Storm Clouds Over the Atlantic Ocean Near Brazil

One of the Expedition 36 crew members aboard the International Space Station used a 50mm lens to record this image of a large mass of storm clouds over the Atlantic Ocean near Brazil and the Equator on July 4, 2013. 

A Russian spacecraft, docked to the orbiting outpost, partially covers a small patch of sunglint on the ocean waters in a break in the clouds. 

Image Credit: NASA

Brazil's SGDC: Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite

Boeing and Space Systems/Loral of the United States, Astrium Satellites and Thales Alenia Space of Europe and Mitsubishi Electric (Melco) of Japan all submitted separate bids for what Brazil calls SGDC - Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite.

The SGDC satellite is expected to weigh no more than 6,000 kilograms at launch and to operate at 75 degrees west in a geostationary orbit. 

It will be operated by Brazil’s Telebras national telecommunications company, with the system managed by Visiona Tecnologica Espacial SA, a joint venture created to manage the project.

Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer’s Embraer Defense owns 51 percent of the Visiona joint venture, with Telebras holding the remaining 49 percent.

Brazilian authorities have assigned Embraer the task of becoming a major satellite prime contractor capable of handling future satellite projects in part as a result of a large technology-transfer package the Brazilian government has inserted into the SGDC bid request.

A second SGDC satellite is part of Brazil’s national space program, which is coordinated by the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB).

Several of the bidders are using the SGDC program to give Brazilian authorities a glimpse of what future technology-transfer agreements might look like, primarily for optical and radar Earth observation, and satellite-based weather forecasting.

If the contest for the telecommunications satellite is placed into a wider context of generalized cooperation with Brazil, the two European bidders may have an edge, they have the most experience in selling Earth observation satellites to nations demanding sizable technology transfers.

Japan’s Melco has also demonstrated its export prowess in both telecommunications and Earth observation satellites and could offer a viable alternative.

U.S. satellite industry officials have said the U.S. government has become more comfortable with the export of U.S. imaging sensors and satellites, and that government regulations are no longer a showstopper for a U.S. satellite builder.

The Latin America Aero and Defense aerospace show, held April 9-12 in Rio de Janeiro, was an occasion for several bidders to show their presence as Brazilian authorities sift through the SGDC bids.

AEB has said the SGDC satellite is budgeted at 716 million Brazilian reais ($362 million) including its launch, which will be the subject of a separate competition.

Satellite Star One C1

The Brazilian Ministry of Defense already leases X-band capacity on the commercial Star One C1 and C2 satellites operated by Brazil’s private-sector satellite operator.

Star One will cost around 23 million reais annually, according to the ministry.

The five X-band transponders to be placed on the first SGDC satellite will cover all of South America and the surrounding maritime routes.

Brazil’s Ministry of Communications leases seven Ku-band transponders on Star One satellites for about 43 million reais per year.

The ministry will use the Ka-band spot-beam capacity on the SGDC satellite to offer broadband to Brazilian villages that do not have broadband access.

Brazil looks to the West for SGDC Satellite build

Brazil’s Ministry of Communications leases seven Ku-band transponders on Star One satellites (C1 shown above) and will use SGDC's Ka-band spot-beam capacity to offer broadband to Brazilian villages. 

Credit: ESA/CNES/ Arianespace photo by Optique Video du CSG

Eight satellite builders have grouped themselves into seven separate bids for Brazil’s dual-use X- and Ka-band telecommunications satellite, a $362 million program that Brazilian officials say should result in the creation of a domestic Brazilian satellite builder that ultimately will compete globally with the eight bidders.

But despite the concern that whoever wins, the Brazilian competition will be feeding the mouth that one day will bite it, the temptation to be an early partner in what is billed as a major national space program during its takeoff stage is too great.

The seven bidding teams are expected to be reduced to three finalists late this spring, with a winner selected this summer.

Boeing and Space Systems/Loral of the United States, Astrium Satellites and Thales Alenia Space of Europe and Mitsubishi Electric (Melco) of Japan all submitted separate bids for what Brazil calls its Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite (SGDC).

The two other bids are both led by MDA Corp. of Canada. One is with ISS Reshetnev of Russia and the other with Israel Aerospace Industries.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the bid grouping is the dexterity of Richmond, British Columbia-based MDA, which is teaming with Russian and Israeli partners instead of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Space Systems/Loral, which MDA purchased in 2012.

MDA declined to discuss its bid strategy.

Rising Star: Ukraine accelerates space industry development

Ukraine was implementing a number of space projects with Russia and Kazakhstan and was working with Brazil to jointly launch Tsyklon-4 rockets from Brazil's Alcantara base.

President Viktor Yanukovych on Friday highlighted progress in Ukraine's aerospace industry in recent years and said his country would continue to develop its space projects.

"Our state has made a significant contribution to the development of cosmonautics and continues to cooperate with many countries of the world," Yanukovych said during his meeting with Ukraine National Space Agency chairman Yuriy Alekseyev and Aerospace Society president Vitaly Zholobov, an ex-Soviet Cosmonaut.

Viktor Yanukovych

Ukraine was implementing a number of space projects with Russia and Kazakhstan and was working with Brazil's Space Agency (AEB) to jointly launch Tsyklon-4 rockets from Brazil's Alcantara base.

In 2011, Ukraine joined China, the EU, Russia, and the U.S. as one of the top five space rocket-launching countries in the world.

Leonid K. Kadenyuk,
first space traveler
from independent Ukraine

Since 1991, Ukraine has grown into a significant player in the space industry, having launched 128 rockets and delivered into orbit 250 satellites for 19 countries.

This year, Ukraine has allocated about 322 million U.S. dollars to promote its aerospace industry over the next five years.

ESA Envisat: Paraná River in Brazil As Seen From Space

The Paraná River cuts through this image of southern Brazil from the Envisat satellite.

Credit ESA/Envisat

In the area pictured, the river marks the borders of the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso do Sul to the north and west, Sao Paulo to the east and Paraná to the south.

The river along with its tributaries creates a massive watershed that spreads throughout much of the south central part of the continent. Agricultural structures are evident in the surrounding land. The area is known as a large producer of coffee.

Click here to play the ESA/Envisat video of Parana River

Near the centre of the image, smoke from a fire was captured blowing southwest from its source. Major fires are visible from space - satellites detect not only the smoke billowing from major conflagrations but also the burn scars left in their wake and even the fires themselves - appearing as hotspots when scanning Earth's surface in thermal-infrared wavelengths.

Envisat's Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer was like a thermometer, measuring thermal-infrared radiation to take the temperature of Earth's land and sea surfaces.

Prior to the end of the Envisat mission in April, the radiometer data contributed to the ATSR World Fire Atlas.

Temperatures exceeding about 39oC were classed as burning fires by the instrument, which was capable of detecting fires as small as gas flares from industrial sites because of their high temperature. Fires are detected best during local night, when the surrounding land is cooler.

This image was acquired by the MERIS instrument on Envisat on 19 March.

The Image of the Week is featured on ESA Web-TV, broadcast online every Friday at 10:00 CEST.

Artist's concept of the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft, a collaboration between NASA and Argentina's space agency, with participation from Brazil, Canada, France and Italy. 

Aquarius, the NASA-built primary instrument on the spacecraft, will take NASA's first space-based measurements of ocean surface salinity, a key missing variable in satellite observations of Earth that links ocean circulation, the global balance of freshwater and climate.

Image credit: NASA

NASA's Aquarius instrument has successfully completed its commissioning phase and is now "tasting" the saltiness of Earth's ocean surface, making measurements from its perch in near-polar orbit.

"This marks the end of the long odyssey to design, build and launch this mission, and the start of a new journey of scientific exploration," said Aquarius Principal Investigator Gary Lagerloef of Earth and Space Research, Seattle.

"Scientists from around the world are ready and waiting to study this important new satellite measurement for ocean and climate research."


Aquarius will make NASA's first space observations of the salinity, or concentration of salt, at the ocean surface, a key variable in satellite studies of Earth.

Variations in salinity influence the ocean's deep circulation, outline the path freshwater takes around our planet and help drive Earth's climate.

The Aquarius science team will spend the coming months analyzing and calibrating the measurements and releasing preliminary data.

With the Aquarius instrument commissioning now complete, the SAC-D Instruments Flight Operations Teams, together with the SAC-D Mission Flight Operations Team in Argentina, are now engaged in commissioning the other seven SAC-D instruments.

Once all the observatory instruments are commissioned, a maneuver will be conducted to place Aquarius/SAC-D in its final orbit, 408 miles (657 kilometers) above Earth.

NASA ISS Image: Landslides in Brazil

Click on the picture to see a larger version

At least 809 people have now died in what some news outlets and government agencies are calling the worst natural disaster in Brazil’s history.

Following unusually persistent rain in early January and an extreme rainfall event on January 11-12, large swaths of the Brazilian states of Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, and Santa Catarina were devastated by mud sliding off the soaked hills and by rivers overflowing or carving up their soft banks.

After weeks of cloud cover, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite finally collected the top image of the mountainous region northeast of Rio de Janeiro on January 18, 2011. The lower image was taken by the same instrument on February 13, 2003.

In this near-infrared image, vegetation-covered land appears red, concrete and building materials appear gray, clouds are white, and bare land tends to be sandy brown (though some exposed rock surfaces appear much darker).

A comparison of the 2011 and 2003 images, combined with news and scientific accounts, reveals the likely tracks of light-brown mudslides marked in the image above.

Brazilian Farmers cynically bulldoze UNESCO tribal reserve

A group of Brazilian ranchers is bulldozing a UNESCO reserve inhabited by an indigenous Indian tribe with no prior contact with the outside world, an native rights group said Monday.

Survival International said the UNESCO bioreserve in Paraguay's Chaco region is home to the only uncontacted indigenous tribe in South America outside of the Amazon -- the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode.

"The Totobiegosode's land is being destroyed as we speak," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International.

"Given that their land falls within a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, we hope that UNESCO can play a part in stopping this destruction and pressing for the recognition of their land rights."

The group says a Paraguayan government representative and two relatives of the tribe attempted to enter the region, but were barred by employees of the ranchers' company, Yaguarete Pore S.A.

Survival International said the reserve was intended to protect both the Indian group but also species including the jaguar, "an irony given that a Spanish language translation of that word, yaguarete, is the name of the company bulldozing the reserve."

Satellite photos show that thousands of hectares of the reserve have been destroyed, even though the company has had its license to operate there withdrawn by the Paraguayan government, Survival International said.

UNESCO biospheres are designated under the United Nation's agency's "Man and Biosphere Program," and are intended to promote conservation and sustainable development.

There are over 500 designated sites in over 100 countries, according to UNESCO. The Chaco region in Paraguay was designated in 2005.

Brazil cities - Rio de Janeiro hit by Blackouts

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil's two largest cities have been hit by a massive blackout that has also affected other parts of Latin America's largest nation.

Media reports say problems at a huge hydroelectric dam are to blame for the electrial outages affecting large parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other cities in several states.

The G1 Web site of Globo TV says Brazil lost 17,000 megawatts of power after an unspecified problem happened at the Itaipu dam that straddles the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

Officials did not immediately comment on Tuesday's outages. The blackouts came three days after CBS's "60 Minutes" news program reported several past Brazilian power outages were caused by hackers. Brazilian officials played down the report

Cocaine all over your paper money? - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist

Cocaine all over your dollar bills? - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist
Here are Country-by-country, city-by-city results of his US team's study. Mainly US based, they also looked at banknotes from Brazil, China and Japan.

* Detroit, MI - 100 %
* Boston, MA - 100%
* Cambridge, MA - 100 %
* Providence, RI - 80 %
* Miami, FL - 100 %
* Los Angeles, CA - 100 %
* Niagara Falls, NY - 67 %
* Washington, D.C. - 95 %
* Salt Lake City, UT - 77%
* Toronto, Canada - 88%
* Brasilia, Brazil - 75 %
* Sao Paulo, Brazil - 100%
* Tokyo, Japan - 20%
* Kyoto, Japan - 10%
* Shanghai, China - 0%
* Beijing, China - 20%

Surprise, surpsrise! Looks like the US has the biggest problem.

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