Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: April 17, 2013 5:57:57 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 17, 2013 and JSC Today

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Check Out Orbital Science's First Flight Test Today
2.            Latest International Space Station Research
3.            Blood Drive -- April 17 and 18
4.            JSC Systems Engineering Forum
5.            ISS Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) User Forum
6.            Register for Tomorrow's Training on Aerospace Medicine Resources
7.            Reminder: INCOSE April 18 Discussion -- Lean Systems Engineering Enablers
8.            JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown -- Get Your Tickets by Friday
9.            Zumbatomic Kids Fitness at Starport -- Session Starts This Friday
10.          Recovered Materials
11.          Do You Know College Students Interested in Flying With NASA?
12.          Volunteers Needed for Rockets Lake Jackson May 11 and 12
13.          National Kindergarten Day
14.          Low-No Impact Day Challenge
15.          Volunteers Needed for Special Olympics Spring Games
16.          Cub Scouts: Earn Astronomy Belt Loop
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts a striking view of Sarychev Volcano (Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009."
________________________________________
1.            Check Out Orbital Science's First Flight Test Today
Orbital Science's Antares is counting down to its first flight test this week from Wallops Island, Va. Liftoff is currently set for today, April 17, at 4 p.m. CDT with a three-hour window for the launch.
NASA TV coverage of the launch will begin at 3 p.m. If needed, back-up launch opportunities are available April 18 to 21.
JSC employees with wired computer network connections can view NASA TV using onsite IPTV on channels 404 (standard definition) or 4541 (HD). IPTV works best using Internet Explorer. If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367.
The Antares test flight is the first of two missions Orbital is scheduled to conduct this year under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Program. This mission will demonstrate the Antares launch system, beginning with its April 6 rollout and placement on the launch pad through its fueling, launch and delivery of a mass simulator payload into orbit.
The mass simulator matches the weight and dimensions of the Cygnus spacecraft, which Orbital has developed to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. The simulator carries instruments to collect data about the launch environment during the Antares flight.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111 http://www.nasa.gov/orbital

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2.            Latest International Space Station Research
This week, International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield is conducting data collection for the European Space Agency's Energy investigation. This includes eating a standardized meal, diet logging, specific water intake, measurements of oxygen uptake, collection of urine samples and wearing an armband activity monitor. The aim of Energy is to measure changes in energy balance (the delta between food intake and energy expenditure) during long-duration spaceflight. Energy also measures adaptations in components of total energy expenditure of crew members so that an equation to determine the energy requirements of crew members during spaceflight may be derived. Such knowledge of energy requirements is important to crew health and performance and also contributes to ensure adequate exercise load and cargo allotments for food during spaceflight.
Read more about Energy.
Liz Warren x35548

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3.            Blood Drive -- April 17 and 18
There is no substitute for blood. It has to come from one person in order to give it to another. Will there be blood available when you or your family needs it? A regular number of voluntary donations are needed every day to meet the needs for blood. Make the "Commitment to life" by taking one hour of your time to donate blood. Your blood donation can help up to three patients.
You can donate at one of the following locations:
Teague Auditorium lobby: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Building 11 Starport Café donor coach: 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Gilruth Center donor coach: (Thursday only) noon to 4 p.m.
The criteria for donating can be found at the St. Luke's link on our website. There will be T-shirts, snacks and drinks available for all donors.
Teresa Gomez x39588 http://jscpeople.jsc.nasa.gov/blooddrv/blooddrv.htm

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4.            JSC Systems Engineering Forum
The next JSC Systems Engineering Forum meeting will be Friday, April 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Building 1, Room 966. The Deep Space Habitat (DSH) project has been developing a SysML model that combines the requirements, physical architecture and functional architecture in a single model. Howard Wagner, the DSH chief engineer, will be presenting an overview of the modeling activities and a discussion of how the SysML model will be used to conduct the System Definition Review in May 2013. You won't want to miss this opportunity to gain insight into this innovative technique. WebEx and telecom numbers can be found here.
Event Date: Friday, April 19, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:1:30 PM
Event Location: B1 Room 966

Add to Calendar

Linda Bromley x30129

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5.            ISS Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) User Forum
The International Space Station EDMS team will hold the monthly EDMS General User Training Forum this Friday, April 19, at 9:30 a.m. in Building 4S, Conference Room 5315.
If you use EDMS to locate station documents, join us to learn about basic navigation and searching. Bring your questions, concerns and suggestions and meet the station EDMS Customer Support team. The agenda can be found here.
Event Date: Friday, April 19, 2013   Event Start Time:9:30 AM   Event End Time:10:30 AM
Event Location: JSC Bldg 4S, CR 5315

Add to Calendar

LaNell Cobarruvias x41306 https://iss-www.jsc.nasa.gov/nwo/apps/edms/web/UserForums.shtml

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6.            Register for Tomorrow's Training on Aerospace Medicine Resources
Learn about the Bioastronautics Library services and resources by attending the webinar hosted by the Scientific and Technical Information Center from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. CDT.
To register for the WebEx, go to this link and click on "Schedule for Classroom/WebEx Training." Select the appropriate class from the drop-down menu on the registration page.
Provided by the Information Resources Directorate.
Event Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013   Event Start Time:1:30 PM   Event End Time:2:30 PM
Event Location: WebEx

Add to Calendar

Ebony Fondren x32490 http://library.jsc.nasa.gov

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7.            Reminder: INCOSE April 18 Discussion -- Lean Systems Engineering Enablers
The month's Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of INCOSE presents David Meza and Lean Systems Engineering Enablers. Any organization would benefit from tighter collaboration and working principles between the engineering and program management communities to improve program and project performance. Meza currently serves as the Operational Excellence program manager at JSC.
The event will be held April 18 starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Lockheed Martin Orion Conference Room (located at 2625 Bay Area Blvd., Suite 160 [OCC], Houston, 77058). Everyone is welcome. Refreshments will be served. RSVPs will be taken until 10 p.m. on April 17 by Larry Spratlin via email or at 281-461-5218. Check out this website for more information and live meeting instructions if you can't make it in person. See you there!
Larry Spratlin 281-461-5218

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8.            JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown -- Get Your Tickets by Friday
SplashTown is closed to the public to allow NASA family and friends to attend a private day at the water park!
Tickets are on sale now through Friday in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops and at the Gilruth Center. Tickets will be $33 each for ages 3 and up. After Friday, tickets will be $37.
A ticket includes: private-day admission at SplashTown on April 28 from noon to 6 p.m., barbecue lunch, beverages, snow cones, kids' games, Bingo, face-painting, moon bounce, balloon artist, DJ, horseshoes, volleyball, basketball and plenty of thrills!
Event Date: Sunday, April 28, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:6:00 PM
Event Location: Splashtown

Add to Calendar

Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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9.            Zumbatomic Kids Fitness at Starport -- Session Starts This Friday
Designed exclusively for kids, Zumbatomic classes are rockin', high-energy fitness parties packed with specially choreographed, kid-friendly routines. This dance-fitness workout for kids ages 4 to 12 will be set to hip-hop, salsa, reggaeton and more. Sign up at the Gilruth front desk for the free class.
Session: April 19 to May 17
Class meeting day: Friday
Time: 5:30 to 6:15 p.m.
Location: Gilruth Center Studio 1
Fee: $55/child
Register at the Gilruth Center.
Shericka Phillips x35563 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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10.          Recovered Materials
Accessible ... Findable ... Relevant ... Reusable ... Knowledge
That old report in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet or quietly musting away in the attic might be just the information needed to fill in the gaps of JSC community knowledge!
The entire body community knowledge is fortified with the knowledge and experiences captured in recovered materials. Current and former employees have contributed videos, org charts, still images and documents of historical interest. Many of the recovered materials are appropriate to publish in whole, while others lead to improved data architecture as they are processed and represented in the JSC Taxonomy. Enhanced user applications include the JSC search, Lessons Learned Database and Shuttle Knowledge Console. Share your center or agency experiences with JSC community! Contact the Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer today.
Brent J. Fontenot x36456

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11.          Do You Know College Students Interested in Flying With NASA?
Do you know college students interested in flying with NASA? The Reduced Gravity Office and the Minority University Research and Education Program at JSC invites university students to unite a team, pick a project and propose a twist on the project to fly on the zero-G plane! This is a cool opportunity for students to fly an experiment on a reduced-gravity flight. Application deadline: April 24
Click here for more information.
Suzanne Foxworth x37185 https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/murep

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12.          Volunteers Needed for Rockets Lake Jackson May 11 and 12
The Systems Go Aeroscience High School Program needs volunteers Saturday and Sunday, May 11 and May 12, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Location: Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge
SystemsGo is an educational nonprofit supporting progressive and innovative STEM programs in high schools throughout Texas. Volunteers are need to help 16 Gulf Coast-area high schools test the project vehicles that they have designed and fabricated to either loft a one-pound payload to one mile or attempt transonic velocity. Volunteers will assist with Stage 2/Range Safety Review, Stage 3/Recovery Deployment Installation, launch pad prep/test, fill/fire control, GPS tracking and more. All volunteers will be trained prior to launch date.
o             GPS tracking - one volunteer needed daily
o             Pad techs - two volunteers needed daily
o             Mission Control - one volunteer needed daily
o             Runner - one volunteer needed daily
To volunteer, please contact Joyce Abbey at 281-335-2041 or via email.
To learn more, click here.
Joyce Abbey 281-335-2041

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13.          National Kindergarten Day
Space Center Houston will be hosting National Kindergarten Day, and we need volunteers! Junie B. Jones would never let us forget the excitement of the first day of school, especially when that first day is Kindergarten. This event will provide an enjoyable array of storytelling, fun, interactive activities and arts and crafts designed specifically for Kindergarteners. We are looking for volunteers to assist with tabletop activities and science demonstrations, and to make this a super fun day for the kids. Really want to help but can't stay all day? We have shifts from 10 a.m. to noon and noon to 3 p.m. Please contact Annie at x27885 if you are interested or for more information. Let your inner 5-year-old out for this fun event!
Event Date: Friday, April 19, 2013   Event Start Time:10:00 AM   Event End Time:3:00 PM
Event Location: Space Center Houston

Add to Calendar

Annie Schanock x27885

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14.          Low-No Impact Day Challenge
Space Center Houston will be hosting a Low-No Impact Day Challenge, an Earth Day event that explores ways to decrease our impact on the environment. This will be a super fun event, and we are looking for volunteers to help us out! Volunteers will lead tabletop demonstrations and work with small groups. We challenge you to join us in this carbon cleanse and explore how low/no-impact living can improve your quality of life. Enjoy activities for all ages on repurposing, recycling and reducing your carbon footprint. You are guaranteed to have fun and might learn some cool stuff as well. Really want to help but can't stay all day? We have shifts from 10 a.m. to noon and noon to 3 p.m.. Please contact Annie at x27885 if you are interested or for more information.
Event Date: Monday, April 22, 2013   Event Start Time:10:00 AM   Event End Time:3:00 PM
Event Location: Space Center Houston

Add to Calendar

Annie Schanock x27885

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15.          Volunteers Needed for Special Olympics Spring Games
Calling all Space Center Volunteers! Your assistance is needed at the annual Special Olympics Spring Games on Saturday, May 4. With more than 400 athletes, the Spring Games is this area's largest track-and-field event that Special Olympics hosts. Volunteers are needed out at Clear Creek High School to help organize and run track-and-field events, time the athletes, had out medals and cheer on these fantastic athletes as they compete throughout the day. To sign up to volunteer, click here.
Angela Cason x40903 http://spacecentervolunteers.weebly.com/special-olympics-area-22-spring-...

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16.          Cub Scouts: Earn Astronomy Belt Loop
Calling all Cub Scouts! Join us for a Cub Scout Astronomy Belt Loop class from 1 to 3 p.m. on April 20. The cost is $15 per scout. There will be hands-on activities to help Cub Scouts complete all of their requirements for the Astronomy Belt Loop. To get tickets, click here.
Note: Park entrance fees apply at $7 per person for everyone over 12 years old.
Megan Hashier 281-226-4179 http://www.hmns.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=560&Ite...

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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. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.

NASA TV:
·         9:25 am Central (10:25 EDT) – Expedition 35's Hadfield, Marshburn & Cassidy talk with students at Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta as part of NASA's "Destination Station"
·         3 pm Central (4 EDT) –Orbital Sciences' Antares-ONE test flight launch coverage
·         4 pm Central (5 EDT) – LAUNCH (18-min mission)
·         ~5:30 pm Central (6:30 EDT) – Orbital Sciences' Antares Post Test Flight News Conference

Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Boston Monday night from ISS (E35 Commander Chris Hadfield)

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Orbital Sciences preps Antares rocket for maiden flight

William Harwood - CBS News

Orbital Sciences Corp. made final preparations Tuesday for the first test flight of its Antares rocket, a new commercially-built two-stage booster designed to launch unmanned cargo ships to the International Space Station starting later this year. In another first, the rocket will be launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport -- MARS -- at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility on the Virginia coast southeast of Washington, DC, a rural site leased from the space agency by the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority. After a fueling test over the weekend, engineers decided to replace a first stage engine coolant system valve and mission managers cleared the rocket for a launch attempt at 5 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

NASA OKs East Coast rocket test launch

Brock Vergakis - Associated Press

NASA gave the green light on Tuesday for a private company to proceed with a test launch of an unmanned rocket that would eventually help carry supplies to the International Space Station, but the weather forecast could cause delays. NASA said there's only a 45 percent chance weather conditions will allow Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles to launch its Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Va. as planned Wednesday. The potential obstacles are low-cloud cover and a slight chance of thunderstorms, said John Dickerson, NASA's Wallops Flight Facility test director.

New U.S. rocket cleared for test flight from Virginia spaceport

Irene Klotz - Reuters

A second U.S. company hired by NASA to fly cargo to the International Space Station was cleared to test-fly its Antares rocket from a newly developed commercial spaceport in Virginia, officials said on Tuesday. Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to launch its 130-foot (40-meter) -tall Antares rocket late Wednesday afternoon from the newly built Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility south of Chincoteague, Virginia. The rocket will carry an 8,378-pound (3,800-kg) dummy capsule designed to mimic the company's Cygnus spacecraft, which is slated to debut on Antares' second flight this summer.

Orbital Sciences prepares rocket for closely watched NASA mission

W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times

On a little-known launch pad off the coast of Virginia, a team of about 200 engineers and technicians is readying a 13-story rocket for its maiden flight to space in a test mission for NASA. The Antares rocket, developed by Orbital Sciences Corp., is going through final preparations for a 2 p.m. Pacific time blastoff planned for Wednesday. The eyes of the U.S. government will be on the launch to see whether the two-engine booster has the right stuff. NASA has invested about $288 million in seed money to help the Dulles, Va., company develop its technology, and has an additional $1.9 billion on the table with a contract for eight flights to transport cargo to the International Space Station in the coming years.

Orbital Sciences on the launch pad, in the spotlight
Antares rocket flight set for Virginia launch

James Dean - Florida Today

A new rocket is set to blast off today on a test flight from a new launch pad in Virginia. It's an important event in the space industry but won't inspire talk about revolutionizing human spaceflight or colonizing Mars, nor generate tweets from the company's top executive. The launch belongs to Orbital Sciences Corp, not SpaceX, and although the two companies share a common mission to resupply the International Space Station, they bring vastly different personalities and approaches to the task. "We have been in this business a while, but we do take a little bit different approach," said Frank Culbertson, a former astronaut who leads Orbital's Advanced Programs Group.

Wednesday launch will be seen from around the region
Will be largest ever from Wallops; More than 100 journalists will attend

Carol Vaughn - Salisbury Daily Times

The largest rocket ever launched from Wallops Island is scheduled to lift off Wednesday on its maiden flight. The rocket's flight should be visible from a large portion of the East Coast. The rocket stands 130 feet tall and 13 feet wide — almost twice the size of the Minotaur, the largest rocket previously launched from Wallops. Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket was developed and is being tested under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program to carry supplies to the International Space Station.

Weather Threatens Antares Maiden Launch

Dan Leone – Space News

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — Orbital Sciences Corp. has been cleared to launch the Antares rocket April 17 on its inaugural flight, but bad weather headed for the Virginia coast could delay the mission, a NASA official said here. "It looks like we have about a 45-percent chance for favorable weather for launch because of the low cloud ceiling, and the possibility for precipitation and thunderstorms," John Dickerson, test director for the Wallops Flight Facility Research Range said here during a media briefing. If the April 17 launch is scrubbed, Orbital would try again the next day. After that, the outlook gets murkier.

Test flight of Antares rocket set for Wednesday evening

Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com

Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to launch its first Antares rocket Wednesday, moving the company a step closer to supplying the International Space Station with cargo and making history at an enduring launch base on Virginia's coast. The 13-story rocket will take off in a three-hour window opening at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), rising from a new seaside launch pad on a 10-minute flight into Earth orbit. It will be the first launch in a public-private partnership between NASA and Orbital Sciences, in which NASA is investing $288 million to help the Virginia-based company develop the Antares launcher and a resupply craft named Cygnus to service the space station.

New Private Rocket Cleared for Critical Launch Test Wednesday

Tariq Malik - Space.com

The biggest private rocket ever to launch from Virginia's Eastern Shore is ready to take its maiden voyage on Wednesday, the rocket's builders say. NASA and the commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences Corp. have officially cleared the company's new Antares rocket for launch, setting the stage for what will be a critical test flight from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility here. Liftoff is set for Wednesday at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT). "It's going to be the biggest, brightest and loudest thing ever launched from Wallops," Orbital CEO Frank Culbertson, a former NASA astronaut, told reporters Tuesday. "It's going to be visible up and down the East Coast."

Orbital's Antares Primed for A-ONE Maiden Launch

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

In the early days of space exploration, the frequent term of the week was "A-OK," but for Orbital Sciences Corp. this week everything will center on "A-ONE," the maiden voyage of the company's long-awaited Antares launch vehicle. Liftoff of the 133-foot-tall rocket is scheduled to occur from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va., at 5 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, 17 April. Final preparations are ongoing and have been highlighted by a 29-second hot-fire test of Antares' twin AJ-26 engines on 22 February and, most recently, the one-mile rollout of the vehicle from its assembly building to the pad on 6 April.

Astronaut Sends Photo of Boston from International Space Station

Claire Lawton - Phoenix New Times

From 230 miles away in space, Chris Hadfield couldn't hear the chaos in Boston Monday, but after he heard about the explosions at the Boston Marathon that killed three and injured more than 140 spectators, he shared his very unique view of the East Coast city. Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut and commander of the International Space Station who uses Twitter to communicate with his audience on Earth. "Our crew just heard about the horrible events at the Boston Marathon," he wrote in an update Monday afternoon. "We all pass along our condolences and thoughts to everyone affected." He followed the update with a photograph of Boston (pictured above), captioned "a somber spring night in Boston." (NO FURTHER TEXT)

Sarah Brightman looks forward to singing in space
British singer will travel to the International Space Station

Canadian Broadcasting (CBC) News

British singer Sarah Brightman has long been fascinated with space and the news that she will travel to the International Space Station fulfills a lifelong dream. The soprano who sang I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978 and is known for performing as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera announced last year she would travel to the International Space Station. She could be the first civilian in space since Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté. Russia has limited space available for space tourism and slowed its civilian space program in 2010.

New F-1B rocket engine upgrades Apollo-era design with 1.8M lbs of thrust
Dynetics and Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne rebuild the F-1 for the "Pyrios" booster

Lee Hutchinson - arstechnica.com

NASA has spent a lot of time and money resurrecting the F-1 rocket engine that powered the Saturn V back in the 1960s and 1970s, and Ars recently spent a week at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to get the inside scoop on how the effort came to be. But there's a very practical reason why NASA is putting old rocket parts up on a test stand and firing them off: its latest launch vehicle might be powered by engines that look, sound, and work a whole lot like the legendary F-1. This new launch vehicle, known as the Space Launch System, or SLS, is currently taking shape on NASA drawing boards. However, as is its mandate, NASA won't be building the rocket itself—it will allow private industry to bid for the rights to build various components. One potential design wrinkle in SLS is that instead of using Space Shuttle-style solid rocket boosters, SLS could instead use liquid-fueled rocket motors, which would make it the United States' first human-rated rocket in more than 30 years not to use solid-fuel boosters. The contest to suss this out is the Advanced Booster Competition, and one of the companies that has been down-selected as a final competitor is Huntsville-based Dynetics. Dynetics has partnered with Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne (designers of the Saturn V F-1 engine, among others) to propose a liquid-fueled booster featuring an engine based heavily on the design of the famous F-1.

How Nasa brought the monstrous F-1 'moon rocket' engine back to life

Lee Hutchinson - Wired Magazine

There has never been anything like the Saturn V, the launch vehicle that powered the United States past the Soviet Union to a series of manned lunar landings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The rocket redefined "massive," standing 110 metres in height and producing a ludicrous 34 meganewtons of thrust from the five monstrous, kerosene-gulping Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engines that made up its first stage. At the time, the F-1 was the largest and most powerful liquid-fuelled engine ever constructed; even today, its design remains unmatched. Despite the stunning success of the Saturn V, Nasa's direction shifted after Project Apollo's conclusion; the Space Transport System -- the Space Shuttle and its associated hardware -- was instead designed with wildly different engines. But there's a chance that in the near future, a giant rocket powered by updated F-1 engines might once again thunder into the sky. And it's due in no small part to a group of young and talented Nasa engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, who wanted to learn from the past by taking priceless museum relics apart... and setting them on fire.

Mikulski will support asteroid initiative, not sure about Orion, planetary requests

SpacePolicyOnline.com

Speaking to the Maryland Space Business Roundtable Tuesday, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that she will support President Obama's new asteroid retrieval initiative, but expressed concern about the request for the Orion spacecraft and planetary exploration. Applauding the FY2014 request of $17.7 billion for NASA overall, which she said was a "$200 million increase over last year ...we're going to keep that," she went on to note the President's proposal to capture an asteroid and said "we support him on that." She quickly added, however, that she is concerned about the proposed cut to Orion and stressed the reality that, with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) as vice chairman of the full committee, it was not politically possible to cut that program.

Garver: role for private sector in NASA's asteroid mission plans

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver made a surprise appearance Monday morning at the opening session of the Planetary Defense Conference 2013 in Flagstaff, Arizona (she said she had planned to attend months ago, but her appearance was only formalized relatively late and not included in the agenda for the session.) She provided an overview of NASA's FY14 budget proposal in general, with a particular focus on the agency's new asteroid initiative, something of particular interest to attendees. Afterwards, Garver was asked what role new private ventures with an interest in asteroids, like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, would have with the initiative. "That's a really important aspect of this," she said. "When Planetary Resources was founded a few months ago, and following on that Deep Space Industries, I could not have been happier" because it demonstrated there was interest in asteroids beyond NASA.

Big-time players are getting serious about asteroid perils and profits

Alan Boyle – NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

Experts on near-Earth objects wondered whether February's meteor blast over Russia would serve as a wakeup call about asteroids — and two months later, there's ample evidence that it has. But there are two sides to that wakeup call, having to do with potential opportunities as well as potential threats. Nothing illustrates that better than this week's developments: In Flagstaff, Ariz., researchers are discussing ways to detect, track and head off space rocks that could wreak destruction on Earth. In Pasadena, Calif., NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that an infrared sensor for tracking asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test. And in Bellevue, Wash., the Planetary Resources space mining venture says it's partnering with the Bechtel construction company on future efforts to mine asteroids for raw materials.

Rocketing to Mars in 30 days -- rather than 4 years?
Researchers say their fusion-powered engine that could safely speed a human expedition to the Red Planet. Skeptics say no way.

Bruce Kennedy - MSN.com's What's Trending in Money

Can space travel ever become cost-efficient? It certainly has never been cheap. The recently ended U.S. space shuttle program, even with its reusable spacecraft, still cost about $1.5 billion per flight, according to an analysis quoted by Space.com. And NASA estimates that the cost of just launching a spacecraft to Mars, using currently available chemical rocket fuel, would run more than $12 billion. But University of Washington researchers, along with scientists at a private Washington state company, say they've come up with a fusion-powered rocket that, according to a press release, would "clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks."

Astronaut Hall of Fame induction on April 20 to feature rare meet-and-greet opportunity

Anthony Armenia - Orlando Attractions Magazine

Witness the newest astronauts get inducted to the U.S Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Astronauts Curt Brown, Eileen Collins and Bonnie Dunbar, Ph.D will be joined by more than 30 legendary astronauts and space icons welcoming them to the Hall of Fame. This year's Astronaut Hall of Fame inductees are being welcomed to the ranks of legends like Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Jim Lovell, Sally Ride and John Young. The addition of Brown, a veteran of six space shuttle flights; Collins, the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle; and Dunbar, who served as a shuttle mission specialist and payload commander, brings the number of space explorers enshrined in the Hall of Fame to 85.

Space Station Lands in Houston in State-of-the-Art NASA Exhibit

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

NASA has a new "stage" to expose and educate the public about the work behind — and on board — the International Space Station. More than a year in the making, NASA and Space Center Houston, the visitor center for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Texas, put the final touches on a new interactive exhibit and special effects live stage show that highlights how the orbiting outpost came to be, what life is like on board and how it is being used to conduct science. The 3000-square-foot (280 square meters) display was inspired by NASA's traveling exhibit "Destination Station" (hosted currently at Atlanta's Fernbank Science Center until May 18).
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COMPLETE STORIES

Orbital Sciences preps Antares rocket for maiden flight

William Harwood - CBS News

Orbital Sciences Corp. made final preparations Tuesday for the first test flight of its Antares rocket, a new commercially-built two-stage booster designed to launch unmanned cargo ships to the International Space Station starting later this year.

In another first, the rocket will be launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport -- MARS -- at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility on the Virginia coast southeast of Washington, DC, a rural site leased from the space agency by the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority.

After a fueling test over the weekend, engineers decided to replace a first stage engine coolant system valve and mission managers cleared the rocket for a launch attempt at 5 p.m. EDT Wednesday.

Forecasters are predicting just a 40 percent chance of acceptable weather due to low clouds along the Virginia coast. Backup launch opportunities are available through April 21.

Whenever it goes, the 133-foot-tall Antares, the largest rocket ever launched from the Wallops/MARS complex, is expected to put on quite a show.

"We'll lift off with approximately 750,000 pounds of thrust, weighing about 600,000 pounds," said Frank Culbertson, a former shuttle commander who oversees Orbital's advanced programs group. "So it'll not race off the pad, but it will accelerate very quickly once it gets going.

"And it's going to be the biggest and loudes and brightest thing that's ever launched from Wallops! So it'll be visible up and down the coast."

The Antares test launch is a critical milestone in NASA's long-range plan to ensure a steady flow of supplies and equipment to the space station in the wake of the space shuttle's retirement.

If the test flight goes well, Orbital hopes to launch a second test flight as early as mid June, sending an unmanned Cygnus cargo ship all the way to the space station. The first operational resupply flight is tentatively targeted for mid September.

"I'm very, very gratified to be here today," said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development for NASA. "I remember when we first started this program over six years ago there was no launch pad, no rocket. And then to see the launch pad and rocket today, in the sunshine, getting ready for its debut, was very, very gratifying."

Anticipating the space shuttle's retirement, NASA announced a new program in 2006, known as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, that called for development of unmanned cargo craft that would be procured by the government on a commercial basis. The space agency eventually awarded two major contracts.

Orbital Sciences of Dulles, VA, holds a contract valued at $1.9 billion for eight resupply flights to the station to deliver 20 tons of cargo using the Antares rocket and the company-developed Cygnus supply ship. Another $288 million ultimately was budgeted for development, the Antares test flight and the demonstration mission planned for this summer.

"This is a big event for the eastern shore, for Wallops and for everybody in the surrounding area," Culbertson said of the Antares test flight. "But I think also for the country. We've been working on this rocket for over six years. ... (It's) a real honor for us as a company and we understand how important it is for the country."

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, holds a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to provide 12 cargo flights to the station for delivery of more than 44,000 pounds of equipment and supplies. A separate $396 million contract covered initial test flights.

SpaceX was first out of the gate, successfully launching its Falcon 9 rocket with a dummy payload in 2010. SpaceX then launched two test flights, sending company-built Dragon cargo ships to the station, and two operational resupply missions, the most recent flight in March.

Privately controlled, SpaceX has captured widespread media attention, in large part due to company founder Elon Musk, the colorful entrepreneur and "chief designer" known for his personal involvement in all phases of company activity, including tweets from his launch control center during ascent.

Orbital managers take a more conservative approach to social and traditional media, one more in line with the policies of other large aerospace companies.

"We have been in this business a while, but we do take a little bit different approach," Culbertson said. "We are publicly traded and we have to pay attention to our shareholders and their investments."

Also unlike SpaceX, which builds the Falcon 9 rocket in house with company-designed engines, tanks and other hardware, Orbital opted to build the Antares rocket using components supplied by a variety of subcontractors.

The first stage core vehicle was designed and produced for Orbital by two Russian companies and its two main engines, provided by Aerojet Corp., originally were built to power the Soviet Union's ill-fated N-1 moon rocket. Aerojet bought about 40 of the engines in the mid 1990s, modifying the powerplants as required for use aboard Orbital's Antares rockets.

The Antares second stage uses a solid-fuel motor provided by Alliant Techsystems, or ATK. The rocket also can be launched with a third stage motor, depending on the requirements of the payload.

In its two-stage space station resupply configuration, the Antares and Cygnus supply ship will boost about two tons of supplies to the space station per flight.

For the initial Antares test flight, a dummy payload was mounted inside a protective nose cone fairing that mimics the weight and general shape of a Cygnus cargo ship.

The 8,300-pound "mass simulator," which measures 16.6 feet tall and 9.5 feet wide, is loaded with instrumentation to collect engineering data, including 22 accelerometers, two microphones, 12 strain gauges, 24 thermocouples and 14 digital thermometers.

Unlike SpaceX Falcon 9 missions, which launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and follow northeasterly trajectories, the Orbital Antares rocket will be launched to the southeast to avoid flying over populated areas.

The flight plan calls for the rocket to climb straight up for 30 seconds before arcing over toward the southeast. The two Aerojet AJ26-62 first-stage engines are expected to burn for three minutes and 50 seconds, boosting the rocket to an altitude of about 67 miles and a velocity of 9,850 mph.

The ATK solid-fuel second stage motor is expected to burn about two minutes and 35 seconds, pushing the rocket to an altitude of about 160 miles and a velocity of nearly 17,000 mph. Payload separation is scheduled for 10 minutes and three seconds after launch. The Cygnus simulator is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up about two weeks after launch.

"This test flight, of course, is a test flight," Culbertson said. "I want to remind everybody that that first word is 'test.' If things don't go exactly as planned, we will learn what we need to learn and we will press on and continue to improve as we go forward."

NASA OKs East Coast rocket test launch

Brock Vergakis - Associated Press

NASA gave the green light on Tuesday for a private company to proceed with a test launch of an unmanned rocket that would eventually help carry supplies to the International Space Station, but the weather forecast could cause delays.

NASA said there's only a 45 percent chance weather conditions will allow Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles to launch its Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Va. as planned Wednesday.

The potential obstacles are low-cloud cover and a slight chance of thunderstorms, said John Dickerson, NASA's Wallops Flight Facility test director.

Antares would be the largest rocket to ever lift off from Wallops Island and could be visible in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York during the evening commute. The company plans to launch the 131-foot-tall rocket with a gross weight of more than 617,000 pounds sometime between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Orbital will try again Thursday if the weather doesn't cooperate. NASA is also prepared to extend the launch window for several more days if necessary.

The ability to have a large launch window is one of the reasons the Dulles-based company chose to launch its rocket from Virginia instead of Florida, which has a busier rocket-launch schedule. The goal of the test launch is to send a practice payload into orbit and see if can safely separate from the rocket. That payload won't dock with the International Space Station, but it will go into orbit and then burn up upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere in about two weeks, according to Orbital officials.

The test launch is considered a watershed event for Orbital, the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. More than 16,000 rockets have been launched from Wallops Island since 1945, but most of them have been small suborbital research rockets.

The Virginia Commercial Space Flight authority built a launch pad at the NASA facility specifically for Orbital in hopes of cashing in on growth in the commercial space industry. In addition to ferrying supplies to the International Space Station, Orbital plans to use its Antares rocket to send commercial and government satellites into orbit.

Orbital is one of two companies NASA has contracted with to deliver supplies to the International Space Station following the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

California-based SpaceX has already docked with the International Space Station three times and Orbital officials said Tuesday they are almost caught up and ready to start delivering supplies as well, despite getting its contract two years after SpaceX in 2008. Orbital is under contract to make eight deliveries to the space station over five years.

If the Antares test launch goes as planned, Orbital plans to send its unmanned Cygnus cargo ship on a test run to the International Space Station this summer. The test launch scheduled for Wednesday will carry a practice payload that matches the weight and dimensions of Cygnus, but it will only carry instruments that will keep tabs on the flight. After about two weeks, company officials expect that unit to burn up in the atmosphere as it returns to earth. The real cargo ship will also burn up in the atmosphere after it drops off its supplies to the International Space Station and is loaded up with trash.

SpaceX, which also hopes to ferry astronauts to the space station, fills up its cargo unit with supplies and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean.

If Orbital's summer demonstration flight goes well, the company would make its first cargo delivery under the $1.9 billion contract in the fall.

Frank Culbertson, general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group, said if something goes wrong the company is prepared to learn and make adjustments, but he doesn't anticipate that happening. He said he's confident everything will go as planned on Wednesday.

"I think we're going to see a nice show tomorrow," he said.

New U.S. rocket cleared for test flight from Virginia spaceport

Irene Klotz - Reuters

A second U.S. company hired by NASA to fly cargo to the International Space Station was cleared to test-fly its Antares rocket from a newly developed commercial spaceport in Virginia, officials said on Tuesday.

Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to launch its 130-foot (40-meter) -tall Antares rocket late Wednesday afternoon from the newly built Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility south of Chincoteague, Virginia.

The rocket will carry an 8,378-pound (3,800-kg) dummy capsule designed to mimic the company's Cygnus spacecraft, which is slated to debut on Antares' second flight this summer.

Like startup Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, a privately-owned firm based in Hawthorne, California, Orbital Sciences built its cargo ship in partnership with NASA. SpaceX followed up a May 2012 test flight with two cargo runs to the space station under a $1.6 billion contract.

In addition to winning $288 million from NASA for Antares and Cygnus development, Orbital holds a $1.9 billion contract to fly cargo to the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

SpaceX also is working to upgrade its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule to fly astronauts to the station. Orbital lost out on its bid to develop a space taxi service, but hopes to parlay its cargo-hauling business into additional government and commercial contracts.

"We feel pretty strongly that a successful test flight, and also a successful demo (run to the space station) later, will help us in our marketing a great deal," said Frank Culbertson, executive vice president with Orbital Sciences and a former astronaut and NASA manager.

The company had hoped to debut its new rocket and capsule more than a year ago, but the program was delayed due to construction and certification issues with the Wallops Island launch pad.

NASA regularly flies small suborbital rockets, high-altitude balloons and scientific airplanes from Wallops. The Antares booster will be the biggest rocket to be launched from the island.

Breaking new ground

The goal of Wednesday's mission is to place the simulated Cygnus cargo ship into an orbit about 160 miles above the planet, demonstrating the rocket's lift capacity and the ability to separate the payload.

The test capsule is expected to remain in orbit for about two weeks before gravitational tugging by Earth will cause it to fall back into the atmosphere and incinerate.

Unlike SpaceX Dragon capsules which return intact to Earth, the Cygnus spacecraft - like the Russian, European and Japanese cargo ships that also service the station - burn up in the atmosphere after they undock.

Orbital Sciences, however, says it could keep a Cygnus spacecraft in orbit for up to about a year, enabling it to serve as a platform for science instruments and experiments after it departs the station.

The company has been a NASA, Department of Defense and commercial supplier of launch vehicles, satellites and other spacecraft since shortly after its founding in 1982. The Dulles, Va.-based firm employs about 3,600 people. Last year, it reported revenues of about $1.5 billion.

Orbital Sciences prepares rocket for closely watched NASA mission
The firm's two-stage Antares rocket is set for blastoff Wednesday into space on a test mission, the first step toward a $1.9-billion contract

W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times

On a little-known launch pad off the coast of Virginia, a team of about 200 engineers and technicians is readying a 13-story rocket for its maiden flight to space in a test mission for NASA.

The Antares rocket, developed by Orbital Sciences Corp., is going through final preparations for a 2 p.m. Pacific time blastoff planned for Wednesday. The eyes of the U.S. government will be on the launch to see whether the two-engine booster has the right stuff.

NASA has invested about $288 million in seed money to help the Dulles, Va., company develop its technology, and has an additional $1.9 billion on the table with a contract for eight flights to transport cargo to the International Space Station in the coming years.

"This test launch is an important milestone to validate the work the team has done over the past 41/2 years," Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said. "From a business perspective, our involvement with NASA's new initiative of engaging the commercial sector to carry out the more routine low-orbit operations is an important part of our growth story and may lead to other market opportunities."

Now that the space shuttle fleet has been retired, NASA is eager to give private industry the job of carrying cargo and crews, in hopes of cutting costs. Meanwhile, the space agency will focus on deep-space missions to land probes on asteroids and Mars.

One commercial company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has successfully resupplied the space station in two missions. The Hawthorne firm, better known as SpaceX, most recently pulled off the feat last month.

The Antares test flight, more than a year late because of design and launchpad delays, is the first of two missions Orbital is scheduled to conduct in 2013 under its contract with NASA.

The two-stage rocket, powered by engines from Aerojet-General Corp. in Sacramento, is set to carry a dummy cargo capsule weighing roughly 8,300 pounds about 160 miles above Earth. NASA Television coverage of the launch will begin at 1 p.m. at www.nasa.gov/ntv.

There is a 45% chance of favorable weather. If needed, backup launch opportunities are available April 18-21.

The capsule will carry instruments to collect data and will remain in orbit for months until natural gravitational forces slowly degrade its orbit and it reenters and burns up in the atmosphere.

If all goes well, Orbital plans to carry out a full flight demonstration midyear of the rocket and the Cygnus capsule that will take cargo to the space station.

But success is far from guaranteed.

The rocket industry is notoriously difficult to enter and littered with failed projects. Even the best rocket systems often require several attempts before they achieve success.

"Getting the engineering right is the next step," said Carissa Bryce Christensen, managing partner of Tauri Group, an analytic and engineering firm in Alexandria, Va. "If it's successful or not, there will be a lot learned. However, they're more likely to get more attention if they fail than if they succeed."

Although Orbital acknowledges the hazards of launching a new rocket, the company remains confident about its rocket. The company has had successful missions with its last four new rockets: Pagasus, Taurus, Minotaur I and Minotaur IV. Each of those rockets performed as expected on their first five missions.

But in 2009 and 2011, Orbital ran into failures with its Taurus XL rocket. On both occasions, the rocket's protective fairing did not separate properly from the rocket and didn't allow the satellites it was carrying to reach orbit.

The failures shook the company and caused it to name its newest rocket "Antares" — rather than its original name, Taurus II, to prevent the public from thinking they were the same.

So when the Antares blasts off, it will be the first new rocket to be launched from a freshly built Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia.

Although the center was established in 1945, the facility hasn't hosted high-profile launches like those at more notable launch pads in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and Vandenberg Air Force Base northwest of Santa Barbara.

At 6 square miles, Wallops' mission is to act as a resource for low-cost aerospace-based science and technology research. It's a site for launching sounding rockets, weather balloons and scientific aircraft, rather than spy satellites and manned missions.

But the state of Virginia poured $80 million — in addition to $40 billion from NASA — into developing Wallops so it could be a hub for commercial companies to routinely launch rockets. Although Orbital is its only current customer, the government is in talks with other companies.

Virginia Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton said the state hopes to eventually see one launch a month from the complex.

The first test is with the Antares rocket that's now upright at Wallops after spending the last several weeks undergoing assembly and fuel testing.

"This is something that we've worked very hard to accomplish, and now we're on the verge of making it happen," Connaughton said.

Orbital employs about 3,600 people — about 200 of whom are in California at Orbital's offices in El Segundo, Huntington Beach and at Vandenberg.

The company was founded in 1982 and manufactures more than a half-dozen small- and medium-class rockets, as well as satellites.

The publicly traded company had about $1.5 billion in revenue last year.

Part of Orbital's selling point — and what has attracted the government's attention — is the company's claims that it can develop and launch rockets at a fraction of the cost of the current generation of spacecraft.

Unlike SpaceX, Orbital does not have a space capsule that can return with cargo. It burns up in the Earth's atmosphere. Nor does it have an astronaut-capable version of the capsule in the works.

For now, company officials said they were content running resupply missions.

Orbital Sciences on the launch pad, in the spotlight
Antares rocket flight set for Virginia launch

James Dean - Florida Today

A new rocket is set to blast off today on a test flight from a new launch pad in Virginia.

It's an important event in the space industry but won't inspire talk about revolutionizing human spaceflight or colonizing Mars, nor generate tweets from the company's top executive.

The launch belongs to Orbital Sciences Corp, not SpaceX, and although the two companies share a common mission to resupply the International Space Station, they bring vastly different personalities and approaches to the task.

"We have been in this business a while, but we do take a little bit different approach," said Frank Culbertson, a former astronaut who leads Orbital's Advanced Programs Group.

Orbital's Antares rocket is targeting a 5 p.m. blastoff from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island. There's a 45 percent chance of favorable weather during the three-hour window.

NASA selected both Orbital and SpaceX to develop new vehicles that could haul cargo to the station after the shuttle retired.

SpaceX was selected earlier and blazed a trail to the outpost last year while also advancing in NASA's competition to fly crews.

In the process, the Hawthorne, Calif.-company, founded in 2002, became the face of an emerging commercial space industry. Led by outspoken CEO Elon Musk, the company commanded media attention and won a following far beyond the usual enthusiasts.

Dulles, Va.-based Orbital started as a commercial space provider 20 years before SpaceX. Its rockets, satellites and instruments have a combined 1,000 years in orbit.

"It's ironic," Culbertson said. "We do this on a commercial basis, and the company was founded on the principles of providing access to space on a commercial basis."

Unlike SpaceX, Orbital maintains a low profile, in part because it is publicly traded.

SpaceX designed and built most of its Falcon 9 rocket, Merlin rocket engines and Dragon spacecraft in-house, saying that was the only way to lower costs dramatically.

Orbital assembled the Antares from components acquired from experienced suppliers, many of them international.

The Antares features a Ukrainian, liquid-fueled core stage powered by upgraded Soviet-era main engines, with a U.S.-made solid upper stage. The Cygnus cargo craft, which won't fly until the next mission, comes from Europe.

"They're very different companies," said Bruce Manners, the NASA program manager partnered with Orbital under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. "Orbital is a relatively young aerospace company, but certainly more experienced and more traditional than SpaceX."
NASA sees the different approaches as a strength of its cargo portfolio, and sought to replicate that in the commercial crew program.

"I think what this shows you is there's no one way to do spaceflight development," said Phil McAlister, NASA director of commercial spaceflight development . "There's no one way to do hardware . . . There's no one business case."

So far, SpaceX has successfully completed two missions to the station under a $1.6 billion NASA resupply contract.

Today's Antares test flight is expected to last just about 10 minutes, as the Antares on its maiden voyage attempts to place a dummy payload in orbit.

Orbital hopes to follow up this summer with a Cygnus demonstration flight to the ISS, after which it could get started on its own $1.9 billion resupply contract.

Orbital joined the cargo development program about 18 months after SpaceX, after NASA dropped another partner that didn't meet performance milestones.

"We're about caught up," said Culbertson. "We'll find that out (Wednesday), I believe."

Wednesday launch will be seen from around the region
Will be largest ever from Wallops; More than 100 journalists will attend

Carol Vaughn - Salisbury Daily Times

The largest rocket ever launched from Wallops Island is scheduled to lift off Wednesday on its maiden flight.

The rocket's flight should be visible from a large portion of the East Coast.

The rocket stands 130 feet tall and 13 feet wide — almost twice the size of the Minotaur, the largest rocket previously launched from Wallops.

Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket was developed and is being tested under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program to carry supplies to the International Space Station.

"The Antares rocket is the largest rocket to ever launch from Wallops in its nearly 70-year history," said NASA Wallops Flight Facility spokesman Keith Kohler, adding, "This project is bringing enormous interest in the capabilities at Wallops and also the surrounding area."

Wallops has conducted more than 16,000 launches since 1945.

The launch — which as of press time was scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday, with a launch window from 5-8 p.m. — is a test flight of the rocket.

It will carry a simulated payload, which will separate from the rocket about 158 miles above Earth a little less than 10 minutes after liftoff. The rocket stages will fall into the ocean and the simulated payload will go into orbit.

Wednesday's weather forecast is for partly cloudy skies and a 20 percent chance of rain, with SSE winds at 10 mph.

Orbital estimates the Antares program could produce $4.25 billion in economic activity over 15 years and forecasts the launch vehicle class could add over $200 million in new capital investment, about 1,300 jobs and $64 million in tax revenue to Virginia in that time, according to a strategic plan the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority delivered to Gov. Bob McDonnell in December.

The authority oversees the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, where the rocket will be launched.

Among its goals for 2014 is further developing infrastructure at the spaceport with a view to making it a multi-user facility. The plan notes the Federal Aviation Administration forecasts an average demand of nearly 30 commercial launches a year over the next decade.

Accomack County Administrator Steve Miner said a series of successful launches will "help prove MARS and Wallops Flight Facility as a place to come get vehicles in the air at a reasonable cost and with less red tape than alternatives."

Many states have talked about doing private launches, but MARS is one of only four currently licensed spaceports in the United States, he said, crediting Gov. Bob McDonnell, "who had the courage to step up during a tough economic time to raise state commitment to MARS' operations."

Despite the recession and the drying up of the home market during the last few years, Accomack County's unemployment rate has remained among the lowest in the region — which Miner attributed to construction and other work related to Orbital's decision to base the Antares program at Wallops.

"Without the inflow of money that came with the decision, I suspect the recession would have hit us a lot harder than it did," Miner said, noting construction of the Horizontal Integration Facility alone brought $9 million in federal stimulus money into the county.

Tourism officials and businesses hope the launch and future ones draw a new type of visitor to the region.

"There's been a lot of hoping that there are space fans here in the mid-Atlantic region that will be very interested in observing these launches — this first launch is going to be a test of that," said Eastern Shore of Virginia Tourism Commission Executive Director Dave Schulte.

Schulte predicted the launch "is going to put NASA Wallops on the map among space fans."

Donna Mason, who operates Waterside Motor Inn on the Wallops side of nearby Chincoteague Island, said business has been brisk leading up to the launch.

Viewing the launch

The NASA-recommended viewing site is at the NASA Visitor Center on Route 175, six miles east of Route 13. It has a clear view of Wallops Island. Televisions inside also will give visitors a view of activities on the launch pad.

Additionally, Assateague Island National Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge will be open for the launch. Refuge gates close at 8 p.m., but visitors already on the island will be able to stay until the launch is completed or scrubbed, officials said.

Refuge manager Lou Hinds said there is parking for about 200 vehicles at two lots at the beach. Drivers of 4x4 vehicles will be directed to additional parking in storm-damaged portions of other lots.

Vehicles also will be permitted to park along Beach Road and in a few other areas from which they can walk to the beach.

About 200 invited guests, 100 journalists and 25 social media representatives are registered to attend the launch, Kohler said.

"We are expecting thousands of people to come to the area to see the launch," he said, adding, "These people will be eating in area restaurants and staying in lodging facilities. Also, many of these people may not have been to the Shore, so this provides an opportunity for local businesses and organizations to showcase the area and possibly bring the visitors back for extended stays."

The mission

The goal of the mission, dubbed A-ONE, is to demonstrate the entire launch system—from the rocket's roll-out from the integration facility one mile north of the launch pad, through placement on the launch pad and fueling, to launch and delivery of a payload into orbit.

A successful test flight is the final step before Orbital conducts a demonstration mission to the International Space Station.

The rocket for the demonstration mission will carry the Cygnus cargo delivery spacecraft, with its pressurized cargo module loaded with cargo.

The company will be the second in the United States to send a rocket to the space station. Space Exploration Technologies last month completed its second mission to the space station under its CRS contract with NASA.

PhoneSats on board

Antares will carry into orbit three coffee cup-sized satellites that use smartphones as their on-board computer.

The aim is to demonstrate the ability to use commercially available technology to construct low-cost, easy-to-build satellites.

Once launched, the tiny satellites will be put into low-Earth orbit and begin sending out beacons with information, including temperature and voltage data, to amateur radio operators. Scientists are asking amateur radio operators to submit information they receive from the satellites via the mission website, http://www.phonesat.org

The project also posts updates on Twitter under the user name, @NASA_Phonesat. The satellites will transmit packets on 437.425 MHz with AX.25 protocol. The call sign of the satellites is KJ6KRW.

Weather Threatens Antares Maiden Launch

Dan Leone – Space News

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. — Orbital Sciences Corp. has been cleared to launch the Antares rocket April 17 on its inaugural flight, but bad weather headed for the Virginia coast could delay the mission, a NASA official said here.

"It looks like we have about a 45-percent chance for favorable weather for launch because of the low cloud ceiling, and the possibility for precipitation and thunderstorms," John Dickerson, test director for the Wallops Flight Facility Research Range said here during a media briefing.

If the April 17 launch is scrubbed, Orbital would try again the next day. After that, the outlook gets murkier.

"We will almost definitely take a shot at the first few days," said Michael Pinkston, Antares program manager for Orbital. However, "the weather on Friday (April 19) looks really, really, really unbearable."

Aborting a launch once the rocket has been fueled at the pad "makes for a very long day for our team," Pinkston said. "If we do that two days in a row, we'll be looking at trying to get a day of rest in there, somewhere."

Backup launch opportunities identified so far range from April 18 to April 21, Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said.

For now, Orbital is aiming to launch Antares April 17 between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. EDT, per the official go-ahead issued April 16 by NASA Wallops Flight Facility Site Director Bill Wrobel. The so-called Authority to Proceed followed a launch readiness review "at which Orbital managers gave a 'go' to proceed to toward launch," NASA said in a statement.

Bad weather would be the second hiccup Orbital has dealt with since April 6, when it installed Antares at Pad 0-A — a liquid-fueled launch pad on the Wallops range that is owned and operated by the state of Virginia.

On April 13, the company aborted a countdown rehearsal because of a faulty valve in one of the two Aerojet-supplied AJ-26 liquid kerosene engines that power the Antares' first stage. The valve was replaced April 14.

Antares is a big part of Orbital's plan to win new business from NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and the National Reconnaissance Office.

In its maiden flight, Antares will attempt to park a dummy payload in the same orbit where it would drop off its companion Cygnus cargo capsule during resupply flights to the international space station.

If the inaugural Antares flight is a success, a demonstration cargo delivery to the space station would follow in June or July, said Frank Culbertson, a former astronaut who is now executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group. When both of these flights are completed, Orbital can begin paid cargo runs to the station.

If all goes according to plan, the company will make at least one contracted run this year.

"After the demo, we're in a position where we can deliver two full-up missions to the space station before the end of this year," said Mark Pieczynski, Orbital's vice president for space launch strategic development

But there are other factors that affect the pace at which Orbital can launch. The biggest of these is the availability of docking space at the international space station, which is set to be visited this year by spacecraft from Europe, Japan and Russia.

Orbital is the second of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contractors to attempt a flight to the space station. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Hawthorne, Calif., completed its own demonstration cargo run to the space station last May and has flown two contracted cargo runs since. The second wrapped up March 25.

Test flight of Antares rocket set for Wednesday evening

Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com

Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to launch its first Antares rocket Wednesday, moving the company a step closer to supplying the International Space Station with cargo and making history at an enduring launch base on Virginia's coast.

The 13-story rocket will take off in a three-hour window opening at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), rising from a new seaside launch pad on a 10-minute flight into Earth orbit.

It will be the first launch in a public-private partnership between NASA and Orbital Sciences, in which NASA is investing $288 million to help the Virginia-based company develop the Antares launcher and a resupply craft named Cygnus to service the space station.

Powered by two Russian-built, U.S.-owned engines manufactured more than 40 years ago, the Antares first stage will propel the rocket to more than 9,800 mph in less than four minutes. A solid-fueled second stage will fire a few minutes later to accelerate the launcher into orbit more than 150 miles above Earth.

"We will lift off with approximately 750,000 pounds of thrust and weighing about 600,000 pounds," said Frank Culbertson, executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group. "It will not race off the pad, but it will accelerate very quickly once it gets going."

The test launch is supposed to wring out any design problems with the Antares rocket, collecting extensive data with a suite of 72 accelerometers, microphones, thermometers, thermocouples and strain gauges mounted on a block of aluminum designed to mimic the mass of a Cygnus payload.

The sensors will measure data as the Antares booster rockets through the speed of sound and arcs southeast from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. The data recorders will monitor the conditions encountered as the rocket jettisons its liquid-fueled first stage and ignites an upper stage motor several minutes after liftoff.

The 8,377-pound mass simulator, which contains no propulsion or power systems, will be released from the Antares rocket's solid-fueled second stage about 10 minutes after liftoff, verifying the launcher's payload separation system functions as envisioned.

Officials view the test flight as a learning exercise.

"That first word is test, so if things don't go exactly as planned, we will learn what we need to learn," Culbertson said. "And we will press on and continue to improve as we go forward."

Since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, NASA relies on two commercial partners - Orbital Sciences and SpaceX - to loft experiments, food, spare parts and other gear to the international space lab.

The space agency selected two companies for cargo services to have a backup in case one system runs into trouble. NASA's space station partners, including Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency, each operate their own cargo vehicles.

"We don't have the shuttle anymore," said Culbertson, a former astronaut who commanded space shuttle and space station missions. "The shuttle, with all its cargo capability and lift capability, was able to keep the space station very well-supplied with things of any size, from the largest battery requirement to the smallest instrument. But without the shuttle, we need other means of doing that, and it's going to be a multi-faceted solution."

Financing the development with internal funds, Orbital Sciences started working on the Antares rocket in April 2007, according to Kurt Eberly, deputy Antares project director.

"It's very gratifying to me to see this capability. When we started this program six years ago, none of this existed. There was no building, there was no pad, and there was certainly no rocket," said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA, in remarks at the Antares launch pad.

The Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, an economic development agency run by the government of Virginia, paid for construction of the launch pad, which is run by Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a partnership between Virginia and Maryland.

NASA joined the project in February 2008, pledging $170 million to Orbital Sciences if the firm completed development milestones leading to a successful demonstration of the Antares and Cygnus vehicles on a flight to the space station. Orbital's own private investment in the program totaled "a couple of hundred million dollars," according to Culbertson, who declined to disclose the exact value.

Using additional money appropriated by Congress, NASA later expanded its Space Act Agreement with Orbital, promising another $118 million if the Dulles, Va.-based company added a test launch of the Antares rocket before the flight to the space station.

Under the agreement, NASA pays Orbital upon completion of milestones. A successful Antares test launch will trigger a $4 million payment from NASA to Orbital.

But Orbital Sciences has an eye on the long-term prize, a $1.9 billion contract the company secured in late 2008 for eight operational resupply missions to the space station.

"It's not a few million [dollars] we have riding on this," Culbertson said. "It's $1.9 billion and the company's reputation."

If successful, the test flight Wednesday will give Orbital Sciences the confidence to proceed into the next phase of its cargo resupply program - a demonstration mission to the space station this summer.

Equipped with a voluminous cargo container, the Cygnus spacecraft due to launch on the summer mission is already assembled at Wallops, and engineers are fueling the vehicle with propellant this week, Culbertson said.

Orbital's first operational launch of Antares and Cygnus could come before the end of 2013, assuming the test missions go well without significant delays.

"I am very much looking forward to the day when the Antares/Cygnus system is making regular cargo resupply runs to the International Space Station, so that we can make sure that international lab is well-supplied," McAlister said.

Each flight will deliver more than two tons of supplies. At the end of the mission, the Cygnus spacecraft will burn up in Earth's atmosphere, disposing of the space station's garbage in a method similar to the one employed by Russian, Japanese and European spaceships.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which has accomplished two of its 12 contracted resupply flights, is the only vehicle capable of returning experiment samples and other gear to Earth.

NASA's contracts with Orbital and SpaceX cover flights until about 2016, so the space agency must negotiate new deals for resupply services through the rest of the space station's expected lifetime, which extends until at least 2020.

McAlister said NASA has not defined how it will procure cargo services for the second half of the decade - whether the government will extend the existing contracts or go through a complete round of competition open to new entrants.

New Private Rocket Cleared for Critical Launch Test Wednesday

Tariq Malik - Space.com

The biggest private rocket ever to launch from Virginia's Eastern Shore is ready to take its maiden voyage on Wednesday, the rocket's builders say.

NASA and the commercial spaceflight company Orbital Sciences Corp. have officially cleared the company's new Antares rocket for launch, setting the stage for what will be a critical test flight from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility here. Liftoff is set for Wednesday at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).

"It's going to be the biggest, brightest and loudest thing ever launched from Wallops," Orbital CEO Frank Culbertson, a former NASA astronaut, told reporters Tuesday. "It's going to be visible up and down the East Coast."

The Antares rocket is a two-stage booster that stands 131 feet (40 meters) tall and is designed to launch Orbital's robotic Cygnus spacecraft on cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station. The Dulles-based Orbital Sciences has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to provide at least eight cargo missions to the station. NASA picked Orbital Sciences as a commercial cargo provider in 2008.

With NASA's space shuttle fleet retired, the space agency is relying on commercial rockets and spacecraft to serve as the vital supply line for the space station. Another company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., has a $1.6 billion contract for 12 cargo missions under a similar deal.

SpaceX launches its rockets from Florida, which has a long tradition of space launches, and has already flown two delivery flights and one test mission under that program.

"This does represent a new way of doing business for NASA," NASA's commercial crew program manager Alan Lindenmoyer said. "We're sharing the cost."

Orbital officials said the company began developing the Antares rocket on its own, and later received up to $288 million in NASA support to help develop the Cygnus craft. So far, Orbital has completed 24 of the 29 milestones required to receive that $288 million. The company also added in "several hundred million" of its own funds for Cygnus, Culbertson said.

Orbital is hoping that investment pays off not only in NASA contracts for station cargo missions, but also in deals with commercial customers who want to use Antares and Cygnus. But first, the Antares rocket must prove its spaceworthiness, and that's where Wednesday's test flight comes in.

Orbital's Antares rocket uses two Aerojet AJ26 liquid-fueled engines, modernized versions of a design originally developed to launch Russia's N-1 moon rocket in the 1960s, to power its first stage. The second stage is powered by a new solid rocket motor built by veteran solid-fueled motor builder ATK, which also built the boosters for NASA's space shuttles.

The Antares test flight will lift off from a brand-new launch pad, called Pad 0A, at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, a commercial spaceport built at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility and overseen by the Virginia Commercial Spaceflight Authority. It's the first test for the launch pad, too.

According to Orbital officials, the test flight could be visible from as far north as Portland, Maine, and as far south as Charleston, S.C., weather permitting. It should definitely be visible as a bright light soaring southeastward across the sky from Washington, D.C., the home of Congress. Culbertson said he hopes lawmakers in Washington see the rocket launch.

"That's a new experience," Culbertson said. "People think you have to go to Florida to see a space launch."

The test flight will be the highest profile launch yet for the Wallops Flight Facility, which was established in 1945 as a center for aerodynamics research. Today, the facility is NASA's hub for small suborbital rocket launches and balloon science missions. More than 16,000 small rockets have been launched on short science missions since the facility became operational.

But Antares is the biggest rocket yet to reach the launch pad. NASA and Orbital officials made it clear that Wednesday's test flight was just that — a test — and one that could fail. Just making it to the launch pad was a feat in itself, they added.

"Regardless of whether it is a good day or a bad day, or something in between, for tomorrow…whatever happens, it's been a good job to get us where we are today," said Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development.

Orbital's Antares Primed for A-ONE Maiden Launch

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

In the early days of space exploration, the frequent term of the week was "A-OK," but for Orbital Sciences Corp. this week everything will center on "A-ONE," the maiden voyage of the company's long-awaited Antares launch vehicle. Liftoff of the 133-foot-tall rocket is scheduled to occur from Pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Va., at 5 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, 17 April. Final preparations are ongoing and have been highlighted by a 29-second hot-fire test of Antares' twin AJ-26 engines on 22 February and, most recently, the one-mile rollout of the vehicle from its assembly building to the pad on 6 April.

Although A-ONE is a bare-bones test mission for the new rocket, it carries enormous importance for Orbital, which was selected (alongside SpaceX) as one of two partners for NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract in December 2008. Orbital's share of the CRS contract totals $1.9 billion and requires the company to launch eight flights of its Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station by 2016, transporting upwards of 44,000 pounds of equipment, payloads, and supplies to the sprawling outpost. Assuming a successful launch Wednesday, Orbital is quietly optimistic that an inaugural demo mission of Cygnus will be achievable "around mid-year," with current estimates placing it in the June timeframe. However, the company, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, has much to prove, for SpaceX has already tested its own Falcon 9 rocket, has already completed its own demo flight, and has conducted two operational flights of its Dragon cargo craft in October 2012 and, most recently, last month.

Wednesday's liftoff of Antares will enable Orbital to validate its first cryogenically-powered rocket, as well as its largest launch vehicle to date. It is propelled by a pair of Aerojet-built AJ-26 engines, developed from a batch of Soviet-era NK-33 powerplants, whose own heritage extends back to the ill-fated N-1 lunar booster of the 1960s. Fueled by rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen, these old engines have never been used. Aerojet purchased 36 of them from Russia in the mid-1990s, at a cost of $1.1 million per engine, and added modern electronics and made other performance enhancements. Early plans called for a single AJ-26 on Antares' first stage, supplemented by strap-on boosters, but it was eventually decided to add a second engine and eliminate the boosters. Each engine produces a sea-level thrust of about 338,000 pounds, and they have generally performed well in a series of lengthy test-firings, dating back to March 2010. A notable anomaly occurred in June 2011, when an engine caught fire after a kerosene leak, apparently due to stress-corrosion cracks in its 40-year-old metal.

For A-ONE, the twin AJ-26s will be complemented by a second stage, equipped with an Alliant TechSystems Castor-30A solid-fueled motor, although subsequent missions are expected to benefit from a final stage, powered by hypergolic propellants. When fully operational, it is expected that Antares will be capable of injecting up to 15,000 pounds of payload into low-Earth orbit, although Orbital has contracted with Teledyne Brown to build a fully-U.S. version of the AJ-26, reportedly capable of 500,000 pounds of thrust. This makes it a possible contender for inclusion in NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) effort.

Clearly, NASA has great confidence in Antares. Last year, it added the vehicle to its NASA Launch Services Contract (NLS-II), which will enable Orbital to bid for future missions to carry medium-class scientific payloads into space. It also hopes to deliver scientific, civilian government, military intelligence, and commercial satellites aloft. However, the vehicle's history has been mired with delay and difficulty, partly due to problems with its launch facility and the certification of propellant-handling operations at the MARS site. As the rocket evolved, so too did its name. Until December 2011, Antares was known by its developmental name of "Taurus II," but this was changed in accordance with Orbital's tradition of using ancient Greek celestial names—Pegasus, Taurus, Minotaur, for instance—for its projects. "A launch vehicle of this scale and significance," explained Orbital Sciences President and CEO David Thompson at the time, "deserves its own name." As a result, "Taurus II" was dropped in favor of "Antares." In addition to being one of the brightest stars in the sky, the red-hued supergiant Antares also lent its name to the lunar module which ferried Apollo 14 astronauts Al Shepard and Ed Mitchell to the Moon in early 1971.

And that scale is certainly extensive. Standing 133 feet tall and 12.8 feet in diameter, the rocket in its present form has the capacity to boost up to 11,000 pounds of payload into low-Earth orbit. After receiving its initial push to the edge of space by the AJ-26s, Alliant TechSystems' Castor-30A will ignite to complete the climb into orbit. With a maximum thrust of 89,000 pounds, this engine was originally part of the first stage for Orbital's Athena and Taurus I rockets and can trace its heritage back to the Peacekeeper missile. The first two Antares launches—including the Cygnus demo flight, which Orbital expects to stage in June of this year—will utilize the Castor-30A, after which an upgraded Castor-30B will be introduced for two subsequent launches and, eventually, a "stretched" Castor-XL to boost payload capacity from 4,400 pounds to almost 6,000 pounds for the final five dedicated Cygnus cargo missions.

On Wednesday's A-ONE mission, Antares will loft a "mass simulator" for the Cygnus craft into an orbit of 155-186 miles, inclined 51.6 degrees to the equator, providing a close parallel for its upcoming ISS launch schedule. Ignition of the twin AJ-26 engines will occur two seconds ahead of liftoff, and the liquid-fueled powerplants will burn for almost four minutes, shutting down at T+230 seconds, at an altitude of 66 miles. Five seconds will elapse before the separation of the first stage, after which the rocket will coast for almost two minutes, ahead of the jettisoning of the payload fairing and ignition of the Castor 30A-powered second stage at T+328 seconds. By this point, Antares will have reached an altitude of 117 miles. The Castor-30A will burn for more than two and a half minutes, providing the final impulse to achieve low-Earth orbit, and at T+601 seconds the Cygnus Mass Simulator will separate from the vehicle.

The simulator is heavily instrumented to gather data on the launch environment, although Antares will also deploy four tiny "picosatellites" from a pair of dispensers. All this will offer a taste for the first Cygnus demo mission to the International Space Station, which will follow an approach profile similar to the one pursued by Dragon. The spacecraft will perform an intricate two-day rendezvous and numerous systems and functionality tests, eventually closing within range of the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm for grappling and berthing onto the Earth-facing port of the Harmony node. Like Dragon, each Cygnus mission is expected to spend about a month at the ISS, but unlike the SpaceX-built craft it is not intended to survive re-entry and will instead execute a destructive dive into the atmosphere.

"NASA's commercial space program is helping to ensure American companies launch our astronauts and their supplies from U.S. soil," said Associate Administrator for Communications David Weaver, speaking last year. That soil, however, has been part of the problem for Antares' lengthy wait for its maiden voyage. Launch pad modifications at the MARS site included the construction of a horizontal integration facility and a wheeled transporter, capable of rolling the entire vehicle to the pad a mere 24 hours ahead of liftoff. The program also required the complete demolition of Pad 0A itself and the construction of an entirely new facility with kerosene and liquid oxygen tankage. Certainly, Orbital is proud of its accomplishment, which represents—in the words of President and CEO David Thompson—"the first all-new, large-scale liquid-fuel launch site to be built in the U.S. in decades."

Sarah Brightman looks forward to singing in space
British singer will travel to the International Space Station

Canadian Broadcasting (CBC) News

British singer Sarah Brightman has long been fascinated with space and the news that she will travel to the International Space Station fulfills a lifelong dream.

The soprano who sang I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper in 1978 and is known for performing as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera announced last year she would travel to the International Space Station.

She could be the first civilian in space since Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté. Russia has limited space available for space tourism and slowed its civilian space program in 2010.

"That world has been closed off to us for a time, but it's opening up to us again," Brightman said in an interview with CBC News.

Touring in support of her album Dreamchaser, which will be released Tuesday, she says she has passed all the medical and psychological tests for space flight, but still has much to do to prepare for her adventure.

The classically trained singer is interested in participating in experiments that look at what happens in her body when she sings in space. And she wants to create an international concert in which she joins in from the space station.

Brightman even sees parallels between the rigours of touring and enduring the discomfort of space travel.

She says her new album tries to capture some of the optimism and excitement of life in the 1960s, when space travel was new.

"I was brought up in the 1960s and actually was lucky enough to watch on a black and white television screen the first man walk on the moon. Space exploration seemed part of what we were expecting as children and it seems that something completely out of the box that it is going to be a reality," she said.

Although there is no definite date for her space flight, it is likely to be in 2015.

New F-1B rocket engine upgrades Apollo-era design with 1.8M lbs of thrust
Dynetics and Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne rebuild the F-1 for the "Pyrios" booster

Lee Hutchinson - arstechnica.com

NASA has spent a lot of time and money resurrecting the F-1 rocket engine that powered the Saturn V back in the 1960s and 1970s, and Ars recently spent a week at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to get the inside scoop on how the effort came to be. But there's a very practical reason why NASA is putting old rocket parts up on a test stand and firing them off: its latest launch vehicle might be powered by engines that look, sound, and work a whole lot like the legendary F-1.

This new launch vehicle, known as the Space Launch System, or SLS, is currently taking shape on NASA drawing boards. However, as is its mandate, NASA won't be building the rocket itself—it will allow private industry to bid for the rights to build various components. One potential design wrinkle in SLS is that instead of using Space Shuttle-style solid rocket boosters, SLS could instead use liquid-fueled rocket motors, which would make it the United States' first human-rated rocket in more than 30 years not to use solid-fuel boosters.

The contest to suss this out is the Advanced Booster Competition, and one of the companies that has been down-selected as a final competitor is Huntsville-based Dynetics. Dynetics has partnered with Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne (designers of the Saturn V's F-1 engine, among others) to propose a liquid-fueled booster featuring an engine based heavily on the design of the famous F-1. The booster is tentatively named Pyrios, after one of the fiery horses that pulled the god Apollo's chariot; the engine is being called the F-1B.

The F-1B and how it differs

Ars was on-hand to observe one of the fiery F-1 gas generator tests in Huntsville, and after the test I was able to speak at length with the Dynetics/PWR folks about the engine. Dynetics had set up a display next to the test viewing area featuring a small model of the proposed F-1B rocket engine, along with a chart highlighting the differences between the F-1B and the F-1 and a small model of an SLS rocket with two Pyrios boosters hanging from its sides.

Available to answer my questions were Kim Doering and Andy Crocker, the program manager and assistant program manager for Dynetics' space launch systems group. What would the F-1B look like, I asked them?

"The first thing you'd notice is that it's large. It's just going to be a very, very large piece of machinery," explained Doering. "In the F-1, they needed every bit of performance they could get, and so they took the exhaust from the turbine and dumped it into the nozzle and got a little extra performance out of that. That made the engine a bit bigger...but when you look at the intricate way they had to build that, it was really, really difficult, and very expensive."

No more exhaust recycling

"One major difference that most people would notice right away is that...we've decided to do away with that turbine exhaust that feeds into the nozzle, and that part of the nozzle that comes after where the turbine exhaust manifold would dump in," Doering continued. The gas generator's rocket exhaust, which I'd just watched, was used to drive the fuel pump turbine, but then had to be directed somewhere; the exhaust manifold took those gasses and coated the inside of the thrust chamber with them. This turbine exhaust was still fuel-rich and so didn't burn as quickly as the more balanced fuel/oxidizer mixture being sprayed into the F-1's thrust chamber. The slower-burning turbine exhaust rolled down the inside of the nozzle, protecting it from the much hotter thrust reaction and keeping it cool. This dense, slower-burning exhaust is easily visible in the F-1's thrust pattern—it is the darker-colored plume exiting the nozzle for a short distance before the much brighter primary exhaust.

The turbine exhaust manifold is one of the F-1's most distinctive features—it branches off of the side of the nozzle and then wraps around the nozzle at approximately its visual midpoint. Doing away with it would change the look of the engine significantly. "So the chamber nozzle would be smaller—would look smaller even to the common person, even though it's still huge," he continued. "That specifically will save a lot of money and complexity in the way we're deciding to build the engine to address NASA's specific goals of affordability and performance."

"This will be somewhat different," finished Doering. "You'll see the hot exhaust coming out of a tube right next to the nozzle, and then you'll have the big nozzle plume coming out of the main nozzle."

Fortunately, the removal of the turbopump exhaust manifold and its complex series of ducts and baffles and tubes doesn't particularly compromise the engine's performance. Doering is quick to point out that even without ducting in the turbopump exhaust, the F-1B is being designed to have as much thrust as the uprated F-1A concept from the 1960s: about 1.8M lbs of thrust, with the goal of being able to loft 150MT of cargo into low Earth orbit with four engines on two boosters (coupled with the other RS-25 and J-2X engines in the SLS stack). There's also enough head-room in the overall booster design to add another 20MT of total lift capacity without requiring significant engineering changes, to meet other SLS design goals a bit down the road.

Dynetics and PWR are trying to hew as closely as possible to the operating characteristics of the old engine's uprated F-1A variant, which was extensively tested in the 1960s but never actually flown. The original hardware worked very well, and changes are only being made where it's necessary to cut costs. "The flow paths will be the same," as the F-1A, Doering elaborated when I asked for details. "The chamber pressure will be about the same, and the thrust will be about the same. It's about a 1.8 million pound thrust engine, and if you look at the F-1A specs, it's going to be about the same."

"This is even after ditching the recycling of the gas generator exhaust?" I asked.

"You lose very little thrust," confirmed Doering. "You lose a little bit of specific impulse, but you lose very little thrust. The booster flies for just a couple of minutes and drops off and then the vehicle flies on, so specific impulse matters very little."

No longer a series of tubes

Another clear difference is the construction of the exhaust nozzle itself. The F-1's nozzle was made up of two parts: the first portion was actually an extremely complex series of tubes brazed together and bound by hoops, like staves in a barrel. Kerosene fuel was circulated through the tubes to absorb heat and cool the exhaust. The tubes stretched down to the distinctive turbopump exhaust manifold, and then looped back up. Below the manifold, which wrapped around the engine like a pair of fingers, was a removable nozzle extension that focused the engine's combustion and helped the engine deliver additional thrust.

Advances in manufacturing techniques will allow the F-1B to dispense with the complicated upper nozzle tubing; as it's currently envisioned, the new rocket will feature a much simpler thrust chamber and nozzle made of steel—according to Andy Crocker of Dynetics, the nozzle will consist of an inner liner and outer jacket, brazed together, with cooling provided by fuel flowing through simple slots in the inner liner. This is far easier and less expensive to build than the labor intensive "barrel hoop" tube wall design of the original F-1.

Hydrodynamics, simplified

Another significant difference would be the incorporation of modern electronics into the engine's ignition and firing sequence. The F-1 employed an almost Rube Goldbergian system of valves and pressure checking, using what NASA engineer Nick Case referred to as "fluid mechanic logic" to get the engine firing. The flow of propellant or gas through various orifices and passageways in the engine created a cascade of conditions, tripping a valve here and closing a switch there, each building on the one before it. These reactions culminated in fuel flowing into the combustion chamber and the ignition of a hypergolic charge to actually get the fuel burning. Any missed step stops the cascade and the engine fails to ignite.

It was an ingenious system which substituted mechanical control for something that today we would do entirely in software. The F-1B would do just that—rather than relying on purely mechanical processes like a big game of Mouse Trap, the F-1B would use modern sensors and software in its start-up sequence. This will provide not just additional failsafes, but also will give the launch controllers much more visibility into exactly how the engine is operating during start-up.

Why kerosene matters

I've been saying "kerosene," but NASA doesn't tank up rockets with the same stuff you put in a portable stove. They use RP-1, a highly refined version of kerosene suitable for use in, well, rockets.

We asked R.H. Coates, lead propulsion engineer for NASA's SLS Advanced Development Office—as genuine a rocket scientist as it's possible to be!—to give us a pocket sketch of exactly why RP-1 is a good choice to use when lifting a rocket off the ground, and why at the same time it's not the best fuel to use for a rocket's entire flight.

"Refined petroleum is not the most efficient thrust-producing fuel for rockets, but what it lacks in thrust production it makes up for in density. It takes less volume of RP-1 to impart the same thrust force on a vehicle, and less volume equates to reduced stage size," he explained. "A smaller booster stage means much less aerodynamic drag as the vehicle lifts off from near sea-level and accelerates up through the more dense (thicker) part of the atmosphere near the earth. The result of a smaller booster stage is it allows a more efficient ascent through the thickest part of the atmosphere which helps improve the net mass lifted to orbit."

The fact that a rocket starts out at or near sea level and has to claw its way up out of the Earth's gravity well and push through a lot of air means that it's good to burn the dense fuel lower in the atmosphere, so you don't have to expend as much energy lifting it up higher before burning it. Engineers must make a trade-off between a dense high-thrust fuel like RP-1 and a less dense but more efficient, longer-burning fuel—something like liquid hydrogen.

"The most efficient fuel and oxidizer combination commonly used today for chemical liquid rockets is hydrogen (fuel) and oxygen (oxidizer)," continued Coates. The two elements are relatively simple and they burn easily when combined—and even better, the result of their reaction is simple water.

The measure of a rocket's fuel efficiency is called its specific impulse (abbreviated as "ISP"—or more properly Isp), to which Doering was referring earlier. Wikipedia has an equation-heavy explanation if that's your thing, but Coates broke it down much more clearly for us: "Mass specific impulse...describes the thrust-producing efficiency of a chemical reaction and it is most easily thought of as the amount of thrust force produced by each pound (mass) of fuel and oxidizer propellant burned in a unit of time. It is kind of like a measure of miles per gallon (mpg) for rockets."

He continued: "The specific impulse [of the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen-powered RS-25 Space Shuttle Main Engines] at sea-level (lift off) conditions is slightly over 365 seconds...the engine produces about 365 pounds of thrust at sea-level for each pound of hydrogen and oxygen burned together each second. The gee-whiz part is the engine burns propellant at an extremely large rate, just under 1100 pounds (over half a ton) each second, so each engine produces around 400,000 pounds thrust (force) at sea-level."

The numbers are different with RP-1. "The best demonstrated Isp performance for hydrogen is almost 365 seconds and kerosene is 311 seconds," he went on. "So, if we were to design our two engines to the same thrust level we would see that the hydrogen fueled engine is about 17% (1.17 times) better at producing thrust per unit of mass flow into the engine. That means if both engine cycles were sized for the same thrust, the more efficient hydrogen engine would use 17% less mass in propellants to push on the vehicle with the same force."

This brings us back to the question of density versus efficiency. A 17% bump in efficiency and decrease in mass is a big deal—individual kilograms count when dealing with rockets. But that more efficient fuel takes up a lot more space, and Coats outlined that trade-off very clearly. "Liquid hydrogen has a density of about 4.3 pounds per cubic foot, or to put it differently, each gallon of liquid hydrogen only weighs a little over a half pound. A gallon of water weighs in at about 8.3 pounds. Kerosene fuel is much more dense than hydrogen at about 50 pounds per cubic foot or just over 6.7 pounds per gallon. The kerosene fuel is well over 1100% (11 times) more dense than hydrogen fuel."

So, why different fuels in different stages, with RP-1 kicking off the launch? "In the final comparison of kerosene and hydrogen fuel on a similar type engine at the same thrust," finished Coates, "although the kerosene-fueled system is less efficient on a mass basis, meaning more propellant must be loaded on the booster stage to deliver the same thrust impulse, however, the kerosene fuel is so overwhelmingly more dense that the net result is a smaller fuel tank (and boost stage) for the vehicle."

The most popular efficient fuel choice for rockets is liquid hydrogen (LH), which is a light and long-burning propellant. A LOX/LH engine (like the J-2s which powered Saturn V's upper stages) is more efficient than a LOX/RP-1 engine, meaning it burns longer and converts more of the fuel directly into propulsive energy. However, there's a cost: liquid hydrogen is less dense than RP-1. A kilogram of liquid hydrogen occupies more volume than a kilogram of RP-1. This impacts the dimensions of the rocket and the physical size of its tanks.

So, for that initial big push off the ground, a high thrust kick is needed, and that's the role of the LOX/RP F-1 engines in the Saturn V (and, similarly, the solid boosters in the Space Shuttle). The heavy fuel is burned to carry up the more efficient fuel to where it can be used most effectively. After the rocket has been hammered up through a big chunk of the atmosphere and given a good start, the high-thrust stage is dumped and the more efficient, higher ISP engines take over to pour on the majority of the orbital speed.

These lessons apply to today's launch vehicles just as they did in the past. The SLS rocket currently in the design phase will have its "core" stage built by Boeing, which intends to use the same RS-25 engines that powered the space shuttle. The choice of RS-25s is a practical one: there's a not-insignificant inventory of RS-25s in storage, and adapting them for use in SLS means a potential large cost savings. But while the RS-25s are powerful, they are high-ISP engines without the necessary thrust to get the vehicle moving, and so SLS will also use a pair of high-thrust strap-on boosters, like the Space Shuttle before it.

Piggyback testing

I also wanted to know whether or not letting Dynetics/PWR use MSFC facilities and equipment for testing represented a conflict of interest for NASA. After all, they're the customers in this competition—I was curious as to whether letting one of the competitors use NASA's gear was a normal thing.

Janet Felts, the Dynetics media relations specialist who helped organize the interview, assured me that contractors using NASA facilities for testing is a regular occurrence, regardless of the contract. "We are actually using NASA Marshall, NASA Stennis, and a small amount of NASA Langley as subcontractors. We have letters of agreement with NASA, and we are paying NASA Marshall to do our series of gas generator testing." She continued, "It's a really good example of where I believe industry and government need to head. NASA has assets that industry doesn't need to recreate...they've got state of the art testing facilities, and the ability for us to come and purchase that capability from NASA and really work as a team is a way to make all of this affordable."

Chris Calfee, the NASA project manager overseeing Dynetics for the contract, agreed. "[Space Shuttle solid rocket booster manufacturer] ATK was also awarded an Advanced Booster research and development contract for an advanced solid booster. Certainly there are some facilities they requested to use....Any NASA or government assets that they felt would help them, it becomes part of the contract.

But will it ever fly?

And so we come back to the Advanced Booster Competition, and the F-1B. Even though solid-fuel boosters are the front-runner in the contest, Dynetics and their PWR subcontractor are hopeful that they can demonstrate an alternative with their F-1B-powered booster that doesn't just meet the terms of the competition, but also demonstrates cost savings and practicality.

It is also impossible to deny the romance of the F-1B. In spite of its underlying military and political genesis, Project Apollo is unquestionably the greatest engineering achievement in the history of humanity. For five years, between December of 1968 and December of 1972, we—not NASA, not America, but we, us, humans—left our planet behind and actually went somewhere else. In view of the overall size of the solar system it was the equivalent of a walk across the back yard, but it was an incredibly expensive trip that required billions of dollars and uncountable hours—and a not-inconsiderable number of lives. Those trips were each made on the backs of five howling, monstrous F-1 engines, and the idea of seeing them come back to life pushing a rocket even bigger than the Saturn V stirs the heart.

The question, though, is whether or not the practical side of the equation can balance the romantic. The Advanced Booster competition will run through 2015, at which point a winner will be chosen, solid or liquid. The F-1B could be the engine sending astronauts to Mars—or it could wind up as one more Wikipedia footnote.

How Nasa brought the monstrous F-1 'moon rocket' engine back to life

Lee Hutchinson - Wired Magazine

There has never been anything like the Saturn V, the launch vehicle that powered the United States past the Soviet Union to a series of manned lunar landings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The rocket redefined "massive," standing 110 metres in height and producing a ludicrous 34 meganewtons of thrust from the five monstrous, kerosene-gulping Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engines that made up its first stage.

At the time, the F-1 was the largest and most powerful liquid-fuelled engine ever constructed; even today, its design remains unmatched. The power generated by five of these engines was best conceptualised by author David Woods in his book How Apollo Flew to the Moon -- "[T]he power output of the Saturn first stage was 60 gigawatts. This happens to be very similar to the peak electricity demand of the United Kingdom."

Despite the stunning success of the Saturn V, Nasa's direction shifted after Project Apollo's conclusion; the Space Transport System -- the Space Shuttle and its associated hardware -- was instead designed with wildly different engines. For thirty years, Nasa's astronaut corps rode into orbit aboard Space Shuttles powered by RS-25 liquid hydrogen-powered engines and solid-propellant boosters. With the Shuttle's discontinuation, Nasa is currently hitching space rides with the Russians.

But there's a chance that in the near future, a giant rocket powered by updated F-1 engines might once again thunder into the sky. And it's due in no small part to a group of young and talented Nasa engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, who wanted to learn from the past by taking priceless museum relics apart... and setting them on fire.

Tom Williams is the kind of boss you want to have. He's smart, of course -- that's a prerequisite for his job as the director of the Nasa Marshall Space Flight Centre's (MSFC) Propulsion Systems Department. But he doesn't mind stepping back and giving his team interesting challenges and then turning them loose to work out the details. Case in point: Nasa's Space Launch System (SLS), intended to be an enormous heavy-lift system that will rival the Saturn V in size and capabilities. In thinking about propulsion for the SLS, Nasa for the first time in thirty years is considering something other than solid rocket boosters.

The decision to use a pair of solid rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle instead of liquid-fuelled engines like the F-1 had been partly technical and partly political. Solid fuels are hugely energy dense and provide an excellent kick to get a spacecraft moving off of the ground; also, selecting solid fuel boosters allowed the government to send some available contracting dollars to companies involved with building intercontinental ballistic missiles, leveraging that expertise and providing those companies with additional work.

But solid boosters have several downsides, including an inability to stop combustion. Without pumps to switch off or valves to close, solid boosters work a lot like the "morning glory" sparklers my dad used to buy on the Fourth of July -- once lit, they burn until they're done. Solid rocket booster design decisions, specifically in regard to containing combustion, contributed to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger and the death of its crew (though Challenger's destruction was more a failure of Nasa management than of technology).

Still, as the Space Shuttle program drew to a close and potential successors came and went, the inertia of solid boosters and the facilities and people that produced them ensured that they remained a part of the plans.

SLS gave Nasa the chance to do a total rethink. As design studies got underway, Williams realized it might be a good idea to re-familiarize the MSFC Propulsion Systems Department with huge kerosene gas generator engines like the F-1 (referred to in shorthand as "LOX/RP-1" or just "LOX/RP" engines, after their oxidizer and fuel mixture of liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene). Scale aside, the F-1 is conceptually a relatively simple design, and that simplicity could translate into cost reduction. Reducing cost for space access is a key priority -- perhaps even the overriding priority -- outside of safety.

There was a problem, though. SLS' design parameters called for a Saturn V-scale vehicle, capable of lifting 150 tonnes into low Earth orbit. No one working at MSFC had any real experience with gigantic LOX/RP-1 engines; nothing in the world-wide inventory of launch vehicles still operates at that scale today. So how do you make yourself an expert in tech no one fully understands?

Nick Case and Erin Betts, two liquid engine systems engineers working for Williams, found a way. Although no launch vehicles that used F-1 engines are still around, actual F-1s do exist. Fifteen examples sit attached to the three Saturn V stacks on display at Nasa facilities, including MSFC; dozens more are scattered around the country on display or in storage. Williams' team inspected the available engines and soon found their target: a flight-ready F-1 which had been swapped out from the launch vehicle destined for the to-be-cancelled Apollo 19 mission and instead held in storage for decades. It was in excellent condition.

Case and Betts spearheaded the paperwork-intensive effort to requisition the F-1 from storage and get it into their workshop. They were aided by R.H. Coates, a more senior member of Williams' team and lead propulsion engineer for the SLS Advanced Development Office. Williams offered encouragement and assistance from the management side, but the team was otherwise given free rein on how to proceed. After some study, they came to Williams with a request that was pure engineer: "Why don't we just go ahead and take this thing apart and see what makes it work?"

Williams said yes. "It allowed some of our young engineers to get some hands-on experience with the hardware," he told me, "what we would term the 'dirty hands' approach to learning, just like you did when you took apart your bicycle when you were a kid, or your dad's lawnmower or his radio. One of the best ways to learn as an engineer, or in anything, is to take it apart, study it, ask questions."

And then, hopefully, build a better one.

The plans! The plans!

The F-1 teardown started in relatively low-key fashion. As the team dug into the engine, it became obvious that the internal components were in good shape. In fact, though there was some evidence of rainwater damage, the engine overall was in great shape.

The team initially wanted to build an accurate computer model of every component in the engine so that its behaviour could be modelled and simulated, but another goal soon began to take shape: maybe, just maybe, they could mount some of the engine components on a test stand and make the F-1 speak again after 40 years.

Why was Nasa working with ancient engines instead of building a new F-1 or a full Saturn V? One urban legend holds that key "plans" or "blueprints" were disposed of long ago through carelessness or bureaucratic oversight. Nothing could be further from the truth; every scrap of documentation produced during Project Apollo, including the design documents for the Saturn V and the F-1 engines, remains on file. If re-creating the F-1 engine were simply a matter of cribbing from some 1960s blueprints, Nasa would have already done so.

A typical design document for something like the F-1, though, was produced under intense deadline pressure and lacked even the barest forms of computerized design aids. Such a document simply cannot tell the entire story of the hardware. Each F-1 engine was uniquely built by hand, and each has its own undocumented quirks. In addition, the design process used in the 1960s was necessarily iterative: engineers would design a component, fabricate it, test it, and see how it performed. Then they would modify the design, build the new version, and test it again. This would continue until the design was "good enough."

Further, although the principles behind the F-1 are well known, some aspects of its operation simply weren't fully understood at the time. The thrust instability problem is a perfect example. As the F-1 was being built, early examples tended to explode on the test stand. Repeated testing revealed that the problem was caused by the burning plume of propellant rotating as it combusted in the nozzle. These rotations would increase in speed until they were happening thousands of times per second, causing violent oscillations in the thrust that eventually blew the engine apart. The problem could have derailed the Saturn program and jeopardised President Kennedy's Moon landing deadline, but engineers eventually used a set of stubby barriers (baffles) sticking up from the big hole-riddled plate that sprayed fuel and liquid oxygen into the combustion chamber (the "injector plate"). These baffles damped down the oscillation to acceptable levels, but no one knew if the exact layout was optimal.

The baffle arrangement "was just a trial and error thing," explained Senior Propulsion Engineer R.H. Coates. "But we'd like to model that and say, well, what if you took one of those baffles out?" Because the baffles are mounted directly to the injector plate, they take up surface area that would otherwise be occupied by more injector holes spraying more fuel and oxidiser; therefore, they rob the engine of power. "So if you want to up the performance on this thing, we can evaluate that with modern analytical techniques and see what that does to your combustion stability."

But before any "hot-fire" testing could occur, the team had to take the very physically real F-1 engine and somehow model it. It's easy -- well, relatively easy -- to turn a set of CAD files into a real product. Turning a real product into a set of CAD files, though, requires a bit of ingenuity, especially when that product is a gigantic rocket engine.

To tackle the task, Nasa brought in a company called Shape Fidelity, which specialises in a technique called "structured light scanning." If you don't have access to the laser from TRON, structured light scanning is just about the next best way to cram something inside of a computer.

Firing my laser

The exterior of the F-1 was meticulously photographed and then mapped with a structured light scanning rig, which uses a projector to paint a pattern of stripes onto the surface being scanned. Mounted on the side of the projector are two cameras which each record how the pattern falls on the surface being scanned. For every exposure, the projectors and camera capture sixteen different stripe patterns.

The structured light rig can focus on an area ranging from 65mm in size all the way out to 1.5 metres, so getting a surface scan of the entire F-1 engine required a lot of crawling around and manually aiming the scanner rig. It wasn't immediately obvious how a bunch of handheld scan images could maintain coherency -- how do you indicate to the scanner that picture 2 is linked to picture 1?

The answer was both simple and brilliant. "You notice these little targets? These little stickers?" said Shape Fidelity engineer Rob Black, who was demonstrating the equipment for me. Black indicated the small white-on-black circular dots pasted on the test material on the table in front of us. All around us were disassembled F-1 engine pieces, and I noticed that every single component was peppered with the little dots. "We stick these things on by hand, and the scanner sees these targets, so when we move from one position to the next, it can see what's coming... and stitch everything together. That way, we don't have to use encoders or robots."

Each part gets tiny dots hand-applied in what is effectively a random, unique pattern. The structured light software can use the unique layout of dots to stitch together all pictures of the object being scanned, without requiring the camera to be mounted in a motion controlled rig.

"We took just a regular digital camera and walked around the engine and took photographs," Black said. "The software took all those photographs and built a 3D coordinate for each of the targets, and what you get is a very sparse data set -- it's basically the X-Y-Z value of the centre of these points."

After the point map was assembled, Black performed a detailed structured light scan of the entire outside surface of the engine. "But what we wanted was a scan of the inside -- the vanes, the clearances, all the definition of the interior," explained Black.

Taking the F-1 apart to get at its insides was always part of the plan, but as the team proceeded, it became obvious that actually cracking the thing open without breaking it was going to require specialised tooling -- tooling that might have existed 40 years ago but which has long since been destroyed or lost.

The exterior scan was therefore used to develop the specialised tooling needed to fit the F-1's nuts, bolts, and fasteners. Some of the bolts were annoyingly unique -- Betts noted that at least one high-torque bolt in the turbopump assembly required its own special torque adapter to remove.

The team was able to use the structured light scan of that particular bolt and, in less than half a day, to fabricate a tool using an additive manufacturing method called electron beam melting to quickly "print" 3D projects out of metal powder. Armed with this and other custom tools, Case, Betts, and Coates took the engine apart, down to its tiniest components.

"So what that let us do was scan the parts -- all the individual pieces and parts," Black said. He pulled up a PowerPoint presentation on his laptop and pointed at one particular slide. "This is an example of one of the scanned pieces. You'll notice the grey is the scanned data, like we got on the screen here, but it also maps to points. Well, those points are the same points that were mapped in the assembly [the initial scan]. There's only one way that part will fit into that constellation of points, and that's what you see on the lower right."

"And so what you get now is a true 3D definition, inside and out, of all the relationships -- not just the part geometry, but the relationship between the parts. And we did this for all the parts that you see on the shelves here," Black added.

Touching the past

The result was a complete and highly accurate CAD model of the entire F-1 rocket engine, down to its tiniest bolt. The fidelity was so good that the scanner even picked up tiny accumulations of soot left on the turbine blades from the engine's previous test firing back in the 1960s. The engineers removed the soot and re-scanned, but even this seemingly trivial accumulation yielded valuable data -- sooting is a problem with kerosene-powered engines, so understanding how it builds up inside the engine could reduce its occurrence.

"Because they didn't have the analytical tools we have today for minimising weight, everything was very robust," noted Betts, when I asked what they found as they tore down the engine. "That's apparent in really every aspect of the engine. The welds --"

"Oh, the welds!" interrupted Case. "The welds on this engine are just a work of art, and everything on here was welded." The admiration in his voice was obvious. "Today, we look at ways of reducing that, but that was something I picked up on from this engine: just how many welds there were, and how great they looked."

"You look at a weld that takes a day," he continued, "and there are thousands of them. And these guys were pumping engines out every two months. It's amazing what they could do back then and all the touch labour it took."

"Their ability to withstand imperfection, too," said Betts. "There were a few things on the engine that we disassembled, where today you may throw that part away because of the imperfections, but it goes to show that they fully understood what the big drivers were in their design. That's one thing we were trying to get knowledge on: what imperfections were OK to live with versus what imperfections are going to give us problems?"

"Like with the injector," said Case, speaking of the 44-inch (1.1 metre) metal plate that spewed the propellant into the engine's nozzle. "There are hundreds of holes drilled into the main injector -- all drilled by hand, too. And one of the holes you can actually see where the drill bit came down at the wrong spot, and the guy just stopped -- you can see where he moved over to where the hole was supposed to be and finished drilling the hole. They kept that and would have flown with that engine. Those kinds of things were pretty neat."

"One thing I notice when I look back at older engines," commented Coates, the senior engineer, "was just like Nick and Erin were alluding to: the complexity of the welds. You didn't have the kind of advanced manufacturing we had today, so quite honestly, these were hand-made machines. They were sewn together with arc welders, and it's pretty amazing to see how smooth and elegant it came out. Today, you'd look at doing precision casting, not these thousands of welds."

Lighting a 40-year-old candle

The engine disassembled by Betts, Case, and Coates was number F-6090, assembled in December 1968 just as Apollo 8 was carrying three astronauts further away from Earth than any human being had ever before travelled. F-6090 had been test-fired for 240 seconds and then mounted on the S-IC stage of the Saturn V that would have flown as Apollo 19, but the engine was eventually pulled and placed into storage at MSFC. As the team methodically stripped engine F-6090 down, it became obvious that a test-fire of some of the engine's components was within the realm of probability.

With F-6090 being torn apart to learn from, the team turned to engine F-6049, which had served for years as a display engine at the Udvar-Hazy Centre at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. F-6049 was in even better condition than F-6090, but simply firing the entire F-1 engine straight away wasn't practical. For one thing, though the F-1s were originally tested at MSFC in the 1960s, that test infrastructure has since been repurposed. In addition, the city of Huntsville has grown up considerably since the Apollo era; lighting off an engine the size of an F-1 at Marshall today would likely blow out every window in the entire city.

Instead, the team decided to start with a series of firings on F-6049's gas generator. An engine like the F-1 is sort of like two separate rocket engines: one small, one large. The smaller one consumes the same fuel as the larger, but its rocket exhaust is not used to lift the vehicle; instead, it drives the enormous turbopump that draws fuel and oxidiser from the tanks and forces them through the injector plate into the main thrust chamber to be burned.

As with everything else about the F-1, even the gas generator boasts impressive specs. It churns out about 138 kilonewtons of thrust, more than an F-16 fighter's engine running at full afterburner, and it was used to drive a turbine that produced 55,000 shaft horsepower. (That's 55,000 horsepower just to run the F-1's fuel and oxidiser pumps -- the F-1 itself produced the equivalent of something like 32 million horsepower, though accurately measuring a rocket's thrust at that scale is complicated.)

Getting the gas generator ready for firing would be a huge step in teaching Betts and Case about LOX/RP-1 engines, and it would provide modern data on just how well the old components operate. Betts, Case, and Coates pulled the gas generator, the gas generator injector, and the gas generator combustion chamber from F-6049, along with one of the ball valves for the propellant. Every "soft good" in the gas generator -- every seal and gasket -- had to be recreated from scratch, since all had hardened or rotted. In the process, the team had to spend quite a bit of time ensuring that they were creating functional seals and gaskets, since plastics technology had changed considerably since the 1960s. Just creating the soft goods required a lot of chemistry work.

As the preparation for the gas generator tests continued, though, something happened that caused the exercise to shed its academic roots and turn very, very practical.

Rocketdyne returns

Nasa's SLS will most likely be a multi-stage vehicle, with boosters attached to its first "core" stage, but Nasa is holding a competition to determine whether those boosters will be fuelled by solid or liquid propellant. The Advanced Booster competition has finally brought liquid-fuelled contenders into a space dominated for decades with solid fuel boosters built by a company called ATK.

One of the companies selected to compete for the Advanced Booster contract is Dynetics, a 1,300-employee company headquartered in Huntsville, near MSFC. Dynetics has primarily done work for the Department of Defence, but within the past five years it has expanded into aerospace. It's one of three companies proceeding into the design phase of the contract, and it might have a secret weapon: Dynetics is partnered with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR), and its entry into the booster competition will be powered by an enormous LOX/RP-1 engine called the F-1B (based on the F-1 and its uprated but never flown F-1A variant).

The F-1 gas generator tests that Betts, Case, and Coates were preparing for were set to happen at an extremely opportune time: their exploratory work on the F-1 started near the end of 2012, right around the time Dynetics was selected as a competitor for the Advanced Booster contract. Dynetics had an absolutely golden opportunity; right down the street, Nasa was about to start test-firing an F-1 gas generator, something that hadn't been done in decades.

Through a complex set of letters of agreement, MSFC allowed Dynetics and PWR engineers to use the resurrected gas generator and engine test facilities. The engineering effort even included cooperation with heritage Rocketdyne engineers in California and Huntsville -- folks who were involved in the original design and testing of the F-1 and who had engineering expertise and advice to contribute to the effort. MSFC conducted 11 hot-fire tests of the gas generator, ranging from 5 to 30 seconds each, with Dynetics and PWR representatives present and assisting.

After Dynetics and its Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne subcontractor worked out the agreements and paper, the company needed to run its own set of tests on the F-1 gas generator to gather additional data beyond what Betts, Case, and Coates had gleaned. This necessitated a second series of gas generator test firings in the latter half of February, so Ars headed out to Huntsville to watch.

Watching the test

On the morning of 20 February I found myself perched on a set of metal bleachers under an iron-grey Huntsville sky, with the thermometer reading zero degrees celsius -- quite a bit cooler than this Texas boy is used to enduring, especially since the wind wouldn't stop gusting. The payoff was that the observation area sat only a short distance from the gas generator test stand. Through a clearing in a row of evergreens and scrub, separated from us by a dirt path, I saw the test stand itself: a jungle-gym pile of metal and pipes, with personnel scurrying around to make last-minute adjustments.

The gas generator test firing I was there to witness was neither the first nor the last, but it still drew a hefty crowd of folks -- civil servants, family members, and no small number of Dynetics/PWR employees. As the clock ticked down toward firing, we packed ourselves into the rickety bleachers and the buzz of conversation gradually quieted; I focused on holding my camera steady and trying not to touch any of the exposed metal of the heavy (and freezing) telephoto lens.

The blast, when it came, was loud without being overwhelming. We were close enough that there wasn't more than a quarter second's delay between the flash and the sound, and I felt the warmth of burning kerosene exhaust roll over me. The gas generator spoke with a deep rumbling, topped with a rocket's crackle-crackle-crackle-- a sound I'd always thought was just the microphone clipping when listening to recordings of rocket launches. The overall noise of the thing was impressive -- probably about as loud as a loud rock concert -- but we were far enough away not to need hearing protection. The gas generator produced a long horizontal column of flame, which held steady for the entire test. It was impressive, but it was even more impressive when I reminded myself that in a real F-1 all this fire and noise and smoke was merely used to drive the machinery that fed fuel into the engine for the real fireworks.

After perhaps fifteen seconds, the exhaust wavered and went out, and enormous clouds rose around the test area. Sprinklers had been spraying the stand throughout the test, and the water from those sprinklers was now noisily transforming itself into steam. The assembled crowd applauded, muffled claps rising from hands that were mostly gloved or mittened against the chill.
3D printing goes to space

The Dynetics advanced booster itself -- tentatively codenamed Pyrios, after one of the fiery horses that pulled the god Apollo's chariot -- typifies the "big dumb booster" design. The booster's construction will be as efficient and minimal as possible, using simple 1.9cm aluminium barrel segments friction-stir welded together over the propellant tanks. One advantage of using RP-1 as a fuel is that it doesn't need heavy thermal protection -- it won't boil off at sea level pressure and temperature like liquid hydrogen does. (The Pyrios booster concept might have to include some external thermal protection for the liquid oxygen tankage.)

Even though the performance goals of the engine will be close to its predecessor, its manufacturing will be done through radically different methods. The Dynetics folks echoed Betts, Case, and Coates when reflecting on the F-1's construction, making many of the same observations about the jaw-dropping amount of hand-done work in the old design. In the name of affordability and efficiency, modern manufacturing techniques will be brought firmly to bear on the new version.

Each Pyrios booster will feature a pair of F-1B engines, built with techniques that more resemble 3D printing than traditional casting or milling. The main combustion chamber and nozzle in particular will undergo tremendous simplification and consolidating; the parts count for those two assemblies together will be reduced from 5,600 manufactured elements in the original F-1 down to just 40.

Using state of the art manufacturing processes where possible actually reduces cost -- even if a newer manufacturing method is more expensive, the cost reductions gained from the design simplifications more than tip the scales. In particular, Dynetics and PWR are using techniques like selective and hot isostatic pressing (HIP) to "grow" entire complex engine parts out of metal powders. The Dynetics team is focusing as much as possible on reducing welds and joins, and therefore reducing assembly and manufacturing.

Engineers and their engines

After the test-firing, Betts, Case, and Coates showed me around the MSFC lab where the F-1 disassembly effort was still underway. We stopped in to visit engine F-6049, mounted up on its trolley with its gas generator conspicuously missing. I crawled all over the thing while the trio of engineers talked about the big old machine with which they'd become so familiar.

"These guys came up with the idea," said Tom Williams, gesturing toward Betts and Case, "that LOX/RP looks like something we need to get smart on again, so how about we take apart one of these?" The two engineers were standing next to the F-6049, along with Coates. "These guys started thinking how to go about it and got the structured light guys into it, but it was just a small group of engineers who got the idea to get their hands dirty."

That's engineering at its finest. The disassembly and hot fires have yielded a tremendous amount of data, and the Dynetics/PWR team is in the midst of turning that data into a practical, usable engine. There are plans later this year to mate the gas generator back to its pumps and turbines, recreating the F-1's entire "powerpack" (the entire engine except for the combustion chamber). The powerpack will then be tested at Nasa's Stennis Space Centre in Mississippi. It's not much of a leap after that to a completed engine.

The Advanced Booster competition runs at least another two years, with a final decision expected in 2015 or 2016. Solid fuel remains a major contender -- possibly the front-runner -- but the Pyrios booster does stand a real chance of thundering past its competitors.

When Nasa's SLS rocket flies, she may well be drawn into the sky by Apollo's fiery steed.

Mikulski will support asteroid initiative, not sure about Orion, planetary requests

SpacePolicyOnline.com

Speaking to the Maryland Space Business Roundtable Tuesday, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that she will support President Obama's new asteroid retrieval initiative, but expressed concern about the request for the Orion spacecraft and planetary exploration.

Applauding the FY2014 request of $17.7 billion for NASA overall, which she said was a "$200 million increase over last year ...we're going to keep that," she went on to note the President's proposal to capture an asteroid and said "we support him on that." She quickly added, however, that she is concerned about the proposed cut to Orion and stressed the reality that, with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) as vice chairman of the full committee, it was not politically possible to cut that program. Throughout her talk she praised Shelby for working with her in a bipartisan manner to get the final FY2013 Continuing Resolution (CR) passed and their effective working relationship over many years.

She is pleased that the request for earth science is an increase of $80 million, but complained about what she characterized as a reduction for planetary exploration and said "we have to look at that." According to her calculations, "planetary science" was reduced $283 million in the FY2014 request and "I know that went into Mars robotics."   The robotics Mars program is part of planetary exploration, so her meaning was not clear.

Semi-seriously, she said she always asks three questions about budget requests: "what do we need to do for the nation, what do we need to do for Maryland, and ... what did you say we were going to do for Maryland?"

Mikulski restated her opposition to the sequester, which remains in place through FY2021 based on the Budget Control Act of 2011. The final FY2013 CR that she sheparded included the sequester, however -- a 5 percent cut to NASA that cost the agency over $1 billion, though NASA seems to be ignoring it in discussions of its FY2014 request.   NASA has not released figures showing what the agency actually got in FY2013, the current fiscal year, making Mikulski's comparisons of what the agency got last year versus its request for FY2014 all the more obscure. The upshot is that she is concerned about the amount of funding requested for planetary science and is warning NASA not to cut the Orion program.

Mikulski ascended to chairmanship of the full Senate Appropriations Committee in December following the death of Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI). In addition to chairing the full committee, she continues to chair the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee, which funds not only NASA, but NOAA. Today she stressed the need to find a replacement for Jane Lubchenco as head of NOAA. Lubchenco left in February. Mikulski also emphasized that the National Weather Service (part of NOAA) "must be the best in the world" and create a computer model that will make Europe's look "wimpy." It was the European weather model that correctly forecast Hurricane Sandy making a right turn into New Jersey and New York.

Garver: role for private sector in NASA's asteroid mission plans

Jeff Foust - SpacePolitics.com

NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver made a surprise appearance Monday morning at the opening session of the Planetary Defense Conference 2013 in Flagstaff, Arizona (she said she had planned to attend months ago, but her appearance was only formalized relatively late and not included in the agenda for the session.) She provided an overview of NASA's FY14 budget proposal in general, with a particular focus on the agency's new asteroid initiative, something of particular interest to attendees.

Afterwards, Garver was asked what role new private ventures with an interest in asteroids, like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, would have with the initiative. "That's a really important aspect of this," she said. "When Planetary Resources was founded a few months ago, and following on that Deep Space Industries, I could not have been happier" because it demonstrated there was interest in asteroids beyond NASA. (Planetary Resources actually formally announced its plans almost a year ago; Deep Space Industries followed in January.) She added that NASA's planned additional $20-million investment in asteroid detection efforts was not intended to be competitive with the B612 Foundation's Sentinel mission.

Garver said NASA would hold a workshop in the "June timeframe" to look how to best leverage the NASA investment and that the agency was open to tools like data buys and prizes to get information on identifying asteroids that could be potential targets of the proposed NASA mission. "We believe there are a lot of innovative ways, just like we are doing in other aspects of NASA" to support agency goals, she said.

Her comments came just a few days after one of the principals of one asteroid resource company expressed hope that NASA would partner with industry. "We're looking forward to a partnership with NASA. There's a lot the private sector can bring to this game," Rich Tumlinson, chairman of the board of Deep Space Industries, said at the Space Access '13 conference in Phoenix on April 11. "A correctly structured program to bring an asteroid into lunar orbit may be based on the COTS model, where we had a cooperative venture leading to a pay-for-services model. It might work very well in this case."

Big-time players are getting serious about asteroid perils and profits

Alan Boyle – NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

Experts on near-Earth objects wondered whether February's meteor blast over Russia would serve as a wakeup call about asteroids — and two months later, there's ample evidence that it has. But there are two sides to that wakeup call, having to do with potential opportunities as well as potential threats.

Nothing illustrates that better than this week's developments: In Flagstaff, Ariz., researchers are discussing ways to detect, track and head off space rocks that could wreak destruction on Earth. In Pasadena, Calif., NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that an infrared sensor for tracking asteroids and comets has passed a critical design test. And in Bellevue, Wash., the Planetary Resources space mining venture says it's partnering with the Bechtel construction company on future efforts to mine asteroids for raw materials.

"Bechtel has a history of consistently tackling the most challenging projects, beginning with the construction of the Hoover Dam more than 75 years ago," Peter Diamandis, the co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources, said in a news release announcing the deal. Today, California-based Bechtel is one of the world's leaders in the engineering, procurement and construction industry. It will join Planetary Resources' billionaire-heavy list of investors — and assist the company in its long-term mission to mine near-Earth asteroids for precious metals and outer-space water.

Diamandis and his fellow co-founder, Eric Anderson, have said asteroid mining could turn into a multitrillion-dollar industry if their vision becomes reality.

"Planetary Resources' mission is ambitious, but they've assembled a world-class team to succeed," Riley Bechtel, the chairman and CEO of Bechtel, said in the news release. "Our companies share a common vision to continually innovate and push boundaries, all aimed at contributing a better quality of life."

Speaking of life, Planetary Resources' president, Chris Lewicki, is among the scores of experts attending this week's Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff. "It's always an extremely fun and informative conference, as it focuses entirely on asteroids ... how often do you get to consider defending the Earth from space rocks?" he wrote in a blog posting on Tuesday.

NASA's proposed mission to grab an asteroid and park it near the moon by 2021 has been one of the meeting's major topics, but the gathering also provided the latest information on the threats posed by near-Earth objects, and what to do about them:

·         Experts estimate that there are 9 million near-Earth asteroids as large as the 17-meter-wide (55-foot-wide) space rock that broke apart over Russia on Feb. 15, and virtually all of them are too small to track using current observational tools. So far, detection systems have found less than 1 percent of the asteroids smaller than 100 meters (which is big enough to wipe out a city).
·         Lewicki passed along word of a scientific study suggesting that even "rubble-pile" asteroids can become more cohesive over time, thanks to the forces that bind together the smallest grains in their size distrbutions.
·         Several schemes for fending off dangerous asteroids were presented — including plans to deflect them with impact vehicles, divert them or blast them to smithereens with nuclear bombs, or guide them gently into non-threatening orbits using gravity tractors.

JPL's Shyam Bhaskaran described an "AutoNav" system that could guide an impactor autonomously to hit an asteroid target at speeds of up to 30,000 mph. "It's not that easy," Bhaskaran said in a news release. "Hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft traveling at hypervelocity is like shooting an arrow at a target on a speeding race car."

The conference began on Monday and runs through Wednesday. Check out the program, feast your eyes on the video coverage (with live streaming as well as archived clips for each session), and follow the action via Twitter with the hashtag #PDC2012.

Infrared eyes

The first step in planetary defense is to find all those potentially threatening asteroids — and during the Flagstaff conference, the spotlight focused on two proposed space telescopes designed to look for space rocks. The B612 Foundation's Sentinel Space Telescope, currently scheduled for launch in 2017 or 2018, would use an infrared sensor to look for Earth-threatening asteroids from a Venus-type orbit. Ball Aerospace reportedly has 25 people working on the Sentinel project, and so far, B612 has raised $2 million of the mission's estimated $450 million cost.

Meanwhile, JPL is working on the components for a future space mission known as NEOCam. Like Sentinel, NEOCam would scan the skies from an outer-space vantage point, looking for the infrared glow of asteroids. The mission is getting technology development funds from NASA's Discovery Program — and on Monday, JPL said NEOCam's infrared sensor passed a design test that assessed its performance under simulated deep-space conditions. A research paper detailing the sensor's design and capabilities is to be published by the Journal of Optical Engineering.

"Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloging and understanding the asteroid population," JPL researcher Amy Mainzer, a co-author of the paper, said in a news release. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's size, as well as tell you something about composition."

Rocketing to Mars in 30 days -- rather than 4 years?
Researchers say their fusion-powered engine that could safely speed a human expedition to the Red Planet. Skeptics say no way.

Bruce Kennedy - MSN.com's What's Trending in Money

Can space travel ever become cost-efficient? It certainly has never been cheap. The recently ended U.S. space shuttle program, even with its reusable spacecraft, still cost about $1.5 billion per flight, according to an analysis quoted by Space.com. And NASA estimates that the cost of just launching a spacecraft to Mars, using currently available chemical rocket fuel, would run more than $12 billion.

But University of Washington researchers, along with scientists at a private Washington state company, say they've come up with a fusion-powered rocket that, according to a press release, would "clear many of the hurdles that block deep space travel, including long times in transit, exorbitant costs and health risks."

In theory, a fusion-driven rocket uses magnetism to compress special metal bands around a deuterium-tritium fuel pellet -- which in turn starts the powerful fusion process.

And the researchers say compared with the more than four years NASA estimates it would take a human expedition to get from Earth to Mars using today's technology, a fusion-powered rocket could make that same trip in 30 to 90 days. The team's work was funded by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts Program and has been selected to get a second round of funding.

But a lot of experts remain very skeptical about the possibility of a fusion-driven rocket trip to Mars.

"I have a hard time buying these claims while we struggle to make fusion viable in the Earth-based lab," said Peter Delamere, an associate professor of physics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in an email to MSN Money.

"That is, the lab-based fusion reactions require more input energy than energy output," he added. "Not until we find a way of getting more out than we put in will fusion be a viable energy resource."

However, the researchers in Washington state are betting that their plans for a fusion-powered rocket will create the powerful energy source needed to turn the science fiction of interplanetary travel into fact.

"We hope we can interest the world with the fact that fusion isn't always 40 years away," said lead researcher John Slough, "and doesn't always cost $2 billion."

Astronaut Hall of Fame induction on April 20 to feature rare meet-and-greet opportunity

Anthony Armenia - Orlando Attractions Magazine

Witness the newest astronauts get inducted to the U.S Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday, April 20, 2013 at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Astronauts Curt Brown, Eileen Collins and Bonnie Dunbar, Ph.D will be joined by more than 30 legendary astronauts and space icons welcoming them to the Hall of Fame.

This year's Astronaut Hall of Fame inductees are being welcomed to the ranks of legends like Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Jim Lovell, Sally Ride and John Young. The addition of Brown, a veteran of six space shuttle flights; Collins, the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle; and Dunbar, who served as a shuttle mission specialist and payload commander, brings the number of space explorers enshrined in the Hall of Fame to 85.

This induction is the 12th group of space shuttle astronauts named to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame and the first time two women will be inducted at the same time. These retired space shuttle astronauts also share a commonality in their spaceflight history, as they each flew aboard space shuttle Atlantis during their careers.

The 2013 Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction Package includes admission to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and a private meet-and-greet opportunity with Hall of Fame astronauts John Blaha, Robert "Hoot" Gibson, Jeffery Hoffman and Loren Shriver, all of whom flew on space shuttle Atlantis, and a commemorative poster autographed by Brown, Collins and Dunbar.

The package also includes reserved seating at the ceremony, only available to ticket package holders. The package is $74.99 plus tax for adults and $64.99 plus tax for children ages 3-11. Commander's Club annual passholders can enjoy the private meet-and-greet opportunity, reserved seating at the ceremony and an autographed poster for $24.99.

As a special addition to this year's induction program, former Girl Scouts and Hall of Fame astronauts Eileen Collins and Kathyrn Thornton are holding a private audience for Girl Scouts. Collins, the first female space shuttle commander and Thornton, the first woman space walker, will share how their experiences as Girls Scouts prepared them to be astronauts. The Girl Scout Legends Program tickets are $21 plus tax for youth and $45.50 plus tax for adults, and are only available to Girl Scouts and their chaperones. A limited number of seats for this program are available.

Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction schedule of events:
·         9 through 9:30 a.m. Girl Scout Legends Program with Eileen Collin and Kathyrn Thornton
·         10 through 10:45 a.m. Public signing with Kathyrn Thornton
·         10:30 through 11:15 a.m. Private meet-and-greet with Atlantis astronauts John Blaha, Robert "Hoot" Gibson, Jeffery Hoffman and Loren Shriver
·         11:30 a.m. through 12:15 p.m. Public signing with Bob Crippen
·         2 through 3:30 p.m. Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at NASA Central

Regular Visitor Complex admission on April 20 includes a standing room only public viewing area of the induction ceremony and access to two public autograph signing opportunities with Hall of Fame astronauts Thornton and Bob Crippen, the pilot of the first orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Program and commander of three additional shuttle flights.

Regular admission is $50 plus tax for adults and $40 plus tax for children ages 3 through 11. For more information on the 2013 Astronaut Hall of Fame Induction or to purchase your ticket, please call 877-313-2610 or visit www.KennedySpaceCenter.com

Space Station Lands in Houston in State-of-the-Art NASA Exhibit

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

NASA has a new "stage" to expose and educate the public about the work behind — and on board — the International Space Station.

More than a year in the making, NASA and Space Center Houston, the visitor center for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Texas, put the final touches on a new interactive exhibit and special effects live stage show that highlights how the orbiting outpost came to be, what life is like on board and how it is being used to conduct science.

The 3000-square-foot (280 square meters) display was inspired by NASA's traveling exhibit "Destination Station" (hosted currently at Atlanta's Fernbank Science Center until May 18). But instead of simply recreating the mobile exhibition, NASA's International Space Station Program worked with the external relations office at Johnson and Space Center Houston to enhance and expand the display into a brand-new experience for guests.

"This [new] exhibition highlights, through the use of a live performance, static graphic elements, hardware, astronaut personal effects, video content and interactive software programs, the international partnership which assembled this orbiting laboratory, its human presence which works and lives on board, and the complex research and science that is taking place which benefits all humankind," NASA wrote about the exhibit.

Destination Station 2.0

Space Center Houston began building the exhibit about a year ago by reconfiguring the International Space Station — or rather a large detailed model of the orbiting complex.

Suspended from the ceiling, the scale model was updated to reflect the final assembly of the space station, including removing a once-docked replica of the now-retired space shuttle. The model was then re-hung in front of a mural of the Earth, placing it into the context of the new display.

Underneath the not-so-miniature station is a new mockup of a Mission Control console. Nearby, one of the canisters used to transport the orbiting laboratory's power-providing solar arrays is also on display with a sample strip of the cells used to generate electricity for the station.

The Mission Control monitors display the "Space Station Live!" website, which provides access to live data from the real space station as received through the real Mission Control, located nearby at the Johnson Space Center. Not only can visitors use the replica console to learn what the astronauts and cosmonauts on board the station are doing in space in real time, but they can find when the orbiting complex can be seen flying over their homes.

Venturing further into the exhibit, guests can see a training mockup of the space station's multi-window Cupola, a full-size model of the outpost's robotic resident Robonaut 2, and look inside both a crew member's living quarters and the onboard waste containment system, or toilet.

Wall-size video displays introduce the public to the many science racks that support the hundreds of experiments being hosted on board the space station at any one time and to the equipment used by the astronauts to first build and now maintain the complex.

At the center of the new display are two large glass cases that showcase artifacts from the space station's first 15 years in orbit. One case exhibits test samples and a flown hatch cover that show the impact, literally, that micrometeoroid debris has on the outpost's exterior.

The second case features crewmembers' clothing and personal items, on loan from the astronauts themselves. Included in the display are the tennis balls used in the first attempt at juggling in orbit, a small pink romper flown for an astronaut whose baby girl was to be born while he was in space, and a costume shirt from the television series "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that was worn by a crewmember on board the real-life space station.

The (special) effects of life in space

Where the new exhibit really comes alive is during a live stage show about what life is like for astronauts on board the space station.

Set on a stage designed to look like the inside of a space station module, Space Center Houston's "Mission Briefing Officers" guide guests through how astronauts eat, sleep and work aboard the orbiting laboratory.

The "Living in Space" show pre-dates the new exhibit but has been enhanced with state-of-the-art special effects to match the high-tech design of the surrounding display.

"The storyline is still how do the astronauts eat, sleep in space, how do they exercise, they go to the bathroom and what kind of work they do. That part hasn't changed but the way that we tell that story has," Paul Spana, exhibits manager at Space Center Houston, told collectSPACE.com.

"What is brand-new about the show, and what I think is the coolest part, is this new special effect," Spana said. "The visitor does not see the equipment, but in the ceiling we have two large video projectors and it is a technique called 'video mapping.' The back wall of the module is actually a projection screen."

Similar to the effects featured in the "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride at Universal Studios Orlando in Florida, the projection technology creates the appearance that the drawers aboard the space station are opening and that items are able to float out. At one point, water globules, seemingly weightless, even float across the stage and are "absorbed" by a real-life towel.

Visiting the space station

The new International Space Station exhibit, which is now open for the public to experience, is included with regular admission to Space Center Houston.

It's a permanent exhibition, and NASA and Space Center Houston plan to continue expanding the display, showcasing the latest developments aboard the space station, as well as adding more flown and astronaut artifacts as they become available.

"You can come here and find out who those people are that are in space today, you can find out about what they are doing, you can find out how to see the space station from your own backyard and then you can learn why we are doing all of this," Spana said.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - April 17, 2013 and JSC Today

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