Rocket Rumbles in the Utah Desert

The 5-segment SRB ignites. NASA TV.

Another step has been taken in the development of the NASA SLS rocket system. On March 11, Orbital ATK successfully tested the new version of the 5-segment Solid Rocket Booster which will be part of NASA's new giant rocket. For two minutes, the booster shot superheated gas and exhaust out over the desert while officials and visitors some distance away shook from the shockwaves.

The enormous plume of fire gives an idea of the power of just one booster.

Originally Thiokol, then ATK, the company that built the SRBs for the space shuttle has been working to include the system in the future of American spaceflight. Planned for the Ares-1 rocket system, the new 5-segment booster (the shuttle used two 4-segment SRBs) would have been designated the first stage of the Ares-1. A successful test of the Ares-1 occurred in 2009. However, with rising costs, the Obama Administration cancelled the program. Too bad, because according to the proposed schedule the Ares-1 would be flying by next year. The new SLS rocket is not planned to lift astronauts until after 2020.

Planned development of the Ares-1.

When NASA began working with the Commercial Development of manned rockets, ATK joined with Astrium to develop the Liberty rocket to compete with submitted plans by Boeing, SpaceX, and several other companies. Liberty would have been similar to the Ares-1 and also would use the 5-segment motor. Unfortunately for ATK, NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX for further development, even though ATK had already done initial testing with the Ares rocket. Again, too bad, as the plan would have had the system flying by now.

ATK illustration of Liberty launch.

Fortunately for the company the new NASA design for the giant SLS rocket included two SRBs for the first stage launch. The 5-segment motor would therefor be used in missions designed to lift heavy items into orbit and for missions that would eventually go to Mars. Recently, the company has completed a merger with Orbital Sciences, maker of the Antares rocket, the Pegasus sub-rbital rocket, and the Cygnus cargo spacecraft. Now named Orbital-ATK, the company needs to complete one more test firing of the booster before it is ready to begin shipping to the Kennedy Space Center for the first launch tests.

Planned development of the SLS rocket family.

During the test firing, the booster produced 3.6 million pounds of thrust. 102 design objectives were met by the success of the test. Temperatures inside the booster reached 5,600 degrees. Now THAT is a great piece of engineering.

All done! Water is sprayed into the motor to cool it down for post-test analysis.

50 Years Ago: Ranger Probes Explore the Moon

Ranger 8 launch from Cape Canaveral.

Fifty years ago on February 17, 1965, NASA launched the latest in its series of Ranger-class lunar probes. Ranger 8 blasted off from Cape Canaveral's LC-12 pad on an Atlas-Agena rocket, reaching Earth orbit at 185 kilometers altitude. The Agena second stage ignited and sent the Ranger 8 space probe on its way to the Moon on a course to reach the Lunar surface on February 20. The ranger series was designed to take as many pictures of the lunar surface as it could manage, and transmit them to the Earth before crashing into the surface.

Diagram of the Ranger block III spacecraft.

The Ranger probe was powered by twin solar panels throughout its journey. It made a mid-course correction using hydrazine thrusters. SIx cameras were carried on board, each with their own control system and transmitter for rapid transfer to Earth. Before it crashed, the cameras sent back 7,137 pictures before impact on the surface. The pictures were used by NASA to help plan future lunar landings for the Apollo program, including the first close-up pictures of the Apollo 11 landing site.

Picture of lunar surface from Ranger 8.

One more Ranger was planned in the program, for a launch a few weeks later in March.

EVAs prepare ISS for changes

Is there any job better than this?

In the last month, American astronauts aboard the International SPace Station have conducted three spacewalks preparing the ISS for future module changes. With the expansion of commercial programs to include manned ferry missions from Earth to the ISS, some of the modules on the station need to be moved in order to provide better docking positions. The current placement of the modules benefitted the docking of the US space shuttles, but as only one shuttle docked at a time, the new arrangement must allow for the docking of multiple spacecraft. In each manned flight, the craft must be useable as emergency escape vessels. That means there would be no time in an emergency to use the robotic arm for positioning and cable hookups, the way that it's done now with robotic cargo ships.

Astronaut Barry Wilmore connects cables on the Harmony module.

The first of the series of three spacewalks by Expedition 42 took place on February 21. Astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts spent 6 hours and 41 minutes outside in space, during which they rerouted cables on the US-built Harmony module and the Pressurized Mating Adapter 2. Designated EVA-29, the spacewalk was successful and the astronauts prepared for the next step.

Astronaut Terry Virts rides the robotic arm into position.

The second spacewalk, EVA-30 took places days later on February 25th. The main goal was to rout power cables and prepare the PMA-2 for installation later this year of mating adapters, which will be delivered by the Dragon spacecraft. The astronauts got ahead of the schedule, and used the extra time to start preparations for the next spacewalk. However, during the spacewalk, Terry Virts encountered a problem - water was leaking into his space helmet. Engineers noticed it during the beginning of the EVA as Virts left the airlock, but since it was very small (not anywhere near the amount of water that endangered astronaut Luca Parmitano in 2013) they continued the EVA and kept a close watch on the problem. Virts was able to detect some of the water leak by the end of the spacewalk, but managed to complete the EVA and return inside without any problem.

Astronaut Wilmore during the recent EVA. You can see part of a docked Soyuz spacecraft in the upper right of the image.

EVA-31 took place on March 1st. The objective this time was to install new antennas for the new C2V2 communications system and connect more wiring. The new comms system will be used for astronauts in docking spacecraft to talk with station crewmembers and ground controllers, and is an advanced system compared to the shuttle-era High Frequency setup. The antennas and about 400 feet of cabling were installed in 5 hours and 38 minutes - over an hour earlier than had been planned. Great job of planning and executing their tasks enabled them to return early. There was also no further problem with water in Virts' helmet.

You can read detailed accounts of the spacewalks, with more pictures, on the pages at NASA Spaceflight.com at:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/02/astronauts-spacewalk-re-wire-iss-commercial-crew/

and:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/03/spacewalkers-new-comms-system-future-vehicles/

With the successful conclusion of the three EVAs, Expedition 42 gets ready to conclude. Tuesday March 10th will see a change of command ceremony as Barry Wilmore (USA), Alexander Samokutyaev (Russia) and Elena Serova ( Russia) prepare to leave the ISS and return to Earth.

It's not all work on the ISS. Here, astronaut Terry Virts and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti play with their food before eating a snack.

A moment of reflection. Samantha Cristoforetti (ESA) pays tribute to the passing of legendary Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy by making the Vulcan hand gesture for "Live Long and Prosper." She is wearing her Star Trek shirt pin which she brought aboard the station, of course not knowing that Nimoy would pass away during her stay. Now there's a Star Trek fan.

Departures and Arrivals at the ISS

ATV-5 firing thrusters for maneuvering. 

The International Space Station has seen a flurry of cargo spaceships coming and going in the last week. On February 14th, the Georges Lemaître (ATV-5) undocked from the ISS and prepared for a fiery re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere on Sunday. This had been the 5th robotic European cargo spaceship to service the station, arriving in August 2014. Delivering over 2,600 kg of cargo, supplies, and propellant to the station, it had also been the heaviest spacecraft to fly into orbit with the Ariane rocket. DUring its stay at the station, it had activated its motors in November to push the ISS out of the way of a dangerous piece of debris (possibly from a Chinese space experiment). With its supplies removed, the spacious cargo area was filled with trash, broken items, and waste for burn up with the craft on Sunday.

Progress spacecraft head-on view. Solar panels extend to the sides, and communications and ranging equipment sticks out from the hull.

Progress 58, designated by the Russians as M-26M, blasted off on a SOyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Tuesday the 18th. Following a six-hour rapid ascent trajectory, the spacecraft rendezvoused with the station and docked at the Zvesda module a short time later. Docking took place at the same port just recently vacated by the ATV-5. Progress brings up about 2,300 kg of supplies, including water essential for the life support and running of the station. Expedition 42 crew members will begin unloading the spacecraft once atmosphere pressures and spacecraft systems have been checked out and normalized.

View of ISS from Progress spacecraft.

Progress 58 spotted from the ISS as it approached the station from below.

5th Dragon Cargo Ship Returns to Earth

Released from the Robotic Arm on the ISS, Dragon floats free to a safe point where it can fire thrusters. 

The fifth Dragon resupply mission to the International SPace Station (ISS) has come to a successful conclusion. In all, the Dragon space ships have made six stops at the ISS, but the first was a test mission. Of all the various cargo ships that service the station and its crew, Dragon is the only one that returns large quantities of used equipment and experiments back to the Earth for study. All the other robotic supply ships burn up during re-entry, and are usually loaded with trash or non-useable equipment.

SpaceX's Mission Control in California.

Early Tuesday afternoon, astronauts supervised the undocking of the craft from the Node 2 hatch. Using the robotic arm, they gently moved the craft away from the docking port and away from station modules and panels. The craft continued floating away as the arm gently released its grip at 2:09 p.m. Eastern time. Once the Dragon had floated to a designated safe distance from the station, ground flight controllers fired thrusters for three de-orbit burns that guided the spacecraft to a landing site in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, splashdown occurring at about 7:44 p.m. Eastern. Awaiting them was SpaceX's recovery ship, where the craft was pulled from the water and is being taken back to Los Angeles followed by a trip to the Texas processing facility.

Dragon floats down to a watery landing.

Kennedy Space Center is Evolving!

Down it goes! The Shuttle Mate/De-mate structure is being disassembled the violent way.

As our space program moves from the Shuttle Era towards the era of SLS and Commercial Space, some structures must go in order to raise new, modern structures to support future launches. One such example is the Shuttle Mate/De-mate structure, located alongside the shuttle landing runway just across from the Apollo visitors center. With the end of the shuttle program, the device is not needed and will make room for new projects. During the shuttle program days, whenever the shuttle landed at the dry lakebed in the mojave at Edwards flight test center, it would be mated to the back of a specially-adapted 747 and then flown to the runway at Kennedy to be prepared for another mission.

The good old days. A space shuttle is lifted from the support struts on the shuttle carrier 747, having arrived from a shuttle landing at Edwards AFB in California.

Another part of the Shuttle Program was the USS Pegasus, a special barge large enough to haul the Shuttle External Tank by water from its factory in New Orleans, Louisiana to the Kennedy space Center in Florida. The Pegasus was the last barge from the fleet of barges used to move Saturn stages and shuttle external tanks down the Gulf Coast and around the Florida Keys to the Kennedy center docking port.

Barge unloading facility at Kennedy Space Center. Picture taken during Apollo Program days.

Pegasus with an external tank on the way to KSC.

Pegasus will now receive an extension to its hull and hangar to accommodate the new core stages of the SLS rocket. The core stage is almost 60 feet longer and 250 tons heavier than the shuttle external tanks. The stages will be built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, and transported to the KSC in several trips. You can read a lot more about the construction at NASAspacelight.com.

Pegasus undergoing a growth spurt.

Launch Complexes are also going through modifications. Pad 39A, from which most of the manned Apollo missions lifted off to the Moon or Earth orbit, is now under contract to SpaceX. The pad is being modified with a new gantry and tower system that will launch the Falcon 9 (and Dragon cargo spacecraft) and Falcon Heavy rockets. Future manned Falcon flights with the Dragon 2 capsule will also launch from Pad39A.

View of Launch Complex 39. Pad39A is in foreground, Pad39B in the back. Taken during the shuttle era. Both tower systems have been torn down and new construction is taking place.

Pad39B is being prepared for the new SLS heavy rocket system. Currently, the pad is being torn down to the concrete trench and a new flame exhaust trench will be put in place.

Deconstruction of the current flame exhaust trench at Pad39B. The blast from the SLS engines will be much more powerful than the shuttle's engines and boosters.

50 Years Ago: Gemini GT-2 Test Flight

Mission GT-2 lifts off from Pad LC-19, on January 19, 1965.

Recently, on December 5, 2014 we watched the successful test of the Orion space capsule which will be part of NASA's heavy lift SLS rocket system. Fifty years ago, on January 19, 1964, NASA tested the Gemini capsule in a similar mission profile using the unmanned GT-2 test capsule on a Titan rocket. The sub-orbital flight was designed to fling the capsule into space and test the heat shield as it made a fiery re-entry through the atmosphere. That's exactly what the recent Orion flight was designed to do.

Remote- controlled picture of superheated plasma trailing the capsule as it re-enters the atmosphere.

The flight was a total success. The equipment aboard the capsule included an automatic sequencer designed to send signals at precise moments to fire the second stage, separate the capsule, jettison the storage section behind the capsule, orient the capsule for re-entry, and activate the parachutes. The capsule flew through an arc over the Atlantic Ocean, landing 2127 miles downrange, and splashdown occurred about 52 miles from the recovery aircraft carrier, the USS Lake Champlain.

GT-2 capsule arrives in Cape Canaveral. It has been placed on the equipment storage section (The white cone segments under the capsule).

The capsule was never intended to be manned. Instead, it was packed with early forms of computerized sequencers and test measuring devices to study the effects that re-entry physics would play on the structure of the craft and the simulated astronauts. This capsule eventually would become the first spacecraft to fly in space twice! For the Air Force's Manned-Orbital-Laboratory program (MOL), a hatch would be placed through the heat shield so that an astronaut could leave the cockpit and enter a spy-instrument control section that would be placed behind the capsule.

GT-2 on display at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral. I took this picture on my last visit to Cape Canaveral. The capsule wears the US Air Force insignia that was painted on it for its mission in 1966. It was jam-packed with equipment, no room for even a little astronaut in there!

Another view of the capsule. The entire craft is covered with a protective plastic shield to preserve it. 

Not my picture. Another view that shows the hatch placed after mission GT-2.

NASA print of the launch of the mission. The gantry portion of the tower is lying down in the foreground.

Just before the flight. The gantry portion of the tower is lowered down before blast-off.