| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Outreach Materials Pickup Location Change
- Orion October Trivia Question
- Vote Today for NASA's Innovation Awards
- Weekly Senior Staff Safety Message
- National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
- Recent JSC Announcement - Organizations/Social
- Specialty Testing of Light Sources and Displays
- Brown Bag: One Bin for All (Waste Mgmt.)
- Treat Yourself to Toastmasters
- JSC NMA Oct. 30 Luncheon With Chris Reed
- Graveyard Dash 2K: This Friday at the Gilruth
- Beginners Ballroom Dance: Oct. 21 & 23 - Jobs and Training
- USAJobs Résumé Workshop
- BA's Books Over Coffee
- IRDLive Presents: NAMS Upgrade Coming Nov. 2014
- Engineer to Entrepreneur - Community
- A Sustainable Halloween
- A Stitch in Time ... Can You Spare Some Time? |  |
| Headlines - Outreach Materials Pickup Location Change
JSC's External Relations Office is changing the way it does business to meet the demands of today's workforce. Familiar with JSC's Speakers Bureau, or registered as a volunteer in the VCORPs site to share our human spaceflight story? Please know that Building 423 is no longer the avenue for obtaining outreach materials. Now, all your handout and educational resource needs can be met through the STUFF TO KNOW and Outreach Materials websites, where you (or the organization you're going to visit) can print the latest cool handouts for your audience. There's also another way to get materials, but it requires more lead time. Materials to distribute at NASA-related events must be preordered a minimum of one week ahead of the actual event date by emailing the request to: JSC-Outreach-Materials@mail.nasa.gov Please be aware that to obtain exhibit items and educational or outreach materials in support of NASA-related events, the event or speaking engagement has to be registered with either the JSC Speakers Bureau or VCORPs site. See the catalog of NASA exhibit items available to support JSC-related events and speakers on the JSC Exhibits website. Specific item loans can be requested by submitting an easy exhibit loan form. JSC External Relations is embracing sustainable ideals to fill budding brains—not landfills. All materials issued will be informational or educational in nature, and many items will only be available in a printable PDF format. Remember, save your gas and don't go out to Building 423, which is no longer open. - Orion October Trivia Question
How much do you know about the Orion spacecraft and its first mission? Test your knowledge with this month's trivia question. Those who submit correct answers by 3 p.m. Wednesday will be put into a drawing for a prize. Email your answers. The winner will be announced in JSC Today this Thursday. October trivia question: The space shuttle cockpit had 10 display screens. How many will Orion have? Brush up on your knowledge and visit NASA's Orion page to read and learn about the spacecraft. You can also like NASA's Orion Spacecraft on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @NASA_Orion #Imonboard and #Orion to stay updated on the latest milestones. - Vote Today for NASA's Innovation Awards
The nominations have been submitted, and it's time to cast your vote! Visit the NASA@work platform to vote now for NASA's Innovation Awards: Hosted by the Office of Human Capital Management. - Weekly Senior Staff Safety Message
This week's topic: 2014-2015 Seasonal Flu Vaccine About 1,000 JSC team members were vaccinated against seasonal influenza on Safety and Health Day! Learn about the importance of vaccinations and the upcoming dates and locations of future JSC flu-vaccination events. - National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Cybersecurity Tip for Today: STOP, THINK, CONNECT Use flash drives carefully. Don't put any unknown flash (or USB) drive into your computer. - Recent JSC Announcement
Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement: JSCA 14-029: JSC Honor Awards Announcement Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page. Organizations/Social - Specialty Testing of Light Sources and Displays
The Lighting Environment Test Facility at JSC maintains a high-resolution imaging colorimeter. This device provides a new measurement technology to capture detailed light measurements for displays and solid-state light sources. The facility owns spectroradiometers and maintains a large dark room for controlled testing of lights and cameras. If your project is responsible for specification, design or verification of new lighting and displays, we may have the services you need to ensure product quality. Please feel free to contact us. - Brown Bag: One Bin for All (Waste Mgmt.)
Houston is preparing to implement a One Bin For All (OBFA) program. The program will more efficiently manage the city's waste by allowing residents to place all household waste and recycling into a single bin that is then sorted to remove all high-value recyclables and organics and convert the rest to an engineered fuel, which will provide power for the city. Kyle Mowitz designed a similar project for Montgomery, Alabama, and will talk about what OBFA means for Houston residents. Join us today in Building 45, Room 751, from noon to 1 p.m. - Treat Yourself to Toastmasters
No tricks. Space Explorers Toastmasters invites you to join us for one or both of our last two October meetings (this year). Sit back and enjoy the meeting—or, for a real treat, try your hand at Table Topics. If you would like to hear more about Table Topics or Toastmasters, join us from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in Building 30, Room 1010: - Thursday, Oct. 23
- Friday, Oct. 31
- JSC NMA Oct. 30 Luncheon With Chris Reed
All meals also include: salad, rolls and butter, iced tea, iced water and dessert Date: Oct. 30 Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (lunch) Location: Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom - Cost for members: FREE
- Cost for non-members: $25
For RSVP technical assistance, please contact Leslie N. Smith at x46752. Event Date: Thursday, October 30, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Gilruth - Alamo Ballroom
Add to Calendar
Leslie N. Smith x46752
[top] - Graveyard Dash 2K: This Friday at the Gilruth
Starport's terrifying Halloween race is back: The Graveyard Dash 2K! Navigate the Gilruth trails and forests, but watch out for hordes of monsters, ghouls and zombies. The top three finishers will receive awards in this fun run/walk. Register now, as spots are filling fast! Warning: This event is meant to scare. Not recommended for young children. - Graveyard Dash 2K - REGISTER NOW
- Graveyard Trails
Some more spooky events on Friday (if you dare): - Bare Bowls Kitchen
- The Waffle Bus
- Angie's Cake
- Kids Bash - REGISTER NOW
- Haunted House (kid friendly)
- Family Halloween movie
- Thriller Dance Class - FREE (REGISTER ONLINE)
Don't miss this frightfully fun event for the whole family! - Beginners Ballroom Dance: Oct. 21 & 23
Do you feel like you have two left feet? Well, Starport has the perfect program for you: Beginners Ballroom Dance! This eight-week class introduces you to the various types of ballroom dance. Students will learn the secrets of a good lead and following, as well as the ability to identify the beat of the music. This class is easy, and we have fun as we learn. JSC friends and family are welcome. Regular registration: - $110 per couple (Oct. 11 to Oct. 23)
Two class sessions available: - Tuesdays from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. - starts Oct. 21
- Thursdays from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. - starts Oct. 23
All classes are taught in the Gilruth Center's dance studio (Group Ex studio). Jobs and Training - USAJobs Résumé Workshop
Has it been a while since you submitted your résumé for an opening in USAJobs? We are holding a workshop to provide insight and tips on how best to tailor your résumé and improve your chances to pass the certification process. We are partnering with Human Resources (other partnering Employee Resource Groups [ERGs] are AAERG, EMERGE, HERG and the Out and Allied ERG) and will provide more specific examples to help you improve your résumé. This workshop will be held on Thursday, Oct. 23, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 1, Room 360. No need to register—just show up. - BA's Books Over Coffee
"101 Ways to Rock Your World: Everyday Activities for Success Every Day" The search for success is similar to the quest for the elusive holy grail: Many want it but don't know where to find it, how to achieve it or even where to start. In "101 Ways to Rock Your World," author Dayna Steele provides useful and motivating tips to help you get started on everyday success with simple everyday activities. Your success story begins with setting a strong foundation and creating a personal brand for you. You create or start both by habit, consistency, reliability and creativity—every day. This inspiring and easy-to-follow guide provides the tools to help you become the success you envision. Event Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2014 Event Start Time:11:00 AM Event End Time:12:30 PM
Event Location: Building 20, Room 304
Add to Calendar
Jannette Bolden x45854
[top] - IRDLive Presents: NAMS Upgrade Coming Nov. 2014
The Information Resources Directorate (IRD) invites you to participate in an IRDLive session to introduce you to the NAMS 7.0 upgrade. We will focus on the NAMS 7.0 new look, capabilities and user navigation. You can attend the presentation, demonstration and Q&A from your desk via Lync and telecom. NAMS 7.0 is scheduled to go live on Nov. 12. Bring your questions about NAMS 7.0 to one of the following IRDLive sessions. Save the link for the session you would like to attend. You must dial in to the telecom and join the Lync meeting. • Telecom for all sessions: 866-459-2110, passcode 1561614 - Engineer to Entrepreneur
The Houston Technology Center is pleased to host a 10-week lunch-and-learn course series entitled "Engineer to Entrepreneur." If you've ever thought about launching your own business, this is the program for you. You will learn how to establish a corporate entity, develop a business strategy, pitch your strategy and market your products. Join us for a fun-filled program instructed by some of Houston's most accomplished business executives. Classes will be held for 10 consecutive Thursdays from Aug. 21 to Oct. 30 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 45, Room 451. For enrollment information, contact Evelyn Boatman at 281-244-8271. Community - A Sustainable Halloween
Halloween offers a unique set of opportunities to make sustainable choices. If you are planning to decorate, reuse decorations you may already have. If you have to purchase new decorations, look for options that can be recycled or reused. Are you going to carve a pumpkin? Use the whole thing by making a pie and roasting the seeds. After Halloween, compost your jack o' lanterns to give your garden a boost. For costume ideas, try using props you already have around the house, or purchase costumes from a second-hand store to give them new life. - A Stitch in Time ... Can You Spare Some Time?
Quilters and crafters all over the world accepted astronaut Karen Nyberg's invitation to create and submit a quilt square to be incorporated into a star-themed quilt that will be displayed at the 2014 International Quilt Festival. NASA will be hosting a booth at the quilt festival, showcasing a variety of items developed right here at JSC in support of spaceflight. This is a great opportunity to get NASA's message to the public, as more than 60,000 people attend this festival! We need volunteers to help staff this unique NASA booth. Can you help? The International Quilt Festival begins Wednesday, Oct. 29, and runs through Sunday, Nov. 2. Morning and afternoon shifts are available most days, so check out the V-CORPs calendar to see which shifts work best for your busy schedule. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – October 21, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Senate Space Staffer Ann Zulkosky Leaving for Lockheed Martin
Dan Leone - Space News
The Senate Commerce science and space committee's top Democratic staffer is stepping down Nov. 7 to take a government affairs position with Lockheed Martin.
Marshall Center hardware development and testing makes science possible
Josh Barrett - WAAY TV (Huntsville)
The International Space Station functions as a national laboratory and has completed hundreds of experiments that help us learn about space and make our lives better on the ground. Those experiments rely on support in more than one way from the Marshall Space Flight Center. One of the most important things Marshall does is provide hardware support for all the payloads that go up to complete the science.
Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome: space launch tourism fails to take off
The Central Asian country has long talked of turning its famous launch site into a tourist destination, but international visitors are still being turned away.
David Trilling - The Guardian (UK)
Tears welled up in Alexey Melnikov's eyes as a rocket carrying three astronauts lifted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome several hours before dawn. The Russian-born, London-based computer programmer had wanted to see this spectacle since he was a boy. As the engines lit up the sky and shook various VIPs into silence, here he was standing on the same stretch of steppe that saw Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin make history.
Busy week on station: cosmonauts prepare for spacewalk and Dragon is set for departure
Tomasz Nowakowski - Spaceflight Insider
A busy week has just started for the multi-national crew onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a pair of Russian cosmonauts suited up for a dry run of the planned Wednesday, Oct. 22 spacewalk. Meanwhile SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will remain with the ISS for a few more days. Commander Max Suraev and Flight Engineer Alexander Samokutyaev spent Monday, Oct. 20 readying the Russian Orlan spacesuits they will wear when they exit the Pirs docking compartment for a six-hour spacewalk. Meanwhile, the departure of SpaceX CRS-4 mission has been delayed until Saturday, Oct. 25, because of rough seas in the splashdown and recovery zone west of Baja, California.
25 Years Ago, NASA Envisioned Its Own 'Orient Express'
Kenneth Chang - New York Times
This occasional column explores topics covered in Science Times 25 years ago to see what has changed, and what has not.
The National Aero-Space Plane was to be a revolutionary advance beyond the space shuttle.
CASIS Awards $800,000 in Grants to Boost ISS Science
Dan Leone – Space News
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit manager of non-NASA science aboard the international space station, spread about $800,000 in grant money among three experiments aimed at improving scientific research aboard the orbital outpost.
Heavy seas delay return of SpaceX Dragon capsule
James Dean – Florida Today
Heavy seas have delayed a SpaceX Dragon capsule's return home from space this week.
Commercial crew's extended endgame
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
The drama of NASA's commercial crew program was supposed to be over by now. The months—years, even—of debate and deliberation about the various contenders, and the funding available to support them, was supposed to culminate with the award or one or more contracts by NASA to complete development and test those systems, allowing NASA to end its reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft as soon as 2017.
In a Dome in Hawaii, a Mission to Mars
Kenneth Chang – New York Times
On the way to Mars, Neil Scheibelhut stopped by Walmart for mouthwash and dental floss. "We're picking up some last-minute things," he said via cellphone last Wednesday afternoon from the store.
MRO Spies Tiny, Bright Nucleus During Comet Flyby of Mars
Bob King - Universe Today
Not to be outdone by the feisty Opportunity Rover, the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) turned in its homework this evening with a fine image of comet C/2013 Siding Spring taken during closest approach on October 19.
NASA spacecraft around Mars send back images of comet Siding Spring
Amina Khan, Karen Kaplan – Los Angeles Times
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has released the first resolved images of comet Siding Spring's nucleus -- and it's a lot smaller than people expected.
Powering cislunar spaceflight with NEO powder
Ronald P. Menich - The Space Review
For the last year and a half, NASA has been publicly studying a concept known as the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). As described by NASA, ARM:
Orionid Meteor Shower Is Peaking Now: How to See It
If you step outside before dawn during the next week or so, you might be able to see bright meteors streaking through the sky.
COMPLETE STORIES
Senate Space Staffer Ann Zulkosky Leaving for Lockheed Martin
Dan Leone - Space News
The Senate Commerce science and space committee's top Democratic staffer is stepping down Nov. 7 to take a government affairs position with Lockheed Martin.
Ann Zulkosky joined Senate Commerce in 2007 as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration legislative fellow, but spent most of the last seven years working on civil space matters under Sen. Bill Nelson, the Florida Democrat who chairs the science and space subcommittee.
Zulkosky, reached by email Oct. 20, said she will start at Lockheed Martin's Washington office Nov. 10.
A veteran aerospace lobbyist called Zulkosky's departure a "huge loss" for the Senate, which now has seen two civil space policy experts leave in just more than a year. Her longtime Republican counterpart, Jeff Bingham, retired in August 2013. Bingham and Zulkosky worked closely on several key civil space bills, including the 2010 NASA Authorization Act that called for funding development of commercially designed and operated crew taxis to service the international space station while also building the NASA-owned-and-operated Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule for crewed missions to deep space.
It was not immediately clear who will replace Zulkosky, who declined to discuss personnel changes. Senate Commerce Committee spokeswoman Rachel Petri, reached by phone Oct. 20, had no immediate comment about Zulkosky's successor. One industry source said Richard-Duane Chambers, a junior Commerce Committee staffer who came to the Hill in April 2013, is in the running.
Marshall Center hardware development and testing makes science possible
Josh Barrett - WAAY TV (Huntsville)
The International Space Station functions as a national laboratory and has completed hundreds of experiments that help us learn about space and make our lives better on the ground. Those experiments rely on support in more than one way from the Marshall Space Flight Center. One of the most important things Marshall does is provide hardware support for all the payloads that go up to complete the science.
As a testament to the successful science that Marshall has made possible, the Express Rack 1 recently completed 100,000 hours of scientific work. There are eight Express Racks on-station that have totaled 361,878 hours of work across hundreds of experiments. But that success is due in large part to the work on the ground.
"By coming here they can test the end-to-end communication and have a high confidence level that once they get to orbit they will operate successfully," said Annette Sledd, the ISS Office Manager at the Marshall Center.
The Marshall Center manages the Express Racks, which are essentially high-tech shelves for experiments that provide power, coolant and other supplies necessary for anywhere from one to four experiments at a time. They were built by Boeing in Huntsville and all the science is coordinated through Marshall's Payload Operations Integration Center. Express Rack 1 was flown in 2001 and has been in nearly continuous operation, thanks to the updating and upkeeping from Marshall.
Companies and institutions from all over the country come to Huntsville to make sure their valuable science payloads will work once in orbit. Zinn Technologies, for example, was at the Marshall Center to test their Packed Bed Reactor Experiment before launch. They came from across the country for a valuable step on the way to the ISS.
"Well it's critical actually," said Tony Bruzas of ZinnTech, "because we wouldn't have an experiment if it didn't fit for some reason or if there was some other issue that we couldn't communicate properly."
Their multimillion dollar experiment will test how packed bed reactors work in space, which is the same technology you find in the catalytic converter in your car.
The science that goes on-board the station ranges from medicine to materials science. Huge gains have been made in everything from cancer research to polymers. None of it could happen without the groundwork beforehand in Huntsville.
Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome: space launch tourism fails to take off
The Central Asian country has long talked of turning its famous launch site into a tourist destination, but international visitors are still being turned away.
David Trilling - The Guardian (UK)
Tears welled up in Alexey Melnikov's eyes as a rocket carrying three astronauts lifted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome several hours before dawn. The Russian-born, London-based computer programmer had wanted to see this spectacle since he was a boy. As the engines lit up the sky and shook various VIPs into silence, here he was standing on the same stretch of steppe that saw Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin make history.
Eight minutes and 45 seconds after blasting off from the Russian-leased desert spaceport in Kazakhstan, the Soyuz capsule – carrying two Russians and an American – separated from the rocket and safely entered orbit en route to the International Space Station. The crowd cheered. A few bottles of vodka slipped from hand to hand.
About 20 miles away, David and Susan Doig were straining to see the launch from their hotel balcony in the town closest to the cosmodrome, also called Baikonur.
Only after arriving from Australia did they learn that Russia's Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, which co-manages the spaceport, would not allow them to watch the launch with the gaggle of journalists, engineers, astronauts' relatives, and others wearing VIP passes like Melnikov and his partner, Kelly Rhodes.
Kazakhstan has long talked of turning Baikonur into a tourist destination. But access is uncertain for visitors hoping to see rockets blast off from the historic cosmodrome, and any serious expansion of tourism still faces significant hurdles.
Melnikov and Rhodes enlisted the help of a Moscow-based tour operator with close ties to Roscosmos, Vegitel Tour, which says it charges $5,400 (£3,348) per person, including transport from Moscow on "special Roscosmos charters" and accommodation in a four-star hotel.
"We've been really impressed with the access," said Rhodes. She will "never forget" watching astronauts launch from the same pad Gagarin used when he became the first man in space in 1961, or attending the private send off ceremonies. "Unless you're a member of the [astronauts'] families, you can't do better."
Astana has little control over Baikonur, which is leased to Russia until 2050
The Doigs booked through Baikonur-based Tour Service, which charges $800 per person ($500 for citizens of Russia or Kazakhstan). That price does not cover transportation, but does include a room and three hearty heaps of mystery meat each day at the ageing Tsentralnaya Hotel.
Missing the launch left the Doigs "gutted," said Susan, a schoolteacher from Melbourne. She stressed, though, that Tour Service told them that permission to enter the heavily guarded cosmodrome was not guaranteed.
A 'closed' city
Baikonur the town (formerly Leninsk) has retained its curious status as a closed, Russian-administered city within Kazakhstan. And alone it has little to draw tourists. The settlement – which dates from the 1950s and is now home to roughly 70,000 inhabitants – is cleaner than the average small Russian or Kazakh city, and has a few monuments of note, such as early rocket prototypes, as well as a small museum. But it lacks many of the striking Socialist Realist statues and mosaics celebrating the Soviet space programme that one can see in Moscow, or other formerly Soviet cities. The town feels depressed; the population has shrunk since the 1980s and locals fear what will happen in the years to come.
Local Kazakhs and Russians use bitter ethnic stereotypes to complain about each other. For now, Russian police hunker down at a police station surrounded by barbed wire. Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, controls access to the town.
Most of the noteworthy sites are at the cosmodrome, a stretch of flat desert larger than Delaware.
"I understand there may be security reasons for not letting us into the launch, but it's a pity the main museum is within the cosmodrome, and thus off limits," said Susan Doig. Another visitor complained that exhibits are marked only in Russian.
Tour Service manager Nonna Pampushnaya says her company accommodates 400 to 500 tourists per year, with about 50% of them foreigners, but says numbers have been dropping since Roscosmos tightened restrictions after its new director started work last year.
It is not only tourists who have trouble accessing the lift-off site. A Nasa official complained that Roscosmos recently prohibited the American space agency, which pays over $76m for each seat on the Soyuz rockets, to host a group of journalists. (Reporters at the 26 September launch were accredited with Roscosmos).
Nevertheless, Kazakh tourism officials are keen to capitalise on Baikonur, regularly trumpeting the cosmodrome as a must-see destination for visitors. In 2009, President Nursultan Nazarbayev even pitched Baikonur during a speech at the UN World Tourism Organization's general assembly.
Last December, the Tourism Committee at Kazakhstan's Ministry of Industry and New Technologies announced that a company named Diamond Trans had spent $1m to begin a tourism complex that would include "office buildings, hotels and shopping malls." Kazakh media reported the project's overall price tag would reach $140 million.
Kazcosmos deputy director Erkin Shaimagambetov said he would like to see Baikonur developed like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
Yet it is unclear where Diamond Trans broke ground, if at all. Calls to phone numbers listed for the company go unanswered. The Kazakh space agency, Kazcosmos, could not provide contact details and a Roscosmos representative based in Baikonur had never heard of the company (sometimes referred to as Diamond Technology or Diamond Group). The air of secrecy is so thick that the Tourism Committee refuses even to share numbers on visitors to Baikonur.
In any case, Astana has little control over Baikonur, which is leased to Russia until 2050.
Kazcosmos deputy director Erkin Shaimagambetov said he would like to see Baikonur developed like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But while he says Baikonur needs more hotel rooms, he complains that "it is impossible for an average person to visit" because of the restrictions Russia imposes.
The site is also purposely remote, built at the height of the Cold War to be far from prying eyes, and from communities that could suffer fallout from the occasional rocket disaster.
Direct flights from Moscow are difficult to book (and on ageing planes); visitors arriving by train must face Kazakhstan's notoriously crooked cops.
From Kyzylorda, the nearest Kazakh town with an airport, it is a three-to five-hour train ride to Baikonur. Traveling alone, a EurasiaNet.org correspondent found himself harassed by aggressive police as he was boarding trains to and from the city. For visitors who do manage to make the trek, and get into the cosmodrome, hardy Soviet technology will offer some logistical certainties: unlike launches of the now-retired Space Shuttle, the Soyuz is rarely delayed.
"The Soyuz rocket is very robust," the Nasa official said, describing how he once attended a blastoff during a blizzard with zero visibility. "Unless the sun is exploding, they're going to launch."
Busy week on station: cosmonauts prepare for spacewalk and Dragon is set for departure
Tomasz Nowakowski - Spaceflight Insider
A busy week has just started for the multi-national crew onboard the International Space Station (ISS) as a pair of Russian cosmonauts suited up for a dry run of the planned Wednesday, Oct. 22 spacewalk. Meanwhile SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will remain with the ISS for a few more days. Commander Max Suraev and Flight Engineer Alexander Samokutyaev spent Monday, Oct. 20 readying the Russian Orlan spacesuits they will wear when they exit the Pirs docking compartment for a six-hour spacewalk. Meanwhile, the departure of SpaceX CRS-4 mission has been delayed until Saturday, Oct. 25, because of rough seas in the splashdown and recovery zone west of Baja, California.
The Russian duo donned their spacesuits for a spacewalk dry run. They checked suit controls and communications gear and conducted preliminary leak checks. They are scheduled to open the Pirs docking compartment hatch to the vacuum of space at 9:24 a.m. EDT (1324 GMT) to begin the third spacewalk of Expedition 41.
The spacewalkers will be outside the station's Russian segment to jettison science and communications gear that is no longer going to be used. They will also remove a protective cover from a biological exposure experiment, collect samples of particulate matter on the Pirs docking compartment and photograph the station's Russian exterior.
The extra-vehicular activity or "EVA" will be the 184th in support of space station assembly and maintenance, the third in as many weeks for Expedition 41 crew members, and the second career spacewalks for both Suraev and Samokutyaev.
Suraev will be designated as extravehicular (EV) crew member 1 and will wear an Orlan suit bearing red stripes. Samokutyaev will be designated as EV-2 and will wear a suit with blue stripes. The crew spent part of the weekend loading non-critical items into Dragon which is berthed to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony node.
The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to be un-berthed through commands sent by robotic ground controllers in mission control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston operating the Canadarm 2 robotic arm. Mission control will then maneuver Dragon into place then turn it over to Expedition 41 robotic arm operators Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore of NASA for release, which is scheduled to take place at 9:56 a.m. EDT (1356 GMT).
Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return to Earth intact. It will return about 3,276 pounds (1,486 kg) of cargo, including science samples from human research, biology and biotechnology studies, physical science investigations and education activities sponsored by NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization responsible for managing research aboard the U.S. national laboratory portion of the space station.
Dragon will then be directed to execute three thruster firings to move away from the station to a safe distance for its deorbit burn at 2:43 p.m. (1843 GMT). If all goes according to plan, the capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean around 3:39 p.m. (1939 GMT).
25 Years Ago, NASA Envisioned Its Own 'Orient Express'
Kenneth Chang - New York Times
This occasional column explores topics covered in Science Times 25 years ago to see what has changed, and what has not.
The National Aero-Space Plane was to be a revolutionary advance beyond the space shuttle.
In his 1986 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan promised "a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport and accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low-earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours."
On Oct. 3, 1989, an article in Science Times, "Designing a Plane for the Leap of Space (and Back)," reported frenetic activity at NASA and the Defense Department.
"Scientists and engineers are making rapid progress in developing technologies needed to build a 17,000-mile-an-hour 'space plane' that could escape earth's gravity and circle the globe in 90 minutes," the article began.
"Their goal," it continued, "is a space plane that could take off and land from virtually any airport in the world, carry satellites and other space cargo into orbit cheaply, shuttle between the earth and an orbiting space station, or carry a load of bombs deep into enemy territory as fast as an intercontinental missile."
Proponents contended the space plane would be far cheaper to operate than the shuttle.
Others were dubious. The Air Force, which was providing most of the financing, had already tried to back out, but the National Space Council, headed by Vice President Dan Quayle, recommended continuing work at a slower pace.
The target for the first flight of the first experimental version, known as the X-30, was originally 1993 but was pushed back to 1997.
25 YEARS LATER
The space plane, able to fly by itself to orbit, never took off. The X-30 died in 1994. Smaller-scale hypersonic programs came and went.
Was the X-30 technologically feasible?
"No, and it's still not," said Jess Sponable, a program manager in the tactical technology office at Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. For X-30 to succeed, infant ideas would have had to have been developed into robust, reliable technologies — materials that could survive intense temperatures, air-breathing engines that could fly faster and higher.
Nonetheless, "absolutely, it was worthwhile," Mr. Sponable said, although he added perhaps not worth the more than $1.6 billion spent. "We learned a lot."
The pendulum for spacecraft design has since swung away from the cutting edge to the tried and true. The Orion craft, which NASA is building for deep-space missions, is a capsule, just like the one used for the Apollo moon missions but bigger. The two private company designs that NASA chose to take future astronauts to the space station are also capsules. (The loser in that competition was a mini-shuttle offering.)
But the dream of hypersonic space planes continues.
At Darpa, Mr. Sponable heads the XS-1 space plane project. It is not a do-it-all-at-once effort like the 1980s space plane but a much simpler, unmanned vehicle that would serve as a reusable first stage.
Mr. Sponable is eager to figure out how to send it up many times, quickly and cheaply; the goal is 10 flights in 10 days.
"We want operability No. 1," he said. With the quick launches, the issue of cost "just disappears, because we can't spend a lot of money from Day 1 to Day 2 to Day 3."
Darpa has awarded contracts to three industry teams to develop preliminary designs. Mr. Sponable said the decision of a next step would come next spring.
The space plane episode illustrates the recurring money woes that have bedeviled NASA for decades: A grandiose plan is announced with fanfare and a burst of financing that fades as delays and cost overruns undercut the optimistic plans. Then a new president or a new NASA administrator changes course.
Most recently, the Obama administration canceled plans started under President George W. Bush to send astronauts back to the moon and told NASA to consider an asteroid instead.
If the pattern continues, NASA priorities could zig again after the next president moves into the White House in 2017.
CASIS Awards $800,000 in Grants to Boost ISS Science
Dan Leone – Space News
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit manager of non-NASA science aboard the international space station, spread about $800,000 in grant money among three experiments aimed at improving scientific research aboard the orbital outpost.
Individual awards range in value from $200,000 to $300,000, Patrick O'Neil, spokesman for Melbourne, Florida-based CASIS, wrote in an Oct. 15 email. Winning experiments were selected from among those that replied to CASIS's February request for proposals for "Enabling Technology to Support Science in Space for Life on Earth." The experiments have not yet been scheduled for launch.
Grant recipients, and their experiments, according to CASIS's Oct. 15 press release, are:
- Jayfus Doswell of Juxtopia in Baltimore, who will develop and evaluate a wearable goggle computer similar to Google's Glass and called the Juxtopia Context-Aware Mobile Mixed Assistive Device. The goggles will provide virtual assistance, in the form of written and other instructions visible to the wearer, "to improve the speed and accuracy with which astronauts perform science experiments aboard station," according to CASIS.
- Scott Green of Controlled Dynamics in Huntington Beach, California, who seeks to develop a vibration-dampening insert for existing ISS hardware where research is stored. The insert could improve space experiments in crystallization; cell, tissue, and plant culturing; and other studies, CASIS said.
- Mason Peck, former NASA chief technologist and current Cornell University professor, who with NanoRacks of Houston will adapt a spacecraft-on-a-chip experimental satellite platform called Sprite to eventually be programmed and deployed from ISS "to provide a low-cost, rapidly-deployable, crew-configurable, small-satellite platform for science and technology development," CASIS said.
By law, CASIS manages any research aboard station performed by non-NASA government agencies and the private sector. The group, which was created in 2011, gets $15 million a year from NASA, including $3 million earmarked for funding grants.
Heavy seas delay return of SpaceX Dragon capsule
James Dean – Florida Today
Heavy seas have delayed a SpaceX Dragon capsule's return home from space this week.
Instead of on Tuesday, the unmanned cargo craft's departure from the International Space Station is now planned just before 10 a.m. Saturday, setting up a splashdown less than six hours later in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.
A deorbit burn is expected at 2:43 p.m., followed by a parachute-assisted splashdown around 3:39 p.m.
The Dragon will re-enter the atmosphere carrying nearly 3,300 pounds of equipment and science experiments. It's the only spacecraft flying today that can return large amounts of cargo to Earth.
SpaceX launched the Dragon Sept. 21 from Cape Canaveral and it docked at the station two days later.
The mission is the company's fourth of a dozen under a $1.6 billion NASA resupply contract.
Commercial crew's extended endgame
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
The drama of NASA's commercial crew program was supposed to be over by now. The months—years, even—of debate and deliberation about the various contenders, and the funding available to support them, was supposed to culminate with the award or one or more contracts by NASA to complete development and test those systems, allowing NASA to end its reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft as soon as 2017.
And, last month, NASA did make its decision, announcing the award of Commercial Crew Transportation Capability, or CCtCap, contracts to Boeing and SpaceX (see "Commercial crew and commercial engines", The Space Review, September 22, 2014). While the two companies' contracts had significantly different dollar values, they covered the same scope, including up to six operational missions to the International Space Station. The two companies could now go ahead with vehicle development.
Or, maybe not. The third major commercial crew contender, Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), did not win a CCtCap contract, and its decision to formally protest the contract awards has put the program into limbo. While it may take months to determine if the company's protest has merit, SNC is also taking steps to keep its Dream Chaser program alive if NASA's contract decision is upheld.
"Serious questions and inconsistencies"
Immediately after NASA announced the CCtCap contracts on September 16, it held debriefs with the companies, including SNC, on their proposals. Under federal regulations, a losing company has ten days from contract award to file a protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which in turn has 100 days to evaluate the rule on the protest.
Late in the day on September 26, with the deadline looming, SNC announced that it had, in fact, filed a protest with the GAO. In a statement, the company argued that it believed it offered NASA a solution technically comparable to the winning companies, and at a lower cost than one of them.
"With the current awards, the U.S. government would spend up to $900 million more at the publicly announced contracted level for a space program equivalent to the program that SNC proposed," the company said in its statement. That, plus a statement in the release that it was the second-lowest priced proposal in the competition, suggested it was significantly less expensive than Boeing, which won a $4.2-billion CCtCap award, versus $2.6 billion for SpaceX.
Price, SNC noted, was the primary selection criteria, with the same value as the combination of mission suitability and past performance. In the statement, SNC said it had "mission suitability scores comparable to the other two proposals," but was not more specific beyond stating that a "minor amount of total points" separated the three bidders.
"In its 51-year history, SNC has never filed a legal challenge to a government contract award," the company stated. "However, in the case of the CCtCap award, NASA's own Source Selection Statement and debrief indicate that there are serious questions and inconsistencies in the source selection process."
Independently evaluating those claims is difficult. NASA has not released the source selection statement for CCtCap, although the document was leaked to some news outlets. Those reports, and other discussions among those in the industry, suggest that SNC's bid was indeed significantly less expensive than Boeing's, but that its mission suitability did not rate as well as the winning companies—but just how differently isn't clear.
With the GAO protest filed, NASA moved to temporarily stop work on the just-issued contracts with Boeing and SpaceX. NASA didn't disclose when that stop-work order came out, but sources say it was issued as early as September 29, the Monday after SNC filed its GAO protest.
On October 9, though, NASA changed course, announcing it a posting on the agency's commercial crew website that it was using "statutory authority available to it" to lift the stop-work order. The argument NASA made was that delaying work on the contracts while the GAO reviewed the protest—which could take until early January—posed risks to the ISS program.
"The agency recognizes that failure to provide the CCtCap transportation service as soon as possible poses risks to the International Space Station (ISS) crew, jeopardizes continued operation of the ISS, would delay meeting critical crew size requirements, and may result in the U.S. failing to perform the commitments it made in its international agreements," the agency stated. "NASA has determined that it best serves the United States to continue performance of the CCtCap contracts."
SNC countered last week by going to court. It filed a request with the Court of Federal Claims in Washington on October 15, asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would force NASA to reinstate the stop-work order while the GAO reviews the protest.
"NASA's override is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and is contrary to law," SNC's law firm, Rogers Joseph O'Donnell, stated in its request. "The override constitutes NASA's unreasonable decision unnecessarily and unjustifiably to direct the awardees to proceed with contract performance."
That law firm, whose specialties include government contracting disputes, discussed how a court would rule on such a motion in a 2000 article posted on its website. The factors—at least at that time—include the merits of the company's protest, whether it will "suffer irreparable harm" if a stop-work order isn't granted, if "the balance of hardships tips in the plaintiff's favor," and if the public interest would be harmed by a stop-work order.
The court held an initial hearing on SNC's motion on Friday, October 17, but did not make a decision beyond allowing Boeing and SpaceX to intervene in the case on the side of the government and against SNC. Another hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
Chasing other dreams
The decision by SNC to protest the CCtCap award coincided with the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC), held three weeks ago in Toronto. While NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX kept a low profile regarding commercial crew at the conference—NASA administrator Charles Bolden declined to answer questions posed to him about it at a September 29 press conference there—SNC used the event to talk about alternative applications of Dream Chaser.
On September 30, SNC unveiled what it called the "Global Project" for Dream Chaser: selling spaceflight services using the vehicle for other national space agencies. "What we'd like to offer is a turnkey capability: essentially a space program in a box," said Cassie Lee, SNC business development manager, at a briefing about the project during the IAC.
In the Global Project, national space agencies would be able to purchase crewed or uncrewed missions using the Dream Chaser, including a choice of several different launch vehicles. At the end of the mission, Dream Chaser could land in that nation: the lifting body vehicle can land at airports that can handle commercial aircraft like the Boeing 737 or Airbus 320.
Global Project would be able to start flights at some point after Dream Chaser enters commercial service, a timetable that likely also depends on the fate of SNC's CCtCap protest. "We're still moving towards the 2016 date for the uncrewed orbital launch," Lee said, referring to a launch contract SNC previously announced with United Launch Alliance for a November 2016 launch of a Dream Chaser vehicle on an Atlas V. Crewed launches, in that timeline, would begin in 2017.
The following day, SNC announced a different Dream Chaser venture: a partnership with Stratolaunch Systems to fly a version of Dream Chaser on the Stratolauncher air-launch system (see "Air launch, big and small", The Space Review, June 30, 2014). In this case, a scaled-down version of Dream Chaser would launch on Stratolauncher, capable of taking up to three people into orbit.
"We took our basic design for the Dream Chaser system and adapted it for that launch capability," said Craig Gravelle, SNC senior director who led the studies, in an October 1 presentation at the IAC. That resulted in a Dream Chaser 75 percent the size of the one SNC had been developing for NASA under the commercial crew program.
If the two companies decide to go forward with this version of Dream Chaser, it will be at least several years before it's ready to enter service. Chuck Beames, president of Vulcan Aerospace Corporation, said at the IAC that test flights of the Stratolauncher airplane—currently being assembled at the company's Mojave, California, facility—are planned to begin in mid-2016. Initial launches of the system are scheduled to begin in 2018.
While Stratolaunch initially plans to use the system for launching medium-class satellites, "the design is such that it doesn't preclude human spaceflight," Beames said in an interview at the conference. However, he said Stratolauncher may decide to develop a version of the rocket for use specifically on crewed missions.
That partnership between SNC and Stratolaunch Systems is still in its early phases, and the companies have yet to commit to developing this version of Dream Chaser. Beames said the work done to date on the design is not yet to the point of a preliminary design review. "We know that the design can close," he said.
Beames said a decision on proceeding with Dream Chaser would come as soon as this November or December, as the company continues its analysis of the concept. "Paul just hasn't made a decision yet," Beames said. The "Paul" in question is Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder who is funding Stratolauncher's development.
SNC is also considering submitting a proposal to NASA for the next round of commercial ISS cargo transportation contracts, known as Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2). Orbital Sciences and SpaceX currently hold CRS contracts that will be completed by late 2016, as projected by NASA in its current manifest of ISS missions. While the two companies may get short-term extensions of those contracts, NASA is seeking proposals for new contracts that would handle the cargo needs of the station's US segment from 2018 through at least 2020, with options to 2024.
SNC, though, would face tough competition for the CRS2 contract. Both Orbital and SpaceX are expected to submit CRS2 proposals, with Orbital likely to offer the use of a new version of its Antares rocket. "It's going to position Antares to be very competitive in the future, to have a little higher level of payload performance, which will be helpful in a variety of applications," Orbital CEO Dave Thompson said in an October 16 conference call with analysts, without disclosing what engine the company had selected to replace the AJ26 engines the Antares first stage currently uses. Boeing may also consider proposing its CST-100 crew vehicle for cargo as well.
SNC, though, thinks that one minor provision of the CRS2 proposal would set the company apart from the competition. Companies can propose to offer "accelerated" return of cargo, or "downmass," from the ISS, where cargo brought back to Earth is handed over to NASA within six hours of landing. Dream Chaser, with its runway landing, would be able to provide this, company officials argue.
"That accelerated downmass is an ideal sweet spot for a winged lifting body," said John Olson, vice president of space systems at SNC, in a September 30 interview at the IAC after the company announced its Global Project initiative.
Some combination of these alternatives might be enough to keep the Dream Chaser program alive even if the courts and GAO rule against SNC in its CCtCap protest. The company, though, has already scaled back its work on the project, laying off last month about 100 people it hired in anticipation of winning a CCtCap contract.
SNC is continuing work on its existing Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Space Act Agreement that it received from NASA in 2012, with a final milestone of a second glide flight of a Dream Chaser test vehicle still in the works. Olson, though, said the timing of that flight, previously planned for this fall, was uncertain. "We are continuing on our path forward, but we are waiting to see if we get any further guidance from NASA," he said at the IAC.
"It is our goal to open our doors, increase our customer base and our opportunities to fly Dream Chaser, and to bring them all back," Lee said of the laid off employees.
In the meantime, the overall commercial crew effort—including NASA and the three competing companies—is in a bit of a state of flux for at least a matter of weeks or a few months, more than a month after a decision that was supposed to provide some certainty about its future.
In a Dome in Hawaii, a Mission to Mars
Kenneth Chang – New York Times
On the way to Mars, Neil Scheibelhut stopped by Walmart for mouthwash and dental floss. "We're picking up some last-minute things," he said via cellphone last Wednesday afternoon from the store.
Mr. Scheibelhut is not actually an astronaut leaving the earth. But three hours later, he and five other people stepped into a dome-shaped building on a Hawaiian volcano where they will live for the next eight months, mimicking a stay on the surface of Mars.
This is part of a NASA-financed study, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or Hi-Seas for short. The goal is to examine how well a small group of people, isolated from civilization, can get along and work together.
When astronauts finally head toward Mars years from now — NASA has penciled the 2030s — it will be a long and lonely journey: about six months to Mars, 500 days on the planet, and then another six months home.
"Right now, the psychological risks are still not completely understood and not completely corrected for," said Kimberly Binsted, a professor of information and computer sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the principal investigator for the project. (She is not in the dome.) "NASA is not going to go until we solve this."
Isolation can lead to depression. Personality conflicts can spin out of control over the months.
"How do you select and support astronauts for a mission that will last two to three years in a way that will keep them healthy and performing well?" Dr. Binsted said. Or as Mr. Scheibelhut put it:
"I'm so interested to see how I react. 'I don't know' is the short answer. I think it could go a lot of different ways."
Several mock Mars missions have been conducted in recent years. A simulation in Russia in 2010 and 2011 stretched 520 days, most of the duration of an actual mission. Four of the six volunteers developed sleep disorders and became less productive as the experiment progressed. The Mars Society, a nonprofit group that promotes human spaceflight, has run short simulations in the Utah desert since 2001 and is looking to do a one-year simulation in the Canadian Arctic beginning in 2015.
Hi-Seas has already conducted two four-month missions, and next year, six more people will reside for one year inside the dome, a two-story building 36 feet in diameter with about 1,500 square feet of space. It sits in an abandoned quarry at an altitude of 8,000 feet on Mauna Loa.
To simulate the operational challenges, the crew members in the Hi-Seas dome are largely cut off. Their communications to the world outside the dome are limited to email, and each message is delayed by 20 minutes before being sent, simulating the lag for communications to travel from Mars to Earth and vice versa.
Every time one of the would-be astronauts or mission control sends a message, at least 40 minutes will elapse before a reply arrives. Real-time conversation is impossible.
On a real mission, the lag time would often be considerably shorter as Mars and Earth moved closer together, but Dr. Binsted said, "We went with the worst case because we're trying to solve the worst-case situation."
The crew members are granted some exceptions. They can check a few websites, like their banking accounts, to ensure that their earth lives do not fall apart while they are away. There is also a cellphone for emergency communications; If a hurricane (a distinctly un-Martian weather pattern) were to threaten the dome, as almost occurred over the weekend when Hurricane Ana veered south of Hawaii, mission control would not delay telling the crew to evacuate.
Some 150 people applied to participate. Dr. Binsted said the three men and three women of this Hi-Seas crew were chosen to have a similar mix of experience and backgrounds as real NASA astronauts, and many indeed aspire to go to space.
The commander is Martha Lenio, 34, an entrepreneur looking to start a renewable-energy consulting company. Other crew members are Jocelyn Dunn, 27, a Purdue University graduate student; Sophie Milam, 26, a graduate student at the University of Idaho; Allen Mirkadyrov, 35, a NASA aerospace engineer; and Zak Wilson, 28, a mechanical engineer who worked on military drone aircraft at General Atomics in San Diego. "I dream about being an astronaut, and this might be the closest I ever get," Ms. Dunn said.
Mr. Wilson had previously done a two-week stay at the Mars habitat in Utah. Mr. Scheibelhut had worked on the first Hi-Seas mission as part of the ground support crew. "I thought it would be really cool to be part of what's going on inside," he said.
For their time, each is receiving round-trip airfare to Hawaii, a $11,500 stipend, food and, of course, lodging.
At the outset, the six appear to get along fine. "This is a fantastic group of people," Mr. Scheibelhut said. "Right now, everything is wonderful."
He said he recognized that there would be unpleasant patches. "Eight months — you're going to have real conflicts you're going to have to work out," he said. "Scientifically speaking, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens."
But Mr. Scheibelhut, 38, an Army veteran who served a year in Iraq in 2004, said, "I've been through worse."
On this mission, at least, no one will be trying to kill him. "I hope," he added.
The goal is to maintain cohesion among the crew members, but that too can lead to problems.
"They become more independent when they are more cohesive," Dr. Binsted said, and an independent-minded crew could start sparring with mission control.
The researchers will also be looking for signs of "third-quarter syndrome." At the beginning of the mission, the experience is new and exciting. Then, in the second quarter of the mission, people fall into routines. Near the end, people can look forward to getting out and returning to the real world.
In the middle, there can be a stretch when routines turn into tedium without end. "That third quarter can be a bit of a bummer," Dr. Binsted said.
Like real astronauts, the Hi-Seas crew will be busy performing various scientific work, including excursions outside the dome in spacesuits.
"If you're going to keep people in a can for eight months, you want to get as much science out of them as possible," Dr. Binsted said. "It also means NASA gets a lot of bang for their buck."
Part of the science includes data Ms. Dunn will collect for her doctoral thesis. "Not a lot of people get to shut out the world for eight months and work on their research," she said.
But first, there was the stop at Walmart.
Ms. Dunn bought a pair of slippers. "The ground level stays pretty cool," she said.
Mr. Wilson picked up super glue and workout shorts. Dr. Binsted bought some supplemental food supplies — hot sauce, powdered coconut milk and spinach wraps.
Elsewhere, Ms. Lenio, the commander, was shopping for a ukulele.
"We'll start a band," said Mr. Scheibelhut, who had brought his guitar.
MRO Spies Tiny, Bright Nucleus During Comet Flyby of Mars
Bob King - Universe Today
Not to be outdone by the feisty Opportunity Rover, the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) turned in its homework this evening with a fine image of comet C/2013 Siding Spring taken during closest approach on October 19.
The highest-resolution images were acquired by HiRISE at the minimum distance of 85,750 miles (138,000 km). The image has a scale of 453 feet (138-m) per pixel.
The top set of photos uses the full dynamic range of the camera to accurately depict brightness and detail in the nuclear region and inner coma. Prior to its arrival near Mars astronomers estimated the nucleus or comet's core diameter at around 0.6 mile (1 km). Based on these images, where the brightest feature is only 2-3 pixels across, its true size is shy of 1/3 mile or 0.5 km. The bottom photos overexpose the comet's innards but reveal an extended coma and the beginning of a tail extending to the right.
To photograph a fast-moving target from orbit, engineers at Lockheed-Martin in Denver precisely pointed and slewed the spacecraft based on comet position calculations by engineers at JPL. To make sure they knew exactly where the comet was, the team photographed the comet 12 days in advance when it was barely bright enough to register above the detector's noise level. To their surprise, it was not exactly where orbital calculations had predicted it to be. Using the new positions, MRO succeeded in locking onto the comet during the flyby. Without this "double check" its cameras may have missed seeing Siding Spring altogether!
Meanwhile, the Jet Propulsion Lab has released an annotated image showing the stars around the comet in the photo taken by NASA's Opportunity Rover during closest approach. From Mars' perspective the comet passed near Alpha Ceti in the constellation Cetus, but here on Earth we see it in southern Ophiuchus not far from Sagittarius.
"It's excitingly fortunate that this comet came so close to Mars to give us a chance to study it with the instruments we're using to study Mars," said Opportunity science team member Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, who coordinated the camera pointing. "The views from Mars rovers, in particular, give us a human perspective, because they are about as sensitive to light as our eyes would be."
After seeing photos from both Earth and Mars I swear I'm that close to picturing this comet in 3D in my mind's eye. NASA engineers and scientists deserve a huge thanks for their amazing and successful effort to turn rovers and spacecraft, intended for other purposes, into comet observatories in a pinch and then deliver results within 24 hours. Nice work!
NASA spacecraft around Mars send back images of comet Siding Spring
Amina Khan, Karen Kaplan – Los Angeles Times
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has released the first resolved images of comet Siding Spring's nucleus -- and it's a lot smaller than people expected.
The nucleus of the comet that zoomed past the Red Planet on Sunday appears to be about half its predicted size of about half a mile. This surprising find could be one of many to come as scientists pore over the data sent back by the NASA orbiters and rovers that teamed up to study the mysterious visitor from the solar system's distant Oort cloud.
All three orbiters -- the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, a.k.a. MAVEN -- captured data that are being relayed to NASA scientists. Both rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity, trained their "eyes" on the skies. The elderly Opportunity has already sent back images of the comet taken with its panoramic camera. It could take a few more days for all of the data to be downlinked and processed, the space agency said.
The teamwork should help researchers get a fuller picture of comet Siding Spring, which blazed by Mars on Sunday at 125,000 mph. At its closest approach about 11:27 a.m. Pacific time, the comet came within about 87,000 miles of Mars. That's about one-third the distance between Earth and the moon.
After the comet formally known as C/2013 A1 Siding Spring was discovered in January 2013, scientists worried that it could damage NASA's orbiters. After all, a high-speed speck of comet dust could potentially crack a camera lens or permanently damage delicate electronic systems. So NASA officials decided to steer all three craft into a safe zone on the other size of the planet until the worst of the danger had passed.
But scientists also recognized that a flyby like this was a once-in-several-million-years event. So they put the spacecraft to work.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter trained three of its instruments -- the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, the Compact Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and the Context Camera -– on the comet as it approached the Red Planet. Their goal was to get a clearer picture of Siding Spring's nucleus and to examine the coma of dust and gas that surrounds it. The three instruments will continue to watch the comet for a few more days as it continues its flight toward the sun. (It will make its closest approach on Saturday.)
Mars Odyssey is expected to provide some pictures as well, courtesy of its Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS. In a few days, THEMIS will produce an image that combines the comet with part of Mars, according to a statement from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Comet Siding Spring, Mars Reconnaissance OrbiterChris Potts, manager of the Odyssey mission at JPL, confirmed Sunday that the spacecraft was able to carry out its scheduled observations "within hours of the comet's closest approach to Mars."
Both Odyssey and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were also assigned to collect data on the interaction between the comet's dust and gas and the planet's thin atmosphere. In that task, they were joined by MAVEN, the most recent addition to NASA's Mars fleet. MAVEN's primary mission is to study the planet's upper atmosphere, and it has a suite of instruments designed to examine the interface between the highest reaches of the Martian atmosphere and the beginning of outer space.
All three spacecraft emerged unscathed from their close encounter with Siding Spring, which is believed to have formed in the Oort cloud billions of years ago. If so, it is essentially a flying frozen time capsule from the solar system's earliest days, formed of gas, water and dust not incorporated into Earth, Mars or the other planets.
Powering cislunar spaceflight with NEO powder
Ronald P. Menich - The Space Review
For the last year and a half, NASA has been publicly studying a concept known as the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). As described by NASA, ARM:
will employ a robotic spacecraft, driven by an advanced solar electric propulsion system, to capture a small near-Earth asteroid or remove a boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid. The spacecraft then will attempt to redirect the object into a stable orbit around the moon.
It seems likely that NASA's interest in such a mission is limited to executing it once or a few times to prove-out the technique, and to then move on to some other mission—perhaps a crewed trip to Mars—if and when funds become available. Within that limited ARM context, a conservative engineering approach using an existing deep-space propulsion system (e.g., xenon ion propulsion) to return the NEO to a lunar orbit, or High Earth Orbit (HEO) beyond geosynchronous orbit, will likely be chosen as a minimal risk approach.
Our interest in near Earth objects (NEOs) should be more expansive than one or a few missions, though. This essay examines an alternative propulsion system with substantial promise for future space industrialization using asteroidal resources returned to HEO.
Electrostatic propulsion is the method used by many deep space probes currently in operation such as the Dawn spacecraft presently wending its way towards the asteroid Ceres. For that probe and several others, xenon gas is ionized and then electrical potential is used to accelerate the ions until they exit the engine at exhaust velocities of 15–50 kilometers per second, much higher than for chemical rocket engines, at which point the exhaust is electrically neutralized. This method produces very low thrust and is not suitable for takeoff from planets or moons.
However, in deep space and integrated over long periods of engine operation time, the gentle push of an ion engine can impart a very significant velocity change to a spacecraft, and do so extremely efficiently: for the Deep Space 1 spacecraft, the ion engine imparted 4.3 kilometers per second of velocity change (delta-v), using only 74 kilograms of propellant to do so. As of late September, Dawn's ion thrusters have produced 10.2 kilometers per second of delta-v, using 367 kilograms of xenon.
The solar system has planets, asteroids, rocks, sand, and dust, all of which can pose dangers to space missions. The larger objects can be detected in advance and avoided, but the very tiny objects cannot, and it is of interest to understand the effects of hypervelocity impacts of microparticles on spacesuits, instruments and structures. For over a half century, researchers have been finding ways to accelerate microparticles to hypervelocities (1 to 100 kilometers per second) in vacuum chambers here on Earth, slamming those particles into various targets and then studying the resultant impact damage. These microparticles are charged and then accelerated using an electrical potential field.
It is a natural step to consider, instead of atomic-scale xenon ions, the application to deep space propulsion of the electrostatic acceleration of much, much larger microparticles:
Chemical rockets achieve their large thrust with high mass consumption rate (dm/dt) but low exhaust velocity; therefore, a large fraction of their total mass is fuel. Present day ion thrusters are characterized by high exhaust velocity, but low dm/dt; thus, they are inherently low thrust devices. However, their high exhaust velocity is poorly matched to typical mission requirements and therefore, wastes energy. A better match would be intermediate between the two forms of propulsion. This could be achieved by electrostatically accelerating solid powder grains.
There are many potential sources of powder or dust in the solar system with which to power such a propulsion system. NEOs could be an ideal source, as hinted at in a 1991 presentation:
Asteroid sample return missions would benefit from development of an improved rocket engine… This could be achieved by electrostatically accelerating solid powder grains, raising the possibility that interplanetary material could be processed to use as reaction mass.
Imagine a vehicle that is accelerated to escape velocity by a conventional rocket. It then uses some powder lifted from Earth for deep-space propulsion to make its way to a NEO, where it lands, collects a large amount of already-fractured regolith, and then takes off again. It is already known that larger NEOs such as Itokawa have extensive regolith blankets.
 Close-up of regolith on Near Earth Object Itokawa. (credit: JAXA) |
Furthermore, recent research suggests that thermal fatigue is the driving force for regolith creation on NEOs; if that is true, then even much smaller NEOs might have regolith layers. Additionally, some classes of NEOs such as carbonaceous chondrites are expected to have extremely low mechanical strength; for such NEOs, it would be immaterial whether or not pre-existing regolith layers were present, as the crumbly material of the NEO could be crushed easily.
 Smooth areas of regolith on Comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (credit: ESA) |
After leaving the NEO, onboard crushers and grinders convert small amounts of the regolith to very fine powder. (These processes would be perfected in low Earth orbit using regolith simulant long before the first asteroid mission.) Electrostatic grids accelerate and expel the powder at high exit velocities. Not all of the regolith onboard is powdered, only that which is used as propellant: a substantial amount of unprocessed regolith is returned to HEO.
The Dawn spacecraft consumes about 280 grams of xenon propellant per day. For asteroid redirect missions, a much higher power spacecraft with greater propellant capacity than Dawn is needed, and NASA is considering one with 50-kilowatt arrays and 12 metric tons of xenon ion propellant, versus just 0.43 metric tons for Dawn. If that 12 metric tons were consumed over a four-year period, then that would equate to 8.2 kilograms of propellant per day, or 340 grams per hour (29 times Dawn's propellant consumption rate.) The machinery required to collect, crush, and powder a similar mass of regolith per hour need not be extremely large because initial hard rock fracturing would not be required. It is plausible that the entire system—regolith collection equipment, rock crushing, powdering, and other material processing equipment—might not be much larger than the 12 metric tons of xenon propellant envisioned by NASA.
One of the attractions of the scheme described here is that this system could be started with one or a few vehicles, and then later scaled to any desired throughput by adding vehicles. Suppose that, on average, a single vehicle could complete a round-trip and return 400 tons of asteroidal material to HEO once every four years. After arrival in HEO, maintenance is performed on the vehicle. Some of the remaining regolith is powdered and becomes propellant for the outbound leg of the next NEO mission. A fleet of ten such vehicles could return 1,000 tons per year on average of asteroidal material, while a fleet of 100 such vehicles could return 10,000 tons per year. The system described is scalable to any desired throughput by the addition of vehicles. Mass production of such vehicles would reduce unit costs.
A system of many such vehicles would be resilient to the failure of any single one. If one of the many vehicles were lost, then the throughput rate of return of asteroidal material to HEO would be reduced, but the system as a whole would survive. Replacement vehicles could be launched from Earth, or perhaps the failed vehicle could also be returned to HEO for repair by one of the other vehicles.
In situ resource utilization (ISRU) means "living off the land" rather than launching all mass from the Earth. Xenon costs, by some estimates, about $1,200 per kilogram, and thus the material cost alone of 12 tons of xenon propellant would be $14.4 million. The scheme discussed in this essay would use powdered asteroidal regolith instead of xenon, and would save not only the material cost of the xenon ion propellant itself, but also the vastly larger cost of launching that propellant from Earth each time. Over several or many missions, the initial cost of developing the powdered asteroid propulsion approach would justify itself economically.
Over dozens or hundreds of missions, the asteroidal material returned to HEO could serve as radiation shielding, as a powder propellant source for all sorts of beyond-Earth-orbit missions and transportation in cislunar space, and as input fodder for many industrial and manufacturing processes, such as the production of oxygen or solar cells. All of this advanced processing could be conducted in HEO, where a telecommunications round-trip of a second or two would allow most operations to be economically controlled from the surface of the Earth using telerobotics. By contrast, the processing that happens outside of Earth orbit would be limited to the collection, crushing, and powdering of regolith. These latter and simpler processes would be completed largely autonomously.
Low Earth orbit (LEO) is reachable from the surface of the Earth in eight minutes, and geosynchronous orbit—the beginning of HEO—is reachable within eight hours. The proximity of LEO and HEO to the seven billion people on Earth and their associated economic activity is a strong indication that cislunar space will become the future economic home of humankind. In the architecture described here, raw material is slowly delivered to HEO over time via a fleet of regolith-processing, electrostatically-propelled vehicles; by contrast, humans arrive quickly to HEO from Earth. This NEO-based ISRU architecture could be the foundation of massive economic growth off-planet, enabling the construction mostly from asteroidal materials of massive solar power stations, communications hubs, orbital hotels and habitats, and other facilities.
Orionid Meteor Shower Is Peaking Now: How to See It
If you step outside before dawn during the next week or so, you might be able to see bright meteors streaking through the sky.
The Orionid meteor shower is peaking now, and it will likely be a very good show this year, weather permitting. The moon will be slimmed down to a narrow crescent before sunrise on Tuesday (Oct. 21) morning during the peak of the shower. The skinny lunar sliver will not even rise until around 5 a.m. local time. Even if you can't see the meteor shower from outside your home, you can watch it live online. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will host a webcast tonight (Oct. 20) starting at 10 p.m. EDT (0200 Oct. 20 GMT) featuring live views of the meteor shower. You can watch the meteor shower webcast on Space.com. The Orionids can best be described as a junior version of the famous Perseid meteor shower. The meteors are known as "Orionids" because they seem to fan out from a region to the north of the constellation Orion's second brightest star, Betelgeuse. Halley's Legacy
The Orionid meteor shower is created each year when Earth passes through dust left behind by the famous Halley's Comet.
The comet actually creates two different meteor showers on Earth every year. The orbit of Halley's Comet closely approaches the Earth's orbit at two places. One point is in the early part of May, producing a meteor display known as the Eta Aquarids. The other point comes in the middle to latter part of October, producing the Orionids.
Comets are the leftovers from when the solar system first formed, the odd bits and pieces of simple gases – methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide and water vapor – that went unused when the sun and its attendant planets came into their present form.
These tiny particles – mostly ranging in size from dust to sand grains – remain along the original comet's orbit, creating a "river of rubble" in space. In the case of Halley's comet, which has likely circled the sun many hundreds, if not thousands of times, its dirty trail of debris has been distributed more or less uniformly all along its entire orbit. When these tiny bits of comet collide with Earth, friction with our atmosphere raises them to white heat and produces the effect popularly referred to as "shooting stars."
What to Expect
The best time to watch the meteor shower begins from 1 or 2 a.m. local time until around dawn, when the constellation Orion is highest above the horizon. The higher in the sky Orion is, the more meteors appear all over the bowl of the sky. The Orionids are one of just a handful of known meteor showers that can be observed equally well from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Typically, Orionid meteors are normally dim and not well seen from urban locations, so it's suggested that you find a safe rural location to see the best Orionid activity.
The Orionids are one of the better annual displays, producing about 15 to 20 meteors per hour at their peak. Add the 5 to 10 sporadic meteors that always are plunging into our atmosphere and you get a maximum of about 20 to 30 meteors per hour for a dark sky location. Most of these meteors are relatively faint, however, so any light pollution will cut the total way down.
The shower may be quite active for several days before or after its broad maximum, which may last from the 20th through the 24th. Step outside before sunrise on any of these mornings and if you catch sight of a meteor, there's about a 75 percent chance that it likely originated from the nucleus of Halley's Comet. After peaking on the morning of Oct. 21, activity will begin to slow, dropping back to around five per hour around Oct. 26. The last stragglers usually appear sometime in early to mid November.
"They are easily identified … from their speed," David Levy and Stephen Edberg write in "Observe: Meteors," an Astronomical League manual. "At 66 kilometers (41 miles) per second, they appear as fast streaks, faster by a hair than their sisters, the Eta Aquarids of May. And like the Eta Aquarids, the brightest of family tend to leave long-lasting trains. Fireballs are possible three days after maximum."
You can also watch another meteor shower webcast featuring expert commentary about the Orionids on Tuesday night via the Slooh Community Observatory.
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