2009
Hydrophobic Coatings Inspired by Lotus
Biotechnology breakthroughs are occurring as engineers find inspiration from the lotus plant to develop materials that can overcome the challenging space environment. Studies of lotus plants and their ability to…
Witnessing Salmonella Migration Into the Bloodstream
The space environment can also be useful for developing medical vaccines. Aboard the Space Shuttle, NASA astronauts conducted research on the effects of spaceflight on salmonella cells. The weightless environment…
Rad to the Bone: Exploring Radiation Effects on Human Bones
Research conducted to support astronauts living and working in space may lead to medical treatments to stop bone loss in cancer treatment patients. Microgravity is well known to cause bone…
Fighting Ticks and Disease One Image at a Time
College students participating in a NASA internship program are learning to use data from spacecraft to identify habitats of ticks carrying Lyme disease within Alabama and to raise public awareness…
Predicting Disease Outbreaks with Earth Observation Data
Data from spacecraft enables research teams from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Global Emerging Infections System and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to monitor and predict disease outbreaks for…
Wild 2 Amino Acid Discovery
Since the 2006 return of NASA’s Stardust spacecraft, scientists have been analyzing captured samples of the comet Wild 2. NASA researchers found that the samples contained a fundamental building block…
Tactical Communication Advantage with Low Earth Orbiting Satellites
Tactical communications supported by satellites are becoming increasingly important to mobile military units during operations. In June 2009, the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center awarded Iridium a contract to develop…
Get SMART for Secure, Global, Communications
Communications technologies also play a key role in the security sector because they can deliver communication services unaffected by disruption or lack of terrestrial communications infrastructure. Communications technologies also play…
Poppies Just Look Different from Space
Since 1999, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has made extensive use of satellite imagery in its Illicit Crop Monitoring Programme (ICPM), helping national governments and the international community…
Tracking Pirates from Space
Space services are proving their utility in fighting international crime. In January 2009 the U.S. commercial remote sensing firm GeoEye reported that its IKONOS satellite had located and taken high-resolution…