Jan 30 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-035 - NASA LAUNCHES NEXT-GENERATION COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE --CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The first of NASA's three next-generation Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS), known as TDRS-K, launched at 8:48 p.m. EST Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. TDRS-K bolsters our network of satellites that provides essential communications to support space exploration, said Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for Space Communications and Navigation at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "It will improve the overall health and longevity of our system." The TDRS system provides tracking, telemetry, command and high-bandwidth data return services for numerous science and human exploration missions orbiting Earth. These include the International Space Station and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. With this launch, NASA has begun the replenishment of our aging space network, said Jeffrey Gramling, TDRS project manager. "This addition to our current fleet of seven will provide even greater capabilities to a network that has become key to enabling many of NASA's scientific discoveries." TDRS-K was lifted into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex-41. After a three-month test phase, NASA will accept the spacecraft for additional evaluation before putting the satellite into service. The TDRS-K spacecraft includes several modifications from older satellites in the TDRS system, including redesigned telecommunications payload electronics and a high-performance solar panel designed for more spacecraft power to meet growing S-band requirements. Another significant design change, the return to ground-based processing of data, will allow the system to service more customers with evolving communication requirements. The next TDRS spacecraft, TDRS-L, is scheduled for launch in 2014. TDRS-M's manufacturing process will be completed in 2015. NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Program, part of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, is responsible for the space network. The TDRS Project Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the TDRS development program. Launch services were provided by United Launch Alliance. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center was responsible for acquisition of launch services.

RELEASE: 13-036 - HERSCHEL FINDS STAR POSSIBLY MAKING PLANETS PAST ITS PRIME --WASHINGTON -- A star thought to have passed the age at which it can form planets may in fact be creating new worlds. The disk of material surrounding the surprising star called TW Hydrae may be massive enough to make even more planets than we have in our own solar system. The findings were made using the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Telescope, a mission in which NASA is a participant. At roughly 10 million years old and 176 light years away, TW Hydrae is relatively close to Earth by astronomical standards. Its planet-forming disk has been well studied. TW Hydrae is relatively young but, in theory, it is past the age at which giant planets already may have formed. We didn't expect to see so much gas around this star, said Edwin Bergin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Bergin led the new study appearing in the journal Nature. "Typically stars of this age have cleared out their surrounding material, but this star still has enough mass to make the equivalent of 50 Jupiters," Bergin said. In addition to revealing the peculiar state of the star, the findings also demonstrate a new, more precise method for weighing planet-forming disks. Previous techniques for assessing the mass were indirect and uncertain. The new method can directly probe the gas that typically goes into making planets. Planets are born out of material swirling around young stars, and the mass of this material is a key factor controlling their formation. Astronomers did not know before the new study whether the disk around TW Hydrae contained enough material to form new planets similar to our own. Before, we had to use a proxy to guess the gas quantity in the planet-forming disks, said Paul Goldsmith, the NASA project scientist for Herschel at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "This is another example of Herschel's versatility and sensitivity yielding important new results about star and planet formation." Using Herschel, they were able to take a fresh look at the disk with the space telescope to analyze light coming from TW Hydrae and pick out the spectral signature of a gas called hydrogen deuteride. Simple hydrogen molecules are the main gas component of planets, but they emit light at wavelengths too short to be detected by Herschel. Gas molecules containing deuterium, a heavier version of hydrogen, emit light at longer, far-infrared wavelengths that Herschel is equipped to see. This enabled astronomers to measure the levels of hydrogen deuteride and obtain the weight of the disk with the highest precision yet. Knowing the mass of a planet-forming disk is crucial to understanding how and when planets take shape around other stars, said Glenn Wahlgren, Herschel program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Whether TW Hydrae's large disk will lead to an exotic planetary system with larger and more numerous planets than ours remains to be seen, but the new information helps define the range of possible planet scenarios. The new results are another important step in understanding the diversity of planetary systems in our universe, said Bergin. "We are now observing systems with massive Jupiters, super-Earths, and many Neptune-like worlds. By weighing systems at their birth, we gain insight into how our own solar system formed with just one of many possible planetary configurations." Herschel is a European Space Agency (ESA) cornerstone mission, with science instruments provided by a consortium of European institutes and with important participation by NASA. NASA's Herschel Project Office is based at JPL, which contributed mission-enabling technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. NASA's Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, supports the United States astronomical community. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

RELEASE: C13-005 - NASA INCREASES VALUE OF BIOASTRONAUTICS CONTRACT --HOUSTON -- NASA has increased the value of a contract with Wyle Integrated Science and Engineering Group of Houston to provide continuing support to the Human Health and Performance Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The modification increases the not-to-exceed indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity value of the contract by $49 million, from $914.5 million to $963.5 million. This value is just a portion of the contract. The overall value of the contract with this change is $1.2 billion. Wyle has held the cost-plus-award-fee contract since May 1, 2003. The contract ends April 30. A follow-on competition, known as the Health and Human Performance Contract (HHPC), is under way. Services provided under the current contract support the International Space Station and Orion programs. Work includes medical services, research, technology development, engineering, operations and flight hardware development to support the health, safety and productivity of crews living and working in space. Wyle maintains readiness of facilities and laboratories and provides services for program integration, habitability and environmental factors, human adaptation and countermeasures, space medicine, flight hardware development and human research. Work under the contract is performed at Johnson and Ellington Field in Houston, as well as NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, N.M. Major subcontractors include Lockheed Martin Space Operations, Barrios Technology Inc., Enterprise Advisory Services Inc., Bastion Technologies and Muniz Engineering Inc., all in Houston, and Futron Corporation in Bethesda, Md.