Have a very Happy and Safe Thanksgiving everyone!
| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Latest International Space Station Research - Jobs and Training
- Russian Language Training: Winter Quarter 2014 - Community
- Family Space Day at George Observatory - Dec. 7 |  |
| Headlines - Latest International Space Station Research
Last week, a new Human Research Program experiment called Cardio Ox started on the International Space Station. This study proposes to investigate, for the first time, the risk for cardiovascular disease in astronauts, a unique population who as part of their occupation are knowingly exposed to a number of conditions that will likely increase their risk for cardiovascular diseases. Jobs and Training - Russian Language Training: Winter Quarter 2014
The JSC Language Education Center announces Phase One and Phase Two Russian Language courses in the 2014 Winter Quarter (Jan. 6 to March 28). The following classes will be offered during the Winter Quarter 2014: Russian Phase One (Russian 1), Russian 2A, Russian 2B, Russian 2C and Russian 2J. Students should register only using NASA's SATERN system. All language training takes place in the JSC Language Center, located in Building 12, Suite 158. If you have any questions, please contact Natalia Rostova at 281-851-3745 or via email. Community - Family Space Day at George Observatory - Dec. 7
The Challenger Learning Center at the George Observatory is holding a Family Space Day on Saturday, Dec. 7, from about 3 to 8 p.m. For purchase are tickets to complete a 45-minute Challenger Center mission to the moon! Challenger Center mission tickets may be purchased for $10 a person online. After enjoying a trip to space, stay for the evening and look at the night sky through our telescopes. George Observatory is located in the heart of Brazos Bend State Park. Admission to the park is $7 for adults; kids under 12 are free. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
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NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Wednesday – November 27, 2013
HEADLINES AND LEADS
China's Space Program Is Taking Off
Frank Morring, Jr., Bradley Perrett, Amy Svitak – Aviation Week
"I gave that same paper at Innsbruck in 1986," said a bemused European rocket engineer at the recent International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Beijing, after a presentation on the Long March 2F rocket. The 2F has delivered 10 Chinese "taikonauts"—and the Tiangong 1 mini-station—to orbit over the past decade, two of them twice.
Holiday travelers trump SpaceX launch plans
Stephen Clark – Spaceflight Now
Concerned a rocket launch might add more congestion to the skies during Thanksgiving week, federal regulators blocked SpaceX's bid to launch a commercial broadcasting satellite Tuesday and Wednesday, two of the busiest travel days of the year.
Falcon 9 v1.1 aiming for Thanksgiving launch of SES-8
SpaceX's Falcon 9 v.1.1 rocket is currently being realigned for a Thanksgiving launch attempt on Thursday, following its scrub on Monday. Three attempts were made inside the 66 minute window to launch the SES-8 satellite from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral, in what is SpaceX's debut of the upgraded rocket from their Florida base.
China to Send 'Jade Rabbit' Rover to the Moon
Austin Ramzy – The New York Times
China will send an unmanned rover to the moon in early December, a spokesman for the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense said on Tuesday. The lunar probe will be called the Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, a name that comes from a Chinese myth about a white rabbit that lives on the moon and was selected in an online poll.
NASA astronaut talks Thanksgiving in space
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
While you are pigging out on a turkey dinner here on Earth this Thanksgiving, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will be enjoying their own Thanksgiving meal -- more than 250 miles above our planet.
ISS Crew To Try To Photograph House With Record Christmas Lights
NBC Nightly News (11/26, story 8, 0:45, Williams, 7.86M) reported that the program "asked the crew of the International Space Station to do us a big favor and to try to take a picture of a house in Australia," which is the Guinness record holder for the most Christmas lights. "The NASA flight engineer on board the space station replied to us on Twitter, 'That is a tough picture to take, but we will give it a try.'" [end of story]
COMPLETE STORIES
China's Space Program Is Taking Off
Frank Morring, Jr., Bradley Perrett, Amy Svitak – Aviation Week
"I gave that same paper at Innsbruck in 1986," said a bemused European rocket engineer at the recent International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Beijing, after a presentation on the Long March 2F rocket. The 2F has delivered 10 Chinese "taikonauts"—and the Tiangong 1 mini-station—to orbit over the past decade, two of them twice.
The European's remark sums up the present situation in China's ambitious game of space-exploration catch-up. Its engineers have caught up with Europe when Europe was 20 years behind the space-racing superpowers. But by 2020 or a little thereafter, when the International Space Station (ISS) may be on its last legs, Chinese space managers expect to have a Mir-class space station in orbit. There is a fair chance that Europe and at least one of the original spacefaring nations, Russia, will have contributed to its construction.
As was the case with the Cold War space powers, China's leaders are using human spaceflight to signal the world—and the long-suffering Chinese people—that Beijing's state-capitalism approach has won modern superpower status for their ancient society. The new Chinese space station—also to be called Tiangong (Heavenly Palace)—will be open to all comers, a Chinese-led version of the ISS that merged the two Cold War superpowers' manned space programs (AW&ST Sept. 30, p. 24).
But there is more to space than taikonauts—a made-up English term only recently adopted in Chinese space circles to give its spacefarers equal footing in English with astronauts and Russia's cosmonauts. Chinese companies are working hard to add spacecraft components to the nation's flood of exports, even as the U.S. tries to ease International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) designed to keep its own technology out of Chinese hands (AW&ST Sept. 16, p. 50).
Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force Space Command uneasily monitors a constellation of three maneuvering Chinese satellites launched July 19 with no fanfare, trying to determine their military utility. And the U.S. lawmakers who block cooperative space programs with China on human-rights and national-security grounds cite as evidence of the threat from China the 2007 anti-satellite test (ASAT) that created the largest single space debris cloud in history (AW&ST Feb. 12, 2007, p. 20).
China's leaders live in a secure compound near the ancient Forbidden City in Beijing and may be even less visible to public scrutiny than the dynastic emperors who occupied that sprawling palace. Understanding their motivation for actions like the ASAT test, which came as Chinese diplomats prepared for an international meeting in Vienna on space debris mitigation, can be as tricky as Cold War Kremlinology (see page 56). But China-watching is an old academic discipline in the West, and its practitioners have a pretty clear idea of what is behind China's space activities.
"The top government leaders, decision-makers, people who are in charge of the various space programs at various levels, see space as an area of disproportionately important investment," says Andrew Erickson, a China specialist at the U.S. Naval War College and Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. "There's been a widespread consensus in China, pretty much since the founding of the People's Republic of China and the early Mao years—but now I think much more realistic and grounded in resources and sustainable program development—that to be the sort of independent, great power with comprehensive national capabilities that China wants to be and increasingly is, China needs robust space capabilities across the board."
Like the rest of the world, China does not have enough money to do everything its engineers would like to do in space. Ge Chang-Chun, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is a researcher in space solar power (SSP), says his nation's human spaceflight and robotic Moon-exploration programs are gaining most of the civil-space funding today.
The Chinese government has heard Ge's arguments for SSP as a solution to the country's energy and clean-air needs and has granted some support. But that support falls short of the level that would be needed to begin operational power generation in the 2030s, as Ge and his colleagues believe is feasible. Even with China's perceived deep pockets, SSP is not the only ambitious space project sitting on the back burner there.
Technical presentations at the annual IAC usually afford a good idea of worldwide trends in space exploration. China took advantage of the Beijing session this year to expand its presence in international space circles, offering hundreds of papers that show a range of space activity that has not always been apparent. The work showcased makes clear that China is active in most of the same areas as the rest of the spacefaring world, with the Moon and Mars clearly set as first-order exploration goals.
China is pushing ahead with its third robotic mission to the Moon, planning to launch Chang'e-3 before the end of the year with a lander/rover combination on board. The flight will build on the success of Chang'e-2, which expanded China's envelope by leaving lunar orbit for visits to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point and an approach to the asteroid 4179 Toutatis within 800 meters (2,625 ft.), which required sophisticated navigation, four course corrections and China's first use of X-band communications for deep-space missions.
"Based on the innovative design, overall demonstration, elaborate implementation, usage of residual propellant, Chang'e-2 explored Moon, L2 point and then Toutatis asteroid, realizing the international-level exploration of multiple objectives and multiple missions, while achieving the purpose of 'faster, better, cheaper,' which was far beyond our expectations," said Huang Jiangchuan, who led the IAC presentation on the mission.
Chang'e-3 will continue China's push for advanced technologies and operational techniques in robotic exploration. Based on Chinese publications, U.S. analyst Dwayne Day believes the lander/rover will be solar-powered but will use radioisotope heaters to protect its electronics during the lunar nighttime. The rover will be teleoperated by drivers in China who are training for the job with simulations built up from digital maps available for the Bay of Rainbows landing site by adding "craters and rocks on it randomly," according to Peng Deyun of the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.
Mars is the ultimate destination, for China and the other human-spaceflight nations today. Russia left China's piggyback Yinghuo-1 Mars orbiter stranded in Earth orbit along with the Phobos Grunt probe after its Nov. 8, 2011, launch on a Zenit 2-SB rocket, but planning continues in China on a number of fronts for red planet exploration.
Some concepts for human missions to Mars were presented at the IAC, but nearer-term robotic spaceflight was a key area of focus. One concept presented by Beijing's Qian Xuesen Laboratory of Space Technology called for a "plural mode" mission that would combine an orbiter and rover with three surface penetrators and a balloon carrying instruments for in-situ atmospheric research.
Set for launch in 2024 on the planned Long March 5 rocket from the new launch center being built on Hainan Island (see photo, page 52), the mission would target the Nilosyrtis Mensae region where clays discovered from orbit make it a promising site for evidence of past life. Gale Crater, where NASA's Curiosity rover is operating, is a backup landing site in the Chinese plans.
Scientists at Beihang University in Beijing are working on a concept to send a small piggyback satellite into Mars orbit "hitching" on a larger spacecraft that would image the planet's surface. The Chinese experts calculate that, once jettisoned into an elliptical orbit around Mars, the secondary spacecraft could image the moon Deimos during more than 280 flybys over a service life available in the 2016 Earth-Mars planetary launch window. It could also work with the main spacecraft on studies of the planet's atmosphere, according to the Beihang paper.
Chinese researchers are also investigating dust removal from surface-vehicle solar arrays; advanced navigation for entry, descent and landing on Mars; and a concept for formation-flying a constellation of linked smallsats in a fractionated approach to orbital observation of Mars.
While China's human spaceflight program remains focused on launching, building and operating the planned Tiangong space station in the coming decade, the nation is clearly interested in deep-space human exploration, as evidenced by IAC presentations. Near-term, researchers at the Lanzhou Institute of Physics are examining different ways to seal lunar samples for return to Earth, mindful of the difficulty with sample seals caused by abrasive lunar dust during the Apollo landings.
For the longer term, Chinese scientists and engineers are looking into human-factors issues of long-term spaceflight, including both life sciences and psychology. A group from the Astronaut Research and Training Center of China presented partial results on reaction-time testing from the Shenzhou 9 mission, while researchers outlined mood effects on the crew of the Mars 500 analog experiment in Moscow, which included a Chinese subject. Experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have been conducting ground-based experiments designed to simulate space radiation to better understand its effects.
"[D]ata of space environment effects and psychological changes will be systematically collected and accumulated, a human system risk evaluation system will be established more perfectly, and innovative protection techniques will be developed," stated Li Yinghui, of the Astronaut Research and Training Center. "Therefore, it will facilitate the theoretical and technical reserves for long-term spaceflight and promote the unceasing development of manned spaceflight projects."
Proceedings at the IAC indicated the wide range of space-research activities underway in China: an intelligent remote sensor for deep-space exploration that can automatically adjust for conditions too ephemeral for long-distance commands to capture; an interior free-flyer to isolate microgravity experiments from space station vibrations; the use of Tai Chi training to mitigate space-environment effects on brain function; and the use of a hybrid rocket burning hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene as fuel to ignite a scramjet in a rocket-based, combined-cycle propulsion system for lower-cost space launch.
Like NASA, a handful of commercial companies and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Chinese engineers are studying the use of robotics for on-orbit spacecraft servicing, refueling and recycling. Students at the School of Aerospace Engineering at the Beijing Institute of Technology are proposing a concept that would base robotic servicing spacecraft at a space station, where they would await calls and return for replenishment.
Aerospace Dongfanghong Development Ltd., based in Shenzhen, has developed a concept for a "micro-satellite swarm robot servicing system" of five small spacecraft. One would serve as a communications hub, two would monitor ongoing work and two—equipped with pairs of robotic arms—would handle the teleoperated servicing.
The company made no secret that it is drawing heavily on work presented at other public international conferences and in technical publications from the U.S. and Japan. Moreover, top officials of China's human spaceflight organization met their counterparts from Europe, Russia and Canada at the IAC to push an agenda of international cooperation.
Holiday travelers trump SpaceX launch plans
Stephen Clark – Spaceflight Now
Concerned a rocket launch might add more congestion to the skies during Thanksgiving week, federal regulators blocked SpaceX's bid to launch a commercial broadcasting satellite Tuesday and Wednesday, two of the busiest travel days of the year.
SpaceX scrubbed a launch attempt Monday after a litany of technical problems triggered holds in the countdown, but instead of having another chance to launch Tuesday, the company had to stand down until Thursday.
The Falcon 9 rocket is poised to send the SES 8 television broadcasting satellite into orbit on the first commercial communications satellite launch from the United States since 2009.
Thursday's launch window opens at 5:39 p.m. EST (2239 GMT) and extends 65 minutes.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which grants licenses for commercial space launches in the United States, would not approve SpaceX launch attempts Tuesday or Wednesday.
"We were unable to approve the use of the national airspace system for launches on Nov. 26 and Nov. 27 because they are the two heaviest air travel days of the year," said Hank Price, an FAA spokesperson.
Price did not respond Tuesday when asked if the FAA had denied launch providers access to airspace during previous periods of busy travel.
SpaceX's launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla., lies under busy East Coast air routes. Restrictions in place for the Falcon 9 launch prohibit unauthorized aircraft in a zone stretching nearly 30 miles offshore.
The region closed off to civilian airliners and private planes covers about 1,500 square miles, larger than the state of Rhode Island, according to the boundaries of a temporary flight restriction released by the FAA.
The three-day delay gives SpaceX engineers time to resolve the countdown glitches, but Elon Musk, SpaceX's chief executive, says the FAA guidelines should be reviewed.
"Commercial air travel restrictions are probably too extreme in terms of geographic area and time and should probably be reexamined," Musk said. "The current situation is not practical for frequent spaceflights."
Officials with SpaceX and SES, the Luxembourg-based operator of the Falcon 9's payload, said Tuesday that the rocket is on track to support a Thanksgiving launch date after the booster was lowered horizontal to resolve issues encountered during Monday night's countdown.
The work includes repairs to the first stage's liquid oxygen pressurization system, and technicians are reconnecting an air conditioning duct to the Falcon 9's payload fairing that popped off just before Monday's scrub.
The duct supplies air inside the Falcon 9's nose shroud, which encloses the SES 8 satellite. Officials said the spacecraft was safe.
The officials said there is a backup launch opportunity Friday, but the FAA may ban launch attempts over the weekend, particularly on Sunday, another busy day for air travel in the United States.
The FAA governs the nation's civil airspace, but the agency only issues licenses for commercial launches like SpaceX's Falcon 9 flight.
Government space launches have occurred on busy air travel days in the past, but not on the day preceding Thanksgiving since a space shuttle mission took off Nov. 22, 1989, on the eve of the holiday.
Two years ago, NASA's Curiosity rover launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on the Saturday after Thanksgiving as travelers returned home after the holiday.
In 2009, the space shuttle Atlantis landed at the Kennedy Space Center on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. Shuttle landings also required airspace closures.
There has not been a Thanksgiving Day launch from Cape Canaveral since 1959, when an Atlas-Able launch vehicle lifted off with the Pioneer P-3 lunar probe. The mission ended in a launch failure.
The last Thanksgiving launch from U.S. soil occurred in 1991 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, when an Atlas E rocket successfully lofted an Air Force weather satellite into orbit.
Falcon 9 v1.1 aiming for Thanksgiving launch of SES-8
SpaceX's Falcon 9 v.1.1 rocket is currently being realigned for a Thanksgiving launch attempt on Thursday, following its scrub on Monday. Three attempts were made inside the 66 minute window to launch the SES-8 satellite from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral, in what is SpaceX's debut of the upgraded rocket from their Florida base.
Realigning Falcon 9:
Monday's attempt was issue-free throughout the bulk of the countdown, including key items such as the loading of RP-and LOX into the vehicle – both of which were completed at around 8pm UTC.
The countdown continued to proceed towards the initial T-0 at the opening of the window, prior to a hold being called at T-13 minutes, ahead of polling for the terminal count.
The first hold was called after a first stage LOX tankage vent/pressure relief valve failed to command to "close" properly, impacting on the ability to pressurize the tank to required flight levels, per L2 information providing additional insight into the three holds.
With controllers recycling the countdown to the pre-determined point that allowed for a re-polling of the team to enter the terminal count, a second hold was called by the launch sequencer, following an "out of family" voltage reading on an electrical power supply on a ground system.
The launch team evaluated that the reading was acceptable to press towards launch, mitigating a repeat hold by relaxing a parameter in the sequencer software.
With the countdown recycled for a T-0 of 23:30 UTC, one final attempt was allowable within the available launch window.
However, despite the count proceeding into the terminal count, an issue with the first stage LOX pressurization system – again specific to the vent valve on the first stage – resulted in another hold just under four minutes to launch.
"We observed unexpected readings with the first stage liquid oxygen system so we decided to investigate," noted SpaceX in a statement.
SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk added the team saw pressure fluctuations on Falcon boost stage liquid oxygen tank, and that they wanted to be "super careful" via a comment on his Twitter account.
Other issues noted including the premature release of the Environmental Control System (ESC) duct line between the rocket and the erector.
This is understood to have occurred when the erector was commanded to move away from the vehicle ahead of launch, with the ESC duct pulled loose from the payload shroud by a suspension cable that had become entangled.
This was not an issue for the SES-8 satellite's health and would not have stopped the countdown.
Additionally, after the scrub was called, the erector failed to return to its position alongside the vehicle.
Engineers resolved the issue later on Monday night, allowing for the completion of detanking and the lowering of the Falcon 9 v1.1 to its horizontal position.
Issues with the erector should not come as a surprise, given this is a new piece of heavy launch pad hardware that mirrors the new erector at SpaceX's Californian launch site at SLC-4.
Both of these erectors have been designed to host both the upgraded Falcon 9 and the three-core Falcon Heavy, the latter set to debut from California in 2014.
With the vehicle now noted as being in the horizontal position at SLC-40, the SpaceX team now have the option of replacing the LOX vent valve on the first stage if they determine that work is required, with current status showing they remain on target to be back into a launch posture for a Thanksgiving Thursday launch attempt.
The launch vehicle and satellite are in great shape and we are looking forward to the next launch opportunity on Thursday at 5:38 p.m. Eastern time," added SpaceX's scrub statement on Monday.
In the event of a further delay, it is understood the following opportunity to launch may be pushed to Monday, based on the various constraints surrounding Thanksgiving, reasons both Tuesday and Wednesday were not available to SpaceX.
China to Send 'Jade Rabbit' Rover to the Moon
Austin Ramzy – The New York Times
China will send an unmanned rover to the moon in early December, a spokesman for the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense said on Tuesday. The lunar probe will be called the Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, a name that comes from a Chinese myth about a white rabbit that lives on the moon and was selected in an online poll.
The rover will be carried on the Chang'e-3 craft, which will attempt a soft landing on the moon. The rover, which weighs 140 kilograms, or just over 300 pounds, will spend three months exploring the moon's surface.
An image of a prototype on the website of the Chinese space program showed a box-shaped, gold-colored vehicle with two broad solar panels and six wheels. The mission will examine the geology of the moon and collect soil samples including materials that could be commercially exploited, the space program said.
Li Benzheng, deputy head of the lunar exploration program, described the Chang'e-3 mission as one of the most difficult to date for China's space program, according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.
It is China's third lunar mission, and its first attempted soft landing on the moon. The first Chang'e mission, named for a Chinese goddess, orbited the moon in 2007. The second orbited the moon in 2010 and 2011, then continued on into deeper space.
China's space program sent its first astronaut into orbit in 2003 and has since carried out four additional manned missions. China has launched a space lab and plans to launch a space station before the end of the decade.
The program has been an important project for the government as China attempts to match the space flight accomplishments of the United States and Russia and demonstrate its technological capabilities in comparison with regional rivals like India, which launched a Mars orbiter on Nov. 5.
Mr. Li denied China was in a space race with India. "If India can achieve a Mars probe, that's a great accomplishment," he said, according to the China News Service. "But as for China's space activities, we've never thought we were in competition with anyone," he said.
NASA astronaut talks Thanksgiving in space
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
While you are pigging out on a turkey dinner here on Earth this Thanksgiving, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will be enjoying their own Thanksgiving meal -- more than 250 miles above our planet.
But is a Thanksgiving meal in space any good? On Wednesday morning, you can find out. Astronaut Tom Marshburn --veteran of two space missions-- will discuss the Thanksgiving menu with Vickie Kloeris, the agency's manager of the station's food system, in a live broadcast.
The conversation will take place from 7 to 8:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday. (That's right: If you want to see this conversation live, you will need to be awake at 4 in the morning).
I know the timing is insane. But it's Thanksgiving! In space! And as you might suspect, a Thanksgiving in space requires a slightly altered menu. There will be turkey, but it will be smoked and irradiated (hit with radiation), so it will last longer. The yams may be delicious, but they will also be thermostabilized. And the green beans won't be from a can; they'll be freeze-dried instead.
The six astronauts on the space station will also enjoy "NASA's cornbread dressing," the requisite cranberries without which no Thanksgiving is complete, as well as home-style potatoes and cherry-blueberry cobbler.
A space-feast!
If the early hour of the live broadcast feels a bit much, you can always check out this video of astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins wishing those of us on Earth a happy Thanksgiving. They also show off their Thanksgiving grub, which, frankly, looks a lot less appetizing when its stored in little silver packets.
