Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News – Feb. 27, 2014 and JSC Today

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: February 27, 2014 9:51:50 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News – Feb. 27, 2014 and JSC Today

Happy Flex Friday eve and remember to  mark your calendars early to join us next Thursday at Hibachi Grill on Bay Area Blvd. for our monthly Retirees Luncheon at 11:30!

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Thursday, February 27, 2014       Read JSC Today in your browser

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                    JSC TODAY CATEGORIES

1.            Headlines

-  Joint Leadership Team Web Poll

-  Ready, Set, Telework! PC, Mac & iPad/Mobile Users

-  SWAT Training

2.            Organizations/Social

-  Space City - Houston NCMA Lunch and Learn

-  The Weather is Perfect to Go For a Walk

-  Are You Ready to QUIT Smoking?

-  Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K Race

-  Enroll Child in Youth Karate While You Work Out

-  Starport's Spring Break Camp

-  Parent's Night Out at Starport - March 21

3.            Jobs and Training

-  Project Management Forum

4.            Community

-  Sign Up to Be a Judge for the Innovation Summit

-  2014 Trash Bash - March 29

-  Summer Underwater Robotics Camps

-  Take a Look at the Stars Over Spring Break

Ice on the Great Lakes in False Color Infrared

 

 

   Headlines

1.            Joint Leadership Team Web Poll

Bonnie Blair was your greatest winter Olympian of all time, and she probably hasn't heard of the centerwide facility review action either. This week you get to pick your boss and a new mate. If you got to guarantee one trait of a new boss, what would it be? Fair? Intelligent? Good communicator? Remember, if he/she is one, they might not be any of the others. Question two allows you to do the same thing in your private life. If you got to guarantee one thing in a mate, what would it be? Wealthy? Smart? Funny? Again, if he's rich, he may also be ugly, and if she's funny, she may also be poor. Only one trait is for sure. Match your Maker on over to get this week's poll!

Joel Walker x30541 http://jlt.jsc.nasa.gov/

 

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2.            Ready, Set, Telework! PC, Mac & iPad/Mobile Users

JSC's Information Resources Directorate (IRD) is hosting how-to-telework sessions based on device. These in-person sessions will focus on the Information Technology (IT) aspects of teleworking. Sessions will review tools required to telework, Virtual Private Network (VPN), collaboration tools, IdMax, and tips and tricks to make your telework successful.

All sessions will be in the Building 3 Collaboration Center. No reservations are required, but seating is limited.

Tuesday, March 4:

o             Mac: 9 to 10 a.m.

o             PC: 11 a.m. to noon

Thursday, March 6

o             PC: 9 to 10 a.m.

o             Mac: 11 a.m. to noon

Friday, March 7

o             iPad/Mobile Devices: 9 to 10:30 a.m.

Join us and get ready to telework.

For questions, contact the IRD Customer Support Center at x46367 (xGOFOR) - option 6, email, or reference IRD's Work from Anywhere site.

For more information on telework and Super Flex, go to Workplace Flexibilities.

JSC-IRD-Outreach x46367 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/infopedia/wiki%20pages/jsc%20telework%20toolkit....

 

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3.            SWAT Training

The JSC SWAT Team will be training in Building 225/226 tomorrow, Feb. 28, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Russ Tucker x38311

 

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   Organizations/Social

1.            Space City - Houston NCMA Lunch and Learn

Join the Space City - Houston National Contract Management Association (NCMA) Chapter for an upcoming live, interactive webinar:

Intellectual Property - Ownership, Licensing and Markings, Oh My!

Intellectual property is often viewed as an abstract and even frightening topic. By starting from the ground up, this session will critically examine fundamental principles of ownership, licensing and markings — with a caveat that these independent lessons are inescapably interdependent concepts. Those relatively new to the topic will become more comfortable and adept with working, negotiating and delivering/accepting intellectual property.

Participants will leave with a greater ability to operate confidently and win based on sound principles as opposed to reacting with fear, frustration, stress, procrastination, bullying or archaic policy.

This event is free to NCMA members and $10 for non-members. Attendees are welcome to bring their lunch.

Event Date: Thursday, March 6, 2014   Event Start Time:11:00 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM

Event Location: Jacobs Facility (2224 Bay Area Blvd)

 

Add to Calendar

 

Michelle Wilkinson 281-461-5225 http://www.ncmaspacecity.org/

 

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2.            The Weather is Perfect to Go For a Walk

Grab your walking shoes and meet up with JSC's walking group each Tuesday and Thursday at 11 a.m. outside the Building 3 café.

Led by a Starport FitPro, walks last approximately 30 minutes and are suited for all fitness levels.

These mid-day walks allow you to enjoy the company of fellow walkers while improving your health and stretching your legs. Get moving!

Joseph Callahan x42769 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/wellness/wellness-walks

 

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3.            Are You Ready to QUIT Smoking?

Please join Takis Bogdanos, MA, LPC-S, CGP, with the JSC Employee Assistance Program, as he presents a four-week Smoking Cessation Program and three follow-up sessions to offer support on your journey to becoming a non-smoker. The program starts March 13 in Building 45 (room to be determined). Please email to sign up and indicate a preferred time: 12 noon or 4 p.m. Space is limited to 12 participants.

Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Occupational Health Branch x36130

 

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4.            Aliens vs. Astronauts 5.05K Race

A BATTLE TO DETERMINE THE ULTIMATE LIFE FORM!

Starport is proud to present our spring race, Aliens vs. Astronauts. Race participants will register as either an alien or astronaut, with times for each species being averaged to crown the fastest life form in the universe. Gather your alien and astronaut friends and family! This 5.05K (3.14-mile) race is open to the public.

Date/Time: April 19 at 9 a.m.

Where: Race begins at the Gilruth Center and runs through JSC

Prizes: Overall male and female; first-, second- and third-place finishers in each age category

Entry fee: $25 (includes race T-shirt for those registered by April 4, with proceeds going to the NASA Exchange Scholarship Program)

For more information and online registration, visit the Starport website. Signups are also available at the Gilruth Center.

Event Date: Saturday, April 19, 2014   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:10:00 AM

Event Location: Gilruth Center

 

Add to Calendar

 

Joseph Callahan x42769 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/special-events/spring-festival...

 

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5.            Enroll Child in Youth Karate While You Work Out

Let Starport introduce your child to the exciting art of Youth Karate. Youth Karate will teach your child the skills of self-defense, self-discipline and self-confidence. The class will also focus on leadership, healthy competition and sportsmanship.

Five-week session: March 1 to 29

Saturdays: 10 to 10:45 a.m.

Ages: 6 to 12

Cost: $75

Register online or at the Gilruth Center.

Shericka Phillips x35563 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/familyyouth-programs/youth-karate

 

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6.            Starport's Spring Break Camp

Can you believe spring break is just around the corner?! If you're looking for a fun, convenient and familiar place for your children to go for the school break, look no further. NASA Starport Camps at the Gilruth Center are the perfect place. We plan to keep your children active and entertained with games, crafts, sports and all types of fun activities!

Register your child before spaces fill up.

Dates: March 10 to 14

Time: 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Ages: 6 to 12

Cost: $140 all week|$40 per day

Shericka Phillips x35563 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/familyyouth-programs/youth-day...

 

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7.            Parent's Night Out at Starport – March 21

Enjoy a night out on the town while your kids enjoy a night with Starport! We will entertain your children with a night of games, crafts, a bounce house, pizza, a movie, dessert and loads of fun.

When: Friday, March 21, from 6 to 10 p.m.

Where: Gilruth Center

Ages: 5 to 12

Cost: $20/first child and $10/each additional sibling if registered by the Wednesday prior to event. If registered after Wednesday, the fee is $25/first child and $15/additional sibling.

Shericka Phillips x35563 https://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/en/programs/familyyouth-programs/parents-n...

 

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   Jobs and Training

1.            Project Management Forum

The Project Management Forum will be held today, Feb. 27, in Building 1, Room 966, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. At this forum, Chuck Campbell will give a Project Overview on Supersonic Retro Propulsion. In addition, Eddie Merla from Duende Project Management Services will be sharing seven key strategies for enhancing your presentation power.

All civil servant and contractor project managers are invited to attend.

The purpose of the Project Management Forum is to provide an opportunity for our project managers to freely discuss issues, best practices, lessons learned, tools and opportunities, as well as to collaborate with other project managers.

Event Date: Thursday, February 27, 2014   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM

Event Location: Building 1, Room 966

 

Add to Calendar

 

Danielle Bessard x37238 https://oasis.jsc.nasa.gov/sysapp/athena/Athena%20Team/SitePages/Home.aspx

 

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   Community

1.            Sign Up to Be a Judge for the Innovation Summit

The Conrad Foundation Spirit of Innovation Challenge provides an opportunity for teams of students to create commercially viable products/services to address issues of global sustainability for the benefit of humanity. This competition is free and available to students ages 13 to 18 from around the world. The Innovation Summit will be hosted at Space Center Houston from April 6 to 8.

The themes for each day correlate to the team presentations, and your expertise in these areas is requested. We need two judges for each session.

o             Monday, April 7 - Aerospace and Aviation

o             Monday, April 7 - Cyber Security and Technology

o             Tuesday, April 8 - Energy and Environment

o             Tuesday, April 8 - Health and Nutrition

If you would like to be a judge, please sign up in V-CORPs by March 15. If you need help with V-CORPs, contact the V-CORPs administrator. For questions about the Innovation Summit, please contact Carla Santiago.

Carla Santiago x37150

 

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2.            2014 Trash Bash – March 29

Trash Bash is here again, and JSC is calling for volunteers! JSC has a Space Act Agreement with Armand Bayou Nature Center, and the JSC Environmental Office is coordinating a JSC team for this year's Trash Bash on Saturday, March 29, from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers will be participating in a state-wide effort to clean trash out of our waterways. All participants get a free T-shirt and lunch after the event, with opportunities to win door prizes. Families are welcome. If you would like to participate, please sign up here or contact Kim Reppa. We look forward to seeing you there!

Event Date: Saturday, March 29, 2014   Event Start Time:8:30 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM

Event Location: Gilruth Center

 

Add to Calendar

 

Kim Reppa x28322 http://www.trashbash.org/sites.html

 

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3.            Summer Underwater Robotics Camps

San Jacinto College Aerospace Academy's Water-Bot camps explore the underwater world of remote-operated vehicles and the real-world applications of this exciting field. The exploration continues in three different levels based on experience. The beginner camp will offer basic electronics and robotic construction. The intermediate camp will build upon the beginner skills and add complex engineering design. The advanced camp will be a two-week master class in constructing algorithms in scripting languages and working with advanced electronics and hardware design. Camp dates are in June and July. Please visit our website for more information.

If you would like to volunteer as a guest speaker or advanced team mentor, please visit V-CORPs to sign up!

SJC Aerospace Academy x37252 http://www.sanjac.edu/aerospace-academy

 

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4.            Take a Look at the Stars Over Spring Break

The George Observatory will be open to the public Tuesday, March 11, for Spring Break. The observatory will be open from 5 to 10 p.m. The telescopes and Discovery Dome will be open.

Tickets for the telescopes and Discovery Dome can be purchased the day of at the observatory gift shop.

Stargazing is weather dependent.

George Observatory is located in the heart of Brazos Bend State Park. Admission to the park is $7 for adults; kids under 12 are free.

Megan Hashier 281-226-4179 http://www.hmns.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=108&Ite...

 

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JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles.

Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.

 

 

 

NASA and Human Spaceflight News

Thursday – Feb. 27, 2014

 

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

 

5 – 9 a.m. - Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Live Media Interviews

10:50 a.m. - ISS Expedition 38 In-Flight Educational Event with Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa.

11 a.m. - Live Coverage of GPM Mission Launch

TBD - Joined in Progress Live Coverage of GPM Mission Launch (Clean Feed)

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

NASA vows to fix problems that led to spacesuit leak

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A fundamental misunderstanding of how water behaves in the cooling system of a spacesuit operating in weightlessness, combined with institutional complacency and a perceived pressure to avoid delays, resulted in a frightening, potentially fatal close call last summer when water flooded a spacewalker's helmet outside the International Space Station, NASA managers said Wednesday.

 

Newington manufacturer hires retired NASA astronaut

'Shep' Shepherd commanded International Space Station, flew three Space Shuttle missions

 

Kathleen Callahan - New Hampshire Business Review

 

A Newington manufacturer of defense material has hired a NASA astronaut who was the commander of the first-ever long-duration stay on the International Space Station.

 

NASA confirms 715 planets outside solar system

Traci Watson - USA TODAY

NASA's Kepler telescope identifies hundreds of new planets orbiting stars other than our own.

Suddenly we're rolling in planets. Wednesday, scientists confirmed discovery of a whopping 715 new planets orbiting stars other than our own sun, nearly doubling the number of such planets on the books. Researchers have trumpeted the discovery of large batches of unconfirmed candidate planets outside the solar system but never before have so many genuine, verified "exoplanets," as they're known, been reported at once.

Spacesuit Leak: Why It Took NASA 23 Minutes To Send Astronaut To Safety

Elizabeth Howell – Universe Today

It took NASA almost the same amount of time as a sitcom episode to send Luca Parmitano back to the airlock when the Italian astronaut experienced a leak in his spacesuit last summer, a new report reveals.

NASA could have prevented spacewalker's close call

Marcia Dunn – Associated Press

NASA could have prevented last summer's near-drowning of a spacewalking astronaut at the International Space Station, an investigation panel concluded Wednesday.

NASA oversight led to spacewalker's near drowning, panel finds

Irene Klotz – Reuters

 

A panel investigating an astronaut's near drowning during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station in July found that his spacesuit leaked during an earlier outing, officials said on Wednesday.

NASA: Space suit leak was avoidable

Improper probe of previous incident led to astronaut's near drowning, investigators say

James Dean – Florida Today

An astronaut's near-drowning during a spacewalk last summer could have been avoided if NASA had properly investigated a water leak late in a spacewalk one week earlier, an investigation into the incident found.

NASA still not sure why astronaut's helmet filled with water

Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times

Last summer astronaut Luca Parmitano came perilously close to drowning in space after more than a liter of water leaked into his helmet.

NASA announces 'mother lode' of new planets: 715

SETH BORENSTEI, Associated Press

Seth Borenstein - AP Science Writer

Our galaxy is looking far more crowded and hospitable. NASA on Wednesday confirmed a bonanza of 715 newly discovered planets outside our solar system.

NASA Scientist Liz Warren Tells of Life in Space

Pepperdine town hall meeting gives students a look at International Space

McKenzie Jackson / Special to The Malibu Times The Mailbu Times

According to veteran NASA scientist Liz Warren, the absence of air molecules makes space very cold, but there is one definite benefit astronauts have: a killer view of planet Earth. 

NASA IG finds no evidence of intentional export control violations at Ames

Jeff Foust – Space Politics

Officials at NASA's Ames Research Center did not intentionally violate export control laws but "exercised poor judgment" in sharing ITAR-restricted information with foreign nationals at the center, NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded in a report summary published Wednesday.

Senate appropriators to hear from SpaceX and ULA on military space launch issues

Jeff Foust – Space Politics

The Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee (SAC-D) has scheduled a hearing next week on "National Security Space Launch Programs" featuring the top executives of two key companies. The hearing, scheduled for 10 am Wednesday, March 5, will include as witnesses United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Michael Gass and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, along with Christina Chaplin of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Scott Pace, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.

COMPLETE STORIES

NASA vows to fix problems that led to spacesuit leak

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A fundamental misunderstanding of how water behaves in the cooling system of a spacesuit operating in weightlessness, combined with institutional complacency and a perceived pressure to avoid delays, resulted in a frightening, potentially fatal close call last summer when water flooded a spacewalker's helmet outside the International Space Station, NASA managers said Wednesday.

 

With his eyes and ears covered by a growing blob of water -- and faced with the counter-intuitive but very real prospect of drowning in the vacuum of space -- European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano made it back to the safety of the station's airlock in the nick of time, assisted by fellow spacewalker Christopher Cassidy.

 

The July 16, 2013, incident was the most serious known incident ever encountered during a NASA spacewalk, and the space agency launched an extensive, wide-ranging mishap investigation to find out what went wrong and what steps need to be taken to preview a recurrence.

 

The investigation board's report was released Wednesday, blaming the leak and subsequent events on a complex combination of factors that included a misunderstanding of the subtleties of the suit's operation in weightlessness to more troubling institutional issues that, while not intentional, could lead to similar problems in the future if uncorrected.

 

"While I am concerned about ensuring this particular incident does not happen again, I am especially concerned about cultural factors that may have contributed to the event," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote in an agency-wide note to employees. "In our exuberance to get the job done, we may have allowed ourselves to accept the commonly accepted causes for small anomalies.

 

"We have a responsibility not to move on from any abnormal situation until we understand it fully or have suitable mitigations to prevent it happening again. Our work both in-house and with our industry and commercial partners should entail diligence in assessing risk and commitment to ensuring mission safety."

 

The mishap board concluded the leak was caused by a subtle water chemistry issue in the cooling system of Parmitano's spacesuit. Contamination built up and blocked a filter, allowing water to make its way into a line that feeds air to the helmet. The source of the contamination is not yet known.

 

A detailed review showed the leak actually began near the end of an otherwise-successful July 9 spacewalk. Parmitano and fellow spacewalker Christopher Cassidy initially suggested the water probably leaked from Parmitano's drink bag. Engineers on the ground came to the same conclusion and cleared the astronauts for a second spacewalk, EVA-23, on July 16.

 

Just 44 minutes into a planned six-and-a-half-hour excursion, Parmitano ran into a pair of problems. A carbon dioxide sensor in his suit suddenly stopped working and shortly after that, he noticed the back of his head felt unusually wet.

 

A CO2 sensor failure was not considered a major problem. In this case, flight controllers said they would monitor suit telemetry on the ground and keep tabs on how Parmitano was feeling. There were no indications of an actual CO2 buildup.

 

But as Parmitano pressed ahead with work to route cables on the outside of the International Space Station, he noticed a water buildup at the back of his head where a helmet air duct is located.

 

"I don't understand where it's coming from," he said.

 

"It has to be (your drink) bag," Cassidy replied. "Can you suck it dry?"

 

A few minutes later, Cassidy peered into his crewmate's helmet for a closeup look, saying "so that stuff on your forehead is not sweat?"

 

"No it's not."

 

The leak quickly grew and water began to creep around the side of Parmitano's head into the forward part of the helmet.

 

"I can still hear perfectly, but my head is really wet and I feel it increasing," Parmitano said. A few minute laster, he wondered again, "where's it coming from? It's too much."

 

"I don't know. It's a lot," Cassidy agreed.

 

"Now it's in my eyes," Parmitano said.

 

In the absence of gravity, water tends to pool in blobs and inside the cramped confines of a space helmet, a large amount of water could trigger uncontrolled coughing and, possibly, even drowning.

 

By that point, flight controllers assessing the problem at the Johnson Space Center in Houston knew the spacewalk could not continue. In fact, it needed to end as quickly as possible. The astronauts were told to return to the station's airlock as quickly as possible, a process that took about 40 minutes to complete. The excursion ended at 9:29 a.m., just an hour and a half after it began.

 

The astronauts later disassembled the suits and helped engineers on the ground carry out an extensive series of tests to pin down the source of the leak. They quickly concluded the drink bag was not the culprit. Why the ground team went along with that hypothesis in the first place was discussed at length by the mishap board.

 

Institutional complacency appeared to play a role in the incident, the board concluded, along with a perceived pressure to keep station science on track and not to raise questions or concerns that could trigger delays. The leak first appeared during the July 9 spacewalk, but the board concluded that spacewalk engineers jumped to conclusions when they blamed it on the drink bag.

 

"The ISS Program must place a strong emphasis on performing utilization with the ISS; it is in fact the very reason ISS exists," the board wrote. "However, the strong emphasis on utilization was leading team members to feel that requesting on-orbit time for anything non-science related was likely to be denied and therefore tended to assume their next course of action could not include on-orbit time.

 

"The danger with that thought process is that lower level team members were in effect making risk decisions for the Program, without necessarily having a Program wide viewpoint or understanding of the risk trades actually being made at a Program level."

 

Based on interviews, the board said "it was clear that several ground team members were concerned that if the assumed drink bag anomaly experienced at the end of EVA 22 were to be investigated further, it would likely lead to a long, intensive process that would interfere with necessary work needed to prepare for the upcoming EVA 23, and that this issue would likely not uncover anything significant enough to justify the resources which would have to be spent."

 

Along with this perceived schedule pressure, the board found that spacewalk engineers were lulled into a complacency by a misunderstanding of how water behaves in the weightlessness of space.

 

During ground testing, a water buildup in the cooling system would stall the pump fan and cause the system to shut down before any water could make its way into the helmet. As it turns out, water in a weightless environment can, in fact, make its way around the fan and into the vent system.

 

"When presented with the suggestion that the crew member's drink bag leaked out the large amount of water that was found in (Parmitano's) helmet after EVA 22, no one in the EVA community ... challenged this determination and investigated further," the board concluded. "Had that conclusion been challenged, the issue would likely have been discovered prior to EVA 23 and the mishap would have been avoided."

 

While the root cause of the contamination that triggered the leak in the first place is not yet known, the three U.S. spacesuits currently aboard the station have been thoroughly inspected and, in the case of Parmitano's suit, a replacement fan unit installed. Two contingency spacewalks were carried out in December to replace an ammonia coolant pump module after a failure that forced flight controllers to power-down non-critical systems. The spacewalks were successful and neither suit suffered any leaks.

 

But the mishap board made dozens of recommendations to prevent a repeat of the leak or any similar problems and Michael Suffredini, the space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center, said all of the high-priority directives would be addressed before the suits are used again for any non-contingency spacwalks, including efforts to improve communications between engineers and managers.

 

"It's about a balance," he said. "The report cautions us to make sure that we, in the process of emphasizing the significance of saving crew time for utilization, that we don't at a lower level accidentally cause people not to ask for crew time to do things they think are important," he said.

 

In the wake of the mishap board's conclusions, NASA managers have asked their teams if there is "anything we should be doing, if there's a risk they think we should be addressing and the answer came back 'no,'" Suffredini said. "And we spent quite a bit of time in all of our forums trying to reiterate with the teams that if there is ever a concern or a risk that they need crew time to work on, they should bring that forward to the program, that we welcome that sort of thing."

 

In a personal blog post before he left the station and returned to Earth, Parmitano succinctly summed up the challenge to engineers and astronauts.

 

"Space is a harsh, inhospitable frontier and we are explorers, not colonizers," he wrote. "The skills of our engineers and the technology surrounding us make things appear simple when they are not, and perhaps we forget this sometimes.

 

"Better not to forget."

 

Newington manufacturer hires retired NASA astronaut

'Shep' Shepherd commanded International Space Station, flew three Space Shuttle missions

 

Kathleen Callahan - New Hampshire Business Review

 

A Newington manufacturer of defense material has hired a NASA astronaut who was the commander of the first-ever long-duration stay on the International Space Station.

 

Wilcox Industries Corp., which makes tactical equipment for special operators and first responders in the defense and law enforcement sectors, has hired William "Shep" Shepherd as its vice president of Advanced Development and Restricted Programs.

 

Shepherd will work out of Wilcox's corporate headquarters in Newington. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Shepherd served as a Navy SEAL before NASA selected him in 1984 for its astronaut program.

 

In his career with NASA, Shepherd logged more than 159 days in space. He flew three Space Shuttle missions, was program manager for the International Space Station, and in 2000 commanded Expedition 1, the first expedition to the new station. On that mission, he and his crew spent 136 days aboard the International Space Station, where Shepherd – as commander of the expedition – was responsible for the overall safety and success of the crew's prolonged stay in space. According to NASA, "the crew of Expedition 1 set the framework for international cooperation and attitude in space, displaying mutual respect and teamwork."

 

The ISS has been continually occupied since the arrival of Expedition 1 – the longest continuous human presence in space.

 

After Expedition 1, Shepherd later served as science advisor to the U.S. Special Operations Command, where he managed the Forces' science and technology portfolio.

 

In 2003, Shepherd was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

 

According to Wilcox CEO Jim Teetzel, "Shep's experience and knowledge of special operations, aerospace, and defense activities will add unique depth to Wilcox's development team. We are continuing to grow into new technology areas and we know that Shep will be instrumental in this process."

 

Among its products, Wilcox manufactures night vision-mounting systems, small arms systems, and life support systems.

 

NASA confirms 715 planets outside solar system

Traci Watson - USA TODAY

NASA's Kepler telescope identifies hundreds of new planets orbiting stars other than our own.

Suddenly we're rolling in planets.

Wednesday, scientists confirmed discovery of a whopping 715 new planets orbiting stars other than our own sun, nearly doubling the number of such planets on the books. Researchers have trumpeted the discovery of large batches of unconfirmed candidate planets outside the solar system but never before have so many genuine, verified "exoplanets," as they're known, been reported at once.

"What we've been able to do … is strike the mother lode, get a veritable exoplanet bonanza," planetary scientist Jack Lissauer of the NASA Ames Research Center said at a news briefing.

Four of the new planets are in the habitable zone, the narrow band around a star where the temperature on a planet's surface is likely to be warm enough for liquid water. All four are about twice as big across as the Earth. Until now, most of the verified planets outside our solar system were sized more like strapping Jupiter, which is 87,000 miles across, than like shrimpy Earth, which is not quite 8,000.

The new group of planets, all found using data from NASA's Kepler spacecraft, is notable not just for its size but for what it tells us about the other planets beyond our own stellar neighborhood. Most of the new planets, not just those in the habitable zone, are small. Their arrangement seems a little familiar: multiple planets traveling around one star on a flat, circular path.

"That reminds me of something, and that's home," Kepler scientist Jason Rowe of the SETI Institute said at the briefing. "It's interesting to look at the Kepler data set and see all these scaled-down versions of our own solar system."

Researchers were able to announce a huge pack of new planets thanks to better methods for verifying planet candidates. Kepler finds possible planets by looking for stars that dim repeatedly, as if a planet was passing over the star's brilliant face and blocking some of the starlight. Kepler can be fooled by objects that aren't planets, such as pairs of stars that orbit each other and therefore dim periodically.

Usually it takes dozens of observations by some of the world's biggest telescopes to confirm a candidate planet, but a new statistical method allows for quicker, more efficient verification. Studies describing the new method and the new planet tally will be published in upcoming issues of The Astrophysical Journal.

Spacesuit Leak: Why It Took NASA 23 Minutes To Send Astronaut To Safety

Elizabeth Howell – Universe Today

It took NASA almost the same amount of time as a sitcom episode to send Luca Parmitano back to the airlock when the Italian astronaut experienced a leak in his spacesuit last summer, a new report reveals.

The 23-minute gap of time between when Parmitano first sent a report of water in his helmet, to when NASA told him to go back to safety, exposed the astronaut "to an increased level of risk", the report said. While Parmitano emerged from the incident safely, in his last minutes inside the spacesuit the water was covering his eyes, getting close to his nose and mouth, and affecting the communications equipment.

 "There wasn't an issue of anything being hidden or surprised. It was a lack of understanding about the severity of the event. It was believed a drink bag caused the leak," said Chris Hansen, the chair of the mishap investigation board, in a press conference today (Feb. 26).

This misunderstanding, added Hansen (who is also the chief engineer of the International Space Station Program) also led to a problem when a leak occurred in the same suit just the week before.

Parmitano's water leak occurred July 16 when he and Chris Cassidy were preparing a part of the International Space Station for a new Russian module. Until today, however, few knew about the existence of a second leak in the same spacesuit that happened on July 9, when Cassidy and Parmitano were doing another spacewalk together.

After the conclusion of "EVA 22″ on July 9, as NASA called the extra-vehicular activity, Parmitano took off his helmet and crew members discovered between 0.5 and 1 liters (0.13 to 0.26 gallons) of water inside. Cassidy told the ground that he could not see any water during the spacewalk or repressurization, leading NASA to conclude the water got into the helmet in the airlock.

"Also," the report noted, "[Parmitano] was looking down and leaning forward and likely had pressed on the drink bag with his chest and could have pinched the bite valve open with his chin, releasing water into his helmet. The ground team accepted the crew's drink bag leak assessment and the presence of excessive water in the helmet was not investigated further … The ground team instructed the crew to use a new drink bag for the upcoming EVA 23, which they did."

Hanson emphasized that the crew did not make the final call, and that the ground team did ask some questions about what was going on, but the assumption that a drink bag caused the water was also a key feature of the July 16 spacewalk when the leak began to show itself in earnest.

Also, NASA did not well understand the physics of how water worked inside of the suit, assuming there was no way for liquid to make it past a fan pump separator into the helmet unless the fan itself shut off. If that scenario arose, NASA would have kicked into a 30-minute return-to-airlock procedure, and that was in the back of controllers' minds as they were working through the fault tree during the July 16 spacewalk, officials said in the phone call today.

In the short term, the authors of the report have several  "Level 1″ or priority recommendations that they should be implemented before normal spacewalks resume. NASA said it's planning to work through these and "Level 2″ recommendations in time for June, with the aim of getting spacewalks going again in July or August.

Emergency spacewalks can still go forward, as the agency has new safety measures in place (including snorkels). This happened in December as the astronauts replaced a faulty ammonia pump. 

The agency has no pressing spacewalk tasks at this time. The broken pump, sitting in temporary stowage outside the station, was initially safed to stay there until summer, but further analysis shows that it could sit there for several months more.

NASA could have prevented spacewalker's close call

Marcia Dunn – Associated Press

NASA could have prevented last summer's near-drowning of a spacewalking astronaut at the International Space Station, an investigation panel concluded Wednesday.

 Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet filled with water July 16 during his second spacewalk in a week. He barely made it back inside alive.

But according to the panel's report, his helmet also had leaked at the end of his first spacewalk a week earlier. The panel said the space station team misdiagnosed the first failure and should have delayed the second spacewalk until the problem was understood.

"This event was not properly investigated," said Chris Hansen, NASA's chief space station engineer and chairman of the investigation board created by the space agency after the close call.

"There was a lack of understanding in the severity of the event," Hansen said during a news conference.

Space station officials — even the astronauts themselves — presumed the leak was from a water drink bag in the suit when, in fact, that was not the culprit, he noted.

Investigators said Parmitano's "calm demeanor" during the incident quite possibly saved his life. It was fortunate he was relatively close to the space station entrance when the helmet flooded, Hansen noted.

Now 37, Parmitano is a former test pilot and an officer in the Italian Air Force who was making his first space mission. He returned to Earth in November.

In this Tuesday, July 16, 2013 image provided by NASA, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitan …

The precise cause of the water leakage is still under review.

Debris clogged a pump mechanism inside Parmitano's spacesuit, part of its cooling system, and water ended up in the helmet, Hansen noted. Engineers do not yet know the source of the aluminum silicate contamination.

NASA almost ended up with another disaster following Parmitano's close call. The day after his near-drowning, the astronauts used a vacuum cleaner to dry the spacesuit and accidentally sucked oxygen out of a tank. "The hazardous mix of electricity and pure O2" could have sparked a fire, the report stated.

Mission Control had aborted the spacewalk once the water began to rise to alarming levels in Parmitano's helmet; the spacewalk by Parmitano and American astronaut Chris Cassidy lasted 1½ hours, versus the anticipated six hours.

So much water filled Parmitano's helmet — an estimated 1½ liters — that he could barely see and could not hear or speak. He said he made his way back into the space station by relying on the position of his safety tether.

NASA was contrite following the release of the 222-page report, saying it could and would do better.

"We're taking it very seriously," said space station program manager Mike Suffredini.

He expects the engineering investigation wraps up by year's end.

Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human exploration and operations mission, said the spacewalk probably should have ended sooner on July 16.

"We can all improve and do better," Gerstenmaier said.

The spacesuit failure — an unexpected problem initially given short shrift — has overtones of the 1986 Challenger and 2003 Columbia disasters. Both shuttle accidents were caused by misunderstood technical problems and miscommunication. In all, 14 astronauts died.

Gerstenmaier stressed that Parmitano's close call is "an excellent reminder for us."

"The message to all of us is to be really vigilant, right, and to really communicate," he told reporters.

"I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff, that we're actually out trying to describe these things, describe where we can get better. That's how we prevent Columbias and Challengers."

A former NASA associate administrator said the incident is an all too familiar problem: Engineers think they know everything that can go wrong with complicated technology and often don't.

"When things go wrong, the machinery is talking to you. The equipment is trying to tell you something," said Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington University. "The question is whether or not you are listening."

U.S. spacewalks were put on hold after the incident. An exception was made right before Christmas so two U.S. astronauts could repair a crippled cooling system at the orbiting outpost. As a precaution, they had makeshift snorkels and water-absorbent pads in their helmets, but there were no problems.

A series of NASA-led spacewalks tentatively are scheduled for July or August, but the agency wants to know exactly what caused the helmet flooding before carrying them out, Suffredini said. The age of the shuttle-era spacesuits is not thought to be a contributor.

Six men currently reside on the space station: three Russians, two Americans and one Japanese.

NASA oversight led to spacewalker's near drowning, panel finds

Irene Klotz – Reuters

 

A panel investigating an astronaut's near drowning during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station in July found that his spacesuit leaked during an earlier outing, officials said on Wednesday.

NASA misdiagnosed the earlier leak, believing the water found in the helmet of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano on July 9 was due to a ruptured drink bag, said space station chief engineer Chris Hansen, who chaired an investigation panel appointed by the U.S. space agency.

"Had the issue been discussed in more detail ... the team likely would have realized that the water experienced in (Parmitano's) helmet was 'out of family' and needed to be investigated further," Hansen wrote in a report released on Wednesday.

Instead, a week later on July 16, Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy put on their spacesuits to continue work outside the space station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 260 miles above Earth.

About 45 minutes into the spacewalk, Parmitano radioed to ground controllers that water was leaking into his helmet.

Investigators said NASA did not immediately recognize the possibility that Parmitano's suit was failing.

Engineers mistakenly believed a water leak would trip a fan to shut down, signaling a suit problem. Instead, the fan remained operational despite water seeping its way around a valve and ultimately inside the spacewalker's helmet.

By the time flight controllers aborted the spacewalk, water obscured Parmitano's vision and impaired his breathing. As the astronaut made his way into the airlock, assisted by Cassidy, he lost radio communications as well.

About 1.5 liters (3.17 pints) of water ended up inside Parmitano's helmet, or about twice as much as what was found after the July 9 spacewalk, the report shows.

Initially, no one suspected that first leak was anything more serious than a burst drink bag.

"This was a really subtle problem. It took us weeks before we started getting to the conclusion that this had happened earlier," Hansen told reporters on a conference call.

Ultimately, engineers figured out that the leak was due to contamination in a pump that is part of the spacesuit's cooling system. The source of the contamination remains under investigation.

The 220-page report includes 49 recommendations to beef up safety protocols, training and communication. NASA says it will implement the findings before scheduling its next series of spacewalks, targeted for this summer.

NASA has twice before been surprised by unknown technical implications of hardware problems, with disastrous results. In 2003, foam insulation falling off the space shuttle's fuel tank during launch caused wing damage that destroyed the Columbia as it glided through the atmosphere for landing, killing seven astronauts.

The 1986 Challenger accident, which also killed seven astronauts, was later blamed on a booster rocket seal that failed during its launch in cold weather.

"The message to all of us is to be really vigilant and to really communicate," said NASA spaceflight chief William Gerstenmaier.

"We're not hiding this stuff. We're actually out trying to describe these things, describe where we can get better. I think that's how we prevent Columbias and Challengers," he said.

NASA: Space suit leak was avoidable

Improper probe of previous incident led to astronaut's near drowning, investigators say

James Dean – Florida Today

An astronaut's near-drowning during a spacewalk last summer could have been avoided if NASA had properly investigated a water leak late in a spacewalk one week earlier, an investigation into the incident found.

Ground teams accepted astronauts' guess that a pinched drink bag caused the first leak, failing to recognize that it might represent a more serious spacesuit problem, one not previously understood.

But 44 minutes into the next spacewalk outside the International Space Station, on July 16, 2013, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano reported water filling his helmet, leading controllers to abort the spacewalk 23 minutes later.

 

Parmitano's calm demeanor as he returned to the airlock and the leak worsened — with 1½ liters of water obscuring his vision and entering his nose and ears — "possibly saved his life," said a report released Wednesday by the board NASA formed to investigate the incident.

The initial leak "was not properly investigated, which could have prevented placing a crew member at risk a week later during (the next spacewalk)," said Chris Hansen, the board's leader from Johnson Space Center.

Bill Gerstenmaier, head of human spaceflight operations at NASA headquarters, praised the report titled a "high visibility close call," and said NASA would implement its 49 recommendations.

"We're going to learn from this event and make sure that we're safer in the future," he said during a media teleconference with Hansen and Mike Suffredini, NASA's ISS program manager.

The precise hardware cause of the leak continues to be investigated, but has been traced to contamination that clogged tubes and allowed water from the suit's cooling system to back up into Parmitano's helmet.

The report groups the recommendations into three priority levels, all of which NASA promised to address by the end of the year. The most serious will be covered before any more non-emergency spacewalks are performed, including a series of three planned in July or August.

It's possible spacewalks could be needed sooner to repair station systems, as happened in December when two excursions — incorporating extra safety measures — fixed a disabled coolant loop.

The first of the report's "Level 1" recommendations — considered the most urgent — addresses a concern that the ISS program's emphasis on maximizing astronauts' time for science research was too deeply ingrained in ground teams.

As a result, some were hesitant to request crew time to support non-science issues like the spacesuit, assuming requests would be denied.

"Performing science on space station is very important and has to be done," said Hansen. "Our team members just have to understand the importance of not losing curiosity when we see things we don't quite understand."

He said the board found no evidence that fear, intimidation or an unwillingness to raise safety concerns contributed to the problem.

But after the first instance of excess water, ground teams also did not want to launch a time-consuming review of an issue they thought could easily be explained.

"The reason that it was not properly investigated — it wasn't an issue of anything being hidden or suppressed," said Hansen. "Really, the issue was that there was a lack of understanding of the severity of (the) event."

Gerstenmaier said the spacesuit failure would have been extremely difficult to diagnose sooner; it was only understood once suit components were returned to the ground.

Nonetheless, he said the report would spur the agency and its contractors to watch even more closely for subtle signs of potentially bigger problems, and to improve communication.

"It really makes us step back and think and challenge ourselves as a team to get better," he said.

 

NASA still not sure why astronaut's helmet filled with water

Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times

Last summer astronaut Luca Parmitano came perilously close to drowning in space after more than a liter of water leaked into his helmet.

Today NASA officials said they are still trying to figure out what went wrong.

The near-drowning occurred July 16 about one hour into Parmitano's second spacewalk.

Forty-four minutes into the walk, the Italian astronaut noticed the back of his head was wet. Ten minutes later he reported the amount of water was increasing. By the time mission control decided to abort the mission 23 minutes later, large droplets of water were starting to cover Parmitano's eyes, nose and ears as he made his way toward the air lock. Somehow 1 1/2 liters of water had made it into his helmet. 

In a report about the incident released Wednesday, members of the NASA appointed Mishap Investigation Board said the cause of the near-drowning could be traced to contamination in a portion of the spacesuit called the fan pump separator.

The contaminant is an inorganic silicate that clogged some of the holes in the pump and kept water from flowing through it. In pictures it looks like a small blob of shaving cream. The clog created a backup of water, which lead to some of the water flowing into the air system and ultimately into Parmitano's helmet, the board concluded.  

But how that contamination got there, they still cannot say. 

After dozens of interviews with people involved in the mission, the board also found that the spacesuit had failed once before, at the end of Parmitano's first spacewalk on July 9.

After returning to the space station, Parmitano and his fellow crew members noticed his helmet had filled with about half a liter of water, but because they saw no signs of the water during the spacewalk, they thought it must have gotten in there during repress -- perhaps through a drink bag that Parmitano inadvertently pressed with his chin.

According to the report, the ground team accepted this explanation without much discussion. And therein, the authors say, lies the problem.

"When presented with the suggestion that the crew member's drink bag leaked out the large amount of water that was found in [Parmitano's] helmet, no one ... challenged this determination or investigated further," they write. "Had that conclusion been challenged, the issue would likely have been discovered prior to [the next spacewalk] and the mishap would have been avoided."

Agency officials said they don't plan to do any more spacewalks until they have gotten to the root of the problem.

"If we haven't gotten to root causes, we will postpone all [spacewalks] on the books until the teams are done," Michael Suffredini, International Space Station program manager, said at a news conference Wednesday. "But I have high confidence we will be ready in the June time frame."

Suffredini said NASA is planning two spacewalks for late summer, although the dates have not been locked down. 

NASA announces 'mother lode' of new planets: 715

SETH BORENSTEI, Associated Press

Seth Borenstein - AP Science Writer

Our galaxy is looking far more crowded and hospitable. NASA on Wednesday confirmed a bonanza of 715 newly discovered planets outside our solar system.

Scientists using the planet-hunting Kepler telescope pushed the number of planets discovered in the galaxy to about 1,700. Twenty years ago, astronomers had not found any planets circling stars other than the ones revolving around our sun.

"We almost doubled just today the number of planets known to humanity," NASA planetary scientist Jack Lissauer said in a Wednesday teleconference, calling it "the big mother lode."

Astronomers used a new confirmation technique to come up with the largest single announcement of a batch of exoplanets — what planets outside our solar system are called.

While Wednesday's announcements were about big numbers, they also were about implications for life behind those big numbers.

All the new planets are in systems like ours where multiple planets circle a star. The 715 planets came from looking at just 305 stars. They were nearly all in size closer to Earth than gigantic Jupiter.

And four of those new exoplanets orbit their stars in "habitable zones" where it is not too hot or not too cold for liquid water which is crucial for life to exist.

Douglas Hudgins, NASA's exoplanet exploration program scientist, called Wednesday's announcement a major step toward Kepler's ultimate goal: "finding Earth 2.0."

It's a big step in not just finding other Earths, but "the possibility of life elsewhere," said Lisa Kaltenegger, a Harvard and Max Planck Institute astronomer who wasn't part of the discovery team.

The four new habitable zone planets are all at least twice as big as Earth so that makes them more likely to be gas planets instead of rocky ones like Earth — and less likely to harbor life.

So far Kepler has found nine exoplanets in the habitable zone, NASA said. Astronomers expect to find more when they look at all four years of data collected by the now-crippled Kepler; so far they have looked at two years.

Planets in the habitable zone are likely to be farther out from their stars because it is hot close in. And planets farther out take more time orbiting, so Kepler has to wait longer to see it again.

Another of Kepler's latest discoveries indicates that "small planets are extremely common in our galaxy," said MIT astronomer Sara Seagar, who wasn't part of the discovery team. "Nature wants to make small planets."

And, in general, smaller planets are more likely to be able to harbor life than big ones, Kaltenegger said.

NASA Scientist Liz Warren Tells of Life in Space

Pepperdine town hall meeting gives students a look at International Space

McKenzie Jackson / Special to The Malibu Times The Mailbu Times

According to veteran NASA scientist Liz Warren, the absence of air molecules makes space very cold, but there is one definite benefit astronauts have: a killer view of planet Earth. 

"The view is pretty much unbeatable," Warren said, addressing students in a presentation last week at Pepperdine University. "Actually the view [at Pepperdine] is pretty good, but [space] beats it." 

Warren spoke at length during an hour and a half presentation at the school's Elkins Auditorium on Wed., Feb. 19, about space, the experience of astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and experiments conducted on the ISS.

The space station weighs about a million pounds, Warren said, and the pieces of it were constructed all over the world and then put together in space. In all, it took 30 shuttle missions to get all the pieces in orbit. Seventy countries are benefiting from the ISS. And yes, phone calls can be made from space.

"If you ever get a call from space, it shows up a Houston area code, it's not a space area code," she joked. 

The ISS town hall meeting was possible thanks to a partnership between NASA and Pepperdine. Pepperdine physics professor Gerard Fasel, and physics students Julia Flicker and Robert "RJ" Aylward conduct research with NASA pertaining to studying solar winds and the Earth's magnetic field.

"This is a unique opportunity to come out to Pepperdine, and talk about the International Space Station," said Warren, who has spent 10 years at NASA. "This is something I love to do. I like seeing students out here. Everyone should know what they are getting out of their space station."

What people are getting out of the spacecraft is a lot of information about the planet's atmosphere, the weather, the oceans, the human body, sun rays and other scientific endeavors. 

Warren said the ISS, which is parked 230 miles above the planet, is an orbiting laboratory. 

"We are there to do science and benefit life here on Earth," she said. 

Warren, who works with the ISS team at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, said astronauts are stationed on ISS for half a year. During those six months, the spacefarers have a scientific advantage over planet-bound researchers. 

"Being weightless, that micro-gravity environment allows us to do things in science that we just cannot do on Earth," she said. "We use the fact that they are in micro-gravity to unlock a lot of mysteries of what life is like here on Earth."

Some of the experiments NASA astronauts and space voyagers from Russia, Japan and the countries that make up the European Space Agency involve their own bodies. Warren, who worked in NASA's Mission Control Center for four years as the ISS Medical Project Science Operations Lead, said astronauts' muscles and bones get weaker in space due to the weightlessness.

"Without gravity, if you don't use it you lose it," she said. "We test out medical procedures, like how to image astronauts' hearts.

"We study proteins by growing crystals of them," Warren added. "When you grow a crystal in space it looks a lot different than when you grow it on earth." 

The fundamentals of science can be unlocked in space, Warren said. For example, in space there is no thermal convection. A flame on a candle makes a teardrop shape, she said, because hot air rises and cold air sinks. Not so in space, where without convection fire simply forms a sphere.

"With that we can study fundamentals of fuel burning, combustion," she said. "Imagine if we can understand better how to burn fuel and reduce pollution?"

Warren said NASA believes that inspiring young people is really important. The agency conducts most of its outreach to youth on the Internet, she said. 

"Science, engineering, technology, and math drive our economy and drive our future," she said. 

NASA IG finds no evidence of intentional export control violations at Ames

Jeff Foust – Space Politics

Officials at NASA's Ames Research Center did not intentionally violate export control laws but "exercised poor judgment" in sharing ITAR-restricted information with foreign nationals at the center, NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) concluded in a report summary published Wednesday.

The investigation stemmed from complaints that foreign nationals working at Ames had access to information that should have been restricted under export control regulations. The OIG's investigation continued after the US Attorney's office closed its criminal investigation a year ago without filing any charges. The OIG's investigation wrapped up earlier this month with a full report (not publicly released "because it contains information protected by the Privacy Act of 1974," the summary notes) to the NASA administrator.

The OIG, like the earlier criminal probe, found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing by any Ames officials, but did identify some carelessness in how they treated access to ITAR-restricted information. "In sum, we did not find intentional misconduct by any Ames civil servants," the OIG summary states, "but believe some Ames managers exercised poor judgment in their dealings with foreign nationals who worked on Center."

The report summary adds that there was "significant disagreement between scientists and engineers at Ames and export control personnel at the Center and NASA Headquarters as to whether the work the foreign nationals were performing at Ames involved ITAR-controlled technology," which contributed to the issue. "We concluded that these incidents resulted more from carelessness and a genuine disagreement about whether the information qualified for ITAR protection than an intentional effort to bypass ITAR restrictions."

In a letter, NASA administrator Charles Bolden accepted the OIG's report. "I take these findings seriously and have asked Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot to assess your findings and recommend any potential corrective actions to address the concerns raised in your report," Bolden wrote.

The OIG report comes two weeks after the completion of an independent report on "NASA's Foreign National Access Management," triggered by the Ames incidents as well as the arrest of a Chinese national working at NASA Langley who was originally believed to have tried to transfer restricted information. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) claimed that report indicated a "persistent organizational culture" that failed to hold NASA employees responsible for security violations.

While the OIG report found no evidence of intentional efforts at Ames to subvert export control regulations, one key member of Congress still expressed concern about the agency's security practices. "The casual treatment of foreign national access, ITAR, and export controls at Ames Research Center is simply another example of NASA's negligence," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, in a statement provided by the committee. "Several such incidents and reports portray an agency struggling to manage sensitive technical information. I hope that the administration will take these reports seriously and implement the recommended changes to ensure that NASA is not leaking our nation's prized aerospace technology."

Senate appropriators to hear from SpaceX and ULA on military space launch issues

Jeff Foust – Space Politics

The Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee (SAC-D) has scheduled a hearing next week on "National Security Space Launch Programs" featuring the top executives of two key companies. The hearing, scheduled for 10 am Wednesday, March 5, will include as witnesses United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Michael Gass and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, along with Christina Chaplin of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Scott Pace, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.

The hearing comes as there's increased pressure on the DOD to reduce launch costs. The Air Force recently reached a deal with ULA on a "block buy" of 36 rocket cores for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehcle (EELV) program, which currently includes only ULA's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. The block buy promises to save billions of dollars, although some are skeptical of that accounting.

SpaceX, meanwhile, is seeking to win business from the EELV program with its Falcon 9 and upcoming Falcon Heavy rockets, which offer much lower prices than Atlas and Delta vehicles. Earlier this week, the Air Force announced that SpaceX's inaugural Falcon 9 v1.1 launch last September will count towards its EELV certification, despite a problem with the relight of the rocket's second stage after it released all its satellite payloads. The Air Force is still assessing the following two Falcon 9 v1.1 launches, which took place in December and January, but both of those appeared to take place without incident. Those launches, plus other reviews, will allow the Air Force to certify the Falcon 9 v1.1 for EELV-class launches.

 

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