A Major Milestone Achieved for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon Capsule...

NASA

Parachute Testing Lands Partners Closer to Crewed Flight Tests (News Release)

Crew safety is paramount in the return of human spaceflight launches from Florida’s Space Coast, and the latest round of parachute testing is providing valuable data to help industry partners Boeing and SpaceX meet NASA’s requirements for certification.

On March 4, SpaceX performed its 14th overall parachute test supporting Crew Dragon development. This exercise was the first of several planned parachute system qualification tests ahead of the spacecraft’s first crewed flight and resulted in the successful touchdown of Crew Dragon’s parachute system.

During this test, a C-130 aircraft transported the parachute test vehicle, designed to achieve the maximum speeds that Crew Dragon could experience on reentry, over the Mojave Desert in Southern California and dropped the spacecraft from an altitude of 25,000 feet. The test demonstrated an off-nominal, or abnormal, situation, deploying only one of the two drogue chutes and intentionally skipping a deployment stage on one of the four main parachutes, proving a safe landing in such a contingency scenario.

In February, the first in a series of reliability tests of the Boeing flight drogue and main parachute system was conducted by releasing a long, dart-shaped test vehicle from a C-17 aircraft over Yuma, Arizona. Two more tests are planned using the dart module, as well as three similar reliability tests using a high fidelity capsule simulator designed to simulate the CST-100 Starliner capsule’s exact shape and mass. These three tests involve a giant helium-filled balloon that lifts the capsule over the desert before releasing it at altitudes above 30,000 feet to test parachute deployments and overall system performance.

In both the dart and capsule simulator tests, the test spacecraft are released at various altitudes to test the parachute system at different deployment speeds, aerodynamic loads, and or weight demands. Data collected from each test is fed into computer models to more accurately predict parachute performance and to verify consistency from test to test.

Mark Biesack, a lead NASA engineer at Kennedy Space Center overseeing parachute testing for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program said, “We test the parachutes at many different conditions for nominal entry, ascent abort conditions including a pad abort, and for contingencies, so that we know the chutes can safely deploy in flight and handle the loads.”

SpaceX will conduct its next parachute system test in the coming weeks in the California desert, again using a C-130 to drop the parachute test vehicle from about 25,000 feet. The test will be similar to the one conducted earlier this month, but with a different deployment configuration. The test will intentionally skip deployment of one drogue parachute and one main parachute to further demonstrate SpaceX’s ability to safely land the vehicle in an off-nominal situation. The ongoing testing verifies the safety of the parachute system for our astronauts.

Boeing is scheduled for its third of five planned qualification tests of its parachute system in May, using the same type of helium-filled balloon that will be used in the reliability tests. For the qualification test, the balloon lifts a full-size version of the Starliner spacecraft over the desert in New Mexico before releasing it. The balloon lifts the spacecraft at more than 1,000 feet per minute before it is dropped from an altitude of about 40,000 feet. A choreographed parachute deployment sequence initiates, involving three pilot, two drogue and three main chutes that slow the spacecraft’s descent permitting a safe touchdown.

Both Boeing and SpaceX’s parachute system qualification testing is scheduled to be completed by fall 2018. The partners are targeting the return of human spaceflight from Florida’s Space Coast this year, and are currently scheduled to begin flight tests late this summer.

“The partners are making great strides in testing their respective parachute systems, and the data they are collecting during every test is critical to demonstrating that their systems work as designed,” said Kathy Lueders, Commercial Crew Program Manager at Kennedy Space Center. “NASA is proud of their commitment to safely fly our crew members to the International Space Station and return them home safely.”

NASA’s Orion Program, which is nearing completion of its parachute tests to qualify the exploration-class spacecraft for missions with crew, has provided Commercial Crew Program partners with data and insight from its tests. NASA has matured computer modeling of how the system works in various scenarios and helped partner companies understand certain elements of parachute systems, such as seams and joints, for example. In some cases, NASA’s work has provided enough information for the partners to reduce the need for some developmental parachute tests.

The goal of the Commercial Crew Program is safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station from the United States through a public-private approach.

Source: NASA.Gov

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SpaceX

Photo of the Day: The Interior of an SLS Rocket Component...

NASA / MSFC - Amy Buck

Look Inside NASA's Exploration Mission-1 Rocket (News Release)

While the outside of NASA’s new deep-space rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) often gets all the glory, the inside works hard too. NASA is busy outfitting the rocket with what it needs for Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated mission of SLS and the Orion spacecraft. Engineers installed two sets of work platforms inside the rocket’s launch vehicle stage adapter. The adapter connects the rocket’s core stage with the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, which will fire its engine to send Orion into lunar orbit.

SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion with its crew to the Moon. Future upgrades to SLS will enable the rocket to launch both Orion with its crew and a large amount of cargo to lunar orbits on a single mission. This picture shows platforms inside the launch vehicle stage adaptor that will allow technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida access to the stage while the rocket is on the launch pad. The cone-shaped adapter, which measures 28 feet tall and tapers from about 27.5 feet at the bottom to 16.5 feet at the top, was built by SLS prime contractor Teledyne Brown Engineering in an advanced manufacturing facility at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

NASA’s Pegasus barge will take the adapter to Kennedy for launch where it will join the interim cryogenic propulsion stage, which was delivered in 2017.

Source: NASA.Gov

NASA Continues to Seek Ideas for Its Proposed Lunar Space Station...

NASA

Scientists Share Ideas for Gateway Activities Near the Moon (News Release)

NASA is looking at how the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway can create value for both robotic and human exploration in deep space.

In late 2017, the agency asked the global science community to submit ideas leveraging the gateway in lunar orbit to advance scientific discoveries in a wide range of fields. NASA received more than 190 abstracts covering topics human health and performance, Earth observation, astrophysics, heliophysics, and lunar and planetary sciences, as well as infrastructure suggestions to support breakthrough science.

Although it is too early to select specific research for the gateway, the workshop marks the first time in more than a decade the agency’s human spaceflight program brought scientists from a variety of disciplines together to discuss future exploration.

“We are in the early design and development stages for the gateway, and we were curious about the level of interest in using this platform for science including the scale and scope of instrumentation scientists might want to see onboard,” said Jason Crusan, director, Advanced Exploration Systems at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We were impressed by the breadth of the abstract responses and invited scientists and engineers to a workshop to learn more.”

Gateway assembly is targeted to begin in 2022, with the launch of the power and propulsion element. Habitation, logistics, and airlock capabilities would follow incrementally and establish the gateway’s core functionalities. Initially, NASA will send crew to the gateway once per year, so most investigations will require high levels of autonomy, and/or teleoperations.

Most concepts were based on the gateway’s location in lunar orbit, outside of Earth’s magnetosphere. This locale permits interesting observations, not possible in Earth orbit, in the fields of astrophysics, heliophysics, and Earth science. At the same time, exposure to the deep space environment introduces risk to astronauts, electronics, and hardware, due to high-energy radiation and space debris exposure. Understanding and mitigating these risks was a topic often discussed across scientific domains.

Science Opportunities Abound

“Science investigations are a critical element of our agency-wide exploration initiatives to the Moon,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We’ve studied our Earth companion for decades with robotic spacecraft and we’re eager for new innovative lunar research opportunities that also will help us learn more about our solar system and beyond.”

Scientists identified a broad range of instruments that could be used inside the gateway, as well as attached to the outside of the spacecraft, or free-flying nearby. Inside, the gateway could be outfitted with instruments to evaluate radiation effects on electronics and other susceptible materials. Monitors could be activated during crew visits, to evaluate behavioral health, neurocognitive functions, and radiation and microgravity effects. Robotic helpers were discussed to support visiting crews, and also maintain operations when the gateway is uncrewed.

Outside the gateway, scientists suggested materials research platforms as permanent, fixed panels that could host interchangeable experiments with standardized attachments. Earth observation experts saw opportunities to use Earth as proxy for exoplanet detection, and noted the capability for “full disk” imaging of Earth, as well as regular views of polar regions. With a view to the Sun, advanced solar activity characterizations are possible, and could improve our understanding of solar cycles and their effects on Earth as well as the possible risks to astronauts and spacecraft systems.

The gateway also could be used to deploy increasingly more capable CubeSats to conduct a multitude of experiments. The gateway’s infrastructure could support nearby spacecraft servicing, wide-aperture telescope assembly, and serve as a communications relay for large data returns to Earth from small probes or satellites in the lunar environment.

Other ideas included robotically collecting lunar samples to investigate aboard the gateway or preserve for return to Earth, and astronauts aboard the gateway could remotely operate rovers on the surface to characterize resources, or venture to the never-before explored lunar far side.

All-in-all, the workshop provided NASA’s human spaceflight team what they needed: a basic understanding of the science that could be conducted from the vantage point of lunar orbit, and the potential spacecraft resources that would be required to do so.

“The gateway will help us return humans to the lunar surface, and expand human presence into the solar system. We now see the endless opportunities for it to play an important role for science in cislunar space as well,” said Crusan. “The enthusiasm from this workshop was awesome, and we look forward to keeping the conversation going.”

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA