British astronomers today (June 24th) saw the first images from an ambitious new programme of discovery, the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS). The survey will scour the sky with the world's most powerful infrared survey camera (WFCAM) to find some of the dimmest and most distant objects in the Universe. UKIDSS will reach at least twenty times deeper than the largest current survey conducted at this wavelength. Infrared light can be used to study objects that are not hot enough to show up in visible light, such as failed stars in our own Galaxy, as well as objects like distant quasars that are so far away that the expansion of the Universe has shifted their light into the infrared spectrum. UKIDSS will help to solve existing astronomical conundrums, such as when galaxies and quasars first lit up, and will certainly also discover new phenomena, because of the large area and depth.

First image from the survey, of M51the Whirlpool Galaxy.  This colour composite was made by combining images taken with the three JHK near-infra-red filters from just one of the four detectors in WFCAM.  (Data processing by Mike Irwin, Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit). Credit:  Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

WFCAM, the Wide Field Camera, was built at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC) in Edinburgh, and is mounted on the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. The new images confirm the power of the camera. The strength of WFCAM comes from the large field of view, equivalent to imaging the full moon in a single exposure, made possible because the camera contains four of the largest available new-generation infrared detectors.

"WFCAM is enormously powerful. We will have surpassed the size of the current best survey after just 2 weeks, and our plan is a survey 100 times greater. It's about exploring new territory, and we hope to discover new phenomena. In the US they have had tremendous success with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey at visible wavelengths. Now we urgently need a new detailed survey to complement Sloan beyond the visible, in the infrared." said Steve Warren, UKIDSS Survey Scientist from Imperial College.

MOFFET FIELD, Calif. & GRENOBLE, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 2005--Intelligent conversation with robots - long the bread and butter of science fiction authors - soon may take another step closer to reality for astronauts on the International Space Station.

NASA, Xerox Demonstrate 'Virtual Crew Assistant' -- MOFFET FIELD, Calif., June 24, 2005 -- Kim Farrell, project manager for "Clarissa," tests the safety of drinking water using the new "Clarissa" voice-activated system in a simulation of the International Space Station at NASA Ames Research Center. Innovative technology from Xerox Corporation has been incorporated in the system, which will allow astronauts aboard the International Space Station to easily and efficiently perform tests and maintenance. (Photo: NASA Ames Research Center) Media Contact: Bill McKee, Xerox Corporation, 585-423-4476, bill.mckee - @ - xerox.com(NYSE:XRX) will demonstrate a sophisticated, voice-operated computer system on June 26 at the Association for Computational Linguists' 25th annual meeting at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Called Clarissa, the system was developed in an effort to ease astronaut workload.

Scientists from NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley and Xerox Corporation "Clarissa is a fully voice-operated 'virtual crew assistant,' enabling astronauts to be more efficient with their hands and eyes and to give full attention to the task while they navigate through the procedure using spoken commands," said Beth Ann Hockey, project lead on the team that developed Clarissa at NASA Ames.

Plans call for astronaut John Phillips to complete the Clarissa training procedure onboard NASA's International Space Station as early as June 27 in preparation for later use of Clarissa.

Interplanetary Supply Chain Management and Logistics Architectures (Graphic: Business Wire)

The interplanetary supply-chain encompasses the transfer of goods and associated information from terrestrial suppliers to launch sites, the integration of payloads onto launch vehicles and launch to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the in-space transfer of payloads from LEO to the Moon and Mars as well as planetary surface logistics.

Although there are a vast number of scientific principles and techniques that have been developed since World-War-II to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of supply-chain management (SCM) in the private and military sectors on Earth, the potential benefits of this body-of-knowledge are currently only poorly understood in the context of space exploration.