Tuesday, 11 January 2005: 9:15 AM
NASA Activities in support of International Polar Year (IPY) (Invited Presentation)
NASA's Science Mission Directorate will be carrying out a number of science and exploration activities during International Polar year (IPY) that will provide new scientific insights into the Earth's polar regions and the polar regions of the Moon and Mars. NASA's Earth-observing satellites, surface-based, and airborne platforms will be used together with models to improve our knowledge of polar processe and enable both retrospective studies of evolution of the polar regions and predictions about their future evolution. NASA's contributions range from studies of sea ice, ice sheets, feedbacks between the polar surface and atmosphere, and studies of the gas phase and particulate composition of the atmosphere over polar regions. NASA will provide new views on polar regions of the moon and Mars based on a new generation of robotic satellites (both landers and orbiters) that will lead pave the pathway to future robotic and human exploration of our solar system. NASA also uses the polar regions as terrestrial analogues for planetary environments and for providing radiation environments that can used to improve our knowledge of the space radiation environments and its potential impacts on future space exploration. A description of planned activities and expected accomplishments during IPY will be presented.
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