a Aeronautics

and

Space Report

of the 

President

Fiscal Year

2004

Activities

Fiscal Y ear 1997 Activities
bAeronautics and Space Report of the President 

The National Aeronautics and Space Act of

1958 directed the annual Aeronautics and

Space Report to include a “comprehensive

description of the programmed activities and the

accomplishments of all agencies of the United

States in the field of aeronautics and space

activities during the preceding calendar year.”

In recent years, the reports have been prepared

on a fiscal-year basis, consistent with the budgetary period now used in programs of the

Federal Government. This year’s report covers

activities that took place from October 1, 2003,

through September 30, 2004.
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

c TABLE OF CONTENTS

National Aeronautics and Space Administration . . . . . . . . 1

Department of Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Federal Aviation Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Department of Commerce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Department of the Interior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Federal Communications Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Department of Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

National Science Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Department of State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Department of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Smithsonian Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

A-1 U.S. Government Spacecraft Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

A-2 World Record of Space Launches Successful in 

Attaining Earth Orbit or Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

B Successful Launches to Orbit on U.S. Launch Vehicles 

October 1, 2003–September 30, 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

C Human Space Flights 

October 1, 2003–September 30, 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

D-1A Space Activities of the U.S. Government—Historical Budget Summary . . . . . . 119

D-1B Space Activities of the U.S. Government—Budget Authority in Millions of

Equivalent FY 2004 Dollars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

D-2 Federal Space Activities Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

D-3 Federal Aeronautics Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Office of Safety and Mission Assurance

NASA continued to implement the recommendations of the Columbia

Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) and to evaluate and strengthen NASA’s

safety and mission assurance (SMA) capabilities. The NASA Engineering and

Safety Center (NESC) is now operational. With a core cadre of experts and

matrixed support from around the Agency, the NESC is working on critical assessments of several NASA programs including the Space Shuttle Return to Flight

and the International Space Station (ISS). NASA also continues to emphasize

leadership responsibility and accountability for the safety of programs and operations. NASA put into place several initiatives to create and sustain an environment

where leaders and employees understand the importance of reporting safety concerns and consider the safety implications of their day-to-day work and the

programs they develop. NASA’s results for the first year of the President’s January

2004 Safety, Health, and Return to Employment (SHARE) initiative for Federal

agencies show that safety is valued at NASA. NASA achieved its assigned ratereduction goal of 3 percent per year in lost-time injuries. 

In the policy area, NASA revised its procedures for mishap reporting, investigating, and recordkeeping (including CAIB lessons learned where appropriate).

The Agency established SMA requirements for risk classification for NASA payloads and probabilistic risk assessment. SMA experts provided critical assurance

planning and analysis for space operations, science programs, and new efforts supFiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

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NATIONAL AERONAUTICS

AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

NASA
porting the Vision for Space Exploration. NASA developed and implemented

enhanced programmatic, institutional, facility, and operational safety review and

assessment processes based on CAIB recommendations and an Agency imperative

to move toward a more rigorous and precisely defined “compliance with requirements philosophy” that emphasizes the need to collect and evaluate objective,

quality evidence to demonstrate compliance. The Agency rechartered the

Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) to be consistent with the original

intent of Congress in enacting the statute establishing the panel in 1967. The

ASAP charter is to focus on NASA’s safety and quality systems, including industrial and systems safety, risk management and trend analysis, and the management

of these activities. The revised charter also enables more timely feedback to

NASA by requiring quarterly rather than annual reports and by requiring the

panel to perform special assessments with immediate feedback to NASA.

Exploration Systems Mission Directorate

After the January 14, 2004, announcement of the new Vision for Space

Exploration, then-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe announced a strategic

realignment of NASA’s organizational structure. The following day, a new Office

of Exploration Systems was formed to focus on carrying out that vision.

In August of 2004, the Agency responded to the President’s Commission on

the Implementation of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy, also known as the

Aldridge Commission, by forming a robust Exploration Systems Mission

Directorate (ESMD) from the Office of Exploration Systems and the Office of

Biological and Physical Research.

The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) was the cornerstone for ESMD

activities in 2004, as the CEV will be the first ferry that transports explorers from

point to point in space. The CEV Request for Proposal process was successfully initiated with a target award date of August 2005. Through the Concept Exploration

and Refinement Broad Agency Announcement process, ESMD selected 11 contractors ranging from traditional aerospace primes to more nontraditional

entrepreneurial firms. The teams met frequently with NASA to work on building

the necessary elements of ESMD’s requirements and acquisition strategy. Their

first task was to derive a set of requirements for the CEV and then to review them

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 2
against requirements documentation that NASA had generated. ESMD also

focused on analyzing alternatives from crew and cargo launch systems.

In addition, ESMD created research and technology themes to address new

technology needs as the exploration mission progresses. These themes included a

broad, general technology research area, as well as focused development activities

in human and nuclear systems. 

The general ESMD Research and Technology theme released an external

proposal announcement in 2004 that generated intense interest among U.S.

industry, academic communities, and international organizations. More than

3,700 Notice of Intent letters were originally received, resulting in 498 full proposals being developed by hundreds of the most innovative firms and the finest

universities in the United States. It also resulted in first-of-a-kind proposals from

eight international organizations—providing access for NASA into advanced

space technology outside the United States. These projects included work in key

areas of propulsion, electronics, and structures.

The Human Systems Research and Technology theme, comprised mostly of

the former Biological and Physical Research Enterprise, conducted internal relevancy reviews to realign its activities to support human exploration. A critical part

of the reviews involved redefining the role of the ISS to support the human exploration initiative. Human Systems completed an exhaustive assessment of

alternatives to determine the quality and quantity of scientific research that needs

to be done in the coming years to support the mission.

The Prometheus Nuclear Systems Research and Technology theme forged a

strategic alliance with the Department of Energy, Office of Naval Reactors, in order

to capitalize on their previous successes with commercial nuclear technology development. The Prometheus theme competitively awarded the Prometheus-1 Spacecraft

Design and Integration contract, in addition to selecting several additional teams to

conduct advanced nuclear electric propulsion technology research. Prometheus was

intended to provide a sustainable enabling capability in the form of power and propulsion systems for a wide range of exploration pursuits, from lunar reconnaissance to

robotic explorers and pathfinder technologies for astronaut expeditions.

In 2004, ESMD awarded over 400 Small Business Innovative Proposals in

support of the new exploration program. ESMD also explored novel relations with

international partners by allowing all companies to compete for our awards and by

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conducting an international space exploration workshop to identify and discuss

the areas in which international collaboration holds promise. ESMD also worked

to develop education programming that enhances its research and technology

development through undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctorate levels with

direct contributions to ESMD research. Finally, ESMD initiated planning for and

implementation of NASA’s new program of prize contests called Centennial

Challenges. The goal of Centennial Challenges is to build prize competitions that

attract strong fields of competing teams in exploration-based theme areas.

Through relevancy reviews and realignment of investment portfolios,

ESMD began building a focused program for space exploration. ESMD also instituted a competitive process to award new work to the NASA Field Centers and

industry. As part of this process, core competency and skills database reviews across

the Agency were begun to ensure that critical facilities, technologies, and

Government skill sets are not lost. The competitions within NASA through internal calls for proposals have encouraged cooperation among Field Centers.

ESMD funded 118 new research and technology projects to develop and

mature advanced technologies required for the exploration mission. Of those, 48

were selected to be internal NASA-led projects, involving more than 100 NASA

personnel, and 70 were selected to be industry- or university-led projects. Fifteen

universities and 55 industrial partners, including 2 foreign companies, will lead the

70 external projects selected. More than 700 NASA Field Center personnel will

support these new technology projects, and more will have the opportunity as

future announcements are released in the coming year.

Space Operations Mission Directorate

The first step in the Vision for Space Exploration is returning the Space

Shuttle to flight and focusing on the mission for which it is uniquely qualified—

completing the assembly of the ISS. Throughout FY 2004, NASA made

significant progress toward meeting this goal. NASA is on track to fulfill all safety

and processing milestones for the Space Shuttle Discovery and its Return to Flight

mission, STS-114, in 2005.

The final report of the CAIB identified a number of systemic cultural, organizational, managerial, and technical issues within the Space Shuttle Program

(SSP) and throughout NASA that contributed to the Columbia accident on

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 4
February 1, 2003. The Board identified 15 “Return to Flight” and 14 “Continuing

to Fly” recommendations designed to address these issues. NASA’s Return to

Flight effort is guided by these recommendations, as well as by “raising the bar”

actions identified by the SSP. NASA continues to embrace the Board’s report, to

accept its findings, and to comply with all of its recommendations.

NASA’s Implementation Plan for Space Shuttle Return to Flight and Beyond outlines the path that NASA is taking to respond to the Board’s recommendations

and safely return the Shuttle to flight. The Implementation Plan is updated periodically to reflect NASA’s continuing progress and to provide detailed cost estimates

of the Return to Flight process. The seventh update to the Implementation Plan was

released on August 27, 2004. 

The Return to Flight effort has focused on the technical, organizational, and

procedural issues that led to the Columbia accident. This year, SSP officials

increased their understanding of the debris environment and the material characteristics of the orbiter and its thermal-protection system. As a result, NASA has

targeted critical areas for orbiter hardening prior to Return to Flight. The Space

Shuttle’s External Tank was modified significantly to reduce the potential for debris

generation below the point that could be dangerous to the orbiter during ascent. 

To facilitate on-orbit inspections of areas of the Shuttle that are not visible

when using just the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, NASA is installing a

newly developed Orbiter Boom Sensor System to inspect critical areas of the

Shuttle’s exterior. NASA also is developing repair techniques and materials for the

Shuttle’s thermal-protection system, and the Agency made significant progress in

developing hardware and procedures for repairing tile and reinforced carboncarbon on orbit. New cabling and wiring have been installed to support 66

acceleration and impact sensors and 22 temperature sensors on each orbiter wing.

These new sensors will warn mission managers if the Space Shuttle is hit by the

kind of debris that led to the Columbia accident. NASA employees and contractors have made more than 100 major maintenance modifications and upgrades to

the Space Shuttle and its supporting systems.

The Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs also made

progress in planning for a Contingency Shuttle Crew Support capability to sustain

a Shuttle crew on the Station if a rescue mission is ever needed. Access to the

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resources of the Station gives Space Shuttle mission managers an additional option

should damage to the orbiter make a crewed reentry unsafe.

The Return to Flight Task Group, cochaired by former astronauts

LTG Thomas Stafford (USAF, Ret.) and COL Richard Covey (USAF, Ret.), was

formed to advise the NASA Administrator on the SSP’s Return to Flight effort.

The task group is chartered to perform an independent assessment of NASA’s

actions to implement the CAIB’s 15 Return to Flight recommendations as they

relate to the safety and the operational readiness for STS-114. The task group also

will review NASA’s “raising the bar” initiative for Contingency Shuttle Crew

Support. As of the end of FY 2004, the task group had conditionally closed five of

these activities. NASA ended FY 2004 on track to fully closing out all Return to

Flight requirements in time to support the launch of STS-114 in 2005.

Severe hurricanes forced the temporary shutdown of several Space Shuttle

processing facilities in FY 2004. Some facilities in Florida and Louisiana received

minor damage. However, no injuries to NASA personnel were reported, and no flight

hardware was damaged thanks to the effective implementation of NASA hurricane

preparedness plans. Nevertheless, these disruptions did have an effect on Space

Shuttle processing flows that were supporting a March 2005 launch opportunity. The

full impact of these disruptions was still being assessed at the end of FY 2004. 

Despite these setbacks, by the end of FY 2004 the SSP moved from modifying the orbiter to preparing it for its next flight. Major flight hardware needed to

support STS-114 arrived at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Preparations were

underway to begin stacking the two Solid Rocket Boosters in the Vehicle Assembly

Building. The STS-114 modified External Tank was scheduled for delivery from the

Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana to KSC in late calendar year 2004. 

NASA mission requirements now call for a second Space Shuttle to be ready

to mount a rescue mission within 30 to 45 days if an orbiter is disabled during a mission and unable to make a safe crewed return. Space Shuttle Atlantis will serve as

the rescue vehicle for STS-114. If STS-114 proceeds normally, Atlantis will then

continue processing for the second Return to Flight mission, STS-121. Processing

of Atlantis for these missions continued in 2004. Meanwhile, Space Shuttle

Endeavour was being cycled through its scheduled Orbiter Major Down Periods.

Finally, NASA began planning for the retirement of the existing Space

Shuttle system after completion of the ISS and the transition of the Space Shuttle

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 6
legacy to future exploration missions. In 2004, the Space Shuttle Service Life

Extension Program, which had previously been the venue for planning Space

Shuttle upgrades, was reorganized into the Integrated Space Operations Summit.

Experts from Government, industry, and academia were asked to serve on panels

that would prepare recommendations to the senior NASA leadership in the areas

of Space Shuttle mission execution, transition, industrial capability support, and

lessons learned. For the first time, an ISS panel was created to deal with space

transportation requirements to and from the orbiting facility in the post-Space

Shuttle era. The first summit was held in March 2005. Future summits will work

to further refine the Space Shuttle retirement and transition plan to ensure postSpace Shuttle requirements for the ISS are adequately addressed and these

activities are tightly integrated with the rest of NASA’s exploration agenda.

In FY 2004, overall ISS systems performance surpassed expectations in light

of the grounding of the Space Shuttle fleet. Our Russian partners are supporting

crew and cargo transportation to the ISS until the Shuttle is available again in

2005. In FY 2004, automated Russian Progress vehicles resupplied the two-person

Station crew three times, and Russian Soyuz vehicles transported two crews safely

to and from the Station. This level of cooperation has enabled a continuous crew

presence on the ISS.

FY 2004 on the Station began with a crew exchange. The Expedition 8

crew, U.S. Commander Michael Foale and Russian Flight Engineer Alexander

Kaleri, replaced Expedition 7 on board the Station on October 20, 2003. Foale and

Kaleri conducted one two-person extravehicular activity (EVA) safely and successfully without a crewmember inside the Station.

The Expedition 8 crew returned to Earth in April 2004, replaced by

Expedition 9, Russian Commander Gennady Padalka and NASA Flight Engineer

Mike Fincke, who arrived at the Station on April 21, 2004. Fincke and Padalka

performed four EVAs while at the Station. Expedition 9 returned to Earth on

October 23, 2004, eastern daylight time (e.d.t.).

The smaller crew size and transport capabilities of the Russian Progress and

Soyuz spacecraft, which have been used heavily since the grounding of the Space

Shuttle in February 2003, have limited the planned science activities. However,

NASA maximized the research opportunities available through replanning and

rescheduling science activities. Through the end of FY 2004, approximately 2,031

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hours of combined crew time have been dedicated to research, and approximately

78 investigations have been initiated or completed. 

The announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration on January 14,

2004, refocused research on the ISS to prepare for eventual missions to the Moon

and Mars. While a two-person crew limits the amount of dedicated science performed on the Station, everything that happens on board prepares us for the day

when we leave low-Earth orbit. Every maintenance issue, every experiment performed, and every EVA is a learning experience for both the crew on orbit and the

crew on the ground.

One of the most important areas of research on the Station is how humans

react during long-duration space flights. During their stay on board, crewmembers

serve as test subjects for human life sciences experiments crucial to learning how

to keep people healthy, safe, and productive in environments with different gravity levels. One experiment required crewmembers to wear special pairs of Lycra

cycling tights fitted with sensors that measure how much weight and stress astronauts’ legs and feet endure on a typical day in space. Since the human body is

designed to function in Earth’s gravity, placing weight and some amounts of stress

on limbs helps maintain muscle strength and bone density. This experiment will

provide a better understanding of the bone and muscle mass loss experienced by

astronauts in near weightlessness. This research also will help researchers understand and treat the effects of osteoporosis and other illnesses and injuries that

attack limb strength on Earth.

Station crews also observe and photograph natural and manmade changes

on Earth. Crew photographs document both changes in Earth’s surface over time

and more fleeting events, like storms, floods, fires, and volcanic eruptions. In

August and September, the Expedition 9 crew, using a handheld digital camera

mounted to the outside of the ISS, captured still images and video of Hurricanes

Bonnie, Charley, Frances, and others as they swept out of the Atlantic and onto

the Eastern U.S. seaboard. 

The Station is a safe, reliable, and well-managed on-orbit research facility.

Station crews conduct basic and applied research in biology, physics, chemistry,

ecology, medicine, manufacturing, and the long-term effects of space flight on

humans. Commercial experiments also have been conducted on bone-loss treatments, plant growth, pharmaceutical production, and petroleum refining. 

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 8
The International Partnership has met the challenge of continuing ISS

operations while the Space Shuttle is grounded. The partners have met frequently

at the technical and management levels to coordinate efforts to maintain our

common goal of keeping the ISS crewed. The partnership is prepared to resume

assembly as soon as the Space Shuttle returns to flight. 

Through a Multilateral Program Partner Team reporting directly to the

Multilateral Coordination Board, the International Partners are evaluating

options for the Station on-orbit configuration. This team principally has explored

options related to accommodating a crew greater than three and the associated

advanced life support systems, habitability elements, and rescue vehicles necessary

to meet utilization mission requirements for an increased crew size.

Space agency leaders from the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe, and

Canada met at the European Space Agency Technical Centre in Noordwijk, the

Netherlands, on July 23, 2004, to discuss ISS cooperation activities. At this meeting, the International Partner Heads of Agency unanimously endorsed the

Multilateral Coordination Board’s recommended configuration, which includes all

the International Partner elements, as well as the Centrifuge Accommodation

Module, Node 3, and the U.S. regenerative Environmental Control and Life

Support System. Additional Multilateral Coordination Board and Heads of

Agency meetings are planned for early 2005 to approve a final technical configuration and review the status of implementation plans and agreements.

The ISS is supporting Return to Flight efforts by providing the Shuttle crew

with the ability to inspect the Shuttle orbiter once it is docked to the Station. The

Station also can serve as a “safe haven” for the Shuttle crew in the event that the

orbiter is unable to return to Earth.

Reliable connectivity for the ISS and SSP has been the focus of Space

Communications activities in FY 2004. Space Communications also led the development of a communications and navigation architecture in conjunction with the

Vision for Space Exploration. 

NASA continued to develop and validate requirements for the Tracking

and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) Continuation Program in conjunction

with the development of a Transformational Communications Architecture

(TCA) program. The TCA is an initiative led by the Department of Defense to

provide an integrated national space communications architecture. TDRSS is a

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constellation of geosynchronous communications satellites and ground support

facilities that is used by the Space Shuttle, the ISS, the Hubble Space Telescope

(HST), and other low-Earth orbiting spacecraft. When first launched, these satellites were the largest, most sophisticated communications satellites ever built. In

2004, a set of three replenishment spacecraft (TDRS 8, 9, and 10) completed operational checkout and are now ready for deployment. These satellites replicate all

of the services of TDRS 1–7, as well as provide Ka-band service and enhanced

multiple access capability.

An Agencywide Space Communication Architecture Working Group

(SCAWG) was established to address future NASA mission communication

needs. The SCAWG is developing 5-year “snapshots” of the space communication

architecture that must evolve from the present Deep Space Network, Space

Network, and Ground Network in order to provide the necessary communication

capabilities to support the NASA exploration and science programs. A key consideration in the SCAWG’s work is to project technology maturity in order to

determine when it can be introduced into the architecture to enhance capabilities. 

After a very successful World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC) in

2003, NASA began in 2004 to coordinate positions with other relevant U.S.

Government agencies for the WRC in 2007. NASA also significantly contributed

to the development of the recently released National Positioning, Navigation, and

Timing policy and the President’s National Spectrum Policy Directive aimed at

reforming national spectrum management. Senior NASA spectrum management

personnel remain actively involved in implementing this Presidential initiative to

bring the United States spectrum management activities into the 21st century. 

In August 2002, NASA determined that it would not exercise the 5-year

option under the Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC), which

expired on December 31, 2003. Solicitations for seven successor contracts at five

Centers (Kennedy Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Goddard Space

Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) were successfully completed, and transitions from the CSOC to these successor contracts

went smoothly. These contracts deal with Agency space communication activities,

such as the Space Network and the Deep Space Network.

The Space Operations Mission Directorate’s Launch Services Program successfully managed four expendable launch vehicle flights in FY 2004. The Gravity

10Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
Probe B (GP-B) and Aura missions launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in

California. The mission of GP-B is to test two extraordinary, unverified predictions

of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Aura is analyzing Earth’s ozone, air

quality, and climate. The MESSENGER and SWIFT spacecraft were launched

from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. MESSENGER began its journey

to the planet Mercury, and SWIFT began documenting the origins and nature of

gamma-ray bursts. Private industry provided all launch services procured for

NASA’s civilian missions.

Science Mission Directorate

Calendar year 2004 started out with NASA’s Stardust mission receiving a

close flyby of a comet on January 2. Images and other data of the ancient object

revealed a much stranger world than previously believed. Stardust, which was

launched in 1999, flew 236 kilometers (about 147 miles) from comet Wild 2. The

flyby yielded the most detailed, high-resolution comet images ever taken, revealing a rigid surface dotted with towering pinnacles, plunging craters, steep cliffs,

and dozens of jets spewing material into space. After collecting samples of the

comet, the Stardust spacecraft began its journey back to Earth with its payload of

thousands of captured particles. By January 2006, when it returns to Earth with a

soft landing in the Utah desert, Stardust will have flown a total of 5.2 billion kilometers (3.2 billion miles). 

A NASA study found that changes in Arctic temperatures and sea ice cover

observed in 2004 were remarkable compared to past years. The Arctic warming

study appeared in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate. It

showed that (compared to the 1980s) most of the Arctic warmed significantly over

the last decade, with the biggest temperature increases occurring over North

America. The Arctic changed in ways that were unobservable until the advent of

satellite remote sensing. 

In addition to using data from passive satellites, scientists used NASA’s

ICESat satellite in 2004 to understand how the Arctic region is changing. ICESat

uses a laser technology called lidar to measure the thickness and extent of sea ice

from space. Data from lidar improved scientific understanding of changing ice

extent and how it contributes to changes in sea level and ocean circulation, which

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in turn affect climate and agriculture worldwide, habitats for sea life, and accessibility of Arctic shipping lanes.

The GP-B spacecraft successfully launched on April 20, 2004, from

Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. GP-B orbited 400 miles above Earth while completing the initialization and orbit calibration phase of its mission. On August 27,

2004, the spacecraft began science data collection testing two predictions of

Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

NASA-supported biologists developed a modeling approach that used satellite data and specimen locality data from museum collections to predict the

geographic distribution of 11 known chameleon species in Madagascar. The model

also helped lead to the discovery of seven new chameleon species. This project

showed that combining NASA satellite and museum data could help identify

places to survey for new species of life as well as areas in need of conservation. The

study appeared in the December 2003 issue of the journal Nature.

Space science flourished in 2004. The combined abilities of three of

NASA’s great observatories, the HST, Spitzer Space Telescope (SST), and

Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), allowed scientists to analyze infrared radiation, visible light, and x rays. Our team of great observatories continued to work

toward the unraveling of the 400-year-old supernova mystery. 

On December 9, two of these great observatories, the SST and HST, provided astronomers an unprecedented look at dusty planetary debris around stars

the size of our Sun. SST discovered dusty discs around mature, Sun-like stars

known to have planets. Hubble captured the most detailed image ever observed of

a brighter disc circling a much younger Sun-like star. The findings provided “snapshots” of the process by which our own solar system evolved, from its dusty and

chaotic beginnings to its more settled present-day state. CXO continued to work

toward unlocking one of the biggest mysteries in physics, dark energy. Astronomers

detected and probed dark energy by applying a powerful new method that uses

images of galaxy clusters made by CXO. The results trace the transition of the

expansion of the universe from a decelerating to an accelerating phase several billion years ago. CXO is studying 26 clusters of galaxies at distances between 1 and

8 billion light years. These data span the time when the universe slowed from its

original expansion before speeding up again. CXO results suggest the dark energy

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

12
density does not change quickly with time and may even be constant, consistent

with the “cosmological constant” concept first introduced by Albert Einstein.

A new NASA study found that emissions of soot, or black carbon, alter the

way sunlight reflects off snow. A computer simulation indicated that soot may be

responsible for as much as 25 percent of observed global warming over the past

century. Soot on snow absorbs more of the Sun’s energy and heat than icy, white

backgrounds, which reflect the Sun’s rays. With global warming, many snow- and

ice-covered areas have begun to melt. As can be seen when glaciers and ice sheets

melt, they tend to get dirtier as the soot becomes even more concentrated. Soot

thereby adds to the warming effect as ice melts, making icy surfaces darker and

absorbing more solar energy. Soot is generated from traffic, industrial pollution,

outdoor fires, and household burning of coal and other fuels. It is the product of

incomplete combustion. The soot particles absorb sunlight very effectively, just as

wearing a black shirt outdoors absorbs more solar energy and keeps you warmer

than a white shirt does.

NASA successfully landed two mobile geology labs on the surface of Mars

on January 3 and January 24—a feat unparalleled in history. NASA’s Spirit and

Opportunity rovers drew tremendous worldwide interest in 2004 when they landed

on the red planet. Within weeks, Opportunity discovered evidence that its landing site had been the location for a standing body of water sometime in the distant

past, raising the possibility that the necessary ingredients for life may have existed

on Mars at one time. In April, both rovers successfully completed their primary 3-

month missions and went into bonus overtime work. On April 8, NASA approved

an extended mission, up to 5 months, for these twin rovers. This extension provided for seven new goals, more than doubling exploration for less than 2 percent

of additional investment. During the summer, Spirit completed a 3-kilometer (2-

mile) trek southeast to the Columbia Hills. Opportunity descended into

Endurance Crater, where it found layer upon layer of rocks bearing evidence that

they had once been drenched in water. Spirit and Opportunity remained in good

health well past their intended operational lifespan. 

Our twin rovers did not operate alone in 2004. About 85 percent of the

images and other data from Spirit and Opportunity reached Earth via communications relay by the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Mars Odyssey began working overtime

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on August 25 after completing a prime mission that discovered vast supplies of

frozen water, ran a safety check for future astronauts, and mapped the surface textures and minerals all over Mars. The orbiter helped to analyze potential landing

sites for the rovers.

Public interest in the rovers’ exploits was seen in front-page headlines

around the world. Such interest made the NASA Web portal the most visited Web

site in the world during the week of the landings.

NASA scientists found that circulation in the northern North Atlantic

Ocean weakened considerably in the late 1990s, based on the satellite record of

this system. The slowing of this ocean current is an indication of dramatic changes

in the North Atlantic Ocean climate. This subpolar system moves water in a counterclockwise pattern from Ireland to Labrador, carrying warm water to northern

Europe and moderating that area’s climate. The satellite record is too short to

determine whether this trend is part of a natural cycle or the result of factors

related to global warming. Satellite data made it possible to view the current over

the entire North Atlantic basin. A new satellite called the Ocean Surface

Topography Mission is in development at NASA. It will use active satellite sensors to gather the information needed to quantify how Earth’s ocean circulation is

changing and to gauge the consequences of changing circulation patterns for life

on Earth.

After a 7-year, 2-billion-mile (3.5-billion-kilometer) journey, CassiniHuygens became the first spacecraft ever to go into orbit around the ringed planet

on July 1, 2004. The joint NASA, European Space Agency, and Italian Space

Agency Cassini-Huygens mission made a grand entry with a 96-minute engine

burn and dramatic crossing of the rings. Dozens of stunning ring images showed

hundreds of ringlets, waves, and ripples. Cassini found that the planet is roiled by

storms, detected lighting, discovered a new radiation belt, found four new moons

and a new ring around Saturn, and, for the first time, mapped the composition and

temperature of the rings. On October 26, Cassini flew by the moon Titan at a distance of 745 miles (1,200 kilometers), the closest any spacecraft has ever come to

the largest moon of Saturn. Titan is a prime target of the Cassini-Huygens mission

because it is the only moon in our solar system with an atmosphere.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

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Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

15 NASA’s Aura satellite successfully launched into orbit on July 15, 2004, on

a Delta II 7920 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. Aura uses cuttingedge Earth science technologies to provide global-scale information about Earth’s

atmospheric composition. Such information is crucial to protecting the air we

breathe. Aura will survey the atmosphere from the surface of Earth through the

upper atmosphere, where the ozone layer protects life on Earth. Aura’s observations

will allow scientists to understand how atmospheric composition affects and

responds to Earth’s changing climate. The observations, moreover, will provide

better information on the extent to which Earth’s protective ozone layer is recovering and will reveal the processes that connect local and global air quality. The Aura

mission is a collaboration with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Finland.

August 2004 marked NASA’s first trip to Mercury in 30 years with the

predawn launch of the MESSENGER spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force

Station, FL. MESSENGER is conducting an in-depth study of the Sun’s closest

neighbor, the least explored of the terrestrial “rocky” planets that also include

Venus, Earth, and Mars. MESSENGER will provide the closest look ever at the

innermost planet. Its voyage includes three flybys of Mercury in 2008 and 2009,

and a yearlong orbit of the planet starting in March 2011.

Water covers approximately 70 percent of our world’s surface, yet only 0.5

percent of Earth’s water is available fresh water that can help meet the growing

demands of society. Most of this fresh water resides in ground-water reservoirs that

are hard to measure. In 2004, the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment

(GRACE) science team reported that GRACE was demonstrating the first-ever

capability to weigh Earth’s fresh water from space. The GRACE satellites measure

changes in Earth’s gravitation field that signal shifts in the movement of water on

Earth. GRACE consists of a pair of satellites that were launched in 2002. The mission was tasked with improving the gravity field by at least a factor of 10 and

measuring monthly gravity fields. Last year, GRACE reported a global gravity field

50 to 100 times more accurate than previously available.

In a dramatic ending that marks a beginning in scientific research, on

September 8, 2004, the Genesis solar sample return mission made a hard landing

on a desert in Utah when its parachute failed to open. The return capsule suffered

damage, but managed to preserve a significant portion of the precious samples of

the Sun it had brought back from space. The Genesis mission was launched in
August 2001 on a journey to capture samples from the Sun. The Genesis scientists

are encouraged they will be able to achieve the most important portions of their

science objectives, which should tell us about the conditions that existed at the

birth of the Sun and the planets over 5 billion years ago.

The Spitzer Space Telescope, launched on August 24, 2003, pierced

through cosmic dust to reveal hidden objects, including a family of newborn stars

whose birth was triggered by the death of another star; a dying star surrounded by

a mysterious donut-shaped ring; and a cannibalistic galaxy with a strange parallelogram-shaped meal at its core. The telescope also peered deep into the dustiest

regions of space and spotted cold and dusty planet-forming discs, which are the

“planetary construction zones” around stars. One of the discs was discovered to

harbor what may be the youngest planet ever detected. SST also identified one of

the farthest galaxies ever seen and was able to measure its age and mass for the first

time. The SST also joined forces this year with HST and CXO to study a supernova and distant black holes.

NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are working

together to improve air quality forecasts that are used to issue public air quality notifications. The two agencies are relating NASA satellite measurements of aerosol

optical depth and cloud optical thickness with EPA ground measurements. NASA

provided the EPA with a near-real-time data-fusion product that served as a prototype during the pollution aerosol season in the fall of 2003. This prototype involved

NASA aerosol and cloud data, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA) wind speeds and fire locations, and EPA ground data. The prototype

served air quality forecasters who used the 3-day visualizations of the data-fusion

products to assess transport of aerosols into their region and then developed the air

quality forecasts they issued to the public (e.g., severe air quality notifications).

An Earth Science-funded infrared-imaging technology was selected to

detect flaws in the leading edges of the Shuttle wings. Originally created under the

Earth Science Laser Risk Reduction Program as a way to diagnose problems in

diode laser arrays for use in Earth observing satellites, this technology was adopted

by the Leading Edge Infrared Camera Team to help inspect the Shuttle panels for

tiny cracks, mechanical stresses, and other defects. The new infrared imaging capability will greatly increase NASA’s ability to discover irregularities by sensing heat

absorbed by the panels and by measuring rates of cooling.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

16
17 On January 10, scientists made two discoveries at black holes’ edges with

the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite. Scientists detected streams

of gas that appear to be surfing on a wave of space as the gas falls toward the black

hole, providing compelling evidence for an exotic prediction of Einstein’s theory

of general relativity—how a spinning black hole can drag the fabric of space

around with it, creating a choppy sea of space that distorts all that passes through

it on a descent into the black hole. The other discovery involves a super massive

black hole in a galaxy more than 170 million light years away. Scientists clocked

three separate clumps of hot iron gas whipping around the black hole at 20,000

miles per second, which is more than 10 percent of light speed. This marked the

first time scientists could trace individual blobs of shredded matter on a complete

journey around such a black hole. The United States was involved with two

instruments. These science results complemented all the other black hole findings

and stand as an excellent example of international collaboration.

NASA’s Science Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program continues

to be one of the largest programs in astronomy, Earth, and space science education.

Our commitment to education places a special emphasis on precollege education,

higher education, diversity, and increasing the general public’s understanding and

appreciation of science and technology. We now have more than 5,000 EPO

events annually; an online directory of hundreds of educational resources, traveling museum exhibitions, and planetarium shows appearing in venues across the

country; and a presence in every State. For the first time, NASA supported a

summer science camp for blind students in grades seven through nine at the

Goddard Space Flight Center in collaboration with the newly established

Research and Training Institute of the National Federation of the Blind. A new

book, entitled Touch the Sun, allows blind and visually impaired students to experience images of the Sun and solar activity by feeling transparent, raised textures

bonded to the pictures. A new Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Resource

Center, underway at the Georgia Institute of Technology, prepares students for

employment with the UAV industry. Students gain knowledge of and experience

with environmental science applications of UAVs and engage in experimental

design, sensor integration, and field deployment activities. The Global Learning

and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program, known for its

national and international partnerships in bringing students, teachers, and scien-
tists together to gather important Earth science data, was the winner of the 2004

Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize for Excellence in International Education in the

Media and Technology category. The prizewinners exemplify how international

knowledge and skills are no longer a luxury for high-achieving or affluent students,

but a necessity for all. The Earth Explorers Institutes, in collaboration with the

National Park Service, the Girl Scouts, and communities of amateur/citizen scientists, are expanding NASA’s support to the informal education community. The

Earth Observatory Web site (http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov) had yet another

banner year in publishing many feature stories (178) and reference articles (60) in

FY 2004. In addition to the captioned images that appear daily, the site also hosts 22-

plus gigabytes of data each day. Created from the interdisciplinary Earth, solar, planetary, and space science missions and observatories that we develop and the

ever-inspiring research and exploration we undertake, these investments are inspiring a new generation of explorers.

Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

In FY 2004, the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, formerly the

Aerospace Technology Enterprise, accomplished many major successes, primarily

in revolutionary new capabilities and technologies, air transportation efficiency,

aviation safety, environmental protection, and space access.

One especially noteworthy event was that NASA broke an important aviation barrier with the NASA X-43A airplane using a scramjet engine to fly seven

times the speed of sound, setting a new world speed record for air-breathing aircraft. This scramjet technology is expected eventually to provide the most efficient

path from ground to space and be of benefit to military and civilian commercial

use. (In FY 2005, the X-43A broke its own record when it flew at 10 times the

speed of sound.)

“What I really need is a pair of spectacles to see through the fog,” declared

Charles A. Lindbergh during his historic solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

Almost eight decades and a host of technological advances later, NASA and its

Government, industry, and university partners have developed the equivalent of

Lindbergh’s fog-penetrating spectacles. Test flights on a small aircraft demonstrated that NASA has brought “tunnel in the sky” Synthetic Vision Systems to

an impressive level of functionality. The pursuit of this system is part of NASA’s

Aviation Safety and Security program intended to cut fatal accident rates by 80

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

18
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

19 percent over 10 years. This accomplishment has presented the possibility of eliminating low-visibility-induced accidents. This new system increases pilot

situational awareness and reduces errors and workload by giving pilots “enhanced

vision”-sensor-based information about terrain and humanmade features when visibility is obscured. The Synthetic Vision Systems create an artificial,

computer-generated view based on a detailed terrain database. Although the pilot

may not be able to see the ground through the fog, a computer screen presents the

landing site accurately based on map and terrain information. 

Eventually, every frequent traveler experiences sitting on a jet as it waits in

line to take off or as it circles an airport waiting for permission from the tower to

land. It is the inevitable result of too many jets vying for too little runway space.

NASA, in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), completed operational tests and a cost-benefit assessment for a Surface Management

System computer program that will assist air traffic controllers and air carriers in

managing the movement of aircraft on the airport runway, thereby improving

runway capacity, efficiency, and flexibility. This program provides near-term predictions of runway delays and forecasts of total daily demand for a runway to support

strategic surface planning. This capability also allows air traffic controllers, pilots,

and airline officials to collaborate, plan, and make decisions based on shared information. Once in use at airports, this system will help move flights easily and safely

from heavily used runways to runways that are free of congestion, preventing backups on the ground and in the air and speeding passengers to their destinations. 

Restricted airspace exists throughout the United States. Civilian aircraft

often accidentally fly into this space. More rarely, aircraft deliberately breach these

protected areas. The FAA is responsible for monitoring all flights within the

United States, and NASA is helping with that job. NASA demonstrated the prototype of a computer program designed to detect aircraft that deviate from their

flight plans. The Fort Worth, TX, and Washington, DC, air traffic control centers

evaluated the Rogue Evaluation And Coordination Tool, using a live traffic feed

over 8 hours, to demonstrate the ability to detect aircraft that are deviating from

their expected flightpaths and predict entry into restricted airspace. Tools like this

will enhance public safety by mitigating the potential for catastrophic harm that

could result from a rogue aircraft. 
In support of a safer and more efficient air transportation system, NASA has

developed and demonstrated technology that may one day enable unrestricted

supersonic flight (faster than 750 miles per hour at sea level) over land and

improve supersonic flight performance and safety. When aircraft fly faster than the

speed of sound, a shock wave is formed, and a loud sonic boom is heard on the

ground. Although sonic booms last less than a second, they can be disruptive and

annoying to people and animals and can even cause damage to buildings.

Identifying and maturing technologies to reduce sonic booms is a major hurdle to

unrestricted supersonic flight. NASA and the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency conducted the Shaped Sonic Boom Experiment to test the theory

that altering the contours of a supersonic aircraft would shape the shock wave and

its accompanying sonic boom, greatly reducing how loud the sonic boom sounds

on the ground. Flight-test data gathered from supporting aircraft and ground sensors proved NASA’s theory and paved the way toward improving and extending

supersonic flight. 

In a related study, NASA completed testing on a new type of inlet (a component that regulates airflow into aircraft engines for speed and lift capability) for

supersonic propulsion systems. The Supersonic Parametric Inlet tests helped refine

the inlet’s performance through adjustments to the inlet geometry. Unlike typical

inlets for supersonic cruise that rely on a mix of external and internal air compression, this inlet accomplishes all of the supersonic compression outside the

engine. The tests showed that the inlet’s performance was comparable to typical

inlets with the added benefit of lower weight and the elimination of “unstart,” a

recurring safety problem in propulsion systems with mixed compression inlets.

NASA also designed and manufactured full-scale engine components using alternative composite materials that will be tested for improved material integrity. 

The air transportation system is integral to economic growth, national security, and enhanced quality of life, but negatively impacts the environment. NASA

has developed technologies that reduce the negative environmental impacts of

aviation operations by reducing aircraft carbon dioxide greenhouse emissions

through the development of clean-burning engines and new energy sources like

solar-electric fuel cells. NASA’s research into lighter weight vehicles and components will reduce fuel consumption. NASA also is pursuing innovative vehicle

concepts, such as blended-wing bodies and vaneless, counter-rotating turbomaAeronautics and Space Report of the President 

20
chinery that show potential for reducing noise and the emissions that contribute

to smog and global warming. Some of these include the following: 

• New tools that will enable researchers to identify and model aircraft noise

sources and find ways to reduce this noise to acceptable, communityfriendly levels. As part of this effort, NASA has explored low-noise

propulsion systems, advanced vehicle concepts, advanced materials, and

innovative noise-shielding techniques that keep objectionable noise within

airport boundaries. NASA partnerships with the aerospace industry and

other Government agencies are identifying the key technologies needed to

increase engine and airframe efficiency and to speed the transfer of environmentally friendly technologies to the marketplace and to local airports. 

• Validation of an initial set of noise-reduction concepts for airframes and

engines by testing components in wind tunnel and engine rig experiments.

The concept tests verified the potential for significant noise reduction with

minimal loss of performance. Researchers also performed acoustic and aerodynamic performance tests on a new swept- and tapered-wing concept in

aircraft approach flow conditions. Low-noise modifications to the high-lift

devices on the wings reduced noise while maintaining wing performance.

• Successful testing of modifications to aircraft fan and nozzle designs and validation of the noise reduction predicted for those concepts. The test results

validated noise-reduction projections that, combined with benefits from

other noise-reduction techniques, resulted in a 5-decibel reduction relative

to the baseline. The total suite of technologies, including those developed in

previous programs, is projected to reduce aircraft noise sufficiently to meet

NASA’s 10-year goal of reducing perceived noise from aircraft by one-half.

• Production of preliminary designs for full-annular combustors (those that

mix fuel with air for combustion) that exhibit the low nitrous-oxide emission characteristics that were demonstrated previously in combustor sector

tests. These full-annular combustor designs include considerations for commercial service and are compatible with existing and future engine families.

They also meet requirements for flight safety, component life, affordability,

and maintainability at levels appropriate for product viability.

Fiscal 

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• Design of a two-stage compressor rig with 50 percent higher stage loading

than the currently flying engine compressor. NASA also modified an existing facility to collect flow measurement data using state-of-the-art

instrumentation. Researchers completed fabrication of the compressor rig

hardware and began the assembly and instrumentation process.

NASA worked closely with other Government agencies and industry to

modernize equipment, software, and procedures for significant improvements in air

traffic management both in the air and on the ground. The Agency has developed

and tested new vehicle concepts and technologies to reduce aircraft weight,

improve aerodynamic performance, and increase speed. NASA has helped to maximize airport capacity in all types of weather, expand throughput at the Nation’s

small airports, effectively manage high-density traffic flows, and design aircraft

that can operate on short runways. As part of this effort to improve airport flow

and traffic management, NASA has developed technologies to enable high-bandwidth, highly reliable, secure networks with global connectivity, ensuring safe and

secure links between aircraft and the ground. Additionally, NASA’s new models

and simulations are helping researchers understand the human operator, improving safety and performance throughout the complex air transportation system. 

NASA developed, tested, and, in some cases, transferred to the FAA for

deployment advanced air transportation technologies decision-support tools.

These products will enable improvements in National Airspace System (NAS)

throughput, user flexibility, predictability, and overall system efficiency while

maintaining safety. The results were so promising that the Radio Technical

Commission for Aeronautics (a Federal advisory committee to the FAA on policy,

program, and regulatory decisions) selected NASA’s Surface Management System

and Multi-Center Traffic Management Advisor decision-support tools to become

part of the FAA Free Flight Phase 2 Program, a program to create modernized computer hardware and software tools to help air traffic controllers and airlines.

NASA successfully completed two versions of the Airspace Concept

Evaluation System simulation system designed to measure the effects of a new airspace concept on the National Airspace System. By modeling key features of a

concept (or competing concepts), the system explores the interactions between

participants and factors in the NAS and decides which new concept is best.

Development of the third version of the system is on schedule. The latest version

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

22
features a higher fidelity terminal model, supports international flights, and has

improved support for Advanced Airspace Concept modeling. In addition, NASA

employees completed site visits to Cleveland’s Air Route Traffic Control Center

and Northwest Airlines’ System Operations Control Center to collect field data

and awarded a contract to support development of a preliminary operational concept description. NASA also completed the development of the following air

traffic tools:

• Direct-To (D2)—Developed principally to help monitor and manage the

FAA’s Free Flight plan, it was provided to the FAA under its new organization.

• Airspace Concepts Evaluation System—The core of a new modeling toolbox under development by NASA, this provides a flexible NAS simulation

and modeling environment that can asses the impact of new NAS tools,

concepts, and architectures, including those that represent a significant

departure from the existing NAS operational paradigm.

The combined year 2015 potential economic benefit from various air traffic control tools developed by NASA will be $3.5 billion, per the FAA’s traffic

forecast. Under a more conservative estimate that assumes the air traffic levels are

constrained to levels that keep delays tolerable, the benefit would be $2.3 billion.

NASA developed prototypes of risk-analysis tools to integrate capabilities

for archiving, searching, visualizing, and investigating hazards. The Risk Tool

Suite for Advanced Design aids users in considering a wide range of risk types (e.g.,

hardware, software, programmatic, organizational). The suite helps designers

determine a number of optimal portfolios of project risks, costs, and mitigations,

which they can analyze and use to guide them in choosing the best technology

solutions. The Mishap and Anomaly Information System provides the capability

to evaluate historical mishap and anomaly data for patterns, trends, and associated

risks, then integrates this capability with the Risk Tool Suite to better use historical data to enhance early-phase design.

Through the fusion of accident investigation methodology with collaborative information-sharing technology, the Investigation Organizer tool was used for

multiple investigations, most recently by the CAIB. In addition, the National

Transportation Safety Board and other Federal agencies began evaluating this tool

for their use. An industry partnership initiated its commercialization. This project

was canceled.

Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

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NASA has developed many other safety- and security-related technologies

for aviation. Some of these include the following:

• Assessment of Vehicle Vulnerability decision-support tool including attack

scenarios, risk evaluation of scenarios including likelihood of a consequence, mapping of technologies to scenarios, risk ranking of preventive

and mitigating measures for FAR Part 121 (large passenger/cargo turbo jets)

and 135 (regional jets) aircraft, and methodology and approach for airspace

and airport vulnerability assessment.

• Safety Analysis for Distributed Systems, a tool used to improve automation

such as autopilots system design for aeronautics technology. This was successfully demonstrated by analyzing the autoland system of the Boeing 777.

• Several prototype disk and engine containment materials that, when implemented, will dramatically reduce fan blade component failures, which

currently account for about 15 percent of all fatal accidents resulting from

propulsion system malfunctions.

• Aircraft Condition Analysis and Management System prototype on

NASA’s Boeing 757 flying lab and on a Gulfstream G5 with successful

results in detecting and identifying a variety of faults and failures with no

false alarms. This makes flying safer and less expensive.

• Validation of improvements to the Lewis Ice ice-accretion computational

tool that is extensively used for design and certification of aircraft while

making the process more robust and efficient. Improvements include the

physical modeling of ice growth, expanded validation of thermal algorithms, new routines for multielement airfoil prediction analysis, and

expanded operational capability.

• Provision of improved system-wide risk assessment for flight operations

by merging existing Flight Operational Quality Assurance databases. The

databases contained different types of data that, when combined, provide

greatly increased analysis and incident reporting capabilities in plainlanguage descriptions.

• New risk-analysis techniques based on industry input of nearly 1,400 incident reports between 1998 and 2002. The new techniques helped identify

procedural errors and their outcomes and provided new methods for characterizing procedural errors and identifying appropriate intervention strategies.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

24
Fiscal Y ear 2004 Activities

25 • The first single, national system concept with interagency coordination for

protected area surveillance. This conceptually combined existing systems

into a single system providing easy coordination of the work and was the

basis for briefing members of the Interagency Homeland Air Security section of the Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization and

preparing for a multiagency review via the Homeland Air Security

Coordination Center Work Group.

NASA entered into an agreement with the FAA on a portfolio of technologies and associated performance metrics, which will allow operation of

uncrewed aerial vehicles in the national airspace at flight level 400 or 40,000 feet

(above where most planes fly). 

NASA took a leadership role in the Joint Planning and Development

Office (JPDO), an organization established in 2004. The office includes NASA;

the Departments of Transportation, Commerce, Defense, and Homeland Security

(DHS); the FAA; the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and other public

and private-sector experts. JPDO began to formulate a “National Plan” to transform the Nation’s air transportation system to meet the needs of the year 2025

while providing substantial near-term benefits. The plan is a roadmap for the

Next-Generation Air Transportation System. It has six overarching goals: 1) promote economic growth and create jobs; 2) expand system flexibility and deliver

capacity to meet future demands; 3) tailor services to customer needs; 4) ensure

national defense readiness; 5) promote aviation safety and environmental stewardship; and 6) retain and enhance U.S. leadership and economic competitiveness

in global aviation.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

26
DEPARTMENT OF

DEFENSE

DOD

Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

27

During FY 2004, the Department of Defense (DOD) engaged in a wide variety of aerospace activities. These activities focused on continuing space-based

missile-warning systems, preparing for the next-generation Global Positioning

System (GPS) constellation, further developing new military communication systems, and partnering with NASA and the Department of Commerce (DOC) on

the new National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System

(NPOESS). The Air Force also had continued success with the Evolved

Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program while preparing to retire both the

Atlas and Titan legacy launch vehicles. 

The Defense Support Program launched its 22nd satellite on the last Air Force

Titan IV in February 2004, continuing over 30 years of space-based missile warning.

The first advanced Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) payload, the Highly

Elliptical Orbit-1, was delivered to its host satellite for integration. The SBIRS

Mission Control Station stood up its operational initial SBIRS missile defense capability providing critical warning data to the Ballistic Missile Defense System.

The GPS Joint Program Office (JPO) launched satellites IIR-10 (December

2003), IIR-11 (March 2004), and IIR-12 (June 2004). Contract options with

Boeing were exercised to procure IIF satellites 4–6 and long-lead parts for IIF satellites 7–9. Per the direction of the Under Secretary of the Air Force, the

Modernized User Equipment (MUE) acquisition strategy to procure M-Codecapable user equipment was modified to include the course acquisition signal and

the precise military signal. This was done to maximize MUE utility during the

transition period between the launch of the first M-Code-capable satellite and the
achievement of a full operational capability. A GPS/Galileo Agreement was

signed in June 2004 that will provide a mechanism for future cooperation on issues

like compatibility between the two systems and will ensure protection for the MCode signal. Consultations also were conducted with Japan and Russia to

maximize cooperation and increase support for GPS. 

The operational DOD Military Satellite Communications constellations—

Defense Satellite Communications System, Global Broadcast Service, and

MILSTAR—continued to support U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan, Iraq,

and throughout the world. The DOD completed the Transformational

Communications Study, producing the first version of the Transformational

Communications Architecture (TCA), a Governmentwide, joint communications concept aimed at providing dynamic, end-to-end accessibility and coverage

for global communications requirements across the civil, Federal, and intelligence

communities. Programs forming the foundation of the TCA include the Wideband

Gapfiller Satellite system, the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellites, the

Mobile User Objective System, and the Transformational Satellite Communications

constellation, all of which passed crucial development milestones during 2004. 

The NPOESS—a tri-agency program involving DOD, DOC, and NASA

that converges DOD’s polar-orbiting weather satellite programs with those of

DOC’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—continued

to progress. In FY 2004, NPOESS, in partnership with NASA, established a fiberoptic connection with the Norwegian island of Svalbard to be used as the mission

data downlink site for the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP). 

The Air Force achieved success with several legacy launch vehicle systems

in FY 2004. Titan IVB had one successful launch in 2004 with launch vehicle B39

launching the DSP-22 satellite on February 14, 2004. Delta II successfully

launched three GPS IIR satellites in orbit during December, March, and June

2004. Atlas IIAS launched on August 31, 2004, placing an NROL satellite in

orbit. Closeout activities are nearing completion for the Atlas heritage launch

vehicle program in FY 2005, with the final Atlas III launch scheduled for February

2005. Titan closeout activities begin in earnest following the final two launches of

Launch Vehicles B26 and B30, scheduled for the first half of 2005. Titan closeout

will end 50 years of Titan launch operations serving the national space interests of

the United States.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

28
For the newest Air Force launch vehicles, the major FY 2004 accomplishment for the EELV program was preparation for the Delta IV Heavy Lift Vehicle

Demonstration launch. This launch will provide a wealth of engineering data and

accomplish significant test objectives, such as activating and launching from the

heavy version of the Delta IV launch pad, flying three common booster cores as a

single vehicle, separating the two strap-on common booster cores from the center

booster core, flying the first 5-meter-diameter composite payload fairing and separating it from the vehicle, and flying the first 5-meter-diameter cryogenic upper

stage through a long-duration, three-burn profile of the RL10B-2 engine. In addition, the Air Force is in the process of revising the acquisition approach for EELV

to adjust for decreased commercial launch demand.

Fiscal Y ear 2004 Activities

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30Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
FEDERAL AVIATION

ADMINISTRATION

FAA

Fiscal 

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31

Every day, the aviation community faces challenges that range from ensuring the health and safety of passengers and crew to protecting the environment,

increasing capacity and efficiency, and creating an aviation system that is performance based and human centered. As the Federal Aviation Administration’s

(FAA) approximately 38,000 controllers and maintenance specialists work around

the clock to keep the system operating safely, they retain the confidence that FAA

researchers are working in the background to develop next-generation technologies and procedures that will help them keep the system safe and efficient. FAA

researchers had another successful year in FY 2004, working to advance scientific

knowledge to ensure the safety of the flying public and to enhance capacity in the

national aviation system. 

The FAA’s Aircraft Certification Job Aid, a computerized decision-support

tool, helps aircraft certification personnel ensure aircraft flight deck technologies

are user friendly and safe. With FAA funding, Research Integrations, Inc., is developing the job aid that focuses on air transport category aircraft. 

In 2004, researchers added an advanced search function to allow keyword

searches of all Part 25 regulatory and guidance information, as well as all summaries of human factors information addressing the design of flight deck displays,

controls, and systems. This greatly enhanced the speed with which certification

personnel can access the extensive human factors information found in this decision-support tool. Researchers also reviewed FAA regulatory information and

other human factors literature for human factors systems-related information to

update the databases. They developed a hierarchy of human factors considerations
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

32 pertinent to the design and certification of flight deck systems and expanded the

three databases to address systems-related human factors.

In 2004, the FAA issued Advisory Circular 120-76A to create a streamlined

field approval process for electronic flight bags (EFBs). Although the advisory circular addressed human factors considerations, it did not specify a procedure for

conducting a human factors evaluation. To aid FAA aircraft certification specialists in conducting structured and comprehensive EFB usability evaluations in the

field, aviation human factors experts evaluated vendor-supplied flight bags.

Researchers discovered that the language used in the assessment tools is especially

important for evaluating EFB usability. The tools need to be understood by many

types of users who may or may not have a human factors background. Results from

several evaluations yielded tools and procedures that show great promise for evaluating EFBs. Some manufacturers tested these tools and began to consider how to

fit them into existing design and development processes. 

The Human Factors Workbench provides FAA employees, system developers, those working in human factors research, and other associated individuals easy

access to human factors information that supports aviation-related activities. It

presents a compendium of essential information in an easily accessible framework

on the Internet. This information is categorized under four human factors components: 1) process descriptions; 2) more than 100 human factors tools; 3) Human

Factors Awareness Course/Tool; and 4) more than 1,200 publications, studies, and

other papers with embedded search tools. To access the Human Factors

Workbench online, please visit http://www.hf.faa.gov/Portal/default.aspx.

The FAA currently has no means to measure quantitatively what improvement in air traffic controller visibility can be gained by changing the tower height

and location on the airport surface. Because tower height and location strongly

affect construction costs as well as airport safety, it is critical that the FAA develop

a reliable means to determine optimal tower location prior to construction.

In FY 2004, a team of researchers from the FAA, the U.S. Army Research

Laboratory, and the University of Nevada—Reno conducted tests to quantify

what improvements could be gained by increasing the height of the air traffic

control tower at Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix, AZ, from 110 feet to 130 or

150 feet. This and other investigations of tower siting procedures revealed that

additional visibility analyses and criteria, such as those for observer line of sight
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33 and object obscuration, could enhance the objectivity of tower construction decisions. Many factors determine tower height and location, and visibility analyses

provide additional quantitative data to assist in acquisition and construction decisions. Research results will be used in future tower construction projects,

enhancing safety and protecting the Nation’s airport investments. 

Last year, with the assistance of several industry partners, the FAA developed and tested an onboard inert gas generation system with air separation

modules that use aircraft bleed air to generate nitrogen-enriched air at varying flow

and purity (oxygen concentration). In FY 2004, during a commercial transport airplane flight cycle, researchers performed a series of ground and flight tests designed

to prove the effectiveness of a simplified inerting concept. They mounted the

FAA-developed system in the cargo bay of an Airbus 320 that the manufacturer

operates specifically for R&D testing and inerted the center-wing fuel tank. Then

they used special instruments to analyze the system performance and its related

inerting capability. The FAA’s onboard oxygen analysis system continuously measured the oxygen concentration in the fuel tank during the test flights. The results

of the tests proved the validity of the simplified inerting system concept.

The extreme damage tolerance and high strength-to-weight ratio of composites motivate designers to expand the role of glass and graphite fiber reinforced

composites in aircraft structures, most notably in principal structural elements.

The use of these composites necessitates the development of nondestructive

inspection methods designed for these new composite structures. FAA researchers

at the Airworthiness Assurance Nondestructive Inspection Validation Center,

located at Sandia National Laboratory, began developing better ways to inspect

composite structures. In FY 2004, researchers completed an experiment assessing

the performance of both conventional and advanced nondestructive inspection

techniques to detect various flaws within typical aircraft honeycomb panels.

Researchers inspected a series of composite honeycomb specimens with statistically relevant flaw profiles using both tap test equipment and more sophisticated

techniques introduced to automate and improve composite nondestructive inspection. (Tap testing uses an audible change in acoustic response to locate flaws,

voids, disbonds, and delaminations in adhesively bonded composite aircraft parts.)

The researchers then took these specimens to a number of airline maintenance

shops and third-party repair facilities for inspection by actual inspectors. From the
collected data, the researchers established a baseline of current inspection techniques, determined a wide array of nondestructive inspection methods, and

identified limitations and optimum applications for specific inspection methods.

The University of Dayton Research Institute, funded by the FAA, completed the collection and analysis of flight loads data from 11,066 flights of Boeing

747-400 airplanes operated in commercial service overseas. The data, consisting of

95,883 flight hours, included typical inservice flight and ground loads data—such

as accelerations, air and ground speeds, altitudes, flight duration and distance,

gross weights, speed brake and spoiler cycles, thrust reverser usage, and gust velocities. The 747-400 is the first heavy wide-body model added to the FAA’s

operational loads monitoring research program. The International Aviation

Rulemaking Advisory Committee has used these results extensively in their efforts

to harmonize the rulemaking process for Airbus’s new 380 airplanes. This research

also will be used to provide the technical data to substantiate selected loads-related

Federal Aviation Regulations. 

The En Route Descent Advisor (EDA) is an advanced decision-support tool

intended to help en route controllers to handle traffic operating within transition

airspace. EDA builds on NASA’s Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS).

In FY 2004, the FAA and NASA conducted a full evaluation of the prototype

EDA system. FAA operational air traffic control personnel participated in the

evaluation, providing system design reviews and recommendations periodically

during the year. This successful evaluation marked the completion of a major

development milestone. 

The runway status light (RWSL) system is an array of red lights that can be

deployed at taxiway entrances to warn pilots and vehicle operators that a runway is

unsafe to enter. During the year, the FAA made progress in assembling an operational,

evaluation-ready RWSL system at Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport. Working

closely with Lincoln Laboratory and Sensis Corporation, the FAA developed key

system improvements to address technical issues identified during initial field testing,

completed construction and installation of Siemens’ airfield lighting equipment for

the RWSL system, and conducted a successful field retest at the airport.

The Weather Support to Decision Making (WSDM) system, funded by the

FAA, provides deicing decision-makers and airport plowing crews with up-to-theminute information on potentially hazardous freezing precipitation. It uses data

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

34
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Y ear 2004 Activities

35 from Doppler radars, surface weather stations, and snow gauges located near the

airport to measure accurately the amount of water in the snowfall. In FY 2004,

researchers increased the 2-hour WSDM precipitation forecast to 4 hours, allowing users longer lead times for more effective strategic decisions and enhancing

efficiency as well as safety. 

The FAA upgraded the Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System

(EDMS) to permit assessment of the quantity of ground emissions that can be preventable by specific actions. EDMS calculates emissions from airport sources and

models the air quality at an airport. The EDMS enhancements enable computation of on-road and off-road vehicle emission factors. The new version also

includes more accurate techniques for computing total hydrocarbon and volatile

organic hydrocarbon emissions. These enhancements supported airport applications for FAA program funding and emissions-reduction credits from the EPA. 

In collaboration with NASA, the FAA initiated a long-term, strategic

effort to develop analytical tools to address the relationships between noise and

emissions, and between different types of emissions. Current analytical tools focus

on noise or emissions; however, noise and emissions are interdependent phenomena. In FY 2004, at the request of the FAA, the Transportation Research Board of

the National Research Council completed a study to assess the proposed aviation

environmental design tool (AEDT) that will allow integrated assessment of noise

and emissions impact at the local and global levels. The TRB assembled a committee to analyze the AEDT requirements and conducted a workshop in early

2004. The FAA and NASA used the comments from the workshop to refine the

conceptual foundation of AEDT and formulate a comprehensive work plan.

The FAA Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space

Transportation (AST) licenses and regulates U.S. commercial space launch and

reentry activities; ensures public health and safety, as well as the safety of property;

and protects national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

This FAA office also licenses the operation of non-Federal launch and reentry sites

and encourages, facilitates, and promotes U.S. commercial space launches and

reentries by the private sector. 

During FY 2004, the FAA issued the world’s first suborbital reusable launch

vehicle mission license to Scaled Composites for SpaceShipOne. It also granted a

second such launch license to XCOR Aerospace. In addition, it issued its fifth
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

FAA launch site operator license to East Kern Airport District for suborbital

launches at Mojave Airport in California, making it the first inland licensed

launch site. 

There were 13 commercial space launches in FY 2004, including 4 suborbital launches of SpaceShipOne, the first privately built crewed spacecraft to

travel into space. The FAA awarded the first-ever commercial astronaut wings to

pilot Mike Melvill of Scaled Composites on June 21, 2004, after SpaceShipOne

successfully reached an altitude of just over 100 kilometers (62 miles). 

Orbital space launches for FY 2004 included three launches of Atlas II vehicles and two launches of Atlas III vehicles provided by International Launch

Services; three launches by Sea Launch, a multinational company that provides

the Zenit 3SL launch vehicle; and one launch of a Taurus XL, built by Orbital

Sciences Corporation. The Atlas II series of vehicles finished service in FY 2004

with a perfect record of 63 straight successful launches. Lockheed Martin manufactures Atlas vehicles in Colorado. 

The Office of Commercial Space Transportation released a number of important regulatory documents during FY 2004, including Draft Guidelines for Licensed

Suborbital RLV Operations with Flight Crew, Commercial RLV Operations and

Maintenance Preliminary Guidelines, Draft FAA Guidelines on Probability of Failure

Analysis for New Expendable Launch Vehicles, and an FAA definition of a Suborbital

Rocket Launch that was published in the Federal Register.

In addition, the FAA hosted workshops for the launch industry on launch

site applications and on refinements to maximum probable loss methodology. The

National Transportation Safety Board, Air Force, and FAA signed an agreement

regarding investigations of space launch accidents from Federal ranges. The FAA

established an agreement with the 30th Space Wing for Launch Safety Support at

Vandenberg Air Force Base and signed a memorandum of understanding with

SpaceTec promoting aerospace technology education. 

The FAA also created three new technical training courses on launch trajectory analysis, system safety and risk assessment, and interpretation of lightning

launch weather rules. Three research initiatives commenced in FY 2004: creation

of a simplified debris survivability analysis, verification methods for critical reusable

launch vehicle (RLV) structures, and identification of communications frequencies

that are less susceptible to radio frequency blackout during RLV reentry. 

36
Fiscal Y ear 2004 Activities

37 The FAA released several informative research reports of interest to the

space industry, the U.S. Government, and the public, including The Economic

Impact of Commercial Space Transportation on the U.S. Economy: 2002 Results and

Outlook for 2010; the 2004 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and

Concepts: Vehicles, Technologies, and Spaceports report; a summary of AST R&D

accomplishments; and the 2004 Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts. The

forecasts, prepared by the FAA and its Commercial Space Transportation

Advisory Committee, projected an average worldwide demand of 18.3 launches

per year to geosynchronous orbits and 5.1 launches per year to nongeosynchronous

orbits between 2004 and 2013. 

Information about the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, reports,

and other documents can be found at http://ast.faa.gov. For additional information

about the FAA’s R&D program, please see http://research.faa.gov.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

38
DEPARTMENT OF

COMMERCE

DOC

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39

In FY 2004, the Department of Commerce (DOC) engaged in a wide variety of activities that furthered U.S. interests in aeronautics and space, including

national policy development, satellite operations, technology development, international cooperation, and trade promotion.

At the departmental level, DOC continued its active role on the National

Security Council’s Space Policy Coordinating Committee (Space PCC), with direct

participation from the Deputy Secretary of Commerce and staff from the National

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the International Trade

Administration (ITA), the Office of Space Commercialization (OSC), and the

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Among

the Space PCC’s accomplishments was the release of the President’s Vision for Space

Exploration in January 2004 and the development of new national policies on spacebased positioning, navigation, and timing and space transportation in early FY 2005.

During the development of these policies, ITA arranged briefings to U.S. industry to

ensure commercial interests were adequately addressed.

In April 2004, NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher convened

with ministers from over 35 countries for the second Earth Observation Summit in

Tokyo, Japan. During the summit, the ministers endorsed the framework of a 10-

year implementation plan for a Global Earth Observation System of Systems

(GEOSS). The ad hoc intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations,

cochaired by the NOAA Administrator and three other international leaders, subsequently developed the plan for final presentation and endorsement at the third

Earth Observation Summit in February 2005. The plan details the establishment

of an international, comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation
40 system of systems centered around nine societal benefit areas, including disaster

mitigation, human health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems management, agriculture, and biodiversity.

In June 2004, NOAA cosponsored the U.S.-India Conference on Space

Science, Applications, and Commerce in Bangalore, India, along with NASA, the

State Department, and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The conference was partly an outcome of the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership

with India initiative announced by President Bush in January 2004. NOAA’s

efforts and the conference as a whole represented a major step toward the

President’s vision of greater cooperation between the United States and India.

In July 2004, DOC sponsored the U.S. Pavilion at the Farnborough

International Air Show. Deputy Secretary Kassinger presided over its official opening

and met with several exhibitors, senior industry executives, and foreign government

officials. ITA also sponsored an Aerospace Products Literature Center at the air show.

The event provided hundreds of trade leads for participating companies.

Also at the departmental level, DOC continued to play a key role on the

Interagency GPS Executive Board (IGEB), representing the interests of commercial, scientific, and governmental users of GPS technology during meetings of the

IGEB and its associated management bodies. DOC continued to host the offices

and meetings of the IGEB, providing both personnel and resources. DOC also continued to serve on the U.S. delegation that negotiated with the European

Community toward cooperation between GPS and Galileo, Europe’s future satellite navigation system. After several years of talks, the United States and Europe

signed a landmark accord on this matter in June 2004, paving the way for GPSGalileo interoperability and fair competition among all commercial providers of

satellite navigation goods and services. OSC staff participated in bilateral consultations with Brazil to discuss potential GPS cooperation and helped organize a

local workshop on GPS applications that took place at the American Chamber of

Commerce in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in September 2004.

DOC participated in the review of Administration policies on aeronautical

research and development through the National Science and Technology

Council’s Aeronautics Science and Technology Subcommittee. ITA staff participated in subcommittee assessments of Federal science and technology priorities,

infrastructure, policies, and related activities across relevant Federal agencies.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

41 DOC participated in an interagency initiative to develop an integrated plan

for the Next-Generation Air Transportation System. ITA contributed to the formation of the interagency JPDO overseeing this initiative, as well as various

technical working groups. NOAA led the interagency team developing a national

aviation weather strategy. ITA’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation and

Machinery participated in a joint Government-industry initiative to identify aerospace workforce and education concerns and to create a coordinated

Government-industry workforce action plan. ITA also contributed to the

Administration’s review of the U.S. export control regime.

DOC continued to represent commercial remote sensing interests within

the Remote Sensing Interagency Working Group (RSIWG). RSIWG is charged

with coordinating policy for the export of remote sensing satellite systems and

negotiating government-to-government agreements covering the safeguarding of

those systems’ technology. During FY 2004, the group held consultations with several countries on remote sensing satellite cooperation, including Turkey, Canada,

United Arab Emirates, and France.

Within NOAA, space-related activities occurred across the entire organization. During the first quarter of FY 2004, NOAA continued to chair both the

international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and the

Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS). In November 2003, NOAA hosted

the 17th CEOS Plenary in Colorado Springs, CO, where over 100 participants,

representing 19 CEOS member space agencies and 17 associated organizations,

met to address a range of satellite coordination issues including data utilization and

capacity building. NOAA also led the implementation of CEOS’s work in

response to the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation from the World Summit on

Sustainable Development through the planning of a capacity-building workshop

focused on the needs of satellite data users in Africa. As chair of IGOS, NOAA

took the lead in bringing together the major in situ and space-based systems to

coordinate the identification of user requirements for coastal areas and facilitated

the creation of a coastal plan to be implemented in FY 2005.

During FY 2004, NOAA continued its leadership role in the International

Charter for Space and Major Disasters, serving as both the Executive Secretariat

and a rotating Emergency On-Call Officer. The International Charter aims at pro-
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

viding a unified system of space data acquisition and delivery to those affected by

natural or humanmade disasters.

NOAA’s two Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites

(GOES), GOES-East and GOES-West, continued to monitor the Western

Hemisphere for severe weather “triggers” in the atmosphere and to provide the

kind of continuous data necessary for intensive analysis during hurricanes, tropical storms and depressions, tornadoes, floods, and other severe weather

conditions. In addition to the two operational satellites, NOAA positioned a

spare satellite, GOES-11, over the center of the United States to replace one of

the operational satellites if necessary. During the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season,

the GOES satellites provided a continuous flow of imagery that contributed significantly to the development of storm forecasts. These forecasts helped minimize

loss of life in the United States as the country was impacted by three tropical

storms and six hurricanes, including Hurricanes Charley, Ivan, and Jeanne.

NOAA also continued to provide space weather monitoring and forecasts to protect spacecraft and power grids.

Under an agreement with the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA),

NOAA continued to support GOES operations in the Western Pacific. Since

April 2003, GOES-9 satellite imagery has been utilized by Japan to replace the

data formerly received from their aging GMS-5 satellite. GOES-9 support ensures

the continuity of geostationary satellite services to support severe weather forecasting for Japan, U.S. assets and territories in the Western Pacific, and other

regional allies. JMA continued to fund related GOES-9 operations costs.

NOAA’s Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) continued to provide an uninterrupted flow of global environmental information in

support of weather, oceanic, and space environmental modeling, tropical storm

analysis and forecasting, local weather forecasting, ecosystem monitoring, and climate monitoring.

The NPOESS program made significant progress toward the development

of the next generation of polar-orbiting environmental satellites. The program successfully developed a new high-speed data interface chip, the first of its kind for

spaceborne application, that will allow NPOESS to rapidly transmit large volumes

of data. NOAA and NASA made significant progress on the NPP, a test and proofof-concept satellite that will validate performance of three major NPOESS

42
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Y ear 2004 Activities

43 instruments, the complete command and control system, and the data processing/distribution system. The Navy successfully demonstrated wind speed and

direction retrievals from the Coriolis/WindSat sensor launched in 2003 as a risk

mitigator for NPOESS. The year 2004 also saw the successful completion of the

Build 1.3 Ground System software, NPP Compatibility Test, operational test with

the Svalbard communications station, and the delivery of a number of sensor engineering development units.

In September 2004, NOAA and Lockheed Martin signed a contract modification to rebuild and launch the NOAA-N Prime satellite by December 2007.

The decision to rebuild NOAA-N Prime substantially reduced the risk of a coverage gap in the polar satellite system prior to the launch of the first NPOESS

satellite into an afternoon orbit.

NOAA and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of

Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) supported the exchange and integration

of instruments for the upcoming U.S. POES and the EUMETSAT Metop polar

satellite missions, continuing a 20-year tradition of cooperation in this area. The

exchange of instruments and satellite instrument data will enable each partner to

improve weather forecasts and mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

NOAA continued to participate in the exchange of geostationary and

polar-orbiting satellite data between the United States and India under the auspices of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Scientific Cooperation in

the Areas of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences involving NOAA, NASA, and

India’s Department of Space and Department of Science and Technology.

During FY 2004, NOAA developed new satellite products to enhance the

Nation’s ability to predict weather, monitor climate change, observe ocean conditions, and detect natural hazards. NOAA enhanced the accuracy and coverage of

a product that measures rainfall based on satellite imagery. NOAA completed

work on a product to analyze the size and temperature of wildfires seen by satellites

and increased the coverage of this product to include South America, where thousands of wildfires are visible every day. NOAA also developed a product that will

greatly increase the detection of ice drifts, a significant hazard to marine commerce

and transportation. NOAA enhanced weather forecast models by introducing new

satellite-based wind measurements and made additional weather analysis products

available based on high-frequency observations from weather satellites. 
NOAA experienced record levels of public demand for its satellite imagery

in 2004 as four hurricanes struck the State of Florida. NOAA’s Web servers logged

a record number of hits and distributed unprecedented amounts of data to the

public. On September 15, 2004, as Hurricane Ivan was about to make landfall on

the U.S. Gulf Coast, one NOAA site served a 24-hour total of 2.52 terabytes of

data and reported a weekly access count of 230 million users.

The need to monitor fire and smoke activity across national borders led

NOAA to enter into a new phase of development and prototype operations. The

American Fellows Program awarded two fellowships to distinguished Mexican

Weather Service personnel who worked with NOAA satellite analysts in detecting wildfires and smoke utilizing weather satellite data over Mexico. The ability to

detect wildfires in Mexico and Central America is critical for tracking the large

plumes of smoke that emanate from the region during the spring and that can drift

to the United States causing air quality and health problems.

During FY 2004, NOAA’s Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking

(SARSAT) program contributed to the rescue of 248 mariners, aviators, and landbased users by relaying distress signals from emergency beacons to search and

rescue services via satellite. NOAA participated in a U.S./United Nations (U.N.)

workshop on satellite search and rescue for Latin America and Caribbean nations,

part of the U.N.’s efforts to bring space technology to developing countries.

NOAA began providing the Ship Security Alerting System (SSAS), a new capability that helps protect mariners from terrorism and piracy by providing a discrete

means to transmit security alerts to a dedicated response center via the SARSAT

system. NOAA was instrumental in the development of the technical standard for

SSAS beacons. During 2004, NOAA recorded the first rescue as a result of the

personal locator beacons introduced in 2003. NOAA’s efforts to expand the

SARSAT user base included an effort to revise international standards for emergency beacons so that new technology could be introduced to lower their cost.

Supporting the above operations, NOAA provided a suite of services

including data rescue, information technology, and scientific data stewardship.

Under data rescue, for instance, the University of Wisconsin completed the transfer of 120 terabytes of GOES satellite data from over 10,000 tapes to modern

media, which are to be transferred to the NOAA archives. NOAA also completed

the overall design of top-level architecture for its Comprehensive Large-Array

44Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

45 Data Stewardship System, including requirements, interface control, concept of

operations, and management plans and procedures.

FY 2004 was successful for the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation,

in which NOAA, NASA, the Navy, and the Air Force cooperated to accelerate

the use of satellite observations in numerical weather and climate prediction. New

models of the surface properties of ice and snow enabled observations from satellite microwave sensors to be applied to improve weather prediction at high

latitudes. The program demonstrated additional forecasting gains for the polar

regions by assimilating winds inferred from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging

Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments and improved weather-prediction capability over the entire globe through optimal use of data from NASA’s Atmospheric

Infrared Sounder (AIRS). 

NOAA and NASA made progress toward the creation of an improved

ozone vertical profile data set from the Solar Backscatter UltraViolet instruments

(SBUV and SBUV/2), developing a new retrieval algorithm with a consistent

intercalibration for the SBUV(/2) instruments flown on NIMBUS-7, NOAA-9,

NOAA-11, and NOAA-16. The 2004 ozone climatology derived from SBUV

revealed that the Antarctic ozone hole was of average size and depth relative to

the previous 10 years, as expected.

NOAA implemented improvements to a GOES multispectral image product for aircraft icing detection that resulted in higher detection rates. The product

also included information on cloud top heights, allowing estimation of the maximum height of icing conditions. The GOES icing product algorithm was

transferred to the Air Force for testing in its Mark-IVB satellite processing system.

NOAA implemented a new capability to model winds in the polar regions using

observations from the Terra and Aqua satellites into its satellite-based winds processing suite. NOAA developed an integrated GOES sounder product system that

will provide the National Weather Service with full-resolution products for use in

numerical weather prediction and the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing

System, as required by forecasters in the field. This new integrated system will

replace the current operational systems.

NOAA began to study global climate change using the long-time series of

retrospective satellite data now available. Using historic data from the Microwave

Sounding Unit (MSU) and the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

(AVHRR), NOAA’s preliminary studies revealed a modest long-term increase in

Earth’s atmospheric temperature of 0.17°C per decade.

NOAA began producing a weekly green vegetation fraction product from

AVHRR observations. Satellite-derived surface products such as snow cover, seasurface temperature, surface albedo, and green vegetation fraction have proved to

be very important to accurate weather predictions of near-surface temperature

and humidity.

In FY 2004, for the first time in its over 25-year history, the World Magnetic

Model (WMM) was both developed and distributed by NOAA. The WMM is the

standard navigation magnetic field model used by NOAA, FAA, DOD, the U.K.

Department of Defence, NATO, and the World Meteorological Organisation. In

developing the WMM, NOAA incorporated data from the Danish Ørsted and

German Champ magnetic satellites, as well as magnetic observatory data from

over 200 stations in more than 80 countries, to create an accurate model of Earth’s

main magnetic field and its current rate of change.

In the area of GPS data services, NOAA updated the systems that enable

the Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) West parallel processing

site in Boulder, CO, to collect and deliver Coast Guard, FAA, and CORS

National Internet data. The upgrades expedited CORS data access for NOAA’s

Forecast Systems Laboratory in Boulder as well as NOAA’s Space Environment

Center, which uses the data to compute the total electron content for the conterminous United States.

Outside NOAA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology

(NIST) was highly active in FY 2004, performing a broad range of aeronautics and

space-related measurements, technology development, and industry support.

NIST supported NASA’s MESSENGER mission to Mercury by helping calibrate a

gamma-ray detector intended to map that planet’s gamma-ray emission spectra.

Analysis of the data will help determine the composition of Mercury’s crust and

shed light on the evolution of that planet and the solar system. Calibration of the

detector could not be performed using conventional methods, so the project scientists turned to the unique beam facilities of the NIST Center for Neutron

Research. The work performed will allow MESSENGER to yield a relatively accurate compositional map of Mercury and will likely set a new standard for

spaceborne gamma-ray spectrometers.

46
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Y ear 2004 Activities

47 NIST continued to provide computational support to NASA to aid in the

interpretation of x-ray data obtained from the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous

(NEAR) Shoemaker spacecraft, which landed on an asteroid in 2001. Successful

code modifications achieved on this project were also applied to other space missions involving x-ray spectrometer data, including Japan’s Hayabusa, NASA’s

MESSENGER, and Europe’s and Japan’s BepiColumbo.

With NASA funding, NIST continued to conduct ground-based experiments to investigate the development of new spaceborne atomic clocks based on

optical rather than microwave transitions. Using optical transitions could potentially improve atomic clock performance by a thousandfold while dramatically

reducing size, weight, and power consumption. Highly accurate clocks in space

would be used to study gravitational waves and relativity, enhance space-based

astronomical observations, and improve navigation and communication. With

funding from DOD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),

NIST demonstrated a prototype chip-scale atomic clock using all optical excitation and detection, with the potential for atomically precise timekeeping (10-11

frequency stability at 1 hour) in a small package (1 cubic centimeter total) with

minimal power consumption (30 mW, compared to dozens of watts for “standard”

atomic clocks). While the chip-scale atomic clock is not intended to be as accurate or stable as larger optical frequency standards, its exceptionally small size and

low power consumption make it potentially ideal for many space applications

involving navigation and communications.

NIST worked with NASA to understand and characterize surface barrier

detectors to be used in the Space Environment Monitor on the GOES-P satellite.

NIST shared its expertise in the performance characteristics, failure modes, and

safe handling procedures for these detectors, and tested the performance of a small

number of sample detectors in a specialized testing apparatus. As a result of this

interaction, NASA was able to generate purchase specifications and testing protocols ensuring that they would receive functional and robust detectors for use on

the GOES-P weather satellite.

With NASA funding, NIST helped collaborators at the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics develop and deploy a new cryogenic

transition-edge-sensor microcalorimeter x-ray detector with characteristics that

are significantly improved over previous such instruments. NIST detector arrays
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

demonstrated energy resolving power (the key performance characteristic) that

doubled the previous world record. NIST continued developing a superconducting multiplexer system for readout that would be used both for these x-ray

detectors and for a separate millimeter and submillimeter imaging effort. NIST

successfully demonstrated multiplexing of signals from a small x-ray

microcalorimeter array with no loss of sensor performance. NIST also demonstrated a new higher performance multiplexer scheme that should enable the

construction of much larger imaging arrays. The new instrument was deployed at

the NIST Electron Beam Ion Trap facility, one of the few places in the world capable of simulating hot astrophysical plasma emission under well-controlled

conditions. The NIST-Harvard team initiated spectroscopic studies that will guide

the interpretation of data from NASA’s CXO and will pave the way for the future

launch of Constellation-X. 

NIST received funding from NASA to work on new concepts to achieve

electrical cooling of cryogenic detectors. Electrical cooling can greatly simplify

spacecraft design by replacing large, heavy mechanical coolers with simpler, lower

weight electronic systems. Using standard microelectronic processes, NIST fabricated large-area coolers that demonstrated cooling from 260 mK to 115 mK with

cooling power 100 to 1,000 times greater than previous demonstrations. NIST also

created devices combining both x-ray microcalorimeters and electrical refrigerators on a single chip. These achievements were highlighted on the covers of

Physics Today and Applied Physics Letters.

NIST collaborated with NASA in the measurement of laboratory farinfrared and infrared collision-induced absorption spectra of water vapor. The

spectra provided critical data for the modeling of the radiative balance and transmittance of the atmosphere to aid the interpretation of satellite measurements of

atmospheric and surface properties, such as sea-surface temperature, by the EOS

and other space, atmospheric, and ground-based sensors.

NIST continued work with NASA, NOAA, and DOD to address problems

of calibration and validation of microwave radiometers used for remote sensing. In

FY 2004, measurement-based methods were developed to evaluate two significant

components of the uncertainty in microwave remote sensing radiometry: uncertainties due to detector nonlinearity and to calibration target proximity. In

addition, NIST continued work on an online compilation of standard terminology

48
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Y ear 2004 Activities

49 and recommended measurement practices for microwave remote sensing, particularly for calibration and validation of microwave radiometers.

NIST performed a detailed optical characterization of the Marine Optical

Buoy (MOBY), stationed off the coast of Hawaii, to improve the accuracy of satellite ocean-color measurements used in the estimation of ocean carbon levels.

NIST developed a novel laser instrument to demonstrate that stray light within

the MOBY instrumentation was causing data discrepancies. Applying a correction

algorithm to remove the stray light effects reduced satellite measurements of global

chlorophyll-a concentrations and associated ocean carbon levels by 15 to 20 percent, leading to a 6-percent total adjustment in the data.

NIST developed a novel optical radiation standard based on light-emitting

diodes (LEDs) for the characterization and calibration of remote sensing instruments used by NASA and NOAA. An integrating sphere instrumented with LEDs

allowed the laboratory reproduction of the color of natural optical radiation

sources such as the ocean under solar illumination, providing a new tool to characterize space, ground, and ocean sensors prior to deployment. The light source

was developed as an alternative to expensive laser-based systems.

NIST worked with NASA to develop new methods to measure aspheric

optics for space astronomy. This collaboration built on prior joint developments by

NIST and NASA for calibration of reference optical flats.

NIST’s Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility (SURF III) served as a

source of soft x rays and vacuum ultraviolet light to calibrate mirrors, detectors,

and spectrometers used in NASA spacecraft that study solar flares and astronomical bodies, such as the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, part of NASA’s

Solar Dynamics Observatory mission. SURF III also continued to provide the calibration standard for experimental determination of atomic radiation intensities

required for interpretation of HST data.

NIST developed methods to improve the calibration of the European Space

Agency’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the HST, thereby

increasing the scientific value of STIS archival data. This involved wavelength

calibration of the platinum/chromium-neon (Pt/Cr-Ne) hollow cathode lamps

used on board the HST. NIST also conducted a series of accelerated aging tests to

determine the likely lifespan of the lamps used on the HST and future space observatories. When the NASA Anomaly Review Board convened to investigate
intermittent failures of the Pt/Cr-Ne lamps on the HST, the data acquired by

NIST in its laboratory studies of these lamps proved critical.

With NASA support, NIST continued to produce and compile atomic

spectroscopic data needed by space astronomers. With the recent launch of NASA

space observatories for the vacuum ultraviolet, x-ray, and infrared spectral regions,

NIST atomic data activities focused on these areas of the electromagnetic spectrum, compiling critical data on the spectra of iron (Fe I and Fe II) and others of

high cosmic abundance.

With NASA funding, NIST released three new online databases: Atomic

Spectra Database (Version 3.0-beta); Handbook of Basic Atomic Spectroscopic

Data; and Spectral Data for the CXO. The databases are intended to facilitate the

interpretation of observations carried out with NASA space observatories, including the HST, the CXO, the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Spitzer

Infrared Observatory.

NIST released the final report from the Satellite Instrument Calibration for

Measuring Global Climate Change workshop, held in November 2002 and jointly

organized by NIST, the NPOESS Integrated Program Office, NOAA, and NASA.

The workshop addressed the measurement challenges and instrument calibration

needs for the accurate space-based measurement of global climate change variables

such as atmospheric temperature and solar irradiance.

NIST calibrated heat-flux sensors for the Arnold Engineering and

Development Center to allow accurate measurements in wind tunnel tests critical

to the Space Shuttle and other programs. NIST successfully developed a procedure

to extend the range of the sensor calibration to encompass the high heat-flux

levels typically experienced in these tests.

NIST continued efforts to improve upon the acoustic emission technique

for the nondestructive evaluation and inspection of aircraft and spacecraft structures. Advances were achieved through the use of increased, high-sensitivity

bandwidth. This effort supports NASA’s general nondestructive evaluation (NDE)

program with overall goals to improve sensitivity, reduce uncertainty, and ensure

reliable use of NDE in the field.

NIST, with sponsorship from FAA/TSA and Boeing, continued its development of new techniques for measuring the electromagnetic shielding of aircraft,

which, among other things, reduces interference to avionics from external radiaAeronautics and Space Report of the President 

50
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tion and onboard laptops and cell phones. The new time-domain techniques

developed by NIST are much faster and more efficient than conventional methods. Following up on tests performed in 2002 and 2003, NIST tested an FAA

aircraft in 2004 and released the data into the public domain to further discussion

of shielding standards within the aerospace community.

NIST upgraded the Low Background Infrared (LBIR) facility to provide

more accurate infrared measurements and standards for the development and

implementation of the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) System. The LBIR

facility uses specialized radiometric test chambers and radiometers to disseminate

the NIST infrared radiance scale to DOD and contractor sites by providing onsite

calibration of blackbodies or offsite calibration of test chambers. These calibrations help ensure the infrared sensors mounted on interceptor missiles can reliably

discriminate between target and decoy. Facility upgrades included improvements

in the cryogenic system to allow operation down to 15 K and the addition of a lownoise absolute cryogenic radiometer. Together, these improvements have led to a

tenfold reduction in measurement uncertainty for onsite blackbody calibrations.

NIST deployed a transfer standard radiometer to assist the Exo-atmospheric

Kill Vehicle program of the Missile Defense Agency. It evaluates the performance

of test chambers used to calibrate the sensors on the interceptor. The radiometer

was sent to test chambers at Boeing, Raytheon, and the Air Force to tie measurements performed at these sites to the NIST High Accuracy Cryogenic Radiometer,

the national standard for optical power.

NIST continued to provide the tools, methodologies, standards, and measurement services needed by aerospace parts manufacturers and assemblers to

maintain their accurate and traceable use of the International System of Units (SI)

units of length, mass, and time, as well as their derived units (force, acceleration,

sound pressure, and ultrasonic power). For example, NIST performed calibrations

of length standards for U.S. aerospace companies to ensure that the dimensions of

their manufactured parts conformed to design specifications. In the area of force

metrology, NIST calibrated load cells for United Space Alliance/Pacific Scientific

in preparation for the Space Shuttle’s return to flight. The calibrated load cells are

used to measure tensile loading of the separation bolt housings on the solid rocket

boosters, to size the bolt fracture area, and to perform 100-percent proof load testing of the final assemblies before shipment to KSC.

51
NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP) continued to help U.S.

aerospace companies improve their productivity, reduce costs, and expand their

business by providing ISO 9000-quality lean management systems and professional

development opportunities to complement existing technical expertise and

resources. For example, the Alabama Technology Network at the University of

Alabama in Huntsville (an MEP affiliate) helped Griffon Aerospace obtain a contract to redesign tooling and build a prototype composite satellite panel for

NASA. The successful completion of this project led to the team submitting a proposal to build the test and flight hardware, which upon award could bring nearly

$500,000 of new business to Griffon Aerospace.

Working in partnership with the Boeing Company and a number of small

Boeing suppliers, NIST’s MEP developed a National Supplier Training Program to

improve the productivity and competitiveness of Boeing’s U.S.-based supply

chain. Decentralized by design, the program connects regional Boeing representatives and local MEP Center Directors to create training and implementation

programs customized to the circumstances of individual States, including

California, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Washington, and Alabama. The MEPs provide

quality affordable training and development services to suppliers of all tiers as

identified by Boeing. Boeing, in conjunction with the MEP, works to garner State

and Federals funds to reduce the cost of training to suppliers.

DOC’s ITA continued to play an important role in promoting U.S. aerospace trade interests as the industry faced mounting competition from abroad. ITA

provided advocacy to support U.S. companies in international aerospace competitions, including commercial sales for aircraft, helicopters, airport construction,

communications and remote sensing satellites, commercial space projects, and air

traffic management projects.

ITA supported efforts aimed at ending unfair government subsidies to

Airbus, which have helped its market expand at the expense of U.S. interests. In

early 2004, ITA proposed a strategy for addressing aircraft subsidies in the context

of U.S. trade policy and aircraft trade agreements. Subsequently, with the Office

of the U.S. Trade Representative coordinating the Administration’s action on aircraft subsidies, ITA provided technical support and policy recommendations

aimed at ending subsidies to Airbus.

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53 ITA continued to seek avenues for cooperation with European governments

on aerospace issues of mutual interest. Deputy Secretary Ted Kassinger discussed

possible aerospace cooperation with his European counterparts at the Farnborough

International Air Show, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation and

Machinery Joseph Bogosian continued cooperation discussions with his counterparts from Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

In January 2004, ITA and the American Association of Airport Executives

cosponsored an Airport and Infrastructure Conference and Trade Show in San

Jose, Costa Rica. The event attracted more than 125 U.S. airport businesspeople

and 30 foreign delegations and demonstrated a variety of U.S. airport products and

services to the Latin American market. This continuing program is designed to

promote the export of U.S. aviation and airport-related products and services by

providing direct contacts and meaningful dialog between U.S. companies and key

international aviation/airport officials.

In February 2004, ITA cosponsored the “Space at the Crossroads” conference along with several industry associations including the Space Foundation and

the Satellite Industry Association. The event, which addressed the balance

between commercial and military space, drew an international audience of approximately 250 participants and included speakers from the DOD, DOC, DHS,

NASA, industry, and foreign governments.

ITA and the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) successfully

carried out several activities under the 2004 Aviation and Airport Subgroup Work

Plan, part of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT).

ITA worked in conjunction with the Trade Development Agency, American

Association of Airport Executives, and CAAC to organize the U.S.-China

Aviation Symposium in Beijing, April 2004. The event focused on expanding airport and air traffic control prospects across China. Following the symposium, DOC

worked with the FAA to hold a 2-day Airport Operation and Financing Seminar

for Chinese airport executives. ITA was instrumental in strengthening ties with

CAAC’s Airports Division with respect to the DOC’s trade goals in China and in

leading positive discussions on proposed 2005 JCCT activities surrounding trade

policy and promotion.

ITA organized a U.S. industry roundtable to discuss the impact of standards

and regulations on U.S. aerospace competitiveness. The discussion and subsequent
consultations with individual companies contributed to Secretary Evans’s May

2004 report to the President, entitled Standards and Competitiveness—Coordinating

for Results: Removing Standards-Related Trade Barriers Through Effective Collaboration.

In 2004, ITA collaborated with the American Chamber of Commerce in

Russia and the Russian Federal Space Agency (RSA) to organize the annual meeting of the Russian-American Commercial Aerospace Working Group during the

Farnborough International Air Show in July 2004. The Working Group was established under the umbrella of the Russian-American Business Dialogue to foster and

facilitate aerospace trade and investment. The meeting addressed aerospace trade

restrictions in Russia, areas of cooperation, and consolidation within the Russian

industry. Specifically, Russian officials discussed a concept to merge the Russian

aerospace industry into a single, competitive, commercial entity. Also discussed

was the level of Russian cooperation and involvement in the Boeing 7E7 program.

ITA played an instrumental role in expediting U.S. ratification of the Cape

Town Convention. The Cape Town Convention—officially the Convention on

International Interests in Mobile Equipment and the Protocol to the Convention

on International Interests in Mobile Equipment on Matters Specific to Aircraft

Equipment—is a treaty designed to facilitate asset-based financing and leasing by

reducing risks to the seller, lender, and/or lessor. The United States signed the convention in May 2003 and ratified it in October 2004.

During FY 2004, DOC’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) approved a

total of 24 license applications valued at $78.4 million for the export of equipment

to support the ISS. In addition, BIS approved over 400 technology and hardware

export licenses that directly supported the aerospace industry.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

54
DEPARTMENT OF THE

INTERIOR

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55

In response to the President’s 2003 U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Space

Policy, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) led an interagency team of more than

20 Government agencies that identified their collective requirements for commercial remote sensing products. The resulting report summarized these agencies’

short-term remote sensing data requirements. The USGS also awarded contracts to

three commercial providers of high-resolution satellite remote sensing data in 2004

and made significant progress in developing a computer infrastructure to archive

and disseminate these data. Existing agency infrastructure was leveraged to accelerate development of this infrastructure (http://crsp.usgs.gov/).The USGS continued

to operate, collect, archive, and distribute data from the Landsat 5 and 7 missions,

collecting over 130,000 Landsat scenes in 2004 and increasing the number of

scenes collected over Earth’s land masses in the U.S. archive to over 1,700,000.

The USGS released a new product for Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic

Mapper Plus (ETM+) data captured after the Scan Line Corrector (SLC) anomaly

that occurred in May 2003. This new product uses Landsat 7 data collected before

the anomaly to fill the missing areas due to the nonfunctional SLC. This product

will increase the utility of the Landsat 7 data affected by the anomaly 

(http://landsat.usgs.gov/).

The USGS and NASA continued the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Extended

Mission in 2004. The mission continued to collect and distribute EO-1 Advanced

Land Imager (ALI) multispectral and Hyperion hyperspectral products in response

to acquisition and archive requests placed by the public and Federal customers.

Over 30,000 scenes of EO-1 data have been archived by the USGS National

Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science and made available in a
56 number of products and formats, including a new geometrically corrected ALI

product (http://eo1.usgs.gov/).

In FY 2004, the USGS Seamless Data Distribution System (http://

seamless.usgs.gov/) added a substantial number of products for free distribution. The

system allows customers to define their area of interest and obtain seamless coverage

for elevation, orthoimagery, land cover, and transportation data. Up to 1.6 gigabytes

of data can be downloaded at no cost to the user; larger requests are referred to an ecommerce capability so that the USGS can recover the costs of handling and

distributing data on media. Additions to the server in FY 2004 included National

Elevation Dataset (NED) 

1

/

9-arc-second data over a limited area and increased coverage of 1/3-arc-second data. Three products from the 2001 National Land Cover

Dataset (NLCD) became available for limited areas. The orthoimagery category

offering increased through the addition of a Landsat 7 satellite mosaic, NASA

MODIS satellite data, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) 0.5-meter data over

northern New Mexico, and State of New Jersey 1-foot-resolution color-infrared

aerial imagery. The USGS also began providing seamless access to its national coverage of 1-meter-resolution orthoimagery by offering data over Washington, DC,

and Tampa, FL.

The USGS continued to support the AmericaView Consortium, a nationwide collaboration of State organizations that fosters remote sensing education,

research, and geospatial applications. Through this partnership, the USGS successfully operated and maintained a direct broadcast capability for NASA MODIS data

in 2004. The MODIS data are available for download by 130 registered users within

3 hours of data acquisition by the satellite (http://edc.usgs.gov/modisdata/). In addition, algorithms were implemented for derived products such as time-composited

products, vegetative indices, and conterminous U.S. mosaics. A rolling 7-day

Normalized Difference Vegetative Index (NDVI) product for the conterminous

United States is processed nightly and sent to the USGS Seamless Server where it

is available as a layer for The National Map(http://nationalmap.gov/). Five new

States—California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Dakota—were

accepted into the AmericaView Consortium in 2004, bringing the membership

to 20 States.

USGS scientists took a step toward the evolution of the National Atlas of

the United States of America by including larger scale data and better resolution

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
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57 imagery, in accord with the National Atlas’s role as “the small-scale implementation

of The National Map.” They assembled, clipped, masked, and delivered a Landsat

mosaic and shaded relief map of the conterminous United States to the National

Atlas. Elevation data were extracted from the NED. The Landsat data came from

the dataset used to produce the 1992 NLCD. USGS staff assembled data mosaics

and combined the imagery with shaded relief at 200-meter resolution. Future work

will bring additional data sets, such as land cover and greenness data, into the

National Atlas as well as develop 100-meter versions of elevation

and Landsat data mosaics. Incorporating such data into the National Atlas

makes them viewable by the public in the National Atlas mapmaker

(http://www.nationalatlas.gov/natlas/Natlasstart.asp) and makes them available

for download for use in geographic information systems (GIS) applications.

During responses to emergencies, difficult-to-access, incompatible, and outof-date base geospatial data hamper and degrade communications among

organizations that respond to emergencies, thus endangering lives and property. To

help ensure that Federal responders and support personnel have quick and easy

access to the same detailed and current data as local first responders, the USGS is

working with State and local governments and other Federal agencies to integrate

data for America’s urban areas into The National Map to support a variety of public

safety programs. Initial USGS efforts have focused on developing and integrating

detailed and accurate imagery for America’s 133 largest urban areas. Interest in

these data has grown over the last 3 years, with coverage of data sets of these urban

areas increasing from 20 percent in FY 2002 to 63 percent in FY 2004. Local governments and the USGS received the resulting data, and USGS forwarded copies

to Federal agencies to support homeland security and other public safety efforts. In

FY 2004, Federal agencies and other public safety and security organizations used

these data to plan public security measures for activities such as President Reagan’s

funeral, the national political party conventions, and the Presidential debates.

USGS makes the data available for viewing, downloading, and ordering online

from The National Map.

Exploration and extraction of new mineral and oil resources in Alaska are

important national and local priorities. This especially is true for the North Slope

where oil reserves are yet to be fully developed. However, USGS topographic maps

for the State in general, and for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A)
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

58 specifically, are more than 40 years old and do not meet National Map Accuracy

Standards. In addition, no aerial photography is available to meet current needs for

detailed orthoimagery. Development of these data is further hindered by the lack of

high-resolution, current digital elevation data required for production of orthoimagery and detailed analysis of the land surface in the State. The development of a

new generation of orthoimagery and elevation data for the NPR-A represents a new

era in the production of orthoimagery and high-resolution elevation data for Alaska.

USGS anticipates that the products generated for NPR-A will set the standard for

all of Alaska’s next generation of digital cartographic map products.

In FY 2004, USGS contracted for 2- to 5-meter elevation data and orthoimagery for NPR-A and other development corridors on the North Slope. USGS

provided overall coordination among other Federal, State, and nongovernmental

organizations for input and agreements for reimbursable funding to assist in data

acquisition and production. Activities included 1) delivery of new orthoimagery

for about one-third of NPR-A; 2) a data and needs assessment conducted by

USGS and the BLM, and 3) the award of contracts for collecting data using radar

techniques for the production of elevation data.

USGS geologists also used Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IFSAR) data to produce a digital elevation model (DEM), surficial sediment classification map, and shaded relief and

surficial sediment map for the northeastern part of the NPR-A. The classification

and DEM maps have helped to define lake, eolian, fluvial, and deltaic depositional

systems and surficial geologic units. The BLM will use the maps to manage the

habitats of critical species and to assist in future petroleum exploration and development in NPR-A.

For the NED, the nationally consistent, integrated elevation coverage for

The National Map, USGS has made available data at 1/

3-arc-second (10-meter)

post spacing for approximately one-third of the contiguous 48 States. For the first

time, elevation data from very-high-resolution LIght Detection And Ranging

(LIDAR) data sources were incorporated into the NED at 1/

9-arc-second (3-

meter) post spacing for the Puget Sound area and at 1/

3-arc-second (10-meter)

post spacing for eastern North Carolina.

In February 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) successfully collected IFSAR data for over 80 percent of the landmass of Earth between
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59 60° north and 56° south latitudes. NASA and the National GeospatialIntelligence Agency (NGA) cosponsored the mission, from which digital

elevation data were derived. All of the “Research” grade data (for which initial

processing was performed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) were delivered to the

USGS and are available to customers through an FTP server. In addition, NGA

processed the “Finished” data and performed quality assurance checks and several

additional finishing steps: final editing, verification, and conformance to National

Map Accuracy Standards. These data are available from USGS on the Internet at

http://edc.usgs.gov/products/elevation/srtmbil.html.

The USGS is responsible for preserving, making available, and distributing

aerial and satellite data in the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data

Archive (http://edc.usgs.gov/archive/nslrsda/index.html) to a worldwide community

of Federal and scientific users. The archive consists of over 107,000 rolls of aerial

and satellite imagery containing more than 13 million frames. It also includes a

digital inventory of over 3 million scenes, totaling nearly 500 terabytes. The

USGS is a world leader in archiving remotely sensed land data and in providing

those data to users quickly, affordably, and in the most accessible format.

Since the early 1970s, the USGS has offered a variety of photographic products (both prints and film) of images in its historical film archive; however, over

the last few years, customer demand for these types of products has declined.

Therefore, with production expenses continuing to increase and the user community transitioning to digital data and products, the USGS discontinued offering

photographic products from the historical film archive on September 3, 2004, and

began to offer a new digitized product on October 1, 2004. The response to this

transition was favorable.

The USGS participates in the calibration and validation of satellite data to

ensure that products derived from such data are of high quality. USGS also is responsible for characterizing and calibrating the Nation’s aerial mapping sensors. To meet

these responsibilities, the USGS provides system characterization and product validation in the laboratory and in the field for both satellite and aerial sensors

(http://edclxs22.cr.usgs.gov/crs/index.php). A cooperative agreement between the

USGS and South Dakota State University (SDSU) provided an opportunity to use

the unique skills of SDSU scientists to develop and operate a calibration system for

the Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS) and TM data. Because of this agreement,
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

60 the Landsat user community will benefit from the improved radiometric and geometric calibrations of more than 30 years of Landsat data.

Since 2000, the USGS has been working with NASA, NGA, industry, and

academia to validate and characterize commercial remote sensing satellite data

products through the Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE)

team. The results of these tests, designed and documented by the JACIE team,

ensure that the data meet the specialized needs of a range of Government applications. Test results have proven to be highly useful to satellite vendors who use

the results of these assessments to improve their products and services.

Presentations at the fourth annual High Spatial Resolution Commercial Imagery

Workshop in 2004 featured the results from analyses of satellite data from Space

Imaging, DigitalGlobe, and ORBIMAGE.

The Bureau of Reclamation continued to use Landsat TM data, Indian

Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite data, and USGS digital orthophoto quarterquads

(DOQQ) to map agricultural crops in southeastern California, southwestern

Arizona, and the Central Valley of California. Water managers used crop maps to

verify crop-fallowing agreements, and they combined crop maps with crop wateruse coefficients and locally varying climate data to calculate agricultural

consumptive water use. Water managers estimated water use by riparian vegetation

along the Lower Colorado River in a similar fashion, using riparian vegetation

maps generated from Landsat TM data and high-resolution digital aerial imagery.

Reclamation specialists used Landsat TM data to map areas of land cover

change in California’s Central Valley. This information is used during waterrelated negotiations with irrigation districts and with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service (USFWS), as required by the California Central Valley Project

Improvement Act Biological Opinion. These data also will be incorporated into

the statewide change-detection project being coordinated by the U.S. Forest

Service (USFS) and the California Department of Forestry.

Reclamation analysts continued to refine computer algorithms that use

NEXRAD weather radar data to calculate precipitation accumulation estimates

that are input to decision-support systems that guide water releases from reservoirs

and water deliveries to irrigated crops. Reclamation analysts routinely used GPS

throughout the Bureau for a variety of applications, including locating field-sampling sites of all kinds (e.g., for studies of vegetation, soils, geology, and ground
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water), surveying of construction sites, and developing geospatial databases of irrigation infrastructure.

To meet Federal Clean Water Act standards, individual States must identify, monitor, and control pollutants that impact water quality. During 2004, the

USGS collaborated with the South Dakota Department of Environment and

Natural Resources and the East Dakota Water Development District to develop

crop-specific maps using Landsat data for South Dakota water quality initiatives.

Nearly 100 Landsat images were required to develop crop maps for 2000 and 2001

for the State of South Dakota. These maps and other geospatial data were used to

model the relationship between pollutants, such as fertilizers and pesticides, and

water quality. Spatial information on crop types is essential to determine where

specific agricultural chemicals are applied across the landscape. An advanced

object-oriented, knowledge-based approach was developed to automate much of

the processing, considerably reducing the time and costs of this effort.

The BLM uses an array of remote sensing technologies to inventory, monitor,

and address concerns about urban growth, resource conditions, and energy and mineral resource extraction on public lands. During FY 2004, GPS and GIS supplemented

data from multispectral and hyperspectral sensors and aerial cameras to support management activities associated with wildlife habitat, wilderness, recreation, rangeland,

timber, fire, minerals, and hazardous materials. These projects subsequently supported

on-the-ground resource management and decisionmaking activities.

In FY 2004, the BLM completed its partnership with the Colorado Division

of Wildlife to classify vegetation (by watershed), using Landsat TM data for the

State of Colorado, and to make the final dataset available to the public. The BLM

continued its partnership with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to collect field data for use in vegetation classification mapping with Landsat TM data.

A collaborative effort between the BLM and the National Park Service (NPS),

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), USFS, and Utah State

University resulted in the development of value-added band ratio products derived

from Landsat data for predictive soil mapping. The BLM also used Landsat TM

data to map lynx habitat and to identify areas in Wyoming rangelands dominated

by cheatgrass, an invasive plant species.

The BLM worked with the NRCS to collect site-specific LIDAR data over

the Dull Knife/North Fork Powder River area in Wyoming for use in evaluations

61
62 of stream floodplains. The National Wildlife Federation worked with the BLM to

collect LIDAR data over study areas in Colorado to test its ability to identify

Mexican Spotted Owl habitat. Investigators used data with a postprocessing spacing of 2 to 3 meters to extract terrain and forest structural information in the

upland steep canyons dominated by old-growth mixed conifer forest where this

endangered species occurs in its most northern range. Working with NASA

Stennis Space Center (SSC), the BLM facilitated a large purchase of high-resolution QuickBird satellite data of Glenallen, AK, for work with off-highway vehicles

(OHVs) and Resource Management Plan recommendations.

The BLM continued to use DOQQs to monitor the health of rangelands

and riparian areas, plan field travel, and evaluate proposed land exchanges. The

Bureau formed partnerships to acquire new data to update the DOQQ dataset. The

BLM also used the 2001 National Aerial Photography Program and new aerial

photography for specific projects, such as the following:

• Assessed the proper functioning condition of riparian wetland areas in

Wyoming and, in conjunction with the organization Ducks Unlimited, on

the George River drainage in Alaska.

• Cooperated with USFWS and the Corps of Engineers to create DOQQs of

the north Oregon coast for use in wetlands inventory.

• Produced large-scale topographic maps and orthophotos to aid in the characterization and reclamation of abandoned mine lands in Nevada.

• Created topographic maps for interpretive and recreational facilities such as

archeological and historical sites in Fort McKinney and Castle Gardens,

WY, and recreation facilities at Four Dances, MT, and Yuma, AZ.

• Created route inventories—including OHV trails—for use in resource management planning in Nevada.

• Provided technical support and conducted training sessions for BLM

resource specialists on “Using Aerial Photography to Assess Proper

Functioning Condition of Riparian Wetland Areas.” 

The BLM conducted the following evaluation projects and methodologies 

in 2004:

• Investigated and developed a three-dimensional remote sensing-based visualization application for use in predictive soils mapping and jointly worked

with the NRCS on predictive soils modeling.
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63 • Developed enhanced processing techniques to collect OHV routes,

using remotely sensed data, and presented those techniques in an OHV

training course.

• Acquired 0.5-meter orthoimagery from a large-format digital aerial camera

to support on-the-ground land-management issues such as timber sales near

Roseburg, OR.

• Refined close-range photogrammetric techniques used in microtopographic

digital terrain data collection. A hybrid methodology was developed that

combines traditional photogrammetric techniques with recent advances in

digital cameras and three-dimensional measuring and modeling software.

This methodology is used by the BLM to collect detailed (1-centimeter resolution or better) digital terrain data of small (1- to 5-meter) areas used to

monitor paleontological and archeological sites.

• Evaluated the feasibility of using the USGS Seamless Server for public

access to BLM natural-color DOQQs of Farmington, NM, and for serving

the data to the public.

• Developed and refined a Spatial Data Engine interface for a pilot Intranet

site that provides access to the BLM’s Aerial Photography Archive.

• Maintained, updated, and completed data migration and storage for the

BLM-wide Satellite Imagery Archive.

USGS scientists provided a prime example of how digital elevation data

derived from the SRTM mission over Mount St. Helens, WA, can show dramatic

changes in Earth’s topographic form. Prior to 1980, Mount St. Helens had a shape

roughly similar to other Cascade peaks—a tall, bold, irregular conic form that rose

to 2,950 meters (9,680 feet). The explosive eruption of May 18, 1980, caused the

upper 400 meters (1,310 feet) of the mountain to collapse, slide, and spread northward, covering much of the adjacent terrain, leaving a crater atop the greatly

shortened mountain.

Eruptions subsided in 1986, but renewed volcanic activity here and at other

Cascade volcanoes was anticipated. USGS and NASA scientists documented

topographic changes resulting from the 2004 eruptions of Mount St. Helens using

LIDAR data acquired after these eruptions occurred. When processed using GPS

reference points, the LIDAR data are used to produce an accurate high-resolution

DEM of the mountain, ensuring that elevation changes could be safely monitored
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

in relation to the surrounding area. USGS and NASA scientists have compared

subsequent LIDAR acquisitions to the USGS base data to quantify volumetric

changes associated with dome growth inside the crater. Both the LIDAR dataset

and GPS network proved to be important baseline measurements in analyzing surface-elevation changes within the crater. For the first time, scientists were able to

visualize and quantify crater-elevation changes with greater accuracy and safety,

enhancing hazard monitoring and mitigation of the volcanic unrest.

As part of ongoing research to study the consequences of land cover change

on surface weather and climate variability, the USGS and Colorado State

University (CSU) used regional climate modeling with historical land cover

change data sets to investigate the potential link between land use change and

damaging radiation freeze events in South Florida. Agricultural production in

former wetlands areas now includes extensive cultivation of winter season vegetable, citrus, and sugar cane crops, but, in spite of this shift southward, crops are

still prone to damaging winter “radiation freezes” which occur on calm, clear

nights with nocturnal cooling. The USGS measured land cover change in South

Florida over the past 100 years by comparing reconstructed pre-1900 natural vegetation versus current land use derived from Landsat data acquired in the early

1990s. CSU’s model indicated that the conversion of natural wetlands to agriculture may increase the incidence and severity of damaging freezes in South Florida.

This research demonstrated the importance of coupled models to quantify the

potential effects of land cover change. Furthermore, this joint USGS and CSU

research demonstrated the utility of the Landsat-derived NLCD as an important

resource for regional modeling studies.

The USGS Western Earth Surface Processes Team applied image-enhancement technologies to new LIDAR and high-resolution, color-infrared aerial

photography for earthquake fault investigations and to study landscape evolution

processes (including landsliding, wildfire impacts, erosion, and climate change).

LIDAR applications were also used in conjunction with other remotely sensed

data to study wildlife and vegetation habitats, soil characteristics, water infiltration, and surface erosion processes in the desert Southwest, with preliminary focus

on fragile ecosystems in the western Mojave Desert (http://deserts.wr.usgs.gov/).

LIDAR data of portions of northern California have been extremely useful in

locating the offset of alluvial fans by earthquake faults and in rugged forested ter64
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65 rain. LIDAR investigations were conducted in the Napa Valley wine-growing

region and along the northern San Andreas Fault system north of the San

Francisco Bay Area. The team used GPS location data and aerial photographs for

nearly all its project activities, including geologic mapping, hazard assessment,

geophysical data collection for gravity and magnetic surveys, landslide motion

assessment, and field orientation and mapping. GPS data are used to reconcile

aerial photography with ground-based investigation and in the construction of

geologic maps.

The evaluation of changes in land cover resources over an extended study

period is critical to developing ecosystem management plans that use historic and

current data to support wise resource use. For example, USGS scientists used

Landsat data to assess land cover change over an extended study on Navajo/Hopi

Indian Reservations lands in northern Arizona. Landsat TM data from 1984 (the

earliest valid TM data), 1993 (a very wet year), and 2002 (a drought year) were

analyzed and compared to give a visual indication of land cover changes during the

last 18 years. Pre-1977 MSS data provided a benchmark of part of the landscape

where grazing previously occurred but no longer does. 

USGS scientists used MODIS Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) data to

map perennial vegetation cover in the Mojave Desert ecosystem of eastern

California and western Nevada. Models were developed and applied to the

MODIS-EVI data and data from more than 1,300 ground sites to construct maps

estimating the percentage of perennial vegetation cover. This study represents a

proof-of-concept for applying MODIS-EVI and field observations to estimate

perennial cover throughout the Mojave Desert. These maps are an important

enhancement to vegetation-distribution mapping that can be used to inform several ongoing scientific investigations and management efforts related to the

vulnerability and recoverability of desert landscapes.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the

USGS have cooperated to create Internet-enabled geospatial databases in order to

help communities along the United States-Mexican border address issues related

to colonias (United States) or colonias marginales (Mexico) that lack adequate infrastructure of housing. One of the initial study areas is the city of Douglas, AZ, and

its sister city, Agua Prieta, Sonora. Because of its location on the border, this area

is especially well suited to international manufacturing and commerce, which has
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

66 led to an uncontrolled spread of colonias. USGS scientists used imagery collected

between 1973 and 2000 and infrastructure information to delineate colonia boundaries and to conduct a land use change analysis focused on urbanization in the

cities. They developed geospatial databases describing the area’s infrastructure and

land use and established a framework for sharing information through Internetbased GIS decision-support systems, making planning tools and data available to

the public as well as participating agencies. In addition, a local youth organization

was trained using GPS receivers to identify and describe important resources in the

community, and this information was incorporated into the geospatial database.

USGS scientists and partners from the Desert Research Institute completed

their fourth year of work in the Lake Tahoe Basin analyzing historical changes in

land use and land cover. They digitized archived aerial photographs and acquired

recent high-resolution Ikonos satellite data and used these sources to derive land

cover, impervious-surface, road, and stream network geospatial data sets for 1940,

1969, 1987, and 2002. They analyzed these data sets using a digital change-detection process to determine the amounts, rates, and trends of change to the Lake

Tahoe Basin landscape since the onset of urbanization. The most significant

changes during the 62-year study period appear to be an increase in urban lands

and corresponding decrease in natural-cover classes; variable increase and decrease

in forest stand density; conversion of shrublands, grasslands, and wetlands to forest;

and tree mortality.

The USFWS used remotely sensed data and GPS technology in several programs. FY 2004 activities focused mainly on the creation and verification of

vegetation and wetlands data. In the Midwest, USFWS analysts mapped the vegetation of Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), MO, using visual

interpretation of IRS satellite data, and the vegetation of Mingo NWR, MO, using

visual interpretation of 1:15,000-scale, color-infrared aerial photographs. Accuracy

assessment sites for data collection were selected for both maps using random sampling routines.

USFWS specialists worked to improve methods to prepare vegetation and

habitat data layers for refuges in the Pacific Northwest. They examined existing

successful programs and made minor changes to how remotely sensed data are collected, analyzed, stored, and accessed for use in refuge planning and management.

Objectives include more consistent and extensive use of remote sensing to define
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67 habitat-based management goals and objectives for refuges and to map and monitor invasive plant species.

Land-surface heterogeneity can affect how well land cover is identified at

different scales. As new sensor systems produce progressively higher forms of resolution, land-surface heterogeneity increases due to a complex interaction between

the biological (vegetation types and conditions) and physical (topographic) influences across the land surface. USGS scientists completed a study that evaluated

the utility of merging high-resolution (2.5-meter) airborne radar data with coarser

resolution (30-meter) Landsat 7 ETM+ data for producing high-resolution land

cover maps over tundra areas of Alaska. Results indicated that merging of the multispectral Landsat data with the higher resolution radar data did not increase the

information content (i.e., detail of the land cover classification), but actually

decreased the information extracted. However, the process did increase the visual

qualities of the Landsat data if a visual analysis of the area was desired.

USGS scientists completed a land cover, change-detection analysis around

the Cordillera Azul National Park in Peru based on Landsat TM and ETM+ data

collected at intervals between 1989 and 2002, with a goal to quantify and analyze

patterns of forest clearing, land conversion, and other disturbances. Results

showed a slow but steady increase in disturbances prior to 1999 and a rapid and

increasing conversion rate after that time. The highest concentrations of clearings

have spread upward from the western border of the study area on the Huallaga

River. Most disturbances took place in the buffer zone around the National Park,

not within it, but the data show dense clearings are occurring closer to the park

border each year. Park managers in Peru used an Internet-based map service that

was created to streamline the delivery and access of all geospatial data sets used in

this study.

USGS scientists implemented a cooperative project with West Africa’s

Regional AGRHYMET Program to identify land use and land cover trends within

ecological regions in 15 countries covering most of West Africa. The effort combines the use of historical and current satellite image data, existing published

studies, supporting ground and aerial information on biophysical resources, and

socioeconomic data. The USGS provided complete coverage of Corona declassified satellite photography (1965), Landsat MSS (1972), Landsat TM (1985), and

Landsat ETM+ (2000) data recording land resource conditions of most of the
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

68 countries of West Africa. Teams of West African scientists from government agencies in each country conducted the time-series analysis, with technical support

from AGRHYMET and the USGS. Some ecoregions exhibited stability and land

use permanency, while others showed dramatic change as agriculture expands into

areas of natural vegetation. The most troublesome finding was the continued

decline of dense forest. Some countries (e.g., Togo and Benin) have lost nearly all

of their dense forest cover. Others (e.g., Guinea and Ghana) still have large tracts

of forest, but these are coming under great pressure from logging and agriculture. 

Staff from the USFWS National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) and the South

Florida Water Management District coordinated efforts using GPS-guided helicopters and rectified DOQQs to conduct field verification of wetland cover types

to update NWI wetland maps in South Florida. Check sites were identified on

aerial photographs and their location coordinates stored in a GPS unit. Azimuth

headings generated by the GPS unit guided the helicopter pilot to each plot location, where one team member viewed the image displayed on the laptop to verify

the check site location and other members recorded video and still images of the

plot and annotated vegetation by species and estimated percent cover. All information, including video, was linked to the appropriate plot and stored in a

geodatabase format.

The USFWS used 1:40,000-scale aerial photographs to update NWI maps

and digital data in priority areas in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey,

Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia. For some areas, USFWS staff enhanced the

NWI digital data record by adding descriptors for landscape position, landform,

water flow path, and water body type, and the data were used to prepare watershedbased wetland characterizations (e.g., for New York City’s water supply watersheds).

These characterizations included a summary of wetland types and a preliminary

assessment of wetland functions based on correlations between wetland characteristics in the NWI database and wetland functions. This technique was used in the

Nanticoke River watershed in Maryland where USFWS specialists prepared characterizations and assessed the condition of “natural habitat” throughout the

watershed. They developed “remotely sensed natural habitat integrity indices” to

describe and monitor the status of natural habitat throughout the watershed and in

key locations such as stream corridors and wetland buffers. Integrity indices also

reflected major human-induced impacts such as stream channelization, dams, wet-
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69 land alterations, and habitat fragmentation caused by road development

(http://wetlands.fws.gov/Pubs_Reports/EcologicalIndicatorsTiner.pdf).

Bureau of Reclamation analysts used hyperspectral data to map surface

chlorophyll-a concentrations on two Reclamation reservoirs. EO-1 Hyperion

hyperspectral data were used for Flaming Gorge Reservoir, WY/UT, and AVIRIS

hyperspectral data (from aircraft) were used for Owyhee Reservoir, OR.

Chlorophyll-a prediction models for both reservoirs were effective, explaining

more than 97 percent of the variability present in the data sets. This represents a

significant improvement over chlorophyll-a prediction results obtained from

models that used broader-band multispectral data.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) continued to support research

by University of Colorado scientists on applications of satellite altimetry to

improve estimates of sea-surface height and ocean currents, particularly for the

large Loop Current eddies in the Gulf of Mexico. Accurate measurement of ocean

currents is important for monitoring offshore oil and gas operations and for estimating oil-spill trajectories. In FY 2004, data from the Navy GEOSAT Follow-On,

Jason-1, TOPEX/Poseidon, and ERS-2 altimetry satellite missions were used in

ongoing analysis of data from the Gulf of Mexico field observational studies. In

addition, MMS specialists concluded surveys using GPS data to help delineate offshore boundaries in parts of Massachusetts and Alaska in support of Territorial

Submerged Lands jurisdictions.

The U.S. Coral Reef Task Force identified land-based pollution as one of six

priority threats on which to focus efforts to protect coral reefs. The task force commissioned regional partnerships to plan Local Action Strategies (LAS) to reduce

or eliminate threats to coral reefs. Land-based pollution threats were identified for

action in the LAS for Hawaii, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands,

Guam, and other former territories in Micronesia. Hawaii’s LAS partners (including USFWS, NPS, USGS, NRCS, EPA, NOAA, Hawaii natural resource, health,

and coastal zone management agencies, and local nongovernmental organizations

including The Nature Conservancy) developed a strategy based on traditional

native Hawaiian natural resource management systems that encompass the whole

ecosystem from the high-island ridges to the near-shore reef.

In FY 2004, USGS initiated a “Ridge to Reef” study that monitored and provided research support for LAS-identified priority restoration sites on the Hawaiian
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

70 Islands of Molokai, Kauai, and Maui. USGS scientists began assembling a network

of stream gauges and sediment-monitoring devices in critical watersheds to monitor seasonal and interannual variability in turbidity on the sediment-impacted back

reef along the south shore of Molokai, where the longest of the fringing coral reefs

in the Hawaiian Islands is strongly affected by land-based sedimentation.

The Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) program is an

international consortium of 25 nations dedicated to satellite imaging and tracking

of the status and changes of the world’s glaciers (http://www.glims.org), primarily

using Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer

(ASTER) data. In 2004, USGS scientists developed tools for automated mapping

of glacier lakes and ice and made available to the global GLIMS community an

assortment of tools needed to make their analysis work easier and more comprehensive, uniform, and accurate. USGS also contributed to the systematic mapping

of glaciers and glacier lakes in Alaska and of hazardous glacier lakes in Peru. USGS

also mapped glaciers in Afghanistan as part of a U.S. Agency for International

Development (USAID)-funded project to rebuild that country. USGS provides

the central coordination of GLIMS, with funding support from NASA. Other

American GLIMS activities include construction and management of the GLIMS

glacier database (University of Colorado), monitoring of glaciers in the Arctic and

Antarctic (University of Maine) and Afghanistan and Pakistan (University of

Nebraska at Omaha). Foreign participants funded GLIMS regional centers to

monitor glaciers on every continent except Australia.

USGS and BLM used Landsat-7 data to monitor the rapid wastage of the

Bering Glacier, AK, and the resulting establishment of new ecosystems. Bering

Glacier is retreating rapidly and thinning as it accelerates its retreat from an

advanced position that resulted from a major glacial surge that occurred between

1993 and 1995. Satellite observations and ground-based data were combined to

determine the surface-flow velocities and calving rates of the glacier and to monitor the expansion of Vitus and Berg Lakes, two large lakes whose boundaries

include the glacier terminus.

USGS scientists used National Systems data to monitor glaciers in Alaska,

Washington, and Montana. Mountain glaciers are ideal subjects for these systems

because they are remote, have an appropriate space scale, and require infrequent

but repetitive observations. The observations were used to establish a baseline of
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71 regional glacial conditions that will be used to determine recent and future glacier

fluctuations. In addition, techniques have been developed to generate derived

products that provide critical glacial parameters, including DEMs, equilibrium line

altitudes, and ablation rates. These products were incorporated into a glacial

runoff model of the South Cascade Glacier, WA, where they proved to be a valuable source of otherwise unavailable data.

USGS scientists, in cooperation with the French Space Agency (CNES),

improved a dynamic algorithm to measure snow depth from passive microwave

observations acquired by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI) on a

Defense Meteorological Satellite. The algorithm was used to develop a snow-depth

climatology for Siberia. NASA, CNES, and USGS scientists examined the numerous factors that influence satellite passive microwave observations of snow packs.

These factors included snow depth, air temperature, terrain type, land cover, and

proximity to large bodies of water. 

Afghanistan is trying to reconstruct its economy and commerce after 30 years

of war and civil strife. As a result of the conflicts, no geoscience activities have been

performed there in the past 30 years. To encourage foreign investment in developing

Afghanistan’s natural resources, the USGS is cooperating with USAID to develop

assessments for oil and gas, coal, precious metals and gems, economic minerals, and

water resources, as well as geologic hazards. The largest scale existing geologic maps

that cover the entire country were completed in the 1970s at 1:250,000 scale using

aerial photographs and field work before the advent of multispectral satellite data.

USGS scientists used Landsat ETM+ data that were acquired between 2000 and

2001 to prepare 2o x 1o multispectral mosaics of the country at 14.25-meter resolution and controlled to 50-meter horizontal accuracy. Reinterpreting and remapping

the geology and tectonics of Afghanistan with these Landsat and ASTER data

revealed a wealth of geologic information that was not included on the old maps.

Working in cooperation with USAID, USGS geologists completed regional

hydrothermal alteration mapping for mineral resources in parts of Iran, Pakistan,

and Afghanistan using ASTER data. Hydrothermal alteration is typically associated with ores such as copper, gold, silver, and molybdenum. Over 70 ASTER

scenes (1 scene covers 3,600 square kilometers) were calibrated using EO-1

Hyperion and MODIS data in order to improve the accuracy of the alteration

maps. Alteration data were converted into a form that is suitable for GIS analysis.
The USGS used satellite and LIDAR data to compile geologic maps and to

evaluate fault locations and geologic hazards potentials in Oregon and

Washington. LIDAR visualization was used to cut through dense forest canopy in

both urban and wildness terrain to reveal detail not attainable by other means.

Examples of how LIDAR data were used can be seen on the Puget Sound LIDAR

Consortium Web site at http://duff.geology.washington.edu/data/raster/lidar/.

The USGS Astrogeology Team cooperated with NASA on a variety of

planetary exploration programs. The team has been heavily involved in the Mars

Exploration Rover (MER) mission since its inception. The Spirit and Opportunity

rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 and made many important discoveries that

have greatly advanced Mars science. USGS efforts were focused on the rover cameras. USGS scientists hold several key roles in the program, including serving as

Payload Element Lead (PEL), commanding the navigation and hazard avoidance

cameras on both rovers; as one of the Science Operations Working Group Chairs,

leading the development of consensus on each day’s plan for rover operations; as

MER participating scientist, serving as lead for planning and analysis of photometric observations of the Martian surface; and as downlink lead and Deputy PEL

for the multispectral panoramic stereo cameras (Pancams).

The USGS has been directly supporting the testing and calibration of the

High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera destined for Mars

aboard the 2005 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This camera will provide

the highest resolution images of Mars from orbit (≈30 centimeters/pixel) and will

be used for certifying future robotic and human landing sites, as well as supporting

Mars science. The development of the camera proved more complex than anticipated, requiring significant effort in testing of the camera before it could be

delivered to the spacecraft. The USGS team continued to support MRO testing

and analysis of HiRISE calibration data. The USGS also was responsible for a

major fraction of the development of the HiRISE processing and analysis software.

The NASA-funded USGS Robotic Lunar Observatory (ROLO) project

continued to support remote sensing satellite instrument teams for on-orbit radiometric calibration using the Moon. The ROLO is dedicated to studying one of the

remaining unknowns of the Moon: “What is its precise brightness?” ROLO provided comparisons of its lunar irradiance model to the lunar observations acquired

monthly by the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) satellite and

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

72
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73 also additional SeaWiFS observations taken to coincide with lunar views acquired

by MODIS through its space-view port. The SeaWiFS comparisons demonstrated

the capability of this technique for instrument response trending with precision

approaching 0.1 percent per year. Lunar images acquired by ASTER during the

Deep Space Maneuver of April 14, 2003, were analyzed by ROLO personnel to

determine instrument response characteristics. Other instruments receiving

ROLO lunar calibration support included MODIS, MISR, EO-1 Hyperion, and

the NPP VIIRS.

USGS researchers also analyzed Thermal Infrared Imaging System

(THEMIS) data from the NASA Mars Odyssey mission to study the polar caps and

other ice deposits on Mars. THEMIS images of the Mars South Polar Residual Cap

revealed the existence of regions of exposed water ice and soil. Further, high-resolution topographic data for these layered ice/soil deposits derived from THEMIS

data suggested that ice/soil layers at the South Pole of Mars are relatively thin and

flat-lying, and their presence at the surface varies with seasons on Mars.

USGS scientists participated as science team members on the NASA

Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moon Titan in 2004. Although Titan is

unlike any other moon or planet in our solar system, its atmosphere in many ways

resembles the chemical composition of Earth as it was before life began. It is hoped

that the Cassini-Huygens mission will help answer many of the major fundamental questions about conditions on Earth and in the solar system before life as we

know it began. The USGS will be intensively involved in the analysis of Huygens

data, in particular, by mapping the surface with the probe images and comparing

the results with observations returned by the Cassini “mother ship.”

Since 1975, the USGS has chaired the Civil Applications Committee

(CAC), chartered under the signatures of the National Security Advisor to the

President, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the Office of

Management and Budget, and the Secretary of the Interior to facilitate the use of

National Systems data for applications central to civil agency missions, such as

mapping, charting, and geodesy; environmental monitoring, studies, and analyses;

and resource management, homeland security, natural hazards, and emergency

response applications.

To represent civil community interests and advocate for civil requirements

for access to National Systems data and related technologies, the committee par-
74 ticipated on a regular basis in 2004 with the National Security Space Office

(NSSO, formerly the National Security Space Architect) to represent civil requirements related to future space remote sensing architectures; with Federal Law

Enforcement to provide advice and consultation on issues related to law-enforcement applications of remote sensing; with the Department of Homeland Security

(DHS) to explore how civil agencies will use National Systems data in support of

homeland security activities; and with the USNORTHCOM Interagency

Directorate to explore how the civil community can facilitate USNORTHCOM

access to and application of domestic imagery and geospatial data for homeland

defense activities. The committee also worked with the National Air and Space

Intelligence Center (NASIC) to identify key issues involved in adapting advanced

data exploitation tools to civil agency missions such as early identification of emergency service needs and emergency response management.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
FEDERAL

COMMUNICATIONS

COMMISSION

FCC

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75

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) formulates rules to facilitate the provision of commercial satellite services in the United States. It also

issues licenses for launch and operation of all nongovernmental U.S. satellites.

Internationally, the FCC coordinates satellite radio-frequency usage with other

countries. The FCC’s accomplishments for FY 2004 related primarily to commercial communications and Earth observation satellites, as outlined below.

The FCC completed two major rule-making proceedings in FY 2004. In one

proceeding, the FCC reduced the amount of the bonds satellite licensees must

post, after receiving a license, to $3 million for each satellite in geostationary orbit

and $5 million for each constellation of nongeostationary-orbit satellites. In

another proceeding, the FCC adopted a comprehensive set of rules concerning

mitigation of orbital debris by FCC licensees. These new rules require applicants

for FCC licenses to disclose debris mitigation plans so that those plans can be analyzed prior to authorization. The new rules also simplified the licensing process by

eliminating the need for separate authorizations for certain types of spacecraft

operations, provided that those operations are consistent with requirements

designed to mitigate debris and avoid radiofrequency interference.

In FY 2004, the FCC authorized a number of commercial communication

satellite launches and operations. On November 21, 2003, the FCC authorized

Rainbow DBS Company to launch and operate four satellites, one at the longitude

62° west orbit location, one at the longitude 71° west orbit location, one at the

longitude 119° west orbit location, and one at the longitude 129° west orbit location. On December 8, 2004, the FCC authorized Echostar Satellite LLC to launch
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

76 and operate a satellite at the longitude 123° west orbit location. On January 7,

2004, the FCC authorized Rainbow DBS Company to launch and operate a satellite at the longitude 77° west orbit location. On January 30, 2004, the FCC

authorized Pegasus Development Corporation to launch and operate a satellite at

the longitude 87° west orbit location. On March 8, 2004, the FCC authorized

Echostar Satellite LLC to launch and operate a satellite at the longitude 97° west

orbit location. On April 28, 2004, the FCC authorized DIRECTV Enterprises LLC

to launch and operate the DIRECTV 7S satellite at the longitude 119.2° west

orbit location. The satellite was successfully launched on May 4, 2004. On July 13,

2004, the FCC granted SES Americom authority to launch and operate the AMC23 satellite at the longitude 172° west orbit location. On August 26, 2004, the

FCC granted Panamsat Licensee Corporation conditional authority to operate the

PAS-9 satellite (operating under the commercial name of PAS-5) until January 2,

2007, at the longitude 26.15° west orbit location in order to provide capacity,

needed because of a satellite failure, for the Arabsat satellite system. On September

30, 2004, the FCC authorized Echostar KuX Corporation to launch and operate

one satellite at the longitude 109° west orbit location and one at the longitude

121° west orbit location. 

The FCC granted a number of Special Temporary Authorizations (STAs)

for satellite networks. Many involved routine testing or redeployment of satellites

within a multiple-satellite system. Several actions, however, were notable. On

October 10, 2003, the FCC granted Intelsat LLC the first of a series of authorizations to operate the Intelsat 602 satellite at the longitude 50.5° east orbit location,

pursuant to an understanding between Intelsat and a Thai satellite operator. On

November 13, 2003, following the successful launch of the Indian Space Research

Organization’s INSAT-3E satellite, the FCC granted Intelsat LLC the first of a

series of authorizations to relocate the Intelsat 702 satellite from the longitude 55°

east orbit location, where it had been providing interim capacity to the Indian

Space Research Organization, to the longitude 54.85° east orbit location, and to

operate the satellite at the longitude 54.85° east orbit location. On June 23, 2004,

the FCC granted DIRECTV, Inc., authority to move the DIRECTV 3 satellite to

the longitude 82° west orbit location to provide Canadian satellite operator

Telesat Canada with the capacity needed following the development of anomalies

in the operations of the Canadian Nimiq 2 satellite. The FCC indicated that the
satellite would subsequently operate at the longitude 82° and 91° west orbit locations pursuant to Canadian authorizations. On August 13, 2004, the FCC granted

DIRECTV Enterprises LLC authority to move the DIRECTV 5 satellite to the

longitude 72.5° west orbit location. From that location, the satellite would operate pursuant to a Canadian authorization. The FCC also authorized reception of

signals from DIRECTV 5 in the United States in order to provide increased capacity for delivery of signals to U.S. consumers. 

Throughout FY 2004, the FCC continued to issue STAs and other authorizations for the Iridium system to operate its “Big LEO” MSS satellites in the

1620.10- to 1621.35-megahertz band. The additional authorized spectrum was to

support the satellite communications needs of U.S. and Coalition Forces in the

Middle East.

The FCC added a number of non-U.S.-licensed space stations to the

Commission’s permitted space station list to allow these space stations to provide

domestic and international satellite service in the United States, to U.S. Earth stations that have routine technical parameters. On October 15, 2003, the FCC

added Hispasat S.A.’s satellite, Hispasat-1DB, to its permitted list for certain Kuband frequencies. On November 24, 2003, the FCC added the Japanese Horizons

I communications package (aboard the Galaxy XIII spacecraft) to its permitted list

for Ku-band frequencies. On December 23, 2003, the FCC added the Brazilian

Estrela do Sol 1 satellite to its permitted list for Ku-band frequencies. On June 18,

2004, the FCC added the Brazilian Amazonas-1 satellite to its permitted list for Cand Ku-band frequencies. On September 28, 2004, the FCC added the Japanese

Superbird-C satellite to its permitted list, with certain conditions for specific Kuband frequencies.

During FY 2004, the FCC also was active in international satellite coordination. In the first quarter of FY 2004, the FCC reached a total of 16

Administration-to-Administration Coordination Agreements for U.S. networks,

with Brazil, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Russia, the Seychelles, and the United

Kingdom. In the second quarter of FY 2004, the FCC reached a total of 116

Administration-to-Administration Coordination Agreements for U.S. networks,

with Brazil, Canada, India, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain. In the third

quarter of FY 2004, the FCC reached a total of 21 Administration-toAdministration Coordination Agreements for U.S. networks, with Brazil, Canada,

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77
France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. In the fourth quarter of FY

2004, the FCC reached a total of 21 Administration-to-Administration

Coordination Agreements for U.S. networks, with Belarus, Japan, Luxembourg,

and the Netherlands. 

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

78
DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE

USDA

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79

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) used remote sensing data and related technologies to support the research and operational activities

of several agencies. These agencies included the Cooperative State Research,

Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Economic Research Service (ERS),

Farm Service Agency (FSA), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Forest Service

(FS), National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), Natural Resources

Conservation Service (NRCS), and Risk Management Agency (RMA). Although

the mission and responsibilities of each agency differed, similar data and technologies were used by these agencies to help accomplish departmental objectives.

The CSREES is the extramural research arm of USDA. It primarily provides financial assistance in the form of grants to conduct high-priority agricultural research

and education. Many grants awarded by CSREES use NASA data products to

solve complex environmentally related problems on topics such as water quality,

air quality, and land-use change. A few examples of research supported by CSREES

in 2004 include investigating methods of data normalization, integration, and

service for the natural resources research community in Arizona; classifying land

cover, monitoring vegetation condition, and sensing and analyzing urban ecology

in Minnesota; understanding urban wildlife populations in Texas; and incorporating remote sensing data into weather-forecast models in Utah. CSREES funded

long-term studies in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, and Wisconsin that used

remote sensing and geospatial technologies to develop precision management

techniques for various agricultural production strategies and to evaluate land-use

practices. CSREES cooperated with the Applications Division of the former Earth
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

80 Science Enterprise (now a part of the Science Mission Directorate) at NASA to

create geospatial extension programs at land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant

institutions. This outreach program helped to train local and regional technologists to use NASA data products and geospatial technologies more effectively.

ERS used derived remote sensing products, such as the National Land

Cover and the Global Land Cover datasets, extensively. ERS used these derived

products to quantify domestic and international agricultural efficiency and to track

environmental responses to changes in agricultural markets and policies. 

Much of the remote sensing activity within USDA involved the use of

imagery for program operations, program enforcement, and research purposes.

ERS, as part of its annual farm and field-level survey program, began to document

the use of remote sensing and GPS technologies by the Department’s primary

clientele—farmers. Experts expected GPS usage to increase, partly due to the

increased reliance on GIS by many domestic program agencies, such as NRCS and

FSA, which work closely with farmers. In addition, many land-grant universities

and Government agencies conducted research on the use of remote sensing, GPS,

and other precision-farming technologies to enhance economic opportunities and

reduce the environmental risks associated with agricultural production.

The FSA is the Federal agency charged with administering vital farm programs that ensure a strong and viable agriculture sector in the United States.

These programs help America’s farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural producers

cope with weather, volatile markets, and natural disasters; conserve land and water

resources; receive farm credits; and provide humanitarian aid to hungry people in

the United States and abroad. Because nearly all programs are related to individual farms and tracts of land, the backbone of effective program delivery is the use

of GIS fully integrated with up-to-date imagery and digital land and program data.

In FY 2004, the FSA saw many successes in the areas of remote sensing.

FSA was charged with creating and maintaining the Common Land Unit (CLU),

a nationally consistent geospatial data set representing farm and field boundaries.

Ultimately, the CLU layer will include all farm fields, rangeland, and pastureland

in the United States. At the end of 2004, FSA had digitized 74 percent of the

Nation’s counties.
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

81 FSA used the CLU, 1-meter digital imagery, digitized soil surveys, and other

data sets to manage farm programs. Landsat imagery archived in the FAS-managed

USDA Imagery Archive provided supplemental imagery for compliance and monitoring activities as well as ad hoc program analysis. Nationwide differential GPSs

were used by all field offices in conjunction with GIS for day-to-day operations

such as field-measurement services, development of boundary descriptions, and

collection of point features for buildings and facilities identification.

During the 2004 Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) signup, FSA used

GIS with digital imagery, CLU, and digital soils data to facilitate the producer offer

process and to reduce costs associated with technical assistance. FSA also used

CRP data associated with CLU in a study to determine the effects of that program

on bird populations as represented by the USGS Breeding Bird Survey.

The use of imagery linked to CLU and agency program data was invaluable

to respond to disaster events in 2004. For example, FSA assisted the Florida State

Department of Agriculture in compiling information relating to agriculture losses

occurring after Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan. Hurricane path

data from NOAA, satellite imagery from several sources, citrus grove data from

multiple State sources and USDA’s National Agriculture Statistics Service, and

FSA’s CLU were used to create loss tiers for damage analysis and follow-on ground

truth operations. 

In its second year of large-scale operation, FSA’s National Agriculture

Imagery Program (NAIP) provided cost-effective, consolidated imagery procurement for USDA and other Federal, State, and local partners. Using best-value

contracting, NAIP as a dual-product program provided for FSA’s yearly digital 2-

meter compliance imagery requirements and set the stage for successful cost-share

partnerships to update outdated 1-meter base imagery. In 2004, FSA acquired 2-

meter imagery to meet farm program compliance requirements in 25 States and

partnered with Federal, State, and local entities to acquire 1-meter replacement

imagery in 10 more States. FSA acquired imagery through film cameras and

increasingly sophisticated large-format digital cameras to provide the best product

possible to its field staff and partners. Approximately 30 days after the end of the

flight season, NAIP delivered natural-color or color-infrared imagery, in a compressed, county-mosaic format, as an interim product to FSA field offices. This
imagery provided field offices with a timely, easy-to-use product for compliance

activities. Full-resolution imagery tiles were available to the agency, partners, and

the public approximately 9 to 12 months after acquisition. The FSA Aerial

Photography Field Office (APFO) also provided cost-effective contracting services

for other USDA agencies for resource and spot aerial photography. 

FSA worked in conjunction with the USDA Office of the Chief

Information Officer and NRCS to continue development of a Geospatial Data

Warehouse (GDW), providing agency users and the public with online access to

geospatial data acquired from or developed by the agencies. The GDW supported

precepts promoted by Geospatial One Stop. 

FSA actively supported remote sensing activities through involvement in

Federal remote sensing and geodata coordination committees. The agency devoted

time and resources in support of initiatives such as Geospatial One Stop, the

Federal Geographic Data Coordination Committee, the National Aerial

Photography Program, the National Digital Orthophotography Program, the

USDA Remote Sensing Coordination Committee, and others.

The FAS Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division (PECAD) is

the focal point within FAS and USDA for assessing the global agricultural production outlook and conditions that affect world food security and serves as the

USDA Imagery Archive. The FAS satellite remote sensing program remained a

critical element in USDA’s analysis of global agricultural production and crop conditions by providing timely, accurate, and unbiased estimates of global area, yield,

and production. Satellite-derived early warning of unusual crop conditions and

production enabled more rapid and precise determinations of global supply conditions. FAS exploited many global imagery data sets, including global AVHRR

local area coverage, global area coverage, and high-resolution picture transmission

data from NOAA. FAS also used 10-day global composites from the SPOT

Vegetation sensor. FAS had standing orders for Landsat 5 and 7 imagery, acquiring

8- to 16-day coverage for selected paths and rows. All operational imagery had

delivery requirements within 12 days of acquisition. Due to budget constraints, use

of Space Imaging IKONOS and DigitalGlobe QuickBird data was extremely limited. In addition, FAS and NASA cooperated on many projects to exploit space

technologies, including MODIS Rapid Response and global reservoir monitoring.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

82
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Y ear 2004 Activities

83 Information on the FAS remote sensing program can be found on the Internet at

http://www.fas.usda.gov/pecad.

In FY 2004, the FS continued to process data from NASA’s MODIS sensor,

using these data to produce active wildland fire maps for the entire United States

three times a day. FS acquired MODIS imagery of the western United States from

a receiving station located at the agency’s Remote Sensing Applications Center

(RSAC) facility in Salt Lake City, UT. Imagery of the eastern United States was

acquired by Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). MODIS data from Alaska and

western Canada were acquired at the receiving station located at the University of

Alaska, Fairbanks. RSAC used a fire-detection algorithm developed by the

University of Maryland to identify active fire locations. These locations were overlaid on a cartographic base map that showed State boundaries, topography, major

cities, and interstate highways. These maps were then posted on the Internet

(http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us), where they were accessible to national fire managers and the general public.

The Active Fire Mapping Web site was accessed by a large number of users

during the 2004 Alaska fire season. The maps provided the interagency fire community with a synoptic view of the wildland fire situation, aiding in the strategic

allocation of fire-fighting resources and assets throughout the country. This service has been available on a daily basis since July 4, 2001, and is a collaborative

effort with NASA GSFC and the University of Maryland. Several major media

entities, including the Washington Post, the Cable News Network, the Associated

Press, and the Los Angeles Times, also use the map and fire-detection data. 

The FS also continued to work with both NASA Ames Research Center

(ARC) and GSFC on a number of fire-related technologies. ARC work included

advanced sensor design and image processing from airborne platforms, as well as

UAV development and mission profiling for tactical wildland fire mapping. GSFC

completed development and construction of the RIPComm air-to-ground communications system that will enable rapid transmission of FS airborne thermal-image

products to incident command personnel in the coming fire season. The Freewave

communications system was utilized for the first time in Alaska during the 2004

fire season and provided the incident commands with current fire imagery in minutes rather than hours. The FS has two planned UAV missions in the spring and
84 summer of 2005 to demonstrate the capabilities of UAVs in support of wildfire

mapping, management, and suppression activities.

The FS continued its collaboration with NASA ARC in the Wildfire

Research and Applications Partnership (http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sge/WRAP/) and

together formed the interagency Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory

Committee (TFRSAC) to speed technology transfer to the wildfire detection,

mapping, and suppression arena. The TFRSAC consisted of remote sensing scientists and wildfire-suppression specialists from across the country and around

the globe.

The mission of NASS is to provide timely, accurate, and useful statistics in

service to U.S. agriculture. These statistics cover virtually every facet of U.S. agriculture, from production and supply of food and fiber to prices paid and received

by farmers and ranchers. Every 5 years, NASS also conducts the Census of

Agriculture, which provides a comprehensive statistical summary of many aspects

of U.S. agriculture. Remote sensing data and techniques are valuable tools used to

improve the accuracy of some NASS statistics. Remote sensing data and area sampling frame designs also form the backbone of our most important early season

survey, conducted to provide the first look at planted acreage for the season.

During FY 2004, NASS used remote sensing data to construct and sample

area frames for statistical surveys, estimate crop area, and create crop-specific landcover data layers for GIS. NASS used Landsat imagery, digital orthophoto

quadrangles, and other remotely sensed inputs for all 48 continental States and

Puerto Rico to select the yearly area-based samples. In addition, NASS constructed new area-based sampling frames in Indiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and the

reservation areas of New Mexico. These frames will be used for the first time in

2005. The remote sensing acreage estimation project analyzed Landsat data from

the 2003 crop season in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, the Missouri

boot heel, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wisconsin to produce crop-acreage estimates for major crops at State and county levels and a crop-specific categorization

in the form of a digital mosaic of TM scenes distributed to users on a CD-ROM.

For the 2004 crop season, NASS headquarters and several NASS field offices continued partnership agreements with State organizations to decentralize the

Landsat processing and analysis. Data for 2004 acreage estimation analysis were

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

85 collected in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska,

North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

NASS forged new remote sensing partnerships during FY 2004, as well as

maintained existing partnerships. In cooperation with Towson University, and as

a subcontract of the Raytheon-sponsored synergy contract, NASS began to create

a crop-specific categorization for the 2002 crop year for a 10-State Mid-Atlantic

region. The region included the States of North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia,

Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and

Rhode Island. NASS continued the work it began in 2003 with the Florida

Department of Citrus by working with the European Union to evaluate the use of

its tree-counting program, OLICOUNT, with high-resolution imagery, such as

QuickBird, to remotely count citrus trees. NASS, in conjunction with the

Agricultural Research Service (ARS), continued research on data from the

MODIS sensor on the Terra and Aqua satellites for use as an additional input for

setting small-area yield estimates. NASS conducted a specific pilot for the States

of Iowa and North Dakota.

The NRCS is the primary Federal agency working with private landowners

to help them protect and conserve their natural resources. Much of the land-management business conducted by NRCS is accomplished using remote sensing,

geospatial, and GPS data and technologies. The NRCS primarily uses digital

orthoimagery and GIS at county field service centers nationwide. 

NRCS purchased all aerial photography and derivative digital orthoimagery

products from commercial sources by coordinating and cost sharing, to the maximum

extent possible, with other Federal and State agencies. Through this partnership, in

FY 2004 the NRCS acquired statewide 1-meter or better resolution orthoimagery for

10 States and partial coverage for Alaska. NRCS acquired most of the orthoimagery

by cost sharing with the FSA through NAIP. Participation in NAIP has permitted

NRCS to refresh State orthoimagery on a 5-year cyclic schedule. 

In response to imagery needs in support of USDA conservation programs,

homeland security, natural resource inventories, and nationwide GIS use, NRCS

continued to work with the Department of Agriculture and FSA to enhance our

GDW and Geospatial Data Gateway. These two initiatives provided agency users

and the public with online 24-7 access to geospatial data, including imagery, developed or purchased by FSA and NRCS. All imagery purchased by NRCS resided in
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

86 the public domain. This arrangement permitted NRCS to distribute imagery internally and externally without limiting or restricting its usability.

In FY 2004, NRCS used 1-meter orthoimagery nationwide to conduct soil

surveys as part of the National Cooperative Soil Survey program. Soil scientists

used digital orthoimagery as the base for mapping and digitizing soil surveys at

either 1:12,000 or 1:24,000 scales. Approximately 70 percent of the Nation’s

detailed soil surveys are now digitized to a nationally consistent geospatial format. 

NRCS continued to contract for high-resolution aerial photography (less

than 1-foot ground-resolving distance) as the primary source for collecting natural

resource data for the annual National Resources Inventory (NRI) program. The

NRI required high-resolution imagery over confidential statistical sampling sites.

NRCS purchased NRI imagery for approximately 70,000 sites in the conterminous

United States. Six aerial firms flew the natural-color imagery within short photography periods during the growing season. The FSA APFO, which had USDA

responsibility for coordinating and contracting aerial photography, administered

the contracts. The NRI program also contracted for high-resolution satellite and

aerial imagery over Alaska in an effort to begin collecting and providing statistically reliable statewide natural resource data annually in Alaska. 

In FY 2004, NRCS reorganized to meet changes in agriculture business

practices, technologies, and conservation programs. One organizational change

resulted in the establishment of three Remote Sensing Laboratories (RSLs) that

are responsible for collecting NRI natural resource data.

Nationwide, NRCS natural resource specialists increased work efficiencies

while providing better products through the advanced use of geospatial technologies to carry out daily business. It was now mandatory for field office planners to

use GIS to plan and document conservation plans for producers and landowners.

GPS also became a standard tool for field office staff.

The NRCS, FAS, and University of Texas Center for Space Research collaborated on a remote sensing project using Landsat and other satellite data to

collect data on water resources and invasive plant species in the Rio Grande Basin

along the Texas-Mexico border.

The RMA mission is to promote, support, and regulate sound risk management solutions to preserve and strengthen the economic stability of

America’s agricultural producers. As part of this mission, RMA operates and
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Y ear 2004 Activities

87 manages the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC). In FY 2004, RMA

used remote sensing data and related technologies to support its program compliance efforts, to assist in new insurance product development, to support

existing products, and to aid RMA personnel and outside customers working on

agency mission-critical projects. 

RMA used remote sensing to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in its programs. In 2004, the Compliance Division, in conjunction with the USDA Office

of Inspector General and the Department of Justice, used Landsat 5 and Landsat 7

data to support an investigation of conspiracy and insurance fraud for submitting

false claims and statements to the USDA. This investigation resulted in a conviction and the sentencing of a producer to 3 years and 5 months in Federal prison

and $448,000 in restitution. A co-conspirator also was convicted. Based upon the

success of this investigation in combating waste, fraud, and abuse, RMA provided

remote sensing training to a number of its compliance investigators in March

2004. Investigators were trained to acquire Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 imagery from

the USDA Imagery Archive, managed by PECAD, and then to make preliminary

determinations from the imagery to approve a crop insurance claim or forward it

on to a remote sensing expert for further investigation.

RMA had an interagency agreement with the ARS National Soil Tilth

Laboratory for the evaluation of the utility of satellite and aircraft remote sensing for crop-loss adjustment. The purpose of this agreement was to study and

develop a risk management tool to assess crop damage across fields using remote

sensing methods and conventional information. The management tool would

help producers make decisions that should reduce the potential risk of crop loss.

In addition, the results of this study may be used for producers to receive the

most accurate loss-adjustment possible, thus receiving all benefits to which they

are entitled. 

RMA had a partnership with AIR Worldwide Corporation for the development of AgALERT, a weather-analysis and risk management tool for producers of

specialty crops. The purpose of this partnership was to develop a Web-based interactive weather-analysis tool that will assist specialty crop producers to manage

their operations and improve management of multiyear risk. This system utilized

NOAA GOES satellite imagery.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

88 RMA also had a partnership with AgriLogic Inc. for the development of a

Forage and Rangeland Decision Support System (FRDSS). The purpose of this

partnership was to develop a Web-based tool that would assist livestock producers

in improving price revenue and lowering market risk and would offer easy access to

a specialized combination of local environmental information (weather, soil moisture, terrain elevation) and financial-management tools specifically designed for

forage and rangeland applications. This system utilized NOAA AVHRR imagery.
NATIONAL SCIENCE

FOUNDATION

NSF

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89

The National Science Foundation (NSF) continued to serve as the lead

Federal agency for the support of ground-based astronomy and space science.

Through the Divisions of Astronomical Sciences, Atmospheric Sciences, and

Physics, as well as through the Office of Polar Programs, the NSF sponsored a

broad base of observational, theoretical, and laboratory research aimed at understanding the states of matter and physical processes in the universe. Areas of

research ranged from the most distant reaches of the universe and the earliest

moments of its existence to the nearby stars and planets, including our own planetary system.

The NSF also supported the development of advanced technologies and

instrumentation for astronomical sciences and provided core support for optical

and radio observatories that maintain state-of-the-art instrumentation and

observing capabilities accessible to the community on the basis of scientific

merit. The NSF’s national astronomical facilities included the National Radio

Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the National Astronomy and Ionosphere

Center (NAIC), the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), and

the National Solar Observatory (NSO). The NSF served as the executive agency

for the Gemini Observatory, an international partnership operating optical/infrared

telescopes in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The Atacama Large

Millimeter Array, an interferometer located near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile,

was in the process of being constructed in partnership with Europe, Canada, and

Japan. Groundbreaking in Chile took place on November 6, 2003. 

The NSF continued a joint activity with the U.S. Air Force Office of

Scientific Research (AFOSR) to provide the U.S. astronomical community with
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

90 access to state-of-the-art facilities at the Advanced Electro-Optical System telescope on Maui, HI.

The Improved Solar Observing Optical Network (ISOON) telescope at the

NSO on Sacramento Peak, NM, a joint Air Force/NSO project, collected data

daily and made it available on the Web for the tracking and prediction of solar

activity. The NSO Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun Spectral

Vector Magnetograph produced full-disk magnetograms and vector magnetograms.

Regular vector magnetographs of the full solar disk permit early identification of

solar regions that are likely to produce activity in the form of flares and coronal

mass ejections.

The first working version of a “one-stop shopping” service for solar data

was placed online, giving scientists a much easier way to search for data on specific solar phenomena and to confirm the results of earlier research. Enabled by a

collaboration of NASA and NSF’s NSO, the Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO)

makes it possible to access data from multiple sources using one Web service. At

the VSO’s core are decades of data and images from the NSO Digital Library

(ground-based solar telescopes) and NASA’s Solar Data Analysis Center (spacecraft observations).

The NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences, in collaboration with the

Division of Atmospheric Sciences, supported the development of the Advanced

Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), the next-generation U.S. ground-based solar

telescope designed to resolve fundamental spatial and temporal scales of the basic

physical processes governing solar variability and promising to improve our understanding of the physical processes on the Sun that ultimately affect Earth. The

ATST, a collaboration of 22 institutions representing a broad segment of the U.S.

solar physics community, had previously earned the strong recommendation of the

National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. The design

phase of the ATST project continued in 2004.

The Upper Atmospheric Research Section (UARS) in NSF’s Division of

Atmospheric Sciences supported a wide variety of research programs in space science. These included the funding of advanced radar systems to study the

ionosphere and magnetosphere, ground-based optical equipment to study the

aurora and airglow, ground-based solar telescopes, and a wide-ranging portfolio of

basic research in space physics. The major UARS-funded activities included the
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Y ear 2004 Activities

91 Upper Atmospheric Facilities (UAF), the National Space Weather Program

(NSWP), the Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions

(CEDAR) program, the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) program, and

the Solar, Heliosphere, and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE) program.

The NSWP is a multiagency Federal program whose goal is to mitigate the

adverse effects of space weather on the Nation’s technological infrastructure by providing timely, accurate, and reliable space environment observations, specifications,

and forecasts. In 2004, scientists submitted proposals to the NSWP for basic research

in solar, heliospheric, magnetospheric, ionospheric, and thermospheric physics

aimed at meeting these goals. In addition, space physicists implemented and validated computer models at the multiagency Community Coordinated Modeling

Center (CCMC) located at GSFC in order to accomplish many of the above objectives. Information about the NSWP can be obtained from the NSWP Strategic Plan

and Implementation Plan, available online through the Office of the Federal

Coordinator for Meteorology. 

Research facilities are a key component of UARS’s efforts. The major goal

of the UAF program in 2004 continued to be the promotion of basic research on

the structure and dynamics of Earth’s upper atmosphere. Research efforts utilizing

these facilities were linked strongly to the CEDAR and GEM programs. 

UARS supported four large incoherent-scatter radar facilities and the Super

Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) coherent-scatter radar system in

2004. SuperDARN consists of a number of coherent-scatter, high-frequency radars

in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres focused on studies of magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling processes occurring over the poles. In contrast, the

four incoherent-scatter radars emphasized global ionospheric and upper atmospheric research. They are located along a longitudinal chain from Greenland to

Peru at Millstone Hill Observatory, Sondrestrom Radar Facility, Arecibo

Observatory, and Jicamarca Radio Observatory. Most of these incoherent-scatter

radar facilities continued to use colocated optical diagnostic instruments for scientific observations in addition to the radars themselves. 

A recent addition to the UAF program in UARS was the Advanced

Modular Incoherent-Scatter Radar (AMISR), which was under construction in

2004 and is expected to become operational in 2005. AMISR is deployable to any

geographic location on the globe for ionospheric research. 
92Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

The CEDAR, GEM, and SHINE programs continued to constitute broadbased, community-initiated efforts focused on studying solar influences on the

space environment surrounding Earth known as “geospace.” The goal of these programs continued to be the development of the next generation of researchers to

lead this fundamental research for the Nation. These programs encouraged participation by undergraduate and graduate students, who benefited from the

interdisciplinary nature of the research and the multifaceted approaches involving

theory, numerical simulations, instrument development, data analysis, field measurements, and teamwork. CEDAR, GEM, and SHINE workshops held in 2004

provided forums for investigators to present results, exchange information, and

plan future experimental campaigns. 

CEDAR’s goal continued to be the increased understanding of the behavior of atmospheric regions, from the middle atmosphere upward through the

thermosphere and ionosphere into the exosphere, in terms of coupling, energetics,

chemistry, and dynamics on regional and global scales. These processes are related

to the sources of perturbations that propagate upward from the lower atmosphere,

as well as to solar radiation and particle inputs from above. In 2004, CEDAR continued to manage networks of instruments and facilities to address research topics

involving global-scale coupling and transport effects between geographic regions

and different altitudes. These observations were combined with sophisticated

models to test our understanding of atmospheric-coupling processes. A database of

CEDAR observations continued to be maintained for community use at the

National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. 

GEM supported research on the physics of Earth’s magnetosphere and, in

particular, the coupling of the magnetosphere to Earth’s atmosphere and to the solar

wind. The primary goal of GEM continued to be understanding how the flow of

energy, mass, and momentum in the solar wind couples to Earth’s magnetosphere

and, in turn, how the magnetosphere is coupled to Earth’s atmosphere. In 2004, the

GEM program therefore supported basic research on magnetohydrodynamics and

plasma physics, and especially on the dynamical and structural properties of geospace, with the purpose of constructing a global Geospace General Circulation

Model (GGCM) with predictive capability. The strategy for achieving GEM goals

continued to emphasize the undertaking of multiple theoretical and observational

campaigns, each focusing on particular aspects of the geospace environment. 
Fiscal Y ear 2004 Activities

93 SHINE research focused on the connections between eruptive events and

magnetic phenomena on the Sun and the corresponding solar wind structures in

the inner heliosphere. In 2004, SHINE research focused on those processes by

which magnetic fields and particles produced by the Sun permeate interplanetary

space and on the mechanisms by which these fields and particles are transported

to geospace through the inner heliosphere. SHINE therefore also supported basic

research on magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics. The goal of SHINE

research continued to be the enhancement of both our physical understanding and

predictive capabilities for solar-driven events in geospace, and SHINE was complementary to, but distinct from, the NSWP and GEM. 
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

94
DEPARTMENT OF

STATE

DOS

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95

The Department of State (DOS) supports U.S. space activities through the

negotiation of bilateral and multilateral agreements on scientific and technical

cooperation with partner countries and through outreach programs designed to support key U.S. foreign policy objectives, including sustained growth, transportation

safety, and sound environmental management.

In FY 2004, DOS led successful negotiations with the European Union on

cooperation between the U.S. GPS and Europe’s planned Galileo satellite navigation system. The negotiations resulted in an agreement on GPS-Galileo

cooperation that was signed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and his European

counterparts in Ireland on June 26, 2004. The agreement calls for the Galileo and

next-generation GPS satellites to broadcast a common civil signal, which will benefit civil users around the world. It also provides for a nondiscriminatory approach

to trade in satellite navigation goods and services and ensures that the Galileo signals will not degrade the ability of the United States and its allies to prevent

adversaries from having access to satellite-based positioning information in areas of

conflict. During FY 2004, DOS also led Government-level consultations on satellite navigation issues with Japan, India, and Brazil and continued work with the

U.N. Office of Outer Space Affairs for the development and exploitation of global

navigation satellite system applications. 

As part of the President’s initiative to strengthen bilateral cooperation with

India, the DOS led efforts to organize a pioneering India-U.S. Conference on Space

Science, Applications, and Commerce that was held in Bangalore, India, June

21–25, 2004. More than 500 officials, researchers, and business representatives participated in the conference, including representatives from the DOC, NASA,
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

96 NOAA, and other U.S. agencies. The American Institute of Aeronautics and

Astronautics (AIAA) assisted with conference arrangements, and a number of key

U.S. aerospace firms also were involved. The conference reviewed the status of

existing Indo-U.S. cooperative projects and explored the future of space cooperation and commercial space activities between the two countries. Participants

identified a number of areas with strong potential for enhanced cooperation in

civil space activities, supported a vision statement calling on the two governments

to continue efforts to facilitate bilateral cooperation, and developed a set of

detailed recommendations for expanding civil space cooperation between India

and the United States. 

Through new outreach activities, DOS continued to harness U.S. leadership

in geospatial technologies, including GPS, remote sensing, and Web-based mapping, in support of transportation safety and sustainable development applications.

Under DOS leadership and with funding from the Interagency GPS Executive

Board, the GPS outreach team developed an exhibit to promote GPS technology

and applications that traveled to the India-U.S. Conference on Space Science,

Applications, and Commerce. As a followup to the initiative on Geographic

Information for Sustainable Development that the United States brought to the

Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, DOS promoted the distribution of global Landsat data sets for environmental and agricultural applications

through regional conferences in the developing world.

DOS continued work with the U.N. Office of Outer Space Activities for the

development and exploitation of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)

applications. DOS provided funding for regional GNSS workshops and experts

meetings held under the auspices of the U.N. and the United States. The workshops brought together regional experts and decisionmakers to advance awareness

and support for the use of GNSS applications for sustained growth, transportation

safety, and environmental management.

Through the coordinated efforts of DOS, NASA, and NSF, the number

of countries participating in the U.S.-led GLOBE program was expanded to

107. GLOBE is a hands-on science and education program that involves primary and secondary school students around the world in scientific research on

Earth’s environment. Two new countries, the Republic of France and

Mauritania, joined the program in 2004. The GLOBE program received the
Fiscal Y ear 2004 Activities

97

2004 Goldman Sachs Foundation Award for International Education in the category of media and technology.

During FY 2004, DOS again led U.S. Government participation in the U.N.

Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The committee undertook significant work in areas such as global navigation satellite systems, the problem of

orbital space debris, meteorology, astronomy and astrophysics, space transportation,

nuclear power sources in space, planetary exploration, and environmental monitoring. The committee also considered legal issues related to international liability

and responsibility of launching nations, international financial security interests in

space equipment, and equitable access to the geostationary orbit. 
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

98
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DEPARTMENT OF

ENERGY

DOE

In FY 2004, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science (SC) cooperated with NASA in a wide variety of activities, such as developing experimental

techniques of fundamental physics for use in outer space, using plasma science to

devise new propulsion systems, engaging in joint efforts to understand atmospheric

and environmental phenomena, and entering into a working partnership in

advanced computing research. These activities were carried out under an MOU

between NASA and DOE signed by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and

DOE Secretary James Watkins in 1992. NASA and DOE revitalized their joint

space nuclear efforts in FY 2004, including new work in the space nuclear technology area and commencement of a space nuclear reactor design and development

effort for Prometheus-1, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission. 

Through an Implementing Arrangement with NASA signed in 1995, the

SC continued in 2004 to build the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) for use

on the ISS. The AMS is an international experiment designed to use the unique

environment of space to search for and measure, with a much greater sensitivity

than heretofore possible, various unusual types of matter. The DOE built the AMS

to study the properties and origin of cosmic particles and nuclei, including antimatter and dark matter. Discovering the presence of either material will increase

scientists’ understanding of the early universe and could lead to a clearer understanding of the actual origin of the universe. DOE provided funding in FY 2004 to

support the research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that

is leading the AMS program. 

DOE’s SC and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (formerly the Space

Science Enterprise) have collaborated since FY 2000 on the Large Area Telescope

(LAT), the primary instrument for NASA’s Gamma-ray Large Area Space
Telescope mission currently scheduled for launch in August 2007. This device,

using the techniques of experimental particle-physics research, is to detect gamma

rays emitted by the most energetic objects and phenomena in the universe. The

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a DOE facility at Stanford University, was

responsible for the overall management of the LAT project. DOE provided funding

in FY 2004 for the design and fabrication of the telescope, in conjunction with

NASA and international partners.

Determining the nature of dark energy, which is causing the acceleration of

the expansion of the universe, is a high-priority science objective for both DOE and

NASA. The Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) is a plan endorsed by both DOE

and NASA for this mission. In the plan, both DOE and NASA will be responsible

for the success of the mission. NASA will be in charge of the space mission management. DOE and NASA will jointly select a team to conduct the dark energy

science investigation. DOE supported a large portion of R&D activities by the

Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP) collaboration, led by LBNL, which proposed a space-based dark energy experiment designed to precisely probe the nature

of dark energy. SNAP will be one of the proposals for the dark energy science investigation for JDEM. Although neither DOE nor NASA has identified funds for the

development of JDEM, both agencies provided R&D funding in FY 2004 toward

project planning and mission concepts.

The Office of Nuclear Physics is a separate office in the SC. Previously,

High Energy and Nuclear Physics served the Nation as a single Office. Nuclear

Physics continued to make available the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron

(AGS), an essential component of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)

complex at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The AGS is the only accelerator in the United States capable of providing heavy ion beams at energies (up

to 1 GeV/nucleon) of interest to the space radiobiology community. This capability has been in place since 1995 with radiobiology experiments, funded by NASA,

performed with silicon, iron, and even gold beams. In FY 2003, a NASA-funded

facility, named the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), was completed at

BNL. Commissioning was carried out in late FY 2003 (NSRL-0 experiment). In

early FY 2004, a total of 27 radiobiology experiments (NSRL-1) were approved

and run with beams of protons, carbon, iron, and titanium for 21 institutions from

the United States and two from Italy. This facility continued to operate as an effiAeronautics and Space Report of the President 

100
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101 cient and effective radiation simulation facility for human space exploration. The

SC and NASA continued to work on a range of technical resources that can be

mutually beneficial for experimentation and data analysis at BNL. For example,

discussions were undertaken regarding a possible future upgrade to the RHIC’s ion

source called an Electron Beam Ion Source. This source, if realized, would enhance

the range and intensities of heavy ion beams available to the RHIC complex,

including the NSRL.

In FY 2004, the DOE Nuclear Physics Program continued to support astrophysicists using the National Energy Research Scientific-computing Center

(NERSC), funded by DOE’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research,

for simulations of supernovae explosions, such as those observed by the Hubble

Space Telescope. 

Other space-related aspects of the Nuclear Physics Program have relevance

to NASA, other Federal agencies (e.g., National Reconnaissance Office and the

U.S. Air Force), and the private sector. In the area of radiation effects, the Nuclear

Physics Program regularly provided beams from accelerator facilities (BNL Tandem,

LBNL 88-Inch Cyclotron, Texas A&M Superconducting Cyclotron) to NASA,

DOE applied laboratories, European and Japanese space agencies, and private companies for testing of electronic components used in high-radiation space

environments and investigation of radiation effects on biological systems such as

described above for the NSRL at BNL.

Through the use of plasma and fusion propulsion, NASA-funded research

activities have the potential of revolutionizing interplanetary space travel. Transfer

of knowledge to NASA and the Agency’s use of research capabilities developed in

the SC’s fusion energy program continued in FY 2004. 

NASA studied fusion propulsion concepts for advanced interplanetary missions based upon the spherical torus and plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion.

The DOE’s SC investigated the physics of the spherical torus in its National

Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

(PPPL) as part of its fusion energy program

The DOE’s SC investigated plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion for

magnetic fusion energy applications at General Atomics, Lawrence Livermore

National Laboratory, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Researchers at

the University of Wisconsin completed a preliminary computational study on the
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

102 feasibility of the plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion for space propulsion for

NASA MSFC using a computer code developed in the inertial fusion energy program of the SC.

The two fusion rocket concepts based upon the spherical torus and the magneto-inertial fusion approach have the potential of reducing traveling times to the

planets by more than a factor of 10. 

PPPL researchers also worked on a high-power Hall thruster, a form of electric thruster. The high-power Hall thruster has potential performance levels that are

relevant to send advanced NASA science missions to the outer planets.

DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), PPPL, the Institute of

Fusion Studies at the University of Texas in Austin, and NASA Johnson Space

Center continued to collaborate on the development of an advanced plasma

rocket technology called the Variable Specific Impulse Magneto Plasma Rocket

that has the potential of cutting in half the time required to reach Mars. A key to

the technology is the capability to vary the plasma exhaust to maintain optimal

propulsive efficiency. 

PPPL worked on several other basic plasma science projects that complement and enhance the science activities at NASA. These projects focused

on magnetic reconnection and other work on ionosphere and space-related

plasma physics topics, and they are partially funded under the DOE/NSF Plasma

Science Partnership. The Magnetic Reconnection Experiment investigates the

coupling between microscale reconnection layers and global forcing and plasma

topology evolution. 

The SC and NASA worked together to calculate the daily primary productivity of terrestrial ecosystems at diverse sites in Northern and Central States.

Research initiated in FY 2002 continued in FY 2004 with the SC’s AmeriFlux

program. The program provided real-time meteorological, solar radiation, and

CO2 flux data for these calculations, where NASA provided data from the

MODIS platform on gross primary productivity and leaf area. This joint work

investigated continental-scale seasonal and geographic patterns of carbon-cycle

processes related to the North American carbon program. The AmeriFlux program produced unique ground-based measurements of net ecosystem production

from some 30 locations across the United States. These results provided inde-
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103 pendent corroboration of NASA’s productivity calculations derived from remote

sensing observations.

Future NASA missions, Cloudsat and Calipso, will include passive remote

sensors for characterizing clouds. In FY 2004, NASA conducted a campaign over the

SC’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains site as

part of their effort to develop and validate algorithms for these instruments. These

missions, when taken together, advance our understanding of the coupling between

various components of the hydrologic cycle and atmospheric circulation and may

lead to significant improvements in the characterization of cloud feedback in global

climate models. Data from the ARM site was used in these algorithm development

and validation activities. ARM also is providing ground validation support for

NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. The AIRS is a highspectral-resolution infrared sounder on the EOS Aqua platform. The ARM data are

being used to improve the water vapor and temperature profiles retrieved from the

AIRS sensor. Information on water vapor and temperature is an important parameter for the development and validation of climate models.

In 2004, the first in a series of proposed workshops jointly sponsored by

NASA, NOAA, and DOE was held on the use of Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles

(UAVs) for making critical measurements needed for climate-change research. The

workshop brought together distinguished scientists from the agencies, universities,

and private industry to identify key scientific questions that could be addressed

using the unique capabilities of UAVs and to identify aircraft or instrument technology gaps that would require future investment in the development of UAV

capabilities and their applications in research on climate change and other environmental systems. One goal of the proposed collaboration is to define how to

efficiently use the resources of the three agencies to extend climate-relevant measurements, using UAVs, to regions of Earth that are currently underrepresented. 

The SC, NSF, and NASA continued close three-way collaboration on the

development and implementation of climate models. All three agencies supported

a variety of collaborative activities associated with the Community Climate System

Model. SC’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Scientific Computing project

to develop software framework and implement efficient software engineering practices for complex climate models coordinated its activity with NASA’s

Earth-System Modeling Framework project. NASA, DOE, NOAA, and NSF par-
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

104 ticipated in the interagency Climate Model Evaluation Project to support the evaluation of U.S. coupled-climate model simulations. The aim of this effort was to

increase communitywide diagnostic research into the quality of model simulations

to improve evaluations of model predictions and quantification of uncertainty in

projections of future climate.

The SC’s Low Dose Radiation Research Program continued to interact with

the Space Radiation Health Program in NASA’s Office of Biological and Physical

Research. The focus of research in the DOE Low Dose Radiation Research Program

was on doses of radiation that are at or below current workplace exposure limits.

The primary area of emphasis of the NASA Space Radiation Health Program continued to be to understand the biological effects of space radiation that account for

radiation risks. In FY 2001, NASA and DOE developed a Memorandum of

Agreement (MOA) to better coordinate their common interests. This close collaboration between NASA and DOE was intended to enhance progress in

understanding and predicting the effects and health risks resulting from low-dose

radiation. DOE and NASA also issued joint Requests for Applications in FY 2002,

2003, and 2004 for research that addressed both DOE and NASA needs to understand the human health effects and risks of exposures to low doses of radiation. Ten

jointly funded projects were in existence in 2004.

DOE’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) and NASA’s Research and

Education Network (NREN) continued to maintain a close working relationship.

For a number of years, ESnet has used its contracts to procure the long-haul

telecommunications circuits and some of the associated equipment that NREN uses

to build its network. ESnet also has one of its major peering points (where it connects to other networks) at NASA ARC.

In FY 2004, DOE and NASA jointly organized a high-capacity optical networks workshop. The purpose of the workshop was to identify the network

requirements of next-generation data optical networks to provide access to distributed national terascale supercomputing facilities. The workshop also focused on

developing interagency strategies to coordinate the development of experimental

ultra-high-capacity optical network technologies to support large-scale distributed

application and petabyte-scale data archives. NASA and DOE also collaborated in

the deployment and testing of advanced networking technologies, such as highspeed transport protocols, high-speed data transfer services, and end-to-end network
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105 monitoring toolkits developed by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory,

Argonne National Laboratory, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology continued to support NASA’s space exploration program by pursuing development of specific

technologies for future space missions and by maintaining the necessary program

and nuclear facilities infrastructure to provide radioisotope power systems and

heater units. In FY 2004, DOE continued to develop two new radioisotope power

systems for future use in multiple mission environments, including planetary surfaces and deep space.

These two systems, a multimission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator

and a Stirling Radioisotope Generator, will each provide greater than 100 Watts-e

for over 10 years. DOE also is supporting the fabrication of the Radioisotope

Thermoelectric Generator for the New Horizons mission to Pluto scheduled to

launch in early 2006. As part of maintaining the required infrastructure, DOE completed construction of the Space and Security Power Systems Facility at its Idaho

site. This facility serves as the fueling and test facility for multiple types of radioisotope power systems and will support a variety of future missions. This facility is

operational and is being used to fuel and test the generator for the New Horizons

mission. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology also conducted

long-term space reactor science and technology development efforts directed at

supporting the long-term vision for space exploration. 

In FY 2004, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham assigned DOE’s Office of

Naval Reactors responsibility to support space-reactor activities for NASA’s proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission. This was an ambitious proposed mission

to orbit three planet-sized moons of Jupiter—Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa—

which may harbor vast oceans beneath their icy surfaces. 

Many of the NASA-funded activities listed above enter the DOE system

through the Work for Others program. This program allows non-DOE sponsors

access to SC laboratories’ unique and specialized facilities and expertise. Other scientific and technological efforts NASA supported through this program include

research in the space radiation environment and its implications for human presence in space, aerogel-based materials, combustion under microgravity conditions,

the biological impact of solar and galactic cosmic radiation exposure on astronaut

health, and the genetic and epigenetic effects produced by high-energy heavy ions.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

106
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107

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

The Smithsonian Institution continued to contribute to national aerospace

goals through the activities of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO),

which is joined with the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, MA, to form the

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Here, more than 300 scientists engage

in a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, and science education. The

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington, DC, also

contributed to national aerospace goals through its research and education activities.

This year, SAO gained a new director with the appointment of Dr. Charles

Alcock, who also will head the Harvard College Observatory. Alcock succeeded

Dr. Irwin Shapiro, who served as director for 21 years. Alcock will manage a staff

of more than 900 employees and an organization that includes leading groundbased and space-based observatories.

FY 2004 marked the fifth year of the success of the Chandra X-ray

Observatory, a spacecraft operated by SAO on behalf of NASA. Astronomers presented discoveries regarding objects ranging from nearby solar system bodies to

distant galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe. 

Chandra’s data on galaxy clusters proved to have implications for the nature

and amounts of dark matter and dark energy that mysteriously dominate the universe.

For example, Chandra revealed that two particular clusters contain thousands of

galaxies immersed in enormous clouds of multimillion-degree gas. Scientists can use

x-ray observations of the hot gas to glean clues about the cloud of dark matter that

confines the gas and galaxies. Also in FY 2004, astronomers announced that they had

used Chandra to study 26 different galaxy clusters to estimate the amount of dark

energy in the universe. Their results provided important independent confirmation of
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

108 calculations using optical observations of supernovae in distant galaxies. Both the xray and optical results indicate that the expansion of the universe stopped slowing

down about 6 billion years ago and then began to accelerate. Astronomers now conclude that dark energy contributes about 75 percent of the energy density in the

universe, dark matter about 21 percent, and normal matter about 4 percent.

Chandra also continued to probe the behavior and characteristics of black

holes in FY 2004. Along with other x-ray telescopes, Chandra found evidence that

a star wandered too close to the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy

RX J1242-11 and was torn apart by the black hole’s enormous gravitational tidal

forces. The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known as

Sagittarius A* (A-star), was revealed by Chandra to be immersed in a giant cloud

containing 100-million-degree gas.

FY 2004 marked the first year of operations for NASA’s Spitzer Space

Telescope (SST), whose Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) was developed at SAO.

Spitzer studies the universe at infrared wavelengths of light, enabling it to spot

distant, highly redshifted galaxies and peer into nearby dust-obscured regions.

The first results from SST were released in December 2003 and featured spectacular infrared images of objects ranging from nearby star formation regions to

distant galaxies. SAO astronomers have developed new ways of dissecting and

classifying galaxies based on Spitzer observations. The unique capabilities of

IRAC provided a direct way of separating the stars from the warm dust, thereby

dissecting a galaxy into its individual components and revealing its true nature.

IRAC also has produced a more complete view of galaxies in collision, which will

help us better understand the evolution of such systems and the eventual fate of

our own galaxy. Observations of very distant galaxies at high redshift provided

important tests of the theory of galaxy structure and formation in the early universe. IRAC observations of galaxies at a redshift of 3, seen as they were when the

universe was only 2 billion years old, demonstrated that these objects were massive, star-forming galaxies that may be the ancestors of today’s large galaxies. 

A special issue of the Astrophysical Journal (Supplement Series), which was

published in September 2004, contained 85 papers describing the first observations

with SST. SAO scientists are lead authors or coauthors on 31 of those papers.

Spitzer is operated by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Y ear 2004 Activities

109 This year, a team including SAO researchers made a key find in the field of

extrasolar planets, or planets around other stars. They located a Jupiter-sized world

500 light-years away using a telescope only 4 inches in diameter, demonstrating

that even humble telescopes can make huge contributions to planetary searches.

SAO astronomers also discovered several oddities in the stellar “zoo,” including a

speeding star whizzing through space at 40,000 miles per hour, a diamond star

weighing 10 billion trillion trillion (1 followed by 34 zeros) carats, and a pair of

heavyweight stars each containing 80 times the mass of the Sun.

Solar scientists at SAO continued to study solar storms, which can have a

strong impact on Earth’s local space environment, on radio frequency communications with aircraft, and on electrical power grids. NASA’s new space exploration

vision has focused attention on the production of solar energetic particles produced

by solar storms. Because these particles have extremely high energies, they pose a

radiation hazard to astronauts and their equipment. Astronauts venturing outside

the protection of Earth’s magnetosphere en route to the Moon and Mars would

encounter much higher doses of radiation than spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. New

observations from SAO’s UltraViolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) aboard

the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft are being used to obtain

detailed descriptions of the source regions of solar energetic particles near the Sun.

These descriptions, in concert with theoretical studies, are aimed at understanding

the physical processes that produce the hazards to both people and electronics, and

ultimately at developing a predictive capability. The UVCS measurements are coordinated with those of other SOHO instruments, with the extreme ultraviolet images

from the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer satellite, and with hard x-ray

images from the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager satellite.

Construction of SAO’s Submillimeter Array (SMA) with its initial complement of receivers was completed at the beginning of FY 2004, and the instrument

was dedicated on November 22, 2003, in a joint ceremony for both the instrument

and the support facility in Hilo, HI. The SMA, located near the summit of Mauna

Kea, consists of eight individual antennas separated by up to 500 meters that are

electronically interconnected so as to produce astronomical images in the littleexplored wavelength band of 0.3 to 1.3 millimeters with extremely fine resolution.

In the first year of operation, more than 100 proposals were submitted for the study

of a wide range of astrophysical phenomena. Several results already have emerged.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

110 For example, scientists measured the ratios of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the atmosphere of Titan, a moon of Saturn, to further understand its

atmospheric evolution. Also, astronomers have studied many star-formation

regions in our galaxy, gaining new insight into how molecular clouds collapse to

form stars. Another topic of investigation has been the dynamics of interacting

galaxies, where SMA images of emission from carbon-monoxide gas trace the

regions of collision-induced star formation. In another study, a very distant, highly

redshifted galaxy was detected and was investigated for clues about star formation

in the early universe. A special issue of the Astrophysical Journal (Letters), published on November 22, 2004, contains 18 papers detailing the results of these

initial observations and of others.

During FY 2004, the “Cosmic Questions” traveling museum exhibition

developed by SAO’s Science Education Department (SED) staff had a successful

run at the National Geographic Explorer’s Hall in Washington, DC, capped by an

event that brought together administrators from NASA, the NSF, the

Smithsonian Institution, and National Geographic. The exhibition continued its

tour at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, ON, Canada, and the Flandrau

Science Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, and has been enjoyed

by more than 1 million visitors to date. In conjunction with “Cosmic Questions,”

the Structure and Evolution of the Universe (SEU) Forum partnered with the

Boston Museum of Science to create materials and programs that help teachers

and museum docents to enhance their own content knowledge and prepare them

to effectively use the exhibition to meet science and mathematics education standards. All museums or science centers that hosted the exhibition received a supply

of “Cosmic Questions” educator guides for teachers, a train-the-trainers session for

professional development providers, and a set of workshop templates that outlined

an adaptable professional development syllabus.

SED activities also included the MicroObservatory Program, a curriculum

of investigations using four online, fully robotic telescopes, which provides

authentic inquiry for students and high-quality professional development for preand inservice teachers. Using the MicroObservatory telescopes and the “From the

Ground UP!” curriculum, students can plan observations, take data, and share

their results with other schools. In FY 2004, users in 20 States took more than
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Y ear 2004 Activities

111 30,000 images, and 20,000 images were requested by visitors to “Cosmic

Questions” on its tour.

In FY 2004, SED’s Science Media Group (SMG) continued to lead the

charge, producing television materials for teacher professional development. This

year, the SMG completed two new television programs—“Essential Science for

Teachers: Earth and Space Science” and “Essential Science for Teachers: Physical

Science”—complementing the work completed last year in life sciences. These

programs are now being made available to the Nation’s elementary school teachers free of charge through the Annenberg/CPB Channel. New work is underway

to build professional development materials for high school teachers—work being

carried out through a project in collaboration with the NASA SEU Forum.

The SMG completed its work (in collaboration with the American

Association for the Advancement of Science) to build a digital video library of educational materials as part of the NSF’s National Science Digital Library. The SMG,

in collaboration with NASA as well as its partners at Harvard, also began providing DVD copies of its award-winning teacher professional development programs

“A Private Universe” and “Minds Of Our Own” to educators free of charge. On the

public outreach front, the SMG continued to press forward with the development

of a large-format film (IMAX) about the history of Earth. The SMG also began

developing a children’s television series on science and sports to help women,

minorities, and people with disabilities alter their image of science. Additionally,

SMG continued to manage the Annenberg/CPB Channel, a satellite/Web service

broadcasting free educational programming nationwide to schools, colleges, and

communities with a reach of 93,000 schools and 78 million households.

This year, SAO took a major step forward in its public outreach programs

by adding a new public telescope to Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, MA. The

Oak Ridge facility offers accommodations for much larger crowds than can attend

events at the usual Cambridge, MA, location. SAO also continued to offer its popular Observatory Night lectures and telescope observation to the public on a

monthly basis, as well as Kids’ Night programs for younger audiences and Sci-Fi

Movie Nights to explore the theme “Everything I Learned About Science,

I Learned at the Movies.” Observatory Night programs in particular were

frequently so well attended that lectures were standing room only.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

112 In FY 2004, NASM opened its spectacular new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy

Center with over 140 aircraft and spacecraft on display (and more to come),

including an SR-71, a Concorde, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. In just under

6 months, the Udvar-Hazy Center welcomed its millionth visitor. This year,

NASM also opened a major exhibition on the 100th anniversary of the Wright

brothers’ achievement.

Staff members in NASM’s Center for Earth & Planetary Studies (CEPS)

continued to participate on the science teams of several spacecraft missions in FY

2004. Dr. John Grant is a participating scientist for the MER mission that is currently operating on Mars; he is also Chair of the MER Science Operations

Working Group. In that capacity, he directs the science team to consensus on targets and operations for the rovers. He conducts real-time mission planning from a

control station installed on site at CEPS. CEPS staff are also on the science teams

for Mars Express, the upcoming Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and MESSENGER,

which was recently launched to Mercury. In addition, NASA appointed Dr. Bruce

Campbell to the team that defined science priorities for the planned 2008 Lunar

Reconnaissance Orbiter, a mission being developed in response to the President’s

new space initiative.

CEPS continued its active research program in planetary and terrestrial

geology and geophysics using remote sensing data from Earth-orbiting satellites, as

well as piloted and unpiloted space missions. The scope of research activities

included work on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars, resulting in 25 peerreviewed publications. Research topics included Martian aeolian processes, MER

results, physical properties of lunar impact ejecta, paleolakes on Earth and Mars,

ground-penetrating radar at Martian analog sites in the Arctic, Martian valley networks, and continued acquisition of radar imagery of the Moon collected using the

Arecibo and Greenbank telescopes.

CEPS staff also participated in the development and presentation of

exhibits and public programs, including a Mars rover exhibit and a hands-on, drivable rover activity where students can learn about space technology, robotics, and

planetary science. As a NASA Regional Planetary Imagery Facility (RPIF), CEPS

continued to house an extensive collection of images of the planets and their satellites that serves as a reference library for science researchers and the public in the

Mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States. The CEPS RPIF holds the most

complete collection of lunar images of any RPIF in the world.
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113

APPENDICES
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

114

APPENDIX A-1

U.S. Government Spacecraft Record

(Includes spacecraft from cooperating countries launched by U.S. launch vehicles.) 

Calendar Earth Orbita Earth Escapea

Year Success Failure Success Failure

1957 0 1 0 0

1958 5 8 0 4

1959 9 9 1 2

1960 16 12 1 2

1961 35 12 0 2

1962 55 12 4 1

1963 62 11 0 0

1964 69 8 4 0

1965 93 7 4 1

1966 94 12 7 1 b

1967 78 4 10 0

1968 61 15 3 0

1969 58 1 8 1

1970 36 1 3 0

1971 45 2 8 1

1972 33 2 8 0

1973 23 2 3 0

1974 27 2 1 0

1975 30 4 4 0

1976 33 0 1 0

1977 27 2 2 0

1978 34 2 7 0

1979 18 0 0 0

1980 16 4 0 0

1981 20 1 0 0

1982 21 0 0 0

1983 31 0 0 0

1984 35 3 0 0

1985 37 1 0 0

1986 11 4 0 0

1987 9 1 0 0

1988 16 1 0 0

1989 24 0 2 0

1990 40 0 1 0

1991 32 c 0 0 0

1992 26 c 0 1 0

1993 28 c 1 1 0

1994 31 c 1 1 0

1995 24 c, d 2 1 0

1996 30 1 3 0

1997 22 e 0 1 0

1998 23 0 2 0

1999 35 4 2 0

2000 31 f 0 0 0

2001 23 0 3 0

2002 18 0 0 1 b

2003 28 c, g 0 2 0

2004 (through September 30, 2004) 6 c 0 1 0

TOTAL 1,558 153 100 16

a. The criterion of success or failure used is attainment of Earth orbit or Earth escape rather than judgment of mission success. “Escape” flights

include all that were intended to go to at least an altitude equal to lunar distance from Earth.

b. This Earth-escape failure did attain Earth orbit and, therefore, is included in the Earth-orbit success totals.

c. This excludes commercial satellites. It counts separately spacecraft launched by the same launch vehicle.

d. This counts the five orbital debris radar calibration spheres that were launched from STS-63 as one set of spacecraft.

e. This includes the SSTI Lewis spacecraft that began spinning out of control shortly after it achieved Earth orbit.

f. Counts OCS, OPAL, FALCONSAT, and ASUSAT microsatellites as one set, and the Picosats 4–8 as another set.

g. This includes American spacecraft not launched in the U.S.
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115

APPENDIX A-2

World Record of Space Launches Successful

in Attaining Earth Orbit or Beyond

(Enumerates launches rather than spacecraft; some launches orbited multiple spacecraft.)

People’s European

Calendar United USSR/ Republic United Space

Year States CIS Francea Italya Japan of China Australia Kingdom Agency India Israel

1957 2

1958 5 1

1959 10 3

1960 16 3

1961 29 6

1962 52 20

1963 38 17

1964 57 30

1965 63 48 1

1966 73 44 1

1967 57 66 2 1 1

1968 45 74

1969 40 70

1970 28 81 2 1 b 1 1

1971 30 83 1 2 b 2 1 1

1972 30 74 1 1

1973 23 86

1974 22 81 2 b 1

1975 27 89 3 1 2 3

1976 26 99 1 2

1977 24 98 2

1978 32 88 3 1

1979 16 87 2 1

1980 13 89 2 1

1981 18 98 3 1 2 1

1982 18 101 1 1

1983 22 98 3 1 2 1

1984 22 97 3 3 4

1985 17 98 2 1 3

1986 6 91 2 2 2

1987 8 95 3 2 2

1988 12 90 2 4 7

1989 17 74 2 7 1

1990 27 75 3 5 5 1

1991 20 c 62 2 1 9 1

1992 31 c 55 2 3 7 b 2

1993 24 c 45 1 1 7 b 

1994 26 c 49 2 5 6 b 2

1995 27 c 33 b 1 2 b 12 b 1

1996 32 c 25 1 3 d 10 1

1997 37 19 2 6 11 1

1998 36 25 2 6 11

1999 30 29 4 10 1

2000 29 36 5 12

2001 25 31 1 8 1

2002 18 23 3 4 12 1 1

2003 25 e 22 2 6 4 2

2004 15 14 5 2 1

(through September 30, 2004)

TOTAL 1,298 2,724 10 8 59 80 1 1 156 16 4

a. Since 1979, all launches for ESA member countries have been joint and are listed under ESA.

b. Includes foreign launches of U.S. spacecraft.

c. This includes commercial expendable launches and launches of the Space Shuttle, but because this table records launches rather than spacecraft, it does

not include separate spacecraft released from the Shuttle.

d. This includes the launch of ChinaSat 7, even though a third-stage rocket failure led to a virtually useless orbit for this communications satellite.

e. Launches from U.S.-Russia joint platform included in U.S. totals.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

116 APPENDIX B

Successful Launches to Orbit on U.S. Launch Vehicles

October 1, 2003–September 30, 2004

Launch Date Apogee and

Spacecraft Name Perigee (km),

COSPAR* Designation Period (min),

Launch Vehicle Mission Objectives Inclination to Equator (°) Remarks

Oct. 18, 2003 Military scientific satellite 853 km Also known as USA 172

DMSP F-16 843 km

2003-048A 101.9 min

Titan 2 98.9°

Dec. 2, 2003 Military reconnaissance National Reconnaissance

USA 173 satellite Office

2003-054A

Atlas 2AS

Dec. 18, 2003 Military communications Geosynchronous Also known as UFO 11

USA 174 satellite

2003-057A

Atlas 3

Dec. 21, 2003 Navigational satellite 20,327 km

Navstar 5319,966 km

2003-058A 716.5 min

Delta 2 55.1°

Feb. 5, 2004 Communications Geosynchronous Also known as GE 10

AMC 10 satellite

2004-009A

Delta 2

Feb. 14, 2004 Military surveillance Geosynchronous Also known as DSP 22

USA 176

2004-004A

Titan 4B

Mar. 13, 2004 Communications Geosynchronous Japanese-South Korean

MBSat satellite satellite launched from

2004-007A Cape Canaveral using

Atlas 3 American launch vehicle

Mar. 20, 2004 Navigational satellite 20,277 km Also known as 

USA 177 20,090 km Navstar 54

2004-009A 718 min

Delta 2 55.1°

Apr. 16, 2004 Communications Geosynchronous Japanese satellite 

Superbird 6 satellite launched from Cape 

2004-011A Canaveral using 

Atlas 2AS American launch vehicle

Apr. 20, 2004 Scientific satellite 645 km

Gravity Probe-B 641 km

2004-014A 2,895 min

Delta 2 90.0°
APPENDIX B

(Continued)

Successful Launches to Orbit on U.S. Launch Vehicles

October 1, 2003–September 30, 2004

Launch Date Apogee and

Spacecraft Name Perigee (km),

COSPAR* Designation Period (min),

Launch Vehicle Mission Objectives Inclination to Equator (°) Remarks

May 19, 2004 Remote sensing 767 km Taiwanese satellite launched

Rocsat 2 satellite 764 km from Vandenberg Air Force

2004-018A 100.1 min Base (AFB) by American

Taurus XL 99.1° launch vehicle

May 19, 2004 Communications Geosynchronous Also known as GE 11

AMC 11 satellite 

2004-017A

Atlas 2AS

June 23, 2004 Navigational satellite 20,368 km Also known as Navstar 55

USA 178 145 km

2004-023A 355.8 min

Delta 2 39°

Aug. 3, 2004 Interplanetary probe 15,000 km

MESSENGER 200 km

(MErcury Surface, 720 min

Space ENvironment, 80°

GEochemistry, and

Ranging)

2004-030A

Delta 2

Aug. 31, 2004 Military satellite Final flight of the

USA 179 Atlas 2 models

2004-034A

Atlas 2AS

* U.N. Committee on Space Research

Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

117
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

118 APPENDIX C

Human Space Flights

October 1, 2003–September 30, 2004

Spacecraft Launch Date Crew Flight Time Highlights

(d:h:min)

Soyuz TMA 3 Oct. 18, 2003 Alexander Kaleri 194:18:33 Carried crew to the International Space 

Michael Foale Station (ISS). The crew conducted 

Pedro Duque microgravity life science experiments codenamed Cervantes.

Shenzhou 5 Oct. 15, 2003 Yang Liwei 0:21:22 Orbited Earth for 21 hours.

Soyuz TMA 4 Apr. 19, 2004 Gennady Padalka 187:13:22 Carried three astronauts to the ISS.

Edward Fincke

Andre Kuipers
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

119 APPENDIX D-1A

(Continued)Space Activities of the U.S. Government

HISTORICAL BUDGET SUMMARY—BUDGET AUTHORITY

(in millions of real-year dollars)

NASA NASA Total

FY Total Spaceb DOD Otherc DOEd DOC DOI USDA NSFa DOT Space

1959 331 261 490 34 34 785

1960 524 462 561 43 43 1,066

1961 964 926 814 68 68 1,808

1962 1,825 1,797 1,298 199 148 51 3,294

1963 3,673 3,626 1,550 257 214 43 5,433

1964 5,100 5,016 1,599 213 210 3 6,828

1965 5,250 5,138 1,574 241 229 12 6,953

1966 5,175 5,065 1,689 214 187 27 6,968

1967 4,966 4,830 1,664 213 184 29 6,707

1968 4,587 4,430 1,922 174 145 28 0.2 1 6,526

1969 3,991 3,822 2,013 170 118 20 0.2 1 31 6,005

1970 3,746 3,547 1,678 141 103 8 1 1 28 5,366

1971 3,311 3,101 1,512 162 95 27 2 1 37 4,775

1972 3,307 3,071 1,407 133 55 31 6 2 39 4,611

1973 3,406 3,093 1,623 147 54 40 10 2 41 4,863

1974 3,037 2,759 1,766 158 42 60 9 3 44 4,683

1975 3,229 2,915 1,892 158 30 64 8 2 54 4,965

1976 3,550 3,225 1,983 168 23 72 10 4 59 5,376

TQ* 932 849 460 43 5 22 3 1 12 1,352

1977 3,818 3,440 2,412 194 22 91 10 6 65 6,046

1978 4,060 3,623 2,738 226 34 103 10 8 71 6,587

1979 4,596 4,030 3,036 248 59 98 10 8 73 7,314

1980 5,240 4,680 3,848 231 40 93 12 14 72 8,759

1981 5,518 4,992 4,828 234 41 87 12 16 78 10,054

1982 6,044 5,528 6,679 313 61 145 12 15 80 12,520

1983 6,875 6,328 9,019 327 39 178 5 20 85 15,674

1984 7,458 6,858 10,195 395 34 236 3 19 103 17,448

1985 7,573 6,925 12,768 584 34 423 2 15 110 20,277

1986 7,807 7,165 14,126 477 35 309 2 23 108 21,768

1987 10,923 9,809 16,287 466 48 278 8 19 112 1 26,562

1988 9,062 8,322 17,679 741 241 352 14 18 115 1 26,742

1989 10,969 10,097 17,906 560 97 301 17 21 121 3 28,563

1990 12,324 11,460 15,616 506 79 243 31 25 124 4 27,582

1991 14,016 13,046 14,181 772 251 251 29 26 211 4 27,999

1992 14,317 13,199 15,023 798 223 327 34 29 181 4 29,020

1993 14,310 13,064 14,106 731 165 324 33 25 180 4 27,901

1994 14,570 13,022 13,166 632 74 312 31 31 179 5 26,820

1995 13,854 12,543 10,644 759 60 352 31 32 278 6 23,946

1996 13,884 12,569 11,514 828 46 472 36 37 231 6 24,911

1997 13,709 12,457 11,727 789 35 448 42 39 219 6 24,973

1998 13,648 12,321 12,359 839 103 435 43 39 213 6 25,519

1999 13,653 12,459 13,203 982 105 575 59 37 200 6 26,644

2000 13,601 12,521 12,941 1,056 164 575 60 44 207 6 26,518

2001 14,230 13,304 14,326 1,062 145 577 60 36 232 12 28,692

2002 14,868 13,871 15,740 1,196 169 644 74 31 266 12 30,807

2003 15,364 14,360 19,388 1,305 191 649 74 42 337 12 35,053

2004 15,351 14,294 20,019 1,456 209 745 71 62 366 12 35,778

a. NSF has recalculated its space expenditures since 1980, making them significantly higher than reported in previous years.

b. Includes $2.1 billion for replacement of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1987.

c. Other column is the total of the non-NASA, non-DOD budget authority figures that appear in succeeding columns. The total is sometimes

different from the sum of the individual figures because of rounding. The Total Space column does not include the NASA Total column

because the latter includes budget authority for aeronautics as well as in space. For the years 1989–1997, this Other column also includes small

figures for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

d. DOE has recalculated its space expenditures since 1998, making them slightly different. 

SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget

* Transition Quarter
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

120 APPENDIX D-1B

(Continued)Space Activities of the U.S. Government

BUDGET AUTHORITY IN MILLIONS OF EQUIVALENT FY 2004 DOLLARS

(adjusted for inflation)

Inflation NASA NASA Total

FY Factors Total Spaceb DOD Otherc DOEd DOC DOI USDA NSFa DOT Space

1959 5.1953 1,720 1,356 2,546 177 177 4,078

1960 5.1152 2,680 2,363 2,870 220 220 0 5,453

1961 5.0543 4,872 4,680 4,114 344 344 9,138

1962 4.9831 9,094 8,955 6,468 992 737 254 16,414

1963 4.9276 18,099 17,867 7,638 1,266 1,055 212 26,772

1964 4.8666 24,820 24,411 7,782 1,037 1,022 15 33,229

1965 4.8092 25,249 24,710 7,570 1,159 1,101 58 33,439

1966 4.7278 24,467 23,947 7,985 1,012 884 128 32,944

1967 4.6289 22,987 22,357 7,702 986 852 134 31,046

1968 4.4842 20,569 19,865 8,619 781 650 126 0.9 4 29,265

1969 4.3305 17,283 16,551 8,717 738 511 87 0.9 4 135 26,006

1970 4.1412 15,513 14,689 6,949 584 427 33 4 4 116 22,222

1971 3.9267 13,001 12,177 5,937 636 373 106 8 4 145 18,750

1972 3.7400 12,368 11,485 5,262 499 206 116 22 7 147 17,246

1973 3.5713 12,164 11,046 5,796 526 193 143 36 7 148 17,369

1974 3.4206 10,388 9,437 6,041 541 144 205 31 10 151 16,019

1975 3.1903 10,301 9,300 6,036 503 96 204 26 6 172 15,839

1976 2.8897 10,259 9,319 5,730 486 66 208 29 12 171 15,536

TQ* 2.6953 2,512 2,288 1,240 116 13 59 8 3 32 3,644

1977 2.6124 9,974 8,987 6,301 506 57 238 26 16 169 15,793

1978 2.5074 10,180 9,084 6,865 567 85 258 25 20 178 16,516

1979 2.3493 10,797 9,468 7,132 583 139 230 23 19 171 17,183

1980 2.1741 11,392 10,175 8,366 502 87 202 26 30 157 19,043

1981 1.9989 11,030 9,978 9,651 468 82 174 24 32 156 20,097

1982 1.8206 11,004 10,064 12,160 569 111 264 22 27 145 22,793

1983 1.7040 11,715 10,783 15,368 557 66 303 9 34 145 26,708

1984 1.6319 12,171 11,192 16,637 644 55 385 5 31 168 28,473

1985 1.5738 11,919 10,899 20,095 919 54 666 3 24 173 31,912

1986 1.5243 11,901 10,922 21,533 727 53 471 3 35 164 33,181

1987 1.4897 16,272 14,612 24,262 694 72 414 12 28 167 1 39,569

1988 1.4518 13,156 12,082 25,666 1,076 350 511 20 26 167 1 38,824

1989 1.4075 15,439 14,212 25,203 788 137 424 24 30 170 4 40,203

1990 1.3549 16,697 15,527 21,158 685 107 329 42 34 168 5 37,369

1991 1.3063 18,310 17,042 18,525 1,009 328 328 38 34 276 5 36,576

1992 1.2591 18,026 16,619 18,915 1,004 281 412 43 37 228 5 36,538

1993 1.2282 17,575 16,045 17,325 898 203 398 41 31 221 5 34,267

1994 1.2010 17,498 15,639 15,812 760 89 375 37 37 215 6 32,210

1995 1.1757 16,288 14,747 12,514 892 70 414 36 38 327 7 28,152

1996 1.1514 15,987 14,472 13,258 953 53 543 41 43 266 7 28,683

1997 1.1297 15,488 14,073 13,249 892 40 506 47 44 248 7 28,214

1998 1.1104 15,154 13,681 13,723 932 114 483 48 43 237 7 28,336

1999 1.0971 14,978 13,668 14,484 1,077 115 631 65 41 219 7 29,230

2000 1.0828 14,728 13,558 14,013 1,143 178 623 65 48 224 6 28,714

2001 1.0614 15,104 14,121 15,206 1,127 154 612 64 38 246 13 30,454

2002 1.0369 15,417 14,383 16,321 1,240 175 668 77 32 276 12 31,945

2003 1.0180 15,641 14,619 19,738 1,329 194 661 75 43 343 12 35,685

2004 1.0000 15,351 14,294 20,019 1,465 209 745 71 62 366 12 35,778

a. NSF has recalculated its space expenditures since 1980, making them significantly higher than reported in previous years.

b. Includes $2.1 billion for replacement of Space Shuttle Challenger in 1987.

c. Other column is the total of the non-NASA, non-DOD budget authority figures that appear in succeeding columns. The total is sometimes different from the sum of the individual figures because of rounding. The Total Space column does not include the NASA Total column because the

latter includes budget authority for aeronautics as well as in space. For the years 1989–1997, this Other column also includes small figures for the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

d. DOE has recalculated its space expenditures since 1998, making them slightly different. 

SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget

* Transition Quarter
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

121 APPENDIX D-2

(Continued)Federal Space Activities Budget

(in millions of dollars by fiscal year)

Federal Agencies Budget Authority Budget Outlays

2003 2004 2005 2006 2003 2004

actual actual est. est. actual actual

NASA1 14,360 14,294 15,133 15,571 13,553 14,548

Defense 19,388 20,019 21,677 22,663 18,612 17,858

Energy 191 209 223 228 191 202

Commerce 649 745 814 889 579 670

Interior2 74 71 70 83 75 72

Agriculture3 42 62 71 81 43 65

Transportation 12 12 12 12 12 12

NSF4 337 366 365 368 256 313

1. NASA’s totals do not include 2005 emergency supplemental funding for hurricane damage to NASA facilities.

2. In 2003, the Department of the Interior began to report the U.S. Geological Survey’s digital orthoimagery program within its totals.

3. In 2004, the Department of Agriculture began to report the National Agriculture Imagery Program within its totals.

4. In 2003, the National Science Foundation (NSF) began to report the Antarctic aeronomy and astrophysics program budget within its totals.
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

122 APPENDIX D-3

(Continued)Federal Aeronautics Budget

(in millions of dollars by fiscal year)

Federal Agencies Budget Authority Budget Outlays

2003 2004 2005 2006 2003 2004

actual actual est. est. actual actual

NASA 1,004 1,057 906 852 974 641

Defense 9,432 10,301 9,396 9,390 8,314 9,687

Transportation 2,924 2,981 2,638 2,562 2,839 2,873
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

123

A

AEDT aviation environmental design tool

AFB Air Force Base

AFOSR Air Force Office of Scientific Research

AGS Alternating Gradient Synchrotron

AIAA American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

AIRS Atmospheric Infrared Sounder

ALI Advanced Land Imager

AMISR Advanced Modular Incoherent-Scatter Radar

AMS Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer

APFO Aerial Photography Field Office

ARC Ames Research Center 

ARM Atmospheric Radiation Measurement

ARS Agricultural Research Service

ASAP Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel

AST FAA Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space 

Transportation

ASTER Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer

ATST Advanced Technology Solar Telescope

AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer

B

BIS Bureau of Industry and Security

BLM Bureau of Land Management

BNL Brookhaven National Laboratory

C

CAAC Civil Aviation Administration of China

CAC Civil Applications Committee

CAIB Columbia Accident Investigation Board

CCMC Community Coordinated Modeling Center

CEDAR Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions

CEOS Committee on Earth Observation Satellites

CEPS Center for Earth & Planetary Studies

CEV Crew Exploration Vehicle

CLU Common Land Unit

CNES French Space Agency

CORS Continuously Operating Reference Stations

CRP Conservation Reserve Program

CSOC Consolidated Space Operations Contract

CSREES Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service

CSU Colorado State University

CTAS Center-TRACON Automation System

CXO Chandra X-ray Observatory

ACRONYMS
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

124 D

D2 Direct-To

DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

DEM digital elevation model

DHS Department of Homeland Security

DOC Department of Commerce

DOD Department of Defense

DOE Department of Energy

DOQQ digital orthophoto quarterquads

DOS Department of State

DOT Department of Transportation

E

EDA En Route Descent Advisor

EDMS Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System

e.d.t. eastern daylight time

EELV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle

EFB electronic flight bag

EO-1 Earth Observing-1

EOS Earth Observing System

ESMD Exploration Systems Mission Directorate

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

EPO Education and Public Outreach

ERS Economic Research Service

ESnet Energy Sciences Network

ETM+ Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus

EUMETSAT European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological 

Satellites

EVA extravehicular activity

EVI Enhanced Vegetation Index

F

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

FAS Foreign Agricultural Service

FCC Federal Communications Commission

FCIC Federal Crop Insurance Corporation

FRDSS Forage and Rangeland Decision Support System

FS Forest Service

FSA Farm Service Agency

FY fiscal year

G

GDW Geospatial Data Warehouse

GEM Geospace Environment Modeling

GEOSS Global Earth Observation System of Systems

GGCM Geospace General Circulation Model
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

125 GIS geographic information systems

GLIMS Global Land Ice Measurements from Space

GLOBE Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment

GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System

GOES Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites

GP-B Gravity Probe B

GPS Global Positioning System

GRACE Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment

GSFC Goddard Space Flight Center

H

HiRISE High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment

HST Hubble Space Telescope

HUD Department of Housing and Urban Development

I

IFSAR Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar

IGEB Interagency GPS Executive Board

IGOS Integrated Global Observing Strategy

IRAC Infrared Array Camera

IRS Indian Remote Sensing

ISOON Improved Solar Observing Optical Network

ISS International Space Station

ITA International Trade Administration

J

JACIE Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation

JCCT Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade

JDEM Joint Dark Energy Mission

JMA Japan Meteorological Agency

JPDO Joint Planning and Development Office

JPO GPS Joint Program Office

K

KSC Kennedy Space Center

L

LAS Local Action Strategies

LAT Large Area Telescope

LBIR Low Background Infrared

LED light-emitting diode

LIDAR LIght Detection And Ranging

M

MEP Manufacturing Extension Program

MER Mars Exploration Rover
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

126 MESSENGER MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry,

and Ranging

MISR Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MMS Minerals Management Service

MOA Memorandum of Agreement

MOBY Marine Optical Buoy

MODIS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

MRO Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

MSS Multispectral Scanner

MSU Microwave Sounding Unit

MUE Modernized User Equipment

N

NAIC National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center

NAIP National Agriculture Imagery Program

NAS National Airspace System

NASIC National Air and Space Intelligence Center

NASM National Air and Space Museum

NASS National Agricultural Statistics Service

NDE nondestructive evaluation

NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetative Index

NEAR Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous

NED National Elevation Dataset

NERSC National Energy Research Scientific-computing Center

NESC NASA Engineering and Safety Center

NGA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology

NLCD National Land Cover Dataset

NMD National Missile Defense

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

NOAO National Optical Astronomy Observatory

NPOESS National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental

Satellite System

NPP NPOESS Preparatory Project

NPR-A National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska

NPS National Park Service

NRAO National Radio Astronomy Observatory

NRCS Natural Resources Conservation Service

NREN NASA’s Research and Education Network

NRI National Resources Inventory

NSF National Science Foundation

NSO National Solar Observatory

NSRL NASA Space Radiation Laboratory

NSSO National Security Space Office

NSTX National Spherical Torus Experiment
Fiscal 

Y ear 2004 Activities

127 NSWP National Space Weather Program

NTIA National Telecommunications and Information 

Administration 

NWI National Wetlands Inventory

NWR National Wildlife Refuge

O

OHV off-highway vehicle

ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory

OSC Office of Space Commercialization

P

PECAD Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division

PEL Payload Element Lead

POES Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites

PPPL Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

R

R&D research and development

RHIC Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

RLV reusable launch vehicle

RMA Risk Management Agency

ROLO Robotic Lunar Observatory

RPIF Regional Planetary Imagery Facility

RSA Russian Federal Space Agency

RSAC Remote Sensing Applications Center

RSIWG Remote Sensing Interagency Working Group 

RSL Remote Sensing Laboratory

RWSL runway status light

S

SAO Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

SARSAT Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking

SBIRS Space-Based Infrared System

SBUV Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet

SC DOE’s Office of Science

SCAWG Space Communication Architecture Working Group

SDSU South Dakota State University

SeaWiFS Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor

SED Science Education Department

SEU Structure and Evolution of the Universe

SHARE Safety, Health, and Return to Employment

SHINE Solar, Heliosphere, and INterplanetary Environment

SI International System of Units

SLC Scan Line Corrector

SMA safety and mission assurance; Submillimeter Array
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President 

128 SMG Science Media Group

SNAP Supernova Acceleration Probe

SOHO Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

Space PCC Space Policy Coordinating Committee

SRTM Shuttle Radar Topography Mission

SSAS Ship Security Alerting System

SSC Stennis Space Center

SSMI Special Sensor Microwave Imager

SSP Space Shuttle Program

SST Spitzer Space Telescope

STA Special Temporary Authorization

STIS Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph

SuperDARN Super Dual Auroral Radar Network

SURF Synchrotron Ultraviolet Radiation Facility

T

TCA Transformational Communications Architecture

TDRSS Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System

TFRSAC Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee

THEMIS Thermal Infrared Imaging System

TM Thematic Mapper

TRACON Terminal Radar Approach Control

U

UAF Upper Atmospheric Facilities

UARS Upper Atmospheric Research Section

UAV Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle

U.N. United Nations

U.S. United States

USAID U.S. Agency for International Development

USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture

USFS U.S. Forest Service

USFWS U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

USGS U.S. Geological Survey

USNORTHCOM United States Northern Command

UVCS UltraViolet Coronagraph Spectrometer

V

VSO Virtual Solar Observatory

W

WMM World Magnetic Model

WRC World Radiocommunication Conference

WSDM Weather Support to Decision Making