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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: March 19, 2014 11:24:23 AM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Wednesday – March 19, 2014 and JSC Today

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

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JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Headlines -  Women's History Month Closing Panel Discussion -  Window of Opportunity Closes on Windows XP April 8 -  May 2014 AAPI Heritage Month - Nomination Call-Out -  Physics in the Movie 'Gravity' Part V Organizations/Social -  O&A Tribute to Sally Ride - LOCATION CHANGE -  Parenting and the Special Needs Child -  Parent's Night Out at Starport - March 21 -  Starport's Spring Fest: Fun, Shopping, Crawfish -  Starport Youth Karate Classes - Free Class April 5 Jobs and Training -  Houston Technology Center Lunch-and-Learn Community -  Applications Being Accepted for Scholarship

NASA Releases First Interactive Mosaic of Lunar North Pole

 

Headlines Women's History Month Closing Panel Discussion Join a dynamic panel discussion with four dedicated JSC executives and professional leaders (Lauri Hansen, Karen Jackson, Dot Swanson and Vanessa Wyche) who play a vital role at JSC in demonstrating their character, courage and commitment as business and community leaders, CFO, collaborators, directors, educators, engineers, federal employees, innovators, managers, mentors, mothers, partners, peacemakers, scientists, sisters, spouses and visionaries. Their lives and work inspire others to achieve their full potential and encourage all to respect the diversity and depth of women's experience. The panel will address gender uniqueness and provide concrete tools for women to maintain them at every level of their careers. Raising awareness among stakeholders to highlight their character, support their courage and strengthen their commitment will directly influence sustainable and inclusive growth of women at JSC. This event is hosted by the JSC Women's History Month planning committee. To print the 2014 Women's History Month poster, please click here. Event Date: Thursday, March 27, 2014   Event Start Time:11:00 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM Event Location: Building 1, Room 966 Add to Calendar JSC Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity x30607 http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oeod/ [top] Window of Opportunity Closes on Windows XP April 8 Effective April 8, Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP. Microsoft warns that users of computer systems running unsupported software are exposed to an elevated risk of cyber security dangers such as malicious attacks or electronic data loss. Now is the time for XP users to open a new window. Do I have Windows XP? 1. Click Start (Windows icon bottom left) 2. Select Control Panel 3. Click System 4. Look under section titled "Windows Edition" 5. If this section shows Windows XP - then you have XP --OR-- 1. Click Start (Windows icon bottom left) 2. Click Run 3. Type winver and then press Enter. How do I get rid of it? Contact your organization's IT point of contact to discuss options. What if I need to keep it? You must contact the organization IT point of contact IMMEDIATELY. For additional information, contact Jannet Johnson. JSC-IRD-Outreach x36394 [top] May 2014 AAPI Heritage Month - Nomination Call-Out May 2014 Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month's theme is "Diverse Leadership + Expanding Opportunity: An Imperative for America." The theme reflects the critical role of diversity leadership in the multicultural mosaic in American and the contributions of AAPIs. We would like to highlight several JSC/White Sands Test Facility AAPI employees whose character, courage and commitment have helped shape them into the people they are today, and whose stories serve as an inspiration to others. Please submit your nomination or self-nomination for consideration to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity via email by Monday, March 31. Please include nominee's name, organization, job title and why you nominate the individual or yourself in 300 words or less. If selected, the stories will be highlighted in JSC Features! JSC Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity x30607 http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oeod/ [top] Physics in the Movie 'Gravity' Part V Hatches on spacecraft open inward, not outward, as shown a few times in the movie. We use the air pressure inside to help keep the hatches closed. Did you know we have an investigation aboard the International Space Station that detects high-frequency sounds that might be associated with leaks around hatches (or elsewhere)? Read about the Ultrasonic Background Noise Test investigation. Liz Warren x35548 [top]    Organizations/Social O&A Tribute to Sally Ride - LOCATION CHANGE To accommodate more attendees, the location has changed to Building, 1 Room 360. Please join the Out & Allied Employee Resource Group as we pay tribute to astronaut Sally Ride this Wednesday at noon as part of the JSC 2014 Women's History Month theme of "Women of Character, Courage and Commitment." As a special treat, astronaut Anna Fisher will open with her personal reflections of working with Ride as a fellow astronaut from the class of 1978 and a pioneer woman in space as well. There will be a several short videos reflecting on Ride's career in America's space program, as well as her efforts to promote science, technology, engineering and math. We will also highlighting other accomplished LGBT women scientists who have greatly contributed to our understanding of space. Following the presentation, there will be homemade refreshments. Feel free to bring your lunch. Event Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM Event Location: Building 1 Room 360 Add to Calendar Robert Hanley x48654 https://collaboration.ndc.nasa.gov/iierg/LGBTA/SitePages/Home.aspx [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. Event Date: Wednesday, March 19, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium Add to Calendar Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program x36130 [top] Parent's Night Out at Starport - March 21 Enjoy a night out on the town while your kids enjoy a night with Starport! We will entertain your children with a night of games, crafts, a bounce house, pizza, a movie, dessert and loads of fun. When: Friday, March 21, from 6 to 10 p.m. Where: Gilruth Center Ages: 5 to 12 Cost: $20/first child and $10/each additional sibling if registered by the Wednesday prior to event. If registered after Wednesday, the fee is $25/first child and $15/additional sibling. Shericka Phillips x35563 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/familyyouth-programs/parents-n... [top] Starport's Spring Fest: Fun, Shopping, Crawfish On April 19, Starport will have one big spring event at the Gilruth Center. Bring the kiddos out for our Children's Spring Fling, complete with a bounce house, face painting, petting zoo, Easter egg hunt and hot dog lunch! Tickets are on sale in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops, Gilruth Center and online. Tickets are for children 18 months  to 12 years old who will be participating in activities and having lunch. Adults do not need a ticket. Tickets are $8 each through April 11, or $10 the day of. Plus, be sure to do some shopping at our outdoor flea market for some hidden treasures and great finds! Then visit our indoor craft fair for homemade crafts and goodies. Plus, enjoy some tasty mudbugs at our crawfish boil. The cost is $7 per pound with corn and potatoes. Hot dogs, chips and drinks will also be available. More information can be found here. Event Date: Saturday, April 19, 2014   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:2:00 PM Event Location: Gilruth Center Add to Calendar Shelly Haralson x39168 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Starport Youth Karate Classes - Free Class April 5 Let Starport introduce your child to the exciting art of Youth Karate. Youth Karate will teach your child the skills of self-defense, self-discipline and self-confidence. The class will also focus on leadership, healthy competition and sportsmanship. TRY A FREE CLASS ON APRIL 5! Please call the Gilruth Center front desk to sign your child up for the free class (only 25 available spots). Five-week session: April 12 to May 17 (No class April 19.) Saturdays: 10 to 10:45 a.m. Ages: 6 to 12 Cost: $75 | $20 Drop-in rate Register online or at the Gilruth Center. Shericka Phillips x35563 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/familyyouth-programs/youth-karate [top]    Jobs and Training Houston Technology Center Lunch-and-Learn 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 in the 1958 Collaboration Center Conference Room, Building 35, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. this Thursday and for the next seven Thursdays for a series of lectures on how to launch, fund and sustain a new business. Event Date: Thursday, March 20, 2014   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM Event Location: Building 35, 1958 Conference Room Add to Calendar Evelyn Boatman x48271 [top]    Community 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 quickly approaching! It's March 31. Amanda Gaspard x31387 [top]

 

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 19, 2014

 

NASA TV (all times are Central): www.nasa.gov/ntv

1 p.m. CT - Video File of the ISS Expedition 39/40 Crew Activities in Baikonur, Kazakhstan

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Nelson says U.S. sanctions against Russia should not hit space station

 

Scott Powers – Orlando Sentinel

 

CAPE CANAVERAL – Russian action in Ukraine and American retaliatory sanctions are unlikely to have any impact on U.S.-Russian cooperation in space, particularly involving the international space station, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson predicted Tuesday.

 

Nelson: U.S.-Russian cooperation in space will continue

 

James Dean – Florida Today

 

U.S.-Russian cooperation in space will continue despite escalating political tensions over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said today at Kennedy Space Center. "I think you will not see a hitch in the American and the Russian space program that we share with a lot of other nations as well," Nelson told reporters.

 

Amid Ukraine Crisis, Key Senator Urges Plan B for Space

 

Jay Barbree - NBC News

 

As relations between the United States and Russia deteriorate due to the crisis in Ukraine, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is calling attention to concerns about the two nations' joint venture on the International Space Station. Nelson, who flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986 and now chairs the Senate's subcommittee on science and space policy, said the situation in Ukraine illustrates why it's "vital" for NASA to support the development of U.S. commercial spaceships.

 

Musk Jab at Competitor Underscores U.S. Space Reliance on Russia

 

Kathleen Miller & Jonathan Salant - Bloomberg News

 

Chief executive officers ordinarily don't trash talk their competitors in front of Congress. Elon Musk is no ordinary CEO. The billionaire wants to break into a $70 billion Pentagon satellite launch market monopolized by a Lockheed Martin Corp.- Boeing Co. joint venture. Testifying before U.S. lawmakers on March 5, he warned that the team's dependence on Russian rocket engines poses supply risks.

 

Ground, Space Station Tests Paving Way for Robotic Satellite Servicing

 

Irene Klotz - Space News

 

NASA is abandoning plans to robotically refuel a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellite in orbit, but is continuing ground-based technology development and in-flight testing aboard the international space station to prepare for future exploration initiatives and for partnerships with commercial satellite operators.

 

Why Trapping Somebody In Space Only Takes A Breeze (And Other Highlights From Expedition 40)

 

Elizaeth Howell – Universe Today

 

Imagine that you were in the middle of a module on the International Space Station. Floating in mid-air, far from handholds or any way to propel yourself. Is there any way to get out of that situation? The short answer is not easily, and the longer answer is it could be an effective way to trap criminals in space, joked veteran cosmonaut Maxim Suraev in a press conference today (March 18) for the upcoming Expedition 40/41 mission, which also includes rookies Alex Gerst and Reid Wiseman.

 

Before Astronauts Go to Space, a Bouquet for Those Who Never Came Home

 

Colin Daleida – Mashable

 

When the space shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986, it shook the space exploration industry to its core. Ever since that flight, two Dallas, Texas, families have sent roses to NASA's mission control in Houston every time an astronaut is about to head into space. On Tuesday, another bouquet arrived.

 

Syria has set up a space agency

 

Terri Rupar – Washington Post

 

The Syrian news agency announced Tuesday that the cabinet approved a bill creating the Syrian Space Agency, "a public body of a scientific research nature."

 

The Tiny Satellites That Could Have Found the Missing Plane Within Hours

 

Mashable

 

VANCOUVER, Canada — Had Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared just a few weeks later, we may have been able to find it in a matter of hours. A company called Planet Labs is in the process of activating a squadron of tiny satellites that they released from the International Space Station last month. These compact satellites will orbit Earth, snapping images of nearly every inch of our planet. As Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield pointed out, they may have filled the blind spots of the satellites that failed to keep up with the plane after it lost contact.

 

Live from Space and Cosmos: did the Earth move for you?

 

The Guardian

 

In lists of television's most memorable images, America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) generally claims three spots: the pictures of the first Moon landing in 1969, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the videos of Mars sent back by Nasa's Viking craft in the 1970s.

 

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Nelson says U.S. sanctions against Russia should not hit space station

 

Scott Powers – Orlando Sentinel

 

CAPE CANAVERAL – Russian action in Ukraine and American retaliatory sanctions are unlikely to have any impact on U.S.-Russian cooperation in space, particularly involving the international space station, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson predicted Tuesday.

 

After being briefed by NASA officials at Kennedy Space Center Tuesday afternoon and drawing from previous intelligence briefings he has received in the Senate, Nelson said he hears no one talking about any threats to the space station, or to the rides on Russian Soyuz spacecraft that American astronauts currently need to to and from there.

 

Meeting with reporters at Kennedy Space Center, Nelson compared the sanctity of space cooperation with how the countries managed during the Cold War, such as the 1975 cooperative Apollo-Soyuz mission of American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts.

 

America must cooperate because its next program to carry astronauts – the commercial crew program involving private companies SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Boeing and Blue Origin – will not be ready until 2017. Nelson said proper congressional funding and incentives could accelerate that to 2016.

 

"Amen, brother," he said when asked if he was advocating that earlier target.

 

Nelson condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin as "an old KGB officer wanting to see the old Soviet empire in its glory again."

 

And the senator said he thinks Putin has designs not only on the Crimea peninsula of Ukraine, which Russia invaded two weeks ago, but the rest of Ukraine. Nelson called for increased economic sanctions and said he would support military aid to Ukraine if needed.

 

Nelson: U.S.-Russian cooperation in space will continue

 

James Dean – Florida Today

 

U.S.-Russian cooperation in space will continue despite escalating political tensions over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said today at Kennedy Space Center.

 

"I think you will not see a hitch in the American and the Russian space program that we share with a lot of other nations as well," Nelson told reporters.

A member of the Senate Armed Services committee and head of the subcommittee that oversees NASA policy, Nelson said Russia can't operate its portion of the International Space Station without U.S. power and communication systems, so would not suddenly deny NASA astronauts rides to the station in Soyuz spacecraft.

He advocated fully funding President Obama's request for nearly $850 million in 2015 to advance development of commercial rockets and spacecraft that would end U.S. reliance of Russia for human access to orbit.

Nelson cited the 1975 orbital rendezvous between U.S. and Soviet crews in space, during the height of the Cold War, as evidence that the current crisis is unlikely to disrupt the two nations' longstanding relationship in space.

"Even though (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would like to do everything he can to gain advantage and re-impose a Russian empire, I think it's pretty clear that the cooperation in space will continue," he said.

 

Amid Ukraine Crisis, Key Senator Urges Plan B for Space

 

Jay Barbree - NBC News

 

As relations between the United States and Russia deteriorate due to the crisis in Ukraine, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., is calling attention to concerns about the two nations' joint venture on the International Space Station.

 

Nelson, who flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986 and now chairs the Senate's subcommittee on science and space policy, said the situation in Ukraine illustrates why it's "vital" for NASA to support the development of U.S. commercial spaceships.

 

"We've got to properly fund and support commercial spaceflight so we can keep our space program alive and well, no matter happens with Russia," Nelson said in a statement late Monday.

 

Since America's shuttle fleet was grounded in 2011, Russia has been flying U.S. astronauts to and from the International outpost at a cost of up to $70 million per seat. If Russia should suddenly refuse to fly Americans there, the United States could be without the means to keep astronauts aboard the $100 billion-plus outpost.

 

In 2010, retired senator-astronaut John Glenn literally begged President Barack Obama not to ground the space shuttles and leave American astronauts at Russia's mercy. Glenn's fears could now be coming home to roost.

 

The quickest solution would be to accelerate efforts to upgrade SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft so it can ferry astronauts to and from the station. Some feel that could be done within two years.

 

NASA's current plan calls for commercial spaceships, potentially including SpaceX's Dragon, to start flying astronauts by 2017 — but that timetable is dependent on funding. The Obama administration is seeking $848 million for the commercial crew program for fiscal 2015, which would be an increase from the current year's level of $696 million.

 

In addition to the commercial program, NASA is spending billions on a more powerful Space Launch System for exploration beyond Earth orbit.

 

Musk Jab at Competitor Underscores U.S. Space Reliance on Russia

 

Kathleen Miller & Jonathan Salant - Bloomberg News

 

Chief executive officers ordinarily don't trash talk their competitors in front of Congress. Elon Musk is no ordinary CEO.

 

The billionaire wants to break into a $70 billion Pentagon satellite launch market monopolized by a Lockheed Martin Corp.- Boeing Co. joint venture. Testifying before U.S. lawmakers on March 5, he warned that the team's dependence on Russian rocket engines poses supply risks.

 

Musk's remarks underlined concerns about U.S. reliance on Russia in space, which have been heightened by the crisis in Ukraine. More than four decades after landing the first man on the moon, the U.S. finds itself in a humble position: It pays Russia for rides to the International Space Station and uses its engines to launch military and spy satellites.

 

"We won the race and then didn't know what the heck to do with ourselves," said Chris Quilty, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Florida. "The U.S. space program has been floundering literally for the past 30 years without a discreet purpose."

 

Musk, 42, owner of Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and co-founder of electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc., has highlighted those lapses.

 

"It's just kind of embarrassing that the United States has to thumb rides from the Russians," he said in a Bloomberg Television interview earlier this month.

 

Ukraine Tensions

 

As the Ukraine conflict intensified, Musk told a Senate subcommittee that Pentagon satellite launches by United Launch Alliance LLC, the venture of Chicago-based Boeing and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, might be at risk under U.S. sanctions against Russia.

 

President Barack Obama yesterday imposed sanctions on 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials, selecting figures close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He warned that Russia will face more penalties if it doesn't pull back from Crimea.

 

Musk recommended that the U.S. phase out the alliance's Atlas V Rocket, which uses the Russian engines, for the "long- term security interest of the country." His rockets, he said, are completely made in the U.S.

 

Space Exploration Technologies, known as SpaceX, is one of several companies trying to fill the void created after the U.S. retired its shuttle fleet in 2011 and began depending on Russia and other countries to ferry astronauts and supplies to the space station.

 

Cargo Runs

 

In 2012, SpaceX became the first to dock a private supply ship at the space station, and it is now making regular cargo runs under a $1.6 billion contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Its ambitions include developing a vehicle capable of transporting astronauts and getting a piece of United Launch Alliance's military work.

 

There's little chance that tensions over Ukraine will affect the space station, because the U.S., Russia and other countries rely on each other to keep things running, argued one industry group spokesman.

 

"There's an ongoing cooperation there that's separate and apart from any other things that are going on in the world," said Dan Stohr, a spokesman for the Aerospace Industries Association, an Arlington, Virginia-based trade group.

 

Last year, NASA agreed to pay Russia $424 million to ferry six crew members to the space station in 2016 and provide related services, according to an agency press release.

 

"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," Trent Perrotto, an agency spokesman, said in an e-mail.

 

Pentagon Review

 

NASA may award contracts this year to U.S. companies to transport crew to the station by 2017, "ending our sole reliance on Russia to get into space," he said.

 

The dependence on Russian engines may be a bigger issue.

 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a congressional panel last week that Russia's actions will lead the Pentagon to review the use of Russian-made engines on Atlas V rockets.

 

United Launch Alliance wound up using Russia's engines because they were more advanced and cheaper than what was available in the U.S., Michael Gass, chief executive officer of the joint venture, told senators during the subcommittee hearing on March 5. Those engines are employed in one of two rockets used for military satellite launches.

 

"We have kind of fallen behind in advanced technology," Gass said. "When we went to Russia, there were things that they were doing," he added, that "our textbooks said was impossible."

 

Engine Blueprints

 

Even if Russia stopped exporting the engines, the venture has enough of them for at least two years of launches and has blueprints to build more if necessary, he said.

 

It might not be possible to domestically produce the engines fast enough to "avoid a gap in the rocket's availability," analyst Quilty said.

 

The Boeing-Lockheed venture isn't the only U.S. contractor turning to Russian rocket engines.

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. uses them to power its Antares rocket for cargo runs to the space station. The company doesn't expect disruptions, said Barron Beneski, a spokesman for the Dulles, Virginia-based company. He said there are enough of the engines in stock to handle all the missions into 2015.

 

'Held Hostage'

 

Two companies vying with SpaceX for a NASA commercial crew program -- Boeing and Sparks, Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corp. - - may also find themselves relying on Russian engines, because of their plans to use Atlas V rockets, said Marcia Smith, a former director of the space studies board at the National Research Council and now editor of Arlington, Virginia-based spacepolicyonline.com.

 

Even so, mutual dependencies in space may make this one area that's immune to disagreements on the ground.

 

"The Russians are making money off these sales," said Marco Caceres of the Fairfax, Virginia-based Teal Group. "It would make sense from a political standpoint to snub us, but from a financial standpoint, it's not so good."

 

Ground, Space Station Tests Paving Way for Robotic Satellite Servicing

 

Irene Klotz - Space News

 

NASA is abandoning plans to robotically refuel a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellite in orbit, but is continuing ground-based technology development and in-flight testing aboard the international space station to prepare for future exploration initiatives and for partnerships with commercial satellite operators.

 

A second set of Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) tests is scheduled to begin this year following the arrival of new tools for the station's Canadian-built Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator robot this summer.

 

Last month, the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland guided a robotic arm 1,300 kilometers away at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida through a series of demonstrations to transfer nitrogen tetroxide — a highly toxic, corrosive and explosive oxidizer typically used in satellite propellant — through a standard satellite fuel valve.

 

"On RRM, we tackled the hard things early on, like cutting of tape, cutting of little tiny lock wires, removing two different size caps and then connecting up a refueling tool and transferring simulated propellant," project manager Benjamin Reed said.

 

The first set of RRM tests on the station, conducted between March 2012 and January 2013, used ethanol, which has a similar viscosity and density to nitrogen tetroxide and monomethylhydrazine fuel but is much safer to work with. The equipment was operated at a much lower pressure, roughly 50 psi rather than the 250 to 300 psi that would be needed to refuel satellites in orbit.

 

The Remote Robotic Oxidizer Transfer Test at Kennedy tackled both of those elements and demonstrated three different ways to move fuel — via pump, pressure and bellows.

 

"In particular, the pump was really difficult. No one had an oxidizer pump that we could use in our test, so we had to work with a small company to develop this new technology," Reed said. "That added difficulty to the test but was absolutely necessary to prepare for ordinary refueling."

 

The ground-based refueling test, which spanned about two weeks in February, was intended to replicate the on-orbit refueling process as closely as possible.

 

"We don't want to practice transferring 7 grams [of fuel] on the ground when on orbit we'd be transferring 700 kilograms. That wouldn't be a very realistic test. So we tried to think of all the operational details one would need on orbit and fold those in the test," Reed said.

 

The next phase of RRM aboard the station will focus on other satellite repair and servicing technologies, not necessarily refueling. Equipment to be tested includes a snake-like visual inspection tool called Vipir. The device, which is about the size of a toaster, is tipped with an extendable, articulating teleoperated video camera that can be bent up and down and turned left and right for 360-degree visual imaging.

 

"If you needed to look around a corner or insert under a spacecraft blanket to see if maybe a micrometeoroid or orbital debris strike put a hole in structure, or if you were looking for a loose wire or a bent pin, or FOD [debris] inside a connector or a screw hole, it has the ability to do very detailed, close-up inspection work," Reed said.

 

NASA had hoped to demonstrate its satellite servicing technology by refueling NOAA's GOES-12 weather satellite, but the spacecraft was decommissioned in August 2013.

 

"There just wasn't time to get everything in order," Reed said, adding that NASA is not looking for another government satellite to refuel although it is investigating potential future joint missions with commercial satellite operators.

 

"The charge that the Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office has been given is to develop as a robust a suite of on-orbit capabilities as possible to give the agency — and by extension the larger domestic aerospace industry — options in orbit," Reed said.

 

In addition to servicing satellites, the technologies being developed would give future astronauts traveling to and from Mars options for robotic inspection, maintenance and repair of their spacecraft. NASA also is studying if the technology could be used to snare a boulder from a rubble pile-type of asteroid and relocate it into high lunar orbit for a planned human precursor mission around 2025.

 

"I think there are flight missions that are tantalizingly close," Reed said.

 

Whether the first robotic in-space servicing call is to a satellite in geostationary orbit, a satellite in low Earth orbit, an asteroid or somewhere else, "my job," Reed said, "is to make sure the agency is prepared for any or all of those possible outcomes."

 

Why Trapping Somebody In Space Only Takes A Breeze (And Other Highlights From Expedition 40)

 

Elizaeth Howell – Universe Today

 

Imagine that you were in the middle of a module on the International Space Station. Floating in mid-air, far from handholds or any way to propel yourself. Is there any way to get out of that situation?

 

The short answer is not easily, and the longer answer is it could be an effective way to trap criminals in space, joked veteran cosmonaut Maxim Suraev in a press conference today (March 18) for the upcoming Expedition 40/41 mission, which also includes rookies Alex Gerst and Reid Wiseman.

 

Speaking in Russian, Suraev explained that during his last 2010 mission, he had crew members set him up in the middle of the station's Node 3. "It is true that you can twist as much as a contortionist, but you won't be able to move because you have nothing to bear against," he said in remarks translated into English.

 

That said, the ventilation system on station does tend to push objects (and people) towards the vents after a time, he observed. What if you had multiple vents set up, however?

 

"I thought that if ever we have a permanent human habitation in space, this would be the best way to keep a person confined — like in a prison — in the middle of the room, where he or she could not move anywhere," Suraev continued. "Being in limbo, as you will. The only thing that is required is a large room, a person and several fans blowing in different directions to keep the person in the middle of the room. That's scary, trust me!"

 

The crew (who lifts off in May) will have an action-packed mission. It will include the arrival of the last Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and — if NASA fixes on a spacesuit leak allow — two American maintenance spacewalks. There also are 162 experiments to perform (this according to Gerst) and if there's time, checking out our home planet.

 

"Earth observation was not one of the primary goals that [station] was designed for," he cautioned in a phone interview, but he added that one of its strengths is there are people on board the orbiting laboratory that can fill in the gaps for other missions.

 

Gerst (who was a volcano researcher before becoming an astronaut) pointed out that if a volcano erupts, a typical Earth satellite would look straight down at it. Astronauts can swing around in the Cupola and get different views quickly, which could allow scientists to measure things such as the volcano plume height.

 

Another example of flexibility: The Expedition 39 crew right now is (news reports say) helping out with the search for the missing Malaysian Airline Flight 370.

 

"We're really good at capturing things quickly and then sending the  pictures down to the ground," Gerst said.

 

Wiseman, as one of the rookies on mission, says he is interested in comparing the experience to his multi-month Navy missions at sea. It's all a matter of mindset, he said in a phone interview. He once was assigned to a naval voyage that was expected to be at sea for six months. Then they were instructed it would be 10 months, leading to fistfights and other problems on board, he recalled.

 

Astronauts for the forthcoming one-year mission to station, he pointed out, will launch with different expectations than someone expecting about a six-month stay. "If you know you're up there for one year, you're going to pace yourself for one year," he said.

 

But there still will be sacrifices, as Wiseman has two daughters (five years old and eight years old). He's asking the older child to do a bit of social media, and the younger one to draw pictures that could be included in the "care packages" astronauts receive from Earth. "It's going to be tough not to see them on a daily basis. They grow so fast," he said.

 

Other things to watch for on this mission include the arrival of the station's first 3-D printer, setup of an alloy furnace to make new materials in microgravity, and a potential Wiseman-led "come out and wave campaign" that would encourage families to go outside and tweet about the space station as they watch it.

 

You can follow Expedition 40/41′s continuing adventures at Universe Today as well as on social media: @astro_reid for Wiseman, and for Gerst, @astro_alex or his Facebook page.

 

Before Astronauts Go to Space, a Bouquet for Those Who Never Came Home

 

Colin Daleida – Mashable

 

When the space shuttle Challenger exploded on Jan. 28, 1986, it shook the space exploration industry to its core. Ever since that flight, two Dallas, Texas, families have sent roses to NASA's mission control in Houston every time an astronaut is about to head into space. On Tuesday, another bouquet arrived.

 

The families always include a rose of a similar color for each astronaut about to take off, as well as a single white rose in remembrance of everyone who has died in the name of space exploration.

 

See also: Eye Candy for Space Geeks: 38 Stunning Photos From 'Cosmos'

 

NASA didn't immediately respond to a request for some more information about the families who send the roses, but in the video below, NASA public affairs officer Josh Byerly calls them the Murphy and Shelton families. They've been shipping roses to Houston before every flight since the STS-26 shuttle launch in 1988.

 

"The crews of Challenger and Columbia and Apollo 1 and everyone else are remembered each and every time these bouquets arrive here in mission control," Byerly said in the video, referring to the astronauts who died in those missions.

 

Three red roses arrived this time, one each for astronauts Steve Swanson, Oleg Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov, all of whom will take off from inside Soyuz 38 on March 25, from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. From there, they'll head to the International Space Station.

 

"We're big on tradition here at NASA," Byerly said. "And we're very happy this tradition continues."

 

Syria has set up a space agency

 

Terri Rupar – Washington Post

 

The Syrian news agency announced Tuesday that the cabinet approved a bill creating the Syrian Space Agency, "a public body of a scientific research nature."

 

Countries don't have to have the money and resources of the United States or Russia to mount a space program. India launched an unmanned orbiter to Mars in November for just $74 million, for example. Nigeria has a national space agency. So does Ukraine. And Syria didn't say what its space program is doing.  But the announcement comes just days after the third anniversary of a conflict that has killed more than 140,000 and created 2.5 million refugees.

 

The Tiny Satellites That Could Have Found the Missing Plane Within Hours

 

Mashable

 

VANCOUVER, Canada — Had Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared just a few weeks later, we may have been able to find it in a matter of hours.

 

A company called Planet Labs is in the process of activating a squadron of tiny satellites that they released from the International Space Station last month. These compact satellites will orbit Earth, snapping images of nearly every inch of our planet. As Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield pointed out, they may have filled the blind spots of the satellites that failed to keep up with the plane after it lost contact.

 

"Just tracking one, thin aluminum tube in a place that isn't heavily radar covered [is] really hard — virtually impossible," Hadfield, an experienced pilot himself, told Mashable shortly after his talk at the TED conference in Vancouver on Monday. "It is not a surprise to me at all how easy it is to make something that big disappear. The world is huge." "It is not a surprise to me at all how easy it is to make something that big disappear. The world is huge."

 

Planet Labs, which was founded in 2010 by three former NASA physicists, could have been the answer because their satellites will cover areas that are sometimes overlooked with current satellites — like, say the Indian Ocean — which tend to focus on specific tasks or zones with more activity.

 

The compact satellites — called "Doves" — will work together to take overlapping images and beam them back to Earth immediately, giving us a complete view of our planet in real time. They will live in low orbit, and their main purpose will be measuring the planet's environmental changes, though their mountains of data could be applied in many other instances, like finding a missing plane perhaps.

 

Flock-Release

Two Earth-imaging satellites were released from the International Space Station on Feb. 11. Called Doves, these are the first of 28 satellites in Flock 1.

 

Although the company launched 28 of these satellites in February, they aren't yet active. Plus, total coverage won't be possible until all 100 satellites are deployed, and the company just secured another round of funding this week to make that happen within 12 months. It will eventually be the largest satellite constellation in history, providing paying clients with information about the planet. When Mashable asked the Planet Labs' team how this information would be used in an extraordinary situation like Flight 370, they remained mum on details.

 

"We are turning on each of the satellites and are now putting them into position," the spokesperson said. "With this constellation, we will measure the planet on a more regular basis to enable various applications. One of those applications is disaster response, including natural and man-made disasters."

 

The spokesperson declined to give more details. However, she said the company will announce something "in the near future" that "will answer these questions." Planet Labs founder Will Marshall is set to give his TED Talk on Thursday in Vancouver, where he is expected to discuss his company's satellites and the status of their activation. Furthermore, Marshall met with Hadfield earlier this week, before the astronaut mentioned Planet Labs to Mashable on Monday.

 

More than 11 days after it vanished without warning, the world still has no clue what happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which was carrying 239 people. More than 20 countries are now actively involved in the search for the plane.

 

The total search area has since expanded to nearly 3 million square miles — a huge mass for any human to cover by sea or air. It only seems natural to turn to the many satellites that hover above our atmosphere in search of answers.

 

NASA has satellites in orbit that track events like heat flashes, but those failed to provide any clues. The agency's MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) satellite, for example, tracks wildfires. So, had MH370 crashed and burned, it seems like this satellite should have seen it. However, the problem is its location.

 

"They are polar orbiters and would have had to be viewing the exact place and time where the airplane was in order to detect any heat from an explosion — if that's what happened," David J. Diner, senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Mashable via email.

 

What about the cameras on the ISS? Did they see anything? According to Hadfield, the timing would have had to been perfect in order to capture MH370. That's nearly impossible when you consider that the space station travels at 5 miles per second and speeds over the entire Pacific Ocean in just 25 minutes.

 

The Chinese government said last week that it would use its satellites to find the missing plane, which was traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and carrying a lot of Chinese passengers. However, a photo array the country released last week that reportedly showed debris from the aircraft turned out to be yet another false lead in the ongoing saga of the still-unsolved Malaysia Airlines mystery.

 

"Obviously something fast and deliberate happened to that airplane," Hadfield said. "The real question is what."

 

Live from Space and Cosmos: did the Earth move for you?

 

The Guardian

 

In lists of television's most memorable images, America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) generally claims three spots: the pictures of the first Moon landing in 1969, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the videos of Mars sent back by Nasa's Viking craft in the 1970s.

 

Despite this, space has disappeared from TV schedules for long periods. Star Trek in the US and Doctor Who in the UK, the two most celebrated extra-terrestrial dramas, both had runs with long interruptions and – until Ron Howard's and Tom Hanks's movie Apollo 13 and their related HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon in the mid-90s – parents and teachers were often startled to discover that young people had no idea that men had walked on the Moon.

 

There are signs, though, of a new TV mission to explain space exploration. On Sunday night, the final part of Channel 4's Live from Space – three programmes with behind-the-scenes access to Nasa and the International Space Station (ISS) – overlapped with the beginning of National Geographic's Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a 13-part remake of the famously eye-opening 1980 series by the scientist Carl Sagan.

 

Factual shows about space essentially move between two registers: "Wow!" and "How?" Billed as a "lap of the planet", the final Live from Space was sometimes dull at the how (too many pre-filmed historical packages) but astounding on the wow. Dermot O'Leary, sitting at mission control in Houston with a jokey American astronaut called Mike playing Alan Hansen to his Gary Lineker, spoke live – after some nervous adjustment to the time delay – to the current commander and some crew of the ISS.

 

Astronauts taking part in a live chat-show with the host of The X Factor is another stage in the long history of the visualisation of space. For five centuries, human knowledge of what lies beyond Earth has been limited by what it was technically possible to see. One of the voice-overs in Cosmos asks viewers to imagine what it was like for those who lived before the invention of the telescope in the early 17th century - those who had never seen further than their eyes allowed. But, equally, since the late 1960s, when the first pictures of Earth from space were taken, humans have had a different relationship with their world. And the achievement of landing on the Moon would have been largely pointless if there had not been the technical capacity to send live images back. (Imagine what percentage of Americans in surveys would believe Apollo 11 was a hoax if there had been no film at all.)

 

Interest in space has been led by technical visual innovation across both factual and fictional genres to a striking degree. In order to make the first Star Wars films, George Lucas first had to invent the special effects. And the Oscar-winning effects designers on the movie Gravity have said that the film would have been impossible until very recently because of the need to invent ways of depicting weightlessness.

 

It was noticeable how often the weekend's astro television invoked space films. O'Leary referred several times to images being "a bit Star Wars" and interviewed a female Nasa astronaut who had advised Sandra Bullock before she filmed Gravity. And, on New Cosmos, deputising for the late Sagan, astro-physicist Dr Neil De Grasse Tyson stood at a studio bridge like Captain Kirk's on the Enterprise and urged us to travel with him on his "ship of the imagination".

 

Space projects on the small-screen – as on the large – have been shaped by visual possibility. Live from Space happened because Channel 4 and Nasa were confident that an inter-galactic phone-in could reliably be tried. Both that show and the re-made Cosmos also knew that, due to advances in cameras and digital graphics, the actual and simulated images from space would be superior to anything seen before. What we know about space has always been dictated by what they can show.

 

Live From Space's 'lap of the planet' Photograph: Channel 4 So, as they lapped the globe at 17,500mph, Koichi from Japan and his American colleague Rick pointed out a Moonrise – a small dot at the centre of the screen, like the fade-out on old TV sets – and a sunrise at the curve of the Earth, its bands of three colours (orange and two different blues) making members of the generation that watched the Moon landings think of the prism on the cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

 

A pedant could object that some of the best shots – the Nile like a scribbled line, the disappointing brown muddy smudge of the Thames – were in recordings made on previous missions, and played in when O'Leary lost the link to the space station, but you would have to be a very grumpy viewer not to feel a frequent sense of wonder.

 

Promoted from genres in which he deals with a very different (and more transient) sort of star, O'Leary usually asked the right questions. There was the grimly inevitable explanation of how the crew use the loo but it was also more usefully established that going fast in a spacecraft doesn't feel like speeding in a car. All of the space crew he spoke to were strikingly smiley, although research is required to discover if this is a consequence of weightlessness or a result of clever choices by the PR department of Nasa.

 

Granted, two-and-a-half hours of peak-time, the show visibly struggled to fill this infinity of time and space. There was still 40 minutes to go after we left the ISS for the last time, anticlimactically filled with a profile of a Brit going into space in 2015 and a Q&A with Stephen Hawking.

 

As the new Cosmos was introduced by Barack Obama, not O'Leary, it should have had the advantage over its Channel 4 rival. However, after Obama's preface from his Oval Office desk – "Open your eyes and open your imagination!" – the content was often disappointing. The weakness of Cosmos was offering imagined images – CGI sketches of the multiverse – while Live from Space kept dropping the jaw with real sights.

 

Although driven by the visuals made possible by technology, the latest space fad in TV and cinema also reflects increased cultural interest. In the 1970s, interest in the Apollo missions was lost because one spacewalk or even Moonwalk seemed much like another; the extraordinary had become boring. Recently, though, passenger trips to space being floated by Richard Branson and the space-dive carried out by Felix Baumgartner – a swoop through the stratosphere that was also immortalised through a TV documentary – has revived interest.

 

Another factor in the new visual exploration of the universe or multiverse is that it touches on several current cultural obsessions: ecology, spirituality and the validity of international boundaries. It was striking that the astronauts and cosmonauts of various nationalities interviewed in Live from Space tended to draw the same lessons from their privileged view of Earth. Weightless in orbit, they had reflected on the fragility of Earth's resources, the fact that national boundaries can not be seen from such heights and the mystery of humankind's existence in such an apparently deserted infinity.

 

This relatively small amount we know about the how of the "wow!" is another advantage for extra-terrestrial television. Even though The Sky at Night has been broadcasting for 57 years, this month's edition on BBC4 was able to boast a "sound never heard before", as the post-Patrick Moore presenting team of Chris Lintott and Maggie Aderin-Pocock drew on the latest noises from space captured at Jodrell Bank observatory. While even David Attenborough was recycling creatures and themes by his later series, it seems there is always space for more on space – with Gravity in cinema and Live from Space on television most memorably exploring it.

 

END

 

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