Telemedicine in hematology; long-term implications of a short-term experience during COVID-19 pandemic

Telemedicine is healing at a distance, and it was under-utilized ever since its reintroduction till this COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has moved the field of telemedicine and almost every health specialty has embraced it to provide remote, timely, safe health-care services to their patients from the comfort of their home and prevent undesired exposure to COVID-19 infection. With the reach of smart phones and cheaper internet data, this has reached tier II/III cities and is also making inroads in the rural areas. Telemedicine in hematology is becoming increasingly popular because many of the hematology patients are immunocompromised and are more prone to various infections including COVID-19. It is very beneficial in follow-up visits for benign disorders such as anemia, immune thrombocytopenia as well as certain chronic leukemias such as Myeloproliferative neoplasms and for the patients on oral therapy. Astronaut getting treated on NASA mission from the earth is ultimate telemedicine. COVID-19 pandemic has reinvented telemedicine which is helping not only patients in getting medical advice but also physicians and medical students in attending medical conferences and keep them up to date with advances in their field. After this pandemic end, telemedicine is here to stay along with the age-old personal visit like a hand in gloves.

Geodesy, Geophysics and Fundamental Physics Investigations of the BepiColombo Mission

In preparation for the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury, thematic working groups had been established for coordinating the activities within the BepiColombo Science Working Team in specific fields. Here we describe the scientific goals of the Geodesy and Geophysics Working Group (GGWG) that aims at addressing fundamental questions regarding Mercury’s internal structure and evolution. This multidisciplinary investigation will also test the gravity laws by using the planet Mercury as a proof mass. The instruments on the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), which are devoted to accomplishing the GGWG science objectives, include the BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA), the Mercury orbiter radio science experiment (MORE), and the MPO magnetometer (MPO-MAG). The onboard Italian spring accelerometer (ISA) will greatly aid the orbit reconstruction needed by the gravity investigation and laser altimetry. We report the current knowledge on the geophysics, geodesy, and evolution of Mercury after the successful NASA mission MESSENGER and set the prospects for the BepiColombo science investigations based on the latest findings on Mercury’s interior. The MPO spacecraft of the BepiColombo mission will provide extremely accurate measurements of Mercury’s topography, gravity, and magnetic field, extending and improving MESSENGER data coverage, in particular in the southern hemisphere. Furthermore, the dual-spacecraft configuration of the BepiColombo mission with the Mio spacecraft at higher altitudes than the MPO spacecraft will be fundamental for decoupling the internal and external contributions of Mercury’s magnetic field. Thanks to the synergy between the geophysical instrument suite and to the complementary instruments dedicated to the investigations on Mercury’s surface, composition, and environment, the BepiColombo mission is poised to advance our understanding of the interior and evolution of the innermost planet of the solar system.

Extension of Equivalent System Mass for Human Exploration Missions on Mars

NASA mission systems proposals are often compared using an equivalent system mass (ESM) framework wherein all elements of technology to deliver an effect- its components, operations and logistics of delivery- are converted to effective masses since this has a known cost scale in space operations. To date, ESM methods and the tools for system comparison have not considered complexities wherein systems that serve a mission span multiple transit and operations stages, such as would be required to support a crewed mission to Mars, and thus do not account for the different mass equivalency factors operational during each period and the inter-dependencies of the costs across the mission. Further, ESM does not account well for the differential reliabilities of the underlying technologies. Less reliability should incur an equivalent mass cost for technologies that might otherwise provide a mass advantage. We introduce an extensions to ESM to address these limitations and show that it provides a direct method for analyzing, optimizing and comparing different mission systems. We demonstrate our extended ESM (xESM) calculation with crop production technologies -- an aspect of the developing offworld biomanufacturing suite -- since it represents a case with strong coupling among stages of the mission and a relatively high-risk profile.

Final Frontier? The Evolution of Planetary Science Missions

Planetary scientist Fran Bagenal explains how each NASA mission builds on previous discoveries and encourages scientists to take on difficult challenges to learn more about our home in the universe.

A GOLDen Way to Study Space Weather

A NASA mission is observing airglow in the upper atmosphere and uncovering what it tells us about Earth’s space weather system.

Basal Channel Extraction and Variation Analysis of Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden Ice Shelf in Greenland

The ice shelf controls the ice flow and affects the rates of sea level rise. Its stability is affected by the basal channel to some extent. However, despite its importance, high spatiotemporal variation in the length of the basal channels and influencing factors remain poorly characterized. Here, we present evidence from satellite and airborne remote-sensing for the basal channel beneath the floating Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden (79 North Glacier) ice shelf in Northeast Greenland. We observe the surface depression of the ice shelf using IceBridge, which is an ongoing NASA mission to monitor changes in polar ice. We find that the basal channel corresponds with the depression. Temporal and spatial changes of the basal channels from 2000 to 2018 are obtained annually. The results show that the main influencing factor affecting the basal channel is the sea surface temperature (SST), and the major area of the channel length change is found in the midstream area of the ice shelf.