8/16/12 news

 
Thursday, August 16, 2012
 
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1.            Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
2.            Blood Drive Today
3.            Check Out the Latest Profile of the Orion Team
4.            Follow Your Curiosity at Voyage Back to School
5.            Feds Feed Families - 32,000 Pounds and Growing
6.            Shuttle Knowledge Console
7.            Don't Be Cruel -- Join Us for Elvis Day Specials at the Cafes on Friday
8.            Parent's Night Out, Aug. 31-- Register Now
9.            Systems Engineering Reduced Gravity Project Call
10.          Fitness from Anywhere, Get Your Happy On and Avoid Uncle Sam
11.          Breaking Free of Self-limiting Male Roles
12.          Human Systems Integration ERG Meeting Aug. 21
13.          Back to School
14.          Project Management Institute Clear Lake Galveston Chapter Presentation
15.          Training Courses in Counterfeit Awareness and Detection are Coming to JSC
________________________________________     QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.”
 
-- John Buchan
________________________________________
1.            Joint Leadership Team Web Poll
The Mars Science Laboratory's parachute weighed more than 1,000 pounds. I forget how much, but a lot more than that. Martians arriving here will scratch their heads (or whatever is on top of their necks) over the fascination we have with Justin Beiber. I'm hip to that. This week, I'm wondering if you know what our next big construction project is. We are finishing up Building 12, but what's next? Parking garage? Basement? Skylights? The Olympics just wrapped up, and I was stoked to see us win so many events. What athlete was your favorite one this summer? Bolt? Phelps? Douglas?
 
Pommel your Horse on over to get this week's poll.
 
Joel Walker x30541 http://jlt.jsc.nasa.gov/
 
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2.            Blood Drive Today
Summertime typically brings a decrease in blood donations as donors become busy with activities and vacations. But the need for blood can increase because of these summer activities and the three major holidays--Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day. Your blood donation can help up to three people. Please take an hour of your time to donate at our next blood drive.
 
You can donate at JSC on Aug. 15 to 16, at the Teague Auditorium Lobby or at the donor coach located next to the Building 11 Starport Café, from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., or at the Gilruth Center at donor coach located in parking lot, Aug. 16, from 7:30 a.m. to noon. (Note time change).
 
The criteria for donating can be found at the St. Luke's link on our website http://jscpeople.jsc.nasa.gov/blooddrv/blooddrv.htm
 
Teresa Gomez x39588 http://jscpeople.jsc.nasa.gov/blooddrv/blooddrv.htm
 
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3.            Check Out the Latest Profile of the Orion Team
The first space-bound Orion vehicle recently arrived to the launch site at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for Exploration Flight Test-1, planned for 2014. Get to know the JSC team behind Orion. This week, read about Theresa Spaeth, Manager in the MPCV Avionics, Power, & Software (APS) Office at JSC, at:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/home/spaeth_profile.html
 
The profile continues a series to introduce the people behind the development of the spacecraft.
 
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
 
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4.            Follow Your Curiosity at Voyage Back to School
Voyage Back to School, the closing event for Summer of Innovation, will take place at Space Center Houston on Thursday, Aug. 16 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. All JSC families and the JSC community are invited to the free activity that will focus on Curiosity's mission on Mars! Your kids, grandchildren, nieces and nephews (and yes, you too) will get a chance to celebrate the end of summer and the start of the school year with hands-on activities, interactive shows and guest speakers. Activities include building an Orion parachute, exploring satellite images of Mars and Earth, robot races, investigating Mars and Lunar simulants, along with Earth dirt, the magical theory of relativity and other activities.
 
Jonathan Neubauer x45016
 
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5.            Feds Feed Families - 32,000 Pounds and Growing
Friday morning from 7 to 9 a.m. in front of Building 1, the AH/BA/EA/HA/JA/OA Alliance will be "Stuffing the Truck" to challenge the LA/AO/NA/KA Alliance. Drive or walk over with your non-perishables, and enjoy the refreshments and camaraderie in support of local food charities.
 
JSC is now over 32,000 pounds, well on our way to the 50,000 goal. Thank you to all who have contributed! Kudos to Mary Burke and Kathleen Franklin at WSTF for collecting more than 10,000 pounds so far!
 
KarenSchmalz x47931 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Events/
 
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6.            Shuttle Knowledge Console
Hard to believe a year has passed since the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program. As part of JSC's ongoing Space Shuttle Knowledge capture process, the JSC Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) and the JSC Engineering Directorate are pleased to announce that many of the systems and subsystems developed and utilized during the program have been captured and retained for JSC users at the new Shuttle Knowledge Console - https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov
 
Systems such as, the Shuttle Drawing System, Subsystem Manager, Space Shuttle Flight Software, SSPWeb and many more can be accessed from the console. Questions about the new website can be directed to Howard Wagner in the JSC Engineering Directorate or Brent Fontenot in the CKO office. We would love your feedback on this new site. Click the "Submit Feedback" button located on the top of the site navigation, and give us your comments.
 
Brent J Fontenot x36456 https://skc.jsc.nasa.gov/Home.aspx
 
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7.            Don't Be Cruel -- Join Us for Elvis Day Specials at the Cafes on Friday
Enjoy lunch at the Building 3 and 11 Cafes tomorrow, and take advantage of our Elvis Day Specials:
 
Grilled Peanut Butter and Nanner Sammich - $2.50
Hound (Chili) Dog - $2.50
King Sized Bacon A1 - $5.50
 
Marquis Edwards x30240 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
 
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8.            Parent's Night Out, Aug. 31-- Register Now
There are only two more Parent's Night Out scheduled this year, so don't miss out on this great opportunity to spend an evening on the town! Enjoy a night out while your kids enjoy a night with Starport! We will entertain your children at the Gilruth Center with a night of games, crafts, a bounce house, pizza, movie and dessert.
 
When: Aug. 31, 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.
 
Register at the Gilruth Center front desk. Visit http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/Youth/PNO.cfm for more information
 
Shelly Haralson x39168 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
 
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9.            Systems Engineering Reduced Gravity Project Call
The Systems Engineering Educational Discovery Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program is currently accepting internal project proposals for the 2013 flight season. This project call is for systems-engineering-based or ISS mission-related reduced gravity research in either microgravity and/or lunar gravity that can be tested in the microgravity aircraft at Johnson Space Center in summer 2013. Projects should be able to be run by a team of undergraduate students in colleges and universities around the nation. To submit a project for this program, please visit http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/security/seed/project/post/ Deadline for submission is Aug. 22. This is an internal project call open to technical NASA civil servants and NASA contractors agency-wide. For questions, please contact jsc-reducedgravity@nasa.gov. Thank you.
 
Sara Malloy 281-483-7847 http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/security/seed/project/post/
 
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10.          Fitness from Anywhere, Get Your Happy On and Avoid Uncle Sam
Don't let a busy schedule stop you from being healthy, happy and wise. Exploration Wellness can help pump up your health awareness this week!
 
Fitness from Anywhere
Time always runs short, even for running to the gym! Get fit anywhere without a Fitness Facility. Whether you walk, bike or run in your neighborhood, use calisthenics, balls or bands, you have choices about how to best use your time for Fitness.
 
The Science of Happiness
Ever tire of the ongoing focus on what is wrong, when you really just want to be happy? Learn about the science behind happiness and what research shows are the conditions that make human beings flourish.
 
New: Taxes; Dancing with Uncle Sam and Retirement I, II
Mitigate unwanted tax impacts in a way that works for you. Learn about retirement savings, risk, allocations, filling a retirement gap and retirement blind spots.
 
See link for details!
 
Jessica Vos x41383 http://www.explorationwellness.com/rd/AE108.aspx?Aug_Signup.pdf
 
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11.          Breaking Free of Self-limiting Male Roles
This is a meeting for the male population at JSC to discuss ideas and suggestions on issues related to male stereotypes. Takis Bogdanos, LPC-S, of the JSC Employee Assistance Program will facilitate the discussion, offer tools and through conversation and feedback, we can expand our view of the male role on how to manage life more resourcefully. Some of the "men's issues" we discuss include work and responsibility, relationships and parenting.
 
Date: Thursday, Aug. 16
Time: noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Building 32, Room 132
 
Lorrie Bennett x36130
 
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12.          Human Systems Integration ERG Meeting Aug. 21
Do you work to develop or manage a system that interfaces to a human? Are you interested in learning more about including human considerations into the lifecycle of a design and networking with other like-minded employees at JSC? Then come to the JSC Human System Integration (HSI) Employee Resource Group (ERG) meeting!
 
We will meet Tuesday, Aug 21, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Building 15, Room 267. Bring your lunch, and hear about all of the latest and greatest HSI activities that our community has been involved in this summer as well as opportunities available to JSC employees.
 
Deb Neubek 281-222-3687 http://collaboration.ndc.nasa.gov/iierg/HSI/SitePages/Home.aspx
 
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13.          Back to School
Back-to-school time is an exciting and sometimes scary time of year. From preschool through high school, parents can help ease the transitions and promote a more pleasant, productive year. When is a child ready to stay home alone before or after school? How can I ease power struggles over homework or bedtime? For the new school year, join Gay Yarbrough, LCSW, of the JSC Employee Assistance Program for a refresher course on Parenting for Back to School.
 
Date: Aug. 24
Time: Noon to 1 p.m.
Location: Building 30 Auditorium
 
Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Clinical Services Branch x36130
 
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14.          Project Management Institute Clear Lake Galveston Chapter Presentation
The Project Management Institute Clear Lake Galveston Chapter presents "Triple Your Chances of Project Success - Risk and Requirements," on Aug. 23, 6 to 8 p.m. The presenter, Lou Wheatcraft, identifies common requirement development and management risks that can have an impact on a project's success, possible consequences of these risks and strategies that help mitigate the risks in an effort to avoid the consequences of those risks.
 
The meeting will be held at Mario's Flying Pizza Restaurant (618 W. NASA Road 1). Please make your reservation by noon on Tuesday, Aug. 21. Register online at http://www.pmiclg.org (preferred method). The cost of the meeting is $20 for members and $25 for non-members. Dinner is included. Email: VP-Programs@PMICLG.ORG Registration/social - 6 p.m.; Dinner - 6:30 to 7 p.m.; Program - 7 to 8 p.m. One professional development unit hour credit is achieved by attending this presentation.
 
Cheyenne McKeegan x31016
 
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15.          Training Courses in Counterfeit Awareness and Detection are Coming to JSC
Counterfeit Awareness Course (four hours)
Aug. 22 from 8 a.m. to noon or 1 to 5 p.m.
 
- Introduction to counterfeiting trends, terminology and methods
- Understand role of obsolescence in counterfeiting
- Examine supply chain options and assess risks of each source with respect to counterfeiting
- Review procurement controls to prevent purchase of counterfeit products
- Query databases which track known counterfeiting incidents
- Evaluate screening methods for detection of counterfeit products
 
Counterfeit Detection Course (four hours)
Aug. 23 from 8 a.m. to noon or 1 to 5 p.m. and Aug. 24 from 8 a.m. to noon
 
- Review screening methods for detection of counterfeit products
- Gain hands-on experience on counterfeit detection methods
- Witness specialized screening methods for detection of counterfeit products
 
Space is limited. For more information and to register, please send an email to jsc-jscadvco@mail.nasa.gov with your name, employer and which session(s) you will attend.
 
Pamela Branch and Will Davis x32451
 
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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. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.
 
 
 
Human Spaceflight News
Thursday – August 16, 2012
 
HEADLINES AND LEADS
 
Mango: NASA Commercial Crew flights to be ready in 4-5 years
 
James Dean - Florida Today
 
Three models next to Ed Mango, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, showed the combinations of rockets and spacecraft competing to be the next U.S. vehicles to fly astronauts to orbit after the shuttle. “One of these if not more than one – and I hope more than one – will be able to have the capability here in the next four to five years,” Mango told an audience of more than 300 at the National Space Club Florida Committee’s monthly lunch meeting at the Radisson Resort at the Port. NASA this month announced awards totaling $1.1 billion to The Boeing Co., SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to finish the designs of those commercial crew transportation systems.
 
Commercial Crew Winners Look Beyond Station Ops
 
Jefferson Morris - Aerospace Daily
 
The three teams chosen to proceed in NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program all have ambitions for their crew vehicles that go beyond the agency’s basic requirement of getting astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA plans to spread $1.1 billion in seed money among Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada for CCiCap, to further nurture the development of U.S. vehicles that NASA plans to purchase services on at a cost far less than the $63 million per seat the U.S. government reportedly pays for Russian Soyuz rides (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 6). The first orbital test flights are planned for 2016, with operational flights to begin as early as 2017.
 
ATV-3 Vehicle Fails to Adjust Space Station Orbit
 
RIA Novosti
 
The European Space Agency’s ATV-3 space freighter failed on Wednesday to readjust the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS), a space industry source said. Another attempt could be made on Friday.
 
External payloads delivered to station by Japanese vessel
 
Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com
 
The International Space Station's robotics systems, under manual and remote control by astronauts and ground controllers, have transferred a cache of experiments from a Japanese resupply craft to external platforms aboard the orbiting outpost. The Japanese and U.S. experiments were launched July 21 aboard the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's H-2 Transfer Vehicle, an automated cargo freighter designed to ferry pressurized and exposed supplies, spare parts and experiments to the space station.
 
Georgia Tech Advances Potential Commercial Space Flight System
 
Scientific Computing
 
Last spring, private industry successfully sent a spacecraft carrying cargo to the International Space Station. Now, the race is on to see which company will be the first to make commercial human spaceflight a reality. Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is one of three companies that will receive hundreds of millions of dollars to further develop its commercial human spacecraft system, NASA announced on August 3, 2012. SNC has turned to Georgia Tech for expertise on how to ensure the smoothest possible re-entry for its spacecraft, the Dream Chaser, which is reminiscent of NASA’s space shuttle.
 
Endeavour and Atlantis to do the shuttle shuffle
 
Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com
 
Just days away from leaving her hangar one final time, technicians at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday were jacking down the leveling struts holding the space shuttle Endeavour, precisely weighing the ship and making center of gravity determinations for next month's ferryflight to Los Angeles. Endeavour was powered off May 11 at 9:58 a.m. EDT, falling forever silent after two decades of flight. The 60-foot-long payload doors were shut June 19, the three replica main engines were installed between July 11 and 13, the aerodynamic tailcone for the ferryflight was attached Aug. 6 and the ship's crew module was closed Aug. 10. The vehicle will be rolled out of Orbiter Processing Facility bay 2 on Thursday to swap places with sister-shuttle Atlantis, which has been in temporary storage at the Vehicle Assembly Building since late June.
 
Florida Space Coast Brightens on Jobs Increase
 
Ian Katz - Bloomberg News
 
Brian Medeiros was driving a Budweiser beer truck when he got a phone call saying he’d been offered an aerospace-industry job 15 months after his position at the U.S. space shuttle program was eliminated. He pulled over and sobbed in relief. “I started bawling my eyes out,” he said. “It was a blessing. It was an opportunity to use every skill I’ve developed.” Medeiros, 51, spent a decade at Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s 72-mile-long Space Coast handling highly toxic fuels for shuttle contractor United Space Alliance LLC. He’s now a lead technician at the executive-jet assembly plant Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer SA (EMBR3) opened in nearby Melbourne, Florida, in February 2011. A year after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shut down the shuttle program, eliminating at least 7,000 contractor jobs in the area, the employment outlook is improving.
 
Nelson gets his challenger; Adams loses primary
 
SpacePolitics.com
 
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), one of the strongest NASA advocates in Congress, now officially knows who he’ll have to beat in order to secure a third term in the Senate. Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL) easily won the Republican primary for the Senate seat on Tuesday and will face off against Nelson in November in what polls currently suggest to be a tight race. Mack, son of a former senator, easily beat out a familiar name in space policy circles: former congressman Dave Weldon, who represented Florida’s Space Coast in the House from 1994 through 2008. Another member of Congress who has been vocal on space issues won’t be returning next year. In a member-versus-member primary created by redistricting, Rep. John Mica (R-FL) beat Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) by 20 percentage points.
 
Sunita Williams wishes Indians from space station
 
The Hindu
 
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams on Wednesday displayed the Tricolour on board the International Space Station and wished Indians on the eve of their 66th Independence Day. “I wish India a very happy Independence Day for August 15... India is a wonderful country and I am very proud to be a part of India,” she said in her message.
 
Is a moon colony on the horizon?
 
Benjamin Gottlieb & Sarah Parvini - Washington Post
 
Imagine a machine that could build a 2,000 square foot home in under 24 hours. Imagine one that could do that on the surface of the moon? It may seem unrealistic, but Behrokh Khoshnevis — an engineering professor at the University of Southern California — has developed a way to do just that. With a $500,000 grant from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts division, Khoshnevis is retooling a construction system he pioneered 10 years ago that will help scientists establish permanent lunar structures. "Today, it looks impossible to send such technology to space,” said Khoshnevis, who is also the director of USC’s manufacturing engineering graduate program. “But 100 years ago, no one imagined that people would get into a machine and go to the other side of the planet in 15 hours."
 
Rebooted Space Congress changes with industry
Reborn event to reflect new reality
 
Wayne Price - Florida Today
 
Eight years after space experts, astronauts and other influential people in aerospace gathered for what turned out to be the last Space Congress, organizers are attempting to revive the program. Promising a leaner version of past gatherings that will reflect the changing landscape of the space industry in Brevard County, one that still involves government support of programs but also recognizes the growing influence of private and commercial industry participants, organizers have announced a Space Congress will be held Dec. 7. “We’re expecting 100 to 150 coming to the event, as opposed to twice that number before,” said Frederick Martin, general chairman of the new Space Congress. “And it’s going to be one day instead of three.
__________
 
COMPLETE STORIES
 
Mango: NASA Commercial Crew flights to be ready in 4-5 years
 
James Dean - Florida Today
 
Three models next to Ed Mango, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, showed the combinations of rockets and spacecraft competing to be the next U.S. vehicles to fly astronauts to orbit after the shuttle.
 
“One of these if not more than one – and I hope more than one – will be able to have the capability here in the next four to five years,” Mango told an audience of more than 300 at the National Space Club Florida Committee’s monthly lunch meeting at the Radisson Resort at the Port.
 
NASA this month announced awards totaling $1.1 billion to The Boeing Co., SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to finish the designs of those commercial crew transportation systems.
 
Boeing’s CST-100 capsule and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser would launch atop United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. SpaceX would launch its Dragon capsule on an upgraded version of its Falcon 9 rocket.
 
“Out of our three partners, all three of them plan to launch out of Florida,” Mango said. “All three of them plan to do significant work in Florida in order to get ready for that launch. Great for Florida, great for the Space Coast.”
 
It’s hoped that by mid-2014 at least Boeing and SpaceX, which are eligible to receive the most money at $460 million and $440 million, will reach a completed design milestone known as the Critical Design Review, the last step before systems are built and qualified for flight.
 
The last time a NASA human spaceflight system reached that “CDR” state, Mango said, was the shuttle in 1975.
 
“So we have a long way to go in our history to repeat that, and that’s our goal” with the latest awards, he said.
 
Then the goal is to fly NASA crews to the International Space Station by 2017, unless the commercial systems can be certified sooner.
 
“We will launch when we’re ready, not a day before,” said Mango. “If the companies would like to move that to the left, we’re all for it as long as it meets our safety requirements and we can get them certified.”
 
Last week, NASA announced a two-phase plan for certifying the new systems that will start early next year.
 
Mango said the eventual creation of a commercial capability to fly people to low Earth orbit would represent a “Lindbergh moment” that makes “the world and the heavens a smaller place.”
 
The space club announced a “record” turnout to hear Mango’s speech, titled “Innovation and the Next Step in U.S. Space Transportation.”
 
Among the attendees were Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, the chair of Space Florida’s board, and a handful of other board members, who also toured sites at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
 
In remarks preceding Mango’s, Carroll said NASA’s recently announced commercial crew awards represented “ a major victory for Florida.”
 
“NASA’s choice is evidence that Florida is going and working in the right direction,” Carroll said.
 
Commercial Crew Winners Look Beyond Station Ops
 
Jefferson Morris - Aerospace Daily
 
The three teams chosen to proceed in NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) program all have ambitions for their crew vehicles that go beyond the agency’s basic requirement of getting astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
 
NASA plans to spread $1.1 billion in seed money among Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada for CCiCap, to further nurture the development of U.S. vehicles that NASA plans to purchase services on at a cost far less than the $63 million per seat the U.S. government reportedly pays for Russian Soyuz rides (Aerospace DAILY, Aug. 6). The first orbital test flights are planned for 2016, with operational flights to begin as early as 2017.
 
Boeing’s partially reusable CST-100 capsule, which launches on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V, was envisioned from the outset as a possible transportation vehicle for the inflatable commercial space station concepts being developed by Bigelow Aerospace. Bigelow already is a supplier to Boeing, and hopefully soon will be a customer purchasing CST-100 flights, according to John Mulholland, manager of commercial programs for Boeing’s space exploration division. Boeing also has an agreement in place with Space Adventures, which arranged the first-ever space tourism flights in partnership with Russia.
 
“We’re encouraged about the potential for this commercial market to emerge,” Mulholland said last week. “It’s really important that NASA has taken this first step in partnering with Boeing to help develop this capability.”
 
Although NASA’s commercial transportation efforts have been focused on low Earth orbit, SpaceX hopes its Dragon spacecraft could become “a generalized science delivery platform to almost anywhere in the Solar System,” according to company CEO Elon Musk. SpaceX has been in discussions with NASA about this concept, Musk says.
 
Although the current Dragon capsule is designed to splash down in the water, test flights of a retro-rocket system to allow hard landings will occur “relatively soon,” Musk says. Landing propulsively “also allows for potentially landing on other places in the Solar System, like the Moon, where there’s no atmosphere,” he says. If NASA adopts Dragon for delivery of payloads to other planetary surfaces, “what it could allow NASA to do is to focus its funding and resources on the scientific instruments themselves, and worry less about the landing system,” Musk says.
 
Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada’s Space Systems division, says his company sees three alternative markets for its Dream Chaser lifting-body spaceplane, which would launch on an Atlas V and return to Earth for a runway landing. One potential market is servicing other spacecraft in LEO, “very similar to how the shuttle repaired the Hubble telescope,” Sirangelo tells Aviation Week.
 
Another would be long-duration, autonomous orbital stays of months or years that would allow for the testing and return of delicate scientific experiments or hardware. The third market would be orbital tourism.
 
ATV-3 Vehicle Fails to Adjust Space Station Orbit
 
RIA Novosti
 
The European Space Agency’s ATV-3 space freighter failed on Wednesday to readjust the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS), a space industry source said.
 
Another attempt could be made on Friday.
 
Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said earlier in the day the engines of the Edoardo Amaldi spacecraft, docked at Russia’s Zvezda module on the ISS, would be fired to raise the ISS orbit by 7.7 kilometers, to 414.42 km.
 
The maneuver was to be carried out to ensure the best conditions for the landing of Russia’s Soyuz TMA-04M manned spacecraft on Earth and the docking of the Soyuz TMA-06M manned spacecraft with the ISS, scheduled for October 15.
 
Corrections to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to safeguard the successful docking and undocking of spacecraft.
 
External payloads delivered to station by Japanese vessel
 
Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com
 
The International Space Station's robotics systems, under manual and remote control by astronauts and ground controllers, have transferred a cache of experiments from a Japanese resupply craft to external platforms aboard the orbiting outpost.
 
The Japanese and U.S. experiments were launched July 21 aboard the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's H-2 Transfer Vehicle, an automated cargo freighter designed to ferry pressurized and exposed supplies, spare parts and experiments to the space station.
 
The barrel-shaped spacecraft, nicknamed Kounotori 3, reached the complex July 27, flying in formation below the station while astronauts unlimbered the lab's robotic arm to snare the HTV resupply craft from space.
 
Kounotori means "white stork" in Japanese.
 
The space station crew opened the hatch to the HTV's pressurized cargo module July 28 to begin unloading more than 7,000 pounds of equipment, including food and clothing, an aquatic habitat to study how microgravity impacts marine life, a remote-controlled Earth observation camera, a critical part for the lab's water regeneration system, and a Japanese cooling water recirculation pump, according to NASA.
 
The cargo craft also delivered five small CubeSat satellites and a Japanese-built deployer apparatus. The CubeSats will be released outside the space station beginning this fall.
 
Two payload packages mounted on an external platform inside the HTV required removal by the station's Canadian and Japanese robotics systems.
 
The Canadian and Japanese robot arms transferred the HTV's exposed pallet to a connecting port on the space station's Kibo laboratory Aug. 6. The outpost's Dextre robotic handyman, operating on commands from the ground, on Aug. 7 moved NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Testbed to its operating location on the space station truss.
 
Developed by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the SCAN Testbed payload includes three experimental next-generation radios capable of being updated with fresh software in flight.
 
Future space missions could use similar radios for communications and navigation functions. Ground controllers could install new software to alter the radio's capabilities, reducing the time and money needed to ensure spacecraft radios meet a mission's changing needs.
 
"The ability to change the operating characteristics of the radio's software after launch allows missions to change the way a radio communicates with ground controllers, and offers the flexibility to adapt to new science opportunities and increased data return," said a fact sheet posted on a NASA website.
 
A set of Japanese experiments was removed from the HTV pallet and placed on the Kibo laboratory's outdoor porch Aug. 9.
 
Consolidated inside a common package, the investigations will probe the plasma and lightning in Earth's atmosphere, collect data on inflatable space structures and robotics systems, and test commercial off-the-shelf HDTV video equipment in the harsh environment of space.
 
With its payloads placed on the space station, the empty cargo pallet was moved back into position inside the HTV resupply craft Aug. 10. The pallet slides inside the spacecraft on rail tracks.
 
Astronauts will pack the HTV's pressurized module with trash in the next few weeks before the ship departs the space station Sept. 6. The vehicle will be guided back into the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean for a destructive re-entry.
 
Georgia Tech Advances Potential Commercial Space Flight System
 
Scientific Computing
 
Last spring, private industry successfully sent a spacecraft carrying cargo to the International Space Station. Now, the race is on to see which company will be the first to make commercial human spaceflight a reality.
 
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is one of three companies that will receive hundreds of millions of dollars to further develop its commercial human spacecraft system, NASA announced on August 3, 2012. SNC has turned to Georgia Tech for expertise on how to ensure the smoothest possible re-entry for its spacecraft, the Dream Chaser, which is reminiscent of NASA’s space shuttle.
 
Robert Braun, Georgia Tech professor of space technology, and his research team — Research Engineer Jennifer Kelly and engineering graduate students Zach Putnam and Mike Grant — are working with SNC on the design of an advanced guidance algorithm that will make the most of the Dream Chaser’s superior aerodynamic performance during re-entry and landing.
 
Of the three companies selected by NASA to develop spaceships to taxi astronauts to and from the International Space Station, Sierra Nevada is the only one with a winged vehicle. It is designed to launch vertically and land on a runway, similar to the Space Shuttle. Boeing and SpaceX are developing capsules that would land in a body of water.
 
Because the Dream Chaser is similar to the Space Shuttle, it could land using the same guidance algorithm the shuttle used. However, that algorithm, like the shuttle, is based on technology that is more than 40 years old; it does not take advantage of the onboard computing available for today’s space systems.
 
“The shuttle was built in the 1970s, and its designers didn’t have the onboard computing capabilities we have today,” Braun said. “The Dream Chaser can capitalize on an advanced entry guidance algorithm matched to its aerodynamic and onboard computing capability.”
 
Braun and his team took the Dream Chaser’s aerodynamic configuration, control surfaces and mass properties into account when developing the algorithm. To date, the algorithm runs a computer simulation that allows SNC engineers to tweak aspects of the spacecraft design based on scenarios, such as variable atmospheric conditions, to perfect the landing process.
 
The result is an algorithm that “allows the vehicle to fly how it was meant to fly,” Putnam said.
 
Georgia Tech engineers delivered an early prototype of the software to the SNC team this month for detailed evaluation and testing.
 
Zachary Krevor, a Georgia Tech graduate who is SNC’s principal systems engineer with the flight dynamic and performance group, was eager to see the results.
 
“This is important for us because we feel the algorithm could have performance benefits for our vehicle and make it robust to atmospheric disturbances while ensuring we have a ‘low g’ re-entry,” he said. “Capsules do not have the ‘low g’ re-entry that is so important for both astronauts and sensitive science payloads.”
 
For the students, the project provides real-world experience in the nascent commercial space industry.
 
“To be able to participate in the new era of commercial flight is very exciting,” Grant said. “It has been a great learning experience to see how commercial space companies work and a real thrill to contribute in a meaningful way to the potential flight of this new space flight system.”
 
Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser received an award of $212.5 million from NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability Program that will allow the company to complete development of the system and transport crews to space as early as 2016. An approach and landing test for the Dream Chaser is scheduled for later this year.
 
Endeavour and Atlantis to do the shuttle shuffle
 
Justin Ray - SpaceflightNow.com
 
Just days away from leaving her hangar one final time, technicians at Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday were jacking down the leveling struts holding the space shuttle Endeavour, precisely weighing the ship and making center of gravity determinations for next month's ferryflight to Los Angeles.
 
Endeavour was powered off May 11 at 9:58 a.m. EDT, falling forever silent after two decades of flight. The 60-foot-long payload doors were shut June 19, the three replica main engines were installed between July 11 and 13, the aerodynamic tailcone for the ferryflight was attached Aug. 6 and the ship's crew module was closed Aug. 10.
 
The vehicle will be rolled out of Orbiter Processing Facility bay 2 on Thursday to swap places with sister-shuttle Atlantis, which has been in temporary storage at the Vehicle Assembly Building since late June.
 
With only one OPF hangar still available for shuttle operations, the orbiters are forced to shuffle at different points in their retirement and decommissioning schedules. Once Endeavour is finished with all that work, she will wait out the final weeks at the Florida spaceport by sitting on display to tourists in the northwest corner of the VAB. Atlantis will resume her museum preparations after taking the vacated hangar slot Thursday.
 
The two spaceplanes will pose for a nose-to-nose photo op during Thursday morning's move at around 8:30 a.m. EDT.
 
Endeavour's upcoming schedule calls for ferryflight operations to commence Sept. 14 when the shuttle is towed from the VAB to the apron next to the space center's runway and gets hoisted atop the modified 747.
 
Departure of the carrier aircraft is planned for Sept. 17, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport on Sept. 20.
 
Specific sites will be targeted for ceremonial flyovers during the west-bound flight of the ferry, as well as refueling stops and places for overnight stays. Details, however, continue to be worked out and officials have not yet unveiled those plans.
 
Once in LA, Endeavour will be demated from the aircraft and housed in a United Airlines hangar to stand by for the Oct. 12-13 parade-like procession through city streets from the airport to the California Science Center where the veteran of 25 spaceflights will be exhibited.
 
CSC is paying the costs of the ferryflight. NASA will oversee activities through removal of Endeavour from the 747, but the museum takes over full responsibility for getting the orbiter from LAX to the science center.
 
Florida Space Coast Brightens on Jobs Increase
 
Ian Katz - Bloomberg News
 
Brian Medeiros was driving a Budweiser beer truck when he got a phone call saying he’d been offered an aerospace-industry job 15 months after his position at the U.S. space shuttle program was eliminated. He pulled over and sobbed in relief.
 
“I started bawling my eyes out,” he said. “It was a blessing. It was an opportunity to use every skill I’ve developed.”
 
Medeiros, 51, spent a decade at Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s 72-mile-long Space Coast handling highly toxic fuels for shuttle contractor United Space Alliance LLC. He’s now a lead technician at the executive-jet assembly plant Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer SA (EMBR3) opened in nearby Melbourne, Florida, in February 2011.
 
A year after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shut down the shuttle program, eliminating at least 7,000 contractor jobs in the area, the employment outlook is improving.
 
Joblessness in central Florida’s eastern coast was 9.4 percent in June, down from 11.7 percent in August 2011, the month after the last shuttle launch. Unemployment in Florida, a swing state in the 2012 presidential election, was 8.6 percent in June, down from 10.7 percent a year earlier.
 
Sting, Impact
“Certainly the pain is very real for those still looking for work,” said Dina Reider-Hicks, a senior director at the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast. “There has been a sting, there has been an impact. But it hasn’t been as severe as people thought.” Some local business leaders thought that the unemployment rate could rise to the high teens, she said.
 
Embraer plans to employ at least 200 people at the assembly plant and has 50 at a customer-service center it opened next door in December. The jet maker has said it will create another 200 jobs over five years at an engineering facility due to open across the street in 2013.
 
Boeing Co. (BA) has said it will create 550 jobs by the end of 2015 for a commercial crew program to provide flights to the international space station. Harris Corp. (HRS), which provides information-technology services to the government, is building an engineering center in Brevard County that could add 100 jobs and 300 construction positions in the next three years.
 
Still, many former shuttle workers are struggling to find work.
 
No Offers
 
Francine Myers, 53, who started at the space center in 1981, lost her position as a logistics specialist in July 2011. She’s had two job interviews and no offers since then.
 
Myers, who has two grown children and lives alone in Titusville, about 40 miles north of Melbourne, tried to squeeze as much as she could from her 26 weeks of severance.
 
“I’m about at the end of that,” she said over a Greek salad at Mr. Submarine & Salads, where sandwiches are named for the Discovery, Columbia and Challenger shuttles. “I need to find a job.”
 
Myers said she doesn’t have health insurance and must take three kinds of insulin for her diabetes, in addition to pills for her blood pressure and thyroid condition.
 
In between looking for work on websites run by CareerBuilder Inc. and Monster Worldwide Inc. (MWW), Myers is trying to get a business-administration degree at Barry University’s Cape Canaveral branch. She said a program at Brevard Workforce, a county agency that helps retrain dismissed workers, covers the cost.
 
Small Business
 
Her cousin, Fred Harvey Jr., took an entrepreneurship course through Brevard Workforce after losing his job with the shuttle program and has opened Fred’s Auto Butler Mobile Detailing Services, a small business that spiffs up cars, boats and airplanes.
 
Like many former shuttle employees, Myers, who worked on every launch except the first going back to 1981, misses the sense of patriotism and pride.
 
“I don’t care how many launches you see, every one still gives you goose bumps,” she said. She remembers feeling her heart sink watching the January 1986 Challenger explosion from the porch of her grandmother’s house. She said she saw the smoke and thought, “Wait a minute. It’s not supposed to look like that.”
 
The culture of the industry has become embedded in Brevard County since Kennedy Space Center opened 50 years ago. It’s hard to drive more than a few minutes without passing a street named for an astronaut, such as Ronald McNair of the Challenger, or a space vehicle, like Apollo Road or Columbia Boulevard. The local area code is 321, for the countdown before liftoff.
 
Reliably Republican
 
While Brevard County is reliably Republican, it’s in a battleground state for presidential candidates. In 2008, when Florida sided with Democrat Barack Obama, Brevard’s vote went to Republican John McCain: 157,589 to 127,620.
 
Until companies such as Embraer and Boeing finish expanding, unemployed workers face a “short-term gap” to find jobs with pay comparable to what they received from shuttle contractors, said Marcia Gaedcke, president of the Titusville Area Chamber of Commerce.
 
“Managing that gap is the challenge,” Gaedcke said. “From the medium- to long-term, we’ll be fine, we’ll see growth.”
 
Embraer technician Medeiros, an intense, beefy man with a small beard and salt-and-pepper hair, took the lower-paying job at a local beer distributor “just to keep myself mentally in the game,” he said. Myers interviewed for a position that would have paid $41,000, compared with $55,000 she made at the space center. She said she probably would have taken the job had she gotten an offer.
 
Former Workers
 
Some former shuttle workers have left the Space Coast, hurting the local economy.
 
The county’s foreclosure rate was 10.8 percent in May, one percentage point more than in July 2011 when the shuttle program shut down, according to CoreLogic Inc. It reached a high of 11.1 percent in February.
 
Kyra Morgan, 55, who runs a cleaning service in Titusville, said four of her clients moved away in one week alone this month to find jobs elsewhere.
 
“It trickles down,” said Morgan, whose husband lost his job as a shuttle mechanic.
 
One of the biggest problems for the business community is “fighting the perception a lot of people have that NASA has shut down,” the chamber’s Gaedcke said.
 
$900 Million
 
In fact, NASA said Aug. 3 that Boeing and Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. won a combined $900 million in contracts from the agency to design and develop spacecraft that can carry astronauts. Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nevada, won a $212.5 million contract. The agreements will add an undetermined number of jobs to the Space Coast, the development commission’s Reider-Hicks said.
 
One advantage for the area is the availability of aerospace talent. That was a factor in Embraer’s decision to assemble jets in Melbourne and is reflected in the fact that one-quarter of the plant’s employees have worked on NASA projects, said Phil Krull, managing director at the facility.
 
When hiring former space-shuttle workers, Krull tries to make sure they can adapt from focusing on one shuttle for months at a time to production of up to eight jets a month. Many of the employees bring the passion they had at the space center to Embraer and become some of the company’s best representatives, he said.
 
For Medeiros, who has two adult children in addition to two teen-aged stepchildren living with him and his wife, the loss of his space-shuttle job created “a big black void” in his life, he said.
 
Asked about his family’s reaction when he got his new position last year, Medeiros began to choke up with emotion before quickly collecting himself. He said he had feared he wouldn’t be able to get back into the aerospace industry and was surprised when he got the call from Embraer.
 
“I didn’t think they would be interested in me,” he said.
 
Nelson gets his challenger; Adams loses primary
 
SpacePolitics.com
 
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), one of the strongest NASA advocates in Congress, now officially knows who he’ll have to beat in order to secure a third term in the Senate. Rep. Connie Mack IV (R-FL) easily won the Republican primary for the Senate seat on Tuesday and will face off against Nelson in November in what polls currently suggest to be a tight race.
 
Mack, son of a former senator, easily beat out a familiar name in space policy circles: former congressman Dave Weldon, who represented Florida’s Space Coast in the House from 1994 through 2008 (a seat now held by fellow Republican Bill Posey.).
 
Mack’s campaign web site is silent on space (and many other specific policy issues), but does describe his “Mack Penny Plan” that would cut federal spending across the board by one percent per year for six years.
 
Another member of Congress who has been vocal on space issues won’t be returning next year. In a member-versus-member primary created by redistricting, Rep. John Mica (R-FL) beat Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) by 20 percentage points.
 
Adams’s current district includes part of the Space Coast, including KSC (the rest, including Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, is in Posey’s district), but redistricting put her in territory away from the Space Coast and in the heart of longtime member Mica’s district.
 
Sunita Williams wishes Indians from space station
 
The Hindu
 
Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams on Wednesday displayed the Tricolour on board the International Space Station and wished Indians on the eve of their 66th Independence Day. “I wish India a very happy Independence Day for August 15... India is a wonderful country and I am very proud to be a part of India,” she said in her message.
 
“Of course, you know that I am half Indian. My father is from Gujarat. So, I am familiar with culture and customs of India. I am so proud to a part of this [Independence Day] celebration,” Ms. Williams said, displaying India’s national flag.
 
Williams, 46, along with Yuri Malenchenko of Russia and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide left for the ISS aboard a Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-05M on July 15 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
 
Ms. Williams, who was a flight engineer on the station’s Expedition 32 crew, became commander of Expedition 33 after reaching the space station.
 
Ms. Williams was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1998. She was assigned to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 14 and then joined Expedition 15.
 
She holds the record of the longest spaceflight (195 days) for female space travellers.
 
Is a moon colony on the horizon?
 
Benjamin Gottlieb & Sarah Parvini - Washington Post
 
Imagine a machine that could build a 2,000 square foot home in under 24 hours. Imagine one that could do that on the surface of the moon?
 
It may seem unrealistic, but Behrokh Khoshnevis — an engineering professor at the University of Southern California — has developed a way to do just that. With a $500,000 grant from NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts division, Khoshnevis is retooling a construction system he pioneered 10 years ago that will help scientists establish permanent lunar structures.
 
"Today, it looks impossible to send such technology to space,” said Khoshnevis, who is also the director of USC’s manufacturing engineering graduate program. “But 100 years ago, no one imagined that people would get into a machine and go to the other side of the planet in 15 hours."
 
The technology, known as contour crafting, employs 3-D printing to construct cement buildings at a rapid pace. In the past, proposals for lunar construction were based on taking materials to the moon for assembly. But that can be costly — just one kilogram can costs upwards of $100,000 to transport, Khoshnevis said.
 
“Use the material that’s there and then use robotic systems that will take energy from the sun to operate instead,” he suggested.
 
Sitting in the corner of his South Los Angeles office, Khoshnevis watches as his 3-D printer works fervently to construct a plastic prototype, layer by layer. Putting together the minuscule model takes over two hours — a pace Khoshnevis isn’t pleased with.
 
Khoshnevis insists his goal is to see contour crafting aid in the exploration of the moon and Mars — not to build Martian real estate or colonize the moon, á la Newt Gingrich’s campaign pledge.
 
Despite NASA’s commitment, it could take decades before Khoshnevis’s system can start building infrastructure on other planets. The technology must pass a simulation at NASA’s desert research facility in Arizona before it can proceed further. Once completed, NASA will get its hands on the machine to ensure it can be used in space.
 
But sending his technology to space is a labor of love, Khoshnevis explained. He sees it as an expansion of human potential.
 
“We've looked deep into the universe…we've looked within ourselves at DNA structure. Humans are amazing,” he said. “We should allow ourselves to dream the impossible.”
 
Rebooted Space Congress changes with industry
Reborn event to reflect new reality
 
Wayne Price - Florida Today
 
Eight years after space experts, astronauts and other influential people in aerospace gathered for what turned out to be the last Space Congress, organizers are attempting to revive the program.
 
Promising a leaner version of past gatherings that will reflect the changing landscape of the space industry in Brevard County, one that still involves government support of programs but also recognizes the growing influence of private and commercial industry participants, organizers have announced a Space Congress will be held Dec. 7.
 
“We’re expecting 100 to 150 coming to the event, as opposed to twice that number before,” said Frederick Martin, general chairman of the new Space Congress. “And it’s going to be one day instead of three.
 
“We’re starting over is what we’re doing,” Martin added.
 
Once considered the world's premier aerospace conference, the Space Congress made its debut in 1962 and was staged annually by the Canaveral Council of Technical Societies.
 
Then, in 2005, the congress was combined with the Cape Canaveral Spaceport Symposium. In 2006, the joint event was moved to Orlando and subsequently canceled.
 
An attempt to revive Space Congress in 2007 never materialized.
 
David Fleming, chairman of the Canaveral Council of Technical Societies and one of the organizers of this year’s event, said no one expects the new Space Congress to took like past ones.
 
Fleming attended the final two Space Congresses and said they were impressive. But the landscape has changed dramatically since then, said Fleming, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the Florida Institute of Technology.
 
“So much of the local economy has been tied to the space industry,” he said. “It’s fairly obvious this is the ideal place for this kind of targeted topic. This is a time of transition in the industry, so if we can get speakers to talk about future trends and new technologies I think that would be very beneficial.”
 
And restarting Space Congress in a modest way may be the key to its future success.
 
“It’s the right size, and it’s the right price, and the right time,” Martin said.
 
A speakers list is under development, and organizers hope to get some top names in aerospace from Brevard County to speak at the event. The Space Congress will focus on what’s happening on the Space Coast as far as aerospace and detail what needs to be done to promote the space industry.
 
“We want people to know there is a Florida space program,” Martin said. “There is a future in the space industry here and a future space industry in the world.”
 
END