August 25 News Items

How Do You Blow Up a Rocket? (Source: Slate)
NASA terminated an experimental rocket soon after it launched from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rocket had veered off course and was in danger of landing in a populated area. How does NASA torpedo a rocket? By turning it off. Contrary to some press reports, NASA didn't "blow up" the rocket since a big explosion was precisely the scenario the agency was hoping to avoid. All guided vehicles are required to carry a network of electrically rigged explosives that can be detonated by radio commands from the ground, known as a "flight termination system." This system allows the rocket to be disabled with a series of small explosions midflight, so it can fall safely to earth should NASA officials discover any dangerous malfunctions after launch.

In this case, the order to abort the flight triggered the FTS to shut down the rocket by deactivating both of its stages. (A rocket stage is a motor that contains its own igniter and propellant; each stage fires in turn, then falls off once it runs out of fuel.) Explosives on both stages detonated simultaneously, splitting open their casings and allowing the hot gases that power them to dissipate into the air. Without fuel for the stages, a neutralized rocket continues moving for as long as its momentum can carry it—and then (in theory) comes down within pre-established safe boundaries.

The Wallops facility, which is the only launch base where NASA directly oversees range safety (all other launch sites are overseen by the Air Force), has handled an average of 20 to 25 rocket launches annually during the past two decades. The last time a rocket was terminated early at Wallops was in 1995, when the Conestoga 1620 disintegrated in midair 46 seconds after launch. In the case of the Conestoga—which, like Friday's rocket, was on its maiden voyage—the vehicle began breaking up on its own, and the FTS was initiated as a backup precaution. (8/25)

Cleaning Clean Rooms (Source: Astrobiology)
NASA clean rooms, where scientists and engineers assemble spacecraft, have joined hot springs, ice caves, and deep mines as unlikely places where scientists have discovered ultra-hardy organisms collectively known as ‘extremophiles’. Some species of bacteria uncovered in a recent NASA study have never been detected anywhere else. According to Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, who led the study conducted at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “These findings will advance the search for life on Mars and other worlds both by sparking improved cleaning and sterilization methods and by preventing false-positive results in future experiments to detect extraterrestrial life.”

NASA builds its spacecraft in rooms designed to minimize contamination by airborne particles because dust and its microbial passengers can foul instruments and invalidate experiments. If scientists someday find microbes on Mars, they will want to be sure they aren’t just hitchhikers from Earth. Clean rooms used in the space program already undergo extensive cleaning and air filtering procedures, and the detection technology employed in this study will help NASA to develop and monitor improvements. Still, it is extremely difficult to eliminate all dust particles and microbes without damaging the electronic instruments the process is intended to protect. (8/25)

Astronaut Health A Blind Spot (Source: Aerospace Daily)
A National Research Council (NRC) panel is faulting NASA for not systematically taking astronaut health and human factors into account in the early stages of its Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP). "The committee did not find a high degree of awareness of the interdependencies between the ETDP technology projects and associated human health risks and human factor design considerations," the panel says in its report.

The ETDP is developing enabling technologies to allow NASA to return astronauts to the moon and eventually send them to Mars. But NASA's own Bioastronautics Roadmap, as well as other documents related to astronaut health, "were not clearly identified as guiding requirements in the material presented to the committee," the report says. Since human health and human factor risks are intertwined with spacecraft and life support systems, design changes can have unanticipated results, according to the panel. (8/25)

Phoenix Digs Deeper As Third Month Nears End (Source: SpaceDaily.com)
The next sample of Martian soil being grabbed for analysis is coming from a trench about three times deeper than any other trench NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has dug. On Tuesday, Aug. 26, the spacecraft will finish the 90 Martian days (or "sols") originally planned as its primary mission and will continue into a mission extension through September, as announced by NASA in July. Phoenix landed on May 25. "As we near what we originally expected to be the full length of the mission, we are all thrilled with how well the mission is going," said Phoenix Project Manger Barry Goldstein of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (8/25)

When it Comes to Weapons in Space, McCain is Pro, Obama Con (Source: AIA)
The best presidential choice for the U.S. aerospace and defense industry may not be as clear as in previous years. In one area -- putting weapons in space, Obama has come out in opposition to the plan, while McCain supports the importance of "the use of space as an asset in warfare," according to Marion Blakey, president and chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association. (8/25)

European Missile Defense and Military Space (Source: Space Review)
The recent US-Poland missile defense deal is only the beginning of changes in European missile defense and related areas. Taylor Dinerman describes how those changes will affect, among other things, European military space efforts. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1193/1 to view the article. (8/25)

Costa Rican Coffee Could Be Outta This World (Source: Tico Times)
Astronauts and space tourists may soon enjoy Costa Rican-style coffee while in orbit thanks to a recent invention that works without gravity and uses natural convection to heat water. Josué Solano and Daniel Rozen have hatched the new “ Infusor Espacial,” their thesis project for an electromechanical engineering degree at the Costa Rica Technology Institute. It took Solano and Rozen six months to create, but the idea has been percolating for years since Costa Rican former astronaut Franklin Chang became tired of microwave-made instant coffee, and drew up a preliminary design. (8/25)

Soyuz to Launch Koreasat 6 from Guiana Space Center (Source: Space News)
A European version of Russia's Soyuz rocket will launch the Koreasat 6 telecommunications satellite in late 2010 from Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport under a contract with Korea Telecom (KT), the Arianespace launch consortium announced Aug. 25. (8/25)

Self-Help Software to Soothe Stressed Astronauts (Source: New Scientist)
When astronauts in orbit stress out, they call Earth to chat with a NASA psychiatrist. But transmitting messages to Mars and beyond would take 20 minutes or so, requiring new approaches to mental health in space. So researchers are developing self-help software that allows space travelers to carry their counselors with them on a DVD. Astronauts and cosmonauts go through psychological screening before they are selected for duty, and they are trained to deal with the pressures of risky space missions. Proposed crewed missions to Mars, though, would be a challenge even for these hardened space farers. (8/25)

Giant Galaxy Cluster Seen in Early Universe (Source: Space.com)
Astronomers have glimpsed the largest cluster of galaxies ever seen in the distant, early universe. The discovery of this far-off group, estimated to contain as much mass as a thousand large galaxies, offers further proof of the existence of the enigmatic force called dark energy. "This is the most luminous, and therefore probably the most massive, cluster of galaxies discovered at this epoch," said Georg Lamer of the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam in Germany, who led the team that discovered it. "The light we observe started about 7.7 billion years ago. This is about half of the age of the universe, so it is from quite long ago, and quite far away." (8/25)

India to Launch Italian, Algerian Satellites (Source: Live Mint)
Antrix Corp., the commercial arm of India’s space agency, has won a pair of deals from Algeria and Italy to launch earth observation satellites next year on the polar satellite launch vehicle, or PSLV, its workhorse rocket. The contract awarded by the Algerian space agency to launch Alsat-2A, a 200kg remote sensing satellite, is the first won by Antrix from an African nation. The Algerian agency has the option to launch a second such satellite.

For the Italian space agency Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Antrix will launch a satellite named IMSAT, which will be the second Italian satellite to be boosted into space by the Indian Space Research Organization, which in April 2007 launched Agile, a 352kg scientific satellite. Antrix is also in talks with space agencies of South Africa and Nigeria to carry out similar launches. “We are also looking at opportunities bigger than that—remote sensing satellites, where payloads (are) of 800kg or even higher.” (8/25)