International Space Station (Updates)

8,882 · August 25, 2015

Thats interesting science and something you wouldn't normally hear of given the emphasis on space these days,it must be difficult to resupply such a remote location even more so than ISS.The equipment must be well designed and tested to be used where equipment can become very brittle and tempremental at such low temperatures.

6,181 · August 25, 2015

Thats interesting science and something you wouldn't normally hear of given the emphasis on space these days,it must be difficult to resupply such a remote location even more so than ISS.The equipment must be well designed and tested to be used where equipment can become very brittle and tempremental at such low temperatures.

From personal experience, I spent some time in the high Canadian Arctic......somewhat similar conditions to the Antarctic....... Major supplies such as fueling and stock supplies for the year, are brought in during the short "summer" season by co-ordinated, and pre-planned transport options such as ship/barge and aircraft mass supply. Top up supplies and personnel are flown in on rotation except for the "dead of winter", when the skeleton crew maintains the site. Small sites have it the toughest, while the larger sites have a lot of amenities. I actually enjoyed the skeleton crew periods, get a lot of work done and it's peaceful. Today, it is a bit challenging for emergency transport during winter, but the ISS is magnitudes more difficult.

As far as equipment, we have a lot of experience in equipment design for this environment...which is not as bad as "space" is....

Cheers.....

6,181 · August 26, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 24 August 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 24 August 2015. NASA

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) was bolted into place on the International Space Station's Earth-facing port of the Harmony module at 10:02 a.m. EDT.

The spacecraft's arrival will support the crew members' research off the Earth to benefit the Earth. The HTV-5 is delivering more than 8,000 pounds of equipment, supplies and experiments in a pressurized cargo compartment. The unpressurized compartment will deliver the 1,400-pound CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) investigation, an astrophysics mission that will search for signatures of dark matter and provide the highest energy direct measurements of the cosmic ray electron spectrum.

Items to be unloaded during HTV-5's stay at the orbiting outpost include food, crew provisions, supplies, several Cubesats, and the NanoRacks External Platform capable of housing multiple, diverse investigations mounted to the JAXA Japanese External Facility.

JAXA and NASA teams adjusted the cargo manifest to deliver additional food supplies and critical components lost in the failure of the seventh SpaceX commercial resupply services mission. The delivery will ensure the crew has plenty of food through the end of 2015. HTV-5 is delivering two multifiltration beds that filter contaminants from the station's water supply, a Fluids Control and Pump Assembly used for urine processing to support water recycling, a Wring Collector used in conjunction with the on-orbit toilet, a Respiratory Support Pack used in space to provide breathing assistance to an astronaut in the event lung function were impaired and space suit support equipment used during spacewalks.

The HTV-5 will spend five weeks attached to the international outpost, then the cargo vehicle will be filled with trash, detached from the station and sent to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

Remote Power Controller Module (RPCM) LAD62B-A RPC 12 (Lab CDRA ASV) Trip: Over the weekend the RPCM LAD62B-A that provides power to the Lab Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Air Selector Valves (ASV) tripped multiple times. This RPCM was replaced on 24-July-2015. This is the first time the RPC 12 has tripped since the RPCM was replaced. RPC 12 has been tripping intermittently since April 1, 2014 while the Lab CDRA is 'On' or in 'Standby'. The replacement of the RPCM was to remove a leg of the fault tree. RPC 12 has been closed and Lab CDRA is currently in standby. It is available for use as needed.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

HTV5 capture/berthing

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Tuesday, 08/25: HTV5 ingress, HTV5 cargo transfer, OBT emergency delta review, NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor Deploy 1
Wednesday, 08/26: Ocular Health, Capillary Beverage, 42S redocking training
Thursday, 08/27: Ocular Health, HTV cargo transfer, PEPS Inspect

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

Hers is a real good video with Sergey Volkov, due up in September...(1:53 min)

Monthly ISS Research Video Update for July 2015, actually a good one...(6:13 min)

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-24-august-2015.html

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Soyuz Move Sets Stage for Arrival of New Space Station Crew

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Half of the residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on Friday, Aug. 28. NASA Television coverage will begin at 2:45 a.m. EDT.

Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos will move the Soyuz from the station's Poisk module to the Zvezda docking port. The relocation maneuver will begin with undocking at 3:12 a.m. and end with redocking at 3:37 a.m.

The relocation will free up the Poisk module for the docking of a new Soyuz vehicle, designated TMA-18M, carrying three additional crew members, and scheduled to launch to the station Wednesday, Sept. 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome inKazakhstan. Aboard will be Expedition 45 crew member Sergei Volkov of Roscosmos, and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency.

Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth with Padalka on Saturday, Sept. 12 in the Soyuz TMA-16M. In March 2016, the Soyuz TMA-18M will return with Volkov, as well as one-year mission crew members Kelly and Kornienko, who arrived on station in March to begin collecting biomedical data crucial to NASA's human journey to Mars.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

For more information about the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508251718PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC86795&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

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Crew Begins Unloading Cargo

Astronaut Kimiya Yui seemingly juggles fresh fruit upside down after opening the hatches and entering Japan’s fifth “Kounotori” resupply ship. Credit: NASA TV

The crew opened the hatches today to Japan’s fifth “Kounotori” resupply ship (HTV-5) and began unloading new supplies and science gear. The station residents also studied human research and reviewed changes to emergency procedures.

The HTV-5 arrived Monday morning carrying cargo and science for the crew and external experiments to be attached to the Kibo laboratory module. The external research gear includes the CALET dark matter study, the NanoRacks External Platform and a flock of 14 CubeSats.

One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko are 151 days into their mission. The duo participated in research today looking at the long-term effects of microgravity on the human body. They collected blood and urine samples for the Fluid Shifts study which observes physical changes to an astronaut’s eyes during a space mission.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

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Soyuz Move Sets Stage for Arrival of New Space Station Crew

The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft departs from the International Space Station's Poisk Mini-Research Module 2 (MRM2) and heads toward a landing in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 11, 2013 (Kazakhstan time). On Friday Aug. 28, 2015, Expedition 44 crew will move the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft from the Poisk module to the Zvezda docking port.Credits: NASA

Half of the residents of the International Space Station will take a spin around their orbital neighborhood in the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on Friday, Aug. 28. NASA Television coverage will begin at 2:45 a.m. EDT.

Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos will move the Soyuz from the station’s Poisk module to the Zvezda docking port. The relocation maneuver will begin with undocking at 3:12 a.m. and end with redocking at 3:37 a.m.

The relocation will free up the Poisk module for the docking of a new Soyuz vehicle, designated TMA-18M, carrying three additional crew members, and scheduled to launch to the station Wednesday, Sept. 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Aboard will be Expedition 45 crew member Sergei Volkov of Roscosmos, and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency.

Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth with Padalka on Saturday, Sept. 12 in the Soyuz TMA-16M. In March 2016, the Soyuz TMA-18M will return with Volkov, as well as one-year mission crew members Kelly and Kornienko, who arrived on station in March to begin collecting biomedical data crucial to NASA’s human journey to Mars.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/soyuz-move-sets-stage-for-arrival-of-new-space-station-crew

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$255 Billion for Manufacture & Launch of 1,400 Satellites Over Next Decade

ESA satellite. ESA

According to Euroconsult's newly released report, Satellites to be Built & Launched by 2024, 140 satellites with launch mass over 50 kg will be launched on average each year over the next decade for governments and commercial companies. In comparison with last year's forecast, the number of satellites is due to grow more than the market value over the decade.

"The increase in satellite number would be significantly higher if two mega-constellation projects for small communications satellites were included in the forecast," said Rachel Villain, Principal Advisor at Euroconsult and editor of the report. "The 1,400 satellite count over the decade already includes 350 satellites to be deployed by ten commercial constellations into low or medium Earth orbits for communication or Earth observation."

Governments in 60 countries will be responsible for 75% of the $255 billion in revenues expected from the manufacturing and launch of these 1,400 satellites over the next decade. Governments dominate the space industry as established space countries replace and expand their in-orbit satellite systems and more countries acquire their first operational satellite systems, usually for communications & broadcasting or for Earth observation & imagery intelligence. Nearly 90% of the government market will remain concentrated in the ten countries with an established space industry - the U.S., Russia, Europe (France, Germany, the U.K., Italy and Spain), China, Japan and India. The other 50 countries engaged in space activities will launch twice the number of satellites that they did in the past ten years, i.e. about 200 satellites. Over half of these satellites will be procured from foreign manufacturers as domestic industry capabilities develop in these countries.

In the commercial space sector, Euroconsult anticipates a total of 550 satellites to be launched over the decade by 40 companies. Most of these satellites will be for the replacement of the communications capacity currently in orbit. 80% of the commercial space market remains concentrated in geostationary orbit, the destination of 300+ satellites operated by 30 companies for communications and broadcasting services. A technological revolution is now in progress in the GEO comsat industry where higher throughput and more flexible payloads combined with electric propulsion are becoming economic game changers. Still, the ten commercial constellations to be launched into non-geostationary orbits for broadband and narrowband communications and for Earth observation imagery should represent a market of $1.3 billion per year on average over the decade.

About The Report
Satellites to be Built & Launched by 2024 is required reading for anyone interested in the business generated by satellite systems and their launches. The report is fully updated, providing all the key figures and analysis needed to understand the global space market, and the future opportunities and challenges.

About Euroconsult
Euroconsult is the leading global consulting firm specializing in space markets. As a privately-owned, fully independent firm, we provide first-class strategic consulting, develop comprehensive research and organize executive-level annual summits for the industry. With 30 years of experience, Euroconsult is trusted by 600 clients in over 50 countries. Euroconsult is headquartered in France, with offices in the U.S., Canada and Japan.

http://spaceref.biz/company/255-billion-for-manufacture-launch-of-1400-satellites-over-next-decade.html

Cheers.....

6,181 · August 27, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 25 August 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 25 August 2015.

The crew opened the hatches today to Japan's fifth "Kounotori" resupply ship (HTV-5) and began unloading new supplies and science gear. The station residents also studied human research and reviewed changes to emergency procedures.

The HTV-5 arrived Monday morning carrying cargo and science for the crew and external experiments to be attached to the Kibo laboratory module. The external research gear includes the CALET dark matter study, the NanoRacks External Platform and a flock of 14 CubeSats.

One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko are 151 days into their mission. The duo participated in research today looking at the long-term effects of microgravity on the human body. They collected blood and urine samples for the Fluid Shifts study which observes physical changes to an astronaut's eyes during a space mission.

HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV)5 Activities: Following yesterday's successful capture and berthing, today the crew completed vestibule outfitting, opened the HTV hatch and installed Portable Fire Extinguishers, breathing apparatuses and handrails prior to ingressing the vehicle and completing 3-hours of cargo transfer. Later in the day the crew participated in a post-capture debrief with ground teams.

Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Last night, the Robotics Ground Controllers powered up the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) and maneuvered the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) to extract the External Platform (EP) from the HTV5 Unpressurized Logistics Carrier (ULC). The EP was then maneuvered to the handoff position at which point the Japanese Experiment Module Remote Manipulator System (JEMRMS) Ground Controllers maneuvered the JEMRMS to grapple the EP Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF). The Robotics Ground Controllers then released the SSRMS from the EP Power and Video Grapple Fixture (PVGF) and maneuvered the SSRMS to a park position. Early this morning, the JEMRMS Ground Controllers installed the EP on JEM Exposed Facility (JEF) Exposed Facility Unit 10 (EFU10) and then removed the Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) from the EP and installed it on JEF EFU9. The SSRMS was then walked from the Node 2 Power and Data Grapple Fixture (PDGF) to the Mobile Base System (MBS) PDGF #4. The SSRMS was then used to pick up the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) from the Lab PDGF. MSS performance today was nominal. Later today, the Mobile Transporter (MT) will be moved to Worksite 7 and the SPDM will be used to open HTV Exposed Facility Units (HEFU) 1 and 2.

NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor (MGM): Lindgren deployed the MGM in Node 3 today. The MGM is the first laser sensor to continuously measure four gases that are key for crewmembers' health aboard the ISS. The multiple low-power, tunable lasers train an infrared laser beam on a cabin air sample, and sensors tuned to specific wavelengths of light detect oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and humidity. The instrument fits in a device the size of a shoebox and detects the presence of gases in less than one second.

CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) Video Survey: Yui captured video of the installation of CALET as it was moved from the HTV-5 EP to the JEM EFU #9. CALET is an astrophysics mission that searches for signatures of dark matter and provides the highest energy direct measurements of the cosmic ray electron spectrum to observe discrete sources of high energy particle acceleration in our local region of the Galaxy. CALET addresses many outstanding high-energy astrophysics questions such as the origin of cosmic rays, how cosmic rays accelerate and travel across the galaxy and the existence of dark matter and nearby cosmic-ray sources.

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

Robotics Operations
MT Translate from WS 5 to WS7 [Planned later this evening]

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Wednesday, 08/26: Ocular Health, Capillary Beverage, 42S redocking training

Thursday, 08/27: Ocular Health, HTV cargo transfer, PEPS Inspect

Friday, 08/28: 42S relocation from MRM2 Zenith to SM Aft

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - On
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-25-august-2015.html

Space Station Live: Space-Proven Air Scrubber video 6:55 min

Japanese Cargo Ship Arrives at the Space Station video 5:29 min

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-25-august-2015.html

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Sun Glints Off Of Arriving Space Cargo Vehicle

Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle NASA

Japan's Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) is seen during final approach towards the International Space Station.

The unpiloted cargo craft, named "Kounotori," which is Japanese for "white stork," is loaded with more than four-and-a-half tons of research and supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware.

http://spaceref.com/onorbit/sun-glints-off-of-arriving-space-cargo-vehicle.html

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Veteran Trio Will Move Soyuz to New Port Friday

The Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft is seen approaching the International Space Station before docking to the Poisk module on March 27, 2015.

Commander Gennady Padalka will back the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft from its Poisk module docking port Friday morning. One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko will come along for the 25-minute ride and redock to the Zvezda service module port.

The trio reviewed their procedures for the Soyuz relocation maneuver scheduled to begin Friday at 3:12 a.m. EDT. NASA TV will cover the activities live starting at 2:45 a.m.

Japan’s fifth “Kounotori” resupply ship is being unloaded today bringing fresh fruit, research gear and other supplies. Meanwhile, the six-member Expedition 44 crew worked numerous science experiments today studying eye health, plant growth, circadian rhythms and the risk of infection by microorganisms during a space mission.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2015/08/26/veteran-trio-will-move-soyuz-to-new-port-friday/

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NASA Television to Air Launch of Next International Space Station Crew

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The next three crew members bound for the International Space Station are set to launch to the orbital outpost Wednesday, Sept. 2.

NASA Television launch coverage will begin at 11:45 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:37 a.m. Wednesday (10:34 a.m. Baikonur time). Mogensen and Aimbetov are short duration crew members while Volkov will spend six months on the orbital complex.

The trio will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, which will rendezvous with the space station and dock two days later to the Poisk module at 3:42 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 4. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 3 a.m.

The hatches between the Soyuz and station will be opened at about 6:15 a.m. onSept. 4, at which time the newly arrived crew members will be greeted by Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos, as well as Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren of NASA, and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. NASA TV coverage of the hatch opening will begin at 5:45 a.m.

This will be the first time nine crew members are aboard the station simultaneously since November 2013. Padalka, Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth onSaturday, Sept. 12, leaving Kelly in command of Expedition 45. The change of command ceremony in which Padalka will hand over command of the space station to Kelly will be broadcast on NASA TV on Saturday, Sept. 5 at 2:40 p.m.

Kelly and Kornienko will return in March 2016 after spending a year on the stationcollecting valuable biomedical data that will improve our understanding of the effects of long duration space travel and aid in NASA's journey to Mars.

Together, the Expedition 45 crew members will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard humanity's only orbiting laboratory.

For the full schedule of prelaunch, launch and docking coverage, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/prnewswire-space-news.html?doc=201508261544PR_NEWS_USPR_____DC87629&showRelease=1&dir=0&categories=AEROSPACE-AND-SPACE-EXPLORATION&andorquestion=OR&&passDir=0,1,2,3,4,5,6,15,17,34

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Arizona State University Chosen To Lead A Lunar CubeSat Mission

A spacecraft the size of a shoebox with Arizona origins will soon be orbiting our nearest neighbor to create a map of water-ice on the Moon.

The NASA-selected CubeSat will be designed, built, and operated at Arizona State University, and is one piece of the agency's larger mission to fully characterize the water content at the lunar South Pole in preparation for exploration, resource utilization, and improved understanding of the Moon's geologic history.

The spacecraft, called the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, or "LunaH-Map" for short, will produce the most detailed map to date of the Moon's water deposits, unveiling new details about the depth and distribution of the ice that has been tentatively identified from previous missions. Confirming and mapping those deposits in detail will help NASA understand how much water might be available and will help inform NASA's strategy for sending humans farther into the solar system.

The ability to search for useful assets, such as hydrogen, can potentially enable astronauts to manufacture fuel and other provisions needed to sustain a crew for a journey to Mars, reducing the amount of fuel and weight that NASA would need to transport from Earth.

LunaH-Map, along with a number of other deep-space CubeSats, are candidates to fly to lunar orbit on Exploration Mission-1, the first flight of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), which will be the most powerful rocket ever built and will enable astronauts in the Orion spacecraft to travel deeper into the solar system. NASA will provide several CubeSat missions spots on the maiden SLS mission.

Once it arrives at the Moon, the tiny spacecraft will embark on a 60-day science mission, consisting of 141 science orbits, using a suite of science instruments.

As LunaH-Map flies over the lunar South Pole at a very low altitude, it counts the energies of neutrons that have leaked out of the lunar surface. The energy distribution of the neutrons that hit the detectors tells us about the amount of hydrogen that's buried in the top meter of lunar soil.

LunaH-Map will map the hydrogen content of the entire South Pole of the Moon, including within permanently shadowed regions at high resolution. LunaH-Map will measure the bulk hydrogen content, up to a meter beneath the lunar surface, while the instruments on both Lunar IceCube and FLASHLIGHT will tell us about the very top few microns. LunaH-Map will create the highest resolution maps of regional near-surface (top-meter) water-ice distribution across the entire South Pole of the Moon.

http://spaceref.com/nasa-hack-space/arizona-state-university-chosen-to-lead-a-lunar-cubesat-mission.html

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U.S. Air Force Eyes Blast Detection Satellite

The U.S. Air Force intends to use an Orbital ATK satellite platform for the STPSat-6 mission. Shown above is an artist's concept of the GEOStar-1 platform Orbital ATK offers for national security missions in geostationary orbit. Credit: Orbital ATK

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force hopes to build an experimental satellite that would detect nuclear explosions and monitor the space environment from geosynchronous orbit, the service said in an Aug. 24 announcement.

The Space Test Program Satellite (STPSat) -6 would be the latest in a series of spacecraft developed under a Defense Department program to field space capabilities quickly in response to emerging military needs.

STPSat-6 is notionally scheduled to launch in late 2018 as the primary payload on a rocket to be selected via competition, presumably between SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, the Air Force said. That mission, called STP-3, will place multiple satellites into geosynchronous orbit, the statement said.

In a request for information posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website, the Air Force’s Space Test Program at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico said it was looking for input from industry on how to build and fly the satellite. The service plans to use the resulting input to develop its acquisition strategy.

The primary payload aboard STPSat-6 is the Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System, or SABRS, which provides nuclear detonation detection and space environment data. The payload would complement nuclear detection sensors currently aboard GPS satellites.

STPSat-6 also could include as many as eight secondary payloads from the Space Test Program office, the Air Force said.

Project officials envision providing a partially assembled satellite bus from Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia, as government furnished equipment. Orbital ATK currently has the hardware at its Beltsville, Maryland facility, the notice said.

The Air Force expects to spend $65 million on the program from 2016 to 2026 and hopes the satellite would operate for at least eight years, the posting said. The satellite would be placed into geostationary orbit between 80 and 120 degrees west longitude, the notice said.

STPSat-6 could be compatible with the Multi-Mission Satellite Operations Center (MMSOC), a satellite control architecture designed primarily for experimental and Operationally Responsive Space missions. The MMSOC was developed by Lockheed Martin along with the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Space Development and Test Directorate and is viewed by some as the ground system of the future.

Responses from industry are due Sept. 24.

http://spacenews.com/u-s-air-force-eyes-blast-detection-satellite/

Cheers......

6,181 · August 27, 2015

Space odds and ends.....

Forget the 'Supermoon': What's Actually Happening at Lunar Perigee

An airplane flies in front of the “blue moon” full moon of July 31, 2015 in this photo captured by skywatcher Chris Jankowski of Erie, Pennsylvania.
Credit: Chris Jankowski

You'll probably hear a lot about a "supermoon" over the next few months. This is not a term that astronomers use, but here are some facts about what will actually happen.

A full moon is when the sun, Earth and moon line up, with the Earth in the middle. As seen from the surface of the Earth, the moon is fully illuminated. Because it is opposite the sun in the sky, the moon rises in the east just as the sun sets in the west. And, roughly 12 hours later, the moon sets in the west just as the sun is rising in the east.

Because the Earth is constantly revolving around the sun and the moon is constantly revolving around the Earth, a full moon is an instantaneous event, occurring when the moon is exactly opposite the sun. This week, such an alignment happens at 2:35 p.m. EDT (1835 GMT) on Saturday, Aug. 29.

A minute before that, the moon's phase is "waxing gibbous," and a minute later it is "waning gibbous."

Each full moon occurs roughly 29.53 days after the previous full moon. It's "roughly" because the moon's orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle, but is instead elliptical in shape. So the exact time of full moon varies a little bit from month to month.

The most important result of the moon's elliptical orbit is that sometimes the moon is closer to the Earth, and sometimes farther away. The time when the satellite is nearest is called "perigee" and the time when it is farthest is called "apogee."

What skywatchers are most interested in is perigee, the date and time when the moon is closest to Earth. This month, perigee occurs on Sunday, Aug. 30, at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), about 18 hours after full moon. At that time, the moon will be 222,631 miles (358,290 kilometers) away from Earth.

Notice how less than a day's change in position makes it clear that the moon is no longer full: You can see that it is lit more from the left side.

Events like the full moon and perigee occur at exactly the same time when viewed from anywhere on Earth, even though the local time on the clock may be different. This month, both the full moon and perigee occur when it is daytime in North America, and the moon is below the horizon. The best time to see the full moon close to perigee will be on Saturday evening, Aug. 29. The moon will be a few hours past full, and perigee will be a few hours in the future, but that's the closest to simultaneous the events will get this month.

The important thing for astronomers is that the perigee distance is less than 223,690 miles (360,000 km). When the moon gets this close, its most important effect on the Earth — the ocean tides — gets stronger. On the day of perigee and the three days following, Earth will have larger tides than usual.

Looking ahead to next month, full moon will fall on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 10:51 p.m. EDT (0251 GMT on Sept. 28), and perigee just 51 minutes earlier, at 10 p.m. This perigee will be the closest in 2015, at 221,753 miles (356,877 km). The result will be the largest full moon of the year and even larger high tides. Notice that both events happen in the evening, when the moon will be well placed in the sky.

The full moon of September is traditionally called the Harvest Moon, because it rises around sunset on several successive nights, giving farmers extra light in the evening to bring in their harvests.

The September full moon will also pass through the Earth's shadow, causing a total eclipse of the moon, visible on the evening of Sept. 27 in North and South America, and the morning of Sept. 28 in Europe and Africa.

When the moon is close to full, observers can see the strong contrast between its grey plains and white mountainous regions, which some people see as the "man in the moon" and others see as a rabbit.

Full moon occurs this month at 2:35 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2015.

With the naked eye or a small pair of binoculars, you can easily see the three main dark plains on the upper half of the moon, which bear the fanciful names of the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms), Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity) and Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains). These were named before scientists knew that there were no open bodies of water on the moon, and no atmosphere to cause storms or rains.

Look also for the brightest crater on the moon, Tycho, with its beautiful system of rays, caused by material expelled by the impact of an asteroid millions of years ago.

http://www.space.com/30376-supermoon-full-moon-2015-explained.html

The Next Super Moons

Year Date

2015 Sunday, September 27

2016 Monday, November 14

2017 Sunday, December 3

Because the Moon's orbit around Earth is elliptical, thedistance from moon to Earth varies throughout the month and year. On average the distance is about 238,000 miles or 382,900 kilometers.

During a month, when the moon is closest to Earth it's called perigee and when it's farthest away from Earth it's called apogee.

Moon Phases worldwide

When the Full Moon or New Moon coincides with being closest to Earth, or perigee, it is called a supermoon.

When the Moon is at the opposite end, farthest from Earth, or apogee, it's called a Micro Moon.

Defining a Supermoon

There are no universal rules as to how close the moon must be to qualify as a supermoon or a micro moon. timeanddate.com uses the following definition:

If a Full Moon or new moon is closer than 360,000 kilometers (ca. 223,694 miles) at perigee, it is considered a supermoon.

If there's a Full Moon or New Moon when the Moon is farther than 400,000 kilometers (ca. 248,548 miles) at apogee, it's considered a Micro Moon.

Technical Name: Syzygy

The technical term for a supermoon is “perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system”. In astronomy, the term “syzygy” refers to the straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies.

Syzygy also happens during a New Moon and Full Moon, and sometimes when the Moon is close to the Lunar nodes of its path, it causes a Total Solar Eclipse or a Total Lunar Eclipse

http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/super-full-moon.html

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Billionaires in space

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos started the aerospace company Blue Origin in 2000, for example, and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk set up SpaceX two years later with the explicit aim of helping humanity colonize Mars.

British entrepreneur Richard Branson established suborbital spaceflight company Virgin Galactic in 2004, and Bill Gates' fellow Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen started Stratolaunch Systems — which aims to launch payloads to space beneath a gigantic airplane — with renowned aerospace engineer Burt Rutan in December 2011.

And asteroid-mining company Planetary Resources, which was founded in 2012, counts billionaires Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, Ross Perot Jr. and Charles Simonyi among its investors (along with filmmaker James Cameron, who has a net worth around $700 million).

But the above billionaires are just the tip of the iceberg: There are 1,826 billionaires around the world, according to a recent estimate by Forbes magazine.

http://www.space.com/30357-mars-one-colony-billionaires-wanted.html

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Countdown begins for launch of Indian military satellite

India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rolls out to the Second Launch Pad at its launch base on Sriharikota Island on India’s east coast. Credit: ISRO

A government-owned communications satellite heading for geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above Earth is set for launch Thursday to on a nine-year mission to to support the Indian military.

The 4,667-pound GSAT 6 spacecraft will lift off aboard India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle at 1122 GMT (7:22 a.m. EDT) Thursday from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, a spaceport situated about 50 miles north of Chennai on India’s east coast.

Shrouded inside the GSLV’s metallic nose fairing, the satellite is India’s 25th geostationary communications satellite and has a mission to serve “strategic users,” according to the Indian Space Research Organization. Indian news reports said the prime customer for the new signal relay craft is the Indian military.

ISRO officials said the 29-hour countdown began Wednesday, and launch crews planned to fill the rocket’s four liquid-fueled boosters and second stage with storable hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants later in the day. Fueling of the GSLV’s third stage with cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen will come in the final hours of the countdown.

The first stage’s solid propellant load was packed inside the motor when it was assembled.

Launch is scheduled for 4:52 p.m. local time Thursday at the Indian launch base, and 161-foot-tall GSLV will fire away on the power of four hydrazine-burning strap-on Vikas booster engines and a solid-fueled core motor. At peak power, the first stage and the boosters will generate more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust.

The four liquid-fueled boosters will ignite at T-minus 4.8 seconds and ramp up to full thrust before the solid first stage fires when the countdown clock reaches zero.

The core motor will consume its propellant load by T+plus 1 minute, 46 seconds, followed by shutdown of the four Vikas booster engines at T+plus 2 minutes, 29 seconds. A single second stage Vikas powerplant will take over and burn until just shy of the mission’s five-minute point, during which time the GSLV’s payload fairing will release once the rocket is out of the dense lower atmosphere — a milestone projected at T+plus 3 minutes, 50 seconds.

A cryogenic upper stage engine will ignite at T+plus 4 minutes, 54 seconds, for a nearly 12-minute firing to propel the GSAT 6 satellite into an oval-shaped geostationary transfer orbit. Spacecraft separation is schedule for T+plus 17 minutes, 4 seconds, according to ISRO.

India’s GSAT 6 communications satellite is pictured before encapsulation inside the GSLV’s payload fairing. Credit: ISRO

The launch is targeting an orbit with a high point of 22,353 miles (35,975 kilometers), a low point of 105 miles (170 kilometers) and an inclination of 19.95 degrees.

Thursday’s launch marks the third time the Indian-built cryogenic engine, which burns a super-cold mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, has flown on the GSLV. Earlier GSLV flights, dating back to the rocket’s maiden mission in 2001, employed a Russian-made cryogenic third stage.

The all-Indian version of the GSLV, called the GSLV Mk.2, failed on its first launch in April 2010 due to a failure in the upper stage engine’s liquid hydrogen turbopump. The second test launch of the GSLV Mk.2 in January 2014 was successful.

The launch of GSAT 6 is the ninth flight of the GSLV in both its all-Indian and part-Russian configurations. ISRO considers four of the eight launches to date as successful.

Thursday’s launch, designated GSLV-D6 by ISRO, is India’s third space mission of the year after two flawless flights of the smaller Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

GSAT 6 will fire its on-board propulsion system to circularize its orbit 22,300 miles above the equator, where it will park itself at 83 degrees east longitude and unfurl a nearly 20-foot (6-meter) S-band antenna, the largest reflector of its kind ever flown on an Indian communications satellite.

The spacecraft carries S-band and C-band communications payloads with five spot beams and one nationwide beam.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/26/countdown-begins-for-launch-of-indian-military-satellite/

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Has Stephen Hawking Just Solved a Huge Black-Hole Mystery?

This artist's concept shows a black hole's surroundings, including its accretion disk, jet and magnetic field.
Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Stephen Hawking may have just solved one of the most vexing mysteries in physics — the "information paradox."

Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that the physical information about material gobbled up by a black hole is destroyed, but the laws of quantum mechanics stipulate that information is eternal. Therein lies the paradox.

Hawking — working with Malcolm Perry, of the University of Cambridge in England, and Harvard University's Andrew Stromberg — has come up with a possible solution: The quantum-mechanical information about infalling particles doesn't actually make it inside the black hole.

"I propose that the information is stored not in the interior of the black hole, as one might expect, but on its boundary, the event horizon," Stephen Hawking said during a talk today (Aug. 25) at the Hawking Radiation conference, which is being held at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

The information is stored at the boundary as two-dimensional holograms known as "super translations," he explained. But you wouldn't want super translations, which were first introduced as a concept in 1962, to back up your hard drive.

"The information about ingoing particles is returned, but in a chaotic and useless form," Hawking said. "For all practical purposes, the information is lost."

Hawking also discussed black holes — whose gravitational pull is so intense that nothing, not even light, can escape once it passes the event horizon — during a lecture last night (Aug. 24) in Stockholm.

It's possible that black holes could actually be portals to other universes, he said.

"The hole would need to be large, and if it was rotating, it might have a passage to another universe. But you couldn't come back to our universe," Hawking said at the lecture, according to a KTH Royal Institute of Technology statement. "So, although I'm keen on spaceflight, I'm not going to try that."

http://www.space.com/30366-stephen-hawking-black-hole-mystery.html

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For SciFi buffs......

'Star Trek: Renegades' Fan Film Warps Online on YouTube

Scene from the fan-funded independent film "Star Trek: Renegades," which was released on YouTube on Aug. 24, 2015.

A new (but unofficial) "Star Trek" film is out there now for the world to see — for free.

"Star Trek: Renegades," the 90-minute first installment of a planned Internet series, was released on YouTube Monday (Aug. 24). The film is not a part of the official "Star Trek" universe — it was financed primarily by three crowdfunding campaigns over the last several years — but it does feature characters and actors familiar to Trekkies.

For example, Walter Koenig again appears as Pavel Chekov, who has risen to the rank of admiral in the new film (a far cry from his ensign days in "Star Trek: The Original Series"). And Robert Picardo reprises his role as Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, the scientist who created Starfleet's Emergency Medical Hologram.

"When planet after planet winks out of existence, yet Starfleet refuses to act, Chekov turns to Commander Tuvok (Tim Russ, who also directs), the new head of Starfleet’s covert operations division, Section 31. Together, they assemble a new elite strike force, consisting of rogues, outcasts and criminals, led by the fearless yet haunted Lexxa Singh (Adrienne Wilkinson)," the "Star Trek: Renegades" website states.

"The Renegades’ mission is simple: take on an army and stop their leader, Borrada (Bruce Young), from destroying the Earth," the website adds. "Outnumbered and outgunned, the ragtag crew is in an adrenaline-pumping race against time and space. But they soon find their foes are the least of their concerns: the real trouble may be coming from within!"

You can watch the full movie on YouTube here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=528&v=eE2Wgop9VLM

http://www.space.com/30371-star-trek-renegades-fan-film-released.html

I am waiting for Axanar to come out, gave this a look, and was very surprised. For an Indie movie, I thought this was a great video for a small budget.....

Video is 1:28:04 minutes...

Cheers.....

13,804 · August 27, 2015

This video was shot on Nov. 1, 2013, showing Soyuz TMA-09M un-docking from Research Module "Rassvet" and docking to the Russian Service Module "Zvezda" of the International Space Station. Video accelerated 4 times.

6,181 · August 28, 2015

Nice video, jjkusaf...That would be a blast to be in it.....

TMA-18M Flight to Take Two Days

The new International Space Station (ISS) crew's Soyuz TMA-16M flight to the station, slated for September, will take two days, Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) said Wednesday.

"Manned spacecraft Soyuz TMA-18M, the launch of which is planned to take place at Baikonur Cosmodrome on September 2, 2015, will approach the International Space Station on a two-day scheme," Roscosmos said in a statement.

The decision was made for security purposes, according to the agency.

Russia, Germany Sign Several Space Cooperation Deals
Russia's federal Roscosmos space agency said Wednesday it had signed a number of documents on cooperation in the space industry with the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

"Roscosmos and DLR have jointly developed and signed provisions on working groups, which will be created for general work on the development of space robotics and remote sensing. The composition of the working groups will be decided by the end of 2015," Roscosmos said in a statement.

The parties also signed an additional agreement, extending cooperation on the joint Kontur-2 International Space Station experiment throughout 2016. The unique experiment focuses on remotely controlling robots from space.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/TMA_18M_Flight_to_Take_Two_Days_999.html

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Robotic Arm Grabs Robotic Cargo Spacecraft

Canadarm2 Grabs HTV-5 NASA

Japan's Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) is seen grappled by the International Space Station's robotic arm, Canadarm2.

The unpiloted cargo craft, named "Kounotori," which is Japanese for "white stork," is loaded with more than four-and-a-half tons of research and supplies, including water, spare parts and experiment hardware.

ISS044E065429 (08/24/2015) - Larger image

http://spaceref.com/onorbit/robotic-arm-grabs-robotic-cargo-spacecraft.html

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Photos: HTV supply ship glistens on approach to ISS

Photos captured by astronauts on the International Space Station show a Japanese cargo freighter, covered with reflective solar panels and golden insulation, on final approach to the 250-mile-high outpost.

The fifth HTV supply ship delivered more than 9,500 pounds of cargo to the space station Monday after a five-day trip from a Japanese launch pad, restocking the orbiting research lab’s pantry after back-to-back cargo mission failures in April and June.

Space station crew members later began unpacking the HTV’s pressurized cargo cabin, posing for photos with fresh fruit stowed aboard the supply

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/26/photos-htv-supply-ship-glistens-on-approach-to-iss/

Cheers....

6,181 · August 28, 2015

Bits and Bytes....

Attempting A Sub-millimeter Precision Task On Earth From Orbit

Interact Centaur rover ESA

Early September will see the very first force-feedback-based teleoperation of a rover-based robotic arm system on Earth from the International Space Station, orbiting 400 km above our heads.

Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will take control of the Interact Centaur rover, which incorporates a pair of arms to perform precision operations.

In the process Andreas will make use of haptic control providing him with force feedback to let him feel for himself as the robotic arms encounter resistance. In this way, he can perform dexterous mechanical assembly tasks in the sub-millimetre range, remote-controlled from space.

"When we humans have to perform precision operations, for instance simply inserting our key into the lock of our door, we are relying largely on our feeling of tactile and force receptors in the hand and arms not on eyesight," states Andr Schiele, principal investigator of the experiment, head of ESA's Telerobotics and Haptics Laboratory and Associate of the Delft Robotics Institute.

"Visual information is of minor importance these kind of tasks can be done with our eyes closed. Now ESA is transferring this skill to remotely-controllable robotic systems.

"Without haptic feedback, the operator of a robot arm or rover must be very careful not to damage something if the robot is in contact with its environment. As a result, a simple task in space often takes a very long time.

"Moreover, the tactile sensation derived from any task contains important information about the geometric relationship of the objects involved and therefore allows to execute tasks more intuitively and thus significantly faster."

The Lab team, working with students from Delft University of Technology, has developed a dedicated rover called Interact Centaur. The 4x4 wheeled vehicle combines a camera head on a neck system, a pair of highly advanced force sensitive robotic arms designed for remote force-feedback-based operation and a number of proximity and localisation sensors.

As currently scheduled, Monday 7 September should see the Interact rover driven around the grounds of ESA's ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, from the extremely remote location of Earth orbit, 400 km up.

Signals between the crew and the robot must travel a total distance of approximately ninety thousand kilometres, via a satellite constellation located in geostationary orbit. Despite this distance, Andreas will exactly feel what the robot does on the surface with only a very slight lag.

Andreas, due to launch to the ISS on 2 September, will first attempt to guide the robot to locate an 'operations task board' and then to remove and plug a metal pin into it, which has a very tight mechanical fit and tolerance of only about 150 micrometres, less than a sixth of a millimetre.
As Andr explains: "The task is very difficult with visual information alone but should be easy if force-feedback information tells you intuitively when the pin hits the board, or how it is misaligned.

"The rover, its robotic arms and the control methods involved are highly advanced. While robot arms are normally very rigid, Interact's arms can be programmed to be soft and flexing, in order to comply in a controlled way with any active or passive environment.

"When they hit an object, the arms can flex in a similar manner to human arms and can provide the operator with force feedback to let them know the robot has encountered an obstacle but not damaged anything.

"This force information will be used to plan the following motions by the astronaut, as if he would be there doing the task by himself with his own arms and hands. This helps make the robotic remote operation very intuitive, allowing remote operations to take place across very long distances up to places that are 450 000 km apart."

The signals from astronaut to rover during the experiment must travel via a system of geostationary satellites, covering a long distance of nearly 90 000 km. The resulting two-waytime delay approaches one second in length.

"Although the ESA developed smart software and control methods can enable astronauts even during longer time-delay operations, research suggests that people can handle time delays during hand-eye coordination tasks of only up to three seconds on a satisfactory basis," Andr adds. "This would still allow haptic control of rovers and robotic arms as far away as on the Moon's surface."

Remote controlled rovers are very useful in any dangerous or inaccessible environment, not only in space. On Earth, the technology can enable dexterous intervention and operations in Arctic conditions, the deep sea or at nuclear disaster sites.

The Interact experiment represents a first step towards developing robots that provide their operators with much wider sensory input than what is currently available. In this way, ESA is literally 'extending human reach' down to Earth from space.

"For space, being able to transmit the sense of touch out where humans cannot go is a mission enabling technology," says Andr. "On the far side of the Moon, for instance, such robotic systems could install telescopes and prepare a human base for a long-term scientific outpost."

"Any assembly task required for connecting modules, electrical power lines or placing systems into the Moon surface regolith would benefit from force-feedback telepresence. Operators could do the work from the comfort of Earth, or else perform similar operations on Mars while still being safely in orbit around that planet."

The date of the activity is dependent on the overall ISS schedule and that of the iriss mission, and has been allocated to take place between 6-9 September.

http://spaceref.com/nasa-hack-space/attempting-a-sub-millimeter-precision-task-on-earth-from-orbit.html

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NASA Seeks Proposals for Extreme Environment Solar Arrays

Press Release From: Langley Research Center
Posted: Thursday, August 27, 2015

NASA's space technology program is seeking proposals to develop solar array systems for space power in high radiation and low solar energy environments.

In the near future, NASA will need solar cells and arrays for multiple applications in robotic and human space exploration missions. Because these systems were traditionally developed for operation near Earth, there is a need to develop new solar array concepts as NASA considers missions that require exposure to more intense radiation environments and travel ever farther from the sun.

NASA hopes to solicit proposals for the development of promising technologies to increase solar cells that will work under low intensity, low temperature and high radiation environments.

Proposals will be accepted from U.S. organizations, including NASA centers and other government agencies, federally funded research and development centers, educational institutions, industry and nonprofit organizations.

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate's (STMD) Game Changing Development (GCD) program expects to make as many as four awards, valued to $400,000 each for the 9-month base requirement; up to two awards for Option I, which is valued at $1.25 million and one award for Option II, with a value of $2 million.

The solicitation, entitled SpaceTech-REDDI-2015 NNH15ZOA001N-15GCD-C3 Extreme Environment Solar Power Appendix, is available through the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System website by going to "Solicitations" and then "Open Solicitations" at:

http://nspires.nasaprs.com/

Over the next year, NASA's STMD will continue to seek industry and university partnerships to assure the agency has the capabilities it needs, while helping America maintain its leadership in the technology-driven global economy. These investments will focus on in-space propulsion and advanced high-power solar arrays; robotics and avionics for outer planetary exploration, especially high-reliability and low-mass, deep ice penetration systems; advanced materials, including large composite structures; and space observatory systems, with a focus on advanced optical coating materials.

NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, manages the GCD program for STMD. For more information about STMD, the program, and crosscutting space technology areas of interest to NASA, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spacetech

http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=46718

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Design Competition Demonstrates Promising Future for Additive Manufacturing in Satellite Design

Press Release From: Stratasys
Posted: Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Stratasys Ltd. (Nasdaq:SSYS), a leading global provider of 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions, along with its subsidiaries GrabCAD and MakerBot, has announced the winners of the CubeSat Challenge after a month-long, highly competitive engineering competition.

Home to the world's largest community of mechanical engineers, the GrabCAD Community was invited to use 3D printing to rethink the design of a CubeSat, a standardized small satellite frame originally developed to allow university students to build low-cost satellites for research and education purposes. The goal was to design CubeSat structures that would be faster and easier to manufacture, and pack more utility into the very small volume that CubeSat designers had to work with. Participants had the chance to win prizes that range from MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printers to cash to manufacturing services provided by Stratasys Direct Manufacturing.

Surpassing expectations, over 200 entries were submitted from all engineering disciplines and geographic locations. The submissions demonstrate the ability of additive manufacturing to vastly improve design over traditional manufacturing methods. “Engineers were able to reduce satellite structures from up to 50 parts down to two or three parts by using additive manufacturing,” said Scott Sevcik, business development manager for aerospace and defense at Stratasys. “There were a number of very creative approaches to redesigning the satellite structure, and it was great to see several of the entries consolidate the build down to two or as few as one part. That highlights one of the most significant benefits of 3D printing a structure.

Reducing part count from 50 to three can make a significant impact on a manufacturer’s operations. It can:

- Reduce the amount of assembly labor, which saves cost and time.
- Reduce the risk of assembly error, or a late part delaying production.
- Reduce the risk of repetitive stress and other ergonomic injuries due to assembly effort.
- Simplify the supply chain, reducing purchasing, receiving inspection and other ancillary risks and costs.

First place was awarded to Paolo Minetola for his entry FoldSat, a design that uses geometries only possible with 3D printing. Second place went to David Franklin for his entry STRATASATT – FDM ONE, a design that illustrates customization using real CubeSat components. Third place went to Chris Esser with his entry Foldable Articulated CubeSat for Additive Manufacturing. His design featured 3D printed threads and six hinged panels.

Entries were judged based on technical requirements including feasibility, production, value and being optimized for additive manufacturing. The judging panel included experts from the aerospace and 3D printing industry:

Dr. Jordi Puig-Suari, Cal Poly Professor and Co-Inventor of the CubeSat Standard
Dr. Robert Hoyt, CEO and Chief Scientist, Tethers Unlimited Inc.
David Espalin, Center Manager - W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation, University of Texas, El Paso
Adam Hadaller, Mission Manager, Spaceflight Industries
Patrick Price, Aerospace Additive Manufacturing Research Engineer, Stratasys
Jesse Marin, Aerospace Project Engineer, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing
Jonathan Cook, Director of Product, MakerBot

Visit the GrabCAD CubeSat Challenge results page to view the winning designs. The Aerospace vertical solutions team sponsored the CubeSat Challenge, with collaboration from GrabCAD, MakerBot and Stratasys Direct Manufacturing.

A Novel Way To Track The Space Station

"Given the International Space Station's host of superlatives (i.e. most expensive man made structure, largest artificial body in Earth's orbit, longest functioning habitable satellite, greatest engineering accomplishment of all time, coolest flying space laboratory, etc.), you'd think that it would be on our minds constantly. Yet many of us go hours, even days, without thinking about it once. There's a growing movement of people who believe that our space agencies are underfunded because humanity is just not paying enough attention to our present accomplishments and future plans in space exploration. Well, I know one way to direct attention to something. Point at it."

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/08/a-novel-way-to.html

Point the way to the ISS

Given the International Space Station’s host of superlatives (i.e. most expensive man made structure, largest artificial body in Earth’s orbit, longest functioning habitable satellite, greatest engineering accomplishment of all time, coolest flying space laboratory, etc.), you’d think that it would be on our minds constantly. Yet many of us go hours, even days, without thinking about it once.

There’s a growing movement of people who believe that our space agencies are underfunded because humanity is just not paying enough attention to our present accomplishments and future plans in space exploration. Well, I know one way to direct attention to something. Point at it.

This is the first prototype of the International Space Station Orbit Tracking Pointer. The pointer is controlled by an ST MicroelectronicsNucleo F401, an “Arduino-compatible” microcontroller development board with an 84 MHz clock and 512 KB of memory. The board performs the orbital propagation and coordinate system transformations using a ported version of the SGP4 model.

A stepper motor controls the azimuth and a servo controls the elevation. After powering up, the pointer goes through a quick range-of-motion routine and then starts its one job: pointing at the ISS. The Station orbits the earth every 90 minutes so the speed of motion is roughly on the order of a minute hand on a clock: slow enough that it’s not really interesting to watch, but fast enough that it’s in a new place every time you glance over.

This is a prototype so it does have some limitations: the pointer must be initialized at true north before powering up, and the orbital parameters for the ISS are hard-coded into the development board so the pointer will lose accuracy over time if not updated. Ideally the system would be able to download the latest and greatest orbital parameters on a regular basis and update itself.

I’ve got lots of ideas for extensions of this design, including trophies for aerospace-related awards, keeping track of cubesats in high school classrooms, amateur radio antenna mounts, a children’s museum exhibit where you can select between satellites, planets, and landmarks to point at, and even making a huge one as an outdoor art installation.

For this prototype, though, I just wanted it to simply point. For me, it serves as a reminder that the world’s full of incredible things if you just know what direction to look.

http://makezine.com/2015/08/26/space-station-orbit-tracker/

Video is 8:03 min....informative

Neil's "future" take on "The Martian".....3:49 min..it's good..

Cheers...

6,181 · August 28, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 27 August 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 27 August 2015. NASA

The six-person Expedition 44 space station crew is getting ready to expand to nine people next week. A docked Soyuz vehicle will be moved early Friday morning making room for a new Soyuz spacecraft carrying Sergei Volkov, a new Expedition 45 crew member, and two visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov.

The orbital residents will shift their schedules tonight as One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko join Commander Gennady Padalka for a short Soyuz ride from one docking port to another. The relocation opens up a port for a new Soyuz crew launching Sept. 2 and docking two days later.

As usual, advanced medical science is ongoing in the orbital laboratory with inputs from payload controllers on the ground and direct participation of the astronauts. Eye studies continued today as scientists observe microgravity's long-term effects on a crew member's vision.

The crew continued exploring high intensity, low volume exercise to prevent muscle and bone loss in space. They also explored the effects of fatigue due to packed work schedules and sleep loss resulting from the disruption of the normal sunrise/sunset schedule.

NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor (MGM): Lindgren stowed the MGM deployed in the Node 1 on NanoRacks Platform 2 to recharge the battery and transfer data. The Multi-Gas Monitor is the first laser sensor to continuously measure four gases that are key for crewmembers' health aboard the ISS. The multiple low-power, tunable lasers train an infrared laser beam on a cabin air sample, and sensors are tuned to specific wavelengths of light to detect oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and humidity. The instrument fits in a device the size of a shoebox and detects the presence of gases in less than one second.

HTV Cargo Transfer Status: Kelly, Lindgren and Yui completed 5.5 hours of HTV-5 Cargo transfer operations today. A total of 32 hours remain to complete HTV-5 cargo operations

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

SPRINT Ultrasound support
HMS OCT/Fundoscope support
OPALS antenna configuration

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Friday, 08/28: 42S relocation from MRM2 Zenith to SM Aft
Saturday, 08/29: Crew off duty
Sunday, 08/30: Crew off duty

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - On
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Standby
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-27-august-2015.html

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Soyuz relocation clears way for launch of new station crew

The Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft moved to a new docking port on the International Space Station on Friday. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

Three space station crewmen strapped inside a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and relocated the landing capsule Friday, clearing a docking port for the arrival of a new crew next week.

Under the command of veteran Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft undocked from the space station’s Poisk module at 0712 GMT (3:12 a.m. EDT) as the complex sailed 249 miles above Nigeria.

Joined by flight engineer Mikhail Kornienko and NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, Padalka flew Soyuz ferry craft about 150 feet (45 meters) from Poisk docking module. The Soyuz fired rocket thrusters to swing toward the aft docking port of the station’s Zvezda service module, then it lined up to park at the new location.

“Everything is nominal, Moscow,” Padalka radioed. “Nothing to it. We have a great visual on the service module.”

Padalka fired a pulse to start the final approach to the Zvezda service module, then guided the solar-powered space capsule into a docking cone at 0730 GMT (3:30 a.m. EDT) as the outpost flew over northern Kazakhstan.

“Target is dead center, the vehicle is moving in a very stable fashion,” Padalka said. “Standing by for contact, and contact is confirmed.”

A docking probe retracted to bring the two vehicles together a few minutes later, then hooks closed to create a firm connection with the space station. Padalka, Kornienko and Kelly planned to enter the space station and rejoin the other three members of the Expedition 44 crew later Friday.

Scott Kelly, Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko (left to right) relocated the Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft outside the International Space Station on Friday. Credit: NASA/GCTC

The three-man crew relocated the Soyuz capsule with their launch and entry spacesuits, just in case a problem re-docking the spacecraft forced the trio to return to Earth. All three boarded the Soyuz for the move because the capsule serves as their escape pod in the event of an emergency.

The relocation opens up the space-facing Poisk module for the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-18M crew capsule Sept. 4 with an international crew from Russia, Denmark and Kazakhstan. Station managers prefer to keep the Zvezda aft port now temporarily occupied by the Soyuz open for Progress cargo freighters, which refuel the service module.

Commanded by Sergey Volkov, the fresh Soyuz will blast off at 0437 GMT (12:37 a.m. EDT) Sept. 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a two-day trip to the space station.

Russian officials decided to forgo a six-hour rendezvous profile because the space station’s orbit is too high following a recent maneuver to move out of the way of space debris.

Volkov and his crewmates — European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov — will now dock to the outpost at 0742 GMT (3:42 a.m. EDT) on Sept. 4.

With the docking of the Soyuz TMA-18M crew, the space station will temporarily hold nine crew members, an international staff including representatives from Russia, the United States, Japan, Denmark and Kazakhstan.

Mogensen and Aimbetov will join Padalka on the Soyuz TMA-16M space capsule for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan on Sept. 11, and Volkov will remain aboard the space station for a six-month tour of duty before returning home in March 2016 with Kelly and Kornienko.

The logistics of next week’s crew handover allows Kelly and Kornienko to complete nearly one year on the space station and maintains the Soyuz lifeboats at the complex, which would be used to evacuate the residents in an emergency.

The Soyuz TMA-16M capsule moved during Friday’s relocation maneuver launched in March and is nearing the end of its design life, necessitating its return to Earth next month.

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/08/28/soyuz-relocation-clears-way-for-launch-of-new-station-crew/

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Video is 2:06 min.....

Soyuz TMA-16M re-docks at ISS

On August 28, 2015, the Russian mission control planned re-docking of the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft from the zenith (sky-facing) docking port of the MIM2 Poisk module to the aft port of the Zvezda Service Module. According to the original schedule, the redocking was scheduled to occur in manual mode from 10:09 to 10:34 Moscow Time.

The operation would free the docking port on the MIM-2 module for the arrival of the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft on Sept. 2, 2015. Soyuz TMA-16M would remain at its new location for only a week and a half, ultimately freeing the aft docking port on the Zvezda for future Progress cargo ships, where their propulsion systems could be fired for effective re-boosts of the ISS' orbit.

During the 25-minute free flight, commander Gennady Padalka was to pilot the Soyuz TMA-16M and his crew mates Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko were to come along for the ride, just in case, the re-docking would become impossible and the spacecraft had to return back to Earth.

The undocking time was later adjusted to 10:12 Moscow Time (3:12 a.m. Eastern Time). The docking at the service module was rescheduled for 10:37 Moscow Time (3:37 a.m. Eastern Time).

In preparation for the operation, the crew had to shift its normal sleep schedule by around five and a half hours. Hatches to Soyuz TMA-16M were closed at 11:10 p.m. Houston Time on Aug. 27, 2015.

The undocking went as scheduled over Nigeria and after backing away to around 45-50 meters from the ISS, Soyuz TMA-16M extended its docking probe and began flyaround of the station. The spacecraft then successfully re-docked at the station at 2:30 a.m. Houston Time, as the outpost was flying over Northern Kazakhstan.

The crew was scheduled to perform usual leak checks and re-open hatches to the station around 4:40 a.m. Houston Time (12:40 Moscow Time) on August 28, 2015, before finally going to bed, according to NASA.

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss_soyuz_tma16m.html#redock

Cheers....

6,181 · August 29, 2015

Odds and ends...got bored.......

Asteroids loom as the new Klondike for Seattle region’s space industry

An artist’s conception shows an asteroid-hunting telescope in Earth orbit. (Credit: NASA)

Seattle could profit from the rush for resources in outer space much as it did during the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s: by selling goods and services to the fortune-seekers.

At least that’s the vision laid out by entrepreneurs who are laying the groundwork in Seattle — and in space — for what they hope will be a multitrillion-dollar asteroid mining industry.

“I do believe that the first trillion is going to be made in space,” Peter Diamandis, one of the founders of Redmond-based Planetary Resources, said via video during a Seattle Space Entrepreneurs reception at Kirkland’s Marina Park on Thursday.

Chris Lewicki, the company’s president, noted that Seattle became a boomtownbecause of its location as the “Gateway to the Gold Fields” in Alaska. The city’s merchants made their fortunes by provisioning tens of thousands of would-be miners for the outward journey.

He and Diamandis told Thursday’s gathering of about 150 entrepreneurs and space geeks that Seattle is in a similar position today — not so much because of the region’s geography, but because of its intellectual resources.

“Seattle is becoming an intersection of extraordinary tech talent — data sciences, virtual worlds and an amazing place to live, and a much more affordable place to live than Silicon Valley,” Diamandis said. “That’s bringing a lot of incredible space talent.”

Seattle also has a few billionaires who have spent some of their dot-com fortunes on their space aspirations, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (who founded Blue Origin), Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (who bankrolled SpaceShipOne andStratolaunch) and software executive Charles Simonyi (who has gone into orbit twice and is one of Planetary Resources’ backers). The area also boasts some long-term players in aerospace, such as the Boeing Co. and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Alex Pietsch, director of Washington state’s Office of Aerospace, told GeekWire that the state’s space industry takes in about 30 companies and 2,000 jobs, not including Boeing employment. He said a survey conducted this spring by the Washington State Space Coalition suggested that employment would rise 12 to 13 percent over the course of the next year.

Planetary Resources’ Arkyd 3 prototype satellite is deployed along with an even smaller CubeSat from the International Space Station in July.

One example is Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries, which recently announced a $20 million financing round and expects to double its workforce from around 50 to more than 100.

“This is an industry that’s growing super-fast,” Pietsch said.

Planetary Resources is part of that growth: Its first prototype mini-satellite, Arkyd 3, was deployed from the International Space Station last monthand is providing engineering data for future prototypes, Lewicki said. The next prototype, known as the Arkyd 6, is being assembled in Redmond and should fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early 2016 under the terms of a contract with a Spaceflight Industries subsidiary.

The Arkyd 6 will test technologies for taking Kickstarter-funded “space selfies” and carry a mid-wave infrared imager for Earth observation. That imager is designed to look for the spectral signature of water — which is the key ingredient in Planetary Resources’ business model.

Within a decade or so, the company wants to start mining ice from near-Earth asteroids for conversion into fuel, drinkable water and breathable oxygen. If that business model is correct, water could be more valuable in deep space than gold is on Planet Earth. “Water is $60 million a ton if you want to ship it to lunar orbit, or on the way to Mars,” Lewicki said. (Gold currently sells for $33 million a ton.)

One killer app could make an industry: For Seattle in the late 19th century, the killer app was selling supplies to gold miners. For aviation in the early 20th century, it was government contracts for airmail delivery. For spaceflight, it could beconnecting the entire globe to the Internet via satellite, or setting up low-gravity filling stations beyond Earth.

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/asteroids-loom-as-the-new-klondike-for-seattle-regions-space-industry/

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This one is fun...

NASA crashing plane to test emergency locators

HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - NASA will crash a small airplane - again - to test emergency locator transmitters.

A Cessna 172 will be dropped from a height of 100 feet at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton. The airplane will be equipped with five emergency locator transmitters, two crash test dummies and data-collecting sensors.

When a crash occurs, the transmitters transmit a location signal to satellites. The satellites then repeat the signal to the nearest search and rescue station.

NASA says emergency location transmitters must work in extreme circumstances, such as fire, impact damage and excessive vibration.

This is the last of three crash tests of three different Cessna 172 aircraft. The first plane was dropped from about 80 feet and came in at nose level on concrete. The second was hauled up to 100 feet and crashed nose down into soil.

http://www.13newsnow.com/story/news/local/mycity/hampton/2015/08/24/nasa-crashing-plane-to-test-emergency-locators/32253691/

Video 1:05 min, 26 August 2015.....

Video 19 seconds, 29 July, 2015....

/s.......If we don't have a capsule to crash.....this may do........ :woot:

Cessna 172M - 1974

Speed:
    Maximum at Sea Level
    Cruise, 75% Power at 8000 Feet
    Vne (Never Exceed Speed)
    Vno (Max. Structural Cruising)
140 MPH (172) / 144 MPH (Skyhawk)
135 MPH (172) / 138 MPH (Skyhawk)
182 MPH
145 MPH

Cruise:

    75% Power at 8000 Feet
        38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172)
        48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172)
        38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk)
        48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk)
Range: 635 SM / Time: 4.7 HRS / 135 MPH
Range: 795 SM / Time: 5.9 HRS / 135 MPH
Range: 650 SM / Time: 4.7 HRS / 138 MPH
Range: 815 SM / Time: 5.9 HRS / 138 MPH

    Max. Range at 10,000 Feet
        38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172)
        48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172)
        38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk)
        48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk)
Range: 695 SM / Time: 6.0 HRS / 116 MPH
Range: 870 SM / Time: 7.5 HRS / 116 MPH
Range: 700 SM / Time: 6.0 HRS / 117 MPH
Range: 875 SM / Time 7.5 HRS / 117 MPH

Rate of Climb at Sea Level: 645 FPM

Service Ceiling: 13,100 Feet

Takeoff Performance:
    Ground Roll
    Total Dist. over 50-FT Obstacle
865 Feet
1525 Feet

Landing Performance:
    Ground Roll
    Total Dist. over 50-FT Obstacle
520 Feet
1250 Feet

Stall Speed (KCAS):
    Flaps Up, Power Off
    Flaps Down, Power Off
57 MPH
49 MPH

Gross Weight: 2300 Pounds

Standard Empty Weight:
    Model 172
    Skyhawk
1300 Pounds
1345 Pounds

Maximum Useful Load:
    Model 172
    Skyhawk
1000 Pounds
955 Pounds

Baggage Allowance: 120 Pounds

Wing Loading: 13.2 Pounds/Sq.Ft.

Power Loading: 15,3 Pounds/HP

Fuel Capacity (Total):
    Standard Tanks
    Long Range Tanks
42 Gallons / 38 Gallons useable
52 Gallons / 48 Gallons useable

Oil Capacity: 8 Quarts

Engine: Lycoming O-320-E2D / 150 BHP at 2700 RPM

Propeller: 75 Inch (diameter) / Fixed Pitch

Electrical System: 14-Volt with Alternator; Avionics Master Switch

Wingspan: 35' 10"

http://www.172guide.com/models/172M-74.htm

Edited August 29, 2015 by Draggendrop

6,181 · August 29, 2015

For this post, I thought I would show some ground based photo's of the ISS by amateur telescope enthusiasts....

Taken by Ralf Vandebergh on August 28, 2015 @ the Netherlands

Taken with 10 inch Newtonian equatorial mount, tracked fully manually using 6x magnification and crosshair alignment. All CCD cam @ 2880 mm effective focal length.

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Taken by Ralf Vandebergh on August 27, 2015 @ the Netherlands

We have good view on the S3 and S6 and the S1 and P1 almost edge-on. The ISS was in a deviant attitude as was intentionally performed because the Soyuz TMA-17M was arriving at the time of imaging. A rare chance to see the station in a different attitude from the ground.

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Taken by Ralf Vandebergh on August 26, 2015 @ the Netherlands

Ground-based shot compared with space-based. We see that the windows of the Cupola were probably closed at the time of the image.

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Taken by Ralf Vandebergh on August 25, 2015 @ the Netherlands

The Cupola is clearly visible as a dark dot in the Tranquility node. Taken with 10 in Newtonian and AllCCD, @ F= 2880 mm , fully manuall aligned at crosshairs @ 6x magnification. Single frame selected on seeing and tracking quality.

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Taken by Philip Smith on August 17, 2015 @ Manorville, NY, USA

I recorded on 8-17-15 Tiangong 1 with the 2 solar panels in view at 78° ....AND... ISS at 59° from my backyard. So I made this combo image to show you my images in true relation to each other. I used Edge HD 14 OTA with a SKYnyx 2.2 Mono CCD camera that has global shutter. The Barlow X 1.6 with an Astrodon orang filter. All on an custom modified EQ-G and ER tracking software made for me and my mount.
Kind Regards
Philip Smith

all shots from...

http://spaceweathergallery.com/

Cheers.......

6,181 · August 29, 2015

Well...now that I opened my mouth about the Chinese Tiangong 1 station....will do a quick blurb....

Tiangong-1 (Chinese: 天宫一号; pinyin: Tiāngōng yīhào; literally: "Heavenly Palace 1") is China's first space station,^[6]serving as both a manned laboratory and an experimental testbed to demonstrate orbital rendezvous and docking capabilities.^[7] Launched unmanned aboard a Long March 2F/G rocket^[1] on 29 September 2011,^[8] it is the first operational component of the Tiangong program, which aims to place a larger, modular station into orbit by 2023.^[7]^[9] As of September 2011, Tiangong-1 was projected to be deorbited in 2013,^[10] and replaced over the following decade by the larger Tiangong-2 and Tiangong-3 modules.^[11] However, Tiangong-1 remains in orbit as of 2015.^[12]

Tiangong-1 was visited by a series of Shenzhou spacecraft during its two-year operational lifetime. The first of these, the unmanned Shenzhou 8, successfully docked with the module in November 2011,^[13]^[14] while the manned Shenzhou 9mission docked in June 2012.^[15]^[16]^[17] A third and final mission to Tiangong-1, the manned Shenzhou 10, docked in June 2013.^[18]^[19]^[20] The manned missions to Tiangong-1 were notable for including China's first female astronauts, Liu Yangand Wang Yaping.^[19]^[21]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong-1

Tiangong 1 is China's first Space Station Module that is the nation's first step towards its ultimate goal of developing, building, and operating a large Space Station as a permanent human presence in Low Earth Orbit. The vehicle was launched on September 29, 2012 aboard a Long March 2F Launch Vehicle. The Space Station Module is planned to welcome 3 visiting vehicles, the unmanned Shenzhou 8 test flight to demonstrate Rendezvous and Docking technology and the manned Shenzhou 9 and 10 missions that will utilize Tiangong 1 for experiments and tests associated with 'living in space'. Tiangong 1 is planned to be deorbited in 2013 and replaced by Tiangong 2, a larger, more sophisticated Space Laboratory. Tiangong 3 will follow by 2016 to prepare the final steps on the way to a large Station in Low Earth Orbit. Chinese Officials have indicated that their new space station will be as big as the US Skylab Space Station that orbited Earth in the 1970s. This large station is expected to open for business by 2020 - according to Chinese sources. Tiangong means Heavenly Palace. Tiangong-1 orbits Earth at 330 to 370 Kilometers with an inclination of 42 degrees.

Tiangong 1 features flight-proven components of Chinese Shenzhou Spacecraft as well as new technology. The module consists of three sections: the aft service module, a transition section and the habitable orbital module. The vehicle is 10.4 meters long and has a main diameter of 3.35 meters. It has a liftoff mass of 8,506 Kilograms and provides 15 cubic meters of pressurized volume.

Station on the left

More data at....

http://www.spaceflight101.com/tiangong-1-info.html

Live station tracker site.....

http://www.n2yo.com/?s=38461|37820

Crew entering for first time...video is 8:39 min

First space walk for China....video is 9:49 min

Neil Tyson interview on March 24, 2013....good one....video is 5:33 min

Cheers.......

8,882 · August 29, 2015

Its interesting how bare the Chinese Taingong 1 is inside compared with the ISS which has items mounted on all walls.I can even see the flexing in the floor material and awkwardness as the astronaut tries to use the foot loops to traverse back to the hatch unlike the ISS astronauts who always seem to have more freedom of movement.

Where in space is this in relation to the ISS and how many years behind technologically wise do you think the Chinese are?

6,181 · August 29, 2015

Good question....here's some toys, and a quick answer...

ISS live tracker....

http://www.isstracker.com/

Tiangong 1 live tracker....

http://www.n2yo.com/?s=38461|37820

ISS orbital inclination is 51.6 degrees, altitude is 409 to 416 kilometers, 92.69 minutes to orbit....

Tiangong 1 orbital inclination is 42.77 degrees, altitude is 363 to 381 kilometers, 91.85 minutes to orbit....

with a bit of math (precessional values), under perfect conditions, which never happens, once every 336 days, they will cross with Tiangong 1 directly under the ISS by about 45 kilometers....and Dragon, with extra fuel, could deliver 3D pizza to it...... :woot:

As far as technology goes, all countries have their niche...The ISS is International, with the most representation, and in my opinion, leading edge in most fields.....Cheers

Note...Tiangong 2 and 3 are in planning, with version 2 due next year, and ESA is planning on putting an astronaut on board in the near future.....

8,882 · August 29, 2015

So they could do a house call..........or throw rocks at the Chinese

Thanks DD

6,181 · August 30, 2015

ISS Panoramic Tour by ESA

Just before ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti left the International Space Station after 199 days, she took up to 15 pictures inside each module. Now, the images have been stitched together to create this interactive panorama.

These panoramas offer a snapshot of the International Space Station as it was in June 2015, after moving the Leonardo storage module to a new location

Explore the modules and zoom in to see more detail. Use the map or the arrow icons by the module hatches to go to another section.

You can explore every part of the Space Station and click on the play icons to watch an astronaut explain or demonstrate an item, and click on the text icons for web articles.

We recommend exploring in a full screen to do justice to this immersive interactive panorama.

The tour was improved with the assistance of Thomas Rauscher in Vienna, Austria, who helped to stitch the images together for some modules.

Here is the link....

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/International_Space_Station/Highlights/International_Space_Station_panoramic_tour

Once there, ensure "cookies" enabled for it to work (would not work on security browsers due to this). Pick a module and do an auto rotate....great full screen...lots of detail....Sam took some great shots....

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CALET docks on the International Space Station

The CALET calorimeter is preparing for installation in the flight module that will bring it to its final destination on the ISS.

Five days after it launched from the Tanegashima Space Center on board the HTV-5 Transport Module, operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the CALorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) docked at the International Space Station (ISS).

CALET is the space mission lead by JAXA with the participation of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and NASA. It is a CERN recognized experiment and the second high-energy astroparticle experiment to be installed on the ISS after AMS-02, which is taking data from the remote station since 2011.

Designed as a space observatory for long-term observations of cosmic radiation aboard the external platform JEM-EF of the Japanese module (KIBO) on the ISS, CALET aims at identifying electrons, nuclei and gamma-rays coming from space and measure their energies with high-resolution.

"One of the main scientific objectives of CALET is to measure the detailed shape of the electron spectrum above 1 TeV," says Shoji Torii of Waseda University in Tokyo, Principal Investigator (PI) of CALET.

"This unexplored region is gaining a growing interest by the scientific community as it might be able to show for the first time the smoking gun of the presence of nearby astronomical source(s) where electrons are accelerated.

"We know that electrons cannot travel for long distances as they quickly lose their energy. Therefore, they are expected to originate relatively near to Earth - about 1 Kpc."

CALET will perform accurate measurements of the electron energy spectrum from 1 GeV to 20 TeV. "The high end of the spectrum could be particularly interesting as it could help resolve the controversial interpretation of the electron and positron spectra measured by AMS-02 and could provide a clue on possible signatures of dark matter," says John Wefel of Louisiana State University, Co-PI of the CALET project and lead of the American team participating in CALET.

CALET could also help explain the deviation from a pure power-law that was recently observed by the AMS-02 collaboration in the energy spectra of light nuclei. "Thanks to its excellent energy resolution and ability to identify cosmic nuclei from hydrogen to iron and above," says Pier Simone Marrocchesi, Co-PI of the CALET collaboration and head of the Italian team.

"CALET will be able to extend the present data to higher energies and measure accurately the curvature of the spectrum and the position of the spectral break-point for individual nuclear species. The calibration of the two calorimetric instruments is the key to control the energy scale and this is why we performed several calibration tests at CERN."

After berthing with the ISS, CALET was extracted by a robotic arm from the Japanese H-II transfer vehicle (HTV5) and installed on the JEM-EF where it will start a first data-taking period of 5 years.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/CALET_docks_on_the_International_Space_Station_999.html

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Europe Eyes Future of Manned Space Exploration after ISS

The International Space Station in Earth orbit | “NASA / dpa”

Design your very own space station. A group of students came up with a model where solar modules fan out to form a huge disc. Another proposed attaching orange-and-white sausage balloons to relieve the lack of space in the orbiter.

The 32 students at Stuttgart University’s Space Station Design Workshop, all budding experts in space engineering, had been working for a week on these two possible concepts for a future space station.

Interestingly, both groups labelled some of their modules Russian. They envisage European Union space researchers teaming up with other nations, something which Stefanos Fasoulas, head of the Institute for Space Systems at the university, believes is essential. “In the future, these type of projects will only be feasible if they are funded in international cooperation,” says Fasoulas.

However, the official view from Moscow is different. A quarter of a century after the controlled crash of its Mir space station, Russia is now planning for a new era of space exploration.

Moscow has worked closely with Europe and the US on the International Space Station (ISS) since 1998. But its space agency Roskosmos intends pushing ahead with ambitious space exploration plans all by itself again from 2024.

Russia’s deputy chairman for defence industries, Dmitry Rogozin, has suggested the ISS could be disassembled and the Russian-built parts used for the construction of the Kremlin’s own outpost of humanity.

President Vladimir Putin has already announced plans for a Russian space station that will orbit the Earth differently, as only 5 per cent of Russia can be observed from the ISS. “We need a station from where we are able to inspect our entire country,” said Putin.

Hanjoerg Dittus, responsible for space research and technology at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) believes it is mostly a question of finance. The annual running costs for the ISS is in the region of 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion), 280 million of which is funded by Europe.

The next generation of researchers believe that instead of orbiting the Earth, any future space station should be stationed at the so-called Lagrange point between the Earth and Moon where it would remain in stable position and other parts of space would be more accessible.

Such a space station could serve as a base point for any manned mission to Mars or the Moon. Dittus feels that if these missions are to be realised, a successor to the ISS is essential.

Dittus believes that another station orbiting the Earth at a range of 400 km, the same as the ISS, is the best solution.

The involvement of private investors is also preferable so countries could simply rent the research modules they need from the investors.

Dittus sees high demand for space-based data-gathering in the future, especially in recording climate change and food supply. “These can be observed well from space, but satellites aren’t always good enough for the job,” he says.

Russia is planning a five-segment space station made up of a laboratory module, energy module, connection module, as well as a transformation and scientific energy module.

It remains to be seen if such an ambitious project is realisable, as resource-rich Russia is currently in the throes of an economic crisis, while the ongoing construction of a satellite launch site near the Chinese border is incurring huge costs.

“We now have to look and see what is achievable for the West,” says Dittus. “Unlike 25 years ago, the idea of space exploration is popular again. It is important to fuel interest. It’s the best way to ensure financing.”

http://www.newindianexpress.com/magazine/Europe-Eyes-Future-of-Manned-Space-Exploration-after-ISS/2015/08/29/article2997081.ece

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Russian space manufacturer RSC Energia said that the first prototype of a new Russian manned spacecraft for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) and the Moon may be created ahead of schedule.

ZHUKOVSKY (Sputnik) — The first prototype of a new Russian manned spacecraft for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) and the Moon may be created ahead of schedule, president of Russian space manufacturer RSC Energia Vladimir Solntsev told RIA Novosti on Saturday.

The International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS 2015 is currently underway in the town of Zhukovsky near Moscow, and is due to finish on Sunday.

"We have agreed with the engineers…. to reduce the time for construction and production of the first copy of this spaceship. Despite the fact that we have voiced and agreed on the first launch in 2021, we have set the task to build the prototype by 2019, and I think that we will succeed, " Solntsev told reporters at the MAKS.

The new generation spaceship is designed to deliver astronauts and cargo to the Moon and the ISS, Solntsev said, adding that the spaceship is reusable and is due to perform at least ten flights.

"Unlike Soyuz spacecraft which is currently used and requires three people to fly, the new ship can host four people," Solntsev said, adding that the new prototype is larger than Soyuz.

The Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft, which was designed during the Soviet era and remains in service today, is launched on a Soyuz rocket, one of the most frequently used launch vehicle in the world.

http://sputniknews.com/russia/20150829/1026353790.html

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Russia Gets Ready for New Moon Landing

Like the 'Lunokhod' and the US Apollo space missions before it, the reflectors which Luna-Globe takes to the Moon will allow mission scientists to track its smallest movements, and in such a way investigate its internal structure.

Russia's Space Research Institute is building a space probe to send to the Moon, which will allow Russian scientists to carry out scientific research on the Moon's surface for the first time since unmanned Soviet spacecraft landed there in the 1970s.

The Russian Space Research Institute has given Gazeta.ru an exclusive look at the engineering of the Russian space probe which will be the first to land on the Moon' surface since 1976, and give Russia's researchers the opportunity to explore the Moon' surface in depth.

"The main difference from Soviet missions, which brought back space material to Earth, is that research will be carried out directly on board the probe," explained Vladislav Tretyakov, a researcher in nuclear planetology at the Russian Space Research Institute [IKI].

"Secondly, we must ensure survival during lunar nights, which back then was only achieved only by our 'Lunokhod' rover."

"And of course, this is the first polar mission, insofar as all the previous missions, including ours and those from other nations, were [conducted] at equatorial latitudes."

Most of the instruments for the spacecraft, named 'Luna-Globe' are being made at the IKI; a life-sized model of the probe is currently being exhibited for visitors to the International Air Show in the Moscow suburb of Zhukovsky.

The probe is slated to land in 2016 in the Boguslavsky crater, near the Moon's South Pole, where its four television cameras will immediately begin taking footage of the area. Another two cameras will observe the work of the probe's digging tool and a further two will assist it so that it might move around safely.

In order to survive the harsh nighttime conditions on the Moon, when the temperature can fall from daytime highs of 123 degrees celsius to as low as minus 153 degrees, Luna-Globe is fitted with a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which provides power by converting the heat generated by the decay of the plutonium-238 isotope into electricity.

The probe's digger, which itself is fitted with an infra-red spectrometer, will hand its findings to the probe's laser mass and neutron gamma spectrometers for analysis.

Another instrument will study the composition of the thin lunar atmosphere, while ceramic plates on the probe will inspect the surface to determine the size, speed, and energy of its dust.

In addition to the instruments built at the IKI, a device made by the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry will study the thermal properties of lunar soil.

Like the 'Lunokhod' and the US Apollo space missions before it, the reflectors which Luna-Globe takes to the Moon will allow mission scientists to track its smallest movements, and in such a way investigate its internal structure.

"This mission is a scientific-technological one. We want to carry out scientific experiments there, but this is a technological mission in the sense that we need to return to the Moon, learn how to land, and survive the lunar night, since a lot of what was achieved in the 1970's has been forgotten," explained Tretyakov.

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Russia_Gets_Ready_for_New_Moon_Landing_999.html

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Sun vs Comet

THE SUN SWALLOWS A COMET: Yesterday, the sun swallowed a comet. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spotted the icy vistor from the outer solar system making a headlong plunge into our star. One comet went in; none came out.

http://spaceweather.com/

Video is 1:53 min

6,181 · August 31, 2015

This Week at NASA: HTV-5 Cargo Mission, Hubble's Double Black Hole and More

The delivery included an investigation that will search for signatures of dark matter, as well as enough additional food and supplies to last through 2015. Also, Soyuz relocated to Zvezda, Orion parachute drop test, Rising Seas, Hurricane Katrina remembrance, Tail first crash test, Webb telescope's backplane arrives and Hubble's double black hole.

Video is 4:22 min

http://spaceref.com/missions-and-programs/nasa/this-week-at-nasa-htv-5-cargo-mission-hubbles-double-black-hole-and-more.html

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Don't make us hitch rides with Russia: NASA chief

The head of NASA appealed to Congress on Friday to put more money into restoring America's ability to send astronauts into space instead of relying on Russian rockets.

In an open letter, published in Wired magazine and titled "Don't Make Us Hitch Rides With Russia. Love, NASA," Charles Bolden said the US government has essentially funded Moscow instead of pouring money into its own aerospace industry back home.

"Every dollar we invest in Moscow is a dollar we're not investing in American businesses," wrote Bolden, a former astronaut and the current administrator of NASA, the US space agency.

The US space shuttle program closed down for good in 2011 and commercial industry -- with the help of NASA funds -- is racing to build new spaceships to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017.

"Since 2010, the president has received approximately $1 billion less than he requested for NASA's Commercial Crew initiative," Bolden wrote.

"During this time we've sent $1 billion to Russia."

Without a US spaceship to carry humans to space, the world has had to rely on Russia for transport aboard its Soyuz capsules.

"On a per-seat basis, it costs approximately $81 million to send an American astronaut to the Space Station on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft," Bolden wrote.

"By comparison, it will cost $58 million per seat to send our astronauts to the Space Station on Boeing's and SpaceX's spacecrafts, once they are certified."

The letter concluded by urging lawmakers to funnel more money into US efforts to return to spaceflight.

"Just recently, NASA was left with no other choice but to write a $490 million check to our Russian counterparts so that we can get our own astronauts to the Space Station. It doesn't have to be this way," Bolden said.

"Congress can and should still fix this by investing in Commercial Crew."

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Dont_make_us_hitch_rides_with_Russia_NASA_chief_999.html

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ESA Chief Warns Not to Politicize Partnership With Russian Space Program

The ongoing crisis in ties between Russia and the West should not tarnish their cooperation when it comes to space exploration, according to Johann-Dietrich" class="highlight">Worner, head of the European Space Agency (ESA).

In an interview with Sputnik, ESA Director General Johann-Dietrich Worner said that the ongoing political deadlock between Russia and the West should not hinder their joint efforts to explore space.

He made the comments as the ESA and the Russian Federal Agency Roskosmos agreed to promote cooperation on sending two joint Proton-M rocket missions to Mars in 2016 and 2018, within the framework of the ExoMars project.

The deal was signed on the sidelines of the MAKS-2015 air show, which is currently underway in the Moscow suburb of Zhukovsky.

Speaking to Sputnik, Johann-Dietrich Worner warned that the political crisis should not damage what he described as "reliable and trustworthy collaboration."

"Our cooperation is very reliable and very trusting. We know that we need each other when it comes to carrying out missions to Mars and the Moon. I am glad that we have such a relationship," Worner said.

He stressed the importance of maintaining contact now that the political crisis between Russia and the West shows no sign of abating.

"In this critical situation, science, including space research, can serve as sort of communication bridge, which will be of paramount importance," he pointed out.

He warned against freezing the cooperation between Russia and the West with respect to space, which he said comes amid the process of globalization.

"The ESA can play a role in establishing mutual understanding between the countries, and I am ready to contribute to this," he concluded.

He was echoed by Roskosmos head Igor Komarov, who touted the ExoMarss program and said that the work of the space agencies stipulates their non-involvement in political issues.

According to Komarov, the launch of the Proton's first mission is scheduled for January 2016.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/ESA_Chief_Warns_Not_to_Politicize_Partnership_With_Russian_Space_Program_999.html

Later.......

6,181 · August 31, 2015

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 28 August 2015

(Clockwise from top) The Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft is docked to the Zvezda service module. The ISS Progress 60 spacecraft is docked to the Pirs docking compartment. The Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft is docked to the Rassvet mini-research module. Japan’s “Kounotori” HTV-5 is berthed to the Harmony module. Credit: NASA.

International Space Station Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineers Scott Kelly of NASA and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos docked their Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory's Zvezda service module at 3:30 a.m. EDT. The crew members undocked from the Poisk module at 3:12 a.m.

The move of the Soyuz spacecraft clears the Poisk module for the arrival of Expedition 45 crew member Sergei Volkov of Roscosmos, and visiting crew members Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency. They are scheduled to launch to the station in a Soyuz spacecraft designated TMA-18M at 12:37 a.m. Wednesday (10:37 a.m. Baikonur time), Sept. 2 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

This will be the first time since November 2013 that nine crew members will be aboard the station simultaneously. Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth with Padalka on Saturday, Sept. 12 in the Soyuz TMA-16M that was just relocated. In March 2016, the arriving Soyuz TMA-18M will return with Volkov, as well as one-year mission crew members Kelly and Kornienko, who arrived on station in March to begin collecting biomedical data crucial to NASA's human journey to Mars.

Kobairo Microgravity Measurement Apparatus (MMA) Removal: In preparation for the Mouse Habitat Unit installation and checkout scheduled next week, Yui removed the MMA Remote Sensor Unit (RSU) and MMA Triaxial Acceleration Assembly (TAA) from the Kobairo Rack. The JAXA MHU, delivered on HTV5, is JAXA's unique facility for rodent research consisting of 12 mouse cages with life support system, environment controlling system and observation system. The MHU is attached to the Cell Biology Experiment Facility (CBEF) and has a centrifuge that enables experiments to be performed on microgravity and artificial gravity simultaneously.

NanoRacks Multi-Gas Monitor (MGM): Lindgren deployed the MGM in the Lab on EXPRESS Rack 8. The MGM is the first laser sensor to continuously measure four gases that are key for crewmembers' health aboard the ISS. The multiple low-power, tunable lasers train an infrared laser beam on a cabin air sample, and sensors are tuned to specific wavelengths of light detect oxygen, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and humidity. The instrument fits in a device the size of a shoebox and detects the presence of gases in less than one second.

HTV Cargo Transfer Status: Kelly, Lindgren and Yui continued HTV-5 Cargo transfer operations today.

Video 6:02 min.....

Video 3:14 min.......

Ground Activities
All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

USOS System commanding associated with 42S Relocation
HMS Ultrasound support
OH Cardiac ops support

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Saturday, 08/29: Crew off duty
Sunday, 08/30: Crew off duty
Monday, 08/31: MSPR-2 Rack Transfer, Fluid Shifts, Neuro Mapping, CBEF Micro-G door replace, ISS Reboost

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Stop
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Normal
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-28-august-2015.html

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NASA Television to Air Launch of Next International Space Station Crew

The next three crew members bound for the International Space Station are set to launch to the orbital outpost Wednesday, Sept. 2.

NASA Television launch coverage will begin at 11:45 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:37 a.m. Wednesday (10:37 a.m. Baikonur time). Mogensen and Aimbetov are short duration crew members while Volkov will spend six months on the orbital complex.

The trio will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, which will rendezvous with the space station and dock two days later to the Poisk module at 3:42 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 4. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 3 a.m.

The hatches between the Soyuz and station will be opened at about 6:15 a.m. on Sept. 4, at which time the newly arrived crew members will be greeted by Expedition 44 Commander Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos, as well as Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren of NASA, and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. NASA TV coverage of the hatch opening will begin at 5:45 a.m.

This will be the first time nine crew members are aboard the station simultaneously since November 2013. Padalka, Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth on Saturday, Sept. 12, leaving Kelly in command of Expedition 45. The change of command ceremony in which Padalka will hand over command of the space station to Kelly will be broadcast on NASA TV on Saturday, Sept. 5 at 2:40 p.m.

Kelly and Kornienko will return in March 2016 after spending a year on the station collecting valuable biomedical data that will improve our understanding of the effects of long duration space travel and aid in NASA’s journey to Mars.

Together, the Expedition 45 crew members will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory.

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-television-to-air-launch-of-next-international-space-station-crew

6,181 · August 31, 2015

Soyuz TMA-18M for ISS

Soyuz TMA-18M's primary crew (left to right): Aidyn Aimbetov, Sergei Volkov and Andreas Mogensen during a familiarization training with their spacecraft in Baikonur on Aug. 19, 2015. Credit: RKK Energia

Crew and launch date changes

The Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft, known under its production designation as No. 718, arrived at Baikonur on May 2, 2015.

The original crew of Soyuz TMA-18M included the Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, serving as a commander, a flight engineer Andreas Mogensen, representing the European Space Agency, ESA, and a British singer Sarah Brightman, who was expected to pay for her seat as a commercial tourist. However in June 2015, a Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov officially replaced Brightman as the third crew member in the Soyuz TMA-18 crew. According to the Russian media, Kazakh government would pay $20 million or 2.5 times less for the mission, than a going charge for a private tourist, such as Brightman.

Mogensen and Aimbetov were scheduled to return back to Earth onboard Soyuz TMA-16M spacecraft on Sept. 12, 2015, after 10 days in space along with Gennady Padalka from the Expedition 44 crew. Volkov would remain onboard the station for 188 days.

The launch of Soyuz TMA-18M was previously planned for Oct. 4, 2015, but had to be rescheduled for September 1 in the wake of the Progress M-27M launch failure on April 28, 2015. However, within 24 hours after the new flight manifest had been approved, a previously unplanned ISS maneuver on June 8 to avoid space junk forced mission planners to postpone the launch by 24 hours in order to enable a six-hour rendezvous profile between the Soyuz and the station, as well as the subsequent Soyuz landing into a routine location in Kazakhstan on September 11, 2015.

Another space junk avoidance maneuver performed by the ISS on July 26, prompted mission planners to default to a two-day rendezvous profile, resulting with the launch on Sept. 2, 2015, at 07:37 Moscow Time and docking at the ISS on Sept. 4, 2015, at 10:42 Moscow Time.

Pre-launch activities

The assembly of the Soyuz-FG rocket No. G15000-054, which was assigned to launch the mission, started in Baikonur on July 27, 2015. The Soyuz spacecraft went through vacuum testing on August 9, 2015, at Site 2B and was returned to Site 254 for further processing.

The primary and backup crews arrived at Baikonur on August 18 for the familiarization training, which took place the next day. Also, on August 19, mission officials gave go ahead to the fueling of the spacecraft with propellants and loading of pressurized gases. The operation was completed by August 21 and the spacecraft was returned to Site 254 for final processing and encapsulation into its payload fairing.

On August 28, the Soyuz TMA-18M was integrated with an adapter ring, which would later connect it to the third stage of the Soyuz launch vehicle. On the same day, the spacecraft was enclosed into its payload fairing and transferred from its processing building at Site 254 to a launch vehicle assembly building at Site 112.

The payload section was integrated with the rest of the Soyuz-FG rocket and topped with an emergency escape system on August 30, 2015. The vehicle was then loaded onto the transporter for a trip to the launch pad. On the same day, the meeting of the State Commission scheduled the move to the launch pad to begin at 04:00 Moscow Time next morning.

The Soyuz-FG launch vehicle was rolled out to Site 1 in Baikonur on August 31, 2015. On the same day, the ISS altitude was raised by one kilometer to form a rendezvous orbit with Soyuz TMA-18M. The maneuver was conducted with the use of the propulsion system on Progress M-28M cargo ship docked at the station. The vehicle's engine was activated at 09:54 Moscow Time (06:54 GMT) for a 495-second burn.

Launch profile

The liftoff of the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft is scheduled to take place on Sept. 2, 2015, at 07:37:43 Moscow Time (12:37 a.m. EDT) from Baikonur Cosmodrome's Site 1 in Kazakhstan. The docking at the MIM2 Poisk module, a part of the Russian segmentof the ISS is scheduled on Sept. 4, 2015, at 10:42 Moscow Time (3:42 a.m. EDT).

The hatches between the Soyuz and station will be opened at about 13:15 Moscow Time (6:15 a.m. EDT).

Soyuz TMA-17M crew (Expedition 45/46):

Primary crew Backup crew

Sergei Volkov, Soyuz commander, Roskosmos Oleg Skripochka, Soyuz commander, Roskosmos

Andreas Mogensen, Flight Engineer, ESA/Denmark Thomas Pesquet, Flight Engineer, ESA/France

Aidyn Aimbetov, Flight Engineer 2, Kazakhstan Sergei Prokopiev, Flight Engineer 2, Roskosmos

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss-soyuz-tma18m.html

Recent flights...

152
ATV-5

2014 July 29

2015 Feb. 15

ATV-5

Cargo supply
-

153
Dragon SpX-4

2014 Sept. 21

2014 Oct. 25

CRS4

Cargo supply
-

154
Soyuz TMA-14M

2014 Sept. 26

2015 March 12

40S

Expedition 41/42 delivery
Aleksandr Samoukutyaev, Elena Serova, Barry Wilmore

155
Cygnus Orb-3 (CRS3)

2014 Oct. 28

Failed to reach orbit

Orb-3

Cargo supply
Failed to reach orbit due to launch vehicle malfunction

156
Progress M-25M

2014 Oct. 29

2015 April 26

57P

Cargo supply
-

157
Soyuz TMA-15M

2014 Nov. 24

2015 June 11

41S

Expedition 42/43 delivery
Terry Virts, Anton Shkaplerov, Samantha Cristoforetti (ESA)

2015

158
Dragon SpX-5

2015 Jan. 10

2015 Feb. 10

CRS5

Cargo supply
-

159
Progress M-26M

2015 Feb. 17

2015 Aug. 14

58P

Cargo supply
-

160
Soyuz TMA-16M

2015 March 27

In progress

42S

Expedition 43 delivery; "Year in Space" mission
Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Kornienko (up only), Scott Kelly (up only)

161
Dragon SpX-6

2015 April 14

2015 May 21

CRS6

Cargo supply
-

162
Progress M-27M

2015 April 28

2015 May 8

59P

Cargo supply
Anomaly at orbit insertion, failed to reach ISS, reentered out of control

163 Dragon SpX-7 2015 June 28 Failed to reach orbit CRS7 Cargo supply Launch vehicle failure at T+139 seconds in flight

164 Progress M-28M 2015 July 3 In progress 60P Cargo supply -

165
Soyuz TMA-17M

2015 July 23

In progress

43S

Expedition 44/45 delivery
Oleg Kononenko, Kimiya Yui (JAXA), Kjell Lindgren

166

HTV-5

2015 Aug. 19

In progress

HTV-4

Cargo supply
-

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/iss_chronology_flights.html

How Soyuz rides into orbit

For almost half a century, the manned Soyuz spacecraft has ridden into orbit on top of its namesake rocket. Over the decades, the spacecraft and its launch vehicle went through several upgrades, however the launch profile had not changed much. Spent stages of the rocket and other components fall into several designated areas in Kazakhstan and in Russia minutes after their separation. The spacecraft reaches orbit less than nine minutes after the liftoff, however in case of emergency, the capsule with the crew could land as far 5,000 kilometers downrange or even splash down into the Pacific Ocean. As a result, an armada of search and rescue aircraft is deployed at airfields along the ascent trajectory all the way to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East and at least one ship is on stand by in the Sea of Japan. A total of nine fixed-wing aircraft, 16 helicopters are supporting the launch.

Critical milestones in the Soyuz launch (as of 2014):

Milestone

Elapsed time

Liftoff
0.00

Emergency escape rocket, SAS, jettison
114.16 seconds

Stage I separation
117.80 seconds

Payload fairing separation
157.48 seconds

Stage II separation
287.30 seconds

Separation of Stage III tail section
297.05 seconds

Stage III main engine cutoff
524.96 seconds

Stage III - spacecraft separation
528.26 seconds

Search and rescue support

As of 2014, a nerve center responsible for search and rescue support of Soyuz launches was located in the city of Yekaterinburg, the home of Central Military District. On the eve of launches, aircraft of the 2nd command of the Air Force, VVS, and Anti-Aircraft Defense Forces, PVO, would be deployed from Yekaterinburg to airfields in Baikonur, Arkalyk, Dzhezkazgan, Karaganda, Gorno-Altaysk and Kyzyl, according to the TASS news agency.

Search and rescue bases and their assets during manned Soyuz launches:

-

Search and rescue bases

Military assets on standby

Civilian assets on standby

0 Baikonur (Krainy airfield) Two Mil-8 helicopters, one Antonov-12, one Antonov-24 aircraft -

1 Dzhezkazgan - -

2 Arkalyk - -

3 Kustanai - -

4 Karaganda Two Mil-8 helicopters -

5 Semipalatinsk - -

6 Gorno-Altaisk Two Mil-8 helicopters One Antonov-2 aircraft

7 Novosibirsk - -

8 Kyzyl One Antonov-26 aircraft One Mil-8 helicopter

9 Kyren - -

10 Irkutsk - One Mil-8 helicopter

11 Dzhida - -

12 Bada - -

13 Chita - -

14 Khabarovsk - One Mil-8 helicopter, one Antonov-26 aircraft

15 Sovetskaya Gavan - -

16 Kamenny Ruchei Two Tupolev-142 aircraft Two Tupolev-142 aircraft

17 Chernigovka - -

18 Vladivostok - One Mil-8 helicopter

19 Sea of Japan "Antarktida" vessel -

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_launch.html

Later....

8,882 · August 31, 2015

Will the additional complement of crew making it nine aboard,bring any extra strain to the onboard life support systems?

6,181 · August 31, 2015

Will the additional complement of crew making it nine aboard,bring any extra strain to the onboard life support systems?

There have been 12 on station before on a temp basis...shuttle...this one is for 10 days and a crew will return to earth..supplies are at a good level and all environmental controls are capable of handling the load...

later...

6,181 · August 31, 2015

Misc neat space stuff.....

Video: A Rare Supermoon Lunar Eclipse is Coming September 27

On September 27th, 2015 there will be a very rare event in the night sky - a supermoon lunar eclipse.

Video is 1:20 min.....

http://spaceref.com/moon/video-a-rare-supermoon-lunar-eclipse-is-coming-september-27.html

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Sun plasma show

THE EDGE OF THE SUN: Giant sunspot AR2403 has departed, leaving the face of the sun mostly blank. Amateur astronomer Sergio Castillo of Corona, CA, decided to look for something else to photograph. "My search didn't take long," he says, "because there are plenty of beautiful prominences on the solar limb." This is what he saw on Aug. 29th:

The massive structure is more than 30,000 km tall and 100,000 km wide. Planet Earth could fit through the central arch with room to spare. (Croquette, anyone?)

Prominences are plumes of hot plasma held aloft by magnetic fields on the sun. Typical prominences last a few days, until the underlying magnetic supports become unstable and collapse. This one has already been visible for several days, so a photogenic explosion could be in the offing. Amateur astronomers withsolar telescopes and filters are encouraged to monitor developments.

http://spaceweather.com/

http://www.solarham.net/

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3,000 Images Combine for Stunning Milky Way Portrait

Axel Mellinger, of Central Michigan University, created this panorama of the Milky Way from 3,000 individual photographs that he melded together with mathematical models.

http://www.space.com/14249-milkyway-galaxy-photos.html

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With the Soyuz launch for ISS crew coming up on September 2nd, I thought I would do a blurb on something we don't want to use....Emergency escape system on the launch body.

Soyuz escape tower data...

Modifications for Soyuz TM

The Iskra plant re-designed escape rocket one more time to contribute into weight-saving efforts during the development of the Soyuz TMversion of the spacecraft. It entered service after the launch of the Mir space station. Two core engines -- central and add-on engine -- were replaced with a single one-chamber engine. Both chambers would burn along the same profile but using a unified nozzle. The redesign significantly cut the weight of the escape rocket. The main diameter of escape rocket was also reduced, further improving aerodynamic qualities of the entire escape module and reducing the mass of the balancing weight.

The nominal separation time of the escape rocket was further advanced to 115th second after the launch (52) (to 114th second according to another source 243). That change freed more weight for payload and enabled to combine drop zones for the escape rocket and boosters of the first stage in the same area downrange from Baikonur. Total weight savings from the redesign of the escape rocket and its flight profile reached around 60 kilograms.

General description/emergency flight profiles

The top section of the Soyuz spacecraft design for escape in case of the emergency was known as OGB SAS. It included:

reentry capsule

habitation module

payload fairing

solid-propellant escape rocket (with the thrust of 785 kH on the original system 2)

The escape motor would be installed on top of the payload fairing.

Prior to launch, the emergency escape tower would be calibrated relative to the vehicle's center of gravity. In case, the main rocket would deviate from its standard attitude, the flight trajectory of the escape module could be adjusted accordingly with the help of its own gyroscopes and dedicated solid-propellant thrusters.

The emergency escape system is activated 15 minutes before launch and, from that point it could be used all the way until 157th second in flight, on the original Soyuz spacecraft. The escape rocket would then separates, followed by the separation of the payload fairing at T+161 seconds in flight. (52)

During a normal flight, three "floating" struts on the payload fairing would simply "follow" the structure of the spacecraft inside it. However, in case of emergency they would be instantly fixated to the lower structural ring of the reentry vehicle, thus transferring all loads from the payload fairing, during the escape flight.

The main escape motors would then fire for 2-6 seconds (2), pulling away the top section of the vehicle, including habitation module and the reentry capsule with the crew from the rest of the rocket. The instrument module of the Soyuz would remain with the rocket.

The escape rocket would accelerate up to 50-150 meters per second, and, in the case of emergency on the ground would lift the capsule to the altitude of 1-1.5 kilometers, which would be enough for normal landing under a parachute. (2)

After the OGB SAS stack reached a safe distance from the failing rocket, the reentry capsule would be disconnected from the fairing and a separation motor would fire, allowing the capsule with the crew to slide away from the bottom of the payload fairing, like a bullet from a rifle. A normal landing under a parachute would follow. The same solid motor would be used during a nominal flight to separate the emergency escape tower from the rocket.

Technicians connect interfaces between the escape rocket and the payload fairing of the Soyuz TM spacecraft.

At Site 23, some 30 kilometers from the main launch site of Russian manned missions, the Kvant ground control station is used to transmit signals of the Command Radio Link of the Emergency Escape System, KRL SAS, which has ability to activate the escape rocket of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Also at Site 23, a ball-shaped structure on the left protects a KTNA antenna, which backs up the main Command Radio Link system, designed to activate the emergency escape system

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz_sas.html

The Soyuz T-10A crew—Commander Vladimir Titov (left) and Flight Engineer Gennadi Strekalov—were destined to spend about three months aboard Salyut 7. They had also endured an unsuccessful attempt to dock with the space station in April 1983. Photo Credit: Joachim Becker / SpaceFacts.de

Ninety seconds to go …

All at once, a fuel valve—charged with supplying the strap-on tapering boosters of the rocket’s first stage—failed to close properly. As a consequence, raw propellant spewed across the surface of the launch pad and, within a minute, caught fire. The blaze spread with alarming rapidity, licking the sides of the rocket. As well as being fully laden with highly explosive propellants, the vehicle’s separation pyrotechnics were armed and its engines just seconds away from ignition. At the blockhouse, a few miles away, Launch Director Alexei Shumilin watched with mounting horror as the ferocious pace of the fire increased.

For their part, Titov and Strekalov had no windows to witness the progress of the fire, but they were quickly aware of what was going on. The strange sounds emanating from the rocket convinced Strekalov that something was not right and he tightened his harness, telling Titov to do the same. They could clearly hear urgent chatter from launch controllers over the communications loop. This urgency was intensified when it became clear that the raging inferno had burned through the wiring which should have triggered the rocket’s escape system to fire, yanking the Soyuz T-10 orbital and descent modules away from the burning booster and parachuting them a few miles to safety. Titov and Strekalov had no controls in the descent module to permit them to manually activate the escape system. The only chance to override it was to use a backup radio command … but that required a pair of controllers, located in different rooms in a different building more than 20 miles from the pad, to press their buttons within five seconds of one another.Not only that, but in order for them to be in a position to do this, they each had to receive a code word (“Dnestr”), independently, from bothShumilin and the rocket’s technical leader, a man named Soldatenkov. By the time all of these steps had been concluded, 10 seconds had elapsed and Titov and Strekalov’s booster was literally engulfed in flames and dangerously close to an explosion.

Within seconds of the command from Shumilin and Soldatenkov, the pyrotechnics fired and the escape tower’s powerful solid rocket engines—totalling around 176,000 pounds of thrust—rapidly pulled the Soyuz T-10 descent and orbital modules away from the burning booster. The immense velocity and the angle of departure imparted high-G accelerations on the two cosmonauts. After the event, Titov recalled feeling the entire rocket physically swaying, followed by two waves of vibration as the escape tower fired and a sharp jerk as he and Strekalov were boosted to safety. Observers at the blockhouse witnessed an enormous red, yellow, and black cloud surrounding the top of the booster, after which an object could be seen shooting upwards at a high rate of speed. Within seconds, Titov and Strekalov reached a velocity of Mach 1, traveling near-vertically, rose to an altitude of 3,000 feet, and endured peak acceleration loads of between 14-17 G. A mere six seconds after the capsule had been tugged to safety, the booster exploded in a holocaust of flame.

In the blockhouse, images released many years later show a gaggle of uniformed military officers, their backs to the camera, watching the unfolding drama through large picture windows. As the escape tower pulls Soyuz T-10 away from the inferno, one of them nonchalantly rubs his

After this near-disaster, which one official later described as having brought the Soviet human space program to within “six seconds from a Soviet Challenger,” it became clear that the rocket was already beginning to lean precariously, before the escape tower even fired, showing that Titov and Strekalov probably were even nearer to death … andluckier than perhaps any space crew in history. Certainly, some accounts note that the rocket collapsed onto the pad within three or four seconds of the activation of the escape tower. Others relate that it was as little as two seconds.

Whether two or three or four or six, though, is immaterial, for the cosmonauts had escaped oblivion, literally, by the skin of their teeth. Some 2,100 feet above the ground, the orbital and descent modules were automatically separated, dropping free of the escape tower and shroud, and within seconds Titov and Strekalov began a slow fall toward the Kazakh steppe. The descent module’s heat shield was jettisoned, exposing six solid-fuelled landing rockets in the base, and the shaken and badly bruised cosmonauts came to a hard, parachute-assisted touchdown at 10:43 p.m. Moscow Time, 2.4 miles from the blazing launch pad. Their first action after the firing of the escape tower had actually been to switch off their cockpit voice recorder. According to Titov: “We were swearing!”

http://www.americaspace.com/?p=42882

Video 1:10 min....

Here is an unmanned, unplanned test of a Mercury abort system....

The launch of Mercury-Atlas 3 (MA-3) on April 25, 1961. This unmanned test flight was terminated by the range safety officer after 43.3 seconds due to failure of the launch vehicle. The Launch Escape System (LES, aka Escape Tower) pulls the Mercury spacecraft free and parachutes carry the capsule to a safe landing.

Public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.

Old video 10:57 min....abort is 2:00 min in.....neat old footage...

Later.........

6,181 · September 1, 2015

LEGO to Launch: Astronaut from Denmark Taking Danish Toys to Space Station

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen is flying to the International Space Station with LEGO minifigures emblazoned with his "iriss" mission logos in support of educational outreach projects.
Credit: ESA

Denmark's first astronaut is launching to the International Space Station with a Danish toy that is famous worldwide.

Andreas Mogensen will fly to the space station with LEGO minifigures bearing the official logo of his mission for the European Space Agency (ESA). At the orbital outpost, the 38-year-old aerospace engineer from Copenhagen will find 20 more of the iconic 2-inch-tall (5 centimeters) toys, which were earlier launched onboard a Russian cargo spacecraft to support his flight's educational outreach activities.

"ESA and LEGO Education have partnered together for this mission," Mogensen wrote as part of an AMA, or "Ask Me Anything," on the website Reddit in reply to a question submitted by collectSPACE. "Among other things, we are running a competition for Danish school children to tell a story about my mission using LEGOs and making a video of their story."

"The 20 LEGO minifigures are ... one way that we hope to connect with younger children," he added.

Mogensen's mission, dubbed "iriss" for the Greek goddess Iris who linked humanity with the cosmos, will begin as he launches on the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft with Russian commander Sergei Volkov and Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday (Sept. 2) at 12:37 a.m. EDT (0437 GMT).

After a two-day journey to reach and dock with the station, Mogensen, Volkov and Aimbetov will be greeted on board the orbiting laboratory by the Expedition 44 crew, including Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Kornienko and Oleg Konenenko of Roscosmos, Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren with NASA, and Kimiya Yui with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

For eight days, the nine crew members will work together, before Padalka, Aimbetov and Mogensen return to Earth on board Soyuz TMA-16M on Sept. 12. Volkov will remain on the station until March, when he will land with year-long crewmates Kelly and Kornienko on Soyuz TMA-18M.

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen holding a student bottle rocket ready to launch with one of his LEGO iriss minifigures.
Credit: ESA

http://www.space.com/30426-astronaut-lego-minifigures-space-launch.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NASA Needs To Buy 2 Vans in Russia

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/08/nasa-needs-to-b.html

NASA JSC Solicitation: Purchase of Two Vehicles for the Human Space Flight Program-Russia

Status Report From: Johnson Space Center
Posted: Monday, August 31, 2015

Synopsis/Solicitation Combo - Aug 31, 2015

General Information
Solicitation Number: NNJ15543357Q
Posted Date: Aug 31, 2015
FedBizOpps Posted Date: Aug 31, 2015
Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action: No
Original Response Date: N/A
Current Response Date: Sep 16, 2015
Classification Code: 23 -- Ground effects vehicles, motor veh., trailers and cycles
NAICS Code: 336112

Contracting Office Address

NASA/Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston Texas, 77058-3696, Mail Code: BG

Description

This notice is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; offers are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

This notice is being issued as a Request for Quotations (RFQ) for the purchase - of a minimum of two and maximum of ten vehicles between contract award (2015/2016/2017) and December 2020 for the Human Space Flight Program – Russia (HSFP-R).

The provisions and clauses in the RFQ are those in effect through FAC 2005-83.

The NAICS Code and the small business size standard for this procurement are 336112 and 1000 respectively. The offeror shall state in their offer their size status for this procurement. This is a full and open competition and is open for domestic and international offers.

All responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency.

The initial order of the two vehicles shall be delivered as soon as possible, but no later than December 16, 2015. Delivery shall be FOB Destination.

Offers for the items(s) described above are due by September 16, 2015 to sophia.mo@nasa.gov and must include, solicitation number, FOB destination delivery location, shipping costs, proposed delivery schedule, discount/payment terms, warranty duration (if applicable), taxpayer identification number (TIN), identification of any special commercial terms, and be signed by an authorized company representative. Offerors are encouraged to use the Standard Form 1449, Solicitation/Contract/Order for Commercial Items form for proposal submission and draft model contract attached herein. Additional vendor specific terms and standard condition terms may be proposed by offerors.

*All quotes must remain valid for 90 days.

Delivery Address: American Embassy, Attn: GSO / Receiving, 8 Bolshoy Devyatinksiy Pereulok Moscow, 121099, Russian Federation

Offerors shall provide the information required by FAR 52.212-1 (April 2014) – Instructions to Offerors-Commercial Items, FAR 52.212-4 (May 2015) – Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, FAR 52.212-5 (May 2015) – Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items. These clauses are incorporated by reference in the attached document and applicable sections are being identified.

If the end product(s) offered is other than domestic end product(s) as defined in the clause entitled "Buy American Act -- Supplies," the offeror shall so state and shall list the country of origin.

The FAR may be obtained via the Internet at URL: http://www.acquisition.gov/far/index.html

The NFS may be obtained via the Internet at URL: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/procurement/regs/nfstoc.htm

All contractual and technical questions must be in writing via e-mail to sophia.mo@nasa.gov no later than September 9, 2015. Telephone questions will not be accepted.

Evaluation of Offers

The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

TECHNICAL CAPABILITY AND PRICE

1. The following will be considered on a pass or fail criteria considered as part of the technical capability. The Government will evaluate the offeror on a pass/fail basis and will be assigned an Acceptable or Unacceptable rating:

*Acceptable - Quote meets the technical capability requirements of the Specification List.

*Unacceptable - Quote does not meet the technical capability requirements of the Specification List.

The Technical Capability, Specification List can be viewed at:

http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/NNJ15543357Q/NNJ15GU01P-Technical-Capability-Specification-List.pdf

Of those offers that meet technical capability, the lowest reasonable price will be selected for award.

2. The offeror is requested to complete Form 1449 with applicable Terms and Conditions.

The SF1449 and Terms and Conditions can be viewed at:

http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/NNJ15543357Q/NNJ15GU01P-SF-1449-Terms-Conditions.pdf

Selection and award shall be made to the responsible offeror whose proposal is determined to have the lowest reasonable price and meets the technical requirements in accordance with the technical capability. Potential offerors should note that parts and servicing available in Moscow, Russia by a manufacturer certified facility is a critical requirement.

FAR 52.225-17 (FEB 2000), Evaluation of Foreign Currency Offers.

NASA Clause 1852.215-84, Ombudsman, is applicable. The Center Ombudsman for this acquisition can be found at http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/pub_library/Omb.html . Prospective offerors shall notify this office of their intent to submit an offer. It is the offeror's responsibility to monitor the following Internet site for the release of solicitation amendments (if any): http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/cgi- bin/nais/link_syp.cgi. Potential offeror’s will be responsible for downloading their own copy of this combination synopsis/solicitation and amendments (if any).

Point of Contact
Name: Sophia Mo
Title: Contract Specialist
Phone: 281-792-7877
Fax: 281-244-2370
Email: sophia.mo@nasa.gov

Name: Yaranet G. Marquez
Title: Contracting Officer
Phone: 281-244-8562
Fax: 281-483-2370
Email: yaranet.marquez-1@nasa.gov

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=47733

In English...They want to buy 2 to 10 vans for transportation, depending on price ....... the above sounds like they want one of these...

or.....this

We'll soon find out....... :woot:

------------------------------------------------------------------

Soyuz booster in position for crew launch

A Russian Soyuz booster rolled out of a hangar at the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome and rode a rail car to its launch pad Monday, setting up for Wednesday’s launch with a three-man crew hailing from Russia, Denmark and Kazakhstan.

The trio is setting off on a two-day voyage to the International Space Station on a mission to change out Soyuz lifeboats docked to the complex.

Commanded by veteran cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, the Soyuz TMA-18 spaceship will blast off at 0437:43 GMT (12:37:43 a.m. EDT) Wednesday from Launch Pad No. 1 at Baikonur, the same facility where Yuri Gagarin took off on the first human spaceflight in 1961.

Burning a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen, the Soyuz launcher will shed four strap-on boosters, a nose cone shielding the Soyuz crew capsule, and a core rocket stage in the first five minutes of the flight. A third stage RD-0110 rocket engine will inject the spacecraft carrying Volkov and crewmates Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov into orbit about nine minutes after liftoff.

The spacecraft will head toward the space station for a radar-guided rendezvous and docking Friday, Sept. 4, at 0742 GMT (3:42 a.m. EDT).

Mogensen represents the European Space Agency and will sit in the left seat of the Soyuz as the flight engineer. He is set to become Denmark’s first astronaut.

Russian officials selected Aimbetov to fly as a replacement for British soprano Sarah Brightman, who announced in May she is postponing her paid trip to space indefinitely. Aimbetov joined the cosmonaut corps in 2003 and trained for six years to become a Kazakh crewman aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.

Volkov is kicking off a six-month expedition on the orbiting outpost, but Mogensen and Aimbetov will return to Earth after 10 days, joined by outgoing space station commander Gennady Padalka aboard the Soyuz TMA-16M capsule, which is nearing the end of its design life and is currently docked to the complex as an emergency escape craft.

Nine people will occupy the space station during the week-long crew rotation, which was planned to swap out Soyuz lifeboats as NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are about halfway through a nearly year-long space mission, which exceeds the Soyuz capsule’s certified lifetime in orbit.

Photo credit: Roscosmos

Photo credit: ESA

Photo credit: Energia

Video is 4:34....real good video of process....

NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 31 August 2015

An international crew of three is getting ready for a two-day ride to the International Space Station. The Soyuz rocket that will lift them to space rolled out to its launch pad today at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Veteran cosmonaut Sergei Volkov will command the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft that will launch Sept. 2 at 12:37 a.m. EDT. Joining him for the trip to the station will be first time flyers Andreas Mogensen from the European Space Agency and Aidyn Aimbetov from Kazcosmos, the National Space Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan. NASA Television will broadcast thelaunch and docking activities live.

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui unpacked the Multipurpose Small Payload Rack-2 (MSPR-2) from the new HTV-5 resupply ship today. The MSPR-2, which houses small science payloads, was installed in the Japanese Kibo laboratory module.

ISS Reboost: This morning the ISS performed a reboost using 60 Progress (60P) thrusters. Delta-V was 0.55 meters/second, burn duration was 8 min 15 sec. This reboost was to set up for 42S landing in the primary landing zone on September 12. A second reboost is planned for September 7 to finalize setup for 42S landing opportunities and to set up phasing for 61P rendezvous on October 1.

Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: On Saturday, Robotics Ground Controllers installed the Superconducting sub-Millimeter-wave Limb-Emission Sounder (SMILES) payload on the External Platform (EP) HII Transfer Vehicle (HTV) Exposed Facility Unit (HEFU)2. On Sunday, controllers installed the Multi-mission Consolidated Equipment (MCE) on EP HEFU1. Tonight the ground controllers will be transferring the STP-H4 to the EP.

Ground Activities
All activities are on schedule unless otherwise noted.

Reboost
Fundoscope Ultrasound support
Robotics Operations to transfer STP-H4 to EP [In Work]

Three-Day Look Ahead:
Tuesday, 09/01: 44S launch, CBEF 1G door replace, Fluid Shifts, MSPR2 post reconfig
Wednesday, 09/02: Sprint VO2, MSPR2 power checkout, KUBIK 5 sestup, NanoRacks CubeSat deployer removal from MPEP
Thursday, 09/03: CBEF Mouse Habitat Unit interface unit install, MSPR laptop setup and LAN, USB checkout

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status
Elektron - On
Vozdukh - Manual
[СКВ] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - Off
[СКВ] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - On
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Standby
Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Operate
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Shutdown
Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Operate
Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Standby
Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Off
Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Full Up

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/nasa-international-space-station-on-orbit-status-31-august-2015.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Video: StationLIFE September Report - This Month Biology

Every month on StationLIFE, we'll focus on a scientific area where the International Space Station is conducting groundbreaking research. This month, astronaut Tracy Dyson talks the station's role as a platform for biological research.

The video is 22:50 minutes...but is full of interesting biology

http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/video-stationlife-september-report---this-month-biology.html

In my opinion, this is why the commercial crew program is so important. We need to have the ability to also transport scientists to the ISS for the most important program aspects of their experiments for short periods, in the future.

------------------------------------------------------

An Orbital Sunset

Orbital Sunset NASA

Earth's thin atmosphere stands out against the blackness of space in this photo shared on Aug. 31, 2015, by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly on board the International Space Station.

The station's solar panels can be seen in darkness at the right of the image. Kelly, in the midst of a year-long stay on the orbital outpost, shared the photo in a tweet: "Day 157. At the end of the day, #sunrise will come again.

http://spaceref.com/onorbit/an-orbital-sunset.html

--------------------------------------------------------------

Progress for Tiangong 2

Only one crew expedition will fly to Tiangong 2, unlike the two expeditions that occupied Tiangong 1. The astronauts will launch on the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft, and there will probably be three of them. The mission commander will probably be a veteran astronaut, and at least one of the other astronauts will be a rookie. Most probably, there will be two rookies on the crew.

At some time in 2016, China will launch the Tiangong 2 space laboratory. The launch will break a fairly long period of inactivity for China's human spaceflight program, which underwent an uncommon surge of activity after Tiangong 1 was launched. 2014 and 2015 have been years without any Chinese astronaut launches, so we are keen to see some more action.

Nothing is happening in space, but not much has happened recently in China's official state media, either. That's not surprising. In some ways, it's probably business as usual, as preparations for the Tiangong 2 program advance steadily behind closed doors. The silence also reflects the new conservatism in reporting on Chinese spaceflight, which was gradually opening up before it was abruptly reset by some new government policies.

Let's recap what we know. Tiangong 2 will use the same basic module as the Tiangong 1 space laboratory, a small cabin with sleeping quarters for two astronauts. There will probably be few visible differences on the inside or the outside of the laboratory, but there will be changes. The most important one will be a new regenerative life support system.

Other changes seem likely when the lessons of Tiangong 1 are incorporated, but overall, Tiangong 2 will probably represent a fairly incremental evolution in design. The floor of the module could be changed, and there could be some visible differences there. Astronauts on the first expedition experienced problems, and the second expedition took up some new panels to correct them. China may also choose to modify the docking system, but it will probably look the same as it did on Tiangong 1.

As with Tiangong 1, Tiangong 2 will be launched by a Long March 2F/G rocket, a modified version of the rocket used to launch Chinese astronauts.

Only one crew expedition will fly to Tiangong 2, unlike the two expeditions that occupied Tiangong 1. The astronauts will launch on the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft, and there will probably be three of them. The mission commander will probably be a veteran astronaut, and at least one of the other astronauts will be a rookie. Most probably, there will be two rookies on the crew.

Beyond this, we really don't know who will fly. The Shenzhou 11 crew will probably live aboard Tiangong 2 for longer than any previous Chinese crewed mission. They could easily stay on board for a month or even longer. That makes sense when logistics don't need to be conserved for other missions, and the life support system itself is improved.

Now to the real breakthroughs. Tiangong 2 will receive a visit from China's first cargo spacecraft, dubbed Tianzhou. This is a pressurized module with a lot of design heritage from the Tiangong laboratory design, but it's larger. Tianzhou will launch aboard a Long March 7 rocket, which has yet to make its debut. The module is too heavy for the Long March 2F/G to loft.

Tianzhou is expected to dock with Tiangong 2 after the Shenzhou 11 crew has departed. It is unclear exactly what it will do while it is docked to Tiangong. Simply getting the cargo spacecraft to fly and dock with another spacecraft could be enough of an achievement for its debut mission. But China has given vague hints of other experiments, such as a possible propellant transfer. Right now, it isn't really clear if this will happen.

In some ways, the Tiangong 2 program seems less ambitious than the Tiangong 1 program that preceded it. That's a fair observation, but it needs to be taken in context. The entire Tiangong program is designed to test technology for the future Chinese Space Station, which is expected around 2022. Trying out a new life support system, other new technologies, a longer crew endurance and a brand new cargo spacecraft is probably enough for the next phase. These are tasks that were not performed by Tiangong 1, and they must be trialed before the space station is launched.

But some mysteries remain. What is the fate of the originally proposed Tiangong 3 laboratory, which was expected to use a larger module? Will China drop Tiangong 3 from its plans and proceed directly to launching the large Chinese Space Station? Right now, it isn't clear to us. The Chinese themselves may not know for certain, either.

A decision may be pending until the full results of Tiangong 2 are taken into account. If certain critical elements did not work, they may need to be tested again. That may prompt the launch of Tiangong 3 as a remedial program for the tasks unaccomplished by Tiangong 2. If Tiangong 2 works perfectly, there may be no need to continue the Tiangong program at all.

So Tiangong 3 may now be an optional project instead of another progressive step towards the space station. If this is the case, we can't necessarily expect Tiangong 3 to be exactly the same as the original plan, which was reported to be a much larger module than Tiangongs 1 and 2. Tiangong 3 may well use another small Tiangong module instead of this larger module, which was originally expected to be a prototype for the core module of the space station.

For the moment, we can only wait and hope that more news filters through from official sources.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Progress_for_Tiangong_2_999.html

Later.....

Year	Date
2015	Sunday, September 27
2016	Monday, November 14
2017	Sunday, December 3

Cruise:
75% Power at 8000 Feet 38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172) 48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172) 38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk) 48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk)	Range: 635 SM / Time: 4.7 HRS / 135 MPH Range: 795 SM / Time: 5.9 HRS / 135 MPH Range: 650 SM / Time: 4.7 HRS / 138 MPH Range: 815 SM / Time: 5.9 HRS / 138 MPH
Max. Range at 10,000 Feet 38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172) 48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Model 172) 38 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk) 48 Gallons Usable Fuel (Skyhawk)	Range: 695 SM / Time: 6.0 HRS / 116 MPH Range: 870 SM / Time: 7.5 HRS / 116 MPH Range: 700 SM / Time: 6.0 HRS / 117 MPH Range: 875 SM / Time 7.5 HRS / 117 MPH
Rate of Climb at Sea Level:	645 FPM
Service Ceiling:	13,100 Feet
Takeoff Performance: Ground Roll Total Dist. over 50-FT Obstacle	865 Feet 1525 Feet
Landing Performance: Ground Roll Total Dist. over 50-FT Obstacle	520 Feet 1250 Feet
Stall Speed (KCAS): Flaps Up, Power Off Flaps Down, Power Off	57 MPH 49 MPH
Gross Weight:	2300 Pounds
Standard Empty Weight: Model 172 Skyhawk	1300 Pounds 1345 Pounds
Maximum Useful Load: Model 172 Skyhawk	1000 Pounds 955 Pounds
Baggage Allowance:	120 Pounds
Wing Loading:	13.2 Pounds/Sq.Ft.
Power Loading:	15,3 Pounds/HP
Fuel Capacity (Total): Standard Tanks Long Range Tanks	42 Gallons / 38 Gallons useable 52 Gallons / 48 Gallons useable
Oil Capacity:	8 Quarts
Engine:	Lycoming O-320-E2D / 150 BHP at 2700 RPM
Propeller:	75 Inch (diameter) / Fixed Pitch
Electrical System:	14-Volt with Alternator; Avionics Master Switch
Wingspan:	35' 10"

Primary crew	Backup crew
Sergei Volkov, Soyuz commander, Roskosmos	Oleg Skripochka, Soyuz commander, Roskosmos
Andreas Mogensen, Flight Engineer, ESA/Denmark	Thomas Pesquet, Flight Engineer, ESA/France
Aidyn Aimbetov, Flight Engineer 2, Kazakhstan	Sergei Prokopiev, Flight Engineer 2, Roskosmos

152	ATV-5	2014 July 29	2015 Feb. 15	ATV-5	Cargo supply	-
153	Dragon SpX-4	2014 Sept. 21	2014 Oct. 25	CRS4	Cargo supply	-
154	Soyuz TMA-14M	2014 Sept. 26	2015 March 12	40S	Expedition 41/42 delivery	Aleksandr Samoukutyaev, Elena Serova, Barry Wilmore
155	Cygnus Orb-3 (CRS3)	2014 Oct. 28	Failed to reach orbit	Orb-3	Cargo supply	Failed to reach orbit due to launch vehicle malfunction
156	Progress M-25M	2014 Oct. 29	2015 April 26	57P	Cargo supply	-
157	Soyuz TMA-15M	2014 Nov. 24	2015 June 11	41S	Expedition 42/43 delivery	Terry Virts, Anton Shkaplerov, Samantha Cristoforetti (ESA)
2015
158	Dragon SpX-5	2015 Jan. 10	2015 Feb. 10	CRS5	Cargo supply	-
159	Progress M-26M	2015 Feb. 17	2015 Aug. 14	58P	Cargo supply	-
160	Soyuz TMA-16M	2015 March 27	In progress	42S	Expedition 43 delivery; "Year in Space" mission	Gennady Padalka, Mikhail Kornienko (up only), Scott Kelly (up only)
161	Dragon SpX-6	2015 April 14	2015 May 21	CRS6	Cargo supply	-
162	Progress M-27M	2015 April 28	2015 May 8	59P	Cargo supply	Anomaly at orbit insertion, failed to reach ISS, reentered out of control
163	Dragon SpX-7	2015 June 28	Failed to reach orbit	CRS7	Cargo supply	Launch vehicle failure at T+139 seconds in flight
164	Progress M-28M	2015 July 3	In progress	60P	Cargo supply	-
165	Soyuz TMA-17M	2015 July 23	In progress	43S	Expedition 44/45 delivery	Oleg Kononenko, Kimiya Yui (JAXA), Kjell Lindgren
166	HTV-5	2015 Aug. 19	In progress	HTV-4	Cargo supply	-

Milestone	Elapsed time
Liftoff	0.00
Emergency escape rocket, SAS, jettison	114.16 seconds
Stage I separation	117.80 seconds
Payload fairing separation	157.48 seconds
Stage II separation	287.30 seconds
Separation of Stage III tail section	297.05 seconds
Stage III main engine cutoff	524.96 seconds
Stage III - spacecraft separation	528.26 seconds

-	Search and rescue bases	Military assets on standby	Civilian assets on standby
0	Baikonur (Krainy airfield)	Two Mil-8 helicopters, one Antonov-12, one Antonov-24 aircraft	-
1	Dzhezkazgan	-	-
2	Arkalyk	-	-
3	Kustanai	-	-
4	Karaganda	Two Mil-8 helicopters	-
5	Semipalatinsk	-	-
6	Gorno-Altaisk	Two Mil-8 helicopters	One Antonov-2 aircraft
7	Novosibirsk	-	-
8	Kyzyl	One Antonov-26 aircraft	One Mil-8 helicopter
9	Kyren	-	-
10	Irkutsk	-	One Mil-8 helicopter
11	Dzhida	-	-
12	Bada	-	-
13	Chita	-	-
14	Khabarovsk	-	One Mil-8 helicopter, one Antonov-26 aircraft
15	Sovetskaya Gavan	-	-
16	Kamenny Ruchei	Two Tupolev-142 aircraft	Two Tupolev-142 aircraft
17	Chernigovka	-	-
18	Vladivostok	-	One Mil-8 helicopter
19	Sea of Japan	"Antarktida" vessel	-

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International Space Station (Updates)

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Robotic Arm Grabs Robotic Cargo Spacecraft

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Attempting A Sub-millimeter Precision Task On Earth From Orbit

NASA Seeks Proposals for Extreme Environment Solar Arrays

Design Competition Demonstrates Promising Future for Additive Manufacturing in Satellite Design

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A Novel Way To Track The Space Station

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NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 27 August 2015

Soyuz relocation clears way for launch of new station crew

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Asteroids loom as the new Klondike for Seattle region’s space industry

NASA crashing plane to test emergency locators

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Arachno 1D

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Arachno 1D

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