NASA Announces News Briefing On Aquarius/Sac-D Mission

Steve Cole

Headquarters, Washington     

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news briefing on Tuesday, May 17, at 1 p.m. EDT, on the agency's next Earth-observing satellite mission, Aquarius/SAC-D, scheduled to launch on June 9. The briefing will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Panelists will discuss the international spacecraft mission, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), with participation by Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. CONAE provided the SAC-D spacecraft.

The mission's primary instrument, NASA's Aquarius, will make the agency's first space-based global measurements of the salinity of the ocean surface. Salinity, a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth, links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate. Seven other SAC-D instruments, contributed by Argentina, Canada, France and Italy, will collect environmental data for a wide range of applications, including studies of natural hazards, air quality, land processes, and epidemiology.

The panelists are:

- Eric Lindstrom, Aquarius program scientist, NASA Headquarters

- Eric Ianson, Aquarius program executive, NASA Headquarters

- Gary Lagerloef, Aquarius principal investigator, Earth & Space Research, Seattle

- Amit Sen, Aquarius project manager, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

- Daniel Caruso, Aquarius/SAC-D project manager, CONAE, Buenos Aires

The briefing will be held in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, located at 300 E St. SW, Washington. Reporters unable to attend in person may ask questions from participating NASA centers or by telephone. To participate by phone, reporters must contact Dwayne Brown at 202-358-1726 or dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov by 9 a.m. on May 17.

The news conference will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

Viewers also can watch the event and chat live on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2.

For more information about Aquarius/SAC-D, visit http://www.nasa.gov/aquarius and http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html.

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