Dr. Stephen A. Mango, Consultant for Synthetic Aperture Radar
(SAR) Sensing in the Naval Research Laboratory's (NRL's) Remote
Sensing Division, is a co-recipient of Vice President Al Gore's
prestigious Hammer Award. The Hammer Award recognizes new standards
of excellence achieved by teams helping to reinvent
government.
Award-winning teams are selected
for their significant contributions to the President's National
Performance Review (NPR) principles of "putting customers
first, empowering employees and getting back to basics."
This award, which is Vice President Gore's answer to yesterday's
government's $600.00 hammer, consists of a $6.00 hammer, a ribbon
and a notecard from the Vice President, all encased in an aluminum
frame.
Dr. Mango was recognized as a
key member of the Tri-Agency Convergence Transition Team, which
combined the separate U.S. military and civil polar meteorological
satellite programs into the National Polar-orbiting Operational
Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), a single U.S. national
program. Transition team members included people from the Department
of Defense (DoD), the Department of Commerce (DOC) and NASA.
In a letter, The Honorable John
W. Douglass, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development
and Acquisition) congratulated Dr. Mango on his award noting,
"It is particularly gratifying when the achievement is in
a forum outside the Department of the Navy so that others can
better appreciate the quality of our team."
Secretary of the Air Force, The
Honorable Sheila E. Widnall, also commended Dr. Mango in a letter,
saying "You can take great pride in your role in establishing
NPOESS and ensuring the NPOESS will meet the critical needs of
our warfighters. Please accept my congratulations on a truly
outstanding achievement."
In a multiyear process, NPOESS
will integrate the Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite
Program (DMSP) and the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental
Satellite program (POES), which was developed by NASA and operated
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Transition team members expect this initiative to significantly
improve current remote sensing capabilities, while achieving
substantial cost savings.
Currently four U.S. polar orbiting
satellites are used to collect operational meteorological, oceanographic,
climatic and space environment data. Two satellites are provided
and operated by the DOC's NOAA and two by DoD's DMSP. The new
program will consist of three satellites in a coordinated constellation.
The first launch of a satellite under the fully merged NPOESS
is scheduled for 2006.
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory is the Navy's full-spectrum corporate laboratory, conducting a broadly based multidisciplinary program of scientific research and advanced technological development. The Laboratory, with a total complement of nearly 2,500 personnel, is located in southwest Washington, D.C., with other major sites at the Stennis Space Center, Miss., and Monterey, Calif. NRL has served the Navy and the nation for over 85 years and continues to meet the complex technological challenges of today's world. For more information, visit the NRL homepage or join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
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