On 27 May 2010, NASA announced the first Earth Venture (EV-1) selections in response to a recommendation made by the National Research Council for low-cost investigations fostering innovation in Earth Science. The five EV-1 investigations span the Earth science focus areas of atmosphere, weather, climate, water and energy and, carbon and represent Earth science researchers from NASA as well as other government agencies, academia and industry from around the world. The five EV-1 missions are (1) Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS); (2) Airborne Tropical TRopopause Experiment (ATTREX); (3) Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE); (4) Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and VERtically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality (DISCOVER-AQ), and (5) Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3). The Earth Venture missions are managed out of the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program Office [3]

The Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program Office (PO) is responsible for programmatic management of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Science Mission Directorate's (SMD) Earth Venture (EV) missions. EV is composed of both orbital and suborbital Earth science missions. The first of the Earth Venture missions is EV-1, which are Principal Investigator-led, temporally-sustained, suborbital (airborne) science investigations cost-capped at $30M each over five years. Traditional orbital procedures, processes and standards used to manage previous ESSP missions, while effective, are disproportionally comprehensive for suborbital missions. Conversely, existing airborne practices are primarily intended for smaller, temporally shorter investigations, and traditionally managed directly by a program scientist as opposed to a program office such as ESSP. ESSP has crafted a management approach for the successful implementation of the EV-1 missions within the constructs of current governance models. NASA Research and Technology Program and Project Management Requirements form the foundation of the approach for EV-1. Additionally, requirements from other existing NASA Procedural Requirements (NPRs), systems engineering guidance and management handbooks were adapted to manage programmatic, technical, schedule, cost elements and risk. The program management approach presented here for EV-1 will set the precedent for future suborbital EV missions.

A method is presented to rapidly incorporate real objects into virtual environments using laser scanned 3D models with color-based marker tracking. Both the real objects and their geometric models are put into a mixed environment (ME). In the ME, users can manipulate the scanned, articulated real objects, such as tools, parts, and physical correlates to complex computer-aided design (CAD) models. Our aim is to allow engineering teams to effectively conduct hands-on assembly design verification. This task would be simulated at a high degree of fidelity, and would benefit from the natural interaction afforded by a ME with many specific real objects.

We introduce a general method for evaluating and comparing the expected performance of sensing systems for interactive computer graphics. Example applications include head tracking systems for virtual environments, motion capture systems for movies, and even multi-camera 3D vision systems for image-based visual hulls.Our approach is to estimate the asymptotic position and/or orientation uncertainty at many points throughout the desired working volume, and to visualize the results graphically. This global performance estimation can provide both a quantitative assessment of the expected performance, and intuition about the type and arrangement of sources and sensors, in the context of the desired working volume and expected scene dynamics.