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NASA Satellite Will Take Students to the Rainforest

Beth Schmid
Headquarters, Washington, DC                        April 6, 1998
(Phone:  202/358-1760)

Sally V. Harrington
Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH
(Phone:  216/433-2037)

RELEASE:  98-55

NASA SATELLITE WILL TAKE STUDENTS TO THE RAINFOREST

     Beginning this week, NASA's Advanced Communications 
Technology Satellite (ACTS) will connect students in selected 
schools in Iowa, Florida, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and West 
Virginia with scientists at a field research site in the Amazon 
rainforest in Brazil.

     The Space Communication Office at NASA's Lewis Research 
Center, Cleveland, OH, will use ACTS to supply the primary 
communication links for "Live from the Rainforest," the latest 
segment of an ongoing series of electronic field trips to 
scientific frontiers.  The links will include both the live video 
broadcast from the rainforest and a return link from the 
participating classrooms as well as supplementary audio, fax and 
Internet connections. 

     A series of three "Live from the Rainforest" shows will be 
aired on the Public Broadcasting System on April 7, 14 and 21, 
1998, 1-2 p.m. EDT.  The series also will be shown on NASA TV, 
available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, 
with vertical polarization.  Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, 
with audio on 6.8 megahertz.

     Students will learn about the equipment used to explore the 
rainforest and the people, plants, animals and insects of the 
largest expanse of virgin rainforest on the planet.

     Engineers from Lewis set up an Earth station at the remote 
site, where transmissions from the rainforest will be made over 
ACTS to an Earth station at Lewis.  The  video/audio signal from 
Lewis will be downloaded using a terrestrial line to the 
Mississippi State University (MSU) Television Center, which is 
connected to various schools for interaction between the students 
and scientists.  NASA equipment at MSU will assure the signal from 
the participating schools will be downloaded in the proper format 
to be compatible with the video/audio in the rainforest.

     Lewis has been demonstrating ACTS' capabilities to provide a 
wide-bandwidth communication link via satellite to remote 
locations, where other means of providing this type of 
communication are not available, since shortly after it was 
launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in September 1993.  
ACTS made it possible for Army reservists stationed in Haiti in 
December 1994 to talk face-to-face with their loved ones back home 
through videoconferencing.  It also has been used to assist in 
restoring telecommunication service interrupted by natural and 
manmade disasters.  In the field of telemedicine, ACTS technology 
is being used to evaluate improved techniques for providing women 
in remote areas with real-time diagnoses of mammograms through 
clear and quick satellite image transmission.

     "Live from the Rainforest" is produced by Passport to 
Knowledge and is supported by the National Science Foundation and 
NASA.

                           -end-