The Orion crew module is hoisted above a test fixture at Kennedy Space Center in Florida (left); the service module flight model for Exploration Mission-1 arrives in Germany.

Engineers building spacecraft are used to a bit of pressure, but the team assembling and testing Orion at locations across the United States and abroad are preparing for the kind of pressure they like.

In the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Orions crew module is being assembled, a team from NASA and Lockheed Martin is getting ready for Orions proof pressure testing, an evaluation that will helpverify the structural integrity of Orions underlying structure known as the pressure vessel. The work is an important milestone on Orions journey toward its mission beyond the moon atop the Space Launch System rocket in 2018. Last week, the team moved it to a new testing structure in advance of the evaluation.

At NASA Glenns Plum Brook Station in Ohio, engineers started testing a structural representation of the service module with sound pressure and vibration to make sure the component, which powers, propels, cools and provides consumables like air and water in space for Orion, can withstand the noise and shaking of launch. Meanwhile, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, engineers are already in the thick of a series of teststhat began earlier this month where a representative Orion crew capsule withcrash test dummiesinside is dropped in Langleys Hydro Impact Basin to understand what the spacecraft and astronauts may experience when landing in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions. Langley engineers have already completed three tests in the series and will next add spacesuits and helmets to the test dummies inside to gather more data.

While the stateside team continues to put the crew module through its technical paces, the European team manufacturing Orions service module has also been making progress. This week the first flight module of the Orion service module, provided by ESA (European Space Agency), was delivered by Thales Alenia Space to the Airbus Defence and Space, which is building it, to its location in Bremen, Germany. There, elements of the service module will be integrated before its shipped to Florida for integration with the rest of the Orion spacecraft early next year.

Direct Field Acoustic Testing is being conducted on the flown Orion crew module. Credit: Lockheed Martin

Engineers at Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martins facility near Denver are assessing a new acoustic test methodon the space-flown Orion crew module.

Direct Field Acoustic testing uses more than 1,500customized, high-energy speakers configured in a circle around thevehicle.This test simulates the intense acoustic loads Orion will experience during launch and ascent on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.If this test method passes all necessary evaluations it will be used to verify Orions ability to withstand SLS acoustic loads during its next mission, Exploration Mission-1.

Orion is lowered onto a work stand in the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Engineers loaded the Orion pressure vessel, or underlying structure of the crew module, into a work stand in the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 2. The pressure vessels seven large pieces were welded together at the agencys Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans between September 2015 and January 2016. It will fly thousands of miles beyond the moon on Exploration Mission-1.

The pressure vessel provides a sealed environment to support astronauts and is key for future human-rated crew modules. The Orion team will test the pressure vessel to make sure its structurally sound and then begin outfitting it with the spacecrafts other systems and subsystems. Over the next 18 months, more than 100,000 components will arrive to Kennedy for integration into Orion. Check out more photos of Orions trip to Kennedy.

NASAs Super Guppy aircraft will transport the underlying structure of Orion from New Orleans to the agencys Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The pressure vessel, or underlying structure, of Orion for Exploration Mission-1 is heading to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The pressure vessel was assembled at Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where technicians welded together its seven large aluminum pieces in detailed fashion over the course of about four months. It will travel to Kennedy on the agencys Super Guppy aircraft. Once it arrives, engineers will unload it into a fixture in the Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building where it will undergo testing and be outfitted with Orions systems and subsystems.

NASA has selected Charlie Lundquist as deputy manager of the agencys Orion Program.

NASA has selected Charlie Lundquist as deputy manager of the agencys Orion Program. Along with Program Manager Mark Kirasich, Lundquist will be responsible for oversight of design, development and testing of the Orion spacecraft, as well as spacecraft manufacturing already underway at locations across the county and in Europe. Lundquist has served as manager of the Orion crew and service module office since 2008.

Charlie has outstanding program management skills and has played pivotal roles in many of Orions accomplishments, including Orions successful flight test last year, said Kirasich. As we manufacture and deliver hardware and software for Orions next mission during the coming months and years, his leadership will be essential.

Lundquist began his NASA career in 1993 at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston in the Space Station Freedom Program and quickly transitioned into the International Space Station Program, where he managed the Russian Vehicle Project Office, serving as lead negotiator for all technical discussions between NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency. In 1997, he became deputy manager of the Element Integration Office for the space station, leading the multi-disciplinary team responsible for certifying the Unity module, the first U.S. element of the space station, for flight. In 1999, Lundquist was named deputy chief of Johnsons Life Sciences Research Laboratories, developing and administering NASAs operations and clinical research process to pursue research objectives aimed at improving health care systems and practices in space. He also served in several other positions in spaceflight research and the Constellation Program.

A native of Dallas, Lundquist received a bachelors degree in electrical engineering in 1984 from the University of Texas at Austin, a masters degree in biological science in 1996 from the University of Houston in Clear Lake and completed PhD coursework in biomedical sciencesunder a NASA fellowship at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, in 2001. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including NASAs Exceptional Service Medal and Silver Snoopy Award, as well as the JSC Directors Award of Excellence.

NASA is working with ESA and its contractor Airbus to provide the Orion service module for Exploration Mission-1.

NASAs Orion Program continues to mark progress at facilities around the country toward the next flight of the spacecraft. Engineers at NASA Glenn Research Centers Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio, are preparing a structural representation of the ESA (European Space Agency)-provided service module for several months of testing to ensure the component, which supplies Orions power and propulsion, can withstand the trip to space. The test article recently arrived from Europe. Meanwhile, technicians at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans are continuing the process of welding together the seven pieces of Orions pressure vessel for its next mission. See the latest images of Orion progress here.

At Michoud Assembly Facility, technicians welded together Orions barrel and aft bulkhead inside a tooling structure.

Engineers at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans continue to weld together the primary structure of the Orion spacecraft for Exploration Mission-1. Technicians recently joined the spacecrafts barrel section, which is the round middle part of the spacecraft, to the aft bulkhead, which is the bottom portion of the crew module. Orions primary structure is composed of seven large pieces that are put together in detailed order. Orions three cone panels next will be welded together. Once completed, the structure will be shipped from Michoud to the agencys Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Orions systems and subsystems will be integrated and processed before launch atop NASAs Space Launch System rocket.

NASA has appointed Mark Kirasich to be manager of the agencys Orion Program. Credits: NASA/Bill Stafford

NASA has appointed Mark Kirasich to be manager of the agencys Orion Program. The Orion spacecraft is being developed to send astronauts to deep space destinations, such as an asteroid and ultimately to Mars, launching on the agencys Space Launch System rocket.

Kirasich has been deputy Orion Program manager since 2006. He now will be responsible for oversight of design, development and testing of the Orion spacecraft, as well as spacecraft manufacturing already underway at locations across the country and in Europe for ESA (European Space Agency).

Mark brings a wealth of knowledge about NASAs human spaceflight efforts to the Orion Program manager position, said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate in Washington. By overseeing the team and the work needed to send Orion to deep space, and working directly with our international partner ESA to provide the spacecrafts service module, his leadership will be essential to enabling humans to pioneer farther into the solar system and continue our journey to Mars.

Kirasich began his NASA career in 1983 at Johnson Space Center as a member of the space shuttle flight operations team, quickly advancing to the position of lead space shuttle payload officer in mission control. In 1996, he was selected as a flight director in charge of planning and executing NASA human spaceflight missions, serving in that capacity for multiple space shuttle missions and International Space Station expeditions.

I have seen firsthand Marks impact on the Orion Program, and previously in key operations leadership roles at Johnson, and I look forward to having him help us extend the success of Orions 2014 flight test forward, said JSC Director Ellen Ochoa.

Kirasich succeeds Mark Geyer, who became JSCs deputy director in August.

A native of Chicago, Kirasich received a bachelors degree in electrical engineering in 1982 from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and a masters degree in electrical engineering in 1983 from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including NASAs Outstanding Leadership Medal and Space Flight Awareness Award, as well as a JSC Directors Commendation.

Across the country, elements of the Orion spacecraft are coming together for the first integrated mission with the Space Launch System. At NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, welding began in September on the next Orion destined for space. Next month, NASA will see the arrival of a test version of Orions service module, provided by ESA, for testing and analysis at the agencys Plum Brook Station, near Sandusky, Ohio.

For more information about Orion,click here.

Engineers at Lockheed Martins facility near Denver examine Orion upon its arrival. Credit: Lockheed Martin

NASAs Orion spacecraft that flew into space in 2014 has completed its trek from the agencys Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Littleton, Colorado, facility of Orion prime contractor Lockheed Martin. Engineers will perform final decontamination of the crew module, continue post-flight analysis and evaluate a new acoustic technology to determine if the method can produce enough energy to simulate the acoustic loads Orion will experience during launch and ascent atop NASAs Space Launch System rocket. Check out images of Orion and read more about the acoustic testing here.

Mars enthusiasts around the world can participate in NASAs journey to Mars by adding their names to a silicon microchip headed to the Red Planet aboard NASAs InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch next year.

The fly-your-name opportunity comes with frequent flier points to reflect an individuals personal participation in NASAs journey to Mars, which will span multiple missions and multiple decades. The InSight mission offers the second such opportunity for space exploration fans to collect points by flying their names aboard a NASA mission, with more opportunities to follow.

Last December, the names of 1.38 million people flew on a chip aboard the first flight of NASAs Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to deep space destinations including Mars and an asteroid. After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent flier points will be NASAs Exploration Mission-1, the first planned test flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond.

Submissions will be accepted until Sept. 8. To send your name to Mars aboard InSight, go to: http://go.usa.gov/3Aj3G

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Orion - NASA Blogs

A Proton rocket lifts off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the EchoStar 21 communications satellite. Credit: Khrunichev

An EchoStar communications satellite designed to link Europeans with voice and broadband data services rode into orbit on top of a Russian Proton rocket Thursday, deploying into an on-target orbit after nine hours of maneuvers by the launchers Breeze M upper stage.

The 191-foot-tall (58-meter) Proton/Breeze M rocket took off at 0345:47 GMT Thursday (11:45:47 p.m. EDT Wednesday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, heading to the east from the historic Central Asia launch base into partly sunny skies.

Liftoff occurred at 9:45 a.m. local time at Baikonur, when the Protons six RD-276 main engines, consuming a mixture of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, ignited with a rush of orange-brown exhaust and powered the launcher airborne with 2 million pounds of thrust.

The Proton dropped its three main stages and payload fairing in predetermined zones downrange from Baikonur, and a Breeze M upper stage ignited five times, first to enter a preliminary parking orbit around 100 miles above Earth, then to steer the EchoStar 21 communications satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit, the drop-off point for most large telecom spacecraft.

The Breeze Ms guidance computer intended to deliver EchoStar 21 into an orbit ranging between 1,429 miles (2,300 kilometers) and 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 30.5 degrees to the equator.

International Launch Services, a Virginia-based company owned by Russias Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, managed Thursdays Proton mission. ILS is responsible for marketing and sales of Proton rockets on the global commercial market.

Officials declared the launch a success more than nine hours after liftoff, when the Breeze M upper stage released EchoStar 21 in orbit.

We have been honored to have served EchoStar for nearly 20 years now, dating back to the launch of the EchoStar 4 satellite on Proton in 1998, said Kirk Pysher, ILS president, in a post-launch press release. The ILS team is very proud to have played a role in the expansion of the EchoStar satellite fleet and enabling connectivity across Europe, with the successful launch of EchoStar 21. Our sincere thanks to all of the EchoStar 21 team members who played a vital role in the success of this mission.

Built by Space Systems/Loral in Palo Alto, California, the EchoStar 21 satellite weighed around 15,200 pounds (6.9 metric tons) at liftoff, making it one of the most massive commercial communications craft ever launched, and the heaviest commercial payload ever flown on a Proton rocket.

Thursdays launch was the first by a Proton rocket since June 9, 2016, when the Intelsat 31/DLA-2 communications satellite launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Russian officials grounded the Proton to study an upper stage engine problem, then the launchers return to service was delayed several more months due to a recall of Russian rocket engines found to have defects.

EchoStar 21 was transported to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in November for a planned Dec. 28 launch, but authorities grounded the mission to scrub Russias rocket propulsion industry after discovering widespread quality control problems.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, strengthened inspection and quality requirements after recalling 71 rocket engines used on the Protons second and third stages. The engines, manufactured byVoronezh Mechanical Plant VMZ under contract to Proton-builder Khrunichev, were found to have substandard solders using metals that were not as heat-resistant as specified in the engine designs.

The general director of VMZ was dismissed, according to Roscosmos, and new engines were installed for the EchoStar 21 launch.

Russian authorities directedofficials from NPO Energomash, which builds first stage engines for the Soyuz, Atlas 5 and Antares rockets, to take charge of engine production at VMZ to improve quality control, production discipline and the culture at the troubled plant.

NPO Energomash will also upgrade monitors on engine performance during test-firings before installation on the Proton rocket, Roscosmos said.

Four more Proton launches are planned before the end of the year, including two additional commercial ILS missions with the Amazonas 5 and AsiaSat 9 communications satellites for Madrid-based Hispasat and Hong Kong-headquartered AsiaSat, respectively. There are two Russian government payloads also slated for Proton flights later this year.

EchoStar 21s 15-year mission will help expand a mobile voice and data relay communications network over the European Union and neighboring countries for EchoStar Mobile Ltd., a Dublin-based subsidiary of Colorado-based EchoStar Corp.

Based on the SSL 1300-series satellite bus, EchoStar 21 will fire its on-board thruster in the coming weeks to circularize its orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator. The spacecraft will also extend its power-generating solar panels, unfurl a 59-foot (18-meter) reflector built by Harris Corp. once on station, and activate its S-band communications payload for in-orbit tests.

EchoStar 21 will enter service in geostationary orbit at 10.25 degrees east longitude, a perch with coverage over Europe.

The umbrella-shaped Harris-built antenna will allow users on the ground to connect with the satellite via compact receivers, helping customers on-the-go make voice calls, send emails and browse the Internet.

EchoStar 21 joins 25 other spacecraft owned, operated, or leased by EchoStar and its subsidiaries, the fourth-largest commercial geostationary satellite fleet. The new spacecraft was supposed to launch in early 2016 before Proton delays slipped the liftoff to this month.

Space Systems/Loral said in a statement after Thursdays launch that EchoStar 21 is performing post-launch maneuvers according to plan after ground controllers established contact with the satellite.

The launch of EchoStar 21 is a major milestone in the continued expansion of our satellite fleet, said Anders Johnson, executive director of EchoStar Mobile and president of EchoStar Satellite Services. EchoStar 21 will provide capacity to EchoStar Mobile for commercial wholesalers with a new, advanced network for reliable, IP-based MSS (Mobile Satellite Services) voice and data services in Europe. We appreciate the hard work and dedication of all of the team members from EchoStar, SSL, ILS and Khrunichev, who played a role in the successful launch of EchoStar 21.

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Proton rocket successfully returns to flight after year-long grounding - Spaceflight Now

The 2017 NASA astronaut candidates. Front row, from left: Zena Cardman, Jasmin Moghbeli, Jonny Kim, Raji Chari and Loral O Hara. Back row, from left: Frank Rubio, Matthew Dominick, Warren Hoburg, Robb Kulin, Kayla Barron, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins.Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz

NASA has picked 12 engineers, scientists and pilots to begin basic training for future spaceflight assignments from more than 18,300 applicants, adding U.S. military combat veterans, two medical doctors, a submarine officer, an MIT professor, an expert on submersibles, a SpaceX launch engineer, a field biologistand a planetary geologist to the agencys astronaut ranks.

Vice President Mike Pence, lawmakers and political dignitaries welcomed the 12 astronaut candidates Wednesday at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The new cadre of astronaut candidates are part of NASAs largest astronaut class since 2000, and they will begin two years of training in August before becoming full-feldged members of the astronaut corps and eligible for flight assignments.

These are 12 men and women whose personal excellence and whose personal courage will carry our nation to even greater heights of discovery and who I know will inspire our children and our grandchildren every bit as much as your forebears have done so in this storied American program, Pence said.

Pence reiterated the White Houses plans to reestablish the National Space Council, a multi-agency panel that waslast active during President George H.W. Bushs administration. Pence will chair the council, which will include representatives from civilian and military agencies, the private sector and academia.

America needs a National Space Council once again, Pence said. Twice before in our nations history, our nation has had a federal body charged with advising the president on national policy and strategy for space.

Pence did not offer specifics of the White Houses vision for NASA, but President Trumps fiscal year 2018 budget request proposes a $19.1 billion budget for the space agency next year, a $561 million reduction from NASAs current-year spending.

The budget request calls for a $170 million cut in Earth science spending, the elimination of five Earth science missions, the shuttering of NASAs education office, and the cancellation of a planned mission to retrieve a boulder-sized piece of an asteroid and return it to the vicinity of the moon for astronaut visits.

NASAs Space Launch System and Orion capsule, designed for deep space human exploration, would receive a multibillion-dollar budget, and the robotic Mars 2020 rover and Europa Clipper probe are kept on track in the White House proposal. A Europa lander would be terminated.

We will continue to unlock the mysteries of space, but to do so, we most reorient our civilian space program toward deep space exploration and provide the capabilites for America to maintain a constant presence in low Earth orbit and beyond, Pence said.

NASA released biographies of the 12 new astronaut candidates, who applied for the space program after NASA posted astronaut job openings in December 2015.

Here are brief overviews of the 12 new astronaut candidates provided by NASA:

As American astronauts, you may yet return our nation to the moon, you may be the first to travel to Mars, (and) you may have experiences that we can only imagine, Pence said.

NASA culled the 12 finalists from more than 18,000 applicants, a record level of interest in the astronaut job opportunities that bested the number of applications for the space agencys 1978 astronaut class, the first to include women and minorities.

Getting down from 18,000 to some manageable number was a feat in and of itself, said astronaut Chris Cassidy, deputy chair of the astronaut selection board. We physically interviewed 120 people here in Houston obviously these 12 were a part of that and thats when it really gets hard.

The would-be space explorers are a diverse group, hailing from different personal backgrounds and boasting a range of professional experiences.

Five of the astronaut candidates hold doctorate degrees, and seven are current or former military officers.

Jonny Kim, a former Navy SEAL and currently an emergency physician, said NASA told the incoming astronauts they would likely initially train to fly on commercial SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST-100 Starliner capsules to the International Space Station.

Asked if he would ride on a CST-100 Starliner crew craft owned and operated by Boeing, a SpaceX rival, SpaceX engineer Robb Kulin said yes.

Ill ride on whatever spacecraft I can go on, said Kulin, who helped design parts of SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket and most recently led SpaceXs launch chief engineering office. Im pretty confident in the processes, as a whole, to get us there safely.

Two of the astronaut candidates have experience in NASAs robotic exploration programs. Watkins, a former college rugby player, worked on NASAs Curiosity Mars rover and other missions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Chari was an intern at two NASA centers as a student at the Air Force Academy, assigned to teams developing the Spitzer Space Telescope and a Mars sample return mission.

I think one (area) that was a bigger focus in this selection was skills that are appropriate for longer-tern spaceflight, so stays on the ISS that are six months or longer, or possible deeper space exploration missions, said OHara, a subsea systems engineer.We have a little more of a remote and extreme environment skillset than maybe previous classes did.

Bob Hines, the oldest of the group, said he attended Space Camp as a child, which fanned the flame and grew his interest in spaceflight. But his lifelong passion has been aviation, and he only became interested in the astronaut corps recently as a pilot based at Johnson Space Center.

Matthew Dominick was deployed on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific Ocean when he learned of his selection to become an astronaut.

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NASA unveils new class of 12 astronauts - Spaceflight Now

Derek Richardson

June 8th, 2017

Falcon 9 core 1029 arrives at SpaceXs horizontal integration hangar just outside Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A to be integrated with the second stage in advance of the BulgariaSat-1 mission. Photo Credit: SpaceX

Keeping up with its current launch pace of once every two weeks or so, SpaceX announced it was targeting June 17, 2017, for the launch of BulgariaSat-1. Liftoff is slated for the beginning of a two-hour window opening at 2:20 p.m. EDT (18:10 GMT) at Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) in Florida.

This will be the second time the Hawthorn, California-based company will utilize a flight-proven Falcon 9 to send a satellite into orbit. The first was in April 2017 with the launch of SES-10.The first stage that will be used for the BulgariaSat-1 mission, core 1029, first flew on Jan. 14, 2017, during the Iridium-1 mission to send 10 Iridium NEXT satellites to space.

SpaceX, if it launches BulgariaSat-1 on time, will only barely miss its record turnaround time for a launch pad, which is currently set at 13 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes between the TurkmenSat-1 and CRS-6 missions in 2015, which both used Space Launch Complex 40 in nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The next mission will miss the record by just under 20 hours.

The June 17 mission will see the first geostationary communications satellite owned by a Bulgarian company, Bulsatcom, sent into space. The 8,800 pound (4,000 kilogram) satellite was built by SSL on its SSL 1300 satellite platform. It will provide high-definition television broadcasts and fixed satellite services to the Balkans, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa from a geostationary orbital slot of 2 degrees East.

The Falcon 9 will send BulgariaSat-1 into a geostationary transfer orbit where thesatellitesonboard propulsion will finish the job of circularizing its orbit.

Once the first stage finishes its job, some two minutes into flight, it will likely place itself on a trajectory to land on SpaceXs Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship Of Course I Still Love You downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. It will then be towed back to Port Canaveral several days later for potential refurbishment and reuse.

Tagged: bulgariasat-1 Bulsatcom Core 1029 Falcon 9 Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A Lead Stories SpaceX

Derek Richardson has a degree in mass media, with an emphasis in contemporary journalism, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. While at Washburn, he was the managing editor of the student run newspaper, the Washburn Review. He also has a blog about the International Space Station, called Orbital Velocity. He met with members of the SpaceFlight Insider team during the flight of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket with the MUOS-4 satellite. Richardson joined our team shortly thereafter. His passion for space ignited when he watched Space Shuttle Discovery launch into space Oct. 29, 1998. Today, this fervor has accelerated toward orbit and shows no signs of slowing down. After dabbling in math and engineering courses in college, he soon realized his true calling was communicating to others about space. Since joining SpaceFlight Insider in 2015, Richardson has worked to increase the quality of our content, eventually becoming our managing editor.

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'Flight-proven' Falcon 9 to launch BulgariaSat-1 June 17 - SpaceFlight Insider

Jason Rhian

June 8th, 2017

SpaceX CEO and Founder has issued a tweet noting that the companys Falcon Heavy rocket could take to Floridas skies as early as September. Photo Credit: Mike Deep / SpaceFlight Insider

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. In a response to a question on the social media platform Twitter, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) founder and CEO Elon Musk stated that, if everything goes according to plan, the first flight of the Falcon Heavy could take place assoon as this fall.

According to the entrepreneur: All Falcon Heavy cores should be at the Cape in two to three months, so launch should happen a month after that

A rough estimate of this timeline places that flight in September.

Musk first mentioned the Falcon Heavy in September 2005, with its first flight planned for 2013. However, the Hawthorne, California-based NewSpace firm has been busy with developing the infrastructure needed at four launch sites, perfecting and evolving its Falcon 9 family of launchers as well as carrying out an impressive 2017 launch manifest (with seven flights having taken placeso far this year).

Musk has noted in the past that the Falcon Heavy, with its three core stages and their 27 Merlin 1D rocket engines, has proven to be a rather challenging vehicle to produce. Even more so, considering that, like the Falcon 9, the Falcon Heavys three core stages have been shown carrying out a reentry and landing making any flight of the new launcher no less than three times as complex.

SpaceX has stated that it is working to have Cape Canaveral Air Force Stations Space Launch Complex 40, damaged during the Amos-6 explosion, repaired and returned to service later this summer. After this has happened, Falcon 9 flights should launch from SLC-40, with Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A being used to launch the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX entered into a 20-year lease with NASA to use historic LC-39A in 2014.

Tagged: Elon Musk Falcon Heavy Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A SpaceX The Range Twitter

Jason Rhian spent several years honing his skills with internships at NASA, the National Space Society and other organizations. He has provided content for outlets such as: Aviation Week & Space Technology, Space.com, The Mars Society and Universe Today.

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Musk: Launch of Falcon Heavy could take place as soon as September - SpaceFlight Insider

File photo of an X-37B spaceplane being encapsulated inside the nose cone of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket before its first test flight in April 2010. Credit. U.S. Air Force

A month after an X-37B mini-space shuttle glided to a landing on Kennedy Space Centers runway in Florida, the U.S. Air Force announced Tuesday that the spaceplanes next mission will launch in August aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the first time.

The previously-unannounced launch agreement will use a Falcon 9 rocket to loft one of the Air Forces two Boeing-built X-37B spaceplanes, reusable craft that have circled Earth for a combined 2,085 days on four previous flights.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, displaying a model of the unpiloted spaceplane, disclosed the services launch plans for the fifth X-37B mission during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday.

This is the model of the X-37, which will be going up again, Wilson said. Its a reusable vehicle and will be going up again on top of a SpaceX launcher in August.

Managed by the Air Forces Rapid Capabilities Office, the X-37Bs are about one-quarter the size of a space shuttle orbiter. Built by Boeings Phantom Works division, each spaceship has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.5 meters) and a length of more than 29 feet (8.9 meters).

The X-37B weighs about 11,000 pounds (5 metric tons) and has typically orbited Earth at altitudes between 200 and 250 miles (320 to 400 kilometers).

The X-37Bs, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, take off nestled inside the payload fairing of a conventional rocket, then open payload bay doors and deploy a power-generating solar panel in orbit. The spaceplanes glide back to Earth for a runway landing.

The crafts four previous missions lifted off on United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral, each mission spending progressively longer periods in orbit.

The X-37Bs took off inside the short version of the Atlas 5 rockets 5-meter-class payload fairing without the aid of strap-on solid rocket boosters, a configuration ULA calls the Atlas 5-501. The Falcon 9s standard payload shroud is approximately the same diameter and length of the Atlas 5s short 5-meter fairing.

The most recent flight, named OTV-4, ended May 7 with the X-37Bs first touchdown on the former space shuttle landing strip at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 718 days in orbit. The previous three missions landed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but the Air Force and Boeing have relocated X-37B launch, landing and processing operations to the Florida spaceport, taking over two former space shuttle hangars near the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building.

The X-37Bs missions in space are largely secret, and the robotic spaceships landing last month was the first time the Air Force did not announce the crafts scheduled return ahead of time. Breaking with disclosures ahead of earlier flights, the Air Force also did not reveal which of the two spaceplanes flew the OTV-4 mission.

Military officials did not identify Tuesday which spacecraft is slated for the fifth X-37B flight.

We are very excited for the next fifth X-37B mission, said Randy Walden,the director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. We look forward tocontinued expansion of the vehicles performance and are excited to continuehosting experimental payloads for the space community.

The Air Force said in a statement Tuesday that the fifth X-37B flight will include several firsts.

This mission will be the programsfirst launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Upgrade launch vehicle, the Air Force said. The program alsocontinues to build upon its fourth mission collaboration with experimentpartners.

The Air Force Research Laboratory will test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes on the X-37Bs fifth long-duration spaceflight, military officials said.

Other objectives of the flight remain secret.

The ability to launch the Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms willensure a robust launch capability for our experiment designers, Walden said in a statement. We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexibleand responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceXs ability toprovide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program.

SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket was certified by the Air Force to launch the militarys sensitive and costly national security payloads in 2015. Since that milestone, the Air Force has awarded contracts to SpaceX for launches of two Global Positioning System navigation satellites, and at least a dozen more launch contracts are up for grabs by SpaceX and ULA through 2019.

Before SpaceX was certified, the Air Force gave launch contracts ULA in sole-source block buy awards.

But the rocket contract for the fifth X-37B mission was not listed in a roster of planned competitive space launch procurements provided by Air Force officials in recent months.

SpaceX has up to a half-dozen launches on its schedule before the X-37B mission in August, primarily deployments of commercial communications satellites. The company aims to resume flights from Cape Canaverals Complex 40 launch pad by September after crews repair damage to the facility from a Falcon 9 rocket explosion in September.

Until then, all Falcon 9s launched from Florida will take off from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon missions and most space shuttle flights.

Officials have not specified which Florida launch pad will host the Falcon 9s liftoff with the fifth X-37B flight, and SpaceX said last week that they have not determined which mission will be the next to depart from pad 40.

Wilson, who has been the top civilian in the Air Force for three weeks, told lawmakers Tuesday the hotly-competitive U.S. launch market is driving launch prices down, giving the military two certified contractors to ensure a backup provider is available if one launch vehicle runs into trouble.

The Pentagon instituted the assured access to space policy after a string of launch failures in the 1990s, and ULAs Atlas and Delta rocket fleets offered the military launch redundancy until SpaceXs Falcon 9 arrived on the market.

We had a huge problem in the 1990s with access to space, and the country, at that time, made a significant investment in space capability, and the ability to launch, and it paid off and is showing results, Wilson said. The benefit now is that were seeing competition, and its bringing the price down for access to space.

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US Air Force taps SpaceX to launch next X-37B spaceplane mission - Spaceflight Now

Ocean McIntyre

June 7th, 2017

This artists concept shows planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. It is the hottest gas giant planet discovered so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Six hundred and fifty light-years from Earth, in the constellation Cygnus, a bright, young, Type-A, blue, main-sequence star designated KELT-9 burns brightly. More than twice as massive as the Sun and nearly twice as hot, KELT-9 is a rare star one of a group of stars making up less than one percent of the total stars in the universe. According to a paper published this week in Nature,thisunusual starhosts an equally unusual exoplanet.

Using data from the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) administered by Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio; Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennesee; Lehigh University of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; and South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), scientists determined there tobe a very strange, and very hot, exoplanet orbiting the bright KELT-9 star. The exoplanet was discovered after theynoted a repeated dimming of the star approximately every 36 hours.

KELT is made up of two robotic wide-field telescopes. KELT-North at the Winer Observatory about an hour outside of Tucson, Arizona, and KELT-South at the Sutherland astronomical observation station about 230 miles (370 kilometers) north of Cape Town, South Africa.

Photo Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

The exoplanet it found, KELT-9b, is a hot Jupiter gas giant. It was expected to be roughly the same size as Jupiter, but further study proved it to be 2.8 times more massive and half as dense.Its thought that the large size of KELT-9b is due to both its proximity to the star KELT-9and the radiation KELT-9gives off. This combination has caused the planet to become superheated and to puff up.

Scott Gaudi, an Ohio State University astronomy professor, workedon the study at the Jet Propulsion Lab, in Pasadena, California, while on sabbatical. Gaudi has spent the last two decades searching for exoplanets, and, according to him, KELT-9b is one of the strangest exoplanets Ive ever seen.

With this discovery, KELT-9 became the seventh Type A star located to host an exoplanet. In addition, it is also the brightest star to host an exoplanet thus far.

Up until this discovery, WASP-33b was believed to be the hottest exoplanet, but KELT-9b is nearly 20 percent hotter. In addition, it receives nearly 700 times as much radiation from its host star than WASP-33b does. The ultraviolet radiation within the orbit of KELT-9b is beyond extreme. Because it is so close to its host star, it is presumed to be tidally locked the same face of the planet is always facing the star.

The temperatures on KELT-9b on the side of the planetfacing away from the star are estimated to be 6,830 degrees Fahrenheit (3,777 Celsius), whereas the star-facing side reaches temperatures approximately 7,820 Fahrenheit (4,327 Celsius). At this temperature, combined with the extreme UV radiation and stellar proximity, the surface of the planet is quite likely a molecular pandemonium with its surface atmosphere literally being evaporated.

Molecules such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane cant form at all on the star-facing side of the planet. On the side facing away from the star, some molecules may be able to recombine, but probably only temporarily. The completely inhospitable environment of KELT-9b has made it a searing hot, puffy planet writhing in ions that it is possibly shedding its atmosphere much like a comets tail but on a more massive level.

As if the sheer heat of KELT-9b wasnt enough of an oddity, theres its orbit. Instead of orbiting its host star along its axial plane, KELT-9b is orbiting its star nearly perpendicular to it in a pole to pole orbit.

With the mass of a planet and the atmosphere of a star, all indications are that KELT-9b could very well be some type of hybrid planet-star or, at the very least, a new class of planet. Scientists are looking forward to studying KELT-9b in depth, with both the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes as well as with continued observations with the KELT North and South.

This discovery has raised many new questions about the evolution of stellar systems like this. Especially considering what might happen when KELT-9 reaches the end of its life. After a 500-million-year sequence lifetime, KELT-9 will exhaust its hydrogen and become a red giant star, swelling to three times its current size.Scientists are already hypothesizing about what might become of the exoplanet KELT-9b at that time. It might be swallowed by the red giant or, perhaps, just remain as a scorched remnant of a planet with its atmosphere and volatiles completely stripped away. There is a possibility that there exists a population of close-in super-Earth remnant core planets orbiting subgiant stars.

It is hoped that with the launch of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in March and October 2018, respectively, some of these questions maybe answered.

CGI animation of planet KELT-9b orbiting its host star, KELT-9. Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech

Tagged: Exoplanet KELT KELT-9 KELT-9b The Range

A native of the Greater Los Angeles area, Ocean McIntyre's writing is focused primarily on science (STEM and STEAM) education and public outreach. McIntyre is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador as well as holding memberships with The Planetary Society, Los Angeles Astronomical Society, and is a founding member of SafePlaceForSpace.org. McIntyre is currently studying astrophysics and planetary science with additional interests in astrobiology, cosmology and directed energy propulsion technology. With SpaceFlight Insider seeking to expand the amount of science articles it produces, McIntyre was a welcomed addition to our growing team.

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Astronomers find exoplanet hotter than most stars - SpaceFlight Insider

Mike Howard

June 7th, 2017

Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly detailed what he had to do to become an astronaut with NASA during an event held on Monday, June 5. Photo Credit: Mike Howard / SpaceFlight Insider

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. More and more, NASA and its family of contractors are focusing their attention on the Red Planet, and an event held at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Monday, June 5, showed off some sporty new wheels that any astronaut would love to use when cruising the flash-frozen plains of Mars.

The event, part of the Visitor Complexs Summer of Mars celebration, unveiled a Mars rover concept vehicle and was hosted, in part, by former shuttle astronauts Scott Kelly and Jon McBride.

Photo Credit: Mike Howard / SpaceFlight Insider

Kelly, who completed one year on the International Space Station in March of last year (2016), spoke for about an hour, noting that when one is working on large goals, the best way to achieve them is through a series of small, manageable steps.

Children need inspiration and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex worked with Parker Brothers Concepts, along with NASA scientists, to develop the Mars concept rover which is poised to tour the U.S. East Coast in July and August in an effort meant to help provide that inspiration. This summer, the Visitor Complex will also provide free admission to students who are entering the fifth grade this fall.

Besides his one-year stint on board the International Space Station, Kelly flew to orbit as the pilot on STS-103 and as the commander of STS-118. Photo Credit: Mike Howard / SpaceFlight Insider

Mondaysevent was held at the Visitor Complexs Rocket Garden and includedLisa Hultquist the senior director of sales,marketing, content, and education for the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

For his part, Kelly noted that missions like his one-year stay on the ISS are critical on NASAs Journey to Mars.

Theres a lot more stuff, especially about human physiology, that we need to know if were going to go to Mars; its going to take over six months to get there. Youre going to have tospend over a year on the surface; its going to take over six months to get back thats a lot of time in space, Kelly said. [] so theres a lot more that westill needto learn before we make that journey.

Video courtesy of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

Tagged: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Parker Brothers Concepts Scott Kelly Summer of Mars The Range

Mike Howard was born on Florida's Space Coast in 1961, growing up on the beaches near the Kennedy Space Center when rockets first started to fly into space. As a small boy, one of the first photographs he took was in July 1969 - of the Apollo 11 launch to the Moon with his father's Nikon. With over 20 years of professional photographic experience Howard has been published in various media including Florida Today, Air and Space Magazine and has worked with SpaceX and Space Florida as well as other news outlets. In 1998 his company started offering destination wedding photography services in the Cocoa Beach area and in 2005 Michael Howard Photography L.L.C. was formed.

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'Custom' ride on the road to Mars unveiled at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex - SpaceFlight Insider

How many of our kids dream of going into space? How many dream of just getting through the next day?

As a kid of the 60s, Ive been inspired by NASA and the space program for as long as I can remember. It was the reason I went into engineering. I dreamed of endless possibilities.

But for many, the possibilities were far from endless. It was a daily struggle to survive. It still is.

I was born a couple weeks after Dr. King gave life to the Dream and only a couple days before the horrific bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church and vicious murders that ended the lives of four little girls and two young boys.

As a nation, how do we reconcile our ability to land a man on the moon within a decade and our inability to end the systematic, violent oppression committed over centuries?

How is it possible for otherwise loving people to ignore the dehumanizing effects that result from segregating and isolating others? People who say they harbor no ill-will against the oppressed, but perpetuate a culture of ill-will.

Dr. King spoke of the strange paradoxes of a nation founded on the principle that all men were created equal, fighting to maintain a culture of institutionalized segregation and discrimination.

This culture persists today.

On what is being called Discrimination Sunday, Texas legislators would have made their Jim Crow-era counterparts proud. One of the bills passed by the Texas House, SB2078, includes an amendment preventing transgender K-12 children from using bathrooms matching their gender identity.

Perhaps we should not be surprised.

Bathrooms and public spaces were used like a weapon during the Jim Crow era, as segregationists preyed on fears that African Americans would assault white women and children or pass on diseases. Many of the same scare tactics used to justify segregating African Americans are being used today against transgender people, including children.

These scare tactics were used to great effect in Houston and North Carolina and adopted as a model by other states trying to pass anti-transgender legislation.

How is it possible states can pass this type of legislation despite the overwhelming evidence debunking false claims about safety?

This is not just about bathrooms. And weve been here before.

In her enlightening book, Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly introduced us to the extraordinary contributions African American women made to NASA and our space program. It was also a stark reminder of the culture of normalcy around segregation and discrimination that endured into the Space Age.

African American women like Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson made great contributions scientifically and in breaking down barriers of segregation and discrimination. They took a stand.

I ask that the people of Texas take a stand this time with transgender children and their families.

Segregation and separate but equal are a thinly veiled rejection of the truth that we are all created equal. Segregation dehumanizes. It isolates and denigrates physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston spoke passionately against the legislation:

Thankfully, the lessons of the past are not lost on all.

Businesses including IBM, Dell, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and many others recognize the value of diversity and signed a letter opposing this harmful legislation.

As a parent to a young transgender child and the CEO of an aerospace company, I appeal to the millions of companies and organizations in Texas and elsewhere to do the same.

To those who may have been silent about injustices in the past it is never too late to speak out.

To those who may have made the wrong choice in the past it is never too late for redemption.

And as we speak out against injustice, we know of a wondrous power:

So now, through this redemptive power of love, we can dream of endless possibilities.

Peter and Sarah Tchoryk live in Michigan and have three kids and three grandkids. They strive to create meaningful opportunities for all kids and fulfill the Dream.

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

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A Letter to Texas on Spaceflight, Dreams, and Transgender Kids - HuffPost

Financial Times

Second Tim Peake space flight under threat over cost dispute Financial Times Tim Peake's second flight to space has been called into question because of haggling over how much money the UK should contribute to the European Space Agency. It was announced by the government in January that the UK-born astronaut would follow ...

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Second Tim Peake space flight under threat over cost dispute - Financial Times

A powerful new launch vehicle climbed into space from Indias east coast Monday, delivering a multi-beam communications satellite to orbit on its first full-up test flight, setting marks for the heaviest rocket and spacecraft ever launched from India.

The upgraded Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, named GSLV MK.3, lifted off at 1158 GMT (7:58 a.m. EDT) Monday from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, a spaceport on Indias east coast around 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Chennai.

The 142-foot-tall (43-meter) rocket soared into mostly clear skies over Sriharikota, where launch occurred at 5:28 p.m. local time, on 2.2 million pounds of thrust from two side-mounted solid rocket boosters.

Turning on an easterly trajectory, the GSLV Mk.3 exceeded the speed of sound and ignited two liquid-fueled Vikas engines on its core stage just prior to the flights two-minute point.

The GSLV Mk.3s twin strap-on boosters the second-largest operational solid-fueled rocket motors in the world burned out and jettisoned at T+plus 2 minutes, 20 seconds, followed around a minute later by the separation of the rockets clamshell-like nose cone, which shielded the GSAT 19 communications satellite aboard the launcher during its flight through the lower atmosphere.

A cryogenic hydrogen-fueled upper stage engine took control of the mission at T+plus 5 minutes, 22 seconds, for a nearly 11-minute firing to finish the job of placing GSAT 19 into an arcing oval-shaped transfer orbit stretching more than 20,000 miles above Earth.

Indian engineers tested the new rockets solid rocket boosters and twin-engine core stage on a suborbital demonstration flight in December 2014, but the scaled-down test launch carried a dummy upper stage.

Since the 2014 test flight, engineers finished development of the high-thrust CE-20 cryogenic engine, an extension of the hydrogen-burning powerplant on Indias smaller GSLV Mk.2 rocket.

The engine performed flawlessly on Mondays flight, according to the Indian Space Research Organization, and placed the 6,913-pound (3,136-kilogram) GSAT 19 communications satellite into an on-target orbit.

The GSLV Mk.3s guidance computer aimed to deliver GSAT 19 to an orbit stretching from a low point of 105 miles (170 kilometers) to a high point of 22,353 miles (35,975 kilometers), with an inclination of 21.5 degrees.

Officials declared the launch a success in remarks soon after the GSAT 19 satellite deployed from the GSLV Mk.3s upper stage. The separation occurred around 16 minutes after liftoff, an event captured in video from an on-board camera as the rocket sailed through space in orbital darkness.

Today is a historic day, said A.S. Kiran Kumar, ISROs chairman. We have been able to successfully put the satellite into orbit, and I take this opportunity to congratulate the entire team, which has relentlessly worked many decades for this program from 2002.

The GSLV Mk.3 is designed to loft satellites as heavy as 8,800 pounds (4 metric tons) into geostationary transfer orbit, the drop-off point for most large communications and broadcasting satellites.

That is around twice the capability of the GSLV Mk.2, Indias next-biggest rocket, vaulting the countrys space program a step closer to self-reliance. Despite Indias string of 38 straight successes with its smallest operational rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, and an improving track record for the GSLV Mk.2, the countrys heaviest satellites must launch on foreign-made boosters, usually Arianespaces Ariane 5 launcher.

Kiran Kumar said Mondays flight was a great success in the maiden attempt.

Now, GSLV Mk.3 has successfully put GSAT 19 (into orbit), which is a next-generation satellite with multi-beams, and well be looking forward to operation of the satellite.

The GSLV Mk.3 can place nearly 18,000 pounds, or 8 metric tons, into a low-altitude orbit almost 400 miles, or 600 kilometers, above Earth, according to ISRO.

That is just shy of the lift capability of United Launch Alliances basic Atlas 5 rocket configuration without strap-on boosters, but well short of the capacity of the Atlas 5s more powerful versions, the Ariane 5, and SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket.

I am proud to be Indian by having the opportunity to work in this marvelous development, said K. Sivan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, headquarters for Indias rocket programs.

Sivan said engineers spent the last two-and-a-half years since the GSLV Mk.3s suborbital test flight checking the readiness of the upper stages CE-20 engine and its C25 cryogenic stage. Crews also fine-tuned the aerodynamic shape and flight characteristics of the launcher, he said.

I have no words to express my joy to see GSLV Mk.3 in its maiden full-fledged flight successfully placing GSAT 19 in orbit, said S. Somanath, director of ISROs Liquid Propulsion Systems Center.

Today, on this mission, we have seen a flawless performance of the C25 stage, the fully indigenously-developed gas generator cycle cryogenic engine and stage, really a marvel of technological development, Somanath said.

He added that India has mastered cryogenic engine technology with the successful flight demonstration of the CE-20 engine, which generates 44,000 pounds of thrust in vacuum, twice the power of the U.S.-built Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 cryogenic engine used on Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets.

ISRO officials said the GSLV Mk.3 will be operational in a couple of years. They hope launches with the new rocket can be sold commercially and internationally, claiming it is significantly less expensive than similar-sized launchers currently on the market.

Meanwhile, ISRO engineers are looking at growing Indias launch capacity to haul up to 13,000 pounds, or 6 metric tons, to geostationary transfer orbit, officials said after Mondays mission.

Construction and outfitting of a second vehicle assembly building at Sriharikota is nearing completion, officials said. It will be employed on the next GSLV Mk.3 flight, helping ISRO achieve a more rapid launch cadence.

The GSAT 19 satellite shot into space by the GSLV Mk.3 Monday is designed for a 10-year mission. Its own thruster will guide into a circular geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator, where its Ku-band and Ka-band payload will support television broadcasts, data networks and other broadband services over India.

GSAT 19 also hosts a radiation spectrometer to monitor the environment in geostationary orbit.

Indias next launch is set for June 23, when a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle will carry Indias Cartosat 2E Earth-imaging observatory and a package of more than 20 smaller satellites into orbit for universities and companies in the United States, Japan and several European nations.

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India's launcher fleet gets an upgrade with successful test flight - Spaceflight Now

Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

A commercial Dragon cargo craft wrapped up a two-day trip to the International Space Station on Monday with a glacial laser-guided final approach before astronauts grasped the supply ship with a robotic arm, completing the refurbished capsules second journey to the orbiting research complex.

The resupply freighter was captured by the Canadian-built robot arm, under the control of astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer, at 9:52 a.m. EDT (1352 GMT) Monday, a few minutes ahead of schedule.

Ground teams at mission control in Houston planned to maneuver the cargo capsule to a berthing port on the Earth-facing side of the stations Harmony module later Monday, where it will be firmly bolted to the outpost for a one-month stay.

Since launching Saturday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, the Dragon spaceship completed a series of orbit-adjustment burns to fine-tune its approach to the space station. The automated rendezvous Monday appeared to go normally, delivering 5,970 pounds (2,708 kilograms) of equipment and experiments, including a habitat with 40 mice to help scientists evaluate the effectiveness of a therapeutic drug designed to promote bone growth.

Researchers will study the response of the mice to the treatment, called NELL-1, and send back 20 of the live animals to Earth on the Dragon spacecraft when it departs the station July 2. The other 20 will remain on the space station, allowing scientists to conduct comparative studies of their bones and other tissues.

Other gear aboard the Dragon supply ship includes an X-ray astrophysics experiment to observe neutron stars, the most dense objects in the universe, which form when certain types of stars explode in supernovas at the end of their lives.

Engineers will also test a new type of power-generating solar panel carried inside the Dragon capsules unpressurized trunk. The Roll-Out Solar Array deploys like a party favor, making for a lighter, more compact design than conventional fold-out arrays used on most satellites.

Several thousand fruit flies for a cardiac experiment, an upgrade for the space stations microscope, an Earth-viewing platform, and food and provisions for the space stations crew were also on the Dragon, which was the first SpaceX cargo capsule to fly to the research lab a second time.

The spacecraft first launched in September 2014 and spent 34 days in orbit before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX replaced the crafts heat shield and much of its avionics, but the structure, propulsion system and other parts of the capsule are the same.

We want to thank the entire team on the ground that made this possible, both in Hawthorne (SpaceXs headquarters in California) and in Houston, really around the whole world, from support in Canada for this wonderful robotic arm, Kennedy Space Centers launch support, to countless organizations which prepared the experiments and cargo, Fischer said shortly after Dragon arrived at the space station.

These people have supplied us with a vast amount of science and supplies, really fuel for the engine of innovation we get to call home, the International Space Station, Fischer said.

The Dragon was the first reused spacecraft to reach the space station since the shuttle Atlantis arrived on its final mission in July 2011.

We have a new generation of vehicles now, led by commercial partners like SpaceX, as they build the infrastructure that will carry us into the future of exploration, Fischer said.

Mondays rendezvous of the Dragon capsule came a day after another commercial supply ship, Orbital ATKs Cygnus, departed the space station after a month-and-a-half there. The Cygnus spacecraft is heading for a destructive re-entry over the South Pacific Ocean on June 11, disposing of the stations trash.

But the craft will first deploy several CubeSats and conduct a fire experiment in orbit.

The Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth next month with nearly 2,000 pounds of cargo and research specimens, aiming for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles.

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Dragon supply ship delivers to space station for second time - Spaceflight Now

Ocean McIntyre

June 6th, 2017

Curiosity takes a self-portrait at Murray Buttes in September 2016. Photo Credit: NASA / JPL

A paper released recently indicates a habitable environment may have existed on Mars for far longer than previously believed. The paper, which was published in Geophysical Research Letters, looked at halos, or light areas surrounding fractures in areas of Gale Crater on Mars.

Using data from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, the group at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, was able to determine Gale Crater once contained a lake of water that was likely drinkable. Moreover, even after the surface water of the lake disappeared, a significant amount of remained beneath the surface, and for a much longer period of time than previously understood.

What this finding tells us is that, even when the lake eventually evaporated, substantial amounts of groundwater were present for much longer than we previously thought thus further expanding the window for when life might have existed on Mars, said Jens Frydenvang, a scientist and lead author of the paper at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Copenhagen.

In this image taken by NASAs Curiosity Mars rover, pale zones called halos border bedrock fractures. This photo was taken in 2015. The measurements offer a sense of scale. Photo Credit: NASA / JPL

Using the laser-shooting Chemistry Camera(ChemCam) instrument, Alpha-Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), and cameras, as well as the Chemistry and Mineralogy Instrument (CheMin), scientists looked at samples observed and collected on sols 1,112, 1,119 and 1,126 near the lower-north slope of Aeolis Mons, more commonly known as Mount Sharp.

What they found was the Stimson formation, a sedimentary mudstone rock, which is normally a plain dark stone, took on lighter tones along fracture lines. The closer to the fracture, the lighter the appearance of the rock was, which was similar to other haloed areas observed at Marias Pass and Williams and Bridger Basin.

Curiosity obtained samples from two areas within Bridger Basin, referred to as Greenhorn and Big Sky. The Greenhorn drill samples were taken from within the halo region of the Stimson formation, and the Big Sky drill samples were taken from outside of the halo area.

CheMin revealed the Greenhorn samples taken within the halo were greater than 40 percent elevated in amorphous silica as compared to the Big Sky samples taken outside of the halo areas. They also had increased amounts of feldspar compared to pyroxene.

The ChemCam indicated that within the halo regions, the silica content is between 60to 80 weightpercent, whereas outside of the bright halo regions, the average is 45 weight percent of silica. At the center-most area of the halo regions, the silica content was greater than 80 weightpercent.

Additionally, scientists have been able to trace the haloed areas back following the fractures to areas with previous evidence of water. The halo regions Curiosity observed and sampled are at elevations of 65 to100 feet (20 to 30 meters) from the floor of Gale Crater, which indicates the significant abundance of water that must have once existed there.

Mount Sharp is athree-mile (five-kilometer) high mountain at the center of the 71.5-mile (115-kilometer) wide Gale Crater. Since arriving at Mount Sharp in 2012, Curiosity has found evidence of hematite, sulfate-bearing layers of regolith, and mudclays. All of these indicate a period of time in Mars past when an abundance of water not only existed, but persisted for some length of time.

It is thought that Gale Crater likely experienced one or more episodes of burial and erosion. When and how long these lasted is still to be determined, but experts have suggested it couldve existed from 4.1 billion years ago during the Noachian Era, through to the early Hesperian Era that began 3.7 billion to 3.0 billion years ago.

The Hesperian Era coincides with the point when Mars environment is believed to have changed radically from a warmer, wetter environment, to the cold, dry one seentoday whereas the earlier Noachian Era coincides with the time on Earth that Archea, or the very first life, was beginning to form.

One thing that has again been confirmed is that none of the evidence has pointed to hydrothermal environments. Rather, the samples and observations indicate sedimentary rocks formed at lower temperatures (less than 176 degrees Fahrenheit, or 80 degrees Celsius).

These results, along with two other recently released papers on findings regarding Mars habitability, have caused scientists to broaden their models as well as their understanding of the geologic history of the Red Planet and the possibility of the development of Martian life.

Tagged: Curiosity rover Los Alamos National Laboratory Mars NASA The Range

A native of the Greater Los Angeles area, Ocean McIntyre's writing is focused primarily on science (STEM and STEAM) education and public outreach. McIntyre is a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador as well as holding memberships with The Planetary Society, Los Angeles Astronomical Society, and is a founding member of SafePlaceForSpace.org. McIntyre is currently studying astrophysics and planetary science with additional interests in astrobiology, cosmology and directed energy propulsion technology. With SpaceFlight Insider seeking to expand the amount of science articles it produces, McIntyre was a welcomed addition to our growing team.

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'Halos' discovered on Mars widen time frame for potential life - SpaceFlight Insider

Paul Knightly

June 6th, 2017

A long-range ground-based interceptor is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, to successfully intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile target launched from the U.S. Armys Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll. This was the first live-fire test event against an ICBM-class target. Image and Caption Credit: Missile Defense Agency

Last week, Aerojet Rocketdyne announced the 10th successful test of its Divertand Attitude Control System (DACS) on its Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) in the first live-fire missile defense test against an ICBM-class target.

The EKV DACS is Aerojets contribution to the Missile Defense Agencys Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program which conducted its most recent test on May 30, 2017. The flight, designated FTG-15, also represented the first test of Aerojet Rocketdynes Alternate Propellant Tank (APT).

The inaugural flight of the APT represents several years of dedicated work by Aerojet Rocketdynes engineering team, said Charlie Meraz, the senior director for Aerojet Rocketdynes Missile Defense Program. The APT design is a true reflection of the companys ability to leverage the best engineering tools to improve reliability and meet customer needs.

The FTG-15 test consisted of an ICBM launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 2,566 miles (4,130 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii, followed by the launch of a Boeing-built interceptor carrying the EKV DACS from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The EKV was moved into position utilizing Aerojet Rocketdynes Alternate Divert Thruster (ADT), which was undergoing its second in-flight test and first intercept test. Altogether, the system successfully moved into position to intercept and destroythe incoming ICBM.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has been a key member of the GMD program team since the beginning and we are proud that our DACS, ADT and APT performed as expected, said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. At Aerojet Rocketdyne, we are committed to delivering reliable products and services that play a critical role in defending our country and our allies around the globe. We look forward to continuing our support of the next generation of this program, the Redesigned Kill Vehicle.

Tagged: Aerojet Rocketdyne ICBM The Range Vandenberg Air Force Base

Paul is currently a graduate student in Space and Planetary Sciences at the University of Akransas in Fayetteville. He grew up in the Kansas City area and developed an interest in space at a young age at the start of the twin Mars Exploration Rover missions in 2003. He began his studies in aerospace engineering before switching over to geology at Wichita State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in 2013. After working as an environmental geologist for a civil engineering firm, he began his graduate studies in 2016 and is actively working towards a PhD that will focus on the surficial processes of Mars. He also participated in a 2-week simluation at The Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in 2014 and remains involved in analogue mission studies today. Paul has been interested in science outreach and communication over the years which in the past included maintaining a personal blog on space exploration from high school through his undergraduate career and in recent years he has given talks at schools and other organizations over the topics of geology and space. He is excited to bring his experience as a geologist and scientist to the Spaceflight Insider team writing primarily on space science topics.

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Aerojet Rocketdyne 'kill vehicle' performs successful test - SpaceFlight Insider

HYDERABAD: With the successful launch of its heaviest rocket, ISRO now needs to focus on human space flight mission, further development of semi-cryogenic engine and recoverable and reusable launch system, the space agency's former chief G Madhavan Nair said.

"Couple of launches of GSLV Mark III have to be done so that we prove our reliability, and parallelly start the programme for our manned mission (human space flight) and then of course semi-cryogenic project," Nair said.

"If you want to have an eco-friendly rocket, more efficient rocket system for the future, from that point of view semi-cryogenic is very important," Nair said.

"Semi-cryogenic engine should become a replacement for some of the boosters in the days to come," he said.

According to ISRO officials, the space agency has been working on some critical technologies in recent years for the human spaceflight mission.

They said the semi-cryogenic project envisages the design and development of a 2,000 kN semi-cryogenic engine for a future heavy-lift launch vehicle.

This engine uses a combination of liquid oxygen and a propellant-grade kerosene, which are eco-friendly and cost- effective propellants.

They said preliminary details of the overall stage configuration and stage engineering of semi-cryo stage with 200 tonne propellant loading has been worked out.

Nair said, "The ultimate goal of having a recoverable and reusable launch system... that we cannot forget, we should be working towards that."

He said GSLV Mark III, capable of launching four tonne class satellites, is a cost-effective vehicle.

"Four tonne is really the class of payload which meets the most of the communication satellite requirements," he said.

"For independent launch of a communication satellite, this (GSLV Mk III) seems to be the only vehicle available in the global market; whereas Ariane (rocket of European space consortium Arianespace) is a very large vehicle, you require two passengers to go together.

"If somebody wants to have an independent launch, they can make use of this (GSLV-Mk III)," he said.

Nair termed the successful launch of GSLV-Mk III-D1 yesterday as "really a proud moment for ISRO."

"It should become a turning point so that we take off further to the great future. I will say in the last five years, this is the most significant milestone (for ISRO)," he said.

India yesterday scripted history as it successfully launched its heaviest rocket GSLV MkIII-D1 carrying communication satellite GSAT-19.

Original post:

Former ISRO chief G Madhavan Nair pitches for human space flight, reusable rocket - Economic Times

Vostok 1

Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1, as televised to launch control

Vostok 1 (Russian: , East or Orient 1) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first manned spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched on April 12, 1961 from Baikonur Cosmodrome with Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, making him the first human to cross into outer space.

The orbital spaceflight consisted of a single orbit around Earth which skimmed the upper atmosphere at 169 kilometers (91 nautical miles) at its lowest point. The flight took 108 minutes from launch to landing. Gagarin parachuted to the ground separately from his capsule after ejecting at 7km (23,000ft) altitude.

The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two Cold War superpowers, began just before the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Both countries wanted to develop spaceflight technology quickly, particularly by launching the first successful human spaceflight. The Soviet Union secretly pursued the Vostok programme in competition with the United States Project Mercury. Vostok launched several precursor unmanned missions between May 1960 and March 1961, to test and develop the Vostok rocket family and space capsule. These missions had varied degrees of success, but the final twoKorabl-Sputnik 4 and Korabl-Sputnik 5were complete successes, allowing the first manned flight.

The Vostok 1 capsule was designed to carry a single cosmonaut. Yuri Gagarin, 27, was chosen as the prime pilot of Vostok 1, with Gherman Titov and Grigori Nelyubov as backups. These assignments were formally made on April 8, four days before the mission, but Gagarin had been a favourite among the cosmonaut candidates for at least several months.[7]:262,272

The final decision of who would fly the mission relied heavily on the opinion of the head of cosmonaut training, Nikolai Kamanin. In an April 5 diary entry, Kamanin wrote that he was still undecided between Gagarin and Titov.[8] "The only thing that keeps me from picking [Titov] is the need to have the stronger person for the one day flight."[9] Kamanin was referring to the second mission, Vostok 2, compared to the relatively short single-orbit mission of Vostok 1. When Gagarin and Titov were informed of the decision during a meeting on April 9, Gagarin was very happy, and Titov was disappointed.[10] On April 10, this meeting was reenacted in front of television cameras, so there would be official footage of the event. This included an acceptance speech by Gagarin.[11] As an indication of the level of secrecy involved, one of the other cosmonaut candidates, Alexei Leonov, later recalled that he did not know who was chosen for the mission until after the spaceflight had begun.[12]

Gagarin was examined by a team of doctors prior to his flight. One doctor gave her recollection of the events in an interview with RT in April 2011: "Gagarin looked more pale than usual. He was unsociable and quiet, which was not like him at all. He would answer by nodding or a short 'yes' to all questions. Sometimes he would start humming some tunes. This was a different Gagarin. We geared him up, and hugged. And I said, 'Yuri, everything will be fine.' And he nodded back."[13]

Unlike later Vostok missions, there were no dedicated tracking ships available to receive signals from the spacecraft. Instead they relied on the network of ground stations, also called Command Points, to communicate with the spacecraft; all of these Command Points were located within the Soviet Union.[14]

Because of weight constraints, there was no backup retrorocket engine. The spacecraft carried 10 days of provisions to allow for survival and natural orbital decay in the event the retrorockets failed.

During prelaunch preparations, it was decided to paint "" on Gagarin's helmet in large red letters as a form of identification after landing so that any local police or security personnel who spotted him would know he wasn't a foreign agent parachuted from an aircraft into the Soviet Union (it had been less than a year since U2 pilot Gary Powers was shot down).

The entire mission would be controlled by either automatic systems or by ground control. This was because medical staff and spacecraft engineers were unsure how a human might react to weightlessness, and therefore it was decided to lock the pilot's manual controls. In an unusual move, a code to unlock the controls was placed in an onboard envelope, for Gagarin's use in case of emergency.[7]:278 Prior to the flight, Kamanin and others told Gagarin the code anyway.[15][16]

On Baikonur Cosmodrome on the morning of April 11, 1961, the Vostok-K rocket, together with the attached Vostok 3KA space capsule, were transported several kilometers to the launch pad, in a horizontal position. Once they arrived at the launch pad, a quick examination of the booster was conducted by technicians to make sure everything was in order. When no visible problems were found, the booster was erected on LC-1.[17] At 10:00 (Moscow Time), Gagarin and Titov were given a final review of the flight plan.[17] They were informed that launch was scheduled to occur the following day, at 09:07 Moscow Time. This time was chosen so that when the capsule started to fly over Africa, which was when the retrorockets would need to fire for reentry, the solar illumination would be ideal for the orientation system's sensors.[18]

At 18:00, once various physiological readings had been taken, the doctors instructed the cosmonauts not to discuss the upcoming missions. That evening Gagarin and Titov relaxed by listening to music, playing pool, and chatting about their childhoods.[12] At 21:50, both men were offered sleeping pills, to ensure a good night's sleep, but they both declined.[19] Physicians had attached sensors to the cosmonauts, to monitor their condition throughout the night, and they believed that both had slept well.[20] Gagarin's biographers Doran and Bizony say that neither Gagarin nor Titov slept that night.[21] Korolev didn't sleep that night, due to anxiety caused by the imminent spaceflight.[18]

At 05:30 Moscow time, on the morning of April 12, 1961, both Gagarin and his backup Titov were woken.[22] They were given breakfast, assisted into their spacesuits, and then were transported to the launch pad.[23] Gagarin entered the Vostok 1 spacecraft, and at 07:10 local time (04:10 UTC), the radio communication system was turned on.[23] Once Gagarin was in the spacecraft, his picture appeared on television screens in the launch control room from an onboard camera. Launch would not occur for another two hours, and during the time Gagarin chatted with the mission's main CapCom, as well as Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, Nikolai Kamanin, and a few others.[23] Following a series of tests and checks, about forty minutes after Gagarin entered the spacecraft, its hatch was closed. Gagarin, however, reported that the hatch was not sealed properly, and technicians spent nearly an hour removing all the screws and sealing the hatch again.[2] According to a 2014 obituary, Vostok's chief designer, Oleg Ivanovsky, personally helped rebolt the hatch.[24] There is some disagreement over whether the hatch was in fact not sealed correctly, as a more recent account stated the indication was false.[citation needed]

During this time Gagarin requested some music to be played over the radio.[25] Korolev was suffering from chest pains and close to a nervous breakdown.[citation needed] This was the 24th Soviet space launch and the 16th involving a Luna/Vostok booster. So far, 12 launches had failed, for a success rate of exactly 50%. Two Vostoks had failed to reach orbit due to launch vehicle malfunctions and another two malfunctioned in orbit. Korolev was given a pill to calm him down.[26] Gagarin, on the other hand, was described as calm; about half an hour before launch his pulse was recorded at 64 beats per minute.[27]

The automatic orientation system brought Vostok 1 into alignment for retrofire about 1 hour into the flight.

At 07:25 UT, the spacecraft's automatic systems brought it into the required attitude (orientation) for the retrorocket firing, and shortly afterwards, the liquid-fueled engine fired for about 42 seconds over the west coast of Africa, near Angola, about 8,000 kilometers (4,300 nautical miles) uprange of the landing point. The orbit's perigee and apogee had been selected to cause reentry due to orbital decay within 10 days (the limit of the life support system function) in the event of retrorocket malfunction. However, the actual orbit differed from the planned and would not have allowed descent until 20 days.[30]

Ten seconds after retrofire, commands were sent to separate the Vostok service module from the reentry module (code name sharik, "little ball"), but the equipment module unexpectedly remained attached to the reentry module by a bundle of wires. At around 07:35 UT, the two parts of the spacecraft began reentry and went through strong gyrations as Vostok 1 neared Egypt. At this point the wires broke, the two modules separated, and the descent module settled into the proper reentry attitude. Gagarin telegraphed "Everything is OK" despite continuing gyrations; he later reported that he did not want to "make noise" as he had (correctly) reasoned that the gyrations did not endanger the mission (and were apparently caused by the spherical shape of the reentry module). As Gagarin continued his descent, he remained conscious as he experienced about 8 g during reentry. (Gagarin's own report states "over 10 g".)

At 07:55 UT, when Vostok 1 was still 7km from the ground, the hatch of the spacecraft was released, and two seconds later Gagarin was ejected. At 2.5km (8,200ft) altitude, the main parachute was deployed from the Vostok spacecraft. Two schoolgirls witnessed the Vostok landing and described the scene: "It was a huge ball, about two or three meters high. It fell, then it bounced and then it fell again. There was a huge hole where it hit the first time."[citation needed]

Gagarin's parachute opened almost right away, and about ten minutes later, at 08:05 UT, Gagarin landed. Both he and the spacecraft landed via parachute 26km (16mi) south west of Engels, in the Saratov region at 511614N 455950E / 51.270682N 45.99727E / 51.270682; 45.99727. It was 280km to the west of the planned landing site (near Baikonur).[30]

A farmer and her daughter observed the strange scene of a figure in a bright orange suit with a large white helmet landing near them by parachute. Gagarin later recalled, "When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!"

Gagarin's flight was announced on the Soviet radio by Yuri Levitan, the speaker who had announced all major events in the Great Patriotic War (WW2). As with all previous and most subsequent Soviet rocket launches, the flight preparation was kept secret and the news was aired only post-factum. The flight was celebrated as a great triumph of the Soviet science and technology demonstrating the superiority of the socialist system over capitalism. Moscow and other cities in the USSR held mass demonstrations, the scale of which was comparable to World War II Victory Parades. Gagarin was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour. He also became an international celebrity with numerous honours and awards.[31]

April 12 was declared Cosmonautics Day in the USSR, and is celebrated today in Russia as one of the official "Commemorative Dates of Russia."[32] In 2011, it was declared the International Day of Human Space Flight by the United Nations.[33]

Gagarin's informal reply poyekhali! became a historical phrase used to refer to the arrival of the Space Age in human history.[34] Later it was included in the refrain of a Soviet patriotic song written by Alexandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov (He said "let's go!" He waved his hand).[35]

The Soviet press later reported that, minutes before boarding the spacecraft, Gagarin made a speech: "Dear friends, you who are close to me, and you whom I do not know, fellow Russians, and people of all countries and all continents: in a few minutes a powerful space vehicle will carry me into the distant realm of space. What can I tell you in these last minutes before the launch? My whole life appears to me as one beautiful moment. All that I previously lived through and did, was lived through and done for the sake of this moment." According to historian Asif Siddiqi, Gagarin actually "was essentially forced to utter a stream of banalities prepared by anonymous speechwriters" taped much earlier in Moscow.[7]:274

Officially, the U.S. congratulated the Soviet Union on its accomplishments.[36]

Writing for the New York Times shortly after the flight, however, journalist Arthur Krock described mixed feelings in the United States due to fears of the spaceflight's potential military implications for the Cold War,[37] and the Detroit Free Press wrote that "the people of Washington, London, Paris and all points between might have been dancing in the streets" if it were not for "doubts and suspicions" about Soviet intentions.[38] Other US writers reported worries that the spaceflight had won a propaganda victory on behalf of communism.[39][40] President John F. Kennedy was quoted as saying that it would be "some time" before the US could match the Soviet launch vehicle technology, and that "the news will be worse before it's better."[39] Kennedy also sent congratulations to the Soviet Union for their "outstanding technical achievement."[39] Opinion pages of many US newspapers urged renewed efforts to overtake the Soviet scientific accomplishments.[38]

Adlai Stevenson, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, was quoted as saying, "Now that the Soviet scientists have put a man into space and brought him back alive, I hope they will also help to bring the United Nations back alive,"[38] and on a more serious note urged international agreements covering the use of space[38] (which did not occur until the Outer Space Treaty of 1967).

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India praised the Soviet Union for "a great victory of man over the forces of nature"[39] and urged that it be "considered as a victory for peace."[38]The Economist voiced worries that orbital platforms might be used for surprise nuclear attacks.[38] The Svenska Dagbladet in Sweden chided "free countries" for "splitting up and frittering away" their resources,[38] while West Germany's Die Welt argued that America had the resources to have sent a man into space first but was beaten by Soviet purposefulness.[38] Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun urged "that both the United States and the Soviet Union should use their new knowledge and techniques for the good of mankind,"[38] and Egypt's Akhbar El Yom likewise expressed hopes that the cold war would "turn into a peaceful race in infinite space" and turn away from armed conflicts such as the Laotian Civil War.[38]

The FAI rules in 1961 required that a pilot must land with the spacecraft to be considered an official spaceflight for the FAI record books.[7]:283 Although some contemporary Soviet sources stated that Gagarin had parachuted separately to the ground,[41] the Soviet Union officially insisted that he had landed with the Vostok; the government forced the cosmonaut to lie in press conferences, and the FAI certified the flight. The Soviet Union did not admit until 1971 that Gagarin had ejected and landed separately from the Vostok descent module.[7]:283

When Soviet officials filled out the FAI papers to register the flight of Vostok 1, they stated that the launch site was Baykonur at 472200N 652900E / 47.36667N 65.48333E / 47.36667; 65.48333. In reality, the launch site was near Tyuratam at 455512.72N 632032.32E / 45.9202000N 63.3423111E / 45.9202000; 63.3423111, 250km (160mi) to the south west of "Baykonur". They did this to try to keep the location of the Space Center a secret.[7]:284 In 1995, Russian and Kazakh officials renamed Tyuratam Baikonur.

Four decades after the flight, historian Asif Azam Siddiqi wrote that Vostok 1

will undoubtedly remain one of the major milestones in not only the history of space exploration, but also the history of the human race itself. The fact that this accomplishment was successfully carried out by the Soviet Union, a country completely devastated by war just sixteen years prior, makes the achievement even more impressive. Unlike the United States, the USSR had to begin from a position of tremendous disadvantage. Its industrial infrastructure had been ruined, and its technological capabilities were outdated at best. A good portion of its land had been devastated by war, and it had lost about 25 million citizens ... but it was the totalitarian state that overwhelmingly took the lead [in the space race].[7]:282

The landing site is now a monument park. The central feature in the park is a 25 meter tall monument that consists of a silver metallic rocketship rising on a curved metallic column of flame, from a wedge shaped, white stone base. In front of this is a 3 meter tall, white stone statue of Yuri Gagarin, wearing a spacesuit, with one arm raised in greeting and the other holding a space helmet.[42][43][44]

The Vostok 1 re-entry capsule is now on display at the RKK Energiya museum in Korolyov, near Moscow.

In 2011, documentary film maker Christopher Riley partnered with European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli to record a new film of what Gagarin would have seen of the Earth from his spaceship, by matching historical audio recordings to video from the International Space Station following the ground path taken by Vostok 1. The resulting film, First Orbit, was released online to celebrate the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight.[45]

View post:

Vostok 1 - Wikipedia

CAPE CANAVERAL The Cygnus commercial logistics vehicle departed the International Space Station this morning for a week-long free-flight filled with autonomous science tasks before re-entry.

Owing to a rejiggered schedule that optimizes astronauts workload, the unberthing occurred six weeks ahead of the original plan. A brief window opened in the crews timeline, and flight controllers decided to squeeze in the Cygnus release now instead of waiting until July 16.

The timing became available when bad weather scuttled the launch of the next SpaceX Dragon cargo ships launch from Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, delaying its arrival at the station until Monday.

After closing up the hatchway into Cygnus on Saturday, 16 electrically-driven bolts disengaged early this morning to free the vessel from the Earth-facing side of the Unity connecting hub. The 58-foot-long Canadarm2 then maneuvered the metallic-clad ship into the imaginary departure box.

Flight engineer Jack Fischer, from the robotics workstation in the multi-window cupola module, commanded the arm to let go of Cygnus at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT) while flying 250 miles over the South Atlantic.

Godspeed and fair winds, S.S. John Glenn. It has been an honor, Fischer radioed.

The craft logged 43 days, 3 hours, 5 minutes at the station from arm grapple till arm release.

Cygnus then began firing thrusters in a retreat pattern to move away from the station, quickly separating to a safe distance.

The cargo ship, ceremonially dubbed the S.S. John Glenn, was the seventh resupply mission by Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia, under NASAs commercial logistics-delivery program.

Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth in February 1962, died in December at age 95.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket boosted this freighter into space from Cape Canaveral on April 18 and it arrived at the station April 22 to deliver 7,443 pounds of cargo, including over 2,000 pounds of science experiments and hardware.

After the astronauts unloaded the hardware delivered, they filled the empty craft with 4,300 pounds of garbage and no-longer-needed materials and hardware to be taken away from the stations living quarters.

Its like six people living in a five bedroom house and no one is taking out the trash. It has to go out sometime and so Cygnus, with its big volume, provides a lot of capability for getting that trash off the ISS, said Frank DeMauro, Orbital ATKs vice president and general manager of its Advanced Programs Division in the Space Systems Group.

While certainly delivering the cargo is the glorious part, I think removing the disposable cargo, in a way, is extremely important.

Cygnus will spend the next week as a free-flying spacecraft, conducting the SAFFIRE 3 fire experiment this afternoon, downlinking the voluminous data and video that will be recorded during that test, and deploying four small LEMUR-2 satellites on Thursday from an altitude about 50 miles higher than the station for meteorology and ship tracking.

Re-entry into the South Pacific is planned for next Sunday, June 11.

After another successful stay at the International Space Station, we now enter the next phase of the mission which marks the third time Cygnus has been used as a research platform for science experiments in space, said Frank Culbertson, President of Orbital ATKs Space Systems Group.

Our ability to demonstrate expanded capabilities for Cygnus beyond its core cargo delivery function shows a level of versatility and flexibility with a solid track record of mission success for our customers.

Cygnus will host the third of three initial-generation spacecraft fire safety experiments, called SAFFIRE, to study the behavior of flames and combustion in microgravity for future capsule designers. Previous Cygnus freighters housed SAFFIRE burns on two flights last year. This test will use one large piece of material to burn, but apply lessons from the earlier experiment runs.

SAFFIRE is a large, self-contained experiment stowed in the back of the Cygnus module. The blaze is ground-commanded, which is expected to occur later today.

As the first chance to actually study a realistically scaled fire, the SAFFIRE experiments have provided valuable insight into fire behavior inside a confined low-gravity environment, said David Urban, SAFFIRE principal investigator.

Sensors record the ambient temperature and the oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations, two video cameras provide top views of the entire sample, thermocouples are woven into the sample and a radiometer measures the heat given off.

The flame propagates over a panel of thin material approximately 0.4 m wide by 0.94 m long (15.7 x 37 inches) to quantify flame development over a large sample in low-gravity.

Cygnus will remain in orbit for several days until all of the data and imagery recorded during the experiment are downlinked to the ground.

The next-generation of the experiment is being designed for flights in 2019 as SAFFIRE 4, 5 and 6.

SAFFIRE 4-6 will extend the research by including larger, more energetic fires and by testing post-fire cleanup systems, said Urban.

One final science objective for this Cygnus known as the Thermal Protection Material Flight Test and Reentry Data Collection (RED-Data2) is planned during the atmospheric plunge next week.

A company wanting to develop a family of re-entry vehicles to return scientific research samples to Earth from the space station will get a demonstration test at the end of the Cygnus flight when it brakes from orbit.

For this experiment, we are flying three different probes and we have three new heat shield materials that NASA is wanting to get flight-test data for, said John Dec, principle investigator of the RED-Data 2 experiment at Terminal Velocity Aerospace in Atlanta.

The primary data that we are attempting to collect is temperature data from thermocouples that are embedded in the heat shield of each probe.

The three materials being put to the test: A new form of Avcoat that will be used on Orion human spacecraft, the others, developed by the NASA Ames Research Center, are the lightweight Conformal Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (C-PICA) and Conformal Silicone Impregnated Refractory Ceramic Ablator (C-SIRCA).

Its kind of like a lawn dart without the stick, Dec said of the probes. The RED-Data probes are only about 9 inches in diameter and weigh about 5.5 kilograms.

Kept inside the Cygnus throughout its mission, the three soccer ball-sized RED-Data-2 probes will be dispersed once the freighter breaks up during re-entry. Each probe will record vehicle location, temperature, acceleration, pressure and gyroscopic data seen during the fiery plunge back to Earth.

When Cygnus does its de-orbit burn, it will start to re-enter the atmosphere and thats when we begin to collect our data. We use the accelerations to determine whether or not were actually starting to re-enter. When Cygnus breaks up, our vehicles are then released into the free-stream flow and thats really when our experiment begins, Dec said.

We have to wait to emerge from the ionization blackout, up until then we are storing data onboard. As soon as we emerge from the blackout, we use the Iridium satellite network to transmit all of our data from our vehicles to the Iridium network and then down to us at the ground station. We never physically recover vehicles, they land in the ocean, but we do get the data back.

The probes use a 45-degree sphere-cone geometry that is designed to always right itself and orient nose-first within a couple of seconds.

This shape is very easily scaled up in size. So what we foresee in the future is to have a sample-return capability. It would be an on-demand type of down-mass capability for the space stationThats really where our future direction is going is to develop a vehicle big enough to bring samples back, said Dec.

The next Cygnus to visit the station is planned for September, launching atop Orbital ATKs own Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia.

See earlier OA-7 Cygnus coverage.

Our Atlas archive.

Read more from the original source:

[ June 4, 2017 ] SS John Glenn freighter departs space station after successful cargo delivery Atlas 5 - Spaceflight Now

Lloyd Campbell

June 4th, 2017

The BEAM module in-situ on the ISS. Photo Credit: NASA

Bigelow Aerospaces Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) module recently marked its one-year anniversary as a part of the International Space Station (ISS).

BEAM is an experimental module made of soft materials, unlike the hard exterior of the current ISS modules, and is expanded on orbit to its full size. When BEAM is expanded, it is almost twice its launch configuration length and is 40 percent larger in diameter. By using an expandable module, space and weight are both saved over current hard exterior modules when launched.

BEAM was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 8, 2016, and attached to the ISS eight days later. Full expansion of the module took place on May 28, 2016. The first attempt at inflation occurred two days earlier, but, after two hours, it was called off because the module was not expanding as quickly as expected.

Astronauts aboard the space station 3-D printed a shield to cover one of the two Radiation Environment Monitors inside the BEAM. The shield, the white hemispherical shape at the center of the photograph, is shown above inside the BEAM module. In the coming months, the crew will print successively thicker shields to determine the shielding effectiveness at blocking radiation. Photo & Caption Credit: NASA

The second inflation attempt lasted seven hours and used multiple injections of air over that period, which eventually resulted in a fully expanded module. It is believed that the fabric, in its compressed configuration for launch, became stuck together during a lengthy 10-month launch delay after a Falcon 9 booster had failed on the previous ISS resupply mission.

The first time that anyone had entered the module on orbit was on June 6, 2016, when the hatch to BEAM was first opened. Astronaut Jeff Williams and cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka entered the module and installed equipment to monitor the environment. This officially marked the start of the planned two-year demonstration mission.

Since then, astronauts have entered the module eight more times to perform maintenance on sensors and equipment as well as make observations about the environment inside and collect air samples.

So far, BEAM is operating as expected with some interesting surprises. One such surprise was that BEAM turned out to be warmer than anticipated after its deployment, which was a good result.

Steve Munday, the BEAM manager at NASAs Johnson Space Center, said in November 2016: A colder-than-expected BEAM would have increased the risk of condensation, so we were pleased when Jeff first opened the hatch and found the interior to be bone dry. BEAM is the first of its kind, so were learning as we go and this data will improve our structural and thermal models and analyses going forward.

Sensors inside of BEAM that are designed to monitor and locate external impacts by orbital debris have recorded what are most likely a few micrometeoroid impacts. BEAMs soft shell has performed well and no breaches have occurred. In reality, BEAMs multiple outer protective layers, even being made up of soft materials, exceed requirements laid out for space station shielding.

Using two active Radiation Environment Monitors (REM), researchers at JSC have found that the dosage due to Galactic Cosmic Rays in BEAM is similar to other space station modules.

As the experimental module heads into its second year, the focus will remain on radiation and environmental observations. A hemispherical shield fabricated using onboard 3-D printing techniques will be used to protect one REM sensor inside and compare the results with one unprotectedREM. The shield will be replaced with ones of increasing thicknesses of about 0.13 inches (3.3 mm) and 0.4 inches (10 mm), also produced using 3-D printing, and measurements will again be compared to those recorded by the unprotected REM.

Studying the dosage received from the Earths trapped radiation belts will help NASA design ways to protect crews from the radiation that will be encountered on deep space missions outside of Earths protective magnetosphere.

Tagged: BEAM Bigelow Aerospace International Space Station The Range

Lloyd Campbells first interest in space began when he was a very young boy in the 1960s with NASAs Gemini and Apollo programs. That passion continued in the early 1970s with our continued exploration of our Moon, and was renewed by the Shuttle Program. Having attended the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on its final two missions, STS-131, and STS-133, he began to do more social networking on space and that developed into writing more in-depth articles. Since then hes attended the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, the agencys new crew-rated Orion spacecraft on Exploration Flight Test 1, and multiple other uncrewed launches. In addition to writing, Lloyd has also been doing more photography of launches and aviation. He enjoys all aspects of space exploration, both human, and robotic, but his primary passions lie with human exploration and the vehicles, rockets, and other technologies that allow humanity to explore space.

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BEAM module marks one year in service - SpaceFlight Insider

Credit: SpaceX

A refurbished robotic Dragon spaceship rocketed into orbit from Florida on Saturday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher, hauling nearly 6,000 pounds of crew provisions and biological, astrophysics and space technology experiments on a two-day trip to the International Space Station.

The unpiloted capsule soared into a late afternoon sky from launch pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center at 5:07:38 p.m. EDT (2107:38 GMT) Saturday, two days later than planned after a thunderstorm prevented liftoff Thursday.

Nine Merlin 1D engines, generating a combined 1.7 million pounds of thrust, powered the 213-foot-tall (65-meter) Falcon 9 rocket through a high-altitude cloud deck as the launcher arced to the northeast, aligning with the space stations orbital track.

It was the 100th launch from historic pad 39A, the previous home to Saturn 5 moon rockets and space shuttles. SpaceX began launch operations there in February, and has now flown six rockets from the seaside launch complex.

The Falcon 9s first stage engines shut down and deployed the rockets second stage more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) over the Atlantic Ocean, then the booster activated nitrogen cold gas thrusters to flip around and fly tail first.

While the upper stage accelerated into orbit, three of the Merlins first stage engines ignited to begin maneuvers to return the first stage to Landing Zone 1, and two more braking burns slowed the 156-foot-tall (47-meter) for a smooth vertical touchdown around 9 miles (14 kilometers) from where the mission started.

The landing marked the fifth time SpaceX has returned a rocket booster to Cape Canaveral all successful. The commercial launch company has recovered 11 rockets in 16 tries overall, a figure that includes landings at sea.

SpaceX aims to reuse the first stages, an initiative the company says will slash launch costs. The rocket that launched on the space station resupply run Saturday was entirely new, but the primary structure of the gumdrop-shaped Dragon cargo capsule on top previously flew on a 34-day orbital mission in September and October 2014, another first for SpaceX.

Engineers examined and stripped the spacecrafts structure after it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 25, 2014, following a visit to the space station, but the majority of the Dragon cargo capsule is the original article, according to Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceXs director of flight reliability.

He said engineers compared the structural loads and shaking components inside the Dragon capsule experienced on its 2014 flight with their design limits.

That tells us how much life the component has, and we make sure that the component has enough life for the next round, Koenigsmann said. There is a statistical variation, so you have to make a worst-case assumption, basically, to be on the safe side.

SpaceX goes through a similar review of parts on Falcon 9 boosters before clearing them for a re-flight, he said.

Kirk Shireman, NASAs program manager for the International Space Station, said before Saturdays launch that the space agency expects to approve SpaceX plans to re-fly more Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 boosters on future cargo missions to the orbiting research outpost.

SpaceX has two multibillion-dollar contracts with NASA to ferry equipment to and from the space station. The terms of the deal call for at least 26 missions, and 10 of those are in the books, including a failed cargo launch in 2015.

NASA has also contracted with SpaceX to develop a Crew Dragon vehicle capable to ferrying astronauts to and from the space station beginning as soon as next year.

Officials said SpaceXs next cargo mission to the station, scheduled for launch some time in August, will employ a newly-manufactured Dragon capsule.

We share the results with NASA, and review them together, and we conclude that we can either fly a component, or in some cases, we have to make a swap with a new component, Koenigsmann said, adding that such occurrences were very few.

According to Koenigsmann, SpaceX technicians replaced several items that were exposed to salt water after splashdown, such as batteries and the capsules heat shield. But the hull, thrusters, harnessing, propellant tanks, and some avionics boxes are original, he said.

I can tell you the majority of this Dragon has been in space before, Koenigsmann said.

Officials did not say if NASA was compensated for its approval of SpaceXs plans to launch a refurbished Dragon capsule to approach the space station.

Without specifying details, Shireman said the agreement is part of a normal back-and-forth between the government and the commercial operator, in which one party barters with the other.

The Dragon spacecraft is on a two-day voyage to the space station, where it is scheduled to arrive at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Monday, when astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer will grapple the approaching capsule with the stations Canadian-built robotic arm.

The space station is in excellent shape, ready to receive Dragon, said Ven Feng, manager of the space station transportation integration office at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The robot arm will move the Dragon supply ship to a berthing port on the stations Harmony module, where it is scheduled to stay for nearly one month.

The station crew, reduced to three after the landing of a Russian cosmonaut and French astronaut Friday, will unpack 3,761 pounds (1,665 kilograms) of equipment and experiments loaded inside the Dragon capsules previously-flown pressurized module.

Some food and provisions for the stations crew are strapped inside the Dragon freighter, but research investigations take up the bulk of the ships volume.

Really, the utility of this SpaceX mission is science, Feng said. We have literally tons and tons of science going up on this mission.

Three payloads stowed inside the Dragons external rear trunk will be be removed robotically.

One of the unpressurized experiments, NASAs Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, will study the super-dense leftovers from violent supernova explosions. Made of 56 individual X-ray telescopes, the NICER instrument will observe neutron stars, the collapsed city-sized remnants of stars that have used up all of their nuclear fuel.

Scientists compare the density of a neutron star to cramming the mass Mount Everest into a sugar cube. One teaspoon of neutron star matter would weight a billion tons on Earth, according to NASA.

Developed by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Naval Research Laboratory, the neutron star observer will spend 18 months detecting X-ray signals coming from deep space.

Neutron stars are fantastical stars that are extraordinary in many ways, said Zaven Arzoumanian, NICERs deputy principal investigator and science lead at Goddard. They are the densest objects in the universe, they are the fastest-spinning objects known, they are the most strongly magnetic objects known.

The NICER science team wants to know the structure and composition of neutron stars, which are so extreme that normal atoms are pulverized, freeing subatomic particles like neutrons, protons and electrons.

As soon as you go below the surface of a neutron star, the pressures and densities rise extremely rapidly, and soon youre in an environment that you cant produce in any lab on Earth, said Slavko Bogdanov, a research scientist at Columbia University who leads the NICER light curve modeling group.

Unlike black holes, which develop from explosions of stars more than 20 times the mass of the sun, neutron stars can be directly observed.

They emit light all across the spectrum, from radio waves to visible light up to X-rays and gamma rays, primarily in narrow beams from their magnetic poles, Arzoumanian said. Just like the Earth, the magnetic poles on a neutron star are not necessarily aligned with the spin of the star, so you can get narrow beams that sweep as the star spins, just like a lighthouse.

And if we happen to be in the path of the sweep we see a flash everytime one of these beams go by and the stars from a distance appear to be pulsing, so theyre called pulsars, Arzoumanian said.

Scientists will also demonstrate the potential of using the timing of pulses from neutron stars for deep space navigation.

Were going to look at a subset of pulsars in the sky called millisecond pulsars, said Keith Gendreau, NICERs principal investigator at Goddard. In some of these millisecond pulsars, the pulses that we see are so regular that they remind us of atomic clocks.

Atomic clocks are the basis of the Global Positioning System satellites, according to Gendreau.

Another payload bolted inside the Dragon spacecrafts trunk is a mounting platform for multiple Earth-imaging instruments, such as high-resolution digital cameras and hyperspectral imagers.

Developed commercially by Teledyne Brown, the MUSES device to be attached outside the space station is designed to accommodate several Earth-observing cameras by providing the individual instruments with pointing, power and data relay connections.

The third unpressurized experiment on Saturdays launch is the Roll-Out Solar Array, or ROSA, made by Deployable Space Systems of Santa Barbara, California.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory funded the solar array test flight, which is intended to test the structures ability to extend and retract, check its resilience to vibrations and other forces, measure its thermal gradients, and verify it can generate electricity.

The new solar array design, which unfolds like a party favor, could be used on future commercial satellites.

The array launched rolled up in a spool, but the experiment will be pulled from Dragons trunk around nine days after launch by the station robotic arm. While remaining in the arms grasp, the solar array will extend to a length of about 15 feet (5 meters) and remain unfurled for around a week.

ROSA is important to the space industry, said Jeremy Banik, the ROSA demonstrations principal investigator from the Air Force Research Laboratory. All spacecraft need power, and tradiational solar panels are made with square, flat plates that accordian fold with mechanical hinges.

The problem is, these panels tend to be heavy and bulky, and we just cant make them any bigger than what we do today. ROSA solves this problem by shrinking mass by 20 percent and stowed volume by a factor of four over these rigid panels, Banik said.

Once the week-long test is finished, the experiment will be returned to the Dragons trunk for disposal.

Live animals were also aboard Saturdays launch, including 40 mice inside specially-designed transporters for an investigation into a treatment that could combat bone loss in astronauts on long-duration space missions and osteoporosis in patients on the ground.

Once the mice arrive at the space station, astronauts will treat the rodents with NELL-1, a therapeutic treatment designed to promote bone growth, according to Chia Soo, the chief scientist for the experiment and a professor of plastic, reconstructive and orthopaedic surgery at UCLA.

Men and women past the age of 50, on the average, lose about a half-percent of bone mass per year, Soo said. But in microgravity conditions, the astronaut, on average, loses anywhere from 1 to 2 percent of bone mass per month.

She added that bone loss in astronauts has tremendous implications for humans with respect to long-term space travel or space habitation in microgravity because we end up progressively losing bone mass.

Twenty of the mice will return to Earth alive with the SpaceX Dragon supply ship in early July, the first time the commercial spacecraft has landed with live animals on-board. The 20 mice that come back alive will go to UCLAs laboratories for additional research and treatment.

The other 20 mice will remain on the space station for more observation and comparative studies with the mice on Earth. All of the animals will eventually be euthanized.

If successful, this will have tremendous implications for patients on Earth because if you look at statistics approximately one in every two to three females over the age of 50, or one in every four to five males over the age of 50, will have an osteoporosis-related fracture, Soo said.

We are hoping this study will give us some insights on how NELL-1 can work under these extreme conditions and if it can work for treating microgravity-related bone loss, which is a very accelerated, severe form of bone loss, then perhaps it can (be used) for patients one day on Earth who have bone loss due to trauma or due to aging or disease, Soo said.

A swarm of fruit flies launched to the space station to examine how prolonged spaceflight affects their heart function.

The hearts of the insects beat at about same rate as the human heart, making it a useful analog, scientists said.

Researchers are sending between 4,000 and 6,000 fruit fly eggs to the space station, where they will hatch before coming back to Earth aboard the Dragon spacecraft.

We would like to understand the role of microgravity on astronaut heart function in order to try to prevent long-term effects when they are in space for long periods and after they come back, said Karen Ocorr, a co-investigator on the fruit fly experiment from the Sanford Burnham Research Institute.

But there are real-world implications as well for people who are spending long periods of time in bedrest or immobilized, Ocorr said. We expect that what we find in our studies on the ISS will have implications for maintaining cardiac function in those sorts of situations.

Saturdays successful launch clears the way for four more SpaceX missions over the next month.

Next on the companys jam-packed manifest is BulgariaSat 1, Bulgarias first communications satellite, scheduled for liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center on June 15.

BulgariaSat 1s launch window June 15 opens at 2:10 p.m. EDT (1810 GMT) and extends two hours.

Koenigsmann told reporters he did not expect BulgariaSat 1s mid-June launch to be delayed after the two-day slip in the cargo missions blastoff this weekend. BulgariaSat 1, which is already being prepared for launch in a processing facility at Cape Canaveral, will launch on a previously-flown Falcon 9 booster.

SpaceX plans its fourth launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on June 25 with the second batch of 10 small new-generation satellites for Iridiums orbiting voice and data relay network.

The Intelsat 35e high-throughput communications satellite will follow no earlier than July 1 from SpaceXs Florida launch base.

The SpaceX launch teams have conducted three launches in the last 34 days, with three more planned in the next four weeks.

Ground crews, engineers and managers are learning to deal with this operation better and better every time, Koenigsmann said after Saturdays launch. The situation that we launch from both coasts is something that is somewhat new for us.

Weve had this with a little bit of separation in the past, and weve set up the teams to be able to cope with that, and have the ability to launch from both sites within a short period of time, he said.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Reused Dragon cargo capsule launched on journey to space station - Spaceflight Now

Nathan Moeller

May 31st, 2017

Photo Credit: Nathan Moeller / SpaceFlight Insider

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas NASA officials highlighted the work being done on the agencys next generation space-based observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope on Wednesday, May 31. The event was held to mark the beginning of a series of tests that precede the telescopes planned launch to space.

While at JSC, the spacecraft willbe tested as a complete optical system in the simulated space environment of Chamber A. While there, it will be exposed to the vacuum, as well as the frigid temperatures the telescope will encounter after it is launched (if everything goes as planned, the JWST will launch from the spaceport located in Kourou, French Guiana in late 2018 atop an Ariane 5 rocket).

The event was attended by several NASA officials including JSCs Center Director, Ellen Ochoa, Eric Smith, the JWST Program director, Mark Voyton, JWSTOptical Telescope Element and Integrated Science (OTIS) manager from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center and Jonathan Homan, project manager for James Webb Space Telescope Test Team at Johnson.

NASA Johnson Space Center Director, Ellen Ochoa, speaks to members of the press during Wednesdays event. Photo Credit: Nathan Moeller / SpaceFlight Insider

Despite being aNational Historic Landmark, Chamber A is still active, with it being used to put spacecraft through their paces before liftoff.

The testing device was built in 1965 to shake down the Apollo Command and Service Modules prior to their trips to the Moon and is the largest thermal-vacuum chamber of its kind in the world.

Once it has completed these tests, the JWST will be sent to Redondo Beach, in California where Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems will integrate the spacecraft with the complete Webb observatory. The JWST will then undergo final testing before it is shipped to Kourou in preparation for flight.

With NASAs Hubble Space Telescope having been on orbit for more than 25 years, the space agency has been working to field the James Webb Space Telescope for some time now, with concepts for Hubbles successor stretching back to the mid 1990s.

The JWST is massive. The telescopes primary mirror measures in at an imposing21-feet (6.5-meters) and requires Arianespaces Ariane 5 rocket to place it at the Lagrange 2 site where it will orbit. By comparison, the entire Hubble Space Telescope is some 43.5 feet (13.2 meters) in length.

Size, however, isnt the only thing that is large about the JWST, the space-based telescope has had cost overruns to match. Initial cost estimates for the U.S. portion of the telescope, placed it at $1.6 billion. However, by around 2015, the telescope had cost $8.8 billion.

Management of the telescope was so poor that on July 6, 2011, the United States House of Representatives attempted to withdraw from the international project. InNovember of that year Congress, rather than ending the agencys role on the project, capped spending on the JWST at $8 billion.

As it is currently envisioned, the James Webb Space Telescope is meant to serve astronomers across the globe, studying exotic phenomenon such as black holes, as well as potentially contributing to humanitys understanding of dark matter and dark energy. It will also be used to seek out exoplanets, to study the formation of distant solar systems, togain a better understanding ofthe history of our universe, as well as the firstlight to appearafter the Big Bang.

As noted, NASA is not alone in contributing to the JWST, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency are also involved on the project.

Video courtesy of Astro95 Media

Tagged: James Webb Space Telescope Johnson Space Center NASA The Range

Moeller graduated from Texas Tech University's College of Architecture in 2008 and completed the graduate program in 2011. He covered the refueling stop of space shuttle Discovery at Rick Husband International Airport in 2009 after the orbiter had completed its mission to the International Space Station. Moeller also covered the build up to launch shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-132 in 2010 from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Moeller joined Max Q Entertainment in 2009, leading the development of the website as well as document production streamlining, graphics work and aiding video production for missions STS-125 onward.

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James Webb Space Telescope unveiled at NASA's Johnson Space Center - SpaceFlight Insider