In an unprecedented space accident, two satellites collided in orbit yesterday, pulverizing each other and creating clouds of orbital debris that could pose a threat to other satellites and spacecraft. The accident occurred when a defunct Russian satellite and a U.S. communications satellite rammed into each other 491 miles above Siberia while each was traveling about 17,500 miles per hour. While NASA officials say this is the first such collision on record, they didn’t express much surprise. “We knew this was going to happen eventually and this is it — this was the big one,” said Nicholas Johnson [ABC News], who tracks orbital debris with NASA.
In their first estimate, NASA said at least 600 pieces of debris had spun off from the collision, and noted that even small chunks can pose a threat since they move at such high speeds. But the International Space Station is not thought to be imperiled because it’s in a lower orbit, 220 miles above the earth. Some pieces will drift down towards the station over time, but the risk to the station, Mr. Johnson added, “is going to be very, very small.” In the worst case, he said, “We’ll just dodge them if we have to. It’s the small things you can’t see that are the ones that can do you harm” [The New York Times]. The Space Station has maneuvered to avoid debris eight times in the past, NASA says.
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Rumors are flying that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate retired fighter pilot Jonathan Scott Gration to lead NASA, a surprising pick due to Gration’s very limited experience with NASA and the space community. However, the 32-year veteran of the Air Force is close with Obama–the two traveled through Africa together in 2006–and space policy expert John Logsdon says that personal history augers well for the agency: “Obama has picked one of his close personal associates to be the head of NASA. It would make no sense for Obama to send a close associate to an agency (and) then not support the agency” [Houston Chronicle].
Gration spent one year in the 1980s as a White House Fellow working for NASA’s deputy administrator, but that is his only direct experience with the space agency. However, he may have been studying up recently. People familiar with the selection of Gration said he helped craft Obama’s space policy, which calls for the U.S. to minimize the gap between the 2010 retirement of NASA’s shuttle fleet and the first piloted flights of successor spacecraft in 2015. Released last August, the policy also calls for returning American astronauts to the moon by 2020 as a precursor to missions to other more distant destinations, such as Mars [Florida Today].
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In a vote of confidence for the fledgling commercial space industry, NASA has awarded contracts that could total $3.5 billion to two companies that plan to build rockets and ferry supplies to the International Space Station. The companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation, could begin launches as soon as 2010 to help fill the gap between the space shuttle‘s expected retirement and the introduction of NASA’s next-generation rocket, the Ares I. The companies beat out traditional NASA contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin to snag the contracts.
Experts say that giving a contract to the young company SpaceX is a particularly bold bet. SpaceX, the plan’s linchpin because it is intended to begin the service, carries a relatively short pedigree as a government contractor and can point to only one successful launch, after three failures, of a smaller version of its Falcon rocket intended to supply the space station. Orbital Sciences is an established, midsize aerospace contractor but lacks a proven track record for the revamped version of the Taurus rocket it will use to supply the station [The Wall Street Journal, subscription required].
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In an unusual moment of klutziness, spacewalking astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper let a tool kit slip from her grasp while she was working outside the International Space Station yesterday, and watched helplessly as it drifted away into deep space. “Oh, great,” said a dismayed Stefanyshyn-Piper, a veteran of two spacewalks in 2006, as she watched the bag float away [Florida Today].
The mishap occurred during the first of four spacewalks scheduled to be completed during the visit from the Endeavour space shuttle crew. The tool kit made its escape while Stefanyshyn-Piper and her colleague Steve Bowen were greasing a rotary joint on the station’s giant starboard solar array system. The joint has been unable to automatically point the solar wings toward the Sun for maximum energy production for over a year. Just as she was finishing up the job, the tool bag became untethered from a larger kit case and floated away along with a pair of grease guns, wipes and a putty knife. She reached out, but to no avail [BBC News].
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The space shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station yesterday, bringing almost seven tons of supplies and a crew that’s determined to give the cramped station a thorough renovation. After the hatch opened, the astronauts floated weightlessly through a tunnel and into the welcoming arms of their colleagues aboard the $100 billion station. “We understand that this house is in need of an extreme makeover and that you are the crew to do it,” station commander Mike Fincke said. “Welcome to space” [Reuters].
The Endeavour crew brought up a host of home improvements that will allow the space station to support three additional crew members: The cargo includes a second kitchen module, and extra bathroom, two sleeping cabins and exercise gear. Other new equipment will provide both creature comforts and the necessities of life: the crew will soon install a space cooler so station astronauts can have cold drinks for the first time in the eight years astronauts have lived aboard. Endeavour is also toting a new water recycling system designed to collect astronaut urine, sweat and other wastewater into drinkable water [SPACE.com].
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A redundant piece of the International Space Station‘s cooling system that was chucked overboard more than a year ago finally reached the earth’s atmosphere this weekend. NASA expected the 1,400-pound piece of space junk to break apart and partially burn up in the intense heat of reentry, but warned that up to 15 pieces of the object could hit the earth’s surface. NASA exploding-space-fridge experts have worked out that the largest pieces of tank which could survive might be as big as [40 pounds] and travelling at 100 mph…. “If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn’t get too close to it” [The Register], says space station manager Mike Suffredini.
Suffredini said that while astronauts have accidentally lost a tool or two during spacewalks, the planned jettison of larger items is done with the utmost care to ensure the trash doesn’t hit the station or any other spacecraft as it circles the Earth. Engineers also make sure the risk to people on Earth is low, as well. “As a matter of course, we don’t throw things overboard haphazardly,” Suffredini said. “We have a policy that has certain criteria we have to meet before you can throw something overboard” [SPACE.com].
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This morning, the Russian spacecraft Soyuz successfully docked with the International Space Station, and space tourist Richard Garriott was welcomed as part of the 18th space station crew. Garriott, who reportedly paid $30 million for a 10-day stay at the outpost, is the son of a former NASA astronaut and longed to follow in his father’s footsteps, but was prevented from training as an astronaut because of his poor eyesight. After making his fortune as a video game designer he brokered passage to orbit through the company Space Adventures, which arranges trips with Russia’s space agency.
Garriott’s father, Owen, applauded as he watched the docking from Russian Mission Control outside Moscow. “I’m pleased everything is going smoothly. It’s looking great and they are starting off on a fascinating new adventure…. There was not a lot of nervousness today or during the launch. We were confident it would go well,” he said [AP]. At the space station Garriott met Russian cosmonaut Yuri Volkov, who was the first man to follow his father into space.
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NASA celebrated its 50th anniversary yesterday, looking back on a half-century that saw the growth from an 80-person agency sending up the first communication satellites to a massive network of scientific and engineering hubs capable of sending the Voyager probes to the edge of our solar system and sending the robotic Mars Phoenix Lander to dig in the dirt on Mars.
But even as officials raised their glasses of champagne in celebration, many observers questioned NASA’s current direction and wondered whether it will have enough money to carry out its goals. “It’s a rather unfortunate time to be celebrating a 50th anniversary,” says space historian Joan Johnson-Freese of the Naval War College. “Right now, we’re at best at a plateau, if not — I hate to say this — heading downwards” [USA Today].
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The private space company Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, successfully launched a rocket into orbit on Sunday, marking a major milestone in the growth of privately funded space ventures. The achievement followed three failed launches of the Falcon 1 rocket over the past two years.
“That was frickin’ awesome,” Elon Musk, SpaceX’s millionaire founder and chief executive officer, told cheering employees…. “There were a lot of people who thought we couldn’t do it … but, you know, as the saying goes, ‘The fourth time’s the charm,’” he said after the rocket soared into orbit from its launch pad on Omelek Island, 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean [MSNBC].
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NASA officials are quietly considering keeping the three remaining space shuttles in service past their planned retirement in 2010. According to an internal email obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin asked his team to study the possibility of keeping the shuttles flying, in what is being seen as a surprising reversal. Griffin has steadfastly opposed extending the shuttle era beyond its 2010 retirement date, arguing it could kill astronauts and cripple the agency’s fledgling Constellation program, a system of new rockets and capsules meant to replace the shuttle. But geopolitics and political pressure are undermining his position [Orlando Sentinel].
Under the current official plan, NASA will not be able to send astronauts into space between the shuttles’ retirement in 2010 and the launch of the new Orion crew capsule in 2015. NASA has planned to purchase seats on the Russian Soyuz spacecrafts to send astronauts to the International Space Station during those five years, but Russia’s recent invasion of Georgia has chilled relations between Russia and the United States, and may imperil the Soyuz agreement.
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A pesky computer virus that has popped up on computers around the world has now made the leap into space. NASA announced yesterday that several laptops on board the International Space Station were infected with the virus in July, and also admitted that such infections have happened before.
“This is not the first time we have had a worm or a virus,” NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said. “It’s not a frequent occurrence, but this isn’t the first time.” … NASA downplayed the news, calling the virus mainly a “nuisance” that was on non-critical space station laptops used for things like e-mail and nutritional experiments [Wired News].
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In a strange side effect of Russia’s invasion of Georgia this weekend, the U.S. may lose access to Russia’s Soyuz spacecrafts that were expected to ferry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station after the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2010. Florida Senator Bill Nelson says that because of Russia’s new aggression, the U.S. Congress may refuse to pass an exemption required to let NASA buy services from Russia.
Under a law known as the Iran Non-Proliferation Act, the United States is banned from buying space technology from Russia unless the president determines Russia is taking steps to prevent the proliferation of nuclear and missile technology to Iran. Congress waived the ban in 2005, allowing NASA to enter into a $719 million contract with the Russians for use of the Soyuz through 2011 [CNN]. But an extension of the waiver needs to be passed to guarantee access to the Space Station after 2011.
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The last flight before the retirement of the space shuttles will take place in 2010, but NASA‘s deadline to launch their replacement, the new Orion spacecraft, is not until March 2015. To avoid a five-year gap between manned space missions, the agency had hoped to launch Orion a little early, but now it appears that won’t happen.
With some additional money and a lot of planning, NASA officials say it might have been possible to launch by September 2013. But the funding just wasn’t available. “The window of opportunity for us to accelerate (the moonship) is closing. In fact, this summer with the re-alignment of our schedule it’s closed,” said Jeff Hanley, the program manager for the Constellation program, NASA’s effort to develop the Orion moonship and Aries rocket that will send it aloft. “If the money is not there,” he said, “it’s not there” [Houston Chronicle].
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In a major disappointment for the young industry of commercial space flight, one of the leading companies, SpaceX, failed to send its rocket into orbit in a test flight on Saturday. The company said the spacecraft, the Falcon 1, had a successful liftoff, but went astray about two minutes into its flight when the main cargo-carrying component failed to separate from the booster rocket. It was the third successive launch failure for the company: The first Falcon 1 launch, in March 2006, failed about a minute into its ascent because of a fuel line leak. A second rocket, launched in March 2007, made it to space but was lost about five minutes after launching [The New York Times].
The malfunction casts doubts on the ability of private space companies to provide transport services for NASA during the five years between the retirement of the space shuttle fleet and the completion of NASA’s next generation rocket system, which is not expected to be ready until 2015. NASA has invested hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as part of a partnership with SpaceX to develop the first commercially-operated rocket designed to take cargo to the space station. If SpaceX can’t execute a successful launch soon, those plans could start to fall apart, prompting Congress and the government to re-evaluate SpaceX’s ability to play a major role in space [Orlando Sentinel].
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In a daring maneuver, Russian astronauts will take a six-hour walk outside the International Space Station today to remove an explosive bolt from their Soyuz spacecraft. Russian scientists believe the bolt failed to perform properly on the craft’s last two entries into the Earth’s atmosphere, and want it removed to prevent endangering astronauts on the craft’s next trip home later this year.
To get to the bolt, astronauts will ride a hand-powered crane from the Space Station to the docked Soyuz, and will then use a knife for the first time during a spacewalk to cut away insulation…. [Cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will then] detach an electrical connector before unscrewing the bolt. He will remove the explosive bolt — which has power roughly equivalent to a large M-80 firecracker — and place it inside a stainless steel case that should hold against any unlikely firing of the bolt [SPACE.com].
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