Danger! Asteroid and Solar Flares (not really)!

Orbital path of QE2.

I love the name of this asteroid: QE2. Asteroid 1998 QE2 is expected to fly by the Earth on the last day of May. The headlines read: "Huge Asteroid to Fly Past Earth this Month." Although you can tell we're not in danger from the title, its still sounds more ominous than the truth: "Large asteroid won't come near us." Of course that doesn't sound as cool. What IS cool, though, is that QE2 has a diameter of 9 times the length of the famous Queen Elizabeth 2 Ocean liner. SO it IS way bigger than, say, the rock that slammed into Russia this year. But, and this is a BIG BUT, it will fly past us about 3.6 million miles away. That's pretty distant for Near Earth Objects. AND... AND... scientists will get a GOOD look at its surface. SO that's pretty neat. And I love it that people are paying attention.

Solar Flare emitted from Sun today.

I also love it that the news guys are paying attention to Solar Weather! TOday, we are being side-swiped by a pretty large burst of Solar radiation and particles which erupted from the Sun on the 15th. Folks living north of latitude 40 degrees might get some cool Northern Lights. As for me, naw, it's raining here at the command bunker in Utah. But another flare erupted today, and this one is pointed right at us. As with all solar storms, the radiation and particles can play havoc with our satellites and astronauts high up in orbit, so here's hoping our shields (Earth's Magnetic Field) will do its job and protect us.

More on solar conditions at SpaceWeather.com: http://www.spaceweather.com/

More on QE2 at JPL: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-163

50 YA: Faith 7 Orbits Earth for 34 Hours

Gordon Cooper official White Space Suit picture.

Fifty Years ago, the last of the Mercury Atlas missions stood on the launch pad at LC-14 at Cape Canaveral. So far, all of the Soviet Vostok missions had lasted for a day or more, so this flight was expected to help the USA catch up to the Russian space milestones. Mission MA-9 had been carefully prepared, and during the day before (May 14, 1963) the mission had to be scrubbed due to radar problems at the Bermuda tracking station and a diesel engine problem with the gantry on the pad. The flight would be attempted on May 15.

Astronaut Cooper walks out to the Van for the trip to the pad.

Cooper leaves the van at the base of the Gantry.

At the top of the tower. Faith 7 Mercury Capsule is prepped by technicians while Cooper inspects the outside of the craft.

Helped by the technicians, Cooper is carefully inserted into the capsule and the cramped cockpit.

May 14. Launch Scrubbed. Gantry will not retract. Flight rescheduled for the next day.

May 15. Gantry retracts. Countdown continues.

Mercury -Atlas 9, lifts off at 8:04 am EST. Rocket is Atlas booster 130-D and capsule is spacecraft #20.

View of EArth from Orbit.

Cooper enjoyed a successful launch, and was given a go for the first 7 orbits. Eventually he would make 22 orbits. The mission time was 34 hours and almost 20 minutes. During that time, Gordon worked on 11 experiments and took lots of pictures when he could not get to sleep. 

View of the Himalayas.

Slow-Scan TV image of astronaut in capsule. A first for NASA.

In the 19th orbit, things started to go wrong. He began to get false indicators lights on the control panel incorrectly indicating he was re-entering orbit, Then the Auto-pilot system failed. Cooper went to manual during the next orbits and re-entry. Carbon dioxide level was increasing. Even under the pressure of a malfunctioning capsule, Cooper kept his cool and expertly guided Faith 7 into re-entry and splashdown.

US Carrier USS Kearsarge and destroyer. 

There were more than 20 ships stationed around the world in case of an emergency re-entry and splashdown. However, Cooper made a near-perfect landing, the most accurate to date.

Faith 7 under parachute descends to the Pacific ocean near Midway Island, Hawaii.

Splashdown!

Navy Frogmen secure the flotation collar and prepare for hookup to hoist. Cooper remained inside.

Faith 7 placed on an elevator on board the carrier.

Hatch open view of Cooper in the cramped cockpit.

Cooper is helped onto the deck of the ship. The last Mercury mission is over.

...and the inevitable parade.

NASA officials debated over the need for another mission, which would have been MA-10 and would be a three-day orbital attempt. However, it was decided to end the program and move on to the Gemini program, and prepare the nation for the eventual Moon flights.

ISS Expedition 35 Ends, Returns to Earth

TMA-07M undocks and backs away from the ISS.

Expedition 35 has ended on a high note, and come to a successful conclusion. Days after the unplanned EVA to repair an ammonia leak in the station's cooling system for the electrical solar power, the crew of Expedition 35 turned over command to Expedition 36.

Commander Hadfield (right) bids adieu to the crew of Expedition 36 (on left).

Canada's first commander of the ISS, Kevin Chris Hadfield, had good words to say about the mission in the last three months during a televised Change of Command ceremony on Sunday. COmmand passed to cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, part of Team B of Expedition 35, which now becomes the prime crew of Expedition 36. The departing Expedition 35 crew then made preparations for their return to Earth in Soyuz TMA-07M.

From inside ISS, Chris Hadfield in the hatch to the Soyuz waves goodbye.

There is not much room in a Soyuz capsule for three passengers, let alone equipment. However, some items need return right away, so the astronauts stowed aboard some samples from a Japanese protein crystal growth experiment.

Hatch closed.

The crew boarded their return spacecraft and undocking took place at 5:08 pm MDT while the station overflew Russia and Mongolia, over 250 miles up. As usual with Russian craft, NASA TV broadcast the sounds of Russian mission control with the help of a translator and the video coming from the Soyuz Point of View.

Russian computer panel with inset video, showing docking target on ISS.

The Soyuz fired thrusters to gently back away from the docking hatch on the Rassvet module. Once away from the station, further thruster firings maneuvered the craft away from the station and headed towards the re-entry position.

Soyuz POV. View of the station as the Soyuz moves back.

Last views of the ISS from TMA-07M.

After a perfect placement into position, the retro-rockets fired and the Soyuz began descending into the atmosphere. On the Soyuz craft, it's the middle section that protects the crew with an ablative heat shield, the experiment module and service module separating and burning up.

Computer art of module separation. Travel path would be to upper right.

Parachute sequence. The first 'chute pulls out the Main. The capsule fires landing rockets just before touchdown.

Landing occurred in Kazakhstan at 8:31 pm MDT last night. Helicopters and vehicles brought the Russian landing recovery teams to the site and they helped the astronauts leave their cramped capsule.

The crew had been in space about six months, so their bodies had to fight hard against the gravity.

With the end of recovery operations, attention now turns to the flight of Expedition 36.

Emergency Spacewalk Repairs ISS

Astronauts Marshburn and Cassidy  worked outside the ISS this morning.

Now see, when NASA needs to get something done, they just do it. This morning at 6:44 am MDT astronauts Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy opened the hatch to space and went for a little repair EVA on the outside of the station. During the 5 1/2 hour EVA, they removed a damaged coolant pump and replaced it with a spare that had been previously brought up to the station and temporarily placed nearby, ready for eventual use. The spacewalk, the 168th EVA in support of the maintenance and construction of the ISS, went quickly and successfully. It was a great example of close ground and orbital cooperation that went faster than we might have expected. Kudos to mission control, the engineers at Johnson Space Center and the resourceful astronauts of Expedition 35.

The commander of Expedition 35, Chris Hadfield, will turn over command of the station on Sunday to Expedition 36 commander Pavel Vinogradov at about 1:40 pm. MDT. Hadfield and his crew will prepare for a landing on Earth the next day.

ISS Suffers Ammonia Leak Again

ISS current module configuration.

Yesterday morning the crew of Expedition 35 discovered they had a problem. Communicating with Mission COntrol in Houston, the crew used hand-held cameras to try to broadcast down what they described as "small white flakes" floating away from the station. NASA reports the leak, apparently of ammonia, is coming from the station's P6 Truss segment. This is an area where astronauts had previously made spacewalks to repair a leak in the coolant system.   Now it appears there is still a problem.

Astronauts Sunni WIlliams and Aki Hoshide (Japan) on the November 2012 spacewalk to fix an ammonia leak.

Controllers on the ground were able to confirm there was a decrease in the ammonia supply in the coolant system. These coolant systems are important for the flow of electrical power from the giant solar power panels. For now, controllers and the crew are working to reroute the power channels away from the damaged system so that operations can continue as normal while a plan is considered for repairs.

While NASA reports there is no current danger to the life support systems, the engineers are giving a prediction that if the current leak continues, the affected coolant loop will have to be shut down in 48 hours. 

50 Years Ago: Telstar 2

Telstar art. Telstar 2 looked almost identical to Telstar 1.

Fifty years ago on May 7, 1963, NASA launched another Telstar communications satellite into orbit. Built by AT & T at Bell Laboratories, the sphere-shaped satellite weighed 176 kg and was lifted up on a Delta rocket. The two Telstar satellites helped us make tremendous advances in broadcasting signals around the world and advancing our communications systems. I found an interesting read on the business end of Telstars at Gunter's Space Page: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/telstar-1.htm

Delta rocket at Cape Canaveral, Launch complex 17B.

Launch Complex 17B, much later, with a Delta II vehicle on the pad.

The Delta rocket used for the launch was the Thor-Delta, derived from the Thor-Able series. The Thor-Delta was also the first of the Delta series. The Delta series of rockets have done a tremendous service for our nation, and evolved into the modern Delta family of rockets. The Deltas were launched from Launch Complex 17B (currently inactive) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station next to the Kennedy Space Center. You can get close to the site on the tour bus. Currently, Delta II launches are done from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Delta IV rocket, a heavier lift vehicle, can launch from both Vandenberg and SLC37. I managed to get a picture of this launch tower while on the tour a couple of years ago.

I believe this one is LC37-B.

50 Years Ago: Apollo Drop Testing

Apollo era Test Capsule "Boilerplate 19A" a split picture before (left) and After (right) restoration work. Credit: Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center.

Fifty Years ago NASA performed the first parachute drop test for the Apollo program. The test was conducted by the Northrop Corporation for NASA, dropping the test capsule (nicknamed a "boilerplate" model) from a specially configured C-133 cargo plane. The three parachutes safely landed the test craft, helping engineers calculate the forces placed on the capsule (and eventually, astronauts) during descent and landing.

In the picture above, one of the many test capsules used by NASA was recently restored to its original condition by the talented workers at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. The work took about 8 weeks, and you can see the difference in the split view. Congratulations to the Center on some great restoration work!

My study of the boilerplate models make me think that the model used in the original test 50 years ago may have been BP-6, whereas the model above, BP-19 was used in later parachute tests. I've not yet found a picture of BP-6.