27-10-2012, 03:44 PM
Aeronautics and Space Report of the President
ABSTRACT
Fiscal Year (FY) 2002 brought advances on many fronts in support of NASA’s new vision, announced by Administrator
Sean O Keefe on April 12, ‘to improve life here, to extend life to there, to find life beyond.’ NASA successfully carried out
four Space Shuttle missions, including three to the International Space Station (ISS) and one servicing mission to the Hubble
Space Telescope (HST). By the end of the fiscal year, humans had occupied the ISS continuously for 2 years. NASA also
managed five expendable launch vehicle (ELV) missions and participated in eight international cooperative ELV launches. In
the area of space science, two of the Great Observatories, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory,
continued to make spectacular observations. The Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey carried out their mapping missions
of the red planet in unprecedented detail. Among other achievements, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)
Shoemaker spacecraft made the first soft landing on an asteroid, and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
monitored a variety of solar activity, including the largest sunspot observed in 10 years. The education and public outreach
program stemming from NASA’s space science missions continues to grow. In the area of Earth science, attention focused
on completing the first Earth Observing Satellite series. Four spacecraft were successfully launched. The goal is to understand
our home planet as a system, as well as how the global environment responds to change. In aerospace technology, NASA
conducted studies to improve aviation safety and environmental friendliness, progressed with its Space Launch Initiative
Program, and explored a variety of pioneering technologies, including nanotechnology, for their application to aeronautics and
aerospace. NASA remained broadly engaged in the international arena and concluded over 60 international cooperative and
reimbursable international agreements during FY 2002.