Stay warm and safe everyone. Chilly weather forecast for tonight and next few days……
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Deck the Door for Orion Contest Judging Today
- Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
- This Week With Orion: Counting Down to Launch
- America Recycles Day TODAY
- Last Chance: Vote for the NASA Innovation Awards
- JSC Knowledge Management Office Case Study
- Shuttle Knowledge Console (SKC) v9.0 Release - Organizations/Social
- 2014 Tech & Tell Poster Session Time Change Update
- Would You Watch Out for My Safety?
- SCH NCMA Holiday Social
- JSC Praise and Worship Club Meeting
- Survivors of Suicide Support
- JSC NMA Book Club - Jobs and Training
- Project Management and Systems Engineering Forum - Community
- Children's Calendar Contest - Deadline Extended |  |
| Headlines - Deck the Door for Orion Contest Judging Today
Nine teams wanted show their support for the Orion launch by competing in the door decorating contest. Judging will take place today! Look for the winners in tomorrow's JSC Today! • Orion Crew and Service Module Office (GC) @ Bldg 17, Rm 148 • Team TSOR1ON @ Bldg 20, Rm 223 • New Era @ Bldg 37, Rm 1200 • The Ogives @ Bldg 17, Rm 2063A • Optimus Prime @ Bldg 4N, Rm 3040 • JSC EA Data Center Team @ Bldg 17, Rm2030 • Don't Knock It Til You Rocket @ Bldg 15, Lobby Entrance • Orion Recovery Imagery Overexposes NASA @ Bldg 8, Rm 183 • Everyone Rallies Around Orion @ Bldg 2, Main Entrance Too cold outside to take the door tour? You can check out the pictures on Orion's Facebook page later in the afternoon. Good luck teams! - Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
You were correct that Exploration Flight Test-1 has no hydrogen slush tank adapter … whatever that is. Maybe we should put one on it just in case. This week you may boldly go where you've never gone before at JSC. Where is that? The roof of Building 1? Under the water at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory? The tunnel? I get nostalgic sometimes because that's what happens when you turn 30. I miss some old stuff and want your vote on what you miss the most from the good ol' days. Typewriters? Crank windows? Rotary dial phones? Matchbox your Hot Wheels on over to get this week's poll. - This Week With Orion: Counting Down to Launch
Last week, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle Wet Dress Rehearsal was performed and the team powered up the launch vehicle's avionics and assessed the cryogenic fuel tanks. In addition, the NAVY performed diver training of the Orion recovery operations at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. The diving team practiced manual uprighting procedures of the crew module. Orion was successfully rolled to the launch pad early this week, and the team will now begin lifting and mating operations with the ULA Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle. Follow @NASA_Orion #Orion and #JourneytoMars for more updates and fun facts. Check JSC Today next week for more information as Orion successfully reaches milestones leading up to launch! - America Recycles Day TODAY
JSC will be celebrating America Recycles Day today, Nov. 13, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Teague Auditorium and lobby. There will be a book swap, TED videos, free goodies and much more! Book Swap Event: Bring new and used books/magazines to the Teague lobby and swap them for some new reads! There will also be NASA STEM teaching materials available for free. All items not taken will be donated to the local library. TED Videos: Starting at 9 a.m., there will be a TED video shown about every 20 to 25 minutes until 1:30 p.m. Is paper better than plastic? Are mushrooms the new plastic? These fun and intellectual TED videos strive to answer questions like these and many more. Grab a new read, learn more about recycling and sustainability and take a free goodie—all in under 30 minutes! Come and celebrate America Recycles Day here at JSC. - Last Chance: Vote for the NASA Innovation Awards
Quick! It's your last chance to vote for the 2014 NASA Innovation Award winners. These are "people's choice" awards, and all NASA employees will be afforded the opportunity to view and vote for all nomination summaries and video clip submissions. There are a total of 32 nominations posted (10 for the Champion of Innovation category, and 22 for the Lean Forward; Fail Smart category). Voting will take place on the NASA@work site, and will capture votes of both civil servants and contractor employees. To vote, click on each of the links above and click on "Discuss Challenge" to view the nomination summaries for each award. The voting deadline is Friday, Nov. 14. - JSC Knowledge Management Office Case Study
Starsky had Hutch, Cagney had Lacey and Riggs had Murtaugh. These detectives worked in partnership when something unexpected and negative occurred and the cause needed to be determined. Similarly, when working a failure or mishap investigation, the chair/lead and safety representative work in partnership to lead the overall team to determine cause. Much like detectives, they too need specialized skills to succeed: flexibility; an understanding of group dynamics; listening skills; leadership skills; objectivity; and discernment. More than technical competency, these types of roles require nuanced and intuitive dispositions that allow investigation leaders to be successful facilitators. Just how does this partnership work, and what skills are needed for success? Find out in the latest JSC Knowledge Management Office case study: "The Fine Art of Getting to Root Cause: A Partnership for Success" - Shuttle Knowledge Console (SKC) v9.0 Release
The JSC Chief Knowledge Officer is pleased to announce the ninth release of SKC. This release will contain a new sitemap to identify the major content repositories and better facilitate searching through them; a set of 22 Aircraft System Engineering course videos from MIT; and 6,000 new documents totaling 7.3GB. This release will also be the first round of content reorganization, placing 86,000 series documents into named folders. To date, we have captured nearly 6 million documents totaling 2.7 terabytes. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation and give us your comments and thoughts. Organizations/Social - 2014 Tech & Tell Poster Session Time Change Update
The 2014 Exploration Integration and Science Directorate (EISD)-sponsored Independent Research and Development (IR&D) Tech & Tell poster session is being held next Tuesday, Nov. 18, in Building 3's Collaboration Center following the center director's all-hands meeting. The new scheduled time is from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. During this come-and-go event, you will meet some of JSC's most innovative thinkers. Principal investigators will share overviews of their projects and how they are being integrated to meet NASA science and JSC human spaceflight needs. This year's theme is "JSC's Technology Pathway to Mars," which will showcase both center-level and new EISD directorate IR&D technology projects being developed at both JSC and the White Sands Test Facility. Come support your colleagues. Also, cast a vote to select an outstanding project to receive the "People's Choice Award" for innovation and creativity in the spirit of JSC 2.0. Event Date: Tuesday, Nov. 18 Event Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Event Start Time:11:00 AM Event End Time:1:30 PM
Event Location: Building 3 Collaboration Area
Add to Calendar
David L. Brown x37426
[top] - Would You Watch Out for My Safety?
The JSC Contractor Safety Forum is proud to have renowned safety speaker John Drebinger present "Would You Watch Out for My Safety?" today, Nov. 13, in an open presentation to the JSC community, brought to you by Jacobs Technology. Drebinger's presentations are educational, highly motivational and always entertaining as he helps people identify the reason to watch out for each other's safety. He will discuss the need for safety, common fears about discussing safety, techniques to make these discussions easier and how we can make JSC an even safer place to work while also taking safety home to our family each day. This presentation is perfect for supervisors, safety team members and, really, all employees. Seating is limited, so arrive early for the presentation from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in the Gilruth Alamo Ballroom. Event Date: Thursday, November 13, 2014 Event Start Time:9:00 AM Event End Time:10:30 AM
Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom
Add to Calendar
Greg Tonnies 281-461-5130
[top] - SCH NCMA Holiday Social
Find out more about the Space City Houston (SCH) National Contract Management Association (NCMA) "Holiday Social on the Sea" here—and also register online. Event Date: Thursday, December 11, 2014 Event Start Time:5:30 PM Event End Time:9:00 PM
Event Location: South Shore Harbour Aboard the Royal Princess II
Add to Calendar
Jeremy Pierre x47561
[top] - JSC Praise and Worship Club Meeting
Join with the praise and worship band, Allied with the Lord, for a refreshing set of praise and worship songs on Wednesday, Nov. 19, from 11:15 a.m. to noon in Building 57, Room 106. The theme for this session will be "Giving Thanks." Prayer partners will be available for anyone who has need. All JSC civil servants and contractors are welcome. Event Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 Event Start Time:11:15 AM Event End Time:12:00 PM
Event Location: Building 57 Room 106
Add to Calendar
Mike FitzPatrick x30758
[top] - Survivors of Suicide Support
Nov. 22 is International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day. This day honors and recognizes the complex and unique loss of those who have survived the suicide of a loved one. Suicide leaves so many with confusing questions and feelings. The healing process after a suicide is further impacted by the perception of suicide itself. We will discuss several of the factors involved in survival in the aftermath of a suicide. We will discuss coping techniques for survivors, especially during the upcoming holiday season. We will also offer ways to support children and others intimately impacted by a suicide. Please join Anika Isaac, MS, LPC, LMFT, LCDC, NCC, CEAP, as she presents on "Survivors of Suicide Support." - JSC NMA Book Club
Professional Development - 4 Disciplines of Execution Do you sometimes allow the "whirlwind" of urgent activity required to keep things running day to day devour all your time and energy, and then there's nothing left to execute your strategy for tomorrow? If so, you're welcome to join the JSC National Management Association (NMA) professional development session covering the #1 national bestselling business book, "The 4 Disciplines of Execution," facilitated by Dr. Jose Bolton. By following the four disciplines—focusing on the wildly important, acting on lead measures, keeping a compelling scoreboard and creating a cadence of accountability—you can produce breakthrough results. All JSC team members (civil servants and contractors) are welcome to participate. Please feel free to bring your lunch on Nov. 19 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Building 1, Room 257A. Jobs and Training - Project Management and Systems Engineering Forum
The next JSC Project Management and Systems Engineering Forum will be Thursday, Nov. 20, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 1, Room 360. Dr. Beverly Sauer will present the topic: "Communication Matters: Lessons in System Safety from the BP/Deepwater Horizons Disaster." This presentation will revisit the BP disaster from the point of view of system safety fundamentals to answer the question: What role does communication play in anticipating and mitigating disaster? Sauer was formerly an associate professor of English and rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University and a professor of management in the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business. All civil servant and contractor project managers and systems engineers are invited to attend. Community - Children's Calendar Contest – Deadline Extended
The deadline for the Children's Safety and Health Calendar Contest has been extended to Friday, Nov. 28. Don't miss this opportunity to discuss important safety and health topics in a fun, creative way with your child. Any JSC civil service or contractor team member can sponsor a child (4 to 12 years old). Contest entry forms can be picked up in the following buildings: 3, 4S, 11, 30, 45, the JSC Child Care Center and Gilruth Center—or by calling 281-244-5078 to have the entries mailed to you. Winners will receive a T-shirt imprinted with their drawing and will be invited to the annual award party. | |
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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
Thursday – November 13, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
NASA capsule arrives at launch pad for first test flight
Irene Klotz – Reuters
A new U.S. spaceship designed to fly astronauts to the moon, Mars and other destinations beyond the International Space Station arrived at a Florida launch pad on Wednesday in preparation for an unmanned test flight next month.
NASA's first Orion capsule delivered to launch pad
NASA's Orion spacecraft took a road trip to the launch pad Tuesday night, arriving at Cape Canaveral's Complex 37 where a Delta 4-Heavy rocket awaits flight of the new capsule on Dec. 4.
International Space Station dodges Chinese space junk
Associated Press via Florida Today
The International Space Station is out of harm's way after flying higher to avoid space junk.
U.S. Defense Department Balks at RD-180 Replacement Program
Mike Gruss – Space News
The U.S. Defense Department "strongly disagrees" with congressional proposals to initiate a large, government-run program to replace a controversial Russian-made rocket engine that currently is used to launch national security missions, according to Pentagon correspondence obtained by SpaceNews.
European Spacecraft Touches Down on Comet
Peter B. de Selding – Space News
Europe on Nov. 12 successfully placed a 100-kilogram lander on a comet 500 million kilometers from Earth following a seven-hour descent from a satellite that had been chasing the comet for 10 years.
Why Rosetta's malfunctioning anchoring harpoons are 'clearly worrisome'
Terrence McCoy – The Washington Post
After two decades of preparation, $1.2 billion in taxpayer money spent and an astounding 4 billion miles traveled, a potentially disastrous problem emerged right before the Rosetta spacecraft deposited its landing probe on to a twirling comet hurtling through space 40 times faster than a bullet. It was the thruster on the top of probe. Something was wrong with it. A mechanism intended to counteract the recoil of impact, the thruster was meant to insure that the probe, Philae, didn't hit the surface and bounce back into space.
Tiny spacecraft nails target, comet 300M miles away
Traci Watson – USA Today
The anxiety isn't over yet.
Landing on a Comet, a Mission Aims to Unlock the Mysteries of Earth
Kenneth Chang – New York Times
In a technological feat that gives scientists their first opportunity to dig into a remnant of the early solar system, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission successfully placed a small spacecraft on the surface of a speeding comet on Wednesday.
Lander Stable on Comet, for Now
The Philae lander settled atop the "head" of the rubber duck–shaped object despite trouble with systems designed to secure the probe to the comet
Lee Billings – Scientific American
After more than a decade of careful planning and hours of nail-biting tension, this morning an emissary from Earth made history's first soft landing on a comet. The European Space Agency's dishwasher-size Philae lander touched down on the craggy surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko shortly after 10:30 A.M. Eastern time, after being released seven hours earlier from its mother ship, the Rosetta orbiter.
Investigators: Surviving SpaceShipTwo Pilot Unaware Feathering System Unlocked
Jeff Foust – Space News
The pilot that survived the Oct. 31 crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has told federal investigators he was unaware that the vehicle's co-pilot, who died in the accident, had unlocked the vehicle's feathering mechanism prematurely.
SpaceShipTwo Crash Pilot Provides First-hand Account To NTSB
Guy Norris –Aviation Week & Space Technology
Pete Siebold, the surviving member of the two-man SpaceShipTwo test crew, has revealed how he was thrown clear of the suborbital spaceplane as it disintegrated at around 50,000 ft. over the Mojave Desert during a powered test flight on Oct 31.
COMPLETE STORIES
NASA capsule arrives at launch pad for first test flight
Irene Klotz – Reuters
A new U.S. spaceship designed to fly astronauts to the moon, Mars and other destinations beyond the International Space Station arrived at a Florida launch pad on Wednesday in preparation for an unmanned test flight next month.
The debut flight of the gumdrop-shaped capsule, called Orion and built by Lockheed Martin Corp for the U.S. space agency NASA, is designed to test the spaceship's computers, heat shield, parachutes and other equipment.
"This is our first step on that journey to Mars," Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana told reporters before Orion's move to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch pad 37, located just south of the NASA spaceport.
The capsule will be positioned on top of a heavy-lift Delta 4 rocket, manufactured by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Liftoff is scheduled for just after sunrise on Dec. 4.
During the orbital test flight, Orion will fly twice around Earth, traveling as far as 3,600 miles (5,800 km) from the planet so that it can slam back into the atmosphere at a speed of nearly 20,000 miles per hour (32,000 kph). Orion's heat shield should reach temperatures of about 4,000 Fahrenheit (about 2,200 Celsius).
"This initial test flight, which focuses on some of the highest risks to bringing the crew back safely from exploration missions, is really important to us," said Ellen Ochoa, director of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Four-and-a-half hours after launch, Orion is due to make a parachute landing in the Pacific Ocean about 600 miles (1,000 km) southwest of San Diego.
"The flight itself into space is huge because we'll see how the systems operate in the environment, but actually building the first (capsule) is as big," Orion Program Manager Mark Geyer said.
NASA is spending about $375 million on the test flight, not including the cost of the capsule. Total spending on Orion, including more than $8 billion under the canceled Constellation moon program, is expected to reach about $15 billion.
Future Orion capsules will fly on a new NASA rocket called the Space Launch System, currently under development under a separate $15 billion effort. The rocket, with another unmanned Orion capsule, is expected to debut in November 2018.
NASA's first Orion capsule delivered to launch pad
NASA's Orion spacecraft took a road trip to the launch pad Tuesday night, arriving at Cape Canaveral's Complex 37 where a Delta 4-Heavy rocket awaits flight of the new capsule on Dec. 4.
The unmanned Exploration Flight Test No. 1 will send Orion around the Earth twice, reaching an altitude of 3,600 miles on a four-hour, 23-minute mission to check out its crew module.
"This mission is significant in that it enables human spaceflight to deep space and destinations we've yet to imagine," said Mike Sarafin, Orion lead flight director.
"The aerospace industry is a tough business as a whole. Anybody that's been in this business for any amount of time understands it takes a great deal of fortitude and perseverance. We intend to test ourselves on this mission and we intend to test our spacecraft before we put humans onboard."
The spacecraft will re-enter at 20,000 mph, generating temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit to simulate the heating a capsule would experience returning from deep space.
Deep space is the ultimate destination for future Orions, taking astronauts farther from Earth than ever before.
"This is just the first of what will be a long line of exploration missions beyond low-Earth orbit, and in a few years we will be sending our astronauts to destinations humans have never experienced," said Bill Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development "It's thrilling to be a part of the journey now, at the beginning."
The purpose of EFT No. 1 is to give Lockheed Martin engineers real-life data and telemetry from Orion's systems, software, radiation protection, heat-shield, parachutes and recovery gear in preparation for one day carrying crews to an asteroid or Mars.
"EFT 1 is a compilation of the riskiest events that we are going to see when we fly people. So this test flight is a great opportunity to fly those and see them in operation. Some of these events are difficult or even impossible to test on the ground. EFT 1 gives us a chance to put all those together," said Mark Geyer, Orion Program manager.
The gross liftoff mass of the integrated EFT 1 Orion spacecraft stack is approximately 48,000 pounds in launch-ready configuration, standing approximately 72.7 feet tall and measuring 18 feet wide. The crew module is 16 feet in diameter and 11 feet tall.
"An empty shell of a spacecraft arrived to Kennedy Space Center two years ago, and now we have a fully assembled Orion standing 72 feet tall," said Michael Hawes Lockheed Martin Orion program manager. "We're ready to launch it into space and test every inch."
Doing the launching of Orion this time will be a Delta 4-Heavy rocket, America's largest unmanned booster currently available.
The United Launch Alliance rocket is capable of lofting the biggest and heftiest cargos. The mammoth vehicle is created by taking three Common Booster Cores — the liquid hydrogen-fueled motor that forms a Delta 4-Medium's first stage — and strapping them together to form a triple-barrel rocket, and then adding an upper stage.
The rocket will place Orion into a 100 by 500 nautical mile preliminary orbit for one revolution of the globe, then a restart by the upper stage during the second passage over the Atlantic will lift the orbit to -20 by 3,600 miles. That sets up Orion to re-enter over the Pacific for splashdown 600 miles southwest of San Diego.
Emerging Tuesday night from the former space shuttle payload canister rotation facility, now serving as Orion's abort tower installation building, the spacecraft left the Kennedy Space Center Industrial Area and headed towards the famed Vehicle Assembly Building where the trek paused for pictures.
"It's beautiful! A real Orion spacecraft coming out of the hangar is an amazing sight," said astronaut Rex Walheim, a member of the Orion development team and member of the final space shuttle crew.
"It's historic. This is a going to vehicle that could fly for us for 30 years, potentially, and this is the first one, the first tailnumber coming out the chute. This is like the forefather of this great fleet of vehicles that's going to be coming online."
The journey to the pad then resumed and passed the old shuttle launch pad 39B and headed down the beach, passing by the Atlas 5 and Falcon 9 pads before reaching the Delta 4's pad 37B.
The Delta 4-Heavy completed a countdown dress rehearsal and fueling exercise last week. Once Orion is hoisted 170 feet atop the rocket later Wednesday, final preps for the launch campaign will be underway including an integrated systems testing between the launch vehicle and spacecraft.
A sunrise liftoff on Dec. 4 is planned for 7:05 a.m. EST. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean is anticipated at 8:28 a.m. PST.
"I gotta tell ya, this is special. This is our first step on that journey to Mars," said former astronaut Bob Cabana, the Kennedy Space Center director. "To see the vehicle on top of the service module with the launch abort system attached, it's quite a stack, and it is going to look really good on top of that Delta 4 as we go for that test flight on Dec. 4."
International Space Station dodges Chinese space junk
Associated Press via Florida Today
The International Space Station is out of harm's way after flying higher to avoid space junk.
Flight controllers raised the space station's orbit by a mile Wednesday. That's because a small piece of debris from an old Chinese satellite was going to come dangerously close. Without the maneuver, the two objects would have come within seven-tenths of a mile later in the morning, too close for NASA's comfort.
The three space station astronauts were informed of the situation. NASA says they were never in danger.
A maneuver had been planned anyway for later Wednesday in preparation for the launch of three more astronauts on Nov. 23 from Kazakhstan. Now, that engine firing won't be needed.
U.S. Defense Department Balks at RD-180 Replacement Program
Mike Gruss – Space News
The U.S. Defense Department "strongly disagrees" with congressional proposals to initiate a large, government-run program to replace a controversial Russian-made rocket engine that currently is used to launch national security missions, according to Pentagon correspondence obtained by SpaceNews.
While Defense Department leaders have stressed the need to wean the agency from dependence on the Russian-made RD-180 engine used on United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket, the new correspondence, which appeals provisions in pending defense legislation, clearly favors alternatives to a major government-funded development effort.
"The Department firmly believes that it should not allocate resources to develop yet another engine that would fail to be integrated into a viable launcher, especially when it can meet the assured access to space requirement with existing privately funded vehicle families," the Pentagon's legislative affairs office said in a 30-page packet of conference appeals. "It is nearly impossible to develop a stand-alone rocket engine that can meet the needs of more than a single launch vehicle, or without extensive changes to even that single vehicle."
Earlier this year, the House drafted defense appropriations and authorization bills that recommended spending $220 million in fiscal year 2015 to develop a new liquid-fueled rocket engine that would debut in 2022. The defense appropriations and authorization bills drafted in the Senate propose spending $25 million and $100 million, respectively, on the effort next year.
Differences between the House and Senate versions of the bills are worked out in conferences of senior lawmakers before the measures are sent to the White House to be signed into law.
The push for a new U.S. rocket engine has been fueled in large part by concerns about the future availability of the RD-180 as U.S. tensions with Russia escalate over the crisis in Ukraine. The Atlas 5 is used, along with ULA's Delta 4 rocket, to launch the lion's share of U.S. national security, weather and scientific satellites.
But despite congressional interest, congressional and industry sources say the engine development program is likely to receive less than $100 million in the final 2015 appropriations bill. A more realistic number, these sources say, is something close to the $40 million suggested by the White House in June.
Denver-based ULA says it has seen no slowdown in RD-180 deliveries from Russia but is nonetheless funding, on its own, a new engine development effort led by Blue Origin, the secretive rocket company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Meanwhile, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, of Hawthorne, California, is awaiting U.S. Air Force certification of its Falcon 9 rocket to carry national security payloads.
"Launch service providers and engine manufacturers are teaming up to develop an additional domestic engine with private funding," the Pentagon said in its legislative appeal. "These factors enable solutions that do not delay the launch of critical national security space satellites, enables competition, and will be more cost-effective in the long-term to meet national security space launch requirements."
The appeal also noted that the Air Force currently has two certified launchers at its disposal — presumably meaning the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 — and "expects to soon certify a new entrant." Air Force officials have targeted December for completing the Falcon 9 certification process.
European Spacecraft Touches Down on Comet
Peter B. de Selding – Space News
Europe on Nov. 12 successfully placed a 100-kilogram lander on a comet 500 million kilometers from Earth following a seven-hour descent from a satellite that had been chasing the comet for 10 years.
Mission managers at the European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, confirmed that the Philae lander had touched down, apparently softly, on Comet 67P. The lander appeared to be in good health and was sending signals.
Less clear was whether it had secured a stable purchase on the comet's surface. Early telemetry suggested that the two harpoons that were to drive into the comet, up to 2 meters in depth, to fix Philae into place may not have deployed correctly.
The possibility of making another attempt at harpooning the surface had not yet been confirmed.
Rosetta and Philae managers had known all day Nov. 12 that fixing Philae to the surface would be even more complicated than originally thought because its Active Descent System of cold-gas thrusters, designed to push Philae against the surface for several seconds before harpoon deployment, did not function.
Philae teams had hoped that the early indications of the thruster dysfunction might have been an error message, but the post-touchdown telemetry confirmed that the system did not work.
The fact of touching down on a comet is itself an exploit. What is yet unclear is whether Philae, equipped with 10 experiments and designed to operate for at least 60 hours to characterize the comet's surface, interior and chemical composition, will be able to perform much of its work.
Comet 67P has very little gravity. The Philae lander's equivalent weight on Earth would be about 1 gram — a small sheet of paper landing on a floor. It would not take much on a comet shedding dust and water every day to disturb the lander's position if it is not fastened tightly to the surface.
At a press briefing, ESA officials said they were still sorting through occasionally confusing telemetry purporting to show what happened to Philae.
Stephan Ulamec, Philae program manager at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, said that as difficult as it is to land on a comet, it is also difficult to determine what happens once on the surface.
Philae landed in the targeted zone and is functioning, Ulamec said. But its harpoon anchoring system did not deploy despite earlier indications that it had. He said it was unclear whether Philae landed in a sandbox-type surface composition, and that the variations in some of the telemetry needed to be further studied overnight.
What is also certain, he said, is that Philae's instruments have already begun sending science data to the Rosetta orbiter for relay back to Earth.
From this data, he said, it appeared that Philae landed, bounced and then relanded a second time. Fluctuations in the radio link to the Rosetta satellite lead to this conclusion, he said.
ESA's Rosetta flight director, Paolo Ferri, said at the briefing that Philae landed right on target, even assuming a bounce and second landing.
Why Rosetta's malfunctioning anchoring harpoons are 'clearly worrisome'
Terrence McCoy – The Washington Post
After two decades of preparation, $1.2 billion in taxpayer money spent and an astounding 4 billion miles traveled, a potentially disastrous problem emerged right before the Rosetta spacecraft deposited its landing probe on to a twirling comet hurtling through space 40 times faster than a bullet. It was the thruster on the top of probe. Something was wrong with it. A mechanism intended to counteract the recoil of impact, the thruster was meant to insure that the probe, Philae, didn't hit the surface and bounce back into space.
Now it wasn't firing.
Despite those concerns, the European Space Agency decided to proceed. They had come so far. They were so close. And besides, Philae still had its anchoring harpoons, which would shoot into the surface of the comet at a speed of 160 miles per hour, latching the probe onto the comet like a tick. Given the delicate feat before the scientists, such a device was vital. "Delivering Philae to the comet's surface requires all the finesse of depositing a pro-football linebacker on a trampoline without a bounce," the Christian Science Monitor reported. " … The harpoon represents the craft's ultimate anchor."
But what scientists didn't know on Wednesday as they watched Philae's excruciatingly slow, seven-hour descent was that this "ultimate anchor" was in fact just as non-functional as the thruster. When the Philae hit, it ultimately stayed and Thursday morning it was reported to be stable, but it wasn't due to any anchor or thruster. A well-placed landing and luck, it seems, played a significant role. Even then, it's unclear what exactly happened on Wednesday as the jubilation of the historic moment gave way to anxiety over Philae's future and mission.
"The not so good news is that the anchoring harpoons did not fire," the Telegraph quoted Philae's landing manager, Stephan Ulamec, saying. "So the lander is not anchored to the surface. Did we just land in a soft-sand box and everything is fine? Or is there something else happening? We still do not fully understand what has happened." He then illustrated the full extent of the landing's opacity: "Some of the data indicated that the lander may have lifted off again. It touched down and was rebounding. So maybe today, we didn't just land once, we landed twice."
In fact, Philae landed three times. According to the research team's magnetic field analysis, the probe hit like a bouncy ball. It first struck the comet's craggy surface at 15:33 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, which is five hours ahead of Eastern time) then bounced high back into space before floating back down to the surface two hours later at 17:26. It bounced again, then finally settled at 17:33. "Does this mean Philae is not stable on the surface?" one concerned person asked the team on Twitter. "Is stable now!" researchers responded.
The initial confusion was because Philae lost contact with Earth post-impact, leaving scientists fumbling around looking for it. When they finally found it, uncertainty undercut the elation: The probe wasn't attached to the soft surface of a madly-spinning comet. According to the mission's landing blueprint, Philae's "pyro-driven harpoons" were supposed to have sunk nearly eight feet into the surface. But instead, the probe was just sitting there.
The concern involves gravity — or the lack of it. "The comet's gravity is so weak that an attempt to take a brisk walk across its surface could launch a hypothetical pedestrian back into space," the Christian Science Monitor commented.
The entire business was disconcerting for some analysts. Landing manager Ulamec "confirms the harpoons did NOT fire," science writer Emily Lakdawalla wrote, adding the situation was "clearly worrisome." "There is much they currently do not know. … It is entirely possible that tomorrow will come and we will not hear from Philae."
Without the harpoons, the washing-machine-size craft will have to rely nearly exclusively on the ice screws at the bottom of its landing legs to grip the comet. It's unclear whether those are strong enough to hold indefinitely. It "could mean that we are sitting in soft material and we are not anchored," Ulamec added.
And now, scientists must confront yet another another difficult choice: Should they let the craft alone, hope it sticks to the comet and try to collect as much data as they can? Or should they try to fire the harpoons again? The latter choice is fraught: the thruster, in addition to its responsibility of counteracting the recoil of impact, was also intended to fight the upward kick from firing the harpoons.
The team is expected to release more information on that decision and on the status of the mission today. "Our big concern is at the moment is whether we are standing stably" on the comet, a spokesman told the Telegraph. "We are considering if we need to retry shooting the anchors."
Tiny spacecraft nails target, comet 300M miles away
Traci Watson – USA Today
The anxiety isn't over yet.
After a nerve-racking 7-hour descent, a miniature spacecraft drifted softly onto the surface of a comet more than 300 million miles away from Earth on Wednesday morning. It was the first craft in history to land on a comet, and the apparently successful feat provoked hugs, cheers and joyous laughter in the control room in Germany.
But the jubilation over the touchdown of the washing-machine-size ship, known as Philae, was quickly overshadowed. Within an hour after the landing was confirmed, engineers learned that contrary to plan, Philae had failed to fire its two harpoons into the comet's dusty soil. The harpoons were designed to anchor the spacecraft firmly to the comet's surface, partly due to fears that the craft could ricochet off the strange terrain and back into space.
Preliminary data suggest that the lander came down "abruptly" on one of its three legs and softly on the other two, then "bounced slightly off" the comet before settling onto the surface again, Finnish Meteorological Institute research manager Walter Schmidt told USA TODAY. Schmidt heads the team responsible for a Philae scientific instrument that has sensors in the spacecraft's feet.
"Maybe today we didn't just land once, we even landed twice," Philae lander manager Stephan Ulamec joked at a news conference Wednesday. There are some signs that the spacecraft started to rotate after lifting off again, but if so, it has stopped rotating, Ulamec said.
One option is try to fire the harpoons again. Even if the harpoons don't work, a good number of the 10 scientific instruments on Philae could still gather data, Schmidt said. But the situation is grimmer for Philae's drill and the probes on the harpoons unless the harpoons can be coaxed to function properly.
The experiments on Philae are designed to reveal the comet's composition, how it changes as it approaches the sun and more. Such clues could help scientists understand conditions in the solar system more than 4 billion years ago, when the comet formed.
The harpoon problems clouded a day of both anxiety and triumph for the flight control team. The little spaceship cast off at roughly 4 a.m. ET from the mother ship that had carried it close to the comet. Then, as mission personnel waited in anxious suspense, Philae descended at a leisurely pace toward the comet's rugged surface. There was no way to steer it on its way down, no way to change course and no going back.
A few minutes past 11 a.m. ET, engineers received word that the spaceship, which belongs to the European Space Agency, had alighted safely on the comet's crater-scarred and boulder-filled landscape.
"We can't be happier than we are now," Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta flight director, said, before the harpoon problem became known.
The landing was "a difficult procedure. … There are so many uncertainties," said Gostar Klingelhoefer of Germany's Johannes Gutenberg University and the head of an experiment that will analyze the chemical composition of the comet's surface. The initial report of a successful landing "was a big relief, I have to say."
Even if the harpoons never fire, many consider the mission a victory. Google honored the lander's touchdown with a Google Doodle, and NASA'S director of planetary science, Jim Green, lauded the mission as "audacious."
"The number one thing: PHILAE IS A SUCCESS. Full stop," tweeted Emily Lakdawalla, a planetary scientist who blogs for the Planetary Society, an advocacy group that champions space exploration and space science.
Philae and its carrier spacecraft Rosetta spent a decade just getting to the comet, launching from Earth in 2004 and finally pulling up in August next to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as comet 67P. The comet is tracing a 6 1/2-year oval around the solar system.
Rosetta's arrival at 67P gave scientists a thrill: The comet wasn't potato-shaped as had been expected but a complex rubber-duck shape. For mission engineers, the comet's profile was a nasty surprise rather than an intriguing revelation. That irregular shape made it trickier for Rosetta to orbit the comet and drop the lander in exactly the right place on the mountain-size comet.
The comet's terrain also posed challenges. It is pocked with deep depressions and dotted with building-size boulders, and it boasts slopes so steep that they make the toughest ski resort look tame. On its first landing, at least, Philae came down in the dead center of the designated landing zone, which has relatively forgiving terrain.
Scientists are now working against time. Philae's initial battery life is only 64 hours, and no one knows whether after the battery dies the craft's solar panels will work well enough to power all the experimental gear for an extended time.
Researchers hope to keep gathering information from Philae until March of next year, when the spacecraft is projected to become too hot to continue. Eventually managers may command Rosetta to make a soft landing on the comet's surface too, reuniting the two spacecraft once more.
Landing on a Comet, a Mission Aims to Unlock the Mysteries of Earth
Kenneth Chang – New York Times
In a technological feat that gives scientists their first opportunity to dig into a remnant of the early solar system, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission successfully placed a small spacecraft on the surface of a speeding comet on Wednesday.
With this achievement, a comet is no longer a mysterious and sometimes frightening spray of light across the night sky, but another member of the solar system to be explored, like the moon and Mars. The technology of landing on a comet, with its wisps of gravity, could be applied to future efforts to mine asteroids.
The agency's director general, Jean-Jacques Dordain, described the touchdown on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a 2.5-mile-wide ball of rock, ice and dust moving faster than 40,000 miles an hour, as "a big step for human civilization."
"Our ambitious Rosetta mission has secured another place in the history books," Mr. Dordain said at a news conference. "Not only is it the first to rendezvous with and orbit a comet, but it is now also the first to deliver a probe to a comet's surface."
For scientists, one of the central mysteries that Rosetta will explore is whether Earth's oceans are filled with melted comets. Since the rocky bits that came together to form the planet were dry, water has to have come from somewhere else. One possibility is that comets slamming into the Earth early on seeded it with water.
News of the touchdown of the 220-pound lander, named Philae, arrived at the mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, at 5:03 p.m. local time (11:03 a.m. Eastern time). Cheers erupted.
"We're there, and Philae is talking to us," said Stephan Ulamec, the manager for the lander. "We are on the comet."
With that news, a procession of officials from nations and organizations, including NASA,that had collaborated on the $1.75 billion mission reveled in the accomplishment, capping a 10-year, four-billion-mile trip.
"How audacious!" said James L. Green, the director of NASA's planetary sciences division. "How exciting! How unbelievable to be able to dare to land on a comet."
Within the hour, though, a worrisome caveat came to light.
"It's not only complicated to land there," Dr. Ulamec said in a later news conference. "It's also, as it appears, very complicated to understand what has happened."
Two harpoons that should have fired into the comet did not, and the lander may not be secured to the surface. Dr. Ulamec said fluctuations in the radio link and the generation of power by the solar panels suggested that Philae may have bounced off the surface before settling down again.
In the midst of so much that is going wrong on our little planet, our headstrong, relentless desire to know and explore is a source for pride and hope. Science is a remarkable expression of the human spirit.
"Maybe today we didn't just land once, we even landed twice," Dr. Ulamec said.
As expected, the Rosetta orbiter moved out of the line of sight of Philae, breaking radio communications.
The orbiter is to re-establish the radio link in the next day, and mission managers hope then to better understand the stability of Philae's footing.
Nonetheless, the lander and its 10 instruments have begun 64 hours of scientific operations before its batteries drain. Solar panels will recharge the batteries, allowing intermittent operations over the coming months, about an hour every two days.
The landing culminated a tense day as Rosetta maneuvered to the correct position to let Philae go — moments of celebration were interspersed with long, quiet stretches of waiting.
The operation proceeded despite a few small glitches and one potential showstopper problem: failure of a thruster that was to fire after touchdown to press the lander against the comet's surface. A pin was supposed to break a wax seal on the gas tank, but repeated attempts did not succeed.
Without the thruster, the washing-machine-size Philae would have to rely on ice screws on its landing legs and the harpoons to anchor it to the comet. The thruster, which was to shoot a stream of nitrogen gas, was intended to counteract not just the possibility of Philae bouncing off the surface but also the upward kick from the firing of the harpoons.
Mission managers decided to proceed because there was no way to repair it.
Philae detached on schedule, for a seven-hour descent.
There was some worrying a couple of hours later when the lander was about 10 minutes late in re-establishing communications with the orbiter.
Mission managers could not do anything; the readings they saw on their computer screens reflected what had occurred 28 minutes earlier — the time it took a radio signal to travel the 316 million miles from Rosetta to Earth.
But soon they received photos — a blurry image of Rosetta's solar array taken by Philae about 50 seconds after separation, and then a sharper image by Rosetta of the descending Philae.
"We see the lander going down on the right track," said Andrea Accomazzo, the flight director.
Then there was more waiting, with amusing updates via the Twitter accounts of Rosetta and Philae. "Finally! I'm stretching my legs after more than 10 years. Landing gear deployed!" read a Twitter posting from Philae. The web comic XKCD also provided real-time updates, even mentioning the problem with the nitrogen thruster. In the comic, Rosetta told Philae that mission control was worried about the thruster, and the lander responded, "I really hope harpoons work on comets."
The harpoons turned out to be a valid concern.
"There are some indications that they might not have been fired, which could mean that we are sitting in soft material and we are not anchored," Dr. Ulamec said. "We have to analyze what is the actual situation."
The XKCD comic updated: "Do harpoons work on comets? Don't know."
For now, Philae is working, and the instruments have already sent back some images and data. But if it is not anchored, Philae may not operate as long as hoped — the original goal was next March — as emissions of dust and gas grow as the comet moves nearer to the sun.
Even if the lander cannot complete the full mission, managers have said, Rosetta will still be a resounding success. Planetary scientists have never looked at a comet so close up for so long.
Comets are frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system. Rosetta is named after the Rosetta Stone, the engraved block that was crucial in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, and scientists hope the spacecraft's observations will offer important clues to how the solar system came together 4.5 billion years ago. (Philae was an island, now submerged in Lake Nasser, where an obelisk provided clues to solving the Rosetta Stone.)
Previous missions have zoomed by comets at high speeds, providing only brief examinations. By contrast, Rosetta will be a constant companion as Comet 67P approaches the sun, swings around and heads out again, its instruments potentially providing more than two years of data.
Lander Stable on Comet, for Now
The Philae lander settled atop the "head" of the rubber duck–shaped object despite trouble with systems designed to secure the probe to the comet
Lee Billings – Scientific American
After more than a decade of careful planning and hours of nail-biting tension, this morning an emissary from Earth made history's first soft landing on a comet. The European Space Agency's dishwasher-size Philae lander touched down on the craggy surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko shortly after 10:30 A.M. Eastern time, after being released seven hours earlier from its mother ship, the Rosetta orbiter.
"We are there. We are sitting on the surface. Philae is talking to us," said Philae lander manager Stephan Ulamec during a live Webcast of the landing. "We are on the comet." The lander seems to be fully operational, ready to begin its unprecedented close-up exploration of the icy comet. The lander's suite of instruments notably includes a drill for accessing material from the comet's subsurface as well as a small chemistry lab to analyze the retrieved samples. Data from the lander, it is hoped, will reveal more about the solar system's earliest history, and potentially help scientists piece together a fuller picture of how water-rich comets and asteroids may have delivered oceans to the infant Earth.
Rosetta had made history itself in August when it arrived at Churyumov–Gerasimenko, becoming the first spacecraft ever to orbit a comet. It had launched in March 2004, swinging by Earth three times to gradually build up speed to reach its quarry.
Mission planners had expected the comet to be round and oblong; instead they found it resembling a toy rubber duck, made of two cratered globules—one large, one small—sutured together by a tapered neck of icy debris. That strange shape meant the comet possessed a more complicated gravitational field, which combined with the comet's 12.4-hour rotational period and erupting plumes of gas and dust to make Philae's landing a challenging feat of celestial navigation.
As Rosetta mapped the comet from orbit, researchers studied a plethora of potential landing sites for Philae. They quickly homed in on one in particular, a relatively flat one-square-kilometer region dubbed "Agilkia." Perched atop the "head" of the rubber-duck shaped comet, Agilkia is a relatively flat region that struck a balance between delivering good science and ensuring safe landing and surface operations. Because of its smooth topography, Agilkia is largely free of dark shadows when illuminated, providing more sunlight for Philae's solar panels. Near but not perilously close to sites of erupting gas and dust, the site also offered the chance for Philae to study pristine material from those jets while also radio-mapping the comet's nucleus.
The tension surrounding the landing began to build in the predawn hours of November 12, when Rosetta released Philae from its clutches. The tiny probe's descent would be entirely unpowered, relying solely on the comet's weak gravitational pull to draw it to its site. The orchestration had to be impeccable, even a minuscule error in timing or trajectory would be magnified during the lander's long free fall, putting it in the wrong region or, worse yet, making it miss the whirling comet entirely. It also had to occur almost entirely autonomously, as radio signals between the spacecraft and ground controllers took almost a half hour to cross the more than 480 million kilometers separating the comet from Earth.
If communications were lost and not reestablished between Philae and Rosetta during the descent, the mission would be in dire jeopardy—a possibility all the watching crew felt a couple of hours after Philae's deployment, when it checked in with its mother ship late after an agonizing delay of several minutes.
Once Philae touched down, the risks would only grow; Agilkia was not perfectly flat and if the lander came to rest on a too-steep slope or a boulder, it would topple over irrecoverably. Alternatively, if its descent took it to a very firm landing site, Philae could bounce off the surface in the weak gravitational field, either falling away into space or tumbling haphazardly over the comet's icy crags. To prevent this Philae was set to fire a stabilizing low-power nitrogen thruster and to deploy harpoons and ice-screws to secure itself to the comet. During preparations for the landing a seal failed to break on the thruster's nitrogen tank, but the mission proceeded anyway, pinning its hopes on the harpoons and screws.
In a press conference shortly after the landing, Ulamec noted that the spacecraft seems to have landed, bounced and then settled back down again, even though its harpoons apparently failed to secure the craft to the surface.
Despite today's historic soft landing, technically Philae is not the first spacecraft to land on a comet: That honor goes to the "impactor" of NASA's Deep Impact mission, an instrument-laced slug of copper that slammed into the comet Tempel 1 in July 2005. Besides these two cometary landings, humans have only managed to land spacecraft on six other celestial bodies: Venus, the moon, Mars, the asteroids Ikotawa and 433 Eros, and Saturn's moon Titan.
Now that it has successfully landed, Philae's schedule is packed with checkouts of its science instruments and initial surveys of its landing site. The lander's main batteries are sufficient to power it for three days of science operations, after which Philae and its suite of instruments will have to rely on solar power. Mission scientists hope to keep the lander operating for perhaps half a year, however, so that it can have a front-row seat for the fireworks that will erupt as the comet swings closer to the sun in its orbit. Water ice and other volatiles will begin to sublimate off the comet in greater volumes, pouring plumes of material into space and building up a thicker coma of gas and dust.
By March of next year, the comet should be too hot for Philae to operate, setting an end-date for even the most optimistic extended mission, but Rosetta will continue on alone for months longer, watching the comet come alive beneath the sun's broiling heat until its mission ends, too, in December 2015, more than 4,000 days after it began.
Investigators: Surviving SpaceShipTwo Pilot Unaware Feathering System Unlocked
Jeff Foust – Space News
The pilot that survived the Oct. 31 crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has told federal investigators he was unaware that the vehicle's co-pilot, who died in the accident, had unlocked the vehicle's feathering mechanism prematurely.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a Nov. 12 statement that its investigators interviewed the vehicle's pilot Nov. 7, a week after the accident. The statement did not identify the pilot by name, but he had been previously identified as Peter Siebold, the director of flight operations for Scaled Composites, the company conducting the test flight for Virgin Galactic.
The investigation has focused on the premature deployment of SpaceShipTwo's feathering mechanism, designed to raise the vehicle's twin tail booms during re-entry. The NTSB previously said that telemetry and video from the flight indicated that SpaceShipTwo's co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, unlocked the feathering system 9 to 11 seconds after engine ignition, as the vehicle reached Mach 1. The vehicle broke apart several seconds later.
The unlocking of the mechanism took place several seconds earlier than planned, but Siebold told the NTSB he had no knowledge of Alsbury's actions. "According to the pilot, he was unaware that the feather system had been unlocked early by the copilot," the NTSB said in its statement.
While Siebold did not know about the unlocked feathering system, the NTSB said his recollection of the flight matched other data. "His description of the vehicle motion was consistent with other data sources in the investigation," the NTSB said in its statement, but offered no other details.
Although Alsbury was killed in the accident, Siebold survived with relatively minor injuries, despite the vehicle breaking apart at an altitude of about 15,000 meters. Siebold told the NTSB that he was "extracted" from SpaceShipTwo as the vehicle broke apart, and he later unbuckled from his seat. His parachute deployed automatically.
The Nov. 12 statement from the NTSB is the first update of the accident investigation by the agency since a Nov. 3 press conference at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The NTSB said that it has concluded the on-scene portion of the investigation, and its staff has returned to NTSB headquarters here.
The Oct. 31 accident spread debris from SpaceShipTwo over a swath about eight kilometers long in the Mojave Desert north of the spaceport. The NTSB said that debris has been recovered and "is being stored in a secure location for follow-on examination."
Other NTSB investigators are examining telemetry and video from the flight, including data stored in nonvolatile recorders on the vehicle itself. They are also examining the components of SpaceShipTwo's feathering system and vehicle documentation.
The NTSB statement gave no timeline for completing the investigation. At the Nov. 3 press conference, NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said it could take up to a year for the agency to complete its investigation and publish its findings.
Despite that schedule for the investigation, Virgin Galactic officials have stated they will press ahead with the assembly of a second SpaceShipTwo, which was already under construction at the time of the accident. Company CEO George Whitesides told CNN Nov. 9 that the vehicle could be ready for test flights within six months.
"The second SpaceShipTwo is already two-thirds complete, and our team are pouring themselves into that project with heightened resolve," Virgin Galactic said in its most recent public statement about the accident, issued Nov. 7.
SpaceShipTwo Crash Pilot Provides First-hand Account To NTSB
Guy Norris –Aviation Week & Space Technology
Pete Siebold, the surviving member of the two-man SpaceShipTwo test crew, has revealed how he was thrown clear of the suborbital spaceplane as it disintegrated at around 50,000 ft. over the Mojave Desert during a powered test flight on Oct 31.
Siebold, who was airlifted from the crash site to Antelope Valley Hospital with severe injuries, told National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators on Nov. 7 that he "was extracted from the vehicle as a result of the breakup sequence and unbuckled from his seat at some point before the parachute deployed automatically." Siebold's survival is all the more remarkable given SS2 is not equipped with ejection seats and, since the vehicle is pressurized, the crew flies without pressure suits.
The accident occurred during the first few seconds of a powered flight, shortly after release from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft that takes SS2 to launch altitude. Data from the flight indicates the feathering system, which is designed for use during re-entry, deployed during the critical acceleration phase around Mach 1.02. The deployment was uncommanded, and occurred approximately 2 sec. after co-pilot Mike Alsbury unlocked the feathering system. According to the NTSB, Siebold was "unaware that the feather system had been unlocked early by the co-pilot. His description of the vehicle motion was consistent with other data sources in the investigation."
The NTSB confirms the on-scene portion of the investigation is over and the wreckage of SS2 has been recovered and is being stored in "a secure location for follow-on examination." The safety agency adds that an investigative group will convene next week at the NTSB Recorders Laboratory in Washington, D.C. to review the video camera footage. The systems group also "continues to review available data for the vehicle's systems," while the vehicle performance group is examining the aerodynamic and inertial forces that acted on the vehicle during the launch.
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