Popocatepetl Volcano: Eruption Covers 30 Communities In Mexico With Ash

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Mexico's famous Popocatepetl volcano experienced one of its largest explosions in years, causing its eruption to cover about 30 communities with ash, according to reports.

According to Wired's Eruptions blog, the ash ranges from a light dusting to up to seven centimeters thick.

Popocatepetl means "smoking mountain" in Aztec. At 17,802 feet (5,426 meters) it is the second highest volcano in North America.

It was reported that the eruption coupled with a plume of steam and ash and increased seismic activity, prompted authorities to raise the volcano's alert status. Mexican authorities have since advised people to stay at least seven miles away from the summit.

Eruptions Blog author Erik Klemetti, a professor of geosciences at Denison University in Ohio, said that a raised alert level means that local authorities are preparing for potential evacuations should the volcano have a major eruption.

It was also reported that the National Disaster Prevention Center stated, a lava dome is growing in the volcano's crater and that Popocatepetl could experience "significant explosions of growing intensity that hurl incandescent rocks significant distances."

Large ash showers and possible flows of mud and molten rocks down the volcano's flank could also occur.

Jet engine icing research tackles dangerous flight problem

Credit: NASA

Technicians install water sprayers in the jet engine icing test chamber at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center. The sprayers will produce tiny ice crystals that can clog or damage engines.

On a stormy July evening in 2004, more than five miles above the South China Sea, the engines powering a large passenger jet en route to Taiwan suddenly failed.

A simultaneous engine shutdown on a large, modern aircraft is almost unheard of.

After a harrowing 75 seconds, the pilots managed to restart them, and the jet landed at the Taipei airport without further problems. But the incident set off alarms in the aviation community.

Minutes before its engines quit, the jet had been skirting thunderstorms spawned by a distant typhoon.

Investigators first thought the storms' powerful updrafts had pulled rain high into the atmosphere, temporarily smothering the engines when they sucked in gouts of water instead of air.

The jet's pilots had seen and heard droplets hitting the windshield, bolstering the rain theory but the jet's radar sweeps were clear, with no echoes from rain and the temperature at the altitude where the trouble began was a frigid minus-44 degrees, far too cold for liquid water.

Researchers eventually concluded the engines must have been choked by tiny ice crystals as small as flour grains, a dangerous, unexpected phenomenon that aviation officials urgently want to learn more about so they can lessen its risk.

Much of that work will take place at Cleveland's NASA Glenn Research Center, where engineers are readying a unique test chamber capable of mimicking the odd weather conditions that threatened the Taipei-bound jet, and have caused more than 150 other in-flight incidents.

"These things are happening pretty frequently, like one incident every month or so," said Glenn project manager Ron Colantonio. "NASA is working with the aviation community to understand what's causing the problem and how to mitigate it."

Glenn officials recently unveiled the silvery, boxcar-sized engine icing tunnel during a visit by NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

Glenn engineers previously had used the tunnel for other types of jet engine tests. With $15 million in Recovery Act and NASA money, they've retrofitted it with water sprayers that will produce the minute ice crystals believed to be causing the engine problems.

Sensors will track the performance of jet engines mounted on a frame in the icy air stream.

Aviation safety experts have long recognized the danger from ice buildup on wings and other external aircraft surfaces.

The hazard is caused by super-cooled liquid water freezing on contact, disrupting smooth airflow and hampering lift.

For decades engineers in Glenn's Icing Branch have led international efforts to develop better ice forecasting methods, icing sensors, anti-icing aircraft designs, and improved pilot training.

Read more on this article here: 

ESA and Soyuz launches sharp-eyed Pleiades satellite

A Russian Soyuz rocket has launched from French Guiana - only the second such vehicle to fly out of the territory's new Sinnamary spaceport.

The Soyuz put six satellites in orbit, including France's new Pleiades-1 high-resolution imaging spacecraft.

This satellite is designed to take pictures that resolve features on the ground as small as 50cm across.

The capability will put it on a par with the leading US commercial systems operated by GeoEye and DigitalGlobe.

Lift-off occurred on schedule at 23:03 local time, Friday (02:03 GMT, Saturday), with Pleiades-1 being dropped off in its 700km-high polar orbit some 55 minutes later.

The 970kg satellite is the result of a near-decade-long programme in the French space agency (Cnes) to develop one of the most powerful Earth observation systems in the world.

The spacecraft's sensor actually has a resolution of 70cm, but image processing will recover detail that is around the half-metre mark.


Pleiades-1 will be followed by Pleiades-2 in the coming year

Pleiades carries gyroscopes that allow it to swivel its telescope in quick time, enabling it to acquire a strip, or mosaic, of images around its target in a single pass overhead.

The Pleiades spacecraft has been assembled by Astrium, Europe's largest space company, with its instrument supplied by Thales Alenia Space (France).

It will have both a civilian and military role, and a number of European countries (Austria, Belgium, Spain and Sweden) have part-funded the project to get access to its pictures.

Pleiades-1 will be followed by Pleiades-2 on a separate Soyuz launch in 2012.

"The fact that we will have two, twin satellites operating in a phased orbit separated by 180 degrees will give us something very powerful - a daily re-visit capacity.

It means we will be able to gather information every day on any part of the globe," explained Charlotte Gabriel Robez, Pleiades project manager with Astrium Geo-information Services.

"This is key because it allows us to tackle applications such as rescue or crisis management, in the aftermath of an earthquake for example," she told BBC News.

The commercial market for very high resolution imagery has become dominated in recent years by the American companies GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, which benefit from multi-billion-dollar contracts with the US intelligence agencies.

Astrium Geo-information Services is hoping these agencies' voracious appetite for pictures will leave a productive hole in the market for Pleiades' products.

The Soyuz rocket flew its inaugural mission from Europe's Sinnamary spaceport in October. A dedicated new launch pad has been constructed in the Guianese jungle for the Russian vehicle.

 

A simulated image of London's 02 Arena. The picture shows the detail Pleiades should be able to retrieve

Paragon Software Selected For ISS Disaster Recovery Solutions

Paragon Software Group reached a milestone in the company's brief history as it soared into the heavens on the final flight of America's Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Selected by NASA's Prime Bioastronautics contractor, Wyle, Paragon's backup and disaster recovery software, Hard Disk Manager (HDM) 11 Professional now orbits the Earth on the International Space Station. HDM 11 serves as the primary backup and recovery software for the latest generation Ultrasound system also launched on Atlantis.

The International Space Station's primary goal is to provide a platform for scientific research. Human subject research is managed by Wyle as part of the Bioastronautics Contract.

Certification of the next generation ultrasound required being able to successfully restore the new ultrasound system to its launch configuration.

Lockheed Martin, one of the subcontractors operating with Wyle, the prime contractor on the Bioastronautics Contract, needed a recovery solution that could meet its stringent specifications. As is often the case with space-related operations, a customized software solution was needed.

"At Paragon, we provide our clients with superior customer service regardless of where they are, now that extends to outer space," said Tom Fedro, president of Paragon Software Group.

"It was important to Wyle and Lockheed Martin to ensure that the astronauts operating on the Space Station could quickly and easily restore their systems back to an operable state - with the customized version of Hard Disk Manager, they can recover in a matter of minutes without any additional tools."

Paragon developed a custom-restore script that automated the system restore process via a USB-bootable flash drive with the click of a button.

Bioastronautics personnel evaluated several back-up and recovery tools. Of the tools available Paragon's HDM 11 came closest to meeting the project's needs. The Paragon team stepped in to close the gap, providing a customized solution which minimized user interaction.

HDM 11 Server provides a complete data backup and disaster recovery solution. A virtual add-on component is available for virtual environments.

Both versions offer the ability to perform bare-metal restores, file-level recovery, includes advanced data wiping algorithms, and automatic partition alignment. Additionally, HDM 11 Server enables data back up or migration of an active server with locked volumes, files or folders.

Paragon Software is also used by European Aerospace Contractors such as EADS, Thales, Astrium, etc.

Constellation Of Satellites Needed For Disaster Management: ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has stressed on the need to have a constellation of satellites with multispectral sensors to predict, mitigate and manage disasters.

"Exactly how many satellites an effective constellation would need is still open for debate. No single satellite can hope to meet all these needs.

Rather, what disaster managers need is a constellation of satellites carrying a range of sensors," director, Space Application Centre, ISRO Ranganath Navalgund told PTI from Ahmedabad.

The constellation plan is a part of the 'Umbrella Plan' of the organisation, he said.

Disasters come in all shapes and sizes, needing varying data during the disaster cycle of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, Navalgund said.

Many studies suggest at least eight satellites, with dual capability sensors can collect both high and low spatial resolution data, and an equal split between optical (including thermal) and microwave instruments.

"The satellites should also be agile, they should allow rapid changes in camera orientation so that a disaster area can be kept in view longer," he said.

However, India currently makes use of data from different satellites which are already operating for disaster management. Even yesterday's cyclone 'Phyan' in Arabian sea was tracked by INSAT-3A Kalpana and recently launched Oceansat-2 with KU band and scatterometer, he said.

Crucially, different situations need data collected in different wavebands -- like optical and near infrared data can map land use or assess agricultural droughts.

"But to track a cyclone's eye, or monitor flooded areas beneath cloud, microwave sensors are needed," Navalgund said.

Landslide studies depend on accurate high-resolution digital elevation models, which require data collected by stereo-viewing optical sensors like Cartosat-1, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radars (InSARs) or Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) instruments.

Disaster managers really need satellites incorporating sensors that collect data in all these regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, he said.

"There is often an awkward trade-off between temporal and spatial resolutions. Managing many natural disasters, such as cyclones or fires, demands detailed and continuous data.

But although geostationary satellites, such as Meteosat or INSAT (Indian National Satellite System)/ Kalpana, provide almost constant surveillance (every 15 minutes), they lack detail (their spatial resolution is low)," Navalgund said.

Conversely, polar-orbiting satellites offer higher spatial resolution data (even down to less than 1m) but information is only collected once every few days.

Even yesterday's cyclone 'Phyan' in Arabian sea was tracked by INSAT-3A Kalpana and recently launched Oceansat-2 with KU band and scatterometer, he said.

Crucially, different situations need data collected in different wavebands -- like optical and near infrared data can map land use or assess agricultural droughts.

"But to track a cyclone's eye, or monitor flooded areas beneath cloud, microwave sensors are needed," Navalgund said.

Landslide studies depend on accurate high-resolution digital elevation models, which require data collected by stereo-viewing optical sensors like Cartosat?1, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radars (InSARs) or Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) instruments.

Disaster managers really need satellites incorporating sensors that collect data in all these regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, he said.

"There is often an awkward trade-off between temporal and spatial resolutions. Managing many natural disasters, such as cyclones or fires, demands detailed and continuous data.

But although geostationary satellites, such as Meteosat or INSAT (Indian National Satellite System)/ Kalpana, provide almost constant surveillance (every 15 minutes), they lack detail (their spatial resolution is low)," Navalgund said.

Conversely, polar-orbiting satellites offer higher spatial resolution data (even down to less than 1m) but information is only collected once every few days.