TDRS-1

NASA Retires Pioneering Tracking And Data Relay Satellite

After a rocky start and then a stellar 26-year performance, NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite – 1 (TDRS-1) is scheduled for decommissioning on October 28.

Communications equipment that links TDRS-1 to the ground has failed and without this capability it can no longer relay science data and spacecraft telemetry to ground stations located at the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, N.M., and on Guam.

Insecurity in Space
Space once was ours. Then came the space junk, collisions, and dangerous interlopers.

The recent expedition of space shuttle Atlantis on a major Hubble repair mission illustrated the dangers also.

Traveling up to the Hubble telescope’s altitude required transit through a major debris field. As Palowitch described it, the worst debris in LEO is right in the Hubble’s band. The known debris put Atlantis “at a one-in-200 chance of being totally destroyed by impact in flight,” he said. When it landed, Atlantis was pockmarked with more debris hits than any other shuttle in history.

Several factors contributed to the pummeling. First was the transit through debris fields. Then, once in position, the complex repairs required Atlantis to spend more time in the junk-strewn orbit.

More space blogging below!

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The Day of the Atlas

Fifty years ago this month, the United States stepped briskly into the ICBM era, and it has never stepped out. Three long-range, liquid-fueled Atlas D missiles armed with nuclear warheads went on full combat alert at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., on Oct. 31, 1959.

A lot of great footage in this video:

UPDATE: Plus: United Launch Alliance’s 600th Atlas Mission

Space Aged: 10 Spacecraft from Decades Past That Are Still Ticking
Slideshow of oldies but goodies.

Space Shots Revisited

The moon-landing-hoax believers will never be convinced by anything, let alone something as easily faked as photographic evidence. After all, if NASA faked the moon landings in 1969, just think what they can fake today. Even when an Indian probe confirms it. Whatever.

Apollo 12 landing site photographed by the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter

Expedition 20 flight engineer Nicole Stott participates in the STS-128 mission's first spacewalk as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Stott and astronaut Danny Olivas (out of frame) removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm. Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility and Materials International Space Station Experiment from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery's payload bay for return. Image Credit: NASA

Murdoc watched part of this on the tele. The daughter thought it was cool that a girl was out there getting it done.

Ares I-X Test Vehicle:

Standing tall at its fully assembled height of 327 feet, the Ares I-X is one of the largest rockets ever processed in the Vehicle Assembly Building's High Bay 3, Super Stack 5 at the Kennedy Space Center. Ares I-X rivals the height of the Apollo Program's 364-foot-tall Saturn V. Five super stacks make up the rocket's upper stage that is integrated with the four-segment solid rocket booster first stage. Ares I-X is the test vehicle for the Ares I, which is part of the Constellation Program to return humans to the moon and beyond. The Ares I-X flight test currently is targeted for Oct. 31. Image Credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

To the Moon – with extreme engineering

The Lunar Orbiter astonishes even today. It had to take pictures, scan and develop the film on board, and broadcast it successfully back to earth. Naturally, the orbiter had to provide its own power, orient itself without intervention from ground control, and maintain precise temperature conditions and air pressure for the film processing, and protect itself from solar radiation and cosmic rays – all within severe size and weight constraints.

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James May of Top Gear gets quite a ride:

Great video.

However, I don’t know that

“If everybody could do that once, it would completely change the face of global politics, religion, education, everything.”

It would be interesting to know if James May’s life is significantly different in a measurable way since his flight. Not to discount the idea that broadening ones horizons is important or that we’ve only got one planet or whatever, but unless he’s completely changed the way he lives I’m not sure why he should expect that everyone else would.

Regardless, it’s a great video. Murdoc is available for similar flights at any time.

X-51A WaveRider meets B-52

Staff Sgt. Jonathan Young with the 412th Maintenance Group prepares to upload the X-51A WaveRider hypersonic flight test vehicle to a B-52 for fit testing at Edwards Air Force Base on July 17. Two B-52 flights, one captive carriage and one dress rehearsal, are planned this fall prior to the X-51\'s first hypersonic scramjet flight over the Pacific Ocean scheduled in December. The Air Force Research Laboratory, DARPA, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, and Boeing are partnering on the X-51A technology demonstrator program. (U.S. Air Force photo/Chad Bellay)

Light-Curing Adhesive Repair Tapes

Adhesive tapes, the adhesive resins of which can be cured (and thereby rigidized) by exposure to ultraviolet and/or visible light, are being developed as repair patch materials…They can be used in air or in vacuum and can be cured rapidly, even at temperatures as low as –20 °C. Although these tapes were originally intended for use in repairing structures in outer space, they can also be used on Earth for quickly repairing a wide variety of structures. They can be expected to be especially useful in situations in which it is necessary to rigidize tapes after wrapping them around or pressing them onto the parts to be repaired.

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Happy Flag Day:

Apollo 12 astronaut Charles 'Pete' Conrad stands beside the United States flag after is was unfurled on the lunar surface during the first extravehicular activity (EVA-1), on November 19, 1969. Several footprints made by the crew can be seen in the photograph.

Trackers of Orbiting Junk Sound Warning

There are 19,000 pieces of debris larger than a softball orbiting the Earth. They travel at about 17,000 miles per hour, fast enough for a relatively small piece of junk to destroy a satellite or even the space shuttle.

There are 300,000 pieces of debris the size of a marble or larger, according to Paul Graziani, chief executive of Analytical Graphics, Exton, Pa., a maker of software for the space and defense industries.

There are 3,000 “payloads” in space – sensors, transponders and other equipment used by the communications industry, the military, scientists and others, Graziani said. And 1,400 times each week, a payload comes within three miles of a piece of debris that could damage or kill it.

NASA Announces Winners in Second Annual Lunar Art Contest

WINNER: Crater Core Sample by Zachary Madere Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Lakewood, CO

Check out the full gallery of finalists here.

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A couple of cool pics:

Two Shuttles

Space shuttle Atlantis is shown suspended from a sling in the Mate-DeMate Device at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center during preparations for its ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base, concluding the 13-day STS-125 mission to service and repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA/Tony Landis