NASA Daily News Summary
For Release:  April 25, 2000
Media Advisory m00-82


SUMMARY


NEWS RELEASES:

CHANDRA SHOWS NEW WAY TO MEASURE COSMIC DISTANCES

BOOMERANG NEWS BRIEFING: SATELLITE CHANGE

NASA DEVELOPING SPACE-BASED "SENSOR WEB" -- AN "INTERNET" FOR
EARTH OBSERVING SATELLITES



VIDEO

No Video File today due to launch of Space Shuttle Mission STS-101
at 3:52 pm

LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK


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NEWS RELEASES


CHANDRA SHOWS NEW WAY TO MEASURE COSMIC DISTANCES

Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of scientists has
attacked one of astronomy's oldest and thorniest problems,
determining the distance to a cosmic object. The scientists
measured the distance to an X-ray source by observing the delay
and smearing (filtering) out of X-ray signals traversing 30,000
light years of interstellar gas and dust.  Chandra "opened a new
world," said Peter Predehl of the Max-Planck Institute, Garching,
Germany, the lead author on a report to be published in the
European journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.  One of the most
crucial pieces of information needed in astronomy is the distance
to the stars and galaxies.  This information also is among the
most difficult to obtain because, with rare exceptions,
astronomers cannot measure distance directly and must use a
variety of ingenious but uncertain techniques.

Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  Dolores Beasley
(Phone: 202/358-1753).
Contact at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL:
Steve Roy (Phone: 256/544-6535).
Contact at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge,
MA:  Dr. Wallace Tucker (Phone: 617/496-7998).

For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-066.txt



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BOOMERANG NEWS BRIEFING: SATELLITE CHANGE

     Due to the launch delay of STS 101, the BOOMERANG science
briefing, scheduled for
2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 26 will not be carried live on NASA
Television.  Instead the briefing will be broadcast live on the
KU-band GE3 satellite, transponder 17, horizontal polarization,
frequency 12040 MHz, audio 6.2 and 6.8 MHz.

     Images from the briefing will be on the satellite at 1:55
p.m. EDT and immediately following the news briefing.

     Media who wish to listen to the briefing on the telephone can
call toll-free: 800/369-1775; passcode: Boomerang.  The phone
lines will open at 1:45 p.m. EDT and will be open through the
duration of the news briefing.  A live webcast of the briefing
will be available on:

Home Page


Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  Dolores Beasley
(Phone: 202/358-1753).
Contact at National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA:  Amber
Jones (Phone: 703/306-1070).

For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/note2edt/2000/n00-019.txt



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NASA DEVELOPING SPACE-BASED "SENSOR WEB" -- AN "INTERNET" FOR
EARTH OBSERVING SATELLITES

NASA is taking the first steps toward Internet-like connectivity
among its future Earth sensing satellites with the funding of 30
research proposals from industry, academia, government and NASA
centers in Advanced Information System Technology.

Known as "Sensor Web," this is the first in a series of
information technology research initiatives that will help NASA's
Office of Earth Sciences solve the massive challenge of
collecting, processing, routing and storing Earth science
measurement data.  Of the 117 proposals submitted, the 30 selected
cover a variety of topics ranging from satellite on-board
processing, data collection and analysis, information transmission
and wireless networks, to satellite platform control.

Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC:  David E. Steitz
(Phone:  202/358-1730).

For full text, see:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-065.txt



----------------------------


If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e-
mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list.

Index of 2000 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2000/index.html

Index of 1999 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html



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VIDEO


LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK

April 25, Tuesday

9:30 am - Launch Overage and Commentary of STS-101 Begins - KSC
3:52 pm - Launch of STS-101 (Atlantis) - KSC

April 26, Wednesday
2:00 pm - BOOMERANG (Balloon Observations of Millimetric
          Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysics) Briefing - HQ


During the Space Shuttle Mission, see

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html

for the latest television schedule



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Unless otherwise noted, ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN.

ANY CHANGES TO THE VIDEO LINE-UP WILL APPEAR ON THE NASA VIDEO
FILE ADVISORY ON THE WEB AT
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt
WE UPDATE THE ADVISORY THROUGHOUT THE DAY.

The NASA Video File normally airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m.
and midnight Eastern Time.

NASA Television is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees
West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0
megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz.

Refer general questions about the video file to NASA Headquarters,
Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or Fred Brown,
202/358-0713, fred.brown@hq.nasa.gov

During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will
continue to be posted at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html

For general information about NASA TV see:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/



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Contract Awards

Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition information
Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html



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to subscribe or unsubscribe from this list, please send e-mail
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end of daily news summary