Media Invited to View New Earth Science Satellite before Shipment to Japan

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Oct 31, 2013, 10:47 ET

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Media have the opportunity Friday, Nov. 15, to get a closer look at NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite before it is shipped to Japan for launch in early 2014.

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Media will meet at the Visitors Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., at 9:30 a.m. EST, where they will be briefed on the mission and speak with mission scientists. This will be followed by a tour of the spacecraft clean room and opportunities to interview the engineers who built the satellite.

Reporters also will have time to speak with scientists at Goddard's 15-screen Hyperwall about the applications of GPM data, including how rainfall data fit into climate models and contribute to understanding of the entire Earth system. All speakers will be available for interviews.

GPM, scheduled for shipment to the Tanegashima Space Center in November, is an international satellite mission led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It will provide next-generation observations of rain and snow worldwide every three hours, as well as unprecedented 3-D views of hurricanes and snowstorms. GPM data will contribute to the monitoring and forecasting of weather events such as droughts, floods and hurricanes.

To attend, media must register by contacting Ellen Gray at 301-286-1950 or [email protected] no later than Nov. 7. Social media registration is closed.

For more information about the GPM mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/gpm

SOURCE NASA