Fwd: Human Spaceflight News - August 23, 2013and JSC Today

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: August 23, 2013 6:09:24 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight News - August 23, 2013and JSC Today

Happy Friday everyone.   Have a great and safe weekend.

 

 

 

 

Friday, August 23, 2013

Read JSC Today in your browser

View Archives

 

JSC 2.0 JSC External Homepage Inside JSC JSC Events Submit JSC Today JSC Roundup Reader's Room NASA News Connect Category Definitions

JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Headlines -  Morpheus Test Today -  NASA's Virtual Colloquium Series Webcast Event Organizations/Social -  Cosmic Cafe Closed Today -  JSC Praise and Worship Club -  JSC Planning/Scheduling Community of Practice -  Kinect Co-Lab -  HSI ERG Meeting Tuesday, Aug. 27 -  Presale Offer: Books Autographed by Tom Jones -  Parent's Night Out at Starport - Aug. 23 -  Mental Health Disorders and Coping Strategies

Unsettled Weather Across Central Australia

 

Headlines Morpheus Test Today The Morpheus team plans a tether test of its "Bravo" prototype lander today. The test will be streamed live on JSC's UStream channel. View the live stream, along with progress updates sent via Twitter. Morpheus is a vertical test bed vehicle being used to mature new, non-toxic propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technologies. Designed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at JSC, Morpheus represents not only a vehicle to advance technologies, but also an opportunity to pursue "lean development" engineering practices. The test firing is planned for approximately 1 to 2 p.m. Streaming will begin approximately 45 minutes prior. * Note: Testing operations are very dynamic; actual firing time may vary and tests may be postponed with very short notice. Follow Morpheus on Twitter for the latest information: @MorpheusLander Or, view the Twitter feed from our website for updates. For more information. Wendy Watkins http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov [top] NASA's Virtual Colloquium Series Webcast Event Join Robbie Stokes as he discusses "I TALK TO STRANGERS," a social movement whose philosophy encourages and challenges individuals to create genuine relationships through meeting new people. His motive is to push a new idea, that meeting new people increases personal and professional opportunities, experiences and lessons learned. This Virtual Colloquium Series is sponsored by NASA's Office of Human Capital Management. Please note: This Adobe Connect session will only hold the first 300 attendees who join, so please join early. To log into the session, click on this link, select "Enter as a Guest," complete the "Name" field and select "Enter Room." Date/Time/Location: Monday, Aug. 26, 1 to 2 p.m. CDT, webcast here Krystal Hall, NASA Headquarters 202-358-1297 [top]    Organizations/Social Cosmic Cafe Closed Today The Building 4S Cosmic Café will be closed today, Aug. 23. It will re-open to normal operating hours on Monday, Aug. 26. Shelly Haralson x39168 [top] JSC Praise and Worship Club Join with the praise and worship band "Allied with the Lord" for a refreshing set of traditional and contemporary praise and worship songs on Wednesday, Sept. 4, from 11:15 a.m. to noon in Building 29, Room 237 (also called Creative Sp.ace). Prayer partners will be available for anyone who would like it. All JSC civil servants and contractors are welcome. Event Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2013   Event Start Time:11:15 AM   Event End Time:12:00 PM Event Location: Building 29 Room 237 Add to Calendar Mike FitzPatrick x30758 [top] JSC Planning/Scheduling Community of Practice Please join the JSC Planning/Scheduling Community of Practice in person or virtually today for our next meeting. This month, program analyst and architect of the Joint Confidence Level model of the Orion Program, AM/Mike Stelly, will be introducing the community to "Schedule Risk Analysis and Joint Confidence Level (JCL)." Please come to learn what schedule analysis is, who's using it and what it can do for you and your PM. Hope to connect with you soon! Event Date: Friday, August 23, 2013   Event Start Time:2:00 PM   Event End Time:3:30 PM Event Location: 1/620 and via telecon/webex Add to Calendar Nancy Fleming x47205 https://pmi.jsc.nasa.gov/schedules/SitePages/Home.aspx [top] Kinect Co-Lab Are you currently working on or interested in starting a project involving Kinect, Leapmotion or other motion-tracking hardware? If so, you are invited to the Kinect CoLAB. CoLABs provide a casual forum to share lessons learned and generate innovative new ideas and uses of technologies. We will be answering questions and providing demos of the technology. Come make cross-directorate contacts and learn more about what others are doing with these exciting technologies. The Kinect CoLAB will be held next Wednesday from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Building 30A, Room 2090. Feel free to bring your lunch and your co-workers. Event Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2013   Event Start Time:11:45 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM Event Location: Building 30A, Room 2090 Add to Calendar Shelby Thompson x49701 https://collaboration.ndc.nasa.gov/CoLab/kinect/SitePages/Home.aspx [top] HSI ERG Meeting Tuesday, Aug. 27 The Human Systems Integration (HSI) Employee Resource Group (ERG) will hold its monthly membership meeting on Tuesday. Please bring your lunch and join us. Event Date: Tuesday, August 27, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM Event Location: B1/220 Add to Calendar Deb Neubek 281-222-3687 https://collaboration.ndc.nasa.gov/iierg/HSI/SitePages/Home.aspx [top] Presale Offer: Books Autographed by Tom Jones Starport is accepting presale orders for an upcoming book signing and speech by astronaut and author Tom Jones. Date and location to be announced. Books must be purchased at Starport. Choose "Skywalking" for $15.99 (soft cover), "Planetology" for $35 or "Hell Hawks" for $24.95. Reserve your copies today in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops, or order online. No discounts apply for special purchase items. Cyndi Kibby x35352 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Parent's Night Out at Starport - Aug. 23 Enjoy a night out on the town while your kids enjoy a night with Starport! We will entertain your children with a night of games, crafts, a bounce house, pizza, a movie, dessert and loads of fun. When: Friday, Aug. 23, from 6 to 10 p.m. Where: Gilruth Center Ages: 5 to 12 Cost: $20/first child and $10/each additional sibling if registered by the Wednesday prior to event. If registered after Wednesday, the fee is $25/first child and $15/additional sibling. Register at the Gilruth Center front desk. Click here for more information. Event Date: Friday, August 23, 2013   Event Start Time:6:00 PM   Event End Time:10:00 PM Event Location: Gilruth Center Add to Calendar Shericka Phillips x35563 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Mental Health Disorders and Coping Strategies Please join Takis Bogdanos, LPC-S, CGP, with the JSC Employee Assistance Program on Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 12 noon in the Building 30 Auditorium for a presentation about depression as part of the psycho-educational series: "Mental Health Disorders, Causes and Treatments." He will be discussing causes, prevalence, symptoms and impact in everyday life, as well as the latest treatments being implemented. Event Date: Wednesday, August 28, 2013   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium Add to Calendar Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Occupational Health Branch x36130 [top]

 

JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.

 

 

 

 

NASA TV:

·         UNDERWAY – Live interviews on Artic Sea Ice (continues until 9:45 Central)

·         Noon-1 pm Central (1-2 EDT) – Live Interviews on Arctic Sea Ice

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT...

 

New Imagery of Asteroid Mission

New conceptual photos & video animation depicts NASA's planned mission to find, capture, redirect, and study a near-Earth asteroid. The images depict crew operations including the Orion spacecraft's trip to - and rendezvous with  - the relocated asteroid, as well as astronauts maneuvering through a spacewalk to collect samples.

 

Human Spaceflight News

Friday – August 23, 2013

 

Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser surfs the path it will take during next month's planned "Free Flight"

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Cosmonauts complete spacewalk

 

William Harwood – CBS News

 

Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin completed a five-hour 58-minute spacewalk today, installing a camera-aiming platform on the hull of the International Space Station after engineers concluded it would work properly despite a misaligned attachment plate. The cosmonauts also inspected and tightened up a series of antenna covers, collected particulate samples from the hatch of the Poisk module and brought a laser communications experiment back inside that they removed earlier to make way for the camera aiming system. Just before floating back into the Pirs airlock module, Yurchikhin and Misurkin unfurled a red, white and blue Russian flag in the vacuum of space to mark Russian Flag Day, commemorating the raising of the current Russian flag over the Supreme Soviet building in Moscow in the wake of a failed coup in 1991.

 

Russian spacewalkers encounter faulty equipment

 

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

 

A pair of spacewalking cosmonauts installed a new telescope mount on the International Space Station on Thursday despite a flaw in the device. Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin - making their second spacewalk in under a week - initially were told to give up trying to plug in the 6-foot platform for a yet-to-be-launched telescope. But after more than an hour of discussion at Russian Mission Control outside Moscow, the decision was reversed and the cosmonauts installed it.

 

Spacewalking Cosmonauts Wave Russia's Flag in Orbit, Tackle Faulty Gear

 

Tariq Malik - Space.com

 

A misaligned piece of gear on the International Space Station caused headaches in orbit for two spacewalking cosmonauts Thursday, but they ultimately triumphed and even managed to celebrate Russia's Flag Day with orbital style. Veteran cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin proudly waved a Russian flag while soaring 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth to celebrate Russia's Flag Day holiday, which just happened to coincide with their nearly six-hour spacewalk. "Congratulations to everyone on this day of the Russian flag," Yurchikhin said as he waved the flag in space. "Please remember to value and respect it, and we will respect ourselves."

 

Italian astronaut recounts near-drowning during spacewalk

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

As his helmet filled with water, blurring his vision and cutting off radio communications, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano says his thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of drowning during a recent spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Parmitano gave a blow-by-blow account of the terrifying incident, which occurred on July 16, in a blog published this week. In a far more routine spacewalk on Thursday, two Russian cosmonauts floated outside the $100 billion research complex, which flies about 250 miles above Earth, to do some maintenance work. Flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin left the Russian Pirs airlock at 7:34 a.m. EDT (1134 GMT) for their second spacewalk in less than a week.

 

NASA reveals how its plan to capture and harvest an asteroid would work

 

Carl Franzen – The Verge

 

Since the start of this year, NASA's been talking about the idea of capturing an asteroid and bringing it into orbit near the Earth, where astronauts can visit it and take home a sample. The US space agency isn't kidding around, either, already beginning plans to complete mission by 2025. But as of Thursday, NASA is finally showing off exactly how this would all work, and it looks incredible. In a new series of conceptual images and video, NASA reveals new details, such as that it wants to use ion engines to help capture the asteroid; that once it does, it will take the still in-development Orion crew capsule nine days to get to the space rock; and that it wants two astronauts to perform the mission. It's still unclear at this point if Congress will provide enough funding for NASA to carry out its asteroid-sampling vision, but at the very least, the agency isn't wasting time getting rest of us here on Earth excited for it. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

NASA plan to wrangle asteroid for study after slingshotting around moon

It hopes to have the mission completed by 2025

 

Julian Arenzon - New York Daily News

 

The real space cowboys are getting ready to ride. For months NASA has been expressing an interest in capturing a nearby asteroid and putting it somewhere near the moon for the sake of studying it and harvesting samples. The space agency hopes to complete the mission by the year 2025. NASA released a computer generated video Thursday demonstrating exactly how it plans to carry out the tall task of wrangling an asteroid. Arbitrarily using music that is very similar to Hans Zimmer's 'Inception' soundtrack, in the video you can see that there are some immensely impressive plans in the works.

 

NASA releases animation of Michoud-built Orion asteroid mission

 

Mark Schleifstein - New Orleans Times Picayune

 

The plan to use an Orion spacecraft, being built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, to transport astronauts to an asteroid in orbit near the moon to collect samples of the space rock and then return to Earth is depicted in a new video animation released by NASA on Thursday. The video animation was released as Congress continues to consider President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget for the agency, including money for the asteroid initiative. That initiative is part of $1.2 billion proposed to be spent on the agency's planetary space program, out of a total budget request of $17.7 billion.

 

NASA releases new media, details of asteroid mission

 

Emre Kelly - Florida Today

 

NASA has released new media that details the agency's goal to capture and study a near-Earth asteroid. The animated video depicts the entirety of the mission, from launch to splashdown of the Orion capsule. It also shows astronauts venturing out into space to collect samples for study. The mission will include a solar-powered, electric-based propulsion system that is also depicted in the video. Details provided in a sequence of images note that the proposed trip from Earth to the asteroid will will Orion about nine days. Orion would have a two-person crew. As it stands, the asteroid mission is part of President Barack Obama's 2014 budget for the space agency.

(NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

NASA releases images showing how asteroid capture mission could look

 

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

NASA released new concept photographs and a video Thursday showing how an asteroid capture mission might look. The new images, produced by NASA's Johnson Space Center, show how such a deep-space trip would stretch NASA's capabilities and use systems under development for a mission to Mars. One of those systems is the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket being developed in Huntsville, which would carry astronauts into space aboard the Orion capsule for their nine-day haul to where an asteroid might be positioned after robot capture. So far, Congress has failed to provide funding for the plan. The House of Representatives, in fact, specifically deleted funding for an asteroid mission in the budget it passed this summer. The mission has also gotten a lukewarm reception in some scientific circles, but the Senate hasn't spoken yet. Nonetheless, NASA is pressing ahead until definitely told to stop. NASA's position is that going to an asteroid is the kind of space trip America can afford now -- unlike a return to the moon -- and it develops technology needed to go to Mars. The new video and images show better than ever why the agency thinks that way. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

Dream Chaser takes captive-carry test flight in California

 

SpaceflightNow.com

 

 

One of the commercial vehicles vying to fill the void left by the retired space shuttles for carrying Americans into orbit from U.S. launch pads took to the skies over California's Edwards Air Force Base on Thursday for captive-carry testing. Slung beneath a Sikorsky S-64 helicopter operated by Erickson Air Crane, the engineering test article of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft spent two hours over the military base in the high desert to check systems before upcoming landings. The vehicle's flight computer, guidance, navigation and control systems, aerosurfaces were tested during the captive-carry. The landing gear and nose skid also were deployed during flight, officials said.

 

Colo. company tests spacecraft in Calif. desert

 

Associated Press

 

A Colorado company developing a spaceship to take astronauts to the International Space Station has run the craft through a series of tests at a NASA facility in California. The two-hour test of Dream Chaser spacecraft occurred Thursday at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. A helicopter picked a test version of the small spacecraft and flew it 3 miles at heights reaching 12,400 feet. The Dream Chaser followed its projected path, and its flight computer, guidance and navigation system were tested. The landing gear and nose skid also were deployed. The test paves the way for further tests at Dryden this fall as part of Sierra Nevada Corp.'s agreements with NASA. The vehicle is designed to carry seven people and land like a plane. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

Dream Chaser airborne

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

Sierra Nevada conducted a captive carriage test flight of the Dream Chaser engineering test article on Aug 22 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif, in preparation for the start of approach and landing free flight tests in September. The two-hour flight covered a three-mile route over the dry lake bed which the vehicle is expected to follow during its forthcoming free-flight. The test, which saw the lifting body space vehicle lifted by a Sikorsky S-64 to around 12,400 ft above the dry lakebed, follows completion of tow tests earlier this month. The Dream Chaser performed four sets of slow and high speed ground tow tests since July with runs completed at 10 mph, 20 mph, 40 mph and 60 mph to verify integrated spacecraft performance under landing and rollout conditions. Sierra Nevada says systems verifications included flight computer and flight software, instrumentation, guidance, navigation, and control, braking and steering performance, flight control surface actuation, mission control and remote commanding capability, and landing gear dynamics.

 

Ford: Space robot research could help improve vehicle communications

 

Adam Rubenfire - Automotive News (Europe)

 

Ford's latest research project is out of this world. Really. It's in space. Ford Motor Co. is teaming up with researchers at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia to study communication between robots at the International Space Station and Earth in the hope of developing better systems for connected cars. The three-year project will observe the communication models of robots in space to understand how vehicles can communicate better with other vehicles, the cloud and with such infrastructure elements as buildings and traffic lights. Such communication can prevent congestion, reduce accidents and deliver messages to drivers.

 

Ford Thinks Russian Space Robots Could Help Make Your Car Safer

 

Damon Lavrinc - Wired.com

 

Few things are more important than a reliable connection in space. The communication system between the International Space Station and Earth is one of the most robust ever created. And that's why Ford is tapping Russian researchers to learn how they maintain the flow of information to both the systems and their robot caretakers, and then apply it to create safer cars that talk to one another. For the next three years, Ford is partnering with the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia to study how its communication models with robots in space could influence more terrestrial undertakings like vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications here at home.

 

Commercial space flights gearing-up for lift-off

Suborbital space flights are just the beginning of a new frontier for the tourism industry

 

Jamie Carter - South China Morning Post

 

Most of us have read "1,001 places to visit before you die" and other such morbidly titled lists. But none of these yet include a trip to suborbital space. Yet space is the travel industry's next big destination - and those suborbital holidays may be starting sooner than you think. So far Virgin Galactic, part owned by British industrialist Richard Branson, has gathered more than HK$500 million in deposits from 600 people intent on a ride on its SpaceShipTwo. It will carry six passengers at a time on an "out-of-the-seat" zero-gravity experience into the black of space at a cost of HK $1.9 million for a two-hour trip.

 

One-way Mars trip attracts 165,000 would-be astronauts ... and counting

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com

 

The Dutch-based Mars One venture says more than 165,000 people around the world have voiced interest in a one-way trip to the Red Planet — and there's still more than a week left for more would-be astronauts to join in. "The response to the first round of the astronaut selection program has been tremendous," Norbert Kraft, Mars One's chief medical officer, said in a news release updating the tally on Thursday. "We now have a large group of applicants from where we can start our search." Watch the trailer for "One Way Astronaut," a documentary about Mars One applicants. After the Aug. 31 deadline passes, Mars One will review the applications to decide who goes on to the next round of the selection process.

 

Spysats for Everyone

Swarms of small, orbiting cameras are coming. To watch.

 

Tony Reichhardt - Air & Space Smithsonian Magazine (September 2013 issue)

 

Four years ago, Wade Larson's then-employer—Vancouver-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates—sent him and a colleague to Moscow to brainstorm ideas for observing Earth from space. The Russian company Energia was looking for joint projects it could do from its segment of the International Space Station, and had invited MDA, a blue-chip aerospace company with lots of experience in remote sensing, to partner in something. What came to Larson's mind was a bird's nest—specifically an eagle's nest on Hornby Island, off Vancouver, where a live webcam, running 24/7, had attracted millions of Internet viewers. If the public would gaze at a screen for hours mesmerized by pictures of baby eagles, Larson figured, maybe they'd watch scenes of Earth beamed down live from orbit. All you had to do was attach a camera to the outside of the station and leave it running.

 

NASA, Space Center announce plans for shuttle carrier exhibit

 

Alex Macon - Galveston County Daily News

 

 

When NASA ended the space shuttle program in 2011, it announced that retired orbiters would be sent to museums in California, Florida, Washington and New York. Many Texans and officials at Johnson Space Center, the historic home of human spaceflight, felt understandably snubbed. At least in part to prove that everything is bigger in Texas, NASA and Space Center Houston representatives responded Thursday by elaborating on plans to build a six-story, $12 million educational attraction at the spaceflight museum. "Texas' newest landmark" will feature a space shuttle replica perched atop NASA 905, the massive Boeing 747 jetliner used to transport real orbiters.

 

NASA's shuttle-ferrying jumbo jet to go on display with Boeing's help

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

A NASA jumbo jet that for more than three decades ferried space shuttles across the country is now being readied for its own move, thanks to the support from the aerospace company that originally built the iconic Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). On Thursday, Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, announced The Boeing Company will provide the needed disassembly and reassembly of the modified Boeing 747 jet so that it can be featured in a new $12 million, six-story educational attraction.

 

Retired shuttle carrier aircraft to be featured at Space Center Houston

 

KTRK TV (Houston)

 

The retired shuttle carrier aircraft will soon be on display at Space Center Houston. The Boeing 747, also known as NASA 905, ferried the shuttles Enterprise, Discovery and Endeavour to their respective retirement homes. Now the aircraft that carried those shuttles on its backbone will be featured as part of a six-story, $12 million educational attraction at Space Center Houston. "I felt a lot of anger that Space City USA was not allowed their choice of a retired space shuttle. But the lord works in mysterious ways, and in many ways, we've gotten the best deal," U.S. Rep. Pete Olson (R-Sugar Land) said. The shuttle carrier aircraft is 231 feet long, 63 feet tall and has a wingspan of 195 feet. It will be disassembled at Ellington Field then reassembled. Space Center Houston's shuttle transport attraction is slated to open in 2015. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Cosmonauts complete spacewalk

 

William Harwood – CBS News

 

Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin completed a five-hour 58-minute spacewalk today, installing a camera-aiming platform on the hull of the International Space Station after engineers concluded it would work properly despite a misaligned attachment plate.

 

The cosmonauts also inspected and tightened up a series of antenna covers, collected particulate samples from the hatch of the Poisk module and brought a laser communications experiment back inside that they removed earlier to make way for the camera aiming system.

 

Just before floating back into the Pirs airlock module, Yurchikhin and Misurkin unfurled a red, white and blue Russian flag in the vacuum of space to mark Russian Flag Day, commemorating the raising of the current Russian flag over the Supreme Soviet building in Moscow in the wake of a failed coup in 1991.

 

"It's a wonderful day. The people might think this is just a performance, that this was actually staged somewhere in the Moscow suburbs," Yurchikhin joked. "No, guys. This is space, as real as can be. Now we can see the flag of our motherland.

 

"Congratulations to everyone on this, a day of Russia's flag. Please remember to value it and respect it. Then we'll be respecting ourselves and be respected by others."

 

The cosmonauts then re-entered the Pirs airlock and closed the hatch at 1:32 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) to bring Russian EVA-35 to an end.

 

This was the 173rd spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance since construction began in 1998, the seventh so far this year, the eighth for Yurchikhin and the third for Misurkin. With today's EVA, Yurchikhin moved from 12th to 5th on the list of most experienced spacewalkers, with an accumulated total of 51 hours and 53 minutes.

 

Overall, 112 astronauts and cosmonauts representing nine nations have now logged 1,088 hours and 49 minutes of station EVA time, or 45.4 days.

 

The cosmonauts had four primary goals: to replace a laser communications experiment with a platform carrying a camera aiming system; to inspect six low-gain antennas to make sure protective covers were firmly in place; to collect particulate samples from the Poisk module; and to reposition a foot restraint for an upcoming spacewalk.

 

They had no trouble removing the laser package, but when they tried to install the work platform/camera aiming system, they discovered the attachment plate was bolted on in the wrong orientation.

 

After mulling the problem, flight controllers told the cosmonauts to take the assembly back to the airlock and to press on with other activities. But they eventually changed their minds, deciding the camera aiming mechanism could compensate for the incorrect orientation of the mounting plate.

 

The cosmonauts retrieved the assembly from the airlock and installed it on the right side of the Zvezda command module as planned.

 

Later this year, a Canadian company plans to launch a pair of cameras that will be mounted on the platform during a December spacewalk to beam back near realtime high-definition pictures of Earth to cell phones and other devices around the world.

 

With the camera platform in place, Yurchikhin and Misurkin inspected the antenna covers, three at each end of the command module. During a spacewalk last week, one of six covers somehow came loose and floated away.

 

During today's inspection, the cosmonauts discovered several loose covers, including one with missing screws. They tightened them up and worked through the rest of their checklist.

 

The only task that did not get completed was repositioning a foot restraint needed for an upcoming spacewalk. That work will be done during a future EVA.

 

Russian spacewalkers encounter faulty equipment

 

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

 

A pair of spacewalking cosmonauts installed a new telescope mount on the International Space Station on Thursday despite a flaw in the device.

 

Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin - making their second spacewalk in under a week - initially were told to give up trying to plug in the 6-foot platform for a yet-to-be-launched telescope.

 

But after more than an hour of discussion at Russian Mission Control outside Moscow, the decision was reversed and the cosmonauts installed it.

 

Yurchikhin and Misurkin reported that the base of the platform appeared to be misaligned because it wasn't assembled properly on the ground. The problem could prevent the future telescope from pointing in the right direction.

 

"We cannot spend a lot of time here," one of the cosmonauts complained as they struggled with the equipment.

 

They hauled the platform back to the hatch and went to work inspecting antenna covers; one of the protective shields came loose Monday and floated off.

 

But engineers determined the 90-degree misalignment could be overcome at a later date. So the cosmonauts lugged the telescope platform back to the work site and secured it.

 

They had removed a laser communication experiment from that spot earlier, even though it was tough working in that location.

 

"Tight quarters up here as far as anything to grab onto," one of the cosmonauts commented in Russian. "You got that right," replied the other. (The English translation does not identify the speakers.)

 

The spacewalkers also unfurled and waved a Russian flag that they took out in honor of Russia's Flag Day. "Now we can see the flag of our Motherland," one of the cosmonauts said in an impromptu speech.

 

Earlier, the cosmonauts ran into some difficulty tightening the antenna covers.

 

Because of the flyaway cover, the cosmonauts double-checked the remaining protective shields to make sure they were secure. At least two were loose, one by a lot. NASA said the lost cover posed no risk to the 260-mile-high outpost.

 

NASA, meanwhile, has suspended all U.S. spacewalks while the investigation into last month's near-drowning continues. An Italian astronaut's helmet filled with water during a spacewalk on July 16. He barely made it back inside. The water is believed to have originated from the suit's cooling system.

 

The spacesuits used by the Russians are different.

 

The two cosmonauts had smoother sailing during last Friday's spacewalk, performing cable hookups for a new Russian lab that is supposed to lift off from Kazakhstan sometime next year. The launch had been targeted for December, but recently was delayed until at least spring.

 

Several times during Thursday's six-hour spacewalk, the radio lines screeched so loudly that the cosmonauts' voices could not be heard by Russian Mission Control. "We should be wearing ear plugs here," someone commented in Russian.

 

Before returning inside, the crew gathered samples from the surface of a hatch for eventual analysis on Earth. There is evidence, a NASA commentator said, of possible biological growth surviving in the harsh environment of space.

 

"I think the windows are clean. We should wrap it up. What do you think?" Misurkin said.

 

This was the 173rd spacewalk at the space station, coming up on the 15th anniversary of the launch of its first part. The four other space station residents - two Americans, one Italian and another Russian - kept tabs on the spacewalk from inside.

 

The swiveling platform will hold an optical telescope that will be launched in November and installed by spacewalking cosmonauts a month later.

 

As for the defective spacesuit of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano, NASA said it will return part or all of the outfit early next year on a commercial SpaceX capsule. That will be the first opportunity to get cargo back on Earth. The three-person Russian Soyuz spacecraft used to ferry astronauts are too small for big extra pieces, and the Russian supply ships burn up upon re-entry, doubling as trash cans.

 

Spacewalking Cosmonauts Wave Russia's Flag in Orbit, Tackle Faulty Gear

 

Tariq Malik - Space.com

 

A misaligned piece of gear on the International Space Station caused headaches in orbit for two spacewalking cosmonauts Thursday, but they ultimately triumphed and even managed to celebrate Russia's Flag Day with orbital style.

 

Veteran cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin proudly waved a Russian flag while soaring 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth to celebrate Russia's Flag Day holiday, which just happened to coincide with their nearly six-hour spacewalk.

 

"Congratulations to everyone on this day of the Russian flag," Yurchikhin said as he waved the flag in space. "Please remember to value and respect it, and we will respect ourselves."

 

Yurchikhin and fellow cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin let loose three "hoorahs" as they posed for TV and still cameras. They joked that some viewers wouldn't believe they were in space as the flag floated around them.

 

"It's a wonderful day," Yurchikhin quipped. "Some people might think that this is actually a performance. That this is staged somewhere down there … this is in space, as real as it comes."

 

The light-hearted moment capped a long day in orbit for Yurchikhin and Misurkin, who began their spacewalk at 7:36 a.m. EDT (1136 GMT). They spent five hours and 58 minutes working outside on what was their second spacewalk in six days. The cosmonauts spent more than seven hours outside the station on Aug. 16, setting a new record for the longest Russian spacewalk.

 

Telescope mount and antenna checks

 

Soon after beginning their spacewalk, the cosmonauts ran into a big obstacle with their primary task — the installation of a swiveling platform that will eventually house two cameras for a new optical telescope. The base of the platform was misaligned, prompting concern in Russia's Mission Control that it could spoil plans for the new telescope.

 

"If the support for those cameras were not pointed in the right direction it could pose an issue for that experiment," NASA spokesman Pat Ryan said during spacewalk commentary.

 

Mission Control initially ordered Yurchikhin and Misurkin to return the swiveling platform to their airlock, but later decided that it could be installed on the station as-is. It turns out the swiveling platform can be moved into the proper alignment once it is installed, Ryan explained.

 

The cosmonauts tackled a series of other chores outside the space station during their spacewalk. They spent much time inspecting the protective covers of six low-gain antennas on the station's exterior. Flight controllers ordered the inspection after NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, who is also a crewmember, captured video of an unidentified object near the space station on Monday.

 

The object, engineers found, was a cover for one of the WAL antennas on the station's Russian-built Zvezda service module that help guide unmanned European cargo ships to dock at the orbiting lab. NASA officials said the loose cover, now space junk, posed no impact threat to the space station.

 

Yurchikhin and Misurkin checked six of the WAL antennas, finding the covers to several of them loose. They used screwdrivers to tighten the covers back into place, which was hard work in their bulky spacesuit gloves.

 

"Okay, they are tightened," Yurchikhin said after one particularly tough antenna check. "That was kind of a personal challenge for me."

 

Space music and jokes

 

At times, Mission Control piped in Russian music to entertain the cosmonauts as they went about their work in space.

 

"That song was great, thank you very much," one of the cosmonauts said.

 

"It was a little surprise," Mission Control radioed back.

 

"You see, the songs help us," a cosmonaut answered.

 

Later in the spacewalk, Misurkin used swaps to take biological samples along parts of a Russian airlock window as part of an experiment to see what types of bacteria can survive the harsh space environment. To the untrained observer, Misurkin's swabbing technique looked similar to cleaning the airlock window's frame.

 

"Well, I think all the windows are clean. I think we should wrap it up," Misurkin said.

 

The cosmonauts skipped only one task — the relocation of a foot restraint — during their spacewalk.

 

Thursday's spacewalk was the fifth of five planned spacewalks for the space station's current Expedition 36 crew. In addition to Yurchikhin, Misurkin and Cassidy, the station crew includes Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, American Karen Nyberg and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano.

 

It was the eighth career spacewalk for Yurchikhin, who finished the day with a cumulative total of 51 hours and 53 minutes and is now the fifth most-experienced spacewalker in history. The spacewalk was the third for Misurkin, who ended with 20 hours and one minute.

 

The spacewalk was also the 173rd dedicated to International Space Station maintenance or construction. Assembly of the space station began in 1998, with the first crew taking up residence in 2000. It has been continuously manned ever since by a series of rotating crews.

 

Italian astronaut recounts near-drowning during spacewalk

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

As his helmet filled with water, blurring his vision and cutting off radio communications, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano says his thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of drowning during a recent spacewalk outside the International Space Station.

 

Parmitano gave a blow-by-blow account of the terrifying incident, which occurred on July 16, in a blog published this week.

 

"I can't even be sure that the next time I breathe I will fill my lungs with air and not liquid," Parmitano wrote on the European Space Agency's website.

 

"It's vital that I get inside as quickly as possible ... but how much time do I have? It's impossible to know," he wrote.

 

NASA, which oversaw the spacewalk, is investigating the cause of Parmitano's helmet malfunction. Pieces of the failed spacesuit are due to be returned to Earth for analysis aboard an upcoming SpaceX Dragon cargo ship or Russian Soyuz capsule, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said.

 

Parmitano was setting up an internet cable between the space station's Unity connecting node and the Russian Zarya module when he noticed liquid collecting inside his helmet.

 

"The unexpected sensation of water at the back of my neck surprises me - and I'm in a place where I'd rather not be surprised," Parmitano wrote.

 

NASA says the water did not come from a drink bag in the space suit. Engineers are focusing on the suit's backpack, which holds a water storage tank for a liquid-cooled undergarment.

 

A week before the incident, Parmitano had become the first Italian astronaut to walk in space.

 

THURSDAY SPACEWALK

 

In a far more routine spacewalk on Thursday, two Russian cosmonauts floated outside the $100 billion research complex, which flies about 250 miles above Earth, to do some maintenance work.

 

Flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin left the Russian Pirs airlock at 7:34 a.m. EDT (1134 GMT) for their second spacewalk in less than a week.

 

Their main goal was to remove a laser communications system from outside the Zvezda module, the crew's main living compartment, and install a swiveling platform for a future telescope.

 

Yurchikhin and Misurkin removed the laser system, which had been used since 2011 for high-speed data transmissions from Russian science experiments to ground stations. But they ran into a problem as they prepared to install a base for a pair of cameras that comprise the new telescope.

 

The cosmonauts realized that if the base was attached as planned, the camera's steerable platform would have been misaligned, said a translator monitoring communications between the spacewalkers and Russian flight controllers.

 

Flight controllers told the spacewalkers to skip that work and bring the equipment into the airlock. They moved on to their next task - inspecting covers on antennas used to dock Europe's unmanned cargo ships after one cover was seen floating away from the station on Monday.

 

Halfway through their work tightening screws to keep the remaining covers in place, Russian flight controllers changed their minds and told the cosmonauts to retrieve the telescope platform from the airlock and go ahead with the installation.

 

"They realized the camera platform would only be out of alignment in the yaw axis, not in the roll or pitch axes," NASA mission commentator Pat Ryan, referring to the three directions of motion, said during a TV broadcast of the spacewalk by the U.S. space agency.

 

"They determined it would be possible to correct for that misalignment ... by using the pointing platform," he said.

 

Thursday's six-hour spacewalk came six days after a 7-1/2 hour outing by Yurchikhin and Misurkin, which set a Russian record. That spacewalk, as well as one that the cosmonauts made on June 24, were primarily to prepare the station for a new multipurpose Russian module that is scheduled for launch in December.

 

NASA plan to wrangle asteroid for study after slingshotting around moon

It hopes to have the mission completed by 2025

 

Julian Arenzon - New York Daily News

 

The real space cowboys are getting ready to ride.

 

For months NASA has been expressing an interest in capturing a nearby asteroid and putting it somewhere near the moon for the sake of studying it and harvesting samples. The space agency hopes to complete the mission by the year 2025.

 

NASA released a computer generated video Thursday demonstrating exactly how it plans to carry out the tall task of wrangling an asteroid.

 

Arbitrarily using music that is very similar to Hans Zimmer's 'Inception' soundtrack, in the video you can see that there are some immensely impressive plans in the works.

 

As the video demonstrates, the idea would be to have the Orion spacecraft undertake a nine-day trip to an asteroid that has been captured, a trip that would require the crew to slingshot their ship around the moon using its gravity to pick up speed.

 

Once they reach the asteroid, the astronauts will spacewalk onto the rock and take samples for study.

 

It's comforting to see that despite having a shoestring budget, which they probably blew on this 1990s looking animation; NASA has been dreaming big this past year. One can assume that going into space to put rocks in a bag is NASA's equivalent to collecting cans for the five-cent redemption.

 

NASA has a bit of competition when it comes to spacefaring, with private companies showing an interest in "boldly going" over the past few years. Google's Eric Schimdt and Larry Page, along with "Avatar" and "Aliens" director James Cameron, claimed last year that by 2022 they would begin space mining operations.

 

NASA releases animation of Michoud-built Orion asteroid mission

 

Mark Schleifstein - New Orleans Times Picayune

 

The plan to use an Orion spacecraft, being built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, to transport astronauts to an asteroid in orbit near the moon to collect samples of the space rock and then return to Earth is depicted in a new video animation released by NASA on Thursday.

 

The video animation was released as Congress continues to consider President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2014 budget for the agency, including money for the asteroid initiative. That initiative is part of $1.2 billion proposed to be spent on the agency's planetary space program, out of a total budget request of $17.7 billion.

 

The plan calls for NASA to capture what is considered a small asteroid -- about 30 feet long and weighing about 500 tons -- that now orbits Earth, and redirect it to orbit near the moon. That job would use a robotic space vehicle powered by solar electric propulsion that would approach the space rock and capture it in a collapsible fabric cage.

 

Once in its new location, the asteroid would become a target for astronaut missions as early as 2021, using the Orion spacecraft.

 

The idea behind the plan is to determine whether asteroids can be mined as a source of minerals and water, and to use the mission as a learning platform for manned missions to Mars, possibly in the 2030s.

 

The video and accompanying still images depict the capture of the asteroid and its investigation by astronauts during a spacewalk.

 

In July, NASA passed a preliminary design review of its Space Launch System, the huge rocket system that will launch the Orion capsule into space. The capsule is being built by Lockheed Martin. The 200-foot-high core stage also is being built at Michoud, by Boeing. NASA also has conducted a review of its asteroid mission plans, and is assessing more than 400 responses from industry, universities and the public to a request for ideas for the initiative.

 

The first major launch of the rocket and an unmanned capsule is scheduled for 2014, followed by an unmanned mission beyond the moon in 2017.

 

Dream Chaser takes captive-carry test flight in California

 

SpaceflightNow.com

 

 

One of the commercial vehicles vying to fill the void left by the retired space shuttles for carrying Americans into orbit from U.S. launch pads took to the skies over California's Edwards Air Force Base on Thursday for captive-carry testing.

 

Slung beneath a Sikorsky S-64 helicopter operated by Erickson Air Crane, the engineering test article of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft spent two hours over the military base in the high desert to check systems before upcoming landings.

 

The vehicle's flight computer, guidance, navigation and control systems, aerosurfaces were tested during the captive-carry. The landing gear and nose skid also were deployed during flight, officials said.

 

"Today is the first time we have flown a fully functional Dream Chaser flight vehicle, and we are very pleased with the results," said Mark Sirangelo, corporate vice president and head of SNC's Space Systems.

 

The event flew a distance of three miles over the dry lake bed at a maximum altitude of approximately 12,400 feet. Officials said spacecraft followed the projected path it will fly during future approach-and-landing tests.

 

"Our team represents the very best in collaboration between industry and government. We have worked closely with NASA, Dryden and the Air Force to reach this important milestone in our flight test program. We will continue to work together to prepare for the approach-and-landing free-flight test," said Sirangelo.

 

Analogous to development of the space shuttle orbiters, the prototype Enterprise conducted a series of captive-carry flights atop the 747 carrier aircraft in 1977 at Edwards, paving that way to five piloted free-flights to test the approach-and-landing aspects of the vehicle that year.

 

Dream Chaser, a reusable lifting body vehicle with wings, will be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying a crew of seven astronauts for docking to the International Space Station.

 

The vehicle then returns to Earth for landing on a conventional runway.

 

"We look forward to seeing Dream Chaser land on the same runway as the space shuttle orbiters once did as we move forward in the development of the next-generation crew transportation vehicle," said Sirangelo.

 

Dream Chaser is competing against capsules -- Boeing's CST-100 and the SpaceX Dragon -- in NASA's Commercial Crew program to resume U.S. human spaceflight launches in 2017, if the funding is provided by Congress.

 

Crews living aboard the space station have been launching on Russian Soyuz vehicles since the Columbia accident in 2003, with some limited single-crewmember rotations performed by the shuttles before their retirement in 2011.

 

Sierra Nevada plans to begin a series of free-flight tests at Edwards this fall. The initial landings will be automated, then progress into piloted ones.

 

"It's great to see real American-made hardware taking flight right here in the U.S.," said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager. "This is just the start of an exciting flight test campaign for SNC's Dream Chaser."

 

Recent work verified the spacecraft's computer and software systems, instrumentation and steering performance, and Dream Chaser's braking and landing systems through a series of ground tow tests.

 

"Watching Dream Chaser undergo tow testing on the same runway where we landed several space shuttle orbiters brings a great amount of pride to our Dream Chaser team. We are another step closer to restoring America's capability to return U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station," said Steve Lindsey, SNC's Space Systems senior director of programs and former NASA astronaut.

 

Sierra Nevada is eligible for $227.5 million in funding from NASA by completing 12 milestones through August 2014.

 

Dream Chaser airborne

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

Sierra Nevada conducted a captive carriage test flight of the Dream Chaser engineering test article on Aug 22 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, Calif, in preparation for the start of approach and landing free flight tests in September. The two-hour flight covered a three-mile route over the dry lake bed which the vehicle is expected to follow during its forthcoming free-flight.

 

The test, which saw the lifting body space vehicle lifted by a Sikorsky S-64 to around 12,400 ft above the dry lakebed, follows completion of tow tests earlier this month. The Dream Chaser performed four sets of slow and high speed ground tow tests since July with runs completed at 10 mph, 20 mph, 40 mph and 60 mph to verify integrated spacecraft performance under landing and rollout conditions.

 

Sierra Nevada says systems verifications included flight computer and flight software, instrumentation, guidance, navigation, and control, braking and steering performance, flight control surface actuation, mission control and remote commanding capability, and landing gear dynamics.

 

"The tests ensure the Dream Chaser would operate properly upon landing and that the spacecraft will come to a controlled stop after touching down on the runway," it adds.

 

Following the captive carry test, the evaluation will culminate with at least one approach and landing free flight test.

 

During the Aug 22 flight the Dream Chaser's flight computer, guidance, navigation and control systems were tested along with its landing gear and nose skid, which were deployed during the sortie.

 

Sierra Nevada is competing with the lifting body vehicle against alternative capsule designs developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Boeing, for NASA's commercial crew program under a $212.5 million Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) contract awarded in August 2012.

 

Sierra Nevada says it is on track to complete all 12 of its contractual CCiCap milestones by mid-2014. The Dream Chaser design is based primarily on NASA's HL-20 lifting body and is capable of carrying seven astronauts to orbit. The vehicle is designed to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 402.

 

Ford: Space robot research could help improve vehicle communications

 

Adam Rubenfire - Automotive News (Europe)

 

Ford's latest research project is out of this world.

 

Really. It's in space.

 

Ford Motor Co. is teaming up with researchers at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia to study communication between robots at the International Space Station and Earth in the hope of developing better systems for connected cars.

 

The three-year project will observe the communication models of robots in space to understand how vehicles can communicate better with other vehicles, the cloud and with such infrastructure elements as buildings and traffic lights. Such communication can prevent congestion, reduce accidents and deliver messages to drivers.

 

Researchers also hope to learn more about how emergency vehicle communications can be improved. For example, Ford's research looks at the potential of using vehicle-to-vehicle communication in the event an emergency message can't be sent from a vehicle to the cloud because of network failure. They say a call for help could travel through other vehicles and pieces of infrastructure until a connection to first responders is found.

 

"The research of fallback options and robust message networks is important," Oleg Gusikhin, technical leader in systems analytics for Ford, said in a statement. "If one network is down, alternatives need to be identified and strengthened to reliably propagate messages between networks."

 

Many of the technologies being used by robots on the space station -- including dedicated short-range communication, cellular LTE wireless broadband and mesh networking -- are in development or already being used in cars and other applications on Earth.

 

After studying the robots, Ford engineers hope to develop an algorithm that could be integrated into connected-car systems that would route messages through the appropriate network based on its urgency. Emergency messages would travel through faster, reliable connections, while entertainment-related messages might use networks with a lower priority.

 

The robots that the researchers will work with include the JUSTIN Humanoid, EUROBOT Ground Prototype and NASA Robonaut R2.

 

Ford Thinks Russian Space Robots Could Help Make Your Car Safer

 

Damon Lavrinc - Wired.com

 

Few things are more important than a reliable connection in space. The communication system between the International Space Station and Earth is one of the most robust ever created. And that's why Ford is tapping Russian researchers to learn how they maintain the flow of information to both the systems and their robot caretakers, and then apply it to create safer cars that talk to one another.

 

For the next three years, Ford is partnering with the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University in Russia to study how its communication models with robots in space could influence more terrestrial undertakings like vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications here at home.

 

Mesh networks — combining a series of communication protocols into one cohesive system — is going to be the key to creating an accident-free future. But ensuring those networks are always functioning is a challenge.

 

If a car's data connection is damaged in a crash or a network connected traffic light is struck by a vehicle, there need to be redundancies in the system. By analyzing how communications are sent to space in the wake of a system outage, Ford hopes to create an emergency messaging protocol that could keep drivers, their cars, and emergency teams informed by bouncing the information around the damaged vehicle or infrastructure.

 

"The research of fallback options and robust message networks is important," said Oleg Gusikhin, one of Ford's technical leaders in systems analytics. "If one network is down, alternatives need to be identified and strengthened to reliably propagate messages between networks."

 

Ford will be studying how it can use multiple communications protocols — everything from dedicated short-range systems to LTE — to keep the information flowing, as well as to prioritize one message over another. An emergency signal could be routed through a faster mesh network, while your Spotify stream would go through something less crucial.

 

But while it's certainly an impressive undertaking, it's disheartening Ford has to go all the way to Russia to make it happen.

 

Commercial space flights gearing-up for lift-off

Suborbital space flights are just the beginning of a new frontier for the tourism industry

 

Jamie Carter - South China Morning Post

 

Most of us have read "1,001 places to visit before you die" and other such morbidly titled lists. But none of these yet include a trip to suborbital space. Yet space is the travel industry's next big destination - and those suborbital holidays may be starting sooner than you think.

 

So far Virgin Galactic, part owned by British industrialist Richard Branson, has gathered more than HK$500 million in deposits from 600 people intent on a ride on its SpaceShipTwo. It will carry six passengers at a time on an "out-of-the-seat" zero-gravity experience into the black of space at a cost of HK$1.9 million for a two-hour trip.

 

That price includes training at a centrifuge facility and zero-gravity parabolic flights. It might sound outrageously expensive, but fewer than 600 people have ever visited space. So doubling that figure, however long it takes, will represent a giant leap for mankind.

 

Virgin Galactic will become the world's first commercial "spaceline" when its first passenger flight takes off. That may happen later this year. But although it's tempting to do so, don't confuse space flight with a ride in a very high aircraft.

 

The figures underline the difference; while a commercial airline cruises at 11 kilometres, SpaceShipTwo will breach the 100 kilometre Kármán line - the division between the earth's atmosphere and space - to reach an altitude of 110 kilometres.

 

It's an expensive place to visit, largely because you have to be travelling at 16,000 km/h to reach it. Testing is still in progress, but in April, Virgin Galactic completed its first rocket-powered flight - which including supersonic Mach 1.2 speeds - from its base at Spaceport America in Mojave, New Mexico.

 

SpaceShipTwo was launched by piggy-backing on carrier craft WhiteKnightTwo. The two crafts separated at 14,325 metres, and the rocket motor was fired for 16 seconds propelling SpaceShip Two to 16,765 metres. But that's far short of the Kármán line.

 

Still, it looks likely that the Virgin ticket holders - rumoured to include Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Rubens Barrichello, as well as Branson and his children - will soon kick-start a new trend in travel. If you want to join them, head down to Miramar Travel in Causeway Bay Plaza, an accredited "Space Agent", to buy your ticket.

 

Virgin Galactic isn't the only company preparing out-of-this-world itineraries. The Space Expedition Corporation, also based at Spaceport America, is charging HK$736,000 per ticket for each of just two seats in its liquid rocket-powered Lynx vehicle. This takes off alone and lands horizontally.

 

That price includes medical screening and G-force training, even though the Lynx offers a flight of just 45 minutes, which includes just a few minutes in space. It could be visiting space four times a day from next year.

 

A third option comes from SHIPinSPACE UK, which initially plans to take 48 - and eventually 96 - passengers on a weekly outing to the edge of space in a liquid rocket engine-powered suborbital plane. The design, by three aerospace engineers, features three floors of four pods, each carrying four passengers, at an initial cost of HK$388,000 per passenger.

 

"We are looking to launch within five years," says Rob Lowe, head of SHIPinSPACE UK (CEO Fabrizio Boer is in charge of the actual vehicle). "We have the technology to host a large number of passengers, and a new space industry will take place after our enterprise."

 

SHIPinSPACE UK, which is hoping to launch from Britain, is part of a trend in space tourism that's beginning to get noticed. The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) recognised its emergence in its latest annual report on travel trends. "Cost is likely to prohibit this becoming anything but a travel trend for the mega rich in the immediate future," reads the report, "but it is certainly a landmark event for the travel industry."

 

"Space tourism is going to be worth billions, and to be in at the start is great," Lowe says. "In 15 years' time we'll think nothing of receiving a ticket on Father's Day to shoot us up into outer space and back. There will be no shortage of people who wish to be space tourists, when many high safety and low cost vehicles are available. This is our mission."

 

Such space tourism does beg the obvious question: why do people want to go? There is nothing in space, hence the name. There's the rarity value; some people love to boast about where they've been, and there is no more exotic a destination than the edge of space.

 

But the simple answer is the view. All who've left the planet, from the Apollo crew to astronauts on the International Space Station, such as Chris "Major Tom" Hadfield, have said that seeing earth from space provides a lasting memory.

 

Even bigger plans come from the original space tourist, Dennis Tito, the US rocket scientist and millionaire who spent US$20 million of his own money back in 2001 for a week-long trip to the International Space Station. Twelve years on, his plans to send two astronauts to Mars have been making headlines. The pair will have to fight intense radiation, muscle wastage and the unknown psychological consequences of being adrift in a toilet-sized capsule. Some holiday.

 

Ditto the much more ambitious and expensive Mars One mission, a US$6 billion plan by the Netherlands-based company that requires expats rather than holidaymakers. Mars One plans to begin colonising the Red Planet in 2023 by sending four astronauts on a one-way mission.

 

So far more than 100,000 people from all over the world have applied for 40 jobs. This includes 10,000 from the mainland, though only two from Hong Kong. The process is detailed in One Way Astronaut, a HK$23-per-view online documentary produced to help fund the project. Seven years' training in Martian self-sufficiency awaits.

 

Mars One says that supplies, along with four more astronauts, will be sent every two years until the colony numbers 40.

 

Space tourism proper promises to be less risky, but no less impressive. "Once suborbital flights become popular, a new launcher can be developed for trips around the moon," says Lowe, who thinks the moon will eventually be colonised.

 

Before that, trips to space will become longer, and a new private International Space Station will likely become a tourist destination, too. "Maybe Star Trek fans will build an Enterprise up there," Lowe adds.

 

One-way Mars trip attracts 165,000 would-be astronauts ... and counting

 

Alan Boyle - NBCNews.com

 

The Dutch-based Mars One venture says more than 165,000 people around the world have voiced interest in a one-way trip to the Red Planet — and there's still more than a week left for more would-be astronauts to join in.

 

"The response to the first round of the astronaut selection program has been tremendous," Norbert Kraft, Mars One's chief medical officer, said in a news release updating the tally on Thursday. "We now have a large group of applicants from where we can start our search."

 

Watch the trailer for "One Way Astronaut," a documentary about Mars One applicants.

 

After the Aug. 31 deadline passes, Mars One will review the applications to decide who goes on to the next round of the selection process.

 

"We'll select the good ones for Round 2 — this will be the job interview round," Bas Lansdorp, the venture's co-founder and CEO, told NBC News in an email. "There is no fixed upper limit. ... We expect to announce who passes to Round 2 within two or three months, depending on how many people apply in these last 10 days."

 

Those who go on to the second round will be asked to provide medical data and undergo interviews by local selection committees. Mars One says the third round would involve regional-level, reality-TV contests, in which 20 to 40 applicants will participate in the sorts of challenges they might face during a mission to Mars. Think of these televised contests as "American Idol" auditions, but for spaceflight rather than singing. In each region, the audience could select one of the finalists, and Mars One experts would choose the others.

 

Round 4 would bring the regional finalists together for preliminary training at a Mars-style habitat on Earth — a facility like the simulated Mars settlements in Utah, Hawaii and the Canadian Arctic. Then there'd be a global reality-TV extravaganza, resulting in the selection of six four-person crews.

 

Those crews would begin full-time training in 2015 for launches scheduled to begin in 2022. Meanwhile, Mars One would use robots to build up infrastructure and communication links on Mars. The organizer would continue to call for more applicants to "replenish the training pool regularly."

 

You can't go 'home' again

 

The concept behind Mars One doesn't include bringing crews back from Mars. Instead, they'd make their home on the Red Planet and blaze a trail for permanent settlement. Mars One's organizers say it'd be logistically unworkable to guarantee a return trip to Earth.

 

In Thursday's status report, Kraft emphasized that the crew selection process wasn't limited to pilots and engineers. "Don't disqualify yourself too easily," he said. "If you wish to be a Mars pioneer despite of the risks and challenges that come with this job, you are already more qualified than most people on this planet. It is most important that you are healthy and have the right mindset."

 

All this costs money, of course. Lansdorp and his colleagues intend to raise billions of dollars through TV deals, sponsorships and donations — as well as application fees. The fees are set on a nation-by-nation sliding scale, ranging from $5 (for Somalians) to $73 (for Qataris). Americans are supposed to pay a $38 fee.

 

Lansdorp said no additional fees would be sought from those advancing from the first to the second round.

 

Americans in the lead

 

Mars One said Thursday that Americans made up the largest group of applicants — 37,852, or 23 percent. The fees from that many Americans would amount to $1.4 million, but it's not clear whether all of them have paid up and completed their applications. The second-largest contingent is the Chinese, followed by the Brazilians, Indians and Russians. Signups have come from 140 countries, Mars One said.

 

Not all of the applicants really have their heart set on making Mars their future home. Science-fiction author David Brin, for example, sent in his money but doesn't expect to be selected for a Mars One contest. He'd be more interested in going on the 501-day Red Planet flyby that a different private venture called Inspiration Mars is planning for 2018. But in Brin's view, the most important thing is to support efforts that get America back into a forward-looking, frontier-settling mindset.

 

"My agenda is to see if we can goose our nation out of the awful funk it's in," Brin told NBC News. "The Mars missions symbolize the possibility that perhaps we might find our guts again."

 

Spysats for Everyone

Swarms of small, orbiting cameras are coming. To watch.

 

Tony Reichhardt - Air & Space Smithsonian Magazine (September 2013 issue)

 

Four years ago, Wade Larson's then-employer—Vancouver-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates—sent him and a colleague to Moscow to brainstorm ideas for observing Earth from space. The Russian company Energia was looking for joint projects it could do from its segment of the International Space Station, and had invited MDA, a blue-chip aerospace company with lots of experience in remote sensing, to partner in something.

 

What came to Larson's mind was a bird's nest—specifically an eagle's nest on Hornby Island, off Vancouver, where a live webcam, running 24/7, had attracted millions of Internet viewers. If the public would gaze at a screen for hours mesmerized by pictures of baby eagles, Larson figured, maybe they'd watch scenes of Earth beamed down live from orbit. All you had to do was attach a camera to the outside of the station and leave it running.

 

"The Russians loved it," he says, and he took the idea back to his bosses in Canada. This November, two of Larson's cameras will be attached to the Zvezda module on the ISS by spacewalking cosmonauts, as the private venture of a small Vancouver company called UrtheCast, co-founded by Larson to keep his unorthodox project alive after MDA decided not to pursue it.

 

If you like those time-lapse movies taken by orbiting astronauts, the ones showing auroras glowing and lightning storms flashing as the station glides serenely over the planet, you'll love UrtheCast's videos.

 

Two cameras will point straight down from the ISS altitude, about 250 miles, filming whatever is happening on Earth directly below them. One will take five-meter-resolution pictures (showing details 16 feet or larger), and the other will shoot higher-resolution (1.1-meter), high-definition video at three frames per second. Each video scene will show a patch of ground, about two by three miles, for about 90 seconds, says Larson. "We'll collect 150 of those videos every day…. You'll see true movement [on the ground]."

 

Because the station's ground track shifts as it orbits 16 times a day, coverage of any particular location will be irregular, though frequent. For a mid-latitude city like Vancouver, the revisit rate is something like 900 times a year, according to Larson. Not every pass will produce usable pictures. Still, the UrtheCast images will be far sharper than the time-lapse views shot by astronauts. They'll be almost (but not quite) a video version of the satellite view in Google Maps, with dot-like cars driving down the street, except that you'll see your neighborhood the way it looked last Friday, not five years ago.

 

"From a space-borne platform, this is utterly unique," says Larson.

 

UrtheCast is just one of the companies poised to take Earth imaging into a new era of frequent coverage, low cost, and wider public access. The new ventures are capitalizing on improvements in small satellite technology—long promised, but now becoming real—and the government's easing of restrictions on the sale of images once produced only by spysats.

 

Just as important, the companies are applying modern, Google-era search tools to that imagery, making it easier to use and interpret for those of us who aren't CIA analysts. Mapbox of Washington, D.C. is offering current map data and satellite images produced by others, with pricing plans starting at $5 a month for 10,000 "map views." "Our goal is to have live imagery for publishing within six hours of an event, anywhere in the world," says the company's website.

 

What's new here is not picture quality. UrtheCast's one-meter-resolution pictures—good enough to make out cars in parking lots—will be far from the sharpest imagery on the commercial market. DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colorado, sells pictures (to the U.S. government and Google, among others) that are twice as good. But only a few high-paying customers get to see the current stuff.

 

Now anyone will. Starting next year, you'll be able to watch online, for free, HD videos from UrtheCast's cameras almost as soon as they're sent down from the ISS. The company will pin the videos to a base map that will fill in over time with all kinds of scenes, from momentous to trivial. "So you might see the president's inauguration, the Springsteen concert, the Super Bowl," says Larson. "Some things will have no social and redeeming value, just sort of silly things. Others will be more important—say, the riots in Egypt's Tahrir Square or Hurricane Sandy. Our hope is that these videos go completely viral, that they create a unique kind of water-cooler event for people around the world."

 

Having already raised $55 million, UrtheCast recently joined the Toronto Stock Exchange, and Larson expects his staff of 30 to grow to 80, with new offices in Russia and the United States. They already have an office in San Francisco, where the all-important Web interface is being designed.

 

Compared to past remote sensing ventures, the new ones have hardware costs that are absurdly low. UrtheCast's first two cameras, built by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England, cost $15 million. Digital Globe's GeoEye-1 satellite, launched in 2008, cost nearly half a billion dollars to build and launch, and GeoEye-2, which was planned for launch this year but is now on hold, was even more expensive.

 

Larson doesn't claim UrtheCast's videos will compete with Digital Globe's high-resolution pictures. Still, he says, "we will collect obscene amounts of data, obscene amounts. Our vision is to cherry-pick some of it for customers that want to buy it. And enormous amounts of it we'll put up on our website for free." He's not sure exactly how people will use it, or what secondary applications might develop when they start playing with the raw data. "Candidly, we don't know where this is going to go. We're going to experiment."

 

Another player in the new market, Skybox Imaging of Mountain View, California, plans a constellation of 24 small Earth-imaging satellites, each weighing just 220 pounds, about 1/20 of what GeoEye-1 weighs. According to the company's website, the satellites will "capture high-resolution imagery and the first-ever HD video of any spot on Earth, multiple times per day." Skybox plans to start launching on a Russian Dnepr rocket by the end of the year.

 

Maybe the most radical of the new wave of remote sensing ventures is Planet Labs, based in San Francisco. By the end of the year, the company intends to launch 28 of its Dove satellites, each the size of a toaster oven, into a low orbit similar to the space station's, where they'll be strung out, evenly spaced, like pearls. They'll overlook most of the populated world below 52 degrees latitude (from London to the tip of South America), with frequent revisit times for any one location as Earth turns below (the company is still working out the details, and won't disclose the exact frequency).

 

The 12-inch cubesats are packed with cheap but capable technology, like high-quality solar cells scavenged, literally, from scraps on the factory floor where larger, more expensive arrays are made, and X-band radio packages adapted from Wi-Fi components. The cameras use off-the-shelf optics, which, on such a tiny spacecraft, can manage only images with a resolution of three to five meters. That's okay with Planet Labs. By limiting their first generation of satellites to medium resolution, they sidestep privacy concerns. "Users are able to see the canopy of a tree but cannot identify individual cars or persons," the company is careful to point out on its website.

 

Steve Jurvetson of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, who has made Forbes magazine's "Midas List" of tech investors three years in a row (a major backer of Elon Musk's SpaceX and Tesla, he owns the first Tesla Model S to roll off the assembly line), joined other investors in a $13 million round of financing for Planet Labs. Jurvetson says his firm looked at many of the new Earth imaging startups and was attracted to Planet Labs for several reasons. One was the team. Two of the founders, Will Marshall and Chris Boshuizen, came from NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. There they worked on small satellite projects, culminating in the launch of three "PhoneSats"—tiny spacecraft built around barely modified Android phones, launched last April to test how far you could push the DIY, off-the-shelf approach to space hardware. Pretty far, it turns out. The PhoneSats—named Alexander, Graham, and Bell—worked fine, and even took decent pictures from orbit.

 

Marshall and Boshuizen, along with partner and fellow NASA alum Robbie Schingler, brought that same mindset to Planet Labs, which they formed (originally as Cosmogia, Inc.) in 2010. The first two prototype Doves were launched in April, within two days of each other, on two different rockets. Both performed flawlessly. Marshall says that when he showed the test pictures to photo-reconnaissance experts, including some with spysat experience, they were "absolutely astonished" at the quality produced by such a tiny satellite. "They saw it previously as almost a toy," he says.

 

Jurvetson is also attracted to Planet Labs' original approach to designing constellations of satellites. With cheap, assembly-line spacecraft and launch costs for the smallest ones around $300,000 and dropping, you can start to think in terms of what he calls "disposable satellites." So what if the Dove "flock"—yes, that's what it's called—orbits so low that atmospheric drag will bring the satellites down sooner than typical Earth-viewing spacecraft (GeoEye-1 is nearly 200 miles higher)? Low orbit is a good thing. It gives you better resolution with a small camera. It solves the orbital debris worry—no need to actively deorbit the Doves so they don't add to the space junk problem. And because the satellites have to be replaced regularly, the technology stays current.

 

What about the data collected by these shiny new things—who will buy it? Kevin O'Connell, who heads a Washington consulting firm called Innovative Analytics and Training and chairs the Department of Commerce's Commercial Remote Sensing Advisory Committee, worries about the market. With a background in photo intelligence, he is as impressed as Marshall's astonished spysat veterans by what these new smallsats can do in terms of image quality. But producing lots of new pictures won't spell success unless there's a solid business plan, he says. "If there's one thing we've learned in the satellite business, it's that 'Build it and they will come' will not happen." Companies like UrtheCast and Skybox say they'll pursue all possibilities for making money, from selling data to farmers monitoring the health of their crops to selling ads on websites where (they hope) millions will tune in to watch videos.

 

However the imagery market develops, O'Connell and many others watching this field agree that as lots of current, high-quality Earth images are produced, for free or very low cost, we could be on the verge of a revolution, as transformative to society as GPS and Google maps have been.

 

Marshall seems aware of the power this technology could unleash. A self-described "peacenik," he wants his company to be a positive force for humanitarians and environmentalists, although he expects to make money too. Planet Labs' website, with promises to "Do Good. Be Responsible. Provide Open Information," echoes the Google philosophy.

 

Here's one way Marshall sees the Dove images being used: Even if the cameras aren't sharp enough to identify individuals, they will be able to notice when holes in the Amazonian forest suddenly open up. Today's infrequent satellite coverage shows illegal logging only after the fact, when it's too late to stop it. Marshall says: "What we want to do is provide data that enable people to act. 'Oh, there's some people today, at this latitude and longitude, doing logging in the Amazon. Let's go and stop them.' "

 

In November, the UrtheCast cameras will go up to the space station on a Progress-M cargo vehicle, and spacewalking cosmonauts will attach them to the outside of the Zvezda module. Skybox and Planet Labs hope to be launching their first satellites around the same time.

 

By early next year, all of them will be clicking away from orbit, sending down terabytes of image data to dishes on the ground, all day every day, for anyone to view. Expect more Earth-viewing smallsats in the future, ever more capable and growing in number.

 

If you've got something to hide, you'd better bring it inside.

 

NASA, Space Center announce plans for shuttle carrier exhibit

 

Alex Macon - Galveston County Daily News

 

 

When NASA ended the space shuttle program in 2011, it announced that retired orbiters would be sent to museums in California, Florida, Washington and New York.

 

Many Texans and officials at Johnson Space Center, the historic home of human spaceflight, felt understandably snubbed.

 

At least in part to prove that everything is bigger in Texas, NASA and Space Center Houston representatives responded Thursday by elaborating on plans to build a six-story, $12 million educational attraction at the spaceflight museum. "Texas' newest landmark" will feature a space shuttle replica perched atop NASA 905, the massive Boeing 747 jetliner used to transport real orbiters.

 

At Ellington Field, U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, Pete Olson, Steve Stockman and Randy Weber presented a resolution commending the landmark and honoring Texas' role in the history of U.S. spaceflight.

 

It may not be a shuttle, but visitors will be able to enter the shuttle carrier aircraft and mock-up in full transport configuration. Guests at the exhibit will look out the same windows and see through the eyes of every astronaut in the shuttle program, Olson said.

 

"In many ways, we've gotten the best deal," Olson said.

 

On Thursday, elected officials, Space Center Houston board members, former astronauts and other members of the space industry toured the shuttle carrier aircraft and saw designs of the planned exhibit.

 

The plans call for the 747 to be filled with interactive attractions, including on-screen mission simulators and a station that will allow visitors and students to plan their own space missions. It will also include classrooms and an orientation theater showcasing the history of the shuttle program.

 

Melanie Johnson, director of education at Space Center Houston, said the exhibit would guide students toward learning about science, technology, engineering and math.

 

"Millions and millions of kids will marvel at this," Johnson said. "(The exhibit) promises purposeful, meaningful education for years to come."

 

Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa said the finished exhibit would serve as a reminder of NASA's past accomplishments, as well as its present and future.

 

It should also be a boon to tourism in the area.

 

"It's a display that I believe is destined to become the No. 1 attraction in Texas," Ochoa said.

 

The full shuttle transport attraction is slated to open in 2015. In May, NASA officially transferred ownership of the carrier to Space Center Houston, which is already home to the shuttle mock-up.

 

Before the "queen of the skies" makes its 5-mile trip from Ellington Field to Space Center Houston, Boeing will disassemble the enormous airplane – it's 231 feet long and 63 feet tall and has a 195-foot wingspan. The various sections will be trucked to Space Center Houston and reassembled on site.

 

To pay for the $12 million project, Space Center Houston is conducting the largest fundraising campaign in its history. Fred Griffin, a member of the center's board, said it had reached more than half its goal.

 

The exhibit will be far more than just two aircraft sitting on top of each other, Griffin said.

 

"It will be one of the most unique learning laboratories on the planet."

 

NASA's shuttle-ferrying jumbo jet to go on display with Boeing's help

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

A NASA jumbo jet that for more than three decades ferried space shuttles across the country is now being readied for its own move, thanks to the support from the aerospace company that originally built the iconic Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).

 

On Thursday, Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas, announced The Boeing Company will provide the needed disassembly and reassembly of the modified Boeing 747 jet so that it can be featured in a new $12 million, six-story educational attraction.

 

"Boeing was involved in every stage of the space shuttle program, which encompassed the ferried flights of NASA's orbiters across America for more than 35 years," stated John Elbon, Boeing vice president and general manager of space exploration. "Now we have an opportunity to extend that contribution, while upholding one of our strongest corporate commitments — to inspire the next-generation workforce."

 

"We are proud the SCA will have its new home at Space Center Houston, adjacent [to] the Johnson Space Center, home of America's human spaceflight program," he added.

 

NASA transferred ownership of the aircraft, known by its tail number NASA 905, to Space Center Houston in May. The 231-foot-long (70 meters) Shuttle Carrier Aircraft is 63 feet tall (19 m) and has a wingspan of 195 feet (59 m). Intact, it is too large to navigate the five miles (8 km) of city roads that separate Ellington Field, where it landed in October 2012, from the visitor center, where it'll be placed on permanent display.

 

Boeing is now in the process of analyzing the scope of the work needed to disassemble the historic aircraft, including sourcing the special tooling that will be required. After its wings and vertical stabilizer, or tail, have been detached, the airplane will be transported on trailers to Space Center Houston, where it will then be reassembled on site.

 

Once the SCA pieced together, a high-fidelity, full-scale mockup of the space shuttle — which arrived at Space Center Houston in June 2012 — will be mounted on top of the aircraft in the same configuration that the real orbiters were ferried. Space Center Houston plans to erect a tower structure, including an elevator, to provide the public with walk-through access to the interiors of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and the orbiter replica.

 

"Thanks to Boeing's generous contribution, we will be able to produce an unparalleled attraction that'll showcase the wonders of NASA's innovation and technology," Richard Allen, president and CEO of Space Center Houston, said. "Once it's complete, the 747 [Shuttle Carrier Aircraft] will become a vehicle of inspiration, lending her wings to the dreams of imaginative students."

 

The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft attraction is slated to debut in 2015.

 

All aboard

 

When the aircraft opens to the public, visitors to Space Center Houston will have the opportunity to learn about the role the Boeing 747 jet served from inside the plane.

 

"The bulkheads of the 747 will house teaching facilities, immersive experiences, and rare artifacts that will thrill students, [exposing them to] the technical achievements of this historic program," Allen said.

 

After riding an elevator to the main deck of the aircraft, guests will step out into a large-scale cyclorama theater surrounding a quarter-scale model of the shuttle mounted atop the SCA. Moving clouds projected across the walls and floor will serve as the backdrop for inspirational words, flight facts and quotes from individuals who were involved in the shuttle program.

 

As guests move toward the front of the aircraft, they will encounter a multimedia presentation about the history of NASA 905, its design and its role in the shuttle program. Using "hologram" rear-projection technology, visitors will be able to virtually meet the crew who flew the SCA, as well as the engineers who modified the aircraft for its use during the shuttle program.

 

Behind the theater there will be an area devoted to further delving into the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft's history. Dynamic photos, archival film footage, and scale models will join a 55-inch (140-centimeter) multi-touch display deck, where visitors will be able to access the schematic designs of the aircraft before and after it was modified, as well as see what alternative options were considered to transport the shuttle.

 

The gesture-controlled display will also include an in-depth archive of film, photographs, drawings and mission-related information from NASA 905's three decades of service.

 

From there, visitors can ascend the 747's original stairway to see into the aircraft's cockpit and its shuttle attachment reinforcements.

 

Back on the main deck and towards the rear of the SCA will be presented a series of "simulation stations" that will invite guests to experience the planning and training that both the flight and ground crews underwent in preparation for shuttle ferry flights. A virtual control room, wind-testing station and a flight simulation are planned.

 

Famous ferry

 

Built in 1970 and acquired from American Airlines in 1974, the original Shuttle Carrier Aircraft flew in wake vortex research studies at NASA's Flight Research Center (now the Dryden Flight Research Center) at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., before being modified by Boeing for its new role as an SCA. It carried the prototype shuttle Enterprise aloft in 1977 and released it five times for piloted approach and landing tests.

 

Renamed NASA 905, the aircraft then underwent further modifications for the ferry flight role it would have for more than three decades. Reaching a speed of Mach 0.6 (or 457 miles per hour), it flew 70 of the 87 ferry flights during the shuttle program, including 46 of the 54 post-mission flights from NASA Dryden to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 

NASA 905's last service to the space shuttle program was ferrying Enterprise and the space-flown orbiters Discovery and Endeavour, to their retirement homes in New York, Virginia and Los Angeles in 2012. It then departed NASA Dryden for the last time Oct. 24, 2012, flying to Ellington Field to await its final retirement and disposition.

 

NASA 905's final time aloft was a pilot proficiency flight in December 2012.

 

END