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LRO Mission Update

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:34:16 PM PDT

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, successfully separated from the Centaur upper stage and Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, spacecraft at 6:16:43 p.m. EDT.

The official transfer of control from the Centaur rocket to LCROSS is expected about 9:30 p.m.

LRO will reach the moon on Tuesday at 5:43 a.m.

LCROSS and the Centaur rocket will stay attached for the next four months. They will then separate and be directed to impact the moon on Oct. 9, UTC.

Source: NASA

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Related Article-1:
3, 2, 1, Liftoff!

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft are on their way to the moon atop the same Atlas V rocket, although they will use vastly different methods to study the lunar environment. LRO will go into orbit around the moon, turning its suite of instruments towards the moon for thorough studies. The spacecraft also will be looking for potential landing sites for astronauts.

LCROSS, on the other hand, will guide an empty upper stage on a collision course with a permanently shaded crater in an effort to kick up evidence of water at the moon’s poles. LCROSS itself will also impact the lunar surface during its course of study.

Liftoff occurred at 5:32 p.m. EDT. Mission managers used the last launch opportunity due to storms surrounding the launch site.

Source: NASA

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Related Article-2:
NASA Returning to the Moon with First Lunar Launch in a Decade

GREENBELT, Md. — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.

The orbiter, known as LRO, separated from the Atlas V rocket carrying it and a companion mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and immediately began powering up the components necessary to control the spacecraft. The flight operations team established communication with LRO and commanded the successful deployment of the solar array at 7:40 p.m. The operations team continues to check out the spacecraft subsystems and prepare for the first mid-course correction maneuver. NASA scientists expect to establish communications with LCROSS about four hours after launch, at approximately 9:30 p.m.

“This is a very important day for NASA,” said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington, which designed and developed both the LRO and LCROSS missions. “We look forward to an extraordinary period of discovery at the moon and the information LRO will give us for future exploration missions.”

The spacecraft will be placed in low polar orbit about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, above the moon for a one year primary mission. LRO’s instruments will help scientists compile high resolution three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths. The satellite will explore the moon’s deepest craters, exploring permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans.

“Our job is to perform reconnaissance of the moon’s surface using a suite of seven powerful instruments,” said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “NASA will use the data LRO collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and selecting the landing sites that will be their destinations.”

High resolution imagery from LRO’s camera will help identify landing sites for future explorers and characterize the moon’s topography and composition. The hydrogen concentrations at the moon’s poles will be mapped in detail, pinpointing the locations of possible water ice. A miniaturized radar system will image the poles and test communication capabilities.

“During the 60 day commissioning period, we will turn on spacecraft components and science instruments,” explained Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. “All instruments will be turned on within two weeks of launch, and we should start seeing the moon in new and greater detail within the next month.”

“We learned much about the moon from the Apollo program, but now it is time to return to the moon for intensive study, and we will do just that with LRO,” said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at Goddard.

All LRO initial data sets will be deposited in the Planetary Data System, a publicly accessible repository of planetary science information, within six months of launch.

Goddard built and manages LRO. LRO is a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia provides the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft.

The LRO mission is providing updates via @LRO_NASA on Twitter. To follow, visit:

http://www.twitter.com/lro_nasa

For more information about the LRO mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

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Source: NASA

Leak Repair Process Under way as Managers Discuss Launch Options

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:18:22 PM PDT

Technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center are working to fix a leak associated with the gaseous hydrogen venting system outside space shuttle Endeavour’s external fuel tank. The leak postponed Endeavour’s Saturday morning scheduled launch to the International Space Station.

Early this morning, teams gained access to the area where the leak occurred on Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A near the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP, which is attached to the external tank. The vent line leads from the GUCP and away from the launch pad to the “flare stack” where excess hydrogen is safely burned off.

Endeavour’s leak is similar to what happened during the first launch attempt of space shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 mission in March. Technicians plan to use the same repair method, which led to Discovery’s successful launch on its next attempt. Teams are expected to begin changing out seals in the GUCP’s internal connection points late this afternoon.

Shuttle managers began meeting at 2 p.m. EDT today to evaluate how repairs are going and assess when Endeavour’s next launch attempt will be. The earliest the shuttle could be ready for liftoff is June 17, however there is a conflict on that date with the scheduled launch of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

A news conference will follow this afternoon’s Mission Management Team meeting and will air live on NASA Television and the agency Web site.

STS-127 Mission Overview
The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

The STS-127 crew members are Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

Source: NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Constellation Program reached two major processing milestones this week as two new pieces of Ares I-X hardware were transferred for final assembly in preparation for the first flight test of the rocket later this summer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Once stacking operations begin later this month, it will be the first time a new vehicle has been stacked on NASA’s Mobile Launch Platform in more than 25 years.

The forward assembly, composed of the forward skirt, forward skirt extension and the frustum, was moved Thursday from Kennedy’s Assembly Refurbishment Facility, or ARF, to the Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking operations.

The aft skirt was moved Monday from the ARF to the Rotation Processing and Surge Facility to be attached to the aft motor segment, forming the aft assembly. The assembly will next move to the Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking on the Mobile Launcher Platform.

The Ares I-X rocket is a combination of existing and simulator hardware that will resemble the Ares I crew launch vehicle in size, shape and weight. It will provide valuable flight data to guide the final design of the Ares I, which will launch astronauts in the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

“This is a very exciting week for the team to have the hardware moving out of the ARF, showing how much progress we’ve made and that we are that much closer to launch,” said NASA Ares I-X mission manager Bob Ess of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The flight test of the Ares I-X will bring NASA one-step closer to its Constellation Program’s exploration goals of returning humans to the moon for sustained exploration of the lunar surface and missions to destinations beyond.

The forward assembly connects the 12-foot diameter first stage motor to the 18-foot diameter upper stage simulator. Weighing more than 40,000 pounds, the assembly houses three newly designed descent parachutes for first stage recovery.

The aft skirt, which is used at the bottom of the Solid Rocket Boosters for the Space Shuttle Program, was modified over the last year and a half for use on Ares I-X. Some modifications include adding deceleration and tumble motors, avionics and a controller for the auxiliary power unit.

“This week is the culmination of tremendous hard work and dedication by the entire NASA and contractor team,” said Joe Oliva, first stage program manager for the Ares I-X at ATK Space Systems in Salt Lake City. “These milestones are leading us to a flight test later this year that will provide our proof of concept data for NASA’s next generation of launch vehicles.”

United Space Alliance, of Houston, under a subcontract to ATK completed the processing and integration of the forward assembly and aft skirt. ATK is NASA’s prime contractor for the first stage of the Ares I rocket.

Video B-roll of the arrival of the Ares I-X hardware will be available on NASA Television’s Video File feed. For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the Ares I-X and NASA next-generation spacecraft, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ares

SOURCE NASA

By agence france-presse
Published: 2 Jun 2009 07:20
Source: Defense News

SEOUL - South Korea’s government said June 2 it had approved plans to launch the country’s first rocket into space in late July.

The National Space Committee gave the green light to the planned launch, tentatively scheduled for July 30 at Naro Space Center in Goheung, about 475 kilometers (297 miles) south of Seoul, a government statement said.

Construction of the rocket is in effect complete and work is to begin soon to connect the first-stage main thruster to the second-stage space vehicle, the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute said.

The thruster was built in Russia, which also helped design the launch pad.

South Korean engineers built the rocket’s second stage and the satellite it will carry into orbit.

The launch vehicle weighs 140 tons, stands 33 meters (108 feet) tall and has a diameter of three meters.

Seoul has spent some 500 billion won ($340 million) since 2002 on the project.

The launch of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) has been postponed twice.

It was first delayed from late 2008 to late June this year after China’s Sichuan province earthquake last year caused problems securing key parts, and again until late July to give engineers more time for tests.

Rival North Korea in April fired a rocket to launch a satellite, but the United States and its allies say this was a disguise to test a long-range missile.

All content © 2009, Army Times Publishing Company

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The May 31 transfer of Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida from the Space Shuttle Program to the Constellation Program is the next step in preparing the first flight test of the agency’s next-generation spacecraft and launch system. The Constellation Program is developing new spacecraft — including the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles, the Orion crew capsule, and the Altair lunar lander — to carry humans to the International Space Station, the moon and beyond.

Since the late 1960s, pad B has been instrumental in human spaceflight programs, such as Apollo, Skylab and the space shuttle. The pad originally was built for the Saturn V rockets to launch the Apollo capsules to the moon. In July 1975, the pad was modified to support space shuttle operations. The first space shuttle to lift off from pad B was Challenger in January 1986.

The handover took place Sunday after space shuttle Endeavour was moved to Launch Pad 39A. The ground operations team will finish modifying pad B for the Ares I-X rocket launch. Modifications will include removing the orbiter access arm and a section of the gaseous oxygen vent arm and installing access platforms and a vehicle stabilization system.

The Ares I-X flight test is targeted for no earlier than Aug. 30. For more information about Ares I-X, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/aresIX

For more information about the Constellation Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/constellation

SOURCE NASA

CONTRACT RELEASE : C09-024

WASHINGTON — NASA has signed a $306 million modification to the current International Space Station contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency for crew transportation and related services in 2012 and 2013.

The firm-fixed price modification covers comprehensive Soyuz support, including all necessary training and preparation for launch, crew rescue, and landing of a long-duration mission for six individual station crew members.

Space station crew members will launch on four Soyuz vehicles: two in spring 2012 and two in fall 2012. Their landings are scheduled for fall 2012 and spring 2013, respectively. The contract modification also provides for crew post-flight rehabilitation, medical exams and services.

Under the contract modification, the Soyuz flights will carry limited cargo to and from the station, and dispose of trash. The cargo allowed per person is approximately 110 pounds launched to the station, approximately 37 pounds returned to Earth, and trash disposal of approximately 66 pounds.

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Shuttle Atlantis lands at backup site due to bad weather in Florida

Associated Press
updated 1 hour, 46 minutes ago

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - The space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven returned to Earth on Sunday, ending their exalted Hubble Space Telescope repair mission in sunny California after stormy weather prevented a return to NASA’s Florida home base.

Mission Control waited as long as possible for the weather to improve before finally giving up and directing commander Scott Altman and his crew to the Mojave Desert.

Atlantis swooped through a clear morning sky and touched down on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base. “Welcome home, Atlantis,” Mission Control radioed once the shuttle came to a safe stop. “Congratulations on a very successful mission giving Hubble a new set of eyes.”

“It was a thrill from start to finish,” Altman replied. “We’ve had a great ride.”

After 13 days in orbit, many of them tending to Hubble, Altman and his crew were anxious to be back on the ground. They were supposed to land Friday, but NASA kept the astronauts circling the world for two extra days, in hopes that thunderstorms from a lingering low-pressure system would ease up in Florida.

The weather did not improve enough Sunday, and Mission Control passed up landing opportunities for a third straight day at Kennedy Space Center.

Altman was grateful for the pristine conditions at Edwards, NASA’s backup landing site. “A beautiful day in the desert,” he said before heading back.

NASA loses at least a week of work and close to $2 million in ferry costs by landing in California. And the astronauts will have to wait another day to be reunited with their families, who were in Florida.

The previous shuttle landing at Edwards was in November.

Atlantis ended up circling Earth 197 times and logged 5.3 million miles during its journey.

The astronauts left behind a refurbished Hubble that scientists say is better than ever and should keep churning out pictures of the universe for another five to 10 years. They carried out five spacewalks to give the 19-year-old observatory new science instruments, pointing devices and batteries, and fix a pair of broken instruments, something never before attempted. Stuck bolts and other difficulties made much of the work harder than expected.

The $1 billion overhaul was the last for Hubble and, thanks to the crew’s valiant effort, won praise from President Barack Obama and members of Congress. But with space shuttles retiring next year, no more astronauts will visit the telescope, and NASA expects to steer it into the Pacific sometime in the early 2020s.

The astronauts brought back the old wide-field camera they pulled out, so it can be displayed as a souvenir for the masses at the Smithsonian Institution. The replacement camera and other new instruments will enable Hubble to peer deeper into the universe, to within 500 million to 600 million years of creation.

It will take almost all summer for scientists to check out all the new telescope systems. NASA expects to release the first picture in early September.

This mission almost didn’t happen. It was canceled in 2004, a year after the Columbia tragedy, because of the dangers of flying into a 350-mile-high (560-kilometer-high) orbit that did not offer any shelter in case Atlantis suffered damage from launch debris or space junk. The public protest was intense, and NASA reinstated the flight after developing a rescue plan and shuttle repair kits.

Shuttle Endeavour was on standby for a possible rescue mission until late last week, after inspections found Atlantis’ thermal shielding to be solid for re-entry. Endeavour now will be prepped for a June flight to the international space station.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: MSNBC

HOUSTON, May 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Mission Control gave the Expedition 19 astronaut crew aboard the International Space Station a “go” to drink water that the station’s new recycling system has purified.

Mission Control radioed the news to the crew Wednesday, following a report from the Water Recovery System team that station program managers approved. The decision is an important milestone in the development of the station’s environmental and life support systems, which will begin supporting six-person crews at the end of May.

Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata celebrated the decision with a toast in the Destiny laboratory.

“This has been the stuff of science fiction. Everybody’s talked about recycling water in a closed loop system, but nobody’s ever done it before. Here we are today with the first round of recycled water,” said Barratt. “We’re really happy for this day and for the team that put this together. This is the kind of technology that will get us to the moon and further.”

“This is an important milestone in the development of the space station,” said Kirk Shireman, International Space Station deputy program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “This system will reduce the amount of water we must launch to the station once the shuttle retires and also test out a key technology required for sending humans on long duration missions to the moon and Mars.”

Space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-126 mission delivered the Water Recovery System to the station in November 2008. Mission Specialist Don Pettit and Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke installed the equipment before Endeavour’s departure. The system has been processing urine into purified water since shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 crew delivered and installed a replacement Urine Processing Assembly in March. The system is tied into the station’s Waste and Hygiene Compartment toilet and recovers and recycles moisture from the station’s atmosphere.

The crews of STS-126, Expedition 18 and STS-119 returned samples of the recycled water to Earth. A total of 5.28 gallons (20 liters) of recycled water were tested for purity at the Water and Microbiology Laboratories at Johnson. A special Space Station Program Control Board meeting on April 27 reviewed the analysis, which showed contaminants were well below established limits, and concurred that the water is safe and healthy to drink. Mission managers elected to postpone consumption until a sticky check valve in the Urine Processing Assembly was removed May 18.

Space station crews will monitor the purity of the recycled water with on-board equipment and periodically send down samples for testing on Earth.

Video of the Expedition 19 crew toast will air on NASA Television’s Video File. For streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the space station and the new recycling system, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

SOURCE NASA

By Reid Wilson
Posted: 05/14/09 06:56 PM [ET]
The Hill

A 10-member blue-ribbon panel created by the White House will review whether manned space flight will have run its course with the space shuttle’s scheduled retirement in 2010.

NASA currently plans to replace the shuttle with the Orion spacecraft, part of the Constellation Project that would eventually send astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars. But critics urge NASA to focus more on its robotics program, especially during an era of tightened budgets. Although astronauts have long been the face of the American space program, the two rovers that landed on Mars have arguably brought NASA its most positive publicity in recent years.

Obama is on record supporting the course set by President Bush with Constellation, but some manned space flight proponents fear that rising budget deficits could put more pressure on the administration to trim the costly mission.

Members of the panel, which is officially known as the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans, said every option will be explored. Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, who will lead the panel, said the commission will spare no sacred cows in conducting its review.

“We are planning to spend billions of dollars on the space flight program, and it is wise to be sure occasionally whether or not we are spending that [money] the way we should,” Augustine said in a conference call with reporters.

Current and former NASA officials said the review will allow the Obama administration to establish its own priorities for the space program, instead of simply inheriting the Bush administration’s goals.

“It would probably be imprudent on [the administration’s] part not to examine this major of a program, to be sure that such a long-term undertaking is still on a course that makes sense to them,” Augustine said.

“The administration has to do that proper assessment and feel like they own the outcome,” said Sean O’Keefe, a NASA administrator under President Bush. “That’s a very accepted approach.”

The White House has requested $18.7 billion for NASA programs next year, about a 5 percent increase over its fiscal 2009 budget. The Exploration Systems Mission Directorate — the division of NASA that pursues manned space flights — is set to get the largest increase.

This year’s budget also contains enough money to finish the International Space Station and launch several new satellites aimed at monitoring and researching global climate change.

But it is not clear who will be in charge of spending that money; Obama has yet to name a NASA administrator. Two candidates thought most likely to get the call — Energy Department Chief Financial Officer Steve Isakowitz and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration — have been given other jobs within the administration.

Acting administrator Christopher Scolese, a longtime NASA employee who once served as the agency’s chief engineer, gets high marks for his competence, but observers say the White House needs to appoint a permanent administrator to provide stability.

“I’d sure like to see some determination on leadership and have the administration make a choice there, but nonetheless that’s tempered significantly because you’ve got one of the most competent guys you could ever ask [for],” O’Keefe said of Scolese.

But there may be larger problems at the agency. Insiders say the budget increase makes up just a fraction of the money the agency had lost in recent budgets. Those cuts have delayed the development of a shuttle replacement. The Orion program is slated to be available sometime in 2015, meaning the United States will be without its own way into space for about five years.

That would be the longest period since the two-and-a-half-year delay in the shuttle program following the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. During the delay, the United States will be dependent on Russia for access to the International Space Station and for other space missions.

“The U.S. should know better than to be depending on another country for access to space,” one former top NASA official said. “That’s just stupid. We are going to regret it deeply.”

Still, maintaining the Space Shuttles Discovery, Endeavor and Atlantis costs NASA $3 billion a year — even if no missions are flown — money that isn’t likely to be added to the agency’s budget. And the Constellation Program is too far along, sources said, for additional capital to speed it up.

Despite Obama’s pledge to pursue a manned mission to the moon within the next 11 years, officials worried his Office of Management and Budget would not come through with the funding needed.

But O’Keefe said he is optimistic about his former agency, as well as about Obama’s commitment to continuing missions beyond the near-earth orbit. And despite not having named a NASA administrator yet, the White House said NASA remains a priority.

“The White House is fully engaged with NASA and we are working closely together on all missions and programs,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

Sat, 16 May 2009 01:17:07 PM PDT

The third of five STS-125 spacewalks concluded at 4:11 p.m. EDT. It was 6 hours, 36 minutes. During the endeavor outside the shuttle, Feustel and Grunsfeld removed the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement and installed in its place the new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. They also completed the Advanced Camera for Surveys electronic card replacement work. The spacewalkers were ahead of schedule and were able to complete part 2 of the ACS repair, installing a new electronics box and cable.

Today’s mission status briefing is scheduled to begin no earlier than 4:45 p.m. EDT. The participants will be Tony Ceccacci, STS-125 lead flight director, Tomas Gonzalez-Torres, STS-125 lead EVA officer, Jon Morse, director, Astrophysics Division, Preston Burch, HST Program manager, and Dave Leckrone, HST Senior Scientist.

Space Shuttle Mission: STS-125

Third Hubble Repair Spacewalk Complete

STS-125 mission specialists John Grunsfeld and Drew Feustel finished the mission’s third spacewalk Saturday at 4:11 p.m. EDT. Today’s spacewalk lasted 6 hours, 36 minutes.

The spacewalkers focused on the installation of the telescope’s new Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and completed the Advanced Camera for Surveys repair work. Engineers from the Space Telescope Operations Control Center at Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland powered up and tested both components successfully. More tests will be conducted during the astronauts sleep period.

On Sunday starting at 9:16 a.m., astronauts Mike Good and Mike Massimino will repair the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and install the New Outer Blanket Layer during the fourth STS-125 spacewalk.

Source: NASA

By PATRICK McGEEHAN
Published: May 13, 2009
The New York Times

Could the space shuttle Atlantis, which grabbed hold of the Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday, wind up parked on a pier in the Hudson River five blocks from Times Square? That is the pie in the sky for the operators of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Museum officials have taken the first small step toward acquiring one of the three space shuttles that NASA plans to hand off when the shuttle program ends next year. They are enlisting support from elected officials and former astronauts for their idea of adding a decommissioned shuttle to the Intrepid’s eclectic collection of military aircraft, a Mercury space capsule, a submarine and a Concorde passenger jet.

They dream of housing the shuttle in a glass enclosure on the end of Pier 86 at 46th Street on the West Side of Manhattan, home to the Intrepid since 1982. But they have plenty of competition from museums around the country, including the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

“We have never shied away from competition or a challenge,” said Bill White, president of the foundation that operates the Intrepid museum. “This is very important to us, and it would just be an extraordinary, priceless treasure for New York City to receive. You’re going to see a very public campaign for this in the next few months.”

The Intrepid museum was one of 20 institutions that responded by a March 17 deadline to ask NASA about its plan to give away the last of the shuttles: Discovery, Endeavour and Atlantis. The space agency estimates the cost of preparing and delivering them at $42 million each.

The Smithsonian has already notified NASA of its interest in the oldest of the shuttles, Discovery, but considers the cost prohibitive, said Michael J. Neufeld, chairman of the Smithsonian’s space history division. “Our official position is we don’t have the money to pay for the costs at all,” Dr. Neufeld said.

But Intrepid officials told NASA that they were confident of their ability to raise the money from public and private sources by the time NASA is ready to deliver a shuttle. Mr. White pointed out that the estimated cost — which he said he believed could be brought down significantly — was less than half of the $115 million the Intrepid raised for the recent overhaul of its pier. The Intrepid Foundation has also raised $120 million to build facilities for injured war veterans and their families, Mr. White added.

Some officials of other museums said they considered the Intrepid a long shot for landing a shuttle over institutions devoted to aviation, like the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the National Museum of the United States Air Force, near Dayton, Ohio. But Mr. White said the Intrepid would be an appropriate home because of its role in recovering returning astronauts during the Mercury rocket program and because of its location.

Mr. White said he believed the shuttle could draw as many as a million visitors to the Intrepid and contribute to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s goal of attracting 50 million visitors to the city annually by 2015. George A. Fertitta, the chief executive of NYC & Company, the city’s tourism promotion agency, agreed. “Any time you can add something new and as exciting as having the shuttle here, that will be an additional draw,” he said.

NASA said it expected to have the shuttles ready for display by early 2012, after they are cleared of all toxic chemicals and hazardous materials. NASA plans to ferry them on the back of a Boeing 747 airliner to airports near the museums chosen to receive them, said Mike Curie, a spokesman for the agency.

Mr. Curie said the agency had not developed a procedure for deciding where the shuttles will go. After analyzing the responses from the 20 institutions, he said, NASA officials will decide whether to issue a formal request for proposals.

Atlantis, which took off on Monday to repair the Hubble telescope, and the two other active shuttles are scheduled to fly missions through September 2010.

Mr. White said the Intrepid museum was interested in obtaining any of them. “We are singularly focused on getting a shuttle here to the Intrepid,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 14, 2009, on page A25 of the New York edition.

WASHINGTON, May 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA, the IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. Pictures announced Monday that IMAX 3-D cameras will return to space to document one of NASA’s most complex space shuttle operations — the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO )

The IMAX 3-D cameras will launch aboard space shuttle Atlantis, which is scheduled to lift off May 11. Astronauts will use the cameras to film five spacewalks needed to repair and upgrade Hubble. The IMAX footage will be combined with breathtaking detailed images of distant galaxies from Hubble in the upcoming IMAX and Warner Bros. Pictures co-production, “Hubble 3D,” set for release in spring 2010.

“We have worked with IMAX on past Hubble missions and are excited about working with them again on the current Hubble mission. The Hubble Space Telescope continues to dazzle us with the splendor of our universe, and after the mission we look forward to many more years of awe-inspiring imagery,” said Bob Jacobs, NASA’s acting assistant administrator for public affairs at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “IMAX has developed innovative 3-D image capture and projection technology that creates a large-scale, immersive educational experience in which those of us on the ground are no longer passive observers of spaceflight, we’re active participants.”

The IMAX team has trained Atlantis’ crew at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to operate the cameras. One will be mounted outside the crew cabin in the shuttle’s cargo bay to capture IMAX 3-D images of the historic final servicing mission. The commander and pilot will double as filmmakers as two teams of spacewalking astronauts — working in tandem with the shuttle’s robotic arm — perform some of the most challenging work ever undertaken in space as they replace and refurbish many of the telescope’s precision instruments.

“It’s been said that the IMAX experience is the next best thing to being in space, and with IMAX 3-D, the audience really is there,” producer and director Toni Myers said. “Fifteen years ago, we made a film about space exploration that included Hubble, when it started sending back the first images. Today, we have Hubble’s entire phenomenal legacy of data to explore. With IMAX 3-D, we can transport people to galaxies that are 13 billion light years away — back to the edge of time. Real star travel is here at last.”

Through the world’s most immersive cinematic experience, “Hubble 3D” will give audiences a front row seat as the story unfolds. It will reveal the cosmos as never before, allowing viewers of all ages to explore the grandeur of the nebulae and galaxies, the birth and death of stars, and some of the greatest mysteries of our celestial surroundings, all in IMAX 3-D.

IMAX’s longstanding partnership with NASA has enabled millions of people to travel into space through a series of award-winning IMAX films. The IMAX 3-D camera made its first voyage into space in 2001 for the production of “Space Station 3D.” The “Hubble 3D” film will mark Warner Bros. Pictures’ first venture into space.

For more information about the upcoming Hubble servicing mission, STS-125, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

For more information about the space shuttle, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

SOURCE NASA

WASHINGTON, May 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., to support the design, manufacture, assembly, test and calibration of the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System, or CERES, Flight Model 6 instrument.

The cost-plus-award fee, incentive fee contract has a maximum value of $44.5 million over 10 years. Northrop Grumman’s Aerospace Systems Sector will perform the work at its facility in Redondo Beach.

The CERES instruments are broadband radiometers that scan Earth, observing reflected shortwave and Earth-emitted radiance. These observations are used to measure the time and space distributions of incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing thermal and reflected energy from Earth (known as Earth’s radiation budget). The measurements aid in the development of a quantitative understanding of the links between the radiation budget and the properties of the atmosphere and surface that define it, and improve models of Earth’s climate system.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NASA is funding the development of the CERES Flight Model 6 under a reimbursable agreement with NASA. It will fly on the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS, C1 mission. NPOESS is a multi-agency program to develop the next generation of polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites that form the basis for weather forecasting, and is co-funded by NOAA and the Department of Defense with NASA as a technology provider. The NPOESS program is managed by the interagency Integrated Program Office.

CERES Flight Model 5 is scheduled for flight on the NPOESS Preparatory Project mission that NASA is implementing in partnership with the NPOESS IPO. Earlier CERES Flight Models are currently flying on NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites. This succession of CERES instruments enables the long time series of Earth radiation budget data that is essential to understanding climate change.

For more information about CERES, visit:

http://science.larc.nasa.gov/ceres

SOURCE NASA

HAMPTON, Va., April 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., began a new phase of testing today for the Orion crew module, NASA’s next generation spacecraft. Now under development, the Orion crew exploration vehicle will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and be part of the space flight system to conduct sustained human exploration of the moon.

The series of tests will evaluate the crew module energy absorbing seat system that will protect the crew under a range of landing conditions after returning from a mission to the space station or the moon.

During this phase of testing, engineers will use a 20,000-pound apparatus called the Crew Impact Attenuation System Test Article. Designed and fabricated at Langley, the test article represents the Orion crew module seat pallet that will accommodate between four and six astronauts. Energy absorbing struts attached to the seat pallet and connected to the crew module structure will reduce loads felt by the crew during landing.

Engineers will perform 10 vertical drop tests at the Landing and Impact Research Facility, a 240-foot-tall steel structure also known as the gantry. The test article will be dropped vertically from as high as 18 feet onto crushable honeycomb material, which is sized to represent a broad range of landing conditions Orion could face.

“The Crew Impact Attenuation System Testing is critical to the safety of future Orion crew members,” says Keith Johnson, aerospace engineer at NASA Langley. “When Orion splashes down into the ocean, this system will reduce loads on the astronauts and protect them from injury.”

System tests with the initial energy absorbing strut concept will be conducted through June at the gantry test facility at NASA Langley. Additional tests will be conducted in the future to improve overall system performance. Future testing will include alternate energy absorbing designs, flight-like crew seats and instrumented crash test dummies.

To view a high-resolution image of the full-scale test article, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/multimedia/iotw-cias.html

For more information on NASA’s Constellation Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/constellation

NASA news releases are available automatically by sending an e-mail message to Langley-news-requests@lists.nasa.gov with the word “subscribe” in the subject line. You will receive an e-mail asking you to visit a link to confirm the action. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to Langley-news-request@lists.nasa.gov with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

SOURCE NASA

By MIKE ECKEL Associated Press
April 10, 2009, 8:00PM
Houston Chronicle

STAR CITY, Russia — Russian and American astronauts on Friday downplayed suggestions of disputes on the international space station over access to food and equipment.

U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke, Russian Yuri Lonchakov and American space tourist Charles Simonyi made the comments to reporters two days after returning to Earth.

In a newspaper interview published just days after he blasted off for the station last month, veteran Russian astronaut Gennady Padalka said that squabbles on Earth over access to food, water, toilets and other facilities have hurt crews’ morale and hampered cooperation between the Russians and Americans.

Padalka told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta that new rules were put in place after Russia started charging other space agencies for the resources used by their astronauts.

On Friday, Fincke, Lonchakov and Simonyi said that if there were disputes, they were only on the ground, not in space — and not among the space travelers.

“Please don’t make a mistake. This is the best partnership that human beings have ever had. We’re building the best space station that’s ever been built. We’re going to the stars together,” Fincke told reporters at Russia’s cosmonaut training center outside of Moscow. “So let’s not let these little small things stop us from realizing this partnership we have together.”

“It’s called an international space station because people from different nationalities work there,” Lonchakov added.

“In space there are no politics,” he said. “What’s decided on Earth is decided on Earth. What we are working in space is completely different, we work things out differently.”

This year, the station’s permanent crew will be doubled to six and Russia will be conducting an accelerated schedule of Soyuz spacecraft launches in the coming months to add to the staff.

Apr 01, 2009

Ground Test of Sub-scale Orion Attitude Control Motor Reaffirms Critical Design Features

SOURCE: ATK

ELKTON, Md., April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) , NASA, and industry partners Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE:LMT) and Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE:ORB) have successfully performed a ground test firing of a sub-scale attitude control motor thruster system for the launch abort system (LAS) of NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle (CEV). The test was conducted at ATK’s facility in Elkton, Md. This milestone in the development of the Orion spacecraft brings the Constellation program another step closer to flight-ready status, while demonstrating its commitment to improved flight safety for astronauts.

This demonstration, High Thrust-8 (HT-8), was the fifth in a series of ground tests of Orion’s attitude control motor system and provided validation that several flight-weight subsystems are performing as designed. The final tests will be of increasing complexity in preparation for the Pad Abort-1 Flight Test, which will test the launch abort system’s capabilities using a full-scale crew module mockup.

Orion’s attitude control motor will provide steering for the launch abort system. In combination with the abort motor under development by ATK, it is designed to safely lift and steer the Orion crew module away from the launch vehicle, pulling the crew to safety in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during the initial ascent phase.

The attitude control motor consists of a solid propellant gas generator, with eight proportional valves/nozzles equally spaced around the circumference of the 3 foot diameter motor. In combination, the valves can exert up to 7,000 pounds of steering force to the vehicle in any direction upon command from the crew module. The valves are controlled by a redundant power and control system. This test demonstrated one of the flight-weight valves at full thrust and at maximum stressing load.

ATK is responsible for the attitude control motor through a contract to Orbital Sciences Corporation, who is responsible for delivering the LAS motors for Lockheed Martin - NASA’s prime contractor for Orion. The Orion Project is managed out of NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The launch abort system is managed out of NASA’s Langley Research Center in partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

The Orion crew exploration vehicle sits atop the Ares I crew launch vehicle. The Orion features an advanced capsule design with state-of-the-art technology that will transport humans to and from the International Space Station, the moon and other destinations beyond low-Earth orbit.

The next major milestone is the Pad Abort-1 Flight Test, scheduled to take place at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico later this year. A series of LAS ground and flight tests are planned over the next several years that support the first operational flight of Orion and Ares I scheduled for 2015.

About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/

About Orbital
Orbital serves as the lead contractor for the Launch Abort System components for the Orion Project. Orbital is a one of the world’s leading space technology companies, specializing in the development and operation of smaller-size satellite and launch systems. The company employs more than 3,600 people in 10 states and generates over $1.1 billion in annual revenues. More information about the Launch Abort System and Orbital can be found on the company’s web site at http://www.orbital.com/.

About ATK
ATK is also the prime contractor for Ares I first stage. The first stage is a five-segment solid rocket motor that is derived from the proven technology of the twin boosters used to launch the shuttle. ATK is a premier aerospace and defense company with more than 19,000 employees in 22 states, Puerto Rico and internationally, and revenues in excess of $4.5 billion.. News and information can be found on the Internet at http://www.atk.com/

Web site: http://www.atk.com/

http://www.orbital.com/

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., March 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Space shuttle Discovery and its crew landed at 3:14 p.m. EDT Saturday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, completing a 13-day journey of more than 5.3 million miles.

The STS-119 flight delivered the space station’s fourth and final set of solar array wings, completing the station’s truss, or backbone. The additional electricity provided by the arrays will fully power science experiments and help support station operations.

During three spacewalks, astronauts installed the S6 truss segment to the starboard, or right, side of the station and accomplished important tasks to prepare the station for future upgrades and additions later this year.

The flight also replaced a failed unit for a system that converts urine to potable water. Samples from the station’s Water Recovery System will be analyzed. It’s expected to take about a month for the analysis to be completed and the water to be cleared for the station crew to drink.

STS-119 spacewalkers were unable to deploy a jammed external cargo carrier on the Port 3 truss segment. It was tied safely in place. Because the issue is not yet understood, Mission Control cancelled the installation of a similar payload attachment system on the starboard side. Engineers are evaluating the problem and will address it during a future spacewalk.

On March 24, the 10 shuttle and station crew members gathered in the station’s Harmony module and spoke to President Barack Obama, members of Congress and school children from the Washington, D.C. area. From the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president and his guests congratulated the crew on the mission and asked about a range of topics including sleeping in weightlessness to the station’s travelling speed.

Lee Archambault commanded the flight and was joined by Pilot Tony Antonelli and Mission Specialists Joseph Acaba, Steve Swanson, Richard Arnold, John Phillips and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata remained aboard the station, replacing Flight Engineer Sandra Magnus, who returned to Earth on Discovery after more than four months on the station.

Acaba and Arnold are former science teachers who are now fully-trained NASA astronauts. They made their first journey into orbit and conducted critical spacewalking tasks on this flight. STS-119 was the 125th space shuttle mission, the 36th flight for Discovery and the 28th shuttle visit to the station.

With Discovery and its crew safely home, the stage is set for the launch of STS-125, targeted for May 12. Atlantis’ mission will return the space shuttle to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope for one last visit before the shuttle fleet retires in 2010. Over 11 days and five spacewalks, Atlantis’ crew will upgrade the telescope, preparing it for at least another five years of research.

For information about the space station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For more about the STS-119 mission and the upcoming STS-125 flight, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

SOURCE NASA

Mar 18, 2009
ATK

Contract Supports Programs through Design, Development, Test and Engineering

MINNEAPOLIS, March 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Alliant Techsystems announced that it awarded United Space Alliance (USA) a $257 Million contract to perform subcontractor support to ATK for the NASA’s Ares I and Ares 1-X programs through the Design, Development, Test and Engineering (DDT&E) phase. The contract includes engineering, deceleration system development and technical KSC operations support for Stage I activities

ATK is the prime contractor for Ares I first stage, supporting NASA with overall requirements maturation, system integration and establishment of interfaces within subsystems. The Ares I launch vehicle, which is slated to replace the Space Shuttle, utilizes a five-segment reusable booster for its first stage which is derived from the twin four-segment boosters used to launch the Shuttle.

USA’s subcontract work includes Ares 1-X tasks to support the test launch this year, engineering support, refurbishment of booster components and subsystems for the DDT&E first stage, and procurement of several heritage avionics and ordnance components. The company will also have a role in the design, development and testing of the deceleration subsystem. The new parachutes for Ares I were designed and manufactured by USA at the Kennedy Space Center under an earlier subcontract to ATK.

“We have established a strong major subcontractor partnership with USA that will builds on years of working together on the Space Shuttle program, and provides a strong team going forward for the Ares I development,” said Mike Kahn, executive vice president ATK Space Systems. “Data gathered from the Ares 1-X test flight will validate Ares I design and development in preparation for future test flights, including Ares I-Y, Orion 1 and 2 over the next couple of years. It is an exciting time for the program as we enter the test phase of Ares I, and we are glad to have USA on the team.”

“During the past year ATK successfully conducted three major ground tests for Ares I and Ares 1-X, and has been shipping hardware to KSC for the Ares 1-X test flight. As Ares I operations grow in Florida we are pleased that USA can apply its Shuttle skills to Ares, and transition its workforce just as we have been doing with the rest of the first stage development,” Kahn added.

“We are excited to be working together with ATK to enable NASA’s success on the Ares I-X demonstration flight and the delivery of the Ares I rocket,” said Dick Covey, President and Chief Executive Officer of USA. “Our workforce brings years of spaceflight operations experience and design knowledge to the table, and putting this valuable asset to work on the Constellation program makes perfect sense as we make the transition from Shuttle to Constellation.”

ATK is a premier aerospace and defense company with more than 17,000 employees in 21 states and approximately $4.5 billion in revenue. News and information can be found on the Internet at www.atk.com.

United Space Alliance is a world leader in space operations with extensive experience in all aspects of the field. Headquartered in Houston, USA has 10,000 employees working in Texas, Florida and Alabama for NASA’s Space Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation programs as well as space operations customers in the commercial and international space industry sectors.

Certain information discussed in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although ATK believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Among those factors are: changes in governmental spending, budgetary policies and product sourcing strategies; the company’s competitive environment; the terms and timing of awards and contracts; and economic conditions. ATK undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For further information on factors that could impact ATK, and statements contained herein, please refer to ATK’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

WASHINGTON, March 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA has selected three teams to design and build science instruments for a proposed European-led solar mission. The instruments, with a total value of approximately $81 million, are part of NASA’s Living With a Star Program.

The total amount for initial design of the instruments, known as Phase A, is $1.7 million. Each project will need to go through the normal key decision point phases in order to be confirmed for continued funding.

The science teams selected are:

-Russell Howard, principal investigator for the Heliospheric Imager instrument, valued at $29.7 million. The team will be funded through an inter-agency agreement with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.

-Donald Hassler, principal investigator for the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment instrument, valued at $34 million. The team will be funded through a cost plus award fee contract with Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

-Glenn Mason, co-investigator for the Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph instrument valued at $17.3 million. Mason will be funded through a current NASA contract with the Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Md.

NASA’s Living with a Star Program is designed to understand how and why the sun varies, how planetary systems respond and the effect on human space and Earth activities. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the program for the agency’s Heliophysics Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

SOURCE NASA

DENVER, March 17 /PRNewswire/ — Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) announced it has located its Altair program office in Houston, Texas, in its bid to provide support for the next-generation human lunar lander system for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The company submitted its proposal to NASA last month for the Altair Conceptual Design Contract and the agency is expected to award several contracts for the first phase of the program later this spring.

The Altair lunar lander is a key element of NASA’s Constellation Program, which encompasses the spacecraft, launch vehicles, infrastructure and support systems that will be needed to return human explorers to the moon and establish a lunar outpost for much longer duration missions than ever achieved in previous decades under the Apollo program. The experience, capabilities and technologies developed and utilized for Altair missions also will enable human exploration to extend beyond the moon to other destinations in the solar system.

“We recognize that locating key expertise and program management support in Houston adjacent to NASA’s Johnson Space Center, where the Constellation Program and Altair Project offices are located, allows us to provide responsive and comprehensive support to NASA on the Altair Conceptual Design Contract,” said Brian Duffy, vice president and program manager of the Altair Lunar Lander program for Lockheed Martin. “Utilizing the existing facilities and our experienced human space flight team in the Houston area provides significant synergy that we are bringing to bear for NASA’s next-generation lunar missions.”

Duffy, a four-time Shuttle astronaut and commander of two of the missions, executed four rendezvous maneuvers with other spacecraft and docked with the International Space Station. He also participated in the development and testing of displays, flight crew procedures, and computer software to be used on Shuttle flights, all of which have given him unique and valuable expertise that will be useful in assisting NASA in designing the elements of a new generation of Altair lunar spacecraft and successful lunar missions in the future.

As currently envisioned, NASA’s Altair, standing over two stories high, will be able to transport and house as many as four astronauts onto the lunar surface and is comprised of two primary elements. The descent stage will house the majority of the fuel, power supplies, and breathing oxygen for the crew. The ascent stage will house the astronauts, life-support equipment, and fuel for the ascent stage motor and steering rockets. Once on the surface, the crew will be able to stay on the moon for up to six months at a time, with the Orion crew exploration vehicle orbiting above and awaiting the crew’s return for the trip back to Earth. The first crewed flight is scheduled for 2020.

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion crew exploration vehicle, which is scheduled to make its first crewed flight in 2015. The Orion spacecraft will be a complex, state-of-the-art spacecraft with the most capability, flexibility and adaptability of any previous space flight vehicle.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion.

For additional information, visit our website:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com

SOURCE Lockheed Martin