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].
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A prototype of the rocket that may blast astronauts into space once the space shuttle is finally retired will get a high-profile test flight next week, and this morning the tall, skinny rocket was rolled onto the launch pad in Florida. While the experimental Ares I-X rocket certainly looked grand as it was rolled slowly from the assembly building to the launch pad (a four-mile trip that took seven hours), its future is far from certain. A White House panel has been considering cancelling Ares I in favour of a commercial launcher. Its final report is expected this week [New Scientist].
NASA’s new sky-scraping rocket measures 327 feet high; it dwarfs the space shuttles, which measure 184 feet high. “It’s a tall rocket; it’s been over three decades since anyone has built a rocket this tall. That was the Saturn V,” explained Trent Smith, the vehicle processing engineer for the Ares 1-X. “We have over 700 sensors on this rocket; and the whole point of Ares 1-X is to understand how does a rocket this shape, this weight, this tall actually fly” [BBC News].
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NASA has successfully tested an inflatable heat shield for the first time, which could offer an excellent alternative to the rigid heat-resistant tiles and carbon coatings used by current spacecraft. On Monday, NASA engineers lofted a vacuum-packed shroud atop a small sounding rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. Several minutes after liftoff, the shield inflated to a 10-foot-diameter mushroom shape [LiveScience]. The inflation system, which lead scientist Neil Cheatwood calls “a glorified scuba tank,” filled the shield in less than 90 seconds. The shield then fell back to Earth, surviving the fiery reentry into the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic.
The experimental system offers several potential advantages. The fragile heat-resistant tiles that cover the space shuttle need frequent inspections and repairs to prevent another tragedy like the 2003 breakup of the Columbia, while the inflatable shield could be stowed safely away until its needed. The inflatable shield’s low mass also allows spacecraft to carry more or heavier payloads. “Right now the rigid ones are at the weight limit of what we’re trying to send to Mars,” [engineer Robert] Dillman says. “If you want to take larger payloads to Mars, they’ll have to either do something quite creative or switch to an inflatable” [New Scientist].
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As of tomorrow, 101 years will have passed since the Tunguska Event, the mysterious explosion that flattened 800 square miles of Siberian forest. Just in time for the anniversary researchers have come up with yet another explanation for what may have caused the baffling blast. Previously, researchers best hypothesis was that a meteor struck the forest, but scientific expeditions failed to turn up an impact crater or any fragments of rock. The new hypothesis, which will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that the Earth was hit by the icy core of a comet, which exploded in the atmosphere.
Researchers say that a comet strike would have released huge volumes of water vapour at very high altitude, creating highly reflective clouds that may explain why the sky was lit up for days after the collision, with people as far away as London saying that they could read newspapers outdoors at midnight, the scientists said [The Independent]. In an unusual twist, the evidence for the new theory comes from studies of the water vapor exhaust created by space shuttle launches.
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The man tasked with steering NASA through difficult transitions and pointing the space agency boldly towards the stars will be a former astronaut who has piloted the space shuttle. On Saturday, President Barack Obama announced his long-awaited nomination for NASA administrator: Charles F. Bolden Jr. If confirmed by the Senate, the former astronaut and retired Marine Corps general will be the first African-American to head the space agency.
The pick has been celebrated by NASA insiders, and is viewed as a signal that, after some signs of ambivalence, President Obama is now embracing the expensive manned spaceflight program. “Clearly Charlie Bolden would not have taken the job if he were being asked to shut down human spaceflight,” said John Logsdon, a space policy expert in Washington…. He added that a recent announcement of the administration’s plans to review the Ares 1 rocket and Orion spacecraft, which are to replace the space shuttle by 2015, is not a shot across the bow of NASA’s human spaceflight program. He said it would be a review of the hardware, not the destination or goals [Los Angeles Times].
However, it is not clear whether the new leadership will adopt all of the goals for human exploration of the solar system that were laid out by the Bush administration: namely, returning to the moon by 2020 and then working towards landing humans on Mars.
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This morning, 350 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, a tender goodbye took place. Astronauts aboard the Atlantis space shuttle released the Hubble Space Telescope to conclude the telescope’s fifth and final repair mission. The better-than-new observatory is expected to send back breathtaking images and mind-rattling information about the universe for another five to seven years. As the NASA officials in charge of the telescope put it: “Hubble is now ready to resume its role as humankind’s most powerful eyes on the universe” [AP].
During this mission, Atlantis astronauts spent more than 36 hours over five marathon spacewalks to make upgrades and outfit Hubble with new instruments. These included a panchromatic wide-field camera that should be able to see objects formed just 500 million years after the universe’s birth in the big bang explosion some 13.7 billion years ago [Reuters]. But there were occasional glitches: When a bolt wouldn’t come free on the Sunday spacewalk, astronaut Mike Massimino had to resort to brute force, jerking the railing that it held in place until the bolt snapped. There was also an ill-timed incident this morning involving an antenna.
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Yesterday, about 350 miles above western Australia, two massively expensive pieces of space hardware rendezvoused in a delicate orbital dance. The space shuttle Atlantis arrived at the Hubble Space Telescope for the telescope’s fifth and final upgrade, and met the telescope in orbit as it circled the Earth at 17,200 miles per hour. With mission commander Scott Altman at the controls, Atlantis eased up within 30 feet of NASA’s flagship observatory, bringing the ship close enough for a capture attempt. Mission specialist Megan McArthur limbered up the shuttle’s robot arm and used snares at its end to latch on to a pin-like grapple fixture on the side of the gleaming telescope. “Houston, Atlantis. Hubble has arrived onboard Atlantis,” said Altman [Florida Today blog].
The astronauts audibly gasped as they drew up to the 12-ton telescope. “Just looking out the window here, and it’s an unbelievably beautiful sight,” said John M. Grunsfeld, a veteran astronaut. “Amazingly, the exterior of Hubble, an old man of 19 years in space, still looks in fantastic shape.” Dr. Grunsfeld, who is on his third Hubble repair trip, was one of the last humans to see the telescope in March 2002 and arguably knows it better than anyone on or above Earth [The New York Times].
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At 2:01 this afternoon in Florida, the space shuttle Atlantis is expected to roar off its launch pad and set off toward the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, for the fifth and final repair mission in the telescope’s history. The countdown timeline is on target, and “Atlantis is ready to fly,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s test director…. The 11-day mission will include five spacewalks to refurbish Hubble with state-of-the-art science instruments. After the upgrades, the telescope’s capabilities will be expanded, and its lifetime extended through at least 2014 [CNN].
The current mission carries a higher degree of danger than the space shuttle‘s habitual jaunts to the International Space Station. Hubble orbits about 350 miles above Earth, in an area with a higher density of debris. Earlier this year two satellites collided over Siberia, which has increased the risk even more, as junk from that collision drifts lower [ABC News]. While NASA will track orbiting space junk as it always does, the agency has also taken the precaution of getting the space shuttle Endeavor ready for launch on another pad in case a rescue operation is necessary.
NASA will cover the launch live on NASA TV, and DISCOVER’s own Bad Astronomy blogger, Phil Plait, will be posting updates on his breaking news Twitter account.
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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.
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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].
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Astronauts flown up aboard the space shuttle Discovery 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.
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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.
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An exhaustive report on what happened in the crew cabin during the final moments before the space shuttle Columbia broke up over Texas in 2003 found numerous equipment flaws that failed to protect the astronauts from the extreme conditions they were abruptly exposed to during the disaster. But in somber tones, NASA‘s report also acknowledged that “the breakup of the crew module … was not survivable by any currently existing capability” [CNN].
The mission was doomed when a chunk of foam broke away from an external fuel tank and struck the shuttle’s left wing during its launch; 15 days later, during reentry to the Earth’s atmosphere, superheated gases poured into the hole created and melted the shuttle’s structure. From the crew’s perspective, the shift from what appeared to be a normal descent on 1 February 2003, into disaster happened so fast that the astronauts didn’t even have time to close the visors on their helmets…. The crew cabin broke away from the ship and started spinning rapidly. Analysis of the wreckage indicated the crew members had flipped cockpit switches in response to alarms that were sounding. The astronauts had also reset the shuttle’s autopilot system, the report said [New Scientist].
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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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NASA officials have long pronounced themselves ready to move on from the aging space shuttles, which could be retired as soon as 2010, but the incoming Barack Obama administration has raised new doubts about what the next step should be. Last week, news reports surfaced that Obama’s transition team was questioning NASA about alternatives to the Ares I rocket that is currently under development as the shuttle’s replacement, and now transition team members are reportedly considering using modified military rockets instead. No decision has been made and the concept raises major technical, funding and policy issues. But in recent weeks, the transition team assigned to [NASA] has been asking aerospace industry officials about the feasibility of such a dramatic shift in priorities [The Wall Street Journal].
The Ares I rocket is designed to bring the new Orion crew capsule to the International Space Station, and eventually back to the moon and on to Mars. Technical difficulties and budget problems have raised doubts about the program, but NASA officials have dismissed these issues as a normal part of the process, and have argued against a change in plans. NASA officials stressed that moving away from the current Ares rocket designs almost certainly would entail extra costs and lengthy delays in getting the shuttle replacement off the ground. With the first Ares 1 test flight tentatively scheduled for next summer, “going to completely different hardware would put a big gap” in the workforce focusing on rocket development, said Steve Cook, Ares program manager. “We would really be stepping backward” by deciding that the shuttle replacement could ride safely on an alternate rocket [The Wall Street Journal].
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