A new $3.6 million effort supports a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey to develop an early warning indicator for freshwater algal blooms.

Concerns stemming from a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on weather satellites have caught the attention of the House Science, Space, and Technology (SST) Committee and Senate appropriators.

NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite launched February 12, beginning its nearly million mile journey to Lagrange Point L1, 932,000 miles from Earth between the Earth and the Sun.

On January 29, NASA launched the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) instrument, a satellite that will collect soil moisture data to enhance climate modeling and improve lives by predicting floods and droughts.

On December 5, NASA successfully tested its new Orion capsule, designed to carry humans to deep space destinations like Mars or an asteroid.

On November 12, the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission successfully landed a probe onto a comet for the first time in human history.

On October 16, President Obama nominated MIT professor Dava Newman as Deputy Administrator of NASA. Previous Deputy Administrator Lori Garver resigned in September 2013 to manage the Air Line Pilots Association.

The United Kingdom (UK) opened its first space weather forecasting center, the Met Office Space Weather Operations Center, on October 9 in Exeter, England.