Happy July 4th everyone. Have a great and safe weekend too.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
- Badging Offices Closed July 4
- Gilruth Center Closed Friday, July 4
- Monthly Test of the JSC Emergency Warning System
- Mission Controllers Needed for Stress Management - Organizations/Social
- Apollo 45th Anniversary T-Shirt Distribution - Jobs and Training
- Financial Wellness Classes are Back
- RLLS Portal Training for July - Via WebEx |  |
| Headlines - Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
The Internet is critical to your work, and you would appreciate it if we could sound an audible warning whenever the pipes get too slow. Amazing that we ever lived without it, isn't it? This week finds us well into the new hurricane season, and I was wondering how prepared you are for a storm. Do you feel ready? Have a plan? Want to wing it? Johnny Football keeps showing up in the news with various celebrities like Justin Bieber and Floyd Mayweather. I was curious where he will turn up next. Where do you think he'll show up prior to throwing his first real pass with the Cleveland Browns? Scooby your Doo on over to get this week's poll, and Happy Birthday, America! - Badging Offices Closed July 4
All badging offices will be closed Friday, July 4, in observance of Independence Day. Normal working operations will resume Monday, July 7, as listed below. - Building 110 - 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
- Ellington Field - 7 to 11 a.m.
- Sonny Carter Training Facility - 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
- Gilruth Center Closed Friday, July 4
The Gilruth Center will be closed Friday in observance of the fourth of July holiday. The Gilruth Center will have normal hours of operation today (5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.) and will resume normal hours on Saturday, July 5 (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.). Have a fantastic fourth of July! - Monthly Test of the JSC Emergency Warning System
The Emergency Dispatch Center and Office of Emergency Management will conduct the monthly, first Thursday test of the JSC Emergency Warning System (EWS) today at noon. The EWS test will consist of a verbal "This is a test" message, followed by a short tone and a second verbal "This is a test" message. The warning tone will be the "wavering" tone, which is associated with an "Attack warning" message. Please visit the JSC Emergency Awareness website for EWS tones and definitions. During an actual emergency situation, the particular tone and verbal message will provide you with protective information. - Mission Controllers Needed for Stress Management
Test Subject Screening (TSS) seeks mission controllers to evaluate a self-guided, multimedia stress management and resilience training computer program called SMART-OP, which will be compared to an attention control group who will watch videos and read information on stress management. Volunteers will be randomly assigned to one of the two groups and: - Attend one information session
- Complete two pre- and post-test assessments (60 to 90 minutes) involving questionnaires, neuropsychological tasks, physiological data and biomarker assays
- Attend six weekly stress-management training sessions (30 to 60 minutes)
- Complete a three-month follow-up (equaling a total of 10 session contacts)
Volunteers must be healthy non-smokers taking no medications. Individuals must pass or have a current Category I physical. Volunteers will be compensated. (Restrictions apply to NASA civil servants and some contractors; contractor employees should contact their local Human Resources department.) Please email or call both Linda Byrd, RN, x37284, and Rori Yager, RN, x37240. Organizations/Social - Apollo 45th Anniversary T-Shirt Distribution
Starport will distribute the Apollo 45th anniversary T-Shirts from Monday, July 7, through Friday, July 11, in accordance with the following schedule: - Building 3 - Monday, July 7, and Tuesday, July 8, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
- Building 11 - Wednesday, July 9, and Thursday, July 10, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
- Gilruth Fitness Center lobby - Friday, July 11, from 3 to 5:30 p.m.
- Ellington Field and Sonny Carter Training Facility customers may contact Cyndi Kibby to make alternate arrangements.
Wear your shirt any Friday through Oct. 31 for a 10 percent discount on standard merchandise in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops. Additional shirts will be available in the stores by July 20 for $12 each. Thank you for supporting the anniversary of this milestone event in NASA and U.S. history! Jobs and Training - Financial Wellness Classes are Back
Join us for a retirement-preparation class series and learn about planning, saving, using and protecting your precious savings. Retirement: Plan and Save 1 and 2 What does retirement mean to you? Having choices and living a balanced lifestyle? Does it include time to participate in meaningful activities instead of just working for a living? Planning for retirement is important, yet so few of us plan early. Topics include goals, income needs and sources, asset risks, strategic approaches, Required Minimum Distributions (RMD), preventing retirement blind spots and more. Retirement and Taxes 1 and 2 As we approach retirement, tax management becomes critical. Preparation is the best prevention and most reliable protection against paying unnecessary taxes. Topics include—taxes: past, present and future; thoughts on paying taxes now or later; tax-free, tax-advantaged and fully taxable monies; Social Security benefits; reducing RMD impacts and more. - RLLS Portal Training for July - Via WebEx
The July Monthly RLLS Portal Education Series - via WebEx session: - July 9 at 2 p.m. CDT, Telecom Support Training
- July 10 at 2 p.m. CDT, Flight Arrival Departure Training
- July 23 at 2 p.m. CDT, Interpretation Support Module Training
- July 24 at 2 p.m. CDT, International Space Station Russia Travel Module Training
The 30-minute training sessions are computer-based WebEx sessions, offering individuals the convenience to join from their own workstation. The training will cover the following: - System login
- Locating support modules
- Locating downloadable instructions
- Creating support requests
- Submittal requirements
- Submitting on behalf of another
- Adding attachments
- Selecting special requirements
- Submitting a request
- Status of a request
Ending each session will be opportunities for Q&A. Please remember that TTI will no longer accept requests for U.S.-performed services unless they are submitted through the RLLS Portal. Email or call 281-335-8565 to sign up. | |
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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
Thursday – July 3, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
NASA launches carbon satellite after 2009 failure
NASA launches carbon satellite to track global warming 5 years after original crashed
Associated Press
A rocket carrying a NASA satellite lit up the pre-dawn skies Wednesday on a mission to track atmospheric carbon dioxide, the chief culprit behind global warming.
Second Try Puts Carbon Observatory Into Orbit
Kenneth Chang – The New York Times
NASA's new spacecraft to sniff carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere reached orbit on Wednesday after launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
NASA carbon observatory finally reaches space: Let the CO2 hunt begin!
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, NASA's brand new Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 successfully reached its final destination: space.
NASA carbon sleuth will sniff out 'missing' emissions
Lisa Grossman – New Scientist
The original spacecraft fell from the skies. But now, after a slight technical glitch, NASA's most sensitive carbon-sniffing satellite is finally orbiting Earth.
NASA carbon dioxide-hunting telescope reaches orbit
Irene Klotz - Reuters
An unmanned Delta 2 rocket blasted off from California on Wednesday, carrying a NASA science satellite to survey where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas tied to climate change, is moving into and out of Earth's atmosphere, a NASA Television broadcast showed.
Mars Mission: Obama Wants an Asteroid. Republicans Want the Moon.
Washington is backseat-driving NASA's trip to Mars.
Alex Brown – National Journal
Washington's partisan divide is spreading all the way to space.
NASA finalizes contract to build the most powerful rocket ever
W.J. Hennigan – Los Angeles Times
NASA has reached a milestone in its development of the Space Launch System, or SLS, which is set to be the most powerful rocket ever and may one day take astronauts to Mars.
Clock Ticking on ISEE-3 Reboot Project
Dan Leone – Space News
With the spacecraft about to pass out of reach for thousands of years, a volunteer team attempting to bring NASA's International Sun/Earth Explorer (ISEE)-3 into orbit at Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1 tried — and failed — to restart the old heliophysics observatory's two thrusters July 1.
Never Mind the CDC: The Search for Anthrax on the ISS
Jason Tetro – Popular Science
The recent news of an anthrax containment breach at the CDC was startling to say the least. While the risk of infection was low to nil, the news revealed the weakness of even our strongest containment systems. The event also highlighted the potential for widespread infection –particularly from an environmental bacterium such as B. anthracis – in an enclosed space.
The Jet With a 17-Ton Telescope That NASA Uses as a Flying Observatory
Jordan Golson - Wired
If you thought Boeing 747s weren't useful for understanding how stars are formed, you don't know about SOFIA.
The Space Industry: Seriously Congested, Contested And Poised For Growth
Sarwant Singh - Forbes
Outer space will be a seriously contested and congested place in the future, which I collectively term as "Space Jam." A combination of a plethora of new navigation satellite networks and services, new space faring nations (like Japan, India and China) and organizations (like Google GOOGL +0.04% and Facebook) entering the market and creation of R&D programs across various mass categories from micro- to heavy-satellites, as well as the trend of engaging commercial satellite platforms in dual applications (military and civil) will make this a very attractive "space" in the future.
Inmarsat Books Falcon Heavy for up to Three Launches
Peter B. de Selding | Space News
Mobile satellite services provider Inmarsat on July 2 said it had booked one firm launch and two options — two with satellites already identified — aboard the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon Heavy rocket scheduled to make its inaugural flight in 2015.
COMPLETE STORIES
NASA launches carbon satellite after 2009 failure
NASA launches carbon satellite to track global warming 5 years after original crashed
Associated Press
A rocket carrying a NASA satellite lit up the pre-dawn skies Wednesday on a mission to track atmospheric carbon dioxide, the chief culprit behind global warming.
The Delta 2 rocket blasted off from California at 2:56 a.m. and released the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite in low-Earth orbit 56 minutes later, bringing relief to mission officials who lost a similar spacecraft five years ago.
The flight was "a perfect ride into space," said Ralph Basilio, the OCO-2 project manager, at a post-launch press conference.
Power-supplying solar arrays deployed, initial checks showed the spacecraft was healthy and two-way communications were established, he said.
The launch was delayed a day because of a failure in ground equipment 46 seconds before liftoff Tuesday morning.
NASA tried in 2009 to launch a satellite dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas caused by the burning of fossil fuels. A satellite plunged into the ocean off Antarctica after a hardware failure with the Taurus XL rocket.
After the loss, NASA spent several years and millions of dollars building a near-identical twin.
Mike Miller, a senior vice president with satellite builder Orbital Sciences Corp. who has been with the program since its earliest days, said he was among those devastated by the first failure.
"It was very much like losing a close family friend or member ... so we're very happy to see this new day," Miller said.
Like the original, OCO-2 was designed to measure atmospheric carbon dioxide from 438 miles above the Earth's surface. Its polar orbit will allow it to cover about 80 percent of the globe.
About 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide are released yearly from factories and cars. About half of the greenhouse gas is trapped in the atmosphere, while the rest is sucked up by trees and oceans.
The goal of the $468 million mission, designed to last at least two years, is to study the processes behind how the environment absorbs carbon dioxide.
NASA spent more money on the new mission, mainly because it is using a more expensive rocket. Engineers also had to replace obsolete satellite parts, which drove up the price tag.
"Seldom do we get a second chance to be able to do a mission like this but because of the importance of the mission to the nation we've been given this second chance to do the OCO-2 mission," said Geoff Yoder, a deputy associate administrator from NASA headquarters.
The satellite is approximately the size of a telephone booth, with solar arrays spanning about 30 feet. The launch placed it into an initial orbit 429 miles high.
Completing spacecraft system checks will take about two weeks and then OCO-2 will be moved higher during a span of several weeks into its operational orbit, joining a loose formation of other Earth-observing satellites informally called "the A-train," said Basilio, the project manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
There will then be a period of instrument checks to ensure the validity of observations.
Production of science data is expected early next year, he said.
Second Try Puts Carbon Observatory Into Orbit
Kenneth Chang – The New York Times
NASA's new spacecraft to sniff carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere reached orbit on Wednesday after launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The $468 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission had to be put off when Tuesday's launching attempt was halted with just 46 seconds left in the countdown. Technicians spent the day replacing a defective valve in the system that sprays water beneath the rocket during liftoff.
The Delta 2 rocket carrying the satellite lifted off at 5:56 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday and rose to 429 miles above earth. The success comes five years after the loss of the mission's original satellite: its clamshell nose cone failed to separate, and the spacecraft splashed into the ocean off Antarctica. At the end of 2009, the Obama administration gave the go-ahead to build a replacement.
Over the next 10 days, flight controllers will check out the spacecraft, and will then nudge it over three weeks into its final destination, 438 miles up in an orbit passing over the North and South Poles, where it will take its position at the front of a parade of other earth-observing spacecraft. The mission is to last at least two years.
The observatory carries a single instrument, which will measure carbon dioxide levels by looking at the intensity of colors of sunlight bouncing off the earth (carbon dioxide absorbs certain colors, but not others).
The burning of fossil fuels and other human activities releases on average 100 million tons of carbon dioxide a day in the air, and the pace of emissions continues to speed up. The atmosphere's levels of carbon dioxide, which traps heat and contributes to warming temperatures, recently reached 400 parts per million, up 40 percent since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The observatory will make a million measurements a day, although interference by clouds means that perhaps only 10 percent will turn out to be useful. That will still provide a bounty of data for scientists looking to gain a clearer picture of what happens to the carbon dioxide, only half of which stays up in the air. A quarter of the emissions is absorbed by the oceans; another quarter is believed to be taken up by plants growing on land, but scientists do not have detailed data to see exactly where. The patterns also change with the seasons and can be affected by floods and droughts.
"There's something really neat going on," said David Crisp, the head of the mission's science team. "We just need to find it."
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 is the second of five launchings this year for earth science missions as NASA replenishes its aging fleet. Before Wednesday's launching, the space agency had 16 spacecraft to observe the earth from orbit; 13 of them are beyond their designed lifetimes.
"This year and indeed the rest of the decade will be extremely busy times as we bring to culmination many years of effort to reinvigorate the space-based component of our earth-based observations," said Michael Freilich, director of NASA's earth science division.
NASA carbon observatory finally reaches space: Let the CO2 hunt begin!
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, NASA's brand new Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 successfully reached its final destination: space.
It still has three weeks of maneuvers to do before it reaches its ultimate orbit 438 miles above the Earth. But by the end of the month it should be fully launched on its scientific mission: taking more than 100,000 precise measurements of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere every day.
The goal is to help researchers understand where on our planet carbon dioxide is being produced and where it is being absorbed by forests, oceans and soil.
"Scientists currently don't know where and how Earth's oceans and plants have absorbed more than half the carbon dioxide that human activities have emitted into our atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial era," said David Crisp, OCO-2 science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a statement. "For society to better manage carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, we need to be able to measure the natural source and sink processes."
A previously scheduled launch of the OCO-2 was scrubbed on Tuesday, just 46 seconds before liftoff, because of a failure of the water supression system on the liftoff pad.
But by Wednesday morning, the problem had been fixed, and the satellite blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a United Launch Delta II rocket at 2:56 a.m. PDT.
The next phases of the satellites entry to space were narrated by the OCO-2 social media team on the satellite's exclamation point-filled Twitter feed, @IamOCO2. We have stage I-II separation. Holding my breath for the next step..."
"YES! We have Fairing Separation and I am free! Space here I come!"
"Solar array deployment is a success!"
"I've phoned home. Ground controllers hear me loud and clear!"
"I'm alive! Congratulations to the entire OCO-2 team!"
The success of this launch seems especially sweet, because five years ago an earlier version of the OCO satellite was destroyed after it failed to separate from its launch rocket and burned up in reentry. The cost of that failed mission was $209 million, according to a mishap investigation.
It will still be a little while before scientists get their hands on any data collected by OCO-2. NASA said it expects to release the first initial estimate of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in early 2015.
NASA carbon sleuth will sniff out 'missing' emissions
Lisa Grossman – New Scientist
The original spacecraft fell from the skies. But now, after a slight technical glitch, NASA's most sensitive carbon-sniffing satellite is finally orbiting Earth.
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2, or OCO-2, lifted off at 0256 local time from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (pictured, right). The spacecraft safely separated from the rocket about an hour later and settled into orbit.
The probe's main goal is to find Earth's "missing" carbon. Human activity releases 8.5 billion tonnes of carbon into the air every year, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide. Only about 40 per cent of that stays in the atmosphere. The other 60 per cent is absorbed into the oceans or by plants. However, nearly half of that 60 per cent cannot be accounted for by the known carbon sinks.
OCO-2 will be the first satellite to monitor precisely when and where carbon dioxide is emitted and absorbed, helping us figure out, say, just how much carbon from the air gets sucked into the oceans.
Mission managers say the probe will have such detailed resolution that it may even be able to measure the carbon emissions from individual cities. "Right now, we in the carbon-cycle community have traditionally not observed cities – as strange as that sounds," says team member Kevin Gurney at Arizona State University in Tempe. "They are where all the action is, frankly," he says. "If you want to pass policy on climate change emissions, it has to work in cities – period."
Take the A train
OCO-2 is essentially a clone of the original OCO, which NASA attempted to launch in 2009. But the part of the rocket that protected the probe during launch failed to detach before the satellite reached orbit, and the craft splashed into the Pacific Ocean. NASA authorised the construction of an exact copy of the satellite for launch in 2011, but the mission was put on hold when the same problem downed another climate satellite called, ironically, Glory.
OCO-2 lifted off on a pricier but more reliable Delta II rocket. "It was pretty reassuring," says project scientist Michael Gunson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This is one of the most reliable launch vehicles that NASA has ever used."
OCO-2 had to launch within a tight 30-second window so that it could join the "Afternoon Train", a constellation of five other Earth-observing satellites. The spacecraft all cross Earth's equator at about 1330 solar time each day, to make sure their observations can easily be compared with one another. OCO-2 missed this window yesterday after a last-minute failure in a system designed to protect the launch pad from the energy of the rocket, so the launch was scrubbed and rerun today.
City sniffer
OCO-2 will use a single spectrometer to measure the intensity of sunlight reflected off Earth. Different molecules in the air, including carbon dioxide, absorb light at particular wavelengths, so scientists can use OCO-2 to look for CO2's molecular fingerprints.
Most of the current data on CO2 in the atmosphere is collected from aircraft and land-based towers, which cannot cover the whole planet. A Japanese spacecraft called GOSAT that launched in January 2009 makes similar measurements to OCO-2, but at lower spatial resolution.
OCO-2's field of view will encompass about 3 square kilometres. That means it might be able to focus on large cities like Los Angeles, Beijing or Paris, says Gurney. Coincidentally, in the past five years climate scientists have started to take more ground measurements of carbon emissions in cities and build models to predict how that carbon moves around in the air.
OCO-2 will provide an opportunity to test those models faster and more deliberately than with the original OCO mission. "It's a silver lining around what was a pretty sad event in 2009," says Gurney.
NASA carbon dioxide-hunting telescope reaches orbit
Irene Klotz - Reuters
An unmanned Delta 2 rocket blasted off from California on Wednesday, carrying a NASA science satellite to survey where carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas tied to climate change, is moving into and out of Earth's atmosphere, a NASA Television broadcast showed.
The 127-foot-tall (39-meter) rocket lifted off at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT/0956 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, located about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Los Angeles, and headed south over the Pacific Ocean.
The launch was timed so that NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, or OCO, would end up at the front of a train of polar-orbiting environmental satellites that cross Earth's equator every afternoon.
A launch attempt on Tuesday was called off because of a problem with the launch pad's water system, which is needed to mitigate high temperatures and suppress acoustic vibrations of launch. Technicians replaced a failed valve, clearing rocket manufacturer United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, for a second launch attempt.
Scientists have been waiting since 2009 for OCO to reach orbit. The original satellite was lost in a launch accident.
"We felt awful about this situation," Michael Miller, vice president of Orbital Sciences Corp, which built the satellite and the now-retired Taurus booster, said of the previous delays.
"We're very happy to see this new day," Miller said at a post-launch news conference.
OCO 2 is NASA's first mission dedicated to studying carbon dioxide, said Betsy Edwards, program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"This makes it of critical importance to the scientists who are trying to understand the impact of humans on global change," Edwards said at a prelaunch news conference.
Every year about 40 billion tons of carbon end up in Earth's atmosphere, an amount that is increasing as the developing world modernizes, said atmospheric scientist Michael Gunson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Roughly half of the carbon is re-absorbed by forests and the ocean, a process that is not well understood.
"Understanding the details of those processes will give us some insight into the future and what's likely to happen over the next decades, even if we continue to consume more and more fossil fuels and emit more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," Gunson said.
From its orbital perch 438 miles (705 km) above Earth, the spacecraft will collect hundreds of thousands of measurements daily. Its path around the planet will take it over the same spot at the same time every 16 days, allowing scientists to detect patterns in carbon dioxide levels over weeks, months and years.
"It's really the fate of carbon dioxide once it's in the atmosphere that we're trying put our finger on," Gunson said.
The $468 million mission is designed to last at least two years.
Mars Mission: Obama Wants an Asteroid. Republicans Want the Moon.
Washington is backseat-driving NASA's trip to Mars.
Alex Brown – National Journal
Washington's partisan divide is spreading all the way to space.
President Obama and many Republicans agree that NASA should pursue a mission to Mars. What they can't agree on, however, is the best route to get there.
Specifically, the parties are divided over which space rock to use for a waypoint on the Mars mission.
Some Republicans—most famously Newt Gingrich but also a large passel of House lawmakers—see the moon as the most logical waypoint. A lunar base, they say, would allow NASA to test landing technologies and surface operations. It would also allow astronauts to launch humankind's first attempts to utilize extra-Earth resources, including extracting water from the moon's dust.
Obama and NASA's current leadership, however, favor a further foray into the final frontier: capturing, redirecting, and exploring an asteroid. To do so, they want the space agency to invest in solar propulsion engines, technology that is also a prerequisite for a long-distance Mars mission. While the Mars astronauts themselves will travel on a fuel-powered ship, the resupply craft they'll meet along the way will use the slower but more cost-effective solar power.
The battle between the competing visions plays out in annual battles over NASA's budget, where the Obama administration requests funding for its goals, and Republicans—particularly in the GOP-controlled House—push back. And the competition is made all the more intense as the funding pool shrinks: NASA's funding has diminished by more than a billion dollars since 2010—more than 7 percent of a budget that then totaled $18.7 billion.
What everyone agrees on is that without consensus, neither plan will work. The Mars plan, said a National Research Council report earlier this month, cannot succeed "without a sustained commitment on the part of those who govern the nation—a commitment that does not change direction with succeeding electoral cycles. Those branches of government—executive and legislative—responsible for NASA's funding and guidance are therefore critical enablers of the nation's investment and achievements in human spaceflight."
For now, at least, the unity appears far from likely. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican who chairs the House Science Committee, calls the asteroid mission "uninspiring."
Meanwhile, Obama and NASA chief Charles Bolden have accused Congress of whining about NASA's lack of ambition while simultaneously cutting its budget. "We can only do so many things," Bolden said last year.
Obama cited underfunding when he scrapped the Bush-proposed moon mission in 2010, and NASA's budget has declined since. The moon mission was expected to cost around $100 billion ($10 billion of which was already spent when the program closed down). The asteroid plan is estimated at less than $3 billion.
Louis Friedman, a founder of the Planetary Society, says the GOP stance is hypocritical. "I don't think there's an iota of indication [that funding would be raised with a renewed moon focus]. There are people who will talk about that idea.… The idea of actually appropriating extra money, we haven't seen anything like that."
He said opposition to the asteroid plan is based on reflexive disagreement with everything Obama proposes, rather than considered, technical reasons. "The industry and NASA are pretty much behind the asteroid redirect," Friedman said.
John Logsdon, a former director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, doesn't see it that way. "There are plenty of Democrats not in the White House who think it makes sense to go back to the moon," he said. "[But] everybody at NASA has to salute and say, 'Yes indeed.' "
Logsdon doesn't discount the asteroid plan, but he says the administration was too quick to write off a return to the moon. "If going back to the moon is ruled out, then the [asteroid redirect mission] becomes the best of all possible missions," he said. "The asteroid redirect is an ingenious invention of something that's worth doing now that we're not going to the moon."
So what does NASA stand to gain from each mission? In simple terms, the lunar plan would give astronauts and scientists experience operating on a foreign surface. The asteroid mission would help engineers develop technology for long-range spaceflight.
Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo, who chairs the Space Subcommittee, perhaps best encapsulated the lunar view when he called the moon a "training ground for venturing further into the solar system." Asteroid-hunting, he said, is less a waypoint to Mars than a "detour."
Of course, there's also what Friedman refers to as the "high-ground mentality"—that America shouldn't cede the lunar dominance it's held since 1969. While other nations race to replicate Neil Armstrong's feat, the U.S. should maintain a human presence on the moon, even if it yields no real strategic advantage.
Logsdon, on the other hand, thinks the logic of a moon base actually is strategic—otherwise no one else would be trying to go there. "I frankly don't think anyone would be pushing asteroid redirect if the U.S. embraced a return to the moon," he said. "The rest of the world is focused on going to the moon. We're the only country that's out of sync with that."
America's competitive streak isn't the only reason to visit our planet's closest neighbor. For some, including former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, the reasoning is more basic: survival. "In the long run a single-planet species will not survive," he said, and the sooner we establish outposts elsewhere the better.
While pro-asteroid folks point to cost comparisons, lunar advocates say their plan would involve a series of missions—rather than a single voyage—so funding arguments are unfair.
Still, the disparity in cost is stark. And supporters of Obama's plan say the technical advantages are just as good.
The astronauts who go to Mars will use rocket power to move their craft toward the Red Planet. But with a mission that could take about three years round-trip, they'll need to restock their supplies along the way.
Years in advance, NASA will shoot off ships loaded with supplies for the Mars-bound (and later Earth-bound) astronauts. Those craft will use solar-electric propulsion, a cheap but slow-moving way to move objects around in space.
That's where the asteroid mission comes in. The first stage of the plan involves a robot ship that will spend about four years traveling to an asteroid. That ship will rely on solar-electric propulsion, a crucial test for the technology and a big step in preparing it for expanded use in the Mars mission.
After the unmanned ship captures the asteroid, it will drag it into lunar orbit, where astronauts can land on and inspect it. Friedman points out that the asteroid's proximity to the moon could support some of the lunar science that moon base advocates have called for—without the "detour" of building infrastructure there (yes, both sides use that word to describe the competing plan).
While politicians argue, NASA is moving forward with the asteroid redirect plan—but without any assurance of support from Congress. And both sides agree that's not likely to change. "What I think will happen is that we'll just muddle along with a plan that tries to do too much with too little money and produces no benefits except government jobs," Logsdon said.
And future NASA budgets, like current ones, are likely to be a "mishmash of various competing interests," Friedman said.
NASA finalizes contract to build the most powerful rocket ever
W.J. Hennigan – Los Angeles Times
NASA has reached a milestone in its development of the Space Launch System, or SLS, which is set to be the most powerful rocket ever and may one day take astronauts to Mars.
After completing a critical design review, Boeing Co. has finalized a $2.8-billion contract with the space agency. The deal allows full production on the rocket to begin.
"Our teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the SLS – the largest ever -- will be built safely, affordably and on time," Virginia Barnes, Boeing's Space Launch System vice president and program manager, said in a statement.
The last time NASA's completed a critical design review of a deep-space human rocket was 1961, when the space agency assessed the mighty Saturn V, which ultimately took man to the moon.
Work on the 321-foot Space Launch System is spread throughout Southern California, including Boeing's avionics team in Huntington Beach. The rocket's core stage will get its power from four RS-25 engines for former space shuttle main engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne of Canoga Park.
The rocket will carry the Orion spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin Corp., which can carry up to four astronauts beyond low Earth orbit on long-duration, deep-space destinations including near-Earth asteroids, the moon, and ultimately Mars.
The rocket, which is designed to carry crew and cargo, is scheduled for its initial test flight from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in 2017.
The first mission will launch an empty Orion spacecraft. The second mission is targeted for 2021 and will launch Orion and a crew of up to four NASA astronauts.
The rocket's initial flight-test configuration will provide a 77-ton lift capacity. The final evolved two-stage configuration will be able to lift more than 143 tons.
Clock Ticking on ISEE-3 Reboot Project
Dan Leone – Space News
With the spacecraft about to pass out of reach for thousands of years, a volunteer team attempting to bring NASA's International Sun/Earth Explorer (ISEE)-3 into orbit at Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1 tried — and failed — to restart the old heliophysics observatory's two thrusters July 1.
"We were unable to complete the command process today," the ISEE-3 Reboot Project wrote on its official Twitter account at about 5 p.m. EDT July 1. The Reboot team, spearheaded by NASAWatch.com editor Keith Cowing and space entrepreneur Dennis Wingo, tried sending commands to ISEE-3 during the three hours the spacecraft was in range of its main ground station, the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico.
The failure is not the end for the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, and a second attempt to ignite the satellite's two thrusters could take place as soon as July 2, Cowing said in a July 1 phone interview.
A NASA official said the ISEE-3 Reboot Project is clear to keep trying to ignite ISEE-3's hydrazine thrusters to spin up the old satellite for a planned trajectory correction that, later this month, would send the spacecraft flying by the Moon for a lunar gravity assist that will knock ISEE-3 out of its heliocentric orbit and back toward the stable storage orbit it left in 1982 to chase a pair of comets.
"This is a spin stabilized spacecraft and it's not spinning quite as fast as we'd liked," Geoffrey Yoder, NASA's associate administrator for programs and main point of contact for the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, said in a July 1 phone interview.
On top of that, Yoder said, the relatively primitive ISEE-3, which launched in 1978, cannot report back to ground stations on Earth about the health of its two thrusters or the fuel that remains in its tank until the thrusters are lit.
The ISEE-3 Reboot Project must burn the spacecraft's two thrusters for a course correction by mid-July to get the satellite into a useful orbit. In order to do that, NASA must first certify that ISEE-3 is able to complete the maneuver, according to a NASA Space Act Agreement signed May 19 with Wingo's company Skycorp Inc., Los Gatos, California.
The easiest way to do that, Yoder said, was to clear the team to perform the spin-up maneuver.
For the July 1 spin-up attempt, the ISEE-3 Reboot Project issued spacecraft commands from a temporary mission control facility set up in an office at Ettus Research in Santa Clara, California, about 11 kilometers east of NASA's Ames Research Center. ISEE-3 mission control at McMoons, an abandoned McDonald's restaurant on the Ames campus, was without Internet connectivity July 1, Cowing said.
If the spacecraft makes it back to Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1, Cowing and Wingo plan to resume ISEE-3's original mission to observe solar winds — charged particles emitted in bursts by the sun — breaking on the outer edge of Earth's protective magnetosphere. The aim is to give the general public, students in particular, the chance to learn about heliophysics and spacecraft operations first hand.
That will likely require another crowdfunding campaign, Cowing has said. Just to scrape together the equipment, personnel and operating budget required to reactivate the spacecraft — which NASA shut down in 1997 — the ISEE-3 Reboot Project raised some $160,000 from about 2,200 donors on RocketHub.com. The month-long fundraising campaign wrapped up May 23.
Never Mind the CDC: The Search for Anthrax on the ISS
Jason Tetro – Popular Science
The recent news of an anthrax containment breach at the CDC was startling to say the least. While the risk of infection was low to nil, the news revealed the weakness of even our strongest containment systems. The event also highlighted the potential for widespread infection –particularly from an environmental bacterium such as B. anthracis – in an enclosed space.
While the CDC has the ability to quickly mitigate and resolve such issues; in other places, such as the International Space Station, the consequences could be dire. A leak of a pathogen as potentially deadly as anthrax during experimentation would leave the crew with limited options for remediation. Aside from experimentation, there is another worry. The development of a microbial ecosystem capable of harboring pathogens may also silently create a rather unwelcome situation and an unexpected crisis.
Unlike research studies, in which the bacteria are known and procedures to prevent and/or mitigate an outbreak are taught and tested, the natural ecosystem is usually unknown. In response, researchers have been working diligently to better understand the nature of the space station microbial ecology and provide some perspective on the health risks to the crew.
The ability of microbes to survive in space has been tested for decades yet experiments to better understand the ecosystem of space didn't happen until 1996. A joint team of researchers from the United States and Japan sent an enclosed ecosystem onto the Space Shuttle (STS-77) for a 10 day mission. The results suggested there was little to no difference between Earth and space travel with one exception – microbes were found in higher abundance from the space samples. This suggested all microbes could not only survive but also thrive in microgravity conditions. This was good news for those wanting to create extraterrestrial biomes but for infection disease specialists, this certainly was concern.
In 2001, one of the first tests to determine the nature of the microbial ecosystem in space was conducted on both the space shuttle and the Mir space station. They found the presence of environmental and human bacteria as well as fungi in all areas. The results suggested there was a need for regular cleaning and disinfection as well as proper air filtration to keep the space station safe.
By 2004, an American team of researchers tested the bacterial ecosystem of the International Space Station in the hopes of identifying any potential pathogens. They tested the air, surfaces and water and found some 63 bacterial species and 19 fungal isolates. In all cases, the nature of the microbes was environmental and posed no health threat. Yet, as the authors conceded, this was only the initial stage of habitation and the results were helpful in determining a microbial baseline. Over time, the ecosystem would most likely change and the chance for infection could increase.
In the following year, an examination of the water system on the Mir space station highlighted how the situation might be changing. For the most part, the bacteria isolated were environmental in nature and posed no threat. Yet, there were some opportunistic pathogens identified. This could potentially lead to a problem as the immune system of astronauts slowly weakens as a result of extended space flight.
Then in 2013, a Chinese group of researchers described the changes in a known space station inhabitant, Bacillus cereus, after a short space exposure. The bacterium, an opportunistic pathogen and relative of anthrax, demonstrated an increase in its ability to cause infection through upregulation of its endotoxins. The authors suggested there might be an increased risk of B. cereus – or other anthrax-related Bacillus strains – becoming more virulent and posing a risk to astronaut health.
While a theoretical threat was suggested, there was yet no way to show whether the crews were at risk. Earlier this month, however, a team from The Netherlands revealed a new means to identify B. cereus as well as anthrax. The results also left the group with a need to take a deep breath.
The researchers took samples from the Russian section of the ISS – the Zvezda Service Module (DOS-8) – and brought them to their lab in Groningen. There, they attempted to identify genetic markers associated with anthrax and its relatives. As expected, they found B. cereus but that was not all. There were signs of yet another species. At first, they believed they might have found B. anthracis. To be sure, they conducted further analyses – if this was anthrax, it would make headlines around the world. Thankfully, the more rigorous testing revealed this was not a crisis; the isolates were from two other species, B. weihenstephanensis and B. mycoides.
Though this study suggests there is no current risk for anthrax on the ISS, the overall experience points to a need for more attention to the potential of introducing a pathogen on board space vehicles. Moreover, as the authors indicated, testing needs to be accurate such that false positives are minimized and identifications are as confident as possible. This is particularly important for future space travel, including manned missions to Mars, which could happen in as little as a generation from now. Unlike the CDC, should anthrax or any other significant pathogen find its way into the ecosystem, there may be little to no way to prevent disaster.
The Jet With a 17-Ton Telescope That NASA Uses as a Flying Observatory
Jordan Golson - Wired
If you thought Boeing 747s weren't useful for understanding how stars are formed, you don't know about SOFIA.
Officially known as the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, SOFIA is a heavily modified Boeing 747 Special Performance jetliner, with a 17-ton, 8-foot telescope mounted behind a 16-by-23-foot sliding door that reveals the infrared telescope to the skies.
The plane's ability to fly near the edges of the atmosphere gives it better visibility than ground-based observatories. And the fact that it makes regular appearances on Earth's surface, unlike a space telescope, means it can easily be repaired or reprogrammed when necessary.
NASA and its partner on the project, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), expect SOFIA to keep flying for another 20 years. To that end, they've grounded the world's only flying observatory for extensive maintenance that will take five months.
The 747SP was designed by Boeing in the 1970s to fly faster, higher, and farther than other versions of the 747. The company's engineers shortened the fuselage by 55 feet to cut weight, but left the power plants intact, giving the SP incredible performance statistics.
The plane can stay airborne for over 12 hours and its range is 6,625 nautical miles (7,624 miles). With a service ceiling of 45,000 feet, it can fly above the troposphere and 99.8 percent of the water vapor held in our atmosphere, which obscures infrared light. That gives its on-board infrared telescope a clear view into outer space.
NASA says the data provided by SOFIA "cannot be obtained by any other astronomical facility on the ground or in space." Unlike grounded telescopes and satellites fixed in orbit, SOFIA is mobile, so it can better spot transient space events like supernovae and comets.
The telescope on board is 10 times as sensitive and has triple the resolution of NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, originally launched in 1975 on a converted C-141 military cargo plane, and decommissioned in 1995. That telescope was the first to spot the rings around Uranus.
The SP that now serves NASA was first flown as a passenger aircraft by Pan Am, which dubbed it the "Clipper Lindbergh." The failing airline sold the jet to United Airlines in 1986, which in turn passed it on to NASA in 1997.
SOFIA nearly met its end in March, when NASA said it would cut the program's budget unless it found outside funding. In the end, the House budget provided $70 million to keep the plane flying.
Last week, SOFIA landed in Germany for extensive maintenance and refitting. Lufthansa Technik, an aircraft maintenance company, will do the necessary work, which includes replacing the landing gear and running tests to make sure all the onboard systems continue to run properly.
This maintenance overhaul in Germany is the last step in NASA's rollout of SOFIA and scientists plan to run 100 observation flights with her in 2015.
The Space Industry: Seriously Congested, Contested And Poised For Growth
Sarwant Singh - Forbes
Outer space will be a seriously contested and congested place in the future, which I collectively term as "Space Jam." A combination of a plethora of new navigation satellite networks and services, new space faring nations (like Japan, India and China) and organizations (like Google GOOGL +0.04% and Facebook) entering the market and creation of R&D programs across various mass categories from micro- to heavy-satellites, as well as the trend of engaging commercial satellite platforms in dual applications (military and civil) will make this a very attractive "space" in the future.
While in the beginning of 2011, the United States' NAVSTAR Global Positioning System (GPS) was the only fully operational global navigational satellite system (GNSS), the correct term for describing all the navigational satellite constellations in orbit. (Fun fact: (GPS only refers to the US NAVSTAR constellation, which some of us vehicle drivers can relate to through our in-car SAT NAV devices like TomTom or Garmin). In October 2011, the Russian GLONASS system joined the American NAVSTAR system as the only two fully operational GNSS systems in the world. By end of this decade, though, we will have another two GNSS systems, with the European Union's Galileo positioning system and China developing its BeiDou-2 GNSS system (also known as COMPASS). These are further accompanied with regional navigational satellite systems, with Japan plotting the course for its own regional navigation satellite system, called Quasi-Zenith Satellite system (QZSS) and the Indian regional navigation satellite system (IRNSS).
Furthermore these are enhanced by space-based augmentation systems in the mix. These include:
- Russian system of differential correction and monitoring (SCDM)
- India's GPS-aided GEO augmented navigation GAGAN (means sky in Hindi)
- Japanese multi-function transport satellite (MTSAT) and Satellite-based Augmentation System (MSAS)
- The European geostationary navigation overlay service (EGNOS)
- America's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)
Galileo, which promises to be the most sophisticated, advanced and precise GNSS ever available to date, is the first system built primarily for civilian applications and the only GNSS system that will be fully under civilian control. Unlike the GLONASS and GPS systems, which provide accuracies of around 10 meters, Galileo will provide some of its services, like open access navigation, on "free to air," which has the potential to provide real-time positioning accuracy down to the one-meter level. Also, GNSS signals continue to enable multiple applications from precision strikes to wearable tech; the market is experiencing an embryonic growth.
Aman Pannu, a space analyst at Frost & Sullivan, predicts that, in the coming decade, there will be over 1,200 satellites launched cumulatively between 2012 and 2021. Compared to the total number of satellites launched over the last ten years, this indicates a growth of about 25 percent over the next ten years. Pannu and his team predict the following Mega Trends within Space Industry that will propel the market to new, dizzy heights:
- Augmented Satellite Based Navigation Systems: With multiple navigational satellite systems being launched by new comers like India and Japan, end-users have ever-growing reliance and need for secure and accurate signals, hence driving demand for augmented satellite services for their positioning, navigation and timing. Augmented satellite-based navigation systems not only enable new applications across existing and evolving markets, such as precision farming, oil and gas exploration, advanced horizontal and vertical guidance/navigation, but also will fuel consumers' demand for GPS-enabled wearable devices.
- High-throughput Satellite Communication Services: Many high-throughput satellites, such as the Intelsat EpicNG and the Inmarsat Global Xpress are being launched that support higher data rate streaming both in the civil and military domains. Consequent near real-time, high-speed connectivity is leading the way for global access to broadband internet access, as well as increased capacity for HDTV in the commercial domain, and high-definition video streaming for the soldiers. This will also lead to faster satellite broadband speeds and boost rural and remote connectivity.
- Space Tourism/Commercial Spaceflight: Despite the challenges, sometime this decade we will see the commercialization of space tourism. Virgin Galactic, Boeing BA +0.41%, Armadillo Aerospace, XCOR Aerospace, Bigelow Aerospace, Galactic Suite and Orbital Technologies are some of the companies working progressively towards establishing space tourism as a commercial reality. Some organizations, like the Russian company Orbital Technologies, are going a step further by suggesting that they will have a fully operational space hotel, with all rooms having a galactic view. For a small sum of about $150,000 you can spend five days in this all-star (literally) space hotel, on top of your flight, which will cost around $750,000. You cannot consume wine (as per hotel policy), but you can enjoy fine dining along with the best in luxury, while listening to your favorite song, "Hotel California."
- Satellite Manufacturing – Size Matters: The asymmetric nature of battles that the defense forces across the globe are facing demand an agile and an operationally responsive force; where the 100-day wars are out and the expeditionary 100-hour battles are the way forward. Space is not isolated to such demands, as is evident from the SMDC-ONE program of the U.S. government, wherein nanosatellites are to be launched in order to create an operationally responsive space capability to meet expeditionary requirements of the warfighter. Other than the operationally responsive space capability, price is the key driver for the evolution of smaller satellites. The nanosatellites cost between $300,000 and $1 million each, enabling the forces to launch multiple nanosatellites and still keep the entire constellation relatively inexpensive.
- SatCom in Commercial Aviation: Digital-natives of today and tomorrow are driving demand for on-board connectivity services. Airlines are increasingly relying on SatCom connectivity for automated flight operations and on-board Wi-Fi/mobile usage. SatCom is critical to the adoption of next generation integrated communications solutions ensuring improved safety and efficiency- operational and financial.
- Commercial Satellite Imagery Based Services: The regulatory relaxation to sell high-resolution satellite imagery data has opened the door for further growth where new industry participants can enter and provide diverse on-demand services which will lead to new market or applications , products and services, and even new business models.
Other Mega Trends impacting the space industry relate to use of 3-D printing, re-usable space launch vehicles, all-electric propulsion systems for satellites and robotic servicing technologies for space applications. The latter in particular will help reduce the "Space Jam" technologies, as it will bring dead satellites into operation through repair and refueling missions, whilealso helping remove dead satellites from orbit to create sustainable space real estate.
Inmarsat Books Falcon Heavy for up to Three Launches
Peter B. de Selding | Space News
Mobile satellite services provider Inmarsat on July 2 said it had booked one firm launch and two options — two with satellites already identified — aboard the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon Heavy rocket scheduled to make its inaugural flight in 2015.
London-based Inmarsat said that while Falcon Heavy was the nominal vehicle to be used, that the contract foresees the use of SpaceX's current Falcon 9 vehicle if needed to keep to the schedule. The satellite for which Inmarsat has a firm order for a Falcon Heavy is expected to weigh 5,900 kilograms at launch, which would be an exceptionally large paylad for Falcon 9, even if the satellite makes use of electric propulsion for part of its mission.
The firm contract is for the launch, scheduled perhaps aggressively for late 2016, of a satellite being built for both Inmarsat and Arabsat of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Arabsat will use the satellite for conventional telecommunications services for its wholly owned Hellas-Sat fleet operator of Greece. The Inmarsat payload uses S-band to provide mobile communications in Europe as part of a satellite-terrestrial broadband network, which is a new business line for Inmarsat.
Inmarsat said in June that its S-band satellite would cost about $200 million including construction, launch and insurance. Industry officials said the figure pointed to a SpaceX launch. SpaceX has captured substantial commercial satellite business, despite its rocket's relatively short track record, with prices that are substantially lower than the competition.
A second satellite likely to be launched under the Inmarsat-SpaceX contract is the fourth satellite in Inmarsat's Global Xpress (GX) Ka-band military and commercial mobile broadband network.
Inmarsat elected to launch all three GX satellites aboard Russian Proton rockets, commercialized by International Launch Services of Reston, Virginia. Proton's spotty reliability record of late, with the latest failure in May, has caused bottlenecks in its launch manifest. The latest failure review has not been fully digested by ILS and Proton's return to flight, while expected by September, is not yet certain.
Inmarsat's order of a fourth satellite — like the first three, from Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems of El Segundo, California — was in part a hedge against a possible launch failure, and in part a way to augment the three-satellite Global Xpress system capacity. Boeing has said it would deliver this satellite in time for a launch in mid-2016.
Inmarsat said a third SpaceX launch could be for Inmarsat's next-generation L-band satellites, Inmarsat 6. These satellites have not been contracted.
The Boeing-built GX satellites weigh about 6,100 kilograms at launch — presumably beyond the reach of the Falcon 9 rocket. The firm SpaceX contract for the S-band satellite being built by Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy is likely to include electric propulsion for its in-orbit station keeping, a way to keep its launch weight low enough to fit into a Falcon 9.
Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has already booked two commercial launches for satellites weighing between 5,200 and 5,300 kilograms.
END
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