NASA releases most detailed topographical maps

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• published: 21 Jul 2015
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NASA 1. Simulated flight around Virunga volcanic chain in East Africa APTN 2. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Ruth Fragoso, NASA's Operations Training Engineer: "What we did was to determine a trillion points of the earth's surface in order to build the most precise map ever." NASA 3. Animation of flooding of the Mississippi river in the United States APTN 4. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Ruth Fragoso, NASA's Operations Training Engineer: "We will also be able to use it in aviation, for pilots, many accidents take place due to fog, they can't see. Now they'll be able to have our information stored in a computer with them when they are flying." NASA 5. Animation of Shuttle Radar Topography supplies aircraft with extensive world terrain maps. APTN 6. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Ruth Fragoso, NASA's Operations Training Engineer: "Currently, investigators and scientists can access, via a requisition, to get the info from NASA. NASA will verify who is asking for the info and for what purposes." NASA 7. Simulated flight over Silicon Valley and San Francisco, California APTN 8. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Ruth Fragoso, NASA's Operations Training Engineer: "We will be able to also use this in many other aspects. In studying tremors, volcanos, earth movements. It has multiple uses." NASA 9. Animated deployment of Shuttle Radar Topography Mission's 60-metre mast. STORYLINE: People around the globe will soon get to see the Earth in an entirely new way, as NASA extends the release of detailed topographical maps collected during the 2000 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission beyond US borders. NASA and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), partners in the shuttle mapping mission, agreed this week on a policy to provide 90-metre (295-foot) resolution digital-elevation mission data from sites outside the United States to qualified researchers. Selected data will simultaneously become available to the public. The two agencies also this week made public the mission's research-quality 30-metre (98-foot) resolution topographic data for the entire US. National Imagery and Mapping Agency Director James R. Clapper and NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe signed the agreement Tuesday at NASA's Headquarters in Washington. O'Keefe points out that what is taken for granted in the US will now be available around the world. He says the new information is ten times more precise then the best available today and will lead to significant advancements in aviation safety and mitigation of natural hazards. The space-based radar images can see through clouds and provides researchers with terrain data of exceptional quality. It can create a global terrain database and that will virtually display the surrounding area in a plane's cockpit, even in darkness or cloudy conditions. NASA is working with the Federal Aviation Administration, industry and the Department of Defense to develop these technologies, which could significantly reduce aviation accidents. The information is being processed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California, into research-quality digital-elevation models a continent at a time. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/8e4b40cadb4d7e7867687d582188df15 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork