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NASA suspends contact with Russia over Ukraine crisis

Citing Russia’s ongoing violations of Ukraine’s sovereign and territorial integrity, NASA told its officials today that the agency is suspending all contact with Russian government representatives. In an internal NASA memorandum obtained by The Verge, the agency said that the suspension includes travel to Russia, teleconferences, and visits by Russian government officials to NASA facilities. NASA is even suspending the exchange of emails with Russian officials.

Ongoing International Space Station activities are exempt from this suspension, however, as are meetings with other countries held outside of Russia that include the participation of Russian officials. The directives come directly from Michael O'Brien, the agency associate administrator for International and Interagency Relations.

"NASA's goals aren't political," said a NASA scientist who spoke to The Verge on condition of anonymity. "This is one of the first major actions I have heard of from the US government and it is to stop science and technology collaboration... You're telling me there is nothing better?"

Earlier in March, NASA's chief executive, Charles Bolden, told reporters that "everything is normal in our relationship with Russia." But that relationship seems to have gone sour since then. Last week, Bolden used mounting tensions with Russia to blast Congress on its lack of space funding in a blog post, stating that the US' current reliance on Russian space missions was unacceptable.

Here is an excerpt of the memo:

Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine¹s sovereignty and territorial integrity, until further notice, the U.S. Government has determined that all NASA contacts with Russian Government representatives are suspended, unless the activity has been specifically excepted. This suspension includes NASA travel to Russia and visits by Russian Government representatives to NASA facilities, bilateral meetings, email, and teleconferences or videoconferences. At the present time, only operational International Space Station activities have been excepted. In addition, multilateral meetings held outside of Russia that may include Russian participation are not precluded under the present guidance.

NASA says it will issue a public statement today. We will update when it's released.

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NASA Internal Memo: Suspension of NASA contact with Russian entities
Status Report Source: NASA HQPosted Wednesday, April 2, 2014
From: O'Brien, Michael F (HQ-TA000)
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 9:33 AM
To: [Deleted]
Cc: [Deleted]
Subject: Suspension of NASA contact with Russian entities

Dear Colleagues,

Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, until further notice, the U.S. Government has determined that all NASA contacts with Russian Government representatives are suspended, unless the activity has been specifically excepted. This suspension includes NASA travel to Russia and visits by Russian Government representatives to NASA facilities, bilateral meetings, email, and teleconferences or videoconferences. At the present time, only operational International Space Station activities have been excepted. In addition, multilateral meetings held outside of Russia that may include Russian participation are not precluded under the present guidance. If desired, our office will assist in communication with Russian entities regarding this suspension of activities. Specific questions regarding the implementation of this guidance can be directed to Ms. Meredith McKay, 202.358.1240 or [email protected], in our office.

We remain in close contact with the Department of State and other U.S. Government departments and agencies. If the situation changes, further guidance will be disseminated.

Obie

Michael F. O'Brien

Associate Administrator for International and Interagency Relations

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Statement regarding suspension of some NASA activities with Russian Government representatives, issued 7:44 pm EDT

"Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, NASA is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation. NASA and Roscosmos will, however, continue to work together to maintain safe and continuous operation of the International Space Station. NASA is laser focused on a plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our reliance on Russia to get into space. This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration's for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches - and the jobs they support - back to the United States next year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we're now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It's that simple. The Obama Administration chooses to invest in America - and we are hopeful that Congress will do the same."

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Senators urge review of U.S. Air Force satellite launch program
Wed, Apr 2 2014
By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. senators on Wednesday urged the Air Force to allow more competition in the multibillion-dollar market for launching government satellites, citing rising costs and concerns about Russian-made engines that power some of the U.S. rockets.
Lawmakers said the Air Force's budget plan for fiscal 2015 reduced opportunities for privately held Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and others to gain a foothold in a program now dominated by the two biggest U.S. weapons makers, Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein told Air Force officials it was "unacceptable" to reduce competition while the cost of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program were rising sharply.
"I'm worried about the costs going up exponentially," she told a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee.
Feinstein and five other senators also sent a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging him to ensure that the launch program allowed competition in fiscal 2015 as planned.
The congressional Government Accountability Office this week said the cost of each new launch had more than tripled to $420 million as of August 2013, and the total cost of the program was now projected to reach $70 billion.
Allowing other companies to compete for the launches could also help resolve growing concerns about a Russian engine used to power the Atlas V launcher built by the Lockheed-Boeing venture, the United Launch Alliance, senators said.
Democratic Senator Richard Durbin, who heads the defense subcommittee, said the Air Force's budget request diminished opportunities for competition and continued to favor the Lockheed-Boeing venture, despite concerns about the Russian-made engines.
U.S. dependence on Russian engines has long been a concern of U.S. lawmakers, but those worries have been heightened after Russia's seizure of Crimea, an autonomous region in Ukraine.
Air Force Secretary Deborah James told the committee she also found the reliance on Russian engines "worrisome" and expected Air Force officials to complete a study of the issue by late May that would look at alternatives such as possible U.S. production of the motors, and the likely cost.
Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh said current rough estimates showed it would take about five years and $1 billion to start building the engines in the United States.
Both Welsh and James said the Air Force is committed to opening the launch market to competition, but said new market entrants needed to prove they could safely launch sensitive military and intelligence satellites.
James told senators the Air Force was not trying to avoid competition by postponing orders for some rocket launches until after fiscal 2019. She said the launches were simply not needed at the moment since U.S. global positioning satellites were lasting longer on orbit than expected.
She also questioned the GAO's cost estimate for the program, and said it may not have factored in savings the Air Force says it is getting by ordering launches in bulk.
She said the Air Force remained committed to competition, and expected SpaceX to be certified to compete for certain launches of lighter satellites by the end of 2014, with qualification for heavier launches to follow by 2017.
"It had nothing to do with locking someone out of competition," she said. "The quicker we can get other companies qualified to compete, the better."
Allison Bryan, a spokeswoman for SpaceX, welcomed the senators' letter to Hagel. "Increasing fair competition in the EELV program is a smart decision that would not only improve efficiency and optimize budgets, but also eliminate America's reliance on Russian-made engines which, in light of the crisis in Ukraine, is a direct threat to our nation's security." (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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April 04, 2014
PSLV-C24 Successfully Launches India's Second Dedicated Navigation Satellite IRNSS-1B
ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C24, successfully launched IRNSS-1B, the second satellite in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), today evening (April 04, 2014) at 1714 hours IST from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. This is the twenty fifth consecutively successful mission of PSLV. The 'XL' configuration of PSLV was used for this mission. Previously, the same configuration of the vehicle was used five times to launch Chandrayaan-1, GSAT-12, RISAT-1, IRNSS-1A and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft.

After the lift-off with the ignition of the first stage, the important flight events, namely, stage and strap-on ignitions, heat-shield separation, stage and strap-on separations and satellite injection took place exactly as planned. After a flight of about 19 minutes, IRNSS-1B Satellite, weighing 1432 kg, was injected to an elliptical orbit of 283 km X 20,630 km, which is very close to the intended orbit.

After injection, the solar panels of IRNSS-1B were deployed automatically. ISRO's Master Control Facility (at Hassan, Karnataka) assumed the control of the satellite. In the coming days, five orbit manoeuvres will be conducted from Master Control Facility to position the satellite in its Geosynchronous Circular Orbit at 55 deg East longitude. .

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Rosetta's pioneering Philae comet lander reactivated
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: April 1, 2014


31
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft has returned an image of its distant comet target as ground controllers received the first signals from probe's piggyback Philae lander Friday after hibernating nearly three years in a power-saving sleep mode.


Artist's concept of the Philae lander. Photo credit: DLR

Since the Rosetta spacecraft emerged from hibernation in January, engineers have checked the probe's systems and found them in good condition, according to Andrea Accomazzo, Rosetta's spacecraft operations manager at the European Space Agency.

Rosetta is heading toward an August rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, an inner solar system comet that completes one circuit of the sun every six-and-a-half years.

Ground teams started activating Rosetta's science instruments March 17, successfully switching on the spacecraft's primary science camera, ultraviolet spectrometer, and a plasma sensor suite to study the environment around the comet.

On Friday, the $1.7 billion mission's German-built Philae lander woke up and radioed Earth.

"Philae is operational and ready for the next few months," said Stephan Ulamec, Philae project manager at DLR, the German space agency.

Philae will be ejected from the Rosetta mothership in November to latch itself onto the comet's icy surface with harpoons and screws. The lander has its own suite of science instrumentation to take the first-ever photos and measurements from a comet's surface.

Engineers plan a four-week commissioning phase for Philae to check on its health and activate the lander's 10 instruments.

"We will analyse this data thoroughly, so we can find out whether Philae has survived the long flight and hibernation intact," Ulamec said in a DLR press release.

Before Friday, controllers last received data from Philae on June 8, 2011, when Rosetta entered hibernation. Since Rosetta woke up in January, the craft sent back preliminary temperature measurements from Philae.


Artist's concept of the Philae lander mounted on the Rosetta spacecraft. Photo credit: DLR

The first data packets from Philae arrived on Earth at 1440 GMT (10:40 a.m. EDT) Friday through a NASA tracking antenna in California, which fed the telemetry to the lander's control center in Germany.

Philae's 10 instruments will be activated and tested throughout April. By May, all of the mission's science payloads will be commissioned, including the 11 instruments aboard the Rosetta mothership.

So far, Rosetta's scientific camera has finished its round of testing since the spacecraft woke up in January. The Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System, developed by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, took the first pictures of the comet since hibernation on March 20 and 21.

"Finally seeing our target after a 10 year journey through space is an incredible feeling," said Holger Sierks, OSIRIS principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute. "These first images taken from such a huge distance show us that OSIRIS is ready for the upcoming adventure."

Churyumov-Gerasimenko was about 5 million kilometers, or 3.1 million miles, from Rosetta when the pictures were taken earlier this month.

The rest of Rosetta's instruments are still being tested.

A series of engine burns in May will adjust Rosetta's course toward the comet, burning much of the spacecraft's remaining fuel. Rosetta is now on a trajectory to miss the comet by approximately 50,000 kilometers, or about 31,000 miles.

The trajectory correction maneuvers in May will guide Rosetta within 100 kilometers, or about 60 miles, of Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the first week of August, according to ESA.


Rosetta's OSIRIS narrow-angle camera took this image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on March 21. The comet is indicated by the small circle next to the bright globular star cluster M107. Photo credit: ESA/MPS for OSIRIS-Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Officials have penciled in Philae's landing on Churyumov-Gerasimenko for Nov. 11, but the date could be adjusted a few days based on the probe's landing site and conditions around the comet.

Philae will operate for at least two days on the comet, and it carries solar arrays to recharge its battery if comet's unpredictable dust environment cooperates.

"Landing on the surface is the cherry on the icing on the cake for the Rosetta mission on top of all the great science that will be done by the orbiter in 2014 and 2015," said Matt Taylor, Rosetta's project scientist, in a blog post on ESA's website. "A good chunk of this year will be spent identifying where we will land, but also taking vital measurements of the comet before it becomes highly active. No one has ever attempted this before and we are very excited about the challenge!"

One of Philae's instruments will drill into the comet's surface, collect a sample and feed it into an on-board oven for analysis.

Scientists do not know what environment awaits Rosetta and Philae at the comet.

Controllers will cautiously approach Churyumov-Gerasimenko with Rosetta, taking cues on how to navigate around the comet based on the amount of debris observed by the spacecraft's two main cameras.

The flexible approach allows officials to keep a safe distance from the comet if the ice and dust are deemed too hazardous.

Rosetta will follow the comet for at least a year while it makes its closest approach to the sun, watching Churyumov-Gerasimenko "wake up" as sunlight and heating trigger the comet's volatile jets of water vapor and gas.

Scientists are eager to better understand comets because they may have seeded Earth with water and the building blocks of life soon after the genesis of the solar system.

"They are time capsules," said Mark McCaughrean, senior advisor in ESA's science and robotic exploration directorate, in a press conference in December. "They are remnants of the birth of the solar system. They go back to the beginning of the solar system more than 4.6 billion years ago."

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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U.S. military satellite launched after 15-year hold
Photo
Thu, Apr 3 2014
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A U.S. military weather satellite, refurbished after more than a decade in storage, blasted off aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Thursday, a live webcast of the launch showed.
The sleek, 191-foot-tall (58-meter) rocket, built by United Launch Alliance, lifted off at 10:46 a.m. EDT to put the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program or DMSP spacecraft into a 530-mile-high orbit passing over Earth's poles. United Launch Alliance is a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.
The $518 million satellite, known as DMSP-19 and built by Lockheed Martin, joins six other operational DMSP satellites already in orbit.
The U.S. Air Force was prepared to launch DMSP-19 about 15 years ago, but the satellites in orbit were lasting much longer than expected so it went into storage instead, said Scott Larrimore, weather program director at the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles.
The same fate may await the 20th and final DMSP satellite, which is being built now and targeted to launch in 2020. The Air Force, however, is mulling whether to fly it at all or launch it early to avoid costly storage fees, among other options, Larrimore told reporters during a pre-launch conference call on March 27.
That discussion is part of a larger effort to reassess military space programs in an attempt to cut costs, take advantage of new technologies and partner with other agencies when possible, he added.
The U.S. Air Force already shares data with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and will be stepping up the partnership in a new generation of weather satellites designed to serve both military and civilian needs.
It also is looking into a supplemental satellite program that can fly on smaller rockets, such as Orbital Sciences Corp's Minotaur.
DMSP-19, which is designed to last five years, is equipped with visible light and infrared cameras to image clouds - day and night - and sensors to measure precipitation, temperatures and soil moisture. The DMSP satellites also collect data about the oceans, solar storms that affect Earth and other global meteorological conditions.
"Weather is a vital element of well-planned missions," said Lockheed Martin program director Sue Stretch. "High winds limit aircraft; storms threaten ships; and low-visibility can alter troop movements. The data the DMSP provides is essential to mission success."
(Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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New ‘geologic clock' resets date for moon's formation
Photo
Wed, Apr 2 2014
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Earth's moon started forming up to 65 million years later than some previous estimates, according to a study released on Wednesday that uses a new way to calculate the birthday of the 4.47 billion-year-old planet's only natural satellite.
The mega-asteroid that smashed into Earth, launching debris that later became the moon, happened about 95 million years after the birth of the solar system, research in this week's issue of the journal Nature showed.
The finding disputes, with a 99.9 percent degree of accuracy, some previous estimates that the moon-forming impact occurred as early as 30 million to 40 million years after the solar system's formation, some 4.58 billion years ago.
The new study is based on 259 computer simulations of how the solar system evolved from a primordial disk of planetary embryos swirling around the sun. The programs simulate the crashes and mergers of the small bodies until they meld into the rocky planets that exist today.
By that geologic clock, Earth's last big chuck came from a Mars-sized body that hit about 95 million years after the solar system's formation, the study showed.
"We think that the thing that hit Earth and ended up forming the moon, the lion's share of it stayed on Earth. A small fraction of its mass and some material from Earth was pushed off into space to form the moon," astronomer John Chambers, with the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, said in an interview.
"That was probably the last big event," he added.
The previous assessment was based on measuring the naturally occurring radioactive decay of telltale atoms inside lunar rocks. The same process, however, also led to findings that the impact happened between 50 million and 100 million years after the solar system's formation.
"Our new method … is independent of radiometric techniques and so we break through the controversy," lead researcher Seth Jacobson, with Cote d'Azur Observatory in Nice, France, wrote in an email.
The results also open another even bigger mystery about why some planets, like Mars, form relatively quickly, while others, like Earth and possibly Venus, take far longer.
Analysis of Martian meteorites and the computer simulations indicate Mars was finished in just a few million years.
There are no known Venus meteorites, and spacecraft so far have not been dispatched to either Mars or Venus to collect samples.
"Discovering that the moon-forming impact occurred late is surprising … because we know from Martian meteorites that Mars formed relatively quickly. How this discrepancy arises is another big question for the future," Jacobson said.
(Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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Bacteria brews biofuel with potential to replace high-energy rocket fuel

By Bob Guntrip

April 1, 2014

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the US Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute have engineered a bacterium that could yield a new source of high-energy hydrocarbon fuel for rocketry and other aerospace uses.

High-energy, specific-use hydrocarbon fuels such as JP-10 can be extracted from oil, along with more commonly used petroleum fuels, but supplies are limited and prices are high – approaching US$7 per liter. That’s where the new bacterium, engineered by Georgia Tech scientists Stephen Sarria and Pamela Peralta-Yahya, could come in.

By introducing enzymes into the strain of E. coli bacterium a reaction is developed that yields pinene, a cyclic hydrocarbon related to isoprene – a major ingredient of pine resin and a vital precursor to a biofuel that offers an energy density comparable to JP-10.

The biofuel is then produced by "dimerising," or linking together, two molecules of pinene via chemical catalysis.

"We have made a sustainable precursor to a tactical fuel with a high energy density,” says Peralta-Yahya, an assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. “We are concentrating on making a ‘drop-in’ fuel that looks just like what is being produced from petroleum and can fit into existing distribution systems."

By placing colonies of E. coli engineered to produce pinene into test tubes containing glu...
Much research has gone into more efficient ways of producing ethanol and biodiesel fuels, yet comparatively little work has been done on replacements for high-energy fuels. And while the Georgia Tech research has yielded impressive results, there are obstacles to be overcome before its process can be made competitive with the manufacture of petroleum-based JP-10.

One problem is that the action of the enzymes on the bacterium becomes inhibited once the yield of pinene solution reaches a particular concentration in its glucose growth medium.

"Now we need either an enzyme that is not inhibited at high substrate concentrations, or a pathway that can maintain low substrate concentrations throughout the run," says Peralta-Yahya. "Both of these are difficult, but not insurmountable, problems. If you are trying to make an alternative to gasoline, you are competing against less than $1 per liter. That requires a long optimization process. Our process will be competitive with $7 per liter in a much shorter time.”

The team's research appears in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology.

Source: Georgia Tech

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TerraN_EmpirE said:

NEWS FROM SPACE!!!!




Better late then never?

Speaking of Old!


BYORF
Brew your own Rocket Fuel.

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boeing’s composite tank could greatly improve launch vehicles
posted by doug messier on april 5, 2014, at 9:17 am in news
tags: Boeing, composites, game changing technologies, nasa, nasa marshall.
Comments: 16 responses
16 comments
one of the largest composite rocket propellant tanks ever manufactured is prepared for transport on nasa’s super guppy airplane. (credit: Boeing)
one of the largest composite rocket propellant tanks ever manufactured is prepared for transport on nasa’s super guppy airplane. (credit: Boeing)
huntsville, ala. (nasa pr) — for more than 50 years, metal tanks have carried fuel to launch rockets and propel them into space, but one of the largest composite tanks ever manufactured may change all that. This spring, that tank–known as the composite cryotank–is set to undergo a series of tests at extreme pressures and temperatures similar to those experienced during spaceflight.

“nasa focused on this technology because composite cryogenic tanks promise a 30 percent weight reduction and a 25 percent cost savings over the best metal tanks used today,” said michael gazarik, associate administrator for nasa’s space technology mission directorate. “it costs thousands of dollars to deliver a pound of cargo to space, so lighter tanks could be a game changer allowing rockets to carry more cargo, more affordably.”

technicians prepare the 18-foot-diameter (5.5-meter) tank during manufacturing at the boeing developmental center in tukwila, wash. (credit: Boeing)
technicians prepare the 18-foot-diameter (5.5-meter) tank during manufacturing at the boeing developmental center in tukwila, wash. (credit: Boeing)
the 18-foot-diameter (5.5 meter) composite tank just completed final assembly at the boeing developmental center in tukwila, wash. Soon it will be loaded onto nasa’s super guppy, a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft, that will carry it on a two-day journey to nasa’s marshall space flight center in huntsville, ala., where it will be filled with extremely cold, or cryogenic, hydrogen propellant and undergo a series of tests throughout the summer.

“successful tests last year with an 8-foot-diameter tank gave us the confidence that we could build and test a much larger composite tank,” said steve gaddis, manager for space technology’s game changing development program. “this tank is the size of metal tanks that fuel full-size rockets today, so this is a true milestone in composite tank design and fabrication.”

a team of engineers from boeing and nasa designed and manufactured the tank. Nasa experts learned from prior tank designs and testing and helped devise ways to combat imperfections such as microscopic leaks, found in previous composite tanks. The team leveraged boeing’s experience producing composites for aircraft to use a unique fiber-placement technique and new materials that did not require expensive curing processes in autoclaves, procedures traditionally associated with composite production.

A robot heats advanced composite materials to form the skin of a composite tank designed to hold super cold propellants. (credit: Boeing)
a robot heats advanced composite materials to form the skin of a composite tank designed to hold super cold propellants. (credit: Boeing)
“advances in composite materials and manufacturing offer some of the greatest potential for improvements in cost, schedule and overall performance for a wide range of nasa missions,” said john vickers, the program manager for the composite cryotank and technologies demonstration project at the marshall center. “we have improved composite manufacturing without adding risks or costs to any of nasa’s current projects. We want to advance this technology, so tanks are ready as nasa’s space launch system, the largest most powerful rocket ever built, evolves.”

when the tank arrives at the marshall center, it will move to a clean room and be prepared for testing at a recently refurbished test stand. Here, the tank will come to life as it is filled with liquid hydrogen, cooled and pressurized. As it undergoes this endurance testing, nasa and boeing engineers will monitor data to see how it performs compared to metal tanks and the smaller 8-foot-diameter (2.4-meter) tank tested at marshall last summer. Engineers will monitor testing from a new centralized control room, which is shared by several test facilities and has updated video, data acquisition and communications systems.

“boeing and nasa assembled some of the world’s experts to design, build and test the tank,” said dan rivera, the cryotank program manager within boeing research & technology, the company’s advanced research and development organization. “we used new composite materials and an innovative design capable of withstanding harsh launch vehicle environments. Both the approach and the technology for the design and manufacturing are revolutionary.”

for more information on the composite cryotank technologies and demonstration project, visit:

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marshall manages the sls program for nasa. For more information on sls, visit:

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ula, spacex reschedule launches after radar outage
by stephen clark
spaceflight now
posted: April 4, 2014


23
after a two-week delay to wait for the u.s. Air force to restore a critical radar tracker, united launch alliance and spacex have rescheduled their next rocket missions from cape canaveral for april 10 and april 14.


The atlas 5 rocket rolled to the launch pad march 24 before a delay due to a radar outage on the air force eastern range. Workers returned the launcher to its integration building to wait for another launch opportunity. Photo credit: Stephen clark/spaceflight now

officials put the launches on hold after a component on a rocket tracking radar short-circuited march 24, causing it to overheat and knock the radar offline.

Without the radar, the air force's eastern range was unable to support launch attempts for the ula atlas 5 and spacex falcon 9 rockets then set for march 25 and march 30.

The eastern range is a network of communications stations, tracking radars and safety assets along florida's east coast and stretching into the atlantic ocean under the ground tracks of rockets as they fly into orbit.

The range's job is to keep the public and property safe from launching rockets in case the vehicles fly off course.

The radar responsible for the delays is owned by the air force but lies on the property of nasa's kennedy space center.

First up on april 10 is the atlas 5 launch of a top secret payload for the national reconnaissance office, the u.s. Government agency which owns and operates imaging and eavesdropping spy satellites.

Liftoff from cape canaveral's complex 41 launch pad is set for a launch window opening at 1:45 p.m. Edt (1745 gmt) and extending 41 minutes.

The april 10 launch will come one week after an atlas 5 launch from vandenberg air force base in california with the military's dmsp f19 weather satellite.


Photo of the falcon 9 rocket undergoing a prelaunch static fire test on the launch pad in march. Photo credit: Spacex

a falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for liftoff april 14 from the nearby complex 40 pad with a dragon cargo spacecraft heading to the international space station.

The automated spaceship will deliver 2.4 tons of equipment to the space station under contract to nasa.

Launch on april 14 is set for 4:58 p.m. Edt (2058 gmt), and the dragon spacecraft will arrive at the space station april 16.

A spokesperson with the air force's 45th space wing on friday said the eastern range is expected to be ready to support both launches. He did not say whether the air force had repaired the damaged radar or activated a backup system to restore the lost tracking capability.

Follow stephen clark on twitter: @stephenclark1.

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lunar dust mission still chasing mystery of ‘horizon glow’

04 apr 2014 | 14:41 bst | posted by eric hand | category: Space and astronomy

ladee
nasa
posted on behalf of alexandra witze.

Nasa is preparing one last blast for its expired lunar atmosphere and dust environment explorer (ladee) spacecraft — a controlled crash into the moon’s surface, probably on 21 april. But before it goes, ladee will take a final shot at unravelling one of the main mysteries it went to the moon to uncover.

A major goal of the mission was to understand a bizarre glow on the moon’s horizon, spotted by apollo astronauts just before sunrise. “so far we haven’t come up with an explanation for that,” project scientist rick elphic, of nasa’s ames research center in moffett field, california, said at a media briefing on 3 april. One leading idea is that the sun’s ultraviolet rays cause lunar dust particles to become electrically charged. That dust then lofts upwards, forming a cloud that caught the light and the astronauts’ eyes.

Ladee carries an instrument that measures the impact of individual dust particles, as well as the collective signal from smaller particles. Lunar scientists had expected a certain amount of tiny dust to explain what the apollo astronauts saw. But ladee didn’t find it. “we did measure a signal that indicates that the amount of lofted dust has to be at least two orders of magnitude below the expectations that were based on the apollo reports,” says mihály horányi, the instrument’s principal investigator, who is at the university of colorado. Perhaps the dust lofting happens only occasionally, he suggests, and the astronauts were in just the right place at the right time to see it.

Ladee will try one more time to unravel the horizon-glow mystery. As it gets closer and closer to the lunar surface, it will point its star tracker towards the moon’s horizon to try to replicate the angle and conditions under which the astronauts saw the glow. The star tracker is not designed for high-resolution imaging, but elphic says that it’s worth looking.

This weekend, mission managers will guide ladee on a trajectory just 3 kilometres above the apennine mountains on the moon’s near side. The goal is to see what sort of dust ladee can spot so close to the surface. Then it will move slightly higher for its remaining few weeks before plunging to its doom. It is destined to follow the natural decay of its orbit and vaporize itself on the lunar far side.

Ladee scientists have plenty of science to distract them from mourning. The spacecraft made the best measurements ever of the moon’s dusty envelope, generated as tiny meteorites bombard its surface. The mission also discovered exotic atoms such as neon, magnesium and aluminium in the moon’s outer atmosphere.

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