NASA has released the schedule for its remaining ten space shuttle missions. The plan includes nine flights to the International Space Station and a Hubble servicing mission in October. Endeavour is set to close out the shuttle era beginning on May 31, 2010 - about 10 months short of the 30th anniversary of the program’s inaugural mission on April 12, 1981.
Meanwhile, NASA has ramped work on the shuttle’s successor, Constellation. In lieu of actual test flights (which won’t begin until next year), the space agency has created a really snazzy video showing how Constellation will place us on a path back to the moon beginning in 2013….or 2015.
And how is work going on the Ares rockets and Orion capsule? Officially, everything’s coming up Milhouse. In fact, you can read about how well things are going on NASA’s official Constellation website. Or read this story about Ares in the Houston Chronicle.
Others aren’t so sure.
Continue reading ‘Space Shuttle to Remain Forever 29; Successor Program Going Great…or Not’
NASA Eases Concerns Over Shuttle Objects
Associated Press
“Mission Control reassured commander Mark Kelly and his crew on Friday that their spaceship was safe for coming home, and that the missing clip — one of three that hold down thermal blankets on the rudder and speed brake — would not impact anything.
“A protrusion in the same area at the tail, which was reported by the astronauts around the same time, also was found to be harmless. The angle of the lighting and the rudder’s position made the so-called bump look strange when, in fact, it was exactly how it looked at liftoff, Mission Control said.”
NASA MISSION STATUS UPDATE
Friday, June 13
In conversations on NASA Television, space shuttle Discovery astronauts, completing a standard day-before-landing test of the shuttle steering jets, called Mission Control and indicated they had seen a one foot to 1.5-foot-long object floating away from the shuttle, from behind the rear portion of the right wing. They said it appeared to be a rectangular object. The crew captured a few seconds of video of the object and transmitted it to the ground.
Shortly afterwards, the crew described what they called a “bump” on the left side trailing edge of Discovery’s rudder (see photo). The crew took photographs of the rudder area with high resolution cameras and is downlinking those images to Mission Control. Discovery’s payload bay television cameras also were trained on the area and provided views of the rudder for ground experts to examine.
The crew completed the standard flight control system check out and reaction control system steering jet test, and is continuing to stow items in the cabin for Saturday’s planned landing.
The deorbit burn is scheduled for 10:10 a.m. EDT Saturday, followed by landing at 11:15 a.m.
NASA concerned as object floats past shuttle, bump detected
CBC News
The space shuttle Discovery has departed the International Space Station and is preparing for a Saturday landing back at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA reports that the mission is going well.
Meanwhile, officials say that the shuttle launch caused so much damage last week that it has knocked the launch pad out of commission. WESH-TV reports that the pad was a “ticking time bomb.” Hundreds of square feet of walls were damaged, with bricks puncturing a fence one-half mile away. The CBS affiliate reports there are fears that bricks could damage the fragile shuttle during a future launch, although another report said this fear was unfounded.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that a 200-square-foot section of the flame trench wall came loose. NASA is probing the launch pad for structure weaknesses, and it hopes to have the facility repaired by October. Work has been hampered by the presence of dangerous asbestos, which can cause deadly lung diseases.
Two-time space shuttle astronaut Ronald A. Parise passed away last week at his home in Silver Spring, Md., after a three-year battle with brain cancer. He was 56.
The Ohio native flew as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1990 and the Endeavour in 1995. He made ultraviolet and x-ray astronomical observations as part of the ASTRO-1 and ASTRO-2 missions. Parise also spoke with hundreds of ham radio operators around the world during his flights.
Frank H. Bauer, chairman of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station International program, was saddened to hear of Parise’s passing.
“Ron Parise was — and continues to be — an inspiration to countless students, ham radio operators, and friends the world over,” Bauer told Vindy.com. “While he certainly did some truly extraordinary things in his lifetime, Ron Parise is best known and cherished for keeping family and friends first … and for this, we will miss him most.”
Parise is survived by his wife, the former Cecilia Sokol, whom he met while both were students at Youngstown State University. They married in 1973. The couple’s son, Nicholas, is in the U.S. Air Force. Their daughter, Katherine, lives in Silver Spring, Md.
The family requests that contributions be made to the Youngstown State University Foundation, Dr. Ronald A. Parise Scholarship Fund.
Having spent near a quarter century and $100 billion on the International Space Station, NASA may have significant problems completing the orbital outpost by 2010 and supporting it after the agency retires the space shuttle the same year.
That is the rather dour assessment delivered by the Government Accountability Office during a Congressional hearing on Thursday. GAO’s Cristina Chaplain said NASA’s station completion plans”require much to happen and very little to go wrong” over the next two years. Once the agency completes station construction, it will retire the space shuttle.
Chaplain said NASA will have a difficult time replacing the shuttle’s large payload capacity. The significant “shortfall in (NASA’s) ability to provide logistical support to the station … may well impact support for a six-person crew and the quality of the research that can be conducted,” she said.
NASA officials disagreed, expressing confidence that they can finish the station in two years and keep the facility supplied with a mixture of Russian, Japanese and European vehicles. The space agency also is funding development of commercial resupply ships under its COTS program.
There’s more about GAO’s report and NASA’s response below:
GAO Report (PDF Document)
Shuttle’s retirement could leave space station lacking support
Orlando Sentinel
Shuttles’ end may leave space station out in the cold
Houston Chronicle
Report: Supplying ISS will be difficult
Florida Today
Aviation Week’s Frank Morring, Jr. is providing blog updates from the ongoing U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Morring’s blog posts:
- review the evolving space policies of the three major U.S. presidential candidates;
- report on a proposal by former shuttle commander turned Boeing executive Brewster Shaw to keep the space shuttle flying beyond its planned retirement date in 2010; and,
- reveal that the U.S. Air Force had been assisting the Chinese human spaceflight program with avoiding orbital debris, at least until the Chinese made the problem much worse last year by blowing up a spacecraft with an anti-satellite missile.
Massive job cuts in space program likely
Associated Press
“More than 8,000 NASA contractor jobs in the nation’s manned space program could be eliminated after the space shuttle program is shut down in 2010, the agency said Tuesday.
“The number of civil servants is expected to remain roughly the same, but dramatic job cuts are possible among private contractors as NASA transitions to the Constellation program, which is developing the next-generation vehicle and rockets to go to the moon and later to Mars.”
NASA faces job flight
Daytona Beach News-Journal
NASA: Michoud’s Employment Future Cloudy
Associated Press via Yahoo News
More than 1,000 jobs may be lost at Michoud
New Orleans Times-Picayune
Marshall jobs ‘pretty stable’
The Huntsville Times
The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that up to 6,400 contractors could lose their jobs at the Kennedy Space Center after the space shuttle is retired in 2010.
In a report due out on Tuesday, the space agency estimates that the contractor staff could fall from about 8,000 today to between 1,600 and 2,300 in 2011. Employment would begin to pick up in subsequent years as NASA prepares to launch its new Ares/Orion system. Far fewer employees will be needed to launch the new system.
The space shuttle Endeavour landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday at 8:39 p.m. EDT after an almost 16-day mission. Commander Dominic Gorie guided the orbiter to a safe landing at Cape Canaveral. The shuttle’s seven-member crew delivered a new Japanese module and a Canadian robot to the International Space Station, where they stayed for a record 12 days.