Happy Monday everyone. Hope you are enjoying this weird weather.
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- See 'NASA: Through Our Eyes' With YOUR Eyes
- JSC's Environmental and Energy Functional Review
- FY2013 Annual Sustainability Report Just Released
- Volunteers Needed for HERA Study
- New Release of JKO and Recovered Materials Call
- Electronic Document System (EDS) 2.0 Release - Organizations/Social
- AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium
- IEEE EMC Meeting on Signal Integrity
- JSC Astronomy Society (JSCAS) Meeting
- April Shower of Savings Sale - Week 2 - Jobs and Training
- Job Opportunities - Community
- Employees Needed for Summer Education Weeks |  |
| Headlines - See 'NASA: Through Our Eyes' With YOUR Eyes
The NASA: Through Our Eyes photography exhibit that was previously showcased at Space Center Houston and highlighted in this spring's Roundup edition is now on-site for your eyes to feast upon! Even if you read the Roundup article about the photographers, astronauts and creative team responsible for bringing JSC up close and personal, there were only a few great images from the exhibit that could fit in the issue. See the more than 30 breathtaking photos that really tell NASA's story, as well as what happens behind the scenes, while NASA: Through Our Eyes makes a stop in the cafés and Teague Auditorium lobby. - JSC's Environmental and Energy Functional Review
This week, please welcome the evaluators for JSC's Environmental and Energy Functional Review (EEFR). Members of the evaluation team will be on-site to conduct their triennial assessment of the health of JSC's environmental and energy programs. They will be looking for compliance with regulations and conformance to NASA Environmental Management System requirements. The reviewers may ask any employee questions. Please be prepared to be interviewed concerning JSC's Environmental Policy, environmental training and compliance documentation for your work area. If you have any questions concerning the EEFR, call the Environmental info line at x36207 ,or visit the Environmental Office website. - FY2013 Annual Sustainability Report Just Released
Wondering how sustainable our center is? Take five minutes to browse the FY2013 Annual Sustainability Report. This report is purposefully written more like a comic book than a 400-line spreadsheet so readers get a quick feel for the awesome efforts underway at JSC. Did you know that volunteers in 10 buildings collected more than 2.18 tons of used coffee grounds and shredded paper for JSC to compost in the first nine months of the Coffee to Compost Program? Did you know that if JSC employees each paid for their energy bill at work, each person would pay $1,750 a year on average! Contact us to schedule a presentation at your next team meeting. - Volunteers Needed for HERA Study
Test Subject Screening (TSS) needs volunteers for a seven- to nine-day study with overnight stays in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) unit. Subjects will simulate a space exploration mission to evaluate impacts due to isolation, remoteness and confined habitation. Data collected will include evaluation of team cohesion, cognition, communication and affect, as well as sensorimotor assessments. Psychological, human factors and physiological impacts will also be studied. Volunteers must pass a Category I physical; be 26 to 55 years old; have a BMI of 29 or less; be 74 inches or less; have no history of sleepwalking or use of sleep aids; and must have a high level of technical skills. Volunteers will be compensated. (Restrictions apply to NASA civil servants and NASA contractors; please contact your Human Resources departments to determine your company's policy.) If interested, please contact both Linda Byrd, RN, at x37284, or Rori Yager, RN, at x37240 in TSS. - New Release of JKO and Recovered Materials Call
Multimedia lectures and training videos, including an additional 250 videos from the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD), are now available on JSC Knowledge Online (JKO). Otherwise known as "MOD Online Lessons," JSC can now access training for an array of topics! Additionally, content from the "EVA Lessons Learned" and historical archive has now moved to JKO. Continuous additions, such as new historical records and videos from various sources around the agency, can also be accessed. We've improved the performance of the site and look forward to your feedback on JKO! That old report in the bottom drawer of your filing cabinet or quietly musting away in your attic might be just the information needed to fill in the gaps of JSC community knowledge. Current and former employees have contributed videos, org charts, still images and documents of historical interest. Consider sharing your center or agency experiences with the JSC community. Contact the Knowledge Management Office for assistance. - Electronic Document System (EDS) 2.0 Release
On March 10, the EDS 2.0 document type Task Performance Sheet (TPS) replacement of the paper JSC Form 1225 was started. The plan is to implement according to Record Centers (RCs). On March 10, this went into effect from RC15 and 44. The other RC schedules are as follows: RC Implementation Dates: - RC Building 7 - April 2
- RC Building 32 - May 1
- RC Building 36 - June 1
- RC Building 10 - June 1
- RC Building 350 - June 1
Any new paper TPS (JF 1225) in the signature cycle will only be accepted for two weeks after the designated implementation date. Any exception will need to be coordinated with respective division management and provided to Quality and Flight Equipment Division management. Class schedules are available in SATERN. Organizations/Social - AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Houston Section will hold its Annual Technical Symposium (ATS) on Friday, May 9, at the Gilruth Center. The ATS will be an all-day activity featuring multiple parallel technical sessions, morning and luncheon programs and more. The ATS is designed to serve the local JSC civil servant and contractor community, as well as academia, allowing the professionals to present the technical knowledge from their current or past work and facilitate collaborative learning. This notice serves as a call for abstracts from presenters - April 21: Abstracts due to planning committee via the website (submit sooner if possible)
- April 28: Abstract authors notified of abstract acceptance
Symposium Details - Presentations will be limited to 30 minutes
- Only abstracts will be published
Civil servants must contact their organization's conference point of contact/training coordinator by April 10 to be registered to attend. - IEEE EMC Meeting on Signal Integrity
Joseph C. (Jay) Diepenbrock, an IEEE EMC distinguished lecturer, will present "Signal Integrity Characterization, Parameters and Techniques." This presentation will focus on the key electrical parameters that are important to understand and measure for ensuring optimum performance in today's high-speed serial communications interfaces. These include fundamental quantities such as inductance, capacitance and propagation delay, as well as "derived" quantities of impedance, insertion and return loss, skew, crosstalk and more. Software tools for extracting these parameters will also be discussed. Diepenbrock is currently senior vice president of High Speed for the Lorom Group and is leading the Lorom Signal Integrity team, supporting its high-speed product development. He is a senior member of the IEEE and holds 12 patents. Lunch is available for $8. Please RSVP indicating lunch or no lunch. Event Date: Thursday, April 10, 2014 Event Start Time:11:30 AM Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Discovery Room - Gilruth Recreation Center
Add to Calendar
George May 281-226-8543
[top] - JSC Astronomy Society (JSCAS) Meeting
This Friday, JSCAS' Paul Maley will talk about his trips to see auroras and an opportunity to observe an upcoming asteroid occultation. Come find out how YOU could help determine the size and shape of an asteroid from your own backyard! We'll also have several other short presentations like: the novice Q&A session; the April sky's observing targets, with suggestions for beginners; the always intriguing "Astro Oddities;" dates for our upcoming fabulous and fun star parties; some informative members' minutes; and a recap of our recent trip to Ft. McKavett, where you can read a newspaper by the light of the Milky Way. Membership to the JSCAS is open to anyone who wants to learn about astronomy. There are no dues, no bylaws--you just show up to our meeting. Once you're a member, you can borrow a telescope or an educational DVD from our two loaner programs. - April Shower of Savings Sale – Week 2
This week, take 10 percent off infant wear and models and 15 percent off books in the Buildings 3 and 11 Starport Gift Shops. And, for any rainy day in April, get NASA umbrellas for just $9 (regularly $12). Watch for more great deals from Starport coming soon! Jobs and Training - Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities? To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. Lateral reassignment and rotation opportunities are posted in the Workforce Transition Tool. To access: HR Portal > Employees > Workforce Transition > Workforce Transition Tool. These opportunities do not possess known promotion potential; therefore, employees can only see positions at or below their current grade level. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies or reassignment opportunities, please call your HR representative. Community - Employees Needed for Summer Education Weeks
JSC team members can celebrate the 15th anniversary of High School Aerospace Scholars (HAS) by mentoring students during our NASA summer camps. Help connect our NASA workforce with the brightest Texas high school students. Share your NASA experience and advice while leading student teams in engineering design challenges during a simulated missions to Mars. Choose any week(s) to volunteer only 20 hours while enjoying our fun activities. Summer Schedule: - Week 1: June 15 to 20
- Week 2: June 22 to 27
- Week 3: July 6 to 11
- Week 4: July 13 to 18
- Week 5: July 20 to 25
- Week 6: July 27 to Aug. 1
If interested, please: 1. Complete the mentor application here. 3. Review mentor responsibilities. 4. Apply before April 11. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Monday – April 7, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Plans proceed for crew launches from KSC
James Dean - Florida Today
Space X reviews ground systems
Nearly three years after the final shuttle mission, NASA recently highlighted planning that could lead to a resumption of human launches from Kennedy Space Center in the not-too-distant future.
Ethicists Tell NASA How To Weigh Hazards Of Space Travel
Nell Greenfieldboyce - National Public Radio
NASA is hoping to soon venture out farther into space than ever before. But these long journeys mean astronauts could face greater risks to their physical and mental health than the space agency currently allows.
Space Surgery Was Nearly Impossible Until This Tiny Robot Came Along
Lauren Friedman - Business Insider
In space, health issues and even accidents that would be minor on Earth can become medical emergencies — that's one reason there's an escape capsule built into the International Space Station.
Botanists baffled by rapid growth of 'space cherry'
Takaya Kobayashi - The Asahi Shimbun
A tree grown from a cherry pit that traveled in space five years ago with astronaut Koichi Wakata, now commander of the International Space Station, has bloomed far ahead of what is normal--to the astonishment of botanists.
A full schedule of hearings next week
The week of April 7 is shaping up to be an unusually busy one for space policy, with no fewer than four hearings on various aspects of civil and commercial space, including markups of two bills.
NASA Policy to Suspend Contact with Russia 'Unprecedented,' But Maybe Symbolic, Expert Says
NASA's order to employees to suspend most contact with Russian government representatives is the latest U.S-Russia political development in the ongoing crisis over Ukraine, but the new policy may not have many on-the-ground effects for people working at the American space agency, according to one space historian.
NASA's Russia boycott may revitalise US space leadership
Joan Johnson-Freese – New Scientist
Cooling NASA-Russia ties is a familiar game of political surrogacy, but it may spark talk on reasserting US leadership in space, says a security expert
So NASA has been dragged into the fallout over Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. An internal memo, made public this week, revealed the space agency has suspended contact with Russia, except for that concerning International Space Station (ISS) operations.
Aging technology, budget cuts hit hard at Eastern Range
James Dean – Florida Today
A small fire exposed a big vulnerability in the Air Force's management of local launch operations, which have been grounded for two weeks since an electrical short knocked out an essential tracking radar on March 24.
Progress M-22M to be undocked from ISS and sent on science mission
The Voice of Russia
On Monday, the Progress M-22M cargo spacecraft docked with the ISS will be sent on a monitored independent flight until 18 April to take part in the Radar-Progress scientific experiment, the mission control centre told RIA Novosti. The undocking is scheduled for 17:58 pm Moscow time (13:58 GMT) on 7 April. At 19:43 pm Moscow time (15:43 GMT) on 18 April the spacecraft is expected to leave the orbit and sink in a specific sector of the Pacific Ocean.
NASA plays Ukraine card in bid to speed up return of manned space launches
Guilhem Penent – The Conversation
Citing Russia's "ongoing violations of Ukraine's sovereign and territorial integrity," NASA announced April 3 that it has cut all ties with the Russian Federation with the exception of the International Space Station (ISS).
COMPLETE STORIES
Plans proceed for crew launches from KSC
James Dean - Florida Today
Space X reviews ground systems
Nearly three years after the final shuttle mission, NASA recently highlighted planning that could lead to a resumption of human launches from Kennedy Space Center in the not-too-distant future.
In an update on progress by its Commercial Crew Program partners, the agency said SpaceX in February completed an early design review of "ground systems it anticipates using at NASA's Kennedy Space Center" for crewed flights of Dragon capsules, including "plans to adapt existing structures at Kennedy to accommodate the (Falcon 9) rocket."
The review included ways astronauts would enter their capsule and evacuate the pad quickly in an emergency.
The planning isn't a big surprise, because NASA in December chose to negotiate with SpaceX for a lease of launch pad 39A, one of KSC's two pads, and SpaceX said it wanted to use the pad for crew launches.
But the recent ground systems review proceeded even though that lease is not a done deal. An agreement is said to be close.
NASA hopes to launch astronauts to the International Space Station commercially by 2017 but has warned that date will slip if Congress fails to fully fund the president's $848 million request for the KSC-led Commercial Crew Program in 2015.
If SpaceX doesn't win a commercial crew contract, United Launch Alliance would do the honors, lifting either a Boeing or Sierra Nevada spacecraft. Then NASA crews would launch not from KSC but just down the coast at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA hopes to award more than one contract.
ISS cargo-flying contract extended
NASA action last week likely ensured SpaceX will continue local launches of cargo to the International Space Station through at least 2017.
The agency said it planned to extend existing resupply contracts with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp., for up to 24 months, to December 2017.
NASA said the extension would give potential new providers the opportunity to compete later for a second round of cargo contracts, called Commercial Resupply Services 2.
SpaceX is nearing launch of its third ISS resupply mission planned under a $1.6 billion contract. The launch from Cape Canaveral was targeted for March 30 but postponed when an Air Force tracking radar suffered an outage.
NASA said the launch is now scheduled for April 14.
Morpheus flies again successfully
At Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, NASA's prototype Morpheus lander completed its first free flight carrying a sensor package designed to autonomously detect and avoid hazards on the ground.
The four-legged, liquid methane-fueled vehicle lifted off at 4:21 p.m., climbed 800 feet and flew down range 1,300 feet before touching down in a cloud of dust in a hazard field north of the shuttle runway.
The 96-second flight was Morpheus' first carrying expensive sensors and software called Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology, or ALHAT, and followed a series of test flights to prove the vehicle's flightworthiness.
The laser-guided system scanned the hazard field and ranked safe landing options, but did not control the vehicle as is planned in tests next month.
The next test flight, similar to the one just completed, is planned in late April The flights are streamed live online.
Rollins chief is new CASIS chair
Following France Cordova's departure to lead the National Science Foundation, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space named an interim board chair with local roots.
Lewis Duncan, president of Rollins College in Winter Park, will lead the 11-member board.
Duncan is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of space plasma physics, high-power radio wave propagation, and radar studies of the upper atmosphere, and a spokesperson for STEM educational reform, according to his CASIS biography.
Funded with $15 million annually from NASA, CASIS is responsible for managing non-NASA research performed in the International Space Station's National Lab. It is headquartered in Brevard.
Extended hours
The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will stay open a bit later through the summer. Check out space shuttle Atlantis and other exhibits from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily through Sept. 1.
Historic laptop up for auction
The computer used to send the first presidential email, delivered to then U.S. Sen. John Glenn as he orbitedaboard shuttle Discovery in 1998, is up for auction.
Responding to a Nov. 6 email Glenn sent from the shuttle, President Bill Clinton typed a note into a Toshiba Satellite Pro that referenced his experience watching the STS-95 mission's Oct. 29 launch from Kennedy Space Center.
The online sale of the laptop by Massachusetts-based RR Auction opened March 21 and runs through April 16.
Ethicists Tell NASA How To Weigh Hazards Of Space Travel
Nell Greenfieldboyce - National Public Radio
NASA is hoping to soon venture out farther into space than ever before. But these long journeys mean astronauts could face greater risks to their physical and mental health than the space agency currently allows.
Now, an independent group of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, has weighed in on how NASA should make decisions about what kinds of risks are acceptable for missions that venture outside low Earth orbit or extend beyond 30 days.
Some of the recommendations involve making sure that women get a fair chance at going on these missions and making sure that former astronauts who take risks are guaranteed health care even after they leave the space agency.
The committee's chairman, Jeffrey Kahn, of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in Baltimore, says that NASA sponsored the report because officials wanted some advice: "What happens when sending people out into space would exceed the existing health standards? What should they do?"
Risks to astronauts include vision impairment, weakened bones and radiation exposure. Plus, there are psychological risks of facing extreme danger while being stuck inside a small, confined space with other crew members. Astronauts on unprecedented missions might also face unknown health risks.
After all, just getting to Mars would take at least nine months, and then there'd be the return flight. NASA has also pondered sending astronauts out to an asteroid. Closer to home, astronauts may get assigned long duration missions on the international space station.
"Those are the kinds of missions that they are envisioning when they're asking for help in how to think through the ethics of health standards in those situations," notes Kahn.
Astronauts aren't covered by the same sort of occupational health and safety regulations that usually protect workers.
"NASA is exempted from those rules by the Space Act, but as part of that they are required to make their own rules," Kahn says. "I think there's a sense that it's important to engage in exploration but not doing so in ways that would expose people to greater than acceptable levels of risk."
The committee's report says that NASA should keep its current health standards and make rare exceptions on a mission-by-mission basis.
In deciding whether or not to make those exceptions, officials should follow an ethical framework that includes principles like balancing the risk of harm with the potential for benefit.
The report says that to recognize sacrifices made by astronauts for the benefit of society, NASA should offer health care for the rest of their lives.
What's more, the report recommends ensuring equality of opportunity for crew selection.
As it stands now, notes Kahn, "women are allowed to spend fewer days in space than are men, because of their risk of cancer to certain organs in their body."
NASA currently protects all crew members to the same risk level from radiation, says Richard Williams, NASA's chief health and medical officer.
"And it turns out that women are more vulnerable from radiation-induced cancer than men are so they'll reach the same risk limit as men at a lower radiation level than the men will," says Williams.
"It's not been a problem up until now and in the future because we never got close to radiation limits, but with extended flight on the international space station and certainly exploration-class missions, we will get close to those limits," Williams says.
That's one of the issues that led NASA to seek outside advice on the ethics of making these decisions, he says, and the agency is glad to have this new report.
"I think that we all, from one end of the agency to the other, understand that the missions that we do are of high priority and of high risk," says Williams. "We are all interested and committed to limiting the risk to the greatest extent possible but also to actually completing and doing the missions."
But Ed Lu, a former astronaut who did a six-month stint on the international space station, says that "most if not all astronauts" have a problem with the way "in which the standards are handed down from on high."
He notes that astronauts do understand and accept the need for health standards for medical problems that could potentially impact a mission's success, such as whether or not an astronaut has good eyesight or is susceptible to painful kidney stones that might derail a long-duration spaceflight.
"But there are other standards which we all had a problem with, I think," says Lu. "And they have to do with ones that are things for quote, 'your own good.' "
In his view, managers shouldn't be the ones to decide whether an increased risk of cancer years in the future is worth the chance to do a specific mission. "Decisions like that ought to be up to the astronaut," Lu says.
The committee disagreed with the idea, however, that it was enough to simply tell astronauts the risks and let them make an informed choice, says Kahn.
"There needs to be a decision made about levels of risk being acceptable," says Kahn, "before astronauts are given the opportunity to make a decision to participate or not."
Space Surgery Was Nearly Impossible Until This Tiny Robot Came Along
Lauren Friedman - Business Insider
In space, health issues and even accidents that would be minor on Earth can become medical emergencies — that's one reason there's an escape capsule built into the International Space Station.
Surgery in space is basically impossible. But the designers of a nimble little robot are trying to change that. Here's a video of an early prototype: http://youtu.be/iU52GV52uuA
Researchers at a company called Virtual Incision are working on a "fist-sized" robot that could perform emergency surgeries to fix urgent problems without the need for a quick getaway, New Scientist reports. Such an innovation would be essential as we contemplate longer missions and those in which humans stray further from Earth, say to an asteroid or Mars.
"While this work is in an early phase, the minimal invasiveness of this approach could enable its use in remote locations such as on a moon or Mars colony," researchers wrote in a technical paper on the prototype.
How exactly would it work? "The miniature surgeon slides into the body through an incision in the belly button," Aviva Rutkin writes in New Scientist. "Once inside the abdominal cavity — which has been filled with inert gas to make room for it to work — the robot can remove an ailing appendix, cut pieces from a diseased colon or perforate a gastric ulcer."
The robot is designed to be light — the latest version is less than a pound — and that's a crucial feature in anything that's headed to space.
But in that light package, there's a lot packed in, Rutkin writes: "It has two arms loaded with tools to grab, cauterize and suture tissue, and its head is a small video camera."
The robot would be remote-controlled, although controlling it from as far away as Earth would probably be impractical. The further away the robot gets from the controller, the greater the potential communication delays.
Instead, Virtual Incision says, the short-term plan would be to train astronauts to use the robot to perform select surgeries on each other. The longer-term goal is to imbue the tiny robot with medical knowledge and give it the ability to perform operations somewhat autonomously.
Still, the technology has a long way to go. It will soon be tested on human cadavers, but so far, it's only been used to perform procedures on pigs. Before it can actually be sent to space, the researchers will have to prove the robot's skills using living humans here on Earth.
In space, where even a routine task like eating can be a technical challenge, the potential complications involved in performing surgery are immense.
"Everything that we take for granted, even something as simple as putting a Band Aid down on a table, is difficult in space," one of Virtual Incision's co-founders, Dmitry Oleynikov, told New Scientist. "That difficulty increases logarithmically when you're trying to do complex procedures such as an operation."
Later this year, the tiny surgery robot's basic functions will be tested on a zero-gravity flight.
Botanists baffled by rapid growth of 'space cherry'
Takaya Kobayashi - The Asahi Shimbun
A tree grown from a cherry pit that traveled in space five years ago with astronaut Koichi Wakata, now commander of the International Space Station, has bloomed far ahead of what is normal--to the astonishment of botanists.
Cherry trees typically take about a decade from the time they sprout from seeds to bloom.
The cherry pit was one of around 265 produced from the fruit of the famous 1,250-year-old "Chujohimeseigan-zakura" cherry tree grown in the compound of the Ganjoji temple here, which traces its roots to the seventh century.
In the "space cherry" project organized by Tokyo-based Japan Manned Space Systems Corp., the space-going pits were rocketed to the International Space Station in 2008, and returned to Earth in July 2009 with Wakata, now 50.
The original Chujohimeseigan-zakura tree is a variant of the "yamazakura" wild cherry species, and until now, attempts to grow young trees from its fruit have been unsuccessful.
Botanist Takao Yoshimura, 78, successfully sprouted one of the pits that traveled to the ISS using a method in which he covered the soil with sphagnum moss.
In four years, the young plant has grown to a height of about 4 meters. This spring, it produced about 10 buds, which all were in bloom by April 4.
Yoshimura said it takes 10 years or more for cherry trees to grow flowers, but the young trees produced from cherry pits taken into space have flowered unusually early. Some of the 265 space-traveling cherry pits were planted in Kochi and Yamanashi prefectures after they returned to Earth and they have already come into bloom as well.
Botanist Kaori Tomita, a 56-year-old lecturer at University of Tsukuba who participated in the space cherry project, said that current science can offer no answer for the unusually fast growth of the space cherries.
"There is a theoretical possibility that the cosmic environment has had a certain impact on agents in the seeds that control budding and the growth process, but we have absolutely no answer as to why the trees have come into bloom so fast," she said.
Although each flower of the parent tree has around 30 petals, the flowers of the space cherry have only five petals.
"As it is grown from a seed, the young plant might have reverted back to have the characteristics of original yamazakura species," Yoshimura said.
Yoshimura added that as it grows older, the space cherry may have more petals on each flower like its parent tree, which is now in full bloom.
A full schedule of hearings next week
The week of April 7 is shaping up to be an unusually busy one for space policy, with no fewer than four hearings on various aspects of civil and commercial space, including markups of two bills.
On Tuesday, April 8, the House Appropriations Committee's Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) subcommittee is holding a hearing on NASA's fiscal year 2015 budget proposal at 9:30 am. The hearing also includes a mention of "oversight of NASA security" with former attorney general Richard Thornburgh joining NASA administrator Charles Bolden as witnesses. That's a reference to an independent report chaired by Thornburgh that Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the CJS subcommittee, used to criticize NASA for a poor "persistent organizational culture."
On Wednesday, April 9, at 9 am, the House Science Committee's space subcommittee will hold a markup session on a new draft of a NASA authorization act. Details about the bill, and how it might differ from an authorization bill the committee approved last July, aren't yet available. The markup session will likely be brief: another Science Committee subcommittee has a hearing scheduled for the same room at 10 am.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate Commerce Committee's space subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday at 10 am on "From Here to Mars". The hearing features a mix of witnesses broadly discussing NASA's exploration plans and issues with international and commercial cooperation. NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier will testify, along with Susan Eisenhower, chairman emeritus of the Eisenhower Institute; former astronaut Leroy Chiao; and NanoRacks managing director Jeffrey Manber.
That afternoon, the full Senate Commerce Committee will convene to consider a batch of bills and nominations. Among the legislation up for consideration is S. 2140, a bill introduced in March by Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) that would allow commercial suborbital launch providers to simultaneously hold both a launch license and an experimental permit. Currently, a company that receives a launch license has to surrender any experimental permit it holds for that vehicles, but companies like Virgin Galactic have argued that they should be able to retain their permits for use on test flights. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Tom Udall (D-NM) are original cosponsors of the bill, and Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) have signed on since then.
NASA Policy to Suspend Contact with Russia 'Unprecedented,' But Maybe Symbolic, Expert Says
NASA's order to employees to suspend most contact with Russian government representatives is the latest U.S-Russia political development in the ongoing crisis over Ukraine, but the new policy may not have many on-the-ground effects for people working at the American space agency, according to one space historian.
A NASA statement released Wednesday (April 2) directed U.S. space agency officials to suspend contact with Russian government representatives, but ongoing operations on the International Space Station are exempt from the new policy. The statement was released hours after a leaked NASA memo stating the same policy. Other U.S. government agencies are also curtailing contact with Russian government officials, NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told Space.com. Asif Siddiqi, a space historian, shared his personal views on the NASA policy and its context with Space.com. "The NASA statement clearly states that 'NASA is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation' except ISS [International Space Station]," said Siddiqi, a Russian space program analyst at Fordham University. "So, from my perspective, the fact that cooperation on ISS hasn't been affected suggests that things will proceed largely as before."
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, and NASA do engage in some other scientific collaboration, but most partnerships between the two organizations take place within the space station program.
"To my knowledge, NASA and Roscosmos don't have that many cooperative programs besides ISS," Siddiqi said. "I believe they have some instrumentation on a couple of NASA planetary vehicles and things like that. But ISS is really it. So as long as ISS isn't affected, I wonder if this is largely symbolic."
Even if symbolic, the contact ban could still affect morale on the ground and even in space, Siddiqi said. The policy shift may affect Russian and American crewmembers on the space station, he added.
He also called the contact ban unique in the post-Cold War era.
"At the height of the Cold War … there was hardly any significant cooperation in space between the two superpowers," Siddiqi said. "So I would say it's still not as bad as that time." But in the post-Cold War climate, "I would say that this is pretty serious. I can't remember a time in the past 20 years when either side made such a bold statement about not cooperating with the other side. It may only have symbolic effects (given its exemption of ISS), but the statement itself is unprecedented."
NASA and Russia are planning to launch a joint yearlong mission to the space station in 2015. Siddiqi says that he thinks that mission will go on as planned despite the leaked memo, but that he also thinks the ban could affect later collaboration. "There is too much institutional momentum built up to not pursue that [yearlong mission]," Siddiqi said. "But it certainly might affect any follow-on projects of that nature."
At the moment, NASA relies on Russian-built Soyuz capsules and rockets to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The agency hopes to change that practice by 2017 by switching to privately built U.S. vehicles when ferrying astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost. NASA chief Charles Bolden has said that, if given proper funding, the commercial crew program could get off the ground as much as a year earlier, in 2016.
"The companies are moving very rapidly — as rapidly as they can, based on the funding that we've given them to be able to be ready to fly as soon as they can," Bolden said, while addressing members of Congress on March 27. "I would be hesitant to say that we could accelerate it any more than a year, but we could potentially accelerate it by a year if we're given adequate funding."
During that same hearing, Bolden also said that Roscosmos could not operate the space station without United States support.
"Because we provide navigation, communications, power … I hate to deal in conjecture," Bolden said. "The partners would probably have to shut the space station down. If you're thinking that the Russians will continue to operate the International Space Station [on their own], it can't be done."
For his part, Siddiqi does not think that NASA's move will cause Russian officials to limit NASA's transportation to the space station.
"No, barring any further deterioration in the Ukrainian crisis, I don't think the Russians would take that step, to limit U.S. access to ISS," Siddiqi said. "I just don't think it's in their interest. They have more to lose [than the U.S.]."
NASA's Russia boycott may revitalise US space leadership
Joan Johnson-Freese – New Scientist
Cooling NASA-Russia ties is a familiar game of political surrogacy, but it may spark talk on reasserting US leadership in space, says a security expert
So NASA has been dragged into the fallout over Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. An internal memo, made public this week, revealed the space agency has suspended contact with Russia, except for that concerning International Space Station (ISS) operations.
The memo stated that the suspension "includes NASA travel to Russia and visits by Russian government representatives to NASA facilities, bilateral meetings, email, and teleconferences or videoconferences." This was confirmed in an official statement from NASA yesterday.
Will this action influence Vladimir Putin and his apparent dream of geographically reassembling parts of the Soviet Union as a new Russian empire? That's highly unlikely. So why do it? Space has a long history of serving as a surrogate for demonstrating US displeasure about foreign or domestic policy actions in other countries.
Though examples date back to the cold war, the most recent case relates to China. China has been banned for years from participating in the ISS because select members of the US Congress consider it inappropriate to work with a communist government. In addition, NASA has been legislatively banned from having bilateral relations with China since 2011.
While ostensibly that ban relates to concerns about technology transfer, the underlying reason has as much or more to do with Chinese restrictions on religious freedom. But China has neither changed its type of government nor its policies on religious freedom based on exclusion from the ISS or its relative isolation from meeting with NASA officials, nor is it likely to. In fact, China has pushed ahead with its own robotic lunar programme and human space-flight programme, and works with many other countries, including Russia, in space.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and the cold war ended, the US pragmatically merged its human space-flight programme, specifically the ISS programme, with the Soviet Mir space station programme inherited by the new Russian state. The pragmatic intent was to keep lots of otherwise potentially unemployed Russian scientists and engineers from taking jobs in countries with dubious "space" programmes. After all, space technology is largely dual use, of value to both military and civilian communities. The basics of rocket technology and missile technology are largely symbiotic. It seemed a good idea at the time.
Then, after spending decades building the ISS, the US cancelled the space shuttle, the vehicle originally intended for transport to the ISS as part of its post-Apollo programme. The first resident crew arrived at the ISS in 2000 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, but shuttle missions soon followed. After the shuttle's last flight in 2011, though, the US became dependent on Russia for transport to the ISS, using Soyuz at a cost of nearly $71 million for each seat it requires.
Such dependence inherently carries risk. Given Russia's democratic government though (democratic only if you squinted hard when looking at it) it seemed a reasonable risk. Enter the egotistic, ambitious and maybe ruthless Putin.
It would be hypocritical to say the least for the US to ban bilateral space relations with China over general displeasure with its form of government and policies on religious freedom, but continue business as usual with Russia after it had just annexed the sovereign territory of another country.
The problem is, the US and Russia are tied at the hip on the flagship ISS programme, which is currently scheduled to be operational until at least 2024, hence the exemption.
Undoubtedly, there will be finger-pointing in Congress about how and whose responsibility it is that the US is dependent on the Russians, which doesn't seem so prudent now. Whether that for-the-camera, useless blame game can translate into much needed political will to accelerate backup plans for ISS transport remains to be seen, because acceleration and diversification would involve a lot of money.
NASA's suspension of working with the Russians will likely be received in Russia much the same way other sanctions over its actions in Ukraine have been: with ridicule. Regrettably, Putin holds all the cards or, more specifically, the keys to the rocket capable of getting crew to the ISS. The next move is up to him.
Retaliation from Russia should not be ruled out, and the US needs to prepare for that. Congress likes to assert itself into space policy, and now seems a good time to do so. There are two immediate needs: accelerating the diversification of ISS transport options and rethinking the propensity of using space as a foreign policy surrogate.
The bigger issue, however, is how to reassert US space leadership. Without finally dealing with that, the US may increasingly find itself being "pushed around" in space.
Joan Johnson-Freese is a professor in the department of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College, Rhode Island. She is author of books including Heavenly Ambitions: America's quest to dominate space
Aging technology, budget cuts hit hard at Eastern Range
James Dean – Florida Today
A small fire exposed a big vulnerability in the Air Force's management of local launch operations, which have been grounded for two weeks since an electrical short knocked out an essential tracking radar on March 24.
Launches of a national security satellite and International Space Station cargo were put on hold until the Eastern Range is back in operation, expected later this week.
The lack of a backup radar or other redundant systems that might have minimized the disruption highlight the effects of budget cuts and a need to accelerate modernization of the range, which continues to rely on decades-old technology, according to interviews and records.
"There's no question that this was recognized as a risk," said Frank DiBello, president and CEO of Space Florida. "It wasn't a question of if it happened, it was a question of when. And that's been known for a while."
The 45th Space Wing operates the Eastern Range, which is responsible for public safety during launches from Cape Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center and spans 15 million square miles to the Indian Ocean.
The range tracks rocket flights and would enable the destruction of one if it veered off course. But it has struggled to maintain aging systems based on "1950s paradigms," according to a 2012 strategic plan on the 45th Space Wing's Web site.
The Eastern Range also has had to cope with spending cuts and other military programs being given greater priority.
"The budget cuts are real, they have affected the Eastern Range, and they're significant," said Edward Ellegood, a space policy analyst at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. "That has whittled down staff, both civil service and contractor organizations, and it's reduced the hardware resources available to support the range's mission."
For example, the Air Force now operates fewer local tracking radars and no longer uses "optical" tracking assets including high-powered telescopes that could back up or potentially replace a radar.
Ellegood said the Air Force's budget for operating and maintaining the Eastern Range has been reduced by "tens of millions of dollars" over the past five years because of government-wide budget reductions, including sequestration cuts.
The Wing and the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, which oversees the Eastern and Western ranges, did not respond to questions about funding for range operations and maintenance, changes in tracking assets kept active or mothballed, and modernization plans.
The damaged radar, located near the Telemetry-IV site on Kennedy Space Center, was key because it offered a clear line of sight to rockets on northern Cape pads, providing information from before liftoff through the first minutes of flight. Without it, the Air Force said it could not meet its public safety requirements.
New technology
While a shortage of radars may have exacerbated the impact of the recent outage, the goal is to reduce reliance on the aging and costly networks.
Modernization plans aim to take better advantage of GPS technology to track a rocket's location, and to enable rockets to destroy themselves if they stray dangerously from programmed trajectories, either by cutting off engine thrust or detonating explosives. Now, a "human in the loop" is required to end a flight.
The technologies have been discussed for more than a decade and have begun testing, but more test flights are needed before they can be certified.
Ellegood blamed "penny-wise, pound-foolish austerity" for a loss of redundancy combined with a lack of investment in modernization that would save money over time.
"In the long run, they could have eliminated the need for these radar systems that are now giving them problems," he said.
NASA is working with the Air Force on selected range upgrades. The agency's 21st Century Launch Complex program expects to contribute $54 million to the effort between 2011 and 2016.
The partners in 2012 completed a study to identify needs and prioritize projects. It concluded that the Eastern and Western ranges "face a very challenging future."
The report said a multi-year delay in the Air Force's award of a new, consolidated contract for range maintenance and improvements was "inhibiting the execution of numerous range sustainment and modernization projects." That contract has not been awarded.
"The range continues to operate with systems that are antiquated and need to be modernized," the study continued. "Instrumentation modernization projects are years behind the anticipated delivery schedule. Most of the instrumentation antenna systems are at least 40 years old and are past the expected usable life for this type of system."
A 2012 Air Force presentation titled "Ranges of the Future," delivered at the Federal Aviation Administration's annual commercial space conference, reduced the challenge to a simple equation: "Decades old systems + infrastructure = failure risk."
"It is crucial that the wing operates and maintains this precious resource at the highest levels to ensure the United States can launch when needed," the 45th Space Wing's strategic plan states. "To achieve this, we must ensure range assets are ready when called upon and contingency plans are in place to quickly mitigate the impacts of any degradation to operations."
The Wing said it could take three weeks to fix the radar problem, but it appears it will recover sooner, possibly by bringing an inactive radar back into service.
Launch operations are expected to resume with a planned Thursday liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite.
A SpaceX launch of ISS cargo is planned four days later, on April 14, after a 15-day delay.
Progress M-22M to be undocked from ISS and sent on science mission
The Voice of Russia
On Monday, the Progress M-22M cargo spacecraft docked with the ISS will be sent on a monitored independent flight until 18 April to take part in the Radar-Progress scientific experiment, the mission control centre told RIA Novosti. The undocking is scheduled for 17:58 pm Moscow time (13:58 GMT) on 7 April. At 19:43 pm Moscow time (15:43 GMT) on 18 April the spacecraft is expected to leave the orbit and sink in a specific sector of the Pacific Ocean.
The Radar-Progress experiment will be set up by the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Korolyov Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, and the TsNIIMash mission control centre.
During the test runs it is planned to measure the density, temperature and ionic composition of the ionosphere determined by the work of the spacecraft engines depending on the direction of solar emission.
The engine unit of a Progress M-17M spacecraft, USB radio equipment and a complex of ground radio-tracking facilities will be used in the Radar-Progress experiment.
Russia expects to launch 17 spacecraft from four space centers within the next three months, a source from the rocket and space industry told Interfax news agency on Wednesday.
"Two Russian space launches are due in February, six in March and five in April. They will be conducted from Baikonur, Plesetsk and Kourou space centers and the floating platform in the Pacific. Seventeen spacecraft will be put into orbit," the source said.
"In addition to the Progress M-22M resupply ship mission scheduled for Wednesday, a Proton-M launch vehicle with a Briz-M upper stage and the Turksat 4A Turkish satellite will blast off from the Baikonur space center [in Kazakhstan] in February. The Proton takeoff is due on February 15," the source said.
A Glonass-M navigation satellite will be transported to orbit by a Soyuz-2-1b launch vehicle with a Fregat upper stage from the Plesetsk space center in the Arkhangelsk region on March 11, he said.
"A Proton-M powered with a Briz-M will be launched on March 16 with the Express AT1 and Express AT2 telecom satellites aboard, and a Strela launch vehicle will carry the Kondor-E remote observation satellite to orbit on March 19," the source said.
"A Soyuz-FG launch vehicle will take off on March 26 to bring the Soyuz TMA-12M manned spaceship to space, and a Soyuz-ST-A launch vehicle with a Fregat-MT upper stage and the Sentinel-1A European satellite will be launched from the Kourou space center in French Guiana on March 29, he said.
"The first month of spring will end with the launch of a Rokot vehicle with a Briz-KM upper stage and satellites of the Russian Defense Ministry," the source added.
The launch of a Proton-M with a Briz-M upper stage and the Express AM4R telecom satellite is due on April 6, the launch of a Soyuz-U vehicle with the Progress M-23M resupply ship on April 9, and the launch of a Zenit-3SL rocket with a DM-SL upper stage and the European telecom satellite Eutelsat 3B from the floating platform in the Pacific Ocean under the Sea Launch program on April 13.
NASA plays Ukraine card in bid to speed up return of manned space launches
Guilhem Penent – The Conversation
Citing Russia's "ongoing violations of Ukraine's sovereign and territorial integrity," NASA announced April 3 that it has cut all ties with the Russian Federation with the exception of the International Space Station (ISS).
Because Russia's three-person Soyuz capsules are currently the only means of crewed access to low earth orbit, NASA has no alternative but to continue working with its counterpart, Roscosmos, to "maintain safe and continuous operation of the ISS".
But with the ISS left out, there are hardly any programs affected by the policy change. There is actually little cooperation going on between NASA and the Russian government agencies besides the ISS partnership. This fact was not lost on Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin (one of the Russian officials sanctioned by the Obama administration as punishment for their role in the Ukrainian situation) who for one did not seem much impressed. "Yet, apart from over the ISS we didn't cooperate with NASA anyway," he said in a tweet.
However, it would be wrong to think that the US decision to suspend NASA relations with Russian representatives on everything non-ISS related is not serious. As put by NASA astronaut Ron Garan: "In any crisis the worst thing we can do is stop talking."
Take for instance the two-yearly International Committee for Space Research (COSPAR) meeting, which was set up in 1958 when the space age began. Through the Cold War, it was the one place where Soviet and Western space scientists could freely meet, irrespective of the political situation outside. But now NASA colleagues may not be able to attend because it is to be held in Moscow in August 2014.
These new restrictions, which are actually very similar to the ones that limit NASA's interactions with China, could also have some retaliatory consequences. The likelihood of that happening is pretty low though, given that Roscosmos could not operate the station without NASA. The only worry is if Russia begins to lose interest in the ISS.
Such a scenario is not too far-fetched. One only needs to recall the geopolitical landscape in which the ISS was born. Beginning construction of the station meant Russia's old Mir station needed to be deorbited. The painful memories of that are still vivid.
NASA's recent decision was first revealed by a leaked email before being officially announced. The official response from NASA to the leaked memo seemed more like a message to the US Congress than to Russia. It said:
NASA is laser focused on a plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our reliance on Russia to get into space. This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration's for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches – and the jobs they support – back to the United States next year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we're now looking at launching from US soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It's that simple. The Obama Administration chooses to invest in America – and we are hopeful that Congress will do the same.
Since the end of the Space Shuttle program, NASA has not had the capacity to get human into low earth orbit. But private companies such as Boeing, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have been funded by Congress to produce a new generation of launch vehicle.
Despite going ahead with the funding, Congress has been notoriously sceptical about NASA's commercial crew program. Many there appear to be sceptical about the need for several companies to be funded in this way.
This is why, unfortunately, by trying to hit both Russia and US Congress with the same weapon, NASA and the Obama administration might have missed the mark entirely.
END
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