Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - November 8, 2013

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: November 8, 2013 3:21:41 PM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - November 8, 2013

Sorry for the very late send out .,,,its been a very busy day off (Flex Friday).  

 

Another great time with good fellowship and food had by all at our monthly Retirees Luncheon at Hibachi Grill yesterday.  As usual, it was great to see everyone.

 

I captured some of the moments in pictures as you can see attached.    My apologies for not capturing everyone in the pictures.   A special thanks to Dean Thompson for joining all the way in from College Station.   Also, a special thanks to Arnold Loyd for joining us- hope to see him more often.

 

Of course I missed pictures of John Whalen and me, so I included a small picture of John and me in front of the Shuttle model at JSC.  

 

Apologies to my friend Tri Nguyen, since I failed to snap a shot of him at our luncheon as well –could not find a substitute photo of him-next time Tri.   Next time the photographer should use the flash and not be so jittery with the camera-one of the shots looked a little unfocused (promise there was no whiskey in the food)!

 

My apologies go to whomever was behind Stan Blackmers mug too,  Stan totally blocked them out in the picture.

 

Have a great Veterans Day weekend everyone and hope you can join us for our final monthly Retirees Luncheon of 2013 next month at Hibachi.

 

 

NASA TV: www.nasa.gov/ntv

·      7:50 am Central (8:50 EST) – Exp 37/38 Joint Crew News Conference (In native language)

·      9:15 am Central (10:15 EST) – Interpreted Replay of Exp 37/38 Crew News Conference

 

·      8 am Central SATURDAY (9 EST) – Russian EVA Coverage (Oleg Kotov/Sergei Ryazanskiy)

·      8:30 am Central SATURDAY (9:30 EST) – EVA start (~6 hours in duration)

 

·      1:30 pm Central SUNDAY (2:30 EST) – Exp 37 farewell & hatch closure coverage, which includes replay of change of command ceremony. Hatches close at ~2 pm Central

·      5 pm Central SUNDAY (6 EST) –Soyuz TMA-09M undocking coverage

·      5:27 pm Central SUNDAY (6:27 EST) – UNDOCKING

·      7:30 pm Central SUNDAY (8:30 EST) – Deorbit burn and landing coverage

·      7:55 pm Central SUNDAY (8:55 EST) – DEORBIT BURN (

·      8:50 pm Central SUNDAY (9:50 EST) – LANDING near Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan

·      10 pm Central SUNDAY (11 EST) –File of Exp 37/Soyuz Landing & Post-Landing Activities

 

Human Spaceflight News

Friday – November 8, 2013

 

Another view of Exp 38/39 Soyuz launch by NASA's Bill Ingalls – a 2-min time lapse

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Soyuz docks with space station; crew welcomed aboard

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A Russian Soyuz booster carrying a crew of three and an Olympic torch, the centerpiece of an out-of-this-world relay heralding the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, streaked into orbit Wednesday, docking with the International Space Station early Thursday after a four-orbit rendezvous. With commander Mikhail Tyurin at the controls, flanked on the left by NASA flight engineer Rick Mastracchio and on the right by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:14:15 p.m. EST. Six hours and 13 minutes later, the spacecraft completed an automated rendezvous, gliding to a smooth docking at the station's Rassvet module at 5:27 a.m. After verifying a tight seal between the two spacecraft, hatches were opened and Tyurin, grinning broadly, floated into the lab complex and handed the torch off to station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin before sharing an enthusiastic handshake and hug. "Here you have the Olympic torch in the Russian segment of the International Space Station!" one of the cosmonauts radioed a few moments later as the combined crew gathered in the Zvezda command module.

 

Olympic torch blasts into space for 1st spacewalk

 

Laura Mills - Associated Press

 

A Russian rocket soared into the cosmos Thursday carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts to the International Space Station ahead of the first-ever spacewalk for the symbol of peace. Video streamed by the U.S. space agency NASA reported a flawless docking with the space station about six hours after the craft blasted off from Russia's manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The unlit torch for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi is to be taken on a spacewalk Saturday, then return to Earth on Monday (late Sunday EST) with three departing space station astronauts.

 

New crew, Olympic torch safely on ISS

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

Smiling cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin floated through an International Space Station hatch this morning carrying the torch that will officially start the 2014 Winter Olympics, to be hosted by Russia. The torch will stay on the station for four days, the most dramatic leg of its relay leading up to the games in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi. ISS partners adjusted launch schedules to make it possible for the torch to get to orbit and back. Typically, a crew departs the station before its replacement arrives.

 

Cosmonauts trained for Olympic Torch relay in space

 

Itar-Tass

 

Cosmonauts have undergone special training for a spacewalk with an Olympic Torch, Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin said at a press conference on Wednesday which was broadcast by Rossia-24 television from Baikonur cosmodrome. "The space torch does not have any technical peculiarities, there is no need to finalize anything in its construction. The probable reason is that the torch was also created by space engineers who build space rockets," Tyurin said.

 

Wakata, two other crew members arrive at International Space Station

 

Akira Hatano & Jin Nishikawa - Asahi Shimbun

 

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying veteran astronaut Koichi Wakata and two others that blasted off at the Baikonur Cosmodrome here has docked with the International Space Station. Wakata, 50, will take over as mission commander for two months from March, making him the first Japanese to hold that rank. As captain, he will assume heavy responsibilities, including protecting crew members' lives in emergencies. In a radio communication from the spacecraft, Wakata expressed enthusiasm for his six-month mission. He said, "I was relieved when I finally arrived here," adding, "I will work together (with other members) to do our best."

 

Orion service module comes together and testing affirms flight design for 2014 blastoff

 

Ken Kremer – Universe Today

 

All of the key hardware elements being assembled for NASA's new Orion spacecraft launching just under one year from now are nearing completion at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) – at the same time as a crucial and successful hardware test in California this week helps ensure that the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) vehicle will be ready for an on-time liftoff. Orion is NASA's first spaceship designed to carry human crews on long duration flights to deep space destinations beyond low Earth orbit, such as asteroids, the moon, Mars and beyond. In a major construction milestone, Orion's massive Service Module (SM) was hoisted out from the tooling stand where it was manufactured at the Operations and Checkout Building (O & C) at KSC and moved to the next assembly station where it will soon be mated to the spacecraft adapter cone.

 

Nobody is our name at Baikonur: KazKosmos Head

 

Tengri News

 

Kazakhstan is working towards creating its own independent space exploration industry; however, the nation doesn't discard its partnership with Russia", Newskaz.ru reports, citing Talgat Musabayev, Head of KazKosmos National Space Agency, as saying when speaking to students in Astana, the country's capital city. "We are taking steps towards creating an independent space exploration industry; I have to admit not everyone likes what is going on", he said. "However, we cannot cope without Russia. Russia is home to all the technology, space industry facilities, all the rocket stuff", he emphasized, adding that "we do have the Baikonur cosmodrome in our territory; however, nobody is our name so far".

 

Maine astronaut:

Humans will live on Mars, moon; space water reclamation will be used on Earth

 

Judy Harrison - Bangor Daily News

 

Cailan Barton wants to be a lot of things when he grows up, but most of all the 8-year-old wants to be an astronaut. He came Thursday to Husson University with his father, Frank Barton, 31, and younger brother, Owen, 4, all of Orono, to hear Commander Christopher Cassidy talk about what it's like to be an astronaut. Both boys were dressed in orange astronaut costumes. "Both kids are interested in science," Frank Barton said shortly before Cassidy gave the first of three talks about his work as an astronaut. "And let's face it, how often do you get to meet a real live astronaut?" Cassidy, 43, who grew up in York, also spoke to a total of 1,000 middle school students from Greater Bangor who were bused to Husson's Gracie Theatre. The astronaut showed all three groups footage from his recent six-month stay at the International Space Station and his training in Russia with the two cosmonauts with whom he shared a ride up and back.

 

Beyoncé Could Still Beat Lady Gaga to Space-Singing...

...and Other Intergalactic Celebrity Revelations from a Space Expert

 

Julie Miller - Vanity Fair

 

Yesterday, we learned that Lady Gaga had secured herself a 2015 Virgin Galactic ticket—and consequently, a chapter in Curiosity Rover's Burn Book—with plans to become "the first artist to sing in outer space." Us Weekly reports that the performance will last for one track, and the flight will take place during "the Zero G Colony high-tech musical festival in New Mexico." Left with myriad intergalactic-Gaga questions—Are meat costumes kosher in space? What is the best way to affix lobster-head prosthetics in zero gravity? Will Virgin let her customize her space suit into some kind of Muppet-fabulous couture?—we reached out to space expert and Space.com managing editor Tariq Malik. His educated answers to all of our Gaga-goes-to-space questions are below…

 

Ashton Kutcher's space trip training gets messy

 

Ottawa Sun

 

Ashton Kutcher encountered an extremely messy training session for his upcoming trip to space, when he fell victim to multiple vomiting fits on a spaceship simulator. The 'Two and a Half Men' star is just one of the celebrities who has signed up for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic project, which offers rich fun lovers the chance to jet into space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the earth from nearly 100 kilometres up. And to prepare for the out-of-this-world trip, Kutcher had to train in a Zero Gravity airplane - a session that left him feeling terribly ill.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Soyuz docks with space station; crew welcomed aboard

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A Russian Soyuz booster carrying a crew of three and an Olympic torch, the centerpiece of an out-of-this-world relay heralding the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, streaked into orbit Wednesday, docking with the International Space Station early Thursday after a four-orbit rendezvous.

 

With commander Mikhail Tyurin at the controls, flanked on the left by NASA flight engineer Rick Mastracchio and on the right by Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:14:15 p.m. EST (GMT-5; 10:14 a.m. Thursday local time).

 

Six hours and 13 minutes later, the spacecraft completed an automated rendezvous, gliding to a smooth docking at the station's Rassvet module at 5:27 a.m.

 

After verifying a tight seal between the two spacecraft, hatches were opened and Tyurin, grinning broadly, floated into the lab complex and handed the torch off to station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin before sharing an enthusiastic handshake and hug.

 

"Here you have the Olympic torch in the Russian segment of the International Space Station!" one of the cosmonauts radioed a few moments later as the combined crew gathered in the Zvezda command module.

 

In a departure from normal practice, the Soyuz launch schedule was juggled to get the torch to the space station and quickly back to Earth as part of a high-profile relay leading up to the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in February.

 

As a result, the Soyuz TMA-11M crew launched Wednesday boosted the lab's crew to nine instead of six as is the usual procedure, only the third time in station history that three Soyuz crews have been aboard at the same time.

 

Welcoming the new additions aboard were Soyuz TMA-10M commander Oleg Kotov, Michael Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy, launched Sept. 25, and Soyuz TMA-09M commander Yurchikhin, flight engineer Luca Parmitano and Karen Nyberg, who were launched May 28 and are closing out a long-duration stay in space.

 

"It's great to be here, it was a great ride, and we're happy to join the crew," Mastracchio radioed in a brief video chat with friends and family in Baikonur.

 

"It's good to see you, you look good," his wife, Candace, replied from the launch site. "That was a pretty sweet way to get out of the parking lot! The crew, everyone looks great."

 

"It's great to hear from you," Mastracchio replied. "I'll see you soon, well, maybe not too soon. Tell the kids I said hi."

 

The combined crews plan to participate in news conference Friday. The next day, Kotov and Ryazanskiy will take the Olympic torch outside at the start of an otherwise routine Russian maintenance spacewalk for a high-flying photo op to publicize the winter games.

 

"It's great to be a small part of the Olympics," Mastracchio said in a pre-launch interview. "We'll hand off the Olympic torch to the Soyuz 10 crew, who will then take it out on a spacewalk. They'll then come back from the spacewalk, hand it to the Soyuz 9 crew and they will return it to Earth about five days after we arrive on the space station. So it's kind of like our own little relay with the torch on orbit."

 

The day after the spacewalk, Yurchikhin, Parmitano and Nyberg plan to board their Soyuz TMA-09M ferry craft and undock from the Zvezda command module's aft port at 6:26 p.m. Landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan is expected around 9:50 p.m. The torch then will be handed off to Olympic organizers for use in the opening ceremonies of the February games.

 

For Mastracchio, who logged 40 days in space during three space shuttle missions, launching aboard a Soyuz and having the opportunity to fly in the left seat, essentially the co-pilot's position, is a long-awaited opportunity.

 

"It's very, very challenging," he said. "Being an engineer, I have the skills to learn how to fly a vehicle and how to operate a vehicle, but the language skill was very challenging for me. It's not as easy as it sounds to fly a spacecraft while speaking a foreign language! Again, a big challenge, which made it very interesting to me."

 

Asked how his family viewed the risk of flying aboard a Soyuz compared to the space shuttle, Mastracchio said "I think they believe what I believe, which is the Soyuz is a very reliable vehicle. The Russians have been flying the Soyuz since the late '60s, it's been very successful, I feel very confident we'll have a safe and successful mission. And I believe they think the same."

 

Mastracchio is flying with extremely experienced crewmates. Tyurin is a veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station with a total of 532 days in space.

 

Wakata has logged 348 days in space during two shuttle missions and a long-duration stay aboard the station. In a major first for Japan, Wakata will become commander of the space station next year after Kotov, Ryazanskiy and Hopkins depart.

 

"It means a lot to Japan to have its own representative to command the International Space Station," Wakata said. "It's a big milestone for Japanese human space exploration to have this experience. Hopefully, we, Japan, will be able to be an essential partner of future human space program beyond low-Earth orbit. So I think it's a big milestone for Japan."

 

Mastracchio described Wakata as "a very smart astronaut, he's a very friendly guy, very capable, a very hard worker."

 

"But I think the thing that makes Koichi commander material is he knows he has a very talented team working with him and he lets us do our job. He's not only the commander, but he's also one of the workers, working right along side us to do all the tasks we need to do to accomplish the mission."

 

As for Tyurin, Mastracchio said "he's great to work with. He and I work well together, we've been training together for more than a year, a year and a half, and we've really created a good team with us and Koichi."

 

Asked what he's looking forward to the most during his first extended mission, Mastracchio said having time to simply enjoy the experience is at the top of his list.

 

"Space shuttle missions are two-week sprints where we know exactly everything we're going to have to do from day one until landing," he said. "And we practice and practice that, we work very hard and get very little free time.

 

"So what I'm really looking forward to is living on board the space station for a long period of time where I may even have days where I have very little work to do and I can look out the window and just kind of enjoy living in space. I'm really looking forward to that.

 

"And of course, the other thing is the research. I'm really looking forward to working with the scientists ... where I'll be on orbit kind of as (a) lab assistant, if you will, working on the experiment, putting his samples into the testing equipment and things like that. I'm really looking forward to that, building that relationship with the scientists on the ground."

 

Tyurin, Mastracchio and Wakata plan to stay in space until May 14. In the near term, they expect cargo deliveries from a Russian Progress supply ship later this month, followed by arrival of an Orbital Sciences Corp. commercial Cygnus cargo craft in mid-December.

 

Another Progress is expected in early February followed about a week later by a commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle.

 

Kotov, Ryazanskiy and Hopkins plan to return to Earth around March 12, leaving the station in the hands of Wakata, Tyurin and Mastracchio. On March 26, three fresh crew members -- Soyuz TMA-12M commander Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and Steve Swanson -- are scheduled for launch to boost the lab's crew back to six.

 

One more Progress and two more commercial cargo ships are scheduled to arrive in April and May before Tyurin, Mastracchio and Wakata depart and return to Earth to close out a 188-day mission.

 

"It's interesting, because the first time I went to the International Space Station was in 2000," Mastracchio said in a pre-launch briefing. "It was a brand new space station, when I arrived there nobody was living there, there were only three modules, it had that new space station smell.

 

"I came back in 2007, there were three folks living there, we had completed most of the truss work on the space station, we'd added the U.S. laboratory and the airlock. I got to do three spacewalks, help assemble the space station, and then I went back again in 2010, six people were living there, all the modules had been added.

 

"So every time I go there, the space station gets bigger and bigger and more and more people," he said. "Now I'm going there for the fourth time, but this time I'm not going there to help assemble the space station but to live and work aboard the space station. So I'm really looking forward to actually spending a long period of time up there, helping to do some research, get involved in the science, actually use the space station for what it was intended to be used for."

 

Olympic torch blasts into space for 1st spacewalk

 

Laura Mills - Associated Press

 

A Russian rocket soared into the cosmos Thursday carrying the Sochi Olympic torch and three astronauts to the International Space Station ahead of the first-ever spacewalk for the symbol of peace.

 

Video streamed by the U.S. space agency NASA reported a flawless docking with the space station about six hours after the craft blasted off from Russia's manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

 

The unlit torch for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi is to be taken on a spacewalk Saturday, then return to Earth on Monday (late Sunday EST) with three departing space station astronauts.

 

The arriving crew members Thursday were Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, American Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan.

 

Now that the newcomers have entered the space station following a long hatch-opening process, the orbiting lab has nine people aboard for the first time since 2009. Fyodor Yurchikhin of Russia, NASA's Karen Nyberg, and Italian Luca Parmitano are the crew scheduled to return to Earth with the torch via a Monday landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

 

The Olympic torch will not burn onboard the space outpost because lighting it would consume precious oxygen and pose a threat to the crew. The crew will carry the unlit torch around the station's numerous modules before taking it out on a spacewalk.

 

The Olympic torch was taken aboard the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis in 1996 for the Atlanta Summer Olympics, but this is the first it time it will be taken outside a spacecraft.

 

"It's a great pleasure and responsibility getting to work with this symbol of peace," Tyurin told journalists on Wednesday before the launch.

 

Russians Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy will take the torch out of the space station on Saturday while American Michael Hopkins remains inside.

 

The four-month Sochi torch relay, which started in Moscow on Oct. 7, is the longest in the history of the Olympics. For most of the 65,000-kilometer (39,000-mile) route across Russia, it will travel by plane, train, car and even reindeer sleigh.

 

Some 14,000 torch bearers are taking part in the relay that stops at more than 130 cities and towns.

 

Last month, the Olympic flame traveled to the North Pole on a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker. Later this month it will sink to the bottom of the world's deepest lake, Lake Baikal. In early February, it will reach the peak of Mount Elbrus, at 5,642 meters (18,510 feet) the highest mountain in Russia and Europe.

 

The torch will be used to light the Olympic flame at Sochi's stadium on Feb. 7, marking the start of the 2014 Winter Games that run until Feb. 23.

 

New crew, Olympic torch safely on ISS

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

Smiling cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin floated through an International Space Station hatch this morning carrying the torch that will officially start the 2014 Winter Olympics, to be hosted by Russia.

 

The torch will stay on the station for four days, the most dramatic leg of its relay leading up to the games in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi.

 

ISS partners adjusted launch schedules to make it possible for the torch to get to orbit and back.

 

Typically, a crew departs the station before its replacement arrives.

 

This time, Tyurin's crew -- which also includes NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Koichi Wakata of Japan -- launched first to bring up the torch for a departing crew to return home Sunday.

 

Their Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station at 5:27 a.m. EST today, just over six hours after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

 

They opened the hatch and entered the station around 7:45 a.m., with Tyurin triumphantly holding the torch to start his crew's roughly six-month expedition.

 

They soon received congratulations from family and dignitaries gathered near the launch site.

 

Mastracchio told one well-wisher on the ground he would see her soon.

 

"Well, not too soon," he corrected himself, as the group laughed.

 

"We look forward to a good mission, and hopefully we'll get a lot of science and research done," he added later.

 

The station now has nine residents for the first time without a shuttle present since 2009.

 

Two cosmonauts plan to take the torch outside for a spacewalk on Saturday.

 

On Sunday, it will return to the ground with a three-person crew including NASA's Karen Nyberg.

 

Cosmonauts trained for Olympic Torch relay in space

 

Itar-Tass

 

Cosmonauts have undergone special training for a spacewalk with an Olympic Torch, Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin said at a press conference on Wednesday which was broadcast by Rossia-24 television from Baikonur cosmodrome.

 

"The space torch does not have any technical peculiarities, there is no need to finalize anything in its construction. The probable reason is that the torch was also created by space engineers who build space rockets," Tyurin said.

 

"The Olympic torch is the oldest symbol of the world. It is a pleasure, a big responsibility and excitement to handle this symbol," Tyurin declared. It is symbolic that we will also have a kind of a space torch relay. Our space crew is to bring the torch to the ISS, the second space crew in succession is to make a spacewalk, taking the Torch out, and the next crew in succession is to return the Torch to the Earth on November 11. Each crew will perform its own mission," Tyurin said.

 

Being in the orbit the Russian cosmonauts and their foreign colleagues will be able to watch the Olympic competitions and support their favorite teams because the ISS is provided with very good communication facilities which ensure quick transmission of information to the ISS. "I prefer the kinds of sport which demonstrate psychological and moral sides of a sportsman's character," Tyurin said.

 

The videos featuring the Olympic torch in space will be displayed on the Internet. The forthcoming spacewalk during which the cosmonauts will take the Olympic torch into raw space is going to be the main event during the forthcoming four-day space mission.

 

The cosmonauts have undergone special training to rehearse operations with the Olympic Torch they will conduct beyond the ISS. "Two men out for a spacewalk are to record each other on a video as they carry the Olympic Torch." Tyurin said. He played down a possibility of the torch moving elsewhere in space as "practically nil". There is a chance that something might be lost during the spacewalk, but all the things handled in raw space are reliably secured. Turning over the torch from one to the other, the cosmonauts will simultaneously turn over to each other a facility which ensures security. All these operations have been practiced at a hydro-laboratory, Tyurin said.

 

Tyurin wished success to all the sportsmen who will take part in the Olympic Games. "I want them to realize that they are part of manned cosmonautics, and that the cosmonauts are part of the Olympic movement," Tyurin said. " We are doing a common cause which is important for the whole mankind."

 

Wakata, two other crew members arrive at International Space Station

 

Akira Hatano & Jin Nishikawa - Asahi Shimbun

 

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying veteran astronaut Koichi Wakata and two others that blasted off at the Baikonur Cosmodrome here has docked with the International Space Station.

 

Wakata, 50, will take over as mission commander for two months from March, making him the first Japanese to hold that rank.

 

As captain, he will assume heavy responsibilities, including protecting crew members' lives in emergencies.

 

In a radio communication from the spacecraft, Wakata expressed enthusiasm for his six-month mission.

 

He said, "I was relieved when I finally arrived here," adding, "I will work together (with other members) to do our best."

 

When he was asked about how it feels to be back in space for the first time in four years, he said, "I feel like I have returned to a previous workplace, and I physically remember the sensations of zero-gravity."

 

He added, "I intend to work hard from today."

 

Wakata's mother Takayo, 80, was among those who saw off the Japanese astronaut here.

 

She said to him, "That was a great launch."

 

In response, Wakata expressed words of appreciation to his mother.

 

He said, "I am glad that everyone came to see me off," and "Fortunately the weather was fine, and it was not so cold."

 

The Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the ISS at 9:44 p.m. on Nov. 7, Japan Standard Time.

 

Wakata took his first Space Shuttle flight in 1996. He was stationed at the ISS for four months in 2009, making him the first Japanese astronaut to have a prolonged stay in space.

 

Wakata was highly regarded both in Japan and overseas for his high level of skills; for example, in the operation of a robot arm as well as his leadership.

 

Orion service module comes together and testing affirms flight design for 2014 blastoff

 

Ken Kremer – Universe Today

 

All of the key hardware elements being assembled for NASA's new Orion spacecraft launching just under one year from now are nearing completion at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) – at the same time as a crucial and successful hardware test in California this week helps ensure that the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) vehicle will be ready for an on-time liftoff.

 

Orion is NASA's first spaceship designed to carry human crews on long duration flights to deep space destinations beyond low Earth orbit, such as asteroids, the moon, Mars and beyond.

 

In a major construction milestone, Orion's massive Service Module (SM) was hoisted out from the tooling stand where it was manufactured at the Operations and Checkout Building (O & C) at KSC and moved to the next assembly station where it will soon be mated to the spacecraft adapter cone.

 

The SM should be mated to the crew module (CM) by year's end, Orion managers told Universe Today during my recent inspection tour of significant Orion hardware at KSC. 

 

"We are working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," said Jules Schneider, Orion Project manager for Lockheed Martin at KSC, during an exclusive interview with Universe Today inside the Orion clean room at KSC. "We are moving fast!"

 

The Orion CM recently passed a significant milestone when it was "powered on" for the first time at KSC.

 

"We are bringing Orion to life. Lots of flight hardware has now been installed."

 

And on the other side of the country, the Service Module design passed a key hurdle on Wednesday (Nov. 6) when the trio of large spacecraft panels that surround the SM were successfully jettisoned from the spacecraft during a systems test by Lockheed Martin that simulates what would happen during an actual flight several minutes after liftoff.

 

"Hardware separation events like this are absolutely critical to the mission and some of the more complicated things we do," said Mark Geyer, Orion program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "We want to know we've got the design exactly right and that it can be counted on in space before we ever launch."

 

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for Orion and responsible for assembly, testing and delivery of the Orion EFT-1 spacecraft to NASA that's slated for an unmanned test flight targeted to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida in September 2014.

 

The CM rests atop the SM similar to the Apollo Moon landing program architecture.

 

However in a significant difference from Apollo, the Orion fairings support half the weight of the crew module and the launch abort system during launch and ascent. The purpose is to improve performance by saving weight thus maximizing the vehicles size and capability.

 

The SM also provides in-space power, propulsion capability, attitude control, thermal control, water and air for the astronauts.

 

At Lockheed Martin's Sunnyvale, California facility a team of engineers used a series of precisely-timed, explosive charges and mechanisms attached to the Orion's protective fairing panels in a flight-like test to verify that the spacecraft can successfully and confidently jettison them as required during the ascent to orbit.

 

The trio of fairing panels protect the SM radiators and solar arrays from heat, wind and acoustics during ascent.

 

"This successful test provides the Orion team with the needed data to certify this new fairing design for Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) next year. The test also provides significant risk reduction for the fairing separation on future Orion manned missions," said Lance Lininger, engineering lead for Lockheed Martin's Orion mechanism systems in a statement.

 

This was the 2nd test of the fairing jettison system. During the first test in June, one of the three fairing panels did not completely detach due to an interference "when the top edge of the fairing came into contact with the adapter ring and kept it from rotating away and releasing from the spacecraft," said NASA.

 

2013 has been an extremely busy and productive year for the Orion EFT-1 team.

 

"There are many significant Orion assembly events ongoing this year," said Larry Price, Orion deputy program manager at Lockheed Martin, in an interview with Universe Today at Lockheed Space Systems in Denver.

 

"This includes the heat shield construction and attachment, power on, installing the plumbing for the environmental and reaction control system, completely outfitting the crew module, attached the tiles, building the service module and finally mating the crew and service modules (CM & SM)," Price told me.

 

The two-orbit, four-hour flight will lift the Orion spacecraft and its attached second stage to an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles, about 15 times higher than the International Space Station (ISS) – and farther than any human spacecraft has journeyed in 40 years.

 

Nobody is our name at Baikonur: KazKosmos Head

 

Tengri News

 

Kazakhstan is working towards creating its own independent space exploration industry; however, the nation doesn't discard its partnership with Russia", Newskaz.ru reports, citing Talgat Musabayev, Head of KazKosmos National Space Agency, as saying when speaking to students in Astana, the country's capital city.

 

"We are taking steps towards creating an independent space exploration industry; I have to admit not everyone likes what is going on", he said.

 

"However, we cannot cope without Russia. Russia is home to all the technology, space industry facilities, all the rocket stuff", he emphasized, adding that "we do have the Baikonur cosmodrome in our territory; however, nobody is our name so far".

 

Baikonur is closer to the Equator than other launch sites – a situation that facilitates geostationary orbit or orbits less inclined to reach the International Space Station (ISS). This privileged geographic placement enables the launch of more significant payloads.

 

The cosmodrome has been rented out since 1994. Annual rent stands at $115 million.

 

The town accommodates over 70 000 people, with 37% being Russia's citizens. About 4 000 Russia's citizens are here almost permanently on business trips to facilitate space launches. The town budget receives over 1 billion roubles a year from the Russian federal budget.

 

Russia's Roskosmos Federal Space Agency spent over $33.3 million in 2012 to maintain infrastructure and space facilities at the Kazakhstan-based Baikonur cosmodrome, Interfax-Kazakhstan reported February 1, 2013, citing Yuzhny Space Center Evgeniy Anissimov as saying.

 

Maine astronaut:

Humans will live on Mars, moon; space water reclamation will be used on Earth

 

Judy Harrison - Bangor Daily News

 

Cailan Barton wants to be a lot of things when he grows up, but most of all the 8-year-old wants to be an astronaut.

 

He came Thursday to Husson University with his father, Frank Barton, 31, and younger brother, Owen, 4, all of Orono, to hear Commander Christopher Cassidy talk about what it's like to be an astronaut. Both boys were dressed in orange astronaut costumes.

 

"Both kids are interested in science," Frank Barton said shortly before Cassidy gave the first of three talks about his work as an astronaut. "And let's face it, how often do you get to meet a real live astronaut?"

 

Cassidy, 43, who grew up in York, also spoke to a total of 1,000 middle school students from Greater Bangor who were bused to Husson's Gracie Theatre. The astronaut showed all three groups footage from his recent six-month stay at the International Space Station and his training in Russia with the two cosmonauts with whom he shared a ride up and back.

 

The trio returned Sept. 11. Cassidy said that the first U.S. soil he stepped foot on was in Bangor when the plane taking him back to Houston stopped to refuel.

 

Cassidy said Thursday morning that when he was the students' ages, he wanted to work for the NBA, not NASA. It wasn't until he met fellow Navy SEAL and astronaut Bill Shepherd, who was commander of the first space station crew, that Cassidy thought about becoming an astronaut. He joined NASA in 2004.

 

"I really feel I'm just another Maine guy who's had some really cool experiences in life," he said during a break between presentations. "My message is to study hard and work hard, but most importantly do in life what your are passionate about, what you enjoy, because when you do that and do it well, doors open up for you. That's when opportunity presents itself and you need to take advantage of those opportunities."

 

Kelly Mead, a former Bangor grade school teacher and clinical supervision director for education majors at Husson, said that seeing an astronaut who grew up in Maine could help inspire students to realize that "being from here, you can do anything." Cassidy's visit also was an opportunity to stress the importance of the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, programs in grades five through eight.

 

Cassidy told the students that he was always good at math and because he played football, basketball and softball, interested in how physics related to sports. Space exploration was not on his mind when he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1993 after attending York High School.

 

Today, Cassidy believes that the U.S. and other nations should continue to fund space exploration.

 

"It's kind of analogous to back in the Christopher Columbus time frame when people were setting sail from Europe and exploring around the oceans," he said. "They were pushing the frontiers of where humans are.

 

"[Space exploration] is essential to the growth of mankind and I honestly believe that eventually — maybe it won't be in my kids' lifetimes and it might not even be in my grandkids' lifetimes — there will be people living on Mars and probably on the moon and, right now, we are setting the groundwork for that to happen," Cassidy said.

 

He also predicted that technology used in space soon will be important to human survival on earth. Cassidy said that on the space station, 95 percent of the liquids produced, including urine and sweat, are reclaimed, filtered and reused.

 

"Water is a necessary component of life and with population growth skyrocketing exponentially, eventually people are really going to push our ability to get fresh water to everyone," he said. "I think that what we are learning about how to reclaim nearly all of our water will in not too long a time be used to build factories and machines in communities around the world to do exactly that."

 

During his NASA career, Cassidy has completed six spacewalks, totaling 31 hours and 14 minutes. He has spent a total of 182 days in space. He said Thursday that the view of Earth from space never gets old.

 

On March 28, he lifted off for a second trip to the space station from Kazakhstan along with two Russian cosmonauts. The three crew members were the first to complete a trip to the space station in less than six hours. Ordinarily, it takes two days to rendezvous and dock at the space station.

 

Cassidy said Thursday that the most challenging part of the mission was learning Russian so he could communicate with his fellow space travelers and ground control.

 

"I was on the space station during the summer months," he said. "What I really missed were the smells of summer like fresh mown grass and the scent of the ocean."

 

Earlier this week, Cassidy visited schools in York and Cumberland counties. On Friday, he will visit a school in Fort Kent.

 

The Maine astronaut is married and has three children. The family lives in Houston.

 

Beyoncé Could Still Beat Lady Gaga to Space-Singing...

...and Other Intergalactic Celebrity Revelations from a Space Expert

 

Julie Miller - Vanity Fair

 

Yesterday, we learned that Lady Gaga had secured herself a 2015 Virgin Galactic ticket—and consequently, a chapter in Curiosity Rover's Burn Book—with plans to become "the first artist to sing in outer space." Us Weekly reports that the performance will last for one track, and the flight will take place during "the Zero G Colony high-tech musical festival in New Mexico."

 

Left with myriad intergalactic-Gaga questions—Are meat costumes kosher in space? What is the best way to affix lobster-head prosthetics in zero gravity? Will Virgin let her customize her space suit into some kind of Muppet-fabulous couture?—we reached out to space expert and Space.com managing editor Tariq Malik. His educated answers to all of our Gaga-goes-to-space questions are below.

 

Julie Miller: What was your initial response to the news that Lady Gaga would sing in space in 2015?

 

Tariq Malik: I always think that when celebrities get on private space flights it's exciting. The more, the merrier. I'm not sure how soon she would get up there. Both Beyoncé and Justin Bieber—whom I call the Biebernaut—have tickets, so I'm not sure she'll be the first one or not. There might be some competition there.

 

Are you saying that noted space journal Us Weekly may have inaccurately reported that Lady Gaga would be the first to sing in space?

 

I think Beyoncé and Justin Bieber said they wanted to record a music video too, and this was years ago that they bought their [Virgin Galactic] tickets. I'm not sure who's ahead of who in the line.

 

This just got a lot more exciting. Do you think Lady Gaga's expedition is driven by her genuine curiosity about outer space or by her genuine curiosity about P.R. stunts?

 

I think that any time celebrities are involved in these space flights, publicity is always one big part of it. We all know that celebrities have the money to buy these tickets, which are like $250,000. If they have money to buy a yacht or a trip around the world, there is no reason why they shouldn't spend [their money] going to space.

 

Do you think singing is a natural first step in intergalactic entertainment? Should we have started out with something more introductory, like dancing or an acoustic-guitar performance?

 

Actually singing is probably the easiest because you only need your own voice. Dancers might need a costume or something like that. On these flights with Virgin Galactic, the period where you are weightless is very, very short—maybe a few minutes. It would be difficult with an instrument because you have to worry about it floating away.

 

What physical challenges will she face, if any, while singing?

 

The most difficult part, for anyone, is going to be the launch. She will be in a rocket and will have to withstand the initial G-forces. Once she gets up into space, gravity drops away, and it can be really disorienting. I took a zero-G flight this summer, and it was a big surprise when we tried it out. She'll have to prepare for space sickness because she won't want to sing if she's throwing up all of the time.

 

How do you prevent space sickness?

 

They actually have a lot of medicines you can take and preparation you can do. They might have some kind of pre-launch training to go through. When we went on our flight, they gave us a shot of Scopolamine, which is the same shot they give the astronauts. It makes you a little drowsy but it does counteract, for the most part, the really sickening parts of weightlessness.

 

Are there any side effects that would affect her performance, aside from drowsiness?

 

I should mention that one of the big side effects of that medicine is dry mouth, and I experienced that firsthand. She might want to take a water bottle that she can take a sip from on the way up.

 

I hope she reads this Q&A before going up! I'm getting nervous for everyone in the ship because of all of the audio-and-video equipment required for her live performance.

 

One of the interesting things about these Virgin Galactic flights is that they already have camera equipment recording everyone that is on these flights, which can hold six passengers each. It could just be that she goes up there on her own, knows where those cameras are going to be, and sings to those, and not have to worry about her own video equipment. She might want a microphone and pin it to her flight suit.

 

What are the chances that Gaga will be able to customize her Virgin-issue space suit into something fabulous with the help of her Haus of Gaga?

 

Virgin Galactic does have people designing their space suits. We're expecting them to be something between a jump suit and a pressure system to keep them at least marginally safe on the spacecraft. I would imagine there might be some room for personal embellishments, like a patch or maybe some color or something like that. She would find that out closer to launch.

 

She is reportedly taking her "glam squad" up into space with her. What should the glam squad know about costume, makeup, and prosthetic-animal-head application in zero gravity?

 

Well, if she is taking her glam team with her, she might be renting out the entire flight, which would be great because then she wouldn't have to worry about other passengers who maybe aren't fans. If she has a five-person team with her, they can each bring a part of her costume and put it together on the way up before they get to the weightlessness stage, or have it ready to just attach it to her. I would say the biggest piece of advice I could give is to think about how much time it takes you to get out items and how you will attach it.

 

When I went on my flight, I tried to pull out a T-shirt—just a Space.com T-shirt—and I couldn't get it out of the pocket on the flight suit. We only had 30 seconds of weightlessness, but she will have some continuous minutes. So she should think about it ahead of time and figure out who is doing what and where things are, and practice it.

 

If I see Lady Gaga, I'm going to suggest she hire you as a technical consultant.

 

Velcro might be great for Lady Gaga. She might just have to put on a whole bunch of breakaway stuff. She could even have multiple costumes on the flight.

 

What are the acoustics like in space?

 

Similar to that of a passenger jet. There will be a lot of background noise with the rocket engine and fans whirring and the pressure.

 

The TSA has a list of prohibited items for flight passengers. When it comes to these Virgin Galactic flights, are there certain materials or substances that are not allowed, that Lady Gaga should not bring? Just want to cover all of our bases here.

 

Virgin will have that list and give that to her, but she probably should not bring things that could start fires. If she has one of those Hunger Games fire dresses, she should not take that. [Laughs.] And probably anything that would make a mess on the flight when they get to zero gravity.

 

Do you think alien life forms will be less threatened by Lady Gaga given her otherworldly costumes than they would be by more human-like  pop stars like Taylor Swift or One Direction?

 

I don't think they will know what to make of anyone up there. But if she wears her meat costume, they might find that a little more enticing!

 

Ashton Kutcher's space trip training gets messy

 

Ottawa Sun

 

Ashton Kutcher encountered an extremely messy training session for his upcoming trip to space, when he fell victim to multiple vomiting fits on a spaceship simulator.

 

The 'Two and a Half Men' star is just one of the celebrities who has signed up for Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic project, which offers rich fun lovers the chance to jet into space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the earth from nearly 100 kilometres up.

 

And to prepare for the out-of-this-world trip, Kutcher had to train in a Zero Gravity airplane - a session that left him feeling terribly ill.

 

He tells U.S. chat show host Ellen DeGeneres, "The zero G thing, they call it the 'Vomit Comet' - it's aptly named. It's an airplane that does these parabolas in the air. You go up, and when it starts to dive down, you're at zero Gs and you have to take the G forces coming up.

 

"But vomit behaves differently in zero G. When you throw up in the vomit bag, it just kind of stays there, with you, when you're flying.

 

And apparently they sent out a memo out the day before that we weren't supposed to drink. I didn't get the memo. And then you're apparently not supposed to eat before. I didn't get that memo either.

 

"I think there were, like, 18 parabolas and I threw up for about 12 of them. But the first five, I was great."

 

END