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- To subscribe to the list, send a message to: hqnews-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To remove your address from the list, send a message to: hqnews-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
