US Space Program - a thread

[Fenrir]

Air Force Weather Satellite’s Breakup Blamed on Wiring Harness Compression in Battery Charge Assembly

Air Force Weather Satellite’s Breakup Blamed on Wiring Harness Compression in Battery Charge Assembly « AmericaSpace

DMSP Air Force weather satellite is depicted in polar orbit near Alaska. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin

A U.S. Air Force review into the Feb. 3 loss of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Flight 13 determined a failure of the spacecraft’s battery charger as the likely cause of the satellite’s failure and structural breakup.

Analysis indicates one of the satellite’s wiring harnesses in the battery charge assembly lost functionality due to compression over a long period of time. Once the harness was compromised, exposed wires potentially caused a short in the battery power, leading to an overcharge situation with eventual rupture of the satellite’s two batteries.

The Air Force declined to reveal the breakup until amateur trackers discovered the debris cloud.

This is the second aging DMSP to breakup in orbit. In April 2004, the 13-year-old fully retired DMSP-11 broke into 56 pieces of debris. Investigators believe that breakup was also caused by a battery wiring failure.

The latest failure analysis was conducted by the 50th Space Wing at Schriever AFB, Colo. The 12-foot-long (3.7-m) spacecraft weighed 1,832 lbs (831 kg) and cost $500 million.

DMSP Defense Meteorological Satellite undergoes inspection prior to launch. Photo Credit: Lockheed Martin

The satellite was orbiting near Antarctica when a joint team of ground controllers with the Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Suitland, Md., noted a sudden temperature spike in the satellite’s electrical subsystem, followed by an unrecoverable loss of attitude control.

Currently, the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is tracking 147 pieces of debris from this incident, ranging from baseball- to basketball-sized objects. There are approximately 110 payloads in the same orbital regime as DMSP Flight 13 at 515 miles (830 km). The JSpOC has had no reportable conjunctions between the DMSP Flight 13 debris and any of these objects.

“In accordance with our ongoing efforts to protect the space domain, the JSpOC will continue to monitor this debris along with all of the items in the space catalog in order to enhance the long-term sustainability, safety and security of the space environment,” said Col. John Giles, JSpOC director.

The review determined there were no actions that could have been taken to prevent the incident. The mission is operated by NOAA on behalf of the Air Force.

More than two decades ago, the design of the battery charger made it very difficult to assemble, and the entire block of Lockheed Martin 5D-2 Battery Chargers are potentially susceptible to this short circuit failure over time, despite a functional history within the design life.

The assembly is common to nine DMSP satellites, Flight 6 through Flight 14. While only one of these satellites, DMSP Flight 14, remains operational, six remain in orbit and analysis has shown that the risk of potential short circuit remains even after a satellite is permanently shut down.

“While there are no indications of an issue with the battery charge assembly housing on DMSP Flight 14, the results of the DMSP Flight 13 review coupled with ongoing technical analysis will be included in our routine constellation sustainment planning process moving forward,” said Col. Dennis Bythewood, 50th Operations Group commander.

“Our team took quick action to identify the anomaly and to mitigate its impact,” said Bythewood. “Everyone worked well together to address this incident. We are grateful to all of our partners, to include active duty and Reserve Airmen, government civilians, NOAA operators and Lockheed Martin, Aerospace Corp, Harris Corp and Northrop Grumman contractors, in supporting the immediate actions as well as the review that followed this incident.”

The DMSPs are used to cue imaging reconnaissance spacecraft operators to cloud-free areas and to provide units like SEAL teams with critical weather information, even for small landing zones. Along with NOAA polar orbiters, the DMSPs also provide extremely detailed data on hurricane intensity and ground tracks.

DMSP Flight 13 was originally launched from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., into polar orbit on March 24, 1995. Despite its original four-year design life, Flight 13 provided service for almost two decades and on Aug. 6, 2014, became the first operational DMSP satellite to reach 100,000 revolutions around the Earth. The satellite was built by General Electric’s Astro Space Div., later acquired by Lockheed Martin.

“Due to an earlier loss of recording capability and the launch of more modern DMSP satellites, Flight 13 transitioned from a primary mission satellite to a residual satellite in 2006,” said the Air Force. It said that “DMSP Flight 13 provided critical atmospheric data for flight operations in OPERATION ALLIED FORCE, OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM and OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM. During its lifetime, DMSP Flight 13 also provided thousands of hours of weather imagery to the Air Force Weather Agency and the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center.”

 

[Fenrir]

Here's a Rocket With Shark Teeth

The latest ULA rocket has a very angry face. Full photo below.

 

[Fenrir]

Bright Basin on Tethys

Bright Basin on Tethys | NASA

With the expanded range of colors visible to Cassini's cameras, differences in materials and their textures become apparent that are subtle or unseen in natural color views. Here, the giant impact basin Odysseus on Saturn's moon Tethys stands out brightly from the rest of the illuminated icy crescent. This distinct coloration may result from differences in either the composition or structure of the terrain exposed by the giant impact. Odysseus (280 miles, or 450 kilometers, across) is one of the largest impact craters on Saturn's icy moons, and may have significantly altered the geologic history of Tethys.

Tethys' dark side (at right) is faintly illuminated by reflected light from Saturn.

Images taken using ultraviolet, green and infrared spectral filters were combined to create this color view. North on Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) is up in this view.

The view was acquired on May 9, 2015 at a distance of approximately 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) from Tethys. Image scale is 1.1 mile (1.8 kilometers) per pixel.

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

 

[Fenrir]

Domes Arrive for CST-100 Test Article Assembly

Domes Arrive for CST-100 Test Article Assembly | Commercial Crew Program

Image Credit: Boeing

The first two domes that will form the pressure shell of the Structural Test Article, or STA, for Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft have arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The STA Crew Module will be assembled inside the former space shuttle hangar, known as Orbiter Processing Facility-3, so the company can validate the manufacturing and processing methods it plans to use for flight-ready CST-100 vehicles. While the STA will not fly with people aboard, it will be used to determine the effectiveness of the design and prove its escape system during a pad abort test. The ability to abort from an emergency and safely carry crew members out of harm’s way is a critical element for NASA’s next generation of crew spacecraft.

The main structure of the STA was friction-stir welded into a single upper and lower hull in mid-2015 and then machined to its final thickness. Throughout the next few months, it will be outfitted with critical components and systems required for testing. Once completed at Kennedy, the test article will be taken to Boeing’s facility in Huntington Beach, California, for evaluations. The “structural test” is one of many that will verify the capabilities and worthiness of the spacecraft, which is being designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station in the near future for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Boeing plans to launch its spacecraft on United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which is only a few miles away from the CST-100 processing facility at Kennedy. A human-rated crew access tower that will give astronauts and ground support crews access to the CST-100 standing at the pad is currently is under construction near the launch site.




Round of Testing Completed on Webb Telescope Flight Mirrors

Round of Testing Completed on Webb Telescope Flight Mirrors | NASA

This July 11, 2015 photograph captures one of the final, if not the final, James Webb Space Telescope flight primary mirror segments to be processed through NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Calibration, Integration and Alignment Facility (CIAF).

The mirror is seen here on the Configuration Measurement Machine (CMM), which is used for precision measurements of the backs of the mirrors. These precision measurements must be accurate to 0.1 microns or 1/400th the thickness of a human hair.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the scientific successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It will be the most powerful space telescope ever built. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Image Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

 

[Fenrir]

NASA Mars Orbiter Preparing for Mars Lander's 2016 Arrival

NASA Mars Orbiter Preparing for Mars Lander's 2016 Arrival | NASA

With its biggest orbit maneuver since 2006, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will prepare this week for the arrival of NASA's next Mars lander, InSight, next year.

A planned 77-second firing of six intermediate-size thrusters on July 29 will adjust the orbit timing of the veteran spacecraft so it will be in position to receive radio transmissions from InSight as the newcomer descends through the Martian atmosphere and touches down on Sept. 28, 2016. These six rocket engines, which were used for trajectory corrections during the spacecraft's flight from Earth to Mars, can each produce about 22 newtons, or five pounds, of thrust.

"Without making this orbit change maneuver, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would be unable to hear from InSight during the landing, but this will put us in the right place at the right time," said MRO Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The orbiter will record InSight's transmissions for later playback to Earth as a record of each event during the critical minutes of InSight's arrival at Mars, just as MRO did for the landings of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover three years ago, and NASA's Phoenix Mars lander in 2008.

InSight will examine the deep interior of Mars for clues about the formation and early evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.

MRO will continue its studies of Mars while preparing for the InSight arrival. MRO collects high-resolution imaging and spectral data, as well as atmospheric and sub-surface profiles. It has returned several times more data about the Red Planet than all other deep-space missions combined. It will also continue providing communication relay support for Mars rovers and making observations for analysis of candidate landing sites for future missions.

After the InSight landing, plans call for MRO to perform a pair of even larger maneuvers in October 2016 and April 2017 -- each using the six intermediate-size thrusters longer than three minutes. These will return it to the orbit timing it has used since 2006, crossing the equator at about 3 a.m. and 3 p.m., local solar time, during each near-polar loop around the planet. To observe the InSight arrival, MRO will be in an orbit that crosses the equator at about 2:30 p.m. local solar mean time.

The last time the mission performed a maneuver larger than this week's was on November 15, 2006. That maneuver fired the intermediate-size thrusters for 76 seconds to establish the original 3 p.m. Local Mean Solar Time (LMST) sun-synchronous condition after a six-month period of using dips into the upper atmosphere to alter the orbit's shape. The spacecraft has three sets of thrusters. It used its most powerful set -- six thrusters, each with 170 newtons, or 39 pounds of force -- for about 27 minutes to first enter orbit when it arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006. It uses eight smaller thrusters most frequently, for small adjustments to course or orientation.

Even after the planned 2017 maneuver, the spacecraft's remaining supply of hydrazine propellant is projected to be more than 413 pounds (about 187 kilograms), equivalent to about 19 years of consumption in normal operations.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the MRO Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter and supports its operations. For more information about MRO, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mro

http://mars.nasa.gov/mro

 

[Fenrir]

This program is in its preliminary stages.

Venus Landsailing Rover

NASA - Venus Landsailing Rover

The surface of Venus is the most hostile environment in the solar system, with a surface temperature hotter than an oven, and a high-pressure, corrosive atmosphere. It is significant that, although humans have sent rovers to Mars with operating lifetimes of eight years and counting, the most capable mission to the surface of Venus has been a stationary lander that survived for only two hours. Exploring the surface of Venus with a rover would be a “stretch” goal, which will push the limits of technology in high-temperature electronics, robotics, and robust systems.

In work to develop sensors to work inside of jet engines, NASA Glenn has developed electronics that will continue to function even at the Venus temperature of 450°C. These electronic components represent a breakthrough in technological capability for high temperatures. We have also tested solar cells up to Venus surface temperatures; although the power density produced is low (because of the high cloud levels and thick atmosphere), we can produce electrical power on the surface. So the fundamental elements of a rover for Venus are not beyond the bounds of physics: we could survive the furnace of Venus-- if we can come up with an innovative concept for a rover that can move on extremely low power levels.

To do this, we need to take advantage of the in-situ resources of Venus for mobility. The atmospheric pressure at the surface is a hundred times greater than that of Earth. Even though the winds at the surface of Venus are low (under one meter per second), at Venus pressure even low wind speeds develop significant force. We thus propose an innovative concept for a planetary rover: a sail-propelled rover to explore the surface of Venus. Such a rover could open a new frontier: converting the surface of a new planet into a location that can be explored by robotic exploration.

Although landsailing vehicles can climb hills, they require an operating landscape that is not densely packed with obstacles on the scale of meters. In this respect the surface of Venus actually does us a favor: from the views of Venus taken by the Russian Venera probes, the surface of Venus can be seen to have landscapes of flat, even terrain stretching to the horizon, with rocks at only centimeter scale (at least in the locations that Venera probes landed). Venus is ideal terrain for landsailing! In this project, we will analyze the technologies needed for a robotic landsailing vehicle on Venus, and do a top-level analysis and trade study of the rover design. Once the top level trade has been done, we will utilize the NASA Glenn COMPASS spacecraft design team to do a detailed design study of the vehicle and mission. In the final report, we assess the design feasibility and benefits over competing technologies.

The project is:

• Exciting: sailing on Venus! How cool is that? The project will have an exceptional public engagement factor.
• Breakthrough: this is great leap in capabilities for planetary exploration beyond any current capability.
• Unexplored: Venus is the epitome of an unexplored planet. We will go where no one has gone before.
• Far-term: we’re not ready to launch, but in ten years, we could be.
• Technically credible: The concept has a sound scientific and engineering basis, and a reasonable implementation path that will take us from technical dream to engineering reality.

---

Despite it being preliminary, that doesn't mean their isn't movement either. The program is progressing steadily.

---



NASA Awards Grants to Ozark IC to Create Circuits for Proposed Venus Rover

NASA Awards Grants to Ozark IC to Create Circuits for Proposed Venus Rover « AmericaSpace

In what may be a significant step toward the seemingly far-off goal of sending a rover to the surface of Venus, NASA has awarded two grants totalling $245,000 to a semiconductor technology firm to design complex integrated circuits which could withstand the extremely harsh environment on this neighboring world.

The firm, Ozark Integrated Circuits Inc., is a start-up technology company affiliated with the University of Arkansas. The company designs semiconductors at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park and will use the grants to design complex integrated circuits which can survive and operate on Venus’ surface, where the temperature can reach a hellish 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius)—or, as the old saying goes, hot enough to melt lead.

The circuits are being designed as components for a proposed Venus rover called the Venus Landsailing Rover. The silicon carbide-based circuits will be used in an ultraviolet imager and microcontroller for the rover.

“Silicon carbide is a semiconductor that is ideally suited for the extreme environments found on Venus,” said Matt Francis, Ozark IC’s president and chief executive officer. “We have many years of experience working with this semiconductor fabrication process, developing models and process-design kits specifically for this process.”

Ozark IC will utilize the integrated circuit packaging expertise and facilities at the U of A’s High Density Electronics Research Center at the research park. Circuit packaging is the final stage of semiconductor device fabrication.

Francis, along with Jim Holmes, chief technology officer, has been working at perfecting the design procedures, tools, characterization, and modeling approaches necessary to create the high-temperature, high-voltage electronics capable of operating at temperatures beyond 600 degrees Fahrenheit. By contrast, rovers on Mars have had to be built to survive temperatures ranging from just above freezing to extreme cold.

“We will demonstrate the feasibility of creating these needed integrated circuits,” Francis said. “We will also generate a commercial feasibility analysis based on projections of the manufacturing costs for each of these integrated circuits.”

In the first grant award, Ozark IC will develop an ultraviolet imager which is ideally suited for planetary composition experiments and observing Earth from space. On Venus, the imager will allow monitoring of ultraviolet signals which will help scientists to better understand the Venusian environment. It can also be used for ultraviolet astronomy by observing and analyzing ultraviolet signals from other planets and stars.

For the second grant award, the company will develop a microcontroller to provide real-time programmability for the proposed rover. Student research for this project will be led by Alan Mantooth, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering at the U of A.

The Venus Landsailing Rover is a proposal for a mobile lander on Venus being developed by NASA Glenn which could withstand the searing temperatures and pressure, pushing the limits of technology in high-temperature electronics, robotics, and robust systems; the previous Soviet Venera landers on Venus in the 1980s were only able to survive up to two hours. According to the information page, the project is:

• Exciting: sailing on Venus! How cool is that? The project will have an exceptional public engagement factor.
• Breakthrough: this is great leap in capabilities for planetary exploration beyond any current capability.
• Unexplored: Venus is the epitome of an unexplored planet. We will go where no one has gone before.
• Far-term: we’re not ready to launch, but in ten years, we could be.
• Technically credible: the concept has a sound scientific and engineering basis, and a reasonable implementation path that will take us from technical dream to engineering reality.

NASA Glenn is developing the electronics which can survive the environment on Venus for much longer than before, as well as solar cells. Even though the amount of solar power generated will be low due to clouds and thick atmosphere, it will still be enough for the rover. The rover will be ideally designed for operating on Venus’ surface, as it is sail-propelled (thus the name) to take advantage of winds. Surface winds on Venus are low—under one meter per second—but the strong atmospheric pressure (one hundred times more than on Earth) will create the force needed to move the rover. The landscape in many places, as seen by previous landers, is also ideal for landsailing, with fairly flat terrain and small rocks.

Venera 13 landing site panorama on Venus. This kind of flat terrain would be ideal for a landsailing rover. Image Credit: National Space Science Data Center

Later, the NASA Glenn COMPASS spacecraft design team will do a detailed design study of the vehicle and mission overall, and in the final report will assess the design feasibility and benefits over competing technologies.

The surface of Venus is not an easy place to visit by any means, but a landsailing rover like VLR might be just what is needed to continue studying this hostile but fascinating world up close.

A formal press release about these grants will be sent out next week from Ozark IC/U of A.

 

[Fenrir]

Extreme Access Flyer to Take Planetary Exploration Airborne

Extreme Access Flyer to Take Planetary Exploration Airborne | NASA

Swamp Works engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are inventing a flying robotic vehicle that can gather samples on other worlds in places inaccessible to rovers. The vehicles – similar to quad-copters but designed for the thin atmosphere of Mars and the airless voids of asteroids and the moon – would use a lander as a base to replenish batteries and propellants between flights.

"This is a prospecting robot," said Rob Mueller, senior technologist for advanced projects at Swamp Works. "The first step in being able to use resources on Mars or an asteroid is to find out where the resources are. They are most likely in hard-to-access areas where there is permanent shadow. Some of the crater walls are angled 30 degrees or more, and that's far too steep for a traditional rover to navigate and climb."

The machines being built fall under the name Extreme Access Flyers, and their designers intend to create vehicles that can travel into the shaded regions of a crater and pull out small amounts of soil to see whether it holds the water-ice promised by readings from orbiting spacecraft. Running on propellants made from resources on the distant worlds, the machines would be able to execute hundreds of explorative sorties during their mission. They also would be small enough for a lander to bring several of them to the surface at once, so if one fails, the mission isn't lost.

If that sounds a lot like a job for a quad-copter, it kind of is. On Earth, a quad-copter with its four rotors and outfitted with a digger or sampling device of some sort would be able to execute many missions with no problem. On other worlds, though, the machine would require very large rotors since the atmosphere on Mars is thin and there is no air on an asteroid or the moon. Also, the flyer would have to operate autonomously, figuring out on its own where it is and where it is going since there is no GPS to help it navigate and the communications delays are too large to control it directly from Earth.

A prototype built to test Extreme Access Flyer systems in different environments.

Credits: NASA/Swamp Works

Cold-gas jets using oxygen or steam water vapor will take on the lifting and maneuvering duties performed by the rotors on Earth. For navigation, the team is programming the flyer to recognize terrain and landmarks and guide itself to areas controllers on Earth send it to or even scout on its own the best places to take samples from.

"It would have enough propellant to fly for a number of minutes on Mars or on the moon, hours on an asteroid," said DuPuis.

For the sampling itself, designers currently envision a modular approach that would let the flyer take one tool at a time to a sample area to gather about seven grams of material at a time. That's enough for instruments to analyze and, throughout the course of many flights, is enough to gather samples that would show Earth-bound scientists a complete geological picture of an area.

It's work that would've been too complicated to research even five years ago, particularly with off-the-shelf components. Now though, the advent of autonomous flight controllers, laser-guidance and mapping systems combined with innovations in 3-D printing make the chances of developing a successful prototype flyer much more likely. Also, a partnership with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Honeybee Robotic Spacecraft Mechanisms is providing more expertise.

The Asteroid Prospector Flyer prototype in a testing gimbal.

Credits: NASA/Swamp Works

"The flight control systems of commercially available small, unmanned multi-rotor aerial vehicles are not too dissimilar to a spacecraft controller," Mike DuPuis, co-investigator of the Extreme Access Flyer project. "That was the starting point for developing a controller."

In the Swamp Works laboratory, the team has assembled several models designed to test aspects of the final machine. A large quad-copter about five feet across that uses ducted fans is about the size of the prototype the team has in mind for an operational mission in space. It's been tested at the planetary surface analogous test site built for the Morpheus lander project at the north end of the Shuttle Landing Facility's runway.

A smaller ducted fan flyer, about the size of a person's palm is routinely flown inside a 10-by-10-foot cube to test software and control abilities. Another, primarily built with asteroid exploration in mind, is suspended inside a gimbal device that lets it maneuver much as it would in zero gravity, using nitrogen high pressure cold gas thrusters to tilt and spin while the team judges its behavior in a virtual simulated world on a computer that shows what its flight around an asteroid would look like.

The team started at a low level of technological readiness two years ago and is steadily pushing the mission and design closer to a state where it can be made into a flight-ready craft.

The uses for the sampling vehicle may not be solely extraterrestrial, Mueller said. On Earth, an aerial vehicle that can pull a few grams of dirt from an area potentially brimming with toxins would be very valuable for first responders or those researching a new area who do not want to risk humans. Mueller said the effects of a nuclear radiation leak on surrounding areas, for example, could be measured with soil gathered quickly by a vehicle like the Extreme Access Flyer.

"We're an innovations lab, so in everything we do, we try to come up with new solutions," Mueller said.

In addition to scouting craters for water and other elements that can be processed into fuel for large spacecraft and air for humans, the flyer would be capable of exploring lava tubes that are known to exist on Mars and the moon and are found in many volcanic areas on Earth. Because some are thought to be 30 feet or bigger in diameter, an extreme access flyer could navigate autonomously during a robotic precursor mission and find a safe place for astronauts during their journey to Mars.

"You could put a whole habitat inside a lava tube to shelter astronauts from radiation, thermal extremes, weather and micrometeorites," Mueller said.

 

[Fenrir]

Engineers Test Design Changes to Orion Fairing Panels

Engineers Test Design Changes to Orion Fairing Panels | NASA

This video shows the first test in a series of tests for the NASA Orion spacecraft's fairing separation system. Engineers made design changes to the system as a result of data collected during Orion's first test flight on Dec. 5, 2014.

NASA’s prime contractor for Orion, Lockheed Martin, successfully completed two ground-based tests to evaluate how Orion’s fairing panels will separate from the spacecraft on its way to space. The tests incorporated several changes designed to reduce spacecraft mass and help further prepare Orion for its first mission atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to a distant lunar orbit. Lessons learned from last year’s flight test and building the initial spacecraft have provided valuable insight to inform these design improvements.

Orion includes three massive fairing panels that encase the service module, which houses power and propulsion, during the spacecraft’s climb to space. Like common rocket fairings, the panels support the spacecraft and help it endure the aerodynamic pressure, heat, wind and acoustics it encounters as it goes from sitting on the launch pad to traveling thousands of miles per hour in a matter of minutes. But unlike conventional fairings, Orion’s panels support about half of the weight of the spacecraft’s crew module and launch abort system, which improves performance, saves overall weight and maximizes Orion’s size and capability.

An Orion fairing panel separates during a June test at Lockheed Martin's facility in Sunnyvale, California. Three fairing panels encase Orion's service model to protect it during ascent to space and are jettisoned once they are no longer needed. Credits: Lockheed Martin


Several minutes into flight, when the panels no longer are needed, they are jettisoned using a series of pyrotechnic devices that must fire in precise sequence to move the panels away from the spacecraft and allow it to continue its mission.

“Fairing panel separation is one of the first big milestones the Orion spacecraft has to achieve as we start a mission,” said Stu McClung, an Orion engineer who managers many of the spacecraft’s pyrotechnic mechanisms. “They’re a critical part of helping Orion get to space, but once they’ve done their job, it’s essential that we get rid of them so Orion can continue on and explore deep space destinations.”

To support deep space missions, the Orion program has reduced the spacecraft’s mass by more than 4,200 pounds through several manufacturing, design and architecture changes. These efforts change the loads, or forces, that are transmitted into the fairings. Engineers have changed some of the attachment schemes on the fairing panels, including where and how the hinges and springs used to jettison the fairing panels are located.

This image shows the elements of the Orion spacecraft, including its fairing panels. Credits: NASA


A test in June examined how a single fairing panel separated during a normal ascent scenario and how the separation moved energy to the rest of the structure. A second test completed July 29 evaluated the separation when a 10-millisecond lag was incorporated into the pyrotechnic firing sequence. Both tests were conducted at Lockheed Martin’s test facility in Sunnyvale, California. Initial data show the panels separated as planned in both tests.

“To the outside observer, the tests don’t look different than the ones we did ahead of Orion’s flight test last year, but we’ve making modifications as part of lessons learned during that flight that will give us a better approach in the long run,” said McClung.

The tests also mimicked higher forces on the panels than they experienced during Orion’s Exploration Flight Test-1 since the spacecraft will endure different pressure atop SLS than it did atop the Delta IV Heavy rocket that sent it on its maiden voyage to space. They also evaluated a new design of a cover for Orion’s star tracker, which is used for navigational purposes.

“We’ve got a lot of component-level tests happening across the country this year to help us refine Orion’s design,” said McClung. “It’s all helping us improve the spacecraft and get it ready for astronauts.”

 

[Fenrir]

NEEMO Undersea Crew Tests Tools and Techniques For Future Spacewalks

NEEMO Undersea Crew Tests Tools and Techniques For Future Spacewalks | NASA

This photograph of NASA astronaut Serena Aunon (@AstroSerena) moving tools and equipment underwater was taken during the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) 20 mission, which began on July 20, 2015. NEEMO 20 is a 14-day mission by an international crew to the Aquarius Reef Base, located 62 feet (19 meters) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. NEEMO 20 is focusing on evaluating tools and techniques being tested for future spacewalks on a variety of surfaces and gravity levels ranging from asteroids to the moons of Mars and the Martian surface.

The mission tests time delays in communications due to the distance of potential mission destinations. The crew also will assess hardware sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA) that allows crew members to read the next step in a procedure without taking their hands or eyes away from the task using a tablet, a smartphone and a head-mounted interface.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano is commanding the NEEMO 20 mission aboard the Aquarius laboratory. Parmitano flew in space during Expeditions 36 and 37 aboard the International Space Station in 2013, where he spent 166 days living and working in the extreme environment of microgravity. He conducted two spacewalks on his first spaceflight. Parmitano is joined by NASA astronaut Aunon, NASA EVA Management Office engineer David Coan and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige Kanai.

 

[Fenrir]

NASA Goddard Technology Helps Fight Forest Pests

Goddard Technology Helps Fight Forest Pests

Northeastern forests in the United States cover more than 165 million acres, an area almost as big as Texas. Soon, millions of pine and ash trees in those forests could be wiped out, thanks in part to two types of voracious insects—each smaller than a penny.

A joint operation using technology developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will help the U.S. Forest Service understand the impacts of these pests on northeastern trees. The collaboration flies a unique airborne instrument known as G-LiHT, or Goddard’s LiDAR, Hyperspectral and Thermal imager, on a Forest Service airplane. Using G-LiHT to measure signs and symptoms of forest health, scientists from both agencies flew over forests in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island this summer.

The southern pine beetle, a lethal predator of pine trees that cost the Southeast’s economy 1.5 billion in the early 2000s, already accounts for about 1,000 acres of infestation in New York and has recently been trapped in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The emerald ash borer, considered the worst tree-killer in the United States, has already killed tens of millions of northeastern trees and has been detected in 24 states and two Canadian provinces.

Goddard Earth scientist Bruce Cook said insects like the emerald ash borer will continue their feast for the foreseeable future. “We’re probably looking at the eradication of most of the ash trees in the United States and Canada,” he said.

Ryan Hanavan, the Forest Service entomologist working with G-LiHT, said these pests pose astronomical damages for the forestry industry in costs for post-infestation control, cleanup and replanting. “It’s 900 millions of potential damage for southern pine beetle and 10.5 billions projected for the emerald ash borer,” Hanavan said."

G-LiHT sits inside the airplane’s cockpit, over an open camera port that allows it to look down from about 1000 feet high and at about 150 mph. Credits: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Technologies like G-LiHT help the Forest Service monitor insect damage and map areas at risk. G-LiHT uses LiDAR, an airborne device that sends millions of laser photons bouncing off the forest canopy and ground surface. With LiDAR data, Cook and colleagues create detailed 3-D images of each tree in a forest—trunk, branches and leaves included.

Equipped with a special gadget that can see reflected sunlight invisible to the naked eye, G-LiHT reveals information about the species and health of each tree. This gadget, known as an imaging spectrometer, helps scientists detect changes in leaf pigments plants use for photosynthesis. Cook said these pigments are important to measure, since declining photosynthesis indicates sick trees.

G-LiHT also packs a thermal infrared camera. Functioning like night-vision goggles to detect heat, this camera allows scientists to spot infested trees, which appear warmer when insects girdle their trunks and interrupt the natural flow and transpiration of water.

Cook said G-LiHT’s multi-sensor system works like a nervous system with different senses. “One sense cannot totally inform you,” he said. “A more complete picture of forest composition and health can be obtained with multi-sensor instrument packages.”

Hanavan has been on the forefront of the effort to track emerald ash borer and southern pine beetle in New England states. He and Cook teamed up to conduct aerial surveys with G-LiHT and ground observations in Northeastern forests during the summer of 2014 and 2015.

But even with G-LiHT, scientists can’t see everything from the air. Cook, Hanavan and their team need firsthand observations from the ground to describe the health of individual trees. Then they use these notes to interpret how G-LiHT sees infected trees from above.

While slow tree-killers like the emerald ash borer hurt economic stability over several years, southern pine beetle epidemics can abruptly end decades of productive forest growth. “We’re literally talking about millions to even billions of dollars in impact to the forestry industry,” Cook said. And preventing infestations could save millions of dollars to municipalities and landowners, who could be responsible for disposing of dead trees.

Unhealthy forests can also contribute to biodiversity loss and undermine important water cycle processes. Healthy forests also help offset increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

NASA and the U.S. Forest Service began using G-LiHT in 2011. Flying more than 1,000 hours in forest health and inventory projects, Cook, Hanavan and colleagues have studied boreal, temperate and tropical forests from Alaska to the Yucatan Peninsula. G-LiHT also fueled collaborations to study croplands, as well as coastal and ocean ecosystems.

 

[Fenrir]

STS-35 and STS-41

 

[Fenrir]

STS-38 Atlantis and STS-35 Columbia

Magnetospheric Multiscale Observatories

 

[Fenrir]

Buzz Aldrin Proves the Federal Government Has A Form for Everything

This may be the only exciting piece of government paperwork you’ll ever read. Buzz Aldrin conquered Throwback Thursday forever last week when he shared his travel voucher from the Apollo 11 mission on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s an unassuming document: a travel voucher for Col. Edwin E. Aldrin for a round trip originating in Houston, Texas. But the whole story of the most historic space mission to date is right there, listed matter-of-factly as a series of destinations in the right-hand column of the first page: Cape Kennedy, Florida; Moon; Pacific Ocean (USN Hornet); and Hawaii.

On the next page, the voucher spells out the details of travel arrangements for a business trip to the Moon. Aldrin drove his own car from his residence to Ellington Air Force Base outside Houston, Texas. From there to Cape Kennedy, he flew on a government aircraft. Nothing unusual so far, but you’ve got to wonder what the typist thought while typing out the next two lines:

• Cape Kennedy, Florida to Moon: Government Spacecraft
• Moon to Cape Kennedy, Florida: Government Spacecraft

The form also notes that “Government meals and quarters [were] furnished for all of the above dates.” NASA really thought of everything.

 

[Fenrir]

Lunar IceCube to Take on Big Mission From Small Package

Lunar IceCube to Take on Big Mission From Small Package | NASA

Age of Deep-Space Exploration with CubeSats Heralded

In what scientists say signals a paradigm shift in interplanetary science, NASA has selected a shoebox-size mission to search for water ice and other resources from above the surface of the moon.

Morehead State University professor Ben Malphrus, who is leading the Lunar IceCube mission, stands in front of the university’s 21-meter ground station antenna that will be handling the mission’s communications needs. Credits: Randy Evans/Dataseam


Called Lunar IceCube, the mission is one of several public-private partnerships chosen under NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) Broad Agency Announcement for the development of advanced exploration systems. Among the first small satellites to explore deep space, Lunar IceCube will help lay a foundation for future small-scale planetary missions, mission scientists said.

In addition to providing useful scientific data, Lunar IceCube will help inform NASA’s strategy for sending humans farther into the solar system.The ability to search for useful assets can potentially enable astronauts to manufacture fuel and other provisions needed to sustain a crew for a journey to Mars, reducing the amount of fuel and weight that NASA would need to transport from Earth.

Morehead State University in Kentucky is leading the six-unit (6-U) CubeSat mission, with significant involvement from scientists and engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the Massachusetts-based Busek Company.

The Busek Company is developing Lunar IceCube’s low-thrust electric propulsion system, the RF Ion BIT-3 thruster.
Credits: Busek Company

Under the university-led partnership, Morehead State’s Space Science Center will build the 6-U satellite and provide communications and tracking support via its 21-meter ground station antenna. Busek will provide the state-of-the-art electric propulsion system and Goddard will construct IceCube’s only miniaturized instrument, the Broadband InfraRed Compact High Resolution Explorer Spectrometer (BIRCHES). The instrument will prospect for water in ice, liquid, and vapor forms from a highly inclined elliptical lunar orbit. Goddard also will model a low-thrust trajectory taking the pint-size satellite to lunar orbit with very little propellant.

“Goddard scientists and engineers have deep experience in areas that are critical to interplanetary exploration,” said mission Morehead State University Principal Investigator Benjamin Malphrus, explaining why the university teamed with Goddard. “The significant expertise at Goddard, combined with Morehead State’s experience in smallsats and Busek’s in innovative electric-propulsion systems, create a strong team.”

A Pathfinder for Deep-Space Exploration

“Lunar IceCube is a key pathfinder experiment for future small-scale planetary missions,” said Goddard scientist Avi Mandell, who is assisting his colleague, Dennis Reuter, in the development of BIRCHES. “I believe the future looks bright for science on CubeSats, due to their fantastic versatility. Once we understand how to design these platforms, the possibilities are endless as to what we can do with them.”

Since their development more than a decade ago by Morehead State University Professor Bob Twiggs, then a professor at Stanford University, and Jordi Puig-Suari, an engineer at California Polytechnic State University, CubeSats have evolved principally from tools for instruction to full-fledged scientific platforms, which, given their relatively low cost and ease of integration, have become increasingly more appealing to professional scientists.

Getting to the moon will require that the Lunar IceCube take a circuitous route that uses the gravity of the sun, Earth and moon.
Credits: NASA/Dave Folta

In recent years, NASA and other government agencies have invested more research and development dollars into developing new miniaturization technologies that will support more robust scientific investigations from these platforms. “A lot of people are interested in answering scientific questions with these small devices,” explained Bob MacDowall, a Goddard scientist who is serving as a member of IceCube’s science team. “I’m betting that we already have about 100 deep-space CubeSat concepts floating around,” Clark added. “This is where things are headed.”

Challenges and Innovative Technology

IceCube will prospect for lunar volatiles and water during its six months in lunar orbit. While the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Lunar Flashlight will locate ice deposits in the moon’s permanently shadowed craters, IceCube’s BIRCHES will investigate the distribution of water and other volatiles as a function of time of day, latitude, and regolith age and composition. Its study is not confined to the shadowed areas.

Although other missions, such as the Lunar Prospector, Clementine, Chandrayaan-1, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, discovered various signatures of water and hydroxide, their instruments weren’t optimized for fully or systematically characterizing the elements in the infrared wavelength bands ideal for detecting water, MacDowall said. The high-resolution BIRCHES, on the other hand, was specifically designed to distinguish forms of water — ice, vapor, and liquid, he said.

Lunar IceCube, in short, could ultimately help scientists understand the role of external sources, internal sources, and micrometeorite bombardment in the formation, trapping, and release of water on the moon.

Although the instrument traces its heritage to instruments flying on NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer and New Horizons missions, the team said miniaturization challenges remain.

Morehead State University and Goddard are partnering to create the Lunar IceCube mission shown in this artist’s rendition.

Credits: Morehead State University

For instance, BIRCHES will carry a 1,000,000-pixel detector that will sense infrared signals emanating from the lunar surface. To record those signals, instrument developers will have to design a read-out channel linking each pixel to an amplifier that then bolsters the signal. “All of that is a pretty chunky piece of hardware,” not particularly conducive to fitting inside a satellite no larger than a large cereal box, Mandell said.

The team also needs to ensure that sensitive electronics are protected against radiation — a significant concern in deep space. “I have no doubt that these challenges are solvable,” Clark said.

Getting There

But before the Lunar IceCube can begin its science operations, it will have to get to the moon first. The satellites selected for EM-1 will be installed inside the adapter, which connects Orion to the upper stage of NASA’s newest rocket — the SLS, a 32-story launch vehicle designed to ferry humans and gear around the moon and beyond. Once the rocket reaches a certain position on its way to the moon, ground controllers will send a command to release the payloads, which will follow their own trajectories to their final destinations in and around the moon.

Busek’s RF Ion BIT-3 thruster, along with a carefully designed trajectory modeled by Goddard’s state-of-the-art trajectory-design software, will get IceCube to its destination in about three months, said Dave Folta, the Goddard orbital engineer who has developed advanced tools for modeling lunar orbits for spacecraft equipped with both chemical and low-thrust propulsion systems.

“It doesn’t matter the size of the spacecraft, I still have to do the same functions when designing a trajectory,” Folta said. “It doesn’t matter how much this guy weighs, either. They want me to get to this to the moon.”

The journey will begin after deployment— and will be another challenge given the miniscule real estate set aside for propellant. Ground controllers will fire Busek’s miniaturized electric thrusters — the world’s only propulsion system powered with an iodine propellant — driving the spacecraft along a path that uses the gravity of the sun, Earth and moon, looping around Earth a couple times and then to its destination. Because the thrusters operate electrically using small amounts of propellant, an orbital path that takes advantage of gravitational acceleration from the Earth and moon is vital, he added.

“While low-thrust systems minimize fuel, they can’t accommodate a rapid change in the orbit’s velocity, making EM-1’s outbound path impossible for us,” Folta said, explaining the mission’s circuitous route. “Our propulsion system will allow us to naturally capture a lunar orbit. The force of our low-thrust system is analogous to an ant pushing on the spacecraft over many days. It’s an efficiency thing. That’s the whole point of this low-thrust trajectory,” Folta said.

If selected to hitch a ride on SLS, Lunar IceCube will be among the first fully operational small satellites to deploy and gather scientific information in deep space, said Pam Clark, the mission’s science principal investigator at Goddard. Although CubeSats are evolving rapidly, scientists so far have confined their use to investigations in low-Earth orbit. This event would also signal a paradigm shift in CubeSats and interplanetary science.

While awaiting a final decision on what will fly on EM-1, much work remains. “The real breakthrough stuff in CubeSat technology will now happen,” Clark said. “That’s what I love about CubeSats. They will help us revolutionize the way we do deep-space science and I’m absolutely delighted that Goddard will play a role.”

The Advanced Exploration Systems Division at NASA Headquarters manages NextSTEP and is committed to pioneering new approaches for rapidly developing prototype systems, demonstrating key capabilities and validating operational concepts for future human missions beyond Earth orbit. The Marshall Space Flight Center manages the development of the SLS and performs the secondary payload integration activities for EM-1.

 

[Fenrir]

This Robot Is a Loom For Weaving Carbon Fiber Into Rocket Parts

When one robot leaves the world, another enters it.

There’s plenty of carbon fiber in space right now. It’s the best bet we have for making spacecraft lighter—and it’s going to be key on deep space missions where every gram of food, water, and fuel is carefully planned. But making these parts isn’t easy, or cheap. Prototyping and testing new carbon fiber designs is slow, expensive, and labor-intensive. And as NASA pushes towards putting humans into deep space, it will need to make huge leaps in manufacturing to develop the spacecraft capable of these long, distant journeys.

This summer, NASA got a tool that will make prototyping those parts way easier. It’s a 21-foot robotic arm whose head is made up of 16 rods that look like oversized sewing spools, attached to a long, 40-foot track that allows the robotic arm to slide around a model.

Wrapped around the spools are carbon fiber threads, which are unwound as the arm “sculpts” a composite part designed by NASA’s engineers. It’s one of the largest composite robots ever made, and can build objects as wide as 26 feet, which means they’re “some of the largest composite structures ever constructed for space vehicles,” according to Justin Jackson, an engineer on the project.

The printer was built by a company called Electroimpact, which is responsible for developing the technology that layers super-thin carbon fibers into permanent forms. Their machines are elaborate, very expensive affairs—with spool heads that almost recall the spinning rooms of 19th century textile mills.

The company calls this process automated fiber placement, and it’s a big step for carbon fiber composites because the arm can create complex shapes very quickly. This means NASA can “drastically reduce the cost and improve the quality of large space structures,” as project manager John Vickers puts it in a release today.

Electroimpact helped NASA customize its own arm, and now it’s poised to begin its life helping the agency develop craft at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The idea is “to build and test these structures to determine if they are a good fit for space vehicles that will carry humans on exploration missions to Mars and other places,” says the space center’s Preston Jones.

Of course, the robot will help build other stuff too—like pieces of clean rooms. Carbon fiber is getting cheaper and more high-quality by the day, and eventually, the design work being done here at Marshall could find its way into our every-day lives. For now, it’s cool to know that from this oversized printing bed, the next generation of spacecraft may slowly emerge.