NASA Joint Programs Update

Dr. Jon MorseDirector, Astrophysics Division

Science Mission DirectorateNASA Headquarters

Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee MeetingNSF HeadquartersOctober 15, 2009

NASA/DOE: Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope

[JDEM, separate presentation]

NASA/NSF OPP: Ballooning

NASA and NSF: Ballooning Update• New 5-year Memorandum of Agreement between NASA/SMD and NSF/OPP on Antarctic ballooning signed in May 2009

• Flight program update

• New 2009 science result from Antarctic flight: BLAST (Balloon Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope) (PI=Mark Devlin)

NASA/NSF MoA on Antarctic Ballooning

• MoA signed in May 2009, operative for five years.

• Enables continuation of long-standing cooperation between the NSF/Office of Polar Programs and NASA/SMD for support of scientific ballooning in Antarctica.

• Annual requirement for support of two large science missions launched from McMurdo, with possible third mission in some years.

• NSF provides housing, transportation, meals, medical.

• NSF maintains Long Duration Balloon launch site infrastructure.

• NSF provides support for payload recovery.

• NSF and NASA shall meet annually to review changes, lessons learned, and improvements toward Antarctic balloon operations.

• NASA provides NSF with funds to defray campaign support costs.

• 16 Missions / 20* Flights approved by SMD

* BARREL mission (Antarctica) is comprised of 5 separate hand-launches

• 2 Foreign & 2 Domestic Flight Campaigns

• 16 Science flights (Plus 2 flights left over from FY 2009)

1 (+2) Ft. Sumner, NM (Fall 09) Airship Test3 Antarctica (Winter 09) LDB/SP/MoO5 Australia (Spring 10) Conventional/SP2 Palestine (Summer 10) Conventional5 Ft. Sumner, NM (Fall 10) Conventional

• Antarctic campaign includes 14 MCF Super Pressure Balloon Test (goal of > 100 days) and planned recovery of BESS payload left on the Ice for two winters

FY 2010 Recommended Flight ProgramFY 2010 Recommended Flight Program

FY10 Antarctic Balloon Flight Program

• FY2010 Flight Program: 3 Antarctic flights (Winter 09):• 14 MCF super-pressure balloon test (> 100 days?)• CREAM (Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass) -5 – precise measurements of elemental spectra for z = 1 to 26 in 1011 to 1015 eV region• BARREL – five hand-launched balloons (~0.25 MCF) – measures precipitating electrons from radiation belts (Heliophysics Division)

• Antarctic campaign includes:• Planned recovery of BESS payload left on the ice for 2 years

2009 Super Pressure Balloon Test Flight

• 54 days of flight

• Balloon remained pressurized- no apparent gas loss.

• It could have flown indefinitely.

• Largest super pressure balloon ever successfully flown

• Longest large NASA balloon flight ever

FY 2010 Flight ScheduleFY 2010 Flight Schedule

Principal Investigator (PI) Discipline OCT NOV DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP

Fort Sumner, New Mexico Fall 09

Smith / SwRI Special Project

Antarctica Winter 09

Pierce / WFF Super Pressure Test Flight

Millan / Dartmouth Heliophysics

Seo / UMD Particle Astrophysics

Australia Spring 10

Zych / UC Riverside Gamma Ray/X-Ray

Martin / Caltech UV Optical

Boggs / UC Berkeley Gamma Ray/X-Ray

Ramsey / MSFC Gamma Ray/X-Ray

Pierce / WFF Super Pressure Test Flight

Tueller / GSFC Gamma Ray/X-Ray

Palestine, Texas Summer 10

Gross / JPL Special Project

Lubin / UC Santa Barbara IR/Submillimeter

Fort Sumner, New Mexico Fall 10

Ryan / UNH Gamma Ray/X-Ray

Wu / NCAR Geospace Sciences

Guzik / LSU Special Project

Margitan / JPL Upper Atmosphere

Atlas / Miami Upper Atmosphere

STATUS AS OF: 09/15/09

BLAST Balloon Science Result (Sept. 2009; flew 2006): Resolving the Cosmic Submillimeter Background—individual, distant galaxies are the source

NASA and DOE: Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Update

The one-year Fermi-LAT sky: Over 1000 new high-energy gamma-ray sources

• Detected the moon and the quiet Sun• Detected dozens of pulsars, many pulsing only in gamma-rays and several

millisecond pulsars• Detected the globular cluster 47 Tucanae• Detected orbital variations in gamma-ray emission from several binary

systems• Resolved the gamma-ray emission from the LMC and several SNR

– Significant implications for understanding the origin of cosmic-rays• Resolved in gamma-rays the radio lobes of Cen A• Detected over 270 GRB including 12 above 100 MeV

– Use relative arrival times of high and low energy gamma-ray photons to set stringent constraints on Lorentz invariance violation.

• Detected new gamma-ray AGN population ((Narrow-Line Seyfert galaxies)• Data release on Aug 25 - all LAT and GBM data are now public within 72

hours.• First Fermi symposium Nov 2-5 in Washington, DC.

Fermi accomplishments include

Fermi charts courtesy of Julie McEnery

Gamma-ray burstsGamma-ray bursts

Long GRB090323 (>200s), radio - GeV afterglow

Short GRB081024B

Long GRB080916C Intense, z=4.35, to 13 GeV

Short GRB090510 Intense, z=0.9, to 31 GeV

• 10 long and 2 short bursts detected by LAT at GeV energies

– Both types of GRB show similar phenomenology at high energies

– Swift XRT has detected X-ray afterglows from the 7 brightest LAT bursts resulting in the determination of the burst redshift/distance.

Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope StatusFermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Status

• The LAT and GBM are both working well • First LAT GeV catalog (currently being validated/checked) contains over

1000 new gamma-ray sources! – New classes of gamma-ray sources (millisecond pulsars, gamma-ray

binaries, globular clusters, starburst galaxies…) • field of gamma-ray astrophysics is rapidly expanding

• GBM is detecting many kinds of MeV transients – >250 GRB/year, three SGRs (SGR 0501+4516, SGR 1806-20 and SGR

1E1547.0-5408), >10 TGFs and a solar flare.• Science returns in solar system studies, Galactic astrophysics,

extragalactic astrophysics, cosmic-ray physics and fundamental physics.• The full data release was last month, software to assist with data analysis

is also available.– http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc

• Lots more science to come… (Gamma-ray pulsars, 0.1-1 TeV electrons, Testing Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, etc.)etc.)

Upcoming One-Year SymposiumUpcoming One-Year Symposium

• Fermi symposium– Washington DC, Nov 2-5

• http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/resources/newsletter/– General news– Multiwavelength– Data/software

• LAT data became public on Aug 25– http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc

Backup Slides

Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM-IV)Eun-Suk Seo, University of Maryland

• 19.5 days of flight

• First instrument ever to exceed 100 days of exposure (119 Days)

• Invited Highlight talk, 31st ICRC, Lodz, Poland (Submitted for Publication)

Fermi Cycle-2 ProgramFermi Cycle-2 Program

• 199 proposals received, 80 selected– 79 grants– 8 “Progress Reports”, all passed

• 3 multi-year “Large Projects” selected– Down from 8 selections in Cycle-1– $1.5M in m-yr obligations from Cycle-1

• Average grants: $174k (large) $78k (regular)

• No pointed observations approved (2 requests)• NRAO: ~650 hours awarded

– ~50% of proposed amount• NOAO: under-utilized resource

– 3 requests, 1 award (24 hrs)

Limits on Lorentz Invariance ViolationLimits on Lorentz Invariance Violation

• Heuristic modification of the photon dispersion relation :– c2 P2 = E2 ( 1+ f(E/EQG )) EQG : effective LIV energy scale

– For E<<EQG : c2 P2 = E2 ( 1+ (E/EQG )n + (E/EQG )n+1) •n=1 or 2 in current studies• is just a constant (can disappear in EQG)

•: subluminal regime (high energy photons arrive later) •: superluminal regime (high energy photons arrive earlier)

v=E/P ~ c ( 1+ (E/EQG )n)

• Simple case : n=1, :– Consider a photon of energy E observed at t. –If it belongs to the GRB, at the very least it has been emitted after the trigger t0.– Thus the maximal time delay due to LIV is t-t0 : t<t-t0– With a distance estimate, this results in a “conservative” lower limit on EQG

• Independent of intrinsic time lags in GRBs