Happy Friday and Happy Halloween everyone. Have a great weekend and safe trick or treating tonite.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
- KSC Car Passes for Viewing Orion's EFT-1 Launch
- Did You Spot the Orion Fact? - Organizations/Social
- Accepting Bus Trip Reservations-Orion EFT-1 Launch
- JSC Holiday Bazaar Nov. 15
- The JSC Safety and Health Action Team (JSAT) Says - Jobs and Training
- Human Systems Academy Lecture - Community
- Exploring the Core: The Inside Story |  |
| Headlines - National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Cybersecurity Tip for Today: STOP, THINK, CONNECT Don't reply to unsolicited email messages (spam).By responding, you only confirm that your email address is active. Another thing you shouldn't do is click the "remove me" link in the message. Links in email can point to an IP address other than the one you think it references. The best thing you can do is delete the message. Many free email service providers will allow you to easily report it as spam if you received it through MSN hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL or GMail. - KSC Car Passes for Viewing Orion's EFT-1 Launch
JSC has received a limited number of car passes for employees to view the Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) launch from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) causeway, the Turn Basin, or KARS Park. The 25 car passes are far fewer than the number of requests, so JSC distributes the passes by a random selection of interested employees. Passes are only issued to civil servants and contractor employees with an active JSC badge. Co-ops and interns may qualify for a pass if they possess a permanent JSC badge. Pass recipients may have friends and family with them in the vehicle, limited to no more than four people, and ALL guests must be U.S. citizens. Causeway pass recipients must read and comply with a safety and information agreement before obtaining the pass. If you are interested in a car pass, please email Stephanie M. Lee no later than close of business Monday, Nov. 3. Selected employees will be notified on or before Nov. 13, and passes will be issued approximately two weeks before the launch. Please do not send multiple requests/emails—and no phone calls will be accepted. Passes are non-transferable; a waiting list will be maintained in the event that the recipient is unable to attend or does not meet eligibility requirements. - Did You Spot the Orion Fact?
Congratulations to Shamim Rahman for being the first to spot the Orion fact for the month of October! Rahman spotted the fact titled "ISO Grid" outside Building 20. If you haven't yet, stop by Building 20 to read the fact and learn more about Orion. The next fact will be posted in November. Keep your eyes open on the way to your meeting—and you could be the next winner! There will only be two more winners left for the year. Also, don't forget to follow #Orion #Imonboard and #JourneytoMars to get updates on Orion's progress toward launching on Dec. 4. Organizations/Social - Accepting Bus Trip Reservations-Orion EFT-1 Launch
Starport is now accepting reservations for the bus trip to see the Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) launch on Dec. 4 at Kars Park in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Join us to experience this historical moment in NASA history with your co-workers and other members of the NASA family! Charges include transportation, hotel accommodations, park admission and snacks and beverages while traveling. Participants will be responsible for their own meal expenses. Reduced rates are available for double, triple and quadruple occupancy. Additional charges will apply if the launch is pushed back with a one-day weather waive-off schedule. There are a limited number of seats available, and all reservations are first come, first serve—so don't hesitate. Make your reservation today! - JSC Holiday Bazaar Nov. 15
Make your way to the Gilruth Center on Saturday, Nov. 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for the 2014 JSC Holiday Bazaar. You will find a variety of gifts that are perfect for the holidays in one convenient place. Some items that you will find include fine and handmade jewelry, sweets, handcrafted items, skin-care products, candles, ornaments, home accents, cookbooks, holiday decor, crafts, stationary and much, much more. You don't want to miss this chance to get all of your holiday shopping done in one trip! - The JSC Safety and Health Action Team (JSAT) Says
"SAFETY—a time for ALL seasons!" Congratulations to Diane Davis with JES Tech, LLC, for submitting the winning slogan for November. Any JSAT member (all JSC contractor and civil servant employees) may submit a slogan for consideration to JSAT Secretary Reese Squires. Submissions for December are due by Monday, Nov. 10. Keep those great submissions coming—you may be the next "JSAT Says" winner! Jobs and Training - Human Systems Academy Lecture
Join the Human Systems Academy lecture on "Kidney Stones - Rock Your World." Kidney stones are common medical problem. This seminar will discuss the causes, treatments and potential prevention of this disease. There will also be a discussion of impact to the Earthbound population, as well as results from investigations on both short- and long-duration space missions. Community - Exploring the Core: The Inside Story
The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) invites all inquisitive adults to attend "Exploring the Core: The Inside Story," a presentation by Dr. Walter Kiefer of LPI. This free public presentation on Nov. 6 is the second presentation in LPI's 2014-2015 Cosmic Explorations Speaker Series entitled "Science" on the Silver Screen. The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a light reception. Registration is required, as seating is limited to 250. LPI is located in the USRA building (3600 Bay Area Blvd. in Clear Lake). The entrance is located on Middlebrook Drive. | |
| |
| 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
Friday – October 31, 2014
International Space Station:
Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Expedition 1 launch. Two days later on Nov. 2 the Soyuz docked to the International Space Station and the three crew members boarded to initiate an uninterrupted human presence that continues today – 5,114 days later…
- Astronaut Bill Shepherd – Commander
- Cosmonaut Yury Gidzenko – Soyuz Pilot
- Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev – Flight Engineer
Soyuz TM-31 Launch: 1:53 am CST Tue Oct 31, 2000
Docked: 3:21 am CST Thu Nov 2, 2000
Hatch Opening: 4:23 am CST Thu Nov 2, 2000
Returned aboard Discovery: 1:31 am CST Wed, Mar 21, 2001
136 days on ISS (141 in space)
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Pending NASA Budget Bill Would Likely Survive Senate Flip, Lobbyist Says
Dan Leone - Space News
U.S. midterm elections Nov. 4 will determine exactly how Congress handles 2015 appropriations, but even if Republicans keep the House and takeover the Senate, NASA's budget will likely resemble the one that cleared the Democrat-held Senate Appropriations Committee this summer, a veteran space lobbyist said here Oct. 29.
EFT-1 Orion completes assembly and conducts FRR
The stars are aligning for the December 4 debut mission of NASA's Orion spacecraft, following the completion of the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) – albeit with three "actions" to satisfy ahead of flight. The vehicle also completed all assembly tasks and is almost ready to meet up with her Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle for the key test flight of NASA's deep space exploration crew transport.
New U.S. rockets include crew launch-escape systems
Irene Klotz - Reuters
Heeding a lesson from history, designers of a new generation of U.S. rockets will include escape systems to give crew members a fighting chance of surviving launch accidents such as the one that felled an unmanned Orbital Sciences Antares rocket on Tuesday.
Orbital Sciences hopes to quickly find cause of rocket failure
A day after an explosion that destroyed an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying a space station cargo ship, company officials said Wednesday they hope to zero in on the likely cause of the mishap within a week or so, based on a detailed review of telemetry, analysis of video and inspection of recovered debris.
Data Show Antares Rocket Fine for First 15 Seconds, Then First Stage Failure
Orbital Sciences Corporation said today that telemetry from the Antares rocket that failed on Tuesday night indicates that there were no issues before launch or for the first 15 seconds afterwards. What happened thereafter is still being investigated.
Editorial: How To Think About Antares Failure
Aviation Week & Space Technology
Blow up a rocket bound for the International Space Station in spectacular fashion on the East Coast of the U.S., as Orbital Sciences Corp. did on Oct. 28, and you can be sure it will be noticed. Just as with a high-profile airplane crash, the amateur analysts were out in force with misunderstandings about the technologies and shoot-from-the-hip theories about what went wrong and the impact the accident will have.
The Antares rocket explosion shouldn't deter America's space mission: opinion
Huntsville Times
The timing was terrible.
Successful space launch follows spectacular launch failure
Mark Anderson - Sacramento Business Journal
More than a dozen Aerojet Rocketdyne components were part of a successful national security satellite launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Wednesday.
Boeing exec says NASA crash underscores need for new U.S. engine
Andrea Shalal - Reuters
The crash of an unmanned Orbital Sciences Antares rocket is a "wake-up call" to the U.S. space community about the need to develop a new U.S. rocket engine, the head of Boeing Co's defense division said on Thursday.
NASA Report Spotlights Evolving U.S. Private-Sector Space Activities
Leonard David - Coalition for Space Exploration
A new NASA report provides an introduction and overview, and a look into the future, of the emerging "space ecosystem" and American private-sector space activities.
Ebola Outbreak May Hold Lessons for Handling Samples from Mars
Measures taken in the current Ebola outbreak may hold some clues for how to handle samples brought back to Earth from Mars, a place that could potentially host extraterrestrial microbes.
NASA Prepares To Host Hush-Hush Military Program at KSC
Irene Klotz – Space News
After a 22-year hiatus, NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense are resuming a partnership for a classified program that will be based at the Kennedy Space Center.
Earth's Water Existed 135 Million Years Earlier than Thought
The water that supports life on Earth may have been on the planet much earlier than scientists previously thought, new research suggests.
Rough Cosmic Waters: Chandra X-ray Observatory Reveals "Turbulent" Effect of Black Holes
Emily Carney - AmericaSpace
This week, NASA announced that the Chandra X-ray Observatory, now in its 15th year of operation and described as "NASA's flagship mission for X-ray astronomy," may have discovered why some galaxy clusters do not form stars as expected: Turbulence, the same kind that plagues airplane flights in poor weather. While people on Earth definitely don't enjoy the effects of turbulence, it turns out that the phenomenon also may not be conducive to the genesis of stars.
COMPLETE STORIES
Pending NASA Budget Bill Would Likely Survive Senate Flip, Lobbyist Says
Dan Leone - Space News
U.S. midterm elections Nov. 4 will determine exactly how Congress handles 2015 appropriations, but even if Republicans keep the House and takeover the Senate, NASA's budget will likely resemble the one that cleared the Democrat-held Senate Appropriations Committee this summer, a veteran space lobbyist said here Oct. 29.
Under the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee in June but derailed by election-year politics that had nothing to do with space, NASA would get $17.9 billion for 2015, some $250 million more than in 2014. The bill included record-high appropriations for the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and commercial crew programs, de facto competitors for NASA human spaceflight funding.
The CJS bill and several others appear to have enough bipartisan support to make it through a bicameral conference committee and get signed, Kate Kronmiller, vice president and general manager for government affairs for Orbital Sciences Corp., said here Oct. 29 at the American Astronautical Society's 2014 Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium.
Other spending bills produced by the current Congress, however, do not enjoy such broad support. That means when the stopgap spending bill that has kept government agencies funded since the 2015 fiscal year began Oct. 1 expires Dec. 11 during the lame-duck legislative session, lawmakers will likely opt for a "hybrid appropriation" that combines bills written this summer with continuing resolutions that would hold spending for some agencies at the 2014 level until legislators can reach an accord, Kronmiller said.
"What we hear is if the Democrats maintain control of the Senate they want to pass some version of a hybrid appropriation with CJS in it," Kronmiller said in her podium presentation. "If the Senate flips to Republican control, the [Republican] leadership of the Senate said they want to do the same thing."
Beyond that, things get murky, Kronmiller said. In particular, it appears uncertain whether lawmakers will opt for a long-term bill that sets spending levels through September, or a short-term bill that carries budgets into March to limit the influence of the lame-duck session on the incoming Congress.
Richard Obermann, who has worked on the Hill nearly 25 years and is currently chief of staff for the Democratic minority on the House Science Committee, had no better idea than Kronmiller what to expect.
Answering his own rhetorical question about the length of forthcoming appropriations bills, Obermann said, "We don't know. We'll have a better sense when members come back."
Meanwhile, Republicans are widely expected to retain control of the House, which will likely dampen Sen. Bill Nelson's aspirations to get a unanimous consent vote in the Senate on an amended version of S.1317, a NASA authorization bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee in July 2013, but has not been able to get a vote since.
"Sen. Nelson has indicated that he would like to hot line a NASA reauthorization bill [but] I don't know how that's going to play in the House," Kronmiller said.
The potential obstacle for the Senate bill is that it would authorize appropriations at all. A NASA authorization bill the House sent to the Senate this year contained many policy prescriptions, but no funding guidelines for appropriators — something traditionally included with such bills. The omission was the result of ongoing partisan gridlock about budgets, which forced the House Science Committee to strip all funding guidelines out of its bill just to get the measure out of committee.
The reason for the budget impasse is sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts phased in for federal agencies in 2013 as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011. Compromise legislation enacted in 2013 shielded 2014 and 2015 appropriations from the worst of those cuts, but the reductions will phase back in starting in 2016 unless the incoming Congress acts to avert them — as Obermann reminded the symposium's attendees.
The White House's probable solution, Obermann said, will be to "submit a [2016] budget request that may have spending targets higher than those in the [Budget Control Act], but which will also include proposed revenue enhancements and other offsets so that the net expenditure would still conform to the overall caps."
The Obama administration has run that play before. Its 2013 budget request ignored sequestration and attempted to address the national deficit through a combination of tax hikes and entitlement reform that Republicans in Congress swiftly rejected.
It could happen again, Obermann warned.
"In government, failure is always an option," Obermann said.
EFT-1 Orion completes assembly and conducts FRR
The stars are aligning for the December 4 debut mission of NASA's Orion spacecraft, following the completion of the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) – albeit with three "actions" to satisfy ahead of flight. The vehicle also completed all assembly tasks and is almost ready to meet up with her Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle for the key test flight of NASA's deep space exploration crew transport.
EFT-1 Orion:
It's been a long road for the first flight-worthy Orion to get to this stage of her flow, as she prepares to kick start NASA's eventual – if undefined – path towards human footprints on Mars.
That mission may never happen, given it's subject to the support of several future Presidents in succession, who will need to approve and fund such an ambitious goal. However, Orion's first flight will be a step towards that aspiration.
This first flight, scheduled to launch on December 4, will see the uncrewed EFT-1 Orion being launched on the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket, lofted to 3,600 miles beyond Earth, before returning at a velocity of approximately 20,000 mph for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
The mission will provide engineers with data about systems critical to crew safety, such as heat shield performance, separation events, avionics and software performance, attitude control and guidance, parachute deployment and recovery operations.
The results will fed into Orion's Critical Design Review (CDR) scheduled for next year.
Key processing and schedule milestones have been completed of late, including the all important paperwork.
Well known throughout the era of the Space Shuttle Program (SSP), the Flight Readiness Review (FRR) is a key pre-flight review. EFT-1 Orion's review was conducted earlier this month at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.
Given EFT-1 is a test flight, the review was tagged as a (T)FRR.
"After hearing endorsements from the various sub-systems, the FTRR Board recommended to proceed with preparations for a December launch," noted L2's EFT-1 Status Updates.
As was sometimes the case with Shuttle, FRRs can be passed with "actions" to be dealt with ahead of launch. Per the L2 notes, the EFT-1 review has three actions to work, set to be reviewed and signed off at a subsequent Delta FRR.
The Board plans to have a Delta-FTRR to address three actions relating to mitigation of water immersion of Orion harness connectors, Federal Aviation Administration license approval of final vehicle trajectory and Ground Systems Development Office (GSDO) completion of recovery and transport planning open work."
At the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), EFT-1 Orion is now fully assembled and ready to make the trip to shake hands the Delta IV-Heavy that will loft her into space.
The spacecraft will remain inside NASA's Launch Abort System (LAS) Facility at KSC until a rollout to the awaiting Delta IV-H at SLC-37.
This rollout will take place on November 10, ahead of which the Delta IV-H will enjoy a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) on November 5, per L2 information.
"An empty shell of a spacecraft arrived to Kennedy Space Center two years ago, and now we have a fully assembled Orion standing 72 feet tall," noted Michael Hawes Lockheed Martin Orion program manager.
"We're ready to launch it into space and test every inch."
Lockheed Martin – the prime contractor for Orion – noted the final assembly stages of the spacecraft included installing Orion's Ogive panels, which protect the crew module from harsh acoustic and vibration environments during launch and ascent.
Engineers also installed fasteners to secure the panels in place and covered them with a thermal protection coating. Orion was then lifted by crane, rotated into the proper orientation for mating with the Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle, and placed onto the transport pallet.
The rollout is more complicated that simply trucking her across to the Cape pad. The vehicle has to avoid corrosion and contamination threats ahead of the eventual mating atop of the Delta IV-H.
As such, engineers performed a fairing purge test, which verifies how much dry gas needs to be pumped into the space between the Ogive panels and the spacecraft. The dry gas ensures that when Orion is transported, she will not accumulate moisture that could contaminate the spacecraft.
The mating operations at SLC-37 will involve the spacecraft being raised 170 feet up into the air and and mated to the rocket.
Engineers will then check out the integrated stack by powering up the interfaces between the two vehicles. A Launch Readiness Review (LRR) will then take place, at which point the launch date will be officially set.
The current plan for December 4 results in a T-0 of 07:04 Eastern, the opening of a window that lasts until 09:44 Eastern.
"This is just the first of what will be a long line of exploration missions beyond low earth orbit, and in a few years we will be sending our astronauts to destinations humans have never experienced," added Bill Hill, deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development
"It's thrilling to be a part of the journey now, at the beginning."
New U.S. rockets include crew launch-escape systems
Irene Klotz - Reuters
Heeding a lesson from history, designers of a new generation of U.S. rockets will include escape systems to give crew members a fighting chance of surviving launch accidents such as the one that felled an unmanned Orbital Sciences Antares rocket on Tuesday.
The U.S. space agency NASA bypassed escape systems for the now-retired space shuttle fleet, believing the spaceships to be far safer than they turned out to be. The illusion was shattered on Jan. 28, 1986, when gas leaking from a solid-fuel booster rocket doomed the shuttle Challenger and its seven crew about 72 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Taking a page from design books for the 1960s-era Mercury and Apollo capsules, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's next manned spaceship, Orion, will include a rocket-powered tower attached to the top of the spacecraft that can separate from a troubled launch vehicle and parachute the crew to safety.
The so-called Launch Abort System can activate in milliseconds, catapulting the crew capsule about 1 mile (1.6 km) in altitude in seconds.
"We proved in shuttle that it was a bad idea to not have a launch escape system ... so there's been a lot of work to build this really Cadillac version of a launch escape tower that they've got on Orion," said Wayne Hale, a former NASA space shuttle program manager who oversees human space flight for Colorado-based consulting firm Special Aerospace Services.
"It's a big, heavy capsule that requires a big, heavy rocket that steers you all over the sky to get away from problems with the big rocket booster. It's a huge system," Hale said.
While Orion is intended for deep-space missions beyond the International Space Station, which flies about 260 miles (418 km) above Earth, NASA is requiring commercial companies hired to taxi astronauts to and from the orbital outpost to have launch escape systems as well.
Privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX as the California-based firm is known, next year will test an alternative technology that uses its capsules' own steering thrusters to boost it away from a malfunctioning rocket.
Boeing plans to use a similar pusher abort system for its CST-100 capsule. SpaceX and Boeing last month won contracts worth a combined $6.8 billion to finish development of their passenger spaceships, test them and fly up to six operational missions each for NASA beginning in 2017.
Currently station crew members fly on Russian Soyuz capsules equipped with Apollo-style rocket-powered launch escape towers. In 47 years of Soyuz rocket flights, the escape system has been used once in an actual emergency.
On Sept. 26, 1983, a fuel leak sparked a fire on the launch pad that engulfed a Soyuz rocket about a minute before liftoff. Seconds before the booster exploded, the rocket's launch abort system ignited, carrying cosmonauts Gennadi Strekalov and Vladimir Titov to safety.
"The interesting thing on the Soyuz then and even today is the crew can't initiate the launch escape tower, unlike the American designs. The ground control has to actually initiate it," Hale said.
"I would tell you that just because you've got a launch escape tower on your rocket doesn't mean that you're guaranteed safety," he added.
NASA wants its commercial space taxis to be 1,000 times safer than the shuttle, which had two fatal accidents out of 135 flights.
The cause of the Orbital Sciences Antares rocket explosion remains under investigation. The accident, which occurred about 10 seconds after liftoff from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, claimed a cargo ship bound for the space station, which is a $100 billion research laboratory owned and operated by 15 nations.
The Antares rocket, which previously made four successful flights, has been grounded pending results of the investigation.
Orbital Sciences uses refurbished Soviet-era motors for the rocket's first stage and already had been planning to replace the engines, known as AJ-26, due to technical concerns and supply limitations.
"It is possible that we may decide to accelerate this change if the AJ-26 turns out to be implicated in the failure, but this has not yet been decided," Orbital Sciences President and Chief Executive David Thompson told analysts in a conference call on Wednesday.
"Under the original plan we were, as of now, about two years away from conducting the first launch of Antares with the second-generation propulsion system ... I certainly think we can shorten that interval, but at this point I don't know by how much," Thompson said.
Orbital Sciences hopes to quickly find cause of rocket failure
A day after an explosion that destroyed an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket carrying a space station cargo ship, company officials said Wednesday they hope to zero in on the likely cause of the mishap within a week or so, based on a detailed review of telemetry, analysis of video and inspection of recovered debris.
The 130-foot-tall Antares rocket, powered by extensively modified Soviet-era first-stage engines, blasted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Va., at 6:22 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) Tuesday, kicking off a flight to deliver more than 5,000 pounds of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station.
But just 15 seconds after liftoff, the rocket suffered a catastrophic first-stage failure, falling back to Earth and exploding in a huge fireball. The Cygnus cargo ship atop the rocket, loaded with station supplies, also was destroyed.
David Thompson, chairman and chief executive of Orbital Sciences, said an inspection of the launch pad and nearby facilities Wednesday revealed less damage than expected.
"Fortunately, no one was injured as a result of the accident," he told financial analysts in a conference call. "And based on the preliminary inspections that were conducted this morning at Wallops Island, it appears that the launch pad complex itself was spared from any major damage. In addition, the Antares Vehicle Assembly Building and related Cygnus spacecraft processing facilities at other locations within the Wallops area were not affected by the failure in any way."
He said it was too soon to determine what might have triggered the mishap, although a preliminary look at telemetry suggested possible explanations. He did not elaborate.
One natural suspect is the rocket's main propulsion system, powered by two Soviet-era engines originally built for a Russian moon rocket that later was abandoned after a series of in-flight failures. Engines left over from that program were mothballed, and Aerojet Rocketdyne bought about 40 of the high-performance powerplants in the 1990s. The renamed AJ26 engines were refurbished, equipped with modern avionics and exhaustively tested to ensure they were safe to fly.
But an AJ26 engine being test fired last May suffered a catastrophic malfunction. Orbital carried out a major investigation to find out what went wrong and while details were never provided, company officials said the likely cause had been identified and that new test procedures and inspections were implemented to prevent a repeat of the failure.
The engines worked flawlessly during an Antares launch in July and they may have worked as planned during the ill-fated launching Tuesday. But whatever went wrong appeared to start at the base of the rocket, raising questions about the propulsion system. Thompson warned against drawing premature conclusions.
"We still have a lot of work to do in the days ahead to analyze all of the telemetry and video data, to review the recollections and notes of the participants in the operation and to collect all other available information about the flight," he said. "This investigation may, or may not, lead us to the conclusion that the failure was caused by a problem with the Antares first stage main propulsion system.
"As most of you know, the AJ26 rocket engines used in that system have presented us with some serious technical and supply challenges in the past. So not withstanding the previous successful flights of Antares before yesterday, Orbital has been reviewing alternatives since the middle of last year and recently selected a different main propulsion system for a future use by Antares."
Thompson said the company may decide "to accelerate this change if the AJ26 turns out to be implicated in the failure. But this has not yet been decided."
As for how long it might take to figure out what went wrong, he said barring problems or major surprises "it will not likely take very long, I think a period measured in days, not weeks, for the investigation team to define the handful of most likely causes of the accident. It may take a little longer than that to zero in on the final root cause."
Orbital Sciences holds a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to build and launch eight space station resupply missions to deliver some 20 tons of cargo and supplies. SpaceX holds a similar contract valued at $1.6 billion for 12 resupply missions using that company's Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon cargo ships.
NASA officials said the loss of the Cygnus supply ship atop the Antares rocket will not have any near-term impact on station operations. A Russian Progress supply ship was successfully launched from Kazakhstan early Wednesday and SpaceX is on track to launch two more U.S. resupply missions in December and February.
But the next flight of an Antares rocket, which had been targeted for April, could face a delay.
"From our experience in the past, which is not altogether transferrable to this situation, I would anticipate that there will be some delay in the next scheduled Antares launch," Thompson said. "I think a reasonable, best-case estimate would bound that at three months, but it could certainly be considerably longer than that depending on what we find in the review. I would hope it would not be more than a year."
Asked if engineers had seen any clues about the cause of the failure in video or telemetry, Thompson said "the short answer is it's still a little too early to tell." But he said there were hints in the telemetry.
"There are certain specific elements of data that have been preliminarily analyzed to date that point in a particular direction," he said, "but my experience also suggests that sometimes first impressions are not correct ones, and it's very important not to focus too early on what may at first appear to be the cause of an accident like this.
"It's important to do a very comprehensive review and consider things that may at first not appear to be likely causes of a failure just to be sure you don't fixate early on on what initially appears to observers to be the likely cause and end up missing the real root cause. I think we will be substantially smarter on this over the course of the coming days, not weeks. I may be surprised, it may turn out to take longer, but my best guess right now, assuming we proceed in a very diligent and open minded way, we'll be zeroing in within a week or so on where the problem is likely to be found."
In opening remarks, Thompson took time to remind analysts and others listening in that launching rockets is a challenging enterprise and "although they are increasingly infrequent in our business, rocket and satellite failures do still occur."
"Building and launching vehicles into space are among the most challenging and demanding things that government organizations and private companies do," he said. "Despite the diligent efforts of some of the aerospace industry's best and brightest people, sometimes things do go wrong.
"Second and more generally, Orbital has experienced adversity in the past, some of which was more difficult that this. And the company has always emerged stronger as a result. I am determined that we will do so again this time."
Data Show Antares Rocket Fine for First 15 Seconds, Then First Stage Failure
Orbital Sciences Corporation said today that telemetry from the Antares rocket that failed on Tuesday night indicates that there were no issues before launch or for the first 15 seconds afterwards. What happened thereafter is still being investigated.
"Evidence suggests the failure initiated in the first stage after which the vehicle lost its propulsive capability and fell back to the ground," the company said in a statement today.
Orbital was attempting to launch Antares with a Cygnus spacecraft loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of cargo destined for the International Space Station (ISS). This was the company's third operational cargo resupply mission to the ISS, designated Orb-3. Four previous Antares launches took place without incident. The launches are part of NASA's commercial cargo program to supply the ISS using commercial rather than government-built space transportation systems. As part of its $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA, Orbital is required to launch 20 tons of supplies to the ISS through 2016.
The Antares first stage is powered by two AJ26 engines provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne. They are refurbished Russian NK33 engines built more than 40 years ago and much speculation is focused on them as the cause of the failure, but Orbital officials stress that they passed intensive tests before being cleared for launch. Orbital's President and CEO Dave Thompson noted yesterday that first impressions are not always correct and full analysis of telemetry, imagery and debris is needed before making final determinations about cause.
The rocket fell close to, but not on, the launch pad, Orbital said, adding that "[p]rior to impacting the ground, the rocket's Flight Termination System was engaged by the designated official in the Wallops Range Control Center." That is a reference to the range safety control system and the Range Safety Officer. Rockets can be detonated by remote control if they veer off course in order to avoid impacting or raining debris over populated areas.
Orbital added that additional inspections of the launch site continue to show that it avoided major damage. Some of the cargo that was aboard the Cygnus spacecraft has been found and will be retrieved when clearance is given to see if anything survived.
Orbital's stock rose 3 percent today, after a nearly 17 percent drop yesterday.
Orbital is leading the Accident Investigation Board to determine what happened, which includes members from NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) providing oversight of the process. The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation regulates the commercial launch vehicle industry.
Antares is launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on NASA's Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Virginia.
Editorial: How To Think About Antares Failure
Aviation Week & Space Technology
Blow up a rocket bound for the International Space Station in spectacular fashion on the East Coast of the U.S., as Orbital Sciences Corp. did on Oct. 28, and you can be sure it will be noticed. Just as with a high-profile airplane crash, the amateur analysts were out in force with misunderstandings about the technologies and shoot-from-the-hip theories about what went wrong and the impact the accident will have.
Lessons will be learned from the failure of Orbital's Antares at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. What exactly all those lessons are, it is way too early to tell. The accident investigation has only just begun. However, it is not too early to lay out some lessons that should not be drawn and to point out a broader concern that this mishap does highlight.
One conclusion that should not be drawn is that commercial space companies are simply less capable than the legacy aerospace giants. Nor should it be inferred that spaceflight is so staggeringly difficult only a large government-run enterprise can achieve a high level of performance. First of all, Orbital has already used Antares to fly its Cygnus vehicle to the space station three times. Competitor Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has used its Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo to the station successfully four times.
The Antares accident does not show that NASA opted for a risky strategy by relying on commercial providers for space station resupply missions. The truth is quite the opposite. With two commercial suppliers, NASA can shift missions to SpaceX, if Antares is grounded for a prolonged period. The failure was a setback for a commercial space company, but it was not a setback for commercial space writ large. No one was hurt. No critical space station payload was lost.
Thankfully, so far, NASA leadership does not seem inclined to retreat from the commercial path it has charted. Several weeks ago, the agency awarded the first contracts (to SpaceX and Boeing) for spacecraft to carry astronauts—the first for NASA to be developed under the new approach in which broad performance parameters are set and contractors are free to apply their creativity and ingenuity in the design of this "commercial crew vehicle" (AW&ST Sept. 22, p. 24). And the agency recently requested proposals for the next phase of space station resupply services. Don't be surprised, though, if some politicians trying to protect parochial interests argue that the commercial approach is fraught with programmatic peril.
Where the armchair engineers were onto something last week was in questioning Antares's reliance on modified 1960s Russian engines. There is nothing wrong in principle with using AJ-26s, as Aerojet calls the Kuznetsov Design Bureau NK-33s it modified. Still, it is a commentary on the sad state of American rocket propulsion that Orbital found no competitive indigenously developed powerplant for the first stage when it designed Antares. Orbital had begun looking for a replacement engine before the accident, but the leading contender is also Russian, the RD-193. The U.S.'s neglect of launch propulsion technology was punctuated the day after the Antares accident when a United Launch Alliance Atlas V flew with a Global Positioning System satellite from Cape Canaveral. That vehicle, too, uses Russian engines: RD-180s.
All this is certainly not the fault of "New Space" entrepreneurs. On the contrary, companies like SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, have been spending their own money to advance rocket propulsion. If U.S. capabilities have atrophied, the blame rests squarely on government for not investing sufficiently in research and development, as we have noted on this page (May 26/June 2, p. 74).
Spaceflight is difficult—today. It is expensive—today. And the level of risk remains high—today. But it need not remain so forever. We must resist the idea that space is inherently difficult, expensive and risky. Aviation once seemed so, too. Today, aviation is efficient and safe. Space can get there—if we accept that it can improve and realize that it will require hard work, investment and experimentation. And we must acknowledge that true progress is always punctuated by failure. There is no progress without failure.
Ex-NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao put it well. Writing for CNN, he said: "Without a doubt, critics will arise and question why we are entrusting cargo deliveries and future crew exchanges to commercial companies. The answer is simple: It is the logical evolution of technology and commercialization, following the same path as the development of the airplane and commercial air transportation. . . . This mishap is painful, but it is only a speed bump on the way to the commercialization of spaceflight."
So let us progress. Getting to the point where spaceflight is much less risky and much less expensive requires new approaches such as those being pioneered by commercial space companies. Government can do its part by investing more in the research and development of space technologies.
A version of this article appears in the November 3/10 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology.
The Antares rocket explosion shouldn't deter America's space mission: opinion
Huntsville Times
The timing was terrible.
In Huntsville, hundreds of space industry and NASA executives and scientists gathered for the annual Von Braun Symposium, and NASA was using the forum to tout the great work being done on the Space Launch System, the rocket America will use to get to its next destination, Mars.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and other NASA executives stood strongly behind the decision to scrap the space shuttle program and leave low-earth orbit launches to private industry, which had been building a good track record launching resupply missions to the International Space Station and satellites.
Then, almost on cue, an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket heading to resupply the space station explodes on launch at NASA's Wallops launch facility in Virginia.
The second guessing began almost before the first shrapnel from the unmanned rocket hit the ground in Virginia.
Here's the reality though. While we have astronauts on the International Space Station, and touchy political relations with Russia, America cannot afford a protracted re-debate over the direction of the space program and commercial companies' role in it.
Yes, we must study what went wrong with the Antares rocket and correct it, and it does put more pressure on SpaceX, the only other commercial company able to resupply the space station right now. But the idea of having multiple space launch contractors instead of one, or a government only program, has proven prescient.
Looking at the big picture, this accident shouldn't stop the momentum of the Space Launch System development in Huntsville, and especially the planned test flight of the Orion crew capsule on Dec. 4.
That launch will happen aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket built in Decatur. Its track record is excellent and it shouldn't be judged by what happened to the Orbital Sciences rocket.
William Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator of NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, said it well in a statement after the explosion:
"Launching rockets is an incredibly difficult undertaking, and we learn from each success and each setback. (Tuesday's) launch attempt will not deter us from our work to expand our already successful capability to launch cargo from American shores to the International Space Station."
Let us hope not. Because America's space program, and NASA's workforce, can't afford another total rethinking of its mission, as happened when the Constellation program was scrapped, leading to much uncertainty and job loss before a new direction was finally found with SLS.
That would only put us further behind in our efforts to explore the universe and maintain the International Space Station, and leave us more at the mercy of our international partners, when we should be leading them.
Successful space launch follows spectacular launch failure
Mark Anderson - Sacramento Business Journal
More than a dozen Aerojet Rocketdyne components were part of a successful national security satellite launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Wednesday.
The successful launch of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket came a day after launch at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia saw an Orbital Sciences Corp. (NYSE: ORB) rocket explode just off the launch pad.
Aerojet Rocketdyne supplied multiple rocket motors to both missions.
In the mission Wednesday, Aerojet supplied the upper stage engine, five helium pressurization tanks and a dozen Centaur thrusters, which will position the satellite once it attains orbit. This is at least the fourth successful Atlas V launch this year, following launches for the Air Force in April, May and July.
NASA is investigating failed Tuesday launch.
No one was hurt in the massive explosion. The launch was the third cargo mission for Orbital Sciences in a $1.9 billion contract with NASA for nine missions. Future Orbital launches to the space station are being delayed pending the investigation. According to MarketWatch, An RBC Capital analyst speculated the Aerojet-supplied AJ-26 main motors are a suspect in the failed Tuesday launch because an AJ-26 failed during testing in May at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
Rancho Cordova-based GenCorp Inc. (NYSE: GY) is the parent company of Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Boeing exec says NASA crash underscores need for new U.S. engine
Andrea Shalal - Reuters
The crash of an unmanned Orbital Sciences Antares rocket is a "wake-up call" to the U.S. space community about the need to develop a new U.S. rocket engine, the head of Boeing Co's defense division said on Thursday.
Chris Chadwick, chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said the failure of the rocket on Tuesday was a "sad and tragic" reminder that the space business was complex and difficult, but he did not expect a lasting setback to the overall industry.
The incident underscored growing concerns about U.S. reliance on Soviet-era and Russian engines that power rockets used for U.S. civilian space, military and intelligence purposes, Chadwick told Reuters in an interview.
The Antares rocket was powered by a pair of Soviet-era NK-33 engines that were rebuilt by Aerojet Rocketdyne, a unit of GenCorp, and resold as AJ-26 engines. Even before the crash, Orbital had planned to switch to another engine given the age of the motors and uncertainty about future supplies.
U.S. lawmakers and defense officials have also raised concerns about newer Russian-built engines used for the Atlas V rockets built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin Corp, given concerns that Russia could cut off those supplies.
"It's a wake-up call that we need to move forward, we need to move smartly, we need to move together to protect this industry," he said. "We need to move beyond today’s technology ... and look for that next generation of engine that’s even more reliable, even more capable."
U.S. authorities are investigating the explosion, which destroyed cargo and equipment that was bound for the International Space Station.
Orbital on Thursday said a preliminary investigation showed the failure initiated in the first stage of the rocket, which housed the AJ-26 engines, but it provided few additional details.
Analysts and industry officials this week said the Antares explosion over Virginia could accelerate U.S. efforts to develop a homegrown rocket engine.
The Pentagon is considering its next steps in a bid backed by congress to replace the RD-180 engines - an initiative that has drawn great interest from Boeing, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Alliant Techsystems Inc, which is now reviewing its plans to merge with Orbital, as well as privately held Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX.
Chadwick said he saw great promise in United Launch Alliance's decision to partner with Blue Origin, a company founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, and leverage the smaller company's three years of work and investment in a new rocket engine.
NASA Report Spotlights Evolving U.S. Private-Sector Space Activities
Leonard David - Coalition for Space Exploration
A new NASA report provides an introduction and overview, and a look into the future, of the emerging "space ecosystem" and American private-sector space activities.
Titled Emerging Space: The Evolving Landscape of 21st Century American Spaceflight, the report is by the NASA Office of the Chief Technologist, 2014.
The report is available from NASA's Emerging Space Office (ESO), "formed in recognition of the rising importance of private-sector individuals and organizations that invest their own time and money in space activities. This emerging space community is increasingly a major force in American space developments," ESO's website notes.
According to the newly issued report, the United States stands today at the opening of a "second Space Age."
Industrial strength space
"Innovative NASA programs and American entrepreneurs together are transforming the space industry," the report says.
"These initiatives – both at NASA and in the private sector – are expanding the nation's opportunities for exploration and for the economic development of the solar system."
The report stresses that NASA's goal is to develop the capabilities that will allow the American people to explore, pioneer, and expand our economic sphere into the solar system.
"To do this we will build on our long-standing relationships with American industry by embracing new and diverse forms of partnerships," the report explains.
Go to the report, Emerging Space: The Evolving Landscape of 21st Century American Spaceflight, at:
Also go to NASA's Emerging Space Office (ESO) Website at:
Ebola Outbreak May Hold Lessons for Handling Samples from Mars
Measures taken in the current Ebola outbreak may hold some clues for how to handle samples brought back to Earth from Mars, a place that could potentially host extraterrestrial microbes.
The 1971 sci-fi film "The Andromeda Strain" dramatized the idea of alien organisms infecting the Earth. Based on a novel by Michael Crichton, the film depicts the spread of an alien germ brought back to Earth by a satellite. An elite team of specialists responds, relying on protective hazmat suits, decontamination and disinfection safety levels, and a secret, high-tech underground facility named Wildfire to study and deal with the deadly extraterrestrial organism.
NASA officials have wanted to build and launch a robotic lander that scoops up some Martian samples and returns them to Earth. Similarly, a human expedition to Mars would surely hunt for past or present evidence of life on the Red Planet. Hauling back Martian samples means potentially dealing with biological "hot property," as well as public concern about creepy crawlers from Mars eating away at Earth's biosphere.
Space.com asked some key astrobiologists if today's Ebola outbreak might have any lessons for future sample-return plans from Mars. Practice, practice, practice
"While the Ebola situation bears no resemblance to a sample-return mission to Mars, there is a concern that the public could link the two if not properly informed," said John Rummel, a professor of biology at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
Rummel is a former chair of the Panel on Planetary Protection of the International Council for Science's Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), and is a member of the NASA Advisory Council's Planetary Protection Subcommittee.
Rummel told Space.com that a Mars sample would be contained from the time it leaves Mars until it is proven not to pose a biohazard threat. "Even more important than the containment facility in which the testing will be done is the fact that scientists will 'practice, practice, practice' to ensure that the sample is contained until shown to be safe for release," Rummel said.
False negatives
The "very tragic set of events" of the current Ebola outbreak may indeed raise public fears about handling potentially infected samples, said Catharine Conley, Planetary Protection Officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC.
"In that context," Conley said, "it is true that the greater public awareness of issues related to hazardous materials not being contained properly, and particularly the unfortunate examples of false negatives — like the person not appearing to be sick when he got off the plane in Dallas — do make it easier to communicate similar concerns in the area of planetary protection."
The current outbreak also highlights "the need to have good protocols in place prior to bringing potentially hazardous materials back to Earth, and having a very careful and well-tested plan for how to determine that they are 'safe,'" Conley told Space.com.
"This is something planetary protection has been working on for quite a while now … but recent events demonstrate how important it is for Earth safety to avoid false negatives, as well as avoiding false positives to protect human activities at Mars," Conley said.
Mass reaction
"I see many issues that we know are a problem being illustrated by the mass reaction, kerfuffle, and misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding Ebola," said Penelope Boston, an astrobiologist and director of the Cave and Karst Studies Program at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.
Boston is a geomicrobiologist and astrobiologist with more than 35 years experience.
"If I were personally going to deal with an agent like Ebola I would go train for six months at a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) containment facility before I trusted myself to work with the virus," Boston said. "I would always have a safety officer bird-dogging my every movement — the buddy system — that is employed in so many hazardous military and civilian contexts," she said.
Safety procedures
When going into dangerous and potentially deadly environments, like the sulfuric acid cave in Tabasco, situated in southern Mexico, Boston said, a dedicated safety monitor is part of the exploration team.
"That's because no person can both keep their mind on the intensive scientific work they are doing and be absolutely assured of their own adherence to very fussy safety procedures," Boston told Space.com. "And of course, with spacecraft, we also have the issue of organic chemical cleanliness to deal with, because that could seriously affect the results of highly sensitive life-detection experiments," Boston said. "So the space exploration case is a double-whammy that we are developing protocols to deal with."
Quarantine and containment
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has guidelines for all types of biological pathogens, and NASA has worked with the health agency in planning for Mars, said Margaret Race, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
Race focuses on the scientific, technical, legal and societal issues of ensuring that missions to the Red Planet and other solar system bodies do not either inadvertently bring Earth microbes to Mars, which would complicate the search for indigenous extraterrestrial life, or return any microbes to Earth.
The CDC has designated different levels of containment. The most virulent agents are kept in Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) and have "special" protocols.
"The CDC generally works with known pathogens, but also oversees all types," Race said. "If in doubt, keep it contained and continue to study it," she told Space.com. "Quarantine and containment requirements are updated as needed, for example in response to things like Ebola."
NASA developed its draft Mars sample handling and testing protocols in coordination with experts from CDC and other regulatory agencies, Race said.
Red Planet protocols
NASA's protocols for Mars samples will take into account both safety and scientific accuracy, Race said.
"Clearly, science considerations also apply," she said. "According to studies by the U.S. National Research Council, the risks of Mars sample return materials are deemed very low, but not zero."
NASA will take a deliberately conservative view in handling pristine returned Martian materials, Race aid. This is both for planetary protection considerations, as noted in Outer Space Treaty requirements that are promulgated by COSPAR, and to protect the scientific integrity of the samples.
"Protocols will be updated well in advance of any sample return mission from Mars. There's already a comprehensive process of review and integration of planetary protection requirements that has been endorsed for implementation well in advance of any sample return mission," Race emphasized.
"Obviously, any Mars sample return plans will comply with the most up-to-date CDC and other requirements," Race concluded.
NASA Prepares To Host Hush-Hush Military Program at KSC
Irene Klotz – Space News
After a 22-year hiatus, NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense are resuming a partnership for a classified program that will be based at the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA flew secret missions for the military 10 times between January 1985 and December 1992, setting up a separate firing room, blacking out communications and abiding by a host of restrictions and operational procedures to accommodate the Defense Department's demand for secrecy. This time around, NASA intends to be nothing more than a host for the Air Force's classified X-37B program, which will lease two of the space shuttle's mothballed processing hangars.
"It is different from shuttle. It's not the same vehicle that has to flow through the [Vehicle Assembly Building] and that does a lot of the same shuttle operations [as nonclassified missions]. X-37B is basically a separable capability in one facility," Scott Colloredo, director of KSC's Center Planning and Development Directorate, told SpaceNews.
Unlike the military's shuttle missions, KSC personnel will not need extra security clearances to support the X-37B program. "Their operation, they handle it," Colloredo said.
Likewise, KSC expects no changes to its security procedures. "They fit into our systems," he said.
"Our role now is something I like to call a 'ground traffic controller.' The facilities [at KSC] are separated, and with that advantage ... we're able to keep different operations separate from each other … We have dozens of partnerships and our job is to make sure they don't conflict with one another so we don't site one partner in one facility that would interfere with operations with another partner in another facility," he said.
The X-37B program, which currently consists of two nearly 9-meter-long robotic spaceplanes, is taking over Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) bays 1 and 2.
NASA and the Air Force refused to release terms of the contract.
So far, the Air Force has flown its first X-37B vehicle twice and its second spacecraft once. The vehicles launch aboard United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of KSC, and so far all have landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
A fourth mission is planned for 2015, and that flight will be able to land at KSC's shuttle runway, Air Force spokesman Chris Hoyler wrote in an email to SpaceNews.
Boeing, the prime contractor for the X-37B program, has a separate lease agreement for OPF-3 for its NASA-backed CST-100 commercial crew capsule. The OPF-3 agreement is with Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, which not only is leasing the shuttle hangar from NASA, but also is in the processof negotiating a contract for the shuttle's runway and associated facilities.
"Asset by asset, we've partnered those (shuttle) facilities with different users," Colloredo said.
KSC currently has about 48 partnership agreements covering services, property leases and other business arrangements. The space center's next solicitation will be for proposals for use of one of the Vehicle Assembly Building high bays and for three mobile launch platforms.
In the near future, NASA also will entertain land use proposals for companies and agencies interested in locating on KSC property.
Earth's Water Existed 135 Million Years Earlier than Thought
The water that supports life on Earth may have been on the planet much earlier than scientists previously thought, new research suggests.
While the environmental conditions in Earth's early years made it impossible for water to remain on the planet's surface, scientists have found evidence that the ingredients for water were protectively stored inside rocky bodies near our planet — and maybe inside Earth itself. The new findings suggest that there was water in the inner solar system 135 million years earlier than previous evidence had shown.
"Our findings show the earliest evidence of water in the inner solar system," said Adam Sarafian, a Ph.D. student at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and lead author of the new study.
Meteorites from an asteroid
The smoking gun appears inside meteorites that once belonged to the asteroid Vesta, one of the largest members of the asteroid belt that sits between Jupiter and Mars. Meteorites from Vesta —dark chunks of cooled magma often as big as grapefruits — continue to be found in Antarctica. Previous analysis found no water or water-forming ingredients in those meteorites. But Sarafian and his colleagues zoomed in on the molecular contents of the meteorites, and found trace amounts of hydrogen-oxygen molecules.
More than 4.5 billion years ago — or about 15 million years after solid bodies began to form around the young sun — water existed in the outer, cooler parts of the solar system, previous studies have shown. But in the inner solar system, where Vesta and a young Earth resided, temperatures were far too hot and solar winds would send any water vapor to the outer regions of the solar system.
While the Earth grew and changed over the next 4 billion years or so, Vesta remained frozen in time, according to Sarafian.
"Vesta gives us a snapshot of what Earth maybe looked like when it was first forming," Sarafian said.
A chemical fingerprint
Vesta also has the same chemical fingerprint as the Earth. In other words, scientists have previously shown that the nitrogen on Vesta likely originated from the same source as the nitrogen on Earth. Some bodies in the solar system, like the sun or comets, have different chemical signatures. According to Sarafian, the new study shows that Vesta and Earth also share a hydrogen chemical signature.
The Earth also shares a chemical fingerprint with the moon, which, like Vesta, gives scientists a window to the past. Scientists have found traces of water in lunar rocks, which provides evidence that the life-giving liquid was in the inner solar system as early as 150 million years after the birth of the solar system. The Vesta samples predate the lunar samples by 135 million years.
The jump back in time is significant, says Sarafian, because during those first 150 million years, the inner solar system was considerably hotter and more hostile than it was later on. Earth would have experienced major impacts from flying debris (it was potentially such an impact that broke off a portion of the Earth and formed the moon). Many scientists have suspect that through those big impacts and high temperatures, it would make sense for the hydrogen to turn into vapor and be blown out into space.
"The planets held on to the water somehow," Sarafian said. "That's going to make people rethink how planets are made."
Water from icy bodies
Sarafian said the work supports the view that the water came from icy bodies near Jupiter. The newly forming gas giant likely flung the chunks of rock and ice inward. Jupiter would have been located beyond what's known as the "snow line," or the point beyond which temperatures were cool enough for water to condense into liquid or solid form, he said.
"There are models that predict that icy bodies from the outer solar system, around the Jupiter area, probably got flung into the inner solar system," Sarafian said. "But there was just no evidence for it. There wasn't any data to support the model. And our study is supporting it."
Jeremy Boyce, a geochemist at UCLA who was not involved in the new study but has collaborated with two of the study's authors on other works, said the new study's claims of water in the early inner solar system are robust. But he added that it's still unclear just how much water was present. It's likely that to make the oceans present on Earth today, more water was delivered to Earth later in its life.
"The extent to which [the early water] relates to water we see on the surface of the Earth is an open question," said Boyce. "What water was present in the early Earth and what arrived later — I don't think we know that yet."
Rough Cosmic Waters: Chandra X-ray Observatory Reveals "Turbulent" Effect of Black Holes
Emily Carney - AmericaSpace
This week, NASA announced that the Chandra X-ray Observatory, now in its 15th year of operation and described as "NASA's flagship mission for X-ray astronomy," may have discovered why some galaxy clusters do not form stars as expected: Turbulence, the same kind that plagues airplane flights in poor weather. While people on Earth definitely don't enjoy the effects of turbulence, it turns out that the phenomenon also may not be conducive to the genesis of stars.
Chandra observed several galaxy clusters including Perseus and Virgo (as shown in the image above), which are swathed in gas clouds; at the center of these galaxies, large black holes are apparent. The chaotic interaction of the gas and the black holes are believed to have caused these galaxies to prevent forming many stars. Perseus and Virgo were targeted specifically because of their brightness and size.
These findings were published by Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in the journal Nature. Irina Zhuravleva, who led the study that featured contributions by a number of authors and researchers, stated, "We knew that somehow the gas in clusters is being heated to prevent it cooling and forming stars. The question was exactly how. We think we may have found evidence that the heat is channeled from turbulent motions, which we identify from signatures recorded in X-ray images."
Information from Chandra's website explains why these galaxies may have not formed stars over time. Galaxy clusters, held together by gravity, are the largest objects in the Universe, which can contain hundreds to thousands of galaxies. Chandra, along with other x-ray observatories, can detect the very hot gases in these galaxies, which appear to "glow" in x-ray light. The gases should have cooled down over time, aiding in the formation of stars within these galaxies. However, this does not always happen. A possible answer to this conundrum: The galaxies have super-massive black holes in their middles. Black holes emit jets which carve out "cavities," visible in the central parts of the galaxy clusters in these images.
It is theorized in the paper published in Nature that these "cavities" may have created turbulence within the galaxies, keeping the hot gases hot, preventing any star-forming cooling for billions of years. A co-author, Eugene Churazov of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich, Germany, spoke further about the theory set forth in the paper: "Any gas motions from the turbulence will eventually decay, releasing their energy to the gas. But the gas won't cool if turbulence is strong enough and generated often enough." The team, using data gleaned from Chandra, also analyzed the density of the gases in Perseus and Virgo in a bid to gauge the amounts of turbulence generated.
Alexander Schekochihin of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who also contributed to the study, stated, "Our work gives us an estimate of how much turbulence is generated in these clusters. From what we've determined so far, there's enough turbulence to balance the cooling of the gas." The turbulence is also shown by the telltale "ripples" generated near the black holes, shown in the images of Perseus and Virgo above.
This discovery is one of a great many to have earned Chandra's name in x-ray astronomy's canon. While Earth-based telescopes have contributed much to astronomy, x-rays are absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, making a space-based telescope desirable. Enter Chandra X-ray Observatory, originally designated as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF).
Operating at an extremely elliptical orbit around our planet, Chandra was deployed by STS-93 (Columbia) in July 1999, a mission also historically notable in that it was the first space shuttle mission commanded by a woman (Eileen Collins). It is part of the "Great Observatories" program (which also includes the Hubble Space Telescope, deployed in 1990 and nearing its 25th year of operation).
While its planned lifespan was five years, it is still operational following 15 years. Chandra is managed by NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and is controlled by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Another space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), has passed several developmental milestones this year, and is slated for a 2018 launch from an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Chandra and its "siblings"will undoubtedly uncover more mysteries of the Universe to fire the imaginations of generations to come.
END
Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Expedition 1 launch. Two days later on Nov. 2 the Soyuz docked to the International Space Station and the three crew members boarded to initiate an uninterrupted human presence that continues today – 5,114 days later…
