Happy Sunny Windy Wednesday to you all. Great day to go sailing or fly a kite but be careful …the winds are gusting about 30 miles per hour in the Houston Metro area!
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- The 10 Things Everyone Should Know ...
- JLT and EMERGE unleash motivation to JSC
- Morpheus Ascends to Record Heights and Speeds
- Physics in the Movie - 'Gravity' Part II
- March is Women's History Month
- NASA HQ Women's History Month Event via Broadcast
- JSC's Environmental and Energy Functional (EEFR)
- Recent JSC Announcement - Organizations/Social
- National Women's History Month Panel Discussion
- Parenting and the Special Needs Child
- HTC Lunch and Learn Thursday, March 13
- JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown on April 27
- New Ultimate Frisbee League - No Team Needed
- Save the Date: Don Thomas Book Signing - May 8 - Community
- Tour the WM Single-Stream Recycling Facility Today
- Applications Being Accepted for Scholarship
- Yuri's Night Houston 5K - Daylight Savings Time |  |
| Headlines - The 10 Things Everyone Should Know ...
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
[top] - JLT and EMERGE unleash motivation to JSC
At a time when Johnson Space Center is making efforts at evolving into a beacon of effectiveness and maintaining its stronghold as a leading NASA center, JLT and EMERGE representatives Daniel Ponce (LD3) and Krystin Mitchell (LF3) exemplified the very principles of what makes JSC 2.0 a worthwhile initiative. The culmination of this effort embodied the concept of JSC 2.0 with collaboration across multiple disciplines such as finance, external relations, IRD, and the strategic partnership office to accomplish a common goal. This is JSC 2.0, having an idea and through creative collaboration, making that idea come to fruition.
To feel the passion and check out the blog, click here. For all 2.0 success stories, click here. - Morpheus Ascends to Record Heights and Speeds
A free flight test of a Morpheus prototype lander was conducted today at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility. The 83-second test began at 2:45 p.m. EDT with the Morpheus lander launching from the ground over a flame trench. It ascended to 580 feet, its highest to date - higher than the Washington Monument - at a rate of 30 mph, its fastest ascent speed yet. Morpheus then flew its fastest downrange trek at 30 mph, travelling farther than before, 837 feet. The lander performed a 42-foot divert to emulate a hazard avoidance maneuver before descending and touching down on Landing Site 2, a the northern landing pad inside the automated landing and hazard avoidance technology (ALHAT) hazard field. Morpheus touched down at its intended target. Project Morpheus tests NASA's automated landing and hazard avoidance technology and an engine that runs on liquid oxygen and methane, or "green" propellants. These new capabilities could be used in future efforts to deliver cargo to planetary surfaces. Morpheus and ALHAT are examples of the partnerships that exist within the agency since seven of the 10 NASA centers have contributed time, energy and resources to both. JSC External Relations, Office of Public Affairs and Communications x35111
[top] - Physics in the Movie - 'Gravity' Part II
Fire doesn't burn like that in microgravity. It burns as a sphere, and generally SELF-EXTINGUISHES because the sphere consumes all the surrounding oxygen, and no new oxygen is made available by buoyancy-driven convection. On the International Space Station, as soon as smoke/heat/increased current draw is detected and the FIRE is annunciated, all fans for air movement stop -- and thus no fresh oxygen is brought to the fire. - March is Women's History Month
The 2014 Women's History Month's theme is "Women of Character, Courage and Commitment." Please join the JSC Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity (OEOD) as we honor the extraordinary and often unrecognized determination and tenacity of women. Against social convention and often legal restraints, women have created a legacy that expands the frontiers of possibility for generations to come. They have demonstrated their character, courage and commitment as mothers, astronauts, educators, engineers, scientists, federal employees, institution builders, business, labor, political and community leaders, relief workers and CEOs. Their lives and work inspire girls and women to achieve their full potential and encourage boys and men to respect the diversity and depth of women's experience. To read the presidential proclamation, click here. To view or print the 2014 Women's History Month poster, please visit the JSC OEOD website. - NASA HQ Women's History Month Event via Broadcast
NASA Headquarters will celebrate Women's History Month (March) today, March 12, from 8:30 to 10 a.m. CDT. The event will be broadcast via NASA public television. The agenda includes: - Welcome by Rebecca Spyke Keiser (Associate Deputy Administrator, Strategy and Policy)
- Remarks by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
- Remarks by Sandy Magnus (Executive Director, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
- Panel Sessions
- Closing Remarks by Keiser
- JSC's Environmental and Energy Functional (EEFR)
It's that time again! From April 7 to 11, NASA Headquarters will be back to conduct their triennial assessment of the health of JSC's environmental and energy programs. They will be looking for compliance with regulations and conformance to NASA Environmental Management System (EMS) requirements. Interviews will be scheduled to determine if JSC has effectively implemented the EMS, environmental and energy requirements. The EEFR will include employee interviews and reviews of activities and records at JSC, Ellington Field and Sonny Carter Training Facility. If you have any questions concerning the EEFR, call the Environmental info line at x36207, or visit the Environmental Office website. - Recent JSC Announcement
Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement: JSCA 14-006: Communications with Industry Procurement Solicitation for Advanced Technology & Integration Contract (ATIC) Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page. Organizations/Social - National Women's History Month Panel Discussion
March is National Women's History Month, and the 2014 theme is "Celebrating Women of Character, Courage and Commitment." On Monday, March 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Building 30 Auditorium, the African-American Employee Resource Group will host a discussion panel of women executives and senior leaders from government and industry. They will share perspectives on how they demonstrate character, courage and commitment as business, CEO, industry and community leaders, mothers, mentors, wives and friends. Panelists : - Cora Carmody, Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President, Jacobs Engineering
- Annette Moore, Director, Information Resources Directorate, Johnson Space Center
- Penny White, Senior Contracts Manager, The Boeing Company
- Pearl Wright, President, 4W Solutions, Inc.
Please come, listen and learn from this diverse panel how their lives and their work inspire girls and women to achieve their full potential and encourage boys and men to respect the diversity and depth of women's experience. Event Date: Monday, March 17, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium
Add to Calendar
Rhonda Moore x35282
[top] - Parenting and the Special Needs Child
Having a special needs child brings with it many of the typical joys of parenting, but it also includes bigger challenges to overcome. Special needs is a term used to describe numerous conditions children are treated for. We will discuss the ranges of special needs conditions, understand the impact on marriage and other siblings, identify resources and offer respite tool ideas for parents. Support is key in raising a special needs child. Come and meet others who are sharing similar experiences. In recognition of National Developmental Disabilities Month, please join Anika Isaac, LPC, LMFT, NCC, LCDC, CEAP, with JSC Employee Assistance Program, for a presentation on Parenting and the Special Needs Child. - HTC Lunch and Learn Thursday, March 13
Ever thought about starting your own business? Do you have an idea or technology that you think has potential as a commercial product? Then bring your bagged lunch and join the Houston Technology Center (HTC) in the 1958 Collaboration Center Conference Room (Building 35) from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. today and for the next eight Thursdays for a series of lectures on how to launch, fund and sustain a new business. Event Date: Thursday, March 13, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:12:30 PM
Event Location: Building 35, 1958 Conference Room
Add to Calendar
Walt Ugalde x25498
[top] - JSC Annual Picnic at SplashTown on April 27
The JSC Family Picnic takes place at SplashTown water park every year on the weekend before the park opens to the public. Don't miss out on this fun, family event taking place on April 27! Tickets will be on sale from March 17 through April 18 in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops and the Gilruth Center. Tickets are $33 each for ages 3 and up (those 2 and under do not need a ticket). After April 18, tickets will be $37. Season Pass holders may use their season pass for park admittance and purchase a wristband at a discounted price for food and other activities. A ticket includes: admission to SplashTown from noon to 6 p.m., barbecue lunch, beverages, snow cones, kids' games, Bingo, face painting, a moon bounce, balloon artist, DJ, horseshoes, volleyball, basketball and plenty of thrills! - New Ultimate Frisbee League - No Team Needed
Starport is excited to offer a great new league for those who have never played Ultimate Frisbee and those who are veterans to the sport. Ultimate Frisbee - Co-ed Hat League - Registration is open through March 25
- Only $20 per person!
- ages 12 and up
- Sign up as an individual
- Don't worry about finding a whole team!
League Info: - Eight-week league (plus playoffs)
- Monday evenings starting March 31
- Games start at 6 p.m.
Want a friend on your team? No problem! Request an individual to be partnered with. This is the perfect league for anyone that has always wanted to try Starport Sports or Ultimate Frisbee. Sign up now! - Save the Date: Don Thomas Book Signing - May 8
Starport is proud to host a book signing for Don Thomas, veteran astronaut of four space shuttle missions and recipient of numerous NASA awards. His new book, Orbit of Discovery, provides a firsthand account of the 1995 all-Ohioan Discovery mission, highlighting the state's contributions to the NASA space program. Written by Thomas with the assistance of journalist Mike Bartell, the book is a lively and entertaining must-read for individuals who want to experience a ride into space. Books must be purchased at Starport for autographs. Mark your calendar today and pre-order your book in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops, or order online. Community - Tour the WM Single-Stream Recycling Facility Today
Courtesy of your JSC Green Team, you are invited to see the state-of-the-art Waste Management (WM) Single-Stream Recycling Facility off Gasmer. Take an extended lunch break and join us for today's tour. Bring your own lunch and meet us in front of Building 11 at 11:15 a.m. We will return to JSC no later than 2 p.m. Contact Laurie Peterson to ensure that there are still seats available in one of the two vans. - Applications Being Accepted for Scholarship
The NASA College Scholarship Program will award multiple scholarships agencywide to qualified dependents of NASA civil servant employees. The scholarship recipients must pursue a course of study leading to an undergraduate degree in science or engineering from an accredited college or university in the United States. Applications are available online. The application deadline is March 31. - Yuri's Night Houston 5K - Daylight Savings Time
Most of the United States lost an hour of sleep this past weekend. However, that wasn't the case for the following FOUR unincorporated territories of the U.S. - Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa. To celebrate/commiserate the beginning of Daylight Savings Time (DST) and help dilute the sting of losing a precious hour of sleep (seems like beginning DST at 3 p.m. on a Friday would be a much better idea), you can use the following promotion codes to receive a $4 discount off your race registration until 11:59 p.m. this Friday, March 14 DST, SLEEP, LOSTHR Hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Houston, the 2014 Yuri's Night Houston 5K will be held Saturday, April 5, in Nassau Bay. Volunteers are needed. If interested, contact Mana Vautier. CURRITUR AD ASTRA. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday – March 12, 2014
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: The International Space Station Program has embarked on a first-of-a-kind collaborative mission to advance ground-based university/student cancer research to flight-based research entitled University Research-1 (UR-1). To learn more, tune in to the live webcast today at noon discussing why college students are launching experiments through UR-1. How will their research impact NASA, human spaceflight and potentially the world? Questions from students and teachers will be answered live by NASA experts, university professors and college students from various universities. HEADLINES AND LEADS
Amid U.S.-Russian tensions over Ukraine, space show goes on
Eliott C. McLaughlin, Faith Karimi and Elizabeth Landau –CNN
The American bears a broad grin, flashing an "OK" sign to the Russian support team tending to him after his descent from space. It's not exactly the image of two countries at extreme odds over the Ukraine crisis.
Shorten dependence on Russia for spaceflights
Orlando Sentinel
It's been almost three years since the U.S. lost the capability to blast astronauts into orbit when the space-shuttle program ended. Congress hasn't made restoring that capability a priority. Sierra Nevada's plans for Dream Chaser spacecraft will boost Alabama's space business
Lee Roop - Huntsville Times
Alabama's space future got a boost today when one of America's best-known space companies – Sierra Nevada Corp. - announced a larger presence in the state and new partnerships with NASA and private space contractors here.
SNC expands collaboration on Dream Chaser
Joshua Lindenstein - Northern Colorado Business Report
Sierra Nevada Corp. on Tuesday announced an expanded collaboration with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as the company gears up for the first orbital launch of its Dream Chaser spacecraft in 2016.
Aerojet Rocketdyne designs new battery for space station
Mark Anderson - Sacramento Business Journal
A new battery designed by Aerojet Rocketdyne for the International Space Station has successfully completed a design review and is ready for testing, the Rancho Cordova-based rocket motor maker announced Monday.
BFFs in Space: Why the U.S. and Russia Will Stay Cosmic Buddies
Jeffrey Kluger – TIME
Even with all the smack talk between Moscow and Washington, space makes good bedfellows
Want to know the three people in the world who were the least interested this morning in the doings in Crimea? Try Michael Hopkins, Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy. If that group sounds like a decidedly American and Russian mix, that's because it is, and the trio had much more immediate things to do today than argue over a bit of land by the Black Sea. What they were doing specifically was plunging into the atmosphere at a speed of just under 17,500 mph (28,100 k/h) from an altitude of 230 mi. (370 km), tucked shoulder to shoulder inside a metal sphere with just 88 cubic feet of habitable space—which sounds like a lot until you consider that it's just 2.5 cubic meters.
NASA Budget Justification Details Delays, Descopes and Cancellations
Dan Leone – Space News
NASA is proposing to pull the plug on the 10-year-old Mars Opportunity rover, drop a space station resupply flight from next year's launch manifest, scale back several space technology projects and likely delay the overbudget ICESat-2 mission as it seeks to make ends meet within the confines of the $17.5 billion budget the agency requested for 2015.
General: Too soon to say SpaceX ready for military
Shelton: 'Big difference' between secret satellites, cargo
James Dean – Florida Today
Launches of NASA cargo to the International Space Station, including one planned early Sunday, don't guarantee SpaceX is ready to launch military satellites, the head of Air Force Space Command said Tuesday in Cape Canaveral.
COMPLETE STORIES
Amid U.S.-Russian tensions over Ukraine, space show goes on
Eliott C. McLaughlin, Faith Karimi and Elizabeth Landau –CNN
The American bears a broad grin, flashing an "OK" sign to the Russian support team tending to him after his descent from space. It's not exactly the image of two countries at extreme odds over the Ukraine crisis.
But in the world of U.S.-Russian relations, space is impervious, as demonstrated by the joint effort to bring American astronaut Mike Hopkins and his cosmonaut counterparts, Soyuz Cmdr. Oleg Kotov, a native of Crimea, and fellow flight engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy, home to Earth.
The Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan early Tuesday after the trio spent more than five months aboard the International Space Station, leaving the multinational astronaut delegation of Japan's Koichi Wakata, America's Rick Mastracchio and Russia's Mikhail Tyurin to finish the orbital laboratory's Expedition 39.
Those three are expected to return home in mid-May, after being joined by another international team: Steve Swanson (U.S.), Alexander Skvortsov (Russia) and Oleg Artemyev (Latvia) are in Star City, Russia, training for their March 25 launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA says.
Kotov is a space veteran returning from his third mission and 526th day in space. Hopkins and Ryazanskiy are rookies. This mission marked their first 166 days in space, NASA says.
Hopkins conducted a pair of U.S. spacewalks for a total 12 hours and 58 minutes. Ryazanskiy conducted three Russian spacewalks during his mission working outside the station for 20 hours and five minutes.
On Earth, the United States may be trading bitter accusations with Russia over Ukraine, but in space, it's a different story.
The space collaboration between the two nations has survived other diplomatic kerfuffles -- most recently, the war in Syria and asylum for NSA leaker Edward Snowden -- and there's no need to worry, NASA says.
"We do not expect the current Russia-Ukraine situation to have any impact on our civil space cooperation with Russia, including our partnership on the International Space Station program," said Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesman, pointing out that it's in both countries' best interests not to disrupt "operations that have maintained continuous human presence on orbit for over a decade."
Beutel added, "NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, have maintained a professional, beneficial and collegial working relationship through the various ups and downs of the broader U.S.-Russia relationship and we expect that to continue."
'Reluctant co-dependency'
The two nations can't afford temporary tussles to upend a costly relationship -- one that James Oberg, a former space engineer, describes as "reluctant co-dependency."
In 2011, NASA retired its space shuttle fleet, its only means of getting to and from the station. Now, Russian Soyuz capsules ferry U.S. astronauts and cosmonauts, together with supplies that can fit in the smaller craft.
In turn, the United States brings to the table technology far more advanced than Russia's capabilities, Oberg told Politico.
At the same time, many of the Russian systems are more reliable because they are simpler and have been operating longer, Leroy Chiao, former NASA astronaut and International Space Station commander, told CNN.
The space station itself has an intricate blend of both countries' contributions -- from U.S. solar arrays and power systems to Russian core life-support systems, to a navigation system that comes from both countries, he said.
Americans and Russians train on each other's systems, but one country can't run the station alone, he said.
The mission control centers in Houston and Korolyov, near Moscow, have to coordinate commands sent to the station, he said.
"We need each other to operate the station," Chiao said. "Otherwise we run the risk of losing that asset."
A pretty penny
What's more, the agreement between the two nations isn't exactly cheap.
According to a new deal NASA signed with the Russian space agency, the United States will pay Russia $71 million to ferry each astronaut to the space station.
The emergence of private companies in the space transport business may change the game.
NASA has a $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX to fly at least 12 cargo resupply missions to the space station, and a $1.9 billion contract with Orbital Sciences for eight such missions.
SpaceX is gearing up for its third commercial resupply mission this month; Orbital Sciences completed its first in February.
As for transporting astronauts, NASA said in November that it's seeking to partner with U.S. companies for human trips to the station as well, by 2017. That could end U.S. reliance on Russia for space voyages.
But for now, experts say, the U.S.-Russia relationship on space remains a marriage of convenience.
Shorten dependence on Russia for spaceflights
Orlando Sentinel
It's been almost three years since the U.S. lost the capability to blast astronauts into orbit when the space-shuttle program ended. Congress hasn't made restoring that capability a priority.
If lawmakers aren't kicking themselves now for their myopia, they should be.
That's because the only way for U.S. astronauts to reach the $100 billion International Space Station — U.S. taxpayers covered about half that investment — is by hitching rides, at $70 million a seat, on Russian rockets. And with relations strained between the two countries over Russia seizing territory from its neighbor, Ukraine, Washington's dependence on Moscow is looking increasingly unwise and untenable.
Last week NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden insisted that the crisis over Ukraine had not affected a productive relationship between the U.S. space agency and its Russian counterpart.
But if tensions keep escalating — President Obama and Congress are talking about punishing Russia with strong sanctions — who knows what will happen to bilateral cooperation on space? The U.S. and Russia already have suspended military ties.
Yet the U.S. could be stuck with no choice but Vladimir Putin's space taxi service for another three years — or longer, if Congress continues to shortchange the development of a private U.S. alternative.
In 2010, Obama decided to let private rocketeers take the lead on providing manned trips to low Earth orbit once shuttles were retired in 2011. It was a reasonable plan, intended to leave a cash-strapped NASA free to concentrate its resources for human exploration on reaching more-distant destinations, including asteroids and Mars.
That plan counted on Congress following through with funding to partner with multiple aerospace companies in designing and building spacecraft to carry U.S. astronauts to the space station. But lawmakers made deep cuts in the president's budget requests in 2012 and 2013, which postponed the first private manned launch — once considered possible as early as next year — to 2017.
In the president's proposed 2015 budget, unveiled this month, he's asked for about as much as he did in 2012 and 2013 for commercial crew development. He's also called for putting another $250 million into the program from a new fund that would be dedicated to job-creating investments.
If Congress doesn't go along with the president's request this time, even a 2017 launch could slip. But if lawmakers up the ante, some analysts think the date could move up to 2016.
Congress faces a choice between making an essential and overdue investment in regaining U.S. access to space, or keeping Putin in the pilot's seat — and paying through the nose cone for it. This shouldn't be a tough call, especially now.
It's time for lawmakers to open the throttle on the U.S. commercial space program.
Sierra Nevada's plans for Dream Chaser spacecraft will boost Alabama's space business
Lee Roop - Huntsville Times
Alabama's space future got a boost today when one of America's best-known space companies – Sierra Nevada Corp. - announced a larger presence in the state and new partnerships with NASA and private space contractors here.
"We're using Huntsville and Alabama as a focal point for what we're going to be doing in the science and payload capability of our missions," Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president and head of SNC's Space Systems, said in an interview.
Sierra Nevada is building a smaller shuttle-like spacecraft called Dream Chaser. It is one of three companies working with NASA to become a space taxi for astronauts to and from the International Space Station, but Sirangelo said the company plans to do much more in low-Earth orbit with Dream Chaser.
"What we're building is the iPad," Sirangelo said of Dream Chaser. "Other people will be using this to create apps."
Among Dream Chaser's future will be as a science platform and a satellite repair platform, Sirangelo said. Sierra Nevada already builds satellites, propulsion systems and other space systems.
Sirangelo said Sierra Nevada will add "several dozen people … this year" to the office it recently opened in Huntsville. The company is also planning a college internship program to train prospective new space professionals.
Today, Sirangelo announced new agreements with Marshall Space Flight Center and Teledyne Brown Engineering Corp. in Huntsville to explore new missions for Dream Chaser and how to build teams around those missions.
Marshall has experience in the best practices for designing, launching and managing science payloads, Sirangelo said, and it will help Sierra Nevada learn those. "We're not a company that wants to recreate the wheel," he said.
In a press release today, NASA said an expansion of Marshall's current Space Act Agreement with Sierra Nevada will allow the center's Missions Operations Laboratory to share its technical expertise with Sierra Nevada. The company will pay NASA for its expertise, Sirangelo said.
"Marshall engineers will provide SNC with recommendations on payload capability, best practices for ground processing of payloads, integration of in-space experimental science payloads with commercial space vehicles, and on-orbit operation of science payloads," NASA said in a news release. "Teledyne Brown Engineering will also provide support to SNC under a teaming agreement."
"We are glad to share the knowledge and expertise we've gained through our decades of experience with payload development for space shuttle missions and operating and maintaining science research on the International Space Station," said Patrick Scheuermann, Marshall director. "We have enjoyed a successful partnership with Sierra Nevada Corp. for more than two years and look forward to continued collaboration."
"We are very pleased to team with Sierra Nevada in the development of the Dream Chaser," Rex D. Geveden, executive vice president, Teledyne Technologies Inc., said n the NASA statement. "This is an exceptional opportunity to apply our capabilities in payload development and integration to an exciting new space transportation system."
Marshall and Teledyne Brown Engineering aren't Sierra Nevada's only North Alabama partners. The company will use an Atlas rocket built by United Launch Alliance to lift Dream Chaser into orbit. The craft will fly back to earth and land like the space shuttle.
SNC expands collaboration on Dream Chaser
Joshua Lindenstein - Northern Colorado Business Report
Sierra Nevada Corp. on Tuesday announced an expanded collaboration with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama as the company gears up for the first orbital launch of its Dream Chaser spacecraft in 2016.
Sierra Nevada, which has its Space Systems division based in Louisville, also on Tuesday said it has signed an agreement to work with Teledyne Brown Engineering in conjunction with the deal with the MSFC.
The new arrangements will assist in Dream Chaser's Advanced Development program, which oversees the multimission capability of Dream Chaser, a spacecraft touted by SNC as ideal for a variety of uses in low-Earth orbit. SNC Space Systems head Mark Sirangelo said the relationships with the MSFC and Teledyne Brown will advance Dream Chaser's goal of enabling science payload operations and technology development in support of the International Space Station.
Sirangelo said the teams work together to evaluate future low-Earth orbit mission concepts for the Dream Chaser in the area of scientific payload operations with the goal of enhancing and enabling science in those orbits.
The new agreement with MSFC isn't SNC's first with the facility. SNC signed a Space Act Agreement with MSFC in 2012 to use wind-tunnel testing on various configurations of Dream Chaser's launch stack aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
The new collaboration will be done at the MSFC's Mission Operations Laboratory, which is run by civil servants and commercial contractors led by Teledyne Brown.
SNC announced in January that the first orbital flight of Dream Chaser will launch Nov. 1, 2016 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The composite shell of the Dream Chaser vehicle that will make the first trip to space is being built in Louisiana by Lockheed Martin, while various systems and components continue to be built in Louisville. The 2016 flight will be autonomous, with the first manned flight scheduled for 2017.
That announcement followed a successful October flight test of a Dream Chaser test vehicle in California. That vehicle, which is being outfitted for further test flights this year, was built in Louisville.
Aerojet Rocketdyne designs new battery for space station
Mark Anderson - Sacramento Business Journal
A new battery designed by Aerojet Rocketdyne for the International Space Station has successfully completed a design review and is ready for testing, the Rancho Cordova-based rocket motor maker announced Monday.
The new lithium ion battery is meant to replace the existing nickel hydrogen batteries currently in use. Lithium ion is a more efficient storage technology.
Aerojet will build 31 of the lithium ion batteries, which includes two units for engineering tests, two for qualification tests and 27 for flight in orbit.
In flight, 24 of the new batteries will replace 48 existing nickel hydrogen batteries. The new batteries represent about half the launch weight of the battery system it replaces, and the new batteries will store 50 percent more energy.
The first module of the International Space Station was launched into orbit in 1998. The station has been added to over the years. It has had astronauts on board continuously since November 2000.
"The successful execution of this review verifies that the obital replacement unit meets all design, operational and performance requirements," Larry Trager, director of Advanced Power Systems at Aerojet, said in a news release.
Rocket motor maker Aerojet Rocketdyne is the primary subsidiary of Rancho Cordova-based GenCorp.
BFFs in Space: Why the U.S. and Russia Will Stay Cosmic Buddies
Jeffrey Kluger – TIME
Even with all the smack talk between Moscow and Washington, space makes good bedfellows
Want to know the three people in the world who were the least interested this morning in the doings in Crimea? Try Michael Hopkins, Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy. If that group sounds like a decidedly American and Russian mix, that's because it is, and the trio had much more immediate things to do today than argue over a bit of land by the Black Sea. What they were doing specifically was plunging into the atmosphere at a speed of just under 17,500 mph (28,100 k/h) from an altitude of 230 mi. (370 km), tucked shoulder to shoulder inside a metal sphere with just 88 cubic feet of habitable space—which sounds like a lot until you consider that it's just 2.5 cubic meters.
The crew thumped down safely in Kazakhstan at 9:24 AM EDT on March 11, after 166 days in space together aboard the International Space Station, and by all accounts they got along splendidly. Space will do that to people. The stakes are so high, the margin for error so microscopic and the precise nature of the death that awaits you if you screw things up—spinning off into the void, burning up in the atmosphere—so terrible that you learn to prioritize quickly.
Even in the days of the real Cold War, the one with all of the ICBMs poised and armed and ready to launch, the U.S. and the Soviet Union quietly had each other's backs in space. On January 27, 1967, Lyndon Johnson, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, a gaggle of dignitaries from 60 countries and a delegation of American astronauts gathered in the Green Room of the White House for the formal signing of the clumsily named "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space." The agreement committed all signatories to keeping space forever non-militarized, to making no land claims on the moon or any other cosmic body and to offering all assistance to any astronauts in distress from any nation.
It is a matter of historical record that at 6:32 PM that night, even as the White House reception was still underway, a fire was breaking out in the Apollo 1 spacecraft on its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, where astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were rehearsing liftoff procedures. It is a matter of historical record too that by 6:34 all three were dead. Many of the same dignitaries from the same 60 countries who had planned to travel home the next day instead stayed around to attend the funeral of three men who would never fly again.
So the stakes have always been high.
Over the years, even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the cooperation endured. The Apollo-Soyuz flight in 1975 saw spacecraft from the U.S. and U.S.S.R. meet and dock in orbit for the first time, just months after U.S. embassy personnel had made their ignominious withdrawal from a rooftop in Saigon and the USSR collected one more domino. In the 1990s, American astronauts regularly flew aboard Russia's Mir spacecraft, and in the 2000s, multi-national crews, particularly those from the U.S. and Russia, have spent extended periods aboard the International Space Station.
Yes, national self-interest endures. For years, Russian Soyuz rockets helped ferry NASA astronauts up to the ISS, and our crews weren't paying for their tickets in miles. The price per seat was $22 million in 2006, jumped to $43 million in 2011, as the shuttle program was winding down, and is now $71 million—a price we have no choice but to pay if we want to get Americans into space at all. Hey, back in the bad old days we argued that Russia would do better under capitalism; well, this is how capitalist countries behave.
It's true too that while the world applauded the U.S. moon landings, there wasn't a Frenchman or Russian or Turk alive who wouldn't have preferred seeing a lunar astronaut saluting the tricolor or the hammer and sickle or the star and crescent instead of the stars and stripes. And if China beats us back to the moon or even on to Mars, we'll gnash our teeth too.
But space travel is inherently an enterprise that knows no national identities. It is an old but no less apt observation that astronauts can't see borders from space. That doesn't stop the rest of us from drawing them—in Crimea and Kurdistan and the West Bank and anywhere else we decide to fight with the folks next door. If we ever stop doing that—grow out of our stay-on-your-side-of-the-line! impulses—the experience will be a novel one for the species, or at least most of the species. Spacemen and spacewomen and the folks who send them aloft have already had a taste of it. By all accounts, they like it just fine.
NASA Budget Justification Details Delays, Descopes and Cancellations
Dan Leone – Space News
NASA is proposing to pull the plug on the 10-year-old Mars Opportunity rover, drop a space station resupply flight from next year's launch manifest, scale back several space technology projects and likely delay the overbudget ICESat-2 mission as it seeks to make ends meet within the confines of the $17.5 billion budget the agency requested for 2015.
These and other details were revealed March 11 in a 700-page budget justification document released a week after NASA publicly unveiled its budget request for the 2015 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Here are the highlights.
Space Operations
- NASA said it will eliminate one planned commercial cargo mission to the international space station from its fiscal year 2015 flight manifest, which covers missions scheduled between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015.
The mission, NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto wrote in a March 11 email, "is not one of the 20 flights on the existing task order" that Orbital Sciences Corp. and SpaceX are fulfilling for the agency through 2016 under Commercial Resupply Services contracts worth a combined $3.5 billion. "The flight is beyond the current manifest."
Earth Science
- NASA is overhauling its cost and schedule estimates for the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat)-2, which the agency said in December was likely to exceed its estimated $559 million development budget by at least 15 percent because of technical difficulties with its only instrument, the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System.
The expected breach triggered a mandatory report to Congress, which was delivered Jan. 29 but not publicly released.
As recently as October, IceSat-2 was slated to launch by mid-2017 aboard a Delta 2 rocket. That date is expected to slip as NASA establishes a new baseline for the mission — a replanning effort the NASA's budget justification says will be completed by Sept. 30.
- NASA is halting development of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 instrument that was to launch to the international space station in 2016. The agency "expects other missions to provide sufficient data on atmospheric carbon levels," according to the budget document.
- Delivery of the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment-3 to the ISS will be delayed from August to March 2016 because of a holdup with the payload's European Space Agency-provided pointing system.
Astrophysics
- NASA's budget justification expands on the reasons it gave the week of March 4 for canceling the $1.1 billion Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, saying the telescope-equipped jetliner's "contributions to astronomical science will be significantly less than originally envisioned." Grounding the observatory would save the agency about $85 million a year, NASA said.
Planetary Science
- The Opportunity Mars rover, the longest-lasting of two identical rovers that landed on the red planet in 2004, would be shut down in 2015, according to NASA's budget justification.
Space Technology
- NASA has delayed launch of its Sunjammer solar sail demonstration mission indefinitely, pending a review. The mission was supposed to fly as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slated to launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite for the Air Force in 2015.
- A planned space flight demonstration of cryogenic propellant storage has been canceled but ground-based demonstration efforts will continue on the ground, NASA said. Orbiting propellant depots have been cited by NASA as an enabling technology for deep-space missions.
- A laser communications relay demonstration has hopes to fly as soon as 2017 a hosted payload on an unspecified commercial communications satellite built by Space Systems/Loral is hurting for funds and NASA will be looking to industry to help defray cost.
General: Too soon to say SpaceX ready for military
Shelton: 'Big difference' between secret satellites, cargo
James Dean – Florida Today
Launches of NASA cargo to the International Space Station, including one planned early Sunday, don't guarantee SpaceX is ready to launch military satellites, the head of Air Force Space Command said Tuesday in Cape Canaveral.
If a rocket failed, the loss of a national security satellite potentially worth more than $1.5 billion would be a bigger setback than losing food, clothing and other station supplies, Gen. William Shelton told the National Space Club Florida Committee.
"So there's a big difference," he said.
Shelton focused his speech on the need for Space Command and the nation to address threats to spacecraft that are essential to virtually all military operations, and to improve those systems amid tighter budgets.
In response to a question, he discussed the process underway to introduce competition for military launches now performed exclusively by United Launch Alliance.
Shelton referenced SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's comment, during a congressional hearing on the subject last week, that it made no sense that SpaceX rockets could be good enough for NASA but not the Air Force.
"National security payloads have to get there, and we have to make sure we've done due diligence on the part of the government to make sure that that rocket is going to deliver that safely and reliably to orbit," Shelton said.
The Air Force has credited SpaceX for one of the three successful launches it must achieve to earn the opportunity to compete for a limited number of military launches in the coming years. Two more launches are under review.
SpaceX is targeting a 4:41 a.m. Sunday launch from Cape Canaveral of a Dragon capsule to the station, its third of 12 under a $1.6 billion NASA resupply contract.
Shelton also praised ULA for an "unprecedented" run of 68 successful national security launches. Statistically speaking it's time for a launch failure, he said, but launch teams treat every mission as if it is the first.
"At the end of the day, competition is a good thing, so we'll see where this goes," he said.
Shelton said space is deeply embedded in everything the military does, but more nations than ever can operate in space and U.S. satellites face increasing threats, from strikes by orbital debris to attacks.
Attacks could range from jammed GPS signals to a telescope blinded by a laser to detonation of a nuclear device that "fries the electronics of everything nearby, and over time it fries the electronics of everything in orbit," Shelton told reporters after his speech.
"We see people working on technologies that would take advantage of all those things," he said. "It's greatly concerning."
Shelton outlined steps being taken to improve orbital debris tracking and knowledge of what other spacecraft are up to in geosynchronous orbit, where many of the most essential U.S. spacecraft fly.
A new program declassified last month will act as what he called a "neighborhood watch program" in that region of space. Its first pair of satellites are expected to launch from the Cape later this year.
Meanwhile, he said the Air Force is embarking on important studies of ways to reduce military space systems' costs and vulnerability, changes that could be implemented by the mid-2020s.
Those changes could include spreading sensors across multiple spacecraft instead concentrating them on a single large, expensive vehicle; developing smaller, simpler satellites; and sharing space on commercial or international partner satellites.
"We as a nation have to decide how we're going to respond to the threats that we see coming down the pike in space," he said. "It's a very complex and increasingly contested environment, and we've got to respond."
END
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