WASHINGTON Four months after closing centers because of the coronavirus pandemic, NASA has been able to keep its highest priority missions on track, even as others have suffered delays.

NASAs Mars 2020 mission is scheduled for launch July 30 on an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch slipped from July 17 because of several launch vehicle and related processing issues, but the launch period for the mission remains open through at least Aug. 15.

Launch preparations for the mission continued amid the coronavirus pandemic. I really cannot say enough about how incredible this team was, Michael Watkins, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said about personnel working on the mission during a July 20 webinar organized by the Space Foundation. It is a heroic effort in the best of times, and this team really knuckled down and completed it on schedule.

Watkins said that, among the more than 1,000 people involved with the mission, about 100 have been at Cape Canaveral working on final launch preparations, with several hundred more working at JPL. Its been a surprisingly smooth experience given all the troubles with COVID, he said. Were basically at the pad, ready to go.

NASA made Mars 2020 one of its two highest priorities in the spring when the pandemic forced NASA to close its centers to all but essential personnel. The other was the SpaceX Demo-2 commercial crew test flight, which successfully launched May 30 and docked with the International Space Station the next day.

That mission is nearing an end. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, speaking at the same webinar, said preparations for the return home by astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley would become the focus once Behnken and Chris Cassidy performed the last in a series of spacewalks, which they carried out July 21. Then theyre going to be focused like a laser on coming home, he said, with a splashdown off the Florida coast currently targeted for Aug. 2.

While both Demo-2 and Mars 2020 have remained on track, other major NASA programs have suffered delays. NASA announced July 16 that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope had slipped seven months, to the end of October 2021, with the pandemic contributing at least three months to that overall delay.

Testing of the Space Launch System core stage at the Stennis Space Center, part of a Green Run campaign that will conclude with a full-duration static-fire test, was halted for two months when the pandemic closed the center. That work has since resumed, with the static-fire test now scheduled for October, but Bridenstine has hinted that the pandemic could cause additional delays.

Weve had outbreaks of coronavirus on that program and people that are working on that test stand, he said during a July 17 Aviation Week webinar. Every time we have something like that, weve got to make sure were putting people into a position where were not infecting others, that were doing the contact tracing. It brings everything to a stop.

He said that he felt OK for now regarding the schedule, but additional cases that halt work for up to a week at a time could use up the margin in the test schedule. If we dont get a grip on the coronavirus pandemic in the near future, he warned, its going to be difficult.

That could also affect the first SLS launch, Artemis 1, notionally scheduled for November 2021. If the coronavirus pandemic is not an issue, Im very confident in November of 2021. If it continues to be an issue, it could be a challenge, he warned.

As of July 21, all of NASAs facilities were at Stage 3 of its pandemic response plan except for the Marshall Space Flight Center, which remained at Stage 4. At its peak, about two-thirds of NASAs 18 field centers and other facilities were at Stage 4, which allowed only mission-essential personnel on site. At Stage 3, additional personnel needed for critical work for missions are allowed to return, although mandatory telework otherwise remains in place.

NASA has shifted most of its centers back to Stage 3 despite a spike in coronavirus cases in many parts of the country, particularly in southern and western states. During a July 16 media teleconference about the JWST delay, Steve Jurczyk, NASA associate administrator, said there has been an increase in cases reported among NASA personnel, although not apparently due to work at the centers.

The cases at some of our centers have increased quite a bit over the last several weeks, he said, citing in particular those in Alabama, California, Florida and Texas, but not giving specific numbers. We really havent so far detected any cases where one employee has transmitted the virus to another at work. So far, we believe that all, or most, of the cases are people who are contracting the virus in the community and then coming to work.

The surge in coronavirus cases has privately alarmed some people involved with Mars 2020 who are traveling to Florida to support or observe the launch. Some traveling from the Washington, D.C. area are considering driving rather than flying, despite the additional time and expense, to reduce their risk of exposure to COVID-19.

As with the Demo-2 launch, NASA is limiting the number of media personnel who will be on site at the Kennedy Space Center to cover the launch, and most pre-launch briefings will have remote access only. For the protection of media and Kennedy employees, the Kennedy Press Site News Center facilities will remain closed to all media throughout these events, NASA said in a July 17 media advisory.

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NASA still grappling with effects of coronavirus pandemic - SpaceNews

Dr. Martino, who was known as Rocky, was never content to restrict his drive and intellect to a single field.

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Dr. Rocco Martino was a brilliant, eclectic overachiever who transformed society but remained unknown beyond a small group of admiring cognoscenti. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are household names; many know of Jack Kilby, who invented the microchip, and Larry Ellison of Oracle. But Dr. Martino, a Canadian scientist who died June 29, arguably did as much to shape our modern world as a host of better-known people.

Dr. Martino, who was known as Rocky, was never content to restrict his drive and intellect to a single field. Over the course of his career he paved the way for human space flight, facilitated the design of complex construction projects, and laid the footings for the smartphone years before its commercial debut. His low profile was due in large part to his prescience: As a rule he was so close to the cutting edge in whatever discipline he pursued that few of his colleagues could grasp what he was doing.

Rocco Leonard Martino was born of Italian-Canadian immigrants in Toronto on June 25, 1929, and after early education in Toronto received his PhD in 1956 from the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies. His doctoral thesis involved the then-revolutionary use of a state-of-the-art mainframe computer to calculate, predict and accommodate the extreme conditions (especially frictional heat) endured by a spacecraft re-entering Earths atmosphere at velocities of up to 25,000 kilometres an hour. The analytical and modelling approaches in his doctoral research proved vital to NASAs subsequent development of the ablative heat shields that safeguard astronauts during their scorching-hot homecomings.

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Dr. Martino was an early adopter of and lifelong cheerleader for the digital computer. Not only did he realize its applications in scientific calculations, as in his PhD thesis; he also foresaw its use in teaching mathematics. Years before personal computers were commercially available, he taught his nine-year-old son Peter to program a minicomputer, then flew him to a conference in Chicago on computer-based education.

Dr. Martino was perspicacious enough to see that the delicate, time-intensive programming techniques current in the early 1950s had to be simplified for computers to reach their full potential. He therefore helped modify computer compilers to move programming language from an arcane realm of zeroes and ones to a closer approximation of everyday speech. Dr. Martino also contributed significantly to the development of critical-path method or CPM, a scheduling technique (computerized, of course) that gives project managers a rock-solid base from which they can plan, execute and control large projects. The original World Trade Center towers and the first U.S. ballistic-missile submarines were both constructed using CPM.

A list of Dr. Martinos colleagues throughout this time reads like a whos who of 20th-century science and technology. Among other luminaries, he worked with Sir Robert Watson-Watt, a pioneer of radar; Grace Murray Hopper, a key contributor to the universal computer language COBOL; and John Mauchly, co-inventor of the ENIAC a room-filling, vacuum-tube-powered monster at the University of Pennsylvania that was the most powerful computer of its time.

There was more in his life than work, however. I like to think that my parents had the first computer date, jokes Dr. Martinos son Peter, a businessman and former U.S. Navy submarine officer who lives in Maryland. Or at least the first date that resulted from computers. One night when Dad and John Mauchly were working together, Dr. Mauchlys daughter Sidney invited a friend to dinner, Barbara DIorio, and asked her fathers hotshot young colleague to join them. Dad and Mom married six months later and were together for nearly 60 years.

In 1972, after professorships at the University of Waterloo (one of Canadas leading centres for its use of and research on digital computers) and New York University, Dr. Martino incorporated his own company, XRT, after settling down in Villanova, Pa., to raise his family.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Martino wondered if the vast and growing power of computers could be united with the increasingly ubiquitous mobile phone. By 1995 he had developed and patented the CyberFone, a convergent-technology prototype that provided proof of concept for what we now know as the smartphone, a dozen years before the first iPhone was launched.

Other people made billions from such ideas, but Dr. Martino never envied them for him the joy of invention mattered more than wealth and fame. But even the loftiest of his professional accomplishments took second place to his personal relationships; he never neglected friends or family to attain his goals. Peter Martino remembers a father who was always there for him: coaching baseball, leading his Cub Scout pack, patrolling nearby while he learned to sail, and judging races of Sunfish and Laser sailboats.

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To profession and family, Dr. Martino added a strong commitment to religious belief, and was throughout his life a vigorous member of the Roman Catholic Church. Among the 30 books he published was The Resurrection, a novelized treatment of Jesuss execution and its aftermath, which fleshed out imagined dialogues among participants (disciples, Roman officers, Pharisaic priests) with a rigorous forensic examination of the event crime-scene investigation circa AD 30. Another book, Rocket Ships and God, addressed and dismissed the conflicts between science and religion that many people assume exist wrongly, in Dr. Martinos opinion.

Dr. Martino served on the boards of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, the National Italian American Foundation, the Gregorian University Foundation and the Papal Foundation. In the course of this activity he met popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis, and was recognized for his contributions by the church. Dr. Martino was made a Knight of the Order of St. Gregory; a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem; and a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta.

In 2014, Dr. Martino summed up his professional approach for the U.S. online magazine Inventors Digest: As Machiavelli so aptly put it some five hundred years ago, Nothing is more perilous to success than a new system or idea: It will meet great resistance from those who are affected and only lukewarm support from those who will benefit. There are plenty of people with an opinion about what is innovative and not, but listening to them wont do you much good. As a race we humans must innovate, not imitate; if we dont we will stagnate and eventually die. Our instinct for survival is like a compass that points us toward the future. At this point, six years before his death, Inventors Digest estimated that computer systems designed by Dr. Martino were moving several trillion U.S. dollars daily around the globe.

In 2018, Dr. Martino was diagnosed with stage-four metastasized cancer, but persisted as long as he could in his newest interest, a prototype for a health-care companion robot to assist the old and infirm. At his request he spent his last six months at home, slipping in and out of consciousness. When he awoke, Peter says, he was always asking those who visited him how he could help. He leaves his wife, Barbara; sons, Peter, Joseph, Paul and John; 13 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. Significantly, he died in the den that a half-century earlier had held his first home computer.

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Brilliant innovator Rocco Martino helped pave the way for spaceflight and smartphones - The Globe and Mail

Earths magnetic field extends from the Earths interior out into space, surrounding our planet like an invisible force field , protecting life from harmful solar radiation by deflecting away charged particles from the sun. But this field is continuously changing. Indeed, our planets history includes numerous global magnetic reversals, where north and south magnetic poles swap places. Image via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/ The Conversation.

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By Yael Annemiek Engbers, University of Liverpool and Andrew Biggin, University of Liverpool

Deep inside the Earth, liquid iron is flowing and generating the Earths magnetic field, which protects our atmosphere and satellites against harmful radiation from the sun. This field changes over time, and also behaves differently in different parts of the world. The field can even change polarity completely, with the magnetic north and south poles switching places. This is called a reversal and last happened 780,000 years ago.

Saint Helena, where Earths magnetic field behaves strangely. Image via Umomos/ Shutterstock/ The Conversation.

Between South America and southern Africa, there is an enigmatic magnetic region called the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the field is a lot weaker than we would expect. Weak and unstable fields are thought to precede magnetic reversals, so some have argued this feature may be evidence that we are facing one.

Now our new study, published June 12, 2020, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has uncovered how long the field in the South Atlantic has been acting up and sheds light on whether it is something to worry about.

Weak magnetic fields make us more prone to magnetic storms that have the potential to knock out electronic infrastructure, including power grids. The magnetic field of the South Atlantic Anomaly is already so weak that it can adversely affect satellites and their technology when they fly past it. The strange region is thought to be related to a patch of magnetic field that is pointing a different direction to the rest at the top of the planets liquid outer core at a depth of 1,795 miles (2,889 km) within the Earth.

The geomagnetic field at Earths surface with the South Atlantic Anomaly outlined in black and St. Helena marked with a star. Colors range from weak fields (blue) to strong fields (yellow). Image via Richard K. Bono/ The Conversation.

This reverse flux patch itself has grown over the last 250 years. But we dont know whether it is simply a one-off product of the chaotic motions of the outer core fluid or rather the latest in a series of anomalies within this particular region over long time frames.

If it is a non-recurring feature, then its current location is not significant it could happen anywhere, perhaps randomly. But if this is the case, the question of whether its increasing size and depth could mark the start of a new reversal remains.

If it is the latest in a string of features reoccurring over millions of years, however, then this would make a reversal less likely. But it would require a specific explanation for what was causing the magnetic field to act strangely in this particular place.

Volcanic rocks

To find out, we travelled to Saint Helena an island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. This island, where Napoleon was exiled to and eventually died in 1821, is made of volcanic rocks. These originate from two separate volcanoes and were erupted from between eight million and 11.5 million years ago.

Lead author Yael Engbers is drilling a core on Saint Helena. Image via Andy Biggin/ The Conversation.

When volcanic rocks cool down, small grains of iron-oxide in them get magnetized and therefore save the direction and strength of the Earths magnetic field at that time and place. We collected some of those rocks and brought them back to our lab in Liverpool, where we carried out experiments to find out what the magnetic field was like at the time of eruption.

Our results showed us that the field at Saint Helena had very different directions throughout the time of eruption, showing us that the field in this region was much less stable than in other places. It therefore challenges the idea that the abnormality has only been around for only a few centuries. Instead, the whole region has likely been unstable on a timescale of millions of years. This implies the current situation is not as rare as some scientists had assumed, making it less likely that it represents the start of a reversal.

A window into Earths interior

So what could explain the odd magnetic region? The liquid outer core that is generating it moves (by convection) at such high speeds that changes can occur on very short, human timescales. The outer core interacts with a layer called the mantle on top of it, which moves far slower. That means the mantle is unlikely to have changed very much in the last ten million years.

Earths inner structure. Image via Wikipedia.

From seismic waves passing through the Earth, we have some insight into the structure of the mantle. Underneath Africa there is a large feature in the lowermost mantle where the waves move extra slow through the Earth meaning theres most likely an unusually warm region of the lowermost mantle. This possibly causes a different interaction with the outer core at that specific location, which could explain the strange behavior of the magnetic field in the South Atlantic.

Another aspect of the inside of the Earth is the inner core, which is a solid ball the size of Pluto beneath the outer core. This solid feature is slowly growing, but not at the same rate everywhere. There is a possibility that it is growing faster on one side, causing a flow inside the outer core that is reaching the outer boundary with the rocky mantle just under the Atlantic hemisphere. This may be causing irregular behavior of the magnetic field on the long timescales we found on Saint Helena.

Although there are still many questions about the exact cause of the irregular behavior in the South Atlantic, this study shows us that it has been around for millions of years and is most likely a result of geophysical interactions in the Earths mysterious interior.

Yael Annemiek Engbers, Ph.D. candidate, University of Liverpool and Andrew Biggin, Professor of Palaeomagnetism, University of Liverpool

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bottom line: Is Earth facing a magnetic pole reversal soon? Hear from the authors of a new study, on a strange anomaly that might be a clue.

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Are the Earths magnetic poles about to swap places? - EarthSky

FP TrendingJul 22, 2020 08:58:31 IST

Tofill the massive gaps in our understanding of the Sun, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Solar Orbiter mission on 9 February 2020.

The spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June and the first images from it havenow been released, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun.

"These amazing images will help scientists piece together the Suns atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system," said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

'Campfires' spotted by the Solar Orbiter are annotated with white arrows. Image: NASA/ESA

At the time the images were captured, the spacecraft wasjust 77 million km away from the Sun,Science Dailyreported.

An instrument called the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI)on the Solar Orbiter captured this first image, showing "campfires" during itsfirst perihelion theposition ofthe spacecraft in its elliptical orbit where itmakes itsclosest approach to the Sun.

"The campfires are little relatives of solar flares that we can observe from Earth, million or billion times smaller," Science Dailyquoted David Berghmans of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), Principal Investigator of the EUI instrument, as saying.

Berghmans also said that the Sun might look quiet at first glance, but those miniature flares can be observed everywhere when we look in detail.

The Solar Orbiter is returning its first science data, including images of the Sun taken from closer than any spacecraft in history. Image: NASA/ESA

Scientists areunsureif these campfires are just tiny versions of big flares or they are generated due to an entirely different mechanism that isn't yet known.

ESAs Solar Orbiter project scientist Daniel Mller said that they did not expect these results so early, adding that the photos show the spacecraft is "off to an excellent start."

According toEurekAlert,the coronaviruspandemicthrew multiple challenges to the mission.It led to theshut downof mission control at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, forovera week.Owing to the COVID-19 situation, teams involved in the mission also had to perform some critical operations remotely.

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NASA-ESA Solar Orbiter mission spots 'campfires' in closest images ever taken of the Sun - Firstpost

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. Alex McCool died in Huntsville on July 14, he was 96-years old. He spent 50-years working at Redstone Arsenal, first for the Army and then at Marshall Space Flight Center.

Alex was one of the people who made the Saturn V happen. His labor helped put the first human on the moon. But Alex McCool started working at Redstone long before that. In the mid-50s he worked on the Redstone Missile. It was challenging work and very interesting, and my specific area was propulsion, rocket engines, and the various systems that go with that, said Alex.

His statement doesnt include that the work being done was pioneering for the U.S.. We had missiles before that, but this was the first time the Army set out to build a nuclear tipped ballistic missile. The Redstone was never fired in anger, but a modified version of this weapon carried the first American satellite to space, Explorer 1. We could have been first, before Sputnik (the Russian satellite). We were told to sit tight, the Navy is going to be the one to put up the first satellite, said Alex.

The Navy was unable to make that happen, and the Army took over and was successful. Alex McCool was part of that. In 1960, he was also one of the hundreds of Army workers who moved over to NASA, and Marshall Space Flight Center. He heard President Kennedys challenge to go to the moon and he knew it wasnt going to be easy.

Getting in low earth orbit, now, dont leave that out. 17,500 miles an hour. To go to the moon, leave Earths gravity, 25,000 miles an hour. Nobody in the history of the universe had ever gone that fast, said Alex.

Thanks to work by Alex thousands of others we would go that fast, and within the decade of the promise, we would go to the moon, and a man would make that first historic step. Alex McCool wasnt done after the Saturn program. He worked on the Space Shuttle, which would have a remarkable 30-year run. Alex was proud of that spacecraft. Here is what he said about the Shuttles powerful main engine. How its the highest performing piece of mechanical system on the planet, the Space Shuttle main engine, said Alex.

That engine was incredible, and in fact still is. Its part of the soon to fly Space Launch System that will put the next humans on the moon. That will be the next part of the legacy of work done by Marshall, and the Army at Redstone Arsenal. Alex McCool has something to say about that legacy, and what it means to this nation.

Number one militarily, technically, technologically. Looking at the future and being able to attract other young people in the nation. Were still the greatest country on the planet, and we will be with the Lords help, and our own help, and the folks that follow us. We need them to continue, to keep this thing moving, said Alex McCool.

Theres obviously more history to be written by the men and women who followed, and will follow Alex McCool. He certainly left a light to guide the way.

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The life of a space pioneer - WHNT News 19

In the time of Covid-19 epidemic, the destinations of any kind, around the globe, must consider the probability of never facing a zero number, ie a full elimination, of cases. Especially Tourism Destinations have to consider a list of parameters regarding their ability to operate within a COVID-19 environment (or any other epidemic) and to respond fast, if they are to maintain their presence at the world touristic map.

Greece, as a country with many islands being separate tourism destinations themselves, faces a unique dilemma regarding the identification of destinations which can open to tourism, together with their when and how. Destinations aiming to open must also, on top of the national and international legal framework, apply:

1. an Integrated Plan for management of facilities, visitors and locals, so as to copy with incidents and crises in a flexible way, including even the unpleasant closing-and-reopening scenario.

2. effective tools to communicate their managerial sufficiency to all interested parties, especially to potential visitors and local communities.

The Project FLATOD-19:

The FLATOD-19 Methodology covers those challenges and strategic necessities, the main one being the high percentage of the destinations population enrichment, ie a weekly input-output of visitors of 30-100% of the local population, most of them with vague epidemiological status, risking uncontrollable outbreaks.

As stated by the Greek chief Epidemiologist, Mr. Sotirios Tsiodras, such (tourism) environments make the tracking of cases incredibly difficult, especially among tourists. Therefore, the presence of capable health infrastructures alone at the tourism destinations is of small practical value, because it is fairly easy for an outbreak to occupy the capacity and crush the existing health system. Conversely, it is of vital importance to implement methods of preventive control of possible cases transmission and, even more important, it is their identification and very fast tracing both at hotel and at the destination level. The issue of speed should be emphasized, as on top of the possible effects on the medical/ health area, there is another neglected issue: the huge indirect costs entailed by the delay of a well-structured reaction (flights diversions, quarantines, etc.).

The innovative methodology FLATOD-19 helps the pre-planned restriction of incidents and the rapid traceability of cases through the following pillars:

A) Destinations categorization based on the probable efficiency of opening and on the visitors characteristics (e.g. their country of origin) following always the performance of an economic and technical feasibility audit in the very beginning.

B) Formation of a collaborative Leadership scheme for implementing the project at any required local level and installation of critical-information management system (mini MIS).

C) Visitors management through their grouping in clusters, at country, destination and hotel level, by zoning and time-slotting techniques, starting from the booking stage until their departure.

TEAM FLATOD-19

Our methodology was developed by a multidisciplinary group of experts, scientists-consultants representing many complementary sectors of the tourism industry, living in four countries:

MAIN STUDY TEAM

Dimitris Vassiliou, MSc Management Science & OR, Destination Marketing & Gastronomy tourism expert, Owner of Authentic Greece Local Products & Destinations

Prof. Michalis Toanoglou, PhD Hospitality Management, Sustainable Destination Management expert (S. Korea, Woosong University)

Kiki Domzaridou, Chemist, MSc, MBA, Quality Management Systems expert, Food Safety Lead auditor

Emmanouil Paterakis, General / Family Doctor, member of the Board of Directors of the Medical Association of Heraklion, Crete

Iris Kouveli, MSc Sports Management, Sport Events & Destinations Integrator

Argyri Katapodi, MSc Finance & Investment, Luxury Hospitality Business/ CEO

Dimitrios Soukeras, MBA(ER), SJSU Faculty, Risk & Incident Analysis Expert- O.Diagnosis LTD/CEO

Dr Melas Christos, Assistant Professor in Health Informatics, School of Health Sciences, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Crete. Collaborating Academic Staff, Business and Organisation Management, Hellenic Open University

Christos Mammidis, BBA, MBA, Communication expert / PR Strategist, PR&More Ltd

Vasilis Zissimopoulos, CEO Founder Costa Nostrum- Sustainable Beaches/ Company of Certification for Sustainable Beaches

Marios Papadakis, MD, PhD, MBA plastic surgeon Ishou University hospital, Taiwan

DISCLAIMER:

Since the beginning of the pandemic, our team put an effort or even envisioned to cover an expected gap in planning and to help not only Greece but also other tourism-based countries to assign practical solutions at complex problems, in the era of Covid-19 pandemic.

We would like to underpin that our effort, considering its research and thus innovative character, DOES NOT claim any completeness or perfection honour. Our model targets specific types of destinations, and has not so far fully incorporated some operational and marketing parameters. Moreover, in no case, we intend to replace the a countrys structures or any scientific organization regarding the provision of health data or the use of epidemiological models, although we plan to develop one focused specifically on tourism.

Consequently, we are declaring that we are open to collaborations with individuals and groups/institutions and we will be happy to meet and cooperate with any interested parties willing to offer to the common cause.

With honour and sense of responsibility

The FLATOD-19 Team

flatod19@gmail.com

************************************************

For any information please contact:

Dimitris E. Vassiliou, e-mail: dvas[at]apelop.gr

Prof . Michalis Toanoglou: e-mail: toanogloum[at]icloud.com

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India and outer space ambition: First crewed mission in 2021 and geopolitics involvements - Modern Diplomacy

On Dec. 20, 2019, Boeing (NYSE:BA) made its first attempt to send an uncrewed Starliner spacecraft to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). A successful trip would have set up Boeing to conduct another test flight -- this time with a crew aboard -- then to move on to performing a series of lucrative "Commercial Crew" missions under its $4.3 billion contract with NASA.

But the trip did not go well.

Because of a problem with the spaceship's computer, Starliner failed to fire its engines at the correct time, missed its rendezvous with ISS, and was forced to return to Earth, unsuccessful. And as we now know, that was only one of as many as 80 separate problems with Boeing's launch -- problems that NASA now insists Boeing rectify, in a list of recommendations made public in a press briefing last week.

Failure to fix these problems could hamstring Boeing's $26 billion defense, space, and security business (per S&P Global Market Intelligence data), preventing it from competing with SpaceX for future manned spaceflight contracts.

Boeing's Starliner "Calypso" crew capsule, back on Earth after its abortive attempt to reach ISS. Image source: NASA.

Because Boeing failed to complete its first uncrewed Orbital Flight Test successfully in December, the company has agreed to rerun the test flight later this year as uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) -- eating the $410 million cost in the process. To improve the chances that this test will prove successful, NASA has outlined 80 recommendations for Boeing. The agency did not release full details on all the items that need to be fixed last week, saying that "the full list of recommendations is company sensitive and proprietary."

Here's what we do know:

NASA recommended 21 changes to improve simulation and testing of the mission before OFT-2 takes off. In particular, the agency wants to see better integration of hardware and software, and wants Boeing to perform an "end-to-end" test of all hardware prior to the flight. Shockingly, it appears that Boeing did not conduct such a test prior to its failed test flight in December, instead testing software and hardware piecemeal. This may be the reason Boeing failed to notice that Starliner's shipboard computer's clock was 11 hours off from real time, resulting in its failure to fire the engines on time, which in turn resulted in the spacecraft's failure to reach the space station last time around.

The agency has 35 recommendations to make surrounding "process and operational improvements," including bringing in more outside experts to review Boeing's test data, and six recommendations regarding "knowledge capture." In general, NASA will be performing more oversight of Boeing's work this time around.

Seven tweaks to Starliner's software code will be required, seven changes will be made to safety reporting, and at least one hardware change, narrowing the radio frequency band at which Starliner communicates with NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (so as to filter out interference), will be necessary.

Why so many changes, if only one glitch -- the mistimed onboard clock -- was the primary reason OFT-1 failed? Because as it turns out, in addition to that failure, there were other close calls that could have caused a loss of vehicle.

Notably, a bug in the software controlling the engines in Starliner's service module (which powers the spacecraft on its approach to ISS, but is jettisoned before the spacecraft's "Calypso" space capsule returns to Earth) could have caused the former to collide with the latter after said jettisoning, damaging Calypso to the point that it would not survive reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

Once NASA realized that, they realized how much work remains to be done before Boeing can be allowed to try again with an uncrewed mission -- much less one with astronauts on board.

NASA did not set a launch date for Boeing's OFT-2. Media reports have suggested a second attempt could happen as early as October or November this year, followed by a crewed flight test (CFT) in 2021 if all goes well. Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, confirms that work on the spacecraft "is coming along very well." But even so, the number of software and other fixes that need to be made suggests there's quite a bit of work left to be done before Starliner can try to fly again.

Depending on how quickly Boeing gets this work done, it's likely that before Boeing sends its first batch of astronauts to ISS, its rival SpaceX -- which launched its first uncrewed mission successfully in March 2019, and completed its first crewed flight successfully in May 2020 -- will already be working on its second. As NASASpaceflight.com points out, SpaceX's first "operational crew rotation mission" (Crew-1) is scheduled to fly this fall.

Will that be embarrassing for Boeing? Probably. But at this point, it's actually the company's best-case scenario. As things stand today, SpaceX is the only company (not named Roscosmos) capable of sending U.S. astronauts into space. Until Boeing clears its OFT-2 and CFT hurdles, it will be completely shut out of this market -- and all of NASA's billions of dollars for crewed spaceflight will be SpaceX's for the taking.

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What Went Wrong With Boeing's Starliner Crew Capsule Test - Motley Fool

AS the people of the United Arab Emirates celebrated the launch of the Hope Probe the Arab worlds first mission to Mars on Sunday, the team preparing what will probably be the next national entry into the space race was quietly going about its work with perhaps a pint of Guinness at the end of the day.

For that nation is Ireland, which is on course to launch its first space satellite next year. Its being built at a cost of 1.5 million, with funding from the Irish Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland as well as the European Space Agency (ESA) of which the UK is still a member yes, thats right, some small amount of British taxpayers money is going towards the Irish project.

DID YOU SAY IRELAND?

YES indeed. The Educational Irish Research Satellite 1, or EIRSAT-1 for short, is being designed and built by students and staff of University College Dublin (UCD), who are participating in the (ESA) educational Fly Your Satellite! Programme.

Experts from Irelands nascent space industry are also joining in. The satellite is both experimental and innovative and should help Ireland grow its participation in space-related developments an increasingly lucrative market.

Its also an educational aid in itself. The EIRSAT-1 team says its aim is to develop the know-how of the Irish higher education sector in space science and engineering, by supporting student teams to build, test and operate the satellite.

READ MORE:The Scottish firm helping people to reduce drinking in lockdown

It also intends to address skills shortages in the space sector by fostering collaboration between student teams and industry through the launch of three payloads that will demonstrate innovative Irish technology; and inspire the next generation of students towards the study of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects by launching the very first Irish satellite.

WHAT IS THE SATELLITE GOING TO DO?

AT just 22cm by 10cm by 10 cm, the miniature satellite EIRSAT-1 is the size of childs shoebox but it is still equivalent in complexity to a standard space mission.

Most if its payload is experimental as EIRSAT-1 will take new Irish technology into space. GMOD is a detector developed in UCD to measure bursts of gamma-rays from the most violent explosions in the Universe.

EIRSAT-1 will also test the performance of thermal coatings developed by Irish company ENBIO Ltd in an experiment in the ENBIO Module, or EMOD for short.

Additionally the performance of a piece of software called Wave Based Control will be tested to determine how well it controls the movement of EIRSAT-1 in space.

WHAT DO THE MAKERS SAY?

DAVID Murphy is a student in the UCD School of Physics. He said: Im EIRSAT-1s system engineer which means I lead the design and assembly of the satellite. Its my job to make sure that all the different parts that are being built by the team work together. Since Im an astronomer, I have a huge interest in learning about the Universe and building devices that help us to study it.

I also lead development of EIRSAT-1s gamma-ray module, known as GMOD. GMOD will test new technology for use in the next generation of orbiting gamma-ray observatories. Its incredible to think that something I helped design and built with my own hands will end up in space. I hope the work were doing now will help many more students in Ireland have the same experience one day.

READ MORE: Covid-19: Irish PM concerned about visitors from the UK

Maeve Doyle is also a student in the UCD School of Physics. She said: I have taken on a leading role on the team, which involved a huge learning curve, doing satellite software development with a group of other UCD students.

The software we are now writing will go on to run on EIRSAT-1s on-board computer and will ultimately determine how the satellite behaves while in space.

The excitement of this task is matched by its challenges and responsibilities, as we are all taking on completely new roles and learning new skills. It took me a while to get here, but now with each new challenge my confidence grows as I think OK, I dont know how to do that YET, but Ill learn.

Joe Flanagan is a student the UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

He said: Being involved in the EIRSAT-1 mission has opened up doors for me in the European space sector that I could only have dreamed of. To be involved in the development of Irelands first ever satellite is something that I am truly grateful for and the mission will inspire a lot of young students throughout the country who may not have thought that this was possible.

My role involves the design, testing and integration of the EMOD experiment into the satellite. I am testing the different components before flight to ensure that they will survive the launch and the harsh space environment during orbit.

WHEN IS IT GOING UP?

IF all goes well the ESA will be given the satellite to launch sometime in the first half of 2021. The aim is for EIRSAT-1 to orbit the Earth for a year, carrying out the experiments and gathering data.

SO IF IRELAND CAN SEND STUFF INTO SPACE, WHY CANT WE?

WE already do. Glasgow builds more satellites than any other city in Europe and the Scottish industry could be worth 4 billion by 2030. There are space-related facilities across Scotland and we could soon have our own launch base at Space Hub Sutherland.

The question is, how much better could we do as an independent country perhaps back in the European Union, just like our Irish neighbours.

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How Ireland is setting up to be next nation in space - The National

As the UAE looks to make history yet again, here are 10 quotes about the mission from the Dubai Ruler.

After two delays caused by unstable weather, the much-anticipated launch of the UAE's Hope probe is less than 12 hours away.

The Emirates Mars Mission is the result of countless hours of dedicated efforts by a team of Emirati engineers, scientists and their partners around the world.

But it is also the fruit of a strong and visionary leadership that has been at the forefront of encouraging the nation on to "achieve the impossible" in space innovation.

As the UAE looks to make history yet again, here are 10 inspiring quotes about the mission from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, ahead of the big lift-off:

1. "The Emirates Mars Mission will be a great contribution to human knowledge, a milestone for Arab civilisation, and a real investment for future generations."

2. "This probe represents hope for millions of young Arabs looking for a better future. There is no future, no achievement, no life without hope."

3. "Our space mission is aimed at serving humanity."

4. "Hope Probe highlights our national treasure of hundreds of young Emirati engineers and experts working on the mission. These young people are part of drafting a beautiful chapter in the UAE's future."

5. "The Emirates Mars Mission is a strategic investment in our human capital and an investment in our human capital is a winning investment. Future generations will reap the rewards of our investment in science and knowledge."

6. "Space is the gateway to science. and science is the driver to future economy."

7. "The Hope Probe embodies the culture of possibilities deeply rooted in the UAE's approach, philosophy and journey of accelerating development since the foundation."

8. "Reaching Mars is not only a scientific goal; it also sends a message to our future generation that we are capable and nothing is impossible with hope."

9. "The UAE's launch of the Hope Probe to Mars. will be a watershed moment between two important time periods for our country, 50 years ago and 50 years to come."

10. "Our journey to space represents a message of hope to every Arab citizen that we have the innovation, resilience and efforts to compete with the greatest of nations in the race for knowledge."

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UAE's Hope Probe: Top 10 most inspiring quotes from Sheikh Mohammed ahead of the big lift-off - Khaleej Times

A composite of enhanced color images of Pluto (lower right) and Charon (upper left), taken by NASAs New Horizons spacecraft as it passed through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. This image highlights the striking differences between Pluto and Charon. The color and brightness of both Pluto and Charon have been processed identically to allow direct comparison of their surface properties, and to highlight the similarity between Charons polar red terrain and Plutos equatorial red terrain. Pluto and Charon are shown with approximately correct relative sizes, but their true separation is not to scale. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Five years ago, NASAs New Horizons spacecraft barreled by Pluto for a high-speed encounter that gave humanity its first fleeting close-up look at the distant world, finding glaciers and mountains of water ice. Scientists are now planning how to go back.

New Horizons flew within 7,800 miles (12,550 kilometers) of Pluto on July 14, 2015, more than nine years after departing Earth on a speedy trajectory that made the spacecraft the fastest ever launched up to that time.

The mission snapped numerous images, revealing unexpected geologic activity on Pluto, craggy mountain ranges made of hardened water ice, dune fields containing frozen methane, the largest glacier in the solar system.

The New Horizons mission is the first to visit the the Kuiper Belt, a ring of small, icy worlds beyond the orbit of Neptune. After zooming past Pluto, the largest world in the Kuiper Belt, the plutonium-powered spacecraft journeyed farther from the sun and flew by a peanut-shaped object namedArrokoth on Jan. 1, 2019.

Arrokoth is a billion miles beyond Pluto, and scientists say evidence suggests the two lobes that make up the 22-mile-long (36-kilometer) object likely formed near one another soon after the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, then merged together at a relatively slow relative velocity. That would make Arrokoth a primordial world that likely has remain unchanged for billions of years.

New Horizons continues deeper into the outer solar system, conducting long-range observations of other objects in the Kuiper Belt and measuring the behavior of the solar wind at ever-farther distances from the sun.

I think the solar system literally saved the best for last with Pluto, wrote Alan Stern, principal investigator for NASAs New Horizons mission. Of course, Im a little biased as we all are on New Horizons but I cant think of a more beautiful and scientifically richer way to have completed the first era of the reconnaissance of the planets, which NASA started in 1962 with the first visit to any planet Venus.

In a matter of a few hours, New Horizons gathered sharp views of Plutos mountains and apparent ice flows, observed its tenuous atmosphere, and imaged Plutos five moons, including its largest companion Charon.

It took 16 months to transmit all the Pluto system data back, but by late 2016, the entire haul of precious data was here on Earth, Stern wrote. Now, after five years of work to analyze those data, our appreciation and understanding of Pluto and its moons just continues to multiply.

Data beamed back by New Horizons indicated Pluto likely harbors a subsurface ocean of liquid water, a highly unexpected discovery. A glacier-filled basin named Sputnik Planitia contained icy cells that appear to be turning over in a process called convection, evidence that parts of the Plutos surface are being regenerated through active geologic processes.

New Horizons also discovered two mountain peaks on Pluto that have deep central pits. They may be signs that volcanoes have erupted on Pluto, but instead of spewing out hot lava, they would have likely discharged slushy, viscous cryoflows of water.

But New Horizons only got a quick look at Pluto, and scientists are eager to send another mission to orbit the distant world. Such a mission would cost billions of dollars, and NASA is awaiting a recommendation from the National Academies ofSciences, Engineering, and Medicine on what robotic planetary missions the agency should begin developing in the next decade.

The National Academies planetary decadal survey is expected to produce its report in 2022. NASAs policy is to follow the decadal surveys recommendations on which flagship-class planetary science missions the agency should pursue next.

The top two priorities in the last planetary decadal survey report, released in 2011, were a Mars Sample Return mission to collect samples for return to Earth, and an orbiter to visit Jupiters icy moon Europa. Those concepts evolved to become NASAs Perseverance rover, scheduled for launch later this month, to gather the Martian samples, followed by joint U.S.-European missions launching later in 2020s to bring the specimens back to Earth.

The Europa mission concept eventually became the Europa Clipper mission, which NASA is developing for launch as soon as 2024.

NASA has funded 11 planetary mission concept studies for consideration by the next decadal survey panel. The list includes a robotic lander to Mercury, a flagship Venus mission, a network of probes to study the moons geology, a long-lived lunar rover that could drive more than 1,000 miles across the moons surface, and missions to Mars, asteroids, Saturns moon Enceladus, Neptune and its moon Triton, and Pluto.

Carly Howett, a member of the New Horizons science team from the Southwest Research Institute, led the concept study for a potential orbiter that could fly to Pluto. With an estimated cost of $3 billion not including launch expenses the mission concept has been named Persephone, wife of Pluto and queen of the underworld in classical mythology.

We want to go back and explore the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt, Howett said June 1 in a presentation to NASAs Small Bodies Assessment Group, a community of scientists with research interests in asteroids, comets and the Kuiper Belt. Of course, New Horizons did a great job of exploring the Pluto system in 2015, and I was on that mission but it was just a single encounter.

An orbiter would see more of Pluto than New Horizons, and would be able to track changes on Plutos surface and in its atmosphere over time.

The biggest challenge in developing a mission to orbit Pluto is getting there, Howett said.

A lot of the work that we did was looking at the trajectories, and how we get there, she said in a presentation of the Persephone mission concept study May 27. Most of the instrumentation has already been used So a lot of our processing and a lot of our time was spent looking at how to get there and how to operate.

New Horizons was a flyby mission, so it didnt need to slow down when it reached Pluto. In order to slip into orbit, a spacecraft will need to reduce its velocity enough to allow Plutos gravity to capture it.

That requirement means a Pluto orbiter, like the Persephone concept, will have to fly at a slower speed than New Horizons, which took more than nine years to reach Pluto.

Trying to get into the Pluto system at sort of the quickest time available is a difficult problem, Howett said June 1. Because Pluto is a long way away, you want to get there quickly, which means going fast. But the faster you go, the more you have to slow down So theres this tradeoff between how you launch and how quickly you go versus how quickly you need to slow down.

The Persephone concept outlined by Howetts team, which included scientists from several universities and research institutions, would carry up to 11 science instruments and a large tank of xenon fuel for an electric propulsion system. The plasma thrusters, which are more efficient than conventional rocket engines, would allow the spacecraft to more efficiently brake into orbit around Pluto, then adjust its trajectory around Pluto and its moons for at least three years of scientific observations.

The plasma thrusters would also allow the spacecraft to fly by a Kuiper Belt Object on the way to Pluto, and potentially depart Pluto to visit another target in an extended mission, Howett said.

The high power demand of a complex suite of cameras, a radar, spectrometers and other sensors plus the electric propulsion system will outpace the power requirements of any robotic deep space mission to date. While New Horizons carried a single power generator fueled by plutonium called an RTG a mission like Persephone would need four or five plutonium generators, according to Howett.

Pluto is too far from the sun to allow a spacecraft to produce electricity with solar panels.

This is a huge spacecraft, Howett said.

The easiest way to fly a probe to Pluto is to use the strong gravity of Jupiter, the solar systems largest planet, to slingshot the spacecraft into the outer solar system. The New Horizons mission used such a gravity assist maneuver with Jupiter, and a future Pluto orbiter will likely swing by Jupiter, too.

That means mission planners will have to factor in Jupiters position relative to Earth and Pluto. After 2032, Jupiter moves into a more unfavorable alignment.

Fundamentally, it means that in order to get to the Pluto system in under 20 years you need to launch before 2032, Howett said.

If the mission took off during the next launch opportunity in 2033, it would take nearly 30 years to reach Pluto. Travel times would only approach 20 years again in the 2040s, according to a chart presented by Howett.

You have to wait about a decade before Jupiter comes into phase enough that you can get there on the order of sort of 20-to-25 years, she said. So in order to get to the Pluto system, you really need to launch before 2032, otherwise theres this 10-year time of flight penalty.

Whats more, those lengthy travel times assume the Pluto orbiter launches on a huge rocket. Howett said the spacecraft concept from the Persephone study would require a launch on a new version NASAs Space Launch System with an enlarged upper stage and evolved strap-on boosters, a configuration NASA calls the SLS Block 2.

The first SLS test flight, using a more basic configuration, is currently scheduled in the second half of 2021. An SLS with the enlarged four-engine upper stage could debut a few years later, but the SLS Block 2 with evolved boosters is not expected to fly until the end of the 2020s, at the earliest.

And even the SLS Block 2 couldnt do the trick by itself. A high-energy upper stage, like United Launch Alliances Centaur stage, mounted on top of the launch vehicle would need to give the Pluto orbiter an additional boost.

We need the kind of the oomph of an SLS Block 2, with a Centaur kick stage, Howett said. Thats basically the biggest rocket we can fly with the biggest kick stage we can find.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Five years after New Horizons flyby, scientists assess next mission to Pluto - Spaceflight Now

Boeing, NASAs lead industry partner for the International Space Station since 1993, will continue supporting the celebrated orbiting laboratory through September of 2024 under a $916 million contract extension awarded July 15.

Boeing will provide engineering support services, resources, and personnel for activities aboard the ISS and manage many of the stations systems. Work will be done at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston; the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida; and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as other locations around the world. The contract is valued at about $225 million annually.

As the International Space Station marks its 20th year of human habitation, Boeing continues to enhance the utility and livability of the orbiting lab we built for NASA decades ago, said John Mulholland, Boeing vice president and program manager for the International Space Station. We thank NASA for their confidence in our team and the opportunity to support the agencys vital work in spaceflight and deep-space exploration for the benefit of all humankind.

Congress, NASA and its international partners have agreed to extend ISS operations to at least 2024. Recent structural analysis shows that the spacecraft continues to be safe and mission-capable.

NASA selected Boeing as the ISS prime contractor in 1993. Throughout development, assembly, habitation and daily operations aboard ISS, Boeing has partnered closely with NASA to help the agency and its international partners safely host astronauts and cosmonauts for months at a time. The astronauts conduct microgravity experiments that help treat disease, increase food production, and manufacture technology impossible to produce on Earths surface.

Boeing people have contributed to human spaceflight for more than 50 years, including the Mercury and Gemini capsules; development of the Saturn V rocket; Apollo command and service modules; and space shuttle fleet, in addition to the ISS. Boeing is building on this legacy with its CST-100 Starliner, a spacecraft developed in partnership with NASAs Commercial Crew Program. The company is also building the core stage of NASAs Space Launch System, a rocket powerful enough to lift astronauts and spacecraft to destinations beyond Earth orbit, such as lunar orbit and Mars.

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Boeing to support ISS operations through 2024 - Aerotech News

It was a big week for space science and technology, and Alabama is in the middle of a lot of what made news.

To start, NASA closed a chapter in space history Friday at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. The space agency put the last piece of the first Space Launch System (SLS) rocket built at Marshall on a barge to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. To mark the milestone, Governor Kay Ivey declared July 17 Artemis Day in Alabama.

The part is called the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter, and Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville built it to connect the rockets core stage and one of its propulsion stages. The propulsion stage was built by Boeing and United Launch Alliance in Decatur. All of it is destined to ride atop the first SLS when it launches in November 2021.

The adapter was the final piece of Artemis I rocket hardware built exclusively at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, said Marshall Director Jody Singer. Artemis 1 is the name of the first of three flights of SLS in NASA plan to return the next man and first woman to the Moons surface by 2024. The plan is called Artemis after the sister of Apollo.

The adapter is a good example of how conversations about space, getting there, and doing anything there frequently become conversations as much about engineering as science. It takes good engineering to build something that can withstand the freezing vacuum of space and still function.

The adapter was welded together as two separate cones that are then stacked on top of each other, hardware manager Keith Higginbotham said. Marshalls expertise with an innovative process called friction stir welding and the centers large robotic weld tools made it possible to build some pieces of the rocket at Marshall while the core stage was built at the same time by Boeing (near New Orleans).

Friction stir welding heats two pieces of metal to a point so hot they melt and then are stirred together rather than conventionally welded.

Elsewhere this week, a probe already in space made news as it passed close to the Sun. The craft is called Solar Orbiter, and it is a partnership of NASA and the European Space Agency. Dr. Gary Zank of the University of Alabama in Huntsville is a co-lead scientist for one of its instruments.

This weeks news came from another instrument, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager. It photographed solar features no one had seen before. Principal scientist David Berghmans of Belgium called those features campfires dotting the Sun, little nephews of solar flares, at least a million, perhaps a billion times smaller.

Berghmans said they are literally everywhere we look in new high-resolution images from the Solar Orbiter. Scientists arent sure what the campfires are, much less how they correspond to solar brightenings observed by other spacecraft. Its possible they help heat the Suns outer atmosphere, or corona, but no one knows.

Another instrument aboard Solar Orbiter, the Solar and Heliospheric Imager, revealed what scientists called zodiacal light, light from the Sun reflecting off space dust. The pattern of these images was so clean scientists believe they will be able to see solar wind structures when the probe gets closer to the Sun.

Finally this week, scientists released a new image of light from the early Universe taken by a telescope in Chile. The news here was that the data from this oldest light indicates the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old, which is what earlier models had shown.

Mark Halpern, a professor on the team studying images from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile, told the science website phys.org that the significance of the new information is that our model of the universe is holding up well. And thats important because data is getting better and better as instruments improve 100,000 times better, in fact, according to Halpern. A model that can hold up to that kind of improvement gains some real credibility.

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Alabama was a big part of a big week for space science and tech - AL.com

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We would be remiss if we didnt pause in the middle of all the seemingly urgent stuff going on to recognize something tremendously important that people could have missed.

It involves the recognition of a true hero, a person who has built an impressive record of achievement and someone who has never forgotten her Amarillo roots. Likewise, the city has not forgotten her, nor are they likely to in the near future as she is expected to direct the next moon landing.

During Tuesdays virtual City Council meeting, the group recognized Holly Ridings with a proclamation and a key. Now, we know what you might be thinking. A key to the city? Not quite. Ridings, who is the first woman to serve as chief flight director at NASA, was presented with a key to the "moon and beyond." The rest of the inscription on the key reads: "Taking us from Olsen Elementary to out of this world. Amarillo is proud of you!"

For those who may not know, Ridings grew up in Amarillo, attending Olsen and then Crockett Middle School before graduating from Tascosa High School, which inducted her into its hall of fame during ceremonies last year. Ridings, who still has family in Amarillo, has been a steadfast goodwill ambassador for the city.

Her career path began to come into view in 1986, when as a sixth-grader, she watched with the rest of the nation as the Challenger space shuttle tragedy unfolded in real time on television. In an interview with Air and Space magazine in its June edition, she epiphany represented by that moment would inform her life for years to come. She loved space and problem-solving and knew what she wanted to do with her life.

"Who would have imagined that a tragedy in 1986 (the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger) would cause a sixth-grade student to set a course for her lifes work?" said Amarillo City Council member Howard Smith, a long-time friend of the family. "But having known Holly for years, it is easy to believe that she would become a problem solver. Her ability to aim high has been a pattern all of her life."

Of course, Ridings wasnt through in Amarillo. She was part of Tascosas state championship basketball team in the early 1990s and was named to the all-tournament team as a forward for the Lady Rebels.

After earning a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M, she joined NASA in 1998. Her career there began as a flight controller in the thermal operations group, according to the NASA news release announcing her most recent appointment. Now, she will lead the group directing human spaceflight missions from Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Named to her new role in September 2018, she will lead a group of 32 active flight directors and flight directors-in-training, including integrating American-made commercial crew spacecraft into the fleet of vehicles servicing the orbiting laboratory, and Orion spacecraft missions to the moon and beyond. For context, think about the Tom Hanks movie "Apollo 13" and the role of NASA legend Gene Kranz as played by Ed Harris.

In other words, this is a big deal.

Her selection was announced by NASA Director of Flight Operations Brian Kelley. "Holly has proven herself a leader among a group of highly talented flight directors," he said. "I know she will excel in this unique and critical leadership position providing direction for the safety and success of human spaceflight missions. She will lead the team during exciting times as they adapt to support future missions with commercial partners and beyond low-Earth orbit."

Her career path at NASA has seen a steady upward trajectory since being named a flight director in 2005. Highlights include serving as the lead flight director for missions including International Space Station Expedition 16 in 2007-08, the space shuttle program mission STS-127 in 2009 and the first SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft mission to the space station in 2012.

"From classroom to Camp Fire programs to athletics, she just sets her goals and the rest is history," Smith said. "Some of that history at NASA is yet to be written. I have no doubt that Holly will help write it."

The official proclamation includes recognition of her "outstanding qualities of leadership and dedication. We acknowledge her exceptional service to this nation and NASAs space program. The City of Amarillo, Texas, recognizes your accomplishments and celebrates our Hometown Hero for making a difference in being a role model for so many. We are Amarillo proud!"

So are we. We salute Holly Ridings and congratulate her on all of her achievements. She is not only a great role model for young women (although she certainly is that). She is a great role model, period.

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Our view: Amarillo's Holly Ridings is the very definition of role model and local hero - Waxahachie Daily Light

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A Titusville building once used for honoring American astronauts will continue its spaceflight legacy when Lockheed Martin begins using the facility next yearfor work related to NASA's Orion crew capsule.

The former Astronaut Hall of Fame, located just west of the NASA Causeway on State Road 405, will become the aerospace giant's newest location for Orion, a program expected to speed up locally in the coming years as NASA begins launching the spacecraft for its moon-focused Artemis program.

Lockheed Martin is leasing the facility from Delaware North, which operatesthe nearby Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. It was also named the Astronaut Training Experience, or ATX Center, before it and the hall of fame were recently moved to the visitor complex's main campus six miles to the east.

The prime contractor for Orion, Lockheed Martin performs most of the spacecraft's work at KSC's historic Operations and Checkout Building a location that's a straight eight-mile shot down the roadto the new site. Work performed there will act as a support for the larger operations at KSC.

Kelly DeFazio, the company's Orion program production director, said the site is ideal for three key spacecraft subassemblies. From there, completed hardware can be trucked over the causeway to the Operations and Checkout Building.

"One is the thermal protection system, TPS, that will go on the heat shield on the aft end of the crew module," DeFazio said. "The majority of the flight harnesses and electrical cabling will be built there, too."

"And then we'll do tubing subassemblies. They would be for the propulsion system as well as the environmental control and life support systems," she said.

The Former United States Astronaut Hall of Fame is seen in this 2015 file photo. The hall of fame was later moved to the main campus of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, leaving the building just west of the NASA Causeway vacant.(Photo: FLORIDA TODAY file)

Factoring in permits, upgrades, and other modifications, DeFazio said the company hopes to officially move innext summer. About 75 people a mix of new hires and transfers from Operations and Checkout are expected to work there, with some room for growth in the future. Lockheed is paying for the necessary upgrades.

While the building wasn't designed with spaceflight production in mind, it surprisingly came with amenities that helped attract the company.

"It's a very interesting building," DeFazio said. "There are three large open spaces with very high ceilings, but one specifically truly is a high baywith a roll-up door. We did need a high bay so we could install a crane and lift and rotate that heat shield."

A clean room, pressure chambers, office space, and break areas are part of the plans, too,along with lighting. Lots of lighting.

"It's a little dark," she said. "So we're having to put in tons of all-new lighting. Obviously we have to have very good visibility when building this hardware."

The facility could be expandedto include other programs in the future, but Lockheed will use it to focus on Orion for now.

We had been looking for the right use of the former U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame building since helping NASA relocate the hall to (the visitor complex)in 2016, said Scott Socha, president of Delaware Norths parks and resorts division. It will also fit nicely in the developing commercial area where Delaware North is building a Courtyard by Marriott hotel.

At least part of the reason for the growth into new facilities is NASA's planned path for Orion, which already includes three full spacecraft for crewed missions to the moon and beyond. Last year, the agency announced it awarded Lockheed Martin an additional $2.7 billion for Orions tied to Artemis missions III through V. In 2022, NASA is expected order three more Artemis VI through VIII at a $1.9 billion price point.

The Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis I mission arrived at Kennedy Space Center on March 25, 2020. Here, it's seen at KSC's Operations and Checkout Building.(Photo: Lockheed Martin)

Spacing the orders out in groups of three, NASA says, allows the agency to save money by taking advantage of production efficiencies gained over time. It's why the 2022 price tag is expected to be $800 million cheaper.

Orion will fly on the Space Launch System, NASA's 322-foot rocket slated to launch Artemis I from KSC's pad 39B sometime in late 2021 or early 2022. The agency ultimately hopes to put boots back on the moon by 2024.

The expansionfor Orion work isn't the only facility Lockheed Martin has recently taken over. Last year, the company announced it would move its Fleet Ballistic Missile program's headquarters from Sunnyvale, California, to Titusville, which brought hundreds to the Space Coast in support of the Navy'sNaval Ordnance Test Unit at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

"Those of us that grew up here like myself, we're really pleased to see the footprint of Lockheed Martin really grow on the Space Coast," DeFazio said. "And particularly pleased because I'm from Titusville that it's helping the north end grow as much as the middle and the south end."

The Orion program officially made KSC its production home in 2006, according to the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast, which at the time was known as theCrew Exploration Vehicle for NASA's Constellation program. Though Constellation was canceled, the CEV survived and later became Orion.

"Every little win can be built upon," Lynda Weatherman, president and CEO of the EDC, said on Lockheed's recent expansions. "Something from 2006, we're still benefitting from today. Economic development is cumulative, proactive, and continually telling the story to build upon successes of the past."

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly. Support his space journalism by subscribing atfloridatoday.com/specialoffer/.

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Lockheed Martin will lease former Astronaut Hall of Fame for NASA's Orion spacecraft - Florida Today

Boeing, NASAs lead industry partner for the International Space Station (ISS) since 1993, will continue supporting the celebrated orbiting laboratory through September of 2024 under a US$916 million contract extension awarded recently.

Boeing will provide engineering support services, resources, and personnel for activities aboard the ISS and manage many of the stations systems. Work will be done at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston; the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla.; and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., as well as other locations around the world. The contract is valued at about US$225 million annually.

As the International Space Station marks its 20th year of human habitation, Boeing continues to enhance the utility and livability of the orbiting lab we built for NASA decades ago, said John Mulholland, Boeing vice-president and program manager for the International Space Station. We thank NASA for their confidence in our team and the opportunity to support the agencys vital work in spaceflight and deep-space exploration for the benefit of all humankind.

Congress, NASA and its international partners have agreed to extend ISS operations to at least 2024. Recent structural analysis shows that the spacecraft continues to be safe and mission-capable.

NASA selected Boeing as the ISS prime contractor in 1993. Throughout development, assembly, habitation and daily operations aboard the ISS, Boeing has partnered closely with NASA to help the agency and its international partners safely host astronauts and cosmonauts for months at a time. The astronauts conduct microgravity experiments that help treat disease, increase food production, and manufacture technology impossible to produce on Earths surface.

Boeing people have contributed to human spaceflight for more than 50 years, including the Mercury and Gemini capsules; development of the Saturn V rocket; Apollo command and service modules; and space shuttle fleet, in addition to the ISS. Boeing is building on this legacy with its CST-100 Starliner, a spacecraft developed in partnership with NASAs Commercial Crew Program. The company is also building the core stage of NASAs Space Launch System, a rocket powerful enough to lift astronauts and spacecraft to destinations beyond Earth orbit, such as lunar orbit and Mars.

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Boeing to support International Space Station operations through 2024 - Skies Magazine

An amazing comet that thrilled early-morning stargazers earlier this month is now visible in the evening sky, and it's a sight you won't want to miss. After all, this comet won't be back for 6,800 years, NASA says.

Comet NEOWISE can now be seen just after sunset for observers in the Northern Hemisphere, according to NASA. (Sorry, Southern Hemisphere skywatchers, it's not visible there.) The comet made its closest approach to the sun July 3 but was only visible before dawn until now.

"If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you can see it," said Joe Masiero, deputy principal investigator of NEOWISE, the NASA space telescope that discovered the comet, in a NASA Science Live webcast Wednesday (July 15). "As the next couple of days progress, it will get higher in the evening sky, so you're going to want to look northwest right under the Big Dipper." (The Big Dipper is a ladle-shaped star pattern that is part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Bear.)

Related: How to see Comet NEOWISE in the night sky this monthMore: Amazing photos of Comet NEOWISE from the Earth and space

See Comet NEOWISE?

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab/Parker Solar Probe/Brendan Gallagher)

If you spot Comet NEOWISE, let us know! Send images and comments to spacephotos@space.com to share your views.

There are a few more comet-observing tips to keep in mind, according to Masiero.

First, you're going to want to try and get away from city lights and set up in a location with a clear, unobstructed view of the northwest horizon.

Then, find out what time your local sunset is. (A tool like the Farmer's Almanac or TimeandDate.com can help.) You'll want to wait until 45 minutes after sunset before hunting the comet.

"What you want to do is go out right around the time that the first stars start to show up. You're not going to be able to see it before that," Masiero said. "It's probably about as bright as some of the stars in the Big Dipper."

To the unaided eye, Comet NEOWISE will look like a fuzzy star with a bit of a tail, according to a NASA guide. But binoculars or a small telescope offer a much better view.

Related:Best telescopes for the money 2020 reviews and guide

Officially known as C/2020 F3, Comet NEOWISE was first discovered in March by the infrared-optimized NEOWISE spacecraft (the name is short for Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer). Since then, the comet has been spotted by several space telescopes and observatories, astronauts on the International Space Station and, of course, stargazers on Earth.

The light from the comet is sunlight reflecting off the dazzling tail of gas and dust trailing away from NEOWISE as it drifts ever farther from the sun. A second tail made of ionized particles blown back from the comet's head (called its "coma") by the solar wind can be seen in some photos.

"This comet is about 3 miles [5 kilometers] across, and most comets are about half water and half dust," said NEOWISE science team co-investigator Emily Kramer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who used that statistic to calculate just how much water is in Comet NEOWISE.

"It's about 13 million Olympic swimming pools of water," she added. "So that's a lot of water."

Related: How to photograph Comet NEOWISE

Comet NEOWISE is currently about 70 million miles (111 million km) from Earth or about thee-quarters the distance from the Earth and sun and on an extremely elliptical orbit that carries it far out from the sun, Masiero said. Earth is about 93 million miles (150 million km) from the sun on average.

The comet is moving at about 40 miles per second that's about 144,000 mph (231,000 km/h but poses no threat to Earth, Masiero said.

Related: The 9 most brilliant comets ever seen

"There is no risk to the planet from this," he added. "It's very far away from us and it's not coming anywhere near us, so there is no threat."

There may be no impact threat from Comet NEOWISE, but there is a "wow" factor for skywatchers who see it, Kramer said.

"The fact that we can see it is really what makes it unique. It's quite rare for a comet to be bright enough that we can see it with the naked eye or even with just binoculars," she added. "The last time we had a comet this bright was Comet Hale-Bopp in 1995 and 1996, so it's been quite a while."

Comet Hale-Bopp, the last "Great Comet" to be visible in the night sky, was discovered in July 1995 by astronomers Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp via telescopes. It made its closest approach to Earth in 1997 and was visible to the unaided eye for 18 months.

If you snap an amazing photo or video of Comet NEOWISE in the night sky? Let us know! To share images and videos for a possible story or gallery, send images and comments in to spacephotos@space.com.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include more details about Comet Hale-Bopp, which was discovered in 1995 but not visible to the unaided eye until 1997.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

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Don't miss Comet NEOWISE in the evening sky now. It won't be back for 6,800 years. - Space.com

AGN Media Editorial Board

We would be remiss if we didnt pause in the middle of all the seemingly urgent stuff going on to recognize something tremendously important that people could have missed.

It involves the recognition of a true hero, a person who has built an impressive record of achievement and someone who has never forgotten her Amarillo roots. Likewise, the city has not forgotten her, nor are they likely to in the near future as she is expected to direct the next moon landing.

During Tuesdays virtual City Council meeting, the group recognized Holly Ridings with a proclamation and a key. Now, we know what you might be thinking. A key to the city? Not quite. Ridings, who is the first woman to serve as chief flight director at NASA, was presented with a key to the "moon and beyond." The rest of the inscription on the key reads: "Taking us from Olsen Elementary to out of this world. Amarillo is proud of you!"

For those who may not know, Ridings grew up in Amarillo, attending Olsen and then Crockett Middle School before graduating from Tascosa High School, which inducted her into its hall of fame during ceremonies last year. Ridings, who still has family in Amarillo, has been a steadfast goodwill ambassador for the city.

Her career path began to come into view in 1986, when as a sixth-grader, she watched with the rest of the nation as the Challenger space shuttle tragedy unfolded in real time on television. In an interview with Air and Space magazine in its June edition, she epiphany represented by that moment would inform her life for years to come. She loved space and problem-solving and knew what she wanted to do with her life.

"Who would have imagined that a tragedy in 1986 (the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger) would cause a sixth-grade student to set a course for her lifes work?" said Amarillo City Council member Howard Smith, a long-time friend of the family. "But having known Holly for years, it is easy to believe that she would become a problem solver. Her ability to aim high has been a pattern all of her life."

Of course, Ridings wasnt through in Amarillo. She was part of Tascosas state championship basketball team in the early 1990s and was named to the all-tournament team as a forward for the Lady Rebels.

After earning a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M, she joined NASA in 1998. Her career there began as a flight controller in the thermal operations group, according to the NASA news release announcing her most recent appointment. Now, she will lead the group directing human spaceflight missions from Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Named to her new role in September 2018, she will lead a group of 32 active flight directors and flight directors-in-training, including integrating American-made commercial crew spacecraft into the fleet of vehicles servicing the orbiting laboratory, and Orion spacecraft missions to the moon and beyond. For context, think about the Tom Hanks movie "Apollo 13" and the role of NASA legend Gene Kranz as played by Ed Harris.

In other words, this is a big deal.

Her selection was announced by NASA Director of Flight Operations Brian Kelley. "Holly has proven herself a leader among a group of highly talented flight directors," he said. "I know she will excel in this unique and critical leadership position providing direction for the safety and success of human spaceflight missions. She will lead the team during exciting times as they adapt to support future missions with commercial partners and beyond low-Earth orbit."

Her career path at NASA has seen a steady upward trajectory since being named a flight director in 2005. Highlights include serving as the lead flight director for missions including International Space Station Expedition 16 in 2007-08, the space shuttle program mission STS-127 in 2009 and the first SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft mission to the space station in 2012.

"From classroom to Camp Fire programs to athletics, she just sets her goals and the rest is history," Smith said. "Some of that history at NASA is yet to be written. I have no doubt that Holly will help write it."

The official proclamation includes recognition of her "outstanding qualities of leadership and dedication. We acknowledge her exceptional service to this nation and NASAs space program. The City of Amarillo, Texas, recognizes your accomplishments and celebrates our Hometown Hero for making a difference in being a role model for so many. We are Amarillo proud!"

So are we. We salute Holly Ridings and congratulate her on all of her achievements. She is not only a great role model for young women (although she certainly is that). She is a great role model, period.

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Our view: Amarillo's Holly Ridings is the very definition of role model and local hero - Austin American-Statesman

In this image taken July 1, a spacewalking astronaut snapped a view of the Crew Dragon spacecraft (at right) docked with the International Space Station. Japans HTV cargo ship, at bottom in gold, is also seen attached to the space station. Credit: NASA

Assuming good weather and a smooth final few weeks on the International Space Station, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are scheduled to undock from the orbiting research outpost Aug. 1 and return to Earth the next day to wrap up a 64-day test flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon spaceship.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed the target dates for the Crew Dragons undocking and splashdown in a tweet Friday.

A few hours after departing the space station, the Crew Dragon will fire its Draco thrusters for a braking burn and re-enter the atmosphere, targeting a parachute-assisted splashdown at sea.

Splashdown is targeted for Aug. 2, he tweeted. Weather will drive the actual date. Stay tuned.

NASA and SpaceX are assessing return zones in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Officials originally selected landing sites in the Atlantic east of Cape Canaveral and Jacksonville, and a location in the Gulf of Mexico south of Pensacola, Florida. Last month, NASA said officials were evaluating additional candidate locations for the Crew Dragons splashdown off Daytona Beach, Tampa, Tallahassee and Panama City.

The additional options would give mission managers more flexibility in deciding when to approve the Crew Dragons undocking and re-entry.

The final selection of a landing site will hinge on weather and sea states. Assessments of climatology suggest conditions in the Gulf of Mexico have a higher likelihood of being favorable for splashdown in early August, sources said.

Hurley and Behnken will be the first NASA astronauts to return to Earth for a water landing since Tom Stafford, Deke Slayton and Vance Brand splashed down July 24, 1975, in an Apollo command module to end the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which included the first docking between U.S. and Russian spacecraft in orbit.

Probably the biggest area of concern is just how long its been since humans have done this on the U.S. side splashing down in the water and then being recovered, Behnken said from the space station in a recent interview with the Washington Post.

SpaceX has practiced recovering capsules at sea with cargo missions returning from the space station, an unpiloted Crew Dragon test flight last year, and a series of training sessions and rehearsals.

Theyve done that many times at this point, and theyve recovered those capsules pretty successfully and managed to get the timeline relatively short so that we expect to be back on the ship within an hour of splashdown, Behnken said.

The crew is expected to remain inside the Dragon until the spacecraft is hoisted onto the deck of SpaceXs recovery ship.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft launched with Hurley and Behnken on top of a Falcon 9 rocket May 30 from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the first launch of astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil since the last space shuttle launch July 8, 2011.

The crew capsule autonomously docked with the International Space Station on May 31, allowing Hurley and Behnken to join space station commander Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.

The primary goal of the Crew Dragons first mission with astronauts named Demo-2, or DM-2 is to test the SpaceX-built capsules performance before it begins regular crew rotation flights to the space station later this year. SpaceX successfully flew an unpiloted Crew Dragon to and from the space station in 2019 before NASA approved the capsule to carry astronauts.

Hurley and Behnken have also assisted the space stations long-duration crew with experiments, maintenance and other tasks. The Demo-2 mission was originally planned to last no more than a couple of weeks, but NASA announced earlier this year the test flight would be extended to expand the size of the crew on the space station.

At the time, Cassidy was the final U.S. astronaut NASA had booked to fly on Russias Soyuz spacecraft, which has been the sole vehicle to carry crews to and from the space station since the end of the space shuttle program nearly a decade ago. That meant Cassidy would have been the only U.S. astronaut on the station for most of the time from April through October, limiting opportunities for research and spacewalks needed to upgrade and maintain the orbiting complex.

With the extended Demo-2 mission, Behnken has joined Cassidy on three spacewalks since June 26 to finish replacing batteries on the space stations solar power truss. One more spacewalk by Behnken and Cassidy is scheduled for Tuesday, July 21.

NASA says the Crew Dragon has performed well since its launch. While docked at the space station, the capsule has been put into hibernation and awakened several times to check its availability to serve as a lifeboat for the crew if they had to evacuate the orbiting research lab in an emergency.

Ground teams have also monitored the performance of the Crew Dragons body-mounted solar arrays, which can degrade over time due to the harsh environment in low Earth orbit. So far, the power-generating arrays have performed better than predicted.

Last week, four of the space station crew members boarded the Crew Dragon to assess the ships ability to accommodate a four-person crew in orbit, particularly when astronauts will be required to sleep on the vehicle during the transit to and from the space station.

If the Demo-2 mission returns to Earth in early August, SpaceX and NASA will press ahead with preparations for the first operational Crew Dragon mission. That flight, designated Crew-1, is currently scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in mid-to-late September.

Steve Stich, NASAs commercial crew program manager, said last month that engineers will need around six weeks evaluate data from the Crew Dragon test flight before formally certifying the capsule as ready for operational missions.

The brand new Falcon 9 first stage booster for the Crew-1 mission arrived Tuesday at Cape Canaveral for launch preparations. The Crew Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-1 mission will arrive in the coming weeks.

NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi are training for the Crew-1 mission. Noguchi, a veteran of two previous space missions, will become the first astronaut to launch on the space shuttle, Russias Soyuz rocket, and SpaceXs Falcon 9.

NASA has ordered six crew rotation flights on the Crew Dragon spacecraft through 2024, each carrying four astronauts to and from the space station on expeditions lasting as long as 210 days. SpaceX also has agreements with Axiom Space and Space Adventures, two commercial space companies, to fly private citizens into orbit on shorter-duration Crew Dragon missions beginning as soon as late 2021.

SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon under contract to NASA, but the company is free to use the spacecraft for commercial flights without NASA involvement.

NASA has a similar contract with Boeing for development of the Starliner crew capsule, which has yet to fly with astronauts. An unpiloted Starliner test flight was cut short before docking with the space station in December, and Boeing plans to fly a second demonstration mission later this year before a test flight with a crew on-board in early 2021.

There are several modifications to the capsule SpaceX is building for the Crew-1 mission, although major components such as the capsules life support system and guidance, navigation and control systems are largely unchanged from the Demo-2 configuration.

The Crew-1 vehicle can land in a little bit higher wind state, Stich said in a press briefing May 31. SpaceX has changed some of the outer composite panels to make that a little stronger.

It also has the capability not only dock to the forward port of the space station, but it can go to the zenith (space-facing) port as well, so it has that capability, and it has a couple other features, Stich said.

NASA and SpaceX have not released the official wind and sea state constraints officials will use to determine the final schedule and location for the Demo-2 splashdown.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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NASA confirms plans for Crew Dragon splashdown Aug. 2, weather permitting - Spaceflight Now

On July 16, 2020, a unique online presentation from the National Space Society will bring the solar system to your doorstep. "A Day in Space" is a day-long virtual forum that promises some truly unique spaceflight and exploration experiences.

In an exclusive interview with NSS President and television personality, Geoffrey Notkin, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin will take you back into the heady years of the Space Race and plunge you into the future of the exploration of our solar system.

Planetary scientist Alan Stern will take you on a journey to Pluto and beyond to tiny Arrokoth (formerly known as Ultima Thule), as he recalls how the hard-fought New Horizons probe ventured to the edge of the planetary system and unveiled its secrets. NASA engineer and NSS Senior Operating Officer Bruce Pittman tells us about the merging of Wernher von Braun and Gerard O'Neill's visions to form the National Space Society.

Billionaire NewSpace financier Steve Jurvetson tells the thrilling tale of investing in SpaceX in some of their darkest moments, supporting disruptive innovation with Planet Labs, and the future of orbital space tourism and investing in the space business.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory chief engineer Rob Manning and space author Rod Pyle square off for a smackdown over the character of Mars a lovely place in the eyes of Ray Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs until NASA came along with Mariner 4 in 1965 and told us the cold, dry truth about the planet. Manning explains why thats even better than what came before.

"A Day in Space" is co-hosted by Notkin, who is also the president of the National Space Society, and Dr. Sian Proctor, college professor, geoscientist and NASA astronaut finalist.

"A Day in Space was created to fill the gap left by the postponement of the National Space Society's 2020 International Space Development Conference due to COVID-19 this year," said Pyle, who is also the editor-in-chief of the society's quarterly print magazine, Ad Astra, "but it quickly took on a life of its own, bringing together some of the best and brightest in space exploration and settlement to tell their exciting stories first-hand. Its been an incredible honor to work with these folks."

Additional presentations include Dr. Sara Seager on the latest from the search for exoplanets; a discussion of inclusiveness and diversity in the space industry with the Chairman of the NSS Board of Governors, Karlton Johnson; and a reprise of a very special Apollo 50th anniversary event with Apollo astronauts Al Worden, Fred Haise, Walt Cunningham and Flight Director Gerry Griffin (this was one of Worden's final appearances before his passing last March).

Dr. Anthony Paustian, the NSS's Director of Communication and Branding, leveraged his extensive connections from his own yearly conference, CiLIVE, in Des Moines, Iowa, to bring "A Day in Space" to life.

"I've had the honor of presenting some of the most creative and dynamic people in space exploration, including many Apollo astronauts, to the public. 'A Day in Space' is the perfect way to wrap-up the 50th anniversary of the first landings on the moon. We know youll enjoy these presentations they are truly one-of-a-kind."

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Join the National Space Society for 'A Day in Space,' a celebration of spaceflight, this week - Space.com

AGN Media Editorial Board

We would be remiss if we didnt pause in the middle of all the seemingly urgent stuff going on to recognize something tremendously important that people could have missed.

It involves the recognition of a true hero, a person who has built an impressive record of achievement and someone who has never forgotten her Amarillo roots. Likewise, the city has not forgotten her, nor are they likely to in the near future as she is expected to direct the next moon landing.

During Tuesdays virtual City Council meeting, the group recognized Holly Ridings with a proclamation and a key. Now, we know what you might be thinking. A key to the city? Not quite. Ridings, who is the first woman to serve as chief flight director at NASA, was presented with a key to the "moon and beyond." The rest of the inscription on the key reads: "Taking us from Olsen Elementary to out of this world. Amarillo is proud of you!"

For those who may not know, Ridings grew up in Amarillo, attending Olsen and then Crockett Middle School before graduating from Tascosa High School, which inducted her into its hall of fame during ceremonies last year. Ridings, who still has family in Amarillo, has been a steadfast goodwill ambassador for the city.

Her career path began to come into view in 1986, when as a sixth-grader, she watched with the rest of the nation as the Challenger space shuttle tragedy unfolded in real time on television. In an interview with Air and Space magazine in its June edition, she epiphany represented by that moment would inform her life for years to come. She loved space and problem-solving and knew what she wanted to do with her life.

"Who would have imagined that a tragedy in 1986 (the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger) would cause a sixth-grade student to set a course for her lifes work?" said Amarillo City Council member Howard Smith, a long-time friend of the family. "But having known Holly for years, it is easy to believe that she would become a problem solver. Her ability to aim high has been a pattern all of her life."

Of course, Ridings wasnt through in Amarillo. She was part of Tascosas state championship basketball team in the early 1990s and was named to the all-tournament team as a forward for the Lady Rebels.

After earning a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M, she joined NASA in 1998. Her career there began as a flight controller in the thermal operations group, according to the NASA news release announcing her most recent appointment. Now, she will lead the group directing human spaceflight missions from Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Named to her new role in September 2018, she will lead a group of 32 active flight directors and flight directors-in-training, including integrating American-made commercial crew spacecraft into the fleet of vehicles servicing the orbiting laboratory, and Orion spacecraft missions to the moon and beyond. For context, think about the Tom Hanks movie "Apollo 13" and the role of NASA legend Gene Kranz as played by Ed Harris.

In other words, this is a big deal.

Her selection was announced by NASA Director of Flight Operations Brian Kelley. "Holly has proven herself a leader among a group of highly talented flight directors," he said. "I know she will excel in this unique and critical leadership position providing direction for the safety and success of human spaceflight missions. She will lead the team during exciting times as they adapt to support future missions with commercial partners and beyond low-Earth orbit."

Her career path at NASA has seen a steady upward trajectory since being named a flight director in 2005. Highlights include serving as the lead flight director for missions including International Space Station Expedition 16 in 2007-08, the space shuttle program mission STS-127 in 2009 and the first SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft mission to the space station in 2012.

"From classroom to Camp Fire programs to athletics, she just sets her goals and the rest is history," Smith said. "Some of that history at NASA is yet to be written. I have no doubt that Holly will help write it."

The official proclamation includes recognition of her "outstanding qualities of leadership and dedication. We acknowledge her exceptional service to this nation and NASAs space program. The City of Amarillo, Texas, recognizes your accomplishments and celebrates our Hometown Hero for making a difference in being a role model for so many. We are Amarillo proud!"

So are we. We salute Holly Ridings and congratulate her on all of her achievements. She is not only a great role model for young women (although she certainly is that). She is a great role model, period.

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Our view: Amarillo's Holly Ridings is the very definition of role model and local hero - Brownwood Bulletin