunity to meet young, and less young, scientists of various horizons. Among the youngest were two wonderful graduate students, Monique Calhoun from Howard University, Maryland, and Corinne Straub from University of Bern, Switzerland. Monique started her first graduate year just two weeks before the beginning of the campaign, while Corinne had already completed one year. This blog is posted on their behalf. Two interesting contributions, the MOHAVE 2009 ]]> Monday, November 2, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=631 10-20-2009

Last Thursday, October 15, was an exciting day for bloggers. It was the Blog Action Day, an annual event that bloggers around the world post about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs, with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. This year, the topic was climate change. I represented JPL to write a blog about the roles of clouds play in climate change and how NASA JPL contributes to the studies of clouds and climate change (see http://blogs.jpl.nasa.gov). ]]> Tuesday, October 20, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=608 10-19-2009

MOHAVE 2009, or ?How Dry is the Atmosphere in Wrightwood?? Well, just check this picture and you will have an idea right away? [[IMAGE||BlogSheepFire1.jpg||left||SheepFire]] Ironically, the ?Sheep Fire? which started Saturday October 3rd, 2009 in Lytle Creek Canyon, propagated up the mountain 10 miles farther within 12 hours in an average ambient relative humidity of 45% and near-freezing temperatures! The top of Lone Pine Canyon, where the San Bernardino County Fire fighters successfully stopped ]]> Monday, October 19, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=602 10-06-2009

I work closely with my colleague, Dr. Jonathan Jiang, to study interactions among aerosols, clouds, water vapor and precipitation. Besides analyzing satellite data, we plan to expand our work to use the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. Combining multi-satellite observations, we can obtain correlations between various measurements; however, the causal relationships can not be easily determined. Thus, we are going to use a dynamic model with interactive aerosol-cloud module to study the ]]> Tuesday, October 6, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=583 09-30-2009

Recently, I have been given the opportunity to represent the lab in a variety of situations: in Europe as a representative for a US/JPL contribution to an ESA-led mission, as an early career hire (ECH) in a briefing to Lori Garver (NASA deputy director) during her visit of JPL, and this coming November as a woman at a conference entitled ?Women in Astronomy and Space Science 2009.? These opportunities have been a great honor and I am humbled by the level of confidence the lab has had in me, having ]]> Wednesday, September 30, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=579 09-24-2009

As a follow-up to my previous entry regarding the bonding issues of the thermal spreader, I was able to complete a Thermal Math Model (TMM) to verify my hand calculations. The TMM results confirmed that even with a ?dry? mount, meaning there was no bond material and only conductance due to the mechanical fasteners were used, there was sufficient thermal margin that the electronics boxes would not violate their AFT requirements. However, by having a good ?wet? interface, meaning a uniformly filled ]]> Thursday, September 24, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=576 09-22-2009

I have not blogged in the last two weeks as I was occupied by two week-long meetings in a row. The first one was the Cloud-Climate Feedback workshop hosted by the Keck Institute for Space Studies in Caltech, organized by Prof. Yuk Yung and Dr. Joao Teixeira. It was a very enlightening workshop. Students and postdocs got together with a number of world-renowned experts on clouds studies and had in-depth discussions about front-edge science regarding cloud climate feedbacks. Scientists shared their ]]> Tuesday, September 22, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=573 09-18-2009

We've been developing a design for a deep-space optical transceiver for flight in the second half of the next decade. We're concentrating on an off-axis Gregorian fore-telescope, primarily for reduced optical scattering characteristics. Such a design eliminates the problems associated with the obscuration of the telescope pupil associated with an central obscuring secondary mirror. For most telescope systems, an on-axis secondary is not much of a problem: it only obscures about 10% or less ]]> Friday, September 18, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=558 09-01-2009

Upon returning home from the GEWEX meeting in Australia, I was frightened to see flames on the mountains near my home. The wild fire started on Wednesday, August 26 and have burned more than 15,000 acres already. The temperature was triple-digit high and the humidity was less than 10%. The bushes in the Angeles Crest Forest have not burned in about 60 years, so the fire just kept spreading with so much fuel. The sky is filled with dense smoky clouds and the air smells terrible. White ashes accumulate ]]> Tuesday, September 1, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=545 08-18-2009

Speaking of hurricane research, people probably won?t think of JPL as an important player. However, there are a lot of scientists in the lab who are interested in hurricanes and there are a lot of instruments developed at JPL that are very useful for hurricane forecasts. About two years ago, Dr. Yi Chao initiated a hurricane seminar series and it evolved into a hurricane research group with more than 20 scientists and engineers from various disciplines. The virtual hurricane group (I am an active ]]> Tuesday, August 18, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=531 08-11-2009

Prof. Bin Wang from the University of Hawaii visited JPL on Wednesday, August 5. He is a renowned expert on hurricane research and atmospheric dynamics. He led a proposal to NASA Hurricane Science Research Program (ROSES08) last year, in which Brian Kahn and I are JPL Co-Is. The proposal has been selected. His visit thus marked the official start of our collaborations. Bin presented very impressive WRF simulations of concentric eyewall replacement to form annular hurricane, which is a type of ?monster? ]]> Tuesday, August 11, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=521 08-04-2009

I was at the CloudSat/CALIPSO Science Team Meeting last week in Madison, Wisconsin. There were a lot of interesting presentations. The two active sensors have provided us very rich information of the structure of clouds and aerosols. The vertical resolution and global coverage are unprecedented. Combined with other A-train satellite instruments, scientists have gained a lot of new knowledge of cloud processes (including microphysical and macrophysical processes), aerosol effects on clouds (many ]]> Tuesday, August 4, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=510 08-03-2009

Last week my team had the last-minute opportunity to participate in the field trial of an interesting project, the Telesupervised Adaptive Ocean Sensor Fleet (TAOSF), a NOAA-funded effort to develop semiautonomous boats to monitor harmful algal blooms, which are simple ocean organisms that grow very quickly and release toxins that can harm marine life and cause illnesses in humans as well. The robotic boats and their instrumentation are developed in a partnership between Carnegie Mellon University, ]]> Monday, August 3, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=508 07-22-2009

Often times in addition to regular project work, surprises emerge that require immediate attention. Recently, a sudden issue came up with one of my tasks regarding a bonding issue. Essentially, the bond between a thermal spreader plate and a panel did not cure to specifications. The original bond was supposed to be a uniformly distributed 15 mil layer between the plates. However, upon inspection post curing, there were sections of the thermal spreader that could be depressed (essentially bubbling ]]> Wednesday, July 22, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=495 07-21-2009

I spend most of my time writing the proposal to ROSES09 A18 (CloudSat/CALIPSO science team recompete) last week and need to prepare for two talks this week: one at the MLS regular group meeting on Thursday and one for the CloudSat meeting next week in Wisconsin. I am sorry that I don't have much time to write on the blog. Talk to you next week...]]> Tuesday, July 21, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=494 07-15-2009

In my first blog entry I wrote a bit about some of the characteristics of the measurements we will be making for the Dark Energy Observatory mission concept I am working on. (See ?Detecting Darkness?) Recently, I have been paying special attention to a specific characteristic of the Infrared detectors we plan to use called Persistence. The detector, in this case an Infrared detector with three filters extending from 960nm ? 2500nm, collects light from distant galaxies and closer stars for an established ]]> Wednesday, July 15, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=490 07-14-2009

The Cassini spacecraft operates on sequences of commands that control every function the spacecraft executes. These commands are a combination of science and engineering requests designed to follow through on the mission. The engineering commands are in support of the science commands and they ensure the spacecraft operates correctly, stays on orbit, and is protected from any hazard. One set of commands that I am in charge of as a member of the Thermal/Devices team are the Main Engine Assembly ]]> Tuesday, July 14, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=485 07-14-2009

I attended the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Radiation and Climate last week in New London, New Hampshire. It was my first Gordon conference and I found it very rewarding. This year's speakers and discussion leaders are all world-class scientists in climate research. Their talks covered the frontiers of climate research, some of which are far from being understood and probably will continue to be challenging for many years, for example, aerosols and clouds. Our progress in cloud modeling has ]]> Tuesday, July 14, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=487 07-14-2009

My team develops operations software that?s used to control robots. We work with robots on the ground, in the air, in space, on other planets, and we?re even getting involved with a task that uses robotic boats to measure ocean quality. However, lately we?ve been getting excited about yet another domain for robotic operations: cyberspace. Yes, there are robots in cyberspace, but people may not think of them that way. Robots in cyberspace are software agents, but like the more familiar kinds ]]> Tuesday, July 14, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=486 07-08-2009

It's 1:56 AM. We've been going since 8:00 AM - I guess technically that's yesterday now. In just under an hour, the Japanese OICETS optical communications satellite will rise above the horizon, and our 1-meter optical communications research telescope (OCTL) will slew across the sky to point at the satellite. It will then track the satellite as it rises and passes overhead. Once the satellite rises above the local tree line (about 20 degrees in elevation) we'll turn on our laser beacon, which ]]> Wednesday, July 8, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=470 07-08-2009

I arrived at JPL about 7 months ago, and since then I have learned to speak the engineering language of Requirements, a foreign language to me as I studied physics at college. Here at JPL, most of our missions are designed to accomplish science goals. In other words the objective of most missions is to contribute to scientific communities and the public by providing one-of-a-kind data sets achievable only by having a one-of-a-kind satellite or rover (for example). In my section, Mission System ]]> Wednesday, July 8, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=472 07-07-2009

Continuing to talk about MLS data products, I want to mention some very nice work using MLS carbon monoxide measurements led by my colleague, Dr. Jonathan Jiang. Jonathan pioneered using MLS CO as a proxy for in-cloud aerosols, based on a close correlation of CO with aerosol optical thickness (AOT) from MODIS over the South America region during biomass burning season. In a paper published in 2008 (GRL), Jonathan and his co-authors (including me) found that the ?polluted? clouds defined by high ]]> Tuesday, July 7, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=463 07-07-2009

Well, looks like I was overly ambitious in thinking I?d get anything done on a Mars Sample Return related blog between my last blog entry on 6-10 and this one! Sorry about that patient readers. So what have I been up to in the past month? Well, as my last blog entry indicated, mostly a lot of proposal-related activities. I just finished submitting a proposal to the NASA Mars Fundamental Research Program as the Principal Investigator, or PI, as well as another one to the same program as a co-Investigator. ]]> Tuesday, July 7, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=464 07-07-2009

One of the issues that came up recently for the Juno task is the installation of a Waveguide Load (WGL). The primary purpose of this component is to dissipate energy in the event of a fault. The excess power is transferred to the WGL which is converted into thermal energy and this thermal energy has to be dissipated. The concern is that the WGL may heat up beyond its AFT due to a limited thermal path to the telecom panel, which is serving as the heat sink. A simple hand calculation was conducted ]]> Tuesday, July 7, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=465 07-07-2009

When are ALHAT activities planned? ---------------------------- Between 2007 and 2012, the goal is to develop the sensors and algorithms to TRL-6 [[LINK||http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Readiness_Level||(Wikipedia Entry on TRL)]]. This means demonstrating the system using hardware via field testing, not solely simulation. How will ALHAT be executed? ------------------------ Algorithms, Hardware, and testing techniques are all developed and coordinated to meet a one-field-test-per-year ]]> Tuesday, July 7, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=468 07-07-2009

Who is involved in [[LINK||http://alhat.jpl.nasa.gov||ALHAT]]? --------------------------------- [[LINK||http://alhat.jpl.nasa.gov||ALHAT]] is managed by [[LINK||http://jsc.nasa.gov||Johnson Space Center]] (JSC) in Houston, TX, but the work is distributed between both NASA and Non-NASA facilities. JSC is also responsible for the real-time computing element, or HAST, that will be the "brain" of the [[LINK||http://alhat.jpl.nasa.gov||ALHAT]] system - computing the navigation solution and ]]> Tuesday, July 7, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=467 06-30-2009

The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on NASA?s Aura satellite measures a suite of atmospheric gases, temperature and cloud ice in the limb view of Earth?s atmosphere from microwave thermal emissions. I use mainly the MLS water vapor and cloud ice products to study climate variabilities. Some of my colleagues in the MLS group make use of MLS products, such as carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), nitrous oxide (N2O), chlorine monoxide (CLO), nitric acid (HNO3), HCL, and HCN, etc, to study atmospheric tracer ]]> Tuesday, June 30, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=456 06-23-2009

Last week started off with welcoming my summer student, Ms. Huiwen Chuang, from the University of Michigan. She will work with me for 10 weeks this summer to analyze water vapor variability using AIRS and MLS data as well as IPCC model simulations. She spun up quickly and impressed me with the nice plots of AIRS water vapor time series for four ocean basins on the third day after her arrival in JPL. I expect a productive summer for her and me. Prof. Richard Johnson visited JPL on June 18 and ]]> Tuesday, June 23, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=443 06-23-2009

For the Juno Telecom panel, I am currently focused on creating my thermal math model (TMM). This model will be used to predict the thermal performance of the hardware under various operating conditions. Initially, these predictions will help to plan the combined thermal balance and qualification test that is scheduled for the telecom panel in early 2010. We can use the model to determine whether our test setup is adequate and to help define what typical temperatures to expect during testing. ]]> Tuesday, June 23, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=444 06-17-2009

Life in the Lab First things first, the Cassini Project has posted a very nice [[LINK||http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassinifeatures/feature20090612/||feature]] about our activities in the lab. Observations by the Cassini-Huygens Mission were the inspiration behind the development of JPL Ice Physics Lab. That wonderful mission has brought so many questions about the evolution of satellites, the role of tidal heating in icy satellites, the chemistry of the Saturnian subnebula, the nature and ]]> Wednesday, June 17, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=433 06-16-2009

NASA flight projects are broken up into 5 phases, A-E. Phase A is Concept Development, Phase B is Preliminary Design, Phase C is Detailed Design, Phase D is Fabrication, Assembly, Test & Launch Operations, and Phase E is Operations & Sustainment. My Cassini work that I mentioned in my previous entry falls under Phase E. I have recently been assigned to do some work on Juno which is in Phase D. The telecom panel is set for testing in early 2010, but before that can happen, a lot of preparation ]]> Tuesday, June 16, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=431 06-15-2009

An excitement happened last week was the meeting with Dr. Ed Weiler, associate administrator of the NASA Science Missions Directorate on Tuesday, June 9. I was asked by Dr. Diane Evans (JPL's Director for the Earth Science and Technology Directorate) and Dr. Randy Friedl (JPL?s Earth Science and Technology Directorate Chief Scientist) to give a short presentation to Dr. Ed Weiler about our recent work on CloudSat data analysis and comparison of observed and modeled cloud profiles (see last week?s ]]> Monday, June 15, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=428 06-12-2009

Welcome to my blog. I have been involved working in cleanrooms supporting research and development for microdevice fabrication tasks here at JPL for quite some time now. The work we do is very different from the kind of things typically done at JPL. We all know how ?technology? has changed our world, but most of us have no idea how it?s done. We carry around ?micro? devices all day long and we don?t think about what that means. We all have cell phones, PDAs, CD players, cameras, PCs, LED flashlights, ]]> Friday, June 12, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=427 06-10-2009

Hey everybody, So this is my first blog ever. I?m not the most web-savvy guy out there, but someone thought I should get involved with writing a blog for JPL, so here it is. The basic point of this blog spot is to give you, the reader, a sense of what JPL?s scientists and engineers do on a day to day basis. There?s a link somewhere on this webpage to my ?profile?, which will give you a sense of what my scientific interests are ? basically anything to do with low-temperature and sedimentary ]]> Wednesday, June 10, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=423 06-09-2009

As an engineer in the Spacecraft Thermal Engineering group at JPL, I work on a broad range of projects in different phases of their lifecycle. We work everything from conceptual design all the way through flight operations. Currently, my biggest task is supporting the Thermal/Devices group for Cassini. My primary job is to help ensure the health and safety of the spacecraft from a thermal perspective. One way I do this is sequence checking for uplink operations. All commands that go to the ]]> Tuesday, June 9, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=419 06-09-2009

Well, the title is a bit of a misnomer perhaps. We are actually trying to define dark matter and dark energy properties through detection of distant galaxies. Dark matter and dark energy are the creative terms used to describe ~95% of all the mass/energy in the universe (remember, E=mc²). They are called dark in part because we can?t see them - they don?t interact with electromagnetic forces and therefore we are unable to directly measure their properties. One method that ]]> Tuesday, June 9, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=421 06-09-2009

Hi Everyone, Welcome to my blog. I am a planetary scientist focusing mostly on the geophysical evolution of small icy objects, asteroids and outer planet satellites. A couple of years ago I participated in the development of a new laboratory at JPL to measure the physical properties of ices and especially to simulate tidal stress in planetary material analogs. After spending all these years comfortably sitting in front of a computer, it was a shock, at first, to be working in a cold room at -20 ]]> Tuesday, June 9, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=418 06-08-2009

Just like many others on the lab, I joggle between several projects which involve the impacts of water vapor, clouds and aerosols on climate change. I work closely with my colleague in the Microwave Atmospheric Science group, Dr. Jonathan Jiang, on most of these projects. One of the topics we have been working on is to analyze observed cloud profiles and use them to evaluate cloud simulations in climate models. Our unique approach is to examine cloud profiles binned by large-scale state variables, ]]> Monday, June 8, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=414 06-08-2009

At risk of duplicating much of the material on [[LINK||http://alhat.jpl.nasa.gov||the ALHAT website]] this posting is the first of three to provide some background of what I call the W5H: "Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How" for the [[LINK||http://alhat.jpl.nasa.gov||Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance]] (ALHAT) project. In particular, I'll summarize the "What and Why" in this entry. What is ALHAT? ------------- ALHAT is a technology development project, tasked with raising the [[LINK||http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Readiness_Levels||Technology ]]> Monday, June 8, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=415 06-04-2009

One of the profound scientific problems in the climate sciences is about building a realistic climate modeling (on computers) capability of clouds. If we can?t do this right, we can?t improve our future predictions of climate all that much. NASA makes an incredibly wide variety of ongoing measurements of clouds, temperature and humidity on a global basis from satellites. These measurements make it possible to observe what we should calculate in the climate forecasting models. However, it is ]]> Thursday, June 4, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=408 06-03-2009

Lately my team has gotten excited about the potential applications of cloud computing in mission operations. Cloud computing is a trendy term that generally refers to the practice of running your applications on a set of virtual remote computers typically provided by another organization as a pay-as-you-go service. Many of the strengths of cloud computing are a great fit for mission operations. First, cloud computing nodes can be brought online and taken offline again at a moment's notice to ]]> Wednesday, June 3, 2009 http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov//community/blogs/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowBlog&NewsID=402