Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Friday - May 23, 2014

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From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: May 23, 2014 10:26:42 AM CDT
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Friday - May 23, 2014

Happy Flex Friday everyone.   Have a great and safe Memorial Day weekend too!

http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/memorial-day/history/

 

 

Energia Willing To Send People To The ISS For $45-50 Million.

The RT (RUS) (5/23, 117K) reports that Russia's Energia Rocket and Space Corporation announced that it will send a member of the public on a Soyuz rocket to the ISS for two weeks for $45-50 million. The article notes that when Dennis Tito, the first private citizen to go to the ISS, made his trip back in 2001, the cost was $20 million.

 

 

NASA and Human Spaceflight News

Friday – May 23, 2014

 

 

HEADLINES AND LEADS

Atlas 5 rocket launches with secret reconnaisance satellite

Bill Harwood – CBS News

 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket powered by a Russian first-stage engine -- the focus of renewed debate over U.S. reliance on Russian space technology -- roared to life and climbed away through a cloudless sky Thursday, kicking off a classified mission to boost a National Reconnaissance Office satellite into orbit.

 

Atlas V successfully vaults spy satellite to orbit

James Dean – Florida Today

 

United Launch Alliance has declared today's mission for the National Reconnaissance Office a success. "Congratulations to all of our mission partners on today's successful launch of the NRO-33 mission," Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president for Atlas and Delta programs, said in a statement. "The ULA team is honored to deliver another critical national security asset to orbit together with the NRO Office of Space Launch and the Air Force."

 

GAO: True Cost of SLS, Orion Unclear

Dan Leone - Space News (May 19, 2014)

 

NASA has masked the true cost of the Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule by neglecting to say what these deep-space systems will cost to build and operate over the decades the agency plans to use them, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

 

Russian rocket engine damaged in Mississippi test firing

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A Russian-built rocket engine slated for use in the first stage of an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket scheduled for launch to the International Space Station in early 2015 suffered extensive damage Thursday after a premature shutdown during a pre-flight test firing, officials said. The cause of the mishap, and what impact it might have on a planned June flight to the space station, is not yet known.

 

SpaceX Expected to Unveil Manned Dragon Spaceship on May 29

Mike Wall – space.com

 

The world is about to get its first look at SpaceX's new astronaut taxi. Next Thursday (May 29), the company will unveil the crewed version of its Dragon spacecraft, which SpaceX hopes will be ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station a few short years from now.

 

NASA says Huntsville's backup Mission Control isn't going to Texas

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

NASA says it won't move a backup Mission Control center from Huntsville to Texas despite a report that might happen. "The bottom line is there are no plans to move it," Marshall Space Flight Center public affairs specialist Tracy McMahan said late Thursday.

 

Agreement Could Bring NASA Backup Mission Control to Bryan

David Norris - KBTX TV (Bryan, Texas)

 

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Agreement-Could-Bring-Backup-NASA-Mission-Control-to-Downtown-Bryan-250248551.html

 

Texas An agreement between a Bryan-based company and NASA could bring a new mission control to Downtown Bryan. Texas Space Technology Application & Research (TSTAR) signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA on Thursday in downtown Bryan.

 

SEE IT: NASA creates image of Earth using more than 36,000 selfies from around the globe

Joel Landau – New York Daily News

 

The space bureau asked people to submit selfies from around the world on Earth Day last month. Now they've taken the images to create two mosaics that look like the planet as seen from outer space.

 

COMPLETE STORIES

Atlas 5 rocket launches with secret reconnaisance satellite

Bill Harwood – CBS News

 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket powered by a Russian first-stage engine -- the focus of renewed debate over U.S. reliance on Russian space technology -- roared to life and climbed away through a cloudless sky Thursday, kicking off a classified mission to boost a National Reconnaissance Office satellite into orbit.

 

Gulping liquid oxygen and refined kerosene rocket fuel, the Russian-built RD-180 engine ignited at 9:09 a.m. EDT (GMT-4), throttled up to full power and boosted the 20-story rocket away from launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

 

The first stage appeared to perform normally and the rocket's second-stage hydrogen-fueled RL10 engine ignited as planned to continue the push toward space.

 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket climbs away from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, boosting a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite toward orbit.

United Launch Alliance

 

But in keeping with standard practice for classified NRO missions, ULA ended its launch coverage and commentary five minutes after liftoff, well before the secret payload reached its intended orbit.

 

Given the rocket's apparent easterly trajectory, amateur satellite trackers believe the payload may be an advanced data relay spacecraft, part of a globe-spanning network used to collect and pass along signals from other spacecraft and ground units.

 

Payload aside, the launching highlighted the controversy that has enveloped the RD-180 first stage engine, one of the most powerful kerosene-oxygen engines in the world.

 

Generating nearly 900,000 pounds of thrust at liftoff, the RD-180 is built by NPO Energomash and was developed for the Atlas 5 by AD AMROSS, a partnership between Energomash and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. The RD-180 has flown aboard 51 Atlas rockets since 2000, chalking up a flawless record.

 

But in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, subsequent U.S. sanctions and increasingly heated rhetoric, ULA's use of Russian engines to launch critical national security payloads has drawn fire from lawmakers and a legal challenge from SpaceX, ULA's major U.S competitor.

 

SpaceX alleged in a federal complaint that payments for RD-180s appeared to violate Obama administration sanctions, implying that Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's deputy prime minister for space and defense, might personally profit from the engine contracts. Rogozin is one of the Russian leaders personally singled out for U.S. sanctions.

 

A federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking purchases of RD-180 hardware but lifted the ban a few days later, after officials with the departments of Treasury, Justice and State submitted opinions that continued payments did not, in fact, violate the sanctions.

 

Rogozin upped the ante by recently tweeting that Russia would forbid the use of RD-180s for future U.S. military missions. He also threatened to pull out of the International Space Station program after 2020, suggesting Russia might not go along with NASA's desire to operate the lab through at least 2024 and possibly longer.

 

So far, the Russian government has not issued any official notification of a change in policy governing the RD-180 or the space station, U.S. officials say, but Rogozin's bluster has triggered widespread concern.

 

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel ordered a review to study the issue, including what might be needed to build a replacement engine. The panel's report has not yet been released, but Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that it calls for development of a new engine, a project that could cost as much as $1.5 billion and take up to six years to complete.

 

The Atlas 5, designed by Lockheed Martin, and Boeing's Delta 4 are known as evolved expendable launch vehicles, or EELVs. The two companies initially were competitors, but they joined forces in 2006 and set up United Launch Alliance, offering "assured access to space" with two independent families of rockets.

 

The Lockheed Martin-designed Atlas 5 has used the RD-180 since its inception while Boeing's Delta 4 family of rockets utilizes American-made engines.

 

Michael Gass, president and CEO of ULA, told reporters at an aerospace conference earlier this week that his company has 16 RD-180 engines in hand, enough to cover two years of Atlas operations. Five more engines are scheduled for delivery later this year.

 

Faced with a possible disruption in its supply chain, ULA engineers are accelerating construction of already planned Delta 4 rockets and studying options for shifting some high-priority national security payloads from Atlas to Delta if necessary.

 

"Since we started our activity on the EELV program and selected the RD-180, there's always been a contingency plan," Gass said. "First, our nation has assured access (to space) as a policy, we deliver two fully qualified systems that are capable of supporting all of our national security needs.

 

"We've kept a safety stock of engines in place to help with a smooth transition to move all those payloads to Delta 4 if necessary. And the first thing we're doing is making sure we're implementing that contingency plan, which includes the acceleration of Delta 4 production."

 

Gass said the engines purchased to date were exported under a contract that allows "dual use" for civilian and military missions. If a Russian ban on using RD-180s for U.S. military missions is imposed at some point, Gass said ULA "would accept those engines and apply them to our NASA civil and commercial customers and we'll hold the ones that were exported for dual use to be used by our national security payloads."

 

Last year, ULA won a sole-source Air Force contract for a "block buy" of 36 rocket "cores" that will make up 27 Atlas and Delta launch vehicles. The Air Force initially expected to need 50 cores, reserving 14 for competitive bidding, Seven of those 14 missions now have been deferred, leaving seven flights up for grabs.

 

ULA, Gass said, has committed to building all 50 cores even though it has not yet secured customers for the vehicles outside the 36-core block buy.

 

In the same complaint questioning use of the RD-180, SpaceX challenged the sole-source contract, arguing the company's Falcon 9 rocket should have been considered for at least some of the block-buy missions.

 

The Falcon 9 is a relatively new launcher with just nine flights to its credit, all of them successful. An upgraded version of the rocket, the Falcon 9 version 1.1, has flown four times.The Air Force is in the process of certifying the Falcon 9 for military payloads, a process that requires three successful flights in a row and a detailed review of engineering, manufacturing and business practices.

 

"They cannot compete, will not compete, until they are certified," Gen. William Shelton, commander of Air Force Space Command, told reporters earlier this week. "The fact that SpaceX has completed three certification launches, that's just openers. There's a tremendous amount of analysis that needs to be completed.

 

"We have said that their first launch is acceptable. They're next two launches we're still working our way through, and then beyond that is a process analysis to make sure that you're manufacturing processes are right, to make sure your engineering processes are right, to make sure that you've got an auditable financial system."

 

SpaceX, not surprisingly, disagrees. Spokeswoman Emily Shanklin, in an email to CBS News, cited a letter from the Air Force to the Government Accountability Office saying companies are free to compete for Air Force contracts as soon as data from the third certification flight is delivered to the government.

 

"By March 22nd, 2014, SpaceX had delivered the data from our final certification launch to the Air Force and consequently, SpaceX is eligible to compete," Shanklin said.

 

But that was not the case last year, when the block buy contract was finalized, and Gass repeated his belief that SpaceX is still not certified for any of the missions covered by the contract. He also said SpaceX grossly overstated the cost of ULA rockets in challenging the sole-source block buy.

 

In a break with a long-standing policy of declining to discuss cost, Gass said a heavy-lift three-core Delta 4 rocket ran about $350 million in the block buy contract while the least-powerful Atlas 5 variant, a single-core vehicle roughly comparable to the Falcon 9, cost less than $100 million.

 

He said the average cost of a ULA rocket under the block-buy contract and the company's decision to build an additional 14 rocket cores, came out to $225 million per vehicle.

 

SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk has said ULA rockets cost more than $400 million per flight and suggested the U.S. government would be better off abandoning the Atlas 5 in favor of the Falcon 9. SpaceX advertises the cost of a Falcon 9 at around $60 million, although Musk acknowledges military contracts could add some $30 million per flight.

 

"The Air Force budget for 2015 speaks for itself," Shanklin said. "In the budget, three single core vehicles add up to $1.212 billion, or $404 million per vehicle. Mr. Gass' statements run counter to budget reality. ULA has the most expensive launch services in the world, nearly double that of the next most expensive competitor. When you don't have to compete, there's little incentive to control costs or innovate."

 

Gass dismissed the SpaceX concerns, saying the block buy was negotiated over several years and that SpaceX was aware of the plan throughout its development.

 

"SpaceX is trying to change the rules for them, even though it may not be in the best interest of the taxpayer and most importantly, not in the best interest of the critical war fighting capabilities we're delivering to our customers," Gass said. "We're focused on supporting the mission. It's time for the other company prove its technology and match its rhetoric with on-schedule performance."

 

Atlas V successfully vaults spy satellite to orbit

James Dean – Florida Today

 

United Launch Alliance has declared today's mission for the National Reconnaissance Office a success.

 

"Congratulations to all of our mission partners on today's successful launch of the NRO-33 mission," Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president for Atlas and Delta programs, said in a statement. "The ULA team is honored to deliver another critical national security asset to orbit together with the NRO Office of Space Launch and the Air Force."

 

An Atlas V rocket delivered the NRO satellite to orbit, blasting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 9:09 a.m.

 

Sponnick also congratulated ULA for completing its second launch in six days, the second time this year the company has pulled off two launches within a week.

 

"Successfully launching at this temp is a testament to the teams' focus on mission success, one-launch-at-a-time, and continuous improvement of our launch processes," he said.

 

ULA's next launch is planned July 1 from California, of a NASA science satellite. That is expected to be followed by two more military launches from the Cape in late July.

 

The Cape's next scheduled rocket launch is June 11, by a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying six satellites for Orbcomm Inc. Technical problems postponed the mission's launch earlier this month.

 

PREVIOUS REPORT

 

A classified spy agency satellite blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 9:09 a.m. today atop an Atlas V rocket.

 

The early flight proceeded smoothly east over the Atlantic, but a United Launch Alliance Webcast went dark about five minutes into the flight at the National Reconnaissance Office's request.

 

By that point, the 19-story rocket's first stage, powered by a Russian-made RD-180 engine, had burned out and separated. The Centaur upper stage's RL-10 engine had ignited and a protective fairing around the satellite was jettisoned.

 

ULA is expected to confirm the mission's status later today.

 

Amateur satellite observers believe the NRO satellite is headed to a geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equater, where it will relay intelligence captured by spacecraft in lower orbits.

 

The launch was the 46th by an Atlas V rocket and ULA's second in six days from the Cape, following last Friday's Delta IV launch of a GPS satellite.

 

It was the second Atlas V launch of an NRO satellite from the Cape in just over a month.

 

GAO: True Cost of SLS, Orion Unclear

Dan Leone - Space News (May 19, 2014)

 

NASA has masked the true cost of the Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule by neglecting to say what these deep-space systems will cost to build and operate over the decades the agency plans to use them, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

 

NASA so far has put only two SLS missions on the manifest: a late-2017 test launch of an unmanned Orion into lunar space followed by a repeat of the mission in 2021 with crew onboard. NASA officials told GAO auditors it expects to have spent at least $22 billion on SLS and Orion through 2021, an estimate that does not include the cost of building the SLS launcher for the second mission, the government watchdog wrote in a May 9 report, "Actions Needed to Improve Transparency and Assess Long-Term Affordability of Human Exploration Programs."

 

The report was done at the request of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

 

NASA says it is standard procedure to avoid releasing cost estimates for a second vehicle before it has finalized a cost estimate for the first vehicle.

 

Moreover, NASA provided no cost estimate for the more powerful SLS rocket NASA would need to mount a crewed Mars expedition the Obama administration envisions happening in the 2030s. According to NASA's early plans, such a mission would entail multiple SLS-Orion launches.

 

The cost estimates NASA has offered so far "provide no information about the longer-term, life cycle costs of developing, manufacturing, and operating the launch vehicle, crew capsule, and ground systems" the agency has identified as crucial to the eventual Mars mission, the GAO wrote in its report. NASA's limited cost estimate "does not provide the transparency necessary to assess long-term affordability and will hamper oversight by those tasked with assessing whether the agency is progressing in a cost-effective and affordable manner," the GAO wrote.

 

The GAO recommended NASA put together a cost estimate for the SLS needed for the 2021 mission, and for SLS upgrades required for future missions, and include these target costs in its annual budget request to Congress. These estimates should "establish separate cost and schedule baselines for each additional [SLS] capability that encompass all life cycle costs, to include operations and sustainment."

 

NASA has not released comprehensive, long-term cost estimates for SLS and Orion. The reason is to avoid giving Congress sticker shock, said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

 

"If we laid out a path directly to Mars and we laid out all the vehicles and all the testing and all the work to get there, then you end up with a fairly long period of time with a lot of funding that goes into that activity that says this program is something maybe we don't want to go do," Gerstenmaier said in November during a panel discussion with SLS and Orion prime contractors at the Newseum in Washington.

 

Congress ordered NASA to build SLS and Orion in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which U.S. President Barack Obama signed that year despite his administration's preference to focus NASA's human spaceflight dollars on public-private partnerships and development of a liquid-fueled rocket engine capable of producing 1 million pounds of thrust.

 

NASA has since folded SLS and Orion into a long-term plan to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. The details of NASA's plans are still very rough, but the agency has said publicly that a crewed expedition to Mars would require multiple launches of a more powerful SLS than the 70-metric-ton capable versions set to fly in 2017 and 2021.

 

The first two SLS vehicles will comprise a main stage consisting of four modified space shuttle main engines; a pair of side-mounted, five-segment solid rocket motors; and an upper stage adapted from the one used on the Boeing-designed Delta 4, one of two rockets currently produced by United Launch Alliance.

 

NASA's plans to boost SLS performance for future missions do not currently involve the J-2X engine the agency shelved in 2013 after a $1.5 billion, eight-year development effort.

 

Similarly, NASA has backed off of a plan to upgrade SLS with a pair of competitively selected strap-on boosters to replace the ATK-provided solids that will boost the 2017 and 2021 missions off the pad, Gerstenmaier told SpaceNews May 8. The scuttled competition had been scheduled for 2015.

 

Russian rocket engine damaged in Mississippi test firing

William Harwood - CBS News

 

A Russian-built rocket engine slated for use in the first stage of an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket scheduled for launch to the International Space Station in early 2015 suffered extensive damage Thursday after a premature shutdown during a pre-flight test firing, officials said.

 

The cause of the mishap, and what impact it might have on a planned June flight to the space station, is not yet known.

 

The AJ26-62 engine being acceptance tested at NASA's Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi was originally built to help power the Soviet Union's ill-fated N-1 moon rocket. Aerojet Rocketdyne bought about 40 of the mothballed engines in the mid-1990s and modified the powerplants for use aboard Orbital's Antares rockets.

 

Orbital Sciences holds a $1.9 billion contract with NASA for at least eight missions to the space station to deliver some 20 tons of cargo aboard the company's Cygnus supply ships. SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract to deliver 44,000 pounds of cargo to the station using the company's Falcon 9 rockets and Dragon supply ships.

 

The Falcon 9 and its engines are built by SpaceX in Hawthorne, Calif. The first stage of the Antares rocket, provided by two Russian companies, features a pair of AJ26-62 engines.

 

Orbital has launched one Antares test flight, one demonstration mission to the space station and one operational flight. All three flights were successful. The company's next station resupply flight is targeted for launch around June 10 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Island, Va., flight facility.

 

But that will depend on what went wrong during the test firing Thursday and whether additional inspections or tests might be required before the engines slated for launch in June can be cleared for flight.

 

The mishap Thursday occurred 30 seconds into a planned 54-second test firing when an anomaly of some sort occurred, triggering an early shut down that resulted in "extensive damage to the engine," according to a statement. The engine was scheduled for launch early next year.

 

No other details were immediately available.

 

"Engineers need to examine the data to determine the cause," Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said in an email. "We don't know yet whether this will affect the Antares schedule for upcoming flights."

 

Earlier Thursday, a more powerful Russian-built engine, an RD-180, helped launch a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket carrying a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite.

 

ULA's use of the RD-180 has come under fire in recent weeks in the wake of Russian actions in Crimea, subsequent U.S. sanctions and threats by a senior Russian leader to ban use of the RD-180 in future U.S. military missions.

 

The Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday included $100 million in next year's defense budget to begin development of a new U.S. rocket engine.

 

"Mr. Putin's Russia is giving us some problems," Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said in a statement. "So we have put $100 million in the defense bill to develop a state-of-the-art rocket engine to make sure that we have assured access to space for our astronauts as well as our military space payloads."

 

The House Armed Services Committee included a similar provision in its version of the defense bill earlier this month.

 

NASA says Huntsville's backup Mission Control isn't going to Texas

Lee Roop - Huntsville Times

 

NASA says it won't move a backup Mission Control center from Huntsville to Texas despite a report that might happen. "The bottom line is there are no plans to move it," Marshall Space Flight Center public affairs specialist Tracy McMahan said late Thursday.

 

McMahan was responding to a television report (below) quoting a Bryan, Texas businessman saying he is meeting with NASA about moving the backup command and communications center to his city. The backup center where Houston controllers go when hurricanes cause evacuation of Johnson Space Center. Bryan is a suburb of College Station, Texas.

 

McMahan said NASA just upgraded hardware and software systems in the backup Mission Control in Huntsville in cooperation with the Johnson center to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season.

 

"Our infrastructure and systems are the same as Johnson's," McMahan said, "and controllers can easily connect with European and Japanese control rooms here, as well."

 

Marshall already has the systems and communications links because another 24/7 control center there manages the science experiments on the International Space Station. That control room and the backup Mission Control are in the same building on Marshall's campus.

 

Agreement Could Bring NASA Backup Mission Control to Bryan

David Norris - KBTX TV (Bryan, Texas)

 

http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Agreement-Could-Bring-Backup-NASA-Mission-Control-to-Downtown-Bryan-250248551.html

 

Texas An agreement between a Bryan-based company and NASA could bring a new mission control to Downtown Bryan.

 

Texas Space Technology Application & Research (TSTAR) signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA on Thursday in downtown Bryan.

 

The agreement gives TSTAR the green light to assess the downtown Bryan area for a place to build the new mission control. If all goes well, the mission control would serve as a backup to NASA's mission control. NASA would move operations to Downtown Bryan if a hurricane or some other type of disaster required them to leave town.

 

Paul Hill, Director of Mission Operations for NASA, said it won't be an easy task for TSTAR.

 

"For us to be able to use it, not only do they have to use our design, but we then have to finally come in and certify that it is exactly like ours," said Hill. "And at that point, they may end up wondering why they wanted to do this, because we will end up having to put them through the ringer."

 

Hill said TSTAR will have access to mission control experts at NASA.

 

"They'll be made available to these guys to give them some advice, and show them the designs, make sure they understand the designs of the network and how the software all knits together," said Hill.

 

TSTAR President, Matt Leonard said the new mission control would get plenty of other use as well.

 

"Mission control for commercial company space flights. Students come through that want to talk to the space station, that want to talk to the Space X vehicle and those sort of things. We're going to offer that as an educational opportunity," said Leonard.

 

Leonard said they'd also like to use the center for an emergency operations training center.

 

"A tsunami in Japan. You would come in and have your team simulate how they would deal with that situation. So we could put them in our control center, run that simulation, and see how that particular group deals with it," said Leonard.

 

Hill said changes in technology over the past few years have made something like this possible.

 

"You think about how far IT has come. Think about what you can do with your phone today that you couldn't of even dreamed of just five years ago," said Hill.

 

Hill said the first floor of the original mission control in Houston was filled with computer equipment. Today, things are a bit different.

 

"You could stick what you need for the computing system in the corner of a room, and put in half a dozen to a dozen tables with the right computers with the right software coming from that rack, and you would have full capability of mission control," said Hill.

 

The only working backup mission control NASA has right now is at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

Leonard said if all goes as planned, a temporary mission control could be set up in Downtown Bryan by January of 2015. The permanent mission control should be up and running by January of 2016.

 

SpaceX Expected to Unveil Manned Dragon Spaceship on May 29

Mike Wall – space.com

 

The world is about to get its first look at SpaceX's new astronaut taxi.

 

Next Thursday (May 29), the company will unveil the crewed version of its Dragon spacecraft, which SpaceX hopes will be ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station a few short years from now.

 

"Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that ‪@SpaceX has been working on [with] ‪@NASA. No trampoline needed," SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO Elon Musk wrote in a Twitter post late last month. "Cover drops on May 29. Actual flight design hardware of crew Dragon, not a mockup."

 

The manned vehicle is an upgraded variant of SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule, which has already flown three resupply missions to the space station for NASA. The company holds a $1.6 billion deal to make 12 such flights for the agency.

 

SpaceX has been developing the manned Dragon with financial help from NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which aims to get at least one private American astronaut taxi up and running by 2017. The program seeks to end the nation's reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which have been astronauts' only means of transport to and from the orbiting lab since NASA's space shuttle retired in 2011.

 

NASA's commercial crew program has also supported the efforts of other companies. For example, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. also received funding recently to advance work on their vehicles — the CST-100 capsule and a space plane called Dream Chaser, respectively.

 

SEE IT: NASA creates image of Earth using more than 36,000 selfies from around the globe

Joel Landau – New York Daily News

 

The space bureau asked people to submit selfies from around the world on Earth Day last month. Now they've taken the images to create two mosaics that look like the planet as seen from outer space.

 

NASA used 36,422 selfies submitted from people around the world to create this Global Selfie — a mosaic image of the Earth.

 

When NASA makes a selfie, it goes global.

 

The space bureau has created two mosaics that look like the Earth, compiled from selfies by more than 36,000 people who submitted them from around the world.

 

NASA launched the project on Earth Day last month and asked people to submit a selfie while holding a sign that answered the question "Where are you on Earth Right Now?"

 

Viewers of the Global Selfie can zoom in on the photos. As magnification grows, the pictures show a pixilated-looking edge of the Earth image.

 

NASA pulled images from 36,422 individuals after about 50,000 posted their pictures on social media with the hashtag #globalselfie on or around April 22.

 

The finished product — which was done with website GigaPan — is a 3.2-gigapixel image that people can click on to zoom in and see the individual pictures.

 

 

 

END

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