The International Space Station is almost done. Astronauts on board the current space shuttle Endeavour completed the first of three spacewalks to install the last major component of the ISS: the Tranquility module. Its huge windows will offer ISS residents 360-degree view of space, the station, and our home world.
The U.S. Tranquility module — shaped like a soda can — is the last major American addition to the station, now 98% complete. Its placement completes 11 years of U.S. construction work on the outpost, which the United States has spent more than $50 billion building [USA Today]. An Italian team designed the module’s magnificent dome, which measures 10 feet in diameter. Seven windows provide the panoramic view.
A few days after the White House released its budget that proposes axing NASA’s Constellation program and providing more support to private space flight, the Obama administration began to follow through on the second part of that equation. NASA has announced that it’s giving $50 million to five companies to support new space vehicles.
That $50 million isn’t from the revised budget, but rather the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (or in more common parlance, the $787 billion federal stimulus package). Nevertheless, NASA chief Charles Bolden said these five companies–Sierra Nevada Corporation, Blue Origin, Boeing, Paragon Space Development Corp., and United Launch Alliance–would play a large part in future plans. “Ladies and gentlemen, these are the faces of the new frontier. The vanguard,” said Bolden. “We will certainly be adding to this group in the near future” [Space.com].
The Obama administration’s new budget may come in at a hulking $3.8 trillion, but one thing it doesn’t include is continued funding for the Constellation program. The program, which was intended to continue the work of the aging space shuttles, will get the ax if Congress approves the President’s plan. This also means that NASA would abandon its goal of returning to the moon by 2020.
Obama’s budget ends work on the shuttle follow-on vehicle, known as Orion, as well as a pair of rockets developed to fly astronauts to the space station, the moon and other destinations in the solar system. “We are proposing canceling the program, not delaying it,” Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, told reporters [Reuters]. The announcement had been some time in coming: The Augustine panel that Obama convened last year to review human spaceflight concluded that Constellation couldn’t succeed without $3 billion in additional annual funding, and rumors broke out last week that the President’s budget would kill the program for good.
In place of the Constellation program’s Ares rockets and Orion crew capsule, Obama’s plan calls for funneling money to private companies that are jockeying for NASA contracts. The Washington Postreports that the plan would funnel $6 billion to support private space companies developing a vehicle to ferry astronauts back and forth from the International Space Station. Companies expected to seek the new space taxi business include United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin that launches rockets for theUnited States Air Force, and Space Exploration Technologies, a start-up company led by Elon Musk, who founded PayPal [ The New York Times]. The plan would also extend the life of the space station until 2020.
Commercial Spaceflight Federation president Bretton Alexander was understandably giddy at the prospect of private companies taking center stage. “At a time when job creation is the top priority for our nation, a commercial crew programme will create more jobs per dollar because it leverages millions in private investment and taps the potential of systems that serve both government and private customers,” he said [BBC News].
This morning, NASA’s experimental Ares I-X rocket blasted off a Florida launch pad and roared through the atmosphere, successfully executing the first test flight of the rocket that may carry astronauts to the International Space Station and beyond once the space shuttle is retired. However, debate over the direction of NASA’s manned space flight program means that the rocket’s future is far from certain.
The prototype rocket took off through a few clouds from a former shuttle launch pad at 11:30 a.m., 3 1/2 hours late because of bad weather. Launch controllers had to retest the rocket systems after more than 150 lightning strikes were reported around the pad overnight. Then they had to wait out interfering rain clouds, the same kind that thwarted Tuesday’s try [AP].
Engineers had been concerned that if the rocket took off through rain clouds, the moisture might cause a phenomenon called triboelectrification. This occurs when the rocket encounters water or ice droplets in the clouds. As these collide with the rocket they cause a static charge to build up on its skin, creating interference with radio signals. This is a problem for the 1-X team, which needs clear signals to gather data from 700 sensors wired throughout the vehicle, which are designed to collect flight data [BBC News]. Luckily, the late morning provided a relatively cloud-free window for takeoff.
Even as engineers prepare for the first test flight of NASA’s new Ares I-X rocket, a prototype of the launch vehicle that could replace the space shuttle, the experts who conducted a review of NASA’s space flight program are suggesting that this rocket project should be scrapped entirely.
The test flight of the $450 million Ares I-X is scheduled for 8 a.m. tomorrow, weather permitting. It’s a prototype of the planned Ares I rocket, designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station once the shuttle fleet is retired. But the White House panel convened to evaluate NASA’s plan for space exploration issued its final report (pdf) on Thursday, and in a press conference committee chair Norman Augustine harshly critiqued the Ares I project. Though Augustine said the rocket’s technical problems were solvable, he said its first crewed flights would come too late to be much help in servicing the International Space Station (ISS). “The issue that comes up under Ares I is whether the programme is useful,” he said [New Scientist].
After months of meetings, the panel of space experts appointed by President Obama to evaluate NASA‘s manned spaceflight program has returned with a dire assessment: lack of financing has put the program on an “unsustainable trajectory.” The executive summary (pdf) of the report, released yesterday, puts forth a number of ideas for how the space agency can live within its means, but the final decisions on whether to act on the ideas rests with President Obama and Congress.
Among other recommendations, the panel suggested that NASA shelve its goal of rapidly returning to the moon and instead focus on nurturing a robust commercial space industry that can handle short-term objectives of the nation’s space program, such as ferrying cargo and crew to the international space station [The Wall Street Journal]. By canceling a return to the moon (which had been scheduled for around 2020) and outsourcing routine resupply missions, the panel suggested that NASA would be able to work towards more ambitious, deep space missions like a trip to an asteroid or an expedition to Mars.
At least one start-up space company is finally getting off the ground. SpaceX, the company founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, had its first successful test launch last fall, and late last night it followed up with its first commercial space shot. The company’s Falcon 1 rocket took off from an atoll in the Marshall Islands and launched a Malaysian satellite into orbit. The spacecraft has black-and-white and color cameras to take high-resolution pictures of agricultural lands, forests, urban centers and other targets in Malaysia for commercial and government customers [Reuters].
The achievement is an important validation for SpaceX, which had three launch failures before getting its first test rocket into orbit in September 2008. Last year, SpaceX won a contract to supply the International Space Station after the shuttle retires, and this launch stands as the first physical proof that SpaceX can get the job done. To further develop their space delivery capability, SpaceX plans to follow this launch up later in the year with a launch of their larger rocket, Falcon 9 [Popular Science]. That rocket will be capable of carrying a cargo vehicle, called Dragon, to the low-Earth orbit where the space station resides.
The first permanent node of the “interplanetary internet” has been installed and tested out aboard the International Space Station, in what NASA officials say is the first step to a communication system that could one day span the solar system. The interplanetary internet got its first deep space tryout last fall, when a spacecraft called EPOXI that’s on its way to a comet rendezvous used the system to send images back to its controllers on Earth. Now, researchers are ready to test it out in regular communications with the space station.
There’s a fringe benefit: In just a few months, astronauts will be able to tweet live from the international space station. “NASA is trying to leverage the popularity of Twitter to get its message out,” said [researcher] Kevin Gifford…. “To tweet from space will have a lot of glitz value” [Denver Post]. Currently, astronauts on the space station have to schedule times to send or receive data from mission control below; that’s why the first astronaut to make use of Twitter on a space shuttle flight, Mike Massimino, aka @Astro_Mike, had to send his tweets to Houston and have a NASA employee post them to his profile.
While NASA‘s central mission is the same as it always was–to send astronauts up, up, and away!–the details of how it will send bold explorers into the space frontier are suddenly, well, up in the air. After months of signaling displeasure with NASA’s operations, the Obama administration has ordered a 90-day review of the human space flight program. In a letter to NASA Acting Administrator Christopher Scolese, the president’s science adviser, John Holdren, wrote that “it would be only prudent” to review NASA’s human space flight program given the magnitude of its ambitions and “the significant investment of both funds and scientific capital” [Washington Post].
The crux of the matter is the Constellation program, which aims to replace the aging space shuttles with the newly designed Ares rockets and Orion crew capsule. But during the past several months, watchdog agencies have questioned whether NASA can deliver the Constellation program on time and within budget. Its estimated costs through 2015 have risen from $28 billion in 2006 to more than $40 billion today, and engineers still are wrestling with design flaws that would cause Ares I to shake violently during ascent and also possibly drift into its launch tower [Orlando Sentinel]. Back in December, Obama’s transition team reportedly asked NASA officials if military rockets used to launch satellites could be reconfigured to boost astronauts to the International Space Station and on to the moon.
Astronauts who live aboard the International Space Station for months are losing more muscle mass and strength than researchers thought, and NASA thinks there’s only one cure: a better workout. A new study that used MRI scans and biopsies to test astronauts’ muscles before and after a stay at the space station found that the volume of their calf muscles decreased by an average of 13 percent during six months in space…. [Lead researcher Scott] Trappe says that the magnitude of loss in muscle mass is akin to the difference between a 25-year-old and an 80-year-old [Scientific American]. Leg muscles are the most vulnerable to atrophy, researchers say, because on Earth they receive constant exercise just by supporting a person’s weight.
Space station residents currently exercise at least two hours each day to prevent their muscles and bones from wasting away in the weightless microgravity environment. The recent study showed a range of astronaut exercise regimens, including five hours per week spent on aerobics, and anywhere from three to six days per week spent on resistance training [SPACE.com]. However, the treadmill and exercise bike that astronauts use are mostly intended to maintain cardiovascular health, and are little help for muscle strength.
Bureaucratic rules regarding who can use what equipment aboard the International Space Station are causing some hard feelings among the crew members, according to Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who gave an interview to Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper before he blasted off towards the space station on Thursday. Padalka complained that regulations will prevent him from using his American colleagues’ exercise bike to stay fit in space. Worse than that, [officials] also ruled that American and Russian crew members should use their own “national toilets”, with Russian crew banned from using the luxurious American astro-loo [The Guardian].
Padalka said strict regulations that prevent the sharing of everything from food to toilets hurts the crew’s morale and makes working in space still more complicated. But he added that the crew will rise above the pettiness. “Cosmonauts are above the ongoing squabble, no matter what officials decide,” said Padalka, a veteran of two space missions, according to the newspaper. “We are grown-up, well-educated and good-mannered people and can use our own brains to create normal relationship. It’s politicians and bureaucrats who can’t reach agreement, not us, cosmonauts and astronauts” [AP].
Astronauts flown up aboard the space shuttleDiscovery are working hard to get the International Space Station ready for more residents: In May, the station’s live-aboard crew will expand from three to six members. But while some elements of the station upgrade have gone flawlessly, including the installation of the station’s final array of solar panels, astronauts encountered problems with other crucial procedures–like fixing the station’s urine recycling system.
The astronauts were given an extra task when NASA issued an alert about a piece of space junk that was expected to whiz past the space station at dangerously close range. With his ship still docked at the International Space Station, shuttle commander Lee Archambault fired up Discovery’s steering jets Sunday to move the linked craft into a new position that will reduce their chances of colliding with a piece of space junk [Los Angeles Times]. The four-inch chunk of debris, part of a spent Chinese satellite, is the latest reminder that orbital odds and ends pose a threat to the Space Station. Less than two weeks ago, crew members had to scramble into an escape pod as a precaution when another piece of debris came too close for comfort.
The International Space Station had a close shave this afternoon when a diminutive piece of space debris whizzed past the station at dangerously close range, forcing the first ever evacuation of the station. The three crew members took shelter in the attached Russian spacecraft that serves as an emergency lifeboat. The debris missed, and the astronauts quickly returned to the station after just 11 minutes aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. But the unusual event offered a reminder that astronauts and spacecraft are increasingly playing a deadly game of space-debris dodge ball in orbit [Washington Post].
The object that prompted the evacuation was a fragment of a motor used to launch a satellite. Although the piece of debris was only about one-third of an inch long, experts say that even tiny pieces of space junk can cause great damage, as objects in orbit travel at great speeds. Mission controllers detected the orbiting debris Wednesday night, too late for the crew to take evasive action, Humphries said. In previous instances, controllers have been able to maneuver the station out of the way of a threatening piece of space junk, “but because of the late notice, we didn’t have time to coordinate that,” he said [CNN].
The new budget proposed by President Barack Obama boosts funding for NASA and shows the new president’s commitment to exploration of the moon and our solar system’s planets. Under the proposed budget, the agency would receive $18.7 billion in 2010. Combined with $1 billion in funding provided in an economic stimulus package signed into law last week, NASA would get $2.4 billion more than it did in 2008 [New Scientist].
Like his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama wants to return people to the moon and send robots further into space [Reuters]. But while the proposed funding boost pleases many in the space community, the budget disappoints “shuttle-huggers” who hoped that Obama would keep the space shuttle flying past the 2010 retirement date set by the Bush administration. Instead, the proposal instructs NASA to stick to that deadline, although it does offer one concession.
A miniature plasma thruster could one day power satellites, and could potentially increase their maneuverability and prevent them from crashing into each other, researchers say. The shoebox-sized prototype, called the Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster, is much smaller than other rockets of its kind and runs on gases that are much less expensive than conventional propellants. As a result, it could slash fuel consumption by 10 times that of conventional systems used for the same applications [Science Daily].
The system doesn’t use a chemical reaction to provide power, as most rockets do, but instead uses electrical power to accelerate a propellant. The thruster uses nitrogen gas, which is pumped through a quartz tube wrapped in a coiled antenna and surrounded by magnets. Radio frequency power, transmitted to the nitrogen from the antenna, turns the gas into plasma, or electrically charged gas. The magnets help produce the plasma, and guide and accelerate it through the system [Wired News].
80beats is DISCOVER's news aggregator, weaving together the choicest tidbits from the best articles on the day's most compelling topics.
80beats is written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. This team darts through each day's science news faster than the ruby-throated hummingbird that beats its wings 80 times per second. Send ideas, tips, suggestions, and complaints to [azeeberg at discovermagazine dot com].
The International Space Station is almost done. Astronauts on board the current space shuttle Endeavour completed the first of three spacewalks to install the last major component of the ISS: the Tranquility module. Its huge windows will offer ISS residents 360-degree view of space, the station, and our home world.
A few days after the White House 
The Obama administration’s new budget may come in at a hulking $3.8 trillion, but one thing it doesn’t include is continued funding for the Constellation program. The program, which was intended to continue the work of the aging space shuttles, will get the ax if Congress approves the President’s plan. This also means that NASA would abandon its goal of returning to the moon by 2020.
This morning, NASA’s experimental 
Even as engineers prepare for the first test flight of NASA’s new Ares I-X rocket, a prototype of the launch vehicle that could replace the 
After months of meetings, the panel of space experts appointed by President Obama to evaluate 
The first permanent node of the “interplanetary internet” has been installed and tested out aboard the 
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Astronauts who live aboard the 
Bureaucratic rules regarding who can use what equipment aboard the 
Astronauts flown up aboard the 
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The new budget proposed by 
