April 30, 2001
NASA ESTABLISHES CONTACT WITH FAMED PIONEER 10 SPACECRAFT
NASA scientists have announced that they have contacted Pioneer 10, the plucky small spacecraft launched 29 years ago, ending speculation that its signal had finally fallen silent.
In a test of communication
technologies for future interstellar missions, scientists operating
a radio telescope antenna in Madrid, Spain established contact
with the small spacecraft on Saturday, April 28, 2001 at 10:27
a.m. PDT (GMT 17:27:30). It was the first time the spacecraft
had been heard since August of 2000.
"Pioneer 10 lives on," declared Pioneer 10 Project Manager
Dr. Larry Lasher of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field,
CA. " The fact that we can still stay connected with the
spacecraft is fantastic. We are overjoyed," Lasher added.
"We have been listening for the Pioneer 10 signal in a one-way downlink non-coherent transmission mode since last summer with no success," Lasher said. "We therefore concluded that in order for Pioneer 10 to talk to us, we need to talk to it." A signal was sent to the spacecraft, which locked onto it and returned a signal to the Madrid facility.
Now orbiting 7 billion miles
from Earth, well outside the solar system, Pioneer 10 was launched
on March 2, 1972. Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to pass
through the asteroid belt and the first to obtain close-up images
of Jupiter. During the passage by Jupiter, Pioneer 10 also charted
Jupiter's intense radiation belts, located the planet's magnetic
field, and discovered that Jupiter is predominantly a liquid planet.
Following its encounter with Jupiter, Pioneer 10 explored the
outer regions of the solar system, studying energetic particles
from the sun, and cosmic rays entering our portion of the Milky
Way. In 1983, it became the first man-made object to leave the
solar system when it passed the orbit of distant Pluto. The spacecraft
continued to make valuable scientific investigations in the outer
regions of our solar system until its mission ended on March 31,
1997. When the mission formally ended, Pioneer 10 was at a distance
of 6.28 billion miles (10.10 billion km) from Earth. At that distance,
it took over 9 hours 43 minutes for the radio signal (traveling
at the speed of light) to reach Earth.
Pioneer 10 carries the now-famous gold plaque with an image of a man and a woman and goodwill information about Earth. Pioneer 10 is currently 7.29 billion miles from Earth, traveling at 27,830 miles per hour, relative to the sun. At that distance, the signals take 21 hours 45 minutes to make the round trip between Earth and the spacecraft. Pioneer 10's weak signal continues to be tracked by the Deep Space Network as it heads toward the constellation Taurus, where it will pass the nearest star in about 2 million years.
Further information about Pioneer 10 is available on the Pioneer 10 website located at:
http://spaceprojects.arc.nasa.gov/Space_Projects/pioneer/PNhome.html
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Genesis Mission Outreach April 2001
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Visit the Genesis mission outreach Web site at: http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov
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Countdown to Launch
The Genesis mission is scheduled to launch on July 30, 2001 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. View the mission timeline http://www.genesismission.org/mission/time/index.html to follow the significant dates of mission launch, flight and sample collection, and return to Earth. California State University Northridge, is offering a Genesis mission Chautauqua course for educators at Kennedy Space Center in conjunction with the launch. Teachers can learn more about this course and register on-line at: http://davinci.csun.edu/~scnet/chautp27.html Stay tuned to the Genesis Web site as we countdown to launch!
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Space Day and Genesis Kids
In observance of National Space Day on May 3, 2001, Genesis Kids features a new interactive mission sticker book for pre-school kids online at: http://www.genesismission.org/product/genesis_kids/index.html Additionally, on this Web page children of all ages can submit a question about science, the sun, or the Genesis mission in the "Ask Blast" feature and receive a personal reply.
Learn more about how to participate in Space Day activities at: http://www.spaceday.com/
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Genesis Grams: "Because stars smile every night ..."
A Genesis Gram entry from Lisbon, Portugal says, "Because stars smile every night, your eyes shine every morning; because you exist, life is better." The 18-and-over category of Genesis Grams is posted online at: http://www.genesismission.org/product/GenesisGrams/grams18_over.html All of the Genesis Gram entries are featured online and have been engraved upon a microchip for travel into space aboard the Genesis spacecraft.
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Catch a Piece of the Sun at JPL's Open House
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will once again open its doors to the public during its annual Open House to be held on: Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20, 2001, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. To celebrate JPL's accomplishments, exhibits and demonstrations about the Laboratory's ongoing research and space exploration will be scattered around the Lab's beautiful setting. Many of the Lab's scientists and engineers will be on hand to answer questions about how spacecraft are sent to other planets, how scientists use space technologies to explore Earth, and how researchers are now searching for planets beyond the solar system. Visitors will see exhibits, displays, demonstrations and presentations about new technologies, solar system exploration, spacecraft communication and much more.
Genesis will have a booth located west of the Mars Yard. Stickers, posters, temporary tattoos, and information will be available about this exciting trip into the early days of our Sun and its planets. Genesis team members hope to see you at the mission booth. We have some fun activities planned for you!
The Open House is a fun and educational experience for children too, with special hands-on activities designed for kids. Food and beverages will be available, along with space souvenirs and NASA and JPL merchandise. Obtain information and driving directions at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/openhouse/ Admission and parking are absolutely free, so make plans now to visit JPL and experience the thrill of space exploration! For more information, please call (818) 354-0112.
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Tell Us Where You Found Us!
We know that Genesis Web site
users come from a variety of sources. We have posted a simple,
one-question survey online that asks how you found us. We truly
appreciate the responses that we received from an earlier request,
and ask those of you who have not yet replied to take a moment
to complete the survey. Thanks! https://www.comtracker.com/survey/form2.asp?sID=1093&rID=55849197921370
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Genesis Mission Outreach E-News features information about the mission, its outreach Web site, and products, services, and materials available from the McREL Genesis Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team. NASA's Discovery Mission: Genesis is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
BLACK HOLES MAY TAKE SPACE FOR A SPIN
As if black holes weren't
menacing enough, astronomers
now have observational evidence that at least some of them
spin about like whirlpools, wrapping up the fabric of space
with them.
Dr. Tod Strohmayer of NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD, has studied one such black hole system with
NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and found unique patterns
in the X-ray radiation that have previously only been seen in
spinning neutron stars. With these new parameters, he could
verify that a black hole, like a neutron star, can spin.
The observation also challenges
theories about neutron star
radiation. Strohmayer presents his findings today at the
American Physical Society Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Computer animation illustrating the discovery will be
broadcast on NASA TV at noon EDT today.
"Almost every kind of
object in space spins, such as planets,
stars, and galaxies," said Strohmayer. "With black holes,
it's
much harder to directly see that they are spinning, because
they don't have a solid surface that you can watch spin
around. We can, however, see the light emitted from matter
plunging into the black hole. The matter whips frantically
around the black hole before it is lost forever."
The black hole that Strohmayer
observed is the stellar
variety, which is formed from a collapsed star. When stars at
least 10 times more massive than our Sun exhaust their fuel
supply, they no longer have the energy to support their
tremendous bulk. These stars explode their outer shell of gas
in an event called a supernova.
The remaining bulk, still several
times more massive than the
Sun, collapses into a single point of infinite density, called
a singularity. Neutron stars form through a similar process,
only from a slightly less massive star in which the inner core
collapses into a dense chunk as heavy as the Sun yet only 10
miles across.
The Rossi Explorer, launched
December 1995, has long recorded
a certain type of X-ray flickering from neutron stars called
quasiperiodic oscillations, or QPOs, caused by hot gas dancing
around the neutron star in a lively orbit. Astronomers think
that these oscillations are produced by motions of matter very
near the innermost stable orbit -- the closest orbit a blob of
gas can maintain before falling into the central object.
Strohmayer's target was GRO
J1655-40, a microquasar 10,000
light years from Earth. A microquasar is a specific type of
black hole with jets of high-speed particles shooting
perpendicularly from the plane of matter that orbits it.
Strohmayer observed two QPOs, a previously detected one at
about 300 Hertz (Hz) and a newly detected one at 450 Hz. (A
hertz is a unit of frequency equal to one cycle per second.)
The black hole mass has been
established at seven times the
mass of our Sun from earlier optical observations of GRO
J1655-40. "A spinning black hole modifies the fabric of space
near it," said Strohmayer. "The spinning allows matter
to
orbit at a closer distance than if it were not spinning, and
the closer matter can get the faster it can orbit. For GRO
J1655-40 we can now say that the only way for it to produce
the 450 Hz oscillations is if it is spinning."
Strohmayer's finding also marks
the first detection of paired
QPOs from a black hole. Neutron stars often exhibit paired
QPOs, and this is thought to be a result of radiation coming
from the solid neutron star surface. Strohmayer's detection of
paired QPOs from an object with no solid surface, therefore,
challenges these important theories of how neutron stars
produce these QPOs. The spin of a black hole would be caused
by the angular momentum of the star that formed it, Strohmayer
said, particularly if that progenitor is a spinning neutron
star.
Additional information and
artistic concepts are available on
the Internet at:
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/learning_center/
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/GSFC/SpaceSci/structure/spinningbh/spinningbh.htm
ENDEAVOUR SCHEDULED TO LAND
AT KSC MAY 1
The orbiter Endeavour is scheduled
to land at Kennedy Space Center
(KSC) Tuesday morning, May 1, at about 9:04 a.m. EDT completing
the nearly
12-day STS-100 mission that was launched from KSC April 19, 2001.
Landing at KSC's Shuttle Landing
Facility (SLF) is slated to occur
on orbit 184 at mission elapsed time 11 days, 18 hours, 23 minutes.
The
deorbit burn will occur at about 7:55 a.m. EDT on May 1. The two
KSC landing
opportunities on May 1 are 9:04 a.m. and 10:39 a.m. EDT.
If managers must keep Endeavour
in orbit an additional day, two additional
landing opportunities are available on May 2 at KSC at 9:43 a.m.
and 11:19
a.m. EDT.
Two landing opportunities also
exist at the back-up landing location at
Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), Calif., on both days.
If landing occurs as scheduled,
it will be the 55th landing at KSC
in the history of the program. Following landing, Endeavour will
be towed to
the Orbiter Processing Facility and preparations made for its
next mission,
STS-108, later this year.
Following landing, the crew
will be taken to their quarters in the
O&C Building, meet with their families and undergo physical
examinations. A
post-mission press conference with select members of the STS-100
crew is
scheduled to occur at the KSC News Center about five hours after
touchdown.
The crew is scheduled to depart for Johnson Space Center the day
after
landing.
If Endeavour lands at Edwards,
an augmented KSC convoy team will be
on-site to safe the vehicle, disembark the crew and move the orbiter
to the
Mate/Demate Device. The turnaround team will be deployed to Edwards
by
charter aircraft on landing day.
SLF and KSC Ground Operations
The Shuttle Landing Facility
was built in 1975. It is 300 feet wide
and 15,000 feet long with 1,000-foot overruns at each end. The
strip runs
northwest to southeast and is located about three miles northwest
of the
525-foot tall Vehicle Assembly Building.
Once the orbiter is on the
ground, safing operations will commence
and the flight crew will prepare the vehicle for post-landing
operations.
The Crew Transport Vehicle (CTV) will be used to assist the crew,
allowing
them to leave the vehicle and remove their launch and re-entry
suits easier
and quicker.
The CTV and other KSC landing
convoy operations have been "on-call"
since the launch of Endeavour. The primary functions of the Space
Shuttle
recovery convoy are to provide immediate service to the orbiter
after
landing, assist crew egress, and prepare the orbiter for towing
to the
Orbiter Processing Facility.
Convoy vehicles are stationed
at the SLF's mid-point. About two
hours prior to landing, convoy personnel will don SCAPE suits,
or
Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble, and communications
checks
are made. A warming-up of coolant and purge equipment is conducted
and
nearly two-dozen convoy vehicles are positioned to move onto the
runway as
quickly and as safely as possible once the orbiter coasts to a
stop. When
the vehicle is deemed safe of all potential explosive hazards
and toxic
gases, the purge and coolant umbilical access vehicles move into
position at
the rear of the orbiter.
Following purge and coolant
operations, flight crew egress
preparations will begin and the CTV will be moved into position
at the crew
access hatch located on the orbiter's port side. A physician will
board the
Shuttle and conduct a brief preliminary examination of the astronauts.
The
crew will then make preparations to leave the vehicle.
About 3 hours after Endeavour
lands at KSC, the orbiter will be
towed to the Orbiter Processing Facility for post-flight deservicing.
NASA AWARDS CONTRACT TO SUPPORT ARMY ROTORCRAFT R&D
NASA's Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field, CA, in
support of the U.S. Army, has awarded a new 5-year task-order
contract with a potential total value of $45 million to
Illgen
Simulation Technologies, Inc., Goleta, CA, to provide
research
and development in modeling and simulation of rotorcraft.
The contract will be a 5-year
performance-based, indefinite-
delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. Task orders will be
issued during the period of performance on a firm fixed-
price/cost-plus-fixed-fee/cost-reimbursable basis.
Major subcontractors for the
contract are:
* Hoh Aeronautics, Inc., Lomita, CA
* Monterey Technologies, Monterey, CA
* Carmel Applied Technologies, Inc., Daleville, AL
* Turpin Technologies, Foster City, CA
* Advanced Rotorcraft Technologies, Inc., Mountain View, CA
The initial contract will be
placed in the amount of
$118,212.
Contract work will include:
* Rotorcraft aeromechanics
modeling and analysis
* Simulation-facility hardware and software development for
experimental research and feasibility assessments
* Analysis and evaluation of aircraft performance, handling
qualities, cockpit displays and flight control systems
* Information technology services pertaining to the
analysis, use and application of distributed and non-
distributed models and simulations
* Research and development, test and evaluation, and
training services for human-in-the-loop simulation studies
* Military operations effectiveness analysis, modeling and
simulation, and program analysis
This Week on Galileo
April 30 - May 5, 2001
A restful quiet settles back
over the Galileo activity schedule this week
as the spacecraft slowly closes in on Jupiter for its next flyby
of
Callisto later in May. On Saturday, the intrepid robot passes
the invisible
milepost that marks 125 Jupiter radii (8.9 million kilometers
or 5.5
million miles) from the giant planet, a far cry from the 217 Jupiter
radii
(15.5 million kilometers or 9.6 million miles) reached at the
farthest
point in this orbit back on March 11, but with still a ways to
go to reach
the 7.3 Jupiter radii (522,000 kilometers or 324,000 miles) point
which
will mark the closest approach to Jupiter on May 23.
In addition to the usual housekeeping
data (temperatures, voltages, and
pressures) that keep the flight team engineers apprised of the
health of
the spacecraft and its various components on a daily basis, the
bulk of the
data received from Galileo this week will be that played back
from the
on-board tape recorder. These data were recorded last Sunday and
Monday,
and comprise a set of calibrations for the Solid State Imaging
camera (SSI)
and the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS), two of the
four movable
remote sensing instruments on the spacecraft.
For more information on the
Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
DRESS REHEARSAL FLIGHT OF X-43A SUCCESSFUL; FIRST FREE FLIGHT
SOON
The NASA X-43A hypersonic research
vehicle and its Pegasus booster
rocket, mounted beneath the wing of their B-52 mother ship, had
a
successful first captive-carry flight this afternoon. A dress
rehearsal for the subsequent free flight, the captive-carry flight
kept the X-43A-and-Pegasus combination attached to the B-52's
wing
pylon throughout the almost two-hour mission from NASA's Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., over the Pacific Missile
Test Range, and back to Dryden.
After taking off from the Dryden
Flight Research Center, Edwards,
Calif., at 12:33 p.m. PDT, the B-52 soared off the California
coast
on the predetermined flight path, and returned to Dryden for a
2:19
p.m. PDT landing.
The unpiloted X-43A marks the
return to dedicated hypersonic research
flights (at least five times the speed of sound) that NASA last
pursued with the X-15 program that ended in 1969. Unique to the
X-43A is its blending of an integrated airframe with a scramjet
(supersonic combustion ramjet) engine, intended to make the X-43A
the
first air-breathing hypersonic vehicle in free flight. This
technology promises significant savings in weight and volume,
which
could translate into heavier payloads or longer flight duration
for
future scramjet operational craft.
Pending thorough evaluation
of all flight data, this captive-carry
test could lead to the first flight of the X-43A "stack"
as early as
mid-May. The first free flight will be air-launched by NASA's
B-52 at
about 24,000 feet altitude. The booster will accelerate the X-43A
to
Mach 7 to approximately 95,000 feet altitude. At booster burnout,
the X-43 will separate from the booster and fly under its own
power
on a preprogrammed flight path. The hydrogen-fueled aircraft has
a
wingspan of approximately 5 feet, measures 12 feet long and weighs
about 2,800 pounds.
Three X-43A flights are planned;
the first two will fly at Mach 7 and
the third at Mach 10. Valuable performance data will be relayed
electronically to Dryden and Langley. Each experimental aircraft
will
fly once in the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division Sea
Range
off the southern coast of California and impact into the Pacific
Ocean.
Joel Sitz, Dryden's X-43 project
manager, said, "All systems appeared
to work great. We are very excited. It's a huge milestone for
the
program. A lot of people worked hard to get here."
Program officials anticipate
that this series of experimental
flights will expand knowledge of hypersonic aerodynamics and develop
new technologies for safer and more cost effective space access.
Today's rocket-powered launch vehicles, including the Space Shuttle,
must carry their own oxygen adding considerable weight, complexity
and cost to each flight.
A scramjet-based propulsion
system could decrease propellant system
weight and increase payload -- or maintain the same payload using
a
smaller, cheaper vehicle. Scramjet technology could also allow
"aircraft-like" operations of launch vehicles with horizontal
take-off, landing and servicing that could greatly decrease
operations cost and time between flights.
NASA's Dryden Flight Research
Center is responsible for X-43A
flight-testing and NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.,
manages the program. The vehicle contractor team led by MicroCraft
in
Tullahoma, Tenn., includes The Boeing Co., Seal Beach, Calif.;
and
GASL, Inc., Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The booster is a modified Pegasus
rocket from Orbital Sciences Corp., Chandler, Ariz.
STS-100
Report # 24
Monday, April 30, 2001 4 p.m. CDT
Weather permitting, Endeavour and its crew of seven will return
to the Kennedy Space Center tomorrow morning, concluding a successful
mission to install a new-generation robotic arm on the International
Space Station, and a journey of more than 4.8 million miles.
In preparation for tomorrow,s landing opportunities, Commander
Kent Rominger, Pilot Jeff Ashby and Flight Engineer John Phillips
verified the performance of Endeavour,s flight control systems
and surfaces and steering jets. Mission Specialists Chris Hadfield,
Scott Parazynski, Yuri Lonchakov and Umberto Guidoni stowed away
much of the equipment the crew has used over the past 11 days
in space. All seven crew members also were scheduled for some
time off today to relax.
Preliminary forecasts at the three-mile long Shuttle Landing Facility
in Florida are not promising for tomorrow,s opportunities, with
the possibility of rain and high winds in the area. The back-up
landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California has been
called up to provide Entry Flight Director Leroy Cain and his
team of flight controllers with additional options in returning
Endeavour to Earth.
There are two opportunities for Endeavour to return to the Kennedy
Space Center tomorrow. The first would see a deorbit burn to slow
Endeavour down and drop it out of orbit, occuring at 6:55 a.m.,
with landing to follow at 8:04 a.m. Central time. There is a
second opportunity one orbit later with a deorbit burn at 8:31
a.m. resulting in a 9:39 a.m. landing.
There are also two opportunities to land at Edwards Air Force
Base tomorrow, at 11:11 a.m. and 12:47 p.m. respectively. Throughout
the night, flight controllers will continue to look at weather
conditions at both landing sites formulating plans to bring Endeavour
home.
Endeavour,s crew is scheduled to be awakened at 11:41 p.m. today
and will begin preparations for their possible return trip home
shortly after 3 a.m. tomorrow.
In the meantime, with the arrival of the three-member Soyuz taxi
crew, the first activity on board the International Space Station
today was an extensive safety briefing conducted by Expedition
Two Commander Yury Usachev. The briefing included familiarizing
the crew with station systems and evacuation routes. Crew members
then swapped their custom-fitted Soyuz seatliners from one vehicle
to another, and transferred some cargo from Soyuz to the station,
setting up a plasma crystal experiment.
The next status report will be issued following Endeavour,s landing,
or as events warrant.
April 29, 2001
NEW BOOMERANG FINDINGS REVEAL "MUSIC" OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE
An international team of cosmologists
has begun to hear
the "music of creation" in its discovery of acoustic
"notes"
in the sound waves that rippled through the universe not long
after the Big Bang.
The new results -- from a detailed
analysis of high-
resolution images obtained by the BOOMERANG (Balloon
Observations of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and
Geophysics) experiment -- provide the most precise
measurement to date of several of the key characteristics
which cosmologists use to describe the universe.
BOOMERANG is an extremely sensitive
microwave telescope
suspended from a balloon that circumnavigated the Antarctic
in late 1998. The balloon carried the telescope at an
altitude of almost 37 kilometers (120,000 feet) for 10 1/2
days. The images were published just one year ago. A more
detailed analysis of these maps provided the new results,
which were presented today at the American Physical Society
Spring Meeting in Washington, DC.
"The early universe is
full of sound waves compressing and
rarefying matter and light, much like sound waves compress
and rarefy air inside a flute or trumpet," said Italian team
leader Paolo deBernardis. "For the first time the new data
show clearly the harmonics of these waves."
Cosmologists believe the universe
was created approximately
12-15 billion years ago in an enormous explosion called the
Big Bang. The intense heat that filled the embryonic universe
is still detectable today as a faint glow of microwave
radiation known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB)
which is visible in all directions. Whatever structures were
present in the very early universe would leave their mark
imprinted as a very faint pattern of brightness variations in
the CMB.
The cosmic microwave background
was first discovered by a
ground-based radio telescope in 1965. Within a few years,
Russian and American theorists had independently predicted
that the size and amplitude of structures that developed in
the early universe would form what mathematicians call a
"harmonic series" of structure imprinted on the CMB.
In 1991,
NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE) discovered
the first evidence for structure of any sort in the CMB.
The BOOMERANG images are the
first to bring the cosmic
microwave background into sharp focus. The images reveal
hundreds of complex regions visible as tiny variations --
typically only 100 millionths of a degree -- in the
temperature of the CMB. The new results show the first
evidence for a harmonic series of angular scales on which
structure is most pronounced.
The presence of these harmonic
peaks bolsters the theory that
the universe grew from a tiny subatomic region during a
period of violent expansion a split second after the Big
Bang. "Just as the difference in harmonic content allows
us
to distinguish between a flute or trumpet playing the same
note, so the details of the harmonic content imprinted in the
CMB allow us to understand the detailed nature of the
universe," said lead author Barth Netterfield, of the
University of Toronto in Canada.
Last April, the BOOMERANG team
was able to reveal only one
harmonic peak, said U.S. team leader, Andrew Lange, of the
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "Using a music
analogy, last year we could tell what note we were seeing --
if it was C sharp or F flat. Now, we see not just one, but
three of these peaks and can tell not only which note is
being played, but also what instrument is playing it -- we
can begin to hear in detail the music of creation," he said.
The images obtained cover about three percent of the sky. The
BOOMERANG team plans another campaign to the Antarctic in the
near future, this time to map even fainter images encoded in
the polarization of the cosmic microwave background. The
scientific payoff of such measurements "promises to be
enormous" said U.S. team leader of the new effort, John Ruhl,
of the University of California at Santa Barbara. "With
today's results we know for sure that the music is there and
we can interpret it. There is no doubt that by listening
carefully, and in new ways, we will learn even more."
The 36 team members come from
16 universities and
organizations in Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and the
United States. Primary support for the BOOMERANG project
comes from NASA and the National Science Foundation in the
United States; the Italian Space Agency, Italian Antarctic
Research Programme, and the University of Rome "La Sapienza"
in Italy; and from the Particle Physics and Astronomy
Research Council in the United Kingdom.
For more information on and images from BOOMERANG, see:
http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~boomerang/
or
http://oberon.roma1.infn.it/boomerang
Cassini Weekly Significant
Events
for 04/19/01 - 04/25/01
The most recent spacecraft
telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Tuesday, April 24. The Cassini spacecraft
is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information
on the
spacecraft's position and speed can be viewed on the "Present
Position" web
page at ( "http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/" ) .
Recent spacecraft activities
include automatic repair of the Solid State
Recorder (SSR) A, a Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) High
Frequency
Receiver (HFR) calibration, a Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) momentum
unload, and uplink and successful checkout of a new 35.5kbps telemetry
mode. Previously, the highest useable telemetry rate was 22kbps.
By
using the new 35.5kbps capability, Cassini can raise the downlink
telemetry rate by more than 50%.
Additional instrument activities
include power-on of the Composite
Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) followed by a boresight calibration,
and
upload of a mini-sequence for the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA).
CDA powered
on, performed a checkout of its version 8.4 Flight Software, then
switched
on the high voltages to reach a basic measurement mode. All activities
executed normally, and CDA is in a healthy and nominal state.
The Radio Science Subsystem
(RSS) team obtained 4.25 hours of Ka-Band
Translator (KaT) 2-way data as part of continued testing of the
KaT
module, one of four radios onboard the spacecraft. This is the
longest
period of continuous KaT operation since early 1999, and is significant
in
the on-going efforts to characterize the performance of the KaT
in support
of the Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE) system test, scheduled
to begin
in early May.
The final Sequence Integration
& Validation (SIV) approval meeting was
held for the Cruise 26 sequence. Uplink will occur later this
week.
A week long Cross-Discipline
Workshop sponsored by Cassini Science
Planning concluded this week. The goals of this workshop included
the
identification of heavily conflicted periods, the division of
the tour
into segments and the creation of Target Working Teams. Major
progress
was made by all teams in all areas and the workshop was felt to
be a great
success. Science Planning also hosted a Titan Orbiter Science
Team (TOST)
meeting this week.
The Navigation Team has completed
a study on the feasibility of raising
the minimum Titan flyby altitude to as high as 1050 km as a contingency
in
case the actual Titan atmosphere precludes flying at the current
minimum
of 950 km. The results of the study indicate that all Titan flybys
and all
icy satellite flybys remain in the tour. The geometries of the
Titan
flybys change only slightly. There is actually a small savings
in
deterministic propellant cost.
Mission Support & Services
Office (MSSO) personnel presented the Cassini
security and International Trade in Arms Regulation (ITAR) environment
to
members of the JPL Executive Council. The Council was favorably
impressed
and indicated that Cassini had taken a lead in handling NASA and
Government mandated security and ITAR issues in the JPL community.
MSSO
also prepared flow diagrams outlining the process used to allow
foreign
nationals access to JPL. These diagrams will be used to interface
with
JPL International Affairs and other organizations associated with
the
process, assist in developing and streamlining current MSSO procedures,
and may also help users in understanding the big picture of the
ITAR
process.
The Command and Data System
(CDS) Flight Software team held a delivery
review for version RV70_11.3. This upgrade contains a patch to
the fault
protection response for a tripped solid state power switch on
the
magnetometer replacement heater. All requirements for functionality,
testing, and documentation were met and the patches were delivered
to the
Project Software Library. Uplink of the new software will occur
in May
during the C26 sequence.
A Delivery Coordination Meeting
(DCM) was held for the Cassini
implementation of Multimission Spacecraft Analysis Software (CSAS)
6.3.
Although most of the subsystem remains unchanged, both the Inertial
Vector
Propagator (IVP) and Predicts Generation Tool (PGT) had batch
modes added,
while the Kinematic Prediction Tool (KPT) had batch mode added,
constraint
monitor detect mode turned on and RWA output logic improved.
Mission Assurance released
the draft Significant Risk List (SRL) for
flight team review. This list represents an initial cut at the
high level
Program risks that will be managed using the Risk Management Process.
Once
this list is reviewed and refined, it will be input into an electronic
Risk Management Tool.
Instrument Operations (IO)
hosted a member of the CDA Team from the Max
Planck Institut fur Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany, for a week
of
operations training sessions following last week's cross discipline
workshop. Representatives from Cassini's Uplink Office, IO, System
Engineering, and MSSO contributed with a variety of training.
In an
effort to increase effectiveness, many of the sessions were made
available
to program members who had previously expressed an interest in
additional
training.
In cooperation with the Cassini
Program, and drawing from material
developed for the Cassini Web site, a planetarium program has
been
developed for school children and debuted at the Howell Memorial
Planetarium in Greenville, South Carolina. Three different schools
attended the program with 125 students and 15 teachers in attendance.
On Friday, 4/20/2001, Cassini
was featured on the "Astronomy Picture of
the Day" web site, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010420.html
Two new Cassini 20-slide sets
were submitted to Finley-Holiday Film
Corporation for production. Set #1, "A Trip to Saturn"
highlights the
launch, trajectory, tour, and planetary flybys. Set #2, "Saturn
System"
highlights the planet, satellites, rings, magnetosphere, and Titan.
When
available, both sets may be obtained through Finley.
Cassini is a cooperative project
of NASA, the European Space Agency and
the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages
the Cassini
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
STS-100
Report # 22
Sunday, April 29, 2001 4 p.m. CDT
With a gentle push from springs in the docking module, Endeavour
backed slowly away from the International Space Station at 12:34
p.m. Central time today, as the two spacecraft soared 240 miles
over the South Pacific Ocean, east of Australia.
As Pilot Jeff Ashby slowly backed Endeavour away, Commander Kent Rominger and Expedition Two flight engineer Susan Helms exchanged final wishes for Endeavour,s planned return to Earth, and a continued safe journey for the station crew. Once Endeavour was at a distance of 450 feet from the station, Ashby initiated a three-quarter circle flyaround of the station as Mission Specialist Yuri Lonchakov activated a large-format IMAX camera in Endeavour,s payload bay to photograph the station.
At 1:28 p.m., with the flyaround complete, Ashby fired a separation burn, initiating Endeavour,s final departure from the orbiting complex, now equipped with a new Canadian-built robotic arm and communications antenna, installed by Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski and Chris Hadfield during two space walks. During eight days of joint operations, the two crews also transferred more than three tons of supplies, equipment and scientific experiments to the station.
On board the station, the Expedition Two crew Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Helms will enjoy some time off this afternoon following a busy week on orbit. Early Monday morning, they will support the docking of a replacement Soyuz spacecraft that will serve as the station,s "lifeboat. The Soyuz and its crew of three Commander Talgat Musabayev, Flight Engineer Yuri Baturin and American businessman Dennis Tito -- is scheduled to dock at 2:52 a.m. Monday.
Endeavour,s crew will go to sleep shortly after 4:30 p.m. today, awakening at 1:41 a.m. Monday to begin what should be their final full day on orbit. Endeavour is scheduled to return to the Kennedy Space Center, weather permitting, at 8:03 a.m. Tuesday. The primary activity for the crew on Monday will center on Endeavour,s return to Earth, with Rominger, Ashby and Flight Engineer John Phillips verifying the performance of Endeavour,s flight control surfaces and steering jets. Hadfield, Parazynski, Lonchakov and Umberto Guidoni will begin stowing away much of the equipment the crew has used over the past 11 days on orbit. All seven crew members are scheduled to participate in a press conference, talking with media in the U.S., Canada and Italy, at 10:01 a.m. Monday.
The next mission status report
will be issued Monday morning or sooner if events warrant.
STS-100
Report # 20
Saturday, April 28, 2001 8:30 p.m. CDT
A Canadian "handshake in space occurred at 4:02 p.m Central
time today, as the Canadian-built space station robotic arm operated
by Expedition Two crew member Susan Helms transferred its launch
cradle over to Endeavour,s robotic arm, with Canadian Space Agency
astronaut Chris Hadfield at the controls. The exchange of the
pallet from station arm to shuttle arm marked the first ever robotic-to-robotic
transfer in space.
The successful exchange of the pallet was the last remaining major objective of the mission to be accomplished and could pave the way for Endeavour to undock from the station Sunday morning, if computers on board can be placed in a stable configuration overnight. Mission managers had established three specific criteria to be met prior to Endeavour,s undocking. The criteria were to reberth the cradle pallet in the shuttle,s payload bay, complete final transfer activities and place the station,s command and control (C&C) computers in a stable configuration.
With the pallet securely in Endeavour,s payload bay and all final transfer items in place, the one remaining item is to ensure the computer system is in a stable configuration prior to Endeavour,s departure. Overnight, flight controllers will uplink a series of commands designed to restore the two computers to full capability. C&C three is in an acceptable condition, although it is known to have a bad hard drive. Helms and crew mate Jim Voss will perform repair work on that computer at a later date.
A final decision whether to undock Endeavour and delay the docking of the Soyuz replacement vehicle is expected late tonight or early Sunday morning.
After spending much of this morning refining procedures to minimize inputs to the station,s primary command and control computer, which developed problems accessing its hard drive, Space Station Flight Director Mark Ferring gave the Expedition Two crew a "go to begin with arm operations at 1:27 p.m. With Helms working at the robotic work station, first motion of the station arm occurred at 3:01 p.m. Through a series of carefully choreographed commands, the station arm was maneuvered into its handoff position. Hadfield then slowly moved Endeavour,s 50-foot long robot arm into position to latch onto the cradle, which was securely attached to the station arm at 3:43 p.m. At 4:02 p.m., as the two spacecraft flew over British Columbia, the pallet changed hands.
Both arms then began backing away with the station arm now under command of Voss, according to plan. Hadfield then stowed the pallet in Endeavour,s payload bay at 4:51 p.m.
Earlier in the day, Voss informed flight controllers that Endeavour crew members were helping with maintenance activities on the station,s treadmill, called TVIS, installing new hardware to allow the Expedition crew to once again use it for exercise. The treadmill,s walking surface had degraded and the crew had been told not to use it until repairs were made. Voss reports repairs are now about 50 per cent complete.
After enjoying a meal together, both crews were scheduled to go to sleep shortly after 7 p.m. Both crews will enjoy an extra hour of sleep, waking up just before 4 a.m.
Due to a compressed schedule tomorrow, the in-flight crew news conference, originally scheduled for 6:15 a.m. Sunday, has been canceled.
If a decision is made to undock tomorrow, the astronauts and cosmonauts will exchange final farewells about 9:30 a.m. and then begin closing the hatches between the two spacecraft. Undocking would occur at 12:34 p.m. central. Pilot Jeff Ashby would then slowly back Endeavour away to a distance of approximately 450 feet, where he will begin a three-quarter circle flyaround of the station before commanding a final separation burn signaling Endeavour,s final departure from the station. With an undocking Sunday, the mission is scheduled to conclude with a landing at the Kennedy Space Center at 8:04 a.m. Central time Tuesday.
The next mission status report
will be issued following crew wake on Sunday, or sooner as events
warrant.
April 28, 2001
NASA AND RUSSIAN AVIATION
AND SPACE AGENCY
REACH DECISION ON SOYUZ 2 LAUNCH DATE
After a series of discussions
today, NASA and the Russian Aviation and
Space Agency (Rosaviakosmos) reached a decision on the launch
date for the
Soyuz 2 taxi mission and subsequent on-orbit activities.
Rosaviakosmos will launch the
Soyuz 2 as scheduled Saturday, April 28, and
has agreed to delay the Soyuz's docking to the International Space
Station if
additional time is required to resolve command-and-control computer
problems
aboard the station.
Today's decision will ensure
continued safe operations aboard the International
Space Station and provide for the timely arrival of the replacement
Soyuz
lifeboat.
While the International Space
Station and Space Shuttle teams have made
significant progress, mission managers are trying to resolve the
computer issue
by tomorrow. The Russian proposal to delay Soyuz docking, if required,
provides
critical flexibility to the mission management team.
STS-100
April 28, 2001
The Italian Space Agency-provided Raffaello logistics module,
loaded with 1,600 pounds of material to be returned to Earth,
was tucked securely in Endeavour,s payload bay at 3:58 p.m. Central
time today as the International Space Station and shuttle flew
high over the Pacific Ocean, north of Indonesia.
Mission Specialist Scott Parazynski, at the controls of the shuttle,s robotic arm and assisted by European Space Agency Astronaut Umberto Guidoni, grappled the 14,700 pound "moving van, undocking it from the Destiny laboratory and carefully maneuvering it into position before securing it in the payload bay. Over the course of the past week, the astronauts and cosmonauts on board the station transferred 6,000 pounds of equipment from Raffaello to the station, and then stowed unneeded equipment and hardware on board for return.
The unberthing of Raffaello followed last night,s work by ground controllers to successfully synchronize timers on all the on-board computers, including the one operational Control and Command (C&C) computer in Destiny. With the one operational C&C computer, and Susan Helms at the ready with a back-up laptop computer in Unity, the crew was given a "go to begin the undocking procedure about 2:20 p.m. today.
Work to recover the command and control computers continued throughout the day today, with good progress reported, and a reload of software currently under way to restore C&C computer number three to full performance. C&C computer number one was determined to have a failed hard drive. That C& C computer will be replaced on orbit with a a backup payload computer, called Payload Computer Two, so that the failed C&C computer can be returned to Earth for inspection and analysis. Overnight, flight controllers will reload software on C&C number one in the hopes of bringing it back on line as well.
The plan for the crew tomorrow, assuming a minimum of two C&C computers are up and functioning, would see Helms and crew mate Jim Voss operating the station,s robotic arm to hand off its cradle to the shuttle,s robot arm, being commanded by Mission Specialists Scott Parazynski and Chris Hadfield on board Endeavour. Most of the activities planned for a "dress rehearsal of the maneuvers the arm will perform during the next station assembly mission to install an airlock have been deleted from the timeline. Only the portions of the rehearsal related to shuttle robotic arm camera views will be performed.
Earlier today, NASA and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviakosmos, reached a decision on the launch of the Soyuz replacement vehicle, for 2:37 a.m. central time Saturday. Rosaviakosmos has agreed to delay the Soyuz docking to the station if additional time is required to resolve command and control problems aboard the station.
Mission managers will assess the need for that additional docked day of operations based on specific criteria, including a minimum of two fully functioning command and control computers, securing the Canadarm2 cradle pallet back in Endeavour,s payload bay, successfully reloading software in Command and Control computer Three, and completing final transfer activities between the station and shuttle.
With another busy day behind
them, the two crews were bid goodnight by Mission Control and
will be awakened at 2:41 a.m. Saturday. Both spacecraft are in
good condition, orbiting the Earth every 92 minutes.
The next mission status report will be issued following crew wake-up
Saturday, or earlier as events warrant.
The Transparent Sun
Giant sunspot 9393 is making
a rare second transit across the face of the
Sun. Its unusual reappearance came as no surprise to scientists
who
tracked the behemoth by peering right through our star! Now, thanks
to
SOHO instrument teams, you too can see the hidden side of the
Sun on the
internet.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast27apr_1.htm?list448368
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing report and does not
necessarily reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the
KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: On orbit
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: May 1, 2001 at 9:15 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 11 days, 18 hours and 34 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Space
Shuttle Endeavour remains in good health as
mission managers today added an extra day to the mission. The
extension
affords the crew and flight controllers additional time to bring
the Space
Station's backup command and control computers on line. A further
mission
extension is possible if additional troubleshooting time is needed.
MISSION: STS-104 - 10th
ISS Flight (7A) - Airlock
VEHICLE: Atlantis/OV-104
LOCATION: OPF bay 3
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: NET June 14, 4:15 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: June 25, 12:30 p.m.
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Lindsey, Hobaugh, Kavandi, Gernhardt, Reilly
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Technicians
have serviced Atlantis' potable water
system and the water spray boilers. Functional tests of the orbiter's
waste
system are in progress along with main propulsion system leak
checks.
Russian engineers are en route
to KSC to troubleshoot an alignment component
on Atlantis' docking mechanism known as a "fixer." The
component failed
preliminary functional tests earlier in the flow but has operated
normally
since. As a precaution, managers have decided to repair the component
or
replace the docking mechanism whichever is required. At this time
the
additional work is not expected to affect the target launch date.
MISSION: STS-105 - 11th
ISS Flight (7A.1) - Leonardo MPLM
VEHICLE: Discovery/OV-103
LOCATION: OPF bay 2
OFFICIAL KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: July 12, 2001 at 4:45 a.m. EST
OFFICIAL KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: July 23, 2001 at TBD
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Horowitz, Struckow, Barry, Forrester; (up) Culbertson, Dezhurov,
Turin
(down) Voss, Helms, Usachev
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
NOTE: Technicians have completed
functional tests on Discovery's airlock
upper hatch. Auxiliary power unit leak and functional tests are
in work
today. This week, managers plan to install Discovery's drag chute.
MISSION: STS-109 - HST Servicing
Mission 3B
VEHICLE: Columbia/OV-102
LOCATION: OPF bay 1
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Nov. 19 under review
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Nov. 30 under review
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Altman, Carey, Grunsfeld, Currie, Newman, Linnehan, Massimino
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 308 nautical miles/28.5
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Valve
replacement work on Columbia's water spray
boilers is complete. Servicing of the orbiter's freon coolant
loop No. 2
continues. Preparations are also being made to transfer Columbia
to VAB
high bay 4 to make room for Endeavour's return from STS-100. That
move is
now scheduled to occur Tuesday.
April 27, 2001
The Mysterious Case of Crater Giordano Bruno
A band of 12th century sky
watchers saw something big hit the Moon 800
years ago. Or did they? A new study suggests the event was a meteoritic
trick of the eye.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast26apr_1.htm?list448368
NASA "AMBASSADORS"
SHARE SPACE DAY EXCITEMENT WITH PUBLIC
Sunspots touch both K.B. Hallmark's
job as a police
communications supervisor in Victoria, Texas, and his
volunteer sideline of helping people learn about space.
Hallmark and his wife, Janet,
and about 35 other members
of the Solar System Ambassadors Program have planned public
outreach activities in communities from coast to coast on or
near Space Day, which is May 3. The ambassadors program is
coordinated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif.
The Hallmarks will team with
their local Crossroads
Astronomy Club for a May 5 event in a Wal-Mart parking lot in
Victoria, offering views through telescopes equipped with
special filters for viewing the Sun.
"Not everyone can say
they've seen sunspots. A lot of
people are surprised that with special preparations they can
look at the Sun safely, and for free," said K.B. Hallmark,
who
has organized similar parking-lot solar telescope events twice
before and drawn hundreds of curious viewers.
He explains to them how solar
storms can affect
activities on Earth, such as by disrupting radio
communications. "During peak periods of solar activity, like
we've been having this year, we get skips from all over
tearing up the state police radio," he said.
The goal of Space Day is to
advance science, mathematics
and technology education and to inspire young people to
realize the vision of Earth's space pioneers. The focal point
event will be at the National Air and Space Museum,
Washington, D.C.
The solar system ambassadors'
outreach events year-round
include information about NASA missions to explore the Sun and
planets. Many of the missions are managed by JPL, which is
operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena.
"The ambassadors are dedicated
volunteers who like to
share their excitement about exploration of the solar system,"
said JPL's Kay Ferrari, coordinator of the program. "They
come
from all kinds of backgrounds and careers: teachers,
engineers, business executives, planetarium directors. You
name it."
An ambassador who co-owns a
landscaping business in
Goodland, Kan., Shirley Hussey Cooper, is renting a school
auditorium the evening of May 3 for a Space Day event about
missions to Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. She has been fascinated
with the sky since her father, an early aviator who built his
first plane in 1924, took her flying before she could walk.
She remembers telling other kids in her second grade about the
planets by drawing with a stick in the playground dirt.
"I like to encourage people
to enrich their lives by
looking up a little more," she said. "I think the space
program is inspiring and important for the future, so I just
like telling people about it."
In Bridgewater, N.J., a free
space-exploration exhibit
that opened this week at the Somerset County Extension Center
will stay open through May 4. Lisa Rothenburger, who organized
it, is a county agent for 4-H youth programs, as well as a
solar system ambassador. She expects the exhibit to be seen by
more than 500 adults and youths.
"I want people to feel
the excitement about the space
program that we felt in 1969," Rothenburger said. "The
program
is still doing amazing things -- sending spacecraft to Mars,
landing on an asteroid, studying moons of other planets."
The National 4-H Council, as
well as NASA, the National
Science Teachers Association and more than 60 other
organizations co-sponsor Space Day.
The Solar System Ambassadors
Program currently boasts 206
ambassadors in 48 states and on a U.S. military base in South
Korea. They were selected by JPL on the basis of their
backgrounds and their plans for public outreach activities.
JPL provides them with educational materials and training
sessions, including contacts with mission scientists. Last
year, ambassadors' events reached more than 500,000 people.
Additional examples illustrate
the assortment of events
some ambassadors will lead on or near Space Day. Dr. Gregory
Shanos, a pharmacist, will lead a May 5 program at a museum in
Tampa, Fla., about how impacts of comets and asteroids have
shaped evolution of life on Earth. Deanna Walvatne, a teacher,
will be sharing space-exploration information on May 4 at a
Boy Scout camporee in Sumner, Iowa. At a bookstore in Los
Angeles on May 3, engineering student Jeffrey Kwong will
present a look at some of the ways NASA spacecraft study the
solar system.
More information about the
Solar System Ambassadors
Program is available online at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador . More information about
Space Day is at http://spaceday.com .
JPL is a division of the California
Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.
WATER WHERE WATER WASN'T:
EFFECTS OF RECENT INDIA QUAKE VISIBLE FROM SPACE
The earthquake that struck
western India this January
brought water to places that had previously been dry. Shaken
by the 7.7 magnitude earthquake, water trapped between tiny
grains of sand and layers of mud beneath salt flats was
squeezed out and forced to the surface. This water is visible
in images from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer
(MISR) and a perspective image combining data from the Shuttle
Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) and Landsat-7.
These images show how different
Earth-observing
instruments can provide unique points of view of the same
phenomenon.
They are available online at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/indiaearthquake
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
is a division of the
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
Five years of discoveries with SOHO have made the Sun transparent
Anyone troubled by storms on
the Sun will now have an extra week's early
warning of eruption risks, by courtesy of the SOHO spacecraft.
Teams in
France and the USA have found two different ways of detecting
activity on
the Sun's far side, before it swings into view from the Earth.
SOHO's SWAN
instrument sees ultraviolet rays sweeping like a lighthouse beam
across
interplanetary gas beyond the Sun, while the MDI instrument peers
right
through the Sun to locate hidden sunspots and their active regions.
From
today, both teams are making their observations available routinely
to
everyone, including the forecasters of space weather.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26888
STS-100
Report # 16
Thursday, April 26, 2001 8:30 p.m. CDT
As flight controllers continued to troubleshoot computer systems
on board the International Space Station (ISS), the ten crewmembers
were told late today they would spend some bonus time together,
after mission managers requested an additional two days of docked
operations to allow ground teams to recover the use of command
computers in the Destiny laboratory and to complete joint activities.
Final confirmation of the two-day extension is pending Russian concurrence of NASA,s request for a one-day delay to their Soyuz launch, currently scheduled for Saturday. That would allow Endeavour to remain docked to the Station until at least Monday to help resolve the computer problems which were first noticed Tuesday night. The Soyuz vehicle was rolled out to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at dawn today.
With one of three command and control computers still up and running on board the station, flight controllers worked through the day to overcome what is believed to be a software problem with the other two command computers and their processing systems. Ultimately a decision was made to postpone the unberthing of the Raffaello logistics module from the Unity module until Friday while ground controllers worked to recover the computers. With other work on hold, the crewmembers completed packing up Raffaello with unneeded gear and trash, which will be brought back to Earth.
If at least one additional command computer can be recovered overnight, and engineers can reboot two fault protection computers in the Unity module which also shut down earlier today, the Raffaello module could be unberthed around midday Friday. Procedures to bring at least one additional computer back on line for further operations are expected to take about 10 hours.
If Raffaello can be returned to Endeavour,s cargo bay tomorrow, then the crew will likely be given the green light to press ahead with the handoff of a pallet from the newly installed Canadarm2 Station robot arm to Endeavour,s slightly smaller robot arm on Saturday, setting the stage for undocking on Monday.
To recover the two Unity computers, which offer a defense against other computer malfunctions by automatically rebooting them, controllers will have to perform a complex resynchronization procedure early Friday shortly before the planned wakeup of the two crews.
Endeavour has enough power and other consumables to remain in orbit until Friday, if necessary. With a two-day mission extension, landing would occur on Wednesday.
The crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station are scheduled to be awakened around 2:40 a.m. Central time Friday. Meanwhile, all of Endeavour,s systems continue to function flawlessly as it orbits the Earth linked to the ISS.
The next mission status report
will be issued Friday morning after crew wakeup, or sooner, if
events warrant.
April 26, 2001
STS-100
Report # 15
Thursday, April 26, 2001 10:30 a.m. CDT
Good news greeted space station flight controllers this morning
when, shortly after awakening, Expedition Two flight engineer
Susan Helms reported that the International Space Station computer
systems may be returning to normal.
Working at a laptop computer aboard the station that serves as the crew,s primary interface with the station,s United States, command and control computer system, Helms relayed the good news about 3:45 a.m. Shortly afterward, Helms performed a series of troubleshooting steps that restored the ground,s ability to monitor and send commands to the station,s U.S. systems.
Space station flight controllers then sent commands that have put the station,s systems in a better configuration in the event computer problems recur today. They also sent commands that transmitted data to the ground from the station computers to allow technicians to thoroughly analyze their hardware and software as part of the investigation that is under way to determine the cause of the computer problems.
Today, the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard Endeavour will continue joint work to reload the Raffaello logistics module with unneeded station equipment and supplies for return to Earth. The crews have completed unloading the 4,000 pounds of equipment that Raffaello carried to the station. While the reloading of Raffaello takes place, flight controllers will continue their analysis of the station computers. The station command and control computer brought on line early this morning has continued to be fully functiional and operate normally throughout the day. Controllers are working to bring another such computer online as a backup system later today. The recovery of the one command and control computer during the night is believed to have resulted from an automatic sequence aboard the station that powered each of the three command and control computers on and off in an attempt to bring them on line. The other two computers remained off line, however.
Given continued success with the computer recovery, the shuttle and station crews will resume work with the station,s new Canadarm2 and the shuttle,s robotic arm on Friday, handing off a 3,000-pound Spacelab Pallet from the station arm to the shuttle arm to store the pallet back in Endeavour,s payload bay. A practice run with the new station arm to rehearse moves the arm must make during the next shuttle assembly mission to the station to attach a new airlock also will be conducted on Friday.
A second reboost of the station,s
altitude remains planned for later today. It will be an hour-long
jet firing by Endeavour that will raise the complex,s altitude
by almost 4 miles. The two spacecraft are now orbiting the Earth
every 92 minutes at an altitude of 243 statute miles. The next
status report will be issued this evening at the end of the crews,
day or as events warrant.
April 25, 2001
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing report and does not
necessarily reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the
KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: On orbit
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Space
Shuttle Endeavour remains in good health in
its fifth day of docked operations with the International Space
Station.
Ongoing assessment of the STS-100 solid rocket boosters indicates
that both
boosters are in excellent post-flight condition.
MISSION: STS-104 - 10th
ISS Flight (7A) - Airlock
VEHICLE: Atlantis/OV-104
LOCATION: OPF bay 3
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: NET June 14, 4:15 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: June 25, 12:30 p.m.
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Lindsey, Hobaugh, Kavandi, Gernhardt, Reilly
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Installation
of Atlantis' three main engines is
complete. The third and final engine is the improved block II
engine and
was installed yesterday in the lower left position of the aft
compartment.
Payload premate testing is complete and preparations are in work
for the
crew equipment interface test on Saturday.
The orbiter's potable water
system is being serviced today along with
functional tests of the orbiter's waste system. Today, technicians
will
check out Atlantis' water spray boilers as well. Main propulsion
system
leak checks are scheduled to occur this week. Engineers are troubleshooting
a mechanical issue with a subcomponent of Atlantis docking mechanism.
MISSION: STS-105 - 11th
ISS Flight (7A.1) - Leonardo MPLM
VEHICLE: Discovery/OV-103
LOCATION: OPF bay 2
OFFICIAL KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: July 12, 2001 at 4:45 a.m. EST
OFFICIAL KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: July 23, 2001 at TBD
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Horowitz, Struckow, Barry, Forrester; (up) Culbertson, Dezhurov,
Turin
(down) Voss, Helms, Usachev
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
NOTE: Technicians have completed testing on Discovery's
power reactant
storage and distribution system. The orbiter's integrated hydraulic
and
flight control system checks are also complete. Workers are performing
auxiliary power unit leak and functional tests today. This week,
managers
plan to install Discovery's drag chute and conduct functional
checks on the
airlock's upper hatch.
MISSION: STS-109 - HST Servicing
Mission 3B
VEHICLE: Columbia/OV-102
LOCATION: OPF bay 1
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Nov. 19 under review
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Nov. 30 under review
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Altman, Carey, Grunsfeld, Currie, Newman, Linnehan, Massimino
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 308 nautical miles/28.5
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Columbia's
payload bay doors have been closed in
preparation for a rollover to Vehicle Assembly Building high bay
4 on
Monday. Columbia will be temporarily stored in the high bay to
make room
for Endeavour's return from STS-100. In the mean time, workers
are
servicing freon coolant loop No. 2 and replacing spray valves
on the orbiter
water spray boilers.
New Main Engine promises even safer Shuttle ride
The next Space Shuttle crew
can expect an even safer ride into orbit, thanks
to the completion of a new Space Shuttle Main Engine. Workers
installed one
of the new engines, called the Block II configuration, on Space
Shuttle
Atlantis, April 24, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Atlantis' first flight using
the new engine is targeted for no earlier than
June 14 on mission STS-104 to the International Space Station.
Atlantis will
use one Block II Main Engine and two Block IIA Main Engines to
complete its
full complement of three engines.
Improvements to the main engines,
managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., continue to evolve to produce the
safest, most
reliable and reusable space transportation system in the world.
The Block II Main Engine configuration
includes a new Pratt & Whitney
high-pressure fuel turbopump.
The primary modification to
the engine is elimination of welds by using a
casting process for the housing, and an integral shaft/disk with
thin-wall
blades and ceramic bearings. This makes the pump stronger and
should
increase the number of flights between major overhauls. Although
the new
pump adds 300 pounds (135 kilograms) of weight to the Shuttle,
the results
are a more reliable and safer engine because of increased pump
robustness.
"With this design change,
we believe we have more than doubled the
reliability of the engine," said George Hopson, manager of
the Space Shuttle
Main Engine Project at Marshall.
Previous improvements to the
Space Shuttle Main Engine include the Block I
configuration, which featured an improved high-pressure liquid
oxygen
turbopump, two-duct engine power head and single-coil heat exchanger.
The
turbopump incorporated ball bearings of silicon nitride -- a ceramic
material 30 percent harder and 40 percent lighter than steel.
The Block I
engine first flew in 1995.
The Block IIA engine added
a larger-throat main-combustion chamber to Block
I improvements. The new chamber lowered the engine's operating
pressures and
temperatures while increasing the engine's operational safety
margin. This
engine first flew in 1998.
Developed in the 1970s by Marshall,
the Space Shuttle Main Engine is the
world's most sophisticated reusable rocket engine. Each powerful
Main Engine
is 14 feet long (4.3 meters), weighs about 7,000 pounds (3,175
kilograms)
and is 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) in diameter at the end of the nozzle.
The engines operate for about
eight-and-one-half minutes during liftoff and
ascent and shut down just before the Shuttle reaches low-Earth
orbit.
The engines perform at greater
temperature extremes than any mechanical
system in common use today. At minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit (minus
217
degrees Celsius), the liquid hydrogen fuel is the second coldest
liquid on
Earth. When it and the liquid oxygen are combusted, the temperature
in the
main combustion chamber of the engine is 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit
(3,316
degrees Celsius), hotter than the boiling point of iron.
Boeing Rocketdyne in Canoga
Park, Calif., manufactures the Space Shuttle
Main Engine.
HUBBLE CAPTURES GALATIC EPISODE OF SURVIVOR
A dramatic life-and-death struggle
of planetary survival
taking place inside a giant cloud of gas and dust, 1,500
light-years from Earth, could hold the key to how many planets
actually exist in our Milky Way galaxy.
The good news, published electronically
tomorrow by the
journal Science, is that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got an
inside look at Earth's closest large star-factory. The images
provide the first direct visual evidence for growth of planet
building blocks inside embryonic dust disks around dozens of
stars in the giant Orion Nebula.
The bad news is that other
observations suggest, as in many
contests, fledgling planets face a time obstacle, having to
quickly beat the clock by forming before they evaporate under
a blistering flood of radiation from the nebula's brightest
star, called Theta 1 Orionis C.
In the new research, John Bally
of the University of Colorado
and Henry Throop of the Southwest Research Institute, both in
Boulder, CO, and co-investigators used Hubble to assess if
planets were beginning to grow in million-year-old dusty disks
in Orion.
"This is the first time
that large growing grains, from the
size of smoke particles to sand grains, have been seen in
visible light in these protoplanetary disks," said Throop.
"The dust we're seeing in the Hubble observations is large,
completely unlike dust that we've seen in young star-forming
regions like this before. We're seeing the very first stages
of planetary formation happening before our eyes."
"We have two things happening
in these systems: Dust grains
are beginning to stick together as a first step toward making
planets, but then these bright stars are trying to tear
everything apart. Which one wins is really a big question,"
Throop continued. "It's like trying to build a skyscraper
in
the middle of a tornado."
These observations show for
the first time that it may be easy
to start building planets. According to conventional theory
the grains will continue to clump together, and as they grow
gravity pulls in more material until the grains become
planets. This discovery bolsters the long-proposed scenario
for how Earth and our solar system formed 4.5 billion years
ago.
If planets are not able to
form quickly it could mean that
they are more rare in our galaxy than thought previously. The
astronomers point out this is not inconsistent with extrasolar
planet discoveries so far, showing about five percent of the
stars in our solar neighborhood have Jupiter-sized planets in
small orbits.
Protoplanetary disks in Orion
were first discovered in 1992
and dubbed "proplyds." At first their existence seemed
to
greatly improve the odds for abundant planets in the galaxy,
because these disks appeared to confirm a common model of
planet formation. However, subsequent Hubble pictures revealed
proplyds being blowtorched away by a relentless blast of
radiation from the nebula's largest star. The doomed systems
look like hapless comets, with wayward tails of gas boiling
off the withering pancake-shaped disks.
The researchers predict that
that within 100,000 years the
vast majority of the youngest
disks -- which started out stretching billions of miles across
-- will be largely destroyed. But in the small number of
proplyds that are shielded from the ultraviolet radiation,
planet formation will be business as usual, with these stars
probably becoming hosts to a variety of planets. "We're seeing
that planet formation is a hazardous process," said Bally.
Bally believes that the gaseous
component of a disk will
largely vaporize away but will leave behind a residual
"gravel" disk of rocky pebbles that may successfully
build
terrestrial planets like Earth out of the grains he's seeing
form.
If giant planets like Jupiter
could collapse quickly out of a
gas disk they might survive, according to a theory proposed by
Alan Boss of Carnegie Institutions of Washington. "Only time
will tell. If we find lots of Jupiters around other stars,
then it means the planets have managed to grow rapidly in
Orion-type environments," said Boss.
"This discovery goes a long way toward helping us answer
one
of the biggest questions in science: Are we alone?" said
Dr.
Anne Kinney, Director of NASA's Origins Program at NASA
Headquarters, Washington, DC. "Understanding planet formation
gets us a step closer to that goal, something we hope to
answer with the Terrestrial Planet Finder, a large space-based
telescope we're planning for the next decade." The Hubble
Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency.
'SURVIVOR' PLANETS: ASTRONOMERS
WITNESS
FIRST STEPS OF PLANET GROWTH - AND DESTRUCTION
A dramatic life-and-death game of planetary survival is taking
place
inside a gigantic cloud of gas and dust 1,500 light-years from
Earth,
and the outcome could have far-reaching implications for the number
of
planets in our Milky Way galaxy.
The good news is that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is giving
astronomers the first direct visual evidence for the growth of
planet
"building blocks" inside dust disks around dozens of
stars in the giant
Orion Nebula - the nearest, large "star-factory" to
Earth.
The bad news is that other observations suggest that any fledgling
planets must try to quickly "beat the clock" by forming
before they are
evaporated away by a blistering flood of radiation from the nebula's
brightest star. Called Theta 1 Orionis C, the star is part of
the
nebula's central Trapezium cluster and is visible through a small
telescope.
In new research published today in Science Magazine, John Bally
of the
University of Colorado in Boulder and Henry Throop of the Southwest
Research Institute, also in Boulder, used Hubble to assess if
planets
were beginning to grow in million-year-old dusty disks in Orion.
"This is the first time that large growing grains [which
range in size
from smoke particles to sand grains] have been seen in visible
light in
these protoplanetary disks," Throop says. "The dust
we're seeing in the
Hubble observations is large - completely unlike dust that we've
seen in
young star-forming regions like this before. We're seeing the
very first
stages of planetary formation happening before our eyes. We have
two
things happening in these systems: dust grains are beginning to
stick
together as a first step toward making planets, but then these
bright
stars are trying to tear everything apart. Which one wins is really
a
big question. It's like trying to build a skyscraper in the middle
of a
tornado."
The astronomers deduced the dust size from the way the disks allow
light
to pass through them. The fine dust normally seen in space scatters
blue
light but allows red light to pass through. The Sun appears red
at
sunset because atmospheric dust influences light in the same way
as
space dust. The dust disks in Orion, however, appear gray because
they
allow all colors of light to pass through. This is unusual in
space and
can only be explained if the dust is much larger than interstellar
dust.
Radio observations also provide tantalizing hints that much of
the
material in the disk may range in size from snowflakes to gravel.
The Hubble observations show, for the first time, that it may
be easy to
start building planets. According to conventional theory, the
grains
will continue to snowball up through clumping, and then pull together
under gravity, until they become the size of planets. This discovery
helps confirm the long-proposed scenario for how Earth and the
rest of
the solar system formed around our Sun 4.5 billion years ago.
A variety of Orion observations by Hubble and ground-based telescopes
are helping astronomers converge on the idea that nurturing planets
to
maturity may be a dicey drama repeatedly playing out deep inside
star-forming nebulas scattered across our Milky Way galaxy.
Because of Orion's hostile environment, which is typical of star-forming
regions across the galaxy, "we're also seeing that planet
formation is
a hazardous process," Bally says.
Depending on whether planets can form quickly or not, it could
mean that
planets may be more rare in the Milky Way than previously thought.
The
astronomers point out this is consistent with extrasolar planet
discoveries so far. Those discoveries show that about 5 percent
of the
stars in our solar neighborhood have Jupiter-sized planets in
small
orbits.
Protoplanetary disks in Orion were first discovered in 1992 and
dubbed
"proplyds." At first glance, their existence seems to
greatly improve
the odds for planets being abundant in the galaxy, because they
appeared
to confirm a common model of planet formation.
But subsequent Hubble pictures revealed proplyds being blowtorched
away
by a relentless blast of radiation from the nebula's largest star.
The
doomed systems look like hapless comets, with wayward tails of
gas
boiling off the withering pancake-shaped disks.
The researchers predict that within 100,000 years, 90 percent
of the
youngest disks - which started out being billions of miles across
- will
be largely destroyed. But planet formation will be "business
as usual"
in the 10 percent of the proplyds that are shielded from the ultraviolet
radiation. These stars will probably become hosts of a variety
of
planets.
Bally believes that the gaseous component of the disk will largely
vaporize away but will leave behind a residual "gravel"
disk of rocky
pebbles that may successfully build terrestrial planets like Earth
out
of the grains he's seeing form.
If giant planets like Jupiter could collapse quickly out of the
gas
disk, they might survive, according to a theory proposed by Alan
Boss of
Carnegie Institutions of Washington. "Only time will tell.
If we find
lots of Jupiters around other stars, then it means they will have
managed to grow rapidly in Orion-type environments," Boss
says.
Throop agrees. "It looks like Jupiters must be formed either
rarely or
rapidly. It's a good bet that planetary systems in Orion will
look
nothing like our own solar system. Although they may have rocky
planets
like Earth and Mars, it looks hard to form either giant planets
or
comets."
NOTE TO EDITORS: Electronic image files, an illustration and
animations are available on the Internet at:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/13 and via links in
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html and
http://hubble.stsci.edu
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by
the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc.
(AURA), for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project
of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency (ESA).
April 26, 2001
National Space Development Agency of Japan
NASDA REPORT NO.106 NOW AVAILABLE
Online version of the latest
NASDA REPORT (No.106, 2001 APR) is now
available on the URL below.
http://yyy.tksc.nasda.go.jp/Home/News/News-e/106index.htm
C O N T E N T S
Development and Testing of
the Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo"
Progressing Steadily
FTB (Flying Test Bed) Experiment to Study Technologies for Soft
Landing on the Lunar Surface
Earth Environment from Space 12
Let Us Talk to Space Challengers
Series of World Heritage from Space 1
PDF file of the issue is also
available.
http://yyy.tksc.nasda.go.jp/Home/News/News-e/pdf/nr106.pdf
April 25, 2001
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: The Webcast
Astrobiologists are visiting
the Indian Ocean to explore a bizarre
undersea ecosystem that doesn't need sunlight to flourish. You
can join
them via a live webcast on April 26th!
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast25apr_1.htm?list448368
NASA AND JROTC HOST HIGH SCHOOL CAREER DAY
NASA and the Washington, DC,
area Junior Officers
Training Corps (JROTC) are joining forces to expose local
high school students to the "boundless career opportunities
in science and engineering."
On Friday April 27, NASA and
the JROTC will conduct a series
of workshops designed to provide students with information on
careers in the government and private sector. The workshops
will focus on "Space Flight, Space and Earth Sciences,"
"Aeronautics, Safety and Mission Assurance" and "Biological
and Physical Research."
"Students with disabilities,
honor students and JROTC
students from the DC metropolitan area are the target of the
interactive program," said Chris Rodriquez, Diversity Program
Manager at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "The program
will show students how to pursue science and engineering
opportunities as they plan for their futures."
The program was started in
1995 by NASA's Office of Equal
Opportunity with the goal of promoting awareness among area
students of the wide variety of careers available in science
and engineering in both the private and government sectors.
Since its inception the program has expanded to include
career counseling and Scholastic Aptitude Test preparation.
Featured speakers for the event
are Dr. Patricia Conn,
Executive Director for Curriculum and Secondary
Programs/JROTC, Washington, DC, Public Schools, and Pamela
Covington, Director for NASA Headquarters Equal Opportunity
and Diversity Management.
The career day will be held
at the Holiday Inn at 550 C St.,
SW, Washington, DC, from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. EDT.
"SUN-EARTH DAYS" DAWN APRIL 27
Just a week after Earth Day,
space aficionados and
science teachers and students will turn their sights from
their own planet to their nearest star, as NASA sponsors the
first-ever Sun-Earth Days.
April 27 and April 28, thousands
of participants at science
museums, schools and star parties in North America and Europe
will talk with scientists, turn solar telescopes toward the
Sun and explore the only star we can study up close.
Sun-Earth Days is a national
celebration of the Sun, the
space around the Earth, and how both affect life on our
planet. Sun-Earth Days coincides with National Astronomy Day
2001 and with the fifth anniversaries of discoveries with the
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and Polar spacecraft.
The event is co-sponsored by
NASA's Sun-Earth Connection
Education Forum and The Astronomical League, the worldwide
association of amateur astronomers that has been hosting
"Astronomy Day" events each spring for the past 28 years.
Most NASA Centers and NASA
Educator Resource Centers have
planned an event for science teachers and students, or for
the public, in conjunction with Sun-Earth Days. More than
4,500 science teachers have been invited to 35 education
workshops related to the science of the Sun-Earth Connection.
From Barcelona to Boston, participants
will have a solar
blast sharing stories, images and activities demonstrating
the central role the Sun plays in our lives.
The Discovery Science Channel,
the new digital, science-only
network from the Discovery Channel, will support Sun-Earth
Days by airing two special documentaries, "Savage Sun"
and
"The Sun," which will air April 28.
The Stanford SOLAR Center,
Stanford, CA, will host a national
webcast with scientists, teachers and students, April 27.
Students who have been conducting experiments and studying
the Sun for the past months will share their results, ideas
and questions with scientists during the two-hour program,
available on the Web at:
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/sso/events/stanford_solar/sunearthd
ay1.html
Lockheed Martin's Solar and
Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo
Alto, CA, is sponsoring a "SolarWeek 2001" series of
web
activities targeted at young women and girls interested in
science. Additional information is available on the Internet
at:
http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/solarweek/
To learn more about Sun-Earth Days events in your community,
visit:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/SECEF_SunEarthDay/index.html
April 24, 2001
C/2001 A2 LINEAR, after a dramatic outbust late last month, continues to brighten. In fact, the brightening seems to have intensified in recent days. At last measure, the comet was at magnitude 6.5.
If this trend continues, the comet will peak at between magnitude 3 and 4 in late June. This is well within the range of naked-eye brightness.
Astronomer Mike Linnolt adds:
"This comet may in fact
turn out a surprisingly
good show after it rounds perihelion and makes its
close approach to earth in late June!
Unfortunately, the moon will
begin to interfere for
the next 2 weeks, and after that, it will be very low in the evening
twilight for northern hemisphere observers. For those lucky devils
'down under' the
comet will remain visible longer as it brightens
further near perihelion in late May."
If you are not located in the Southern Hemisphere: don't worry, the comet will become a Northern Hemisphere object again, shortly before maximum brightness.
All the latest news about this object can be found at:
Photo Release: Eleven years in orbit: Hubble observes the popular Horsehead nebula
To celebrate its eleventh birthday,
the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope
has released an unsurpassed picture of the famous Horsehead nebula
in
Orion. This dark nebula is part of the large Orion Complex, birthplace
to thousands of stars. Rising from a sea of dust and gas like
a giant
sea horse, the Horsehead nebula is one of the most photographed
objects
in the sky. The American-European Hubble Space Telescope took
a close-up
look at this heavenly icon, revealing the cloud's intricate structure.
This
detailed view of the horse's head is being released to celebrate
the orbiting
observatory's eleventh anniversary on 24 April.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/hubble/news/index.cfm?oid=26923
SpaceDev Participates in NASA Mars Sample Return
In 1999, under contract to JPL, SpaceDev performed a mission and spacecraft design study for JPL's proposed Mars MicroMissions. Our detailed analysis showed such Mars missions could be done for less than $50 million.
We teamed with Boeing last year to explore a variety of commercial deep space mission possibilities based on SpaceDev's micromission design. That effort resulted in a proposed commercial lunar orbiter that is currently being marketed.
SpaceDev has now teamed with Boeing again, and as a result, SpaceDev is in a leadership role in defining for JPL possible approaches for their potential Mars Sample Return mission.
Poway, Calif., April 23, 2001 - SpaceDev, Inc. (OTCBB: SPDV), the world's first publicly-traded commercial space exploration and development company, announced that it is part of a Boeing-led team that was awarded a $1 million contract from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California to study options for a potential Mars sample return mission.
David B. Smith, SpaceDev Vice President & Chief Technical Officer and thirty-year JPL veteran of several deep space missions, is leading the Boeing Mars Sample Return architecture team. "My recent experience as a member of the Mars architecture team at JPL will provide our team with insights into past, current and future methods and technologies that will help us create a unique, innovative and affordable Mars Sample Return architecture for input into the JPL planning process," said Smith.
The full news release:
http://www.spacedev.com/media/pressrelease/23apr01.html
Onward and upward!
Cassini Weekly Significant
Events
for 04/12/01 - 04/18/01
The most recent spacecraft
telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Tuesday, April 17. The Cassini spacecraft
is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. The speed
of the
spacecraft can be viewed on the "Present Position" web
page
( "http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/" ) .
Recent spacecraft activities
included automatic repairs of both Solid
State Recorders (SSRs), an update of the Attitude Control Subsystem
(ACS)
default Inertial Vector Propagator (IVP) vector on the SSRs, a
Radio and
Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) HFR calibration, and a High Watermark
clear.
Final products for the C26
background sequence were released ahead of
schedule in preparation for the C26 preliminary SIV approval meeting
to be
held next week.
Tuesday marked the beginning
of a week long Cross-Discipline Workshop
sponsored by Cassini Science Planning. The goals of this workshop
include
the identification of heavily conflicted periods, the division
of the tour
into segments and the creation of Target Working Teams (TWTs).
Breaking
the tour into segments will facilitate planning and integration
of science
objectives, while the TWTs will help resolve conflicts and develop
simple,
integrated observing strategies. A general understanding of the
observations that are planned and desired during the tour will
be gained
through a series of presentations from both instrument teams and
discipline working groups. The intent is that the combination
of these
presentations will provide the basis for dividing the tour into
segments
with common integration issues or conflicts. The segments may
be a portion
of an orbit or an entire orbit in a class or family of orbits.
The
families or classes of orbits are defined by their unique nature
in the
tour (i.e. inclined, magnetotail apoapsis, dayside apoapsis, etc).
Each
team and discipline working group will identify families of orbits
that
provide the geometrical opportunities desired for specific science
observations.
A new version of the Cassini
Information Management System (CIMS) software
was installed for Project use this week. A major change in this
version
is streamlined security functions.
ULO presented an overview of
the current status of the cyclic
functionality (repeated use of user-defined subsets of onboard
sequence
commands) at the Science Planning Cross-Discipline Workshop this
week.
Systems Engineering supported
a Delivery Coordination Meeting for the
Navigation Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) Toolkit with
specific
Cassini-subroutine additions.
System Engineering reported
that several downlink concepts for Tour are
now ready for presentation before a review board. Reviews for
Cassini
Operations concepts are currently scheduled for May and June of
this year.
Version F of the Cassini Anomaly
Response Plan has been released for
signature.
Cassini is a cooperative project
of NASA, the European Space Agency and
the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages
the Cassini
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationI
NTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
PARTNERSHIP GRANTS
FLIGHT EXEMPTION FOR DENNIS TITO
The International Space Station
(ISS) Partnership today granted an
exemption for the flight of Dennis Tito, an American businessman,
to the space
station aboard the Soyuz 2 Taxi mission, which is scheduled for
launch April 28.
Following intense and extensive
consultations among all space station
partners, the Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) achieved consensus
on the
proposed Tito flight.
The ISS partners reaffirmed
that safety is the paramount consideration in the
space station program. Further, the mechanisms that implement
the ISS
international agreements have been tested and worked well to resolve
a difficult
issue facing the ISS partnership.
The Joint Decision Statement
by all ISS partners, which outlines the
background, process and conditions for granting an exemption for
the April 28
Soyuz flight of a non-professional to the ISS is available on
the Internet at:
ftp://ftp.nasa.gov/pub/pao/reports/2001/tito_decision.pdf
The MCB completed its work
in accordance with the recommendations of the
Stafford-Anfimov Commission. As part of the board's deliberations,
there was
agreement that no ISS partner would propose another flight of
a non-
professional crewmember until the detailed crew criteria had been
finalized and
adopted by the ISS partnership. This agreement among the ISS partners
should preclude a similar issue arising in the future.
NASA MANAGER AVAILABLE TO
COMMENT ON DECISION TO
GRANT EXEMPTION FOR FLIGHT OF MR. DENNIS TITO
Mike Hawes, Deputy Associate
Administrator for Space Station, will be
available from 2:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. EDT today via telephone
to answer
questions regarding the Multilateral Coordination Board's decision
to grant an
exemption for Dennis Tito to fly to the International Space Station
aboard the
April 28 Soyuz 2 taxi flight.
The International Space Station
Multilateral Coordination Board, acting on the
recommendation of the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, approved
the
exemption today.
Because of the anticipated
level of interest in this media opportunity, reporters
who work in the vicinity of a NASA center are encouraged to contact
their local
center and participate in the teleconference from there.
Reporters who are unable to
participate from a NASA Center may contact
Kirsten Larson at 202/358-0243 or the NASA Headquarters Newsroom
at
202/358-1600 to make other arrangements.
U.S. CENTENNIAL OF FLIGHT
COMMISSION AND AVIATION
WEEK'S NEXT CENTURY OF FLIGHT ANNOUNCE ALLIANCE
The U.S. Centennial of Flight
Commission and Aviation Week's The Next
Century of Flight (NCF) today announced their partnership to promote
upcoming
activities and events that will celebrate the 100th anniversary
of powered,
controlled flight in 2003 and the history and future of aviation.
The partnership will capitalize
on the Commission's mandate to serve as a
national and international source of information about activities
to
commemorate the centennial of the Wright Brothers' first powered
flight on the
sands at Kitty Hawk, NC, on Dec. 17, 1903, and on Aviation Week's
global
multimedia leadership.
"We are extremely pleased
to be able to work so closely with Aviation Week's
Next Century of Flight," said U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission
Chair
General John R. (Jack) Dailey. "This is a tremendous opportunity
for us to work
together to educate and inspire the public in the celebration
of the
achievements of the Wright Brothers and a century of powered flight.
More
importantly, the celebration represents an opportunity to stimulate
a new
generation of inventors, innovators and dreamers. Our desire is
to engage the
American public and the world in a renewed appreciation of the
technological
marvel known as powered flight."
"We are proud to have
this unique opportunity to work with the U.S. Centennial
of Flight Commission to help raise global awareness of the extraordinary
accomplishments that 100 years ago set the stage for the 20th
Century," said
Aviation Week Executive Vice President/Publisher Kenneth E. Gazzola.
"This
alliance will help us to deliver on our commitment to educate
audiences
around the world about aviation's incredible history and its exciting
vision for
the Next Century of Flight."
The U.S. Centennial of Flight
Commission (COFC) was created by the U.S.
Congress to advise the President, Congress and federal agencies
on the most
effective ways to encourage national and international commemoration
of the
achievements of Orville and Wilbur Wright and the centennial of
powered flight.
The Commission hopes to generate enthusiasm for the commemoration
by
publicizing and fostering programs and events that will involve,
educate and
inspire the maximum number of people. The Web site of the Centennial
of
Flight Commission is at:
http://www.centennialofflight.gov
The Next Century of Flight
campaign was launched in 1998, and integrates
print, online, event and broadcast media to add perspective and
insight to the
story of flight's past and the promise of its future. Its most
recent campaign
successfully launched an exclusive Internet channel on the AviationNow.com
portal at:
http://www.AviationNow.com/NextCentury
The six members of the Centennial
of Flight Commission represent the First
Flight Centennial Foundation of North Carolina; Inventing Flight:
Dayton 2003
of Ohio; aeronautical societies, foundations and organizations
outside of Ohio
and North Carolina, represented by the President of the Experimental
Aircraft
Association; the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space
Museum; the
Federal Aviation Administration; and the National Aeronautics
and Space
Administration.
The NCF Channel spotlights
the people and airplanes of aviation's past,
present and future in unique interactive features and forums.
It is also a
source
for information about NCF program developments such as the NCF
Legends
and Leaders initiative and NCF Scholarship program and for links
to NCF
program partners: the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics,
Computer Sciences Corporation, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,
the
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the Society of British Aerospace
Companies, Iconixx, plus the ongoing collaboration with NASA.
Aviation Week is a division
of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Additional
information on The McGraw-Hill Companies is available at:
HOT SPACE RESEARCH YIELDS
COOLER DOWN-TO-EARTH
BENEFITS
A paper-thin coating of an
innovative NASA material used to prevent space
vehicles from burning up during planetary reentry may soon be
available to
protect your house, car and boat from fire.
Protective Ceramic Coating
(PCC), invented at NASA's Ames Research Center,
Moffett Field, CA, in the heart of Silicon Valley, repels heat
from virtually any
surface it covers. This allows it to shield ceramics, wood, steel,
plastics and
fiberglass from high temperatures. Wessex, Inc., based in Blacksburg,
VA, has
licensed the coating from Ames and will continue to develop and
market the
material.
"PCC has a unique property
that enables it to radiate thermal energy during
exposure to elevated temperatures," said Rex Churchward,
the inventor of PCC.
"The coating helps the material reject heat from its surface
and thus decreases
the amount of heat that can be transferred to the underlying insulation."
NASA originally invented PCC
as a protective coating for spacecraft heat
shields to allow them to withstand the extreme fiery conditions
experienced
during Earth reentry. The material's ceramic components exhibit
the property of
high emissivity, which means the material tends to radiate heat.
This allows the
protective coating to reflect heat away from the surface it covers,
thereby
increasing the capability of materials to withstand temperature
levels far beyond
their normal range.
"Wessex has performed
extensive research to maximize the product's fitness for
use in various applications," said company president John
Olver. "We have
discovered that 99 percent of the materials in PCC will not burn,
therefore, the
coating inhibits the spread of flame. It also reduces heat transfer
to the
underlying material, which prevents combustion."
"PCC can withstand temperatures
from -250 degrees Fahrenheit up to 3,000
degrees Fahrenheit without damage, added Olver. "It is a
great material with
unlimited potential."
In the future, PCC may serve
as heat protection for car and boat engines, as
well as various building materials, making these modes of transportation
and
environments more fire-resistant and safer for the consumer. The
PCC product
is readily manufactured and easily applied to a variety of surfaces.
"The advantage of the
coating is that it can be applied by brush or by spray gun
and then air dried," added Churchward. "It is fairly
easy to prepare and can be
applied to large or small sections of insulations."
This successful transfer of
PCC demonstrates how NASA's Commercial
Technology Offices perform their mission of maximizing NASA's
research
efforts. NASA reaches out to the business community in a way that
leverages
the agency's resources with those of the private sector. The objective
is to
stimulate job growth and increase the competitiveness of American
products in
the global marketplace.
"The American taxpayer's
investment is paying off when products like PCC are
spun out and become commercially viable, meeting a real need in
the US
marketplace," said Phil Herlth, Ames Commercial Technology
Office.
To read about NASA Commercial
Technology Opportunities on the Internet,
visit:
April 24, 2001
EARTH DAY PORTRAIT IS FIRST ONE SNAPPED BY MARS ODYSSEY
NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft
turned its
multipurpose camera homeward last week and took its first
picture -- a shot of a faint crescent Earth -- as the
spacecraft heads off toward its destination, the planet Mars.
The image was taken as part
of the calibration process
for the thermal emission imaging system, the camera system
that is one of three science instrument packages on the
spacecraft. The imaging system will study the Martian surface
in both visible and infrared light and will help determine
what minerals are present. It also will map landscapes on Mars
at resolutions comparable to that of NASA's Landsat Earth
observing satellite.
"The spacecraft team did
a fantastic job to image the
Earth. These images are spectacular, especially given how far
away we were. They have given us the first-ever thermal-
infrared view of Earth and the moon from interplanetary
space," said Dr. Philip Christensen, principal investigator
for the spacecraft's thermal emission imaging system at
Arizona State University, Tempe.
The visible light image shows
the night side of the
crescent Earth looking toward the South Pole. Taken at the
same time, the infrared image measures temperature, showing
its "night-vision" capability to observe Earth even
in the
dark.
"The instrument measured
a low surface temperature of
minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) for
Antarctica in winter, and a high of 9 degrees Celsius (48.2
degrees Fahrenheit) at night in Australia," Christensen said.
"These temperatures agree remarkably well with observed
temperatures of minus 63 degrees Celsius at Vostok Station in
Antarctica, and 10 degrees Celsius in Australia. Thus we
demonstrated that the instrument can accurately measure
temperatures, even from a distance of more than 3 million
kilometers (2 million miles)."
These observations of Antarctica
provide an excellent
test for how the imaging system will perform at Mars, where
afternoon temperatures are comparable to those in the winter
night at Earth's South Pole. The Antarctic continent, which
was uncharted less than 100 years ago, was the last landmass
observed by Odyssey as it left Earth on its way to Mars.
The images were taken on April 19 and are available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/odyssey
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey
and
http://themis.asu.edu
The Odyssey spacecraft continues
to be in excellent
health with all its systems working normally.
"Not only was this a successful
calibration of the
instrument, it demonstrated that we can accurately point the
spacecraft, and it put the team members through their paces,"
said David A. Spencer, the Odyssey mission manager at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.
Today at 5 a.m. Pacific time,
Odyssey was 4,639,830
kilometers (2,883,050 miles) from Earth and traveling at a
speed of 3.3 kilometers per second (7,474 miles per hour)
relative to the Earth.
More information about the
Mars Exploration Program can
be found at
The Mars Odyssey mission is
managed by JPL for NASA's
Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of
the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. The Odyssey
spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver.
The thermal emission imaging system was built by Raytheon
Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, Calif, and is
operated by Arizona State University.
April 23, 01
Look Ma -- No Hands! Containerless Processing at MSFC
Using a force field to float
molten test samples precisely in mid-air,
NASA's Electrostatic Levitator creates a unique environment for
space-age
materials processing.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23apr_1.htm?list448368
Former Astronaut David Walker
has died. Walker logged
over 724 hours in
space. He was the pilot on STS 51-A in 1984, and was the mission
commander
on STS-30 in 1989, STS-53 in 1992, and STS-69 in 1995. A memorial
service
is planned for Houston. Burial will be at Arlington National Cemetery.
[http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/walker.html]
This Week on Galileo
April 23-29, 2001
This week sees the continuation
of the set of instrument calibrations that
began on Sunday. On Monday, the Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer
(NIMS)
views a calibration plate mounted on the spacecraft. Since NIMS
is
sensitive to thermal emissions (heat), this Radiometric Calibration
Target
plate is warmed to a known temperature, and the instrument measures
the
signal it sees. By comparing the signal from this known source
with those
from observations of Jupiter's atmosphere or of the surfaces of
the
satellites, scientists can determine the correct temperatures
of those
features.
The Solid State Imaging camera
(SSI), which imaged Saturn on Sunday, today
views its largest satellite Titan. The observations are made through
three
filters that are sensitive to wavelengths of light characteristic
of
absorption by methane gas. Since both Saturn and Titan have prominent
methane atmospheres, these bodies make excellent calibration targets.
Following these activities,
Galileo will be turned approximately nine
degrees so that the spin axis of the spacecraft will be pointed
directly at
the Sun. This allows the Sun to shine directly on another calibration
plate
on the spacecraft, the Photometric Calibration Target. When this
plate is
evenly illuminated, and not shadowed by any other parts of the
spacecraft,
nor varying in brightness as the spacecraft spins, both NIMS and
SSI can
view a flat field of known, uniform intensity. This allows the
instruments
to determine if their sensitivities vary across their respective
fields of
view, or have changed since the last calibration of this type
in 1997.
This is the last time in the
mission that we plan on calibrating SSI and
NIMS in this way. These measurements will be stored on the spacecraft
tape
recorder. Late Monday night playback of the data will begin, and
this will
continue over the next month, completing prior to the next flyby
of
Callisto near the end of May.
After the calibrations are
complete, the spacecraft is again turned to
point the communications antenna towards Earth. Then a special
engineering
test of the SSI electronics will be done. During the last encounter
with
Ganymede in December of 2000, there were several times when an
intermittent
problem in the instrument electronics saturated the signal received
from
the imaging CCD sensor. This had the same effect as shining a
bright light
into the camera, washing out the pictures taken. Tests have shown
that
turning the instrument power off and on again clears up the problem.
However, when the instrument is turned off, the software that
governs the
camera operations must be reloaded into its computer memory. This
test
exercises a new technique to reload that software more quickly
and using
fewer commands. This technique will make it easier to restore
camera
operations if the problem should recur.
For more information on the
Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
EARTH DAY PORTRAIT IS FIRST
ONE SNAPPED BY NASA'S 2001 MARS
ODYSSEY
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft
turned its multipurpose
camera homeward last week and took its first picture -- a
shot of a faint crescent Earth -- as the spacecraft heads off
toward its destination, the planet Mars.
The image was taken as part
of the calibration process for
the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), the camera
system that is one of three science instrument packages on
the spacecraft. The imaging system will study the Martian
surface in both the visible and the infrared and will help
determine what minerals are present. It also will map
landscapes on Mars at resolutions comparable to that of
NASA's Landsat Earth observing satellite.
"The spacecraft team did
a fantastic job to image the Earth.
These images are spectacular, especially given how far away
we were. They have given us the first-ever thermal-infrared
view of Earth and the moon from interplanetary space," said
Dr. Philip Christensen, principal investigator for the THEMIS
imaging system at Arizona State University, Tempe.
The visible image shows the
night side of the crescent Earth
looking toward the South Pole. Taken at the same time, the
infrared image measures temperature, showing its "night-
vision" capability to observe Earth even in the dark.
"The instrument measured
a low surface temperature of minus
50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) for
Antarctica in winter, and a high of 9 degrees Celsius (48.2
degrees Fahrenheit) at night in Australia. These temperatures
agree remarkably well with observed temperatures of minus 63
degrees Celsius at Vostok Station in Antarctica, and 10
degrees Celsius in Australia. Thus we demonstrated that the
instrument can accurately measure temperatures, even from a
distance of more than 3 million kilometers (2 million
miles)," Christensen said.
These observations of Antarctica
provide an excellent test
for how the imaging system will perform at Mars, where
afternoon temperatures are comparable to those in the winter
night at Earth's South Pole. The Antarctic continent, which
was uncharted less than 100 years ago, was the last landmass
observed by Odyssey as it left Earth on its way to Mars.
The images were taken on April
19 and are available on the
Internet at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/odyssey
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey
and
http://themis.asu.edu
The Odyssey spacecraft continues
to be in excellent health
with all its systems working normally.
"Not only was this a successful
calibration of the
instrument, it demonstrated that we can accurately point the
spacecraft, and it put the team members through their paces,"
said David A. Spencer, the Odyssey mission manager at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA.
Today, Odyssey is 4,639,830
kilometers (2,883,050 miles) from
Earth and traveling at a speed of 3.3 kilometers per second
(7,474 miles per hour) relative to the Earth.
More information about the
Mars Exploration Program can be
found at:
The Mars Odyssey mission is
managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena. The Odyssey spacecraft was built by
Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO. The THEMIS
instrument was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote
Sensing, Santa Barbara, CA, and is operated by Arizona State
University, Tempe.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Orbit
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: April 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: April 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Space Shuttle Endeavour continues to
operate en
orbit without significant problem. Landing remains scheduled for
Monday,
April 30, at 10 a.m. at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility. The flown
Solid
Rocket Boosters were returned to Hangar AF Saturday. Open assessments
continue with no problems reported.
MISSION: STS-104 - 10th ISS Flight (7A) - Airlock
VEHICLE: Atlantis/OV-104
LOCATION: OPF bay 3
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: June 14, 4:15 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: June 25, 12:30 p.m.
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Lindsey, Hobaugh, Kavandi, Gernhardt, Reilly
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: The orbiter drag chute has been installed
and
refilling of the hydraulic system is complete. Payload pre-mate
tests and
operations are currently in work. Activities are also underway
in
preparation for installing the three Space Shuttle main engines
beginning
tomorrow. Currently, rollover to the Vehicle Assembly Building
is slated
for May 16.
MISSION: STS-105 - 11th ISS Flight (7A.1) - Leonardo MPLM
VEHICLE: Discovery/OV-103
LOCATION: OPF bay 2
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: July 12, 2001 at 4:45 a.m. EST
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: July 23, 2001 at TBD
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Horowitz, Struckow, Barry, Forrester; (up) Culbertson, Dezhurov,
Turin (down) Voss, Helms, Usachev
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
NOTE: Hydraulic testing is on going, and other routine orbiter
inspections
continue on schedule.
MISSION: STS-109 - HST Servicing Mission 3B
VEHICLE: Columbia/OV-102
LOCATION: OPF bay 1
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Nov. 19 (under review)
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Nov. 30 (under review)
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Altman, Carey, Grunsfeld, Currie, Newman, Linnehan, Massimino
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 308 nautical miles/28.5
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Preparations continue for Columbia's
first
mission since being returned to KSC following its scheduled maintenance
period and upgrades enhancements in California. This week Freon
loop tests
and servicing continues in work. The orbiter is scheduled for
its first
post-maintenance power-up later this week.
STS-100
Report # 08
Monday, April 23, 2001 - 3 a.m. CDT
The 10 astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space
Station and the docked shuttle Endeavour are beginning a day that
will see the first opening of hatches linking the two spacecraft.
Highlights will include an impressive first step by the station,s
new Canadarm2 and the berthing to the station of Raffaello, the
Italian-built logistics module.
Hatch opening was set for 4 a.m. following a wakeup call from Mission Control earlier this morning. Judy Collins, "Both Sides Now for Pilot Jeff Ashby started the shuttle crews, day.
After transfer of equipment and supplies, the hatches will be closed again a little after 2 p.m. so that the Shuttle cabin pressure can once again be lowered to prepare for Tuesday,s second spacewalk. That spacewalk will focus on permanently powering the station arm and doing further checkouts.
The 57.7-foot arm was installed and unfolded Sunday during a 7 hour, 10 minute spacewalk by Scott Parazynski and Chris Hadfield. They also installed a UHF antenna on the station,s U.S. laboratory Destiny. It was the 19th spacewalk devoted to ISS assembly and the 63rd in the history of the shuttle program.
After additional checkouts by Helms and Voss this morning, the arm will "walk off the Spacelab Pallet on which it was launched. Its free end will be attached to a Power and Data Grapple Fixture on Destiny, becoming the arm,s base. That first step, beginning a little after 5 a.m., will cover just over 24 feet. Wednesday morning, the station arm will hand the pallet to the shuttle arm, to be berthed in Endeavour,s cargo bay for return to Earth.
Endeavour,s own 50-foot robotic arm, operated by Ashby, will grapple the Raffaello logistics module in the cargo bay and dock it to the Unity module. Its installation there should be complete about 10 a.m. today. Early Tuesday, the Expedition Two crew will begin transferring the food, supplies, equipment and two experiment racks for installation in Destiny from Raffaello to the station.
Both crews are scheduled to end their day about 6:30 p.m. today. Both spacecraft are in excellent shape orbiting Earth every 92 minutes at an altitude of 240 statute miles.
STS-100
Report # 05
Saturday, April 21, 2001 3:30 p.m. CDT
With Commander Kent Rominger at the controls, Endeavour gently
docked with the International Space Station this morning as the
two spacecraft flew 243 miles over the southern Pacific Ocean,
just southeast of New Zealand. Docking occurred at 8:59 a.m. central
time.
Rominger, Pilot Jeff Ashby and Mission Specialists John Phillips, Chris Hadfield, Umberto Guidoni, Scott Parazynski and Yuri Lonchakov, briefly opened a hatch leading from the Shuttle into Pressurized Mating Adapter-2, and retrieved a battery-powered drill for use on Sunday,s space walk. They also left behind some supplies that were later retrieved by the station crew. From the station side of the hatch leading to PMA-2, flight engineer Jim Voss used a video camera to film the smiling Shuttle crew members as they transferred four water containers, computer equipment, some fresh food and film for the IMAX camera.
Though securely linked together, the two crews are not scheduled to greet one another in person until early Monday, following the first space walk to be conducted Sunday by Hadfield and Parazynski. Late in their day, Hadfield and Parazynski were joined by space walk coordinator Phillips in conducting some final checks of the suits and hardware that will be used during tomorrow,s planned 6 hour space walk. The full crews on both vehicles then reviewed the procedures to be followed throughout Hadfield and Parazynski,s space walk.
This first space walk, scheduled to begin about 6:20 a.m., will focus on installing the station,s robotic arm, called Canadarm2, and attaching an ultrahigh frequency (UHF) antenna on the station,s exterior. A second space walk is scheduled for Tuesday, and will focus on establishing power connections and checking out the new 57.7 foot-long robotic arm.
Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineer Susan Helms verified the performance of the station,s carbon dioxide removal system, called Vozdukh, which had been operating in a slightly degraded condition. The system started working normally overnight on its own, and their checkout confirmed that it is operating within normal parameters. Usachev, Helms and Voss also exercised and continued preparations for the next week of joint operations with the Shuttle crew.
All systems are in good shape aboard both vehicles. The Station crew will go to sleep at 5:31 p.m. today, followed 10 minutes later by the crew of Endeavour. Mission Control will awaken the shuttle crew at 1:41 a.m. Sunday and the station crew will hear its wake-up alarm tone at 2:01 a.m.
April 20, 2001
MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS
This morning flight controllers
turned the Mars Odyssey
spacecraft and pointed the thermal emission imaging system
(THEMIS) instrument at the Earth and Moon to calibrate the
instrument. All calibration objectives were met.
Engineers are in the process
of redesigning the
spacecraft's cruise attitude after they noted temperature
readings that were higher than expected on a high-gain antenna
gimbal earlier this week. The cruise attitude points the
high-gain antenna toward Earth as the spacecraft travels
toward Mars.
Next week, the team will turn
on the Martian radiation
environment experiment (MARIE) and prepare to transition to
the new cruise attitude.
Odyssey is currently 3,491,598
kilometers (2,169,574
miles) from Earth and traveling at a speed of 3.3 kilometers
per second (7,408 miles per hour) relative to Earth.
The Mars Odyssey mission is
managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, Calif. The Odyssey spacecraft was built
by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo.
KODIAK STAR LAUNCH PRESENTATION TO BOROUGH ASSEMBLY SCHEDULED FOR APRIL 24
NASA, the Starshine Program,
the U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin will
brief the Kodiak Borough Assembly about a mission planned for
launch this
summer. Kodiak Star will be launched aboard an Athena I launch
vehicle from
the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. The briefing will occur on
Tuesday,
April 24 at 7:30 p.m. (local time) at the Borough Assembly Building.
This will be the first mission
to be launched into an earth orbit from
Kodiak Island, Alaska. Riding atop the Athena I, the Kodiak Star
payload
will consist of four individual satellites. Starshine 3, whose
ride into
space is sponsored by NASA, consists of over 1,500 hand-polished
mirrors, 31
retro-reflectors and seven clusters of solar cells powering an
amateur radio
transmitter. The Starshine Program encourages participation from
students in
kindergarten through high school. This will be the first time
that students
from Alaska can participate in the project due to the higher orbital
inclination.
PICOSat, PCSat and Sapphire
are payloads sponsored by the Department of
Defense (DoD) Space Test Program. PICOSat, the primary DoD satellite,
has
four experiments on board. PCSat was designed by midshipmen at
the U.S.
Naval Academy, and will become part of the amateur radio community's
Automatic Position Reporting System. Sapphire is a micro-satellite
built by
students at Stanford University and Washington University-St.
Louis.
Sapphire's primary mission is testing infrared sensors for space
use.
Participating in the briefing to the Borough Assembly will be:
Chuck Dovale, NASA Launch Director
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Gil
Moore, Starshine Program Director
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Lt. Col. Perry Ballard, USAF
Deputy Program Director, DoD Space Test Program
Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico
Craig Moeller, Athena Mission
Manager
Lockheed Martin Astronautics
Denver, Colorado
Launch of Kodiak Star is currently
scheduled for Friday, Aug. 31 at 5 p.m.
local time.
MAP SPACECRAFT ARRIVES AT KSC TO BEGIN LAUNCH PREPARATIONS
NASA's Microwave Anisotropy
Probe (MAP) arrived today at the Kennedy Space
Center (KSC) in Florida from the Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt,
Md. The spacecraft will undergo final readiness preparations for
its
upcoming launch this summer aboard a Boeing Delta II launch vehicle.
Using a scanning method, MAP
will make an accurate, precise, full sky
picture of cosmic microwave background radiation, the afterglow
of the Big
Bang. MAP seeks to answer fundamental questions about the formation
and
fate of the universe. Among the questions MAP will attempt to
answer: How
old is the universe? How and when did the first galaxies form?
Will the
universe expand forever or will it collapse? How rapidly is the
universe
expanding?
Upon arrival at Kennedy Space
Center, MAP was taken to the Spacecraft and
Encapsulation Facility-2 (SAEF-2), a payload processing facility
located in
the KSC Industrial Area. Several milestones must be completed
while MAP is
at SAEF-2 including antenna installations, solar array installation,
solar
array deployment and illumination testing, a spacecraft comprehensive
performance test, fueling with hydrazine propellant, and a spin
balance
test. MAP will then be ready for integration with the solid propellant
Payload Assist Module upper stage booster.
MAP is scheduled to be transported
from SAEF-2 to Space Launch Complex 17
on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station June 19 where it will be hoisted
atop
the Boeing Delta II launch vehicle at Pad 17-B. The protective
fairing will
be installed around the spacecraft on June 26. Launch is currently
targeted
to occur on June 30 at 4 p.m. EDT.
STS-100
Report # 03
Friday, April 20, 2001 5:30 p.m.
The day on orbit was one of preparations as Endeavour,s seven
astronauts got ready for tomorrow morning,s scheduled arrival
at the International Space Station, and Sunday,s planned space
walk by Mission Specialists Chris Hadfield and Scott Parazynski.
Endeavour is scheduled to dock with the station at 8:32 a.m. Saturday although the crews will not greet each other until early Monday. In preparation for tomorrow,s rendezvous and docking, Hadfield and Parazynski checked out the tools and hardware that will be used during Endeavour,s approach to the station, and Commander Kent Rominger and Pilot Jeff Ashby installed a center-line camera in the orbiter docking system.
Rominger, Ashby and Flight Engineer John Phillips performed another in a series of engine firings to refine Endeavour,s approach to the Station. As of 5 p.m., Endeavour was approximately 1,400 miles behind and below the station, and closing that distance at the rate of about 171 miles every orbit of the Earth. Hadfield and Parazynski also verified the operation of the spacesuits they will wear on two scheduled space walks to install and activate the new Canadarm2 robotic arm.
European Space Agency astronaut Umberto Guidoni began preparations for the transfer of hardware and material from Endeavour to the station and worked with Ashby in checking out the shuttle,s robotic arm to verify its operation. Yuri Lonchakov of Rosaviakosmos worked on the middeck and filled two large water containers for later transfer to the station.
Endeavour,s astronauts will go to sleep at 5:41 p.m. today, awakening at 1:41 a.m. Saturday. They will quickly begin the final stages of their chase of the International Space Station. The final intercept burn is scheduled for 6:13 a.m., with docking at 8:32 a.m., as the two spacecraft fly overhead the Southeast coast of China, northeast of Victoria, Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, on the space station, Expedition 2 Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Susan Helms and Jim Voss continued packing return items and making sure their orbiting home is ready for the crew,s first visitors. Flight controllers report that the Russian segment,s carbon dioxide removal system is not working at its highest rate, probably due to a clogged filter screen. The situation poses no problems for the upcoming shuttle visit, but could lead to increased use of backup lithium hydroxide removal systems after the shuttle undocks and additional crew members arrive on a
Soyuz taxi flight. The station crew may be asked do some repairs on the unit on Saturday.
Otherwise, all major systems
aboard Endeavour and the International Space Station continue
to function well. The next status report will be issued Saturday
morning after the crew is awake, or as events warrant.
April 19, 2001
NEW ACTING DIRECTOR APPOINTED
FOR NASA'S MARS EXPLORATION
PROGRAM
NASA announced today that Mars
Program Director, G. Scott
Hubbard, has decided to leave that position following a
successful year leading the agency's robotic exploration
program. Orlando Figueroa, currently the Deputy Chief Engineer
for Systems Engineering at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC,
was appointed to replace Hubbard as Acting Director, starting
May 6.
"Scott Hubbard was given
'mission impossible' and turned it
into 'mission accomplished,'" said Dr. Ed Weiler, Associate
Administrator for Space Science at NASA Headquarters. "When
we
were hit with the back-to-back loss of two Mars missions, I
knew we had to get the best person on the job. Scott did a
top-to-bottom reorganization of the program, and earlier this
month we had the first launch in the new program, the 2001
Mars Odyssey."
In announcing his transition,
Hubbard said, "I promised our
Administrator, Mr. Goldin, and Dr. Weiler that I would devote
at least a year doing everything I could to fix the problems
in the Mars program and deliver a new approach we could all be
proud of."
"After a challenging and
rewarding year, it was time to assess
the personal side of the equation," added Hubbard. "After
considering everything, my wife and I decided we would return
to our home in California. I look forward to the excitement of
my return to Ames (NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field,
CA) and a bit of vacation."
"Scott's replacement,
Orlando Figueroa, is very highly
regarded for his achievements in space exploration," said
Dr.
Weiler. "I feel confident that the Mars program will be in
extremely good hands. With Hubbard at the helm the past year
and Figueroa ready to take charge, Mars exploration now has a
solid basis to build on and a clear direction for the future."
Figueroa was born in San Juan,
Puerto Rico. Prior to his
present position, he spent 22 years of his career at the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. His experience at
Goddard includes engineering leadership positions with the
Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), and tenure as Head of the
Cryogenics Technology Section; Manager for the Superfluid
Helium On Orbit Transfer (SHOOT) Experiment; Manager for the
Small Explorers (SMEX) Project; Manager for the Explorers
Program; and Director of the Systems, Technology, and Advanced
Concepts Directorate.
In accepting the new position,
Figueroa said, "It is a real
privilege to re-join the Space Science community that I
dedicated so much of my career to at Goddard. I look forward
to building upon the foundation that Scott has left behind,
and to the excitement of directing such an important and
challenging program." Figueroa joined NASA Headquarters as
the
Deputy Chief Engineer for Systems Engineering in February
2000, at the request of the NASA Administrator. In this
position, Figueroa was responsible for developing and
implementing the strategies and framework for excellence and
advancement of the system engineering capability in the
agency.
Throughout his career, Figueroa
has received numerous awards
for Group Achievement and Outstanding Performance in
engineering and management. He was awarded the NASA
Outstanding Leadership Medal in 1993, and the Community Stars
Award from the Maryland Science Commission for his work in
innovative education programs involving NASA, industry and
Maryland schools. He is the author of several technical
publications in the field of cryogenics and the SMEX missions.
Figueroa resides in Silver Spring, MD, with his wife,
Josephine, and two sons, Daniel and Alexis.
Hubbard was asked to come to
NASA Headquarters last March
during the investigation into the two failed Mars missions and
given responsibility to fundamentally restructure the agency's
entire Mars exploration program. One major goal was to address
the "lessons learned" and other recommendations of the
investigation boards to ensure missions have the greatest
chance for success. Another was to address the overall
scientific rationale for exploring Mars.
Three major changes successfully
implemented were the
initiation of a new Program Director's Office at NASA
Headquarters; establishment of a new effective management
relationship among Headquarters, NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) and contractors; and the creation of a Mars
mission queue which thoroughly integrates science and
technology with sound management, and provides a vision for
the next two decades.
In recent months the new program
has been reviewed and
endorsed by groups which include the Mars Program Independent
Assessment Team chaired by Thomas Young (Lockheed Martin,
Ret.), two committees of the National Academy of Sciences and
NASA Advisory committees. NASA's budget request for the Mars
Exploration Program provides more than $500 million for Mars
over 5 years for new missions in 2003, 2005 and 2007, and a
sample return mission possibly as early as 2011.
Look, Listen, Lyrids! (See and hear the Lyrid meteor shower this weekend.)
The Lyrid meteor shower peaks
on Sunday, April 22nd. Looking at the Lyrids
can be fun, but now you can listen to them, too, using NASA's
online
meteor radar.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast19apr_1.htm?list448368
STS-100 Mission Status Report
#01
The Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center this afternoon, carrying a multi-national crew and a complex Canadian-built robotic arm to the International Space Station (ISS).
Commander Kent Rominger, Pilot Jeff Ashby and Mission Specialists Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency, John Phillips, Scott Parazynski, Umberto Guidoni of the European Space Agency and Yuri Lonchakov of Rosaviakosmos blasted off on time from Launch Pad 39-A at 1:41 p.m. Central time as the ISS sailed over the Indian Ocean south of India. Aboard the station, Expedition Two Commander Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms were told of Endeavour,s launch as it lifted off from the pad. Approximately 20 minutes later, the three crew members took a few minutes out from routine maintenance work and preparations for Endeavour,s arrival to watch a video feed of the launch uplinked to them by ISS flight controllers in Houston through the station,s KU-band communications system.
Less than nine minutes after launch, Endeavour had reached its preliminary orbit and began its pursuit of the station for a docking Saturday morning. The seven astronauts began to configure systems for on-orbit operations and opened the shuttle,s cargo bay doors before the start of an eight-hour sleep period tonight at 6:41 p.m. Central time.
Aboard the ISS, all systems continue to function normally as Usachev, Voss and Helms ready the complex for their first visitors since beginning their expedition one month ago. On Monday, a Russian Progress resupply vehicle was jettisoned from the aft docking port of the Zvezda module, enabling the station crew to undock its Soyuz return capsule from the nadir port of the Zarya module yesterday and fly it to a redocking with Zvezda in a 21-minute maneuver. That cleared the Zarya docking port for the arrival of the Soyuz rotation "taxi crew at the ISS later this month. The taxi crew will deliver a fresh Soyuz capsule for the Expedition crew members, use as an emergency return vehicle. The Soyuz vehicles need to be rotated approximately every six months.
Hadfield and Parazynski are scheduled to venture outside Endeavour Sunday for the first of two scheduled space walks to unfold the huge booms of the 57-foot-long Canadarm2 and to route power to the device, which will be mounted on the Destiny Laboratory for future station assembly work. Canadarm2 is scheduled to "walk off its pallet and attach itself to a grapple fixture on Destiny Monday, where it will receive power, data and commanding from the Expedition crew operating at robotic workstations inside Destiny.
Housed in Endeavour,s cargo bay is the Italian Space Agency-provided Raffaello cargo module, which is carrying several tons of equipment for the Expedition Two crew and racks of hardware for installation in Destiny which will be used for scientific research in the future. Raffaello, which is the second of three such logistics modules, will be berthed to the ISS Monday so its contents can be transferred to the station throughout the course of docked operations.
Endeavour is circling the Earth
in excellent shape as it flies in an orbit inclined 51.6 degrees
to either side of the Equator. The next STS-100 mission status
report will be issued Friday morning following the wakeup call
to Endeavour,s astronauts from Mission Control, which is scheduled
at 2:41 a.m. Central time.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: On orbit
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:40:42 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note:
Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour, the 104th
Shuttle launch, occurred on time at 2:40:42 p.m. EDT. Countdown
activities
were conducted with no significant problems worked by the launch
team. The
mission is scheduled to last 11 days and end with a landing at
KSC April 30
at about 10 a.m.
No significant pad damage
was indicated in initial post-launch reports. The
Solid Rocket Boosters are being retrieved by the SRB retrieval
ships today.
The ships are due into Port Canaveral with the boosters in tow
mid-morning
Saturday.
Kind of slow in the news
department lately, but here's what I've
highlighted at http://spacescience.nasa.gov :
A new camera has been installed
on a telescope that is part of our Near
Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) system. This should help us reach
the goal
of finding 90 percent of all large, near-Earth asteroids by 2010.
Won't
you sleep better then?
press release at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2001/neatdome.html
NEAT at http://neat.jpl.nasa.gov
all about near earth objects at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
Scientists Watch Dark Side
of the Moon to Monitor Earth's Climate - how
much sunlight is our planet reflecting? It's a way of measuring
cloud
cover and atmospheric dust. And perhaps balding
men? http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl0113.html
Astronomers using XMM-Newton
have presented strong new evidence on the
correlation between black hole binary systems and microquasars.
An
XMM-Newton observation of one such microquasar in the Milky Way
implies
that a black hole is almost certainly lurking within.
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26838
What Medieval Witnesses
Saw Was Not Big Lunar Impact - they saw a lot of
flaky things back then. Of course, some people see a lot of flaky
things
now. A little detective work at
http://uanews.opi.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/wa/SRStoryDetails?ArticleID=3561
Our Mars Exploration Program
has awarded four industry team contracts to
conduct initial studies of a Mars sample return mission that might
be
launched as early as 2011. A few details at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2001/contracts.html
Cool sites: space rocks!
Learn about meteorites, and how to identify them,
at the Smithsonian Institution's Division of Meteorites,
http://nmnhwww.si.edu/minsci/meteor.htm . And learn how meteorites
help
set the age of the Earth at 4.5 billion years at
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html
NASA AND THE ITALIAN SPACE
AGENCY SET FRAMEWORK
FOR POSSIBLE EXTENDED ISS COOPERATION THAT COULD
RESULT IN AN ITALIAN BUILT HABITATION MODULE
NASA and the Italian Space
Agency (ASI) announced their
agreement on the framework of a potential bilateral
cooperative agreement, that could result in ASI
development of a U.S. Habitation Module for the
International Space Station. This agreement allows the
U.S. to explore an alternative approach to achieve full
crew Habitation for the ISS within the constructs of the
President's FY2002 budget blueprint guidance and budget
run out.
The Habitation Module which
was to house crew quarters and
other essential habitability functions for three to four
additional ISS crew was considered a high cost-risk
element, and as such, its funding was redirected to
address cost challenges in maintaining the core U.S.
assembly elements and high priority ISS objectives. This
cooperative proposal will be part of NASA's ongoing
program assessment, which includes possible decisions to
develop and deploy U.S. elements or enhancements beyond
completion of the U.S. core,
within available funding. Successful restoration of a
habitation capability for six or more crew would
significantly increase the availability of crew time to
conduct important research.
NASA and ASI are discussing
launch services, additional
Space Shuttle and ISS astronaut crew opportunities and
assignments, ISS utilization, and increased visibility for
the Italian role in the ISS partnership as possible
consideration for Italy. Any increase in U.S. research
utilization to be provided to ASI would be enabled through
the increased capabilities realized through the provision
of habitation for an expanded crew complement.
A Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) between NASA and ASI
will be required to formally document NASA and ASI's
respective responsibilities in a legally binding document.
The Framework signed today would form the basis for a
potential MOU which NASA and ASI would sign after
completion of the program assessment and subsequent
negotiations.
NASA ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN
AND ASI PRESIDENT DEJULIO TO SIGN
FRAMEWORK FOR COOPERATION
NASA Administrator Daniel S.
Goldin and Italian Space
Agency (ASI) President Sergio DeJulio will sign a Framework
for Cooperation to build the Habitation Module for the
International Space Station.
The agreement will be signed
Thursday, April 19 at 11:45 a.m.
EDT at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, FL.
News representatives will have
an opportunity to photograph
the signing ceremony at the IMAX Theater at the Kennedy Space
Center's (KSC) Visitor Complex. A bus will leave the KSC
Press Site for this event at 11:15 a.m. EDT. Reporters
interested in attending this event must sign up at the tour
desk at the KSC Press Site.
NASA and ASI will hold a briefing
on the Framework for
Cooperation at the KSC Press Site at 4:30 p.m. EDT, following
the STS-100 post-launch press conference. Briefing
participants will be Administrator Goldin, ASI President
DeJulio, and Michael W. Hawes, NASA Deputy Associate
Administrator for Space Station, NASA Headquarters,
Washington, DC.
April 18, 2001
The Amazing Canadarm2
Crawling around the International
Space Station like an agile worm, the
newest Canadian robotic arm will be essential for building and
maintaining
the ISS.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18apr_1.htm?list448368
NASA PREPARES FOR FIRST SCRAMJET-POWERED
HYPERSONIC FLIGHT
Imagine a new breed of aerospace
vehicle, able to fly at seven times
the speed of sound, using a next-generation air-breathing jet
engine.
NASA takes a hypersonic leap into the future of aerospace technology
with the flight of the "scramjet"-powered X-43A.
It will be the first time that
a non-rocket propelled, air-breathing
engine has powered a vehicle in flight at hypersonic speeds, or
more
than five times the speed of sound. An aircraft moving at Mach
5
would travel about one mile per second or about 3,600 mph at sea
level, far faster than any air-breathing aircraft has ever flown.
Unlike a rocket that carries
its own oxygen for combustion, the
X-43A's scramjet-short for supersonic-combustion ramjet-scoops
air
from the atmosphere, making the aircraft lighter, which enables
it to
carry heavier payloads. The hydrogen-fueled aircraft has a wingspan
of approximately five feet, measures 12 feet long and weighs about
2,800 pounds.
The first unpiloted X-43A and
its Pegasus booster rocket will be
air-launched from a B-52 from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center
at
Edwards, Calif. The booster will accelerate the X-43A to Mach
7 at
approximately 95,000 feet. At booster burnout, the X-43 will
separate from the booster and fly under its own power on a
preprogrammed flight path.
The NASA Hyper-X Program's
development and flight testing of the X-43
vehicle is conducted jointly by Dryden and the Langley Research
Center, Hampton, Va.
"The Hyper-X Program and
the X-43A Flight Project have forged a very
fruitful partnership and national asset," said Joel Sitz,
Dryden's
X-43 project manager. "What the country is witnessing is
the re-birth
of hypersonics.
"After a successful X-43A
mission, the 'brain trust' will exist to
move forward with future propulsion- research vehicles that will
ultimately result in more efficient space access vehicles,"
Sitz
added.
"The Hyper-X program takes
what we've been doing for the last 40
years in wind tunnel research to flight. Flight is reality,"
said
Vince Rausch, Hyper-X program manager at Langley. "The program
is
structured around the scramjet engine and should be a major leap
forward in the national capability for access to space. The country
is looking for safer, more flexible, less expensive ways to get
to
space, and that's what the scramjet engine would bring us."
Scramjet technology could also
allow more traditional aircraft-like
operations of launch vehicles, with horizontal take-off, landing
and
servicing, which could greatly reduce operational cost and time
between flights.
Three X-43A flights are planned;
the first two will fly at Mach 7 and
the third at Mach 10. Valuable performance data will be relayed
electronically to Dryden and Langley. Each experimental aircraft
will
fly once in the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division Sea
Range
off the southern coast of California and impact into the Pacific
Ocean.
Like the comparatively slower
ramjet counterpart, the scramjet has a
simple mechanical design with no moving parts. However, scramjet
combustion occurs at supersonic air speeds in the engine. Rather
than using a rotating compressor like a turbojet engine, the forward
velocity and vehicle aerodynamic design compress air into the
engine.
There, fuel, usually hydrogen, is injected and the expanding hot
gases from combustion accelerate the exhaust air and creates thrust.
In the case of X-43, the thrust will propel the vehicle at hypersonic
speeds up to Mach 10.
The first free-flight test
will be approximately three weeks after an
upcoming captive-carry flight, where the B-52 flies with the X-43A
"stack" to the test range for a series of flight systems
tests.
Following the first series
of X-43A hypersonic flights, the next step
is an expanded hypersonics research ground and flight program
currently in place as part of the Advanced Space Transportation
Program, which is led by the Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala.
The vehicle contractor team,
led by MicroCraft in Tullahoma, Tenn.,
includes The Boeing Co., Seal Beach, Calif.; and GASL, Inc.,
Ronkonkoma, N.Y. The booster is a modified Pegasus rocket from
Orbital Sciences Corp., Chandler, Ariz.
- NASA -
Additional information is available
on the Internet at:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/PAO/PAIS/HTML/FS-040-DFRC.html
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Projects/hyperx/x43.html
Still photos and video B-roll
of the X-43 are also available from the
Dryden public affairs office. Still photos are also available
on-line
in three resolutions at:
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/X-43A/index.html
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Countdown
activities continue today for launch at
2:41 p.m. Thursday, April 19.
Yesterday, engineers completed
troubleshooting a faulty lighting dimmer
switch on the flight deck of the crew module. The electrical box
was
successfully replaced overnight following cryogenic loading. Loading
of the
orbiter's onboard cryogenic storage tanks is now complete, and
technicians
are working no further problems at the pad at this time.
The rotating service structure
will be retracted away from the Shuttle
vehicle at 6:30 p.m. today as preparations continue for tanking
operations
set to begin as early as 5:15 a.m. tomorrow. Loading of the external
tank
with about 500,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants should be
completed
about three hours later.
The seven-member crew has been
at KSC since Monday, and today they are
completing final flight plan reviews in anticipation of launch
tomorrow.
Weather officials continue
to predict only a 10 percent chance that weather
could prohibit Thursday's launch attempt. The forecast calls for
scattered
clouds at 4,000 feet and 25,000 feet; visibility at 7 miles; pad
winds from
the northeast at 10 peaking to 15 knots; temperature at 72 degrees
F;
relative humidity 53 percent and no chance of precipitation. The
only
concern is the slight chance of a crosswind violation at KSC's
Shuttle
Landing Facility. The 24-hour and 48-hour delay forecasts remain
at a 10
percent chance of violation.
SUMMARY OF BUILT-IN HOLDS FOR STS-100
T-TIME LENGTH OF HOLD HOLD
BEGINS HOLD ENDS
T-27 hours 4 hours 10 a.m. Tues. 2 p.m. Tues.
T-19 hours 4 hours 11 p.m. Tues. 2 a.m. Wed.
T-11 hours 12 hours, 45 minutes 10 a.m. Wed. 10:45 p.m. Wed.
T-6 hours 2 hours 3:45 a.m. Thurs. 5:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-3 hours 2 hours 8:45 a.m. Thurs. 10:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-20 minutes 10 minutes 1:25 p.m. Thurs. 1:35 p.m. Thurs.
T-9 minutes about 45 minutes
1:46 p.m. Thurs. 2:31 p.m.
Thurs.
CREW FOR MISSION STS-100
Commander (CDR): Kent Rominger
Pilot (PLT): Jeff Ashby
Mission Specialist 1: Chris Hadfield
Mission Specialist 2: John Phillips
Mission Specialist 3: Scott Parazynski
Mission Specialist 4: Umberto Guidoni
Mission Specialist 5: Yuri Lonchakov
SUMMARY OF STS-100 LAUNCH DAY CREW ACTIVITIES
4:00 a.m. Crew wake up and
medical checks
5:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:30 a.m. Lunch
10:15 a.m. Weather Briefing (CDR, PLT, MS2)
10:15 a.m. Don flight suits (MS1, MS3, MS4, MS5)
*10:25 a.m. Don flight suits (CDR, PLT, MS2)
*10:55 a.m. Depart for launch pad
*11:25 a.m. Arrive at white room and begin ingress
*12:40 p.m. Close crew hatch
*2:41 p.m. Launch
* Televised events (times may
vary slightly)
All times Eastern
April 17, 2001
XMM-Newton links black hole to microquasar
Astronomers using XMM-Newton
have presented strong new evidence on
the correlation between black hole binary systems and microquasars
-
celestial objects that expel subatomic particles at relativistic
velocities, practically at the speed of light. An XMM-Newton observation
of one such microquasar in the Milky Way implies that a black
hole is
almost certainly lurking within.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26838
An interplanetary shock
wave struck Earth's magnetosphere as night fell
across the Americas on Tuesday. Sky watchers located in northern
Europe,
Canada, and across the northern tier of US states could spot auroras
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The shock wave was generated
by a
powerful solar explosion on Easter Sunday. For more information
and
updates please visit http://www.spaceweather.com
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing report and does not necessarily
reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: The
launch countdown for mission STS-100 began at 6
p.m. April 16, as scheduled. Preparation continues toward a launch
of Space
Shuttle Endeavour and the seven-member flight crew at 2:41 p.m.
Thursday.
The orbiter's onboard cryogenic
storage tanks are being loaded for flight
and the orbiter midbody umbilical unit will be demated later tonight.
Loading operations began about one hour late, allowing engineers
to
troubleshoot a lighting dimmer switch in the crew module before
clearing the
pad. The electrical box will be replaced tonight following cryogenic
loading
with no impact to the remainder of the countdown.
Weather officials predict a
10 percent chance that weather could prohibit
Thursday's launch. The forecast calls for scattered clouds at
4,000 feet
and broken at 25,000 feet; visibility at 7 miles; pad winds from
the
northeast at 10 peaking to 15 knots; temperature at 72 degrees
F; relative
humidity 43 percent and no chance of precipitation. The only concern
is the
slight chance of return-to-launch-site crosswind violation. The
24-hour and
48-hour delay forecasts remain at a 10 percent chance of violation.
Upcoming Milestones:
Orbiter cryogenic reactant loading. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .April 17
Rotating Service Structure parked . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . April 18 at 6:30 p.m.
External Tank loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .. ..April 19 (5:45 - 8:45 a.m.)
SUMMARY OF BUILT-IN HOLDS FOR STS-100
T-TIME LENGTH OF HOLD HOLD
BEGINS HOLD ENDS
T-27 hours 4 hours 10 a.m. Tues. 2 p.m. Tues.
T-19 hours 4 hours 11 p.m. Tues. 2 a.m. Wed.
T-11 hours 12 hours, 45 minutes 10 a.m. Wed. 10:45 p.m. Wed.
T-6 hours 2 hours 3:45 a.m. Thurs. 5:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-3 hours 2 hours 8:45 a.m. Thurs. 10:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-20 minutes 10 minutes 1:25 p.m. Thurs. 1:35 p.m. Thurs.
T-9 minutes about 45 minutes
1:46 p.m. Thurs. 2:31 p.m.
Thurs.
CREW FOR MISSION STS-100
Commander (CDR): Kent Rominger
Pilot (PLT): Jeff Ashby
Mission Specialist 1: Chris Hadfield
Mission Specialist 2: John Phillips
Mission Specialist 3: Scott Parazynski
Mission Specialist 4: Umberto Guidoni
Mission Specialist 5: Yuri Lonchakov
SUMMARY OF STS-100 LAUNCH DAY CREW ACTIVITIES
4:00 a.m. Crew wake up and
medical checks
5:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:30 a.m. Lunch
10:15 a.m. Weather Briefing (CDR, PLT, MS2)
10:15 a.m. Don flight suits (MS1, MS3, MS4, MS5)
*10:25 a.m. Don flight suits (CDR, PLT, MS2)
*10:55 a.m. Depart for launch pad
*11:25 a.m. Arrive at white room and begin ingress
*12:40 p.m. Close crew hatch
*2:41 p.m. Launch
* Televised events (times may
vary slightly)
All times Eastern
MEDIA BRIEFING SET AS HYPER-X / X-43A FIRST FLIGHT NEARS
NASA Dryden Flight Research
Center will host a briefing for the news
media on the upcoming X-43A hypersonic flight research program
on
Wednesday, April 18.
During the briefing, scheduled
for 10 a.m. Pacific time in the Dryden
auditorium, Hyper-X program manager Vince Rausch from NASA Langley
Research Center and X-43A flight test project manager Joel Sitz
from
NASA Dryden will briefly outline the program and upcoming research
missions. In addition, representatives of the industry team that
has
played a major role in the program will be available to respond
to
questions posed by reporters on-site at Dryden or at participating
NASA centers around the country. The X-43A mated with its Pegasus
booster rocket will be available for a photo and video opportunity
after the news briefing.
The press briefing will be
carried on NASA Television, which is
available on GE-2, transponder 9C, located at 85 degrees West
longitude, vertical polarization. Frequency is 3880 MHz, with
audio
on 6.8 MHz.
The first of three unpiloted
X-43 vehicles in NASA's Hyper-X program
will soon begin hypersonic flight tests from NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Center, Edwards, Calif. Following a planned captive-carry
flight aboard NASA's modified NB-52B launch aircraft late this
month,
the X-43A is scheduled to be launched on its first hypersonic
flight
on or after May 19.
Flying from seven to 10 times
the speed of sound, using an
air-breathing supersonic-combustion ramjet engine instead of
traditional rocket power, the small, 12-foot-long X-43 could
represent a major advance toward faster, more reliable and less
expensive access to space, as well as providing flight data to
aid in
the design of future hypersonic aircraft.
About 130 million years ago
the first flowering plants suddenly appeared
-- an event Charles Darwin described as an 'abominable mystery.'
Now,
scientists using chemical fossils are unraveling this ancient
puzzle.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast17apr_1.htm?list448368
NANOTECHNOLOGY GETS A BOOST
In the forefront of nanotechnology
development, NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has acquired
one of the world's finest electron beam lithography systems,
one that will allow researchers to work on the sub-molecular
scale.
For NASA, this means breakthroughs
in miniaturization
that could lead to significant reductions in mass and cost of
spacecraft to look for traces of life on distant planets. For
researchers, it means access to one of only three such systems
in the world, and the only one in the public sector devoted to
pure research for building the nano-scale devices of the
future.
"We want to let researchers
from universities, private
industry and other government institutions know that we now
have this capability and that it is available for their use,"
said Dr. Barbara Wilson, chief technologist for JPL.
Operated in the Microdevices
Laboratory at JPL, the E-
Beam lithography system provides a tool for delving into the
realm of nanotechnology, where individual molecules become
accessible to electronic probing.
"The E-Beam lithography
system will allow researchers to
work at the equivalent level of nature's biological building
blocks, by allowing them to create and research technologies
at the cellular and sub-cellular level," said Dr. Paul Maker,
manager of the Electron Beam Lithography Laboratory at JPL.
Lithography is the process of printing a pattern onto a
surface, such as a silicon chip or a high-resolution film.
"The E-Beam lithography
system is like a very fast, very
high-resolution camera, but instead of exposing photo-
sensitive film to light, a thin layer of electron-sensitive
material is exposed to electrons," said Maker. "Instead
of
using a shutter that imprints the whole image at once, an
intense electron beam focused to a tiny spot is rastered over
the chip like the
beam that creates the image on a television screen." Just
as
with photographic film, subsequent processing steps develop
the image that was imprinted on the film, in this case the
device structure.
JPL's new system allows users
to "write" 10 times faster
with a spot two times smaller than can be done with the system
currently in place, installed 12 years ago. "The faster
'writing' speed means we can fabricate many more of these
experimental chips, thereby reducing the time it takes to
perfect a new chip design. The higher resolution translates
into device designs with much finer detail, leading to
smaller, more capable chips," said Maker.
NASA faces the challenge of
miniaturizing all aspects of
its space systems, with the ultimate goal of reducing the
size and mass of instruments by orders of magnitude without
sacrificing performance -- like creating an entire laboratory
on a chip with the same sensitivity as the room-size version.
"Since this machine is
capable of producing patterns with
feature sizes on the scale of molecules," said Maker, "we
can
now develop miniature devices that allow us to manipulate and
characterize these minute building blocks of nature, and
create tools that can be used to search for the signatures of
life in a controlled manner."
U.S. parties interested in
using the system should send
e-mail to: paul.maker@jpl.nasa.gov . More information on
JPL's Microdevices Laboratory is available at:
http://csmt.jpl.nasa.gov/csmtpages/index.html
The Microdevices Laboratory
is a facility operating under
the umbrella of the Center for Space Microelectronics
Technology. The Center for Space Microelectronics Technology,
founded in 1987, develops high-risk, high-payoff concepts and
devices to enable future space missions and to enhance current
and planned missions. The center conducts research and
development in such fields as biochemical sensors, solid-state
devices, photonics, integrated microsystems and advanced
computing. NASA's Office of Space Science, the Department of
Defense's Ballistic Missile Defense Office and JPL funded the
purchase of the new E-beam lithography system. Managed for
NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
JPL is the lead U.S. center for robotic exploration of the
solar system.
April 16, 2001
ENDEAVOUR'S INTERNATIONAL
CREW DELIVERS
SPACE STATION HELPING HAND
The Space Shuttle Endeavour
literally will extend the reach of humans in space when it lifts
off the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida later
this week. Inside the
shuttle's cargo bay is a next-generation robotic arm that will
be attached to the International
Space Station.
The Space Station Remote Manipulator
System, known as the Canadarm2, was built by the
Canadian Space Agency. It is a longer, stronger and more flexible
relative of the robotic arm
Canada provided for NASA's shuttle fleet.
"The station Remote Manipulator
System is a critical element in the construction and
operation of the International Space Station," said Tommy
Holloway, International Space
Station Program Manager, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX.
"The station
program has worked closely with our Canadian partner to develop
what is likely the most
sophisticated robotic system ever flown in space. The Remote Manipulator
System is a
perfect example of what an internationally integrated team can
accomplish and marks
another significant milestone in the space station assembly and
overall partnership."
Endeavour and its diverse seven-member
crew currently are scheduled to soar into orbit for
the STS-100 mission at 2:41 p.m. EDT April 19.
The Canadarm2 is the centerpiece
of Canada's contribution to the space station and will
have a unique ability to work independently of the space station
structure, crawling along
the exterior of the orbiting research lab. It will be the most
intricate and advanced robotic
installation and operation ever conducted in space.
Endeavour also will carry to
the space station its second logistics carrier, a module named
Raffaello provided by the Italian Space Agency. The logistics
carrier serves as a space-age
moving van, allowing equipment and supplies to be carried to and
from the station.
During STS-100, Raffaello will
ferry two research racks containing three commercial
experiments to the station. These two racks are the second and
third research racks to be
installed in the U.S. Laboratory Destiny.
The ADVANCED ASTROCULTURE (tm)
experiment will be the first experiment to grow plants
long enough to determine if they can produce seeds that could
then propagate more plants.
Another biotechnology experiment, the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing
Apparatus,
could lead to new drugs and treatments for diseases, as well as
development of human
tissues for use in skin grafts and organ transplants. Improved
pharmaceuticals also could
result from the Commercial Protein Crystal Grown-High Density
experiment.
Endeavour's crew hails from
around the globe and represents four of the international
partners. Commander Kent Rominger, who will be making his fifth
flight into space, leads
the mission. Jeff Ashby, making his second shuttle flight, will
be Endeavour's pilot.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield,
who flew aboard the shuttle in 1995 and is the only
Canadian to ever visit Russia's Mir space station, will serve
as a mission specialist during
this mission. He will become the first Canadian ever to make a
spacewalk.
"Canada's been in space
almost as long as the United States and Russia have," said
Hadfield. "As a Canadian, to be the person who's trusted
to go up and help put this thing
together is an honor and a big responsibility. The robotic arm
has become very much a
symbol of technological success for Canada."
Rounding out the crew are Umberto
Guidoni, a native of Rome, Italy, who's making his
second shuttle flight as a mission specialist from the European
Space Agency; Russian
cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov; and American mission specialists Scott
Parazynski and John
Phillips. Parazynski is a veteran of three shuttle flights. This
will be Phillips' first mission.
This will be Endeavour's 16th
flight into orbit and is the 104th mission in the history of the
Shuttle program.
Additional information on the
next mission of Endeavour and its crew is available on the
internet at:
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing report and does not necessarily
reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS
Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: At
Launch Pad 39A, Space Shuttle Endeavour is in
excellent health as final preparations are made for launch. In
the firing
room, Shuttle engineers are preparing to start the launch countdown
today at
6 p.m. The seven-member flight crew arrived at KSC this morning
as
scheduled.
Loading of Endeavour's onboard
cryogenic reactants begins Tuesday at 2 p.m.
and concludes at 9 p.m. The orbiter midbody umbilical unit will
be demated
at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. Final Shuttle main engine launch preparations
begin
early Wednesday, and the Rotating Service Structure at the pad
moves to the
park position at 6:30 p.m. External tank loading activities begin
Thursday
at 5:45 a.m.
Weather officials indicate
only a 10 percent chance that weather could
prohibit Thursday's launch. The forecast calls for clouds scattered
at
4,000 feet and broken at 25,000 feet; visibility at 7 miles; pad
winds from
the northeast at 10 peaking to 15 knots; temperature at 72 degrees
F;
relative humidity 43 percent and no chance of precipitation. The
only
concern is for a return to launch site crosswind violation. The
24-hour and
48-hour delay forecasts remain at 10 percent chance of violation.
Upcoming Milestones:
Launch countdown starts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . April 16 at 6 p.m.
Orbiter cryogenic reactant loading. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .April 17
Rotating Service Structure parked . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . April 18 at 6:30 p.m.
External Tank loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .. ..April 19 (5:45 - 8:45 a.m.)
(KSC Space Shuttle Processing Status 4/16/01)
SUMMARY OF BUILT-IN HOLDS FOR STS-100
T-TIME LENGTH OF HOLD HOLD
BEGINS HOLD ENDS
T-27 hours 4 hours 10 a.m. Tues. 2 p.m. Tues.
T-19 hours 4 hours 11 p.m. Tues. 2 a.m. Wed.
T-11 hours 12 hours, 45 minutes 10 a.m. Wed. 10:45 p.m. Wed.
T-6 hours 2 hours 3:45 a.m. Thurs. 5:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-3 hours 2 hours 8:45 a.m. Thurs. 10:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-20 minutes 10 minutes 1:25 p.m. Thurs. 1:35 p.m. Thurs.
T-9 minutes about 45 minutes
1:46 p.m. Thurs. 2:26 p.m.
Thurs.
CREW FOR MISSION STS-100
Commander (CDR): Kent Rominger
Pilot (PLT): Jeff Ashby
Mission Specialist 1: Chris Hadfield
Mission Specialist 2: John Phillips
Mission Specialist 3: Scott Parazynski
Mission Specialist 4: Umberto Guidoni
Mission Specialist 5: Yuri Lonchakov
SUMMARY OF STS-100 LAUNCH DAY CREW ACTIVITIES
4:00 a.m. Crew wake up and
medical checks
5:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:30 a.m. Lunch
10:15 a.m. Weather Briefing (CDR, PLT, MS2)
10:15 a.m. Don flight suits (MS1, MS3, MS4, MS5)
*10:25 a.m. Don flight suits (CDR, PLT, MS2)
*10:55 a.m. Depart for launch pad
*11:25 a.m. Arrive at white room and begin ingress
*12:40 p.m. Close crew hatch
*2:41 p.m. Launch
* Televised events (times may
vary slightly)
All times Eastern
This Week on Galileo
April 16-22, 2001
The pace of activity onboard
Galileo picks up a bit this week. On
Wednesday, routine maintenance is performed on the spacecraft
propulsion
system. On Friday, routine maintenance is performed on the tape
recorder.
Both of these activities are done periodically during the relatively
quiet
cruise portion of an orbit in order to maintain the health of
the thrusters
and of the tape recorder for when they are needed the most --
during the
intense activities of the close satellite encounters.
On Sunday, some special science
instrument calibrations are performed.
Because of the limits on the amount of data that Galileo can return
in a
given orbit, calibrations, though very important, are rarely done.
The
preferred data to return are the detailed science observations
made during
the close flybys. However, because of the intense radiation environment
the
spacecraft has been living in over the years, and the simple fact
that the
spacecraft has been in space for over 10 years, the science instruments
have slowly been degrading with age.
In order for the science data to accurately measure specific physical
quantities (100 photons, for example), we must calibrate the instruments
so
that we know how they respond to a given input signal (the instrument
receives 100 photons, but only reports 85 of them). Also, even
in the
absence of input signals (looking at black sky, for example) most
instruments will report seeing some signal, mostly as a result
of
electrical noise in the control circuits.
The Solid State Imaging camera
(SSI) will be taking pictures through
different color filters of two star fields with stars of known
intensity
which have been measured before by the Galileo instrument. By
comparing
these pictures with those taken earlier in the mission, scientists
can see
how the sensitivity of the camera at different wavelengths may
have
changed. Also, pictures taken without opening the camera shutter
will
determine how much noise there is in the camera's electronic circuits.
The
Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) will be looking at dark
sky, and
at the star Sirius, the brightest in the sky.
This is the last time in the
mission that we plan on calibrating SSI and
NIMS in this way. These measurements will be stored on the spacecraft
tape
recorder and played back over the next month, prior to the next
flyby of
Callisto near the end of May.
Leading up to this activity,
playback of data recorded during the last
flyby of Ganymede in December will continue. At this point, the
data are
mostly a replay of data that were lost in transit during an earlier
playback attempt.
SSI will be filling gaps in
an observation of Ganymede taken when that
satellite was in Jupiter's shadow. These images were looking for
the glow
of an aurora on the satellite, which was the highest priority
observation
for this instrument on this orbit. Bits of other pictures to be
returned
are from Ganymede's polar cap boundary, and the Dardanus Sulcus
region of
this largest of Jupiter's moons. Also expected are pictures of
a stormy
area near the Great Red Spot on Jupiter itself, and of Jupiter's
ring.
NIMS will be completing some
mapping of Ganymede, both at a global scale,
and at somewhat higher spatial resolution. An observation of Io
will also
be returned, keeping track of the volcanoes and hot spots on this
satellite. On Jupiter itself, an observation of hot spots in the
atmosphere
near 7 degrees North latitude will be played back, as well as
measurements
taken of the North Temperate Zone and of the aurora in the south
polar
region of the planet.
For more information on the
Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
CONTRACTS AWARDED FOR INITIAL MARS SAMPLE RETURN STUDIES
NASA's Mars Exploration Program
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL),
Pasadena, CA, has awarded four industry team contracts to conduct
initial
studies of specific implementation scenarios for a first Mars
sample return
mission that might be launched as early as 2011.
The four teams selected are:
_ Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, CO
_ Boeing Company, Huntington Beach, CA
_ Lockheed Martin Corporation, Denver, CO
_ TRW, Redondo Beach, CA
The contracts are valued at
$1 million each and are to be performed over a six-
month period.
These studies will formulate
a broad suite of potential solutions to robotically
acquiring rock and soil samples from Mars. NASA will select the
best solutions
for further development.
"These studies will help
identify potential approaches to the mission, technology
development and demonstration needs, and the infrastructure required
to
perform such a mission," said Dr. Firouz Naderi, the Mars
Program Manager at
JPL. "The studies are an important part of determining potential
future Mars
program direction over the next decade given that the underlying
science
trajectory for the program calls for the earliest possible 'informed'
Mars Sample
Return mission."
JPL manages the Mars Exploration
Program for the Office of Space Science,
Washington D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute
of Technology.
Space Weather news for April 15, 2001
http://www.spaceweather.com
One of the most powerful solar
flares ever recorded (an X14-class
explosion) erupted near sunspot group 9415 today, climaxing a
two-week
spate of X-class flares from that active region. The source of
the
explosion is near the Sun's western limb, so the blast was directed
mostly
away from Earth. That's a good thing because today's flare was
nearly as
powerful as one in 1989 that triggered the collapse of a power
grid in
Canada -- no such calamities are expected this time. A moderate
radiation
storm is in progress. For details and updates, please visit
SpaceWeather.com.
April 13, 01
Cassini Weekly Significant
Events
for 04/05/01 - 04/11/01
The most recent spacecraft
telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Wednesday, April 11. The Cassini spacecraft
is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. The speed
of the
spacecraft can be viewed on the "Present Position" web
page
( "http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/" ) .
Recent spacecraft activities
included a Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA)
unload and a High Water Mark clear. The Imaging Science Subsystem
(ISS)
observations continued this week. Additional Instrument activities
included
a Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) Ion and Neutral Camera
(INCA)
Positive Collimator high voltage test, Flight Software (FSW) checkout
for
the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), conclusion of the
Radio and
Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) Periodic Instrument Maintenance, and
an RPWS HFR
calibration. The Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) performed a checkout
of their
existing Version 7.2 FSW then powered off. Later in the week Version
8 FSW
was uplinked with checkout to be scheduled for a later date.
The Radio Science Subsystem
(RSS) Operations Interface Test/Mission
Verification Test (OIT/MVT) was performed this week in preparation
for the
Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE). A comprehensive series of
tests
spanning three days was executed. The main objectives were three-fold:
1) Consistently lock the KaT
to the Ka-band uplink.
2) Stay locked to the Ka-band uplink.
3) Characterize the phase stability of the locked KaT.
The first day of testing saw
the KaT locking on several occasions. In a
unique event, with the regular X-band uplink also operating, Cassini
became the first spacecraft ever to handle dual uplinks from a
single DSN
station. RSS personnel also observed the longest stable uplink
to the KaT
since the original checkout over a year ago. The nominal plan
for day two
of the test included sending real-time commands to cycle the power
to the
KaT for each uplink attempt. The "normal" wait time
between power
OFF/power ON cycles has been 30 minutes. One opportunity was used
to cut
that time to 5 minutes. The result was that the KaT reset itself
and came
up in the expected frequency region. On the final day of testing,
eleven
different Ka-band uplinks were transmitted, with the KaT power
cycled
between each uplink. The KaT was seen to lock ten out of eleven
times.
With the test now concluded, the compiled data will be analyzed
by the RSS
team and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). Further testing is scheduled
for
next week.
RADAR's results from the January
measurements of Jupiter's synchrotron
radiation were recently presented at two conferences in Europe,
the
European Geophysical Society meeting and the International Workshop
on
Planetary Radio Emissions V. These data were the first ever obtained
of
the Jupiter synchrotron emission in the 2 cm wavelength range.
This
wavelength is unattainable from Earth-based telescopes. Cassini's
radiometer data, which were able to tie down the previously unexplored
upper limit, are being combined with new data acquired simultaneously
in
the 20 cm and 90-cm wavelength ranges by ground-based partners
in this
experiment (the DSN, the Very Large Array, and the Goldstone-Apple
Valley
Radio Telescopes). These combined data sets are being used to
create new
maps of the Jovian energetic particle distribution within Jupiter's
radiation belts.
Instrument Operations and the
Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory
processed and delivered 702 Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Wide-Angle
Camera (WAC) asteroid dustband images this week.
The Spacecraft Operations Office
(SCO), Cassini Program Manager and
Project Scientist supported the fourth Huygens Recovery Task Force
(HRTF)
meeting held at the Alcatel facility in Cannes, France. This was
the first
joint meeting with the Huygens Science Working Team participating.
The
purpose of the meeting was to review the HRTF work done so far
and to
select the recovery scenarios that will be subjected to a detailed
study
in the next months. The HRTF has established a very good understanding
of
the receiver performance as a function of the three main parameters:
Signal-to-noise ratio, received frequency, and data bit transition
probability. Additional technical work that must be done has been
identified to allow a complete evaluation of the respective values
of the
recovery scenarios.
A team of FSW and spacecraft
experts from SCO reviewed the Saturn Orbit
Insertion (SOI) system mode test plan. This is a series of Integrated
Test
Lab (ITL) system mode tests that will examine the interaction
of flight
software fault protection with the critical SOI sequence. The
plan calls
for weekly tests through next fall. The team suggested a re-ordering
of
the test cases and made a few refinements to the tests.
A peer review of the Solid
State Recorder (SSR) Management Tool
requirements was held, which looked into possible scenarios for
data
return.
Science instrument teams submitted
their files for the first input port
for the development of the C27 sequence.
The URL for the Navigation
Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) article
to the Science Information Systems Newsletter (SISN) given last
week might
have been incorrect. The correct URL is
<http://www-sisn.jpl.nasa.gov/issue59/article_spicews.html>.
Cassini is a cooperative project
of NASA, the European Space Agency and
the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages
the Cassini
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
---
AIRSPACE, BRIDGES AND WATERWAY
RESTRICTIONS IN EFFECT FOR ALL SPACE SHUTTLE
LAUNCHES
With the STS-100 launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour only days away,
NASA managers urge all aircraft pilots and boaters to comply fully
with the
airspace, bridges and waterway restrictions imposed around KSC
during all
Shuttle launches and landings.
"As always, we are coordinating
with officials from the Eastern
Range and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to help provide
a safe
launch environment for the Shuttle crew and for interested spectators.
Violating these restrictions is not only unsafe for the astronauts
and
support crews, it's unsafe for the violator," said KSC Launch
Director Mike
Leinbach.
Space Shuttle Endeavour's first
launch opportunity is on April 19 at
2:41 p.m. EDT and the launch window extends for less than five
minutes. At
NASA's request, FAA surveillance aircraft will patrol KSC's airspace
boundaries on launch day. Violators will be intercepted by patrol
forces,
thoroughly investigated and will be subject to FAA enforcement
action.
A number of restrictions are
placed in effect around the Kennedy
Space Center (KSC) during the hours immediately preceding and
following the
launch of a Space Shuttle.
Listed and described below
are restrictions that apply to pilots, motor
vehicle operators and boaters utilizing airspace, bridges and
waterways that
lead to KSC.
KSC AREA AVIATION RESTRICTIONS
The airspace immediately above and around KSC will be limited
to
official aircraft only and will be off-limits to general aviation
pilots
prior to and during the launch of a Space Shuttle.
NOTAMS must be checked by pilots
prior to flights near the KSC area.
Pilots are warned that a violation of KSC's restricted airspace
may likely
result in serious penalties, including the suspension or revocation
of pilot
privileges.
Official aircraft supporting
the launch will be in the air. Private
pilots must be aware that wandering into a restricted area is
not only
forbidden, but that it also creates a safety hazard to support
aircraft and
the errant pilot.
Anyone wishing to view the
launch from the air below 11,000 feet
should stay west of the Indian River. Above 11,000 feet, pilots
should stay
west of the St. Johns River. Pilots are advised that the airspace
in the
KSC vicinity is expected to be congested with both controlled
and
uncontrolled aircraft.
Pilots should also be aware
of the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB)
exhaust cloud that occurs after launch. They should stay at least
five
miles away from the cloud, even if it drifts out of the restricted
area.
Generally, the airspace restrictions
cover a variety of air ranges.
In addition to the usual KSC and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
airspace
restrictions, the upcoming launch requires that all private aircraft
stay
out of an area roughly bounded by the west side of the Indian
River to the
west, the Trident Basin (Port Canaveral) to the south, 10 miles
north of
Haulover Canal at the Oak Hill, Fla., city limit and a minimum
of 50 miles
seaward to the east. These restrictions are "surface to unlimited."
Launch-specific restrictions begin three hours prior to the planned
launch
time.
Pilots should consult the most
recent editions of the Jacksonville
Sectional Aeronautical Chart and the Airman's Information Manual.
In
addition, they should contact the St. Petersburg Flight Service
Station at
1-800-992-7433 (1-800-WX-BRIEF). Advisories will be available
from the
Space Center Executive Airport Tower (VHF 118.9 megahertz) or
the NASA Tower
(128.55 megahertz).
Pilots should also refer to
the current Patrick Air Force Base news
release concerning restricted airspace.
BRIDGES CONTROLLED FOR LAUNCH
The opening and closing of
bridges over waterways surrounding KSC
will be strictly controlled during the hours immediately before
and after
the launch period for each Space Shuttle mission.
Bridges affected by the launch include:
* Canaveral Harbor Barge Canal
(SR 401, south of Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station's Gate 1);
* Indian River Causeway West
or NASA Causeway (Intracoastal Waterway at
Addison Point);
* Merritt Island Barge Canal (Merritt Island State Road 3);
* Haulover Canal Bridge (State Road 3, north of KSC).
Restraints on bridge openings
for boat traffic begin three hours
before launch. The bridges may be opened for five minutes at the
following
points in the launch countdown: T-180 minutes, T-150 minutes,
T-120
minutes, T-90 minutes, and T-65 minutes. Adding 20 minutes to
these times
and subtracting that amount from the launch time will result in
an
approximate time of openings.
Bridges will remain closed
to boat traffic until 90 minutes after
lift-off (T+90). They may then open for five minutes at T+90,
T+120 minutes
and T+150 minutes. Bridge operations will return to normal three
hours
(T+180 minutes) after launch.
Should the Shuttle be required
to perform a Return-to-Launch-Site
(RTLS) landing at KSC, all bridges would remain closed to boat
traffic from
45 minutes before landing until at least one hour after landing.
KSC AREA BOATING RESTRICTIONS
Waterways and boating near
the Kennedy Space Center will be strictly
controlled prior to and during the launch of the Space Shuttle.
Safety and security requirements,
including U.S. Air Force range
safety impact limit lines, will go into effect as early as three
days before
launch. Other requirements will be phased into effect through
sunset the
night before launch. A general description of the area follows:
BANANA RIVER: Security limits
begin at the Banana River Barge Canal south
of KSC at the State Road 528 crossing and extend north. This restriction
is
effective roughly 12 hours prior to launch.
ATLANTIC OCEAN: Beginning the
day before launch, a general exclusion zone
will be in effect three miles offshore from the Haulover Canal,
near the
north end of KSC, and southward to Port Canaveral. Four hours
prior to
launch, all ocean-going traffic will be restricted from entering
an area
measured from five miles north and south of the launch pad and
extending 30
miles east into the ocean. An additional three-mile-wide exclusion
zone will
be extended eastward along the projected flight path of the Space
Shuttle.
MOSQUITO LAGOON: This area south of the Haulover Canal
is off limits to all
boats beginning the day before launch.
INDIAN RIVER: Restrictions
apply from the NASA Causeway north to the
Haulover Canal and east of the Indian River's main channel. Restrictions
begin the day before launch.
All boating restrictions will
be lifted approximately one hour after
launch.
The U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, and KSC
security forces share responsibility for enforcing the boating
guidelines.
For a list of upcoming Shuttle missions visit:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm
NASA News
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration
John F. Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899
AC 321 867-2468
Release: April 13, 2001
KSC RELEASE NO. 46-01
LAUNCH COUNTDOWN FOR SHUTTLE MISSION STS-100 BEGINS APRIL 16
NASA will begin the countdown
for launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour
on mission STS-100 April 16 at 6 p.m. EDT at the T-43 hour mark.
This
mission marks the 9th Shuttle flight to the International Space
Station and
the 3rd Shuttle mission this year. The KSC launch team will conduct
the
countdown from Firing Room 3 of the Launch Control Center.
The countdown includes 25 hours
and 35 minutes of built-in hold time
leading to a preferred launch time at about 2:41 p.m. on April
19 with a
launch window not to exceed 5 minutes. The exact location of the
orbiting
International Space Station (ISS) will be determined during the
T-9 minute
built-in hold. The launch director will at that time determine
the exact
time of launch.
Mission STS-100 is the 16th
flight of the orbiter Endeavour and the 104th
flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program. STS-100 is scheduled
to last
10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes with a planned KSC landing at
about 10 a.m.
on April 30.
Endeavour rolled into KSC's
Orbiter Processing Facility on Dec. 11,
2000, after completing mission STS-97. The orbiter rolled out
of OPF bay 2
and into the VAB on March 17. While in VAB high bay 3, Endeavour
was mated
to the external tank and solid rocket boosters. The entire Space
Shuttle
stack was transferred to Launch Pad 39A on March 22.
On mission STS-100, the seven-member
crew will deliver the
Canadian-built Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS)
to the
Station to be installed during two planned spacewalks. The Raffaello
Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) will fly on its first mission
and be
brought back to Earth for use on future missions. This pressurized
module
functions as both a cargo carrier and a Space Station module.
STS-100 has an international
crew that includes Commander Kent
Rominger, Pilot Jeff Ashby, and Mission Specialists Chris Hadfield
from
Canada representing the Canadian Space Agency, John Phillips,
Scott
Parazynski, Umberto Guidoni from Italy representing the European
Space
Agency, and Yuri Lonchakov from Russia representing the Russian
Aviation and
Space Agency.
COUNTDOWN MILESTONES
*all times are Eastern
Launch-3 Days (Monday, April 16)
* Prepare for the start of
the STS-100 launch countdown
* Perform the call-to-stations (5:30 p.m.)
* Countdown begins at the T-43 hour mark (6 p.m.)
* Begin final vehicle and facility close-outs for launch
* Check out back-up flight systems
* Review flight software stored in mass memory units and display
systems
* Load backup flight system software into Endeavour's general
purpose
computers
*
* Launch-2 Days (Tuesday, April 17)
*
* Remove mid-deck and flight-deck platforms (2 a.m.)
* Activate and test navigational systems (7 a.m.)
* Complete preparation to load power reactant storage and distribution
system (9 a.m.)
* Flight deck preliminary inspections complete (10 a.m.)
*
* Enter first built-in hold at T-27 hours for duration of 4 hours
(10
a.m.)
*
* Clear launch pad of all non-essential personnel
* Perform test of the vehicle's pyrotechnic initiator controllers
(11
a.m.)
*
* Resume countdown (2 p.m.)
*
* Begin operations to load cryogenic reactants into Endeavour's
fuel
cell storage tanks
* (2 p.m. - 9 p.m.)
*
* Enter 4-hour built-in hold at T-19 hours (10 p.m.)
*
* Demate orbiter mid-body umbilical unit (10:30 p.m.)
*
* Launch-1 Day (Wednesday, April 18)
*
* Resume countdown (2 a.m.)
*
* Final preparations of the Shuttle's three main engines for main
propellant tanking and flight (2 a.m.)
* Begin filling pad sound suppression system water tank (3:30
a.m.)
* Resume orbiter and ground support equipment close-outs
* Pad sound suppression system water tank filling complete (8:30
a.m.)
* Close out the tail service masts on the mobile launcher platform
*
*
* Enter planned hold at T-11 hours for 12 hours, 45 minutes (10
a.m.)
*
* Begin star tracker functional checks (10:30 a.m.)
* Activate orbiter's inertial measurement units
* Activate the orbiter's communications systems
* Install film in numerous cameras on the launch pad (12:20 p.m.)
* Flight crew equipment late stow (2:50 p.m.)
* Move Rotating Service Structure (RSS) to the park position (6:30
p.m.)
* Perform ascent switch list
* Fuel cell flow-through purge complete
*
* Resume countdown at T-11 hours (10:45 p.m.)
*
* Activate the orbiter's fuel cells (11:55 p.m.)
*
* Launch Day (Thursday, April 19)
*
* Clear the blast danger area of all non-essential personnel
* Switch Endeavour's purge air to gaseous nitrogen (1 a.m.)
*
* Enter planned 2-hour built-in hold at the T-6 hour mark (3:45
a.m.)
*
* Launch team verifies no violations of launch commit criteria
prior
to cryogenic loading of the external tank
* Clear pad of all personnel
* Chilldown of propellant transfer lines (5:15 a.m.)
* Begin loading the external tank with about 500,000 gallons of
cryogenic propellants (about 5:45 a.m.)
*
* Resume countdown (5:45 a.m.)
*
* Complete filling the external tank with its flight load of liquid
hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants (about 8:45 a.m.)
* Final Inspection Team proceed to launch pad
*
* Enter planned 2-hour built-in hold at T-3 hours (8:45 a.m.)
*
* Perform inertial measurement unit preflight calibration
* Align Merritt Island Launch Area (MILA) tracking antennas
* Perform open loop test with Eastern Range
*
* Resume countdown at T-3 hours (10:45 a.m.)
*
* Crew departs Operations and Checkout Building for the pad (10:55
a.m.)
* Complete close-out preparations in the white room
* Check cockpit switch configurations
* Flight crew begins entry into the orbiter (about 11:25 a.m.)
* Astronauts perform air-to-ground voice checks with Launch and
Mission Control
* Close Endeavour's crew hatch (about 12:40 p.m.)
* Begin Eastern Range final network open loop command checks
* Perform hatch seal and cabin leak checks
* Complete white room close-out
* Close-out crew moves to fallback area
* Primary ascent guidance data is transferred to the backup flight
system
*
* Enter planned 10-minute hold at T-20 minutes (1:25 p.m.)
*
* NASA Test Director conducts final launch team briefings
* Complete inertial measurement unit preflight alignments
*
* Resume countdown at T-20 minutes (1:35 p.m.)
*
* Transition the orbiter's onboard computers to launch configuration
* Start fuel cell thermal conditioning
* Close orbiter cabin vent valves
* Transition backup flight system to launch configuration
*
* Enter estimated 45-minute hold at T-9 minutes (1:46 p.m.)
*
* Launch Director, Mission Management Team and NASA Test Director
conduct final polls for go/no go to launch
*
* Resume countdown at T-9 minutes (about 2:26 p.m.)
*
* Start automatic ground launch sequencer (T-9:00 minutes)
* Retract orbiter crew access arm (T-7:30)
* Start mission recorders (T-6:15)
* Start Auxiliary Power Units (T-5:00)
* Arm SRB and ET range safety safe and arm devices (T-5:00)
* Start liquid oxygen drainback (T-4:55)
* Start orbiter aerosurface profile test (T-3:55)
* Start main engine gimbal profile test (T-3:30)
* Pressurize liquid oxygen tank (T-2:55)
* Begin retraction of the gaseous oxygen vent arm (T-2:55)
* Fuel cells to internal reactants (T-2:35)
* Pressurize liquid hydrogen tank (T-1:57)
* Deactivate SRB joint heaters (T-1:00)
* Orbiter transfers from ground to internal power (T-0:50 seconds)
* Ground Launch Sequencer go for auto sequence start (T-0:31 seconds)
* SRB gimbal profile (T-0:21 seconds)
* Ignition of three Space Shuttle main engines (T-6.6 seconds)
* SRB ignition and liftoff (T-0)
SUMMARY OF BUILT-IN HOLDS FOR STS-100
T-TIME LENGTH OF HOLD HOLD
BEGINS HOLD ENDS
T-27 hours 4 hours 10 a.m. Tues. 2 p.m. Tues.
T-19 hours 4 hours 11 p.m. Tues. 2 a.m. Wed.
T-11 hours 12 hours, 45 minutes 10 a.m. Wed. 10:45 p.m. Wed.
T-6 hours 2 hours 3:45 a.m. Thurs. 5:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-3 hours 2 hours 8:45 a.m. Thurs. 10:45 a.m. Thurs.
T-20 minutes 10 minutes 1:25 p.m. Thurs. 1:35 p.m. Thurs.
T-9 minutes about 45 minutes
1:46 p.m. Thurs. 2:31 p.m.
Thurs.
CREW FOR MISSION STS-100
Commander (CDR): Kent Rominger
Pilot (PLT): Jeff Ashby
Mission Specialist (MS1): Chris Hadfield
Mission Specialist (MS2): John Phillips
Mission Specialist (MS3): Scott Parazynski
Mission Specialist (MS4): Umberto Guidoni
Mission Specialist (MS5): Yuri Lonchakov
SUMMARY OF STS-100 LAUNCH DAY CREW ACTIVITIES
Thursday, April 19
4:00 a.m. Crew wake up and medical checks
5:00 a.m. Breakfast
*9:25 a.m. Photo and Lunch
10:15 a.m. Weather Briefing (CDR, PLT, MS2)
10:15 a.m. Don flight suits (MS1, MS3, MS4, MS5)
*10:25 a.m. Don flight suits (CDR, PLT, MS2)
*10:55 a.m. Depart for launch pad
*11:25 a.m. Arrive at white room and begin ingress
*12:40 p.m. Close crew hatch
*2:41 p.m. Launch
LAUNCH COUNTDOWN FOR SHUTTLE MISSION STS-100 BEGINS APRIL 16
NASA will begin the countdown
for launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour
on mission STS-100 April 16 at 6 p.m. EDT at the T-43 hour mark.
This
mission marks the 9th Shuttle flight to the International Space
Station and
the 3rd Shuttle mission this year. The KSC launch team will conduct
the
countdown from Firing Room 3 of the Launch Control Center.
The countdown includes 25 hours
and 35 minutes of built-in hold time
leading to a preferred launch time at about 2:41 p.m. on April
19 with a
launch window not to exceed 5 minutes. The exact location of the
orbiting
International Space Station (ISS) will be determined during the
T-9 minute
built-in hold. The launch director will at that time determine
the exact
time of launch.
Mission STS-100 is the 16th
flight of the orbiter Endeavour and the 104th
flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program. STS-100 is scheduled
to last
10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes with a planned KSC landing at
about 10 a.m.
on April 30.
Endeavour rolled into KSC's
Orbiter Processing Facility on Dec. 11,
2000, after completing mission STS-97. The orbiter rolled out
of OPF bay 2
and into the VAB on March 17. While in VAB high bay 3, Endeavour
was mated
to the external tank and solid rocket boosters. The entire Space
Shuttle
stack was transferred to Launch Pad 39A on March 22.
On mission STS-100, the seven-member
crew will deliver the
Canadian-built Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS)
to the
Station to be installed during two planned spacewalks. The Raffaello
Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) will fly on its first mission
and be
brought back to Earth for use on future missions. This pressurized
module
functions as both a cargo carrier and a Space Station module.
STS-100 has an international
crew that includes Commander Kent
Rominger, Pilot Jeff Ashby, and Mission Specialists Chris Hadfield
from
Canada representing the Canadian Space Agency, John Phillips,
Scott
Parazynski, Umberto Guidoni from Italy representing the European
Space
Agency, and Yuri Lonchakov from Russia representing the Russian
Aviation and
Space Agency.
Life as We (Didn't) Know It
Biologists always thought life
required the Sun's energy, until they found
an ecosystem that thrives in complete darkness. A team of scientists
including members of the NASA Astrobiology Institute are sailing
the high
seas on a daring expedition to explore this strange new world
-- right
here on our own planet.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast13apr_1.htm?list448368
Space Weather News for April
13, 2001
http://www.spaceweather.com
AURORA ALERT: An interplanetary shock wave struck
Earth's magnetosphere
early on Friday the 13th and triggered a strong geomagnetic storm.
Forecasters anticipate that a second shock wave will arrive later
Friday
or Saturday, possibly intensifying the ongoing disturbance.
Middle-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras after
local
sunset.
AURORA GALLERY: A pair of coronal mass ejections that
hit Earth's
magnetosphere on April 11th sparked an intense display of auroras.
Sky
watchers in the United States saw "Northern Lights"
as far south as the
New Mexico-Texas border. Check out our aurora gallery for more
than 50
images of the storm.
Visit http://SpaceWeather.com
X-40A MAKES SECOND FREE FLIGHT, PAVING WAY FOR NASA'S X-37 SPACE PLANE
The X-40A vehicle successfully
performed a second free flight test
today at Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif. The
X-40A
was lifted by an Army Chinook helicopter to an altitude of 15,050
feet (4,587 meters) and released at 8:45 a.m. Pacific Daylight
Time,
reaching a speed of 428 feet per second, to complete the test
when
the wheels rolled to a stop at 8:47 a.m. Pacific time.
The X-40A's free flight and
landing tests are being conducted as part
of NASA's X-37 program, intended to reduce the risk of flight
testing
the X-37 experimental re-entry vehicle. The X-37 will enable NASA
to
test advanced technologies in the harsh environment of space and
in
returning through Earth's atmosphere. The X-40A is an 85 percent
scale version of the X-37.
Today's X-40A test objectives
focused on complex vehicle maneuvers,
while the first free flight test on March 14 focused on a straight-in
vehicle approach. Both tests demonstrated flight control and
autonomous landing systems. A series of up to seven free flights
is
planned.
The X-40A test vehicle, on
loan from the Air Force, was built for the
Air Force by The Boeing Company at its Seal Beach, Calif., facility.
Before the NASA Dryden flights, it was free-flight tested once,
in
August 1998 at Holloman Air Force Base in southern New Mexico,
for
the Air Force's Space Maneuver Vehicle program. Marshall Space
Flight
Center in Huntsville, Ala., NASA's lead center for space
transportation systems development, manages the X-37 program.
Dryden
Flight Research Center is responsible for the X-37/X-40A flight
test
activities. The helicopter and crew are from the U.S. Army Aviation
Technical Test Center at Fort Rucker, Ala.
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/
MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS
Due to a favorable launch trajectory
on Saturday, flight
controllers for Mars Odyssey have decided that they can
postpone the first maneuver to fine-tune the spacecraft's
flight path. All systems on the spacecraft are in excellent
health.
The first trajectory correction
maneuver had been
scheduled for Monday, April 16, but after analyzing the
current spacecraft trajectory, spacecraft engineers have
decided to wait until later in the cruise phase to perform the
first maneuver. The navigation team is currently evaluating
dates in late May for a potential mid-course correction.
Flight controllers will now
concentrate on turning
on and calibrating the science instruments. On Monday, they
will send commands to Odyssey that tell the spacecraft to
position itself in its cruise attitude and point both the
medium and high gain antennas toward the Earth. On Tuesday,
they will turn on the thermal infrared imaging system (THEMIS)
and then on Thursday, THEMIS will take both a thermal infrared
and a visible image of the Earth.
Odyssey is currently 1,488,556
kilometers (924,944 miles)
from Earth and traveling at a speed of 3.3 kilometers per
second (7,455 miles per hour) relative to the Earth.
The Mars Odyssey mission is
managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, Calif. The Odyssey spacecraft was built
by Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo.
NASA TO TRACK MORE ASTEROIDS WITH NEW NEAT CAMERA
Asteroid search efforts got
a boost from a new, improved
camera installed this week for NASA's Near Earth Asteroid
Tracking system on the 1.2-meter (48-inch) Oschin telescope at
the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif.
The camera has a new three-eyed
design with three lenses.
It can provide three times more data and survey 1.5 times more
sky than the present NEAT camera that operates currently at
the Maui Space Surveillance Site's 1.2-meter (48-inch)
telescope in Hawaii.
"The new camera has the
flexibility to do a wide and
shallow sky survey, or one not-so-wide but deeper," said
Dr.
Steven Pravdo, NEAT project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We plan to do more deep
observing, so that we can see as many objects as possible."
The asteroid observers will be able to take panoramic views of
the sky with the three camera eyes or to take a deep exposure
showing many faint objects in a narrow swath.
The whole control system on
the Oschin telescope was
upgraded to a computer-controlled system. The old manual
system pointed to only 10 positions each night, but the camera
now needs to point to different positions 1,000 times a night.
The new system captures about 3.75 square degrees of the sky
per image, hundreds of square degrees per night, and most of
the accessible sky each month.
The NEAT team can operate the
telescope from their desks
at JPL, as though the camera were a spacecraft.
The new NEAT camera takes pictures
with 48 million
pixels, three times more than the system it replaced, and it
can see fainter objects. The Palomar staff, headed by
Superintendent Bob Thicksten, has helped with the
improvements. Palomar Observatory is a facility of the
California Institute of Technology.
"This will be a new lease
on life for a very famous
survey telescope, which conducted the first comprehensive
survey of the northern skies in the 1950s and which is now
targeting some exciting astronomical goals - searching for
near-Earth asteroids and examining supernovae and their role
in determining the fate of the cosmos," said Richard Ellis,
the director of Palomar Observatory.
The new camera's installation
closes the era of using
photographic plates, and marks the rebirth of Palomar
Observatory's Oschin telescope in the electronic age. "It
has
been a dream 20 years in the making," says NEAT's principal
investigator Eleanor Helin, who has been discovering asteroids
from Palomar's two wide-field telescopes since the early days
of near-Earth object search.
This new camera system will
continue NASA's effort to
find 90 percent of all large, near-Earth asteroids by 2010.
"We installed the camera on April 9th, and hope to get results
in the next few days," Pravdo said.
Using the data taken by the
NEAT camera, the Nearby
Supernova Factory project by the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory will find exploded stars in nearby galaxies. "The
same data we use to find objects close to Earth, they will use
to find objects very far away," said Pravdo.
Additional information on the
NEAT project is available
at http://neat.jpl.nasa.gov . Information on near-Earth
objects is available at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov .
The Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
System is managed for
NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. by JPL, a
division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena,
Calif.
FREE LECTURES SHOW MORE THAN THE EYES CAN SEE
The benefits of using infrared
telescopes to unveil
celestial objects not visible to the human eye will be
demonstrated in a pair of free, public lectures to be held at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Thursday, April 19, and at
Pasadena City College on Friday, April 20.
The lectures, entitled "Infrared
Astronomy: More Than the
Eyes Can See," begin at 7 p.m. Seating is on a first-come,
first-served basis. The lecture will also be Webcast on
Thurs., April 19, at 7 p.m. Pacific time.
The featured speaker is Dr.
Michelle Thaller, a research
scientist at the California Institute of Technology and JPL
who divides her time between astronomical research and public
education. Thaller's lecture will include a hands-on
demonstration of an infrared camera.
Infrared cameras are used here
on Earth by firefighters
looking for people trapped in smoky rooms, and now astronomers
are using infrared telescopes to penetrate the vast dust
clouds that drift between the stars and block our view of the
cosmos.
For her research, Thaller has
used both ground and
space-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope
and Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. She is
currently working to support NASA's Space Infrared Telescope
Facility (SIRTF), scheduled to launch in July 2002. SIRTF
will observe planetary construction zones around other stars
and will look back to the time when galaxies were just
starting to form and the first stars had not yet "turned
on."
Thaller devotes more than half
her time to public
education and outreach as a representative for SIRTF and other
Origins missions at JPL. Michelle frequently visits Los
Angeles Unified School District classrooms and conducts
regular teacher workshops in the L.A. metropolitan area.
The lecture at JPL, located
at 4800 Oak Grove Dr.,
Pasadena, near the Oak Grove Dr. exit of the 210 (Foothill)
Freeway, will be held in the von Karman Auditorium. The Friday
lecture will be held in Pasadena City College's Forum at 1570
E. Colorado Blvd.
For more information, call
(818) 354-5011. Information
on the von Karman lecture and Webcast is available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/lecture/upcoming.html
JPL, a NASA center, is a division of Caltech.
NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARIES
IN CALIFORNIA TO RECEIVE FUNDS FOR RESOURCE
MONITORING PROGRAM AND EDUCATION ACTIVITIES
PRESIDENT'S BUDGET SLATES $52 MILLION FOR NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY
SYSTEM
President Bush's budget for
the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration targets $52 million for the National
Marine
Sanctuary System, including Cordell Bank, Gulf of the Farallones,
Monterey
Bay and the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuaries in California.
The
amount includes $13 million in new funds for the creation or upgrading
of
visitors' facilities called Ocean Discovery Centers at some sanctuaries.
A portion of this increase
will be used by the Cordell Bank, Gulf of the
Farallones, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries to begin
a
coordinated review of the management plans, which describe the
actions to
be taken to protect and manage sanctuary resources. These sanctuaries
and
the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary will also develop
extensive
ecosystem monitoring, expand education activities to inform the
public of
the importance of sanctuary resources and their protection, and
explore
development of additional visitors' facilities.
"NOAA's Marine Sanctuaries
in California are true treasures for the state
and the whole nation to share," said Scott Gudes, acting
NOAA administrator
and under secretary for oceans and atmosphere. "These incredible
underwater parks allow us to protect, conserve and enhance areas
that might
not otherwise be here for future generations."
Gudes added, "The continued
investment in our marine sanctuaries will allow
for upgrading the operating and technical capacity in the 13 marine
sanctuaries."
The FY 2002 increase will be
used to improve protection of important
sanctuary resources, including coral reefs, endangered marine
mammals,
sensitive habitats and significant cultural resources. In coming
months,
NOAA plans to use vessels and aircraft to inventory natural and
cultural
resources at all 13 sanctuaries, and the Northwest Hawaiian Islands
coral
reserve, including activities conducted under the Sustainable
Seas Expedition.
In 1972, exactly one hundred
years after the first national park was
created, the nation made a similar commitment to preserving its
marine
treasures by establishing the National Marine Sanctuary Program.
Today
there are 13 National Marine Sanctuaries. They encompass deep
ocean
gardens, near shore coral reefs, whale feeding and calving grounds,
deep
sea canyons and even underwater archaeological sites. Together
the
sanctuaries protect nearly 20,000 square miles of ocean waters
and
habitats. While some activities are regulated or prohibited in
sanctuaries
to protect resources, multiple uses consistent with resource protection
(such as recreation, commercial fishing and shipping) are allowed.
Research, education and outreach activities are major components
in each
sanctuary's program.
NOAA's National Ocean Service
has managed marine sanctuaries since the
passage of the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act
of 1972, now
called the National Marine Sanctuaries Act.
The President's FY 2002 budget
request for NOAA is available on the
Internet at http://www.noaa.gov To learn more about the National Marine
Sanctuaries program visit http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov
April 12, 01
(1:15 p.m.)
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing report and does not
necessarily reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Space
Shuttle processing continues on schedule at
Launch Pad 39A today. Workers have completed installation of Endeavour's
ordnance devices and aft engine compartment closeouts continue.
Technicians
will conclude aft closeouts tonight with aft door installation.
Technicians start stowing flight
crew equipment into the crew module today.
In the launch control center, engineers are making final preparation
to
start the launch countdown on Monday, Apr. 16.
The seven-member flight crew
is scheduled depart Houston, Texas, at 7:30
a.m. Apr. 16 and arrive at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility at about
10:30
a.m. the same day.
Upcoming Milestones:
Aft engine compartment closeouts complete . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. .Apr. 12
Flight crew equipment early stow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . .Apr. 12-13
Flight crew arrival at KSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Apr. 16 at about 10:30 a.m.
Launch countdown starts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . Apr. 16 at 6 p.m.
BRIEFING SET AS HYPER-X FLIGHT PREPERATIONS BEGIN
The first of three unpiloted
X-43 vehicles in NASA's
Hyper-X program will soon begin hypersonic flight from NASA's
Dryden Flight Research Center, CA.
Flying from seven to ten times
the speed of sound, using air-
breathing scramjet engines instead of traditional rocket
power, the smaller, 12-foot-long X-43 could represent a major
leap forward in the goal of providing faster, more reliable
and less expensive access to space.
On Wednesday, April 18, at
1 p.m. EDT, NASA will conduct a
press briefing from Dryden, featuring key program and project
officials to outline plans for upcoming X-43 flights and the
Hyper-X program. Reporters will be able to ask questions from
participating NASA centers.
The press briefing will be
carried on NASA Television, which
is available on GE-2, transponder 9C, located at 85 degrees
West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency will be
on 3880 MHz, with audio on 6.8 MHz.
JAPANESE ASTRONAUT TO VISIT INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi, from
the National Space
Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), has been named to the
crew of STS-113 and is expected to fly into orbit aboard the
Space Shuttle Endeavour in July 2002.
This will be Noguchi's first
flight into space, and he will be
the fifth Japanese astronaut to fly aboard the shuttle.
Noguchi will be the second Japanese astronaut to visit the
International Space Station, adding to the Japanese
contributions to the assembly and operation of the most
significant science and technology project ever undertaken.
The STS-113 mission, a Utilization
and Logistics Flight (ULF-
1), is planned for 10 days with a crew of made up of seven
astronauts. Endeavour will carry experiment and resupply
equipment in the Multipurpose Logistics Module to the
International Space Station. Two space walks also are planned.
Noguchi is the first crew member to be named to this flight.
The other crew assignments have yet to be determined.
Prior to becoming an astronaut,
Noguchi joined Ishikawajima-
Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. In 1991. He was selected as
an astronaut by the NASDA in 1996 and reported to NASA's
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, later that year.
Having completed two years
of training and evaluation, he is
qualified as a mission specialist. While waiting for his
flight assignment, Noguchi was assigned technical duties in
the Astronaut Office Payloads/Habitability Branch.
A complete list of astronauts
and their biographical
information is available on the Internet at:
NASA SELECTS 27 INNOVATIVE SMALL BUSINESS PROJECTS
NASA has selected 27 research
proposals for negotiation
of Phase 2 contract awards for its Small Business Innovation
Research (SBIR) Program. The selected projects, which have a
total value of approximately $16 million, will be conducted
by 25 small, high-technology firms located in 13 states.
The goals of this NASA program
are to stimulate technological
innovation, increase the use of small business, including
women-owned and disadvantaged firms in meeting federal
research and development needs, and increase private-sector
commercialization of innovations derived from federally
funded research.
A total of 267 proposals were
submitted by SBIR contractors
completing Phase I projects. These proposals were evaluated
to determine that they met SBIR Phase I objectives and are
feasible research innovation for meeting agency needs. The
new selections are in addition to 110 proposals selected last
year.
Phase 2 continues development
of the most promising Phase I
projects. Selection criteria include technical merit and
innovation, Phase I results, value to NASA, commercial
potential and company capabilities. Funding for Phase 2
contracts could be up to $600,000 for a two-year performance
period.
The NASA SBIR Program Management
Office is located at the
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, with executive
oversight by NASA's Office of Aerospace Technology, NASA
Headquarters, Washington, DC. Individual SBIR projects are
managed by NASA's ten field centers.
A list of the selected companies
is available on the internet
at:
STS-110 ASTRONAUTS TO PROVIDE
SPACE STATION ADDITIONAL
SUPPORT
NASA today named the crew responsible
for giving the
growing International Space Station some extra support that
will clear the way for future expansion of the orbiting
laboratory. The seven-member crew is expected to fly into
orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis in early 2002.
During the 10-day STS-110 mission,
Atlantis and its crew will
install the backbone of future space station growth by adding
exterior truss supports to the Destiny laboratory, which also
serves as the space station control center.
Leading the crew of STS-110
on board Atlantis will be
Commander Michael Bloomfield (Lt. Col., USAF). He is joined
on the flight deck by Pilot Stephen Frick (Lt. Cmdr., USN).
Mission specialists for the flight are Jerry Ross (Col.,
USAF, Ret.), Steven Smith, Ellen Ochoa (Ph.D.), Lee M.E.
Morin (Capt., USN; M.D.; Ph.D.) and Rex Walheim (Lt. Col.,
USAF).
Bloomfield has two previous
shuttle flights to his credit,
the STS-86 mission to the Russian space station Mir in 1997
and the STS-97 mission to the International Space Station
last year. He leads a crew of both experienced veterans and
first-time fliers.
Ross is a veteran of six shuttle
missions and has extensive
spacewalking experience, having been outside the orbiter on
seven occasions. Smith has flown three times and has five
space walks under his belt. Astronauts Morin and Walheim are
first-time fliers and both will perform assembly work outside
the orbiting platform during their scheduled space walks.
The crew will install a second
truss, called the S0 truss.
This is the center segment of a 300 foot-long station support
structure connected to the Destiny laboratory module. The
astronauts will also prepare this new section for the
addition of four more truss segments that will ultimately be
added to either side of this integral space station spine.
Ochoa, serving as the flight
engineer, will mark her fourth
space flight with the launch of STS-110. She flew previously
as a member of the STS-56, STS-66 and STS-96 crews, often
specializing in the operation of the shuttle's robotic arm.
Frick, who joins Bloomfield
on the flight deck as the pilot
of Atlantis, joins Mission Specialists Morin and Walheim as a
first-time flier. All three are members of the 1996 astronaut
class.
For information on the STS-110
crew, its mission, or ongoing
International Space Station operations, visit the NASA human
space flight web site at:
April 11, 01
(11:15 a.m.)
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing report and does not necessarily
reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the
KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 10 a.m. EDT
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 19 hours and 19 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: At
the launch pad, the MPLM "Raffaello" has been
installed into Endeavour's payload bay and the payload bay doors
are closed
for flight. Workers have also completed installation and checkout
of the
crew's spacesuits.
Endeavour's aft engine compartment
is undergoing final closeout work and the
aft doors are schedule to be installed this Friday. Shuttle ordnance
installation is also in work through Thursday. Technicians will
spend
Thursday and Friday stowing flight crew equipment into the crew
module. In
the launch control center this week, engineers are completing
final
preparations to start the launch countdown on Monday, April 16
at 6 p.m.
The seven-member flight crew
is scheduled depart Houston, Texas, at 7:30
a.m. April 16 and arrive at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility at
about 10:30
a.m. the same day.
Upcoming Milestones:
Aft engine compartment closeouts complete . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. .Apr. 12
Flight crew equipment early stow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . .Apr. 12-13
Flight crew arrival at KSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Apr. 16 at about 10:30 a.m.
Launch countdown starts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . Apr. 16 at 6 p.m.
SUN TAKES ANOTHER SOLAR SHOT, THIS TIME AT EARTH
An angry Sun fired off another
powerful X-class flare
Tuesday, April 10. X-class flares are the most powerful
classification, and this flare, rated X-2, was the most
recent in a series that included one of the most powerful
solar blasts in 25 years.
An eruption of electrified
gas, called a Coronal Mass
Ejection, or CME, was observed shortly after Tuesday's flare,
and it is heading our way. Depending on the orientation of
the magnetic field carried by the CME cloud, it may cause a
magnetic storm when it impacts the Earth's own magnetic
field.
Tuesday's flare which was observed
by the Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and NASA's Transition Region
and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) occurred at 1:25 a.m. EDT and
came from a region on the Sun designated active region 9415.
This region is rotating with the Sun and currently points
towards Earth. Active region 9415 includes a sunspot group
and has generated three X-class flares this month, including
an X-5 flare on April 6.
The front of the ejection cloud
associated with Tuesday's
flare hit Earth shortly after
9 a.m. EDT today. Moderate to strong storm levels, rated G2 -
G3, will be possible during today and tomorrow as the CME
passes Earth, according to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center (NOAA
SEC), Boulder, CO.
"This is another in an
exciting series of solar events during
this maximum epoch of the current solar activity cycle,"
said
Dr. Ernest Hildner, Director of the NOAA SEC. The NOAA SEC
classifies flares according to their power and estimates,
tracks, and evaluates the effects of solar activity on the
space environment near Earth. The NOAA SEC is the federal
agency responsible for making official space weather
predictions.
Solar flares, among the solar
system's mightiest eruptions,
are tremendous explosions in the atmosphere of the Sun,
capable of releasing as much energy as a billion megatons of
TNT. Caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy, in just
a few seconds flares can accelerate solar particles to very
high velocities - almost to the speed of light - and heat
solar material to tens of millions of degrees.
CME eruptions, often associated
with flares, are clouds of
electrified, magnetic gas weighing billions of tons ejected
from the Sun and hurled into space with speeds ranging from
12 to 1,250 miles per second. The CME associated with
Tuesday's flare was thrown from the Sun at an estimated 1,000
miles per second. CMEs can be even more powerful than flares
and the total energy in a good-sized ejection is about 100
times greater than that of the largest flares.
Depending on the orientation
of the magnetic fields carried
by the CME cloud, Earth-directed ejections can cause magnetic
storms by interacting with the Earth's magnetic field,
distorting its shape and accelerating electrically charged
particles, electrons and atomic nuclei, trapped within.
Severe solar weather is often heralded by dramatic auroral
displays but the magnetic storms can also affect satellites,
radio communications and power systems.
Active region 9415 is expected
to produce more solar
outbursts because it has a complex magnetic field structure.
Active regions are areas near the Sun's visible surface where
a concentration of distorted magnetic fields exists. Sunspots
are often found in active regions because the strong magnetic
fields there slow the flow of heat from the Sun's interior,
keeping part of the region slightly cooler than its
surroundings, which causes it to appear as a dark spot on the
solar surface.
The SOHO project is an international
cooperative program
between NASA and the European Space Agency in the framework
of the International Solar Terrestrial Science Program.
Images of and additional information on the recent stormy
solar activity, including this flare, are available on the
Internet at:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/GSFC/SpaceSci/sunearth/sohox2flare/s
ohox2flare.htm
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/
http://www.spaceweather.com/
ISO provides first measurements of cold water in the Milky Way
The search for water in space
goes on. Using ESA's Infrared Space
Observatory (ISO), Spanish and Italian astronomers have for the
first time measured the global amount of water in cold regions
of
our galaxy. This is especially interesting because these regions
are the birthplace of stars like the Sun, and Solar Systems like
our own. These new measurements show that water is more abundant
than expected - in fact it is the third most abundant molecule
in
the regions which were studied.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=18&cid=41&oid=26774
April 10, 01
GOES-M ARRIVES AT KSC FOR FINAL TESTING
The GOES-M environmental weather
satellite, currently targeted for
launch July 12, 2001, arrived today by C-5 air cargo plane at
the Kennedy
Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility from the manufacturing
plant in Palo
Alto, Calif.
GOES-M is the fifth and final
spacecraft to be launched in the
current advanced series of geostationary environmental weather
satellites
for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The
spacecraft is a three-axis inertial stabilized weather satellite
that has
the dual capability of providing pictures while performing Earth
atmospheric
soundings at the same time. A suite of space weather environment
monitoring
instruments, including a new solar x-ray imager, will also be
aboard the
satellite. Once in orbit GOES-M is to be designated GOES-12 and
will
complete checkout in time for the most active portion of the 2001
hurricane
season.
The satellite is being transported
today to Astrotech in Titusville,
Fla., where final testing of the imaging system, instrumentation,
communications and power systems will be performed. These tests
will take
approximately two months to complete. Then the spacecraft will
be fueled
with propellant for the attitude control system, encapsulated
in the nose
fairing and prepared for transport to the launch pad. The Lockheed
Martin
Atlas II booster and its Centaur upper stage, AC-142, are scheduled
to
arrive at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in late May to begin
erection at
Space Launch Complex 36.
The GOES-M satellite was built
for NASA and NOAA by Space Systems/LORAL of
Palo Alto, Calif. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Md., is
responsible for the procurement of the GOES satellites for NOAA
including
final testing in Florida and the initial on-orbit checkout. NOAA
is
responsible for satellite operation, data distribution and management
of the
program.
As a government civil launch,
Kennedy Space Center is responsible
for the launch services management that includes NASA oversight
of the
launch vehicle processing activities, integration of the GOES-M
spacecraft
with the Atlas II and management of the government role in the
launch
countdown activities. Lockheed Martin of Denver, Co., is under
contract to
NASA-KSC to provide the launch services.
GOES satellite images are available
on the web at http://www.goes.noaa.gov.
NASA/JSC SPECIAL EVENT FEATURES STS-102 ASTRONAUTS
The public is invited to share
the flight experiences of the STS-102
Space Shuttle crew and the International Space Station Expedition
One
Commander Bill Shepherd Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Space Center
Houston.
In a special ceremony in Space Center Houston,s IMAX Theater,
the
astronauts will receive their NASA Space Flight Medals, and other
space
workers will be recognized with awards from Johnson Space Center
Acting
Director Roy S. Estess. The Discovery crew, Commander Jim Wetherbee,
Pilot Jim Kelly, Mission Specialists Andy Thomas and Paul Richards,
and
Shepherd will narrate a slide show and video presentation highlighting
their recent missions. The event begins promptly at 6:30 p.m.
and is
free and open to the public. Seating is limited and available
on a
first-come, first-served basis. Space Center Houston doors open
at 6:00
p.m. to admit visitors; those arriving after the IMAX theater
is filled
may watch the presentation in an adjacent theater at the visitor
center.
For updated information, call the NASA Broadcast News Service
at
281-483-8600.
NASA DRYDEN MADE MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SPACE SHUTTLE DEVELOPMENT
On April 14, 1981, more than
300,000 aerospace aficionados
assembled on the barren east shore of Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards
Air
Force Base to witness a first in aerospace history. Some seven
miles
away, on the ramp at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, another
20,000
distinguished visitors and NASA employees gathered to behold
the same event.
They were rewarded that sunny
spring morning, as the
double-crack of a powerful sonic boom resounded across the desert,
heralding the coming conclusion of the first Space Shuttle orbital
mission. Moments later, astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen
guided the shuttle Columbia onto lakebed runway 23, proving beyond
shadow of doubt that a spacecraft could return to Earth safely
with a
powerless but controlled airplane-style landing.
But NASA's flight research
outpost in Southern California's high
desert had made numerous contributions to the Space Shuttle program
before that historic first landing, and has made many more since.
Even today, 20 years after that epochal event, the Dryden Flight
Research Center plays a significant though often overlooked role
in
America's space flight program. Dryden's major past and present
contributions to the Space Shuttle program include:
* 1960s: Development of space-rated control, environmental and
navigation systems - The X-15 hypersonic rocket plane program
contributed directly to the Space Shuttle program through its
pioneering development of reaction control systems for attitude
control in space, including transition from aerodynamic controls
to
reaction controls and back again. Other X-15 contributions to
the
Shuttle program included the first practical full-pressure suit
for
pilot protection in space, inertial flight data systems in a high
dynamic pressure space environment, demonstration of a pilot's
ability to function in a weightless environment, and development
of
improved high-temperature seals and lubricants.
* 1960s-1970s: Energy Management Techniques for Re-entry and Landing
- The X-15 rocket plane and the lifting bodies flown at Dryden
made a
major contribution to the development of energy management and
unpowered landing techniques for the Space Shuttles. The X-15
and the
wingless lifting bodies demonstrated that it was feasible for
an
aerospace vehicle with a low lift-to-drag ratio to make a safe,
controlled landing without power.
* 1970s: The F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire program - Another Dryden
contribution to shuttle development was in the testing of the
flight
control computers later used on the shuttles. The IBM AP-101
computers were flight-validated during the second phase of the
F-8
Digital Fly-By-Wire (DFBW) research program before they were used
on
the shuttles.
* 1970s: Shuttle Carrier Aircraft -- Once the decision had been
made
to eliminate jet engines for the shuttles' approach and landing
at
Edwards, a means of ferrying the shuttles back to the launch site
had
to be devised. Dryden engineers proposed a variation of the
tried-and-true "mothership" concept that had been used
for lifting the X-1
through X-15 and the lifting bodies to launch altitude; the modified
Boeing747
Shuttle Carrier Aircraft evolved from their recommendation.
* 1970s: YF-12 High-Speed Research - During the high-speed,
high-altitude flight research program conducted with the Lockheed
YF-12, Dryden engineers developed a central airborne performance
analyzer which monitored various aircraft systems, detected problems
and provided that data to the pilot, as well as to engineers and
maintenance personnel on the ground. The analyzer became the
forerunner of vehicle health monitoring systems used on the space
shuttles and a variety of today's aircraft.
* 1977: Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests -- Dryden hosted and
helped conduct the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) of the prototype
shuttle orbiter Enterprise at Edwards AFB in 1977. The ALT validated
the concept of carrying the shuttle on the 747 Shuttle Carrier
Aircraft during captive-carry flights and of landing the shuttle
without power during five free flights.
* 1977: Resolving Pilot-Induced Oscillation problem -- On the
final
ALT flight, the pilot overcontrolled the Enterprise and it entered
a
dangerous pilot induced oscillation (PIO)-a frequent phenomenon
with
new digital fight control systems-just at touchdown on Edwards'
main
concrete runway. Subsequent flights with the F-8 DFBW and other
aircraft demonstrated that the problem with the shuttle flight
control system lay in a time delay that stimulated pilots to
over-control because their inputs to the flight control computer
were
taking too long to go into effect. With their experience with
digital
flight controls from the F-8 DFBW, Dryden engineers designed a
PIO
suppression filter that solved the problem and was incorporated
into
the shuttles' flight control computers.
* 1977-78, 1983-85: Booster Recovery System - Dryden's NB-52B
mothership made 31 test flights in a two-phase project to validate
the performance and reliability of the shuttle's solid rocket
booster
parachute recovery system. The parachutes are used to slow the
descent of the solid rocket booster casings once they have completed
their boost phase and separated from the shuttles' external fuel
tank.
* 1979-80: Structural Loads and Orbiter Handling Analysis - At
Johnson Space Center's request, Dryden engineers conducted an
independent analysis of the shuttle design related to
aerothermal-induced structural loads and handling qualities prior
to
its first space flight. Dryden's analysis found the shuttle's
control
system was capable of compensating for uncertainties in the shuttle's
flight characteristics, and verified the overall adequacy of the
design to accomplish re-entry from orbit and a safe landing on
Earth.
* 1980s: Thermal Protection System Testing - Dryden research pilots
flew 60 missions in Dryden's F-104 and F-15 aircraft to test space
shuttle thermal protection tiles under various aerodynamic load
conditions. The tests led to several changes to improve techniques
for bonding the tiles to the shuttles' surfaces.
* 1990: Shuttle Drag Parachute Tests - NASA Dryden's venerable
NB-52B
was used to help develop the drag parachute deployment system
now
used during space shuttle landings. During a series of eight flight
tests in 1990, the modified bomber validated the initiation,
deployment, inflation and overall operation of the parachutes.
The
drag chutes are deployed from the shuttles moments after touchdown,
reducing tire and brake wear and shortening the rollout distance
on
the runway.
* 1993-1995: Shuttle Tire and Brake Tests -- NASA Dryden modified
a
Convair 990 into a Landing Systems Research Aircraft in the mid-1990s
to test the shuttles' tires and braking systems on a variety of
runway surfaces. These tests led to improvements in both the tires
and brakes, an increasing in the allowable crosswind landing limits
and resurfacing of the runway at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle
Landing Facility which reduced shuttle tire wear by half.
* 1981-Today: Primary/Alternate Landing Site - Dryden and the
Edwards
complex was the primary space shuttle landing site for the first
12
years of the program, and has served as the backup alternate landing
site since then. Out of 102 shuttle missions completed to date,
47
have landed at Edwards, 54 at the Kennedy Space Center, and one
at
the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The most recent mission
to land at Edwards was STS-98, which saw the shuttle Atlantis
land
here on Feb. 20, 2001.
* 1981-Today: Shuttle Post-Flight Processing Capability -- Dryden
maintains a full complement of equipment to support Space Shuttle
landing, recovery, post-flight processing and turnaround operations
to prepare the shuttles for their ferry flights back to the Florida
launch site when landings occur at Edwards AFB. One of NASA's
two
modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft is maintained on-site
for this purpose.
NASA
NASA Ames to Mark Space Shuttle's 20th Anniversary
On April 12, NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley is set to commemorate a historic milestone in the human exploration of space. On that date in 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth. And in 1981, April 12 saw the first orbital flight of NASA's space shuttle.
When space shuttle Columbia returned from that first trip into space on April 14, 1981, a group of Ames engineers breathed a collective sigh of relief. Columbia's 2-day, 6-hour flight validated the work of the Ames team in helping to solve problems involving ascent aerodynamics, atmospheric reentry and the control of the shuttle during its approach and landing. Ames also led the effort to develop materials that protect the shuttle astronauts from temperatures in excess of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit during its fiery return to Earth.
Several employees will be available to talk about Ames' efforts on April 12, the 20th anniversary of the launch of STS-1. Those available for interviews will include
Thomas Alderete, chief, Simulation
Experiments Branch
Dr. James Arnold, chief, Space Technology Division
Jack Boyd, former associate director of Ames Research Center and
currently executive assistant to the Ames director
Howard Goldstein, former chief, Thermal Protection Systems Branch
G. Joseph Hartman, chief, Thermophysics Facilities Branch
Dr. Dan Leiser, materials scientist
David Stewart, materials scientist
Ames has played a major role in the development of the space shuttle since its inception in the spring of 1969. Development of the thermal protection system is believed by many to be the key to making the space shuttle the world's first reusable reentry vehicle. Because the shuttle's airframe is flexible like an aircraft, with complex curves, engineers had to develop a new class of heat shield materials that rejected heat without ablating, or burning away.
Ames' expertise in other areas - such as aerodynamics and guidance and control -- also made the center well suited to advancing the development of the shuttle. Ames supported aerodynamics studies with more than 10,000 hours of testing in seven of its wind tunnels before the award of the shuttle design and construction contract in 1972. More than 25,000 hours of testing were conducted after this date.
The shuttle was the first airplane-like entry vehicle with movable control surfaces. Ames personnel with guidance and control expertise took on the task of investigating guidance and control concepts that might compensate for the shuttle's less-than-ideal aerodynamics. Astronauts and other pilots used Ames simulators to verify and refine the guidance and control system and to gain experience in shuttle-type landings. In addition, space shuttle trainees spent 50 weeks in the Ames simulator studying handling qualities during landing. At the time, Ames managed the Dryden Flight Research Facility in southern California, which served as the primary test facility and landing site for all early shuttle flights.
Today, Ames is continuing its commitment to developing and advancing space shuttle systems in the areas of aerodynamics and aerothermodynamics, thermal protection systems, simulator support and cockpit upgrades.
Images of some of Ames' contributions are available at
http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/pages/specialeventsfolder/shuttle/shuttle.html
BROWN NAMED ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS
NASA Administrator Daniel S.
Goldin today named Jerry
Brown, a senior corporate communications executive, as the
Associate Administrator for Public Affairs, effective
immediately.
Before joining NASA, Brown
was vice president for Walls
Communications, Inc., based in Washington, DC, where he
served as senior counsel to the firm's Fortune 100 clients.
Brown has more than twenty years experience in international,
corporate and federal government communications.
"Jerry Brown has a distinguished
track record of innovation
and team building," said Administrator Goldin. "His
diverse
background and legacy of achievement will be important
assets to this agency."
In 1992, Brown was appointed
deputy director of the Office of
External Affairs for the U.S. Agency for International
Development for the Administration of President George Bush.
In that capacity he managed press relations. Brown also
served as the director of public affairs at the Federal
Transit Administration for the U.S. Department of
Transportation.
As a public relations director,
Brown developed media
relations programs for Winrock International, Winthrop
Rockefeller's global philanthropic organization, and he is
one of only three westerners to serve as an international
representative in Saudi Arabia for the largest public
relations firm in the Pan-Arab world, Tihama.
Brown also has extensive experience
in the oil and gas
industries where he worked as an editor for Exxon Company
USA, based in Houston, TX.
A native of Kansas City, MO,
Brown has a Bachelor of Arts
Degree from the University of Houston. He currently lives in
Arlington, VA.
MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS
Week Ending Sunday, April 8, 2001
One day after launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., the
Mars Odyssey mission continues to go exceedingly well.
Following acquisition of the spacecraft's signal by a
Deep Space Network ground station at Canberra, Australia,
shortly before 9 a.m. Pacific time Saturday, the mission team
has continued to monitor the status of spacecraft subsystems,
all of which are performing normally. Ground controllers
established a two-way communication link between Mars Odyssey
and Earth, enabling the navigation team to start collecting
data to assess the spacecraft's flight path.
Among various housekeeping events Saturday, the team
commanded the spacecraft to transmit to Earth at a high rate
for playback of data recorded during launch. They also
commanded a desaturation of the spacecraft's reaction wheels,
a procedure in which the gyro-like devices are spun down in
order to remove excess momentum. Ground controllers concluded
that an alarm triggered shortly after launch by a temperature
sensor on Odyssey's solar panel is not a concern. Saturday
afternoon they switched to a ground station at Santiago,
Chile, to communicate with the spacecraft. The project is
using Santiago to fill gaps in its Deep Space Network tracking
coverage during early cruise.
This morning the team commanded the spacecraft to
transition out of a "safe mode" it was in during launch
to a
normal operating mode. They also turned the spacecraft so that
the medium-gain antenna that Odyssey is transmitting over is
pointed toward Earth. As of late morning, the team was
assessing the state of spacecraft subsystems, and if all is
well a command will be sent this afternoon to make the
transition complete.
Early navigation calculations show that the magnitude
of the first trajectory correction maneuver fine-tuning the
spacecraft's flight path April 16 will be only 6 meters per
second. Because that maneuver will be so small, propellant
will be saved for use during Mars orbit insertion, aerobraking
and the orbital mission.
Odyssey will reach Mars on October 24, after which it
will spend about two months adjusting its orbit before
beginning a four-year mission studying the red planet.
JPL TECHNOLOGY INDUCTED
INTO U.S. SPACE FOUNDATION HALL OF
FAME
An advanced sensor developed
at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will be inducted into the U.S.
Space Foundation Hall of Fame on April 12 in recognition of
its potential uses in medicine, firefighting and industry, as
well as astronomy.
The Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector
(QWIP) technology
has been licensed for various commercial applications,
including non-invasive detection of breast and skin cancers.
Physicians use it during brain surgery to visualize a tumor's
perimeter. The QWIP camera's ability to see through dust and
smoke has proven useful to firefighters and helicopter camera
crews by allowing them to see forest fire hot spots from the
air through heavy smoke. The technology also has many other
potential uses from search and rescue, spotting faulty welds
and blockages, to volcano observation.
"It is a great pleasure
to see something we developed
being used for public benefit," said Sarath Gunapala, co-
inventor and principal engineer of the sensor developed at
JPL, "especially in medical applications, such as the early
detection of cancer."
The ability of the camera to
see in the infrared has been
useful for NASA. Astronomers at Palomar Observatory have also
taken advantage of the ability to see in the infrared through
dust clouds and image deep into dusty star-forming regions
where visible sensors cannot penetrate.
The U.S. Space Foundation's
Space Technology Hall of Fame
honors individuals, organizations and companies who have taken
technologies originally designed for the space program and
later adapted them for commercial application on Earth. The
QWIP technology is to be inducted during the Foundation's
National Space Symposium, on April 9 -12 in Colorado Springs,
Colo. Three other JPL technologies have made the Hall of
Fame: the Active Pixel Sensor in 1999 and, in 1994, Digital
Image Processing and an Excimer Laser Angioplasty System.
More information on QWIP is
available at:
http://technology.jpl.nasa.gov . JPL is managed for NASA by
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Giotto's heritage: the past and future of comet exploration
Almost exactly 15 years ago,
during the night of 13/14 March 1986,
ESA's Giotto spacecraft made history by obtaining the first close-up
pictures of a comet's black, icy nucleus. After surviving a battering
from grains of comet dust, Giotto went on to become the first
spacecraft
to visit a second comet. The flyby of Comet Grigg-Skjellerup in
July
1992 is still the closest encounter ever achieved with one of
these
cosmic icebergs.
At a recent two-day 'Giotto
Heritage' symposium held in The Science
Museum, London, scientists and engineers who worked on this pioneering
deep space mission came together to reminisce about past triumphs
and
to look forward to the next generation of comet explorers.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26683
April 9, 2001
KSC DIRECTOR ROY BRIDGES WINS DEBUS AWARD
Kennedy Space Center Director
Roy Bridges was honored as the 2001 Dr. Kurt
H. Debus Award Recipient on April 6 in recognition of his progressive,
visionary leadership and contributions to space technology and
exploration.
The Florida Committee of the
National Space Club presented the award during
the Twelfth Annual Dr. Kurt H. Debus Award Dinner held at the
KSC
Visitor-Complex Debus Conference Facility.
The Debus Award was first given
in 1980. Created to recognize significant
achievements and contributions made in Florida to the American
aerospace
effort, the award is named for the KSC's first Director, Dr. Kurt
H. Debus.
"I am honored to become
a recipient of this award," said Bridges. "A number
of space program pioneers and innovators I greatly admire have
received the
Debus Award over the years and I count myself fortunate to be
listed among
their company. Any success that I have had I attribute to the
great team
here at Kennedy Space Center and our partners in industry and
academia."
During Bridges' tenure as Director,
he has created a vision for KSC 25 years
into the future; reorganized the management structure to better
position KSC
for spaceport technology research and development; created and
strengthened
strategic partnerships with the State of Florida, the 45th Space
Wing,
academia and industry; and introduced world-class safety practices
to the
Center.
A veteran NASA astronaut as
well as former commander of what is now the 45th
Space Wing on Florida's Space Coast, Bridges was nominated by
National Space
Club Florida Committee members and selected as this year's honoree
by a vote
of the organization's steering committee.
"Roy Bridges was an easy
choice," said Ed Gormel, Executive Director
of the Spaceport Florida Authority and chairman of the National
Space Club
Florida Committee. "I have worked professionally either for
or with Roy for
some 15 years and have always been impressed by his talents, initiative
and
vision."
Bridges is the second KSC Director
to be so honored during the 12-year
history of the award. Forrest McCartney was the first, earning
his trophy in
1992.
"The Debus Award honors
significant contributions to our nation's space
program by someone living and working here in Florida, and that's
exactly
what Roy Bridges is doing every day as the director of the Kennedy
Space
Center," Gormel said.
"His commitment to making
the Cape Canaveral Spaceport a world-class launch
operations center for commercial, government and military users
will ensure
Florida's leadership in space for many years to come, and that's
something
the National Space Club Florida Committee is happy to recognize,"
Gormel
said.
The National Space Club originally
was organized as the National Rocket Club
in October 1957 and was founded to stimulate the exchange of ideas
and
information about rocketry and astronautics, and to promote the
recognition
of America's achievements in aerospace. The National Space Club
is a
non-profit corporation whose membership includes representatives
from
industry, government, education and the general public.
This Week on Galileo
April 9-15, 2001
Another quiet engineering week
sees the spacecraft concentrate once again
on data playback from the tape recorder. These data were recorded
when
Galileo flew through the depths of the Jupiter system last December.
Data from quite a variety of
observations are expected this week. From the
Solid State Imaging (SSI) camera, observations of ever-changing
Io include
a look at the plume of material from the erupting volcano Prometheus.
These
color pictures were taken at a low phase angle, or when the sun
was behind
the spacecraft. The volcano itself appeared near the edge of the
disk of
the satellite, so the plume material could be seen silhouetted
against the
dark of the sky beyond. These images were deliberately overexposed
to bring
out the more distant, fainter portions of the plume.
On the night of December 30
(Pacific time), Io passed into Jupiter's
shadow, and the Galileo camera was watching. This provided an
opportunity
to view the satellite in the dark, and see how the volcanic hot
spots
glowed by their own light, uncomplicated by reflected sunlight.
The Cassini
spacecraft was also observing Io from a different angle during
this time.
The combined images may provide new science results on atmospheric
emissions, plumes, and hot spots. Data from other color Io observations
which were lost in earlier transmissions will also be replayed.
Pictures taken of Jupiter's
main ring system will provide information on
the ring's vertical structure and patchiness, and will provide
an
interesting comparison to Cassini pictures taken at the same time,
but from
a different viewpoint. This should give scientists a unique stereo
view of
these fascinating features.
SSI will also return pictures
from a Jupiter Feature Track observation, so
called because one atmospheric feature is tracked for a long period
of time
to see how it changes. This observation consists of a series of
images of
the turbulent region to the northwest of the Great Red Spot. This
region is
especially active and interesting, and has been the site of thunderstorm
activity in the past. The area was imaged on four successive rotations
of
the planet, over the course of about 32 hours.
The Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer
(NIMS) will return data of the
southern aurora. Both Cassini and the Hubble Space Telescope also
obtained
data from Jupiter's auroral glows in late December. Additional
observations
will be played back of a White Oval storm near 30 degrees south
latitude in
Jupiter's atmosphere. The White Oval is the remnant of three such
ovals
that have merged over the past two years. A portion of a global
mosaic of
Jupiter will also be returned. The last in a series of three observations
of Io will complete the infrared monitoring of that satellite's
volcanic
activity during this orbit.
NIMS also made observations
of the North Temperate Zone of Jupiter (at
approximately 25 degrees north latitude), which will provide information
on
the composition, temperature, and cloud dynamics of this region
of the
giant planet's atmosphere.
For more information on the
Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
Leafy Green Astronauts
NASA scientists are learning
how to grow plants in space. Such far-out
crops will eventually take their place alongside people, microbes
and
machines in self-contained habitats for astronauts.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast09apr_1.htm?list448368
April 7, 01
April 7, 2001
NASA'S 2001 MARS ODYSSEY SPACECRAFT IS ON ITS WAY
NASA's return to Mars began
at 11:02 a.m. Eastern time this
morning as the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft roared into space
onboard a Delta II launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station, Fla.
About 53 minutes later, at
11:55 a.m. Eastern time, flight
controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the
first signal from the spacecraft through the Deep Space Network
station in Canberra, Australia indicating that all is well aboard
the orbiter.
"I've never seen a more
spectacular launch," said David
Spencer, Odyssey's mission manager at JPL in Pasadena, Calif.
"The spacecraft seems to be performing beautifully, and we're
right on our timeline. This gives us a terrific start on our
odyssey to Mars."
NASA's latest explorer carries
three scientific instruments
designed to tell us what the Martian surface is made of and about
its radiation environment: a thermal-emission imaging system,
a
gamma ray spectrometer and a Martian radiation environment
experiment. During its cruise to Mars over the next six months,
the spacecraft will turn on and calibrate the instruments. The
spacecraft will also fire its thrusters in five small maneuvers
designed to fine-tune its flight path to Mars. Odyssey will
arrive at Mars on October 24, when it will fire its main engine
and be captured into Mars' orbit.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory
manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe,
the
University of Arizona in Tuscon, and NASA's Johnson Space Center,
Houston, Texas, will operate the science instruments. Lockheed
Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for
the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission
operations will be conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and
from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology
in
Pasadena.
Student-built robots on the web
Tune in today and Saturday
and see hundreds of robots and
their creators -- high school students -- compete in a national
robotics competition sponsored by NASA and the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Seven teams sponsored by JPL
are taking part in the contest
at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center in Orlando, Fla. Watch the
students and their robots compete on NASA Television or on the
Web during a live broadcast and Webcast of the FIRST Robotics
National Competition on Friday, April 6 from noon to 2 p.m., PDT
(3 to 5 p.m, EDT) and on Saturday, April 7 from 10 a.m. to 2
p.m., PDT (1 to 5 p.m., EDT).
The Webcast can be accessed
at
http://robotics.nasa.gov/first2001.html .
The NASA TV schedule is available
at
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/breaking.html .
FIRST (For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and
Technology) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to
generate an interest in science and technology through a robotics
competition that provides hands-on activities, fosters teamwork
and gives students access to engineers who help them build their
own robots.
NASA has awarded more than
100 sponsorships to high schools
nationwide. Locally, JPL sponsored 24 of the 49 teams that
competed in the Southern California regional competition on March
15-17.
JPL is managed for NASA by
the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.
Space Weather News for April
7, 2001
http://www.spaceweather.com
Solar activity remained high
on Friday as active region 9415, a sunspot
group about the five times the size of Earth, unleashed a powerful
X5-class solar flare. The explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection
(CME)
into space -- and somewhat toward Earth. Friday's CME joins another
one
already en route toward our planet. The pair could trigger auroras
(most
likely at high latitudes) when they strike Earth's magnetosphere
this
weekend. Stay tuned to spaceweather.com for updates.
April 6, 2001
Cassini Weekly Significant Event Report
The most recent spacecraft
telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone
tracking station on Tuesday, April 3. The Cassini spacecraft is
in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. The speed
of the
spacecraft can be viewed on the "Present Position" web
page
( "http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/" ) .
Recent spacecraft activities
included a Command & Data Subsystem (CDS)
automatic repair of both Solid State Recorders (SSRs), a Reaction
Wheel
Assembly (RWA) unload, and a High Water-Mark clear. Instrument
activities
included Spica observations and an Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS)
dustband
observation with Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) monitoring,
successful
normalization of instrument flight software, an ISS Instrument
Expanded
Block (IEB) load and dark frames activity, restart of the Cassini
Plasma
Spectrometer (CAPS) actuator sweep, a Radio and Plasma Wave Science
(RPWS)
HFR calibration, and start of the RPWS Periodic Instrument Maintenance.
Commands were sent to increase the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA)
multiplier
voltage to 3100 volts to better observe the effects on output
science
data. This was followed by a CDA CPU reset, release and instrument
power
off. Later in the week CDA was temporarily powered on and a diagnostics
mini-sequence successfully run.
The Cassini RADAR was powered
on for 23.5 hours of data collection, the
most aggressive set of radiometric observations to date. Flight
software
(FSW) was loaded to the RADAR system from the SSR, data were then
collected during raster scans of five microwave sources that are
scattered
widely over the celestial sphere, as well as Jupiter and the Sun.
Jupiter
and the sources were observed using two orthogonal polarizations,
accomplished by rolling the spacecraft 90 degrees, with 2 raster
scans per
polarization. Total data volume was roughly 500 Mbits. Included
as part
of this test was execution of a simulated Titan flyby by using
all RADAR
instrument modes.
The Radio Science Subsystem
(RSS) team performed another series of tests
and a boresight calibration to further prepare for the Gravity
Wave
Experiment (GWE) test to be performed in May. This week's test
objective
was to characterize the Ka-band Translator behavior. The next
opportunity
for testing will be next week when an Operational Interface Test/Mission
Verification Test (OIT/MVT) will be performed over a three day
period.
A Simulation Coordination meeting
and a Preliminary Sequence Change
Request Approval meeting were held in support of the Cruise 26
development
process. A Project briefing for the Cruise 27 sequence was held
this week
where an integrated plan was presented and approved. Detailed
implementation of the plan will now begin.
Several science working groups
met this week. The Atmosphere Working
Group (AWG) continued development of an overall discipline strategy
for
the Tour, the Rings Working Group (RWG) worked to identify the
key Tour
segments and priorities in support of the Cross-Discipline Workshop
coming
later this month, and the Surfaces Working Group (SWG) began
identification and prioritization of the non-targeted satellite
opportunities throughout the Saturn Tour.
Two DCMs were held this week.
One was for CIMS version 1.1, which
provides streamlined access through the Cassini consolidated web
server,
enhanced security, additional output capability for teams' APGEN
requests,
and provides the science planning team with enhanced capability
to manage
the data for sequences under development. The other DCM was held
for MSS
Version D7.5 software. This version provides an update to SEG
in support
of the GWE and has now been installed on all appropriate workstations.
The Spacecraft Office has reviewed,
approved and released for distribution
Revision D of 699-CAS-3-271 The Cassini Functional Requirement
Book -
Spacecraft Intercommunications.
Navigation Ancillary Information
Facility (NAIF) personnel have published
an article on the recent NAIF-sponsored Spacecraft, Planet, Instruments,
C-matrix, and Events kernels (SPICE) conference. Cassini Team
members
both attended and presented at this event. The article entitled
"SPICE
Workshop Brings Enthusiastic Users and Developers Together,"
is due out in
the April 2001 edition of the Science Information Systems Newsletter
(SISN), and will be available at:
http://www-sisn.jpl.nasa.gov/issue59/article_spicews.html .
Cassini is a cooperative project
of NASA, the European Space Agency and
the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division
of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages
the Cassini
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.
Cassini Outreach
Cassini Mission to Saturn and Titan
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Europe goes to Mars - preparations are well under way
If you live in Europe, there's
almost certainly a research institute or
industrial company near you that is contributing materials or
expertise
to Mars Express, Europe's first mission to the Red Planet. Under
the umbrella
of the European Space Agency, at least 25 companies from 15 European
countries are building hardware or software for the spacecraft,
or otherwise
contributing their expertise; and more than 200 scientists from
research
institutes in all ESA member states and beyond are contributing
towards the
scientific payload. "The Mars Express project is providing
about 1000 jobs throughout Europe," estimates Rudi Schmidt,
Mars Express
Project Manager at ESTEC, the European Space Agency's technical
centre in
the Netherlands.
More at: http://spdext.estec.esa.nl/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26725
ENDEAVOUR'S MISSION WILL
EXTEND SPACE STATION'S REACH WITH
NEXT-GENERATION ROBOTICS; LAUNCH SET FOR APRIL 19
The Space Shuttle Endeavour
is ready to soar into orbit
April 19 on another International Space Station construction
mission that will extend the reach of humans in orbit.
Endeavour and its seven-member
international crew will
deliver a new generation of Canadian space robotics to the
International Space Station. The robotic arm is longer,
stronger, more flexible and more capable than the Space
Shuttle's venerable arm.
Shuttle managers yesterday
set the launch for 2:41 p.m. EDT
from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, FL, on an 11-day mission
that will continue the rapid pace of assembly that has
transformed the orbiting complex during the past eight months
into the largest and most sophisticated space laboratory ever
built.
"The launch of Endeavour
marks a significant milestone for us
in that it completes a quick, safe and successful full
turnaround of the Space Shuttle fleet dedicated to assembly
of the station in only a few months," Space Shuttle Program
Manager Ron Dittemore said. "Once Endeavour arrives on this
flight, all three shuttles capable of docking with the
station will have done so twice in the past eight months. The
International Space Station's assembly has relied on our
ability to maintain a schedule of regular launches to
complete uniquely complex missions, and the shuttle team has
come through in safe, successful and spectacular fashion."
In addition to the Canadarm2,
which is the centerpiece of
Canada's contribution to the International Space Station,
Endeavour's flight, designated STS-100, also will carry the
second Italian Space Agency logistics carrier, a module named
Raffaello. Endeavour's flight is planned to include the most
complex and intricate robotics work ever conducted in space
to install the arm, as well as to deliver more research
equipment and experiments to the station than any previous
mission.
Commanded by Kent Rominger,
Endeavour's crew represents the
most diverse crew to ever fly in space with four
international partner space agencies. The shuttle's pilot is
Jeff Ashby and includes mission specialists John Phillips and
Scott Parazynski. Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency
astronau, Umberto Guidoni, a European Space Agency astronaut
and Yuri Lonchakov, a Russian Aviation and Space Agency
cosmonaut round out Endeavour's crew. The Shuttle is
scheduled to land April 30 at the Kennedy Space Center.
Additional information about
Endeavor and the STS-100 mission
is available at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/
NASA ADMINISTRATOR HONORED
FOR EFFORTS
TO BRING STUDENTS BACK TO SCIENCE
NASA Administrator Daniel S.
Goldin is being honored for
his interest and efforts to bring students back to the
studies of science and engineering.
This weekend, the Metropolitan
Washington Chapter of the ARCS
Foundation, a national organizational dedicated to providing
scholarships and other financial assistance to academically
outstanding students, presents the Administrator with the
2001 Eagle Award.
ARCS, which stands for Achievement
Rewards for College
Scientists, works to meet the Nation's need for scientists
and engineers by helping the best and brightest graduate and
doctorate students finance their studies in physical
sciences, medicine and engineering.
"Some of our most talented
young people are not going into
science and technology. This is not just a problem for NASA,
but for the country as a whole, said Goldin. "To assure our
leadership position we must renew the interest in science and
engineering among the leaders of tomorrow. We have many
exciting challenges - energy, health care, communications,
transportation, space exploration and national defense - and
we need to ask ourselves who will be responsible for
America's scientific leadership two decades from now."
This week, Administrator Goldin
began serving his 10th year
as head of the space agency and is NASA's longest-serving
leader.
ARCS was formed in 1958 in
response to Sputnik and the need
to improve America's position in the technology race. Since
then, the organization has grown to 12 chapters throughout
the United States and has awarded nearly 8,100 scholarships.
Its volunteers have raised almost $40 million. Administrator
Goldin will receive the award tomorrow at
7 p.m. EDT during the ARCS Spring Gala at the Ritz Carlton
Hotel in Washington, DC.
ENDEAVOUR LAUNCH SET FOR
APRIL 19; MISSION WILL EXPAND HUMAN REACH IN
SPACE WITH CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ROBOTICS
Endeavour will launch April
19, 2001, to deliver a new generation of
Canadian space robotics to the International Space Station. The
robotic
arm is longer, stronger, more flexible and more capable than even
the
Space Shuttle's venerable arm.
Shuttle managers today set
Endeavour's launch for 2:41 p.m. EDT April 19
from the Kennedy Space Center, FL, on an 11-day mission that will
continue the assembly that has transformed the orbiting complex
during
the past eight months into the largest and most sophisticated
space
laboratory ever built.
"The launch of Endeavour
marks a significant milestone for us in that it
completes a quick, safe and successful full turnaround of the
Space
Shuttle fleet dedicated to assembly of the station in only a few
months," Space Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore said.
"Once
Endeavour arrives on this flight, all three shuttles capable of
docking
with the station will have done so twice in the past eight months.
The
International Space Station's assembly has relied on our ability
to
maintain a schedule of regular launches to complete uniquely complex
missions, and the shuttle team has come through in safe, successful
and
spectacular fashion."
In addition to the Canadarm2,
which is the centerpiece of Canada's
contribution to the International Space Station, Endeavour's flight,
designated STS-100, also will carry the second Italian Space Agency
logistics carrier, a module named Raffaello. Endeavour's flight
is
planned to include the most complex and intricate robotics work
ever
conducted in space to install the arm, as well as to deliver more
research equipment and experiments to the station than any previous
mission.
Commanded by Kent Rominger,
Endeavour's crew represents four space
agencies and is the most diverse international crew to ever fly
in
space. Pilot is Jeff Ashby; and Mission Specialists include John
Phillips and Scott Parazynski; Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space
Agency
astronaut; Umberto Guidoni, a European Space Agency astronaut;
and Yuri
Lonchakov, a Russian Aviation and Space Agency cosmonaut.
Endeavour is scheduled to land
April 30 at the Kennedy Space Center.
Mars Odyssey/Delta II status
Preparations continue on schedule
for the launch of NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey
aboard a Delta II launch vehicle on Saturday, April 7, at 11:02:22
a.m. EDT.
Launch will occur from complex 17 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station,
Fla.
The weather forecast continues
to indicate less than a 5 percent chance of
weather violation for Saturday's launch attempt. At launch time
the
visibility is expected to be at least 10 miles; winds from the
southeast at
10 peaking to 15 knots; temperature 81 degrees F. and relative
humidity at
60 percent.
On Pad A at Space Launch Complex
17, a final spacecraft readiness test will
be conducted beginning at 1 p.m. this afternoon. Tonight at 7
p.m. the
protective covers will be removed from over the science instruments,
and the
access doors on the nose fairing of the Delta vehicle will be
closed and
sealed for flight. The mobile service tower, or gantry, will be
pulled back
from around the launch vehicle at 4 a.m., beginning the terminal
countdown
activities.
Live coverage on NASA Television
of the Mars Odyssey launch will begin at
9:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 7.
(3:45 p.m.)
NOTE: This is an orbiter processing
report and does not necessarily reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 9:35 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 18 hours and 54 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Following
yesterday's Flight Readiness Review at
Kennedy Space Center, Shuttle managers announced April 19 as the
official
launch date for STS-100. Processing efforts at Launch Pad 39A
continue on
schedule.
The MPLM payload, Raffaello,
arrived at the pad yesterday and was installed
into the payload change-out room. Raffaello's installation into
Endeavour's
payload bay is scheduled to occur tomorrow. The payload bay doors
will be
closed for flight Apr. 10.
The orbiter's midbody umbilical
unit will be mated and leak checked Monday,
and aft engine compartment closeouts begin Monday and conclude
Apr. 13.
Shuttle ordnance installation starts Tuesday. Space suit checks
and flight
crew equipment early stowage are slated for Tuesday as well. The
launch
countdown is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. April 16.
Upcoming Milestones:
Orbiter aft engine compartment closeouts begin . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. .Apr. 9
Shuttle ordnance installation begins . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . Apr. 10
Close payload bay doors for flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . Apr. 10
Flight crew equipment early stow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .Apr. 10
Launch countdown starts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . Apr. 16 at 6 p.m.
Sparks fly on Rosetta orbite
From time to time, something
may happen to bring home the fact
that people are not compatible. At such times, it becomes obvious
that there is a breakdown in a relationship with a partner or
work
colleague. However, it is not only humans who suffer from such
problems.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26579
April 5, 2001
]Mars Odyssey Status report
Preparation continues on schedule
for the launch of NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey
aboard a Delta II launch vehicle on Saturday, April 7, at 11:02:22
a.m. EDT.
Today's forecast indicates
less than a 5 percent chance of weather violation
for Saturday's launch attempt. The weather report calls for visibility
of
at least 10 miles; winds from the southeast at 10 peaking to 15
knots;
temperature at 81 degrees F and relative humidity at 60 percent.
At Launch Pad 17A, the Delta's
2nd stage propellant loading was completed
Wednesday and spacecraft closeouts are in work today.
The Mars Odyssey Prelaunch
News Conference is scheduled for Friday, April 6,
at 1 p.m. and the Mission Science Briefing will follow at 2 p.m.
Both
events will be carried live on NASA TV. NASA TV begins live coverage
of
launch day activities at 9:30 a.m. April 7.
Greater investment in space
science would help nurture Europe's
scientific community and consequently build up the
knowledge-based society that Europe's heads of state
declared they wanted at the European Union summit in
Lisbon last year. This was a common message delivered
to the General Assembly of the European Geophysical
Society in Nice last week by the outgoing and incoming
directors of ESA's science programme.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26740
Also from the EGS:
**Mars keeps turning up surprises**
It was standing room only for
the "Water and life on Mars"
session at the European Geophysical Society's General Assembly
in Nice last week. "This shows that the life issue is by
no
means dead. This was a very lively session," commented Agustin
Chicarro, Project Scientist for ESA's Mars Express mission.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=9&cid=32&oid=26749
**First results from the Jupiter observation campaign at the EGS **
While Huygens 'sleeps' during
most of the seven year trip to
Titan, many of the Cassini Orbiter instruments have already
started to obtain exciting scientific data. For example, during
the gravity-assist manoeuvres around Venus and Earth in
mid-1999, calibration measurements were made. These are
important for understanding the in-flight performances of
the instruments and for preparing for the mission for which
they have been designed - observations of Saturn and Titan.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=12&cid=35&oid=26743
ENDEAVOUR LAUNCH SET FOR
APRIL 19; MISSION WILL EXPAND HUMAN REACH IN SPACE
WITH CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ROBOTICS
Endeavour will launch April
19, 2001, to deliver a new generation of
Canadian space robotics to the International Space Station. The
robotic arm
is longer, stronger, more flexible and more capable than even
the Space
Shuttle's venerable arm.
Shuttle managers today set
Endeavour's launch for 2:41 p.m. EDT April 19
from the Kennedy Space Center, FL, on an 11-day mission that will
continue
the assembly that has transformed the orbiting complex during
the past eight
months into the largest and most sophisticated space laboratory
ever built.
"The launch of Endeavour
marks a significant milestone for us in that it
completes a quick, safe and successful full turnaround of the
Space Shuttle
fleet dedicated to assembly of the station in only a few months,"
Space
Shuttle Program Manager Ron Dittemore said. "Once Endeavour
arrives on this
flight, all three shuttles capable of docking with the station
will have
done so twice in the past eight months. The International Space
Station's
assembly has relied on our ability to maintain a schedule of regular
launches to complete uniquely complex missions, and the shuttle
team has
come through in safe, successful and spectacular fashion."
In addition to the Canadarm2,
which is the centerpiece of Canada's
contribution to the International Space Station, Endeavour's flight,
designated STS-100, also will carry the second Italian Space Agency
logistics carrier, a module named Raffaello. Endeavour's flight
is planned
to include the most complex and intricate robotics work ever conducted
in
space to install the arm, as well as to deliver more research
equipment and
experiments to the station than any previous mission.
Commanded by Kent Rominger,
Endeavour's crew represents four space agencies
and is the most diverse international crew to ever fly in space.
Pilot is
Jeff Ashby; and Mission Specialists include John Phillips and
Scott
Parazynski; Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Space Agency astronaut;
Umberto
Guidoni, a European Space Agency astronaut; and Yuri Lonchakov,
a Russian
Aviation and Space Agency cosmonaut.
Endeavour is scheduled to land April 30 at the Kennedy Space Center.
Status reports and other NASA
publications are available on the
World Wide Web at:
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/kscpao.htm .
Information about the countdown
and mission can be accessed
electronically via the Internet at:
http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/countdown/ and at
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/
Was Johnny Appleseed a Comet?
A new experiment suggests that
comet impacts could have sowed the seeds of
life on Earth billions of years ago.
FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast05apr_1.htm?list448368
NASA FY 2002 BUDGET BRIEFING SCHEDULED
A briefing for news media on
NASA's fiscal year 2002 budget request
will be held on Monday, April 9, 2001, at 11 a.m. Pacific time
in the
James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St., SW,
Washington, DC.
NASA Administrator Daniel S.
Goldin and NASA Comptroller Malcolm
Peterson will participate in the briefing and answer questions.
The
briefing will be carried live on NASA TV with two-way
question-and-answer capability for reporters covering the event
from
participating NASA centers, including the Dryden Flight Research
Center at Edwards. A summary of the budget request will be
distributed to media representatives at the beginning of the press
conference. The budget request also will be available on the NASA
Home Page on the Internet by mid-day Monday.
Deep Space 1 Mission Status
April 4, 2001
Deep Space 1 Mission Status
The innovative engine now propelling
NASA's Deep Space 1
spacecraft toward its ambitious September encounter with Comet
Borrelly just won't give up, having now run for more than
10,000 hours -- 50 times beyond its originally required
lifetime.
A working replica of the Deep
Space 1 ion engine has
logged in even more hours at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., where the mission is managed.
The spacecraft's engine was only required to complete 200
hours of operation in flight to prove itself a success. On
March 21, it passed the 10,000-hour mark. It's expected to
pass 14,000 hours by the end of its extended mission to Comet
Borrelly.
The ion engine works by first
removing an electron from
the gas xenon, then using a pair of electrically charged grids
to shoot the ionized gas out at more than 35,000 meters per
second (78,000 miles per hour). The engine is one of a dozen
important new technologies that the successful Deep Space 1
mission officially finished testing in 1999. Now that Deep
Space 1 has been approved for a risky extended mission to
Comet Borrelly, the long-lived ion engine will take the
spacecraft near the comet. Similar ion engines may be used on
future space missions, particularly missions to comets and
asteroids where the ion engine's high fuel economy is
important for precise navigation to the small bodies.
"The ground-based xenon
ion engine has run for about
15,500 hours of testing time since the test began in early
October 1998," said Dr. John Anderson of JPL, the ion engine
test lead engineer. "That's more than 150 percent of the
time
it was designed to last."
"The results from Deep
Space 1 and testing on the ground
show that ion engines can be terrifically effective," said
JPL's Dr. Marc Rayman, the project manager of Deep Space 1.
"Now I'm looking forward to future spacecraft that use ion
engines surpassing Deep Space 1's record as they undertake
still more exciting missions."
Engineers partly attribute
the secrets to the ion
engine's long life to a slight increase in the flow of xenon
through the engine early in the testing phase. "This reduced
the amount of wear on the engine, and yet didn't significantly
affect the engine's efficiency," said Dr. John Brophy, manger
of NASA's Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Applications
Readiness project.
Anderson began testing the
ground-based ion engine when
it was shipped to JPL from Hughes, which is now part of
Boeing, in 1998. "We'd like to test it until the end of its
life. Then we'll see how to make these engines last even
longer," he said. He had also tested an earlier version of
the ion engine, beginning in 1996.
The ion engine is tested for
about 75 percent of the time
over the two and a half years of the test, Anderson said, with
other time spent on running diagnostic tests, and defrosting
the xenon propellant that had become frozen in the vacuum
system. At first, the engine was run at just more than half of
its capacity, about 1.5 kilowatts, and then upped to full
capacity, 2.3 kilowatts. The next phase of the test will be to
run the engine at its lowest thrust level to demonstrate the
engine's ability to run at low power near the end of its life,
Anderson said.
Deep Space 1 has operated its
ion engine between 520
watts and 1.9 kilowatts, in part depending upon the
spacecraft's distance from the Sun during its flight in space.
Deep Space 1's ion engine now also helps the spacecraft
maintain its orientation relative to the stars, so it remains
on for 99 percent of the time.
Deep Space 1 was launched in
October 1998 as part of
NASA's New Millennium Program, which is managed by JPL for
NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for
NASA.
More information can be found
on the Deep Space 1 home
page at http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/ .
Biggest solar flare on record is seen by SOHO
On Monday 2 April at 23:51
Central European Time (21:51 UT) the Sun
unleashed a major solar flare near its northwestern (upper right-hand)
side. Originally classified as an X17 flare, it has now been upgraded
to
X20, and appears to be the biggest flare yet on record. Monday's
flare is
the strongest flare since 16 August 1989 when the last X20 flare
occurred
and is certainly more powerful than the famous 6 March 1989 flare
which was related
to the disruption of the power grids in Canada. The event was
well observed
by the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26738
Gamma-ray bursts may originate in star-forming regions
New findings from two X-ray
satellites suggest that gamma-ray
bursts, some of the most intense blasts in the Universe, may be
created in
the same area where stars are born.
Dr. Luigi Piro of the Consiglio
Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) in
Rome, Italy, presented data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
and the
Italian-Dutch ASI BeppoSAX observatory today at the Gamma Ray
2001
conference in Baltimore, Md.
"We know that when a gamma-ray
burst explodes, it produces a blast
of material called a fireball, which expands at relativistic speeds
like a
rapidly inflating bubble," said Piro, who works within CNR's
Istituto di
Astrofisica Spaziale. "Our team found evidence that the blast
wave caused by
the fireball brakes against a wall of very dense gas, which we
believe is
the crowded region where stars form."
Several theories exist about
what causes gamma-ray bursts. Among
more popular theories are that gamma-ray bursts come from various
combinations of merging neutron stars and black holes, or, from
the
explosion of massive stars, called hypernovae.
"Because gamma-ray bursts
are going off in extremely distant
galaxies, it is difficult to 'see' the regions that harbor them,"
said Piro.
"We can only gather circumstantial evidence as to where and
how they form."
Piro's observations support
the hypernova model. Scientists believe
that within dense star-forming regions, the massive star required
for a
hypernova explosion evolves extremely rapidly. On astronomical
time scales,
the supermassive star would evolve over the course of only about
one million
years. Thus, the hypernova explosion may occur in the same stellar
environment that originally produced the massive star itself,
and perhaps
may trigger even more star formation.
The hint that gamma-ray bursts
can occur in dense media came during
a Chandra observation of an afterglow that occurred on September
26, 2000.
Prof. Gordon Garmire of Pennsylvania State University, University
Park, Pa.,
found X-ray emission to be greater than that expected by the standard
scenario of a fireball in a low-density medium - an important
clue that the
explosion occurred in a dense region. Next, on February 22, 2001,
Piro said
that Chandra observations of the burst's afterglow, one of the
brightest
bursts ever observed by BeppoSAX, provided evidence of a fireball
expanding
in a very dense gas.
These recent results supported
data from four other gamma-ray bursts
observed by BeppoSAX and Chandra (GRB970508, GRB990705, GRB991216,
and
GRB000214). In these bursts, Piro and his team found evidence
indicating
that the burst had encountered an extremely dense gas. The properties
of
this gas suggest that it originated from a very massive progenitor
before it
exploded as a gamma-ray burst.
A key element in the success
of these observations has been the
perfect timing and liaison between the two satellites, Chandra
and BeppoSAX,
according to Piro. Piro is the Mission Scientist for BeppoSAX,
the
instrument that first detected X-ray afterglows from gamma-ray
bursts.
Currently, astronomers are
not usually notified about gamma-ray
bursts until an hour or so after they occur. These bursts last
only for a
few milliseconds to about a minute, although their afterglow can
linger in
X-ray and optical light for days or weeks. The HETE-2 satellite,
launched in
October 2000, and Swift, scheduled for a 2003 launch, will provide
nearly
instant notification of bursts in action, providing satellites
such as
Chandra a better opportunity to study the afterglow phenomenon
in depth.
The ACIS X-ray camera was developed
for NASA by Penn State and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The High Energy Transmission
Grating
Spectrometer was built by MIT. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
in
Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program. TRW, Inc., Redondo
Beach,
Calif., is the prime contractor for the spacecraft. The Smithsonian's
Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from
Cambridge,
Mass. Images associated with this release are available on the
World Wide
Web at:
http://chandra.harvard.edu
and
http://chandra.nasa.gov
NASA Marshall Web site wins international award for promoting science
A leading NASA Web site, located
at http://Science.NASA.gov, has
earned international recognition, winning Pirelli's INTERNETional
special
section prize for scientific information - an award for the best
multimedia
product promoting scientific awareness via the Internet.
The award, given annually by
Pirelli S.p.A., an Italian
multinational manufacturer of tires, cables and systems for
telecommunications and energy transmission, was presented Tuesday,
April 3,
in a formal ceremony in Rome, Italy.
The award-winning NASA Web
site features science, math and space
news. It is one of the Science@NASA family of Web sites operated
by NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and covers a
variety of
space-related subjects in simple terms everyone can understand.
The site addresses such questions
as what is space weather, what's
in the heart of a hurricane, whether humans can live on Mars,
and what it's
like to live aboard the International Space Station.
"We are honored to receive
this award," said Ron Koczor, the NASA
manager responsible for the site. "It's heartening to know
our science news
is reaching not only people throughout the United States, but
people
throughout the world."
The family of Web sites that
includes http://Science.NASA.gov,
averages more than 45 million hits a month. A Spanish version
of this site
is located at:
http://ciencia.msfc.NASA.gov
Approximately 200 people attended
the awards ceremony, including the
Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and Marco Tronchetti Provera,
chairman
and chief executive officer of Pirelli.
Pirelli launched the awards
program in 1995 to identify and promote
excellence in multimedia works that improve knowledge and intelligent
control of science and technology. More information about the
Pirelli
Awards can be found at:
Last night the Science@NASA family of web sites received a prestigious
international honor, the 2000 Pirelli INTERNETional Award, which
recognizes excellence in science communications and "the
spread of science
culture" using the Internet.
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast04apr_1.htm?list448368
Expedition Two Crew
The resident crew of the International Space Station Commander
Yury Usachev and Flight Engineers Jim Voss and Susan Helms spent
the last week conducting experiments and performing routine housekeeping
chores and some maintenance work.
The activation of the station,s Ku-Band antenna remains on hold until a software update is uplinked to the station,s computers Thursday. This command is designed to correct an apparent pointing error with the dish-shaped antenna. The Ku-Band system is used to transmit television, voice and high-speed data to the ground. Normal communication is being managed through the S-Band audio system. Any required TV images, in the meantime, can be accommodated through the use of the laptop computer-based digital video system.
Also, the crew changed out components of the carbon dioxide removal assembly system in the Destiny Laboratory in an effort to recover its use. Troubleshooting work continues as engineers evaluate what appears to be a sluggish vent valve on the unit. The Zvezda module,s CO2 removal system is working fine and providing more than adequate capability to cleanse the cabin air in the meantime.
Oxygen for the crew currently is being provided by supply tanks in the Progress supply vehicle, which boosted the cabin air yesterday. Without the Progress, the Russian Elektron in Zvezda provides oxygen generation. Not presently needed, the Elektron is turned off.
Apart from maintenance tasks and routine housekeeping chores, the crew has been working with experiments on board. The Human Research Facility rack in Destiny is managed and operated by a science and operations team from the Telescience Support Center down the hall from the station,s flight control room in Mission Control, Houston. All payloads on the station are overseen from NASA,s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama where the Payloads Operations Center is located. For details on the science investigations ongoing aboard the ISS, visit the following website:
http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news/releases/2001/01-105.html
The Progress supply craft currently docked to the aft end of the Zvezda module is scheduled to be undocked around April 15 in preparation for the arrival of the next shuttle flight carrying the station,s Canadian-built robot arm and a second Italian Space Agency supplied logistics module called Raffaello. The open port allows for the relocation of the Soyuz capsule around April 17, which will provide clearance for the placement of Raffaello during the docked phase of the shuttle mission. The Flight Readiness Review to evaluate the readiness of Endeavour, its crew and the station for the shuttle,s launch on the STS-100 mission will be held Thursday to select a target launch date, which currently is around April 19.
Earlier today, a small test firing of the Progress supply ship,s thrusters was performed to verify command capability of the steering jets via the Zvezda module,s computers. The brief engine burn resulted in a change in the velocity of the Station of only one meter per second. It was the first time the Progress thrusters were commanded from the ground through the Zvezda module,s computers.
The test sets the stage for another Progress engine firing early next week designed to refine the orbit of the station relative to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for the arrival of a new Soyuz capsule to replace the one presently docked to the station. Soyuz capsules routinely are changed about every 180 days. A taxi crew, as it,s called, will deliver the new capsule and return to Earth in the one launched last October carrying the station,s first Expedition Crew.
Late Tuesday, a handover of the station,s attitude control from the electrically driven Control Moment Gyroscopes to the Zvezda module,s thrusters was performed as a test to verify that the automatic switchover would occur in the event that the CMGs developed a problem. The test allowed the system to think, that the gyros had failed down to one operational system and the computers automatically switched to the thrusters. The test verified the system is fully operational.
The International Space Station
continues to orbit the Earth in good shape at an altitude of 238
statute miles (384 km). The next ISS Status Report will be issued
April 11, unless developments warrant.
April 3, 2001
SWISS CHEESE-LIKE GAS CLOUD
HOLDS CLUES TO STARQUAKES
By spinning ultra-cold sodium gas in a laboratory,
NASA-funded scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) in Cambridge have created a gas cloud that
resembles rounded Swiss cheese and is riddled with tiny
whirlpools, like those that cause "starquakes" in space.
This research may teach scientists more about the
history of our universe and the stars within it and may
eventually lead to vast improvements in highly precise atomic
clocks.
The laboratory demonstration is related to puzzling
glitches observed by astronomers in the otherwise smooth,
rapid rotation of pulsars. A pulsar is a type of neutron star,
a remnant of a dying star and one of the densest objects in
the universe. Glitches in pulsar rotation are called
"starquakes" and may occur when whirlpools, or vortices,
form
or decay.
"This was a breathtaking experience when we saw these
vortices," said Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle, an MIT physics
professor who led the research team. "We took this ultra-cold,
fragile gas, and we were amazed that even though we put
hundreds of whirlpools into it, the gas cloud remained stable
and happy."
Ketterle and his colleagues, who conducted the research
under a grant from the Biological and Physical Research
Program through NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., cooled the sodium gas to less than one millionth of a
degree above absolute zero (-273 Celsius or -460 Fahrenheit).
At such extreme cold, the gas cloud converts to a peculiar
form of matter called Bose-Einstein condensate, as predicted
75 years ago by Albert Einstein.
No physical container can hold such ultra-cold matter,
so Ketterle's team used magnets to keep the cloud in place.
They then used a laser beam to make the gas cloud spin, a
process Ketterle compares to "stroking a ping-pong ball with
a
feather until it starts spinning."
The spinning sodium gas cloud, whose volume was one-
millionth of a cubic centimeter, much smaller than a raindrop,
developed a regular pattern of more than 100 whirlpools.
Previously, scientists in a laboratory had seen only one
or a few quantum whirlpools in a superfluid; this was the
first direct observation of many whirlpools. Both the sodium
gas cloud and pulsars are superfluids, which allow matter to
flow without friction. Scientists know that superfluids form
quantum whirlpools as they rotate; quantum whirlpools reflect
the smallest possible increase in rotation for the cloud or
the pulsar. One might expect different behavior from the two
systems, because the gas cloud is 100,000 times thinner than
air, while a pulsar is about ten thousand trillion times
denser than air.
"This was an example of a designer quantum system, where
we make something happen in the laboratory that doesn't occur
naturally on Earth," said Dr. Mark Lee, fundamental physics
discipline scientist for the Office of Biological and Physical
Research at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. "Astronomers
had observed these phenomena on pulsars but had no opportunity
to manipulate them, until now."
The scientists were also challenged with how to
photograph the quantum whirlpools, which were too small to be
seen except with special magnification. They switched off the
magnets containing the gas cloud, allowing it to expand to 20
times its original size, which made the whirlpools large
enough to be photographed. As the cloud expanded, gravity made
it fall, and the team had to take the picture quickly. These
gravitational limitations would be absent in the near-
weightless environment that will soon be available to
researchers on the International Space Station.
Ketterle co-authored the quantum experiment paper, which
is currently scheduled to appear in the April 20 issue of the
journal Science, with Jamil Abo-Shaeer and Drs. Chandra Raman
and Johnny Vogels, all of MIT. The research was funded by
NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval
Research, the Army Research Office and the David and Lucile
Packard Foundation. JPL manages the Fundamental Physics in
Microgravity Research Program for NASA's Office of Biological
and Physical Research. JPL is a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Visual depictions of the experiment are available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/funphysics .
More information on the experiment and NASA's Biological
and Physical Research Fundamental Physics Program can be found
at the following web sites:
http://amo.mit.edu/~bec
http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov
http://funphysics.jpl.nasa.gov
HATCHING AN ICEBERG: SATELLITE VIEWS LARGE CRACK IN GLACIER
Two images of Pine Island Glacier
in Antarctica show the
recently discovered 25-kilometer-long (15-mile) crack that
scientists expect will turn into a large iceberg within the
next 18 months. The views from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging
SpectroRadiometer (MISR) also reveal differences in the ice
sheet's surface texture, highlighting surface fractures and
enabling distinction of rough crevasses from smooth blue ice.
The images are available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/misr .
More information about the discovery of the Pine Island
crack can be found in a NASA press release at
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-050.txt .
MISR, built and managed by
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
is one of several Earth-observing experiments aboard NASA's
Terra satellite, which was launched in December 1999. MISR
acquires images of the Earth at nine angles simultaneously,
using nine separate cameras pointed forward, downward, and
backward along its flight path. More information about MISR is
available at http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov .
The MISR team updates the images
on the Web site every
week and invites the public to make suggestions by e-mail at
suggestions@mail-misr.jpl.nasa.gov.
Nothing goes to waste on
the International Space Station - nearly
everything is recycled. What makes this ecologist's dream world
work? Some
of the fanciest plumbing in the solar system!
FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast03apr_2.htm?list448368
NASA/JSC SPECIAL EVENT FEATURES STS-98 ASTRONAUTS
The public is invited to share
the flight experiences of the five-member
STS-98 crew at 6:30 p.m. April 4 at Space Center Houston. In a
special
ceremony in Space Center Houston,s IMAX Theater, the astronauts
will
receive their NASA Space Flight Medals, and other space workers
will be
recognized with awards from Johnson Space Center Acting Director
Roy S.
Estess. The Atlantis crew will narrate a slide show and video
presentation highlighting the recent 12-day mission. During the
flight,
STS-98 crew Commander Kenneth Cockrell, Pilot Mark Polansky and
Mission
Specialists Marsha Ivins, Robert Curbeam, Jr., and Thomas Jones
delivered and installed the United States Laboratory "Destiny
to the
International Space Station.
The event begins promptly at
6:30 p.m. and is free and open to the
public. Due to limited seating and first-come, first-served admission,
visitors should plan to arrive early. Space Center Houston doors
open
for the event at 6:00 p.m.
SPACEWALKING ASTRONAUTS TAKE A WALK IN THE (BASEBALL) PARK
Having helped open a new era
in space science research,
NASA Astronauts Robert Curbeam and Tom Jones came back to
Baltimore on Monday to help open the new season for their
hometown Orioles.
Curbeam and Jones, who made
three spacewalks in February as
part of the assembly of the International Space Station,
threw out ceremonial first pitches before the Orioles' season
opener against the Boston Red Sox.
After the sun chased away morning
clouds and a cool spring
breeze blew up from right field, the two astronauts were
escorted to the mound by U.S. Senators Barbara Mikulski and
Paul Sarbanes. Each spacefarer fired a strike to an Orioles
catcher, Curbeam to Greg Myers and Jones to Fernando Lunar.
"I need to get my fastball up more," said Jones. "It
moves
much better in zero-g."
Curbeam said he threw his four-seam
fastball, but he wasn't
entirely happy with it. "I need a little more motion on it."
Curbeam and Jones are both
Baltimore natives. As boys, they
were members of the Junior Orioles, the team's youth
organization, and both attended several games every season at
Memorial Stadium. Perhaps the astronauts brought Baltimore a
bit of luck, because the Orioles won the game, 2-1, in 11 innings.
In February, Curbeam and Jones
flew aboard STS-98, which
delivered the American-made science laboratory Destiny to the
International Space Station. During their three spacewalks
they completed the installation of the laboratory, deployed
communications equipment, installed a docking port and
practiced techniques for rescuing an incapacitated
spacewalker.
Images of the opening day event
are available on the Internet
at: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/images/paoimages/sts_98/98_orioles/
SUN UNLEASHES RECORD SUPERFLARE,
EARTH DODGES SOLAR BULLET
The Sun blasted one of its
largest flares in 25 years
from the same region harboring the largest sunspot of the
current solar cycle Monday evening.
The region, designated active
region 9393, has continued to
rotate with the Sun and is no longer in line with the Earth,
so most of the flare's energy was directed away from our
planet. However, radiation from the flare temporarily
disrupted radio communications, and flare-related events
generated a storm of high-velocity particles that, in greater
numbers and energies, can affect sensitive electronic
equipment in space.
"This explosion was estimated
as an X-20 flare, and was as
strong as the record X-20 flare on August 16, 1989, " said
Dr.
Paal Brekke, the European Space Agency Deputy Project
Scientist for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO),
one of a fleet of spacecraft monitoring solar activity and its
effects on the Earth. "It was more powerful that the famous
March 6, 1989 flare which was related to the disruption of the
power grids in Canada."
Monday's flare and the August
1989 flare are the most powerful
recorded since regular X-ray data became available in 1976.
Solar flares, among the solar
system's mightiest eruptions,
are tremendous explosions in the atmosphere of the Sun capable
of releasing as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.
Caused by the sudden release of magnetic energy, in just a few
seconds flares can accelerate solar particles to very high
velocities, almost to the speed of light, and heat solar
material to tens of millions of degrees.
The flare erupted at 4:51 p.m.
EDT Monday, and produced an R4
radio blackout on the sunlit side of the Earth. An R4
blackout, rated by the NOAA SEC, is second to the most severe
R5 classification. The classification measures the disruption
in radio communications. X-ray and ultraviolet light from the
flare changed the structure of the Earth's electrically
charged upper atmosphere (ionosphere). This affected radio
communication frequencies that either pass through the
ionosphere to satellites or are reflected by it to traverse
the globe.
The explosion, near the Sun's
northwest limb (the upper right
in SOHO images), was associated with an eruption of a cloud of
electrified gas, called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, into
space, but apparently not directed towards Earth.
"We are perhaps lucky
that this event didn't occur over the
weekend, when the resulting CME would almost certainly have
been aimed towards Earth," said Brekke. "A smaller flare-
related CME event in March 1989 caused major power failures in
Canada, and subsequent smaller events have disrupted
communication and navigation satellites."
Solar ejections are often associated
with flares and sometimes
occur shortly after the flare explosion. CMEs are clouds of
electrified, magnetic gas weighing billions of tons ejected
from the Sun and hurled into space with speeds ranging from 12
to 1,250 miles per second. Depending on the orientation of the
magnetic fields carried by the ejection cloud, Earth-directed
CMEs cause magnetic storms by interacting with the Earth's
magnetic field, distorting its shape and accelerating
electrically charged particles (electrons and atomic nuclei)
trapped within.
Severe solar weather is often
heralded by dramatic auroral
displays, northern and southern lights, and magnetic storms
that occasionally affect satellites, radio communications and
power systems. The flare and solar ejection has also generated
a storm of high-velocity particles, and the number of
particles with ten million electron-volts of energy in the
space near Earth is now 10,000 times greater than normal. The
increase of particles at this energy level still poses no
appreciable hazard to air travelers, astronauts or satellites,
and the NOAA SEC rates this radiation storm as a moderate S2
to S3, on a scale that goes to S5.
The SOHO project is an international
cooperative program
between NASA and the European Space Agency for the
International Solar Terrestrial Science Program.
For additional information
and images regarding the flare,
space weather and the giant sunspot, see:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/X17/
http://www.spaceweather.com/
http://www.sel.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/index.html
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr01/img0101.html
NASA EXERCISES DELTA II CONTRACT OPTION FOR SWIFT SPACECRAFT
NASA today announced plans
to exercise a contract option
with the Boeing Company for a Delta II 7320-10 expendable
launch vehicle to launch the Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer
spacecraft. The firm-fixed price option is covered under the
NASA Launch Services contract (NAS10-00-001) officially
awarded by NASA's Kennedy Space Center on June 16, 2000 to
Delta Launch Services, Inc., Huntington Beach, CA.
NASA's total launch services
budget for the Swift campaign is
approximately $50 million dollars.
Using multiple instruments,
Swift is the first-ever spacecraft
designed to detect, observe and characterize gamma ray bursts
in several different wavelengths. It is designed to provide a
definitive answer regarding the nature of gamma ray bursts and
will also perform the first sensitive hard x-ray survey of the
sky. Over the operating design life of three years, Swift will
observe approximately 1,000 gamma ray bursts.
Swift is scheduled for launch
September 2003 from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station, FL.
The Swift Program is managed
by the NASA Headquarters Office
of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Swift spacecraft project
is managed by NASA's Explorers Program Office, Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.
A Record-Setting Solar Flare
The biggest sunspot of the
current solar cycle unleashed the most powerful
solar flare in at least 12 years yesterday. The "X17"
class eruption
blasted a coronal mass ejection into space and triggered an ongoing
solar
radiation storm around our planet. For details and updates please
visit
http://SpaceWeather.com .
A Supernova Sheds Light on Dark Energy
A discovery by astronomers
using the Hubble Space Telescope supports the
notion that the Universe is filled with a mysterious form of "dark
energy"
-- a possibility first proposed, then discarded, by Albert Einstein
early
in the last century.
FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast03apr_1.htm?list448368
SOHO records a giant flare on the Sun
Last night at 23:51 Central
European Time (21:51 UT, 2 April) the Sun
unleashed a major solar flare near its northwestern (upper right-hand)
side
and the event was well observed by the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft.
It
was classified as an X17 flare, probably the strongest flare since
16
August 1989 when an X20 flare occurred. It was slightly more powerful
than
the famous 6 March 1989 flare which was related to the disruption
of the
power grids in Canada. The latest event hurled a coronal mass
ejection
into space - but apparently not towards the Earth, so the impacts
will
probably be less severe.
More at: http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=26703
NOTE: This is an orbiter
processing report and does not necessarily reflect
the chronological order of upcoming Space Shuttle flights. Visit
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/schedule.htm on the KSC Home
Page for the latest schedule of future Shuttle missions.
MISSION: STS-100 - 9th ISS Flight (6A) -Raffaello MPLM, SSRMS
VEHICLE: Endeavour/OV-105
LOCATION: Launch Pad 39A
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Apr. 19, 2001 at 2:41 p.m. EDT
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Apr. 30, 2001 at 9:35 a.m.
MISSION DURATION: 10 days, 18 hours and 54 minutes
CREW: Rominger, Ashby, Hadfield, Parazynski, Phillips, Guidoni,
Lonchakov
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 173 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Processing
of Space Shuttle Endeavour continues on
schedule at Launch Pad 39A. The flight crew has departed KSC following
last
week's Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test activities, but they
are
expected to return this weekend for a payload bay familiarization
walk-down
that was delayed last week due to rain last week.
Engineers will conduct Endeavour's
prelaunch propellant load early this
week. After loading oxidizer into the orbiter's onboard storage
tanks today,
fuel loading will commence tomorrow morning. The MPLM payload
arrives at
the pad Thursday for installation into the payload bay on Saturday.
Shuttle mission managers will
convene the Flight Readiness Review at KSC
Thursday morning expecting to announce an official launch date
for STS-100.
Upcoming Milestones:
Orbiter prelaunch propellant loading begins . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . .Apr. 2
Flight Readiness Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Apr. 5
Payload arrives at the pad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Apr. 5
Orbiter aft engine compartment closeouts begin . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. .Apr. 9
Shuttle ordnance installation begins . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . Apr. 10
Close payload bay doors for flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . Apr. 10
MISSION: STS-104 - 10th ISS
Flight (7A) - Airlock
VEHICLE: Atlantis/OV-104
LOCATION: OPF bay 3
KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: NET June 14, 4:15 p.m. EDT
KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: June 25, 12:30 p.m.
MISSION DURATION: 11 days
CREW: Lindsey, Hobaugh, Kavandi, Gernhardt, Reilly
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Technicians
have completed deservicing work on
freon coolant loop No. 2 and are proceeding with line replacement.
Standard
inspections of Atlantis' windows are in work today. Orbiter power
reactant
storage and distribution system testing continues, and drag chute
installation occurs this week. Atlantis' left-hand orbital maneuvering
system (OMS) pod will undergo a thruster manifold replacement
this weekend.
MISSION: STS-105 - 11th ISS Flight (7A.1) - Leonardo MPLM
VEHICLE: Discovery/OV-103
LOCATION: OPF bay 2
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: July 12, 2001 at 4:45 a.m. EST
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: July 22, 2001 at 12:29 a.m. EST
MISSION DURATION: 10 days
CREW: Horowitz, Struckow, Barry, Forrester; (up) Culbertson, Dezhurov,
Turin
(down) Voss, Helms, Usachev
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 122 nautical miles/51.6
degrees
NOTE: Removal of Discovery's
three main engines is complete. Technicians
begin offloading Discovery's residual hypergols tomorrow. Routine
orbiter
inspections continue on schedule and technicians continue to establish
orbiter access.
MISSION: STS-109 - HST Servicing
Mission 3B
VEHICLE: Columbia/OV-102
LOCATION: OPF bay 1
TARGET KSC LAUNCH DATE/TIME: Nov. 19 under review
TARGET KSC LANDING DATE/TIME: Nov. 30 under review
MISSION DURATION: TBD
CREW: Altman, Carey, Grunsfeld, Currie, Newman, Linnehan, Massimino
ORBITAL INSERTION ALTITUDE and INCLINATION: 308 nautical miles/28.5
degrees
Shuttle Processing Note: Inspection
of Columbia's main landing gear and
avionics bays continues. Tomorrow, technicians will remove the
orbiter's
left-hand OMS pod simulator and begin right-hand pod removal Friday.
This Week on Galileo
April 2-8, 2001
There are no engineering activities
scheduled this week, so the spacecraft
can concentrate on playing back the data stored on the on-board
tape
recorder during its December flyby of Ganymede.
From the Solid State Imaging
(SSI) camera, three observations will be seen
this week. First up will be additional views from a set of color
pictures
of the boundary area of Ganymede's North Polar Cap. This flyby
of Ganymede
occurred near 60 degrees North latitude, and this will complete
our view of
the North Polar Cap. There are no more passes by Ganymede for
the remainder
of the mission, so this will be our last high-resolution look
at the area.
Also scheduled are images taken of an equatorial region of Ganymede
named
Dardanus Sulcus. These pictures will help trace a strike-slip
fault that
cuts through this region's dark terrain. Finally, some data from
color Io
observations which were lost in earlier trasmissions will be replayed.
From the Near-Infrared Mapping
Spectrometer (NIMS), data taken at moderate
spatial resolution of Ganymede will be returned, as well as a
global image
of Ganymede obtained with the current full complement of NIMS
wavelengths.
This will give information about the composition of different
areas of the
satellite surface. Infrared observations of Io help to monitor
that
satellite's volcanic activity. In cooperation with the Cassini
Visible and
Infrared Mapping Spectrometer instrument, NIMS observations were
also made
of Europa. NIMS also viewed the turbulent region of the atmosphere
of
Jupiter trailing the Great Red Spot, investigated hot spots in
the clouds,
and looked for aurorae in the south polar region of the giant
planet.
For more information on the
Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter,
please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo
FARTHEST SUPERNOVA EVER SEEN
SHEDS LIGHT ON DARK UNIVERSE
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
has seen a burst of light
from an exploding star located much farther from Earth than
any previously seen - a supernova blast in the early Universe
that is casting light on a mystery of truly cosmic scale.
This stellar explosion is extraordinary
not only because of
its tremendous distance, 10 billion light-years from Earth,
but also because its discovery greatly bolsters the case for
the existence of a mysterious form of "dark energy"
pervading
the universe. The concept of dark energy, which shoves
galaxies away from each other at an ever-increasing speed, was
first proposed, then discarded, by Albert Einstein early in
the last century.
The Hubble discovery also reinforces
the startling idea that
the universe only recently began speeding up. The discovery
was made about three years ago, when the unusually dim light
of several distant supernovas suggested the universe is
expanding more quickly than in the past. At the time, there
were several explanations as to why this might be so,
including "dark energy". The more distant supernova
refutes
the other alternatives and offers the first tantalizing
observational evidence that gravity began slowing down the
expansion of the Universe after the Big Bang, and only later
did the repulsive force of dark energy win out over gravity's
grip.
"The supernova appears
to be one of a special class of
explosions that allows astronomers to understand how the
universe's expansion has changed over time, much as the way a
parent follows a child's growth spurts by marking a doorway,"
said Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute
(STScI), Baltimore, MD. "This supernova shows us the universe
is behaving like a driver who slows down approaching a red
stoplight and then hits the accelerator when the light turns
green."
The team of astronomers, led
by Riess, made the discovery by
analyzing hundreds of images taken by Hubble in infrared and
visible light to study how galaxies formed. Fortuitously, one
of those galaxies contained a supernova previously discovered
by astronomers Ron Gilliland, STScI, and Mark Phillips,
Carnegie Institutions of Washington.
The record-breaking supernova
appears relatively bright,
consequence of the Universe slowing down in the past (when the
supernova exploded) and accelerating only recently. The reason
is that a decelerating universe holds galaxies relatively
close together and objects in them would have appeared
brighter because they would be closer. "Long ago, when the
light left this distant supernova, the universe appears to
have been slowing down due to the mutual tug of all the mass
in the universe," said Riess. "Billions of years later,
when
the light left more recent supernovas, the universe had begun
accelerating, stretching the expanse between galaxies and
making objects in them appear dimmer."
"Hubble's ability to find
titanic stellar explosions at these
extreme distances is what it takes to confirm this theory that
the universe must have been slowing down before it switched
into high gear,'" said Dr. Anne Kinney, Director of NASA's
Origins program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. "Later
this year astronauts will install a new camera on Hubble that
will give us 10 times better resolution than the current
camera, which will give us even better capability to find
answers to grand cosmic questions like this."
Observations of several distant
supernovas by two teams of
astronomers in 1998 led to the theory that the universe got
the "green light" to accelerate when it was half its
present
age. Astronomers say the new Hubble findings rule out other
explanations.
Nearly a century ago, Einstein's
Law of General Relativity
concluded the universe must collapse under the relentless pull
of gravity. However, like many scientists of his time, he
assumed the universe to be static and unchanging. To make his
equations fit those assumptions, Einstein added something he
called the "cosmological constant" whose gravity is
repulsive,
though he had no idea if it was real.
Shortly afterwards, astronomer
Edwin Hubble made the
celebrated discovery that the universe was expanding. He
assumed that the universe must be slowing down under gravity
and might even come to a halt, leading Einstein later to say
that his cosmological constant was the biggest blunder of his
career. Now it appears Einstein was on the right track after
all.
The source of the repulsive
gravity may be something akin to
Einstein's cosmological constant -- referred to as the energy
of the "quantum vacuum," a subatomic netherworld pervading
space -- or it may be something entirely new and unexpected.
"While we don't know what
dark energy is we are certain that
understanding it will provide crucial clues in the quest to
unify the forces and particles in the universe, and that the
route to this understanding involves telescopes, not
accelerators," said astrophysicist Michael Turner of the
University of Chicago.
Riess made the discovery in
collaboration with Peter Nugent
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Brian Schmidt, (Mount
Stromlo Observatory) and John Tonry (Institute for Astronomy).
NASA's Hubble Space telescope is a project of international
cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency.
Electronic images are available on the Internet at:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/09
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