NASA astronaut Jeff Williams works inside the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, the newest addition to the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA TV)
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams reported that the BEAM’s interior looked “pristine.” It was chilly inside, but there were no signs of condensation on the walls. The temperature was about 44 degrees Fahrenheit at the module’s bulkhead, as expected, according to readings received by ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
Williams and Russian crewmate Oleg Skripochka took air samples, checked sensors, measured the module’s dimensions and began hooking up air ducts. Then they floated back through the hatch and closed the door. The job will continue over the next couple of days.
The Bigelow Expandable Space Module, or BEAM, is designed to expand to twice its folded-up length, but during an initial attempt, it stretched out just a few inches. (Credit: NASA TV)
Update: NASA will make its second attempt to inflate the Bigelow Expandable Space Module starting at around 6 a.m. PT May 28. More details below.
A multimillion-dollar pop-up room that NASA sees as the future of space habitats expanded just a few inches before the experiment fizzled at the International Space Station on May 26. The space agency said it would try again to deploy the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM.
The technology takes advantage of a concept that NASA developed in the 1990s. Bigelow Aerospace, founded by real-estate billionaire Robert Bigelow, licensed the concept and tested it with two free-flyingmodules that have been launched into orbit over the past decade.
After BEAM’s arrival at the space station, astronauts used the station’s robotic arm to hook up the folded-up module to a port on the Tranquility mode. On May 26, the crew tried releasing air into the module to expand it from about 7 feet to 13 feet in length. The module pushed out about 5 inches, but then it stopped.
After a couple of hours of effort, NASA called off the attempt.
An artist’s conception shows NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. WISE observations of near-Earth objects were analyzed for the NEOWISE mission. (Credit: NASA)
BELLEVUE, Wash. – NASA issued a statement today disputing Seattle tech icon Nathan Myhrvold’s critique of asteroid data analysis from the space agency’s NEOWISE mission.
The statement follows up on reports published this week by GeekWire and othermediaoutlets. In those reports, Myhrvold said NEOWISE’s analysis relied on flawed statistical calculations, which resulted in incorrect or highly uncertain measurements for thousands of asteroids.
When GeekWire showed Myhrvold’s critique to scientists associated with NEOWISE and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, they identified what they said were serious errors – including misinterpretations of NEOWISE’s methods and an apparent confusion between radius and diameter in one key equation. GeekWire’s report on Monday referred to those problems, as well as Myhrvold’s acknowledgment of mistakes.
Today’s NASA statement refers to those errors as “mistakes that an independent peer review process is designed to catch.”
“While critique and re-examination of published results are essential to the scientific process, it is important that any paper undergo peer review by an independent journal before it can be seriously considered,” NASA said. “This completes a necessary step to ensure science results are independently validated, reproducible and of value to the science community.”
Last week, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed off its ProtoSpace application, which superimposes a computer-generated version of space hardware over your field of view in the headset.
The application lets JPL’s engineers size up how components fit together in the design of the 2020 Mars rover, which is currently under development at the lab in Pasadena, Calif. They can also take real-world hardware and compare it against the ghostly design that’s floating before their eyes.
The beauty of the system is that they can push through the virtual parts on the outside and get into the guts of the rover, in what appears to be real physical space.
Is this how the first human missions to Mars will unfold? NASA’s chief favors doing extended operations from orbit, rather than starting out with a crew landing on the surface. (Credit: NASA)
The first humans to reach Mars almost certainly won’t go down to the surface, but will manage fleets of rovers from Martian orbit.
That’s the view of Andy Weir, the author behind a wildly popular space saga titled “The Martian.” But it’s also the view of NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden, and lots of other mission planners. NASA’s current plan calls for the first crews to set up shop around Mars and its moons in the 2030s.
The landing vs. orbiting issue came up today during a space-themed session at Transformers, a daylong conference organized by The Washington Post in the nation’s capital. Weir’s novel (and the movie it inspired) focuses on an astronaut left behind on the Red Planet’s surface, but the engineer-turned-author said the initial flights to Mars would probably follow a safer storyline.
He noted that robotic missions to Mars, such as the ones involving NASA’s Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, require a long latency period between sending commands and getting back the results coming out of those commands. That’s due to the distance between the rovers and their controllers on Earth.
“The biggest benefit to having an astronaut on the surface, in terms of the science, is that that astronaut has a brain,” Weir said. “An astronaut doesn’t have a five- to 20-minute latency in communicating what he or she wants to do on the surface of Mars. So the very first humans-to-Mars-area mission, I suspect, will be a whole bunch of rovers on the surface of Mars, and humans in orbit controlling them. What do you think?”
MSNW’s magnetoshell aerocapture concept could help ease spaceships into orbit. (Credit: MSNW)
A system that would use magnetic fields to ease a spacecraft into orbit after an interplanetary journey has won a $500,000 grant from NASA’s advanced research program for MSNW, a company based in Redmond. Wash.
The money for MSNW is one of eight Phase II awards made through the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program, also known as NIAC. Other projects look into such way-out ideas as suspended animation, beamed energy for interstellar travel and a satellite-airplane hybrid that could stay up in the air for months at a time.
MSNW’s magnetoshell aerocapture system is designed to take advantage of aerodynamic drag as well as magnetized plasma to slow a spacecraft down and as it dips through a planet’s atmosphere.
The hull of a CST-100 Starliner structural test vehicle is assembled inside Boeing’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Credit: NASA)
A top Boeing executive said today that the company plans to start sending crews into orbit aboard its CST-100 Starliner space taxi in 2018, which represents a slight delay in NASA’s previous development schedule.
“We’re working toward our first unmanned flight in 2017, followed by a manned astronaut flight in 2018,” Leanne Caret, who is Boeing’s executive vice president as well as president and chief executive officer of Boeing’s defense, space and security division, said at a briefing for investors.
Previously, Boeing said both test flights, uncrewed and crewed, were scheduled for 2017. Just this week, Aviation Week reported that Boeing was sticking to the 2017 schedule, even though it’s been working through challenges related to the mass of the spacecraft and aeroacoustic issues related to integration with its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launch vehicle.
In a follow-up to Caret’s comments, Boeing spokeswoman Rebecca Regan told GeekWire that those factors contributed to the schedule slip. In addition, NASA software updates have added more work for developers.
Artwork shows NASA’s concept for Quiet Supersonic Technology, known as QueSST. (Credit: NASA)
NASA is laying out a vision of quieter supersonic jets and environmentally friendly X-planes as part of its agenda for aeronautics, the oft-neglected “A” in its acronym.
X-planes – that is, experimental aircraft like the X-1 and the X-15 – played a big role in the history of NASA’s predecessor agency, known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics or NACA. But when NACA was replaced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the focus gradually shifted from the air to the space frontier beyond.
The federal budget proposal unveiled in February shifted some of the emphasis back to aeronautics, in the form of a 10-year program called “New Aviation Horizons.” As Congress debates the budget, NASA is touting its plan to bring back the X-planes.
About $20 million already has been set aside for one project, known as Quiet Supersonic Technology or QueSST. A team led by Lockheed Martin is working on the design for a supersonic jet that produces a soft series of thumps rather than an annoying sonic boom.
Other projects could result in airliners that burn half the fuel and generate 75 percent less pollution during each flight, compared with today’s standards.
An artist’s concept shows a space probe powered by ion thrusters. (Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne)
Aerojet Rocketdyne’s next-generation ion thrusters could well make their debut in space during NASA’s robotic mission to grab a piece of an asteroid and bring it back to lunar orbit in the 2020s.
Earlier this week, NASA announced that Aerojet’s operation in Redmond, Wash., would be getting in on a 36-month, $67 milllion contract to develop a high-power electric propulsion system for future spacecraft. Today, NASA officials explained what the system would be used for.
“Basically, we’re building a whole new drive train for deep-space exploration,” Bryan Smith, director of NASA’s Space Flight Systems Directorate at Glenn Research Center in Ohio, told reporters.
A prototype 13-kilowatt Hall thruster fires during testing at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. The prototype demonstrated the technology readiness needed for industry to continue the development of high-power solar electric propulsion into a flight-ready system. (Credit: NASA)
Aerojet Rocketdyne’s operation in Redmond, Wash., has won a $67 million contract from NASA to design and develop an advanced electric propulsion system that could power future trips to an asteroid and Mars.
The goal of the 36-month project is to deliver an integrated system that could improve fuel efficiency by a factor of 10 over today’s chemical rocket propulsion systems, and double the thrust capability of current electric propulsion systems.
The work could set the stage for a deep-space demonstration mission by 2020, Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said today in a news release announcing the contract award.
“Development of this technology will advance our future in-space transportation capability for a variety of NASA deep-space human and robotic exploration missions, as well as private commercial space missions,” he said.
