AIMM President, Rich Porter recently attended the 45th Annual Legislative Conference where industry leaders, elected officials and citizen activists explore today’s issues from an African-American perspective. This year’s conference addressed mandatory sentencing, My Brothers Keeper and minority education in STEM studies.
The mission of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. (CBCF) is to advance the global black community by developing leaders, informing policy, and educating the public.
The ALC is the leading policy conference on issues impacting African Americans and the global black community. Thought leaders, legislators and concerned citizens engage on economic development, civil and social justice, public health and education issues. More than 9,000 people attend 70 public policy forums, a national town hall, networking sessions, procurement fair, prayer breakfast, the Phoenix Award Dinner and much more.
We just came across this spectacular image posted by NASA this morning and just had to share!
Courtesy of NASA.gov
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Earth’s thin atmosphere stands out against the blackness of space in this photo shared on Aug. 31, 2015, by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly on board the International Space Station. The station’s solar panels can be seen in darkness at the right of the image.
Kelly, in the midst of a year-long stay on the orbital outpost, shared the photo in a tweet: “Day 157. At the end of the day, #sunrise will come again. Good night from @space_station! #YearInSpace.”
NASA’s remotely piloted Global Hawk 872 departed the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 7 a.m., August 26, for a 24 hour flight to study Tropical Storm Erika, located just east of the Leeward Islands. The aircraft is carrying instruments to measure temperature, moisture, wind speed and direction as part of the NOAA- led mission Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT). The real-time data will go into the National Weather Service forecast models at the National Hurricane Center.
NASA’s Global Hawk, based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, provides a unique vantage point for weather observations because it flies higher and longer than any manned aircraft. It allows data collection from 60,000 feet, an altitude nearly twice as high as manned aircraft, to the ocean surface.
Here’ AIMM’s Jeff Elliott next to the “Hurrican Hunter” Global Hawk 872
Only july 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons, captured the world’s closest and most-detailed image of Pluto ever.
NASA released this sneak-peek series of images that shows New Horizons’ view of Pluto during the final week of its almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to Pluto.
AIMM’s Jeff Elliott shared, “This is THE first time mankind gets to see Pluto and AIMM is excited to be a part of the distribution process.”
Beyond Earth, Jupiter’s moon Europa is considered one of the most promising places in the solar system to search for signs of present-day life, and a new NASA mission to explore this potential is moving forward from concept review to development.
NASA’s mission concept — to conduct a detailed survey of Europa and investigate its habitability — has successfully completed its first major review by the agency and now is entering the development phase known as formulation.
“Today we’re taking an exciting step from concept to mission, in our quest to find signs of life beyond Earth,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Observations of Europa have provided us with tantalizing clues over the last two decades, and the time has come to seek answers to one of humanity’s most profound questions.”
NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter in the late 1990s produced strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth’s moon, has an ocean beneath its frozen crust. If proven to exist, this global ocean could hold more than twice as much water as Earth. With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa may have the ingredients needed to support simple organisms.
The mission plan calls for a spacecraft to be launched to Jupiter in the 2020s, arriving in the distant planet’s orbit after a journey of several years. The spacecraft would orbit the giant planet about every two weeks, providing many opportunities for close flybys of Europa. The mission plan includes 45 flybys, during which the spacecraft would image the moon’s icy surface at high resolution and investigate its composition and the structure of its interior and icy shell.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, has been assigned the responsibility of managing the project. JPL has been studying the multiple-flyby mission concept, in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, since 2011.
Instruments selected for the Europa mission’s scientific payload were announced by NASA on May 26. Institutions supplying instruments include APL; JPL; Arizona State University, Tempe; the University of Texas at Austin; Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio and the University of Colorado, Boulder.
“It’s a great day for science,” said Joan Salute, Europa program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are thrilled to pass the first major milestone in the lifecycle of a mission that will ultimately inform us on the habitability of Europa.”
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system and the universe.
For more information about NASA’s mission to Europa, visit:
On March 23rd, AIMM supported a visit to the Nasa Kennedy Center with the Urban Youth Impact Academy.
The children learned about Earth and space science and had an opportunity for hands on training and the chance to imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut.
About Urban Youth Impact:
Through our programs, we seek to reverse troubling trends and fulfill our mission by offering programs designed to develop critical life-skills that result in less juvenile crime, fewer teen pregnancies, less substance abuse, less child abuse/domestic violence, and fewer school drop-outs.
The primary goal of The Leadership Academy (TLA) is to prepare the students it serves to succeed in life by providing academic assistance, character development and spiritual enrichment through the students’ formative years.
TLA serves up to 150 students in grades K-9 daily during the school year through tutoring, computer-based literacy learning, faith-based instruction, life-skills and character building lessons, mentoring relationships, performing arts, field trips, and recreation.
In this artist’s concept, the moon Ganymede orbits the giant planet Jupiter. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope observed aurorae on the moon generated by Ganymede’s magnetic fields. A saline ocean under the moon’s icy crust best explains shifting in the auroral belts measured by Hubble. Image Credit: NASA/ESA
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth’s surface.
Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and for the search of life as we know it.
“This discovery marks a significant milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “In its 25 years in orbit, Hubble has made many scientific discoveries in our own solar system. A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.”
Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and the only moon with its own magnetic field. The magnetic field causes aurorae, which are ribbons of glowing, hot electrified gas, in regions circling the north and south poles of the moon. Because Ganymede is close to Jupiter, it is also embedded in Jupiter’s magnetic field. When Jupiter’s magnetic field changes, the aurorae on Ganymede also change, “rocking” back and forth.
By watching the rocking motion of the two aurorae, scientists were able to determine that a large amount of saltwater exists beneath Ganymede’s crust affecting its magnetic field.
Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.
NASA astronaut Scott Kelly stands as he is recognized by President Barack Obama, while First Lady Michelle Obama (lower left corner) and other guests applaud. The President recognized Kelly during the State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 20, 2015. This March, Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will launch to the International Space Station and become the first crewmembers to live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory for a year-long mission. While living on the International Space Station, Kelly, Kornienko and the rest of the crew will carry out hundreds of research experiments and work on cutting-edge technology development that will inspire students here at home in science, technology, engineering and math. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — Antares ORB-3 rocket on it’s way to the International Space Station exploded six seconds after launch from Wallops Island Tuesday night.
NASA reports the Antares rocket “suffered a catastrophic anomaly” just after liftoff at 6:22 p.m. There is significant property and vehicle damage at Wallops Flight Facility, but no people have been injured.
The explosion occured six seconds after liftoff, NASA officials said during a live stream after the explosion. The cargo vehicle attacked to the rocket was carrying 5,000 pounds of supplies, including about 1,300 pounds of food. The cargo also included an array of science experiments, including some designed by high school students.
Who is the only U.S. President to be present at a Shuttle Launch?
AIMM 