International Space Fellowship

XCOR - Liquid Oxygen Piston Pump Ready for Reusable Space Flight

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:27:57 +0000

XCOR’s Tests of Lynx Cryogenic Piston Pump a Success Mojave CA: XCOR announced today that it has achieved a key technical milestone with its flight weight rocket piston pump hardware. XCOR engineers have successfully and repeatedly pumped liquid oxygen (LOX) at flow rates required to supply the Lynx suborbital vehicle main engines. Combined with earlier demonstrated kerosene pumps and fully characterized engines, XCOR is now poised for main propulsion integration into the Lynx flight we [...]

SpaceX Dragon Attached to Space Station in Spaceflight First

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:23:39 +0000

The International Space Station's Expedition 31 crew grappled and attached SpaceX's Dragon capsule to the space station Friday. This is the first time a commercial company has accomplished this type of space operation. "Today marks another critical step in the future of American spaceflight," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Now that a U.S. company has proven its ability to resupply the space station, it opens a new frontier for commercial opportunities in space -- and new job creati [...]

J-2X Engine Continues to Set Standards

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:16:57 +0000

Testing of the next-generation J-2X rocket engine continues to set standards. Last fall, the engine attained 100 percent power in just its fourth test and became the fastest U.S. rocket engine to achieve a full-flight duration test, hitting that 500-second mark in its eighth test. On, May 25, NASA recorded another first during a 40-second test of the engine on the A-2 Test Stand at John C. Stennis Space Center. For the first time, test conductors fired the J-2X in both the secondary and prim [...]

Hubble Sees A Spiral Within a Spiral

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:10:13 +0000

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the spiral galaxy known as ESO 498-G5. One interesting feature of this galaxy is that its spiral arms wind all the way into the center, so that ESO 498-G5's core looks like a bit like a miniature spiral galaxy. This sort of structure is in contrast to the elliptical star-filled centers (or bulges) of many other spiral galaxies, which instead appear as glowing masses. Astronomers refer to the distinctive spiral-like bulge of galaxies such as [...]

Dragon Performs Fly-Under, Station Crew Preps for Grapple and Berthing

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 25 May 2012 04:12:57 +0000

After a two-day chase that began from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft finally closed in on its destination, the International Space Station, for a series of tests Thursday to clear it for its final rendezvous and grapple Friday. At 3:58 a.m. EDT, Dragon performed a height adjust burn to bring it to a path 2.4 kilometers below the station. During this “fly-under,” Dragon established UHF communication with the station using its COTS [...]

NASA Scientist Figures Way to Weigh Space Rock

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 25 May 2012 04:11:04 +0000

A scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has accurately determined the mass of a nearby asteroid from millions of miles away. The celestial equivalent of "guess your weight" was achieved by Steve Chesley of JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office by utilizing data from three NASA assets - the Goldstone Solar System Radar in the California desert, the orbiting Spitzer Space telescope, and the NASA-sponsored Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Chesley presented his f [...]

Boeing Completes Software Preliminary Design Review of Crew Space Transportation Spacecraft

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 25 May 2012 04:07:40 +0000

CST-100 software PDR validates safety, system-level requirements Rigorous design process reduces risk HOUSTON -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] successfully completed the software Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev-2) initiative on May 18. CCDev-2 is part of NASA’s Space Act Agreement. Software competency is essential to all operational aspects of Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft, including launch, orbital maneuvering, docking with an [...]

Station Crew Focuses on Mission as Dragon Nears Station

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:11:23 +0000

Expedition 31 is waiting for the first commercial cargo vehicle, the SpaceX Dragon capsule, to visit the International Space Station. After a successful launch Tuesday at 3:44 a.m. EDT, the vehicle met several demonstration objectives including testing its absolute GPS system, going into free drift and performing abort procedures. The Dragon will undergo more demonstrations Thursday as it flies 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) under the station. It will establish UHF communications, test its relat [...]

NASA's Marshall Center Concludes Wind Tunnel Testing to Aid in SpaceX Reusable Launch System Design

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:09:08 +0000

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., completed wind tunnel testing for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorn, Calif., to provide Falcon 9 first stage re-entry data for the company's advanced reusable launch vehicle system. Under a Reimbursable Space Act Agreement, Marshall conducted 176 runs in the wind tunnel test facility on the Falcon 9 first stage to provide SpaceX with test data that will be used to develop a re-entry database for t [...]

What Went Up Can Now Come Down With SpaceX Demo Flight

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:14:03 +0000

The SpaceX Dragon demo flight brings a new American transportation vehicle onto the scene for travel to and from the International Space Station. Currently there are other ways to reach station, however only one vehicle, the Russian Soyuz, offers return capability. The SpaceX Dragon adds a welcome additional option for the transport of supplies and research equipment from the station to the ground. The demo flight, which launched on May 22, 2012, is the first Commercial Orbital Transportatio [...]

Station Crew Awaiting Dragon After Successful Launch

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:10:27 +0000

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched Tuesday at 3:44 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a demonstration flight to the International Space Station. Dragon will be the first commercial cargo vehicle employed to deliver supplies to the complex, paving the way toward regular operational commercial cargo missions. Early Thursday morning, Dragon will perform a burn that will bring it to a path 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) below the station, and [...]

Dark Shadows on Mars: Scene from Durable NASA Rover

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:08:42 +0000

Like a tourist waiting for just the right lighting to snap a favorite shot during a stay at the Grand Canyon, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has used a low sun angle for a memorable view of a large Martian crater. The resulting view catches a shadow of the rover in the foreground and the giant basin in the distance. Opportunity is perched on the western rim of Endeavour Crater looking eastward. The crater spans about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Opportunity has been study [...]

NASA's NuSTAR Gearing up for Launch

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 23 May 2012 04:06:36 +0000

Final pre-launch preparations are underway for NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The mission, which will use X-ray vision to hunt for hidden black holes, is scheduled to launch no earlier than June 13 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The observatory will launch from the belly of Orbital Sciences Corporation's L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft aboard the company's Pegasus rocket. Technicians at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California are busy installing th [...]

Successful Launch Kicks off SpaceX's Historic Mission

Klaus Schmidt — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:25:23 +0000

Hawthorne, CA – Today, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft to orbit in an exciting start to the mission that will make SpaceX the first commercial company in history to attempt to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station — something only a handful of governments have ever accomplished. At 3:44 a.m. Eastern, the Falcon 9 carrying Dragon launched from SpaceX’s launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force [...]

Station Crew Works on Biomedical, Radiation Studies

Klaus Schmidt — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:20:37 +0000

High above the Earth in the orbiting International Space Station, Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit modified an Ethernet cable for the Muscle Atrophy Research and Exercise System (MARES) experiment Monday. MARES aims to further understanding of the effects of microgravity on the muscular system. Flight Engineer Joe Acaba participated in an ambulatory monitoring session with the Integrated Cardiovascular (ICV) experiment. ICV researches the extent of cardiac atrophy – the weakening o [...]

Cassini Spots Tiny Moon, Begins to Tilt Orbit

Klaus Schmidt — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:12:22 +0000

NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its closest approach to Saturn's tiny moon Methone as part of a trajectory that will take it on a close flyby of another of Saturn's moons, Titan. The Titan flyby will put the spacecraft in an orbit around Saturn that is inclined, or tilted, relative to the plane of the planet's equator. The flyby of Methone took place on May 20 at a distance of about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers). It was Cassini's closest flyby of the 2-mile-wide (3-kilometer-wide) moon. The [...]

This Week On The Space Show

Klaus Schmidt — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:08:28 +0000

The Space Show, hosted by David Livingston under www.TheSpaceShow.com, will have the following guests this week: 1. Friday, May 25, 2012, 9:30-11 AM PDT (16:30-18 GMT) KEVIN SLOAN returns for the 2012 Mars Society University Rover Contest. Kevin Sloan is the Director of The Mars Society's University Rover Challenge sponsored by TASC (URC). Now in its fifth year, URC is an annual competition for college teams to design and build the next generation of Mars rovers that will one day work along [...]

Falcon 9 Aborts Launch Attempt

Klaus Schmidt — Sun, 20 May 2012 07:23:58 +0000

A SpaceX Falcon 9 aborted its launch May 19 moments after its engines ignited when computers detected higher pressure readings than allowed. The center engine pressure built above limits and a shutdown occurred one-half second before liftoff, SpaceX officials said. The next launch attempt could come as early as Tuesday, May 22, but that determination won't be made until the engine itself is inspected, said Gwynne Shotwell, president of Space Exploration Technologies of Hawthorne, Calif., kno [...]

NASA Ames Helps Re-enter the Dragon

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:34:24 +0000

Decades of rigorous research, testing and development performed in the Entry Systems and Technology Division at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has garnered Ames' thermal protection engineers the respect of not just other government agencies, but also commercial entities. "For four decades, whenever the U.S. government or aerospace industry needed thermal protection capabilities for space flight missions, Ames delivered the technology developments that enabled those missi [...]

Orientation, Science and Maintenance for Station Crew; SpaceX Preps for Launch

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:30:53 +0000

After the arrival of the three newest residents of the International Space Station Thursday, the Expedition 31 crew members focused on familiarization and emergency training Friday, and continued their work with a variety of science experiments and maintenance. Flight Engineers Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin were welcomed aboard the orbiting laboratory on Thursday at 4:10 a.m. EDT after a two-day journey that began with a launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday. [...]

Hubble Spies Edge-on Beauty

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:28:00 +0000

Visible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The galaxy's central bulge is just out of the image on the bottom left. The galaxy, spanning some 100,000 light-years, is seen exactly edge-on, and reveals its thick plane of dust and interstellar gas. While initia [...]

NASA’s Kepler Detects Potential Evaporating Planet Candidate

Klaus Schmidt — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:13:44 +0000

Astronomers may have detected evidence of a possible planet disintegrating under the searing heat of its host star located 1,500 light-years from Earth. Similar to a debris-trailing comet, the super Mercury-size planet candidate is theorized to fashion a dusty tail. But the tail won't last for long. Scientists calculate that, at the current rate of evaporation, the dusty world could be completely vaporized within 200 million years. A research team led by Saul Rappaport, professor emeritus of [...]

Station Gets New Residents; Science and Maintenance for Crew

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:21:23 +0000

With the arrival of the remaining three crew members Thursday, the Expedition 31 crew is now operating at full strength aboard the International Space Station. Flight Engineers Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin were welcomed aboard the orbiting laboratory after the hatches opened Thursday at 4:10 a.m. EDT. They docked to the Poisk module at 12:36 a.m. after a two-day journey that began in Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, aboard the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft. After a series of le [...]

Herschel Sees Intergalactic Bridge Aglow With Stars

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:19:43 +0000

The Herschel Space Observatory has discovered a giant, galaxy-packed filament ablaze with billions of new stars. The filament connects two clusters of galaxies that, along with a third cluster, will smash together and give rise to one of the largest galaxy superclusters in the universe. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions. The filament is the first structure of its kind spied in a critical era of cosmic buildup when colossal collections of galax [...]

Successful launch of H-IIA F 21 with SHIZUKU and SDS-4 aboard

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:12:12 +0000

The launch of the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 21 with The Global Change Observation Satellite 1st - Water "SHIZUKU" and Small Demonstration Satellite-4 (SDS-4) aboard was successfully performed at 1:39 a.m. on May 18 (Fri.) 2012 (Japan Standard Time). The launch vehicle flew normally and separated from the SDS-4. It has been also confirmed that the SHIZUKU was also separated at about 22 minutes and 59 seconds after liftoff. The SHIZUKU will conduct critical phase operations including deploying [...]

Proton Successfully Launches Telesat's Nimiq 6 Satellite

Klaus Schmidt — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:07:15 +0000

Nimiq 6 Launch Marks the 5th Proton Launch in 93 Days BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan – International Launch Services (ILS), a world leader in providing mission and launch services to the commercial satellite industry, successfully carried the Nimiq 6 satellite into the planned orbit today on an ILS Proton for Telesat, a leading global fixed satellite services operator headquartered in Ottawa, Canada. The ILS Proton Breeze M launched from Pad 24 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1:12 a.m. to [...]

The Shake, Rattle and Roar of the J-2X Engine

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:33:33 +0000

The shake, rattle and roar lasted just seven seconds, but the short J-2X test conducted May 16 at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi moved the space agency ever closer to a return to deep space. NASA operators tested the next-generation J-2X engine on the A-2 Test Stand at Stennis to collect early data on performance of the engine and test stand with the new nozzle extension and clamshell configuration. The test also provided data on startup and shutdown processe [...]

Meals, Equipment Top Cargo List for Dragon

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:30:12 +0000

The Dragon spacecraft built by SpaceX will head to the International Space Station with about 1,200 pounds of cargo during its demonstration mission, including commemorative patches and pins, 162 meals and a collection of student experiments. Since the company's rocket and spacecraft are conducting a test flight, the manifest attests to important goods for the station's crew of astronauts and cosmonauts, but not mission-critical items. Most of the cargo's weight, 674 pounds, is in food [...]

Endeavour Powered Down 20 Years after First Launch

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:26:15 +0000

Space shuttle Discovery was powered up hundreds of times during prelaunch processing over the course of 26 years of spaceflight. But Dec. 16, 2011 was different. That morning, technicians inside NASA Kennedy Space Center's orbiter processing facility powered the ship up -- and then down -- for the final time. Less than a week later, on Dec. 22, Atlantis followed. "After working so many years -- since 1988 -- on these vehicles, it's a little hard to say, 'I'm taking my best car and I'm going t [...]

New Station Crew Docks to Poisk Module

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:21:44 +0000

Three new Expedition 31 crew members Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin docked to the International Space Station’s Poisk module Thursday at 12:36 a.m. EDT. They began their journey two days earlier when they launched aboard a Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Currently, the hatches between the two spacecraft are closed as the vehicles undergo leak and pressure checks. After about three hours, once those checks are complete, Expedition 31 Commander [...]

IRVE-3 Flight Hardware Test

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:20:22 +0000

A NASA flight test designed to demonstrate the feasibility of inflatable spacecraft technology is coming down to the wire. The Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE-3) is the third in a series of suborbital flight tests of this new technology. It is scheduled to launch from the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore this summer. "We have to do all kinds of different testing," said flight systems engineer Carrie Rhoades. "We do high temperature tunnel tests in a number [...]

NASA Survey Counts Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

Klaus Schmidt — Thu, 17 May 2012 06:14:44 +0000

PASADENA, Calif. -- Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system's population of potentially hazardous asteroids. The results reveal new information about their total numbers, origins and the possible dangers they may pose. Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth's, coming within five million miles (about eight mil [...]

Station Crew Preps for New Arrivals

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:23:17 +0000

The Expedition 31 crew of the International Space Station focused Tuesday on preparations for the arrival of three new crewmates currently making their way to the orbiting complex aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-04M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:01 p.m. EDT on Monday (9:01 a.m. Tuesday, Kazakhstan time), beginning a two-day flight to the International Space [...]

A Supernova Cocoon Breakthrough

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:21:49 +0000

Observations with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have provided the first X-ray evidence of a supernova shock wave breaking through a cocoon of gas surrounding the star that exploded. This discovery may help astronomers understand why some supernovas are much more powerful than others. On Nov. 3, 2010, a supernova was discovered in the galaxy UGC 5189A, located about 160 million light years away. Using data from the All Sky Automated Survey telescope in Hawaii taken earlier, astronomers det [...]

Kepler Mission Manager Update

Klaus Schmidt — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:19:27 +0000

April was a momentous time for the mission! The team received approval for a mission extension through fiscal year 2016, based on a recommendation from NASA’s 2012 Senior Review of Astrophysics Missions. In addition to Kepler, eight other missions were approved. The 2012 NASA Senior Review report is available here. The extended mission will begin in October 2012. The team has been busy preparing a transition plan to carry the mission through 2016. The extended mission paradigm will be to op [...]