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 29, 2013 6:10:38 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - April 29, 2013 and JSC Today

Hope you can join us this Thursday, May 2^nd, at Hibachi Grill on Bay Area Blvd in Webster at 11:30 for our monthly NASA Retirees Luncheon.

Monday, April 29, 2013

JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Orion and Space Launch System Program Updates
2.            Starport's Employee Discounts: Dream Trips $69 Cruise Monday Special and More
3.            New This Summer -- Youth Sports Camps at Starport
4.            Start Your Reading List With These Articles
5.            Recent JSC Announcement
6.            Orbital Acrobatics Case Study
7.            Job Opportunities
8.            Russian Phase One Language Course -- For Beginners
________________________________________     NASA FACT
" NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) test bed has begun experiments after completing its checkout on the International Space Station. The SCaN test bed is an advanced, integrated communications laboratory facility that uses a new generation of software-defined radio technology to allow researchers to develop, test and demonstrate advanced communications, networking and navigation technologies in space."
________________________________________
1.            Orion and Space Launch System Program Updates
You've heard about the president's new proposal to capture and explore a near-Earth asteroid. This plan starts next year with NASA's Exploration Flight Test -1, when the Orion spacecraft will travel to an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles above Earth. Here's your chance to get the scoop on Orion/Space Launch System (SLS) program progress.
Orion Program Manager Mark Geyer, Lockheed Martin Orion Program Manager Cleon Lacefield and SLS Deputy Program Manager Jody Singer will give a joint update to the JSC community at 2 p.m. tomorrow, April 30, in the Teague Auditorium.
The panel will take questions after the All Hands from the audience. If you would like to submit a question for consideration in advance or during the update, please email it to JSC-MPCV-Board-Support at: jsc-mpcvbrdsp@mail.nasa.gov
JSC employees unable to attend can watch the All Hands via USTREAM at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-jsc or via the mobile page at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-jsc-mobile
Event Date: Tuesday, April 30, 2013   Event Start Time:2:00 PM   Event End Time:4:00 PM
Event Location: Building 2 South Teague Auditorium

Add to Calendar

Barbara Zelon x38782

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2.            Starport's Employee Discounts: Dream Trips $69 Cruise Monday Special and More
The Dream Trips monthly $69 cruise will post today at 11 a.m. Go to the Dream Trips website early to log in and get in on this great deal.
Visit the Starport Discount page for details about other exciting discounts on:
Travel: hotels, resorts, cruises, tours, car rentals and more.
Shopping: computers, cars, books, clothing, gifts, jewelry, music, sporting goods and much more.
Tickets: Local attractions such as movie theatres, SplashTown, Schlitterbahn, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Theatre Under the Stars and more. Also, non-local attractions such as Sea World, Six Flags, Legoland California and more.
Other services: security, cell phone carriers, energy services, satellite TV and cable providers, eye care, salon services and more.
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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3.            New This Summer -- Youth Sports Camps at Starport
Starport Sports Camps at the Gilruth Center are a great way to provide added instruction for all levels of players and prepare participants for competitive play in baseball and basketball. Let our knowledgeable and experienced coaches give your child the confidence they need to learn and excel in their chosen sport.
Baseball Camp: Focuses on the development of hitting, catching, base running, throwing, pitching and drills.
Session Dates: July 8 to 11 and July 15 to 18
Times: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Ages: 6 to 12
Price $200/per session
Basketball Camp: Focuses on the development of shooting, passing, dribbling, guarding and drills
Session Dates: August 5 to 8
Times: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Ages: 9 to 14
Price $200/per session
Before and after care is available for $50/session for ages 6 to 12 (Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.).
Register your child now at the Gilruth Center. Space is limited! Visit our website for information and registration forms.
Shericka Phillips x35563 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/

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4.            Start Your Reading List With These Articles
Is it too early for a summer reading list? Get your spring reading list started with these new articles, which have been posted to JSC Features and the JSC home page.
Learn about how NASA is helping teachers inspire students to investigate STEM careers by allowing the teachers to fly classroom experiments aboard reduced-gravity aircraft. Also, read more about NASA volunteers giving their time to help kids compete in their school science fair--all while encouraging the students to get inquisitive about the world we live in.
While you're there, don't forget to check out pictures from JSC's Earth Day celebration "Music on the Mall," which gave musical employees the chance to let loose and provide entertainment for fellow team members.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x33317

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5.            Recent JSC Announcement
Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement:
JSCA 13-014: Key Personnel Assignments - Steve Poulos and Stephen Stich
Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page.
Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx

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6.            Orbital Acrobatics Case Study
Think flipping a spacecraft end-over-end is easy? Think again. Read the latest JSC Knowledge Management Office Case Study about how a team of experts developed a maneuver that helped enable the shuttle to return to safe flight following the Columbia tragedy.
Consider what lessons can we take away from this effort and apply to our own tasks.
While you are there, please take the time to give us your feedback. Also, we would like your suggestions for potential topics. Share your idea here.
Brent J. Fontenot x36456

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7.            Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities?
Both internal Competitive Placement Plan (CPP) and external JSC job announcements are posted on the Human Resources (HR) portal and USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open at: https://hr.nasa.gov/portal/server.pt/community/employees_home/239/job_opportu...
To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies, please call your HR representative.
Lisa Pesak x30476

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8.            Russian Phase One Language Course -- For Beginners
Russian Phase One is an introductory course designed to acquaint the novice student with certain elementary aspects of the Russian language and provide a brief outline of Russian history and culture. Our goal is to introduce students to skills and strategies necessary for successful foreign language study that they can apply immediately in the classroom. The linguistic component of this class consists of learning the Cyrillic alphabet and a very limited number of simple words and phrases, which will serve as a foundation for further language study.
Who: All JSC-badged civil servants and contractors with a work-related justification
Dates: May 28 to June 21
When: Monday through Friday, 9:15 to 10:15 a.m. or 4 to 5 p.m.
Where: Building 12, Room 158A
Please register through SATERN. The registration deadline is May 21.
Natalia Rostova 281-851-3745

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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.

Human Spaceflight News
Monday, April 29, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Progress cargo ship with jammed antenna closes in on station

William Harwood - CBS News

A Russian cargo ship hobbled by a jammed navigation antenna glided into its port on the International Space Station early Friday, completing a dramatic automated rendezvous. After final checks to make sure the stowed antenna would not interfere with an airtight structural seal, the ship was safely locked in place. Loaded with 3.1 tons of supplies and equipment, the Progress M-19M/51P spacecraft's forward docking probe engaged the capture mechanism of the Zvezda command module's aft port at 8:25 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) as the two spacecraft sailed 261 miles above the Kazakhstan-China border.

Russian cargo spacecraft docks with space station despite glitch

Miriam Kramer - Space.com

An unmanned cargo-carrying spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station Friday morning, despite a glitch in the capsule's navigation system. After its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, the Russian Progress 51 spacecraft failed to deploy one of the two antennas used for the Kurs automated docking system. Russian ground controllers were able to reposition the antenna, allowing the automated docking to go ahead as planned.

Damaged Russian ship docks with space station

Associated Press

A Russian cargo spacecraft has docked with the International Space Station, despite the failure of an antenna on its navigation system to deploy. The unmanned Progress cargo ship was launched Wednesday from Russia's main space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The antenna didn't deploy when the craft reached orbit and Russian mission control tried repeatedly to prod it into action. However, the ship carrying more than three tons of food, oxygen, water and equipment was able to dock Friday on automatic pilot, according to video from Russian mission control. There were initial concerns the undeployed antenna might interfere physically with the docking. The U.S. agency NASA said the space station crew would conduct leak checks and then unload the cargo.
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Launch of Nauka laboratory module to ISS slated for December

Interfax

The laboratory module Nauka for ISS is to be launched with Proton-M launch vehicle tentatively on December 11, a source at Baikonur space center has told Interfax. Presently the module is at Energia rocket and space corporation in Korolyov in Moscow region where it is undergoing checks and where additional equipment is being installed. After these operations are completed, the module will be sent to Baikonur, the source said. Meanwhile, the workplace in which it will be installed is being prepared in the assembly and testing tower of pad 254 where the module will be prepared for launch. The testing and assembly equipment is being certified, lists of components that should be delivered to the cosmodrome are being compiled. The prelaunch checks of the module at the cosmodrome will last for about three months, the source said.

After Antares test launch, Orbital aims for space station

Stephen Clark – SpaceflightNow.com

Buoyed by a flawless test launch of the Antares rocket, the heavy-lifting part of its commercial cargo resupply system for the International Space Station, Orbital Sciences Corp. has its eye on a summer demonstration flight of the company's Cygnus resupply freighter. The next flight, scheduled to launch in June or July, will go all the way to the space station and offers a steeper technical challenge for the Virginia-based aerospace contractor than the successful launch of its first Antares rocket Sunday.

Orion test flight is on track despite heat shield concerns
Fears of crackshave diminished, NASA maintains

James Dean – Florida Today

For astronauts hurtling back to Earth with a batch of asteroid samples in 2021, a spacecraft with a heat shield prone to cracking could be a worrisome scenario. According to a recent government watchdog report, concern about that possibility held up production of the heat shield for NASA's first space-bound Orion capsule, threatening to delay its uncrewed flight test next year. NASA knew its chosen heat shield material could crack before atmospheric re-entry and has been studying whether any cracks could be serious enough to "threaten the safety of the crew and success of the mission," the Government Accountability Office report said. NASA says the mission known as Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1, is on schedule for September 2014, and that cracking concerns have diminished since the GAO reviewed the issue last summer.

Russian cosmonauts to take "Olympic spacewalk"

Xinhua

Russian cosmonauts will take the Olympics torch to outer space, the federal space agency Roscosmos said Sunday. The space agency has approved a plan of an unscheduled spacewalk for Russian cosmonauts from the International Space Station (ISS) to take the Olympic torch to space, Roscosmos deputy head Vitaly Davydov told local media. "It will not be a replica but exactly the same kind of torch that will be used at the Olympiad. One of several thousand torches," Interfax news agency quoted Davydov as saying. According to the official, the Olympic spacewalk plan has been agreed with the Olympics Committee, and the torch will not be burning as open fire was prohibited in the ISS. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

Asteroid Capture Seen As Catalyst For Exploration

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

Capturing a tiny asteroid and nudging it into the Earth-Moon system for study by spacewalking astronauts is at the outer edge of U.S. capabilities right now, and will pull NASA's deep-space exploration technologies along even if it does not catch a space rock. The idea has drawn a mixed reaction on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the U.S. space establishment. But NASA managers consider it a unifying goal to bring focus to the various deep-space exploration development activities underway. In general, that work is going very well, considering NASA's mismatch of programs and money to pay for them. The agency reports good progress on the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule that is central to its deep-space goals, including the asteroid mission. So far, NASA-oversight committees on Capitol Hill appear ready to keep money flowing to those two programs.

NASA considers robotic spacecraft rendezvous as asteroid mission backup

Jeff Foust - Space News

NASA would consider sending the first crewed Orion mission to rendezvous with a robotic spacecraft in lunar orbit if it cannot redirect an asteroid to the Moon by 2021, a space agency official told a pair of advisory panels. When NASA rolled out its asteroid initiative as part of its 2014 budget proposal on April 10, the agency said its goal was to bring an asteroid into orbit around the Moon by 2021 so that the previously scheduled first crewed Orion mission, designated EM-2, could rendezvous with the asteroid. However, NASA has not yet identified a specific asteroid for this mission. Speaking to the Human Exploration and Operations committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) April 18, William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said NASA had identified about 13 asteroids with appropriate sizes and orbits, with one to two new ones being discovered each year, but that further study was needed before selecting a specific target.

Posey: Space Coast needs new, diversified jobs

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

It's been a rocky few years for the Space Coast district represented by U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge — starting with NASA's decision to retire the space shuttle in 2011. The end of the 30-year program led to thousands of job losses at Kennedy Space Center. The beachfront region still is trying to recover from the economic body blow. As Posey begins his third term, he said his primary goal is reducing local unemployment, a trauma he knows well after losing his own job as a safety inspector decades ago when NASA downsized the Apollo moon program.

Will Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo take 1st rocket-powered flight Monday?

Leonard David - Space.com

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic appears to be go for its first rocket-powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo — a commercial rocket ship for passenger space travel. There is a palpable buzz of a possible test flight of SpaceShipTwo on Monday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. The test is rumored to be a 20-second burn of SpaceShipTwo's novel hybrid rocket motor in flight.

NASA's goggle-eyed SPHERE robots create 3D maps on the fly

David Szondy - GizMag.com

Take the little floating ball that gave Luke Skywalker so much trouble during lightsaber practice, slap a pair of huge welder's goggles on it and you start to get a picture of NASA's latest foray into flying robots. Currently being tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS), MIT Space Systems Laboratory's SPHERES-VERTIGO system is a free-flying robot with stereoscopic vision that is part of a program to develop ways for small satellites to autonomously create 3D maps of objects such as asteroids or disabled satellites.

Science lesson is out of this world as pupils link up with the Space Station

Melanie Vass - Daily Echo (UK)

Teenage students got a whole new perspective on the world thanks to a unique link up with the International Space Station. Pupils at Harewood and Avonbourne Colleges in Bournemouth were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take photos of the Earth from space. The project was made possible thanks to Harewood's Bill Coombes, who works as a technician in the science department and is also an education outreach officer for NASA.

Astronaut Parmitano wants Italian at Int Space Station helm
Set to become first Italian to go on space walk

Gentile Lettore - Gazzetta del Sud

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano, who is set to become the only Italian have gone on a space walk, on Friday said he wanted to see an Italian in charge of the International Space Station (ISS). Parmitano, an Italian Air Force captain, has been training in Russia and in preparation of a mission to co-pilot a Soyuz TMA spacecraft and spend six months working on the space station beginning in May.

Heads up: SpaceX testing is about to get louder

Joseph Abbott - Waco Tribune

I just got a call from SpaceX communications director Christina Ra with a heads up: testing at their McGregor development facility is about to get loud even by their standards. (Given recent events, it was considered an especially good idea to let people know about this ahead of time.) Ra couldn't comment on precisely what technology was being tested — SpaceX tends to keep as mum as possible on such details both for proprietary reasons and out of worries about violating federal law against aiding foreign weapons development — so this is where the speculation begins. The most likely possibility is that it's a Falcon 9 first stage test using nine of the new, more powerful Merlin 1D engines (it's known that the 1Ds have been tested individually; this could be the first test of the full, upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage). The more outside shot is that this is the start of testing on the 27-engine Falcon Heavy first stages, but since the Heavy is also set to use Merlin 1Ds it seems likely that they would want to test the nine-engine variant first.

Dream of flying lands Curt Brown in U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame

Kevin Giles - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Aloft in space, Curt Brown looked down on Earth with the pioneer of orbit himself, astronaut John Glenn, riding beside him. It was a childhood dream come true for Brown, who now lives in western Wisconsin, to command the space shuttle Discovery with his hero aboard. "The joke is, 'Was John on your mission, or was I on his mission?'?" Brown told reporters last weekend when he joined rare company — the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. His induction with fellow retired astronauts Bonnie Dunbar and Eileen Collins took place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Brown had a storied career as an astronaut, making six space shuttle missions that began with Endeavour in 1992. Atlantis followed, Endeavour again, then three visits to orbit on Discovery.

New $5 & $10 bills to highlight International Space Station, train travel

Canadian Press

On Tuesday, the Bank of Canada will unveil new versions of our $5 and $10 bills, but some newly released documents are offering a sneak peak. Focus groups consulted about the proposed images for the new plastic bank note series thought the space motif of the new 5 looked cartoonish and childish. Others were left scratching their heads over the depiction of Dextre, a Canadian robotic handyman on board the International Space Station. Some people wrongly assumed Dextre was the name of an astronaut shown on the bill, while others had no clue who the name referred to.

Job Growth Could STEM from Space Curriculum

Jonathan Weaver - Kittanning Paper (Pennsylvania)

In January 1986, seven astronauts died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger just more than a minute after liftoff. More than 15 years later, those teachers' mission might be felt within local classrooms. At their last public meeting, the Armstrong County Commissioners acknowledged in a resolution their support toward a regional Challenger Learning Center – which aims to encourage STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – curriculum among students through the use of four missions similar to those of astronauts.

NASA still aiming for Mars trip
Asteroid mission a stepping stone toward long journey to red planet

John Kelly - Florida Today (Opinion)

NASA's not giving up on flying people to Mars. Some critics of the space agency's recent proposal to fly astronauts to an asteroid say we're "settling" for something less than the big prize: humans walking on the red planet. Not true. The mission to an asteroid is part of a stepping-stone approach to sending human beings exploring deeper into the solar system. A sensible look at NASA's current flight capabilities, human limitations and the space exploration budget means Mars isn't possible yet.

The Crew That Never Flew: The Misfortunes of Soyuz 11

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

More than 40 years ago, the world's first space station—Salyut 1, a "salute" to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space—was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. In April 1971, it was visited by Soyuz 10, but a fault with the docking prevented the three cosmonauts from entering the station. Following corrective actions, the Soviets planned to fly two further missions to Salyut 1, the first of which (Soyuz 11) would be commanded by the world's first spacewalker, Alexei Leonov. However, an unfortunate series of incidents would conspire to frustrate Leonov's mission … and, brought tragedy to the men who flew in his place.
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COMPLETE STORIES

Progress cargo ship with jammed antenna closes in on station

William Harwood - CBS News

A Russian cargo ship hobbled by a jammed navigation antenna glided into its port on the International Space Station early Friday, completing a dramatic automated rendezvous. After final checks to make sure the stowed antenna would not interfere with an airtight structural seal, the ship was safely locked in place.

Loaded with 3.1 tons of supplies and equipment, the Progress M-19M/51P spacecraft's forward docking probe engaged the capture mechanism of the Zvezda command module's aft port at 8:25 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) as the two spacecraft sailed 261 miles above the Kazakhstan-China border.

"We have contact," someone said. "We have capture."

Before retracting hooks to pull the craft in for a so-called "hard dock," Russian flight controllers asked cosmonauts Roman Romanenko and Pavel Vinogradov to listen for "grinding" sounds or any other unexpected noises that might indicate the stowed antenna was rubbing against station hardware.

Vinogradov said "there was nothing that sounded strange. ... It's probably all normal." Then he jokingly offered to stage an emergency spacewalk for an up-close inspection.

Instead, the docking system hooks were retracted, pulling the spacecraft firmly into place at 8:34 a.m.

"So everything is normal and congratulations," Vladimir Popovkin, head of the Russian federal space agency, radioed the crew.

Russian engineers earlier concluded the supply ship could safely execute an automated docking using a software patch instructing flight computers to ignore the undeployed antenna.

As always with Progress dockings, cosmonauts in the Russian segment of the station -- in this case, Romanenko and Vinogradov -- were standing by to remotely guide the ship to docking if the automated KURS navigation system has any problems.

But the software patch apparently worked as designed and the cargo ship moved in for docking in the normal fashion, albeit slower than usual to give engineers a good look at the antenna through the station's camera system.

The video showed the antenna folded up against the side of the Progress with one edge appearing to slightly overlap the craft's docking ring. Earlier, U.S. flight controllers told station commander Chris Hadfield it might not be immediately possible to achieve a hard dock.

"Just a heads up on the current situation with the 51P docking," David St. Jacques radioed from NASA's mission control center in Houston. "TsUP (Russian mission control) is going forward with the automated docking, expected at 12:26 GMT as planned. We're going to support and we have put ISS in a safe config. We just handed over attitude control to the Russian segment.

"A heads up, should we end up with an incompletely docked Progress we might end up in free drift longer than usual and we're working a plan for that contingency. We're also discussing with our Russian counterparts whether we need any additional precautions with respect to ingressing the Progress."

"Copy all, that's clear. Thanks, David," station commander Chris Hadfield replied.

As it turned out, the contingency plans were not needed.

The Progress M-19M spacecraft was successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome Wednesday. The climb to space went smoothly and the spacecraft's two solar arrays unfolded as planned a few moments after reaching orbit.

But one of five antennas used by the ship's KURS radar rendezvous system failed to deploy.

The KURS system, used by both Progress and manned Soyuz spacecraft, measures differences in radar signal strength to home in on the space station. The jammed antenna, wrapped in white insulation blankets, normally is used to provide orientation data during final approach.

After a lengthy analysis, the Russians concluded it was safe to proceed with docking despite the loss of the antenna.

Russian cargo spacecraft docks with space station despite glitch

Miriam Kramer - Space.com

An unmanned cargo-carrying spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station Friday morning, despite a glitch in the capsule's navigation system.

After its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, the Russian Progress 51 spacecraft failed to deploy one of the two antennas used for the Kurs automated docking system. Russian ground controllers were able to reposition the antenna, allowing the automated docking to go ahead as planned.

Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Roman Romanenko kept an eye on Progress as it moved into position.

"We have contact," one of the cosmonauts said after docking, "We have capture."

Although the cosmonauts were prepared to take over docking procedures, the automated system worked and the spacecraft fully docked to the station at 8:34 a.m. EDT while flying 251 miles (404 kilometers) over the border between China and Kazakhstan.

The approach to the space station was slower than usual because controllers on the ground and astronauts on the International Space Station were carefully monitoring Progress' position, NASA officials said.

At first the Progress was "soft-docked" and not secured in place with hooks in latches, giving the station crew and flight controllers a chance to make sure its stuck antenna posed no risk to the station's exterior. When they saw it was safe, the Progress was slowly drawn into the port and secured.

Progress delivered 1,764 pounds (800 kg) of propellant, 57 pounds (26 kg) of air, 48 pounds (21 kg) of oxygen, 926 pounds (420 kg) of water and 3,348 pounds (1519 kg) of experiment hardware, spare parts and other supplies to the residents of the space station, NASA officials said.

Vinogradov and Romanenko are flight engineers on the station's Expedition 25 crew, along with NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy, and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin. The crew is led by commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency.

Romanenko, Marshburn and Hadfield are expected to leave the space station in May after six months onboard. Once they leave, Vinogradov will take over for Hadfield as the commander of the Expedition 36 mission.

Launch of Nauka laboratory module to ISS slated for December

Interfax

The laboratory module Nauka for ISS is to be launched with Proton-M launch vehicle tentatively on December 11, a source at Baikonur space center has told Interfax.

Presently the module is at Energia rocket and space corporation in Korolyov in Moscow region where it is undergoing checks and where additional equipment is being installed.

After these operations are completed, the module will be sent to Baikonur, the source said.

Meanwhile, the workplace in which it will be installed is being prepared in the assembly and testing tower of pad 254 where the module will be prepared for launch.

The testing and assembly equipment is being certified, lists of components that should be delivered to the cosmodrome are being compiled.

The prelaunch checks of the module at the cosmodrome will last for about three months, the source said.

The Russian multipurpose laboratory module Nauka weighs 24 tons. Its air-tight section for equipment is 4 cubic meters big. There are three working stations inside and the scientific equipment it carries weighs up to 3 tonnes.

Nauka will significantly increase the technical as well as scientific capabilities of the station. It will have a docking unit for resupply spacecraft (Soyuz-TM, Progress-M and their modifications) and other research modules.

Nauka will be helpful in pumping fuel, transferring cargo from resupply spacecraft, serve as a warehouse for the installation of various equipment, namely the European Robotic Arm (ERA).

The new module will also increase the capacity of ISS life-support systems which will increase the safety of crewmembers.

The module has a locking unit that will permit taking various materials and instruments to outer space without the need for crewmembers to make spacewalks.

Nauka will become the 17 module of ISS.

After Antares test launch, Orbital aims for space station

Stephen Clark – SpaceflightNow.com

Buoyed by a flawless test launch of the Antares rocket, the heavy-lifting part of its commercial cargo resupply system for the International Space Station, Orbital Sciences Corp. has its eye on a summer demonstration flight of the company's Cygnus resupply freighter.

The next flight, scheduled to launch in June or July, will go all the way to the space station and offers a steeper technical challenge for the Virginia-based aerospace contractor than the successful launch of its first Antares rocket Sunday.

"I'm not going to hold my breath any less on the next one than I did on this one," said Frank Culbertson, executive vice president and general manager of Orbital's advanced programs group. "Every launch is a challenge, and you want to make sure that it's all done right."

The April 21 flight was the culmination of a six-year, $300 million effort to design, build and test the Antares booster, which can loft medium-class satellites into orbit and is contracted by NASA to launch nine more times on cargo deliveries to the space station.

It also broke in a new $140 million launch pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Launch pad 0A is owned by Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and was mostly funded by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority.

"Early results of the engineering analysis indicate that the vehicle's all-important first stage system, including its twin liquid rocket engines, performed exactly as expected, as did other vehicle systems as well as the launch complex's propellant and pressurization equipment," said David Thompson, Orbital's chairman, president and CEO.

Culbertson said the success of Antares permits the company to move on to the next phase of its $288 million agreement with NASA, which is how the U.S. government finances development of the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft in partnership with Orbital's own capital.

"All of that demonstrated that when we do this again, we know how to make this happen and we'll get that payload - the Cygnus - into orbit and on its way to the International Space Station, so that it can continue its mission and we can provide the cargo, the experiments, the clothing and food that they need to sustain and extend their mission."

Already fueled and loaded with cargo, the first Cygnus spacecraft will be bolted to the second Antares rocket ahead of launch from Wallops Island, Va.

The Antares test flight only sent a dummy payload into orbit.

Engineers installed cargo bags into the spacecraft's cylindrical pressurized module, built by Thales Alenia Space of Italy, and pumped maneuvering propellant the vehicle's service module, manufactured by Orbital Sciences. The spacecraft will be kept in storage until it is ready for attachment to the Antares rocket at the launch base's horizontal integration facility, according to Culbertson.

"It's ready to be transferred into the horizontal integration facility, and as soon as the rocket is ready to receive it, we will integrate the two together and it will be ready to roll out to the pad sometime this summer - probably late June or early July," Culbertson said. "So we will be on track for delivery, assuming the space station schedule can accommodate us, and we don't run into any unforeseen problems."

In March, technicians packed 1,235 pounds of cargo into the craft's Italian-built main cabin, then engineers mated the pressurized compartment to the Cygnus service module. Earlier this month, workers filled the spaceship's tanks with propellant.

"The spacecraft will not be the long pole in getting to the pad," Culbertson said. "It will be just evaluating the pad condition to see what we have to do to refurbish it, if anything, and then getting the next core completely assembled with its engines, the second stage, and get the fairing in here so we can assemble and attach the spacecraft to the front end, and then roll it out."

Workers will add some additional cargo, including fresh food, into the Cygnus spacecraft before it rolls to the launch pad.

The Cygnus freighter's cargo section is based on the multi-purpose logistics modules used by NASA to ferry supplies to and from the space station in the space shuttle era. Orbital devised the Cygnus service module using a design proven on the company's geostationary communications satellites.

While Orbital paid for the development of the Antares rocket with private financing, the company funded work on Cygnus jointly with NASA. Orbital started working on the Antares rocket in early 2007, and the firm won public funding from NASA in February 2008.

NASA tapped Orbital and SpaceX, which has accomplished its space station test flights, for operational resupply missions to the space station in December 2008. Orbital's contract is worth $1.9 billion and covers eight flights through 2016.

The U.S. space agency turned to the commercial sector to replace some of the cargo-carrying capacity lost with the space shuttle's retirement.

Orbital's first four operational Cygnus missions will each carry up to 4,400 pounds of equipment, food and experiments to the space station. Orbital and Thales plan to introduce a larger cargo module for flights in the second half of the contract, raising the Cygnus capacity to nearly 6,000 pounds per flight.

Unlike SpaceX's Dragon spaceship, which can return hardware to Earth intact, the Cygnus will dispose of the space station's trash in a fiery re-entry back into the atmosphere, similar to most of the station's supply freighters.

One big advantage of the Cygnus is its ability to carry more volume than Dragon, according to NASA.

With most of the hardware for the next mission already at the Wallops launch base, engineers will complete pending safety reviews for NASA and space station partners to approve the approach of the Cygnus spacecraft within the outpost's vicinity.

"What's left to finish up is the verification of the final safety review packages to make sure it is compliant with the visiting vehicle requirements that we establish," said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which oversees the cost-sharing development agreement for the Orbital Sciences cargo resupply system.

"Once those verifications are complete, we'll go into a final review of flight readiness status," Lindenmoyer said.

Meanwhile, NASA and Orbital will continue joint testing of the Cygnus spacecraft's flight software.

"There has already been a great deal of joint testing done with the software simulating a mission, and that's gone very well," Lindenmoyer said.

The joint tests ensure the Cygnus software will function in concert with the space station.

"Software is always one of the most challenging things in any development," said Frank DeMauro, Orbital's Cygnus program manager.

Culbertson said the Antares and Cygnus teams will be ready when called upon.

"When we do this with a Cygnus spacecraft on the front end, and we have cargo to deliver, we're not going to have the luxury of a two-hour window," Culbertson said, referring to the length of the launch window on the Antares test flight. "We're going to have anywhere from five to zero minutes, so we're going to have to get it right the first time."

It will take three-to-five days for the Cygnus spacecraft to each the space station. The exact timing of the mission partially depends on finding an opening in the space station's busy manifest, which this summer includes the arrivals of European, Russian and Japanese resupply ships, plus a series of spacewalks.

"We'll be at a certain level of nervousness all the way to main engine cutoff and then to orbit insertion," Culbertson said. "But on that one, of course, we will have the additional challenge of making sure the Cygnus is actually in orbit and that it deploys its solar arrays, it has its own power, and then it can start its rendezvous maneuvers to get to the station, which will take about three-to-five days."

Along the way, controllers at Orbital Sciences headquarters in Dulles, Va., will put the Cygnus spacecraft through predefined tests, demos and health checks. NASA must sign off on the results of the tests before the craft can get close to the space station.

Using automatic on-board navigation aids, the Cygnus spacecraft will fly itself to a point about 30 feet below the space station, where it will be grasped with the lab's robotic arm and moved to a parking spot on the complex for a stay of up to a month.

"We won't relax for quite a while on that one until we're actually grappled, berthed to the station and the hatch is opened," Culbertson said. "Even then, we'll still want to make sure everything goes right, but that will be a major achievement."

Orion test flight is on track despite heat shield concerns
Fears of crackshave diminished, NASA maintains

James Dean – Florida Today

For astronauts hurtling back to Earth with a batch of asteroid samples in 2021, a spacecraft with a heat shield prone to cracking could be a worrisome scenario.

According to a recent government watchdog report, concern about that possibility held up production of the heat shield for NASA's first space-bound Orion capsule, threatening to delay its uncrewed flight test next year.

NASA knew its chosen heat shield material could crack before atmospheric re-entry and has been studying whether any cracks could be serious enough to "threaten the safety of the crew and success of the mission," the Government Accountability Office report said.

NASA says the mission known as Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1, is on schedule for September 2014, and that cracking concerns have diminished since the GAO reviewed the issue last summer.

"Since then, through material testing, thermal coatings, computer analysis and operational control, we've significantly lowered the likelihood of surface cracking during EFT-1 and believe we will obtain the necessary test data," said Rachel Kraft, a spokeswoman at NASA headquarters.

Slated to launch from Cape Canaveral on a Delta IV Heavy rocket, one of the test flight's primary goals is to test Orion's heat shield as it re-enters the atmosphere at a velocity close to a return from the moon or asteroid.

The heat shield's "ablative" Avocat material is similar to what Apollo spacecraft used. It is designed to protect crews from temperatures approaching 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit by eroding in a controlled fashion to move heat away from the spacecraft.

But at colder temperatures it can experience surface cracking due to different rates of expansion between the Avocat and its underlying structure, NASA said.

"This occurred during some Apollo missions but never affected the safety of the crew," Kraft said. "There is a possibility it could also happen on Orion's heat shield."

Textron Defense Systems of Wilmington, Mass., is now applying Avocat to a shield spanning more than 16 feet in diameter before it is shipped to NASA's Orion assembly factory at Kennedy Space Center.

There, Orion teams last month finished repairs to actual cracks — unrelated to the hypothetical heat shield cracks — that occurred on several of the test flight vehicle's structural ribs during pressure testing last year. NASA and lead Orion contractor Lockheed Martin designed brackets to cover and strengthen the cracked areas. A new series of tests to validate the repairs starts next month.

Senior NASA officials have praised Orion's progress in recent public remarks. They have cited availability of United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket, not spacecraft issues, as the key to keeping next year's test flight on schedule.

If the mission does expose serious heat shield problems, NASA has plenty of time to correct them before up to four astronauts hop on board Orion.

The capsule isn't scheduled to fly again until 2017, again without a crew, and astronauts won't strap in until at least 2021. That's when NASA now proposes to send a crew to an asteroid lassoed by a robotic spacecraft and placed in an orbit near the moon.

The Orion project has cost at least $6.2 billion to date and as of last year was expected to total nearly $9 billion through the first crewed flight.

But flat funding throughout the capsule's early development — unusual for such complex systems — has already led NASA to push back important technical work, increasing the risk that problems discovered late could strain the budget or launch schedule.

The GAO report noted, for example, that NASA has delayed by two years, to 2018, a test of the launch abort system that would pull Orion and its crew from a failing rocket.

And more than 5,000 pounds must be shaved from Orion before a crew flies. That work has been deferred until after the 2017 launch from KSC atop the agency's giant Space Launch System rocket.

Asteroid Capture Seen As Catalyst For Exploration

Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week

Capturing a tiny asteroid and nudging it into the Earth-Moon system for study by spacewalking astronauts is at the outer edge of U.S. capabilities right now, and will pull NASA's deep-space exploration technologies along even if it does not catch a space rock.

The idea has drawn a mixed reaction on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the U.S. space establishment. But NASA managers consider it a unifying goal to bring focus to the various deep-space exploration development activities underway. In general, that work is going very well, considering NASA's mismatch of programs and money to pay for them.

The agency reports good progress on the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion crew capsule that is central to its deep-space goals, including the asteroid mission. So far, NASA-oversight committees on Capitol Hill appear ready to keep money flowing to those two programs.

Meanwhile, astronomers already are looking for threatening near-Earth asteroids only a little larger than the one that would be captured, and International Space Station planners are preparing the life-science and engineering research necessary to keep an Orion crew alive on the 22-day asteroid mission. The long-duration solar-electric propulsion (SEP) technology necessary to reach and "redirect" the asteroid is on the horizon, and the capture mission could advance it enough to propel human crews down the invisible "gravity rivers" they are likely to follow deeper into the Solar System.

William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, coined that term when NASA intensified its study of cislunar space as a jumping-off point for human exploration. He has been briefing the asteroid-capture mission to Washington space stakeholders since it was presented in NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request April 10, stressing the effect it will have on capabilities over the scientific value of the asteroid itself.

"I believe there are other compelling aspects of this mission that are very worthwhile," Gerstenmaier says. "To be able to understand the risk posture to take astronauts to this deep retrograde orbit; to understand the abort options out of those orbits; to look at the lunar gravity [factors], those are all tremendously important to us. I'm going to do those independent of whether we've got this asteroid or not."

Astronomer Steve Squyres, the principal investigator on the twin Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity who chairs the NASA Advisory Council, finds that argument compelling, as well as the idea of broadening the study of near-Earth asteroids to include those in the 7-10-meter (22.9-32.8-ft.) class that conceivably could be captured. But in presenting his views to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Human Spaceflight, Squyres said he believes it is too soon to say if the capture mission itself would be worthwhile.

"I don't know if this can be done," Squyres says. "I don't know what it's going to cost. It's a very new idea; it's very immature."

Administrator Charles Bolden met that same skepticism when he presented the asteroid-capture idea to the House Science Committee on April 24, and emphasized that the $105 million in NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request would only advance mission-concept and SEP technology work. While the House panel has held hearings on the threat to Earth from asteroids, its members also were unsure of the value in actually capturing one for study.

"I am concerned that NASA has neglected congressional funding priorities and been distracted by new and questionable missions that detract from our ultimate deep-space exploration goals," said Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.), chairman of the panel's space subcommittee."

In its "compromise" 2010 legislation authorizing NASA spending, Congress insisted the agency build the SLS and Orion as government-owned deep-space exploration vehicles, and as a backup to the planned commercial crew vehicles NASA is also helping to fund. Gerstenmaier says the first Orion flight article—an instrumented testbed designed to gauge just how thick and heavy the capsule's ablative thermal protection system must be to protect the crew on a high-velocity planetary return—is at Kennedy Space Center awaiting arrival of the blunt-end heat shield from its manufacturer, and is on-track to fly on a Delta IV next year as planned.

SLS Program Manager Todd May says the main issues going into preliminary design review in June are whether the surplus space shuttle main engines can be operated safely—with enough performance—in the different loads environment they will see on the SLS main stage, and a casting problem that required a redo on one of the five segments of the solid-fuel booster qualification motor. The SLS remains on-track for a first flight in 2017, he says.

Bolden says the asteroid mission is the logical next step on the road to Mars, as long as Congress supplies the funds. "Since we're operating under a flat budget, the one that is executable in today's budget environment is an asteroid mission."

But Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, worries that the agency is not asking for enough funds to do the job, even without sequestration and other budget-trimming impediments.

"There's been a pattern, not only in NASA but across all agencies, to low-ball estimates," she says. "Those low-ball estimates tend to be inaccurate, and then along comes something like sequester, which has a tremendous impact."

NASA considers robotic spacecraft rendezvous as asteroid mission backup

Jeff Foust - Space News

NASA would consider sending the first crewed Orion mission to rendezvous with a robotic spacecraft in lunar orbit if it cannot redirect an asteroid to the Moon by 2021, a space agency official told a pair of advisory panels.

When NASA rolled out its asteroid initiative as part of its 2014 budget proposal on April 10, the agency said its goal was to bring an asteroid into orbit around the Moon by 2021 so that the previously scheduled first crewed Orion mission, designated EM-2, could rendezvous with the asteroid.

However, NASA has not yet identified a specific asteroid for this mission. Speaking to the Human Exploration and Operations committee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) April 18, William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said NASA had identified about 13 asteroids with appropriate sizes and orbits, with one to two new ones being discovered each year, but that further study was needed before selecting a specific target.

"This is one of the things we have to watch," he said. "I don't believe I can guarantee today, with the assets and the amount of visibility we get into these targets, that we can find one that we can, with 97 percent probability, capture."

NASA has developed a notional asteroid capture and redirection mission involving one small asteroid, 2009 BD. In that mission plan, a robotic spacecraft would launch in June 2018, arriving at the asteroid in April 2020. The spacecraft would then start to redirect the asteroid toward the Moon, putting it into a final orbit around the Moon in October 2024.

Gerstenmaier, briefing this mission concept before both the NAC committee and the National Research Council's (NRC's) Committee on Human Spaceflight here April 22, acknowledged that this particular scenario failed to meet the 2021 goal. "This was done as kind of a proof of concept," he told the NRC committee. "This is not the object we would go to."

Asked by the NRC committee what NASA would do if it could not find a suitable asteroid, Gerstenmaier said they would still fly the solar-electric propulsion spacecraft to demonstrate its technologies. "I would send that spacecraft on a pretty demanding demonstration mission, which we planned to do anyway," he said. "Then I would put this spacecraft into this retrograde orbit, and then use Orion to go to that retrograde orbit."

The asteroid initiative has received a lukewarm reception from many in the space community since the April 10 announcement, failing to win over people already skeptical of human asteroid missions. "I am hard pressed to run into anybody who thinks that going to an asteroid is the right way, primarily, to go on to Mars," said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University here, in a separate presentation to the NRC human spaceflight committee.

Planetary scientist Steve Squyres, chairman of the NAC, told the NRC committee that he endorsed two elements of NASA's initiative, enhanced efforts to discover and track near-Earth asteroids and a crewed mission to lunar orbit, be it to an asteroid or just a robotic spacecraft. "Even if all you do as your next step in human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit is to send people to cislunar space for 21 days, it's worth doing," he said.

Squyres, who said he was speaking for himself only since the NAC had not yet provided advice to NASA on the asteroid initiative, was undecided on the feasibility of the redirection mission. "I don't know if this thing can be done or not," he said. "It needs a really hard, carefully considered look, and then we'll see."

Squyres cautioned NASA not to sell such an asteroid mission on the basis of the science it can perform. "It's not cost-effective," he said. The money spent on an asteroid redirection mission could instead be spent, he said, on "a small fleet" of robotic spacecraft that could go to multiple asteroids.

He also warned against selling the mission as achieving the goal established by President Barack Obama in his April 2010 speech at NASA's Kennedy Space Center of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025. That speech, Squyres noted, called for sending crewed missions into deep space beyond the Moon, starting with an asteroid. "I don't think it was the president's intent" to satisfy that goal by moving an asteroid to cislunar space, Sqyures said.

Squyres said that he has not heard anyone at NASA make the claim that the asteroid capture mission satisfies that presidential goal, but in at least one case a senior NASA official has done so. "The president challenged us to do this back in 2010," NASA Chief Financial Officer Beth Robinson said in her April 10 presentation on the NASA budget proposal. "He said to do it by 2025, and we now have a plan to do that perhaps as early as 2021."

Posey: Space Coast needs new, diversified jobs

Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel

It's been a rocky few years for the Space Coast district represented by U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge — starting with NASA's decision to retire the space shuttle in 2011.

The end of the 30-year program led to thousands of job losses at Kennedy Space Center. The beachfront region still is trying to recover from the economic body blow.

As Posey begins his third term, he said his primary goal is reducing local unemployment, a trauma he knows well after losing his own job as a safety inspector decades ago when NASA downsized the Apollo moon program.

"It's jobs and the economy," Posey said during a 45-minute interview in his Washington office. "That's the biggest [priority]."

Unemployment in Brevard County and Indian River County — the bulk of Posey's district, which also includes east Orange — is stuck at 8 percent or more and continues to outpace state and national averages.

To cut those numbers, Posey is pushing a multipronged agenda that aims to diversify the economy while reigniting the space sector.

A key first step, he said, is establishing a new commercial launchpad near KSC that could attract emerging rocket companies such as SpaceX.

State officials are working with federal lawmakers to secure a site near the ghost town of Shiloh, which sits on the Volusia-Brevard border.

"The Shiloh site will yield big dividends in the future," said Posey, including the potential for hundreds of new jobs. But the effort has been snared in red tape and some environmental concerns, and Posey said he plans to hassle federal bureaucrats to hurry the approval along.

Timing is critical because SpaceX is expected to announce soon where it wants its newest launchpad, and Florida must show signs of progress if it hopes to beat competitors such as Texas and Puerto Rico.

Early cost estimates have put the pad's price tag at less than $100 million, with the bulk of that cost being borne by the company that uses it, along with some state funding.

Outside the space world, Posey is pushing federal regulators at NOAA to reassess fish populations off Florida's east coast.

In recent years, catching several species — notably red snapper, tilefish and wreckfish — has been restricted because of past overfishing. Posey wants NOAA to take stock now to see whether their populations have rebounded enough to increase catch limits.

A survey on red snapper, for example, is planned to begin in 2014, but Posey and the fishing industry want to begin that work immediately in the hope it generates more work for Florida anglers.

"We firmly believe that if true scientific work was done, the catch [allowed] would be greater than it is now," said Bob Jones, executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association. And, he added, "we'll back off" if that survey shows the fish are still below required levels.

Posey also is seeking to generate jobs through upgrades at Port Canaveral. Authorities there want to widen the facility from 400 to 500 feet and deepen the harbor by 2 feet — making it roughly 46 feet deep at its lowest point.

"Ships have gotten so large, so fast over the last couple years," said John Walsh, interim CEO of Port Canaveral. "We need that extra margin of safety."

The goal is to attract more cruise lines and cargo ships to Port Canaveral. Walsh said the two upgrades could create hundreds, if not thousands more jobs with the increased traffic. The estimated cost of these upgrades is about $54 million, and Posey is seeking to route about $34 million in federal dollars to that effort, with the remainder being covered by state and port funding.

"It's just a matter of money," he said.

As a final goal, Posey is pressing to give more flexibility to U.S. Customs and Border Protection so inspection agents can work on a seasonal or part-time basis.

The idea is to help boost flights to facilities such as Melbourne International Airport, which don't often attract foreign airlines. A more-flexible staffing option could make it more cost-efficient for these small airports to welcome international visitors.

Congress granted that flexibility in a law that passed this year, and now Posey is pressing customs officials to test the new arrangement at Melbourne airport.

"We are a lot further along than we were six months ago," said Richard Ennis, executive director of Melbourne International Airport.

Will Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo take 1st rocket-powered flight Monday?

Leonard David - Space.com

The space tourism company Virgin Galactic appears to be go for its first rocket-powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo — a commercial rocket ship for passenger space travel.

There is a palpable buzz of a possible test flight of SpaceShipTwo on Monday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, Calif. The test is rumored to be a 20-second burn of SpaceShipTwo's novel hybrid rocket motor in flight.

SpaceShipTwo is designed to use the rocket motor to power private launches that will carry six passengers and two pilots to suborbital space and back. So the possible test flight would be a major milestone for the spacecraft and Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic's founder, the British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, hinted at a powered flight test on April 23 during an interview with the Las Vegas Sun newspaper at an event for his other company, Virgin Atlantic, which began Los Angeles to Las Vegas service last week.

"We're hoping to break the sound barrier. That's planned Monday," Branson told the Las Vegas Sun. "It will be a historic day."

Mum's the word, with fingers crossed

Despite Branson's tantalizing comments, Virgin Galactic and Mojave officials are tight-lipped on Monday's test, given the fact that technical or weather delays could affect their plans.

"Test flight schedules have to remain flexible to be responsive to weather and a host of other factors, so can't give you a specific date," said Virgin Galactic CEO and President George Whitesides. "But what is certain is that the team is getting close to first rocket-powered flight, which is an important milestone for the company and the program."

Whitesides told SPACE.com that whenever the first flight occurs, the primary goal "is smooth and safe demonstration of the vehicle system in terms of rocket ignition, shut off, and aerodynamic controls."

Officials in Mojave were also short on details for any SpaceShipTwo tests on Monday.

"While we can't comment on tenant test plans, we always strive to accommodate our friends in the press," Stuart Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port, told SPACE.com in response to a query.

"Flight Research Tests require three things: airspace allocation, vehicle in a ready state and acceptable weather," Witt said.

While a pilot hitting the start button on SpaceShipTwo's motor is not a hosted event for press and public, Witt added, "we try to accommodate the interest of the public. We never know times or dates … it is the nature of flight test."

According to Mojave-based company Scaled Composites, which is building SpaceShipTwo and its WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane for Virgin Galactic, the piloted craft has undergone 25 glide flight tests since October 2010. The latest SpaceShipTwo drop test on April 12 was a nitrous vent test and was labeled as powered flight number 1 "mission rehearsal."

Hybrid rocket motor 101

According to Virgin Galactic's website, SpaceShipTwo's hybrid motor stands apart from all-liquid and all-solid rocket engines.

"Here the fuel is in solid form and the oxidizer is a liquid. The passage of the oxidizer over the fuel is controlled by a valve which allows the motor to be throttled or shut down as required," the website explains.

Hybrid motors offer both simplicity and safety, Virgin Galactic officials added. According to the company description: "This is the type of motor that SpaceShipTwo will employ and that was used by SpaceShipOne. It means that the pilots will be able to shut down the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor at any time during its operation and glide safely back to the runway. The oxidizer is Nitrous Oxide and the fuel a rubber compound; both benign, stable as well as containing none of the toxins found in solid rocket motors."

Looking good for flight

SpaceShipTwo's hybrid motor supplier, the commercial spaceflight company Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), has performed over 300 hybrid rocket test firings. The company also developed the rocket engine for the first private spacecraft to reach space, SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004.

Furthermore, Sierra Nevada is developing a similar hybrid engine to power its reusable Dream Chaser space plane, a spacecraft that is vying to provide astronaut flights for NASA.

As for the prospects of an upcoming SpaceShipTwo hybrid motor flight, Mark Sirangelo Corporate Vice President, SNC's Space Systems, told SPACE.com: "We are looking good for the flight. Motor passed all its multiple qualification burns and tests with no issue."

NASA's goggle-eyed SPHERE robots create 3D maps on the fly

David Szondy - GizMag.com

Take the little floating ball that gave Luke Skywalker so much trouble during lightsaber practice, slap a pair of huge welder's goggles on it and you start to get a picture of NASA's latest foray into flying robots. Currently being tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS), MIT Space Systems Laboratory's SPHERES-VERTIGO system is a free-flying robot with stereoscopic vision that is part of a program to develop ways for small satellites to autonomously create 3D maps of objects such as asteroids or disabled satellites.

The first part of the SPHERES-VERTIGO system is the Synchronized Position Hold Engage Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES). Developed as part of a DARPA project, SPHERES may look like a plastic toy, but it hides some fairly sophisticated technology inside. It is designed as an experimental testbed for guidance, navigation and control algorithms and is being used for autonomous docking, formation flying and tele-operation tests.

Three of the free-flying robots have been aboard the ISS since 2006. Each one is 21.3 centimeters (8.3 in) in diameter, weighs about 4.16 kilograms (9.17 lb) and moves about by means of a carbon dioxide cold-gas system for both propulsion and attitude control. Navigation is achieved by means of a "pseudoGPS" ultrasonic time-of-?ight sensing system that uses sonic beacons mounted on the inside of the ISS module's hull, while onboard gyroscopes estimate the position, orientation, linear and angular velocity with respect to the interior of the ISS.

To help them accomplish its tasks, the SPHERES robots have a Texas Instruments C6701 Digital Signal Processor and a 900 MHz low-bandwidth modem for communication with a laptop. This is all powered by 16 AA non-rechargeable batteries.

The VERTIGO Goggles make up the other half of SPHERES-VERTIGO. VERTIGO stands for Visual Estimation and Relative Tracking for Inspection of Generic Objects and since October 2012, MIT Space Systems Laboratory and Aurora Flight Sciences have had astronauts putting the VERTIGO Goggles through their paces on the ISS.

Weighing 1.6 kilograms (3.5 lb), The VERTIGO Goggles are an add-on for SPHERES and are a self-contained, battery-powered unit made of a pair of cameras in a synchronized stereo configuration hooked to a 1.2 gigahertz Linux data processor, a 802.11n network card and a 128 GB flash drive. The unit is intended to be easily modified with different sensors and configurations.

Put together, SPHERES-VERTIGO is designed to perform research on the inspection of unknown, non-cooperative targets that may be moving and tumbling in space. The SPHERES robot's job is to navigate around an object while the VERTIGO Goggles uses its cameras to build up a 3D model of the object by matching up the images taken against "feature steps," such as corners. It does this autonomously in order to avoid delays that occur in communicating with ground control or a space station during an actual mission. All data processing is done by the VERTIGO goggles and it can stream video to the astronaut operator by Wi-Fi or ethernet in real time.

NASA sees SPHERES-VERTIGO as the precursor to a number of possible missions, including the recycling of old aperture satellites, mapping of an asteroid for exploration, simpler docking techniques, better satellite station keeping for formation-flying missions, and Earth-based applications in surveillance, mapping, communications and navigation.

The ISS tests are under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded International Space Station SPHERES Integrated Research Experiments (InSPIRE) program, which uses astronauts to carry out "rapid, iterative experimentation and design of space capabilities." The aim of the program is to speed up technology development and, through the ZERO Robotics Competition, provide the next generation of scientists with experience in space experiments quickly and cheaply.

Science lesson is out of this world as pupils link up with the Space Station

Melanie Vass - Daily Echo (UK)

Teenage students got a whole new perspective on the world thanks to a unique link up with the International Space Station.

Pupils at Harewood and Avonbourne Colleges in Bournemouth were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take photos of the Earth from space.

The project was made possible thanks to Harewood's Bill Coombes, who works as a technician in the science department and is also an education outreach officer for NASA.

His connection with the famous space organisation is believed to have made Harewood and Avonbourne the first UK schools to take part in an ISS photographic mission.

Students made contact with the ISS as it moved above the northern hemisphere to take pictures from space and took some stunning pictures of the Bournemouth coastline and the Isle of Wight.

Bill said: "This project enables students to take photographic images directly from the ISS. We do this by sending an email to the ISS via NASA and then, using a camera 360km above the Earth, we take photos of the area the space station is passing over.

"It's an awe-inspiring experience for all the students as they take images of the area they live in from thousands and thousands of miles away in space."

And Masoud Babania, 15, said: "This has been the best science lesson ever. It's amazing to think that from our classroom we are able to operate a camera that's in outer space. It's been mind-bogglingly brilliant." The photographic sessions will be followed by a live link-up with the ISS later this year to give students the opportunity to speak directly with the astronauts living and working in outer space.

Astronaut Parmitano wants Italian at Int Space Station helm
Set to become first Italian to go on space walk

Gentile Lettore - Gazzetta del Sud

European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano, who is set to become the only Italian have gone on a space walk, on Friday said he wanted to see an Italian in charge of the International Space Station (ISS).

Parmitano, an Italian Air Force captain, has been training in Russia and in preparation of a mission to co-pilot a Soyuz TMA spacecraft and spend six months working on the space station beginning in May.

Parmitano was feted in March this year when it was announced he was to carry out space walks during a six month mission in at the International Space Station from May to November 2013. '

'For Italy, for myself, and for the Italian Space Agency Asi, a space walk is an important step,'' he said speaking to journalists between tests and training sessions at the astronaut training centre in Star City, Moscow.

"In the future I'd like to see (another) Italian commander on the ISS". To date the only Italian astronaut to have been commander of the space station is Paolo Nespoli, who between 2010 and 2011 worked for six months there during the MagIsstra mission.

Parmitano also expressed his wish for ''space still belong to everyone''.

''It is very important to share this great privilege with the general public as much as possible," he added. "We are in space, we do science, exploration, and technology - it is important to tell people to come closer to this world, as there is really room for everyone here''.

Heads up: SpaceX testing is about to get louder

Joseph Abbott - Waco Tribune

I just got a call from SpaceX communications director Christina Ra with a heads up: testing at their McGregor development facility is about to get loud even by their standards. (Given recent events, it was considered an especially good idea to let people know about this ahead of time.)

In keeping with the company philosophy that tests happen as soon as everything's ready rather than holding to a rigid schedule, Ra couldn't say yet precisely when the particularly loud tests will happen. She said a short, 10-second test could come as early as Tuesday, April 30; a test firing for the full 3 minutes a Falcon 9 rocket's first stage burns on the way to orbit would follow a few days after the first test.

Ra couldn't comment on precisely what technology was being tested — SpaceX tends to keep as mum as possible on such details both for proprietary reasons and out of worries about violating federal law against aiding foreign weapons development — so this is where the speculation begins.

The most likely possibility is that it's a Falcon 9 first stage test using nine of the new, more powerful Merlin 1D engines (it's known that the 1Ds have been tested individually; this could be the first test of the full, upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage). The more outside shot is that this is the start of testing on the 27-engine Falcon Heavy first stages, but since the Heavy is also set to use Merlin 1Ds it seems likely that they would want to test the nine-engine variant first.

Dream of flying lands Curt Brown in U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame
Astronaut Curt Brown, a commercial pilot now living in Hudson, said a shuttle mission with John Glenn was a highlight of a career that landed him in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Kevin Giles - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Aloft in space, Curt Brown looked down on Earth with the pioneer of orbit himself, astronaut John Glenn, riding beside him.

It was a childhood dream come true for Brown, who now lives in western Wisconsin, to command the space shuttle Discovery with his hero aboard.

"The joke is, 'Was John on your mission, or was I on his mission?'?" Brown told reporters last weekend when he joined rare company — the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. His induction with fellow retired astronauts Bonnie Dunbar and Eileen Collins took place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Brown had a storied career as an astronaut, making six space shuttle missions that began with Endeavour in 1992. Atlantis followed, Endeavour again, then three visits to orbit on Discovery.

"I have the record for the most flights in the least amount of time," said Brown, 57, who retired from NASA in 2000.

Now he's a Sun Country pilot, flying passenger jets out of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and testing flight simulators in Eagan, putting to work his vast knowledge of most anything that flies, still marveling at how seeing Earth from space humbled him.

"When you're up in orbit and you look down on your country ... you don't see any big borders. Everything looks so peaceful from orbit, so quiet. It makes you realize you're small in the big scheme of things. There are a lot of things in this universe that are happening that we know nothing about."

Brown was born and raised in North Carolina, a state famous for Orville and Wilbur Wright's flight near Kitty Hawk in 1903. It was as a boy in Elizabethtown that Brown realized that "my whole dream in life was to fly." Exploring space, however, was something that other people did, such as the incomparable Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth — three times over almost five hours — in the cramped Friendship 7 capsule in 1962.

"No way in the world that someone from a little farming town in North Carolina could be an astronaut," Brown said . "It just wouldn't happen."

At last weekend's induction ceremony, Brown was surrounded by a who's who of the space world. Among them were Apollo moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, first shuttle pilot Robert Crippen and Brown's mentor, Robert "Hoot" Gibson. Two dozen previous Hall of Fame honorees attended, although Glenn, now 91, was unable to make the trip.

"It's very overwhelming, to be honest with you. I looked at the older astronauts sitting behind me at the induction, and they were my heroes," Brown said of the experience.

Brown attended the U.S. Air Force Academy, learned to pilot planes and became a colonel. In 1987, at the age of 31, he was offered a job as an astronaut.

In his presentation to a crowd of space aficionados that included 38 residents of his hometown, Brown recalled an awkward conversation when he told his mother he had been assigned to the Discovery flight in 1998.

"Really? Are you on the flight with John Glenn?" she asked him, before launching into several minutes of praise for the then-77-year-old legend. Glenn's role aboard Discovery, his first trip to space since before he became a U.S. senator from Ohio, was to study aging in space.

Brown said he and other astronauts had some fun at Glenn's expense by printing fake boarding passes before the launch. When it came time to board Discovery, Brown said, everyone reached into sleeve pockets of their space suits for their passes.

"John says, 'I don't remember getting a boarding pass. Somebody really screwed up,'?" Brown said as the crowd roared with laughter.

NASA ended the space shuttle program in July 2011, leaving the future of space to private companies and foreign countries. That was a mistake, Brown said, because so much work remains to discover far reaches of space, including Mars.

"It's kind of sad," he said. "We were leaders in space, we walked on the moon. We have no space program right now when it comes to a vehicle to take people into orbit. I think it was the wrong thing to do."

Even though Brown has lived in Hudson with his wife, Mary, since 2002, and spent 20 years in Houston in the space program before that, his legacy won't fade anytime soon in Elizabethtown, where residents renamed their tiny airport after him.

"Dreams are very important because they determine what we are and what we can be in life," Brown said.

It turns out that astronauts can come from small towns after all.

New $5 & $10 bills to highlight International Space Station, train travel

Canadian Press

On Tuesday, the Bank of Canada will unveil new versions of our $5 and $10 bills, but some newly released documents are offering a sneak peak.

Focus groups consulted about the proposed images for the new plastic bank note series thought the space motif of the new 5 looked cartoonish and childish.

Others were left scratching their heads over the depiction of Dextre, a Canadian robotic handyman on board the International Space Station. Some people wrongly assumed Dextre was the name of an astronaut shown on the bill, while others had no clue who the name referred to.

Others complained the train on the new 10 looked too quaint.

The report says the train illustrates a mode of travel that many now find outdated or cost prohibitive. The train also struck a nerve with focus groups in Atlantic Canada, where many rail lines have been decommissioned.

The new $5 and $10 bills will go into circulation later this year.

Form-fitting plastic cover removed from Atlantis

Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com

The space shuttle Atlantis, now a museum piece at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, has emerged from the protective plastic cocoon that had encased the spacecraft since November.

Cutting away strips at a time to reveal the nose and windows, then the tail and main engines before breaking for the day Thursday, workers resumed the process Friday morning to fully reveal the retired orbiter in preparation for opening the public display June 29.

"It's going to be so inspirational to the people who come here to see Atlantis," said Eileen Collins, the first woman space shuttle pilot and commander and a veteran Atlantis flier. "I hope you spread the word and get your friends to come down and visit."

The shuttle tribute is the centerpiece of a $100 million revitalization project at KSC's privately-operated museum, and after months of work tourists will soon get their chance to see the new attraction.

Departing the operational facilities at KSC's Launch Complex 39 at daybreak Nov. 2, Atlantis was hauled along a 9.8-mile route to the visitor center to enter the special-built exhibit hall at nightfall after a welcoming ceremony complete with fireworks.

While construction of the 90,000-square-foot building to showcase the shuttle has continued ever since, workers took the precautionary step to cover Atlantis with a thick plastic shrink wrap material to keep dirt, dust and debris off of the ship's delicate blankets and tiles.

Through the waning weeks of 2012, the shuttle was lifted off of its trailer-like transporter, enveloped in the plastic shielding, painstakingly jacked and tilted high above the floor for displaying in a fashion to simulate still being in orbit and the back wall that had been left open as a doorway was erected behind Atlantis.

"The day before we built the building, we said 'wow, this is big building! 90,000 square feet, 116 feet (tall) at the back, 55 in the front.' As soon as she pulled in, the first thought was 'whew, this is a small building'" quipped Tim Macy, KSCVC's director of project development.

But with the assembly work now winding down, the facility purged to collect as much dirt as possible and the plastic covering on Atlantis "swiffered" to wipe away the dust, it was time to unwrap the spacecraft.

Early Thursday, the long-anticipated first glimpse of the shuttle on its display pedestals, angled at 43.21 degrees, finally started coming into view.

"This is the very first step in unveiling Atlantis. She has been in a plastic 16-millimeter-thick cocoon," said Macy.

"It was for her own protection. With all the construction dust and overspray and everything else that is happening here, it kept her protected in a nice shrink-wrapped sealed environment."

The removal spread across two days as workers moved slowly and deliberately to avoid bringing any harm to the ship. And with applause and a sigh of relief, the final piece was pulled clear of the starboard wingtip at 10:59 a.m. Friday.

The next milestone will be a long one, as the 60-foot-long payload bay doors of the space shuttle are swung open and suspended in place using small wires secured to railings in the ceiling. The process is expected to take most of May to accomplish.

"We're a little nervous about that, only because it's never been done like this before," Macy said. "But if the payload bay doors open like the rollover happened and the lift and the tilt, I'm very confident, very confident."

A "handful" of veteran United Space Alliance shuttle technicians will be there for the work along with engineers from the Ivey firm that developed much of the technical aspects for the visitor center.

The opening will rely on the bright yellow, modified versions of the "strongback" structures atop the doors.

"We'll put really interesting C-clamps on top of those and then pull them up with a dolly system that we've already installed in the ceiling. This dolly is actually a motorized trolly that will pull apart, and when it does that the C-clamps rotate to allow the door to open up all the way," Macy explained.

"Then, we will take very, very small cables, eight of them across, up into the ceiling (to hold the doors). You'll not even be able to see those cables. They take the weight off the hinges and distributes it along those eight cables. Then the strongbacks come off the bottom and we're ready to go!"

Meanwhile, assembly is progressing on the replica solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank "stack" that will greet tourists at the entrance of the Atlantis building. Mating of the boosters segments is nearly finished and work begins soon to piece together the four sections of the tank.

"We'll stick-build the inside, the frame itself, then take these huge panels, rounded panels, and put them together on the frame. It is a combination of fiberglass and steel," Macy said.

The Atlantis hall, with a large theater and more than 60 displays, will tell the story of the entire space shuttle program and its 135 flights that stretched across three decades.

"It will remind us of the great successes of the shuttle program beginning with the test flights, the satellite deploys and retrievals, the Spacelab and Spacehab missions, the Hubble missions, the Mir program that established a very good relationship with our former Cold War enemies, and also with our international partners we built the space station, serviced it," Collins said.

"We learned what to do right with the design of spacecraft and operations, and we learned what we did wrong, and as we press forward, improve that into better designs as we build the next generation."

Job Growth Could STEM from Space Curriculum

Jonathan Weaver - Kittanning Paper (Pennsylvania)

In January 1986, seven astronauts died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger just more than a minute after liftoff.

More than 15 years later, those teachers' mission might be felt within local classrooms.

At their last public meeting, the Armstrong County Commissioners acknowledged in a resolution their support toward a regional Challenger Learning Center – which aims to encourage STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – curriculum among students through the use of four missions similar to those of astronauts.

An Indiana County group formed in September 2012 has already gotten support from Indiana and Cambria Counties, as well as Indiana Area, Blairsville-Saltsburg and Homer Center School Districts to further pursue the opportunity.

According to Indiana Resident Julie Trimarchi, students would spend 60 hours within their home district prepping for their mission with themed-experiments and learning in their existing curriculum before flying missions to the moon, Mars, a comet and orbiting the Earth.

She said the effort is in high-gear and might be impacting Armstrong County students in two years if approved.

"The Challenger center is moving forward at a relatively-rapid pace. We're making arrangements next to go to Westmoreland County and Clearfield County, and we plan to have our application filed with the Challenger Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia by the middle of May," Trimarchi said.

The center – which would impact a 50-mile radius surrounding Indiana, Pa. – would be the first of its kind in Pennsylvania, available to students from as far north as Elk County. About 50 centers can be found throughout the United States.

The closest location existing is in Wheeling, West Virginia – where students from the existing school districts on-board are planning to visit.

"There's a real need for this. It's a proven method and it's been successful throughout the country," Trimarchi said.

Vice President of the Indiana Area School District board of directors Walter Schroth said the regional job market demands this program.

"Hopefully, the students will get excited about this, and then pursue the higher level math and science courses," Schroth said. "One of the biggest problems we have in this region is developing a workforce that has the critical math and science skills to operate the computer-driven machinery. Everything is computer driven anymore (and) if the kids can't do the math and science to go with it, they don't have the ability then to avail themselves to those better-paying jobs."

Schroth added that the taxpayer expense would not be out-of-this-world.

"We're going to try to raise the money to build the facility through state and federal grants, foundations and private industry and individuals – which we believe is very doable," Schroth said. "The cost to the local taxpayer will be very minimal.

"The school districts will pay a fee to send their students to these missions, and that fee averages about $25 per student – so it's very reasonable for what these guys actually get out of this," he added.

Three locations in the Greater Indiana area are presently being considered.

Commissioners also commended county volunteers during last week's 'Volunteer Recognition Week.

Commissioner Bob Bower read from the proclamation.

"Through their service to others, volunteers can inspire, equip and mobilize local communities to effect change and make a positive difference," Bower said. "The giving of oneself in service to another empowers the giver and the recipient."

Agency on Aging Executive Director Janet Talerico emphasized that the county senior centers 'couldn't do the services we provide without the volunteers.'

"Just through the Agency on Aging alone, we had 237 volunteers in 2012, and they donated over 23,000 hours. We're looking at 100 hours per volunteer at just our agency alone," Talerico said.

Commissioner Richard Fink added that firefighters and those who volunteer at Community Action in Kittanning should also be noted for their contributions.

A similar proclamation was also made in the White House by U.S. President Barack Obama.

NASA still aiming for Mars trip
Asteroid mission a stepping stone toward long journey to red planet

John Kelly - Florida Today (Opinion)

NASA's not giving up on flying people to Mars.

Some critics of the space agency's recent proposal to fly astronauts to an asteroid say we're "settling" for something less than the big prize: humans walking on the red planet.

Not true. The mission to an asteroid is part of a stepping-stone approach to sending human beings exploring deeper into the solar system. A sensible look at NASA's current flight capabilities, human limitations and the space exploration budget means Mars isn't possible yet.

NASA's top human spaceflight chief, Bill Gerstenmaier, recently went over the payoffs with a committee of the NASA Advisory Council.

The mission being planned to the asteroid will be a big part in making a mission to Mars possible. Getting there will require developing and flying the super rocket NASA would ultimately need for a trip to Mars, as well as the first model of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle called Orion. It will require more complex spacewalking equipment and capabilities. And new propulsion technology. And more extended flights.

The missions would help NASA test robotic and human sample gathering and return concepts that would later be used on Mars or Martian moons. And it would give NASA practice in interacting with a small planetary body. There's so much to learn before NASA is ready to go to Mars and, simply put, without retiring some of the early cost and risk by conducting missions elsewhere, a Mars flight isn't in the cards.

The asteroid mission opens doors to missions back to the moon or to Mars and its moon system. It helps NASA make incremental progress with small yearly investments (and big investments and budget increases are not coming soon). Finally, the build-up concept allows NASA to ensure technologies for a Mars mission are mature enough before diving into spending big money on development of the mission.

With an Apollo-era style blank check, yes, NASA might be able to pull off a mission to Mars sooner. In the environment, the space agency is likely to face over the next 20 years, the phased approach seems prudent. Incremental progress is important politically as well so that the people writing the budgets in Washington have successes to point to when they're voting to boost the budget in better times.

The Crew That Never Flew: The Misfortunes of Soyuz 11

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

More than 40 years ago, the world's first space station—Salyut 1, a "salute" to Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space—was launched into orbit by the Soviet Union. In April 1971, it was visited by Soyuz 10, but a fault with the docking prevented the three cosmonauts from entering the station. Following corrective actions, the Soviets planned to fly two further missions to Salyut 1, the first of which (Soyuz 11) would be commanded by the world's first spacewalker, Alexei Leonov. However, an unfortunate series of incidents would conspire to frustrate Leonov's mission … and, brought tragedy to the men who flew in his place.

The original plan after the Soyuz 10 failure was to fly Leonov and his Soyuz 11 crew, Valeri Kubasov and Pyotr Kolodin, on 4 June 1971, followed by another crew, consisting of Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, aboard Soyuz 12 on 18 July. Both missions would spend between a month and six weeks aboard Salyut 1, although it remained unclear if consumables aboard the station could support both teams until August. The Soviets decided that the length of Dobrovolski's flight would therefore be dependent upon the success of Leonov's mission. Then, on 3 June, shortly before Soyuz 11 was due to fly, all these plans fell apart.

Doctors from the Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow found a swelling on Kubasov's right lung. It was a dark spot, about the size of a chicken egg … but it was sufficient for the entire Soyuz 11 crew to be grounded, as per Soviet crewing policy, and replaced by Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev. It was feared that the swelling might indicate the early stages of tuberculosis, but it was a misdiagnosis. As Leonov wrote in his memoir, Two Sides of the Moon, Kubasov was actually allergic to a chemical insecticide used on trees and soon recovered. The Soyuz 11 crew was already at the Baikonur launch site; had they not been, Kubasov might have simply been replaced with his backup, and Leonov and Kolodin would have still flown. However, flight rules stressed that "carrying out the replacement of the individual at the cosmodrome is not possible" and that "in case of such a necessity, it is only possible to carry out the replacement of the crew … "

It was a devastating judgement, coming so soon ahead of launch. Leonov and Kolodin were furious and argued their case, but to no avail. Chief Designer Vasili Mishin told them that they may have drunk from the same cup as Kubasov and might also be affected, whilst the cosmonauts' commander, Nikolai Kamanin, added to Leonov that arguing about it was not "reacting in the correct manner" to a decision which had already been made. Kolodin, it is said, returned to the hotel at Baikonur and got himself heavily drunk on vodka, crying with rage and frustration at his lost chance to fly into space.

For the replacement crew of Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev, it was not a moment of euphoria, for they had been training barely four months … and would be required to fly into space in a matter of days. Only Volkov had flown before, and he had no docking experience. A strong sense of foreboding permeated Baikonur in those final days. "If you look at photographs of the replacement crew, just before the launch," Leonov wrote, "they even look a little scared." Late on the evening of 3 June, before the doctors' decision had been made, Leonov did a pencil sketch of Patsayev and later named it Patsayev's Eyes, because the civilian engineer looked distinctly troubled. At some point that evening, he even approached Leonov to apologize for taking his place on the mission.

By now, the Soyuz 11 launch had been delayed until 6 June, and the six cosmonauts—Leonov's grounded team and Dobrovolski's men—sat, stone-faced, before a State Commission as Kamanin introduced them. Journalist Mikhail Rebrov noted that there was an intense silence in the room. Yet, in a roundabout sort of way, Leonov and Kubasov achieved a measure of revenge upon their superiors. When told by Kamanin to take a traditional walk with the prime crew in homage to their predecessors, both men refused … not out of bitterness for Dobrovolski, but out of bitterness against what had been an ill-judged decision. "If I am healthy, then I must fly," Kubasov told Kamanin, indignantly. "If I am sick, I should not be there!"

The sense of foreboding seemed to have disappeared by launch morning, and Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev smiled and waved their caps at the crowds before boarding the elevator at the pad. At 7:55 a.m. Moscow Time, they lifted off and arrived, without incident, at Salyut 1 the next day, 7 June. When the first television images of the three cosmonauts inside the station were displayed in the control center, the room erupted in applause. A stay of around three weeks, producing a landing on 30 June, was now likely. In those three weeks, the cosmonauts performed experiments, exercised, took medical data, performed astronomical observations … and, on the 16th, endured a small fire aboard Salyut 1.

It was Volkov who noticed it first: an odor of smoke coming from the aft end of the space station. The Soviets' insistence upon ridiculous secrecy meant that he had to employ a code word over the radio—"Aboard the station," he said, cryptically, "is the curtain"—with curtain being the code for fire or smoke. Ironically, the ground controllers had forgotten what curtain meant and asked Volkov to repeat what he had said … to which the excitable cosmonaut blurted out, "There is a fire on board!" Although it later became clear that the "dense black smoke" had come from an overheating instrument, and was soon brought under control, it underlined the seriousness and risk of fire aboard a space station.

In the days which followed, the records rolled in, as the cosmonauts spent longer in orbit than anyone before them. On 18 June, Patsayev became the first spacefarer to celebrate a birthday in orbit. Little did he realize that his 38th birthday would actually be his last.

On the evening of the 29th, the three men departed Salyut 1 for the final time and took their places in the Soyuz 11 descent module for their return to Earth. Dobrovolski closed the hatch and sealed it by means of a rotating grip. However, he was surprised, and then alarmed, to notice that the "hatch-open" indicator on his panel remained lit. This told him that the hatch was not hermetically sealed, posing the risk of a pressure leak during re-entry and—since none of them had been provided with space suits—the death of the crew.

It was fellow cosmonaut Alexei Yeliseyev's calm voice from the Yevpatoria control center in the Crimea which solved the problem. He talked Dobrovolski and Volkov through the procedure: reopen the hatch and turn the grip fully to the left, swipe the hatchway with a tissue to ensure that no foreign debris had blocked it, then close the hatch and turn the grip several times to the right. The two men tried this several times, but to no avail; the indicator remained illuminated. Further troubleshooting eventually isolated the cause of the fault. "As the hatch closes," Yeliseyev recalled later, "it pushes the sensors and they produce signals. All the sensors were in working order, but the guys found that the hatch hardly touched one of the buttons, with the result that it did not push down sufficiently to send the signal." After visually checking that the hatch was, in fact, closing tightly and correctly, Dobrovolski was told to stick a bit of insulation tape over the sensor to "generate the signal artificially." When the crew tried again, the indicator blinked off, much to the relief of all concerned.

Minutes later, at 9:25 p.m. Moscow Time, the separation commands were initiated and Soyuz 11 successfully undocked from the station. When one considers the nightmare that was to follow in the next few hours, it is remarkable that no further sense of tension was noticeable in the cosmonauts' words. As far as Dobrovolski's crew was aware, a perfectly nominal return to Earth lay ahead of them. A long, challenging, and successful mission was finally coming to an end, and they would soon be able to see and touch and speak to their loved ones again. The strain was gone from Volkov's voice, as he joyfully announced the undocking and the stunning view of the world's first space station drifting away into the inky blackness.

They would be the last humans ever to see Salyut 1 up close.

Shortly after one in the morning on 30 June, three hours since undocking and flying serenely above the Pacific Ocean, close to Chile, Dobrovolski and Volkov oriented Soyuz 11 such that its main engine was facing into the direction of travel. The last words to or from the spacecraft have been debated over the years—officially, Nikolai Kamanin spoke to them at around 12:16 a.m. and a controller signed off with wishes of good luck for a soft landing, though space historian Peter Smolders suggested later in 1971 that Dobrovolski did make one final call to confirm that he was "beginning the descent procedure." Adding more confusion was Alexei Yeliseyev himself, who recorded that Volkov jokingly asked for flight controllers to "prepare cognac"—a traditional welcome-home gift—and signed off with "See you tomorrow!"

In order to provide maximum visibility at the landing site, Soyuz 11's retrofire occurred on its third orbit after undocking from Salyut. The engine fired for 187 seconds, as planned, beginning at 1:35 a.m., after which the orbital and instrument modules were jettisoned and the descent module maneuvered into the correct orientation for the fiery plunge back to Earth. The disaster that would engulf the three men must have unfolded rapidly and with scarcely any warning, for in his diary entry for that day, 30 June, Kamanin noted that no progress reports on either retrofire or the separation of the orbital and instrument modules were heard from the crew. "There was an oppressive silence in the [control] room," he wrote. "There was no communication … or any data about Soyuz 11. Everyone understood that something had occurred aboard the spacecraft, but no one knew what … "

Nor did anyone aboard the tracking ships Bezhitsa or Kegostrov, positioned off the coast of Africa and in the South Atlantic. It would appear that a breakdown of communications and a change of plans to perform the retrofire on the third, not the second, orbit after undocking effectively meant that Soyuz 11's position at the point of retrofire was out of range of both tracking vessels.

Nine minutes after the completion of the retrofire burn, at 1:47 a.m., the circumstances that would precipitate disaster began to unfold. As the spacecraft passed high above central France, a dozen explosive charges jettisoned the orbital module and six others set the instrument module adrift, as planned. The bell-shaped descent module was now on its own, continuing on its trajectory towards a touchdown on Soviet soil, a couple of hundred kilometres east of the city of Jezkazgan. In the control center at Yevpatoria, everyone was still very much in the dark … and concerns were rising. No one knew if the retrofire had been completed and, even if it had not, there should have been some form of communication from the crew. Both Kamanin and Soyuz 10 veteran Vladimir Shatalov tried repeatedly to call the cosmonauts over VHF radio, but to no avail. An awful, yawning silence pervaded the airwaves.

Soyuz 11 continued to plummet Earthward, passing over eastern Germany and Poland and finally entering Soviet territorial airspace at 1:54 a.m. Radar installations had actually detected the incoming descent module a few minutes earlier as it passed to the north of the Black Sea, but, since it was sheathed with super-heated plasma, it had been temporarily out of radio contact. The Yevpatoria controllers, upon hearing this news, were somewhat encouraged and speculated that perhaps a radio failure was to blame for the cosmonauts failing to respond to their calls.

All seemed to be going well. The small drogue parachute automatically deployed on time and at 2:02 a.m., followed by the main canopy. Three minutes later, recovery crews aboard an Il-14 aircraft and four helicopters reported that they could see the descent module swinging gently beneath its red-and-white parachute and had detected signals from it, although they were unable to speak directly to any of the cosmonauts. One of the helicopter commanders radioed a commentary to Yevpatoria and an overjoyed Alexei Yeliseyev took up the story: "Finally, we heard a report … that they could see the parachute. It was wonderful … "

More wonderful was the first report from the helicopter commander. "It has landed," he radioed, triumphantly. Our helicopters are landing nearby."

"Well, it seemed that was all," continued Yeliseyev. "Next, they would report the general state of the crew and with that we would finish our work. Only a few minutes more … "

The next few minutes, though, would bring Russia and its proud space program to their knees in pain and despair.

In the early hours of 30 June 1971, the Soviet Union prepared to welcome its three latest cosmonaut heroes back to Earth after a record-breaking mission. Not only had the Soyuz 11 team—Georgi Dobrovolski, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev—spent more than 23 days in orbit, but they had also successfully occupied the world's first true space station. It was a fitting response to the U.S. achievement of placing a man on the Moon. As the commander of one of the recovery helicopters spotted the parachute of Soyuz 11's descent module, it was a glorious sight. The helicopters touched down and the would-be rescuers made their way cheerfully to the spacecraft, still superheated and charred from re-entry.

They could not have anticipated the horror that they would find inside.
Soyuz 11's touchdown was wholly automatic, from the parachute deployment to the firing of solid-fueled soft-landing rockets in the base of the descent module. It was 2:16 a.m. Moscow Time when the vehicle came to terra firma. The three cosmonauts had broken the previous space endurance record of 18 days, set by another Soyuz crew in 1970, and had almost doubled the U.S. Gemini 7 record. And for three weeks, Russia had been abuzz with the names of Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev: the men had their own slot on Moscow television, young girls had turned Volkov into a teen idol and pin-up star, and their landing was accompanied by a carnival atmosphere.

No one could have been more shocked than Nikolai Kamanin, the commander of the cosmonaut team, and veteran cosmonaut Alexei Yeliseyev, who waited more than an hour for news of a successful recovery … but were greeted with news of catastrophe, in the form of three numbers: 1-1-1. Those numbers spoke of something inescapably tragic … the entire crew was dead.

A system of five numbers, Yeliseyev later explained, ran from 5 down to 1 to explain a cosmonauts' health: these denoted that he was in excellent condition (5), that he was in good condition (4), that he had suffered injuries (3), that the injuries were of a severe nature (2), and that they were fatal (1). There was one number for each member of the crew. The triple "1? meant all three were dead. Immediately, Yeliseyev, Kamanin, and veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov were flown directly to the landing site in Kazakhstan to see for themselves what nobody could quite believe was true.

"Outwardly, there was no damage whatsoever," recalled Kerim Kerimov, chair of the State Commission. "They knocked on the side, but there was no response from within. On opening the hatch, they found all three men in their couches, motionless, with dark-blue patches on their faces and trails of blood from their noses and ears. They removed them from the descent module. Dobrovolski was still warm. The doctors gave artificial respiration. Based on their reports, the cause of death was suffocation … "

Since the craft had landed on its side, the extraction of the bodies was difficult and attempts at resuscitation continued for some time, doubtless explaining the lengthy absence of communication. Yet the warmth of Dobrovolski's corpse surely made them try even harder to save the men's lives. However, it would be determined in the subsequent investigation that an air vent had been jerked open during the separation of the orbital and descent modules and that all three men had been dead for over half an hour. Moreover, for at least 11 minutes of this time, they had been exposed to vacuum. "Humans and experimental animals had sometimes suffered rapid decompression in terrestrial laboratories or on scientific balloons at high altitude," wrote Grujica Ivanovich in his book Salyut: The World's First Space Station, "but the Soyuz 11 crew were the first humans to suffer the vacuum of space at an altitude in excess of 100 km. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is only likely to be effective if given within six minutes of the cessation of the heart, since after this the brain is permanently damaged. The rescuers stood no chance of reviving the cosmonauts."

By the time Shatalov and Yeliseyev arrived, the bodies had already been removed from the landing site. As he stood out there on the barren steppe, Yeliseyev—the man who had spoken to them so often over the past three weeks—was struck and driven to tears by the absurdity of it all: a picture-perfect landing, a descent module in good shape, an outstanding mission, excellent weather, a flat field … "and the guys are dead." Like many others, he blamed himself. Had the hermetic hatch sealed properly after undocking?

Also wondering if he could have done more was Alexei Leonov, the man who might have been in Dobrovolski's position, as described in yesterday's history article. In his memoir, Two Sides of the Moon, Leonov noted that he had advised the Soyuz 11 crew to close a series of air vents between the descent and orbital modules and to reopen them when the parachutes deployed. "Although this deviated from the flight regulations," he wrote, "I had trained for a long time for the mission they were flying and in my opinion this was the safest procedure. According to the flight program the vents were supposed to close and then open automatically once the parachute had deployed after re-entry. But I believed there was a danger, if this automatic procedure was followed, that the vents might open prematurely at too high an altitude and the spacecraft depressurize." Sadly, the cosmonauts did not take Leonov's advice, choosing instead to follow their own training.

In the United States, the response was equally shocking, but for different reasons. Since the summer of 1969, Tom Stafford had been chief of NASA's astronaut corps, and among his duties he had helped to supervise the direction that the manned space flight effort would take after the Apollo lunar landings. America was expecting to launch a large orbital station of its own, called Skylab, in 1973. Crews of three men would spend between one and two full months aboard this outpost, performing a variety of scientific and biomedical studies in weightlessness. At the time of Soyuz 11, Stafford was visiting Europe with his wife and daughters and was due to make an appearance at the International Aeronautical Federation Conference in Belgrade.

"Before I reached Belgrade," he wrote, "I heard the news that the … cosmonauts had died on their return to Earth. My first worry was that the stress of a long-duration flight had killed them and wondered what that would mean to our Skylab crews. Clearly we needed to know more than what was in the news." Back in Houston, Deke Slayton was of the same opinion: a year before, Nikolayev and Sevastyanov could hardly stand after their 18-day mission, and now Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev had returned dead from orbit after 24 days. "Was there something about being weightless that long that could kill you?" Slayton wondered in his autobiography, Deke.

The news from the Soviet Union offered a sketchy and none-too-helpful insight, but could not sidestep the truth that this was a tragedy of immense proportions. Yet even this truth was restricted to the periphery of an initial report which emphasized the flight's strengths and tried to downplay the calamity which had befallen it. The report began tersely with "Tass reports the deaths of the crew of the spaceship Soyuz 11 … ," followed by a lengthy discussion of the extraordinary success of the mission and its re-entry, before ending abruptly with "upon opening the hatch … [the rescuers] found the crew of the spaceship in their couches without any signs of life. The causes of the crew's deaths are being investigated … "

Throughout Russia, the disaster brought about an unprecedented wave of mourning. People wept openly in the streets for three men who for over three weeks had appeared nightly on their television screens—cosmonauts who were being presented as human beings and not cold, faceless supermen—and who had offered a clear response to Apollo that the Soviet Union was back in the manned space business and firmly in the lead. Now, instead of three heroes, bearing broad smiles and bedecked in medals and garlands of flowers, all the Soviet people had was … three funerals.

Those funerals were to be a day of mourning as waves of lament swept over an entire nation in memory of a broken dream. All three men, the autopsies at Moscow's Burdenko Military Hospital found, had died of haemorrhages in the brain, subcutaneous bleeding, damaged eardrums, and bleeding of the middle ear. "Nitrogen," wrote Grujica Ivanovich, "was absent from the blood; it, together with oxygen and carbon dioxide, had boiled and reached the heart and brain in the form of bubbles. The formation of gas in the blood was a symptom of rapid decompression. The blood of all three men contained enormous amounts of lactic acid, fully ten times the norm, which was an indication of terrible emotional stress and anoxia."

A day or so after the disaster, their bodies were laid in state in the Central House of the Soviet Army, each clad in a civilian suit and each resplendent with the gold stars of a Hero of the Soviet Union. Only Patsayev's body showed visible evidence of the trauma he had endured: a dark-blue mark, similar to a large bruise, covered most of his right cheek. Tens of thousands of grief-stricken Muscovites, together with the cosmonauts' families and an emotional Leonid Brezhnev, who covered his face with his hand at one stage, filed past the open coffins to pay their final respects.

At around this time, Tom Stafford received word from Malcolm Toon, the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, that he was to represent President Richard Nixon at the funerals. Four years earlier, Lyndon Johnson's administration had offered to send an astronaut to Vladimir Komarov's funeral, but this overture had been rejected on the grounds that it was a "private" affair. Now, relations between the two spacefaring nations seemed somewhat more cordial and, upon his arrival in Moscow, Stafford travelled in the limousine of cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoi directly to the funeral … and even acted as one of the pallbearers for the massive urns which carried the cosmonauts' ashes for interment in the Kremlin Wall. Alongside the three-man crew of the Osoaviakhim-1 balloon, who had plunged to their deaths in 1934 after setting a new altitude record, Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev represent one of only two "group burials" ever to have taken place in the Kremlin necropolis.

By the time of the funeral, it was becoming increasingly clear that the deaths of the cosmonauts were due to a mechanical problem within their spacecraft and had nothing to do with their individual physiological states or their prolonged exposure to weightlessness. Initially, NASA physician Chuck Berry was so sure that nothing physiological could be to blame that he pointed to the release of a toxic substance inside the descent module as one possible cause. Decompression and its effects seemed the most reasonable explanation, and this was verified by the post-mortem examinations of the cosmonauts.

One of the bitterest ironies is that if Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev had been provided with space suits, they would have survived. This became clear when the State Commission, chaired by Mstislav Keldysh, wrote its report a few weeks later. Ten subcommittees were established to investigate every aspect of the Soyuz which could have contributed to the disaster, although physicians had judged almost immediately after finding the bodies that the most likely cause of death was decompression. Specialists from Moscow who arrived at the landing site on 1 July verified that there were no cracks or holes in the hull of the descent module.

Based on data from the onboard memory device, the orbital and instrument modules separated at an altitude of around 80 miles and lasted just 0.06 seconds. "The pressure in the descent module," wrote Ivanovich, "began to fall rapidly at that moment. At 1:47:26.5 a.m. [Moscow Time], two seconds prior to jettisoning the orbital module, the pressure in the descent module was 915 mm of mercury, which was normal. But some 115 seconds later the pressure had dropped to 50 mm and was still falling. In effect, there was no longer any air in the cabin!"

Decompression could have been caused by either the premature opening of one of two valves at the top of the descent module or a leakage from the hatch. When Chief Designer Vasili Mishin testified before Keldysh's panel on 7 July, he presented diagrams which seemed to endorse the first of these possibilities. It seemed unlikely that an incorrect command had caused the valve to prematurely open, because both valves operated from the same circuit. When one considers the thickness of the valve tube, the volume of the descent module itself, and the fact that the air would have escaped at the speed of sound, it is easy to see how the cabin pressure could have diminished nearly to zero and killed the crew in under a minute.

The positions of the bodies in the descent module suggested that Dobrovolski and Patsayev had tried to unstrap in order to close the valve, but had been unable to act quickly enough. At the instant of separation of the orbital and instrument modules, the cosmonauts' pulse rates varied broadly: from 78-85 in Dobrovolski's case to 92-106 for Patsayev and 120 for Volkov. A few seconds later, when they first became aware of the leak, their pulse rates shot up dramatically—Dobrovolski's to 114, Volkov's to 180—and thereafter the end had been swift. Fifty seconds after the separation of the two modules, Patsayev's pulse had dropped to 42, indicative of someone suffering oxygen starvation, and by 110 seconds all three men's hearts had stopped.

It would be a blessing to suppose that their deaths, though mercifully rapid, were also painless … but high-altitude decompression and exposure to the vacuum of space does not produce painless results. The official autopsies from the Burdenko Military Hospital remain classified to this day, as do several other documents pertinent to the disaster, but a number of conclusions have been made. Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev would first have experienced strong pains in their heads, chests, and abdomens, after which their eardrums would have burst and blood would have begun streaming from their noses and mouths. "Due to outgassing of oxygen from the venous blood supply to the lungs," wrote Ivanovich, "the men would have remained conscious for 50-60 seconds. However, they could have moved about and tried to remedy their plight only during the first 13 seconds; this being the 'time of useful consciousness,' corresponding to the time that it took for the oxygen-deprived blood to pass from the lungs to the brain."

Dobrovolski and Patsayev were best positioned to reach up and try to close the valve, but could not be certain as to the source of the leak … and only had a matter of seconds to find it. Remembering their earlier problems with the hermetic seal on the forward hatch, this—rather than the valves—would probably have been their first port of call, likely wasting what precious few seconds they had left. Maybe, at length, they heard the whistling of air and decided that it was, in fact, one of the valves, but time would have run out for them before they had a chance to close either of them. (After the disaster, Alexei Leonov tried manually closing just one of the valves … and it took 52 seconds!)

Not until October 1973—more than two years later—would the Western media, in the form of the Washington Post, finally be made aware of the fact that the valve was to blame. In the meantime, by early August 1971, when Keldysh's report was completed, a number of recommendations were made for future missions. Firstly, the valve needed to be more stable with regard to shock loads. Secondly, there needed to be quick-action chokes to shut the valves manually in a matter of seconds. Finally, and of pivotal importance, space suits were to be worn for all phases of a mission in which depressurisation was a possibility.

In response to the last requirement, the "Sokol-K" ("Space Falcon") suit was developed as a lightweight garment that could be individually tailored for each cosmonaut and was compatible with the seat liners aboard the Soyuz. A prototype was completed within weeks of the disaster and by the spring of 1972 had been fully tested and signed off as ready to fly. Since the Soyuz 12 mission, which finally flew in September 1973, the suit and its descendents have been worn by every cosmonaut during launch, docking, undocking, re-entry, and landing. "In the event of decompression on the Soyuz," wrote Rex Hall and Dave Shayler in their book Soyuz: A Universal Spacecraft, "the [Sokol] is automatically isolated from the cabin environment and supplied directly with either pure oxygen or an oxygen-rich mixture from a supply in the cabin or from self-contained systems."

Testimony to the success of the Sokol is that, since 1971, no other cosmonaut has lost his or her life through the decompression of their spacecraft.

To a great extent, the Soyuz 11 tragedy also played on NASA's conscience. Within hours of learning of the disaster, astronauts and managers alike were wondering if exposure to the space environment for three weeks had caused the deaths of Dobrovolski, Volkov, and Patsayev. When decompression and a lack of proper space suits were blamed, a change was made to the Apollo 15 lunar mission, which was scheduled to launch a few weeks later, in July 1971. It was decided that astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin would wear their space suits during their ascent from the lunar surface. "The decision," read a NASA press release, dated 19 July, "was based on a re-evaluation of the requirements for crew members to wear pressure suits during different phases of the mission. The evaluation was conducted following the Soyuz 11 accident … "

Nor was this simply a knee-jerk reaction: the Apollo 15 "re-evaluation" encompassed reviewing the design and testing of windows, hatches, valves, fittings, and wiring in both the lunar and command modules. "In addition," the release continued, "studies were performed on re-entry effects on crew and cabin with a completely failed window, structural loading during lunar module jettison, cabin pressure decay caused by various-sized holes, suit-donning times, and post-landing emergencies." Although the results established a high level of confidence in the Apollo hardware, this re-evaluation is notable in that the calamity of Soyuz 11 shook to the core not only the Soviet manned space program, but also that of the United States.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Monday, April 29, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - April 29, 2013 and JSC Today

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