Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/jplpaper/921120.uni

Text File | 1993-08-11 | 28KB | 544 lines

Jet Propulsion Laboratory UNIVERSE
Pasadena, California - Vol. 22, No. 34 - November 20, 1992
________________________________________________________________

Flight projects Office to offer briefings on missions

By Mark Whalen
     Starting Monday, Nov. 23, JPL's Flight Projects Office (FPO)
will inaugurate a series of mission briefings designed to keep
Lab employees appraised of its six ongoing operational projects,
Assistant Laboratory Director John Casani has announced.
     A tentative schedule calls for the non-technical
presentations to be scheduled once a month, at least through
year-end 1993, Casani said.
     "Two years ago," said Casani, "before the Magellan launch,
Voyager was the only project we had in operation -- and that was
launched in 1977.
     "With the number of projects that are flying now," he added,
"there's enough activity that we think it's appropriate to keep
the Lab population well informed on all of them."
     The topic of the first briefing -- set for Nov. 23 at noon
in von Karman Auditorium -- will be the current status of the
Galileo mission, including plans for the High Gain Antenna
Anomaly, and a preview of Galileo's second Earth encounter (which
will be on Dec. 8). Galileo Project Manager William O'Neil and
Mission Director Neal Ausman will be the speakers.
     The TOPEX/Poseidon project will be spotlighted in December,
when Project Manager Charles Yamarone will discuss the mission's
products and precise orbit determination.
     The date and location of the TOPEX/Poseidon and other
project briefings are undetermined, although plans call for
briefings on the Mars Observer, Ulysses, Magellan and Voyager
missions, in that order, to follow TOPEX/Poseidon.
     The exact dates for the briefings will generally coincide
with an upcoming event associated with a mission, or an immediate
past event, said Casani, adding that each presentation will last
about 45 minutes, with a question-and-answer session to follow.
     Casani noted that, even though about 1,000 Lab employees out
of the total population of 6,000 work on flight projects, "I
believe that many people whose jobs don't bring them in day-to-
day contact with FPO still would like to know what's going on.
     "In one way or another, the rest of the Lab population
supports the flight projects," he said.
     "I think people will enjoy the briefings, and will learn
something. They will give employees the opportunity to hear first
hand what much of their efforts have supported." ###
________________________________________________________________

SIR-C Project X-band radar arrives

By Mark Whalen
     Testing and integration of JPL's Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C
(SIR-C) with the German- and Italian-manufactured X-band
Synthetic Aperture Radar (X-SAR) will soon get under way, as the
Lab received delivery of the X-band hardware on Oct. 29.
     SIR-C/X-SAR, to be deployed aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor in
late 1993 or early 1994, will perform a series of environmental
observations designed to improve understanding of Earth's carbon,
water and energy cycles on a global scale, and will include new
types of measurements such as biomass and soil moisture.
     "The radar is a relatively new tool in the Earth observation
family of instruments, and it opens the door to a new spectrum of
measurements," said SIR-C project manager Michael Sander. "The
joint SIR-C/X-SAR mission is a major technical step forward in
the capability of spaceborne radar instruments."
     The SIR-C/X-SAR antenna is the most massive piece of flight
hardware ever assembled at JPL, weighing in at 10,500 kilograms
(23,100 pounds), including supporting electronics, and measuring
12 meters by 4 meters (39.4 feet by 13.1 feet). The X-band
shipment delivered to JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility
(Building 179) consisted of 190 boxes, which, according to
Assistant Project Manager Bob Ferber, "is equivalent in size to a
major spacecraft element shipment." In their entirety, SIR-C/X-
SAR's electronics are "at least equivalent, in parts count, to
that of the Galileo spacecraft," he said.
     The X-SAR instrument was built by the Dornier and Alenia
Spazio companies for the German Space Agency DARA and the Italian
Space Agency ASI. As part of the Space Radar Laboratory, SIR-C/X-
SAR will fill the major portion of Endeavor's cargo bay, and
together, the radars will be the first spaceborne radar system to
simultaneously acquire images at multiple wavelengths and
polarizations.
     The X-band radar is a single-polarization radar operating at
a wavelength of 3 centimeters (1.2 inches). It allows the
production of images from reflections from smaller target
elements (tree leaf canopies, for example) than those of SIR-C's
L- and C-band radars, which operate at wavelengths of 23 and 6
centimeters (9.2 and 2.4 inches), respectively. The X-SAR antenna
will be mounted on a bridge structure that is tilted mechanically
to align the X-band beam with the electronically-steered L- and
C-band beams.
     The mission will acquire 50 hours of data, corresponding to
approximately 50 million square kilometers of ground coverage.
Images and geophysical measurements will be collected and
analyzed in areas related to vegetation and deforestation; ground
water storage and flux; ocean dynamics and wave fields; volcanism
and tectonic activity; and soil erosion, desertification and
topography.
     "By combining all of this information from the different
radar frequencies," said Ferber, "we can, for the first time,
measure things that tell us about the health of the biomass and
rain forests, the condition of glacial regions and high-latitude
ice fields.
     "The mission will collect data from all over the globe,
including 19 "supersites," where ground teams will be deployed to
collect data to collaborate SIR-C/X-SAR data from above.
Supersites in the U.S. include ecology research sites in Michigan
and North Carolina forest areas, geology sites in Death Valley,
Calif. and hydrology tracking in Chickasha, Okla. European
supersites include Oberpfaffenhoffen, Germany for calibration and
Montespertoli, Italy for hydrology. The Amazon basin of South
America will be analyzed for both the movement of carbon from
atmosphere to plants and back as well as for hydrologic cycle
data. Fifty-two science investigators from 13 countries will
participate in data gathering and analysis.
     The integration of the X-SAR hardware into the rest of the
radar should be completed in early March 1993, with system tests
for the completely integrated system due later in that month.
Shipment to Cape Canaveral will be determined when the launch
date is set.
     The SIR-C/X-SAR antenna is designed for multiple missions,
with reflights scheduled for two different seasons in 1995 and
1996 "so that we can see how the research sites change with time
and season," according to Ferber. The mission is a precursor to
the projected Earth Observing System (EOS) SAR, which could be
launched into polar orbit near the end of the decade.
     The SIR-C instrument electronics were built by JPL, and Ball
Communication Systems Division supplied the active phased array
antenna panels for the two L-band and two C-band radars which are
mounted on the JPL-fabricated antenna structure.
     The mission is the latest in a series of spaceborne imaging
radars which began with Seasat in 1978 and continued with SIR-A
in 1981, Germany's Microwave Remote Sensing Experiment in 1983
and SIR-B in 1984. It is managed by the JPL's Earth Science and
Applications Division within the Office of Space Science and
Applications. ###
________________________________________________________________

Portraits of leaders past and present

By Mark Whalen
     JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone joined the three surviving
former Lab directors Nov. 2 in unveiling commissioned portraits
of all seven of the Lab's leaders from Dr. Theodore von Karman to
the present day.
     Stone, who has served as the Lab's director since 1991, was
accompanied by Dr. William Pickering, who directed JPL from 1954-
76, Dr. Bruce Murray (1976-82) and Dr. Lew Allen, Jr. (1982-90).
     Stone, Allen and Murray's portraits were done in
photographic form. Pickering's image, however, was captured in a
painting, to reflect the earlier portion of his administration at
the Lab.
     Additionally, paintings were produced of von Karman, who
founded JPL in 1944, and of Dr. Louis Dunn, who directed the Lab
from 1946-54. A painting of the Lab's first director, Dr. Frank
Malina (1944-46), will be completed in December.
     Freelance photographer Ken Whitmore did the photographic
work of the three most recent directors, and Charles Kim, a
senior artist in JPL's Documentation Section 648, was responsible
for the four paintings.
     Kim, an 18-year Lab veteran and part-time commercial art
teacher, has been painting for more than 40 years. He said the
full-color portraits of Pickering, Dunn and von Karman -- each of
which were produced from black and white photos -- took a total
of about seven months to complete.
     The portraits will be on display Nov. 23-25, from 8 a.m.-
4:30 p.m., in von Karman Auditorium before being relocated to
their future permanent home in Building 180's Conference Room at
a later date. ###
________________________________________________________________

News briefs

     JPL Chief Scientist Dr. Moustafa Chahine has been elected a
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
     Chahine was nominated by other scientists in the field of
Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences "for outstanding
contributions to the Earth and planetary atmospheric sciences and
remote sensing on a global scale."
     A total of 237 members were elected to the rank of Fellow in
September. Newly-elected Fellows will be honored at a ceremony at
the annual Meeting of the AAAS in Boston in February.
     Founded in 1848, the AAAS is the world's largest general
science organization with more than 134,000 members worldwide.
The Association publishes the weekly journal Science and the
electronic journal Current Clinical Trials.

     A four-unit course in COBOL offered by Glendale Community
College and JPL's Professional Development Section 615 starts
Tuesday, Nov. 24.
     The class meets Tuesday evenings from 6-10 p.m. at the Lab's
Information Processing Center at 505 W. Woodbury Rd. Two hours
per week of laboratory work are also required at the facility on
either Thursdays or Saturdays, according to program coordinator
Carmelo Zamora.
     The COBOL course runs through Feb. 6, 1993, and is part of
an ongoing Associate of Arts (AA) degree program available to JPL
employees through Professional Development and GCC. The next of
the three-year AA degree programs begins next February, and
tuition reimbursement is available. Contact Zamora at ext. 4-6417
to sign up for the COBOL course or for information about the
program.

     JPL's Documentation Section 648 recently hosted the 16th
annual meeting of the Research Institutes Publishing Executives
(RIPE).
     Former JPL Deputy Director Dr. Peter Lyman gave the keynote
speech to the gathering, whose theme was "Quality, Productivity
and TQM." JPL archivists Dr. Michael Hooks and Julie Reiz
discussed the Lab's archival program in a presentation titled
"Preserving the Past: Capturing Our Corporate History."
     Documentation Section Manager Andrea Stein and External
Publications Supervisor Dr. Mary Fran Buehler chaired the
committee that coordinated the event, and publications were
produced with the support of the Photographic, Printing and
Duplicating Section.
     RIPE is composed of managers of publications and related
information services at research organizations in the U.S. and
Canada.

     The annual income limit for eligibility in JPL's Child Care
Assistance Program (CCAP) has been increased to $32,000.
     The CCAP provides financial assistance for child care to Lab
employees with pre-school age children who meet eligibility
criteria.
     For applications and eligibility information, contact
Employee Services at ext. 4-7149, mail stop 291-208. ###
________________________________________________________________

Nationwide trend shows women face more hardships

By Diane Ainsworth
     Contemporary women scientists can be sure that their lives,
conducted amidst the tumult of changing roles, will one day take
a special place in history. But they still lag far behind the
far-reaching accomplishments of their male counterparts, says JPL
planetary astronomer Dr. Bonnie Buratti.
     "The recent rise in the number of women scientists is really
tied in with the overall movement that women have had in the last
25 years to gain equality," Buratti said at a recent noontime
talk, entitled "Surviving and Succeeding as a Woman in Science."
The talk was sponsored by the Director's Advisory Council for
Women (ACW).
     "If you look at overall statistics, things really started to
get better in the early '70s," she said.  "The number of women
architects doubled, dentists increased by a factor of four, women
judges doubled. Thirty to 40 percent of medical students are now
women.
     "However, if you look at salaries, any way you want to look
at it, we are lagging behind.  A female college graduate makes
about $23,000, almost the same as a male high school dropout,"
she said. "All in all, women make about 65 cents to every dollar
that men make."
     Women in the sciences, like academia, law, medicine and most
other professions, continue to be underrepresented and
disproportionately grouped, Buratti said. They are shunted into
the less prestigious jobs at every level of the organizational
hierarchy.
     "We are getting Ph.D.s, but we are not getting the
prestigious, tenure-track jobs, we are not getting into the
management ranks in industry," she said. "Rather, women are
getting things like lectureships or adjunct professorships. You
see a much higher percentage of women with those kinds of jobs."
     At JPL, there is not a single female division manager out of
26 positions  --  even in the "soft fields" like human resources,
according to statistics in the April 1992 ACW newsletter.
However, women are beginning to make inroads in section and
program management. About 4 percent of program and project
management positions, including deputies and assistants, are
currently held by women.
     Buratti, who has a Ph.D. in astronomy and space sciences
from Cornell University, attributed the gender disparity to the
"old boys' network" and the "glass ceiling" syndrome.
     "For instance, look at the people who have traditionally sat
on review boards for grants," she said. "Who are these people who
have been funding research?  They tend to be white, middle-aged
men. They tend to promote people like themselves. Women have been
excluded from power positions, collaboration and funding
resources.
     "But the situation is starting to change slowly as younger
people and women are invited on to the boards, Buratti said. For
example, recent statistics show that the National Institute of
Health is as likely to fund women as men, although the amounts of
the women's grants are still less.  And one current review panel
for the Hubble Space Telescope is 50 percent women, Buratti said.
     Cultural attitudes held by women and directed toward women
also stall their progress.
     "Cultural attitudes in this country tell us that men have to
work and that women have to follow them in their careers,"
Buratti said. "This is really pernicious to women and their
careers. And the media sensationalize certain issues, such as the
recent controversy concerning innate differences between men and
women's math abilities."
     Many women also hit the "mommy track" at an age when they
are expected to be making their careers in a field that is
fiercely competitive. Some decide to slow their career paths,
postpone having children or elect not to have them at all.
     "Women bear the brunt of child-bearing and child care. The
U.S., in fact, is one of the few industrialized countries that
doesn't have affordable, available day care centers or paid
maternity leave," Buratti said. "This is a problem for women
because our most productive years professionally are also our
child-bearing years."
     Two-career families  --  the "two-body problem"  --  often
present additional obstacles to women's success in the sciences.
Jobs are scarce in technical fields, especially in the current
recession, and most scientific organizations cannot hire the new
employee's spouse, Buratti said.  At the same time, technically
trained women would be more likely to follow their husbands to
their jobs rather than vice versa, with the result that their own
careers are sacrificed.
     Women, unfortunately, have not been gaining ground as fast
as they should have in the last 10 years," Buratti said. "There
is a phenomenon known as the `ghettoization of women,' where
women are put in jobs that they have traditionally held. For
instance, at JPL, we don't see very many women working on the
hardware side of flight projects. And flight projects are what
count."
     One solution to "ghettoization" is to bring it to the
attention of management, she said. In one case, a female deputy
section manager expressed an interest in working in the hardware
area at JPL and, shortly thereafter, was named payload manager of
a future flight project.
     Buratti, who has worked in JPL's Geology and Planetary
Section 326 for nine years, urged women scientists to break into
the "old boys' network" as much as possible and pursue networking
and mentoring opportunities. She said more experienced women
could also be of help to younger women by coaching them on ways
to be successful.
     "We have made progress, but we have a long way to go," she
said. "Women should make it known to management that they are
interested in technically challenging jobs. We are more team
players than men, so this strategy shouldn't be too difficult.
But we have to actively promote ourselves."
     Founded in 1977, the Director's Advisory Council for Women
is a 15-woman board that addresses issues involving the
professional development and personal welfare of women at JPL.
     The board meets with the director and deputy director twice
a year to discuss women's issues, concerns and ACW
accomplishments. The ACW also sponsors annual events such as the
JPL Health Faire, Women's History Month, Women's Week Forum and
biennial ACW luncheon. ###
________________________________________________________________

Off limits -- for now

     Deterioration of some sections of sidewalk between von
Karman Auditorium and Building 180 has necessitated a partial
replacement of concrete in the Mall area, according to Senior
Facilities Construction Coordinator Terry Gentry.
     Work is expected to be completed by Dec. 4, although rain
could delay it another week, he said.
     The main reason for the restorative work is to repair
sidewalk areas seen as potential tripping hazards.
     In addition to new concrete walking areas, conduit lines
will be added to improve electrical and audio-visual needs in the
Mall, and new sprinkler pipe will be inserted.
     Gentry said the entire Mall, including the front entrance to
Building 180, has been blocked off for safety purposes.
     As funds become available, he said, similar work is done
every year on different sections of the Mall's concrete walkways.
###
________________________________________________________________

Special events calendar

Friday, November 20
     Newport Festival of Lights--Last day to purchase tickets at
the ERC for the Dec. 19 festival at Newport Harbor. Trips are
scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. and 8-9:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 for
adults; $6 for children 12 and under.
     Blood Drive--From 7 a.m-11:45 a.m. in the von Karman TV
Studio.

Saturday, November 21
     Caltech Concerts--The Caltech-Occidental Wind Ensemble
performs Scott Joplin, Hindemith and Berlioz. At Beckman
Auditorium at 8 p.m. Admission is free. Call [phone].
     In addition, the Caltech Folk Music Society presents Ruth
Barrett and Cyntia Smith in a concert featuring instrumental,
contemporary and original music. At Dabney Hall at 8 p.m. Tickets
are $9. Call [phone].

Monday, November 23
     Magellan Science Seminar--Magellan Research Associate Dr.
David Senske will discuss early observations based on recently
acquired gravity data. From 10-11 a.m. in von Karman Auditorium.
     Concert--The Occidental-Caltech Symphony, which includes JPL
staffers Jancis Martin, Peter Eisenhardt and Richard Mancini,
performs at Occidental College's Thorne Hall at 8 p.m. Admission
is free. Call [phone].

Tuesday, November 24
     Concert--The Occidental-Caltech Symphony performs at
Caltech's Ramo Auditorium at 8 p.m. Free admission. Call (213)
259-2785.

Wednesday, November 25
     "A Christmas Carol"--Last day to purchase tickets at the ERC
for the Dec. 9 and 11 performances at the Glendale Center
Theatre. Tickets for Wednesday, Dec. 9 are $10; for Dec. 11, $13.
     Kenny G concert--Last day to purchase tickets at the ERC for
the Dec. 29 show at the Universal Amphitheatre. Tickets are
$29.50.

Saturday, November 28
     ERC-Sponsored Football--USC hosts Notre Dame at the Los
Angeles Coliseum at 5 p.m. Tickets are on sale at the ERC for
$27.
     Magic Castle Murder Mystery--Held at the Magic Castle in
Hollywood from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tickets are available at the ERC
for $65 per person, and include meal, parking and gratuities.

Tuesday, December 1
     World AIDS Day--JPL's Medical Services Office has
information available on local AIDS resources. Call Employee
Assistance Counselor Dr. Judy Morrissey at ext. 4-3680.

Thursday, December 3
     JPL Chess Club--Meeting at noon in Building 264-786.
     Engineering Lecture--Dr. Erik Antonson of Caltech will
lecture on competitive engineering design at Caltech's Beckman
Auditorium. Admission is free. Call [phone].

Friday, December 4
     ACMA "Brown Bag" Lunch--ALD Kirk Dawson will speak about his
Lab career and how to get ahead at JPL. At noon in the Building
167 Conference Room.
     Caltech Women's Club--Holiday party at the Athenaeum. $28
for members; $30 for guests. Reservations are due Dec. 1. Call
Midge Kimble at [phone].

Saturday, December 5
     Angeles National Forest Centennial--A celebration and
symposium marking the 100th anniversary of California's first
forest preserve will be held at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium from
8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Tickets are $8.95, or $5 per person for
groups of 20 or more. Call the U.S. Forest Service at (818)
574-1613.
     Children's Holiday Party--The annual ERC-sponsored event at
von Karman Auditorium features magician Mike King and Santa
Claus. Show times are from 9-10:30 a.m. and 10:30-noon. Tickets
are required for all in attendance, and are on sale for $2 at the
ERC.
     Role-Playing Game Tournament--Sponsored by JPL's Gamers
Club. Members pay $11; nonmembers $12. Price includes 1993
membership. Call Brian Vickers at ext. 6-6175. ###
________________________________________________________________

Lab to collaborate on supercomputer

By Franklin O'Donnell
     JPL has entered into a collaboration with Cray Research Inc.
to conduct joint research and development with a new massively
parallel supercomputer developed by Cray.
     Under the collaboration --  between Cray, JPL and Caltech --
JPL will take delivery in fall 1993 of one of the first models of
Cray's new parallel T3D system.  It will be the company's most
powerful supercomputer.
     The collaboration was announced this week at the
Supercomputer '92 meeting in Minnesota.
     The new machine delivered to JPL will use a network of 256
processors to achieve a peak speed of 38 gigaflops, or 38 billion
floating-point mathematical operations per second.
     Cray has designated JPL/Caltech as one of four "Cray Centers
of Excellence in Parallel Computing." Under this program, the
company will locate staff engineers at JPL to carry out joint
research in parallel computing techniques.
     "The Cray T3D system together with our expertise in parallel
processing will allow us to tackle new computational problems in
Earth and space sciences," said Dr. Carl Kukkonen, manager of
JPL's Supercomputing Project.
     "More importantly, we will be able to feed back JPL's and
Caltech's experiences to Cray, and thus contribute to maintaining
U.S. leadership in supercomputing," he added.
     According to John Carlson, president of Cray Research Inc.,
the company chose JPL as one of four sites for its Center of
Excellence program "because of the great expertise developed at
JPL and the Caltech campus in parallel computation."
     The Cray T3D system will be used at JPL for computationally
intensive applications including scientific data visualization,
which turns planetary data from spacecraft into three-dimensional
animations.
     Other applications include electromagnetic simulations for
the design of communication antennas and other high-frequency
components; analysis of Earth satellite data; studying the
dynamics of chemical reactions; examining the flow of space
plasmas; and computational fluid dynamics.
     "This collaboration will help us address the grand
challenges of Earth and space sciences -- analyzing the enormous
sets of data that will be returned by NASA's Earth and planetary
missions," said Joseph Bredekamp of NASA's Office of Space
Science and Applications.
     "We hope to have 25 percent of our scientific computing
performed on parallel computers within three years," Bredekamp
added.
     The collaboration is one of NASA's responses to the national
multi-agency High Performance Computing and Communications
program, which seeks to advance U.S. capabilities in
supercomputing.
     "NASA is committed to be an early user of the new parallel
supercomputers, and Cray will be an important player," said Lee
Holcomb, director of the High Performance Computing and
Communications program at NASA Headquarters.
     The project is funded by NASA's Office of Aeronautics and
Space Technology and Office of Space Science and Applications.
###
________________________________________________________________

Annie blackwell, affirmative action leader,
to speak Dec. 2 at von Karman Auditorium

     Annie Blackwell, Director of the Division of Policy,
Planning and Program Development with the U.S. Department of
Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP),
will address JPL employees on OFCCP affirmative action
initiatives in a seminar Dec. 2 from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. in von
Karman Auditorium.
     Blackwell's seminar will be presented under the joint
sponsorship of JPL's Human Resources, Equal Opportunity,
Minority Science and Engineering Initiatives, and Affirmative
Action Program Offices, as well as the Advisory Council for
Minority Affairs and the Advisory Council for Women.
     Blackwell will discuss affirmative action initiatives
implemented by OFCCP during the past year, including minorities
and women in nontraditional jobs, work force diversity and
employment of individuals with disabilities.
     She will also address in detail OFCCP's assessment of the
"Glass Ceiling," which defines the artificial barriers that
hinder minorities and women in their career advancement goals.
     In addition, Blackwell's presentation will include an
overview of the Secretary of Labor's Opportunity 2000 Award and
the Exemplary Voluntary Efforts Award, which JPL received in
1991. Both awards provide national recognition for organizations
with outstanding affirmative action programs.
     Blackwell began her federal career in equal opportunity work
in 1970, and has been with OFCCP since 1975. She has also taught
equal opportunity courses at Mt. San Antonio and Cerritos
Community Colleges.
     A question-and-answer period will follow Blackwell's
remarks. ###