I used to work on the education and public outreach effort for Swift, one of NASA’s most successful missions. One of the projects we started up was a regular newsletter that would keep folks up-to-date with news about the satellite, the science it did, and the team that keeps it going.
The new issue is out, and has an article by Neil Gehrels, the Principal Investigator of Swift, a report on the very first hardware glitch the mission had (after 991 days of operation in space!), and an essay about the education effort by Educator Ambassador Janet Moore.
The issue also features lovely artwork by Aurore Simonnet, though none of my own purple prose. But then, I’ve been a bit busy lately… 
You can subscribe to the newsletter as well, and get updates when new issues come out.
November 9th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
991 days in space without a hardware fault? That’s quite impressive, considering there’s no maintenance whatsoever being done.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
The Centipede says: “991 days in space without a hardware fault? That’s quite impressive, considering there’s no maintenance whatsoever being done.”
Except software. I, too, find that exceptional; both the reliability of the hardware and the fact that you can “tweak” a vehicle once it’s in flight. The Mars Rovers left Earth with their final programs still in development. They were loaded en-route. They even had to do a “three finger salute” (CTL-ALT-DEL) for Opportunity (?) when it locked up.
Amazing.
- Jack
November 9th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
That was Spirit that locked up. Not its fault, just too many files in the flash drive.
Coincidentally, I came here directly from reading the JREF newsletter. Which is called “Swift”! So when I saw “Swift Newsletter” as a blog topic I naturally thought it was about Randi!
November 9th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
PrinciPAL!
November 9th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Y’know, it’s funny– I always spelled this incorrectly on our stuff, and my boss would correct it. I meant to look it up before publishing the post, but I’m tired. It’ s been a long few days.
What’s funnier though is that I found NASA sites with it spelled the other way too.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Googling “principal investigator” yields “about 328,000″ results, while “principle investigator” yields “about 274,000″ results. So by a result of 54.5% vs. 45.5%, the consensus view of reality is that people favor “Principal Investigator.” Which is really too bad; I think the world would benefit from more Principle Investigators.
November 10th, 2007 at 4:03 am
But Harold, your results completely ignore the elusive Principal Principle investigators!
November 10th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Name overloading! Yeah, I managed to be confused for more than a few seconds. I was thinking “Swift has investigators? Swift has outreach people? I thought it was just Randi’s blog/newsletter.”
November 10th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
“Sibrel claims I am a NASA employee and “that’s where [I] get my paychecks.” That is not true, of course: I’ve never been a NASA employee, and that is something Sibrel should have known before he said that. Either he didn’t know and was making that up, or he did know and said it anyway. Either way, it’s a lie, and so I can honestly, and with evidence, call Bart Sibrel a liar!” — Phil Plait, October 30, 2007 (emphasis mine)
“I used to work on the education and public outreach effort for Swift, one of NASA’s most successful missions.” — Phil Plait, November 9, 2007
November 10th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
You don’t have to be a NASA employee to be “on the education and public outreach efforts for Swift”, Ed.
November 10th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Moose, if his paycheck was coming out of the NASA budget, then he was a NASA employee no matter how thinly one splits the hair.
BTW, Bart Sibrel is an idiot.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Ed, you obviously have a lot to learn about how NASA and the federal government operate if you think Phil was a NASA employee. By your definition, nearly every astronomer, space physicist, and aerospace engineer in the country is a NASA employee since most of us receive some sort of grant money from NASA at some point during our careers. Your EMPLOYER is the person who signs your PAYCHECKS, not the ultimate source of the funding.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:10 am
Point is, Wayne, that Phil called Sibrel a liar. And Phil knows that what he claimed to be a lie, wasn’t – as he so proudly stated in the very first line of this blog post. Call Sibrel an idiot, call him a fool, call him whatever you like – but don’t call him a liar when you know that he is speaking the truth.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Bzzzzt. Try again, Ed. Sibrel said that NASA signs my paychecks. That is a lie.
And being a contractor is a whole different story than being a NASA employee. It really is. So again, I didn’t work for NASA, nor have I ever.
November 12th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Oh– my mistake, you are talking about when I did E/PO. Well, I worked for a group that got money from Sonoma State University that was paid for with grants from NASA, so I was one step farther removed from being an employee of NASA.
Honestly, he might as well have said “the American public signs my paycheck.”