Boeing

Paving The Way for the Future... Just thought I'd end 2012 by posting these photos showing the future home of Boeing's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 vehicle at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Formerly known as Orbiter Processing Facility-3 (which was space shuttle Discovery's final home before her decommissioning and transport to the Smithsonian back in April), this hangar is now known as the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility...or C3PF. The CST-100, once operational, will join SpaceX's Dragon capsule in sending cargo and potentially crew to the International Space Station, as well as ferrying passengers to orbital habitats proposed by Bigelow Aerospace. Exciting times lie ahead...


Dimitri Gerondidakis


Dimitri Gerondidakis


Dimitri Gerondidakis


Dimitri Gerondidakis

Atlantis: Retirement Update... To view live screenshots of construction being done both inside and outside of Atlantis' new home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (during daylight hours, that is; activity probably won't pick up again till right after the New Year), visit the KSCVC's webcam feed on Facebook.com. With the second oldest orbiter in NASA's retired shuttle fleet pretty much fully enclosed within the 90,000-square-foot museum exhibit, the complex is on track to open to the public this July.


Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts

SpaceX

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! Just thought I'd share these great photos (and the official video) of SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket as it was being prepped for a flight demonstration that saw it soaring around 131 feet (40 meters) above the ground in McGregor, Texas on December 17. Known as the vertical takeoff and landing test vehicle (VTVL), the Grasshopper is intended to validate the feasibility of a Falcon 9's first stage motor safely returning to Earth and touching back down on the surface following a launch into space. The first stage motor, like those of other rockets such as the Atlas V, is usually discarded in low-Earth orbit more than 8 minutes after lift-off...becoming space junk. The Grasshopper conducted its first demonstration on September 28.


SpaceX


SpaceX

Check out the official video:

NASA

Orion And Space Launch System Updates... While another parachute test was successfully conducted for the Orion spacecraft at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona yesterday, NASA has announced today that the core stage for its Space Launch System, scheduled to make its first flight sending an Orion capsule to the Moon in 2017, is ready for construction. More details below.

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NASA's Space Launch System Core Stage Passes Major Milestone, Ready to Start Construction (Press Release)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The team designing America's new flagship rocket has completed successfully a major technical review of the vehicle's core stage. NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) will take the agency's Orion spacecraft and other payloads beyond low-Earth orbit, providing a new capability for human exploration.

The core stage preliminary design review (PDR) was held Thursday at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and included representatives from the agency and The Boeing Co. Boeing's Exploration Launch Systems in Huntsville is the prime contractor for the core stage and its avionics. Marshall manages the SLS Program.

"Passing a preliminary design review within 12 months of bringing Boeing on contract shows we are on track toward meeting a 2017 launch date," said Tony Lavoie, manager of the SLS Stages Element at Marshall. "We can now allow those time-critical areas of design to move forward with initial fabrication and proceed toward the final design phase -- culminating in a critical design review in 2014 -- with confidence."

The first flight test of the SLS, which will feature a configuration for a 70-metric-ton lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond the Moon, is scheduled for 2017. As the SLS evolves, a two-stage launch vehicle using the core stage will provide a lift capability of 130 metric tons to enable missions beyond low-Earth orbit and to support deep space exploration.

The purpose of the PDR was to ensure the design met system requirements within acceptable risk and fell within schedule and budget constraints. An important part of the PDR was to prove the core stage could integrate safely with other elements of the rocket's main engines and solid rocket boosters, the crew capsule and the launch facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Core stage designers provided an in-depth assessment to a board of engineers comprised of propulsion and design experts from across the agency and the aerospace industry.

"Each individual element of this program has to be at the same level of maturity before we can move the program as a whole to the next step," SLS Program Manager Todd May said. "The core stage is the rocket's central propulsion element and will be an optimized blend of new and existing hardware design. We're building it with longer tanks, longer feed lines and advanced manufacturing processes. We are running ahead of schedule and will leverage that schedule margin to ensure a safe and affordable rocket for our first flight in 2017."

The core stage will be built at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans using state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment. The plant continues modifying its facilities and ordering materials for construction of the rocket. Michoud has built components for NASA's spacecraft for decades, most recently the space shuttle's external tanks.

Source: NASA.Gov

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AMRO

Apollo 17: 40 Years Ago Today... At 2:25 PM, Eastern Standard Time on December 19, 1972, the Apollo 17 command module America safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean after successfully completing NASA's sixth and final sojourn (excluding Apollo 13) to the surface of the Moon. What would follow a year later would be the launch of the United States' first manned space station, Skylab, to LEO (Low-Earth Orbit)—and the continued development of the space shuttle...which was formally approved several months before the liftoff of Apollo 17 by President Nixon, on January 5, 1972.

With the Apollo and space shuttle programs now a thing of the past, it is up to NASA receiving proper funding by Congress to support the development of commercial spacecraft such as Dream Chaser and the CST-100 (SpaceX's Dragon has already proved its mettle...twice) that will continue performing the orbiters' duties in LEO, and finally bringing Apollo's official BEO (Beyond Earth Orbit) successor, the Space Launch System, to fruition.


NASA

Tim Jacobs

Orion Update...

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NASA Progressing Toward First Launch of Orion Spacecraft (Press Release - December 13)

WASHINGTON -- Recent engineering advances by NASA and its industry partners across the country show important progress toward Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), the next step to launching humans to deep space. The uncrewed EFT-1 mission, launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2014, will test the re-entry performance of the agency's Orion capsule, the most advanced spacecraft ever designed, which will carry astronauts farther into space than ever before.

"These recent milestones are laying the foundation for our first flight test of Orion in 2014," said Dan Dumbacher, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The work being done to prepare for the flight test is really a nationwide effort and we have a dedicated team committed to our goal of expanding the frontier of space."

A tool that will allow the titanium skeleton of the Orion heat shield to be bolted to its carbon fiber skin is at the Denver facility of the spacecraft's prime contractor Lockheed Martin. This will enable workers to begin assembling the two pieces of the heat shield. Almost 3,000 bolts are needed to hold the skeleton to the skin. A special stand was built to align the skin on the skeleton as holes for the bolts are drilled. Work to bolt the skeleton to the skin will be completed in January. The heat shield then will be shipped to Textron Defense Systems near Boston where the final layer, an ablative material very similar to that used on the Apollo spacecraft, will be added. The completed heat shield is scheduled to be ready for installation onto the Orion crew module at Kennedy next summer.

To test the heat shield during EFT-1's re-entry, Orion will travel more than 3,600 miles above Earth's surface, 15 times farther than the International Space Station's orbital position. This is farther than any spacecraft designed to carry humans has gone in more than 40 years. Orion will return home at a speed almost 5,000 mph faster than any current human spacecraft.

This week, engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., received materials to begin manufacturing the adapter that will connect the Orion capsule to a United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy-lift rocket for EFT-1. Two forward and two aft rings will be welded to barrel panels to form two adapters. This adapter design will be tested during EFT-1 for use during the first launch of NASA's next heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), in 2017. SLS will launch NASA's Orion spacecraft and other payloads beyond low Earth orbit, providing an entirely new capability for human exploration.

Data from the adapter on the flight test will provide Marshall engineers with invaluable experience developing hardware early in the design process. Designing the adapter once for multiple flights also provides a cost savings.

Of the two adapters welded at Marshall, one will attach Orion to the Delta IV heavy-lift rocket used for EFT-1. The other adapter will be a structural test article to gain knowledge on the design.

NASA's Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program also has passed a major agency review that lays the groundwork at Kennedy to support future Orion and SLS launches. The GSDO Program completed a combined system requirements review and system definition review, in which an independent board of technical experts from across NASA evaluated the program's infrastructure specifications, budget and schedule. The board confirmed GSDO is ready to move from concept development to preliminary design. The combination of the two assessments represents a fundamentally different way of conducting NASA program reviews. The team is streamlining processes to provide the nation with a safe, affordable and sustainable launch facility.

The GSDO program last week also led the third Stationary Recovery Test Working Group session in Norfolk, Va. The team presented to the U.S. Navy detachment that will recover the capsule during EFT-1 a complete list of tasks required to accomplish stationary recovery test objectives. The working group outlined the plan for roles and responsibilities to accomplish required test procedures. Included in these presentations were the commanding officer of the USS Mesa Verde and the fleet forces command director of operations, who both expressed complete support for the test.

Source: NASA.Gov

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Tim Jacobs

Apollo 17: 40 Years Ago Today... Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, having been on the Moon's surface since December 11, 1972, poses for the camera during what would be the last lunar Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) for the Apollo program. Cernan and fellow crewmember Harrison H. Schmitt collected 243.7 pounds (110.52 kilograms) of lunar samples during their 7-hour, 15-minute excursion at Taurus-Littrow Valley on the Moon.


NASA / Harrison H. Schmitt

Apollo 17: 40 Years Ago Today... At 12:33 AM, Eastern Standard Time on December 7, 1972, a giant Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans and Harrison H. Schmitt lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a 4-day voyage to the Moon. While this was the first nighttime launch of the Saturn V vehicle since its first manned flight (on Apollo 8) on December 21, 1968, this is the last time over the next four decades that humans would be sent to Earth's nearest celestial neighbor.


NASA

NASA / LaRC

Photo of the Day... Shown above is a buffet model of the Space Launch System (SLS) as it recently underwent wind tunnel testing inside the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. The model depicts the SLS' 'Block II' cargo configuration (pictured below), which will be almost 400-feet-tall in its actual form if this heavy-lift launch vehicle makes its maiden flight beyond Earth orbit as targeted by 2025.


NASA / MSFC

Roscosmos / ESA / NASA

ISS Update...

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NASA, Roscosmos Assign Veteran Crew to Yearlong Space Station Mission (Press Release - November 26)

WASHINGTON -- NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), and their international partners have selected two veteran spacefarers for a one-year mission aboard the International Space Station in 2015. This mission will include collecting scientific data important to future human exploration of our solar system. NASA has selected Scott Kelly and Roscosmos has chosen Mikhail Kornienko.

Kelly and Kornienko will launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in spring 2015 and will land in Kazakhstan in spring 2016. Kelly and Kornienko already have a connection; Kelly was a backup crew member for the station's Expedition 23/24 crews, where Kornienko served as a flight engineer.

The goal of their yearlong expedition aboard the orbiting laboratory is to understand better how the human body reacts and adapts to the harsh environment of space. Data from the 12-month expedition will help inform current assessments of crew performance and health and will determine better and validate countermeasures to reduce the risks associated with future exploration as NASA plans for missions around the moon, an asteroid and ultimately Mars.

"Congratulations to Scott and Mikhail on their selection for this important mission," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Their skills and previous experience aboard the space station align with the mission's requirements. The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit."

"Selection of the candidate for the one year mission was thorough and difficult due to the number of suitable candidates from the Cosmonaut corps," said head of Russian Federal Space Agency, Vladimir Popovkin. "We have chosen the most responsible, skilled and enthusiastic crew members to expand space exploration, and we have full confidence in them."

Kelly, a retired captain in the U.S. Navy, is from West Orange, N.J. He has degrees from the State University of New York Maritime College and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He served as a pilot on space shuttle mission STS-103 in 1999, commander on STS-118 in 2007, flight engineer on the International Space Station Expedition 25 in 2010 and commander of Expedition 26 in 2011. Kelly has logged more than 180 days in space.

Kornienko is from the Syzran, Kuibyshev region of Russia. He is a former paratrooper officer and graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute as a specialist in airborne systems. He has worked in the space industry since 1986 when he worked at Rocket and Space Corporation-Energia as a spacewalk handbook specialist. He was selected as an Energia test cosmonaut candidate in 1998 and trained as an International Space Station Expedition 8. backup crew member. Kornienko served as a flight engineer on the station's Expedition 23/24 crews in 2010 and has logged more than 176 days in space.

During the 12 years of permanent human presence aboard the International Space Station, scientists and researchers have gained valuable, and often surprising, data on the effects of microgravity on bone density, muscle mass, strength, vision and other aspects of human physiology. This yearlong stay will allow for greater analysis of these effects and trends.

Kelly and Kornienko will begin a two-year training program in the United States, Russia and other partner nations starting early next year.

Source: NASA.Gov

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The Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center

Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts

Atlantis: Retirement Update... Despite being completely wrapped in a plastic shroud that will protect her as construction is completed on her 90,000-square-foot museum exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, Atlantis was recently tilted into a 43.21-degree angle which will be her final position when she opens to the public next July. With her payload bay doors opened, her robotic arm extended out towards a huge panorama of Earth that will be placed on the ceiling above her to give the impression of on-orbit activities, Atlantis should be a sight to behold (moreso, that is) once she officially becomes a space artifact. Check out her progress photos below.


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

ESA

Happy Thanksgiving Day, everyone!!! Just thought I'd post this interesting art concept showing an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) with a European Space Agency (ESA)-built Service Module (SM) attached it. First reported by NASASpaceFlight and Spaceflight Now earlier this week, providing the SM for Orion would be ESA's way of participating in NASA's deep space exploration program right after the International Space Station (ISS) is decommissioned no earlier than 2020. ESA is set to discontinue its Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), which has flown cargo to the ISS since 2008, after the fifth and last ATV (the Georges Lemaître) lifts off in early 2014. Providing the SM would also be ESA's way of paying for the remainder of its partnership in the ISS program; the ATV was Europe's form of providing support to the orbiting laboratory without paying cash upfront to NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency.

If approved by NASA, the first European SM will fly with Orion atop the Space Launch System (SLS) during its initial unmanned sojourn to lunar orbit in late 2017. There are no additional details as to whether ESA will provide an SM for SLS' second launch beyond Earth orbit four years later...in a journey that would take a 4-person crew back to the Moon in 2021.

NASA / Bill Ingalls

Welcome home, Expedition 33... After a 127-day sojourn in low-Earth orbit, three Expedition 33 crew members safely touched down in a remote area near Arkalyk, Kazakhstan a few hours ago. The Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, JAXA crew member Akihiko Hoshide and Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko landed at 5:56 PM, Pacific Standard Time (7:56 AM, Monday morning in Kazakhstan). The image above shows a Russian recovery team arriving at the landing site of the Soyuz capsule, while the photos below were taken of the spacecraft re-entering Earth's atmosphere as seen from aboard the International Space Station.


NASA / Roscosmos


NASA / Roscosmos


NASA / Roscosmos


NASA / Roscosmos


NASA / Roscosmos

Endeavour Update... A little more than two weeks after she officially opened to the public at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, I finally got around to visiting Endeavour at her temporary home in the Samuel Oschin Pavilion earlier today. Seeing the orbiter as a static museum display obviously isn't as thrilling as watching her soar over the skies of Southern California back in September or taking to the streets of Los Angeles last month, but Endeavour is still without a doubt a marvel to check out up-close in person. I can only imagine how awestruck I would've been seeing her roar off a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida back when the shuttle program was still alive and kicking...

LINK: Click here to view my photo gallery covering space shuttle Endeavour's landing at LAX and arrival at the California Science Center

NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

Taking The Path to the Future... A full-size test article of the Orion spacecraft was recently transported to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to verify the ground route that the capsule was going to take from its processing facility to the VAB at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The test article was first transported from the Operations and Checkout Facility (where actual Orion vehicles will undergo final assembly and launch processing) to the Multi-Payload Processing Facility at the KSC Industrial Area. The mockup was then driven several miles down the road to the VAB...where the real Orion will be mated with NASA's Space Launch System prior to being rolled out to the pad for launch.


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

The first time that an actual flight-worthy Orion capsule will take to the streets of KSC will be two years from now. Instead of the VAB, however, the Orion EFT-1 vehicle will be transported to the neighboring Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to be mated with the Delta IV rocket that will launch Orion on its first unmanned test flight around September of 2014.


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis


NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

Orion Update... The spacecraft that will fly on the Exploration Flight Test (EFT)-1 mission began proof pressure testing at the Operations and Checkout Facility at Kennedy Space Center last week. The test methodically pressurizes the crew module with breathing air and is intended to validate structural performance and weld strength capability of the vehicle at full flight operating pressures. EFT-1 is scheduled to launch aboard a Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in early 2014.


NASA

Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts

Atlantis is now home... Amid a throng of Kennedy Space Center (KSC) workers, their families, friends and fireworks, the orbiter Atlantis finally arrived at her final resting place at the KSC Visitor Complex in Florida, after an hours-long journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to her new $100 million exhibit earlier today. Even though KSC itself won't truly be worth visiting again till 2015 (when other commercial spacecraft such as the Boeing CST-100 join SpaceX's Dragon in soaring to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral) or 2017 (when NASA's Space Launch System lifts off on its inaugural flight to the Moon from Launch Complex 39B), folks visiting the Visitor Complex will have an awesome exhibit to check out once Atlantis officially goes on display next July.


NASA / Tony Gray

Discovery is sitting nicely inside the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, Endeavour has begun inspiring a new generation of scientists and engineers who are visiting her at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, Enterprise...needs to be repaired following the damage she sustained in New York City during Superstorm Sandy (take a deep breath and relax, Dayton and Houston), and Atlantis will soon impart her own legacy to the public in 2013. The space shuttle program is truly history.


NASA / Kim Shiflett


NASA / Kim Shiflett


NASA / Kim Shiflett


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA TV


NASA / Jim Grossmann