Mar 21 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-089 EXPERIMENTAL PAYLOADS SELECTED FOR COMMERCIAL SUBORBITAL FLIGHTS

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Flight Opportunities Program has selected 24 cutting-edge space technology payloads for flights on commercial reusable launch vehicles, balloons and a commercial parabolic aircraft. Sixteen of the payloads will ride on parabolic aircraft flights, which provide brief periods of weightlessness. Five will fly on suborbital reusable launch vehicle test flights. Two will ride on high-altitude balloons that fly above 65,000 feet. One payload will fly on the suborbital launch vehicle and high-altitude balloon platforms. The flights will take place in 2012 and 2013. Flight platforms include the Zero-G parabolic airplane, Near Space Corp. high altitude balloons and reusable launch vehicles from Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, UP Aerospace and Virgin Galactic. "NASA's Flight Opportunities Program leverages investment in commercially available vehicles and platforms to enable new technology discoveries," said Michael Gazarik, director of NASA's Space Technology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These flights enable researchers to demonstrate the viability of their technologies while taking advantage of American commercial access to near-space." Payloads selected for flight on a parabolic aircraft are: -- "Microgravity Health Care," Scott Alexander Dulchavsky, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit -- "Activity Monitoring During Parabolic Flight," Peter Cavanagh, University of Washington, Seattle -- "Physics of Regolith Impacts in Microgravity Experiment," Josh Colwell, University of Central Florida, Orlando -- "UAH CubeSat Parabolic Flight Testing," Francis Wessling, University of Alabama, Huntsville -- "Fuel Mass Gauging Under Zero-G Environment Based on Electrical Capacitance Volumatric Tomography Techniques," Manohar Deshpande, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. -- "Microgravity Effects of Nanoscale Mixing on Diffusion Limited Processes Using Electrochemical Electrodes," Carlos Cabrera, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan -- "Effects of Reduced Gravity on Flow Boiling and Condensation," Issam Mudawar, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. -- "OSIRIS-REx Low-Gravity Regolith Sampling Tests," Joseph Vellinga, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver -- "Parabolic Flight: Validation of Electro-Hydrodynamic Gas-Liquid Phase Separation in Microgravity," Boris Khusid, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark -- "Non-Invasive Hemodynamic Monitoring in Microgravity," Gregory Kovacs, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. -- "Parabolic Flight Evaluation of a Hermetic Surgery System for Reduced Gravity," George Pantalos, University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky. -- "Evaporative Heat Transfer Mechanisms within a Heat Melt Compactor Experiment," Eric Golliher, NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland -- "Effects of Reduced and Hyper Gravity on Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Instrumentation," Greg Adamovsky, NASA Glenn -- "Sintering of Composite Materials Under Reduced Gravity Conditions ("Cosmic" Project), Orazio Chiarenza, the Advanced Technical Institute, Fuscaldo, Italy -- "Boston University Student Proposal for Deployable Solar and Antenna Array Microgravity Testing," Theodore Fritz, Boston University -- "Particle Dispersion System for Microgravity Environments," John Marshall, SETI Institute, Mountain View, Calif. Payloads selected for flight on a suborbital launch vehicle are: -- "Near-Zero Gravity Cryogenic Line Chilldown Experiment in a Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle," Jacob Chung, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. -- "Collection of Regolith Experiment on a Commercial Suborbital Vehicle," and "Collisions Into Dust Experiment on a Commercial Suborbital Vehicle, Josh Colwell, University of Central Florida, Orlando -- "Polar Mesospheric Cloud Imaging and Tomography Experiment," Jason David Reimuller, Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. -- "Vision Navigation System Technology Demonstration," Douglas Zimpfer, Draper Laboratory, Houston Payloads selected for flight on a high altitude balloon are: -- "Flight Demonstration of an Integrated Camera and Solid-State Fine Steering System," Eliot Young, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. -- "Initial Flight Testing of a UAT ADS-B Transmitter Prototype for Commercial Space Transportation Using a High Altitude Balloon," Richard Stansbury, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, Fla. The "Structural Health Monitoring for Commercial Space Vehicles" payload from Andrei Zagrai of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, will fly on a suborbital launch vehicle and a high-altitude balloon. NASA manages the Flight Opportunities Program manifest, matching payloads with flights, and will pay for payload integration and the flight costs for the selected payloads. No funds are provided for the development of these payloads. Other suborbital flight vendors on contract to NASA will provide flights after they have successfully flown their qualifying vehicles. The Flight Opportunities Program, part of NASA's Space Technology Program, is managed at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif. NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. manages the payload activities for the program.

RELEASE: 12-091 NASA'S DAWN SEES NEW SURFACE FEATURES ON GIANT ASTEROID VESTA

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data highlight the diversity of Vesta's surface and reveal unusual geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on asteroids. Vesta is one of the brightest objects in the solar system and the only asteroid in the so-called main belt between Mars and Jupiter visible to the naked eye from Earth. Dawn found that some areas on Vesta can be nearly twice as bright as others, revealing clues about the asteroid's history. "Our analysis finds this bright material originates from Vesta and has undergone little change since the formation of Vesta over 4 billion years ago," said Jian-Yang Li, a Dawn participating scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park. "We're eager to learn more about what minerals make up this material and how the present Vesta surface came to be." Bright areas appear everywhere on Vesta but are most predominant in and around craters. The areas vary from several hundred feet to around 10 miles across. Rocks crashing into the surface of Vesta seem to have exposed and spread this bright material. This impact process may have mixed the bright material with darker surface material. While scientists had seen some brightness variations in previous images of Vesta from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, Dawn scientists also did not expect such a wide variety of distinct dark deposits across its surface. The dark materials on Vesta can appear dark gray, brown and red. They sometimes appear as small, well-defined deposits around impact craters. They also can appear as larger regional deposits, like those surrounding the impact craters scientists have nicknamed the "snowman." "One of the surprises was the dark material is not randomly distributed," said David Williams, a Dawn participating scientist at Arizona State University, Tempe. "This suggests underlying geology determines where it occurs." The dark materials seem to be related to impacts and their aftermath. Scientists theorize carbon-rich asteroids could have hit Vesta at speeds low enough to produce some of the smaller deposits without blasting away the surface. Higher-speed asteroids also could have hit the asteroid's surface and melted the volcanic basaltic crust, darkening existing surface material. That melted conglomeration appears in the walls and floors of impact craters, on hills and ridges, and underneath brighter, more recent material called ejecta, which is material thrown out from a space rock impact. Vesta's dark materials suggest the giant asteroid may preserve ancient materials from the asteroid belt and beyond, possibly from the birth of the solar system. "Some of these past collisions were so intense they melted the surface," said Brett Denevi, a Dawn participating scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "Dawn's ability to image the melt marks a unique find. Melting events like these were suspected, but never before seen on an asteroid." Dawn launched in September 2007. It will reach its second destination, Ceres, in February 2015. "Dawn's ambitious exploration of Vesta has been going beautifully," said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "As we continue to gather a bounty of data, it is thrilling to reveal fascinating alien landscapes." Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency

CONTRACT RELEASE: C12-010 NASA AWARDS PROTECTIVE SERVICES CONTRACT

CLEVELAND -- NASA has awarded Linxx Global Solutions of Virginia Beach, Va., a contract to provide protective services at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio. The firm-fixed-price contract begins April 1, with a maximum performance period of five years. The maximum potential value of this contract is approximately $31.5 million. Linxx Global Solutions, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business, will provide services in emergency management, dispatch operations, classified national security protection, medical first responders, credential management, traffic and access control, locksmith services, patrol operations, physical security, personnel security and security incident response.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-047 NASA ASTRONAUT TO NAME GLOBAL WINNERS IN YOUTUBE SPACE LAB CONTEST

WASHINGTON -- NASA astronaut Suni Williams will announce Thursday the two winners of the YouTube Space Lab contest, a global science competition that challenges 14-18 year-old students to design a science experiment for the International Space Station. The awards ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. EDT in the Newseum's Knight Room at 555 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. in Washington. Thousands of individuals and teams from more than 80 countries entered the competition to have their experiment flown in space. Williams will perform the two winning YouTube Space Lab contest experiments 250 miles above Earth during the Expedition 32 and 33 missions on the space station later this year. A team of judges, including William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration Mission Directorate, and Leland Melvin, associate administrator for NASA's Office of Education and a former astronaut, selected 60 finalists. Online voting chose the final six. Gerstenmaier will introduce the finalists in the 17-18 year-old category at the awards ceremony. The 2005 NASA Authorization Act designated the U.S. segment of the space station as a national laboratory and directed NASA to develop a plan to "increase the utilization of the ISS by other Federal entities and the private sector." As the nation's newest national laboratory, the station further strengthens relationships among NASA, other Federal entities, and private sector leaders in the pursuit of national priorities for the advancement of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The International Space Station National Laboratory is opening new paths for the exploration and economic development of space. As these activities are ramping up, contests like the YouTube Space Lab are important components of an integrated strategy to inspire the next generation of explorers and scientists using the orbiting outpost.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-049 UPDATED MEDIA ACCREDITATION DEADLINES FOR NASA/SPACEX LAUNCH

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA is updating media accreditation deadlines for the agency's second Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration flight launch. A Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket is targeted to launch at 12:22 p.m. EDT on April 30 from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. During the flight, SpaceX's Dragon capsule will conduct a series of checkout procedures that will test and prove its systems. These tests include rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station. The demonstration flight is intended to lead to regular resupply missions to the space station.