| | JSC TODAY CATEGORIES - Headlines
- Orion/Exploration Flight Test-1 Cake Contest TODAY
- Registration Open: Bring Our Children to Work Day
- Mandatory IT Security Training Due July 15 - Organizations/Social
- Tribute to Sally Ride Now Lives Online
- INCOSE Meeting July 17 - 'What are Requirements?'
- NSBE Visions for Human Spaceflight Brown Bag
- Parent's Night Out at Starport - July 18 - Jobs and Training
- What Would You Do in a Medical Emergency on TDY?
- Enhancing Your Creative Genius - Enroll Today
- Russian Phase One Language Course - for Beginners
- Correction: JSC Imagery Online Training Today - Community
- JSC Child Care Center Has a Few Openings |  |
| Headlines - Orion/Exploration Flight Test-1 Cake Contest TODAY
Come by the Building 3 collaboration space TODAY between noon and 12:45 p.m. to see the cakes entered in the Orion/Exploration Flight Test-1 cake-decorating contest. You'll get to taste the cakes entered in the contest and vote on your favorite to help choose the winner of the People's Choice Award! Our panel of judges—including Ester Lunnon, who won the JSC Today raffle to be a guest judge—will be evaluating the cakes on their taste, as well as how well they represented Orion and its upcoming test flight this fall! Did we mention there will be free cake? We hope to see you there. Be sure to follow us on Facebook (NASA's Orion Spacecraft) and Twitter (@NASA_Orion). - Registration Open: Bring Our Children to Work Day
The JSC External Relations Office is pleased to present JSC's Bring Our Children to Work (BOCTW) Day on Thursday, Aug. 14, at Space Center Houston. Guest speakers, breakout sessions, demonstration booths and hands-on activities will be scheduled throughout the day to further enhance your child(ren)'s experience. Registration is now open! - Mandatory IT Security Training Due July 15
All personnel with access to NASA Information Technology (IT) systems must complete the annual Information Security Training Course titled: ITS-014-001 ANNUAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SECURITY AND PRIVACY AWARENESS TRAINING. This training is mandatory and available in your SATERN Learning Plan. If the course is not on your Learning Plan and you are unable to locate it under the Learning History section as being completed, contact the SATERN Help Desk at 1-877-677-2123. Email JSC-ITSEC-TRAINING for further information. Organizations/Social - Tribute to Sally Ride Now Lives Online
In June of 1983, Dr. Sally Ride became the first American woman and youngest person to fly into space. Celebrate this very private person through the stories of her inner circle. See partner Tam O' Shaughnessy, sister Bear Ride and biographer Lynn Sherr as they discuss the triumphs and struggles of this fallen American hero. If you missed this one-time event or want to see it again, the streaming video is available through this link. - INCOSE Meeting July 17 - 'What are Requirements?'
The Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of INCOSE presents Lou Wheatcraft in a discussion on "What are Requirements?" When describing a system, we make the distinction between "needs" and "requirements." Needs are generally expectations stated in the language of business management or stakeholders. Requirements are formal statements that are structured and can be verified and validated—there may be more than one requirement defined for any need. Requirements are generated from needs through a transformation process of requirements analysis. Wheatcraft is a senior instructor/consultant for Requirements Experts and educates organizations on the importance of writing good requirements and helps them implement Requirement Development and Management processes based on industry best practices. Join us on July 17 at Jacobs Technology (2224 Bay Area Blvd. - at Space Center). Please RSVP to Ben Edwards. Networking/social starts at 5:30 p.m., and the presentation begins around 6 p.m. Event Date: Thursday, July 17, 2014 Event Start Time:5:30 PM Event End Time:7:00 PM
Event Location: 2224 Bay Area Blvd
Add to Calendar
Ben Edwards 281-486-6313
[top] - NSBE Visions for Human Spaceflight Brown Bag
The National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Houston Space Chapter invites members of the JSC community, with a special invitation to all Employee Resource Groups, to join us for a monthly Visions for Human Spaceflight brown-bag series that will run from July through December on the third Tuesday of each month from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 1, Conference Room 360. This series is essentially an open discussion/review of NSBE's "Unlimited Horizons" white paper, with each month devoted to review of a different section of the paper. July's brown bag will cover pages 1 to 11, encompassing the "Introduction and Human Space Flight Rationales Part 1 - Acquisition Strategy and Asteroid Mission Rationales." NSBE is introducing this brown-bag series as a JSC 2.0 effort to stimulate independent and innovative discussions on topics of importance to the future of the agency and center. You are encouraged to download a copy of the paper. - Parent's Night Out at Starport – July 18
Enjoy a night out on the town while your kids enjoy a night with Starport. We will entertain your children with a night of games, crafts, a bounce house, pizza, a movie, dessert and loads of fun! When: Friday, July 18, from 6 to 10 p.m. Where: Gilruth Center Ages: 5 to 12 Cost: $20/first child and $10/each additional sibling if registered by the Wednesday prior to event. If registered after Wednesday, the fee is $25/first child and $15/additional sibling. Jobs and Training - What Would You Do in a Medical Emergency on TDY?
NEW TIME! July 16 from 1 to 2 p.m. This question-and-answer session is for JSC civil servants to learn about the Global Rescue emergency medical services available on international TDY. Please bring your supervisor and co-workers. Event Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2014 Event Start Time:1:00 PM Event End Time:2:00 PM
Event Location: Bldg 30 Aud
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Sabrina Gilmore x32773
[top] - Enhancing Your Creative Genius - Enroll Today
There are still a few seats left for NASA's Enhancing Your Creative Genius course! During this non-traditional and highly interactive course, participants will travel to an off-site business location to learn the core principles of creativity, hear from a NASA Leader and take a short tour to increase ideation. There will be various brainstorming and ideation techniques used and demonstrated throughout the two days. Monday and Tuesday, July 21 and 22, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, July 23 and 24, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The course will be held off-site within the Houston area. Participants are responsible for their own travel. Lunch will be available for purchase (optional). Details to be provided to course participants. Space is limited, so sign up today. - Russian Phase One Language Course - for Beginners
Russian Phase One is an introductory course designed to acquaint the novice student with certain elementary aspects of the Russian language and provide a brief outline of Russian history and culture. Our goal is to introduce students to skills and strategies necessary for successful foreign language study that they can apply immediately in the classroom. The linguistic component of this class consists of learning the Cyrillic alphabet and a very limited number of simple words and phrases, which will serve as a foundation for further language study. Dates: Aug. 11 to Sept. 11 When: Monday through Thursday, 8 to 9 a.m. Where: Building 12, Room 158Q Please register via SATERN. The registration deadline is Aug. 5. - Correction: JSC Imagery Online Training Today
The registration link has been corrected. Please register here to attend online training at 1:30 p.m. today. Community - JSC Child Care Center Has a Few Openings
Space Family Education, Inc. (SFEI) has openings available to dependents of JSC civil servants and contractors for the 2014 school year. Openings are available Aug. 25 for children who will be: - 16 to 34 months old
- 3 years old
- 4 to 5 years old
Program Details: 1. Open 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday (closed federal holidays, but open Flex Fridays). 2. Competitive pricing with other comparable child cares, but SFEI includes more amenities. 3. Additional security. Badges are required to get on-site, and there's an additional security code to get in the school's front door. 4. Accelerated curriculum in all classes with additional enrichment and extracurricular programs. 5. Convenience. Nearby and easy access for parents working on-site at JSC. 6. Breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack are all included. 7. Video monitoring available from computers, androids and iPhones. | |
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| JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters. |
NASA and Human Spaceflight News
Tuesday – July 15, 2014
HEADLINES AND LEADS
NASA scientists say they're closer than ever to finding life beyond Earth
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
If you believe there must be extraterrestrial life somewhere in the immensity of the universe, here's some good news: Top NASA scientists agree with you, and at a panel discussion on Monday, they said they were closer than ever to finding out for sure.
45 years after moon landing, NASA looks to next giant leap
After putting astronauts on the moon, NASA moves ahead to landing on Mars
Sharon Gaudin – ComputerWorld
Forty-five years after Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, NASA scientists are looking forward to the next giant leap for mankind, and that next leap is likely to be on Mars.
Inspector General: NASA Needs New Plan if Congress Saves Airborne Observatory
Dan Leone – Space News
NASA's plan for operating the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will need to be retooled if the U.S. Congress overrides a White House proposal to ground the telescope-equipped 747SP jetliner later this year, the agency's Office of the Inspector General wrote in a report published July 9.
IG: Despite efforts to improve security, NASA computer networks still vulnerable
Henry Kenyon – FierceGovernmentIT
Due to an uptick in cyber attacks on the space agency's networks and web sites in recent years, the U.S. space agency launched a program to improve its cybersecurity and cut down on potential ways for hackers to get into its systems.
Apollo's Children: The Waiting Is Over
Rick Tumlinson | Space News
July 20 marks 45 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon. Forty-five years since the culmination of a national program in which the very best of America was focused on the highest possible achievement — the opening of a new world.
Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon, wants the U.S. to head for Mars
Joel Achenbach – The Washington Post
Question for Buzz Aldrin: Weren't you scared, in that little spacecraft, descending to the surface of the moon and not knowing for sure that you'd ever make it back to Earth?
SpaceX rocket shoots off launch pad to deploy satellites
James Dean – Florida Today
The rocket's first stage came down hard in the splashdown zone, but the stage apparently did not survive fully intact.
Successful rocket launches don't usually end with a "kaboom," but SpaceX's did Monday morning.
Falcon 9 Successfully Launches Six Orbcomm Satellites
Peter B. de Selding – Space News
A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon 9 rocket on July 14 successfully placed six Orbcomm machine-to-machine messaging satellites into low Earth orbit. Following the launch, Orbcomm said all six satellites were healthy in orbit and sending signals.
Getting to love logistics on the space station
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
We Love Logistics," reads the marketing slogan of shipping company UPS, with "Love" rendered as an arrow bent into the shape of a heart. Of course, most people don't love logistics, or even think much about it: getting items shipped either across town or around the world is something most people take for granted, except on those occasions when their package is delayed or lost.
Station's First Female Cosmonaut Preparing For September Launch
Irene Klotz | Space News
Russia is preparing to launch its first woman to the international space station.
Profile | Bruce Yost, Deputy Manager, Small Satellite Integrated Product Team, NASA Ames Research Center
Debra Werner | Space News
NASA's Ames Research Center is situated amid a longtime hotbed of high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship that in recent years has spilled over into the space industry.
COMPLETE STORIES
NASA scientists say they're closer than ever to finding life beyond Earth
Deborah Netburn – Los Angeles Times
If you believe there must be extraterrestrial life somewhere in the immensity of the universe, here's some good news: Top NASA scientists agree with you, and at a panel discussion on Monday, they said they were closer than ever to finding out for sure.
Former astronaut and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden set the tenor of the hourlong conversation about how NASA planned to look for life on other planets in his introductory remarks.
"Do we believe there is life beyond Earth?" he asked. "I would venture to say that most of my colleagues here today say it is improbable that in the limitless vastness of the universe we humans stand alone."
He added that while he was in space back in 1990, he did not encounter any extraterrestrial life forms, but he did look for them - really hard, and all the time.
Seated on the panel were some of NASA's top scientists, including Ellen Stofan, NASA's chief scientist; John Grunsfeld, a former astronaut and NASA's associate administrator; John Mather, senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope; and Dave Gallagher, director of astronomy and physics at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT, and Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, were also on the panel.
Though some NASA scientists are looking for signs of life in our solar system - most aggressively on Mars, but perhaps soon on one of the ice moons - the scientists on the panel spoke exclusively about looking for signs of life on planets around other stars.
Thanks to data collected by the Kepler Space Telescope, launched in 2009, scientists now estimate that nearly every star in our galaxy has at least one planet circling it.
The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 will help scientists see whether any of those billions of planets have the right chemical fingerprint to suggest they harbor life. Specifically, they are looking for gases in the planet's atmosphere that could only be produced by life. But even with a telescope the size of James Webb, chances of success are low.
"With the James Webb, we have the first capability of finding life on other planets, but we have to get lucky; we have to beat the odds," Seager said.
But as the space telescopes launched by NASA get bigger and bigger, the odds of finding life will get better and better. Seager and Gallagher spoke about new technologies in development that may make it easier to find smaller, Earth-sized planets.
The smaller planets that are most similar to our own are incredibly difficult to discern because they shine very faintly compared to their host star. So researchers at JPL are working on creating a sunflower-shaped starshade, which would be launched in tandem with a space telescope. It would block out starlight, making it easier to see the planets around stars.
"We believe we are very close in terms of science and technology to finding another Earth, and signs of life on another world," Seager said.
There was a question-and-answer session at the end of the panel. One question, posed by a person on social media, stood out: "If scientists do find life on another planet, will the U.S. government let people know?"
Stofan fielded that one. "Of course we would!" she said without hesitation. "That would be so amazingly exciting. We would try to get it out to the public as fast as we can. We want everyone to share in the excitement of discovery."
As to what you can do to help scientists on their search for life on other planets, Seager said they are working on it.
"I've started to get asked that question a lot, and we are working on a better answer for you," she said. "We are finding untold numbers of people who want to help us."
45 years after moon landing, NASA looks to next giant leap
After putting astronauts on the moon, NASA moves ahead to landing on Mars
Sharon Gaudin – ComputerWorld
Forty-five years after Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, NASA scientists are looking forward to the next giant leap for mankind, and that next leap is likely to be on Mars.
"It was 45 years ago that Neil Armstrong took the small step on to the surface of the moon," NASA noted on its site today. "We stand on a new horizon, poised to take the next giant leap -- deeper into the solar system. As we develop and test new tools of 21st century spaceflight on the human Path to Mars, we once again will change the course of history."
Nearly five decades since Armstrong stepped on the moon on July 20, 1969, and uttered, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," the space agency is celebrating the historical landmark and looking ahead to what's still to come.
"Today, at NASA, we're working on the next giant leap -- a human mission to Mars, standing on the shoulders of astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins," wrote NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, in a blog post. "Around this 45th anniversary, we look ahead on our path to Mars and the milestones within our grasp. We're treading that path with a stepping stone approach that takes the extraordinary work our crews have been doing aboard the space station for more than 13 years preparing us to travel farther into our solar system."
Bolden noted that technology drives space exploration. "We'll be testing new technologies in the proving ground of deep space on our mission to an asteroid, eventually becoming Earth independent as we reach Mars," he said.
After the Apollo mission, scientists built on that technology to create a new era of space exploration - an era that included building the International Space Station, launching the space shuttles and the Hubble Space Telescope, sending robotic rovers to Mars and sending Voyager 1 into interstellar space.
The space station, which flies about 250 miles above the Earth, is a critical tool in giving scientists the information they need about living, working, growing food and thriving for long periods of time in space.
To help send astronauts into deep space and get them safely home again, scientists are working on the Orion spacecraft, as well as the heavy-life rocket, known as the Space Launch System. Together, they are designed to take humans farther into the solar system than they have ever traveled.
"They are our spaceship to Mars and beyond," NASA noted.
One of the next big steps into deep space will be to explore a near-Earth asteroid.
Last month, the space agency announced that in four years, scientists will pick an asteroid to capture and a year afterward it expects to launch a robotic spacecraft to direct the asteroid into an orbit around the moon.
Not long after that, astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft, are expected to explore that asteroid and return to Earth with samples.
When humans reach Mars, scientists are hopeful that they will be able to answer such fundamental questions as does life exist beyond Earth? Could humans live on Mars in the future?
"This next decade of exploration will be an exciting time of rapid technological development and testing," NASA noted. "In December 2014, we'll conduct the first test flight of Orion."
Inspector General: NASA Needs New Plan if Congress Saves Airborne Observatory
Dan Leone – Space News
NASA's plan for operating the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will need to be retooled if the U.S. Congress overrides a White House proposal to ground the telescope-equipped 747SP jetliner later this year, the agency's Office of the Inspector General wrote in a report published July 9.
"SOFIA remains capable of contributing to the scientific body of knowledge and many in the science community view the observatory as a valuable resource," the IG wrote of the $1.1 billion flying observatory, an 80-20 partnership between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR. However, "NASA needs to ensure a consistent infusion of new technology, revise the methodology for calculating researcher funding, and re-evaluate the number of research hours SOFIA can fly per year," according to the report, "SOFIA: NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy."
The inspector general also said NASA might be able to reduce SOFIA science and flight operations costs if it switches to a fixed-price contract when the roughly $590 million cost-plus contract the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) has held since 2007 expires in 2016. A cost-plus-fixed-fee structure "may not be the most cost efficient contract type for the Program's operational phase," the IG wrote in the report.
The NASA inspector general also said the current SOFIA operations contract "does not provide mechanisms to ensure adequate NASA management and oversight of mission critical functions (such as ensuring that a civil servant direct and authorize the contractor's work)."
John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, has already agreed to review other payment structures for a follow-on science and flight operations contract. The Science Mission Directorate plans to publish its procurement strategy by June 30, 2015, according to the IG.
The Columbia, Maryland-based USRA was originally the prime contractor for the entire U.S. SOFIA development effort. However, the complexity of adapting a jetliner to carry the mission's DLR-provided telescope drove up costs and delayed the start of science flights long enough that NASA, in 2007, took over management of USRA's aircraft modification subcontract with L-3 Communications Integrated Systems, of Waco, Texas.
Meanwhile, the IG also said there is room for improvement when it comes to SOFIA's technical and scientific performance.
Unlike a space-based telescope, which typically cannot be serviced once it launches, SOFIA's 2.7-meter telescope can be outfitted with new instruments. NASA's current plan calls for instrument upgrades every four years, but the IG, citing astronomers interviewed for the report, said an upgrade every two years would be better.
The IG also said NASA needs to increase the funding available for SOFIA science grants.
"SOFIA's methodology for calculating research funding results in awards that are not commensurate with the complexity and uniqueness of the observatory," the IG wrote, again citing unidentified scientists who complained that their grant awards were not large enough to properly vet data collected by SOFIA for publication in peer-reviewed journals. SOFIA was declared fully operational in May but made science observations during test flights that began in December 2010.
The IG also said NASA may not be planning to fly SOFIA often enough during its nominal 20-year mission, which will cost about $2 billion on top of the roughly $1.1 billion the agency spent to build the observatory, according to the IG.
By 2018, NASA plans to ramp SOFIA's annual flight time up to 960 hours, putting the telescope in the air for roughly one month out of every 12. However, "[b]ased on our assessment of NASA's assumptions, as well as discussions with SOFIA Program staff regarding actual observatory performance, it appears the Program is capable of more than 960 research flight hours per year," the IG wrote.
The White House cited SOFIA's $85 million-a-year operating cost when it proposed grounding the observatory as part of NASA's 2015 budget request. DLR has said it is not interested taking over NASA's share of the costs. When it comes to NASA science missions, only the Hubble Space Telescope is more expensive to operate than SOFIA, according to IG.
U.S. lawmakers, however, wrote the mission back into NASA's 2015 budget as part of an appropriations process that has since stalled out, raising the possibility of a continuing resolution that would freeze spending at 2014 levels — something NASA says makes SOFIA an unsustainable proposition, given its lower priority compared with other missions.
SOFIA science operations are based at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The airborne observatory flies out of NASA's Armstrong Research Center near Edwards Air Force Base in California.
IG: Despite efforts to improve security, NASA computer networks still vulnerable
Henry Kenyon – FierceGovernmentIT
Due to an uptick in cyber attacks on the space agency's networks and web sites in recent years, the U.S. space agency launched a program to improve its cybersecurity and cut down on potential ways for hackers to get into its systems.
A recent report (pdf) by the NASA inspector general lauds the program's efforts, but notes that there's still room for more improvement. Since NASA promotes and shares scientific research, it maintains a very large web presence, linking to university research centers and other federal and international scientific organizations. However, connecting to other sources of technical information is also very attractive to cyber thieves and spies.
In recent years, the agency's web sites have received an increasing number of very sophisticated attacks.
For example, the report noted that between 2012 and 2013, NASA experienced an 850-percent increase in structured query language injection attacks trying to access agency networks and data, the report said.
In response to these attacks, NASA launched its Web Application Security Program, or WASP, in 2012. The goal was to identify and assess vulnerabilities of its publicly accessible web applications and then mitigate weaknesses before hackers could find them, the IG said.
Since WASP was launched, it has made many major accomplishments, the report found. It completed an inventory of all publicly available web applications used across NASA and identified their vulnerabilities. NASA also reduced the number of publicly accessible web applications to 1,200, from 1,500.
Still, there are still weaknesses in NASA's cyber defenses, the report found.
Deficiencies in the program's design and implementation has left the agency's networks open to attack, the IG said. These weaknesses occurred because the agency did not prioritize security vulnerabilities by the severity of their potential impact, find the underlying cause of those vulnerabilities, identify weaknesses relating to unsound IT security practices, or launch an effective process to mitigate identified vulnerabilities in a timely fashion, the report said.
And while NASA significantly reduced its web presence, its 1,200 publicly accessible web applications still present a large target for hackers, the report said.
For more:
Apollo's Children: The Waiting Is Over
Rick Tumlinson | Space News
July 20 marks 45 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon. Forty-five years since the culmination of a national program in which the very best of America was focused on the highest possible achievement — the opening of a new world.
Regardless of the motivation, be it Cold War politics, the seeking of personal legacy or the disguising of a military capability, the choice of actions, the choice of destination and the scale of the challenge — within a dramatically short time frame — made it one of the singular boldest and most important initiatives of human history.
And now, here we are, 45 years later. Having succeeded magnificently, we were unable to stay, became unable to return, and are now unable to even put Americans into space at all.
This must not stand.
The United States, the greatest nation on Earth, a nation of nations, who when it placed its own flag on the Moon made it clear that it did not claim it but instead did so for all humanity — this nation must lead us back and to the universe beyond.
And now is exactly the right time. Inspired by that first quest, raised on the possibility of possibility and having at their disposal both the lessons of the success of Apollo and the failure of our space program since then, a new generation of space leaders is rising up that is ready to carry that flag back, on to the red plains of Mars and into the free space between worlds. They are entrepreneurs, scientists and yes, employees of the government. They are very young, some of them, and they are older too, as some have never given up and, feeling the energy of the new generation, are revitalized and joining in the revolution. These are not pie-in-the-sky dreamers. They are realists, they are serious and they need to be given the tools to do what they know they can do.
And that is our job. Since our national leadership is constantly and consistently demonstrating that it cannot lead us into the universe as President John Kennedy tried to do so long ago, we must do so ourselves. We — those who lived through the rise and fall of our space program and those who stand to inherit what we do today — must unite and become our own leaders.
From now on it is up to us to point to the stars as our destination. It is now up to us to declare that we do what we do because it is hard. It is up to us to set goals that challenge us to move now, so that the first steps start today and the first successes happen well within the life of those making the declaration. And it is up to us to set aside our petty differences as to pet technologies, pet destinations and petulant political partisanship and unite as an unstoppable juggernaut that will not only succeed, but do so magnificently.
At the top level we must finally agree that our national goal in space is the establishment of thriving and viable human communities beyond Earth and put plans in place to make this happen. We must put in place the mechanisms and structures that assure our government and our industries work together — each doing what it does best — making it central to any move forward. We must agree on the path — first steps and major goals along the way — their priority and how they fit into the overall vision. And we must assure that those now in our way are either brought into this cause or removed from their ability to obstruct it.
The practical steps are many, but some are clear and easy: We must end or spin off human spaceflight projects that do not fit into the priorities and path chosen above and redirect funds and personnel into those areas. We must change contracting systems, management interactions and cultural appendages left over from the times of doing little and costing a lot to new systems and structures that support doing a lot for little cost.
We must understand that we will do better for all if we do better ourselves, thus all U.S. government managers and planners must be told that the first partners of choice are those here in America. The idea that the only way to return to the Moon or go to Mars must involve international partners is ridiculous. We have in the United States single companies and individuals who can, and indeed some who intend to do so themselves. Let us focus on what is expedient and efficient in terms of U.S. goals as a priority, then reach out to others to contribute if needed and if it is cost-effective. I am an internationalist. I've proved it with Mir and other projects. But I also know that I am a better partner when I am in good shape myself — so too is America.
Oh, and along that line, one pet peeve that I will allow myself: We must end the stupidly outsourced fiasco whereby we pay a tyrant to carry our astronauts into space and instead buy rides for them on spaceships made in America by Americans.
We have the right stuff, right now to do this. We need not wait for Congress or a magic president to save the day. In fact we should get together ourselves and tell them what we want, why we want it and how we think it should be done. Enough of waiting for the squabbling to stop, and enough trying to torque things around every four or eight years as a new president rolls in and redefines space. We in the space community know what to do. We may disagree on the details, but that's fine, we can let the parties fight over those to differentiate their political products. I would much rather their bidding war be about the best way to achieve a shared goal rather than what the goal should be or whether we should have a goal in space at all. Wouldn't you?
Forty-five years. Here we are. We. The pioneers. We in this field are the few who know. We are the ones who understand. We possess sacred knowledge. We have seen it done right. We have seen things done wrong. We know what works and what does not. We have the institutional and actual memories of those who made it happen the first time and the fire and drive of those who can take us back and beyond. All right now. This will never be true again in human history, and will only last a few years. Think about it.
And all of this as we are about to enter what may be one of the scariest times in that history, as we try to deal with a world soon to be engulfed in fear and the psychology of deprivation, denial and less, rather than the glory of abundance, adventure and more.
So my friends, do we spiral down into a morass of self-loathing misguided attempts to save a planet that may only be saved by those who reach out toward the next and the technologies and ideas we create to do so? Or do we reach up and outward, not only applying our energies to reaching for the stars but saving our precious home world even as we do?
I say up!
Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the moon, wants the U.S. to head for Mars
Joel Achenbach – The Washington Post
Question for Buzz Aldrin: Weren't you scared, in that little spacecraft, descending to the surface of the moon and not knowing for sure that you'd ever make it back to Earth?
"Fighter pilots have ice in their veins," Aldrin answers. "Fear is a disabling emotion. It prevents you from thinking clearly."
Sunday will mark the 45th anniversary of the moment the world heard those amazing words from Aldrin's Apollo 11 crewmate, the late Neil Armstrong — "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." — that marked the first lunar landing.
Aldrin, now 84, is making much of the anniversary. In a telephone interview, he said he hopes to drop into the White House and also hopes President Obama will use the anniversary to announce new ambitions for NASA and human spaceflight. Aldrin wants to see humans travel to Mars — and stay, permanently, something he thinks the U.S. government could accomplish in an international partnership that could include China.
He'd like Obama's successor to use the 50th anniversary of the landing — July 20, 2019 — to say something Kennedyesque, such as, "I believe that this nation should commit itself within two decades to leading international permanence on the planet Mars."
Not for a billionaire
Could someone like SpaceX's Elon Musk — who has said he'd like to go to Mars — pull off a Mars mission to the Red Planet? "I don't think it's going to be a multibillionaire who does this," Aldrin says. It's too expensive even for a tycoon, he suggested.
The people who go must be prepared for it to be a one-way trip, living out their lives on Mars, he said. That's more doable than round trips and would keep funding flowing to Mars exploration, unlike a flags-and-footprints stunt. "If we go and come back, and go and come back, I'm sure Congress will say, 'Oh, we know how to do that, let's spend the money somewhere else.' And everything we will have invested will be sloughed aside," he said.
Aldrin has launched a social media campaign featuring a YouTube video in which celebrities and scientists relay their memories of Apollo 11. "I feel we need to remind the world about the Apollo missions and that we can still do impossible things," Aldrin says in the video. "The whole world celebrated our moon landing, but we missed the whole thing, because we were out of town."
Aldrin has spent the past 45 years as a living legend, and he creates a stir wherever he goes. His long-time assistant, Christina Korp, who used to work in the music industry, says, "I took this job to have a boring, quiet job. I had no idea what I was getting into. No rock star can hold a candle to Buzz Aldrin and his energy."
In his book "Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration," Aldrin recalls that his Mars ambitions weren't shared by Armstrong, who thought the United States should focus on returning to the moon for longer-duration missions. (Armstrong, though taciturn by nature, became vocal in his final years about NASA strategy, and once sent me an on-background e-mail taking issue with a blog item in which I had been skeptical about a lunar return.)
Aldrin writes about past visits to the White House with his crewmates: "Conversation in some cases turned to where the next step into the future should lie: Return to the moon or on to Mars? For me, Mars. Neil disagreed. He thought that the moon had more to teach us before we pressed onward to other challenges."
In his Mars book, Aldrin laments the passing of Armstrong and alludes to the obvious fact that the second man on the moon will never be as famous as the first: "My friend Neil took the small step but giant leap that changed the world, and he will forever be remembered as the person that represented a seminal moment in human history."
Of NASA, Aldrin told me, "I believe that we are — in other people's terminology — adrift right now. We cannot take our own people to the space station. We invested $100 billion." (NASA pays Russia to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station.) "I am extremely concerned as a patriotic Cold War veteran and Korean War veteran that we remain Number 1," he said. "We are adrift."
Aldrin's longtime friend, aerospace executive Norm Augustine, recalls being with Aldrin when he testified on Capitol Hill in favor of one-way missions to Mars.
"Who would ever want to do that?" Augustine asked.
To which Aldrin quickly responded: "Did you ever hear of the Pilgrims?"
SpaceX rocket shoots off launch pad to deploy satellites
James Dean – Florida Today
The rocket's first stage came down hard in the splashdown zone, but the stage apparently did not survive fully intact.
Successful rocket launches don't usually end with a "kaboom," but SpaceX's did Monday morning.
A Falcon 9 rocket roared from its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station pad at 11:15 a.m. and delivered a half-dozen commercial communications satellites to a spot-on orbit within 15 minutes, completing the mission for Orbcomm Inc.
While the rocket's upper stage climbed, the first stage slowed its hypersonic speed, flew a controlled descent to a splashdown zone in the Atlantic Ocean and deployed a set of landing legs.
It was then SpaceX's latest attempt to advance development of a reusable booster ended with a bang.
"Rocket booster reentry, landing burn & leg deploy were good, but lost hull integrity right after splashdown (aka kaboom)," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported on Twitter.
Musk said more analysis was needed to determine if it was the splashdown or the "body slam" that followed when the stage tipped over on its side that caused the damage.
Boats were expected to try to fish the booster or its remains from the water. A successfully water recovery is likely necessary before SpaceX can try to fly a rocket back to a landing site at the Cape, something Musk had hoped might be possible this year.
The previous Falcon 9 flight in April achieved a soft ocean landing – the first ever attempted by a liquid-fueled booster – but the stage broke up in stormy seas that kept recovery crews at bay for two days.
SpaceX believes reusing rocket boosters, which are normally discarded after one use, will dramatically lower launch costs and revolutionize the launch industry.
While the recovery experiment did not go as well as hoped Monday, Musk was able to enjoy a celebratory glass of champagne with Orbcomm CEO Marc Eisenberg at SpaceX's Cape Canaveral launch control center.
The bubbly may have been waiting on ice for months, since the mission endured delay after delay since April due to problems with the Eastern Range, the rocket, satellites and weather. Two countdowns scrubbed last month.
Now Orbcomm, a publicly traded provider of machine-to-machine communications, finally has its first six of 17 second-generation satellites in orbit about 500 miles up.
"It feels like I just gave birth to sextuplets," Eisenberg said after the launch. "We've been at this for so long. We always knew it would happen the right way, it was just a question of when. We're pretty excited to get it launched."
The six small satellites, each 380 pounds, filled a hole in New Jersey-based Orbcomm's aging constellation of 25 first-generation satellites flying in four orbital planes. Each new spacecraft can provide more capacity than the entire legacy network.
"The whole network is going to get pretty drastically better," said Eisenberg. "We're expecting almost immediate financial impact when we put these in service in the next 30 to 60 days."
The satellites and ground sensors help track the location of trucks and ships moving around the globe, ensure refrigerated rail cars are keeping contents cool and monitor the health of heavy construction equipment.
The remaining 11 satellites in the roughly $200 million Orbcomm Generation 2 constellation will launch on another Falcon 9, possibly before the end of the year.
The launch was the 10th by a Falcon 9 since it began flying in 2010, and the fifth by the upgraded version that debuted last fall.
SpaceX hopes to launch another commercial communications satellite from the Cape within a few weeks.
Before that, United Launch Alliance is targeting launches of military satellites on July 23 and July 31.
Falcon 9 Successfully Launches Six Orbcomm Satellites
Peter B. de Selding – Space News
A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Falcon 9 rocket on July 14 successfully placed six Orbcomm machine-to-machine messaging satellites into low Earth orbit. Following the launch, Orbcomm said all six satellites were healthy in orbit and sending signals.
The launch ended months of mission delays, including a final two-month series starting in early May caused by multiple Falcon 9 issues in addition to the Orbcomm satellites and weather at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, spaceport.
It was the first of two planned Orbcomm launches this year aboard the Falcon 9.
The July 14 launch was also scheduled to test technologies needed to realize SpaceX's goal of eventually reusing the Falcon 9 first stage to save costs. The company planned to use the launch to test a recovery sequence including reorienting the first stage after separation and deployment of landing legs prior to a spashdown and recovery off the Florida coast.
Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX did not immediately release information relative to the performance of the first stage in those tests.
Orbcomm Chief Executive Marc Eisenberg said in an email that the six satellites, built by Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Utah, were sending signals in orbit.
A second launch, of the remaining 11 satellites in Rochelle Park, New Jersey-based Orbcomm's second-generation constellation, is scheduled for later this year assuming SpaceX can make up for the past delays and accelerate its launch rate.
Orbcomm officials have said they expect a revenue boost from the new satellites even before the full second-generation constellation is in place because the first six satellites will fill a gap in Orbcomm's global coverage and generate new sales.
The newly deployed satellites also are expected to improve Orbcomm's Automatic Identification Service (AIS) maritime reconnaissance business, which collects signals on ship identity, cargo and heading and sends it to coastal authorities while the vessels are beyond the range of land-based radio towers. All second-generation Orbcomm satellites have AIS receivers.
Weighing a total of 1,020 kilograms, the six Orbcomm satellites represented an extremely light mission for Falcon 9. SpaceX originally planned to launch Orbcomm's satellites on small Falcon 1e rockets, but the company ended Falcon 1e operations when it transitioned to Falcon 9. It nonetheless maintained its contractual obligations to customers that had booked Falcon 1e launches, and in a couple of cases the transition of these contracts to Falcon 9 have led to odd contractual results.
Orbcomm is one of these. The company is paying just $43 million for two Falcon 9 launches, an extraordinarily low figure even for SpaceX, which has entered the commercial market as a low-cost operator.
It was partly for this reason that Orbcomm was obliged to stick with SpaceX even as launch delays — some caused by Orbcomm satellites — accumulated.
The launch was SpaceX's third in 2014. The company has said it plans six more before the end of the year, including three international space station cargo-resupply launches for NASA and two commercial missions for AsiaSat of Hong Kong in addition to the final Orbcomm launch.
Getting to love logistics on the space station
Jeff Foust – The Space Review
We Love Logistics," reads the marketing slogan of shipping company UPS, with "Love" rendered as an arrow bent into the shape of a heart. Of course, most people don't love logistics, or even think much about it: getting items shipped either across town or around the world is something most people take for granted, except on those occasions when their package is delayed or lost.
NASA and the private sector are getting to love logistics as well. With the Space Shuttle long since retired, the International Space Station (ISS) partners now rely on a fleet of robotic spacecraft to deliver cargo of all kinds—including food, water, propellant, equipment, and experiments—to the station, and to take out the trash or bring items back to the Earth. With an increased emphasis on utilization of the station, timely delivery of supplies becomes ever more important, something the two companies with commercial cargo contracts from NASA are still getting a handle on.
Just-in-time delivery
The challenges in space station logistics could be seen in the latest resupply mission. At 12:52 pm Eastern time Sunday, an Antares rocket lifted off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia. The rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corporation, successfully placed into orbit a Cygnus spacecraft, also built by Orbital. The spacecraft, on a mission designated Orbital-2 or Orb-2, is on track to arrive at the ISS early Wednesday morning, to be grappled by the station's robotic arm and berthed to the station's Harmony node.
While the launch went off flawlessly, it also took place more than two months later than originally planned. An early May launch of the mission was postponed because of delays in another ISS resupply mission by SpaceX, which slipped until mid-April because of both technical difficulties as well as problems with a tracking radar at Cape Canaveral. That delay pushed the launch back to early June, after the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft returned to Earth.
In late May, though, an AJ26 engine undergoing an acceptance test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi suffered an unspecified failure. The Antares first stage is powered by two such engines, originally manufactured decades ago in the former Soviet Union by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau as the NK-33 and refurbished and rebranded by Aerojet Rocketdyne. While the investigation was ongoing, Orbital postponed the launch, waiting until the completion of inspections of the engines early this month to set a new launch date.
In pre-launch briefings, Orbital officials declined to go into detail about the issue with the AJ26 engine, but said they were confident that whatever issue caused the May failure would not be a problem for this launch. "One of the outcomes of that process was a desire to go back and conduct specific inspections of the engines" on this Antares, said Mike Pinkston, Antares program manager at Orbital, in a pre-launch briefing Saturday, referring to the investigation of the May failure. That inspection, he said, was designed "to confirm the presence and proper configuration of some critical features within the engine that were areas of interest relative to the failure."
Pinkston didn't discuss what those specific "areas of interest" were, but said that the inspections confirmed the engines were in proper condition. "We saw what we needed to see," he said. "We have a lot of confidence that the two engines on Orb-2 are ready to go."
Weather conditions provided one last obstacle for the mission: stormy weather in the days leading up to the launch delayed the rollout of the rocket to the launch pad, and then launch preparations, pushing the launch back from Friday to Saturday, and then to Sunday. Fortunately, it all came together Sunday for the launch, with the Antares lifting off at the beginning of a five-minute launch window, disappearing into some clouds a couple minutes later.
After the launch, a top NASA official said he was relieved that the Cygnus and its nearly 1,500 kilograms of cargo were en route to the ISS. "I can breathe kind of a sigh of relief with this flight. There were definitely some food and some other things that the crew needed," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "We had some margin, but it was getting to be where it was a little tense."
A little later in the briefing, though, Gerstenmaier toned down those concerns. "We had time until the fall," he said, noting that later this month both a Russian Progress and a European ATV cargo spacecraft were slated to launch to the station. However, he said from a "pragmatic, worrier's standpoint" he could foresee potential delays to those missions and thus "you could see that margin evaporate pretty quick."
"We really didn't have any problem until the fall, so I probably overstepped a little bit by saying I was concerned," he said, but added he was still relieved Cygnus got off the ground Sunday.
Planet Labs' growing constellation
NASA and Orbital are, understandably, happy with the successful launch, but another company is as well. Inside the Cygnus are 32 small satellites that will later be deployed from the ISS, one of the applications of the space station that was not widely expected until the last couple of years. Of those 32, 28 are satellites for commercial remote sensing company Planet Labs.
That set of satellites, collectively known as Flock-1b, will be deployed from the airlock on the Japanese module Kibo at some point after arrival. Orbital vice president Carl Walz said at a briefing Friday that the timing of the deployment would depend on other ISS activities, including the arrival of the Progress and ATV cargo spacecraft in the coming weeks.
Planet Labs has flown satellites on all four Antares launches to date, noted company co-founder Robbie Schingler in a pre-launch briefing Friday. The previous Antares launch, of a Cygnus on the Orb-1 mission in January, brought to the station the company's Flock-1 fleet of 28 satellites, later deployed from the station. "With Flock-1, we learned how to operate these spacecraft, commission these spacecraft, and get them going," he said.
Most of the Flock-1 spacecraft have since reentered, but in addition to the Flock-1b satellites on this Cygnus, a Dnepr launch from Russia last month placed 11 Dove spacecraft, collectively called Flock-1c, into orbit. Unlike the ISS-launched spacecraft, the Flock-1c spacecraft are in higher, sun-synchronous orbits. The company plans to start releasing imagery from those satellites in the coming weeks, he said.
The ISS-deployed spacecraft, while having lifetimes on the order of six months, still allow for technology demonstration and development: lessons learned from the Flock-1 spacecraft have been incorporated into the Flock-1b spacecraft, even though Schingler said the company only had weeks between the time the Flock-1 satellites were deployed and when the Flock-1b satellites had to be delivered for loading into the Orb-2 Cygnus spacecraft. "This is agile aerospace," he said. "It's about more launches and more satellites, but it's really about getting rich data."
When the Flock-1b satellites are deployed, Planet Labs will have launched a total of 71 satellites since April of last year. "Every two to three months, we learn from building spacecraft, putting them in space, and testing them in the laboratory in space," Schingler said. By coincidence, he noted that at the beginning of the week, the company hired three more employees, bringing the company headcount to… 71.
The future of Antares, Cygnus, and commercial cargo
With Cygnus in orbit and the AJ26 engine problems presumably behind it, Orbital is hoping to resume a regular cadence of supply missions. Executive vice president Frank Culbertson said prior to the launch that they hoped to launch the next Cygnus on the Orb-3 mission in October; hardware for the Antares rocket that will launch it is already at Wallops. Three more Cygnus missions are planned for 2015, he said.
The timing of Orb-3 and future missions will depend on the overall schedule of various cargo and crew missions to the ISS, though. Dan Hartman, deputy ISS program manager, said in Saturday's pre-launch briefing that the International Space Station Control Board would meet this week to review the upcoming manifest of ISS missions. He added that SpaceX's next cargo mission, SpX-4, is now tentatively scheduled for September 12; it was previously planned for launch in August. (One obstacle had been delays in the launch of six ORBCOMM satellites on a Falcon 9, which took place as this article was being prepared for publication Monday morning after two months of delays.)
Orbital, meanwhile, is making both near-term and long-term plans for both Antares and Cygnus. The next Antares launch will use a new second stage, the Castor 30XL, that will generate more thrust and increase the payload capacity of the rocket. That will allow Orbital, starting with the Orb-4 mission next year, to move to an "enhanced" version of the Cygnus with a pressurized module a meter longer than the current version, as well as a number of other upgraded components, "all adding up to increased performance and higher cargo capability," Culbertson said.
Orbital is also looking at other ways to use the Cygnus. Culbertson said the company is studying new reentry profiles for the vehicle that minimize propellant, allowing the spacecraft to remain in orbit for extended periods after unberthing from the station. That would allow Cygnus to perform experiments not possible on the station.
"Because Cygnus does destructively reenter, there are some examples of fire investigations that make a good fit for the Cygnus vehicle," said Kirt Costello, assistant ISS program scientist. He added experiments dealing with spacecraft breakup and reentry also could be tested on Cygnus at the end of its mission.
Orbital is also investigating how Cygnus could be used for missions other than ISS resupply. "We've talked to different NASA groups about the possibility of using Cygnus as a habitat, potentially, in cislunar space, in addition to providing cargo out beyond low Earth orbit," Walz said. "It could operate in conjunction with the Asteroid Redirect Mission, providing additional space for astronauts."
Antares, meanwhile, could get an upgrade to its first stage. Orbital has been in discussions with several companies about either procuring a new batch of AJ26 engines or replacing the AJ26 with a new engine of some kind. The company hasn't said what alternatives it is considering, but much of the speculation has focused on a solid motor from ATK (which is in the process of merging with Orbital) or an RD-180 or a derivative of that engine from Russia's NPO Energomash.
"There are a number of options available to us," said Orbital senior program manager John Steinmeyer on Friday. There are additional AJ26 engines in Aerojet Rocketdyne's inventory in Sacramento, California, he said, beyond what Orbital has contracted to acquire for its existing manifest of commercial resupply missions. Another option would be to restart production of those engines in Russia. "There are also other suppliers that could provide engines for us."
"We're still in the process of negotiating with the proposers on the next block of engines for Antares," Culbertson said Sunday. "We'll probably announce that some time this summer."
That upgraded Antares likely wouldn't be used until after Orbital completes its current Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA, for which Sunday's launch was the second of eight such missions. "We're looking forward to the next six missions and the next contract," Culbertson said.
The competition for that contract, called CRS-2, is still in development. Gerstenmaier said a draft request for proposals (RFP) was issued earlier this summer, with a final RFP planned for the fall. The goal, he said, "is to select some time towards December or January." While the two current CRS contract awardees, Orbital and SpaceX, are expected to compete for CRS-2, they may face competition from Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation, who are developing vehicles under the Commercial Crew Program that could also be used for cargo resupply.
For now, though, NASA and its commercial partners are still getting up to speed on CRS, creating a regular schedule of cargo deliveries to avoid getting "a little tense" about station logistics. "We planned that it might take a little while to get some of these cargo vehicles established. It's not easy launching a vehicle to space," Gerstenmaier said. "To get into kind of a cadence or a routine of launching regularly, that doesn't happen quite as easily as you think."
As the ISS matures into a full-fledged orbital laboratory, though, that cadence of regular resupply missions will be critical to keep the station's supplies topped off and its experiments updated. To make that happen, you have to love logistics.
Station's First Female Cosmonaut Preparing For September Launch
Irene Klotz | Space News
Russia is preparing to launch its first woman to the international space station.
Elena Serova, 38, is slated to serve as a flight engineer, along with NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyaev. The trio is due to launch aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on Sept. 25 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Serova will become only the fourth Russian woman to fly in space and the first since cosmonaut Elena Kondakova joined a 1997 U.S. space shuttle crew to visit the now-defunct Mir space station.
"I don't think I'm doing anything extraordinary," Serova said through a translator in a NASA interview.
"It is undoubtedly very important that we have all kinds of people working on the international space station — people from different countries, people from different professions, because the international space station is the beginning of something tremendous, something outstanding especially in light of further exploration, when people will be exploring other planets and other worlds."
The former Soviet Union launched the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, aboard a Vostok rocket on June 16, 1963. Almost 20 years later, the Soviets flew Svetlana Savitskaya to their Salyut 7 space station. Savitskaya returned for a second mission in 1984, during which she became the first woman to make a spacewalk.
By then, NASA had launched the first American woman in space, Sally Ride, who was a crew member on the June 1983 STS-7 shuttle mission.
Profile | Bruce Yost, Deputy Manager, Small Satellite Integrated Product Team, NASA Ames Research Center
Debra Werner | Space News
NASA's Ames Research Center is situated amid a longtime hotbed of high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship that in recent years has spilled over into the space industry.
Startups leveraging rapidly advancing small-satellite technology are attracting well-heeled Silicon Valley investors ranging from venture capital outfits all the way up to Google. In perhaps the most notable, satellite imaging venture Skybox Imaging is being purchased by the search engine giant for the eye-watering sum of $500 million.
Ames is both a driver and beneficiary of the revolution. The center's director, retired U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon "Pete" Worden, has pushed small-satellite technology at Ames just as he did during his Air Force career, and has sought to tap the deep talent pool in the surrounding region to that end.
But the Silicon Valley location can be a double-edged sword in that regard, says Bruce Yost, whose job is to develop small-satellite technology in support of Ames' mission. When the tech sector gets hot, as it is now, companies have an easier time luring away NASA engineers, he says.
Yost traces his path to NASA back to 1981 when, as a student at the University of California at Davis, he happened upon a group of fellow students gathered around a television, watching the first NASA space shuttle mission land at Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles. He joined them and noticed his father, a physiologist at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, which is co-located at Edwards, among the doctors checking the health of the returning shuttle crew.
"That was it," Yost said. "That was the thing that focused me on space, that image of my father on TV."
After that, Yost got an internship at Dryden, which has since been renamed Armstrong Flight Research Center, assisting with astronaut preflight and postflight medical research. When he completed college with a bachelor's degree in genetics, Yost worked in payload processing and experiment support at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida before moving to NASA headquarters in Washington, where he served as a systems engineering and technical assistance contractor on Spacelab, the space shuttle's reusable laboratory.
In 1995, Yost returned to California to work at Ames, where he remains. Until recently, he was program manager for NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program, an initiative to develop and demonstrate the use of small satellites for space agency missions. In June, Yost took on a new job, helping Roger Hunter, former Kepler mission project manager, establish the NASA Ames Small Satellite Integrated Product Team.
Yost spoke recently with SpaceNews correspondent Debra Werner.
What is the Small Satellite Integrated Product Team?
We plan to redouble our efforts here at NASA Ames to influence and take advantage of small-satellite activity. By Pete Worden's definition, a small satellite is the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer or anything smaller. We have a lot of key skills and capabilities, but we need to organize them. We will establish partnerships with other government agencies, universities and companies to ensure that NASA can identify, ingest and apply small-satellite technology to missions.
How is your job changing?
I'm transitioning from a program management function for small satellites for the agency into a similar function for the center.
When did you first become interested in small satellites?
When I came to Ames, the space station was being assembled. Shuttle missions had very little room for anything other than space station parts. So the group I was in, which was focused on biomedical research in space, looked for other ways to fly experiments. At the same time, some local universities were developing cubesats as a way to train and engage students in engineering and science. It dawned on us that the types of technology we wanted to fly could be miniaturized to be compatible with these small spacecraft.
That led to the 2006 GeneSat-1 mission, NASA's first cubesat?
Yes. We didn't know how to launch it or how to communicate with it. We had to figure all that out and make sure our science objectives would be met. Once we did, it encouraged other people to develop cubesats. They thought that if NASA considers cubesats valuable, they must be.
What is their value?
Space is no longer only for multibillion-dollar projects or engineers with Ph.D.s who have worked for 10 or 20 years in a government agency. Undergraduate students and some high schools are building spacecraft and learning from them. People no longer wait 10 to 15 years to see the results of space-based research; they wait 10 to 15 months, which is really incredible. It has allowed a lot of new players to join the space community, which gives us access to more great ideas and more skilled workers.
What is the status of PhoneSat, the program that launches satellites that incorporate commercial smartphone electronics?
We've launched five PhoneSats to date on three different launches. One was deployed from the space station. Since space station is in a relatively low orbit, it has re-entered the atmosphere.
What's next?
We are interested in pursuing PhoneSat as a generic platform to test different types of technologies. The short duration afforded by a space station launch might be enough to get the data we need from subsystems.
What types of subsystems?
Things like very small propulsion systems for cubesats, star trackers, communication systems and reaction wheels for control. Cubesats are excellent communication platforms for different radio types or even optical laser communications.
Tell me about NASA's planned Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks.
We asked ourselves, "What can you do with a number of distributed function pieces as opposed to one large satellite?" You're not going to replicate the Hubble Space Telescope, but there are things swarms can do that a large instrument can't do. To explore those types of missions, we have to figure out how the spacecraft operate and communicate with each other. We plan to fly eight cubesats now. What if we wanted to fly 80 or 800? How would we manage that?
What types of missions could swarms of satellites accomplish?
If you have one sensor on one spacecraft you are going to make measurements as that spacecraft flies. If we have a number of spacecraft, we could collect data simultaneously from different points. That is relevant to disciplines like heliophysics, where you have large phenomena happening at different times and at different locations. Think of a network of nodes swarming around Mars, relaying information from the ground and from other spacecraft.
How would you use cubesats on other planets?
You could take a bunch of cubesats with decelerators on them and sprinkle them over the surface of Mars, letting them fall where they will. Now you've got a mesh, sitting on the surface, sniffing, listening, checking temperatures and talking to small satellites in orbit. You've done in months for millions of dollars what would have taken years and billions with larger spacecraft. It's not a replacement for a rover.
Do you have enough launch options for small satellites?
Yes. We used to worry about launch. I'm not saying launch is never a problem, but we have other areas and problems to address.
What areas?
How do you manage a large number of spacecraft from universities, NASA and companies? How does the ground infrastructure support that? Can you just copy and paste procedures from larger traditional programs and missions? I don't think you can.
Because it would be too manpower intensive?
Yes. And those programs also rely on expensive assets. I'm interested in trying to encourage a cubesat ground segment that is organic. Anyone can come in and come out. How can we keep the cost and complexity down so we can advance our technologies and move forward?
Do you need new software for some of the things you're trying to accomplish?
We still have to learn how to develop software. A phone processor is very capable. The question is, how do you develop and test software without spending millions of dollars? We are trying to understand how to reuse software, how to autocode and what standards we should embrace. It's very exciting because it opens the door not just to new ways to build spacecraft but also to manage and organize missions.
Is it hard to keep nearby companies from luring away your employees?
Here at the center, we have boom and bust times. When local industry is booming, like right now, it's tough. We are doing cool stuff, but so are all the companies across the street. When it gets a little rough in [Silicon] Valley we see folks coming to the center to find work.
Is it hard to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change?
Yes. I call it the Silicon Valley cycle. You have to run to keep on top of things. It's a challenge to keep current with all the developments being pushed within the space community and outside in the electronics industry. We can't find the old phones we flew in PhoneSat in 2013. They're not for sale anymore. You have to buy the next generation.
How is the next generation different?
Maybe the software is a little bit different so you have to reintegrate everything. That's a downside, if there is such a thing, in using commercial products. We leverage billions of dollars of investment by that industry, but it's not static. It's constantly changing. Which is good. It pushes us forward.
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