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NASA Briefing Previews Mission to Explore Nearest Reaches of Space

The headshot image of NASA

NASA

Jan 02, 2018
MEDIA ADVISORYM18-001
The lowest reaches of space glow with bright bands of color called airglow in this image
The lowest reaches of space glow with bright bands of color called airglow in this image captured from the International Space Station. NASA’s new GOLD mission observes airglow to research this dynamic region of space and how it interacts with the upper atmosphere. Credits: NASA

NASA will host a briefing at 1 p.m. EST Thursday, Jan. 4, about the agency’s upcoming science mission to explore where Earth’s atmosphere meets space. The live event will air on NASA Television and stream on the agency’s website and Facebook Live.

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission is an instrument launching on a commercial satellite to inspect from geostationary orbit the dynamic intermingling of space and Earth’s uppermost atmosphere. GOLD will seek to understand what drives change in this region where terrestrial weather in the lower atmosphere interacts with the tumult of solar activity from above and Earth’s magnetic field. Resulting data will improve forecasting models of space weather events that can impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.

GOLD is NASA’s first science mission to fly as a hosted instrument aboard a commercial communications satellite and is scheduled to launch Thursday, Jan. 25 from French Guiana. GOLD will fly on SES-14, built by Airbus for Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES. The mission is led by the University of Central Florida.

Participating in the briefing are:

  • Sarah Jones, GOLD mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
  • Alex Young, associate director for heliophysics science, Goddard
  • Todd Gossett, senior director of hosted payloads at SES Government Solutions, Reston, Virginia

Media and members of the public can post questions during the broadcast via Twitter by using the hashtag #askNASA. Media may also submit questions via an online real-time capability by contacting Lina Tran at lina.tran@nasa.gov by 10 a.m. EST Thursday, Jan. 4.

The event will be broadcast live on NASA TV and streamed at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

It will also be carried on the NASA Sun Science Facebook account at:

https://www.facebook.com/NASASunScience/

To learn more about the GOLD mission, visit:
 

https://www.nasa.gov/gold

Join the conversation on the GOLD mission on Twitter at:

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Dwayne Brown / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 301-286-6284
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov