Hope you can join us at Hibachi Grill tomorrow for our monthly NASA Retirees Luncheon at 11:30.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Organizations/Social
- The Impacts of Cyber Security - Sept. 10
- JSC Weight Watchers at Work - Last Chance
- Speak with a Bang or a Whimper - Toastmasters
- The JSC Safety and Health Action Team (JSAT) Says
- Energy Express Network Kick-Off Meeting - Jobs and Training
- Today! Schedules Assessment Training
- What Can Tech Scouting Do For You?
- RLLS Portal Training for September - Via WebEx - Community
- September Sustainability Opportunities
- JSC Child Care Center Has a Few Openings
- Observe the Moon Night at the George Observatory |  |
| Organizations/Social - The Impacts of Cyber Security - Sept. 10
How does cyber security impact the world economy, communities and you? You are invited to JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance speaker forum featuring Sergio Muniz, president of CYFOR Technologies. Topic: How Does Cyber Security Impact the World Economy, Communities and You? Date/Time: Wednesday, Sept. 10, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Location: Building 1, Room 966 Ever wonder what's really going on in the fascinating world of cyber security? Gather some insights surrounding this highly debated topic as we delve into the many aspects of the cyber world—its origins, current events and implications for the future. Participate in a thought-provoking presentation by Muniz, who will discuss many aspects of the cyber world ranging from national security implications to dealing with cyber threats at home and abroad. - JSC Weight Watchers at Work - Last Chance
Register now for the next 12-week series of Weight Watchers at JSC. The series is scheduled to begin Monday, Sept. 8, and will run through December. Meetings are held Mondays in Building 12, Rooms 148/150, with weigh-in from 11:45 a.m. to noon and meetings from noon to 12:30 p.m. Contact me via email for more information and registration forms. We need to have a minimum of 15 members registered by close of business today, Sept. 3, so that we can start the next series. We are still a few short. If we don't get enough members, this long-standing meeting at JSC will be discontinued. Don't delay. Register today! - Speak with a Bang or a Whimper – Toastmasters
Explore vocal variety with Space Explorers Toastmasters (SETM) and learn when to roar or whisper, talk supersonic or super slow or address an audience with a bang or a whimper. Vocal variety, visual aids and gestures are only a few of the skills you can develop and hone in a Toastmasters meeting. Join SETM for one of our September meetings from 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. in Building 30A, Room 1010: - Friday, Sept. 5
- Thursday, Sept. 11
- Friday, Sept. 19
- Thursday, Sept. 25
- The JSC Safety and Health Action Team (JSAT) Says
"Don't just chill, wipe up that spill!" Congratulations to Angela Hill with Barrios Technology Ltd. for submitting the winning slogan for September 2014. Any JSAT member (all JSC contractor and civil servant employees) may submit a slogan for consideration to JSAT Secretary Reese Squires. Submissions for October are due by Wednesday, Sept. 10. Keep those great submissions coming—you may be the next "JSAT Says" winner! - Energy Express Network Kick-Off Meeting
Wednesday, Sept. 10 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Hyatt Regency Downtown Houston 1200 Louisiana Street, Houston, 77002 Whether you are a corporate professional, business owner, guest or current or past member, please come join us for a warm and relaxing evening to learn about American Business Women's Association (ABWA) membership benefits and career development. Being a member of ABWA provides greater business insight and leadership experience. Learn best practices in business and leadership. Get noticed by employers and customers by taking more active leadership roles serving on the executive board and award recognition. Connect with professionals across the country with a wide-reaching diverse network. The ABWA offers a variety of online courses and continuing education credits for career placement or advancement and professional development. Jobs and Training - Today! Schedules Assessment Training
Do you work with schedules and frequently wonder how to assess their accuracy? Then join the Community of Practice (CoP) TODAY as Tony Nolin from the International Space Station Assessments team walks us through the evaluation of schedules. He will review key analysis elements, as well as how to tie cost to schedule. This analysis training is not offered frequently, so don't miss this opportunity! Interested in becoming a member of the JSC Scheduling CoP? The CoP was created to provide training for and communication amongst schedule practitioners at JSC to improve scheduling practices and efficacy. For more information, contact us. - What Can Tech Scouting Do For You?
If you're looking for access to solutions outside of your regular channels, join the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) on Sept. 17 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Building 35 for the yet2.com workshop! Yet2.com is a technology-scouting capability that provides access to a broad network of external experts and potential collaborators from all over the globe. Learn more about this platform, business model and how you can benefit. Registration and participation in the workshop is FREE! For more information, please visit the JSC 2.0 website here. Event Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2014 Event Start Time:1:00 PM Event End Time:3:00 PM
Event Location: B35
Add to Calendar
Carissa Callini 281-212-1409
[top] - RLLS Portal Training for September - Via WebEx
The September Monthly RLLS Portal Education Series via WebEx sessions: - Sept. 3 at 2 p.m. CDT, Flight Arrival Departure Module Training
- Sept. 3 at 2:30 p.m. CDT, International Space Station Russia Travel Module Training
- Sept. 17 at 2 p.m. CDT, Telecom Support Training
- Sept. 18 at 2 p.m. CDT, Interpretation Support Module Training
These 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
After each session are Q&A opportunities. 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. Community - September Sustainability Opportunities
Looking for something fun to do? Discover ideas in and around JSC in the September Sustainability Opportunities. For example, the August Environmental Brown Bag (EBB) featured various presentations on bicycling to and through JSC. More than 20 participants shared their stories. We'll continue the dialogue on Sept. 9 with our Center Operations director. Click on the link to find the presentations from August, as well as the details for the September EBB. - JSC Child Care Center Has a Few Openings
The JSC Child Care Center has openings available to dependents of JSC civil servants and contractors. Immediate openings: - Children 11 to 28 months old
- Children currently 3 to 5 years old
Program Details: 1. Open 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Open Flex Fridays (but closed federal holidays). 2. Competitive pricing with other comparable child cares, but Space Family Education, Inc., includes more amenities. 3. Additional security. Badges are required to get on-site, and an additional security code is required to get in the school's front door. 4. Accelerated curriculum in all classes with additional enrichment and extracurricular programs. 5. Convenience. Nearby and easy access for parents working on-site at JSC. 6. Breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack are all included. 7. Video monitoring available from computers, androids and iPhones. Interested parties should send an email with parent contact information and the child's date of birth. - Observe the Moon Night at the George Observatory
On Sept. 6, we will celebrate Observe the Moon Night! Stop by and view the moon through a telescope at the George Observatory, and get tickets for our Family Space Day Mission to the Moon. Come out and spend the evening with the moon. Note: Park entrance fees apply at $7 per person for everyone over 12 years old. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday – September 3, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Let's Continue the Progress on SLS
Doug Cooke - Space News
NASA's report on the state of the Space Launch System, reflecting its completed preliminary design review, is a clear indication that the NASA/industry program team is on track to deliver a deep-space exploration capability for the future.
Russia to begin building record-setting super-heavy space rocket
Russia Today
Vladimir Putin has given his preliminary approval for the development of a Russian-designed rocket capable of lifting a record 150 tons of cargo into orbit, to rival similar projects from NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
NASA's New Orion Spaceship Makes a Splash in Ocean Tests
NASA's next spaceship, the Orion capsule, has had a wet summer.
7 questions about NASA's asteroid redirect mission
Ledyard King – Florida Today
Some key leaders in Congress prefer returning to the moon, a plan the President Obama scrapped.
NASA plans to redirect a small asteroid into lunar orbit during the next decade as part of a steppingstone approach to landing astronauts on Mars by the 2030s.
Russian, US Scientists to Prepare Astronauts for Extreme Situations in Space
RIA Novosti
Russian and American scientists are starting a large-scale study into the cognitive psychology of astronauts to develop new technologies to adjust them for operations in extreme conditions, Tomsk State University (TSU) head Edward Galazhinsky told reporters Tuesday.
Deflecting near Earth asteroids with paint
Shen Ge – The Space Review
Near Earth asteroids (NEAs), which have orbits that can intersect the Earth, pose the threat of collisions with devastating consequences. At the Scientific Preparatory Academy for Cosmic Explorers (SPACE) and our sister research company, the Experimental Center for Applied Physical Systems LLC, we've proposed an innovative "slow push" technique by painting part of an asteroid either white or black. Changing the asteroid's surface color alters its reflectivity, or albedo, which ultimately modifies the Yarkovsky Effect on the asteroid. The Yarkovsky Effect is a force linked to the uneven thermal distribution on a rotating body, which generates a force imbalance between the dawn side and the dusk side as the thermal photons leave the surface.
A mission to Pluto enters the home stretch
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
Exploration of the solar system is not for the impatient. The scale of the solar system and the limitations of conventional propulsion mean that it takes years for robotic probes to traverse millions or even billions of kilometers to reach their destinations. ESA's Rosetta spacecraft, which arrived at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko early last month, lifted off more than a decade earlier, following a circuitous trajectory to minimize propellant. Access to perhaps a more fundamental, and scarce, propellant—money—often means that the effort to win approval for, build, and launch a mission can take longer than the mission itself.
Decadal Survey Is Community's Best Budget Lever, NASA Chief Scientist Says
Dan Leone – Space News
The so-called decadal surveys that set priorities for NASA's $5 billion-per-year science portfolio are the science community's best chance to influence the internal White House budget negotiations affecting specific missions, NASA's chief scientist told a National Research Council panel here Aug. 26.
World's First 3D Printer in Space Will Launch This Month
The first 3D printer ever to fly in space will blast off this month, and NASA has high hopes for the innovative device's test runs on the International Space Station.
NASA orders extra checks on SMAP's deployable antenna
NASA has delayed the launch of a $490 million research satellite for further tests of a spinning mesh antenna that will measure moisture in Earth's soils, data that scientists say will help predict the future availability of water resources.
Space Robot Arm Tech Could Help Surgeons Operate on Kids
The technology powering robotic arms in space could be used to perform minor surgeries for children on Earth.
Soyuz's Galileo Launch Failure Spawns Three Investigations
Peter B. de Selding – Space News
A government-industry board of inquiry into the Aug. 22 failure of a Europeanized Russian Soyuz rocket to correctly orbit two European Galileo navigation satellites is scheduled to present its initial results Sept. 8 after a 12-day investigation.
COMPLETE STORIES
Let's Continue the Progress on SLS
Doug Cooke - Space News
NASA's report on the state of the Space Launch System, reflecting its completed preliminary design review, is a clear indication that the NASA/industry program team is on track to deliver a deep-space exploration capability for the future.
What is not immediately apparent in the announcement is that the schedule set forth by NASA is based on a version of the future budget that is inconsistent with higher historic funding levels passed by Congress since the SLS program began. NASA's commitment to SLS includes an evaluation of all identified program and technical risks in calculating a conservative statistical program schedule estimate.
The fact that a budget has not been passed for fiscal year 2015 forces NASA to work under a continuing resolution (CR), causing a pessimistic budget and schedule perspective. In my experience, under a 2015 CR, NASA can spend $1.6 billion, which is the lowest amount between the 2014 budget appropriation and 2015 House or Senate budget marks. However, the programs will likely receive conservative budget allocations defined by the president's 2015 budget request of $1.38 billion.
Operating the program at the lower requested level prevents overspending before the budget is passed, but slows the program pace. If the appropriated budget is more than the president's request, spending can be increased later in the year, but it is inefficient. However, if the program takes a risk and spends at a higher rate than the final appropriation, spending for the remainder of the year must be reduced drastically to accommodate both the overspend and the reduced approved budget.
NASA acknowledged current planning is to the president's request during its press conference on the report.
Forcing the program to slow implementation based on an unrealistically low budget is detrimental. A schedule for the first flight based on the request for 2015 and future years is therefore stretched out compared with a schedule that is consistent with what the program likely will receive ($1.6 billion to 1.7 billion) and has been receiving. In fact, NASA's biggest identified risk (50 percent of the program risk) is not technical, but uncertain budget availability.
In addition to an unnecessary program slowdown, there are other consequences to consider. Generally speaking, budget equals people. So a cut consistent with the president's request starting Oct. 1 undoubtedly means fewer people working on the program. It also probably means cuts to valuable program content. It is inefficient and can lead to cost growth.
While political and budget machinations impact the programs, SLS is still making unprecedented progress. The core stages program (Boeing) has successfully completed both preliminary design review and the subsequent critical design review five months ahead of schedule. The use of existing and characterized space shuttle main engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne and shuttle-derived boosters from ATK allows for low-risk integration with the core stage. The core stages production factory is installing the final manufacturing tool with the factory ribbon-cutting at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana on Sept. 12. The core stages program is reducing typical rocket system risks by initiating avionics and software development early in the design phase and is currently running simulations on flight-type hardware.
The SLS booster program has completed its critical design review on schedule. Three test firings of the five-segment booster have been successfully conducted and a fourth is planned for early 2015. Independent testing of the new booster avionics has been completed, and they have been integrated with the core stage avionics to conduct complete vehicle avionics testing.
The Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines, previously flown on the space shuttle, will undergo their SLS critical design review this fall. A new engine controller will begin testing at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi this fall.
The assured way to keep our deep-space programs on schedule is to maintain the consistent congressional and administration support and pass a stable NASA budget with $1.6 billion to $1.7 billion for SLS as soon as possible. Passing the budget will help other NASA programs stay on the right path for the same reasons. It will prevent disruption of progress and inefficient replanning. It will maintain a stable, committed and productive work force that is making remarkable progress. Based on progress to date, I believe it will provide the opportunity to begin flying SLS in late 2017.
SLS is a key to human exploration beyond Earth orbit and is currently on track. Let's enable this future for our nation.
Doug Cooke, owner of Cooke Concepts and Solutions, spent 38 years at NASA's Johnson Space Center and headquarters and is the former associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
Russia to begin building record-setting super-heavy space rocket
Russia Today
Vladimir Putin has given his preliminary approval for the development of a Russian-designed rocket capable of lifting a record 150 tons of cargo into orbit, to rival similar projects from NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
"Today we heard the first concrete words about commencing work on the project. Previously, there was discussion and expert roundtables, but today President Putin gave the preliminary go-ahead for the new rocket," declared Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who curates the country's space industry, after touring the Vostochny cosmodrome in the east of the country with the Russian leader.
The news comes on the back of a successful test launch of the long-gestating Angara rocket earlier this summer. The rocket, which is capable of delivering up to 35 tons of cargo into the Low Earth Orbit in its most powerful modification, is the first launch vehicle developed entirely after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Rogozin said that work on the new super-heavy rocket would begin as soon as Angara is in regular use.
"After we are finished with this project, we will move onto something completely different – not a 7, 15 or 25-ton rocket, but one that is capable of delivering 120-150 tons," said Rogozin, claiming that the construction stage of the project would be reached "around 2020."
Earlier, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, Oleg Ostapenko, said the completion date of the new rocket could be brought forward by repurposing two of Angara's four projected launchpads – one at Vostochny, and the other at the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia.
"The money saved by reducing the number of launchpads, could already contribute towards the construction of new ones,"agreed Rogozin.
The outline of Russia's space program for the next two decades, published earlier this year, estimated the total cost of the new rocket, including the infrastructure, at about 500 billion rubles (US$13.3 billion).
The as-yet-unnamed Russian project will be entering an increasingly crowded field.
NASA's $12 billion Space Launch System, which has similar parameters to the Russian project, is scheduled for its first launch in December 2017, though it has recently encountered technical issues and budget overruns, which may yet delay its launch.
China, which has been spending heavily to catch up with the established spacefaring powers, has already drawn up initial blueprints on its own super-heavy launch vehicle, Long March 9, though no specific target blast-off date has been definitively stated.
But the most intriguing rival is Elon Musk's SpaceX, which has a project in development that is not only a fraction of the budget of its rivals – an estimated $2.5 billion – but also promises a cost of each launch that is several times lower than that mooted by the state-run space agencies.
The Falcon Heavy – only 53 tons, but already more powerful than other launch vehicles in operation – is set to count down to its first demo flight sometime next year.
It is notable that all of these rockets will only be scaling to reach the capacities of Saturn-V, which was capable of delivering payloads of up to 118 tons when it ferried key Apollo program spaceships into orbit between 1966 and 1973. One difference is the astronomical cost of the project, which made it unsustainable after the height of the Cold War passed.
The current generation of super-heavy rockets is essential for deep space and Mars missions, which will represent the first paradigm-changing breakthrough in space travel since the moon landing, and the first orbital space stations.
Russia, the US, and China have all tentatively scheduled manned missions to Mars after 2030, with Musk planning to launch a mission before that date.
NASA's New Orion Spaceship Makes a Splash in Ocean Tests
NASA's next spaceship, the Orion capsule, has had a wet summer.
For a full week in August, NASA engineers and the U.S. Navy worked side by side to practice retrieving the new spacecraft from the Pacific Ocean after a water splashdown like the one that will end the capsule's upcoming test flight in December.
The tests were based from the USS Anchorage, an amphibious Navy transport that was temporarily assigned to NASA's Orion recovery exercises. Another round of sea trials is scheduled for September. [NASA's Orion Spaceship in Pictures] "We ran six or seven different tests," said Mike Folger, who manages part of the Orion recovery operation from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, as the sea trials ended on Aug. 6. "First, we released it inside the well deck and make sure that we can control it the way we think we can."
The well deck is an area in the rear of the ship that opens to the sea, allowing water to flood inside. Normally, Marines use it to launch amphibious assault craft. For this first in a series of tests, the NASA and Navy teams simply allowed the capsule to wallow inside the back end of the Anchorage.
"Once we got comfortable with that, we released the test article behind the ship and sent a couple of Navy boats out with divers and a horse collar," Folger said. The horse collar loops around Orion, securing the craft to a winched cable that is used to tow Orion into the recovery ship.
Despite a few small hiccups, including one horse collar that began to come unstitched, the tests were successful.
"We did this in calm seas," Folger said. "Then we looked for seas that were a bit more riled up. We're not sure what the weather is going to be like in December in the Pacific, so we need to try it in a number of different conditions."
While Orion is a 21st-century spacecraft, its capsule may remind people of the smaller Apollo command modules from the 1960s. And indeed, much learning from that program has contributed to this vessel's testing.
"We have as a part of our trusted agents guys who worked on recoveries of Apollo spacecraft, and their knowledge has helped immensely," said NASA test director Jeremy Graeber. "They would say, 'Don't forget about this, did you think about this, remember your communications.' … These are all different pieces that we know, but having people with the direct knowledge and experience has been a definite benefit."
Graeber was upbeat about the program, in spite of NASA's smaller budget. The Obama administration's proposed $17.5 billion budget for NASA in 2015 is a 1-percent dip from the space agency's 2014 budget approved by Congress, and about a tenth of what was available during the spending peak of the Apollo program, 1966.
"It's challenging, but the efficiencies come in with being smart about when you do the next thing," he told Space.com. "Apollo had a deadline that said we have to be here by this time, so you have to do everything at the same time. You have to build the spacecraft, build everything on the ground, command and control … everything you needed to have, you had to do all at once."
Graeber was referring to Apollo's end-of-the-decade deadline, proclaimed by then-President John F. Kennedy in 1961.
But Orion and its Space Launch System mega-rocket are different.
"We're looking at this from a long-term perspective … and these are the steps to accomplish that," Graeber said. "We are able to spread things out. We have a stepped approach … We understand it, know how it works. We work within those guidelines.
"We've gotten very good at understanding the process and building things in the right order," he added.
The August ocean recovery trials, which NASA called Underway Recovery Test #2, occurred in mostly calm seas off the coast of San Diego. The September test, Underway Recovery Test #3, will seek out rougher sea conditions. It will also test various contingencies, such as Orion splashing down far from the planned recovery area.
"If the spacecraft doesn't land where we are expecting it to, we would have to use an alternate procedure to get it," Graeber said. "If it's within 600 miles, we are probably able to go with this vessel. But if it's out of range on the day of landing, we would have to use a smaller ship to go and recover it."
For the Orion's December test flight, NASA will evaluate weather conditions for the landing area before launch, and make a commitment to landing at that time, fair weather or foul. The planned recovery zone is about 600 miles west of San Diego.
"EFT-1 will be only two and a half times around the Earth, so we are committed at launch," Folger said. "I think we will have enough flexibility in our recovery strategy that it won't be a problem."
7 questions about NASA's asteroid redirect mission
Ledyard King – Florida Today
Some key leaders in Congress prefer returning to the moon, a plan the President Obama scrapped.
NASA plans to redirect a small asteroid into lunar orbit during the next decade as part of a steppingstone approach to landing astronauts on Mars by the 2030s.
Some key leaders in Congress, which must approve funding for the mission, prefer returning to the moon. That plan was scrapped a few years ago by President Barack Obama, who canceled the Constellation Program due to what an independent commission called unsustainable costs.
Here's a look at relevant questions and answers about NASA's asteroid redirect mission, or ARM.
Question: How exactly would the mission work?
Answer: NASA is exploring two options. The first would identify a small asteroid (about seven to 10 meters) not far from Earth, use a robotic spacecraft to retrieve it, then drop it into the moon's orbit. An alternative plan would extract a boulder from a larger asteroid and do the same thing.
Once the asteroid is in lunar orbit, a crew of two astronauts would use a deep-space rocket and the Orion crew vehicle NASA is developing to visit the floating rock and dock to the robotic spacecraft still attached to it.
Q: How will NASA find a suitable asteroid?
A: The agency already has identified more than 11,000 asteroids, or "near earth objects." Three of them, none bigger than a school bus, are being monitored for the mission.
They are believed to have the mass, shape, spin rate and orbit that could prove viable targets for a mission. Three larger ones have been identified as possible candidates for the boulder alternative.
Q: How much will it cost?
A: Estimates range from $1.25 billion to $2.6 billion, not including the cost of developing the deep space rocket and Orion capsule. That would be considerably cheaper than using the moon as a steppingstone to Mars, which would require more infrastructure, notably a lunar lander.
Lack of money has forced NASA to reassess its missions. Unless a more ambitious plan gets broad international buy-in — or Congress decides to approve significantly more money for NASA — an asteroid mission looks like the agency's best option for a deep-space mission for now, said John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
"It's the most interesting mission to undertake, given the current ground rules and current budget," he said.
Q: Are there other advantages of visiting an asteroid?
A: Yes. The most relevant is the opportunity to study the floating space rocks. More information about their composition and how they hurtle through space should help scientists determine how to deflect those that are on a collision course with Earth.
There's also interest in mining asteroids for metals, rare minerals and frozen water, which could be converted into liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel that would make a trip to Mars easier and cheaper.
Q: Why is there interest in returning to the moon?
A: The idea leaves some people with a been-there-done-that feeling. But supporters of the proposal say returning to the moon would provide a gateway to the rest of the solar system and enable scientific discoveries valuable to an eventual Mars mission.
It also would give an emerging commercial space industry opportunities to test new technologies and mine for minerals. And it would give the U.S. a chance to partner (read: share costs) with other countries it's been at odds with lately, such as China and Russia.
"There's really no enthusiasm among any of our (international) partners for the ARM," said Cliff Zukin, a Rutgers University political science professor.
Q: What does Congress have to say about this?
A: Lawmakers are split on the asteroid plan. Republican leaders have criticized it as uninspiring and a waste of money, and say it lacks broad support from the scientific community.
Part of that reaction stems from bruised feelings over Obama's decision to abolish the return-to-the-moon Constellation Program — which had been championed by President George W. Bush — without consulting Congress.
Democrats are more supportive, though they're not particularly keen on the asteroid idea either.
Q: What happens next?
A: NASA scientist will continue looking for the best asteroid to use for the mission. The agency also is planning a December test launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida of an uncrewed Orion vehicle atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket.
Congress, meanwhile, is working on NASA's budget request, which includes about $133 million for the asteroid mission. Space committees in the House and Senate have passed similar spending plans for NASA but have yet to work out a compromise on a final budget.
Russian, US Scientists to Prepare Astronauts for Extreme Situations in Space
RIA Novosti
Russian and American scientists are starting a large-scale study into the cognitive psychology of astronauts to develop new technologies to adjust them for operations in extreme conditions, Tomsk State University (TSU) head Edward Galazhinsky told reporters Tuesday.
"This is a search for patterns and the development of new mechanisms to adjust the actions of the astronauts, which would allow them to make correct decisions in extreme situations, when there is a huge number of unforeseen situations. The human factor is not excluded. Together we are working on technologies that would allow the astronauts to accomplish safe spacecraft docking," Galazhinsky said.
According to him, the university has set up a laboratory for cognitive space research. The project involves the Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Science of Siberian Branch at Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian branch in Tomsk, Rocket and Space Corporation Energia in Korolev, the United States' Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania, as well as Russian cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri and Sergei Krikalev.
Galazhinsky also noted that preparatory work is currently underway in the laboratory.
"The research program is being developed, the instrumental methods are being selected. The experiments will start later in fall," the Tomsk State University head added.
Earlier, the university reported that the final result of research would be the development of new technologies, trainers, equipment, computer programs, as well as physical exercises and methods that will reduce the time of cosmonauts' training, while increasing its efficiency.
Deflecting near Earth asteroids with paint
Shen Ge – The Space Review
Near Earth asteroids (NEAs), which have orbits that can intersect the Earth, pose the threat of collisions with devastating consequences. At the Scientific Preparatory Academy for Cosmic Explorers (SPACE) and our sister research company, the Experimental Center for Applied Physical Systems LLC, we've proposed an innovative "slow push" technique by painting part of an asteroid either white or black. Changing the asteroid's surface color alters its reflectivity, or albedo, which ultimately modifies the Yarkovsky Effect on the asteroid. The Yarkovsky Effect is a force linked to the uneven thermal distribution on a rotating body, which generates a force imbalance between the dawn side and the dusk side as the thermal photons leave the surface.
The design and implementation of the Surface Albedo Treatment System (SATS) is a three-step process. The first step is an initial study of three parts discussed in this article, called the Apophis Mitigation Technology (AMT). The second step is a low Earth orbit (LEO) flight test of a spacecraft housing the SATS system, with an anticipated launch date of 2018. The final step is an asteroid exploration and mitigation mission called the Apophis Exploration and Mitigation Platform (AEMP) to the NEA 99942 Apophis, with an anticipated launch in 2021 and arrival at Apophis in 2022.
Apophis was co-discovered by Roy Tucker, who is also a board member of SPACE. Apophis will approach close to the Earth in April 2029 and, if it passes through a region of space known as the keyhole, could impact Earth in 2036. When first discovered in December 2004, JPL estimated that there was a 1 in 300 probability of impact. Since then, follow-up observations have reduced the probability of impact to well below 1 in a million for the 2036 close encounter. With almost zero probability of hitting the Earth, Apophis's close approach in 2029 offers an excellent opportunity to explore and test the long-term effects of the mitigation technique without causing potential impact to the Earth.
 Figure 2. Schematic depiction of the triboelectric dispenser mechanism. |
Ground experiment
Over the last five years, we have designed the SATS payload, performed simulations, and conducted ground experiments. SATS is composed of four main components as shown in Figure 2: an inert gas chamber, an ACP (Albedo Change Particles) chamber, a mixing chamber, and a triboionization tube. The core design requires modifying a powder painting gun commonly used for industrial powder coating, which is commonly used for painting car rims, furniture, door knobs, and a variety of other terrestrial objects. A modified Nordson Corporation power painting tribodispenser is been developed for use in space.
SATS would work in space as follows:
- Pressurized inert gas forces power through a narrow passageway, where the dispenser wall material is an electric donor and the ACPs are electron acceptors.
- Dispenser releases the dry, negatively charged ACPs onto the positively charged asteroid surface.
- Solar radiation melts and cures the powder, bonding the particles firmly to each other and the surface.
Designing the SATS requires both ground experiments and particle flow and interspace simulations. The ground test differs from the LEO experiment by the presence of gravity and its smaller scale. Every effort is implemented to simulate space conditions, including vacuum and sunlight. A vacuum chamber has been built and an UV projector models sunlight. The apparatus is composed of a pressurized gas source, a fluidized bed (hopper), a hose connecting the hopper to the mixing chamber, a main ionization tube, and a nozzle. A schematic of the setup can be seen in Figure 3.
 Figure 3. Schematic of the ground experiment for optimizing design of SATS. |
Simulations
The ACP Dynamic Simulator (ADS) makes use of a variety of target asteroids. By testing against a variety of targets, more likely scenarios can be weighted accordingly and limiting cases can be found. Particle flow within and near the dispenser are simulated via Monte Carlo techniques, combined with computational fluid dynamics of the transporting gas, and iterated upon to improve estimates of the charge distribution and its resulting force on the particles. Preliminary studies have yield promising results but there is still work in developing the user-defined functions for the flow characteristics.
The final simulation aims to observe the amount of change in trajectory altering produced by the Yarkovsky Effect. The code starts with 2D and 3D normal distribution of positions and velocities with mean and covariance values. The 6D sphere of uncertainty will be propagated from Apophis's initial conditions to 2036 with Monte Carlo simulations.
LEO flight experiment
For our LEO flight experiment, we have designed a spacecraft to test the efficacy of albedo change. The tribo-dispenser will be mounted at the top of the spacecraft, with the barrel angled down towards the surface. The flow of the particles will spread out in a cone with a circular cross-section, finally curing and thus adhering to the surface. The particles will be stored in a spherical tank near the tribo-dispenser, with pressurant stored in a separate tank. Upon release, the negatively charged particles will be electrostatically attracted to the surface, where they will cure. Images taken during deposition and curing will be stored and forwarded to the ground station. A monochrome camera will provide the imagery; color imagery is unnecessary to measure the change in visible light intensity, as it increases the data load and decreases sensitivity. The sun will provide the light for imaging.
 Figure 4. Refined configuration of the AMT spacecraft bus. |
The future
Our work currently paves the way for the next step of building the spacecraft for the LEO flight experiment and, ultimately, the ensuing AEMP mission to the asteroid Apophis. Our three-step progression provides many desirable characteristics for changing the trajectory of a potentially threatening asteroid. A tribodispenser design uses techniques that are commonly used and well understood. The paint can stay on the surface for an extended period, ensuring continuous trajectory change.
 Figure 5. A mockup of the LEO spacecraft made from aluminum plates. |
With the effectiveness of the trajectory change observed via the test mission to Apophis, the application method can then be applied to any NEAs given a sufficient warning time. In the case of a certain impact and enough warning time, a mitigation mission using SATS can drastically reduce design time and mitigation cost.
Shen Ge (shenge86@gmail.com) is the co-founder of both the educational nonprofit organization Scientific Preparatory Academy for Cosmic Explorers (www.spaceacad.org) and the research company Experimental Center for Applied Physical Systems (ECAPS) LLC. He also operates the Impact Hound (www.impacthound.com) weblog and is a contributing writer for AIAA Houston Horizons (www.aiaahouston.org/newsletter). Technical details presented are the work of the researchers of the Experimental Center for Applied Physical Systems LLC. A mission to Pluto enters the home stretch
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
Exploration of the solar system is not for the impatient. The scale of the solar system and the limitations of conventional propulsion mean that it takes years for robotic probes to traverse millions or even billions of kilometers to reach their destinations. ESA's Rosetta spacecraft, which arrived at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko early last month, lifted off more than a decade earlier, following a circuitous trajectory to minimize propellant. Access to perhaps a more fundamental, and scarce, propellant—money—often means that the effort to win approval for, build, and launch a mission can take longer than the mission itself.
The payoff, though, is worth the wait, as Rosetta's science team is now discovering. For another mission, the anticipation of the wealth of discoveries awaiting them is growing. New Horizons, launched in January 2006 as the first mission to Pluto (see "A journey's ending and beginning", The Space Review, January 23, 2006), is now less than ten months away from its high-speed flyby of the distant world and its moons.
Last Monday, August 25, was a milestone of sorts for the mission. On that day, the spacecraft passed the orbit of Neptune, the last planet whose orbit the spacecraft will cross before its Pluto encounter next July. (Neptune itself was far from the spacecraft at the time of its orbit crossing.) By cosmic coincidence, that milestone took place 25 years to the day after Voyager 2 flew past Neptune, the last in its series of historic planetary flybys (see "The Grand Tour finale: Neptune", The Space Review, August 25, 2014).
While there was no physical significance of the orbit crossing for the mission, the milestone, and its timing to the Voyager 2 anniversary, were otherwise significant enough for NASA to hold a press event at the agency's Washington headquarters to look back at history while reminding the public of what's to come with New Horizons next year.
Although New Horizons wasn't near Neptune as it crossed its orbit—no closer than four billion kilometers—it still offered a very distant glimpse of that planet. "We thought it would be fun to use the spacecraft during its checkout this summer to make an image of Neptune and Triton, its large, plant-sized moon," said Alan Stern, the principal investigator for the mission.
That image, not surprisingly, didn't show much: Neptune was just a few pixels across, and Triton only one. "They're so far away they're only points of light," he said. "That's the power of going close."
New Horizons, of course, will do far more than return images of points of light when it encounters Pluto next year. Although the spacecraft's closest approach is July 14, the "encounter phase" of the mission starts in January. "Beginning in May, we exceed Hubble resolution," Stern said, a reference to the best images of Pluto taken to date. "It will get better week by week" through the July flyby.
How much better? He showed an image of the Earth—specifically, New York City—at the same resolution as what New Horizons will achieve on its closest approach to Pluto. It showed enough detail to make out individual ponds in Central Park and piers on the Hudson River. "I don't think we're going to see any of that on Pluto," he quipped, "but that's the kind of detail that we're going to have in the highest resolution—70 meters per pixel—images of the Pluto system." That imagery is sharper, he said, than images from any other spacecraft "first reconnaissance" of another solar system body.
Stern promised that the images and other data collected during the flyby (which will takes months to return to Earth, given the limited data rates of the spacecraft at that distance) will revolutionize our understanding of Pluto. "Everything we know about the Pluto system today could probably fit on one piece of paper," he said. "We don't know a thing now and a year from now we're going to write the textbooks."
Less certain about New Horizons is what mission, if any, it will have after the Pluto flyby next July. Both NASA and project scientists have expressed an interest in using the spacecraft to fly past another icy body in the Kuiper Belt, but so far have not found any that would be in range of the spacecraft.
In June, the Space Telescope Science Institute granted time on Hubble to perform test observations to look for Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). If scientists could find at least two KBOs in those test observations, it would demonstrate that Hubble could be effectively used to look for potential targets for New Horizons, freeing up more time on the space telescope to conduct that search.
In early July, NASA announced the verdict from those tests: yes, Hubble could be effectively used to search for KBOs for New Horizons, having found at least two KBOs in the test images taken in June. The full survey involved Hubble observations in July and August.
At last week's event, Stern said analysis of the images from that broader Hubble survey is ongoing. "The basic search is now complete," he said. The hundreds of images taken in that survey has yielded some candidates, but Stern said it was too soon to tell if any of them are within range of the spacecraft. That determination will come after their orbits are refined though followup observations and additional analysis. "We hope to know before the year is out," he said.
While New Horizons will be the first spacecraft to fly past Pluto, many on the science team are not newcomers to flybys. A number of scientists working on the mission were also involved with the Voyager mission, including Voyager 2's final flyby exactly 25 years earlier. That experience gave them lessons for next year's event.
"Flybys are very intense, particularly when, as often with flybys, it's the first time you've been to that place," said John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute. "You don't know what to expect. You're trying to imagine, yet you possibly can't imagine, what you're going to see. And then it all happens so fast: you're just blown away, and sort of dizzy for a long time afterwards."
"In many ways, an encounter is almost like giving birth," said Bonnie Buratti of JPL. "You go from an idea in your mind to a whole new person or a whole new world."
"You also don't get a lot of sleep," added David Grinspoon of the Southwest Research Institute.
"That's also true," she said.
The experience may be a little different at Pluto because New Horizons, unlike Voyager, will be gradually returning data for months, instead of all at once. "We're going to have new Christmas presents under the tree for months after the encounter," said Jeffrey Moore of NASA Ames. For example, he said, the detailed imagery needed to understand Pluto's geology won't be fully in hand until up to six months after the flyby. "It's going to be the gift that keeps on giving."
The Pluto flyby will also benefit from advances in technology, from the instrumentation on the spacecraft to how scientists will visualize and handle the data those instruments return. Also, noted Fran Bagenal of the University of Colorado, the New Horizons data will be available to the public immediately. "The data belong to everybody," she said.
Any discussion of a mission to Pluto inevitably leads to a discussion of that world's status in the solar system. When New Horizons was conceived, developed, and launched, Pluto was officially considered the solar system's ninth planet. A little more than six months after launch, though, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved a new definition of the term "planet" that excludes Pluto, consigning it instead to a new class of bodies called "dwarf planets" (see "Inside the planet definition process", The Space Review, September 11, 2006).
The question of Pluto's status came up at the event in a rather odd way, though: via a question posed via Twitter by none other than actor William Shatner: "What can we do to get it's [sic] planetary status back?" he asked, referring to Pluto. "There can't be just 8 planets in our solar system."
While many involved with New Horizons, particularly Stern, have been staunch supporters of continuing to call Pluto a planet, the panelists offered a more nuanced response. "The thing about the whole planet debate is that it was only necessary because we learned amazing things about Pluto," responded Grinspoon. "We're exploring this new realm of the solar system that we haven't explored before, the realm of dwarf planets."
"We all agree that this is one of the most fascinating places to explore," he continued, "and we all agree that Pluto is a dwarf planet, which is a new class of object that we're going to visit." The idea that a dwarf planet was not a class of planet—as current IAU definitions state—"to me is kind of silly."
Last week's event was something of a passing of the torch from the Voyager flybys of the 1970s and '80s to next year's New Horizon flyby. It was also, more literally, a passing of a flag: after the televised portion of the event ended, Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist and former JPL director, formally handed over a NASA flag that flew in mission control during the Voyager mission to Stern. That flag will fly in New Horizons mission control during next year's Pluto flyby.
And, while many of the scientists involved with New Horizons have experience with Voyager and other missions, the project also includes a number of young scientists for whom this will be their first mission. "Think about the next 25 years," Stern said, "and ask yourself what missions will these scientists be principal investigators on in the 2040s? What will NASA and the United States and the world be doing to explore the universe then, with these scientists at the helm?"
Decadal Survey Is Community's Best Budget Lever, NASA Chief Scientist Says
Dan Leone – Space News
The so-called decadal surveys that set priorities for NASA's $5 billion-per-year science portfolio are the science community's best chance to influence the internal White House budget negotiations affecting specific missions, NASA's chief scientist told a National Research Council panel here Aug. 26.
Annual budget negotiations between the White House and NASA are conducted in secret, and the results released publicly — and to Congress — only after the tough calls have been made. Outsiders are not consulted, even when falling budgets precipitate major changes, as happened in 2012 when the White House took NASA off the international ExoMars sample-caching mission that addressed a top planetary science objective.
However dramatic the trades NASA is considering, "we can't come back to you and be honest about the trade space we're working with," Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist, told the NRC-chartered Survey of Surveys Aug. 26. "We're not allowed to, that's the way it is."
For that reason, Stoffan said, scientists need to "give NASA ... a flexible path to use the decadals." She offered the 2011 decadal survey of NASA's planetary science program as an example. That document, "Visions and Voyages for Planetary Science 2013-2022," provided guidance tailored to different budget scenarios, including a decline below anticipated levels.
The ad hoc Survey of Surveys committee was convened this year to consider lessons learned from recent decadal surveys, and whether any tweaks are required to either the survey process or the content of the final document produced by the community for NASA.
Each of NASA's four science divisions — planetary, astrophysics, heliophysics and Earth — is guided by its own decadal survey, prepared by an NRC panel composed of scientists who are experts in the field. Stoffan, a planetary scientist by training, helped write the planetary science decadal.
All four divisions were represented on the 13-member Survey of Surveys committee, chaired by Alan Dressler, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Pasadena, California. The committee is scheduled to produce a report in June, about six months after its third and final meeting, which is scheduled for Dec. 8 in Irvine, California.
Not all of the presenters shared Stoffan's view that decadal surveys must always prescribe specific options for different budgetary scenarios.
Joel Parriott, head of public policy for the Washington-based American Astronomical Society, told the NRC panel it is tempting for scientists to overshare in a decadal survey, especially because the congressional staffers who draft NASA's annual spending bills want as much detail as possible.
However, "the downside to including everything is you give somebody with ulterior motives a recipe for cutting," said Parriott, who previously served for 10 years at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Parriott said there is something to be said for an "aspirational" survey that abandons any pretense of predicting what might happen with federal budgets, sets out big-picture science goals "and let the chips fall where they may."
"When I was at OMB, agency program managers who were perceived by policymakers as being competent and spending taxpayer dollars well got a lot of latitude," Parriott said.
One NASA manager invited to speak before the committee had trouble envisioning a purely aspirational decadal survey.
"I can't imagine us not asking, as part of the charge, to recommend a program for the next decade that fits within the anticipated budgets," said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division.
Another senior NASA executive said it is inherently futile to worry too much about costs in a document intended to help the agency accomplish never-before-attempted science.
"We don't know the costs of the missions, and we will not know them well until significant amounts of money are spent for each individual mission," Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division, told the NRC panel. "To think that somehow we can track that problem algorithmically or some other way by a really good group of people working on a decadal survey in their spare time ... I think that that's fanciful."
World's First 3D Printer in Space Will Launch This Month
The first 3D printer ever to fly in space will blast off this month, and NASA has high hopes for the innovative device's test runs on the International Space Station.
The 3D printer, which is scheduled to launch toward the orbiting lab Sept. 19 aboard SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo capsule, could help lay the foundation for broader in-space manufacturing capabilities, NASA officials said. The end result could be far less reliance on resupply from Earth, leading to cheaper and more efficient missions to faraway destinations such as Mars.
"The on-demand capability can revolutionize the constrained supply chain model we are limited to today and will be critical for exploration missions," Niki Werkheiser, manager of NASA's "3-D Printing in Zero-G" project at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement. 3D Printing in Zero-G is a collaboration between NASA and California-based startup Made in Space, which built the machine that's heading to the space station this month. The microwave-size 3D printer was cleared for flight in April after an extensive series of tests at Marshall.
3D printers build objects layer by layer out of metal, plastic, composites and other materials, using a technique called extrusion additive manufacturing. NASA hopes Made in Space's device works normally aboard the station, thus demonstrating that 3D printers can produce high-quality parts in space as well as on Earth.
If that turns out to be the case, replacing a broken part or tool aboard the orbiting lab could be a matter of simply pushing a button.
"I remember when the tip broke off a tool during a mission," said NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, who lived aboard the space station from December 2009 to June 2010. "I had to wait for the next shuttle to come up to bring me a new one. Now, rather than wait for a resupply ship to bring me a new tool, in the future, I could just print it."
It will likely take the 3D printer from 15 minutes to an hour to print something aboard the space station, depending on the size and complexity of the object, researchers said. Blueprints for desired parts can be loaded onto the machine before launch or beamed up from the ground.
"This means that we could go from having a part designed on the ground to printed in orbit within an hour or two from start to finish," Werkheiser said.
While the space station is the proving ground for this test, NASA officials see great potential for 3D printing beyond low-Earth orbit. For example, deep-space missions could benefit greatly from the technology, because it would be tough to ferry a spare part to a vessel already on its way to an asteroid or Mars.
"NASA is great at planning for component failures and contingencies. However, there's always the potential for unknown scenarios that you couldn't possibly think of ahead of time," said Ken Cooper, principal investigator at Marshall for 3D printing. "That's where a 3D printer in space can pay off. While the first experiment is designed to test the 3D printing process in microgravity, it is the first step in sustaining longer missions beyond low-Earth orbit."
NASA orders extra checks on SMAP's deployable antenna
NASA has delayed the launch of a $490 million research satellite for further tests of a spinning mesh antenna that will measure moisture in Earth's soils, data that scientists say will help predict the future availability of water resources.
The launch of the Soil Moisture Active Passive, or SMAP, mission was set for Nov. 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
But mission managers requested more time to assess results from tests conducted on the spacecraft's reflector boom assembly, a deployable 20-foot-diameter mesh antenna responsible for collecting data for SMAP's two science instruments, according to Alan Buis, a spokesperson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the project.
NASA has not set a new launch date yet, but officials said liftoff could occur as soon as mid-December.
United Launch Alliance ground crews have erected SMAP's Delta 2 launcher at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The two-stage medium-lift launcher will fly with three solid rocket boosters.
SMAP will launch into a 422-mile-high sun-synchronous orbit for a three-year mission.
About two weeks after SMAP reaches orbit, the satellite will unfold the reflector boom, which will sit stowed next to the body of the spacecraft during launch. A tie-down mechanism will release the web-like mesh reflector to unfurl to its full size.
The antenna will spin up to 14.6 rpm -- relative to the main body of the SMAP spacecraft -- to cut a circular swath 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) across, gathering data on the level of moisture in soil and whether it is frozen or thawed.
The mission's two instruments, an L-band synthetic aperture radar and an L-band radiometer, will use the rotating mesh antenna.
The reflector's wide coverage and the satellite's orbit will allow SMAP to map global soil moisture every two or three days, according to scientists.
SMAP data will improve weather and climate prediction models and aid in flood prediction and drought monitoring, according to the mission's website.
Space Robot Arm Tech Could Help Surgeons Operate on Kids
The technology powering robotic arms in space could be used to perform minor surgeries for children on Earth.
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) — the manufacturer of the robotic arms Canadarm and Canadarm2 — is now part of a project called KidsArm. The effort aims to use a mini-arm to automate some tasks during pediatric surgery.
Both space robotic arms were used to build the International Space Station. While Canadarm now only exists in space as a modified boom, Canadarm2 is still used today to capture the commercial Dragon and Cygnus cargo spacecraft visiting the station, and to assist astronauts during spacewalks, among other tasks.
"Our tests indicate we can operate on tiny structures such as blood vessels without damaging them," said Thomas Looi, the program director for the Centre for Image-Guided Innovation and Therapeutic Intervention at the Hospital for Sick Kids (SickKids) in Toronto, said in a statement.
"The goal of the robotic arm is to help doctors perform certain procedures many times faster than if they were only using their hands, and with increased accuracy," Looi added. "Some of this would be done autonomously. While we are not quite there yet, KidsArm is able to perform three to five suture points autonomously."
KidsArm includes a vision-based system that works like robotic eyes, allowing guiding a small surgical arm to be guided to the spot it needs to reach in order to do its work. To figure out where to suture, KidsArm uses a stereo camera that creates a "3D point cloud" of spots to guide the tool tip into the zone.
KidsArm is in testing right now at SickKids to see if it will be useful for anastomosis, a procedure that involves connecting vessels and similar parts of the body. Researchers are testing the accuracy of the robotic arm's camera pointing system, and how well it puts in the sutures.
SickKids announced the project in a NASA news release, but In a NASA press release, did not disclose when doctors plan to use the technology regularly for surgeries.
MDA is involved in several other surgical robotic arm projects. The company was a co-creator of the University of Calgary's neuroArm, which works inside an MRI and did its first operation in 2008. A new generation of arm is being developed for commercial use.
Additionally, MDA and Ontario's Centre for Surgical Invention and Innovation have a robotic arm, called Image-Guided Autonomous Robot, under clinical testing that could be useful for breast cancer diagnosis and surgery.
Soyuz's Galileo Launch Failure Spawns Three Investigations
Peter B. de Selding – Space News
A government-industry board of inquiry into the Aug. 22 failure of a Europeanized Russian Soyuz rocket to correctly orbit two European Galileo navigation satellites is scheduled to present its initial results Sept. 8 after a 12-day investigation.
The eight-member committee, established by the European Space Agency and launch service provider Arianespace, is one of three separate analyses — the others are by the European Commission and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos — into why the Soyuz rocket's Fregat upper stage completed an apparently flawless mission by releasing the satellites so far off target.
As of Aug. 29, government and industry officials said, the two Galileo satellites had deployed their solar arrays and were in good health. But in such an elliptical orbit, with an inclination relative to the equator that is likewise off target, officials said it is likely that the satellites will not be able to be maneuvered into their correct positions with sufficient fuel to conduct operations.
One European government official said Aug. 29 that there is no real work going on to salvage the mission given the fuel needed to bring the satellites into a correct orbit. "We would need something like [1,000 kilograms] of fuel and we have something like 80 kilograms," this official said. "The focus of the inquiry is on the cause of the failure. The satellites themselves are lost."
The European Commission, which owns the Galileo positioning, timing and navigation system, said it had summoned ESA and Arianespace to the commission's Brussels headquarters the first week of September to explain what happened. The commission said it had created its own internal task force in addition to having a seat on the ESA-Arianespace inquiry.
Roscosmos, which also created its own inquiry board, said in a statement that the Fregat appeared to have functioned normally in terms of its hardware — a conclusion supported by the Arianespace webcast of the launch, which tracked the Fregat's path and altitude, and the two firings of its motors, before in-orbit separation.
The Aug. 22 launch proceeded so smoothly that European government and industry officials, one after the other, made speeches celebrating the mission's success. It was only when U.S. Defense Department space surveillance data were published that the useless orbit was disclosed to the public. Officials immediately began speculating that an error in software programming was to blame, and that Fregat was correctly following badly calibrated orders.
Government officials said the effect on the overall Galileo program should be minimal. The Aug. 22 launch was of the first two fully operational Galileo satellites, built by a team led by OHB AG of Bremen, Germany, and SSTL of Britain. A second pair, scheduled for launch aboard the same Soyuz rocket in December, has completed the principal test campaigns.
OHB is under contract to build 22 Galileo satellites. Four in-orbit-validation spacecraft are already in operation, although two of them have performance issues that have not been solved despite months of investigation.
Galileo is intended as a 30-satellite constellation. The 22 OHB-built satellites plus the four spacecraft already in orbit mean the European Commission was already preparing to order four more satellites in the next year or so. That order likely will expand to at least six following the Aug. 22 failure.
The European Commission's Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Directorate is managing Galileo. The directorate's commissioner, Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, reiterated the commission's backing for the program in an Aug. 25 statement.
"The problem with the launch of the two Galileo satellites is very unfortunate. ... I remain convinced of the strategic importance of Galileo and I am confident that the deployment of the constellation of satellites will continue as planned," Feroci said, adding that the commission hopes to have all 30 Galileo satellites in orbit "before the end of the decade."
The eight-member ESA-Arianespace board of inquiry will coordinate its activities with Roscosmos. Arianespace Chief Executive Stephane Israel said the board, which first convened Aug. 28, will work in complete independence.
Former ESA Inspector-General Peter Dubock will head an eight-member board.
The other board of inquiry members are:
- Guido Colasurdo, a flight-mechanics professor at the University of Rome Sapienza.
- Michel Courtois, former technical director at ESA and a veteran of several failure and program-quality reviews for ESA.
- Paul Flament, Galileo program unit head at the European Union's directorate-general for enterprise and industry, which has charge of Galileo.
- Giuliano Gatti, head of the space-component office for Galileo at ESA.
- Wolfgang Kubbat, former manager of the Institute of Flight Dynamics and Automatic Control at the Technical University of Darmstadt, in Germany.
- Isabelle Rongier, inspector-general and director of quality at the French space agency, CNES.
- Toni Tolker Nielsen, ESA deputy inspector-general.
Roscosmos named Alexander Daniliuk, deputy director of Russia's TsNIIMash organization, to be the interface between the Russian and European inquiries. The Fregat upper stage is built by Russia's NPO Lavochkin.
END
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