Terra satellite

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January 9, 2000 Terra doing its job

By GARY JAHRIG of the Missoulian

December glitch was minor, says UM's Running

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Two days before Christmas, Steve Running was watching the late evening news when he heard that the main computer had shut down on the earth science satellite bearing software designed at the University of Montana.

"Momentarily I was really rattled," said Running, the UM forestry professor who runs the lab where the Earth Observing System software was developed. "But then we checked on the Internet and found out it was no big deal."

As it turned out, the software glitch that temporarily shut down NASA's $1.3 billion Terra satellite, which was launched the week before Christmas, was easily corrected.

"Everything is going great," said David Steitz, a NASA public affairs spokesman.

"We had a minor problem where one of the navigational algorithms was not ready to pass through the winter solstice. ... It was just a matter of sending up a simple software patch."

Running and other researchers at his UM lab, who have worked on the software for the past 17 years, have been diligently monitoring the progress of Terra since they witnessed its launch Dec. 18 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. NASA Web sites allow interested observers to track Terra's location as it rotates around the Earth on a polar axis.

Despite his initial concern, Running said Friday that the computer shutdown shows that the safeguards installed on the satellite are functioning properly.

"It was basically putting up the alarm that one of the calculations it had just made wasn't right," Running said. "That sent Goddard (Space Center) a message that the calculation came out wrong. ... Rather than just confuse the spacecraft into doing something stupid, the alarm system caught it."

UM's software is loaded on the MODIS instrument, one of five Earth-observing instruments on board Terra. Each of the five instruments, which will send back various reports on the Earth's land, oceans and atmosphere, was programmed to go into operation at a different time. MODIS is the last instrument scheduled to open.

"Our sensor hasn't started to open up yet," Running said. "There's a huge sequence of events that has to happen before our software starts working."

So for now, Running and his team can only sit back and wait to begin interpreting the data that will be transmitted back to Earth from Terra.

"We expected to start getting data about two months after the launch," Running said. "There's no reason to think that will be any different now."

Once they get the data, researchers at the UM lab have said it will then take a few more months to make sure the software is functioning properly.

Then Running's goal is to establish UM as a regional training center for land managers, who should be able to use the satellite data to study forest fire conditions, vegetation growth, drought conditions and other issues.

http://www.missoulian.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2000/January/9-374-news05.txt

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 25, 2000


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