NASA Announces News Briefing On Aquarius/Sac-D Mission

[NASA News <hqnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

May 12, 2011

Steve Cole 
Headquarters, Washington      
202-358-0918 
stephen.e.cole@xxxxxxxx   



MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-094

NASA ANNOUNCES NEWS BRIEFING ON AQUARIUS/SAC-D MISSION

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@xxxxxxxx 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   



http://www.conae.gov.ar/eng/principal.html   

	
-end-



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