Posted on May 16, 2012, at 5:06 am .
Todd May, SLS program manager, details the program's status during a session of the National Space Club's Florida Committee. (Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)
By Steven Siceloff
NASA Kennedy Space Center
The Space Launch System is on track to give America the launch vehicle it will need to send humans deeper into space than ever before, the program’s manager said May 8.
Speaking to the National Space Club during a luncheon near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Todd May, SLS program manager, said an uncrewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft in 2014, SLS mission in 2017 and a 10- to 14-day mission with astronauts going to the moon and back in 2021 will leave the nation in a position to explore as far as it wishes.
“By that point, you’ll have the capability to go anywhere in the solar system people want to go,” May said. May leads a team of engineers and designers at NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala. “The ultimate goal is to put human boots on Mars.”
Continue reading ‘NASA: SLS to Return Americans to Deep Space’
Posted on May 15, 2012, at 10:50 am .
Dream Chaser cockpit simulator. (Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation)
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) – NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., successfully completed wind tunnel testing for Sierra Nevada Corp. (SNC) Space Systems of Louisville, Colo. The test will provide aerodynamic data that will aid in the design of the new Dream Chaser® Space System.
During tests at Marshall’s wind tunnel facility, a scale model of SNC’s Dream Chaser orbital crew vehicle was mounted on a scale model of the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V launch vehicle. Over 400 data runs were performed at subsonic, transonic and supersonic speeds to study the effects of how air moves past the model. Nine full-stack configurations were tested over a Mach range of .4, or 304 miles per hour at sea level, to Mach 5, or 3,800 miles per hour at sea level, at various launch vehicle roll angles.
Continue reading ‘NASA Marshall Completes Wind Tunnel Tests on SNC’s Dream Chaser’
Posted on May 15, 2012, at 5:15 am .
The Orion Ground Test Vehicle shows the Orion "skeleton" used for pathfinding operations in preparation for the Orion spaceflight test vehicle slated for NASA's Exploration Flight Test, or EFT-1, in 2014. (Credit: NASA)
Huntsville, Ala. (NASA PR) — Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center are testing parts of the Orion service module to ensure the spacecraft can withstand the harsh realities of deep space missions.
To date, Marshall has completed two structural loads tests, and another is under way. Structural loads tests prove the structural performance or material behavior of a design as weight is applied to it. Most of the time, the allowable weight is exceeded to test the material at extreme conditions to verify the tolerance of the material or design.
Continue reading ‘NASA Marshall Engineers Continue Orion Development’
Posted on May 8, 2012, at 6:32 am .
Eugene Cernan
Apollo commanders Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and James Lovell have sent a letter of support to Rep. Frank Wolf supporting the House’s demand that NASA immediately down select to one commercial crew provider and transition to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) based contracting.
“Our recollection is that FARs exist to protect taxpayer investments and the best interests of the government by reducing risk in procurement,.” the retired astronauts wrote. “They were developed over years of experience and represent lessons learned and best practices in contracting. We are generally unfamiliar with Space Act Agreements but understand that they include little in the area of requirements and would be unlikely to provide the documentation that we normally depend upon to provide high confidence in reaching our technical goals.”
Read the full letter after the break.
Continue reading ‘Apollo Legends Support Commercial Crew Down Select’
Posted on May 2, 2012, at 7:27 am .
ORBITEC PR – Orbital Technologies Corporation, “ORBITEC,” has been awarded two new NASA contracts for engineering support and flight hardware production related to life science activities on the International Space Station. The programs awarded were for ORBITEC to support the development and flight of the “VEGGIE” system and the Advanced Plant Habitat at the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the space station.
Continue reading ‘ORBITEC’s VEGGIE Designed to Give ISS Astronauts Fresh Salads’
Posted on May 1, 2012, at 4:47 pm .
Congratulations to STAR Systems of Phoenix, which has hit its $20,000 fund-raising target on Kickstarter to fund work on its Hermes space plane.
A description of the spacecraft and the development effort from the company’s website is shown below:
The Hermes spacecraft, named after the ancient Greek god of boundaries and the people cross them, is a suborbital space shuttle for everyone, built on the premise that anyone should be able to take a trip into space without spending their life savings. It’s inspired by people like yourself who want to go into space but don’t want to spend a fortune to get there. “There aren’t too many people who get to be astronauts,” explains Morris Jarvis, the founder of STAR Systems and the Hermes spacecraft. “I think anybody who wants to fly into space should have that opportunity.”
Continue reading ‘Hermes Hits $20,000 Crowd Sourcing Target’
Posted on May 1, 2012, at 1:22 pm .
Dream Chaser cockpit simulator. (Credit: Sierra Nevada Corporation)
Richmond, B.C. (MDA PR) – MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (TSX: MDA), a provider of essential information solutions, announced today that it has signed a contract with Sierra Nevada Corporation to provide an engineering concept for a communications solution for the ongoing phase of NASA’s Commercial Crew Development program. This program aims at developing a reusable spacecraft to transport crew and critical cargo to the International Space Station and then return to Earth.
Continue reading ‘MDA to Develop Communications Concept for SNC’s Dream Chaser’
Posted on April 25, 2012, at 2:24 pm .
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
The FY13 Commerce, Justice, and Science Draft Committee Report [PDF] says that NASA should immediately down select to a single competitor in the commercial crew program to save money and time in fielding a shuttle replacement:
“The Committee believes that many of these concerns would be addressed by an immediate downselect to a single competitor or, at most, the execution of a leader-follower paradigm in which NASA makes one large award to a main commercial partner and a second small award to a back-up partner.”
In short, the committee believes the commercial crew program is too expensive and will take too long. Legislators also do not believe there is a market for more than one crew provider and that the program risks becoming another Solyndra. So, they want commercial crew to look as much like a traditional NASA procurement, with one provider and procurement under traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).
A section of the report outlining the committee’s thinking in detailed is reproduced after the break. Thanks to Clark Lindsey for finding it.
Continue reading ‘House to NASA: Down Select to Single Commercial Crew Competitor Immediately’
Posted on April 20, 2012, at 3:15 pm .
Rep. Frank Wolf
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
We now know what the House has in mind for NASA’s “reconfigured” commercial crew program. I’ll let Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the House’s Science subcommittee, explain in his own inimitable way:
Commercial Crew development is funded at $500 million, consistent with the current authorization and the report accompanying the House Budget Resolution. In light of limited budgets and the need to find the fastest, safest and most cost effective means of achieving a U.S. capability for access to the International Space Station, the bill directs NASA to winnow the commercial partners and advance the schedule for moving to traditional government procurement methods.
Continue reading ‘Wolf’s “Reconfigured” Commercial Crew: Less Money, Less Competition, More Regulation’
Posted on April 15, 2012, at 10:06 pm .
By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor
Support in Congress for NASA’s commercial crew effort is becoming stronger despite continuing opposition from some quarters, according to Jim Muncy of PoliSpace.
Speaking on Saturday at the Space Access 12 conference in Phoenix, Muncy said that more Congressional leaders have realized that the commercial crew program is the best and fastest way to restoring the nation’s ability to launch astronauts into space.
Continue reading ‘Muncy: Support for Commercial Crew Growing in Congress’
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