Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Human Spaceflight News

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: July 24, 2013 11:51:57 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - July 24, 2013

Sorry for the late sendout

NASA TV: 9:30 am Central (10:30 EDT) – Orion Parachute Test Live Google+ Hangout

Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday – July 24, 2013

HEADLINES AND LEADS

NASA to test Orion parachute and promises something will go wrong

Deborah Netburn - Los Angeles Times

Early Wednesday morning, NASA engineers will drop a model spacecraft big enough to hold four astronauts from 35,000 feet up in the air — and you can watch what happens next, live, right here. NASA will host a Live Google Hangout from the test site at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. PDT (9:30 Central/10:30 Eastern) today.. And the good news is that something is guaranteed to go wrong.

NASA Will Test Parachute for New Spaceship Wednesday: Watch It Live

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

NASA's next manned spaceship, the Orion capsule, will be dropped over Arizona Wednesday for a parachute test that will be broadcast live in a Google+ Hangout. SPACE.com's Clara Moskowitz will be one of a few reporters participating as Hangout guests to ask questions during the event. Orion is a gumdrop-shaped vehicle designed to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon, Mars and nearby asteroids. The spacecraft is expected to make its first test flight to space in 2014, with its initial crewed flight coming in 2021.

Space getting a lot cooler thanks to Mass. company

Katie Lannan - Lowell Sun (MA)

Astronaut Rex Walheim has been to the International Space Station three times, spending a total of 36 days in space. As NASA's astronaut representative to the Orion spacecraft program, he's now working on a project that will take others deeper into orbit. "There's something in humans that they always want to know what's over the next hill, what's beyond," Walheim said. "It's a spirit of exploration that's built into us." Set to launch in 2017, Orion will take astronauts farther out in space than ever before, setting the stage for human exploration of Mars and missions to asteroids.

NASA investigates water leak in spacewalk helmet problem

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

NASA is launching a full-scale investigation into the close call that could have drowned an Italian astronaut during a spacewalk last week at the International Space Station. A NASA engineering team already has determined that it's highly unlikely that a leak from an in-suit drinking water bag filled the helmet of Luca Parmitano with water last Tuesday, rendering the spacewalker deaf, unable to speak and blind for a time.

NASA launches new probe of spacesuit failure

Agence France Presse

The US space agency said Tuesday it is launching a second investigation into a leaking helmet that forced an abrupt halt to an Italian astronaut's spacewalk last week. The probe will examine maintenance, quality assurance, and any operations that could have had a role in the gushing water that mysteriously appeared in the helmet of Italian spacewalker Luca Parmitano.

NASA Mishap Panel to Investigate Aborted Spacewalk

Mike Wall - Space.com

NASA has created an expert panel to investigate what went wrong during a July 16 spacewalk that had to be cut short when water began filling the spacesuit helmet of one astronaut in a scary malfunction. A NASA engineering team is already studying European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano's spacesuit and life-support equipment, looking for the cause of the unprecedented leak that could potentially have drowned the astronaut if not caught in time.

NASA Panel to Investigate Aborted Spacewalk

RIA Novosti

NASA said Tuesday that it has appointed an investigative board to look into last week's spacewalk that was aborted when water leaked into the helmet and spacesuit of an Italian astronaut outside the International Space Station (ISS). The NASA panel will "develop a set of lessons learned from the incident and suggest ways to prevent a similar problem in the future," the US space agency said in a statement. The board will begin its probe Aug. 2 and work in coordination with a NASA engineering team already examining the spacesuit and life-support equipment used by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano when the water leaked into his helmet, drenching his nose and mouth.

NASA Team Formed to Investigate EVA-23 Incident

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

A five-member investigation board – including veteran astronaut Mike Foreman – has been convened by NASA and will begin work on 2 August to identify the cause of a perplexing problem which caused Luca Parmitano's helmet to fill with water during EVA-23. The spacewalk, which took place on Tuesday 16 July, was supposed to last 6.5 hours, but was terminated by Flight Director David Korth after just 92 minutes when Parmitano reported that water was entering his helmet. At its worst, the incident left 1-1.5 liters of water inside the helmet and rendered Italy's first spacewalker temporarily unable to hear and speak as liquid entered his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.

Commercial space industry shows promise in the US

Deutsche Welle

This month marks two years since NASA's final space shuttle launch from Florida. The end of NASA's Space Shuttle program has led to the commercialization of the industry. To compensate for significant cuts to its space program, the US government has been working on providing support to private ventures. Private companies can now bid on a contract to transport NASA's cargo to the International Space Station. Also, an initiative has been established in which crew (astronaut) transportation will be outsourced.

Rep. Edwards Pins Hopes for More NASA Funding on Senate

Dan Leone - Space News

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who pushed hard against a Republican-authored NASA authorization bill currently awaiting a floor vote, said July 23 that it will probably be up to the Senate to undo provisions in that bill which call for NASA to scale back science and technology activities and focus on human spaceflight. On July 18, Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee overrode united Democrat opposition to pass a $16.6 billion NASA authorization bill (H.R. 2678) that would scale back science programs, Earth science in particular, and direct the agency to use the Moon as a steppingstone for manned missions to Mars.

Bezos' Blue Origin joins billionaire battle for NASA shuttle launch pad

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

Thanks to Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos' backing, Blue Origin is one of the country's most financially stable rocket ventures, but it has also had one of the lowest profiles — until now. The company, based in an industrial area south of Seattle, is waiting to hear whether it can take over one of NASA's crown jewels: Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the first and the last space shuttle flight blasted off. And Bezos is competing with another billionaire, SpaceX's Elon Musk, to get it.

Energy Department nominee struggled with financial management at NASA

Phillip Swarts - Washington Times

Elizabeth Robinson, the woman President Obama has named to make the Energy Department's oft-criticized contracting more efficient, is leaving behind a trail of spending questions in her past job as NASA's chief financial officer. A Washington Times review of NASA inspector general reports finds the space agency struggled to achieve austerity under Ms. Robinson's financial leadership, as cost overruns grew sixfold from $50 million in 2009 to $315 million in 2012. "Cost increases and schedule delays on NASA's projects are longstanding issues for the agency," the space agency's internal watchdog reported last year.

Aerojet withholds Rocketdyne payment pending Russian approval of RD-Amross transfer

Peter de Selding - Space News

Rocket-motor maker Gencorp Aerojet has withheld 25 percent of its payment to United Technologies Corp. (UTC) for the purchase of competitor Rocketdyne pending Russian government approval of the transfer to Aerojet of UTC/Rocketdyne's 50 percent stake in the company that provides the first-stage engine for the U.S. Atlas 5 rocket, Aerojet said. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Aerojet left open the possibility that its purchase of UTC/Rocketdyne's 50 percent ownership of Cocoa Beach, Fla.-based RD-Amross, which adapts the Russian RD-180 engine for use on the Atlas 5, might not occur.

MORE ON BOEING's ROLLOUT OF THE CST-100 IN HOUSTON…

Astronauts try out new Boeing space capsule
Boeing reveals interior of mockup for first time

Aubrey Cohen - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Two NASA astronauts Monday checked out how Boeing's planned space capsule accommodates people in flight suits. It was also the first time Boeing showed the capsule's interior. Boeing is one of three companies developing private craft to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Since the retirement of the final space shuttle two years ago, NASA has sent astronauts to the station aboard Russian capsules. Boeing's proposed CST-100 is optimized to seat five crew members, but could accommodate up to seven, or a mix of crew and cargo.

A first glimpse inside Boeing's commercial spacecraft

Elizabeth Howell - SEN.com (Space Exploration Network)

The first pictures of Boeing's new spacecraft, the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 show how spacecraft design has evolved since the space shuttle was designed four decades ago. Blue LEDs dot the interior, resembling the lighting that theatre-goers saw in Star Trek Into Darkness's Enterprise spacecraft this spring. Tablet technology is available. Most notable, though, is the absence of the usual wall-to-wall switches usually seen in human spacecraft.

Boeing's new astronaut capsule opens its pod bay doors for NASA

Carl Franzen - The Verge

Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has been looking for a new way to get astronauts up to the International Space Station from the US. Enter the Crew Space Transportation, or CST-100, a new space capsule designed by Boeing specifically to transport up to seven people, or a team of five plus some cargo, into orbit. Boeing, which has been working on the capsule for years, finally showed off the interior of the CST-100 to the world on Monday, letting NASA astronauts enter and explore a simulator version of their future space ride for eight hours at Boeing's Houston Product Support Center in Texas.

Boeing provides first look at CST-100 space capsule

David Szondy - GizMag.com

NASA and Boeing have unveiled a mock up of the Crew Space Transport (CST-100) space capsule. In an event held at Boeing's Houston Product Support Center in Texas, members of the press were invited to view a fully outfitted test version of the spacecraft. As part of the proceedings, two NASA astronauts kitted-out in flight suits conducted tests on working in the capsule.

His other spaceship was a shuttle:
Former astronaut helms Boeing space capsule

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

Two years after climbing out of the last ship to launch him into orbit, Chris Ferguson was back in a spacecraft on Monday. Ferguson, who as commander of NASA's orbiter Atlantis landed the space shuttle program's final mission on July 21, 2011, is retired as an astronaut and is now working at Boeing. There, he is leading development of a commercial space capsule designed to pick up where the shuttle left off. "Two years and one day... I will tell you, it has gone by so fast," Ferguson says. "But if you can't fly 'em, you might as well build 'em." On Monday, Ferguson got his first chance to go inside a mockup of the spacecraft he and his team are building, dubbed the CST-100. The gumdrop-shape model capsule is being used by Boeing to fine tune the spacecraft's cabin layout by having NASA astronauts — Ferguson's previous colleagues and crewmates — don pressure suits, strap in and offer their feedback.
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COMPLETE STORIES

NASA to test Orion parachute and promises something will go wrong

Deborah Netburn - Los Angeles Times

Early Wednesday morning, NASA engineers will drop a model spacecraft big enough to hold four astronauts from 35,000 feet up in the air — and you can watch what happens next, live, right here.

NASA will host a Live Google Hangout from the test site at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. PDT on July 24. And the good news is that something is guaranteed to go wrong.

The engineers will simulate a failure of one of the model spacecraft's three main parachutes, according to a release from the space agency.

The parachute test is just the latest in a battery of tests that engineers have devised for the Orion spacecraft — the first spacecraft designed to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.

The spacecraft is scheduled to have its first unmanned test flight in September 2014, when it will venture 3,600 miles from Earth.

The first crewed mission for Orion is not expected to take place until after 2020.

If you have questions before the Google Hangout, you can post them on Google+ or Twitter ahead of the event using the hashtag #askOrion. If you prefer, you can also post questions on NASA's Facebook page.

And for a taste of what you might see during the test, check out this video of an Orion parachute drop test in May.

NASA Will Test Parachute for New Spaceship Wednesday: Watch It Live

Clara Moskowitz - Space.com

NASA's next manned spaceship, the Orion capsule, will be dropped over Arizona Wednesday for a parachute test that will be broadcast live in a Google+ Hangout. SPACE.com's Clara Moskowitz will be one of a few reporters participating as Hangout guests to ask questions during the event.

Orion is a gumdrop-shaped vehicle designed to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon, Mars and nearby asteroids. The spacecraft is expected to make its first test flight to space in 2014, with its initial crewed flight coming in 2021.

The Google+ Hangout will feature NASA and Army team members speaking about the test, as well as live footage from the flight. You can watch live from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. EDT (1430 to 1530 GMT) here at SPACE.com, or on NASA's Google+ page of NASA TV.

Wednesday's test will see an Orion prototype dropped from a plane at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,700 meters) over the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in southwestern Arizona. Engineers will simulate a series of failures and test the parachute system's ability to adapt and land the capsule safely. Orion has three main parachutes, and the NASA team plans to simulate the failure of one of the trio to see if the landing sequence can proceed safely with only two.

These parachutes will be necessary to slow the spacecraft's descent after its first trip to space, the 2014 test flight scheduled to send the capsule 3,600 miles (5,800 km) away from Earth —well beyond the orbit of the International Space Station.

During that maiden flight, the vehicle will be launched by a Delta IV rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On its eventual deep space missions, though, Orion will be lofted by NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket currently in development. When it returns from those far-away destinations, Orion will plummet through Earth's atmosphere at speeds of up to 20,000 mph (32,000 kph). At such a pace, the parachutes will be essential in slowing the vehicle down for a safe landing.

NASA plans to use the Orion spacecraft for its mission to visit an asteroid in the mid 2020s. The agency plans to use a robotic vehicle to lasso a near-Earth asteroid and haul it into a stable orbit near the moon. Once there, astronauts will fly on Orion to visit the captured asteroid and return samples to the ground.

Viewers of the Google+ Hangout can ask questions via NASA's Facebook, Google+ or Twitter accounts using the hashtag #askOrion.

Space getting a lot cooler thanks to Mass. company

Katie Lannan - Lowell Sun (MA)

Astronaut Rex Walheim has been to the International Space Station three times, spending a total of 36 days in space.

As NASA's astronaut representative to the Orion spacecraft program, he's now working on a project that will take others deeper into orbit.

"There's something in humans that they always want to know what's over the next hill, what's beyond," Walheim said. "It's a spirit of exploration that's built into us."

Set to launch in 2017, Orion will take astronauts farther out in space than ever before, setting the stage for human exploration of Mars and missions to asteroids.

Astronauts returning from those ventures will face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as they reenter the Earth's atmosphere. When they do, it's work done at Wilmington's Textron Defense Systems that will keep them safe.

"At that moment, you're glad that you've got great navigation, all of the other systems ... but I think you would agree that at that moment, what you're most interested in is who put that heat shield together," said Jeff Picard, Textron's senior vice president of program execution.

The spaceship's heat shield, the largest of its kind ever created, attaches to the Orion's crew module, protecting the capsule -- and the people inside it -- from extreme temperatures.

Assembled in the Colorado facility of aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin, the shield arrived in Wilmington in late March.

Since then, crews have been at work 24 hours a day, six days a week, applying Textron's ablative coating, a material that protects the structure from extreme temperatures by lifting hot gas away from the shield's outer wall to create a cooler boundary layer.

The coating, the same used on NASA's Apollo capsules, is injected with "glorified caulking guns" into honeycomb cells on the shield, said Mike Kieran, Textron's vice president of integrated supply chain.

At a presentation with representatives from NASA and Lockheed Martin last week, Textron officials said the coating application is now more than halfway done.

Kieran said there has been a buzz around Textron's Wilmington campus since the day the heat shield arrived, in a convoy from Hanscom Air Force Base. That day, he said, most employees were too excited to do much work.

"All day long, there's people coming by that just kind of poke their head in and see what's going on, just from a curiosity standpoint," Kieran said. "People are excited to be a part of this. I can't wait for the launch. It'll be another no-work-getting-done day."

The launch Kieran is waiting for is a test flight in September 2014 from Cape Canaveral, when an unmanned Orion craft will circle the planet twice in 90 minutes.

The heat shield will travel to Florida this fall, though, to be added onto the rest of the spacecraft, which is being assembled in other parts of the country.

"It's like a great big puzzle, putting this thing together in steps," said Jim Bray, Lockheed Martin's Orion crew and service-module director.

Bray said managing components built in different states is complex but necessary to ensure quality.

"You go where the skills are," he said. "Textron did similar work on Apollo. They've done this on other spacecraft, and you have to go where the talent is."

To the Wilmington officials who toured the Textron plant last week, having a NASA project in their town has been a point of pride and a cause for excitement.

"I just love knowing that it's here," Selectman Mike Champoux said. "I live a mile and a half down the road. I drive by this building all the time."

In addition to seeking out the most skilled crews, it's that spirit and connection that NASA hopes to foster by partnering with different companies nationwide, said Charlie Lundquist, the Orion crew and service-module manager at NASA.

"We've found a lot of communities aren't even aware they're working on the space program," Lundquist said. "They think, 'Oh, that's down in Florida,' or 'Oh, that's in Houston at mission control.' But it's in your backyard. It's down the street."

NASA investigates water leak in spacewalk helmet problem

Todd Halvorson - Florida Today

NASA is launching a full-scale investigation into the close call that could have drowned an Italian astronaut during a spacewalk last week at the International Space Station.

A NASA engineering team already has determined that it's highly unlikely that a leak from an in-suit drinking water bag filled the helmet of Luca Parmitano with water last Tuesday, rendering the spacewalker deaf, unable to speak and blind for a time.

Engineers also are ruling out a leak from tubes that route water through Parmitano's form-fitting liquid cooling undergarment.

The five-member investigation board, announced Tuesday, will start gathering information and conducting tests Friday in a bid to "identify the cause or causes of the anomaly and any contributing factors," NASA said in a statement.

Led by NASA International Space Station Chief Engineer Chris Hansen, the investigators will make recommendations to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden "to prevent similar incidents from occurring during future spacewalks," NASA said.

A planned six-hour, 30-minute spacewalk was cut short when a leak began to fill Parmitano's helmet with chilled water. In weightlessness, water clings to surfaces, and in this case, water covered Parmitano's eyes, ears, nose and mouth.

NASA spacewalk flight director David Korth ordered Parmitano and U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy to return to the outpost's U.S. Quest airlock.

Once inside the station, crewmates performed an emergency suit-doffing drill and removed Parmitano's helmet as quickly as possible. Towels were used to capture water that floated out of his helmet. The abbreviated spacewalk lasted one hour and 32 minutes.

Also serving on the investigation board:

•       U.S. astronaut Mike Foreman, a veteran of two space shuttle missions and five spacewalks.
•       Richard Fullerton, lead engineer in the International Space Station Office of Safety and Mission Assurance at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Fullerton was a co-chair of a group that planned and oversaw spacewalks at the Russian space station Mir during nine space shuttle missions to that outpost in the 1990s.
•       Sudhaker Rajula, a human factors specialist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
•       Joe Pellicciotti, chief engineer at the NASA Engineering and Safety Center at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The NESC was formed after the 2003 Columbia accident to provide independent analysis of NASA safety and mission assurance issues.
•
The board will work closely with the engineering team that is attempting to pinpoint the cause of the leak. Members also will look more broadly at U.S. spacewalk operations and make recommendations that "can be applied to improve the safety of all of NASA's human spaceflight activities," NASA said.

NASA launches new probe of spacesuit failure

Agence France Presse

The US space agency said Tuesday it is launching a second investigation into a leaking helmet that forced an abrupt halt to an Italian astronaut's spacewalk last week.

The probe will examine maintenance, quality assurance, and any operations that could have had a role in the gushing water that mysteriously appeared in the helmet of Italian spacewalker Luca Parmitano.

His spacewalk on July 16 was stopped after about an hour and a half, marking the second shortest in the history of the International Space Station.

The 36-year-old made it safely back inside orbiting research outpost and was unhurt, though NASA experts said he faced the risk of drowning had the ordeal gone on much longer.

NASA engineers swiftly turned to the spacesuit cooling system as the potential source of the leak, after determining it was unlikely the water came from Parmitano's inner helmet drink bag.

The investigation announced Tuesday will be carried out at the same time as one already under way by engineers who are "focused on resolving equipment trouble in an effort to enable US spacewalks to resume," NASA said.

The new five-member "mishap" board will seek to "identify the cause or causes of the anomaly and any contributing factors, and make recommendations to the NASA administrator to prevent similar incidents from occurring during future spacewalks," NASA said.

"The board's responsibility is to make observations and recommendations that can be applied to improve the safety of all of NASA's human spaceflight activities."

The new probe will be chaired by Chris Hansen, ISS chief engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and will include a liaison from the European Space Agency.

Other board members include US astronaut Mike Foreman, ISS safety and mission assurance lead Richard Fullerton, human factors specialist Sudhakar Rajula and chief engineer Joe Pellicciotti.

NASA Mishap Panel to Investigate Aborted Spacewalk

Mike Wall - Space.com

NASA has created an expert panel to investigate what went wrong during a July 16 spacewalk that had to be cut short when water began filling the spacesuit helmet of one astronaut in a scary malfunction.

A NASA engineering team is already studying European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano's spacesuit and life-support equipment, looking for the cause of the unprecedented leak that could potentially have drowned the astronaut if not caught in time. The newly created board will take a complementary tack when its work begins on Aug. 2. Meanwhile, NASA is scrambling to load a spacesuit repair kit onto a Russian cargo ship launching to the space station on Saturday (July 27), agency officials said.

"The mishap investigation board will look more broadly at past operations and maintenance, quality assurance, aspects of flight control and other organizational factors," NASA officials wrote in a press release Tuesday. "The board's responsibility is to make observations and recommendations that can be applied to improve the safety of all of NASA's human spaceflight activities."

The five-person board will be chaired by Chris Hansen, International Space Station chief engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston. The other four members are:

·         Mike Foreman, NASA astronaut and veteran spacewalker, JSC
·         Richard Fullerton, International Space Station safety and mission assurance lead, Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
·         Sudhakar Rajula, human factors specialist, JSC
·         Joe Pellicciotti, chief engineer, NASA Engineering and Safety Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy ventured outside the space station on July 16 to conduct a variety of repair and maintenance operations, and to help prepare the orbiting lab for the arrival of a new Russian module later this year.

The excursion was supposed to last 6 1/2 hours, but controllers stopped it after just 92 minutes because water began building up in Parmitano's helmet.

"There is some in my eyes, and some in my nose," Parmitano said during the spacewalk. "It's a lot of water."

The Italian astronaut and his NASA colleague made it back inside the space station safely, and both of them are fine.

NASA officials later determined that a total of 34 to 51 ounces (1 to 1.5 liters) of water leaked into Parmitano's spacesuit, with most of it gathering in his helmet. The cause of the leak remains undetermined, but engineers suspect a fault in the suit's cooling system.

As part of its effort to understand the mishap and prevent similar issues in the future, NASA is planning to send some spacesuit-repair tools up to the station aboard Russia's unmanned Progress 52 cargo ship, which will launch Saturday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan.

"They're working to get some small spare parts, basically, and some tools that the crew could use to either repair or to help contain and investigate the suit issue that we have with Luca," said NASA spokesman Josh Byerly of JSC.

"They're keeping it small, because obviously the 52 Progress is already full," Byerly told SPACE.com. "We're having to make sure that we can get it manifested and get it on there. But as far as I know, everything's proceeding according to plan."

NASA Panel to Investigate Aborted Spacewalk

RIA Novosti

NASA said Tuesday that it has appointed an investigative board to look into last week's spacewalk that was aborted when water leaked into the helmet and spacesuit of an Italian astronaut outside the International Space Station (ISS).

The NASA panel will "develop a set of lessons learned from the incident and suggest ways to prevent a similar problem in the future," the US space agency said in a statement.

The board will begin its probe Aug. 2 and work in coordination with a NASA engineering team already examining the spacesuit and life-support equipment used by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano when the water leaked into his helmet, drenching his nose and mouth.

NASA said its engineering team is trying to fix the spacesuit and life-support equipment in order to allow spacewalks to continue.

The five-member panel will be led by Chris Hansen, the ISS' chief engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA is also hurrying to get spare spacesuit parts aboard a Russian cargo ship carrying supplies to the ISS that is set to launch from Kazakhstan on Saturday, The Associated Press reported Monday.

Parmitano and US flight engineer Chris Cassidy were conducting last week's spacewalk to prepare for the arrival of a new Russian lab by replacing, relocating and reconfiguring video and electronic equipment aboard the ISS.

The planned six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk was abruptly halted after only 90 minutes, even though "the water was not an immediate health hazard" for the astronaut, NASA said.

None of the tasks that Cassidy and Parmitano were scheduled to do during the spacewalk were urgent or vital to the safety of the crew on board the ISS, NASA said last week.

NASA Team Formed to Investigate EVA-23 Incident

Ben Evans - AmericaSpace.com

A five-member investigation board – including veteran astronaut Mike Foreman – has been convened by NASA and will begin work on 2 August to identify the cause of a perplexing problem which caused Luca Parmitano's helmet to fill with water during EVA-23. The spacewalk, which took place on Tuesday 16 July, was supposed to last 6.5 hours, but was terminated by Flight Director David Korth after just 92 minutes when Parmitano reported that water was entering his helmet. At its worst, the incident left 1-1.5 liters of water inside the helmet and rendered Italy's first spacewalker temporarily unable to hear and speak as liquid entered his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.

The investigation board is chaired by Chris Hansen, the International Space Station (ISS) chief engineer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. He will be joined by Mike Foreman – who performed a cumulative total of six EVAs during two Space Shuttle missions in March 2008 and November 2009 – as well as ISS safety and mission assurance lead Richard Fullerton, human factors specialist Sudhakar Rajula and NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) chief engineer Joe Pellicciotti. According to NASA, the team will investigate the 16 July incident and are tasked to "develop a set of lessons learned" and "suggest ways to prevent a similar problem in the future".

NASA engineering teams are already hard at work exploring the space suit hardware, with recent attention having centered on the sublimator, gas trap, I-134 filter, check valve and water separator, all located within the Portable Life Support System (PLSS) backpack. Although spare parts are available aboard the ISS, the Associated Press has recently reported that NASA is scrambling to put a specialized toolkit aboard the Progress M-20M cargo craft, due to launch toward the space station on Saturday 27 July. At the present time, all NASA space suits – properly known as "Extravehicular Mobility Units" (EMUs) – are classed as "offline" and will only be used in an emergency situation. None of the tasks scheduled for the remainder of Parmitano's EVA with Chris Cassidy is considered to be urgent and will be delayed until the suit is repaired or the problem isolated.

EVA-23 – the 23rd station-based spacewalk by astronauts clad in U.S. suits from the U.S. Operating Segment (USOS) – began 13 minutes ahead of schedule at 7:57 a.m. EDT on Tuesday 16 July. The two men swiftly parted company, with Cassidy heading to the box-like Z-1 truss to complete the reconfiguration of Y-Bypass jumper cables and Parmitano making his way to the Unity node to begin routing 1553 data cables and an Ethernet cable to support Russia's forthcoming Nauka Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module (MLM), due to launch later this year or early in 2014.

About 45 minutes into the EVA, Parmitano made his first reference to the presence of water on the back of his head, soaking into his "Snoopy" communications skullcap. Within ten minutes, he was joined by Cassidy, who verified that up to 800 milliliters of water was visible inside the helmet. According to Cassidy, the water soaked Parmitano's Snoopy cap and covered his eyes and ears. In conjunction with Mission Control, the astronauts debated possible causes and solutions. Suspecting a coolant leak, Parmitano reduced the flow rate, and admitted that a drinking water leak was unlikely as his Disposable In-Suit Drink Bag (DIDB) was already dry. By 9:06 a.m., less than 20 minutes after the first report of trouble, Flight Director Korth terminated the EVA and ordered both spacewalkers to make their way back to the Quest airlock.

In order to rid his helmet of the water, Parmitano resolved to drink some of it and noted an unusual taste, which would seem to be consistent with it coming into contact with the anti-fog compounds on the inside of his visor. Under the deft control of Cassidy, the hatch was closed and sealed at 9:26 a.m., the airlock was quickly repressurized and Parmitano's helmet was off by 9:38. EVA-23 marked the second-shortest spacewalk in ISS history, eclipsed only by a 14-minute excursion in June 2004, which was aborted shortly after it started when the primary oxygen bottle in astronaut Mike Fincke's suit began to rapidly lose pressure.

Ahead of today's announcement by NASA of the five-member investigative board, an Anomaly Resolution Team is also at work to identify the cause and make recommendations. Preliminary reports indicate that water pooled primarily inside the helmet and near to the liquid transport lines in the upper segment of the suit's hard upper torso. The remainder of the suit, from the chest downwards, appeared to be dry. According to a report by NASASpaceflight.com, overall EMU pressures remained nominal throughout EVA-23 and there were no indications that the suit was running out of primary water. No leaks were reported from the DIDB, from Parmitano's Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment or from the liquid-transport lines of the hard upper torso. This has served to eliminate a number of key suspects, leaving a possible cause somewhere in T2 port, or aft helmet vent.

The five-member investigative team will begin its work on 2 August and has access to experts and support personnel, enabling it to gather pertinent data, analyze facts, conduct necessary tests, identify the underlying cause of the EVA-23 incident and make recommendations to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in order to prevent such situations occurring during future spacewalks.

Commercial space industry shows promise in the US

Deutsche Welle

This month marks two years since NASA's final space shuttle launch from Florida. The end of NASA's Space Shuttle program has led to the commercialization of the industry.

For years, NASA was only rivalled by Russia's space agency ROSCOSMOS. But during the last decade, NASA has suffered a series of setbacks despite its successful landing of rover Curiosity on Mars in 2012. Since the end of its Space Shuttle program in July 2011, NASA has had to rely on ROSCOSMOS to send its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). But ROSCOSMOS has also had its own share of problems. Earlier this month, an unmanned Russian rocket carrying three navigation satellites crashed at a launch facility in Kazakhstan shortly after taking off.

China, on the other hand, has made inroads into the space industry in the last decade. Last month, it completed its longest manned space mission, with the return of the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft to Earth. But one of its biggest successes came in September 2011 when it launched Tiangong-1, a space station with a manned laboratory and the possibility to test docking capabilities. NASA currently has to share the ISS for which funding runs out in 2020 with the Russian, Japanese, Canadian and European space agencies. China has plans to significantly expand Tiangong-1 from 2020.

Compensating for cuts

To compensate for significant cuts to its space program, the US government has been working on providing support to private ventures. Private companies can now bid on a contract to transport NASA's cargo to the International Space Station. Also, an initiative has been established in which crew (astronaut) transportation will be outsourced.

"Because of the world economy, which has affected the United States and most other countries in the world, the [US] government has to make decisions about big investments," former NASA astronaut Pamela Melroy told DW.

Melroy, who also worked for the US Federal Aviation Authority, believes that fostering the private sector is the way forward for the space industry, pointing to the commercialization of the telecommunications sector as an example. Investment by companies has helped transform the industry and increased access to the Internet, she said.

Commercialization good for research

By turning NASA into a customer, the US government is stimulating development of the private space industry. And this could open up opportunities for other actors interested in space research.

"I believe the big market is the research and education market where researchers and students can participate and understand physics better and do experiments in space," Melroy said. "There are many private individuals who are interested in putting things in space."

Conditions in space can help scientists get a better understanding of how materials work, aging and the effect of gravity on people.

"The removal of the gravity allows us some insight in the fundamental scientific investigations and research areas that enable us to explore," said Bonnie Dunbar, a former astronaut who is now a University of Houston biomedical engineering professor.

There's one major snag though - researchers do not have a reliable communication link to observe their experiments 24/7, Dunbar added. And this is essential for some experiments.

'American approach will be successful'

Experts say that the American approach to space research is showing a lot of potential.

"I think that the American approach will be successful and there will be only few spaces for European activities, private activities," said Gerd Gruppe, a board member of the German Aeronautics and Space Research Center (DLR).

The opportunities for European companies are in providing space-related services on Earth like operating an operations center, he noted.

Orbital Sciences had a successful test launch earlier this year. In addition, Virgin Galactic, a US-based space venture that aims to take tourists into space, had a successful test flight in April this year. There are also four new human spacecrafts in development in the United States, according to former NASA astronaut Melroy.

Landing humans on Mars

Ultimately, landing humans on Mars is the main goal in the space industry today. Earlier this year, US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito announced that he was looking for an ordinary couple to send on a Mars fly-by mission that would last 501 days. Mars One, a Dutch initiative, is also looking for four volunteers to send to the Red Planet to establish a permanent human colony by 2023.

Despite the fact that Mars One is offering no return flight to Earth, the initiative has already attracted thousands of applications. However, the project isn't getting much financial support and has only managed to raise around $100,000 of the $6 billion that is required for the mission. Still, former NASA astronaut Pamela Melroy is enthusiastic about projects like Inspiration Mars and Mars One.

"Ten years ago, there were perhaps three spacecraft that could carry people into space. And that's all anybody thought of. And then maybe a few people, even big government agencies [...] and now you literally have 8, 9, 10 [spacecraft] that engineers are actually working on," she said. "Some of them will be successful. Some will not."

However, Gerd Gruppe of the DLR doesn't agree. "Mars is something for states and state agencies and big companies," he said.

Rep. Edwards Pins Hopes for More NASA Funding on Senate

Dan Leone - Space News

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.), who pushed hard against a Republican-authored NASA authorization bill currently awaiting a floor vote, said July 23 that it will probably be up to the Senate to undo provisions in that bill which call for NASA to scale back science and technology activities and focus on human spaceflight.

On July 18, Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee overrode united Democrat opposition to pass a $16.6 billion NASA authorization bill (H.R. 2678) that would scale back science programs, Earth science in particular, and direct the agency to use the Moon as a steppingstone for manned missions to Mars.

"The Senate has a totally different approach for this, and I'm grateful for that," Edwards said here July 23 after her speech at this month's Maryland Space Business Roundtable lunch. The monthly gathering, held just down the road from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, regularly draws a roomful of NASA contractors and agency personnel.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved $18.1 billion for NASA for 2014 as part of a broader commerce, justice, science spending bill that now heads to the floor. The Senate Commerce science and space subcommittee, meanwhile, is preparing to markup a NASA authorization bill that largely mirrors the appropriations bill.

Edwards, the ranking Democrat on the House Science space subcommittee charged with writing NASA authorization bills, tried and failed to amend the majority's bill during a July 18 markup. She said she might try again on the floor, "assuming the bill gets there.

"I really don't know yet," Edwards told SpaceNews after her speech. "There hasn't been a schedule yet, and I imagine that when that happens, we will plan for amendments. I hope they'll have an open amendment process."

The website for the House Rules Committee, which sets the parameters for floor debates in that chamber, had not weighed in on H.R. 2678 as of July 23.

During the July 18 markup of the bill, the NASA Authorization Act of 2013, Edwards introduced an amendment, which she ultimately withdrew, that would have called on NASA to create a Center Realignment and Closure Commission. The commission would have been given six months to evaluate options for reducing agency overhead, specifically by either "[c]onsolidating all rocket development and test activities of the Marshall Space Flight Center and Stennis Space Center in one location" or closing Marshall and dividing its responsibilities between Mississippi-based Stennis and Houston-based Johnson Space Center.

Edwards acknowledged July 23 that such a proposal would probably not fly in the Senate, where lawmakers do not share House Republicans' view that authorization bills must conform to the across-the-board sequestration cuts triggered by the Budget Control Act of 2011. Those cuts have already knocked NASA's 2013 budget down to about $16.9 billion.

Edwards also maintained, emphatically, that she did not wish to see NASA centers closed. However, she added, if Republicans are determined to plan federal spending based on the sequester, "we need to get real about what that takes, and about what constraints all the agencies will be under."

Although the House and Senate have moved NASA authorization and appropriations bills through their respective committees, neither chamber has scheduled a floor vote. And with the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year fast approaching, the House and Senate remain more than $1 billion apart on what NASA's budget should be for 2014.

The two chambers' fundamental disagreement about federal spending has led to speculation that the U.S. government will once again be funded with another stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, beginning Oct. 1.

Edwards said she had no insider knowledge of an impending continuing resolution for 2014.

"That's way above my pay grade," Edwards said.

Meanwhile, NASA is already planning for the possibility that sequestration will continue.

One NASA official said the agency, in internal summer budget deliberations concerning 2015 and beyond, is drawing up a plan to cope with another sequester of funds in 2014. The White House's 2014 budget request, released in April, did not take sequestration into account.

If the administration and Congress have a grand bargain in the works that will spare NASA from these across-the-board cuts, "they haven't told us," this official said.

Bezos' Blue Origin joins billionaire battle for NASA shuttle launch pad

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com's Cosmic Log

Thanks to Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos' backing, Blue Origin is one of the country's most financially stable rocket ventures, but it has also had one of the lowest profiles — until now.

The company, based in an industrial area south of Seattle, is waiting to hear whether it can take over one of NASA's crown jewels: Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the first and the last space shuttle flight blasted off. And Bezos is competing with another billionaire, SpaceX's Elon Musk, to get it.

SpaceX is one of the biggest success stories in space nowadays: The company that Musk founded in 2002 with his dot-com fortune has flown three successful unmanned missions to the International Space Station, has dozens of launches on its manifest, and is said to be turning a profit.

Meanwhile, Bezos' Blue Origin has been quietly working for almost 13 years on a suborbital launch system that would send passengers and payloads on short blasts into space, as well as an orbital system that could deliver astronauts to the International Space Station or other destinations.

With financial backing from NASA, Blue Origin has developed an innovative launch pad escape system as well as a rocket that has gone as high as 45,000 feet (13.7 kilometers). But it hasn't yet put anything in outer space, and the crash of its prototype suborbital spacecraft in 2011 was a significant setback.

"We're a company that doesn't take the easy path," Blue Origin's president, Rob Meyerson, told NBC News during an interview at the company's headquarters in Kent. "These vehicles are challenging."

Low profile, high commitment

Meyerson, a veteran aerospace engineer who began his career in 1985 at NASA's Johnson Space Center, acknowledged that Bezos' style is to keep a low profile. The billionaire himself rarely talks to the press about his rocket venture, leaving that to Meyerson and other executives. But Bezos' commitment to enabling "human access to space at a dramatically lower cost and increased reliability" is as strong today as it was at the beginning, Meyerson said.

"His vision has stayed absolutely rock-steady," Meyerson said.

Last Thursday's interview marked the first time that a working journalist was admitted into Blue Origin's headquarters, Meyerson and other company representatives said.

No photos were allowed — but as we walked through the building, there was time to marvel at the two-story-high rocket sculpture (with fireplace) in the lobby, a 10-foot-wide inflatable globe spinning in an entryway, and displays featuring scale models of Hollywood spaceships. A Starship Enterprise model (used for the first three "Star Trek" movies) sat in the lobby. The Discovery One spaceship from "2001: A Space Odyssey" hung from the ceiling. A miniature geodesic dome from "Silent Running" sat on a pedestal in a hallway.

The point of the visit wasn't to gawk at the decor, however. Meyerson wanted to get the word out about Blue Origin's ambitions for Launch Complex 39A.

Surplus launch pad

With the shuttle fleet retired, 39A is now considered surplus. NASA plans to use the other shuttle launch pad, 39B, for development and launch of its next-generation heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System. But to save money, the space agency wants to turn the operation and maintenance of 39A over to a commercial concern in October.

Both Musk and Bezos are eyeing the launch pad because, for all their billions, it's still challenging to build an orbital launch pad from scratch. Kennedy Space Center would be ideal, because it already has the infrastructure as well as the coastal range clearances for orbital launches. As an illustration of how tough it is to create a new pad, SpaceX has been looking into creating a new commercial launch facility for more than two years, but a deal still hasn't been reached.

SpaceX spokeswoman Christina Ra told NBC News that 39A wouldn't take the place of a future commercial launch facility. "SpaceX would focus on our commercial satellite customers with 39A but could launch any mission from our East Coast manifest. We could also use it for launching crew and Falcon Heavy," Ra said in an email.

SpaceX currently launches its Falcon 9 rocket and unmanned Dragon capsule on cargo flights to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is near NASA's space center. The company plans to upgrade the Dragon for crewed missions by as early as 2015.

Blue Origin also is looking for an orbital launch facility. The company currently assembles hardware at the Kent facility and tests its suborbital rockets at a 18,600-acre spaceport that Bezos built amid hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland he owns in West Texas.

Meyerson said the Texas spaceport would continue to be the base for suborbital operations, but Launch Complex 39A would be used for assembly and launch of orbital spacecraft. Commercial operations, perhaps including flights to the space station, would begin in 2018, he said. Meyerson said it was too early to estimate how many jobs would be created for the Florida operation. Blue Origin currently employs more than 250 people, while SpaceX has more than 3,000 employees.

Blue Origin would run 39A as a multi-use facility, allowing other launch providers to send their rockets into space from the pad for a price. "We're open to everyone," Meyerson said. "We think we have the technical background and we have the long-term financial commitment to make a multi-user pad at KSC successful."

Other rocket companies on board

One of Blue Origin's customers could be United Launch Alliance, which currently sends government and commercial payloads into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. ULA's Atlas 5 rocket is slated to be used by two other SpaceX competitors, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp., to send crews and cargo to the space station and perhaps other orbital destinations as early as 2016. Blue Origin may also use the Atlas 5 while it develops its own rocket.

Blue Origin's director of strategy and business development, Bretton Alexander, said ULA and at least one other launch provider are supporting Blue Origin's bid for Launch Complex 39A. In an emailed statement, ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said a multi-user pad could offer a cost-effective option for launches, and could "serve as a backup to our existing sites."

The financial details of Blue Origin's and SpaceX's proposals for running Launch Complex 39A are shrouded in confidentiality, and NASA does not have a formal timetable for deciding which bid will be accepted — other than that the space agency wants to make the handover by Oct. 1.

It's not clear how much money would change hands under either of the proposed arrangements, if any. NASA is already committed to paying SpaceX $1.6 billion for 12 cargo flights to the space station, plus $440 million for the current phase of development for a crew-capable Dragon spacecraft. If SpaceX's bid is accepted, the company would presumably pay out a portion of that money for operation and maintenance of pad facilities.

In this clash of the billionaires, Blue Origin has at least one clear advantage: Bezos' net worth is estimated at $25.2 billion, almost 10 times Musk's estimated net worth of $2.7 billion. Meyerson has said that Bezos intends to be in the rocket business for decades to come. However, he made clear that Blue Origin would eventually have to pay its own way. Launch Complex 39A would be part of that strategy.

"You have to find a way to generate revenue," Meyerson said. "We're committed to the multi-user site. You have to get the price reasonable, you have to find ways to do the job at the right price point, and you have to market. ... This is a different model."

Update for 7:15 p.m. ET July 23: I originally said SpaceX had more than 1,800 employees, but the figure is actually more than 3,000. Also, SpaceX's Christina Ra amended her quote to reflect the company's expected priorities for Launch Complex 39A more precisely.

Energy Department nominee struggled with financial management at NASA

Phillip Swarts - Washington Times

Elizabeth Robinson, the woman President Obama has named to make the Energy Department's oft-criticized contracting more efficient, is leaving behind a trail of spending questions in her past job as NASA's chief financial officer.

A Washington Times review of NASA inspector general reports finds the space agency struggled to achieve austerity under Ms. Robinson's financial leadership, as cost overruns grew sixfold from $50 million in 2009 to $315 million in 2012.

"Cost increases and schedule delays on NASA's projects are longstanding issues for the agency," the space agency's internal watchdog reported last year.

Ongoing changes in the agency's mission also led to billions being spent on projects that were later canceled, such as the Constellation Program and the Ares V launch vehicle that were designed to replace the space shuttle. Taxpayers spent an estimated $10 billion on shuttle replacement before it was scrapped in 2010.

The agency also has been dinged for smaller amounts of wasteful spending that provided some simple yet powerful symbols for taxpayer frustration.

Audits conducted during Ms. Robinson's tenure as CFO uncovered that NASA spent an average of $66 per person per day for light refreshments at conferences, shelled out $1.5 million to develop a video game to replicate astronauts' experiences and reimbursed employees $1.4 million for tuition dating to 2006 for degrees unrelated to their NASA jobs.

Ms. Robinson did not return a call seeking comment, and NASA, White House and Energy Department officials did not return repeated phone calls and email messages seeking comment on Ms. Robinson's track record as NASA's chief financial officer.

Mr. Obama nominated Ms. Robinson, a former White House budget official, this month to the job of Energy Department undersecretary for management and performance, filling one of the top jobs under new Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. In her role, Ms. Robinson will be responsible for improving the management and efficiency of the department's contracting and programs, including the much-criticized environmental management efforts involving the cleanup of old nuclear sites, Mr. Moniz told employees last week.

The energy secretary emphasized that Ms. Robinson's role was specifically to improve the department's contracting, spending and program management. "Right, wrong or indifferent in terms of how we are viewed, we've got to pick up our game in terms of management and performance," Mr. Moniz told employees.

Separately, NASA's own website credits Ms. Robinson for her stewardship of the budget.

"Through her leadership, Robinson ensures the financial health of the organization, including responsibility for ensuring that NASA resources are effectively employed toward the achievement of NASA's strategic plan," the NASA biography for its CFO says.

NASA's inspector general, however, routinely gave the space agency poor marks for efficiency during Ms. Robinson's tenure. An audit this spring, in fact, found NASA didn't even know how much it had spent on information technology security and couldn't account for all of its computer equipment because it was so decentralized in spending.

"While other federal agencies are moving toward a centralized IT structure under which a senior manager has ultimate decision authority over IT budgets and resources, NASA continues to operate under a decentralized model that relegates decision making about critical IT issues to numerous individuals across the agency," the inspector general reported in June. "As a result, NASA's current IT governance model weakens accountability and does not ensure that IT assets across the agency are cost effective and secure."

NASA officials promised to improve the IT spending after the stinging report, but often have tried to justify their cost overruns by blaming the unique challenges of exploring space.

Ms. Robinson did, however, get good grades for record-keeping. The NASA inspector general said the agency's financial documents were organized and complete — a marked improvement from before her tenure when inspectors said they often couldn't audit the department because of problems with paperwork.

Aerojet withholds Rocketdyne payment pending Russian approval of RD-Amross transfer

Peter de Selding - Space News

Rocket-motor maker Gencorp Aerojet has withheld 25 percent of its payment to United Technologies Corp. (UTC) for the purchase of competitor Rocketdyne pending Russian government approval of the transfer to Aerojet of UTC/Rocketdyne's 50 percent stake in the company that provides the first-stage engine for the U.S. Atlas 5 rocket, Aerojet said.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Aerojet left open the possibility that its purchase of UTC/Rocketdyne's 50 percent ownership of Cocoa Beach, Fla.-based RD-Amross, which adapts the Russian RD-180 engine for use on the Atlas 5, might not occur.

"The acquisition [of the RD-Amross ownership] and UTC's related business is expected to close following receipt of the Russian government regulatory approvals, if at all," Sacramento, Calif.-based Gencorp Aerojet said in the SEC filing, dated July 9.

Aerojet Chief Executive William M. Boley Jr. said following the purchase of Rocketdyne in mid-June that it could take several months for the Russian government, whose state-owned Energomash builds the RD-180 engine, to approve the transfer to the new Aerojet Rocketdyne of the RD-Amross stake. Khimki-based Energomash owns the other 50 percent of RD-Amross.

Boley did not mention any specific change-of-control provisions in the RD-Amross shareholders' agreement that would block or complicate a transfer of UTC/Rocketdyne's shares, and he said initial Russian government reaction to the Aerojet purchase of Rocketdyne was favorable. But he said to expect several months before the transfer of the RD-Amross stake would occur.

Aerojet's purchase of Rocketdyne was valued at $550 million. In the SEC filing, Aerojet said the value of the RD-Amross ownership was set at $55 million, and that this sum had been subtracted from Aerojet's payment to UTC.

Also deducted from the original purchase price was the portion of the UTC business that markets and sells the RD-180 engines. Finally, Aerojet said the purchase price had been reduced to account for "changes in customer advances, capital expenditures and other net assets, and is subject to further post-closing adjustments."

The net result is that Aerojet has paid UTC $411 million, Aerojet said.

Beyond any issues that may concern the Russian government, the purchase of UTC/Rocketdyne's RD-Amross equity places Aerojet, now called Aerojet Rocketdyne, in an unusual position.

Aerojet has an established relationship with another Russian company, Kuznetsov Design Bureau/NK Engines, for which it refurbishes long-stored, Kuznetsov-built engines and sells them to Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., as AJ-26 motors powering Orbital's new Antares rocket.

With the limited number of available AJ-26 engines dwindling – their production line in Russia has long been shut down – Orbital has sought to purchase RD-180 engines to replace the AJ-26.

But RD-Amross, citing exclusivity agreements with Atlas rocket operator United Launch Alliance of Denver, has refused to permit Orbital to purchase RD-180s. Orbitals has now sued United Launch Alliance in a U.S. District Court in Virginia alleging infringement of U.S. antitrust law.

Boley said Aerojet and Kuznetsov have reached an agreement on restarting the engine production line once they have received a contract from Orbital.

The purchase of RD-Amross would put Aerojet Rocketdyne on both sides of the issue. RD-Amross presumably sees at least some advantage to maintaining an exclusivity deal with United Launch Alliance that may or may not outweigh the potential to broaden its customer base to Orbital.

How the pros and cons weigh for Aerojet Rocketdyne is unclear. The company said in its SEC filing that United Launch Alliance is already a major customer, accounting for 12 percent of Aerojet's business, or about $34 million, for the three months ending May 31, up from less than 10 percent in previous quarters.

MORE ON BOEING's ROLLOUT OF THE CST-100 IN HOUSTON…

Astronauts Randy Bresnik & Serena Augnon tested the seats in Boeing's CST-100 (photo by NASA/Robert Markowitz)

Astronauts try out new Boeing space capsule
Boeing reveals interior of mockup for first time

Aubrey Cohen - Seattle Post Intelligencer

Two NASA astronauts Monday checked out how Boeing's planned space capsule accommodates people in flight suits. It was also the first time Boeing showed the capsule's interior.

Boeing is one of three companies developing private craft to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Since the retirement of the final space shuttle two years ago, NASA has sent astronauts to the station aboard Russian capsules.

Boeing's proposed CST-100 is optimized to seat five crew members, but could accommodate up to seven, or a mix of crew and cargo.

"While the spacecraft may resemble Boeing's heritage Apollo-era capsules from an exterior perspective, its interior is a reflection of modern technology," the company said. "From the ambient sky blue LED lighting and tablet technology, the company ensured the CST-100 is a modern spacecraft."

Other "innovative elements" of the capsule are its weld-free design, modern structures and upgraded thermal protection techniques, Boeing said. It said its spun-formed shell reduces mass and construction time.

"What you're not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches," Chris Ferguson, director of Boeing's Crew and Mission Operations and a former NASA astronaut, said in a news release. "When these guys go up in this, they're primary mission is not to fly this spacecraft, they're primary mission is to go to the space station for six months. So we don't want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive."

A first glimpse inside Boeing's commercial spacecraft

Elizabeth Howell - SEN.com (Space Exploration Network)

The first pictures of Boeing's new spacecraft, the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 show how spacecraft design has evolved since the space shuttle was designed four decades ago.

Blue LEDs dot the interior, resembling the lighting that theatre-goers saw in Star Trek Into Darkness's Enterprise spacecraft this spring. Tablet technology is available. Most notable, though, is the absence of the usual wall-to-wall switches usually seen in human spacecraft.

"What you're not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches," stated Chris Ferguson, director of Boeing's crew and mission operations division and a former NASA astronaut.

"When these guys go up in this, their primary mission is not to fly this spacecraft. Their primary mission is to go to the space station for six months. So we don't want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive."

Boeing is one of three companies receiving funding from NASA to develop crew transportation systems to the International Space Station. Officials have seen the spacecraft in action before, most notably in a few landing tests to see how well the parachutes and other systems perform. These pictures, however, are the first showing what the spacecraft looks on the inside.

On July 22, NASA astronauts Serena Aunon and Randy Bresnik performed "fit checks" inside CST-100's interior. Donning launch and re-entry suits used for spaceflight, they evaluated how well the spacecraft inside accommodated their bulky outfits. Boeing engineers also monitored the astronauts for factors such as ergonomics and communications.

"These are our customers. They're the ones who will take our spacecraft into flight, and if we're not building it the way they want it we're doing something wrong," stated Ferguson. "We'll probably make one more go-around and make sure that everything is just the way they like it."

NASA is just one of the reference customers for the CST-100. Bigelow Aerospace, which is building an inflatable space station module for the International Space Station, is expected to use Boeing's spacecraft to ferry astronauts to future space inflatable space stations.

Boeing signed a Space Act agreement in 2012 with NASA for $460 million as part of the third phase - known as Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) - of funding under the agency's commercial crew program.

SpaceX, whose Dragon spacecraft has completed two cargo resupply missions to the space station, received $440 million to modify Dragon for human spaceflight. Sierra Nevada Corp, the remaining company funded in this phase, got $212.5 million for its Dream Chaser winged spacecraft.

In recent weeks, NASA has expressed concern with a budget proposal in Congress to slash overall funding for the agency to $16.6 billion (£10.83 billion). Media reports have said this is the smallest budget in terms of purchasing power for the agency since 1986.

Should that budgetary level be approved, NASA says it will likely have to delay implementation of its commercial crew program. This would force the agency to continue relying on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to man the International Space Station, a practice that began after the shuttle was retired in 2011.

Boeing's new astronaut capsule opens its pod bay doors for NASA

Carl Franzen - The Verge

Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA has been looking for a new way to get astronauts up to the International Space Station from the US. Enter the Crew Space Transportation, or CST-100, a new space capsule designed by Boeing specifically to transport up to seven people, or a team of five plus some cargo, into orbit. Boeing, which has been working on the capsule for years, finally showed off the interior of the CST-100 to the world on Monday, letting NASA astronauts enter and explore a simulator version of their future space ride for eight hours at Boeing's Houston Product Support Center in Texas.

If Boeing's CST-100 looks from the outside much like Apollo-era capsules, that's no accident: Boeing was one of the NASA contractors behind those spacecraft as well. But the company and NASA stress that the new CST-100 is a whole different beast. For starters, it's completely weld-free, utilizing a new type of metals fabrication process called "spin forming," which does almost exactly what it sounds like — shaping the shell of the spacecraft out of a revolving disc of metal. It also boasts upgraded thermal protection for astronauts and sensitive cargo, such as science experiments.

And the interior of CST-100 is where perhaps the most noticeable design changes have been implemented. Boeing and NASA are using tablets to eliminate the switchboards of yore. A Boeing spokesperson told The Verge it hadn't selected which tablet — iPad or one of many Android or Windows variants — it would be using for the craft, but that it was open to proposals from companies. "What you're not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches," said Chris Ferguson, Boeing's crew and missions operations director, himself a former astronaut, in a statement published by NASA. "We don't want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive," he added. It probably won't hurt astronauts moods, either, that the capsule is lit with "ambient sky-blue LED lighting."

A Boeing spokesperson told The Verge the CST-100 was on track to perform its first unmanned test flight in late 2016 or early 2017, and its first human-crewed flight also in 2017. However, it's important to note that Boeing is but one of three companies aiming to become the lead NASA contractor for ferrying astronauts and cargo to and from the space station. SpaceX is working to modify its proven spaceworthy Dragon cargo capsule for the same purpose, and another aerospace company, Sierra Nevada, is working on a Space Shuttle-like craft known as the Dream Chaser. All three have received multi-millions of dollars of funding through NASA's Commercial Crew Program, a competition designed to spur private companies into developing the next generation of spacecraft for US astronauts.

Unfortunately, that competition isn't getting much support from some key US lawmakers: last week, a committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a measure that would slash $321 million from NASA's commercial crew budget and $1 billion from the agency overall in 2014. It's not law yet, but at best, NASA and Boeing's new spaceflight ambitions are contending with forces beyond gravity.

Boeing provides first look at CST-100 space capsule

David Szondy - GizMag.com

NASA and Boeing have unveiled a mock up of the Crew Space Transport (CST-100) space capsule. In an event held at Boeing's Houston Product Support Center in Texas, members of the press were invited to view a fully outfitted test version of the spacecraft. As part of the proceedings, two NASA astronauts kitted-out in flight suits conducted tests on working in the capsule.

The CST-100 is a manned spacecraft being developed by Boeing as one of three American companies working on NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, the purpose of which is to develop a privately owned and operated US replacement for the Space Shuttle to ferry crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS). It's designed to carry five passengers and crew, though it can carry as many of seven astronauts or a combination of passengers and cargo.

The capsule's design is like an enlarged version of the Apollo Command Module, though it dispenses with the earlier welded hull in favor of a spun shell and upgraded thermal protection. According to NASA, this allows for reduced mass and improved manufacture time. Inside, the CST-100 uses modern technology, such as LED lighting and improved avionics for greater automatic control.

"What you're not going to find is 1,100 or 1,600 switches," says Chris Ferguson, director of Boeing's Crew and Mission Operations. "When these guys go up in this, their primary mission is not to fly this spacecraft, they're primary mission is to go to the space station for six months. So we don't want to burden them with an inordinate amount of training to fly this vehicle. We want it to be intuitive."

Monday's event included two four-hour demonstration sessions by astronauts Serena Aunon and Randy Bresnik. Wearing standard NASA orange launch-and-entry suits, they tested moving about inside the capsule while Boeing engineers monitored communications, equipment, and ergonomics.

These tests are more than just a photo op or a very large Boeing advert. Even in an era of computer models and virtual reality, mock ups are an extremely important way to identify shortcomings in design. By letting astronauts practice inside a dummy spacecraft, engineers can find all sorts of defects ranging from a switch that's difficult to operate to an emergency hatch lever that's an inch too far from the seats.

"These are our customers. They're the ones who will take our spacecraft into flight, and if we're not building it the way they want it we're doing something wrong," says Ferguson. "We'll probably make one more go-around and make sure that everything is just the way they like it."

His other spaceship was a shuttle:
Former astronaut helms Boeing space capsule

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

Two years after climbing out of the last ship to launch him into orbit, Chris Ferguson was back in a spacecraft on Monday.

Ferguson, who as commander of NASA's orbiter Atlantis landed the space shuttle program's final mission on July 21, 2011, is retired as an astronaut and is now working at Boeing. There, he is leading development of a commercial space capsule designed to pick up where the shuttle left off.

"Two years and one day... I will tell you, it has gone by so fast," Ferguson says. "But if you can't fly 'em, you might as well build 'em."

On Monday, Ferguson got his first chance to go inside a mockup of the spacecraft he and his team are building, dubbed the CST-100. The gumdrop-shape model capsule is being used by Boeing to fine tune the spacecraft's cabin layout by having NASA astronauts — Ferguson's previous colleagues and crewmates — don pressure suits, strap in and offer their feedback.

"It's an upgrade," says Serena Aunon, taking the capsule for a test fit. "It is an American vehicle, of course it is an upgrade."

The CST-100 is one of three private spacecraft being built by U.S. companies to compete for NASA's business flying crew members to and from the space station. The space agency is planning to purchase seats on one or more of the vehicles beginning in 2017.

collectSPACE spoke with Ferguson at Boeing's Houston Product Support Center, before he took his turn touring the inside of the CST-100.

Two years later, is "building 'em" rewarding as "flying 'em"?

I'm proud to be a part of this team. I'm still engaged, still doing things that I really enjoy doing. That is not to say that leaving the shuttle behind wasn't bittersweet. They've done a great job in some of the museums [displaying the retired orbiters]. Some of them are really doing a bang up job, but I prefer to see my rockets vertical and loaded with fuel.

But we can't afford to fly 'em and design 'em at the same time, so we have clearly taken some time off to design the next vehicle. We'll be back within six years, like it was post-Apollo, before shuttle.

I am so pleased that I had the opportunity to be part of the shuttle program, but I am equally thrilled to help [Boeing] build this rocket. I get to make really cool decisions every day. It doesn't get much better than that.

It's been three years since Boeing first announced the CST-100. Is the work here progressing as fast as you say the time since shuttle has gone?

I think we have come dramatically far with a substantially lower budget in a period of time that I would consider to be pretty aggressive.

I know it has been three years, but what you do not see behind this [model capsule's] façade, are the hundreds of engineers who are working to put code behind the displays and who are working on the flight controls who are going to have a vehicle we're going to be able to fly in simulation mode here in four-to-six months.

What is amazing me more than anything about being part of the Boeing team is the depth going into every decision — and I am still amazed on how much left we have to do. We are by no means there, but it's like playing 'whack-a-mole' — when the next problem comes up, we put a team on it, make a decision and move forward. It is just great to work like this.

I haven't worked harder in my life... but I have done things that were a bit more fun.

As you watch your former NASA astronaut colleagues come in for the suited fit checks, do you ever pine to be back in their position?

There is still a little part of me that wishes I was in their shoes. But when I step back and look at it, there is a lot of young engineers who work here. Young MIT, Stanford, Penn, Drexel graduates from these fantastic engineering schools that come in here hungry and they want to learn.

When I think about it, I'm proud of the part that I'm playing in preserving human spaceflight for them. Because they all came here with the same dream that we all had at one point in our life, to go into space. If we don't do this right, or if the country doesn't do this right, they won't have this opportunity.

I've started to grow up a little bit and stop hogging all the fun for myself and I'm trying to make sure we have that capability for these young folks who thrive on this kind of stuff.

Looking at the space shuttles in their museum homes, you get a real sense of how large they were and how small CST-100 is in comparison. Has it been difficult to cram at least the crew capabilities of the orbiter into a capsule?

I never really thought about the cubic feet per person. I'm sure the shuttle rivaled this, probably two to three times over, but thinking about the mission it needs to perform, when the shuttle was designed we didn't have the space station. The shuttle was going to go up and be an orbiting facility for two weeks and you needed the living room in there.

Here, we are going to dock [at the space station] within 24 hours. We're going to dock within 24 hours on a normal mission and six hours after undock, we are going to be on the ground. So it's almost a paradigm shift for those who were brought up on the shuttle mantra of 'Hey, I have to provide for meal time, I have to provide a restroom facility' — which we're going to provide, because you just have to do, but do you have to do it like we did aboard the shuttle? Probably not.

If everything goes well, you're not going to be a passenger in this vehicle in flight for more than 18 hours. We want to dock on flight day one, we have to dock within 24 hours. So this is a lot more Soyuz-like and if you had to compare the internal volume of the Soyuz in cubic feet per person, I think we've got them beat pretty well.

What lessons learned from the shuttle have gone into the design of the controls for CST-100?

The one thing that we learned is that switches and circuit breakers and those kind of things that formed the cockpit of the shuttle, we don't need them. We really don't.

The vehicle is designed to be autonomous. It is going to rendezvous and dock [with ISS] and never have anybody touch anything — on a perfect day. Everything that you see in there gives the pilot the ability to monitor what the autonomy is doing and, in the event that he needs to or she needs to, to take over.

You saw how much rigor was placed into the training of space shuttle astronauts. I mean, it took years. It took a year and a half of 'Astronaut 101' [training], followed by probably another year of mission-specific training. It was a long time.

We will get people ready to fly within nine months, at least that's our goal... and that's simultaneous with their station training.

I think you're going to see something that down scope is largely autonomous with the pilot flying sidesaddle, if you will. We're probably only going to train one, and depending on what NASA wants, maybe two [crew members] to the pilot level of proficiency. You're going to see the training being a lot less imposing than it was during shuttle.

Expanding upon that, on the space shuttle, there was a commander, a pilot and a flight engineer to fly the vehicle. What roles do you need to fly CST-100?

NASA says [CST-100 has] to fly from one to seven [crew members] under the original requirement. They have since changed it to four.

So, one to four, which implies it has to be single piloted, so we designed it so it can be operated by a single pilot. But when you get in there, you find that the person to the pilot's right, call him by whatever title you want to call him, has access to the entire right of the instrument console, including one of the full displays. So he'll be there to back the pilot up. He can interface with the system if in some case the pilot is not able to.

It is designed to be operated single piloted but it is always nice to have somebody else. And NASA didn't tell us to do that. We did that because it is the right thing to do. You might as well take advantage of your crew and use the resources appropriately. That is what we intend to do.

Right now, you have astronauts in CST-100 wearing space shuttle-era Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES) pressure suits, as built by the David Clark Company. Are there reasons you wouldn't or couldn't continue to use the tried-and-true ACES for flight?

If they put a bid in, they could be a contender. But I think ACES has a certain amount of incompatibility with the smaller vehicle. Big helmet, big neck ring, and it's not so much for ascent and entry, but what you do with them in between? It is how to stow them, how to put them away.

With the companies we've been talking to about potential [suit] contenders, we've said 'Think out of the box.' Think in the terms of do you have to have a hard helmet on your head with a big visor on it [or] can I have something that is a little more discreet that is easy to don and doff, and more importantly, is easy to stow. Can I put it in a small, out-of-the-way place, roll it up in a bag and shove it into some compartment where it can sit there and won't take up all my volume.

ACES served the shuttle program well for over a decade and we'd certainly consider it if they decide to put a bid in. But I think the state of the art is, we can evolve.

Speaking of evolving, while CST-100 fits into Boeing's numbering of its airplanes, it doesn't follow the NASA history of naming spacecraft.

We're working on a new name. I have talked with some of the comm folks, and of course [Boeing vice president of space exploration] John Elbon and John Mulholland [vice president and program manager, commercial crew], about the right way to pursue something like this.

Boeing has always refrained from something like this, but then again recently they have kind of lifted that, look at the Dreamliner. So it seems like they are little more willing to be a little more traditional in naming as opposed to just the number system. We'll see what happens.

I am pushing for a good name. I'm pushing for something that rolls off your tongue. CST-100 doesn't exactly do that, but it does sound rather technical.

Does CST-100 pilot roll off your tongue? Do you hope to be in the front seat when CST-100 first lifts off?

If they ask me a couple of years down the road, I'll have to think very hard about whether to say yes or no. I'd like to think that someday they will ask me but I think time will tell.

END

Keep the shuttle flying

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - July 24, 2013

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