Strong Kennedy Role in Exciting Asteroid Mission

Kennedy Space Center will have a leading role in NASA's plans to capture an asteroid and launch astronauts to explore it, the center's director told employees shortly before the agency's 2014 budget proposal was released.

"It does everything that needs to be done as far as developing the technologies and the skills that we need for exploration beyond planet Earth," said Bob Cabana, director of the Florida center. "Testing out our spacecraft on a real mission instead of a pure test flight I think is very exciting. The team here at Kennedy, we're ready to get on board and make this happen. I'm very excited about this mission."

The overall budget proposal for NASA features $2.3 billion for Kennedy projects and programs, including the Launch Services Program, Commercial Crew Program and Ground Systems Development and Operations Program.

The proposal is the first step in the budget process with Congress offering its own suggestions during the next few months. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.

The centerpiece of the proposal is NASA's aim to capture an asteroid with a robotic craft and maneuver it into an orbit closer to Earth. Astronauts would launch in an Orion spacecraft aboard a Space Launch System rocket to collect samples and conduct firsthand research on the relocated asteroid.

The mission could take place as soon as 2021, four years in advance of the goal set by President Barack Obama when he visited Kennedy in 2010 and challenged NASA to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025.

Developing the rocket, spacecraft and in-space propulsion system needed to make the mission work involves aspects of processing, launch and research that Kennedy specializes in, Cabana said.

"Everything we're doing leads to making that successful, we have a key role in all of it," Cabana said.

For example, the Orion spacecraft is being readied in the Operations and Checkout Building for a flight test in 2014 to check out the design's fitness.

Modifications for processing, ground support equipment and launch facilities for the Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, are already far along and the proposal includes money to keep making the changes to complete the 21st Century Space Launch Complex concept.

The budget proposal includes about $99 million for continued modifications to the VAB, plus about $14 million for Launch Complex 39B which is deep into its modifications schedule to accommodate the rocket as well as those from commercial companies.

"We continue to make that pad not just to support SLS, but we also want to make it available to support other commercial launch operations," Cabana said.

The Saturn V-class rocket will be stacked atop the mobile launcher inside the VAB. It is to launch from 39B.

The SLS will make it first flight in 2017 with an Orion for a shakedown flight test. Astronauts are slated to fly an Orion for the first time in 2021. That mission could be the one that carries the crew to an asteroid, depending on how the plan progresses.

The Kennedy-based Commercial Crew Program, or CCP will keep working toward a 2017 milestone of its own under this year's budget proposal.

"You can see that the Commercial Crew Program is funded extremely well and that's crucial," Cabana said.

The budget plan calls for $780 million for Kennedy's portion of the program. That amount will allow astronauts to begin flying on privately developed spacecraft and rockets in 2017, said Charles Bolden, NASA administrator.

The Launch Services Program, or LSP, is slated for about $77 million under the proposal. It will oversee several launches in the next fiscal year, starting with the MAVEN spacecraft in November. MAVEN is designed to orbit Mars and find out how and why the Martian atmosphere changed.

"Our Launch Services Program continues to be the backbone for providing our science missions to make NASA successful," Cabana said.

LSP will also be involved with another project NASA included, a landing on Mars in 2020 by a scientific rover which will come on the heels of the success of the Mars Science Lab Curiosity.

The asteroid exploration mission is expected to stretch across three of the agency's directorates and impact planning for a number of areas at Kennedy, Cabana said. 

Crash Forces Robotic Rebuild for Competition

The road to this year's FIRST robotics competition proved unusually rough for a pair of teams when their robots were severely damaged in a car accident on the way to the University of Central Florida arena.

The high school students and their engineering mentors spent overnight hours salvaging usable pieces and the working components of the broken machines. The groups that had taken months to build the originals, rebuilt the pieces into a pair of new robots.

"Some of the students and one of the mentors stayed up all night," said mentor Paul Remmel. "(They) cobbled together two robots out of those parts and built other parts we didn't have."

The squads, called Horsepower and Bionic Tigers, competed in all their scheduled matches, using the time between sessions to refine their rebuilt machines.

"None of them even thought, 'We're not going to be able to get it back together,'" said Paul Ranyek, a Team Horsepower mentor.

Students from other teams also joined in the effort to salvage the damaged robots.

"They had about a day to rebuild six weeks' worth of work," said Deanna D'Alessandro of the Bionic Bears. "We all came together and right now those two robots are working. It was a great sense of pride for everyone when we saw those two robots actually working."

Ride with Astronaut Rick Mastracchio as Space Station Flight Engineer Seven

Astronaut and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio is assigned to serve on International Space Station (ISS) Expeditions 38 and 39. The mission is scheduled for launch November 2013 and landing May 2014. Before launch, Flight Engineer Mastracchio and his crew members will participate in a number of training activities to prepare them for their jobs on the mission, include a wide spectrum of disciplines, from science research and on-orbit medical operations to spacewalk procedures and robotics. His training will also include extensive travel to other station partner countries, such as Japan and Russia, to practice and learn the specialized hardware and equipment provided by these nations. Flight Engineer Mastracchio will share with the public ‘behind the scenes’ of what it’s like to train like an astronaut for a mission aboard the International Space Station via Twitter.

Train alongside Flight Engineer Mastracchio as a “virtual crewmember!” Follow @AstroRM, who will tweet and share his training experience during his finals months of mission preparations. Followers will learn about human space exploration, astronaut training and the research and technology aboard the International Space Station.

How to play?

On a monthly basis, Mastracchio will ask a trivia question about his training for followers to answer. The first person to @AstroRM with the correct answer wins. Use the hashtag #ISSFE7 after your reply. Players who compete and win will have their photo uplinked to ISS for Mastracchio to print out (or display on a laptop), photograph and share via Twitter highlighting them as a “Virtual Crewmember” on his ISS mission. At the end of each month, the trivia question and answer will be posted along with the winner’s name and photo.

Dragon Readies for Operational Delivery Flight

 

SpaceX is set to launch the first of a dozen operational missions for NASA to deliver more than 1,000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station on Oct. 7. Launch time is 8:35 p.m. from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, just a few miles south of the space shuttle launch pads. The spacecraft will be joined to the station three days later.

The flight, known as CRS-1, will launch and perform the same rendezvous with the station as a previous SpaceX craft.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule will ride into space on the strength of the company's Falcon 9 rocket and the booster's nine first stage kerosene- and oxygen-powered Merlin engines. The Falcon 9's second stage uses a single Merlin engine to boost the Dragon into its final orbit.

Eleven minutes after launch, when the Dragon capsule is safely in orbit, a pair of solar arrays will deploy from the sides of the Dragon and controllers on Earth will begin testing rendezvous sensors.

The mission is similar to the demonstration flight in May when a Dragon was grappled by the station's robotic arm to complete the first rendezvous and berthing by a private spacecraft at the space station.

Read more on http://www.nasa.gov/

NASA Partner Orbital Tests Rocket, Newest U.S. Launch Pad

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. - NASA commercial partner Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va., successfully conducted an engine test of its Antares rocket Friday, February 22, at the nation's newest launch pad.

The company fired dual AJ26 rocket engines for approximately 30 seconds while the first stage of Orbital's Antares rocket was held down on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va. The test demonstrated the readiness of the rocket's first stage and launch pad fueling systems to support upcoming test flights.

"This pad test is an important reminder of how strong and diverse the commercial space industry is in our nation,” said Phil McAlister, director of Commercial Spaceflight Development at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “A little more than one year after the retirement of the space shuttle, we had a U.S company resupplying the space station, and another is now taking the next critical steps to launch from America’s newest gateway to low-Earth Orbit. Today marks significant progress for Orbital, MARS and the NASA team."

Orbital is building and testing its new rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. A demonstration flight of Antares and Cygnus to the space station is planned for later this year. Following the successful completion of the COTS demonstration mission to the station, Orbital will begin conducting eight planed cargo resupply flights to the orbiting laboratory through NASA's $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with the company.

Wallops, which has launched more than 16,000 rockets in its 67-year history, provided launch range support for the hot fire test, including communications, data collection, range safety and area clearance.

NASA initiatives like COTS are helping develop a robust U.S. commercial space transportation industry with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station and low-Earth orbit. In parallel, NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with commercial space partners developing capabilities to launch U.S. astronauts from U.S. soil in the next few years.

NSC High-Altitude Balloon Lofts Multi-Agency Space-Technology Payload

NASA's Flight Opportunities Program marked its first high-altitude balloon payload flight recently when one of the program's flight providers, Near Space Corporation (NSC) of Tillamook, Ore., launched a developmental technology payload on a high-altitude balloon.

With Mount Jefferson in Oregon's Cascade Range as a backdrop, NSC personnel sent the balloon aloft to an altitude of about 102,000 feet – just over 20 miles – after launch from the airport at Madras, Ore., Jan. 20. Suspended underneath the balloon was a data acquisition system payload developed by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) that would monitor the reliability of a commercial space vehicle's structure.

"The NSC high altitude balloons provide a cost-effective platform to enable technology development payloads to be tested in a realistic, space-like operational environment," said Bruce Webbon of NASA's Ames Research Center, campaign manager for the launch. "Conducting such tests is fundamental to achieving the Flight Opportunities Program's goals of advancing technology maturation."

NMT professor Andrei Zagrai said a team of NMT engineering students designed and built the monitoring system to determine structural integrity for space vehicles, which is especially important for reusable craft re-entering the atmosphere. He said the technical university is focused not only on educating a new generation of engineers, but also on providing practical experience to their students.

Day 1 : Robotic Refueling Mission

Robotic refueling is challenging. Before a satellite leaves the ground, technicians fill its fuel tank through a valve that's then triple-sealed and covered with a protective blanket, designed never to be accessed again. RRM paves the way for a future robotic servicing mission by demonstrating that a remote-controlled robot can overcome these obstacles to service and refuel a satellite on orbit.