Fwd: Human Spaceflight (and Hubble) News - September 23, 2013 and JSC Today

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: September 23, 2013 5:54:00 AM GMT-06:00
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: Human Spaceflight (and Hubble) News - September 23, 2013 and JSC Today

Happy Monday everyone.   A couple of updates on the potential retirement snapshot I sent out last week.

Skip Hatfield has decided not to leave just yet.   And I forgot to mention that Oron Schmidt was not on the snapshot—this is Orons last week with NASA with over 49 years of service.

 

 

 

 

Monday, September 23, 2013

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JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Organizations/Social -  RSVP While You Can - Due 9 a.m. Today Community -  Astronomy Day

Astronaut Chris Cassidy

 

Organizations/Social RSVP While You Can - Due 9 a.m. Today Through no fault of your own (oops, we apologize for the short notice!), you only have until 9 a.m. this morning to RSVP for the September JSC National Management Association (NMA) luncheon featuring Jillian Howard, CCISD and Region IV elementary teacher of the year. Howard is on her way to find out if she will be crowned Texas' teacher of the year. Before those results are out, come listen as she speaks to the JSC NMA's theme for 2013-2014:  "Challenge Yourself to Lead" When: This Wednesday, Sept. 25 Time: 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom Cost for members: Free! Cost for non-members: $20 There are three great menu options: Flounder Piccata (sautéed filet topped with lemon caper dressing, steamed garlic spinach and basmati rice) London Broil with Chimichurri Sauce (grilled balsamic flank steak served with parsley and Chimichurri sauce) Tortellini and Roasted Portobello in a Blush Sauce (cheese-filled tortellini tossed with roasted Portobello, tomato cream sauce and fresh thyme) Please RSVP by 9 a.m. TODAY with your menu selection. We know … so little time! But again, you will be glad you did. Event Date: Wednesday, September 25, 2013   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom Add to Calendar Catherine Williams x33317 http://www.jscnma.com/Events [top]    Community Astronomy Day Astronomy Day is Oct. 12 at the George Observatory inside Brazos Bend State Park. Daytime activities for the kids include face painting and learning the phases of the moon by eating Oreo cookies. There are outdoor and indoor speakers on various astronomy-related topics, a how-to-make-a-comet demo and telescopes set up to safely observe the sun. Once nighttime arrives, out come all the telescopes! Up to 35 will be set up for observing the moon, star clusters and nebulae, and there's an opportunity to go inside the observatory's three telescope domes. The Astronomy Day event starts at 3 p.m. and goes (clouds or shine) until 10:30 p.m., but telescope viewing may be impacted by weather. Concessions are available. Come have a fun-filled day and learn a little astronomy in the process. It's a great time for the whole family! Normal park entry fees apply, but Astronomy Day is FREE! Event Date: Saturday, October 12, 2013   Event Start Time:3:00 PM   Event End Time:10:30 PM Event Location: George Observatory inside Brazos Bend State Park Add to Calendar Jim Wessel x41128 http://www.astronomyday.net/ [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: www.nasa.gov/ntv

·                     11 am Central (Noon EDT) – Video File of E37/38 crew activities & Soyuz integration/rollout

·         3:30 am Central TUESDAY* (4:30 EDT) – Cygnus rndv, capture & berthing coverage

·         ~6:25 am Central TUESDAY* (7:25 EDT) – Cygnus capture (berth to Harmony +3½ hrs)

·         ~Noon Central TUESDAY* (1 pm EDT) –Cygnus post-berthing news conference

 

*Station program MMT meets this morning to review/approve the Cygnus rendezvous plan

 

Human Spaceflight News

Monday – September 23, 2013

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

 

Commercial cargo ship aborts station approach

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A commercial cargo ship making its maiden flight to the International Space Station aborted its initial approach to the lab complex early Sunday because of suspect navigation data. Officials with Orbital Sciences Corp., builder of the Cygnus cargo craft, said engineers quickly identified the problem and were developing a software patch, but another approach was on hold until Tuesday.

 

Computer mishap delays space station supply ship

 

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

 

A brand new commercial cargo ship making its orbital debut experienced trouble with a computer data link Sunday, and its arrival at the International Space Station was delayed at least two days. The rendezvous was aborted less than six hours before the scheduled arrival of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus capsule, packed with 1,300 pounds of food and clothes for the space station crew. The Virginia-based company said it is working on a software repair, but it will be at least two more days until another approach is attempted.

 

Software problem delays cargo ship arrival at space station

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

A software glitch will delay Orbital Sciences' trial cargo ship from reaching the International Space Station until Tuesday, officials said on Sunday. The company's Cygnus capsule, which blasted off Wednesday from Virginia for a test flight, had been scheduled to reach the station on Sunday. However, about six hours before the capsule was due to dock, a computer software problem caused Cygnus to reject navigation data radioed from the station, Orbital Sciences wrote in a status report on its website.

 

Orbital's Cygnus rendezvous with Space Station delayed by troubled data exchange

 

Mark Carreau - Aviation Week

 

NASA's Mission Control early Sunday called for a delay of at least 48 hours in the docking of Orbital Science Corp's Cygnus re-supply craft with the International Space Station. A patch to fix discrepancies in navigation software of the two spacecraft discovered at 1:30 a.m., EDT, is under way, according to statements from both NASA and Orbital Sciences. The new patch will be tested Sunday in a Cygnus ground-based simulator, and then transmitted to the orbiting freighter, which was otherwise operating as expected. In orbit testing of the software patch is planned Sunday night and early Monday.

 

Cygnus rendezvous with ISS postponed until Tuesday

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp. have postponed until at least Tuesday a rendezvous between the new Cygnus cargo freighter and the International Space Station due to a data link problem. The rendezvous had been planned Sunday, when the unmanned Cygnus flew within about 2.5 miles of the orbiting research complex. Orbital said the Cygnus's approach was interrupted after it established contact with the station around 1:30 a.m.

 

Data glitch postpones Cygnus berthing with International Space Station

 

Tamara Dietrich - Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

The astronauts will have to wait — an unexpected data glitch postponed by 48 hours the Cygnus spacecraft's scheduled berthing with the International Space Station, officials said early Sunday. The unmanned commercial cargo craft made its approach as scheduled in the wee hours, but encountered an issue in some of the data it received from the station, said Barron Beneski, spokesman at Orbital Sciences Corp., which developed the Cygnus and its Antares rocket booster.

 

Cygnus rendezvous aborted due to data link issue

 

Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com

 

A commercial Cygnus cargo spacecraft, owned and operated by Orbital Sciences Corp., aborted its rendezvous with the International Space Station on Sunday after the automated spaceship encountered a data glitch before commencing final approach. The Cygnus resupply vehicle flew about 2.5 miles below the space station and will set up its trajectory to try to approach the complex again early Tuesday.

 

Private Cygnus Cargo Ship Aborts First Space Station Approach

 

Tariq Malik - Space.com

 

A new robotic commercial cargo ship for the International Space Station skipped its first attempt to link up with the orbiting lab Sunday due to a rendezvous glitch that delayed the spacecraft's arrival for at least 48 hours, NASA officials say. The unmanned Cygnus spacecraft built by Orbital Sciences Corp. was expected to be captured by a robotic arm operated by astronauts inside the space station later Sunday at 7:25 a.m. EDT (1125 GMT) before the glitch appeared. Cygnus launched to the space station on Wednesday and is making its debut flight test to the orbiting lab.

 

US Commercial Spacecraft's Docking with Space Station Delayed

 

RIA Novosti

 

The docking of a space freighter developed by a private US company with the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed for at least 48 hours, NASA has reported. The Cygnus spacecraft, developed by Orbital Sciences, was launched on Wednesday on board the Antares carrier rocket from a NASA launch pad in Virginia. It was set to deliver about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo to the orbital outpost.

 

Russia's Soyuz Rocket on Launch Pad for ISS Mission

 

RIA Novosti

 

The Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft was rolled out to its launch pad on Monday ahead of the planned manned mission to the International Space Station. A spokesman for Russia's space agency Roscosmos said the rollout took place in normal regime. The rocket is to blast off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan early on September 26 to take new ISS crew members to the orbital station. The main crew comprises Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky and NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, while the backup crew are Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of Russia and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson. The names of the three new crew members will be officially announced on Tuesday. The current ISS crew comprises Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, and astronauts Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency. (NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

December ISS Mission Delayed By Dragon Upgrades

 

Amy Svitak - Aviation Week

 

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is modifying its Dragon capsule to afford more payload capacity for NASA cargo runs to and from the International Space Station (ISS). But the improvements will push a planned December ISS mission into 2014, in which the company's crowded launch manifest is pending the delayed debut of the revamped SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. President Gwynne Shotwell says NASA needs SpaceX to make the Dragon enhancements in order to increase the reusable cargo vessel's cold-storage capacity for transporting research samples between Earth and the ISS.

 

Boeing fires space capsule rockets

 

Aubrey Cohen - Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 

Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne have test fired rocket engines for a proposed spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, NASA announced Friday. Boeing is developing the CST-100 spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which also includes several other companies with competing systems.

 

Boeing tests spaceship thrusters

 

Charles Black - Space Exploration Network (SEN.com)

 

Boeing has been testing the thrusters which astronauts will use to fly its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 once in space. The CST-100 is being built to transport astronauts to low Earth orbit destinations such as the International Space Station and the proposed Bigelow orbiting space complex. The vehicle is one of three spaceships being developed with the support of NASA's commercial crew initiative, the other two being Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser and a crewed version of SpaceX's Dragon. The thrusters are located on the CST-100's service module which is attached to the crew capsule.

 

Boeing Completes Half of Commercial Crew Milestones

 

Doug Messier - Parabolic Arc

 

Boeing's CST-100 program has completed 10 of its 20 milestones under its commercial crew contract with NASA. The 10 milestones are worth $339 million out of a possible award $480 million. The two most recently completed milestones include:

·         Mission Control Center interface demonstration test

·         Orbital Maneuvering and Attitude Control (OMAC) engine development test

Boeing has 10 additional milestones worth $141 million to meet before this funding round ends next August.  Six of the milestones are scheduled for completion by the end of this year.

(NO FURTHER TEXT)

 

NASA spends millions maintaining unused facilities

 

Ledyard King - Florida Today

 

When NASA began planning for a return visit to the moon several years ago, the agency naturally started building the necessary infrastructure to get there. That included a $350 million A-3 test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to accommodate special testing requirements for rockets being built as part of what was called the Constellation Program. The test stand was only two-thirds complete when President Barack Obama canceled Constellation in 2010. Directed by Congress to finish the project anyway, NASA spent another $57 million on it. When it's completed this month, the test stand will sit idle indefinitely until a new use is found, but will still cost taxpayers $900,000 a year to maintain.

 

Local man recalls when namesake for historic launch spoke in Accomack County

 

Carol Vaughn - Eastern Shore News

 

Members of a local family recalled their connection with astronaut G. David Low as they watched the historic launch from Wallops Island of an Orbital Sciences Corporation spacecraft named after him. Low, who flew three space shuttle missions for NASA and later played a pivotal role in Orbital's commercial transportation program before he died in 2008 at age 52.

 

45th SW, Det. 3 supports NASA's Orion project

 

Heidi Hunt - Patrick Air Force Base

 

Members of the 45th Space Wing Operations Group Detachment 3, participated in recovery test operations of NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Aug. 13-15, aboard the USS Arlington (LPD-24) in Norfolk, Va. "Detachment 3 personnel served as the liaison between NASA personnel, U.S. Navy Sailors, divers and contractors from across the country, according to Maj. Seth Rann, 45th OG Detachment 3 assistant director of operations.

 

DARPA Revives Larger Reusable Booster Spaceplane

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

 

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to seek industry interest next month in an Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) which will be capable of delivering a payload up to 5,000 lb. to space for less than $5 million per launch. The XS-1 is targeted at flying at Mach 10 plus and generating a sortie rate of up to 10 times over 10 days. The program compliments the agency's ongoing Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program, which is developing an air launch system for small satellites, and appears to be a partial revival of the Air Force Research Laboratory's abandoned Reusable Booster System (RBS) Pathfinder.

 

Astronaut on movie Gravity: "That's really something we do think about"

 

Eric Berger - Houston Chronicle's SciGuy

 

In two weeks Warner Bros. will release Gravity, a movie that has sparked some intense discussions in the space community about its vivid portrayal of an accident during a spacewalk. On Wednesday I had an opportunity to speak with Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL and astronaut who just returned from a 166-day stint aboard the International Space Station on Sept. 11. Cassidy was the lead spacewalker during the dramatic July 16 spacewalk in which the helmet of fellow spacewalker Luca Parmitano dangerously filled with water. In part due to Cassidy's cool-headed actions and leadership, Parmitano made it safely back inside the station.

 

The life and death of Buran, the USSR shuttle built on faulty assumptions

After concluding the US Shuttle was a weapons platform, the USSR wanted its own

 

Amy Shira Teitel - Ars Technica

 

 

Just before dawn on the morning of November 15, 1988, the mood at Baikonur, the Soviet Union's launch site, was tense and businesslike. It was a cold morning marked by low cloud cover, a persistent drizzle, and warnings of gale force winds. It was a terrible day for a launch. But on the pad stood the Energiya rocket, fueled and ready to carry the Buran space shuttle orbiter on its maiden flight. A thin layer of ice coating both vehicles threatened to postpone the event, though no one on site wanted to see the spacecraft stay on the pad. A scrubbed launch could delay Buran's debut until the spring—or even deal a death blow to the whole program. Weighing the odds, Soviet space officials decided to take their chances. At 8:00 am local time, exactly on schedule, Energiya roared to life and Buran took flight.

 

Houston Space Shuttle Replica's New Name to Be Revealed Oct. 5

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

Houston's mock space shuttle has a new name — and a date for its reveal.

 

Space Center Houston, which serves as the visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center, has announced Oct. 5 as the day it will christen its full-size space shuttle orbiter replica. The public is invited to attend the naming, which is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. CDT. Previously known as the space shuttle Explorer, the high-fidelity replica was stripped of its moniker in 2012 before arriving in Houston from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. After exhibiting the mockup for more than a year, Space Center Houston held a statewide "Name the Shuttle" contest, inviting Texans to share their ideas for a name that would "symbolize the spirit of Texas" and capture the Lone Star state's "characteristics of independence, optimism and can-do attitude."

 

THE LATEST FROM HUBBLE…

 

This Is What the Sun Will Look Like As It Dies

 

Jason Major - Discovery News

 

 

Some time in the distant future — the really distant future, like 5 billion years or so — our sun will begin to run out of fuel. It will begin to swell, its outer layers expanding into space to about as far as the orbit of Earth (sorry, but it's true). Eventually, it will blow off much of its material altogether, leaving behind the roasted remains of planets — including ours — and a small, dense core called a white dwarf. As that's happening, it will probably look a lot like the star above. This new image from Hubble shows the star HD 184738, aka Campbell's Hydrogen Star, which lies at the heart of a small planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus.

__________

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

Commercial cargo ship aborts station approach

 

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A commercial cargo ship making its maiden flight to the International Space Station aborted its initial approach to the lab complex early Sunday because of suspect navigation data.

 

Officials with Orbital Sciences Corp., builder of the Cygnus cargo craft, said engineers quickly identified the problem and were developing a software patch, but another approach was on hold until Tuesday.

 

"This morning, at around 1:30 a.m. EDT, Cygnus established direct data contact with the ISS and found that some of the data received had values that it did not expect, causing Cygnus to reject the data," NASA and Orbital said in web site updates. "This mandated an interruption of the approach sequence.

 

"Orbital has subsequently found the causes of this discrepancy and is developing a software fix. The minimum turnaround time to resume the approach to the ISS following an interruption such as this is approximately 48 hours due to the orbital mechanics of the approach trajectory."

 

The Cygnus cargo ship, launched Wednesday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Island, Va., was developed under a $288 million contract with NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program.

 

Orbital is one of two commercial cargo carriers hired by NASA to take over U.S. space station logistics in the wake of the space shuttle's retirement.

 

If the test flight is successful, Orbital will be clear to begin routine cargo delivery missions later this year under a separate $1.9 billion contract calling for at least eight missions to deliver some 40,000 pounds of supplies and equipment.

 

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, holds a $1.6 billion contract to conduct at least 12 space station resupply missions with its Dragon cargo ship. SpaceX has conducted two operational flights to the station.

 

The goals of the Cygnus demonstration mission are to test the spacecraft's navigation, command and control systems with a precisely orchestrated, stepwise approach to the station, including a simulated abort.

 

All of the planned tests going into Sunday's final approach were successful, but the GPS navigation issue early Sunday triggered a real abort and a 48-hour recycle.

 

While Orbital works through the navigation problem, Russian rocket engineers are preparing a Soyuz spacecraft for launch Wednesday to ferry three fresh crew members to the space station.

 

If any additional problems prevent Cygnus from completing its rendezvous Tuesday, a third attempt will be put on hold until after the Soyuz launch and docking later Wednesday evening. Company officials said before launch that Cygnus had enough propellant to loiter in orbit for an extended period if necessary.

 

Computer mishap delays space station supply ship

 

Marcia Dunn - Associated Press

 

A brand new commercial cargo ship making its orbital debut experienced trouble with a computer data link Sunday, and its arrival at the International Space Station was delayed at least two days.

 

The rendezvous was aborted less than six hours before the scheduled arrival of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus capsule, packed with 1,300 pounds of food and clothes for the space station crew.

 

The Virginia-based company said it is working on a software repair, but it will be at least two more days until another approach is attempted.

 

Orbital Sciences said the two orbiting vessels established direct contact early Sunday, four days after the Cygnus' launch from Virginia. But the Cygnus rejected some of the data, which interrupted the entire rendezvous. Until then, everything had been going well.

 

Because this is a test flight of the Cygnus, nothing valuable or urgent is on board. If necessary, it could keep orbiting the world for weeks, even months, before pulling up at the orbiting lab.

 

Orbital Sciences is the second private company to launch supplies to the space station. In 2012, the California-based SpaceX began accomplishing that job for NASA. The space agency is paying the two companies to deliver goods to the space station, in the absence of the now-retired space shuttles.

 

Three astronauts — an American, Italian and Russian — currently are aboard the orbiting outpost. On Wednesday, three more crew members will be launched from Kazakhstan. Orbital Sciences will have to work around that manned flight, delaying the Cygnus further if a Tuesday hookup is not feasible.

 

Software problem delays cargo ship arrival at space station

 

Irene Klotz - Reuters

 

A software glitch will delay Orbital Sciences' trial cargo ship from reaching the International Space Station until Tuesday, officials said on Sunday.

 

The company's Cygnus capsule, which blasted off Wednesday from Virginia for a test flight, had been scheduled to reach the station on Sunday.

 

However, about six hours before the capsule was due to dock, a computer software problem caused Cygnus to reject navigation data radioed from the station, Orbital Sciences wrote in a status report on its website.

 

The glitch temporarily halted Cygnus' approach to the station, a $100 billion research complex that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

 

Orbital Sciences said it had found the cause of the data discrepancy and was developing a software fix.

 

The next opportunity for the capsule to rendezvous and dock with the station will be on Tuesday.

 

Orbital Sciences is one of two firms hired by NASA to fly cargo to the space station, a project of 15 nations, following the retirement of the U.S. space shuttles in 2011. The company is planning to make its first cargo run under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA in December.

 

Privately owned Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, so far has made a test flight and two resupply missions to the orbital outpost.

 

Orbital's Cygnus rendezvous with Space Station delayed by troubled data exchange

 

Mark Carreau - Aviation Week

 

NASA's Mission Control early Sunday called for a delay of at least 48 hours in the docking of Orbital Science Corp's Cygnus re-supply craft with the International Space Station.

 

A patch to fix discrepancies in navigation software of the two spacecraft discovered at 1:30 a.m., EDT, is under way, according to statements from both NASA and Orbital Sciences. The new patch will be tested Sunday in a Cygnus ground-based simulator, and then transmitted to the orbiting freighter, which was otherwise operating as expected. In orbit testing of the software patch is planned Sunday night and early Monday.

 

With a successful verification, a rendezvous and final approach demonstration would resume late Monday and early Tuesday, Orbital said.

 

The unpiloted capsule was scheduled to rendezvous with the space station on Sunday, maneuvering close enough to be grappled by European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg at 7:25 a.m., EDT, and subsequently berthed to the ISS U. S. segment.  The capsule and a cargo that includes 1,543 pounds of non critical crew provisions was launched Wednesday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia to initiate a 30-day demonstration mission under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS)program.

 

Sunday's difficulties surfaced  as the Cygnus established a direct communications link with the ISS for the final stages of the rendezvous. Cygnus found discrepancies in the data exchange that prompted an interruption in the dynamic rendezvous sequence supervised by the Orbital's control team at Dulles, Va., and NASA's Mission Control in Houston.

 

"The minimum turnaround time to resume the approach to the ISS following an interruption such as this is approximately 48 hours due to orbital mechanics of the approach trajectory," NASA said.

 

It was unclear if Cygnus operations might be affected by Russia's plans to launch three new crew members to the ISS on Wednesday. Cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryanzanskiy and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins are preparing to lift off at 4:58 p.m., EDT, atop the Soyuz TMA-10M  from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their four orbit trajectory would place the capsule and the three newcomers at the station's Russian segment docking port at 10:48 p.m., EDT.

 

If necessary, the Cygnus freighter could loiter in orbit for at least a week and perhaps for up to two to three months, Frank Culbertson, Orbital' sexecutive vice president and Cygnus mission manager, told a pre-launch news briefing.

 

"We can loiter on orbit waiting for the rendezvous activity for a week, or even up to two to three months, if necessary," Culbertson said.

 

The Antares/Cygnus launch was postponed 24 hours to replace a damaged ground systems data cable without a change in the planned Sunday rendezvous date.

 

The Cygnus mission is to mark the end of Orbital's participation in NASA's COTS program, a  5 1/2 year partnership in which the space agency is providing the company with $288 million to develop a second commercial ISS re-supply capability in the aftermath of the shuttle program's 2011 retirement.

 

Orbital had successfully achieved three of 10 COTS mission milestones when Sunday's interruption occurred.

 

Orbital's  COTS wind down clears the company to execute an eight flight, $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services agreement with NASA's ISS program. Orbital's inaugural CRS flight is tentatively planned for December

 

SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif., fulfilled a  COTS partnership agreement in May 2012 with a similar demonstration flight. SpaceX has completed two if its 12 missions under a $1.6 billion CRS contract, also awarded in December 2008.

 

Cygnus rendezvous with ISS postponed until Tuesday

 

James Dean - Florida Today

 

NASA and Orbital Sciences Corp. have postponed until at least Tuesday a rendezvous between the new Cygnus cargo freighter and the International Space Station due to a data link problem.

 

The rendezvous had been planned Sunday, when the unmanned Cygnus flew within about 2.5 miles of the orbiting research complex.

 

Orbital said the Cygnus's approach was interrupted after it established contact with the station around 1:30 a.m.

 

The spacecraft found some unexpected values and rejected the data.

 

"Orbital has subsequently found the causes of this discrepancy and is developing a software fix," the Dulles, Va., company said in a statement around 4:30 a.m.

 

Because of orbital mechanics, Tuesday is the earliest a next approach could be made.

 

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three more crew members, including NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, is scheduled to dock at the station around 11 p.m. Wednesday.

 

An earlier Cygnus arrival would have been more convenient so the station's current three-person Expedition 37 crew could shift its focus to preparations for the Soyuz arrival. However, NASA did not say a Tuesday rendezvous would present a conflict.

 

If necessary, the Cygnus and its 1,300 pounds of cargo could loiter in space for an extended period before reaching the station.

 

The Cygnus is flying for the first time and no technical issues had been reported since the spacecraft launched last Wednesday from Virginia.

 

The demonstration mission is the last milestone before Orbital flies the first of eight resupply missions under a $1.9 billion contract.

 

Data glitch postpones Cygnus berthing with International Space Station

 

Tamara Dietrich - Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

The astronauts will have to wait — an unexpected data glitch postponed by 48 hours the Cygnus spacecraft's scheduled berthing with the International Space Station, officials said early Sunday.

 

The unmanned commercial cargo craft made its approach as scheduled in the wee hours, but encountered an issue in some of the data it received from the station, said Barron Beneski, spokesman at Orbital Sciences Corp., which developed the Cygnus and its Antares rocket booster.

 

"The data that Cygnus received from the International Space Station wasn't what it expected to receive," Beneski explained in a phone interview. "When that happened at about 1:30 in the morning or so, we looked at it for a while and about 3 o'clock we said, 'No, we're going to wave it off for today.'

 

"We know what the issue is," he added, "and a software patch has been developed. We're testing it now on the ground, and we assume it'll work fine. And NASA, of course, is in the loop."

 

He called the issue "not overly complicated." On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of technical difficulty to diagnose and fix, Beneski said it's "about a 1 or a 2."

 

"This is the first time this is done between the spacecraft and the station," Beneski said. "This is why the demonstration mission. This is why you test. There's nothing wrong here. There's nothing particularly unexpected about this. To have it work perfectly the first time through is probably not what anyone really expected."

 

According to NASA, the minimum turnaround time for a new approach is 48 hours because of the "orbital mechanics of the approach trajectory."

 

The Cygnus is now scheduled to berth at around 7:25 a.m. Tuesday. The procedure will be streamed live on NASA television; go to http://www.nasa.gov and click on "multimedia" at the top of the page.

 

On Wednesday, Orbital launched its commercial cargo craft flawlessly from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island in a required demonstration flight to show NASA it has the ability to conduct resupply missions to the ISS.

 

The Dulles-based rocket-maker is under NASA contract to develop the Cygnus and its big Antares medium-lift booster, and expects to become only the second private company in the world to ferry cargo to the space station, after California-based SpaceX began resupply missions last year.

 

The two most difficult parts of the demonstration mission, Beneski said, are the launch and the approach and berthing procedure.

 

Once the Cygnus berths, it will offload about 1,300 pounds of food, clothing, tools and other non-essentials, then load up disposable cargo. After 30 days, it will make a short return trip to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere over the Pacific.

 

While the Cygnus has chased after the space station over the last several days, Orbital says it successfully completed several tests and maneuvers assigned by NASA. Those hurdles consisted of firing thrusters to raise and hone its orbit and 10 maneuvers to prove its safety capabilities. NASA reviewed and verified each objective.

 

The craft itself "has performed extremely well up until now," Beneski said. "It's still performing extremely well. What we're talking about here is data itself, and sort of the format that the data was in… The spacecraft is working great."

 

Once it earns final approval, Orbital has a $1.9 billion NASA contract to make eight resupply missions to the station through 2016.

 

The company plans to launch those flights out of MARS at the Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore, perhaps beginning as early as December. Local and state officials hope the missions will also help launch MARS as a major hub for commercial space flight.

 

"If we're able to berth Tuesday," Beneski said, "that's a good indicator we have a good fighting chance of having a mission in December."

 

NASA says the station has a crowded schedule this week. Along with the Cygnus's upcoming berthing, the station expects three new crew members to arrive Wednesday, including an American, on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

 

Cygnus rendezvous aborted due to data link issue

 

Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com

 

A commercial Cygnus cargo spacecraft, owned and operated by Orbital Sciences Corp., aborted its rendezvous with the International Space Station on Sunday after the automated spaceship encountered a data glitch before commencing final approach.

 

The Cygnus resupply vehicle flew about 2.5 miles below the space station and will set up its trajectory to try to approach the complex again early Tuesday.

 

Loaded with more than 1,500 pounds of food, computer equipment, spare parts and student experiments, the unmanned cargo freighter was supposed to close in on the space station with GPS and laser navigation aids and move into position about 30 feet below the outpost, close enough for the station's robotic arm to reach out and grapple the free-floating Cygnus spacecraft.

 

One of the prerequisites for a safe rendezvous is the establishment of two-way communications between the space station and Cygnus, allowing relative GPS navigation and commands to flow between the spacecraft while they fly within about 14 miles of each other.

 

The communications systems on the space station and Cygnus made contact at about 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT) Sunday, but the cargo ship's computer "found that some of the data received had values that it did not expect, causing Cygnus to reject the data," Orbital Sciences and NASA said in a joint statement.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft uses a Japanese-built communications system called "PROX" for close-range data links. During the early phases of the freighter's rendezvous, Cygnus uses the PROX system to relay navigation information between itself and the space station, allowing the craft's guidance system to compare the positions of the two vehicles and plot its next move in the rendezvous.

 

"Orbital has subsequently found the causes of this discrepancy and is developing a software fix," the statement said. "The minimum turnaround time to resume the approach to the ISS following an interruption such as this is approximately 48 hours due to orbital mechanics of the approach trajectory."

 

Later in the rendezvous, when Cygnus is inside 1,000 feet from the space station, the outpost's three-person crew can issue emergency commands to the cargo ship through the PROX radio if they observe any problems during rendezvous.

 

Eight technical demonstrations were planned Sunday to prove the Cygnus spacecraft - on its first flight - can safely fly in close proximity to the space station, beginning with the relative GPS navigation demo cut short by the data glitch.

 

The commercial cargo craft is on a test flight under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, a public-private partnership in which the space agency and Orbital Sciences shared the costs of developing the Cygnus and its Antares rocket booster.

 

Eight operational Cygnus resupply missions, along with a dozen cargo deliveries by SpaceX, are on NASA's manifest through 2016. Orbital has a $1.9 billion contract to cover the flights.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft was scheduled to demonstrate on-board targeting and conduct an autonomous maneuver using relative GPS navigation, then ground teams were supposed to activate the spaceship's laser navigation system, which feeds range and closing rate data to the Cygnus flight computer during the last phase of the rendezvous.

 

Astronauts aboard the space station also planned to turn on a control panel inside the complex and send retreat and hold commands to Cygnus to prove the crew can intervene in the event of an emergency.

 

The rendezvous demonstrations will now be rescheduled for Tuesday.

 

Frank Culbertson, Orbital's vice president of advanced programs, said before launch the Cygnus spacecraft has plenty of fuel to loiter in orbit to overcome problems and wait for a rendezvous opportunity.

 

"We can loiter on-orbit waiting for the rendezvous for a week, or even up to two or three months if necessary," Culbertson said before Wednesday's launch. "We've got the fuel and the technical capability to go for an extended period on-orbit."

 

Private Cygnus Cargo Ship Aborts First Space Station Approach

 

Tariq Malik - Space.com

 

A new robotic commercial cargo ship for the International Space Station skipped its first attempt to link up with the orbiting lab Sunday due to a rendezvous glitch that delayed the spacecraft's arrival for at least 48 hours, NASA officials say.

 

The unmanned Cygnus spacecraft built by Orbital Sciences Corp. was expected to be captured by a robotic arm operated by astronauts inside the space station later Sunday at 7:25 a.m. EDT (1125 GMT) before the glitch appeared. Cygnus launched to the space station on Wednesday and is making its debut flight test to the orbiting lab.

 

"Orbital Sciences has confirmed that this morning at around 1:30 a.m. EDT, Cygnus established direct data contact with the ISS and found that some of the data received had values that it did not expect, causing Cygnus to reject the data," NASA officials wrote in a status update early Sunday. "This mandated an interruption of the approach sequence. Orbital has subsequently found the causes of this discrepancy and is developing a software fix."

 

Because of the approach trajectory of the Cygnus spacecraft, it will take two days for the orbital mechanics to align to allow a second attempt to link up with the space station, NASA officials explained. That means skywatchers have two more chances to see Cygnus in space from the ground, if you know when and where to look.

 

The Dulles, Va.-based Orbital Sciences built the Cygnus spacecraft and its Antares rockets to fly unmanned cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station for NASA. This first Cygnus flight marks the last milestone for Orbital under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which awarded the company $288 million to develop the spacecraft. Orbital Sciences now has a $1.9 billion contract to fly eight cargo missions to the station using Cygnus and its Antares boosters. The first of those missions could launch in December if this first test flight goes well.

 

During the first Cygnus shakedown cruise, Orbital engineers are putting the spacecraft through a series of 10 in-flight tests to make sure it is safe to approach the International Space Station. Eight of those tests are scheduled for rendezvous day, Orbital officials have said.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft is a bus-size spacecraft shaped like a large cylinder. It is about 17 feet (5 meters) long and 10 feet (3 m) wide, and designed to haul up to 4,409 pounds (2,000 kilograms) of cargo in its current configuration.

 

For this first test flight, the Cygnus cargo ship is packed with about 1,543 pounds (700 kg) of supplies and gear.

 

Orbital Sciences is one of two commercial spaceflight companies with billion-dollar deals to provide cargo deliveries to the International Space Station. The other company is the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

 

SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract for 12 cargo delivery flights to the space station using the company's Dragon space capsules and their Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX has successfully flown two cargo deliveries and a test flight to the station so far.

 

With the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet in 2011, the space agency is depending on SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to keep the space station stocked with the supplies astronauts need. Unmanned cargo ships by Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency can also make deliveries to the station.

 

US Commercial Spacecraft's Docking with Space Station Delayed

 

RIA Novosti

 

The docking of a space freighter developed by a private US company with the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed for at least 48 hours, NASA has reported.

 

The Cygnus spacecraft, developed by Orbital Sciences, was launched on Wednesday on board the Antares carrier rocket from a NASA launch pad in Virginia. It was set to deliver about 1,300 pounds (589 kilograms) of cargo to the orbital outpost.

 

Orbital Sciences has confirmed that "at around 1:30 a.m. EDT, its Cygnus spacecraft established direct data contact with the International Space Station (ISS) and found that some of the data received had values that it did not expect, causing Cygnus to reject the data."

 

"The minimum turnaround time to resume the approach to the ISS following an interruption such as this is approximately 48 hours due to orbital mechanics of the approach trajectory," NASA said.

 

Cygnus is expected to stay at the orbital station for about a month before making a dive in the Earth's atmosphere to plunge in the Pacific Ocean.

 

Orbital Sciences was selected in 2008 to work with NASA on the space agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which helps US companies develop privately operated, cost-effective and safe space transportation systems.

 

Another COTS partner company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), began working with NASA in 2006, and after a successful test flight of its Dragon space freighter in 2012, began flying regular cargo missions to the space station.

 

December ISS Mission Delayed By Dragon Upgrades

 

Amy Svitak - Aviation Week

 

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is modifying its Dragon capsule to afford more payload capacity for NASA cargo runs to and from the International Space Station (ISS). But the improvements will push a planned December ISS mission into 2014, in which the company's crowded launch manifest is pending the delayed debut of the revamped SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

 

President Gwynne Shotwell says NASA needs SpaceX to make the Dragon enhancements in order to increase the reusable cargo vessel's cold-storage capacity for transporting research samples between Earth and the ISS.

 

"We're developing a major upgrade to Dragon to triple the amount of science that we carry up and back," Shotwell said Sept. 10 at the World Satellite Business Week conference here, adding that the capsule's December mission is now scheduled for February.

 

Under the terms of SpaceX's $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA, the company is supposed to deliver 20,000 kg (44,000 lb.) of food, supplies and science materials to the ISS by Dec. 31, 2015. Dragon's advertised payload capacity is for more than 3,300 kg of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the space station and up to 2,500 kg on the return trip.

 

Since the December 2008 CRS contract was signed, however, Dragon has conducted just three trips to the ISS, delivering a combined 1,595 kg of pressurized cargo and returning a total of 2,120 kg to Earth.

 

NASA spokesman Joshua Byerly says no new requirements have been added to the SpaceX CRS contract, suggesting the upgrades are expected to fulfill a long-standing requirement to meet ISS cargo needs. But he says the work is taking longer than initially planned.

 

"The December launch date was chosen in cooperation with SpaceX and assumed the enhancements being implemented by SpaceX," Byerly explains. "It is simply taking longer to get all the modifications completed, which is not unreasonable, given the nature of the enhancements."

 

In the meantime, SpaceX is still sorting out technical troubles with a new version of its Falcon 9 rocket.

 

More than a year behind schedule, the Falcon 9 v1.1 is a significant departure from the baseline Falcon 9 that has launched four times since its first flight in December 2010. The changes include a complete redesign of the vehicle's Merlin 1 engine, known as the Merlin 1D, and a new octagonal configuration for the rocket's nine first-stage motors. Other enhancements include considerably longer fuel tanks and a wider payload fairing. All the upgrades are aimed at lofting more mass—including crew—to the ISS, while affording entry to the commercial launch market. Falcon 9 has more than $1 billion in commercial-launch backlog to execute in the coming years.

 

Previously slated to debut Sept. 15 from SpaceX's new launch pad at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., the company shifted the Falcon 9 v1.1 mission to the end of September following a recent static-fire test. SpaceX founder, CEO and Chief Technology Officer Elon Musk stated on Twitter Sept. 13 that during the 2-sec. test, the rocket's nine engines achieved full thrust, but that "some anomalies" need to be investigated. Two days later, he tweeted plans to conduct a second static-fire test before launching Sept. 29-30.

 

For its first flight, the new Falcon 9 is expected to deliver a small Canadian science satellite to an elliptical polar orbit. If successful, this will clear the way for SpaceX to conduct its first commercial mission to geostationary transfer orbit, launching the SES-8 satellite for SES, the world's second-largest satellite fleet operator by revenue. SES-8 was expected to launch from Cape Canaveral in the first quarter of this year. SES says it is waiting to deliver the Orbital Sciences Corp.-built spacecraft to Vandenberg until the first Falcon 9 v1.1 mission is successfully lofted.

 

In addition to SES-8, Shotwell says SpaceX is planning to put the Orbital-built Thaicom 6 communications satellite into orbit by year-end before launching at "a cadence of almost one a month in 2014." For now, the company is producing four Merlin 1D engines per week, but plans to increase the rate to five per week starting in January, she says. This pace is necessary to keep up with SpaceX's busy launch manifest, which indicates 12 Falcon 9 v1.1 missions next year, including the one to the ISS in February.

 

"Our production is now ahead of our launch," Shotwell adds. "We have to get these vehicles to the launch site and fly them, but production should not be an issue going forward."

 

Boeing fires space capsule rockets

 

Aubrey Cohen - Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 

Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne have test fired rocket engines for a proposed spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, NASA announced Friday.

 

Boeing is developing the CST-100 spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket for NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which also includes several other companies with competing systems.

 

The CST-100's orbital maneuvering and attitude control system has 24 thrusters in four clusters of six on the spacecraft's service module. The thrusters could steer the spacecraft in case an emergency called for it to separate from its rocket during launch or ascent and, in space, would perform such critical maneuvers as refining the orbit and slowing down before re-entry. The thrusters would be jettisoned when the service module is released from the capsule just before re-entry.

 

A gauntlet of test firings of steering jets at White Sands Space Harbor in Las Cruces, N.M., "simulated the demanding environment of space," using a vacuum chamber that simulated the space-like environment at an altitude of 100,000 feet, NASA said. "The tests assessed how the thrusters -- which fire with 1,500 pounds of force -- will speed up, slow down and move the spacecraft while carrying NASA astronauts in Earth's orbit."

 

Boeing tests spaceship thrusters

 

Charles Black - Space Exploration Network (SEN.com)

 

Boeing has been testing the thrusters which astronauts will use to fly its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 once in space.

 

The CST-100 is being built to transport astronauts to low Earth orbit destinations such as the International Space Station and the proposed Bigelow orbiting space complex. The vehicle is one of three spaceships being developed with the support of NASA's commercial crew initiative, the other two being Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser and a crewed version of SpaceX's Dragon.

 

The thrusters are located on the CST-100's service module which is attached to the crew capsule. There are twenty-four thrusters in total, grouped into four clusters of six. The thrusters make up the CST-100's orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) system and will be used to control both speed and direction in orbit, including slowing down the spacecraft before re-entry.

 

As well as being used to control the vehicle whilst in orbit, the thrusters could be used in the event of an emergency separation from its rocket during launch or ascent.

 

The most recent tests took place in a vacuum chamber that simulated conditions in space at an altitude of 100,000 feet. Previous tests evaluated the continuous combustion and performance of the thrusters in extreme heat.

 

"The CST-100 OMAC thrusters are an example of leveraging proven flight hardware solutions to ensure mission supportability," said Boeing's John Mulholland.

 

"We are very pleased with the data collected during this second series of tests and with our overall team performance as we continue to progress through CCiCap milestones on time and on budget."

 

The CST-100, which is designed to carry up to seven astronauts*, would be launched atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, a modified version of which is in the process of being certified for human spaceflight. The Atlas V is also the proposed launch vehicle for Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser.

 

Under the current phase of the commercial crew program, dubbed the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, Boeing was awarded $460m from NASA in August 2012. The OMAC thrusters passed the CCiCap objectives and Boeing has now completed nine out of twenty milestones it needs to achieve by mid-2014 under its CCiCap agreement with NASA.

 

NASA's strategy is to outsource low Earth orbit transport for both crew and cargo to U.S. companies, whilst developing its own deep space capability with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle.

 

* Boeing has made its passenger capacity explicitly clear with a warning above the capsule door "7 PERSON MAX CAPACITY".

 

NASA spends millions maintaining unused facilities

 

Ledyard King - Florida Today

 

When NASA began planning for a return visit to the moon several years ago, the agency naturally started building the necessary infrastructure to get there.

 

That included a $350 million A-3 test stand at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to accommodate special testing requirements for rockets being built as part of what was called the Constellation Program.

 

The test stand was only two-thirds complete when President Barack Obama canceled Constellation in 2010. Directed by Congress to finish the project anyway, NASA spent another $57 million on it. When it's completed this month, the test stand will sit idle indefinitely until a new use is found, but will still cost taxpayers $900,000 a year to maintain.

 

A-3 will join a growing list of unused or underutilized structures costing the space agency tens of millions of dollars to maintain each year, according to NASA Inspector General Paul K. Martin. An in-house study last year estimated NASA has up to 865 "unneeded" facilities, collectively costing more than $24 million in annual upkeep, he said.

 

An audit the inspector general's office released in February identified another 33 facilities, including wind tunnels, thermal vacuum chambers and other launch infrastructure, that NASA wasn't fully utilizing or that had no identifiable future mission. Taxpayers spent $43 million in 2011 to maintain those facilities.

 

Martin told a House, Science, Space and Technology subcommittee Friday that NASA's attempts to determine what it needs to get rid of haven't gotten far mainly due to "fluctuating and uncertain requirements."

 

Over the past six years, NASA's goal in human exploration of space has transitioned from the space shuttle program to the Constellation Program to the Space Launch System that targets a Mars mission by the 2030s.

 

"Changes to national space policy initiated by the president and Congress have increased the difficulty of determining which facilities NASA needs," Martin told lawmakers. "Because decisions about whether to retain specific facilities depends heavily upon the missions NASA undertakes, frequent changes to these missions complicate the agency's efforts to manage its infrastructure."

 

The issue is especially problematic for NASA, where more than 80 percent of facilities are at least 40 years old and beyond their design life. In addition, the estimated cost of NASA's backlog of deferred maintenance projects stood at $2.3 billion in 2012.

 

Even when the agency sees a chance to make money off its surplus property, it's not easy.

 

Members of Congress are raising concerns about NASA's plan to lease the historic Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which costs the agency $1.2 million a year to maintain. The pad, which supported the Apollo and shuttle programs, is no longer being used. Agency officials said they will demolish the pad unless they find a tenant.

 

NASA officials were close to leasing the pad to SpaceX, an aerospace company that was the first to fly cargo to the International Space Station, until another company, Blue Origin, submitted a competing bid to take over pad 39A and operate it as a multi-user facility.

 

Earlier this month, Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office, effectively delaying any action on a lease until possibly Dec. 12, the GAO's deadline to rule on the matter.

 

The dispute between the two companies has spilled into Congress, with some members urging NASA to open the pad to multiple users and others backing the agency's handling of the issue.

 

On Friday, two panel members — Republican Mo Brooks of Alabama and Democrat Ami Bera of California — said NASA should opt for a multi-user lease.

 

"I have reservations about the potential adverse effect on our space program of one of our primary launch pads being taken over by one user," Brooks said. "In my judgment, (it) would tend to both stifle competition and reduce the ability of 39A to be used as a backup by other private users or by NASA itself."

 

But GOP Rep. Bill Posey, whose Florida district includes Kennedy Space Center, asked members to let NASA do its job. Too often, the agency's attempts to act efficiently have been hampered by politics, he said.

 

"Billions and billions and billions of dollars (have been) wasted because we have the parochial interests of different members trying to micromanage what NASA does," he said. "It's like a city councilman trying to tell a police chief who to arrest and who not to arrest."

 

Local man recalls when namesake for historic launch spoke in Accomack County

 

Carol Vaughn - Eastern Shore News

 

Members of a local family recalled their connection with astronaut G. David Low as they watched the historic launch from Wallops Island of an Orbital Sciences Corporation spacecraft named after him.

 

Low, who flew three space shuttle missions for NASA and later played a pivotal role in Orbital's commercial transportation program before he died in 2008 at age 52.

 

Stephen Furness was 16 when he met Low after his scoutmaster, Michael Demers of Troop 311, invited the astronaut to speak at Furness' Eagle Scout Court of Honor on June 8, 1996.

 

"He made it all happen. He just wanted this ceremony to be special," said Audrey Furness, Steve's mother, of Demers.

 

Low made a lasting impression on the teenager.

 

"For a kid that age, it was pretty spectacular. He really was a nice guy," said Furness, adding, "He seemed very down to earth. He had plenty of stories to tell me...about how he had always dreamed of being an astronaut."

 

Atlantic United Methodist Church was packed with some 300 guests that Saturday evening as Low gave a speech just before Furness was presented with the Eagle Award, Boy Scouting's highest rank.

 

An album Steve's mother compiled commemorating the occasion includes lots of photographs of Low.

 

Low also gave Furness a number of black-and-white NASA photographs from his astronaut days, including one taken during his June 1993 space walk outside the shuttle — those are tucked into another album, along with dozens of congratulatory letters from politicians and other dignitaries.

 

The family particularly treasures a framed, autographed official NASA photograph of Low, surrounded by mission patches. The astronaut wrote: "To Stephen —Congratulations on achieving Eagle Scout! Keep reaching for the stars. With my best wishes, G. David Low."

 

Furness now lives in Parksley and is production manager for radio station WCTG in Chincoteague. But he grew up near Assawoman, in the house where his parents, Audrey and Gene, still live.

 

Their backyard was, and still is, a prime viewing spot for rocket launches from nearby Wallops Island.

 

His parents were there watching Wednesday morning as Orbital's Antares rocket bearing the G. David Low spacecraft lifted off in a picture-perfect launch —t he first from Wallops to the International Space Station. The spacecraft includes a cargo module taking supplies to the space station.

 

Seeing and hearing rocket launches was a routine part of his youth, Furness said.

 

"In the middle of the night all the time you would hear the rockets go off."

 

But for the Furnesses, this launch represented something more — it brought back fond memories of a good man who took the time and made the effort to encourage a young man.

 

"Having him there on that day really meant a lot to me, because in the Boy Scouts it's not easy making Eagle Scout," said Furness, adding, "Of course, Mr. Low worked very hard — he exemplified that aspect of hard work to me. It showed me if you put your mind to what you are doing you can achieve your goals.

 

"It kind of proved to me that hard work does pay off."

 

45th SW, Det. 3 supports NASA's Orion project

 

Heidi Hunt - Patrick Air Force Base

 

Members of the 45th Space Wing Operations Group Detachment 3, participated in recovery test operations of NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Aug. 13-15, aboard the USS Arlington (LPD-24) in Norfolk, Va.

 

"Detachment 3 personnel served as the liaison between NASA personnel, U.S. Navy Sailors, divers and contractors from across the country, according to Maj. Seth Rann, 45th OG Detachment 3 assistant director of operations.

 

Additionally, the team provided subject matter expertise necessary to bridge the information gap between NASA's Orion recovery requirements and the Department of Defense support capabilities, according to Rann.

 

"Detachment 3 ensured the joint effort had the required support for mission accomplishment," said Lt. Col. Mike McClure, 45th OG Detachment 3 commander USSTRATCOM-directed DOD manager for human space flight support. "This historic opportunity to validate Orion recovery procedures brings NASA one step closer to launching astronauts from our home soil."

 

The test began with logistical transport of a mock-up Orion capsule from NASA Langley Research Center and transited Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Va., and Naval Station Norfolk, Va., aboard the Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS).

 

"The testing proved that the Orion can be safely recovered by a Navy well-deck ship upon return from deep space missions," Rann said. "It involved flooding the well-deck of the Arlington to a depth of six feet to enable the capsule to float into the surrounding waters."

 

U.S. Navy divers, in small boats, performed safety checks and attached tending lines onto the Orion to enable recovery, according to Rann.

 

The test team towed the capsule into the well deck where sailors aboard the Arlington secured the capsule in its onboard recovery cradle, according to Mike Generale, Orion Stationary Recovery Test director.

 

The test is really the first time that we've worked together with the DOD to recover a capsule, since our last mission in 1975, according to Scott Wilson, NASA's manager of production operations for the Orion program.

 

"So it's a pretty historic start to this program that we're doing," said Wilson. "We have what we refer to as a crawl, walk, run strategy."

 

In a statement, Adm. Bill Gortney, U.S. Navy commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, welcomed the chance to take part again in recovering NASA astronauts as done nearly half-century ago in support of America's quest to put a man on the moon.

 

Additionally, Steve Jurczyk, NASA Langley Research Center deputy director gave his thanks for the great work Detachment 3 and the Navy did for including them in the event.

 

Detachment 3 will continue to support the Orion program through its development and into its crewed operational missions. Orion's next test will be an underway recovery test in January 2014, followed by an unmanned orbital test flight in September 2014.

 

The launch vehicle will be a Delta IV rocket and be supported by the 45th SW from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Orion is scheduled for an unmanned mission to deep space in 2017. Orion's first manned flight is planned for 2021.

 

DARPA Revives Larger Reusable Booster Spaceplane

 

Guy Norris - Aviation Week

 

(courtesy DARPA)

 

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to seek industry interest next month in an Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) which will be capable of delivering a payload up to 5,000 lb. to space for less than $5 million per launch.

 

The XS-1 is targeted at flying at Mach 10 plus and generating a sortie rate of up to 10 times over 10 days. The program compliments the agency's ongoing Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (Alasa) program, which is developing an air launch system for small satellites, and appears to be a partial revival of the Air Force Research Laboratory's abandoned Reusable Booster System (RBS) Pathfinder.

 

Like RBS, the XS-1 would be based on a hypersonic first stage which would deliver payloads to low Earth orbit via one or more expendable stages. The first stage would return autonomously to the launch site for reuse. DARPA, which is expected to issue a Broad Agency Announcement for XS-1 shortly, says "modular components, durable thermal protection systems and automatic launch, flight, and recovery systems should significantly reduce logistical needs, enabling rapid turnaround between flights."

 

The initiative was unveiled at the recent Space 2013 conference in San Diego by Darpa Tactical Technology Office Deputy Director Pam Melroy. Although the agency has released artist's impressions of winged XS-1 concepts, Melroy emphasizes the goal is reusability and the method of achieving that is up to interested parties. DARPA also believes that some reusable technology features of the Alasa contenders could also feature in the larger capacity XS-1. The agency has awarded Alasa concept study contracts to Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Virgin Galactic, as well as separate technology development contracts to other contenders.

 

Ironically, it was at the same conference last year that news emerged of the termination of the Pathfinder project. By that time one of the three contestants, Lockheed Martin, had begun hot fire tests of a rocket engine designed to power its RBS demonstrator. The sub-scale Pathfinder was being developed under the AFRL's RBS Flight and Ground Experiments (RBS-FGE) program. The Pathfinder was expected to lead to a larger-scale demonstrator and, ultimately, a full-scale reusable successor to the current Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) family beyond 2025.

 

Consisting of a vertically-launched reusable first stage and expendable upper stage, the RBS was designed to cut launch costs by more than 50% compared to conventional Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. Other contenders included concepts from Andrews Space and Boeing. All three were exploring rocket-powered, winged designs that were to demonstrate a vertical launch followed by an autonomous, aircraft-like horizontal landing near the launch site.

 

Flight tests of the Pathfinder were originally expected to begin in 2015 and run through into 2016. No projected time frame for the proposed XS-1 has been announced.

 

Astronaut on movie Gravity: "That's really something we do think about"

 

Eric Berger - Houston Chronicle's SciGuy

 

In two weeks Warner Bros. will release Gravity, a movie that has sparked some intense discussions in the space community about its vivid portrayal of an accident during a spacewalk.

 

On Wednesday I had an opportunity to speak with Chris Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL and astronaut who just returned from a 166-day stint aboard the International Space Station on Sept. 11.

 

Cassidy was the lead spacewalker during the dramatic July 16 spacewalk in which the helmet of fellow spacewalker Luca Parmitano dangerously filled with water. In part due to Cassidy's cool-headed actions and leadership, Parmitano made it safely back inside the station.

 

Anyway, Cassidy has performed six spacewalks, so I couldn't resist asking him about Gravity. He'd seen the trailer. Is that something he's ever thought of?

 

"That's really something we do think about. Especially during the first hours of the first spacewalk, you're thinking about not letting go. I definitely never have more than one hand off of that space station. You don't want to be the astronaut who has to rely on a safety tether."

 

The life and death of Buran, the USSR shuttle built on faulty assumptions

After concluding the US Shuttle was a weapons platform, the USSR wanted its own

 

Amy Shira Teitel - Ars Technica

 

 

Just before dawn on the morning of November 15, 1988, the mood at Baikonur, the Soviet Union's launch site, was tense and businesslike. It was a cold morning marked by low cloud cover, a persistent drizzle, and warnings of gale force winds. It was a terrible day for a launch.

 

But on the pad stood the Energiya rocket, fueled and ready to carry the Buran space shuttle orbiter on its maiden flight. A thin layer of ice coating both vehicles threatened to postpone the event, though no one on site wanted to see the spacecraft stay on the pad. A scrubbed launch could delay Buran's debut until the spring—or even deal a death blow to the whole program. Weighing the odds, Soviet space officials decided to take their chances. At 8:00 am local time, exactly on schedule, Energiya roared to life and Buran took flight.

 

The next morning, half a world away in the United States, American reports on the mission focused as much on Buran's similarity to NASA's space shuttle as on the flight itself. The Soviet design seems indebted to NASA, newspapers proclaimed, citing experts' opinions that there were few, if any, fundamental differences between the spacecraft. This sentiment has persisted in the general public's mind for the nearly 30 years since Buran flew.

 

There's certainly truth to reports that the Soviets copied the American shuttle, but the two vehicles aren't identical. And while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, this wasn't what the Soviets had in mind when they decided to build a space shuttle of their own.

 

The end of Apollo and the advent of the Space Shuttle

 

After successfully landing humans on the Moon in 1969, NASA began planning its next major program. There were a handful of options, including continued lunar exploration or the construction of an Earth orbital space station and reusable spacecraft combination. But NASA's budget was shrinking rapidly, and after weighing the finances of the options, President Nixon made a decision. On January 5, 1972, he issued a statement saying that NASA would turn its attention to building an "entirely new type of space transportation system designed to help transform the space frontier… a space vehicle that can shuttle astronauts repeatedly from Earth to orbit and back." NASA would build a space shuttle, even though it lacked a space station to service.

 

As the program took shape, NASA presented the shuttle as the vehicle that would make spaceflight routine without breaking the budget. It would also make spaceflight cost-effective, in part because the US Department of Defense would be sharing the cost. That deal meant that the DOD set the dimensions of the shuttle's payload bay so it could carry military satellites into orbit.

 

The American announcement of the shuttle program didn't immediately sound alarm bells in the Soviet Union. Having lost the race to the Moon, the nation wasn't looking to begin another competitive program. Instead, the Soviets were focusing on the loftier goal of building a manned base on the Moon, a useful scientific endeavor that would also surpass the Americans' six brief visits with Apollo missions. Between this lunar program, the ongoing Soyuz and Salyut programs, and the existing launch vehicle programs, there wasn't a design bureau in the Soviet Union with enough time to work on developing a reusable shuttle. More to the point, there was simply no obvious need for such a spacecraft in the Soviets' space program.

 

But plans for a lunar base hit a wall in 1974. Vasiliy Mishin, head of the TsKBEM design bureau that was once led by Sergei Korolev, was sacked and replaced by Korolev's old rival Valentin Glushko. Glushko merged TsKBEM with his own KB Energomash organization to form a new bureau called NPO Energiya. And his first move in his new position was to halt all work on the lunar project and its associated N-1 launch vehicle so that he could consider other possible directions. He established a working group to study various reusable spacecraft, and as the lunar base fell out of favor, the idea of a shuttle moved to the foreground.

 

Glushko's shuttle got a boost a year later. By 1975, the Soviet military had three years to brood over what the Americans might be up to with a reusable spacecraft as large as the one they were building. NASA even made details about its shuttle program public, so there was little guesswork needed on the Soviets' part. Soviet military studies found that the American shuttle wouldn't be economically viable given the parameters NASA announced, and its payload capacity seemed too high for a civilian program.

 

Launching up to 60 times per year with the capacity to lift nearly 25,000 kg into low-Earth orbit meant that the United States could put a lot of hardware into space each year. It seemed plausible that the Americans were planning to launch experimental laser weapons into orbit—and with the shuttle's capacity to bring 15 tons back from space, these weapons could be tested in orbit and then be brought back for modification. In the long term, this capability would let the Americans build a functioning orbital battle station.

 

Soviet fears seemed to be confirmed with the announcement that a shuttle launch facility would be built at the Vandenberg Air Force Base to facilitate DOD launches. And when NASA announced the shuttle's 1,242-mile cross-range capability, the spacecraft itself started to look like a weapon that might be able to dip into the atmosphere and drop bombs. The Soviets could only conclude that the American shuttle was a military program, and responding in kind became a national priority.

 

The Soviet space shuttle decision

 

Faced with the poorly understood threat of a military space shuttle, the Soviets decided that copying the American spacecraft exactly was the best bet. The logic was simple: if the Americans were planning something that needed a vehicle that big, the Soviets ought to build one as well and be ready to match their adversary even if they didn't know exactly what they were matching.

 

After a series of meetings between officials of the Ministry of General Machine Building, the Ministry of Defense, and the NPO Energiya organization, the Soviet shuttle program began on February 17, 1976. That's when an official decree titled "On the Development of a Reusable Space System and Future Space Complexes" was issued by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It described the new vehicle as one that would counteract military measures taken by "the likely adversary" in space; contribute to national defense, economy, and science goals; support the expansion of the military into space; and put objects into orbit and return them for servicing.

 

Meeting these goals would give the shuttle three mission profiles: short missions three days or less to place heavy payloads into orbit; medium duration missions lasting up to eight days during which crews could deploy and service satellites; and long duration missions, lasting up to 30 days, that would be devoted to science goals.

 

Superficially, the Soviet shuttle, formally called the Reusable Space System, had the same goals as the American version. But there was one crucial difference between the two programs: the Americans planned for the shuttle to take the place of all existing launch vehicles, while the Soviets' shuttle would add to their roster of rockets. Work would continue on both the Soyuz and Salyut programs as well as the Mir space station.

 

Two shuttles: Different, but the same

 

Though the 1976 decree approved the Soviet space shuttle program, it didn't specify what form the spacecraft should take. A number of possible arrangements emerged, some with the orbiter mounted on top of a launch vehicle and others with it strapped to the side. Studies favored the latter configuration, and the basic design was frozen within months. The winged orbiter would ride into orbit strapped to a launch vehicle composed of a core stage with four RD-0120 cryogenic engines and four strap-on boosters, each powered by RD-123 LOX/kerosene engines.

 

Settling on the shape of the orbiter took a little longer. Some argued for a spacecraft reminiscent of the short-lived Spiral spaceplane, while others argued in favor of copying the American design outright. The final decision struck a balance. Built to nearly the same dimensions as the American spacecraft, the Soviet shuttle had a forward crew cabin, a central payload bay equipped with two maneuvering arms, and a rear propulsion unit.

The crew module was shaped like a truncated cone at 17.7 feet long and high and a little over 16 feet wide. Pressurized with a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, it could hold a crew of 10 cosmonauts spread among the upper, mid, and lower decks. It housed six workstations: RM-1 and RM-2, together called Vega 1, were manned by the commander and co-pilot respectively during launch and landing; to the right was RM-3, the flight engineer's workstation; RM-4, located underneath a porthole window, was the navigator's station from which he could monitor orbital operations like rendezvous and docking; RM-5 was dedicated to operating the payload bay doors and operating the two arms; and RM-6 controlled the cargo and payload bays.

 

Across the six workstations, the Soviet shuttle had fewer displays than its American counterparts owing to its higher level of automation. This orbiter's sophisticated avionics system controlled all vital functions. It could turn systems on and off and monitor onboard operations while constantly checking for anomalies. Its guidance, navigation, and control system relied on three gyro-stabilized platforms and used a vertical radio altimeter as a backup. At the heart of the orbiter were two redundant Soviet-built computers known as the Central Computing System and the Peripheral Computing System, each consisting of four identical computers called Biser-4.

 

Though different internally, the Soviet and American shuttles looked nearly identical externally because of the Soviets' use of NASA's shuttle thermal protection studies. Both vehicles used the same silica tiles and reinforced carbon-carbon protecting the nose cap and leading edges on the wings. But the two shuttles' looks differed from the back; the Soviet shuttle didn't include a main engine. Its rear section housed the Combined Engine Installation, which comprised an integrated set of orbital maneuvering engines, thrusters, and the necessary plumbing to pump a combination of liquid oxygen and a synthetic hydrocarbon known as sintin through the system. The vehicle also had a propulsive abort system: four small solid-fuel motors could instantly separate the orbiter from the launch vehicle's core stage in the event of a sudden catastrophic failure.

 

The American-inspired Soviet shuttle design was frozen in June of 1979.

 

Spy game

 

Anticipating that the Soviets would respond to NASA's announcement of the shuttle program with a reusable shuttle of their own, the CIA started looking for indications of a new Soviet space program in the mid-1970s. None were forthcoming, in equal parts because the Soviet decision to build a shuttle came years after America's and because of the Soviets' traditionally secretive nature. But it's impossible to hide a space shuttle forever, and clues eventually surfaced. There were reports of winged vehicles flying aboard Proton rockets (these turned out to be erroneous) and half-constructed runways found in aerial reconnaissance photographs of Baikonur.

 

The first undeniable evidence of a new Soviet spacecraft came in April of 1983. The Australian Air Force snapped and released pictures of the Soviet Navy recovering a small-scale spaceplane from the Indian Ocean. With no additional information, some American analysts assumed this was a model of the supposed shuttle. Others disagreed, suspecting that it was a test article meant to test materials to be used for reentry protection. This latter guess turned out to be correct. Called BOR-4, the vehicle was a repurposed scale model of the short-lived Spiral spaceplane program, modified to test the shuttle's thermal protection system.

 

The CIA published its speculation on the Soviet shuttle in the 1983 edition of "Soviet Military Power." The document envisioned a system similar to—but more powerful than—the American Shuttle. The CIA expected the Soviet vehicle could lift 60 tons into orbit with a single launch.

 

Months later, photoreconnaissance revealed a test orbiter on top of a carrier aircraft and an Energia rocket on the launch pad. The appearance of flight hardware helped American intelligence refine its estimates of the Soviet shuttle's power, but the CIA didn't get it right until 1986. A drawing in that year's edition of "Soviet Military Power" showed an orbiter, remarkably like the American shuttle, strapped to a massive core rocket stage flanked by four booster rockets.

 

Buran takes flight

 

Less than a year later, at a press conference on April 8, 1987, Glavkosmos, the international relations arm of the Soviet Ministry of General Machine Building, publicly acknowledged that the Soviet Union was building a space shuttle. And it was at this point that the spacecraft got a name. When the first flight-worthy Soviet shuttle arrived at Baikonur on December 11, 1985 riding piggy back on a VM-T carrier aircraft, it had Baykal painted on the side. In April of 1986, it was renamed Buran, which roughly translates to "snowstorm on the steppes."

 

Buran's first flight, it was announced, would be a two-orbit shakedown cruise, flown without anyone on board. The plan simplified matters. There were no fuel cells needed to power the shuttle, and the environment didn't have to support crew. But there was a tradeoff in the man-hours spent developing the autopilot program; the version that flew was the programmers' 21st version. And though the flight was unmanned, the mission did have a payload. Inside the cargo bay would be a pressurized module called the Unit for Additional Instruments that could record 6,000 parameters of the flight and carry extra equipment like spare batteries.

 

In a first for the Soviet Union, the space program promised to broadcast the launch live on television. However, it was a promise it wouldn't keep.

 

After months of official reports saying Buran's launch was imminent, the first attempt came on October 29, 1988. It was a perfect day with clear skies and no wind, and in spite of frequent holds, the countdown progressed. Then, at T–51 seconds, a platform outside the intertank area of the core stage took so long to retract that the rocket's computer stopped the countdown. The launch was scrubbed and eventually rescheduled for November 15.

 

Apart from terrible weather, the countdown on the second launch attempt was much smoother. The Energiya rocket lifted off through stormy skies exactly on schedule at 8:00am local time at Baikonur. The four expended external boosters separated from the core stage and fell away. Seven minutes and 48 seconds after launch, Energiya's work was done and its engines throttled down. At eight minutes and 2.8 seconds after launch, the orbiter separated from the core stage at an altitude of about 93 miles. Buran positioned itself for the all-important burn of its two orbital maneuvering units that fired to put it into the correct orbit. Thirty-nine minutes later, Buran was in its final, nearly circular 158 by 153 mile orbit.

 

An hour and a half after launch, Buran's software began its reentry and landing sequence. Propellant was transferred forward from rear tanks to meet center of gravity requirements, and the orbiter maneuvered itself so that it was leading with its tail, orienting its engines for the deorbit burn. The burn was nominal, and half an hour later with its nose pitched high, Buran entered the atmosphere off the western coast of Africa.

 

To get around the winds still blowing at Baikonur, the orbiter was programmed to approach the runway from the east. But the onboard computer was tasked with making its own decisions in the final landing phases, taking into account realtime data. It was tense for those watching the telemetry. When Buran changed its approach profile at the last minute to dissipate more energy, technicians worried that a flaw in the programming was about to result in a crash landing.

 

Battling headwinds and crosswinds, the orbiter touched down just one second earlier than planned, traveling at 163 miles per hour. The drogue chutes deployed, slowing Buran until it rolled to a stop at 10:25.24 local time. The end of the mission was publicly marked by a brief and businesslike announcement from TASS.

 

Aftermath: Death of a dream

 

Within hours of the shuttle's landing, the Central Committee of the Communist Party sent a congratulatory message to the Buran-Energiya team. The mission's success, the note read, marked the opening of a new stage in the Soviet space research program and promised to extend the nation's opportunities for future exploration. It also definitively demonstrated the country's high level of scientific and technological potential. The press similarly hailed the flight as a portent of change in the Soviet space program, though Western news tempered its praise with questions about Buran's similarity to NASA's space shuttle.

 

Western suspicions weren't the only negative responses to the flight. There were dissenters, some within the Soviet space and science communities, who called Buran a costly mistake. Critics pointed out that no Soviet satellites were so valuable that they would need to be brought back from orbit for repairs. The lengthy launch preparations, limited launch azimuths, and slow response time as a weapons system left few uses for Buran that couldn't be handled by existing expendable boosters and spacecraft, all of which were cheaper. Consensus among critics was that the program would languish without a concerted effort to make it truly cost effective.

 

The future of the Energiya-Buran program was on the agenda of the Defense Council's May 6, 1989, meeting, which was chaired by Mikhail Gorbachov, then-general secretary of the Communist Party. The council expressed dissatisfaction with the plan Buran representatives laid out for the shuttle: construction of five orbiters that would begin carrying manned missions to the Mir 2 space station in 1992. It demanded the program be pared down and that the group fast-track a program to develop missions focused on Buran. Nevertheless, it approved the program to run through 2000.

 

But politics wouldn't favor Buran. When the USSR dissolved in 1991, so too did the Ministry of General Machine Building, which had seen the shuttle grow from idea to flight article. All rocket and space enterprises were transferred to the Russian Ministry of the Industry. After a number of design bureaus, NPO Energiya included, refused to cooperate with this new structure, Gorbachev's successor, Boris Yeltsin, founded a national space agency. The new Russian Space Agency's plans didn't include Buran-Energiya. The system seemed to have no place in the new political and economic climate.

 

In May of 1993, a statement from the Council of Chief Designers said that in spite of Energiya-Buran's success, the government was in no position to ensure continued work on the program. It was as close to a formal cancellation as the Soviet shuttle ever got. By then, the Mir 2 space station that Buran was supposed to build and service merged with the United States' Freedom space station to become the International Space Station.

 

Buran's cancellation was inevitable. In 1991, then-leader of NPO Energiya Yuriy Semyonov admitted in a TV interview that Buran was developed by the Soviet Defense Military to counter the American shuttle program. In that goal—matching a potential threat from the adversary—the program was a striking success. And really, science goals beyond this political one could have only ever been secondary.

 

When the program was cancelled, half-built orbiters were suddenly homeless and unwanted. Orbiter OK-1.02, a copy of the original Buran known as Ptichka (little bird) or Buria (storm), was almost finished when the Buran program ended in 1993; all that remained was to install a handful of electronic units. It's in a hangar at Baikonur, but the orbiter is actually the property of Kazakhstan. Orbiter OK-2.01, the first in a second series of orbiters that included a number of improvements over the original model, was also under construction when the program was canceled. It was dismantled and sat gathering dust at the Tushina factory near Moscow for years until 2011 when it was reportedly moved to an aviation museum in Germany for restoration. Orbiter OK-2.02, in the early phases of construction when the program ended, was quickly dismantled; the few pieces that were salvaged were sold online. Construction had just begun on a fifth orbiter, OK-2.03, in 1993. It was dismantled and its remains were destroyed.

 

As for Buran, the only Soviet shuttle to fly, there's nothing left. In 1999, the orbiter was moved into the MIK building at the Baikonur Space Port, where it was displayed horizontally mounted on top of an Energiya rocket. But the building fell under disrepair, and in 2002 the hangar's roof collapsed. Seven workers were killed and both Energiya and Buran were destroyed.

 

Houston Space Shuttle Replica's New Name to Be Revealed Oct. 5

 

Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com

 

Houston's mock space shuttle has a new name — and a date for its reveal.

 

Space Center Houston, which serves as the visitor center for NASA's Johnson Space Center, has announced Oct. 5 as the day it will christen its full-size space shuttle orbiter replica. The public is invited to attend the naming, which is set to begin at 9:30 a.m. CDT.

 

Previously known as the space shuttle Explorer, the high-fidelity replica was stripped of its moniker in 2012 before arriving in Houston from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. After exhibiting the mockup for more than a year, Space Center Houston held a statewide "Name the Shuttle" contest, inviting Texans to share their ideas for a name that would "symbolize the spirit of Texas" and capture the Lone Star state's "characteristics of independence, optimism and can-do attitude."

 

The contest, which began on Independence Day (July 4) and closed on Labor Day (Sept. 2), resulted in more than 10,000 entries being submitted. A panel of judges sorted through the names and chose the winner.

 

According to Space Center Houston, the contest's winner will be on hand Oct. 5 to help reveal his or her suggested name, which will be freshly painted on the mock shuttle's side. In addition to taking part in the event, the winner's travel expenses to the ceremony will be covered and he or she will get a behind-the-scenes experience at the NASA Johnson Space Center with up to three guests. The winner will also receive a year's supply of bread from Mrs. Baird's Bakery.

 

The christening precedes the center's plans to mount the mockup on top of the real Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, NASA's jumbo jet that ferried the actual winged orbiters across the country. The modified Boeing 747 jet arrived in Houston in November 2012, and NASA transferred its title to Space Center Houston in May.

 

Three months later, The Boeing Company pledged that it would underwrite the costs and have its team perform the work required to move the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to the site of the planned $12 million public attraction.

 

In addition to being outfitted with a new name, the shuttle replica will also get an upgrade. When the mockup debuts on display in 2015, guests will be able to tour the shuttle's crew cabin, which will sport a new "glass" cockpit like the type the real vehicles had when they were retired in 2011.

 

The Oct. 5 christening ceremony is free for the public to attend. According to Space Center Houston, the first 1,500 visitors that day will receive a commemorative souvenir in celebration of the "momentous event."

 

THE LATEST FROM HUBBLE…

 

This Is What the Sun Will Look Like As It Dies

 

Jason Major - Discovery News

 

 

Some time in the distant future — the really distant future, like 5 billion years or so — our sun will begin to run out of fuel. It will begin to swell, its outer layers expanding into space to about as far as the orbit of Earth (sorry, but it's true). Eventually, it will blow off much of its material altogether, leaving behind the roasted remains of planets — including ours — and a small, dense core called a white dwarf.

 

As that's happening, it will probably look a lot like the star above.

 

This new image from Hubble shows the star HD 184738, aka Campbell's Hydrogen Star, which lies at the heart of a small planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus.

 

HD 184738 is a low-mass, sun-like star that's currently going through the process of casting off its outer layers. Seen from a distance, this is what our own sun may look like at some point, 5 billion years from now.

 

The bright red and orange hues are caused by glowing hydrogen and nitrogen gases.

 

The similarities take on an especially eerie aspect when you consider that HD 184738 is surrounded by dust that's elementally very similar to the material that the Earth formed from. The origin of this dust is uncertain, but one could easily imagine that it's all that remains of a once robust family of planets.

 

END