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 NASA completed a full-scale rocket motor test on Thursday, July 17, to further development of the Orion jettison motor, which will separate the spacecraft's launch abort system from the crew module during launch. Orion, the Constellation Program's crew exploration vehicle now under development, will fly to the International Space Station and be part of the spaceflight system to conduct sustained human exploration of the moon.
NASA and Aerojet successfully fired the jettison motor at the Aerojet facility in Sacramento, Calif. The demonstration is part of a series of developmental tests that pave the way for delivery of the motor to be used for the first full-scale test of the launch abort system at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico late this year.
Engineers will use the test firing to verify that the motor meets specification requirements and to help define induced acoustic, vibration and shock loads caused by the motor. The successful test firing of the jettison motor increases the technical readiness of the launch abort system and is the first full-scale rocket propulsion element qualified to proceed into a system-level demonstration. The test firing also verified that the system’s design criteria and manufacturing processes are in place.
This test and others like it are critical milestones in NASA's preparations for a series of flight tests of the full Orion abort system. The launch abort system will provide a safe escape for the crew in an emergency on the launch pad or during the climb to orbit.
NASA has partnered with Lockheed Martin Corporation and Aerojet to supply the jettison motor. NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., manages the Orion launch abort system design and development effort with partners and team members from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Labels: Nasa Full-ScaleTest Firing
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Two studies based on data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed that the Red Planet once hosted vast lakes, flowing rivers and a variety of other wet environments that had the potential to support life.
One study, published in the July 17 issue of Nature, shows that vast regions of the ancient highlands of Mars, which cover about half the planet, contain clay minerals, which can form only in the presence of water. Volcanic lavas buried the clay-rich regions during subsequent, drier periods of the planet's history, but impact craters later exposed them at thousands of locations across Mars. The data for the study derives from images taken by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM, and other instruments on the orbiter.
"The big surprise from these new results is how pervasive and long-lasting Mars' water was, and how diverse the wet environments were," said Scott Murchie, CRISM principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
The clay-like minerals, called phyllosilicates, preserve a record of the interaction of water with rocks dating back to what is called the Noachian period of Mars' history, approximately 4.6 billion to 3.8 billion years ago. This period corresponds to the earliest years of the solar system, when Earth, the moon and Mars sustained a cosmic bombardment by comets and asteroids. Rocks of this age have largely been destroyed on Earth by plate tectonics. They are preserved on the moon, but were never exposed to liquid water. The phyllosilicate-containing rocks on Mars preserve a unique record of liquid water environments possibly suitable for life in the early solar system.
"The minerals present in Mars' ancient crust show a variety of wet environments," said John Mustard, a member of the CRISM team from Brown University, and lead author of the Nature study. "In most locations the rocks are lightly altered by liquid water, but in a few locations they have been so altered that a great deal of water must have flushed though the rocks and soil. This is really exciting because we're finding dozens of sites where future missions can land to understand if Mars was ever habitable and if so, to look for signs of past life."
Another study, published in the June 2 issue of Nature Geosciences, finds that the wet conditions on Mars persisted for a long time. Thousands to millions of years after the clays formed, a system of river channels eroded them out of the highlands and concentrated them in a delta where the river emptied into a crater lake slightly larger than California's Lake Tahoe, approximately 25 miles in diameter.
"The distribution of clays inside the ancient lakebed shows that standing water must have persisted for thousands of years," says Bethany Ehlmann, another member of the CRISM team from Brown. Ehlmann is lead author of the study of an ancient lake within a northern-Mars impact basin called Jezero Crater. "Clays are wonderful at trapping and preserving organic matter, so if life ever existed in this region, there's a chance of its chemistry being preserved in the delta."
CRISM's high spatial and spectral resolutions are better than any previous spectrometer sent to Mars and reveal variations in the types and composition of the phyllosilicate minerals. By combining data from CRISM and the orbiter's Context Imager and High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, the team identified three principal classes of water-related minerals dating to the early Noachian period. The classes are aluminum-phyllosilicates, hydrated silica or opal, and the more common and widespread iron/magnesium-phyllosilicates. The variations in the minerals suggest that different processes, or different types of watery environments, created them.
"Our whole team is turning our findings into a list of sites where future missions could land to look for organic chemistry and perhaps determine whether life ever existed on Mars," said Murchie.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Applied Physics Laboratory operates the CRISM instrument in coordination with an international team of researchers from universities, government and the private sector.
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 Since 1984, each shuttle crew has travelled those nine miles, from their crew quarters to the launch pad, aboard the same vehicle. A modified Airstream motor home, the "Astrovan" as it is called has only racked up 24,000 miles in its 24 years of service. That's because it's used solely to transport the astronauts on three occasions: to the launch pad for launch dress rehearsal, on launch day and after landing.
The earlier shuttle flights had fewer crew members, so they used the Apollo-era astronaut transport van that now can be seen by tourists at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex's Apollo/Saturn V Center.
The current vehicle's appeal is rooted in its tradition rather than its décor. The interior's narrow-center aisle is paralleled by long benches that sport dark-blue upholstery. The seats are equipped with lift-out sections to accommodate the ventilator units used to circulate cool air through the astronauts' bulky orange launch and entry suits. Dark-gold drapes frame the windows and dark-wood paneling lines the walls.
According to Astrovan driver Ronnie King, the astronauts like the history-filled, if somewhat dated, vehicle just fine.
"We were staged to get a new one," says the 10-year veteran driver. But, according to King, word came that the rookie astronauts wanted to keep the vehicle that was steeped in the tradition of the astronauts who traveled those nine miles to the pad before them.
Employed by space shuttle contractor United Space Alliance, King is one of five drivers called upon to pilot the Astrovan. On launch day, the vehicle is the centerpiece of a motorcade escorted by security toward the seaside launch pad, and is in constant communication with the NASA test director via radio.
When it comes to launch day "they have their game faces on," King says of the crew members. "This is serious business."
As the remaining shuttle flights are flown, each successive crew of astronauts will make its way to the same shining silver van, prepared to write the next page of space history.
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 International Space Station Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko will install one experiment and retrieve another on July 15 during their second spacewalk in less than a week.
They also will continue to outfit the station's exterior, including the installation of a docking target on the Zvezda service module. It will help with the docking of a Russian mini research module on the space-facing side of Zvezda. That module will be launched next year.
The spacewalk, in Russian Orlan suits from the Pirs docking compartment, is scheduled to begin about 1:10 p.m. EDT. It is expected to last about 5.5 hours.
Volkov, the lead spacewalker or EV1, will wear the suit with red stripes. Kononenko, EV2, will wear the blue-striped suit.
After leaving Pirs and setting up, the first task is the docking target. Kononenko will use the boom of the Strela hand-powered crane, operated by Volkov, to move to the area at the front of Zvezda, the transfer compartment, to install the docking target.
Next they'll retract Strela and use an installed spacewalkers' ladder to move to the small-diameter section of Zvezda. There they will inspect some bolt holes to be used to place an antenna adapter, part of the Kurs automated docking system. A Kurs antenna to be installed there later will be used for the first time next year.
After moving back to Strela, they'll move a foot restraint from its boom to the exterior of Zvezda. They'll return to Pirs, get the Vsplesk experiment and move with it to the large-diameter section of Zvezda.
There they'll install the experiment, which monitors seismic effects using high-energy particle streams in the near-Earth environment. Then they'll install cabling.
Finally, they'll move to the Biorisk experiment, installed by Expedition 15 spacewalkers on Zvezda. The experiment studies the effects of the space environment on microorganisms.
With it and a tool carrier they'll move down the spacewalkers' ladder and to Pirs. The closing of its hatch marks the official end of the spacewalk.
As he did last week, Flight Engineer Greg Chamitoff will remain in the Soyuz during the spacewalk. That is part of contingency preparations for the unlikely event the Pirs airlock cannot be repressurized.
The July 10 spacewalk by Volkov and Kononenko focused on inspection of their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft and retrieval of an explosive bolt, one of 10 that help separate the spacecraft return module from its propulsion module. The bolt will be returned to Earth for examination.
Failure of those two modules to separate on time during re-entry on the most recent two Soyuz returns resulted in ballistic entries. Those steeper-than-normal entries, while safe, resulted in high-G rides for Soyuz occupants and landings several hundred miles short of the planned area.
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NASA has awarded Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems Inc. in Houston, a one-year contract extension valued at $42 million to provide integration services for cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station.
Lockheed Martin has held the station's cargo mission contract since January 2004. The one-year extension will bring the total value of the contract to $338 million.
The contract provides cargo packing for delivery to and from the space station, consisting of pressurized and unpressurized science and logistics carriers, assembly hardware and crew support. It also involves determining the most efficient way to pack the cargo, verifying the adequacy of the integrated carriers, packing the pressurized cargo into sub-carriers and returning the cargo to the providers once it returns to Earth. The contract also provides sustaining engineering for NASA carriers.
The extension begins Oct. 1, 2008, and is the first of two such options provided for in the original contract.
Major subcontractors include United Space Alliance LLC and Bastion Technologies Inc., both in Houston; Command Technologies Inc. in Warrenton, Va.; Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc. in Huntsville, Ala., and EADS Astrium Space Transportation, Bremen, Germany. The work will be performed at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and at the NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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With the roar of thousands of baseball fans, NASA astronaut Clay Anderson ran onto the field at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals, and headed to the pitcher's mound to throw out the first pitch of the game.
Anderson's appearance in Kansas City, Mo., on May 15 was the kickoff of NASA's Hometown Heroes 2008 Campaign. Throughout the summer, former International Space Station astronauts will journey back to their home states or regions to throw out the first pitch at Major League Baseball (MLB) games across the United States.
The campaign will showcase and celebrate the station's 10th anniversary in orbit. In November of 1998, the first piece of station hardware was launched into low-Earth orbit, and now, after 25 successful missions, the orbiting outpost is nearly complete.
Prior to throwing out the first pitch for the Royals afternoon game, Anderson spent his morning sharing the story of his journey to become an astronaut and what his five-month stay aboard the station was like, both with the local media and thousands of students from the Kansas City area.
"I thought it was really cool to meet an astronaut," said Megan Hansen, a fifth-grade student at Manor Hill Elementary School in Liberty, Mo. "I was really excited to get to meet someone who's been in space. It was cool to hear everything he had to say about what he saw in space, how he had to sleep and other stuff. I had lots of fun."
Hansen was the cameraperson for the Manor Hill Elementary video crew that interviewed Anderson at Kauffman Stadium early that morning before heading to class.
Anderson's next early morning stop was a live interview on the field during WDAF-TV 4's morning newscast. He then headed across town to KMBC-TV 9 to appear on that station's morning newscast.
"You know, a lot of us are a little bit star struck, because I don't believe we've met an astronaut before," said KMBC news anchor Dion Lim.
Anderson then headed back to Kaufmann Stadium and joined NASA Education Specialist Dr. Ollie Bogden at home plate, along with the WDAF-TV 4 weather team for School Day at the K.
Showcased as the largest weather class in the world, School Day at the K is an interactive, educational program involving students, teachers and parents watching from the stands and the WDAF weather team on the field. A variety of weather-related experiments were conducted at home plate to explain the science behind weather as more than 20,000 attendees watched.
The entire program was broadcast live on WDAF to an estimated 1.6 million viewers in the Kansas City area. And like the International Space Station, School Day at the K is also celebrating its 10th anniversary.
"We were thrilled to have astronaut Clay Anderson not only visit Kauffman Stadium but also play a big part in our 10th annual School Day at The K event," said Megan Stock, the Royals' coordinator of publicity. His experiences as a NASA astronaut added a new aspect to FOX 4's already successful weather program."
"The icing on the cake for the 10th year anniversary was having astronaut Clay Anderson join us to help inspire the students to continue their studies in science and math," Dr. Bogden said. "Clay did a great job of communicating to the students to do their best in everything they do, and that the possibilities of where they'll go in life are endless."
After the weather program and a quick interview with the Fox Sports Network, Anderson continued to inspire and engage both students and parents during an autograph session conducted outside the stadium. His backdrop was a 1:15 scale model of space shuttle Atlantis.
Anderson wrapped up this Hometown Heroes kickoff by throwing out the first pitch of the game between the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers, and then presented Royals' General Manager Dayton Moore with a photo of Kansas City taken from the station.
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 With its protective bricks torn away by the recent space shuttle launch, the flame trench at Launch Pad 39A will be given a new layer of protection in time for the next space shuttle liftoff.
The flame trench channels the flames and smoke exhaust of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters away from the launching spacecraft.
A swath of about 5,300 protective bricks tore away from the walls of the structure when space shuttle Discovery lifted off May 31 to begin its STS-124 mission. None of the bricks bounced back in the area of the shuttle. Computer models of the exhaust pattern suggest no likelihood of loose bricks coming back to the mobile launcher platform or the shuttle.
Just as a swimming pool is coated with a protective layer before it is soaked, the flame trench will be sprayed with fire-resistant concrete to shield it from fire and smoke.
Managers have not decided which material to use, but there are sections of the flame trench already protected by a spray-on concrete surface. A shuttle program meeting June 26 should solidify many of the details of the repairs.
Atlantis is targeted to lift off from pad 39A Oct. 8 on the STS-125 mission to service NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
"We are very confident we will get it fixed before (the) Hubble mission," said Ed Mango, deputy director of the shuttle's launch processing team and the launch director for STS-125.
The damaged portion of the flame trench directs exhaust from the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters. Another part of the trench deflects the exhaust from the shuttle's three main engines.
The bricks protect the reinforced concrete structure of the launch pad from the pressure of about seven million pounds of thrust and temperatures reaching 3,600 degrees.
NASA's Perry Becker, who is leading the engineer investigation and repair effort, said it is too early to tell why the wall came apart during liftoff. The wall was built in 1965 and has endured 82 launches, including 12 liftoffs of the Saturn V rocket.
Each of the bricks weighs about nine pounds and they are designed with tongues and grooves to interconnect with each other. The force of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters carried some of the bricks more than 1,800 feet from the launch pad.
The engineers will also decide how much of the wall, if any, needs to be taken down to prevent future damage.
Becker said the walls are inspected after each launch. The only similar damage came during a launch in the mid-1980s when about 800 bricks were stripped off the floor of the flame trench on Launch Pad 39B.
"Historically, we've not had this kind of damage to repair," Becker said.
The flame trench at pad B also is being tested for signs of weakness. That pad, which is a twin of the other launch pad, will be used in case a space shuttle has to be launched to aid the STS-125 crew.
Mango said he has no doubt both pads will be ready for the October mission.
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