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!

Speaking of space debris: J002E3

J002E3 is the designation given to a supposed asteroid discovered by amateur astronomer Bill Yeung on September 3, 2002. Further examination revealed the object was not a rock asteroid but instead the S-IVB third stage of the Apollo 12 Saturn V rocket.

The object left Earth orbit in 2003 but will return in 2032. Check out this cool animation of the 2002-2003 encounter. Here is a lengthy write-up of the S-IVB stage.

The World’s Largest Stick of Dynamite

While NASA personnel have done an admirable job in handling the SRB’s up to this point, it’s sobering to know that just one mistake could cost a lot of lives and pull the plug on the nation’s manned space program. The Ares 5-segment SRB will be the world’s largest stick of dynamite, and that risk should never be lost on anybody who works in the space business.

Meanwhile, the Ares I-X test vehicle has rolled out and is in place on Pad 39B:

Ares I-X on Pad 39B
Credit: collectSPACE/Robert Pearlman

That, my friends, is the future of the US manned space program.

I wish it were something we could be proud of and excited for.

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 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.

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.

NASA’s Plan For Detecting Potentially Threatening Asteroids Is in Financial Jeopardy

Congress charged NASA with finding 90 percent of nearby space rocks greater than 140 meters (460 ft) by 2020. Now the National Research Council warns that the space agency will fall short of that goal without more funding. The National Research Council’s interim report points out the familiar situation where the government assigns NASA goals without the necessary funding to carry out its mandate.

The key to “saving the Earth” from a potentially cataclysmic impact (or even near-hit) is to find the threat early enough to do something about it.

Step Outside
A photo gallery of spacewalks.

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.

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.

NASA’s New, All-Purpose Spacesuit
NASA has awarded a contract to develop an all-in-one spacesuit that will be able to handle launches, extra-vehicular activity and walking on Mars with only a minor tweak to its configuration.

Rollout of space shuttle Discovery was slow-going due to the onset of lightning in the area of Launch Pad 39A at NASA\'s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. First motion of the shuttle out of the Vehicle Assembly Building was at 2:07 a.m. Aug. 4. Discovery\'s 13-day flight will deliver a new crew member and 33,000 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station. The equipment includes science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. Launch of Discovery on its STS-128 mission is targeted for late August. Image Credit: Photo Courtesy of Justin Dernier/EPA

STS-128 will carry the Multi-Purpsose Logistics Module LEONARDO on its sixth round-trip to the ISS.

HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND

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.

Boy Hit By Meteorite Travelling At 30,000mph: Gerrit Blank was on his way to school when he saw a massive fireball heading straight towards him from the sky.

The white-hot meteorite bounced off the schoolboy’s hand and hit the ground so hard it left a foot-long crater in the tarmac – as well as a three-inch scar on his hand.

Gerrit, 14, said: “At first I just saw a large ball of light and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand.

“Then, a split second after that, there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder.”

More Space Links:

US space shuttle launch delayed over hydrogen leak
Endeavour will now launch on Wednesday at the earliest.

Tight squeeze ahead on space station
There will be 13 astronauts aboard the ISS/Shuttle when Endeavour arrives, the most ever.

NASA’s Ares I-X Rocket Achieves Historic Hardware Milestones
The pogo stick progresses.

Commissioning Hubble – Preparing For Science Observations
Checking and calibrating instruments for the next 15 weeks.

A technician straps legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield into the cockpit of the X-15 rocket plane before an early test flight. The X-15's maiden flight occurred on June 8, 1959, during which Crossfield was carried aloft in his sleek, black rocket plane beneath the wing of a B-52 from NASA's Flight Research Center (now NASA Dryden). This was the beginning of nearly a decade of flight research that probed the hypersonic speed realm and altitudes at the edge of space. Image Credit: NASA/North American Aviation