Friday, January 31, 2014

Speaking of ‘Monster’ Wells in Oklahoma | OK Energy Today

http://okenergytoday.com/?p=3273


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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Fwd: JSC Director News, January 2014



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From: JSC Director News <jsc-director-news@lists.nasa.gov>
Date: January 30, 2014 10:22:18 AM CST
To: null <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Subject: JSC Director News, January 2014

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NASA

January 2014

Greetings:

First, I'd like to share our JSC 2013 Highlights video that in less than 4 minutes shows some of the amazing accomplishments in human space flight last year.  JSC wrapped up 2013 with two spacewalks (Dec. 22 spacewalk  and Dec. 24 spacewalk) that gave the International Space Station a new functioning pump module on the station's starboard truss.  The Space Station Team worked through the holidays to get the thermal control system back to normal – just in time for a busy and gratifying start to 2014.

On Jan. 9, Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo spacecraft launched to the station, arriving three days later, for its first "official" mission, after a demonstration mission last September. During the same week, it was announced that the Obama Administration supports extending the Space Station's mission until at least 2024 allowing us to continue the groundbreaking research and technology development in space for at least another decade.

While our astronauts keep busy utilizing ISS, they also take time to share the experience of living and working in space.  Expedition 38 astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins recently were interviewed with NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams potentially reaching nearly 8 million people. And, if you've ever wondered how astronauts sleep on the ISS, you can watch Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata give a tour of the ISS crew quarters, featured on ReelNASA.

We're grateful to have a signed appropriations bill for this fiscal year, providing $17.6 billion for NASA. Among other items, the bill keeps our deep space exploration (Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System) on track, and we're continuing to formulate the agency's Asteroid Redirect Mission, a stepping stone to Mars.  

With Orion's first mission less than a year away, there is visible progress every week. On Jan. 16, Orion engineers gathered in-air data on the performance of the parachute system including the jettison of the capsule's forward bay cover at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, one of the most complicated tests they'll do. The cover protects the parachutes during launch, orbital flight and high-speed re-entry from deep space into Earth's atmosphere and must then come off to allow the spacecraft's parachutes to deploy.

One of our Commercial Crew partners, SpaceX, also recently demonstrated how Dragon's parachute system would function in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent, essential for a spacecraft carrying humans. And in another milestone for the commercial crew program, proposals for the second and main phase of developing a commercial crew capability through certification have been received. The evaluation team, involving JSC and Kennedy Space Center people, will be reviewing them over the next few months.

Finally, don't miss our new weekly web series 'Space to Ground,'available every Friday. It's a short wrap-up of the week's activities aboard the space station. Visit: http://go.nasa.gov/spacetoground

Ellen Ochoa

Ellen Ochoa
JSC Director

Visit www.nasa.gov/jscdirectornews to subscribe to JSC Director News

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Fwd: JSC Special: Today is the Day of Remembrance & Fullerton Tree Planting



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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 30, 2014 8:04:13 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: JSC Special: Today is the Day of Remembrance & Fullerton Tree Planting

 

 

From: JSC Today [mailto:jsc-jsctoday@mail.nasa.gov]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 8:01 AM
To: JSC-Today
Subject: JSC Special: Today is the Day of Remembrance & Fullerton Tree Planting

 

 

 

Thursday, January 30, 2014

 

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JSC Special: Today is the Day of Remembrance & Fullerton Tree Planting

Today, Jan. 30, NASA commemorates the men and women lost in the agency's space exploration program by celebrating their lives, their bravery and advancements in human spaceflight. All employees are encouraged to observe a moment of silence at their workplace or the commemorative tree grove located behind and adjacent to Building 110 to remember our friends and colleagues. 

 

At 10 a.m., we will honor the crews of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia. Following will be a tree-planting ceremony for C. Gordon "Gordo" Fullerton, former NASA astronaut. A T-38 flyover is planned during the remembrance in the grove as tribute to the heroes who lost their lives serving our nation's great space program.

 

These astronauts and their families will always be a part of the NASA family, and we will continue to honor their contributions. Our Day of Remembrance commemorates not only the men and women lost in NASA's space exploration program and their courage, but celebrates human space exploration since then.

 

Apollo 1 (Jan. 27, 1967): Astronauts Roger B. Chaffee, Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Edward H. White Jr.

 

Challenger (Jan. 28, 1986): Astronauts Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis and S. Christa McAuliffe

 

Columbia (Feb. 1, 2003): Astronauts Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel B. Clark and Ilan Ramon

 

C. Gordon "Gordo" Fullerton (Aug. 21, 2013): Fullerton, a U.S. Air Force test pilot and later NASA astronaut, logged more than 16,000 of flight time in 135 different types of aircraft. As an astronaut, he accumulated 382 hours in space. Fullerton served on the support crews for the Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17 lunar missions. In 1977, he was assigned to one of the two flight crews that piloted the space shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Test Program. Fullerton was pilot of STS-3 and capped off his spaceflight experience as the commander of the STS-51F Spacelab 2 mission.

 

Event Date: Thursday, January 30, 2014   Event Start Time:10:00 AM   Event End Time:11:30 AM
Event Location: Memorial Tree Grove, adjacent to Building 110

Add to Calendar

Point of contact: JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs, x35111

 

 

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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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

BBC News - Stem cell 'major discovery' claimed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25917270#TWEET1027662


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32 Statistics That Obama Neglected To Mention During The State Of The Union Address

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/32-statistics-that-obama-neglected-to-mention-during-the-state-of-the-union-address


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Monday, January 27, 2014

Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Monday – Jan. 27, 2014 and JSC Today



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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: January 27, 2014 9:22:33 AM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Monday – Jan. 27, 2014 and JSC Today

 
Get ready for more below freezing weather yall.
 
 
Monday, January 27, 2014 Read JSC Today in your browser View Archives
 
JSC 2.0
Space To Ground
JSC External Homepage
Inside JSC
JSC Events
Submit JSC Today
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Category Definitions
 
     JSC TODAY CATEGORIES
  1. Headlines
    -  NASA TV to Provide Coverage of Russian Spacewalk
    -  JSC: See the Space Station
    -  Houston Fire Department Training On-site
    -  Thank You, and There's More!
    -  POWER of One: Nominate Your Peer Today
  2. Organizations/Social
    -  SWAPRA Luncheon Hosts Gene Kranz - Jan. 29
    -  Don't Let Your Gilruth Membership Expire
    -  Snoopy Lunar Mudule Anniversary Sale at Starport
    -  T-Shirt Pickup at Starport
    -  Starport Spinning Workshop -- MS 150 Training
    -  JSC CSF Safety & Health Excellence Awards
  3. Jobs and Training
    -  Searching for NASA Images and Mission Videos?
    -  Job Opportunities
    4.
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Launch Lights Up the Night Sky
 
 
 
   Headlines
  1. NASA TV to Provide Coverage of Russian Spacewalk
NASA TV will provide coverage of the upcoming Russian spacewalk by Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy to complete the installation of a pair of Earth observation cameras that could not be completed during a Dec. 27 spacewalk.
The six-hour spacewalk is scheduled to take place today, Jan. 27, with a start time of 8:10 a.m. CST. NASA TV coverage begins at 7:30 a.m.
The cameras, which are intended to provide Earth views for Internet-based subscribers as part of a commercial endeavor between a Canadian firm and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), were installed by the cosmonauts during their last spacewalk, but had to be removed and returned inside the station due to a problem with a cable connector that prevented data from reaching ground controllers at the Russian Mission Control Center.
JSC, Ellington Field, Sonny Carter Training Facility and White Sands Test Facility employees with hard wired computer network connections can view the spacewalk using the JSC EZTV IP Network TV System on channel 404 (standard definition) or 4541 (HD). Please note: EZTV currently requires using Internet Explorer on a Windows PC or Safari on a Mac. Mobile devices, Wi-Fi, VPN or connections from other centers are currently not supported by EZTV.
First time users will need to install the Optibase application:
  1.  For those WITH admin rights (Elevated Privileges), you'll be prompted to download from the IPTV website via Internet Explorer/Safari
  2. For those WITHOUT admin rights (EP), download the Optibase app from the ACES Software Refresh Portal (SRP)
If you are having problems viewing the video using these systems, contact the Information Resources Directorate Customer Support Center at x46367, or visit the FAQ site.
  1. JSC: See the Space Station
Viewers in the JSC area will be able to see the International Space Station this week.
Tuesday, Jan. 28, 6:05 a.m. (Duration: 4 minutes)
Path: 11 degrees above NNW to 22 degrees above ENE
Maximum elevation: 27 degrees
The International Space Station Trajectory Operations Group provides updates via JSC Today for visible station passes at least two minutes in duration and 25 degrees in elevation. Other opportunities, including those with shorter durations and lower elevations or from other ground locations, are available at the website below.
  1. Houston Fire Department Training On-site
The Houston Fire Department will be conducting a training exercise today, Jan. 27, behind Building 14 on the Antenna Range.
Elmer Johnson x32084

[top]
  1. Thank You, and There's More!
A GIANT thank you to all those who participated in the JSC Search Usability survey. The response was great! Search is a powerful knowledge transfer tool for providing multiple levels of detail to the greatest number of users; in short, to identify and deliver what YOU need. Analysis of the data gathered in the first phase is currently being worked.
Be on the lookout for a second satisfaction survey to further inform the development of the search environment. The open-ended satisfaction survey targets working groups of different sizes with multiple levels of information needs. If you or the group you work with are interested in being part of this study, PLEASE SIGN UP as soon as possible. Your input is appreciated and essential to the successful improvement of JSC search.
Thanks to all and happy 2014!
  1. POWER of One: Nominate Your Peer Today
The POWER of One Award has been a great success, but we still need your nominations. We're looking for standout achievements with specific examples of exceptional and superior performance. Make sure to check out our award criteria to help guide you in writing the short write-up needed for submittal. If chosen, the recipient can choose from a list of JSC experiences and have their name and recognition shared in JSC Today. Click here for complete information on the JSC Awards Program.
   Organizations/Social
  1. SWAPRA Luncheon Hosts Gene Kranz - Jan. 29
On Wednesday, Jan. 29, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., the South Western Aerospace Professional Representatives Association (SWAPRA) is very pleased to be hosting Gene Kranz, renowned NASA retired Mission Control Center (MCC) flight director. Kranz was the leader of the "White Team," a shift at the MCC that contributed to saving the Apollo 13 astronauts. Kranz will be speaking on "Failure is Not an Option." Kranz and his team received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as numerous other awards for his aerospace career accomplishments. The SWAPRA event will be held at the Bay Oaks Country Club (BOCC) in Clear Lake. The BOCC luncheon cost for non-members is $35 at the door or $25 with pre-paid RSVPs by Monday, Jan. 27. Contact David L. Brown at 281-483-7426 or via email, or RSVP directly to Chris Elkins at 281 276-2792 or via email.
Event Date: Wednesday, January 29, 2014   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:1:00 PM
Event Location: Bay Oaks Country Club

Add to Calendar

David L. Brown x37426

[top]
  1. Don't Let Your Gilruth Membership Expire
Need to renew your Gilruth Center membership to ensure another year of good health? We've made it fast and easy to renew. Simply visit the Starport website and follow the prompts. Memberships will expire this Friday, so don't delay!
If this is your first time joining JSC's fitness center, or your membership has lapsed, simply stop by the Gilruth Center. Our helpful staff will assist you with your membership needs.
Don't forget, all JSC civil servants and employees at Starport Partner companies receive a FREE MEMBERSHIP. Not sure if your company is a Starport Partner? A list of partners can be found on the Starport website, or check with your Human Resources benefits specialist.
Make 2014 your healthiest year yet - at the Gilruth!
  1. Snoopy Lunar Mudule Anniversary Sale at Starport
The Starport Gift Shops and ShopNASA.com celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Snoopy Lunar Module launch on Jan. 25, 1969, with special prices on select Snoopy astronaut items for your home and office through Feb. 4. Choose the Snoopy salt-and-pepper shakers, $25 (regularly $29); custom Snoopy astronaut figurine, $12 (regularly $14); or the Snoopy astronaut coffee mug, $10 (regularly $11). Stop by Buildings 3 or 11 and save on your Snoopy astronaut memorabilia today, or shop online! Additional Snoopy items to choose from.
Cyndi Kibby x47467

[top]
  1. T-Shirt Pickup at Starport
If you ordered a NASA 55th Anniversary or Space Shuttle Program commemorative T-shirt and missed the distribution date, please pick up your shirt in the Building 11 Starport Gift Shop Monday through Friday (closed Flex Fridays) from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Shirts must be picked up by Feb. 4.
Forget to order a shirt? Shirts are available in Buildings 3 and 11 for just $12.
Wear your shirt on Fridays for a 10 percent discount in the stores. Some exclusions apply.
Cyndi Kibby x47467

[top]
  1. Starport Spinning Workshop -- MS 150 Training
Starport is thrilled to offer a special eight-week training workshop based on the "periodization" approach to training that will prepare you for the MS 150 or a multi-day or long-distance event such as a triathlon or marathon. Each spinning class and training ride will be taught by our phenomenal certified instructors.
Register at the Gilruth information desk.
Thursday Rides/Workshops (5:30 to 6:30 p.m.):
  1. Feb. 6 to April 3
Sunday Distance Rides (Time: TBA):
  1. March 2 (1.25 hours)
  2. March 23 (1.5 hours)
  3. March 30 (2 hours)
  4. April 6 (2.5 hours)
Price per person
  1. Regular registration - $110 (Jan. 25 to Feb. 6)
  2. Sunday Rides (all) - $25
  3. Sunday Rides (each) - $10
Take your skills to the next level and sign up today!
  1. JSC CSF Safety & Health Excellence Awards
Just a reminder that it's time to complete your JSC Contractor Safety & Health Forum (CSF) Safety and Health Excellence Awards application. The 2013 awards application, along with the 2013 CSF, CASC and JSC Safety and Health Action Team meeting attendance lists, are now posted on the JSC Safety and Health website. The awards application is due to be completed by Friday, Feb. 7.
The JSC CSF Safety and Health Excellence Awards Ceremony will be Tuesday, March 18, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in the Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom.
Please contact Pat Farrell at 281-335-2012 or via email with any questions or if you need additional information.
Patricia Farrell 281-335-2012

[top]
   Jobs and Training
  1. Searching for NASA Images and Mission Videos?
Don't forget to register for tomorrow's online training from 3 to 4:15 p.m. Learn how to use JSC's Imagery Online (IO) and Digital Imagery Management System (DIMS), which house and manage JSC's still imagery and downlink International Space Station videos from the human spaceflight programs. This training is open to any JSC/White Sands Test Facility employee. To register, go to this link.
This training is provided by the Information Resources Directorate.
Event Date: Tuesday, January 28, 2014   Event Start Time:3:00 PM   Event End Time:4:15 PM
Event Location: Webinar

Add to Calendar

Scientific and Technical Information Center x34245 http://library.jsc.nasa.gov

[top]
  1. Job Opportunities
Where do I find job opportunities?
Both internal Competitive Placement Plan (CPP) and external JSC job announcements are posted on the Human Resources (HR) Portal and USAJOBS website. Through the HR portal, civil servants can view summaries of all the agency jobs that are currently open at: https://hr.nasa.gov/portal/server.pt/community/employees_home/239/job_opportu...
To help you navigate to JSC vacancies, use the filter drop-down menu and select "JSC HR." The "Jobs" link will direct you to the USAJOBS website for the complete announcement and the ability to apply online. If you have questions about any JSC job vacancies, please call your HR representative.
Brandy Braunsdorf x30476

[top]
 
 
 
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.
 
 
 
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Monday – Jan. 27, 2014
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: This photo of glaciers in the southern Andes as seen from space was featured in National Geographic's "Best Space Pictures" on Friday giving more than 40 million people the chance to see it.
International Space Station:
International Space Station Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) began a planned 6-hour spacewalk at 9 a.m. EST.
HEADLINES AND LEADS
 
Russian EVA re-attempting installation of Earth-observing cameras
David Štula – NASA Space Flight
Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskyi have ventured outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday for a second attempt to install two commercial Earth-observing cameras on the exterior of the Russian Zvezda service module. The cosmonaut duo – donning their Orlan suits – egressed the Pirs airlock at 8:00 AM central time for what is planned to be a six hour spacewalk.
Space Notebook: Launch contenders wait for word
James Dean – Florida Today
News and notes from the Cape and beyond:
The proposals are in.
Now it's up to NASA to decide which company, or companies, will win the opportunity to resume launches of astronauts from the Space Coast — on hold since the shuttle's retirement in 2011.
NASA, NOAA Prepare for Procurements on Signature Programs
Dan Leone – Space News
NASA is set this year to award its first contract for a crewed spacecraft since the space shuttle and also to begin procurement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's next polar-orbiting weather satellite.
 
Orion's life-support module prepares for launch
Paul Marks – New Scientist
 
Rockets get all the glory, but this unthrilling structure could be keeping astronauts alive in a few years' time. It is the service module for NASA's forthcoming deep-space capsule, Orion, which is being groomed to ferry astronauts to the moon, asteroids and perhaps even Mars.
Atlas and Delta have packed slate of launches in 2014
Justin Ray – Spaceflight Now
It's one completed, 14 flights to go this year for United Launch Alliance and its fleet of Atlas and Delta rocket families.
Trailblazing Mars Rover Celebrates 10 Years on Red Planet
Mike Wall – SPACE.com
 
NASA's Opportunity rover marks 10 years of Mars exploration today (Jan. 24), an extraordinary milestone that adds to the robot's growing legend.
Aging ISS a space lab of 'unlimited' opportunity
Jean-Louis Santini - Agence France-Presse
It may be 350 kilometers (215 miles) above Earth and a place that only a privileged few will ever visit, but the International Space Station is crucial to advances in science, health and technology, experts say.
 
NASA's Humanoid Robonaut 2 Waltz Both Elegant and Creepy
Megan Gannon SPACE.com
NASA's robot butler for astronauts, Robonaut 2, may still be waiting for its legs to be delivered to the International Space Station, but you can see how the humanoid automaton may dance in weightlessness with an eerie elegance in this new video. 
 
Bolden: search for new deputy administrator ongoing
Jeff Foust – Space Politics
 
The position of NASA Deputy Administrator has been vacant since Lori Garver left the agency in early September to become general manager of the Air Line Pilots Association. There has, since then, been occasional speculation about who might be picked to take the job, with some wondering if the position—which, like the administrator, requires a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation—might simply be left open through the end of the administration.
 
Space Travel Could Wreak Havoc On Your Immune System: Flies Raised On Space Station More Susceptible To Fungi
Justin Caba – Medical Daily
It's no secret space exploration can have a damaging effect on the physical health of astronauts, in particular, respiratory viral infections. So, why does space flight have such a compromising effect on immunity? A recent study out of the University of California, Davis, found that Drosophila flies that were raised on the Space Shuttle Discovery suffered from a weakened immune system after returning to Earth. Drosophila flies were chosen for this study because they share many fundamental characteristics of their immune system with mammals, including mice and humans.
Sierra Nevada books first launch for 'space SUV'
Stephen Clark - SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Sierra Nevada Corp., one of the companies tapped by NASA to develop a commercial crew carrier for the International Space Station, has reserved a slot on United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket manifest for an unpiloted test flight in late 2016.
COMPLETE STORIES
 
Russian EVA re-attempting installation of Earth-observing cameras
David Štula – NASA Space Flight
Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskyi have ventured outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday for a second attempt to install two commercial Earth-observing cameras on the exterior of the Russian Zvezda service module. The cosmonaut duo – donning their Orlan suits – egressed the Pirs airlock at 8:00 AM central time for what is planned to be a six hour spacewalk.
The main objective of the EVA, designated EVA-37a, is to install a high resolution camera and a medium resolution camera on a biaxial pointing platform on the Zvezda service module.
 
The two cameras are part of a joint project of the Russian space agency and a Canadian company, which aims to provide high resolution views of the Earth to internet subscribers.
Other objectives of the EVA include removing and jettisoning an experiment frame from the service module and replacing it with a new payload boom, and retrieval of a material science experiment container mounted on the Pirs module.
 
Previous EVA:
 
The previous EVA, conducted on December 27, shared most of its objectives with EVA-37a.
Kotov and Ryazanskyi first installed a foot restraint to help them stabilize themselves at the biaxial pointing platform.
 
Then, they installed and connected the high resolution camera, which was followed by installation of the medium resolution camera.
 
After the cosmonauts finished routing power and data cables along Zvezda's hull and connecting the cables to the camera platform, controllers in the MCC in Moscow (MCC-M) proceeded with activation of the two cameras.
 
However, they discovered they were unable to receive telemetry from the cameras. Without telemetry, the controllers had no way of telling if the cameras were receiving power.
 
As discussions and attempts to activate the cameras went on in MCC-M, the spacewalkers continued with the planned tasks of the EVA. Finally, MCC-M controllers, along with the camera engineers, decided to uninstall the cameras and bring them inside the ISS for troubleshooting.
 
The rationale for returning the cameras inside the ISS related to the fact that the camera's internal heaters would not function without power, exposing the cameras to the extreme temperature differences of the day and night side of the station's orbit.
 
This led to deferring the remaining tasks to a later EVA, so that the cosmonauts had enough time and consumables to bring the cameras back inside.
 
Even with some of the tasks replanned for EVA-37a, EVA-37 still broke the Russian record of the longest spacewalk, with its eight hours and seven minutes duration.
 
In the weeks following the EVA, RSC Energia and MCC-M – with the help of the Russian crew – conducted troubleshooting of the problem, which was eventually attributed to a cabling issue inside the ISS.
"On January 2nd, the crew found a badly docked cable connector inside the Zvezda module," noted source information in L2′s RS-37 section. The source information also noted that the only way to verify that the issue is resolved is to connect the cameras on the outside.
 
The EVA crew egressed the Pirs airlock at 8:00 central time. They will first retrieve the two cameras from the airlock and take them with them to the Zvezda service module.
 
On the service module's plane IV is a universal work platform, called URM-D, on which the biaxial pointing platform (DPN) is installed.
The crew will install the high resolution camera on the DPN, and the medium resolution camera on the URM-D base.
 
After they complete the camera installation task, the spacewalkers will proceed with tasks that were deferred from EVA-37.
 
They will remove the SVPI and TM/TS experiments from the MPAC&SEED payload frame and jettison the frame. They will then mount a new payload boom in place of the jettisoned frame and reinstall the two experiments on the boom.
 
The cosmonauts will also uninstall a cassette container (SKK2-SO) which exposes different material samples to the space environment, from the Pirs module, and bring it back inside.
After these primary objectives are completed, the crew will conduct a photo survey of the exterior of the Russian segment, if time permits.

Crew:
 
This will be Kotov's 6th and Ryazanskyi's 3rd EVA, the third for the pair during Expedition 37 and 38. Both will wear Russian Orlan suits, with Wireless Video System cameras borrowed from the US segment installed on their helmets.
 
The rest of the Expedition 38 crew will stay inside the ISS, but will be separated, as the transfer compartment between Zvezda and Zarya has to be sealed in case the spacewalking crew run into problems with the Pirs airlock and have to use the backup airlock – Poisk.
 
Mike Hopkins who arrived on Soyuz 36 with the spacewalkers, will be isolated in the Soyuz for the duration of the EVA.
 
The rest of the crew – Rick Mastracchio, Koichi Wakata, and Mikhail Tyurin, will be free to move around the US segment and the Zarya and Rassvet modules.
 
Space Notebook: Launch contenders wait for word
James Dean – Florida Today
News and notes from the Cape and beyond:
The proposals are in.
Now it's up to NASA to decide which company, or companies, will win the opportunity to resume launches of astronauts from the Space Coast — on hold since the shuttle's retirement in 2011.
NASA would not confirm who submitted proposals by last Wednesday's deadline.
The competition is open, but the contenders are assumed to be The Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), which are completing spacecraft designs under existing NASA partnerships worth more than $1 billion.
NASA plans to award at least one contract by September, funding the building, testing and certification of vehicles and the first crewed flights to the International Space Station, hopefully in 2017.
The proposals for the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts were voluminous: Boeing's filled the back of a large SUV, according to a spokeswoman.
They came nearly four years after NASA began supporting development of commercial crew systems, after the Obama administration's decision to cancel the Ares I rocket.
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. already haul cargo to the space station under commercial resupply contracts.
Safety panel raises concerns
As NASA prepared to accept proposals to fly astronauts commercially, an independent safety panel raised numerous concerns about the Commercial Crew Program, which is led from KSC.
In its 2013 annual report released this month, the NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, which was formed in 1968 following the Apollo 1 fire, said inadequate funding would likely force selection of a single contract winner, prematurely cutting short competition that could help contain costs and produce safer designs.
The ASAP said evaluation criteria outlined in NASA's request for proposals had created the perception that the agency valued low costs more than safety.
NASA said that was not the case.
"Any crew transportation system selected in this competitive process must meet NASA's rigorous safety standards," said Trent Perrotto, a spokesman at NASA headquarters. "It is NASA's pledge to the president, Congress and the American public."
Shuttle processing hangars claimed
A Jan. 3 announcement about a classified military space plane program taking over a former space shuttle hangar at Kennedy Space Center specified its use of Orbiter Processing Facility-1.
It's actually a package deal: The agreement with the Air Force's X-37B program, operated by Boeing, also includes OPF-2, which is connected to OPF-1.
As a result, all three former shuttle hangars are accounted for, according to KSC's Center Planning and Development Office.
Boeing plans to assemble its CST-100 commercial crew capsule in OPF-3 across the street, leasing the facility from Space Florida.
Believing OPF-2 to still be available, some had speculated that Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser might be a good fit.
But the company announced last week that it planned to share the Operations and Checkout building high bay where Lockheed Martin is assembling NASA's Orion exploration capsule.
Fallen astronauts to be remembered
NASA and the Air Force on Monday will host a ceremony at Launch Complex 34 to remember the crew of Apollo 1, who died there 47 years ago when fire swept through their capsule during a launch dress rehearsal at the pad.
The fire killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
The Air Force's 45th Space Wing said this is the last year Grissom's wife, Betty, will attend the ceremony.
Scheduled speakers include Col. Robert Pavelko, vice commander of the 45th Space Wing; Janet Petro, a KSC deputy director; and Capt. J.P. Heatherington, commander of the Naval Ordnance Test Unit.
Next Friday, NASA will host its annual Day of Remembrance honoring fallen astronauts, including those lost aboard the shuttles Challenger (Jan. 28, 1986) and Columbia (Feb. 1, 2003).
Launch honors late 'Voice of NASA'
NASA's launch Thursday of a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite aboard an Atlas V rocket was dedicated to Arthur J. "Skip" Mackey Jr., a "Voice of NASA" who provided commentary during broadcasts of uncrewed launches in the 1960s and '70s.
Mackey died last November in Fort Lauderdale. He had served as branch chief for Telemetry and Communications in NASA's Expendable Launch Vehicle Program and then Launch Services Program for 39 years.
A remembrance on KSC's website noted a 1992 article in FLORIDA TODAY in which Robert Gray, former ELV program director, said Mackey had probably supported hundreds of launches.
"And once a rocket lifts off, everyone turns on Skip's channel because they want to know what is going on with the vehicle," Gray was quoted saying.
Next Cape launches
On Feb. 20, United Launch Alliance plans to launch a Global Positioning System satellite for the Air Force on a Delta IV rocket from Launch Complex 37. The launch was delayed from last October.
On Feb. 22, SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule packed with cargo for the International Space Station from Launch Complex 40.
NASA, NOAA Prepare for Procurements on Signature Programs
Dan Leone – Space News
NASA is set this year to award its first contract for a crewed spacecraft since the space shuttle and also to begin procurement of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's next polar-orbiting weather satellite.
 
The big human spaceflight acquisition is already underway. In August, or September at the latest, NASA expects to award at least one company a Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract to develop a spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to and from the international space station, according to Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight at NASA headquarters here.
 
The fourth major phase of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, CCtCap will be the contracting vehicle not only for spacecraft development and testing but also for flight services. The contract includes both a development and safety-certification phase as well as task orders for routine astronaut flights. To be eligible for a task order, a CCtCap awardee must complete a crewed demonstration mission to station. The smallest possible CCtCap task order is for two flights, the largest for six. 
 
Routine astronaut trips under CCtCap could begin as soon as 2017. Two of the likely competitors — Boeing Space Exploration of Houston and Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX — have said they could complete crewed demonstration missions as soon as 2015. Sierra Nevada Corp. announced Jan. 23 that it plans to launch its lifting body Dream Chaser spacecraft on an uncrewed orbital  test flight in November 2016.
 
NASA wants to fund at least two aspiring Commercial Crew providers under CCtCap. Last year, McAlister suggested that the agency probably would not be able to carry three companies, as it did in the program's third round: the two-year, $1.2 billion Commercial Crew Integrated Capability phase, which began in August 2012. 
 
Part of the problem, NASA officials from Administrator Charles Bolden on down have said, is that Congress has never funded the Commercial Crew program at the level the Obama White House requested. 
 
The $696 million Commercial Crew budget included in the 2014 omnibus spending bill signed into law Jan. 17 is a 25 percent increase compared with the program's 2013 budget and comes closest to meeting the administration's request. However, it is still more than $100 million less than what the White House has sought for Commercial Crew in its last three budget requests, and more than $500 million less than the 2011 request.
 
Meanwhile, NOAA, according to an industry source, is planning to start competition for its second Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) spacecraft in 2014. NASA, as usual, will manage the procurement for NOAA.  
 
JPSS-2 would be the third satellite in the JPSS program, an $11 billion successor to the civil-military National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System program — known as NPOESS — canceled in 2010. 
 
JPSS-2 would notionally launch in November 2021, four years after JPSS-1. The first satellite in the JPSS series, Suomi NPP, launched in 2011. That satellite was designed as an NPOESS testbed but was pushed into operational service for want of an alternative.
 
The bill for JPSS-1, including a spacecraft bus from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and four instruments, came to $655.5 million. JPSS-2 is to be a copy of JPSS-1, and NOAA has said the instrument contractors are all expected to get sole-source agreements for duplicate instruments. JPSS instrument contractors are Ball, Exelis Geospatial Systems, Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems, and Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems. 
 
There is, however, a wild card in the deck that could cause JPSS procurements to snowball in 2014. In November, an independent review team led by former Martin Marietta Chief Executive A. Thomas Young recommended that NOAA immediately do a block buy of JPSS's critical weather instruments. The Young team's report recommended securing enough instruments to cover four polar-orbiting satellites. It also endorsed adding a gap-filler satellite to the JPSS program. The report suggested launching this smaller satellite, which would host only Exelis' Cross Track Infrared Sounder and Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems' Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder, by 2016.
 
NOAA has been quiet about its plans, but Congress in the 2014 omnibus spending bill prodded the agency to make a decision quickly.
 
"The Committee expects NOAA to present a strategy with the fiscal year 2015 budget that fully addresses both the short- and long-term challenges associated with the gap and fragility of the program," lawmakers wrote in the report that accompanied H.R. 3547.
 
The White House is expected to send Congress a 2015 budget proposal in February.
 
Meanwhile, an industry source said there could be a competition for the JPSS-2 spacecraft bus contract this year. Ball, which provided the bus for Suomi NPP and JPSS-1, is the incumbent. If there is a competition, Ball might face challenges from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which built the NOAA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites that JPSS is designed to replace and Boeing Defense, Space and Security, which built geostationary weather satellites for NOAA until Lockheed Martin took over that role in 2008.
 
Orion's life-support module prepares for launch
Paul Marks – New Scientist
 
Rockets get all the glory, but this unthrilling structure could be keeping astronauts alive in a few years' time. It is the service module for NASA's forthcoming deep-space capsule, Orion, which is being groomed to ferry astronauts to the moon, asteroids and perhaps even Mars.
Anyone who remembers the terrifying Apollo 13 disaster, en route to the moon in April 1970, will recall how vitally important the service module is. Wiring insulation inside a liquid oxygen tank on the Apollo 13 service module failed, leading to an explosion that crippled the spacecraft and left the crew capsule to be pushed back to Earth by the lunar lander. Luckily, thanks to some heroic improvisation, all on board survived.
Service modules are tricky things to build because the absolute essentials of life – water and air – have to sit beside volatile thruster propellants and hot electronics. There is nowhere else they can be placed: the conical shroud at the bottom of the service module connects to the top of the rocket – which is discarded once its job is done – and the crew capsule sits on top of the service module.
This particular module won't carry all of its life-support kit when it flies a 4-hour, uncrewed orbital test flight in September. But future Orions will travel to the moon in 2017, unscrewed, followed by a crewed mission in 2021. Experiences on those trips will give NASA an idea of its suitability for a Mars mission.
The Orion service module is a co-production between NASA and the European Space Agency – a first for the space-flight industry. It is based on the ATV, an uncrewed, disposable cargo craft that ESA uses to supply the International Space Station.
If you like large things that go "bang", take a look at this successful test of the rocket panels. These will protect the service module from acoustic vibration, heat and wind as it powers through the densest, most damaging part of the atmosphere.
Atlas and Delta have packed slate of launches in 2014
Justin Ray – Spaceflight Now
It's one completed, 14 flights to go this year for United Launch Alliance and its fleet of Atlas and Delta rocket families.
"This year we have a very busy manifest in 2014," said Vern Thorp, ULA's manager of NASA missions.
The year began successfully Thursday night as an Atlas 5 deployed the 7,600-pound Tracking and Data Relay Satellite for NASA from Cape Canaveral. The flight began on the scheduled date, extending the string of Atlas launches to 10 that have gone on the first attempt.
"With 43 successful missions spanning a decade of operational service and launched with a one-launch-at-a-time focus on mission success, the Atlas 5 continues to provide reliable, cost-effective launch services for our nation's most complex and valued payloads," said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Atlas and Delta Programs.
Next up is the Delta 4 rocket and its Global Positioning System 2F-5 navigation satellite for the U.S. Air Force on Feb. 20 from the Cape. That booster is on the pad awaiting attachment of the spacecraft for the evening time liftoff.
The next Atlas is planned for March 25 on the NROL-67 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The rocket is carrying a clandestine spy satellite for national security use from the Cape.
The year's first space launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California comes on April 3 with the flight of an Atlas 5 carrying the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program weather observatory for the Air Force.
A pair of flights are planned in May -- one Atlas, one Delta 4 -- from the Cape. The Atlas will launch NROL-33 for the National Reconnaissance Office. The Delta will carry GPS 2F-6 into orbit.
The return of the Delta 2 rocket, the medium-class workhorse for a quarter-century, comes after a two-year hiatus. The Vandenberg launch will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory for NASA on July 1.
July also sees an Atlas provide lift for GPS 2F-7 as the surge of navigation satellites to replenish the constellation goes forward.
And at mid-year, the commercial Worldview 3 Earth-imaging satellite will be launched from Vandenberg atop an Atlas.
Then comes the secretive CLIO satellite from the Cape on an Atlas. Little is known about the spacecraft or its mission.
Undoubtedly a highlight of the year occurs in September with the Orion test flight. A Delta 4-Heavy rocket to launch NASA's Orion capsule on a high-altitude orbital shakedown cruise before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean for recovery. The launch window opens Sept. 18.
The second Delta 2 of the year is planned for November with the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Earth-observing satellite from the West Coast.
Atlas performs a Thanksgiving-time launch of NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission, a four-satellite project launching one a single rocket to study magnetospheric boundary regions.
The final Delta 4 of the year is also a classified mission from the Cape. It will ascend to geosynchronous orbit, the Air Force confirms, with the AFSPC-4 payload for Space Command.
There's also a year-end Atlas 5 with NROL-35 for the National Reconnaissance Office from California.
Trailblazing Mars Rover Celebrates 10 Years on Red Planet
Mike Wall – SPACE.com
 
NASA's Opportunity rover marks 10 years of Mars exploration today (Jan. 24), an extraordinary milestone that adds to the robot's growing legend.
 
The golf-cart-size Opportunity rover landed on the night of Jan. 24, 2004, three weeks after its twin, Spirit. Though both robots were originally tasked with 90-day missions, Spirit explored the Red Planet until 2010 and Opportunity keeps rolling along to this day, gathering more and more clues about Mars' warmer and wetter past.
 
"It's a well-made American vehicle," Spirit and Opportunity deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis, told reporters Thursday (Jan. 23) when asked to explain Opportunity's amazing longevity.
Still, Opportunity's continued productivity at such an advanced age has surprised the mission team.
"I never expected this to happen, but it's so much fun," Arvidson told SPACE.com. "It's important science, and it's exploration and discovery. I'm having the time of my life."
Searching for signs of water
 
NASA dispatched Spirit and Opportunity to search for signs of past water activity on Mars, whose surface is very cold and dry today.
 
Both rovers found plenty of such evidence at their disparate landing sites. In 2007, for example, Spirit unearthed deposits of pure silica when its crippled right front wheel dug a furrow in the red dirt. Since silica forms when hot water reacts with rocks, the area likely once had two key ingredients necessary for life as we know it — liquid water and an energy source.
 
And Opportunity has made its share of big discoveries as well, some of them coming quite recently. On Thursday, for instance, mission scientists announced that the rover had found evidence of a potentially life-supporting environment in four-billion-year-old rocks on the rim of Endeavour Crater, which Opportunity has been exploring since August 2011.
 
"If I were there back when this material was being emplaced and altered, and I had my summer house, this is where I would drill to get good drinking water," Arvidson said during Thursday's press conference. "The older you look, the better it gets in terms of habitability at this location."
Spirit and Opportunity's finds helped pave the way for NASA's 1-ton Curiosity rover, which landed inside Mars' huge Gale Crater in August 2012 to determine if the Red Planet could ever have supported microbial life.
 
Curiosity found a potentially habitable lake system that dates from around 3.7 billion years ago. So it's possible that microbial life could have survived on the surface of ancient Mars for hundreds of millions of years, though perhaps not continuously in time and space during that stretch, researchers said.
 
Driving well past warranty
 
NASA's baseline mission requirements called for the solar-powered Spirit and Opportunity to drive about 0.6 miles (1 kilometer). But both rovers shattered that ceiling, just as they made a mockery of the 90-day lifespan. Spirit logged 4.8 miles (7.7 km) during its operational life, while Opportunity's odometer reads 24.07 miles (38.73 km) and counting.
 
In fact, Opportunity holds the American distance
record for off-planet driving and is creeping up on the overall champ, the Soviet Union's remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which racked up 26 miles (42 km) on the moon in 1973.
 
So how have Spirit and Opportunity managed to keep performing so long after their warranties expired? While the high-quality design and construction cited by Arvidson is a major factor, as is the skill of the rover team, good fortune has also played a role, mission officials said.
 
For example, the rovers' handlers did not expect Martian breezes to blow dust off the robots' solar panels on a somewhat regular basis, which has happened throughout the pair's time on the Red Planet.
 
"This has been a tremendous benefit, this periodic cleaning," Spirit and Opportunity project manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told reporters Thursday. "We can't predict it — it seems to have some seasonal relationship — but it certainly has enabled the rovers to continue to generate power."
 
While Opportunity is showing some signs of its advanced age, such as an arthritic robotic arm, the rover remains in good health, Callas added.
 
The six-wheeled robot continues to study Martian rocks, with its current focus on a strange stone that suddenly appeared in Opportunity's line of sight recently. Mission scientists think Opportunity likely knocked this rock, which looks like a jelly donut, free of the substrate while turning around. The rock appears to have landed upside-down, affording a rare chance to examine material that has not been exposed to the Martian air for a long time — perhaps billions of years.
 
This sort of serendipity and opportunism is a hallmark of the discovery-driven mission, team members say.
 
"It's just a wonderful experience," Arvidson told SPACE.com. "Each time we move, we find something new."
 
Mars rover legacy
 
Spirit and Opportunity are leaving an impressive legacy of science and exploration, helping researchers flesh out their understanding of the Red Planet and paving the way for ambitious future missions, NASA officials said.
 
"By standing on the solar panels of Spirit and Opportunity, we see the future of Mars exploration that has progressed to the point of looking for biosignatures, the ability to cache samples for sample-return, and planning for future human [missions] to Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program.
 
But the twin rovers have also contributed in other, less tangible ways that touch all of humanity, Callas said.
 
"Over the past decade, through these rovers, our species has gone to work on Mars," he said. "In addition to being earthlings, because of these rovers, we have become Martians, too — dual citizens, if you will. We now live in a larger world, a world that extends beyond our own home planet. These rovers have made Mars our neighborhood and our backyard, and this is something truly remarkable."
Aging ISS a space lab of 'unlimited' opportunity
Jean-Louis Santini - Agence France-Presse
It may be 350 kilometers (215 miles) above Earth and a place that only a privileged few will ever visit, but the International Space Station is crucial to advances in science, health and technology, experts say.
 
Earlier this month, NASA said the life of the $100 billion ISS would be extended by four years, or until at least 2024, allowing for more global research and scientific collaboration.
 
John Holdren, a senior White House adviser on science and technology, hailed the space station – mainly built with US money – as "a unique facility that offers enormous scientific and societal benefits.
 
"The Obama administration's decision to extend its life until at least 2024 will allow us to maximize its potential, deliver critical benefits to our nation and the world and maintain American leadership in space," he said.
 
The orbiting outpost, which was launched to fanfare in 1998, has more living space than a six-bedroom house and comes complete with Internet access, a gym, two bathrooms and a 360-degree bay window offering spectacular views of Earth.
 
Its entire structure is made up of various working and sleeping modules, and extends the length of a football field (about 100 meters or yards), making it four times bigger than the Russian space station Mir and about five times as large as the US Skylab.
The aging structure requires regular maintenance, which is done by astronauts who don spacesuits and venture outside the lab.
 
One such repair was completed Christmas Eve when two Americans stepped out to replace a failed ammonia pump that served to cool equipment at the ISS.
 
Julie Robinson, an ISS scientist at NASA, insisted that the space station, which has a mass of 924,739 pounds (420,000 kilograms) but is near-weightless in space, is worth the trouble and expense.
 
The ISS, which is maintained by a rotating crew of six astronauts and cosmonauts who have hailed from 14 countries, allows scientists to study the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body, she said, while testing new space technologies that will be essential for missions to Mars.
 
"The goal of using the space station is to make discoveries that cannot be made anywhere else... and do research that is really focused on bringing benefits back to Earth by developing knowledge that can directly help bio-medical treatments, make new materials, have better Earth and climate observations," she told Agence France-Presse.
 
Robinson added that "many of our early research results are making their way into drug development, medical technologies, pathways. We also have Earth-remote sensive instruments that provide unique data about the Earth and its climate and there are a number of new instruments going up in the next two years.
 
"When you put all of that together it's really an extraordinary set of benefits back here on Earth."
 
Robinson noted that a robotic arm used at the space station can save lives during brain surgery.
 
"What was special about this one is the ability of the arm to perform inside an MRI machine so that doctors are able to see the tumor and then use the ability of the robotic arm to be more stable than the human hand," she said.
 
"Those two things together have allowed surgery on patients who were considered inoperable before."
 
Cheryl Nickerson, a professor of microbiology at Arizona State University, has been involved since 2006 in research that has taken place as part of the space program, for example homing in on the salmonella bacteria that causes food poisoning.
 
"I believe that the discovery potential at microgravity research is enormous and holds potential to provide ground-breaking discoveries in some of the major causes of human morbidity and mortality on Earth," she said.
 
"That stems from the fact that there is no way on Earth that we can study our cells and biological systems respond without the force of gravity affecting it."
 
Robinson described the possibilities at the ISS as "unlimited," and noted that a growing amount of private money was supporting research at the space station.
"This is an era of space research that is unlike the past and we are looking at the decades ahead as the time when science can finally pursue these boundaries, explore these frontiers and make these unique discoveries," she said.
 
"I think as we look back, 20 or 30 years from now, we will call this the era of the space station... because of the number of advances and benefits that will come out."
 
NASA's Humanoid Robonaut 2 Waltz Both Elegant and Creepy
Megan Gannon - SPACE.com
NASA's robot butler for astronauts, Robonaut 2, may still be waiting for its legs to be delivered to the International Space Station, but you can see how the humanoid automaton may dance in weightlessness with an eerie elegance in this new video. 
 
The video waltz of NASA's Robonaut 2, set to the "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss, was created by SPACE.com by stitches together a series of NASA recordings of the droid's prehensile leg tests.
 
The $2.5 million Robonaut 2, also called R2, is designed to eventually work with the astronauts and even take over some of their duties both inside and outside the space station. An R2 unit launched to the orbiting outpost as just a torso with arms and camera-equipped head during the last flight of the space shuttle Discovery in 2011.
 
Since then, the R2 unit has been performing tests and experiments in a stationary position inside the space station, but it's expected to be able to move around alongside the astronauts after it gets its legs sometime this year.
 
Though humanoid in form, Robonaut 2's legs move in some unnervingly inhuman ways. Instead of one knee, r2 has seven joints that bend in all different directions, and watching its legs move is almost like watching a horrible football injury in slow motion.
 
When fully extended, the automaton's legs will span 9 feet (2.7 meters), according to NASA. And R2 doesn't have feet. Instead, it has special tools called "end effectors" that will allow it to use sockets and handrails to climb around inside and outside the station. NASA officials, however, have said that R2's upper body still needs some upgrades before it will be ready to venture into the vacuum of space.
 
Last month, NASA unveiled its latest humanoid robot Valkyrie, or R5. The 6-foot, 2-inch tall (1.9 meters) robot, which has an uncanny resemblance to the Marvel superhero Iron Man, was built to compete in the recent DARPA Robotics Challenge for disaster-response robots in December.
 
Bolden: search for new deputy administrator ongoing
Jeff Foust – Space Politics
 
The position of NASA Deputy Administrator has been vacant since Lori Garver left the agency in early September to become general manager of the Air Line Pilots Association. There has, since then, been occasional speculation about who might be picked to take the job, with some wondering if the position—which, like the administrator, requires a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation—might simply be left open through the end of the administration.
 
On Thursday, however, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said there is an active search underway to pick a new deputy administrator, although the ultimate decision is out of his hands. "The search is on," he said during a question-and-answer session with attendees of a "NASA Social" event at the Kennedy Space Center prior to last night's launch of the TDRS-L communications satellite there. "I don't pick the deputy administrator. Like me, the deputy administrator is a presidential appointee. We've been through several candidates and everything, and my hope is that we're narrowing in on a final candidate."
 
Bolden didn't disclose who the candidates for the position are, or when he expected the administration to formally nominate a deputy administrator. "I will say there are some very, very promising prospects out there, so I'm excited to get a deputy whenever they can get around to it," he said.
 
Space Travel Could Wreak Havoc On Your Immune System: Flies Raised On Space Station More Susceptible To Fungi
Justin Caba – Medical Daily
It's no secret space exploration can have a damaging effect on the physical health of astronauts, in particular, respiratory viral infections. So, why does space flight have such a compromising effect on immunity? A recent study out of the University of California, Davis, found that Drosophila flies that were raised on the Space Shuttle Discovery suffered from a weakened immune system after returning to Earth. Drosophila flies were chosen for this study because they share many fundamental characteristics of their immune system with mammals, including mice and humans.
Lead researcher Deborah Kimbrell and her colleagues from the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences sent fly eggs, which take around 10 days to develop into adults, on a 12-day mission aboard the Space Shuttle. To understand the relationship between gravity and immunity, the research first used an increase in gravity, or hypergravity, and the decreased gravity of spaceflight, also known as microgravity. Upon arriving back to Earth, researchers tested each fly for responses to two types of infections. The first infection was a fungus, in which a fly can only fight off through a pathway mediated by proteins in its immune and digestive systems, also known Toll-like receptors.
The discovery of Toll receptors earned the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. The second infection, a bacterial infection, can only bed resisted through a gene called Immune deficiency (Imd). Although the research team deemed the Toll pathways in the space-raised flies "non-functional," the majority of flies exhibited a sizeable response through the Imd pathway. The research team also tested the flies in a centrifuge — a machine that simulates gravitational forces that is over 20 times the normal force of Earth's gravitational pull — to assimilate hyperactivity conditions. Under these conditions, each fly's resistance to the fungus improved. Researchers hope that future spacecrafts will include centrifuges that can help astronauts with maintaining their bone and muscle strength as well as keeping their immune system healthy.
Kimbrell gave two hypotheses explaining how microgravity could have affected the Drosophila flies' immune system: first being that heat-shock proteins, proteins that are produced in response to physiological stress, were able to bind with the Toll receptors. The second theory contends that microgravity interferes with the behavior of proteins outside of cells, which would involve Toll receptor signaling as well. Future studies will hopefully include humans and flies for testing trials aboard the International Space Station.  
A similar study out of the University of Arizona found that space travel can negatively impact our health by changing the activity of genes, which control immunity responses and stress. The research team headed up by immunobiologist Ty Lebsack tested the health of four mice that had spent 13 days aboard the Endeavor Space Shuttle by studying their thymus gland, the organ responsible for producing T cells, an important part of the immune system. Each mouse had around 12 up or down-regulated genes in their thymus tissue by the end of the study.
Sierra Nevada books first launch for 'space SUV'
Stephen Clark - SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Sierra Nevada Corp., one of the companies tapped by NASA to develop a commercial crew carrier for the International Space Station, has reserved a slot on United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket manifest for an unpiloted test flight in late 2016.
The autonomous flight of Sierra Nevada's reusable Dream Chaser space plane is set for launch in a 90-day window centered on Nov. 1, 2016. The preliminary flight plan calls for the Dream Chaser, which is about one-third the size of a space shuttle orbiter, to spend up to one day in low Earth orbit before plunging back into the atmosphere and gliding to an autopilot landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Future Dream Chaser missions will land on the Shuttle Landing Facility runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said.
NASA is funding privately-led projects by Sierra Nevada, Boeing Co. and SpaceX to design and test spacecraft to transport NASA astronauts to and from the space station, ending U.S. reliance on the Russian Soyuz crew capsule to do the job.
Sierra Nevada officials hailed the deal unveiled Thursday as the first confirmed launch contract for the three companies working on commercial space taxis.
"People have talked about when they're going to fly," said Mark Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada's corporate vice president for space systems. "The difference here is we have a confirmed launch contract. We have a launch slot. To fly on Atlas is not a simple thing. You have to get on the manifest."
Sirangelo said Sierra Nevada has made its first payment to ULA to reserve a launch opportunity in late 2016.
NASA is aiming to begin operational commercial crew transport services by the end of 2017, but orbital test flights must begin before then to prove each spacecraft's design and safety systems.
"The purpose of [the November 2016 test flight] will be to test out our launch, orbital operations, and autonomous entry descent and landing, which is something we need to certify for our ISS missions as well," said Steve Lindsey, Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser program manager. "The vehicle will be basically identical to the vehicle we fly a year later when we put crew on it."
The Dream Chaser is the only commercial crew vehicle being funded by NASA that is designed to land on a runway. It can carry up to seven astronauts to low Earth orbit or be outfitted for cargo missions.
"We like to think of it as our space SUV," Sirangelo said.
Boeing's CST-100 crew capsule will return to Earth with a parachute-assisted landing at White Sands, N.M., on its initial missions. SpaceX is working on a Dragon capsule with braking rockets and legs to accomplish a vertical helicopter-like touch down on a landing pad.
The Sierra Nevada space plane will launch on an Atlas 5 rocket with a dual-engine Centaur upper stage and without any solid rocket boosters. The version is known as the "402" configuration of the Atlas 5, which can be tailored to launch different types of payloads by adjusting the number of solid rocket boosters, flying one or two RL10 engines on the Centaur upper stage, and expanding the envelope of the rocket's nose shroud.
With a wingspan of 22.9 feet and a length of 29.5 feet, the Dream Chaser will be launched atop the Atlas 5 without a payload fairing. The decision allows the space plane and its crew of up to seven astronauts to quickly escape the booster in case of an explosion or launch failure.
Michael Gass, ULA's president and CEO, said engineers in the last year matured the design of the dual-engine Centaur, which has never launched on an Atlas 5 mission. ULA also achieved a preliminary design review on the Atlas 5's emergency detection system, a new computer to monitor the rocket's health during launch and trigger an abort to save the crew in case of an engine failure or another problem.
"United Launch Alliance is honored that Sierra Nevada Corp. has purchased a proven Atlas 5 for its first flight in 2016," Gass said. "We'll be ready."
Lindsey said ULA plans to install crew accommodations at the Atlas 5's Cape Canaveral launch pad in 2015 ahead of the first piloted Dream Chaser mission in 2017.
According to Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada and ULA are in negotiations for a contract to launch astronauts on the 2017 demonstration mission. Sierra Nevada procured the Atlas 5 rocket for the 2016 test flight in a commercial contract between the two companies.
The 2017 manned flight would dock with the space station with a two-person crew led by a corporate astronaut from Sierra Nevada along with a NASA astronaut as copilot, said Lindsey, a former space shuttle commander.
Sierra Nevada and ULA have worked together on the Dream Chaser program since 2007. The Atlas 5 operator also has agreements with Boeing to launch the CST-100 crew capsule, but the companies have not publicly announced a firm launch contract.
SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which is already flying in a simpler configuration to deliver cargo to the space station, will launch on Falcon 9 rockets.
Gass would not disclose whether Boeing has finalized an Atlas 5 launch contract for an unmanned CST-100 mission.
Sierra Nevada also plans to exploit an already-existing partnership with Lockheed Martin Corp. to use the Operations and Checkout Building for Dream Chaser refurbishment between missions.
If the deal goes forward, the Dream Chaser would be towed into the O&C Building, inspected for damage, and refilled with propellant for its next mission.
Lockheed Martin engineers currently occupy the O&C Building working on NASA's Orion multipurpose crew vehicle. But the Orion spacecraft is only expected to fly in space twice before 2020, leaving the facility under-utilized between Orion missions.
"The [Dream Chaser] vehicle can be brought in horizontally, deserviced and refurbished for the next flight using a lot of the technology and components that we're developing for Orion," said Larry Price, Lockheed Martin's deputy Orion program manager.
If NASA selects Dream Chaser for operational missions, Sierra Nevada projects it will bring more than 500 jobs to Florida's Space Coast.
Lockheed Martin is also constructing the pressure shell for the first space-bound Dream Chaser at the Michoud assembly facility in New Orleans.
NASA and Sierra Nevada have a Space Act Agreement to provide up to $227.5 million of government funding to the company. NASA makes payments as Sierra Nevada completes Dream Chaser design and development milestones.
The existing agreement runs through August 2014 and includes milestones in flight testing, risk reduction efforts, wind tunnel testing, rocket thruster testing, and safety and schedule reviews.
Sierra Nevada submitted a proposal to NASA last week to continue developing Dream Chaser, culminating in the uncrewed and crewed orbital test flights in 2016 and 2017, according to Sirangelo.
NASA has said it will award funding to one or two companies to complete development of their spacecraft and proceed with orbital demonstration missions.
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