X37B Boeing proposal

X37B Boeing proposal

The X-37B: Exploring expanded capabilities for ISS missions March 12, 2013 by Chris Gebhardt As NASA and its new commercial partners continue to push toward the era of realized commercial crew transportation to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Boeing has released a paper detailing the potentiality of expanding the capabilities of the U.S. Air Force's X-37B reusable space plane for cargo and crewed missions to LEO – a proposal, which for unknown reasons, appears to have been pushed aside by NASA's commercial space division. What could have been – A reusable space plane for the commercial era: As stated a Boeing presentation (acquired by L2), the concept of utilizing the X-37B as part of NASA's COTS and CCDev programs stemmed from the idea that the program would be able to "realize cost savings and acceleration of technology developmental timelines by focusing on the payload. See Also Commercial Space Section L2 Commercial Section Click here to Join L2 "Non- recurring costs [would be] substantially reduced by taking advantage of a mature spacecraft bus with well defined bus-to-payload interfaces and a ground station supported by seasoned mission operations staff using flight validated operational products." Given that this presentation came after the first successful test flight of the X-37B, Boeing also noted that "Several key technologies for reusable spacecraft were successfully demonstrated in the areas of aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, reusable solar arrays, Thermal Protection Systems (TPS), and autonomous Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC)." Development of a mini-Shuttle – The X-37B comes to life: Birthed from the NASA Future-X (1998-2001) and Space Launch Initiatives (2001-2006) campaigns, the X-37B was developed to help lower the cost of LEO transport for post-Shuttle and replacement EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) eras. In addition to testing next generation TPS system materials, the X-37B was envisioned as a platform capable of testing autonomous deorbit, entry, and landing GNC; fault tolerant architecture for autonomous on-orbit and entry flight; GPS and dGPS for landing with minimal airfield infrastructure; electro-mechanical flight actuation and brakes; and Li-Ion (Lithium-Ion) batteries for high cycle life and high current capabilities. Moreover, the X-37B would be able to test reusable, deployable and stowable solar arrays; advanced Gr/BMI composite airframes; complex Carbon-Carbon control surfaces; advanced high temperature wing leading edge tiles; hypersonic aeroheating prediction methods; and integrated systems designed for aircraft-like turnaround operations for post-mission processing. Launched on its first test flight on 22 April 2010 by an Atlas V 501-configured rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the first mission of the X-37B spent 224 days in orbit before returning to Earth on 3 December of that year. During entry on 3 December, the X-37B successfully managed its energy, position, altitude, and descent profile using bank angle, pitch angle, and S-turns across a 5,500 nm reentry flight path. More impressively, the craft successfully, and for the first time ever for a spacecraft, "assessed its energy to go and [autonomously] moved the HAC (Heading Alignment Circle) away from the runway threshold to adjust for high altitude tailwinds." As related by the Boeing presentation, "The capability to autonomously adjust for winds and energy by moving the HAC is just one of the guidance algorithm advancements over the Shuttle Orbiter approach and landing methods." Adapting the X-37 design to the age of commercial space endeavours: Noting the reluctance of the American space industry to fly anything in space that isn't in some way connected to the heritage of Shuttle, Atlas, Delta, Ariane, any number of Russian engine technologies, or even the Saturn V, Boeing makes the case that the X-37B is an excellent example of space heritage – while providing the added benefit of incorporating new and evolving space technologies (like solar cell technology for reusable solar arrays) into its design. Specifically, though, the presentation makes note of NASA's burgeoning ISS COTS cargo and CCDev crew transport initiatives, noting a need "to qualify a new generation of autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking sensors and software." The presentation notes that the X-37B has the capability to perform attitude control maneuvers that are well in-line with NASA baseline standards for ISS and satellite rendezvous operations, and the vehicle's subsystem fault tolerance for automated aborts from Station and satellites is also well within NASA standards. Thus, the X-37B spacecraft design would provide an excellent way to "demonstrate, refine, and validate competing technologies and operational concepts without having to build a unique demonstration spacecraft." Moreover, Boeing notes that the X-37B design would also provide a valuable test platform for "multiple competing technologies [that] can be integrated onto a single OTV (Orbiter Test Vehicle, the official name for the X-37B vehicle) as independent subsystems." The X-37B vehicle would then be able to independently test these "multiple competing technologies" during a single demonstration flight to the ISS or orbiting satellite, thus eliminating the need to conduct separate flights for each independent technology. Making the case for X-37 ISS operations: With the retirement of the Space Shuttle orbiter fleet in 2011 came the elimination of the capability to return sensitive cargo, requiring a soft landing, from the ISS. Enter the X-37, the only vehicle currently in operation that is capable of providing a soft, 1.5g class return landing. Making use of the X-37 design would allow sensitive cargo of the biological and material science variety (the science that forms the core of microgravity research aboard the ISS) to be safely and softly returned to Earth inside the X-37B's payload bay. Following a runway landing, any time sensitive cargo could be safely and quickly removed from the vehicle. Additionally, Boeing states that "At the X-37B's current size, upmass cargo would be carried internally and externally while downmass cargo would be entirely within the payload bay. "The considerable excess launch capability of the EELV class launch vehicles and unused volume within the 5m fairing [would] enable the X-37 to carry several large ISS LRUs (Line Replaceable Units) or other items externally on the service module," notes the Boeing AIAA presentation. Under this proposal, using the X-37B itself with an attached service module, the craft would be launched into a 51.6 degree inclination orbit for rendezvous with the ISS. After arriving at ISS, the X-37B would maneuver itself within the berthing box of the ISS's Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) arm. The ISS crew would then use the SSRMS to reach out and grapple the X-37B and then attach it (dock it) to one of the Common Berthing Mechanisms (CBMs) on one of the nodes of the Station. During the course of docked operations, the X-37B would require no support from the ISS, less the physical CBM attachment, as all power and electricity would come from the deployed solar array and onboard batteries. The crew of the ISS would then be able to use the SSRMS to remove all external cargo from the outside attachment points on the X-37B itself. Internal cargo for ISS would be stowed within containers in the X-37B's payload bay to make transfer of materials to and from ISS easier for the Station's crew or any robot that might be tasked with moving the internal cargo. All downmass cargo would then be loaded into these containers before the containers would be returned to the X-37B's payload bay. After completion of docked operations, the SSRMS would unberth the X-37B, and the spacecraft would then maneuver itself away from the Station. The service module would be jettisoned prior to the initiation of deorbit, entry, descent, and landing operations. Evolving the X-37B for crew transportation: For the consideration of expanding the X-37B baseline design for the inclusion of crew launch and return capability, the Boeing presentation notes that an increase in size of approximately 160-180 percent would be needed to meet a 5-7 crew-size capability. Under this design, the X-37 would nominally be able to accommodate 5-6 astronauts with enough provisions and space for one injured astronaut requiring a stretcher-like return configuration for reentry and landing. The launch and entry seats for the crew would be aligned along one side of the pressurized volume within the X-37, leaving a clear access path for launch pad climbing and zero-G operations. The crew would enter the spacecraft via a hatch on the top of the X-37. The same hatch would provide emergency launch pad egress capability. For in-flight abort scenarios, a "pusher-style abort system between the Atlas V's Centaur upper stage and the X-37 [would] provide the appropriate acceleration and Delta-V for the required abort scenarios." Completely autonomous, the crewed X-37 would be capable of launching, aborting, rendezvousing, docking, undocking, deorbiting, and landing itself without any input from the crew. Cross-range capabilities of the X-37 design would allow for multiple deorbit opportunities per day to the Kennedy Space Center, FL, White Sands Space Harbor, NM, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. While the Boeing presentation – created in 2011 for the AIAA – makes a fairly convincing case for the evolving capabilities of the X-37B, there is no indication at this time that pursuit of this option is ongoing or even under the slightest consideration from NASA. (Images: Via Boeing and ULA). (Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ – to view how you can support NSF and access the best space flight content on the entire internet). Related Articles X-37B lands successfully following 220 days in space Share This Article Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email Share on gmail More Sharing Services

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Crazy potus destroyed this---tell media what you think!!

You guys at foxnews have had plenty of time to inform Americans as to what this crazy potus has done to our space capabilities!

Do something--- it is about time!!

Bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com



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Foxnews has damaged country by not reporting facts on destruction of space capabilities by potus

@Greta foxnews has damaged this country by not making people aware of the damage this crazy president has done to the Nation's space program 5:22 AM - 16 Nov 2014

This Crazy potus is destroying our space capabilities--- get the facts email, tweet foxnews personalities until we get the facts out!!! Your country depends on YOU!!!!

Please help, we needs a strong space program for National Security, also help the economy & assures we have the technical capabilities in the workforce.

Get with it& stay at it!!!!! Your FREEDOM depends on it!!!

Bobby Martin
Bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com

Blog, email, call--- get the facts on the air!! Do it for our country!

Expose intentional destruction of Americas space capabilities!

@greta please expose the intentional destruction of Americas space capabilities. Get Don Nelson of Alvin, tx former MOD eng. On your show! 2:16 a.m. Wed, Nov 12

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Fwd: Philae comet lander bounced into shadows, raising battery fears

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: November 13, 2014 7:19:49 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Philae comet lander bounced into shadows, raising battery fears

 

​

Philae comet lander bounced into shadows, raising battery fears

11/13/2014 04:30 PM 

By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

When the Philae spacecraft landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Wednesday, the anchors needed to hold it down in the feeble gravity failed to fire and the lander bounced back into space, soaring more than a half mile above the nucleus before hitting the ground a second time more than a half mile away, engineers said Thursday.

And then it bounced again, telemetry indicates, finally coming to rest near the base of what appears to be a jagged cliff, with Philae tilted to one side in a jumbled pile of dusty rocks. Two of its three landing legs are in contact with the surface and one extends unsupported, up into space.

Apparently none the worse for its wild ride, Philae is still communicating with its parent spacecraft -- Rosetta -- and it appears to be generally healthy with most of its science instruments operating normally.

An image of the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko just beyond the Philae lander, taken after the spacecraft came to a rest two bounces away from its original touchdown point. (Credit: ESA)

But the spacecraft ended up in heavily shadowed terrain -- engineers do not yet know exactly where -- and its solar cells are only receiving an hour and a half of sunlight each day instead of the six or seven hours needed to recharge its batteries for extended operation. If nothing is done to improve its orientation, Philae likely will exhaust its battery and shut down sometime during the next few days.

"The lander from a systems point of view is operating nominally," said Koen Geurts, Philae operations manager with DLR, the German space agency. "What we need to understand now is what does this position mean for us? We're not standing parallel to the surface. We're seeing how we can modify the planned nominal operations to cope with this non-nominal position that we're in."

The spacecraft is equipped with two batteries and solar cells for recharging. The batteries were fully charged when Philae was released from Rosetta Wednesday, with enough power for about 60 hours of normal operation.

In its current location and orientation, "we see that we get less solar power than we planned for at the nominal landing site," Geurts said. "We're receiving about one-and-a-half hours of sunlight with respect to the six or seven that we were aiming (for). This, of course, has an impact on our energy budget and our capabilities to conduct science for an extended period of time."

He did not provide an estimate for how long the Philae might operate in its current orientation, saying only that "we are calculating what this means for the near future. At the moment, I cannot say much. Unfortunately, this is not a situation we were hoping for."

Engineers are assessing a variety of options that might be possible to move Philae or improve its orientation with respect to the sun. Redeploying its landing legs in the comet's feeble gravity, for example, likely would cause the lander to move, but Ulemac said nothing like that would be attempted until engineers get a much better understanding of the possible consequences.

New images downlinked from Philae overnight were assembled into a panorama providing a 360-degree view of the terrain around the lander. Much of it is shadowed with few visible details, but several frames provide sharply focused views of the surface, revealing fractured rocks and dust.

Another instrument aboard the lander that was designed to probe the comet's hidden interior was used to get a sense of where Philae ended up after its bouncing descent. It appears the spacecraft may be near the wall of a huge crater on one end of the comet. Engineers expect to pinpoint the location soon and high-resolution views from Rosetta's OSIRIS camera might have captured a view of Philae in flight, during its initial two-hour bounce.

New OSIRIS images were release Thursday showing Philae's departure from Rosetta and one dramatic shot showing the lander about an hour before touchdown, appearing as a faint speck of light in the black of space with the rugged comet looming to one side.

The OSIRIS camera aboard ESA's Rosetta spacecraft captured this image of the Philae lander (circled) about an hour before touchdown on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (Credit: ESA)

Philae's improbable landing was a surprise to just about everyone involved in the project.

Because 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's gravity is roughly 100,000 times weaker than Earth's, Philae was equipped with three systems to make sure it didn't bounce off at touchdown.

Each of its three landing legs featured ice screws designed to bore into the crust of the nucleus for extra grip. In addition, two harpoons were designed to fire into the surface while a cold-gas thruster on top of the spacecraft pushed down to counteract the recoil from the harpoons.

But none of the anchors worked, and Philae bounced off the comet after touching down almost dead center in the intended landing zone. Stephan Ulemac, the Philae landing team director, said Wednesday that Philae apparently bounced once and landed twice.

"We landed three times," he said Thursday. "Now we know the first jump (lasted) about two hours, one hour and 50 (minutes). We assume we came in with about 1 meter per second (2.2 mph velocity) then we rebounced with about 38 centimeters per second (0.85 mph velocity)."

Philae reached an altitude of about six tenths of a mile -- more than 3,000 feet if the estimates are correct -- landing again about six-tenths of a mile away. The second bounce, at a rebound velocity of about .07 mph, lasted just seven minutes or so with Philae coming to rest near the base of a cliff of some sort.

"After our first touchdown signal yesterday, we saw immediately that something was not nominal because our system data was indicating the lander was still moving," Geurts said. "And this could only indicate we were not standing on the comet's surface. Fortunately, the comm link between Rosetta and Philae remained intact. We continuously saw the lander kept rotating.

"We observed this for about two hours, and we saw a change in this and we saw the rotation stopped. This was a very good signal because the rotation could only stop by touching the comet again. So for us, this was a clear indication we were at the comet."

But the distance and duration of the first bounce "makes it difficult to find out where we are now," Ulemac said. "We know very well where we touched down the first time. It was a huge leap, then we had another very small jump of about 3 centimeters per second for seven minutes. Now we are in a configuration as you've seen in the images here."

Only instruments that operate passively, without imparting any motion due to mechanical movements or deployments, are currently operating. Philae's drill, for example, designed to penetrate the surface of the nucleus and extract soil samples, remains stowed pending additional analysis.

"This evening, we should re-establish (communications) and then we will upload the newest science sequence we want to operate on the comet," Ulemac said. "Since we do not really know how we are landed, since we are not anchored, somehow just with the weight of the lander, we need to be very careful about activating mechanisms."

In this composite, an image of the Philae lander is superimposed on a panorama shot by the spacecraft showing its immediate surroundings. Toward the top of the image is black sky, indicating that side of the lander is tilted up. (Credit: ESA)

The Rosetta spacecraft, meanwhile, continues operating in near flawless fashion, collecting science data and helping with the search for Philae. Unlike the lander, which was never expected to operate more than a few months, Rosetta will fly in tandem with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for the next year and a half, recording how the comet changes as it nears the sun and then recedes.

About 80 percent of the science expected during the mission will come from Rosetta's instruments with the rest coming from Philae.

Jean-Pierre Bibring, a lead scientist with the Philae project, urged reporters not to over-emphasize the lander's current difficulties.

"What's really impressive is not really the degree of failure that we encountered but the degree of success we had here," he said. "At this point, I think the message is certainly not to say 'well, they are here now, but they should have been elsewhere.' It's amazing where we are, we landed! We analyzed a lot of things already, in 20 hours, it's amazing what we've been doing or what we'll be doing by the end of this day. It's really tremendous.

"We are really at the limit of what humankind could do 20 years ago, and are still capable of doing now. But please do not put the emphasis on the failure of the system. It's gorgeous where we are."

 

© 2014 William Harwood/CBS News

 

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Researchers race to collect comet data from Philae

November 13, 2014 by Stephen Clark

Artist's concept of the Philae lander. Credit: ESA

DARMSTADT, Germany — Comet scientists planned to send up new orders to Europe's Philae lander Thursday to kick off a second day of research after the probe endured a jumpy touchdown on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Time is of the essence because the oven-sized landing craft is facing a power crunch.

The lander bounced across the comet's tortured landscape before coming to rest near a cliff that blocks sunlight from reaching Philae's solar panels, meaning the craft's power generation system may be unable to recharge its batteries.

Officials said Thursday the Philae might be on its side, with two of its landing legs contacting the comet's surface and another off the ground.

The first images from Philae's CIVA camera system — made up of seven micro-cameras in a ring around the lander — appeared to show fragments of rock illuminated by the sun on one side of the probe and the sky on the other side.

Philae's landing legs also appear in the images.

"We saw both something that man built — the lander — you see the foot there, and something that nature built 4.6 billion years ago, which is a comet essentially preserved as it was at that time, containing all the history that we're trying to look at," said Jean-Pierre Bibring, Philae's chief scientist and head of the CIVA camera team from Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Paris. "We have no idea what is around, or whether or not what is black is just shadow or open sky."

Rosetta's lander Philae has returned the first panoramic image from the surface of a comet. The view, unprocessed, as it has been captured by the CIVA-P imaging system, shows a 360º view around the point of final touchdown. The three feet of Philae's landing gear can be seen in some of the frames. Superimposed on top of the image is a sketch of the Philae lander in its current configuration. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA.

Bibring said many scientists expected the comet's surface to be powdery, allowing the lander to settle instead of rebounding back into space.

"It's not a powder, it's a rock, so it's like a trampoline," Bibring said. "You go there and it ejects you immediately afterwards."

Officials have not pinpointed the lander's location on the comet.

Stephan Ulamec, leader of the Philae team at DLR — the German Aerospace Center — said the landing craft could have bounced up to a kilometer (0.6 miles) off the comet before coming back down a kilometer away from the mission's intended touchdown site.

"We have a better understanding now of how we got there, but we still do not really know where (the lander is located)," Ulamec said.

According to Ulamec, the next opportunity to contact Philae will be after 1900 GMT (2 p.m. EST) Thursday.

Ground teams based at the European Space Operations Center here, the lander control center in Cologne, Germany and the Philae science team headquarters in Toulouse, France, will uplink commands to the probe Thursday night through the Rosetta orbiter, which released Philae for its seven-hour descent Wednesday.

This image from Rosetta's camera, taken in September, shows the place Philae first landed before bouncing twice and finally coming to rest about a kilometer away. Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.

Ulamec and Bibring said the command upload Thursday night will likely include orders to deploy a boom designed to measure the temperature of the comet's surface and an X-ray spectroscopy instrument to study the chemical composition of material around Philae's landing site.

Controllers will also tell Philae to take pictures for another panorama after adjusting the camera's exposure settings in hopes of improving on the imagery released Thursday.

"We need to be very careful about activating mechanisms," Ulamec said.

The extension of Philae's temperature boom could nudge the lander out of its current position. The comet's feeble gravity field — one hundred thousand times less than Earth — means the lander, which weighed about 220 pounds on Earth, weighs as much as a paperclip after landing.

Officials want to see how the deployment of instrument arms Thursday night changes the lander's orientation.

"We will be able to see whether this has modified our position," Bibring said.

Plans to use Philae's drill, which is supposed to bore nearly a foot into the comet nucleus, pose more problems.

"We are hesitant in the next hours or day to activate the drill because drilling without being anchored and without knowing how we are on the surface is dangerous," Ulamec said. "We may just tip over our lander."

The drill is designed to extract a core sample and deliver the soil to a miniaturized laboratory on the lander for analysis. Scientists are trying to find out if the comet contains ice made of water similar to that on Earth, and they are looking for signs of organic molecules like amino acids, the building blocks of life.

Comets may have seeded Earth with water and organics, allowing life to spring up billions of years ago.

Bibring said such measurements are "fundamental" to the Philae mission, but some of the lander's sensors could gather data in "sniffing mode" not requiring direct contact with the material.

Philae's instrument package. Credit: ESA

"Of course, we want to drill, but we have to secure the drill," Bibring said.

Ulamec dismissed discussion — at least for now — of trying to fire the lander's harpoons, which failed to engage during Philae's descent Wednesday to anchor the spacecraft to the comet.

Momentum from firing the harpoons — assuming they still work — could propel the lander out of its current location into a more favorable place for exposure to sunlight, which could generate power to keep Philae from freezing.

Philae's power crisis could drain the lander's primary and secondary batteries by this weekend.

"Whether this will be able to make it to tomorrow evening, Saturday or Sunday, we don't know," Bibring said. "It's only when it fails do you know how much time you had."

In a press briefing from Philae's science operations center in Toulouse earlier Thursday, officials estimated the lander had between 50 and 55 hours of power left in its batteries.

The lander was designed to operate for more than two days on battery power, then recharge its batteries with solar energy for an extended mission that could last until March, when the probe is expected to overheat as the comet nears the sun.

"We see that we get less solar power than we planned for at the nominal landing site," said Koen Geurts, Philae's technical manager at the lander control center in Cologne. "We receive about 1.5 hours of sunlight with regard to the 6 or 7 (hours) that we were aiming for. Of course, (this) has an impact on our energy budget and our capabilities to conduct science for extended period of time afterwards."

Bibring said Philae carries 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of equipment that must be heated to at least minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) to keep it from freezing. If the hardware gets too cold, the lander will not be able to wake back up again.

"We need energy to survive," Bibring said. "There is a minimum energy to do that — a few watts."

In the long-term mission, Philae was expected to wake up for intermittent research observations and hibernate to recharge its batteries.

"We are calculating now what this means for the near future … but unfortunately this is not the situation that we were hoping for," Geurts said.

With the future of Philae uncertain beyond the weekend, scientists are focused on the short-term.

"We want to pack in as much as we can now," Bibring said.

© 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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Philae Spacecraft Landed 3 Times on Speeding Comet: See Its First Photos

by Miriam Kramer, Space.com Staff Writer   |   November 13, 2014 11:41am ET

 

The European Space Agency's Philae probe landed on the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko not once or twice, but three times, when its anchor system failed to fire. But despite that, the probe is healthy and beaming back stunning photos of its new home.

European Space Agency (ESA) officials still aren't exactly sure where the Rosetta spacecraft's lander, called Philae, ended up after bouncing on the surface of Comet 67P/C-G twice before finally settling down. At the moment, officials think the lander — which was released down to the comet from the Rosetta orbiter Wednesday (Nov. 12) — is in a potentially precarious position away from its initial touchdown site. The new comet surface photos from Philae, released by ESA today, show the lander shadowed by what appears to be some kind of cliff.

"It's amazing where we are," Jean-Pierre Bibring, Rosetta mission scientist, said during an ESA news conference today (Nov. 13). "We landed … Please do not put the emphasis on the failure of the system. It's gorgeous where we are." [Rosetta Comet Landing: Complete Coverage]

This photo from the European Space Agency is the Philae lander's view of its landing site on Comet 67P/C-G's surface. Image release Nov. 13, 2014.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA

View full size image

The European Rosetta spacecraft's Philae lander aims to be the first probe ever to safely land on a comet. Here's how to land on a spinning ice mountain in space.
Credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist

View full size image

The new photos represent the first-ever pictures taken by a probe from the surface of a comet. Philae landed on the comet as the icy object, the lander and Rosetta were speeding across deep space at more than 11,000 mph (17,702 k/h).

Philae's harpoon system, meant to fire just after landing, did not deploy when Philae got to the comet's surface, and officials with the mission are not sure if they want to try re-firing them now. Officials are worried that, if the harpoons don't fire properly, they might cause the spacecraft to jump again.

Mission controllers now think that Philae could have bounced as far as 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) into space before making its second landing. The spacecraft then bounced away from the surface again on a shorter jump before coming to a rest in its current position, officials said today.

Officials are planning on trying to find Philae's spot on the comet's surface in images its mothership Rosetta took from the comet's orbit.

One of Philae's three landing legs could be off the surface of the comet, so mission operators are still trying to understand exactly how the lander is positioned on the comet's surface. ESA officials still aren't sure whether Philae's drill instrument (designed to investigate the composition of the comet's surface) will work properly in the lander's current position.

"We are also hesitant to, in the next hour or days, to activate the drill because drilling without being anchored, and without knowing how you are [positioned] on the surface, is dangerous," Stephan Ulamec, Philae lander manager at the DLR German Aerospace Center, said during the news conference. "We might just tip over our lander."

This first panorama from the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko was captured by the Philae lander on Nov. 12, 2014 after its historic landing during the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission. ESA released the image Nov. 13 to show its first glimpses ever from the surface of a comet.
Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA

View full size image

Scientists also think that the lander is not getting enough sunlight from its currently shadowed position, and that could reduce the life of the lander on Comet 67P/C-G's surface. Instead of the 6 to 7 hours of sunlight expected at the first landing site, Philae is only receiving about 1.5 hours of sunlight on its solar panels in the new spot, ESA officials said.

But scientists working with the mission are still hopeful.

"Even if we think the mission ends because the first science sequence may end, and the batteries are low, the lander is not necessarily dead," Ulamec said. It's possible that the lander could go into hibernation mode and wake up again when it gets more sunlight, but it's also possible that might not happen, he added.

The Rosetta spacecraft and Philae lander arrived at Comet 67P/C-G in August 2014 after launching to space in 2004. Rosetta is expected to stay with the comet, studying it until December 2015.

Copyright © 2014 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved. 

 

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Fwd: Nasaproblems.com don Nelson , Alvin, Texas will explain it to you!

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Bobby Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Date: November 11, 2014 7:35:02 AM CST
To: "ontherecord@foxnews.com" <ontherecord@foxnews.com>, madashell@foxnews.com
Subject: Nasaproblems.com  don Nelson , Alvin, Texas will explain it to you!

Call him, he is in book.


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Chinese military space stragey

http://carnegieendowment.org/files/tellis_china_space1.pdf


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Fwd: Report from Accurate Labs - 4K03026

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michelle Fowler <Michelle.Fowler@accuratelabs.com>
Date: November 7, 2014 1:37:21 PM CST
To: Bobby Martin <bobbygmartin1938@gmail.com>
Subject: Report from Accurate Labs - 4K03026

 

 

Michelle Fowler

Data Processing/Billing Dept.

Accurate Environmental Labs

505 S. Lowry

Stillwater, OK 74074

P#405/372-5300

F#405/372-5396

michelle@accuratelabs.com

 

Fwd: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Thursday – November 6, 2014 and JSC Today

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Date: November 6, 2014 2:34:05 PM CST
To: "Moon, Larry J. (JSC-EA411)" <larry.j.moon@nasa.gov>
Subject: FW: NASA and Human Spaceflight News - Thursday – November 6, 2014 and JSC Today

Great to see everyone that was able to make it to Hibachi Grill today.   Sorry I did not join yall until later….and also I hear I missed Dave Leestma's visit  ::: so Dave –please come back and join us again another month.

Thank you to Pete Cerna for joining us today --- he is forecasting joining the retiree club in a few month himself   ,,,,so congratulations to him.

Happy Flex Friday eve to everyone.  

 

 

 

 

Thursday, November 6, 2014

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JSC TODAY CATEGORIES Headlines -  Joint Leadership Team Web Poll -  Building 45 Occupants: Get Ready for Power Outage -  Monthly Test of the JSC Emergency Warning System -  Recent JSC Announcement -  POWER of One: Nominate Your Peer Today Organizations/Social -  Pumps and Pipes 8: Ideas to Insights Event -  Don't Miss the 2014 Tech & Tell Poster Session -  Co-Labs: Oculus Rift Demostration -  Today: Parenting Series - Talking to Your Teen -  Space Serenity Al-Anon Meeting Moved - Nov. 12 -  Aerodynamics of Airplanes, Birds & Fish: Nov. 19 Jobs and Training -  Project Management and Systems Engineering Forum Community -  America Recycles Day Events -  Astronomy Day Needs Your Help -  Astronomy Day - Nov. 8

Orion Prepares to Move to Launch Pad

 

Headlines Joint Leadership Team Web Poll The Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission launches aboard a Delta IV Heavy rocket, but I'm a little surprised that only 72 percent knew that. Even more surprising was that you didn't know that the great yodeler Eddy Arnold was the Country Music Awards' Entertainer of the Year in 1967. Live and learn, I suppose. The Orion mission is only a month away, so question one is looking for you to answer which part of a spacecraft is NOT part of that mission. Crew module? Service module? The newest Matthew McConaughey movie, "Interstellar," opens this weekend, and you must go see it before our Dec. 4 launch of EFT-1. Please, please, please do this. It's a huge movie in many different ways. McConaughey is a native Texan who has been in a bunch of films. Vote on your favorite McConaughey movie in question two. Alright your alright on over to get this week's poll. Joel Walker x30541 http://jlt.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Building 45 Occupants: Get Ready for Power Outage Effective 6:30 p.m. this evening, an electrical outage to Building 45 will begin. As this is a total building outage, there will be no lighting to the building until Monday, Nov. 10 (though we hope to have power restored by Sunday evening after 7 p.m.). Building 45 occupants, please take everything you need from the building before the outage begins. The building will be locked, and Security has instructions not to let anyone in until power is restored. Please check the JSCSOS website Sunday evening after 7 p.m. for up-to-date information on the status of the outage. Thanks for your cooperation. Adrianna Kukan x46944 [top] Monthly Test of the JSC Emergency Warning System The Emergency Dispatch Center and Office of Emergency Management will conduct the monthly, first Thursday test of the JSC Emergency Warning System (EWS) today at noon. The EWS test will consist of a verbal "This is a test" message, followed by a short tone and a second verbal "This is a test" message. The warning tone will be the "whoop" tone, which is associated with a "Seek shelter inside" message. Please visit the JSC emergency awareness website for EWS tones and definitions. During an actual emergency situation, the particular tone and verbal message will provide you with protective information. Dennis G. Perrin x34232 http://jea.jsc.nasa.gov/ [top] Recent JSC Announcement Please visit the JSC Announcements (JSCA) Web page to view the newly posted announcement: JSCA 14-030: Key Personnel Assignment - Sherry Hatcher Archived announcements are also available on the JSCA Web page. Linda Turnbough x36246 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/DocumentManagement/announcements/default.aspx [top] POWER of One: Nominate Your Peer Today The POWER of One Award has been a great success, but we still need your nominations. We're looking for standout achievements with specific examples of exceptional and superior performance. Make sure to check out our award criteria to help guide you in writing the short write-up needed for submittal. If chosen, the recipient can choose from a list of JSC experiences and have their name and recognition shared in JSC Today. Nominations for this quarter close Nov. 14, so nominate someone deserving today! Click here for complete information on the JSC Awards Program. Samantha Nehls x27804 http://jscpeople.jsc.nasa.gov/benefits/RewardsAndRecog/default.htm [top]    Organizations/Social Pumps and Pipes 8: Ideas to Insights Event Pumps and Pipes brings together leaders engaged in cutting-edge research, discovery and strategy from across industries, providing a unique opportunity to ignite collaborations, exchange ideas and discover solutions. There will be a variety of keynote speakers, including representatives from JSC, medicine and oil/gas. Civil servants and contractors with management approval should: 1. Register online for the event (registration is limited). 2. Register in SATERN to get credit for training. Please use the SATERN External Training Form 182 when registering. For assistance in completing sections B1a through C6 of the form, please contact your organization's training admin. 3. After completing steps 1 and 2 above, send a confirmation email for use in the compilation of a JSC conference tracking log for the event. Event Date: Monday, December 8, 2014   Event Start Time:8:00 AM   Event End Time:5:30 PM Event Location: Methodist Research Institute 6670 Bertner Ave, Hou Add to Calendar James Lewis x38954 http://www.pumpsandpipes.com [top] Don't Miss the 2014 Tech & Tell Poster Session Following JSC's previously successful "Tech & Tell" events for the past two years, the 2014 Exploration Integration and Science Directorate (EISD)-sponsored Independent Research and Development (IR&D)Tech & Tell poster session is being held on Tuesday, Nov. 18, in the Building 3 Collaboration Center from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. During this come-and-go event, you will meet some of JSC and White Sands Test Facility's most innovative thinkers. Principal investigators will share overviews of their projects and how they are being integrated to meet NASA science and JSC human spaceflight needs. This year's theme is "JSC's Technology Pathway to Mars," which will showcase both center-level and new EISD directorate IR&D technology projects being developed at both JSC and the White Sands Test Facility. Come support your colleagues. Also, cast a vote to select an outstanding project to receive the "People's Choice Award" for innovation and creativity in the spirit of JSC 2.0. Event Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2014   Event Start Time:10:30 AM   Event End Time:1:30 PM Event Location: Building 3 Collaboration Center Add to Calendar David L. Brown x37426 [top] Co-Labs: Oculus Rift Demostration What is "immersion?" What do we mean by "presence?" Has the technology for true virtual reality finally arrived? Please join us for our Co-Labs meeting to hear Jake Mireles' overview of the exciting new Oculus Rift. You'll learn what the rift is bringing to the world of virtual and augmented reality and, as an added bonus, you'll be able to experience the latest development kit for yourself. The event will be Nov. 12 in the new 1958 Coworking Space in Building 56. Please come early and tour the space in Building 56 and Building 57. Refreshments will be served. Co-Lab Community Event Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM Event Location: B56 Add to Calendar Shelby Thompson x48701 https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/104838054476769665235 [top] Today: Parenting Series - Talking to Your Teen If you were to ask teens if they want more positive communication with their parents, the majority of them would say "Yes!" Can you believe it? Your teens want a connection with you as much as you want one with them! Your kids want to talk to you. No, this is not part of a late Halloween trick … but the "trick" with talking to teens is to listen before you talk. As with most of us, the most valuable and underused skill in talking, or communication, is the least verbal one—listening. We will discuss additional techniques that will help invite your teen to open up and allow him/her to listen to you, too. We will also identify the influence of teenage cognitive development and impact on their communication style. Please join Anika Isaac, MS, LPC, LMFT, NCC, LCDC, CEAP, as she presents "Talking to Your Teen." Event Date: Thursday, November 6, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:1:00 PM Event Location: Building 30 Auditorium Add to Calendar Lorrie Bennett, Employee Assistance Program, Occupational Health Branch x36130 [top] Space Serenity Al-Anon Meeting Moved - Nov. 12 In honor of Veterans Day, the Space Serenity Al-Anon meeting has moved to next Wednesday, Nov. 12. "Staying Flexible" keeps us resilient. Our 12-step meeting is for co-workers, families and friends of those who work or live with the family disease of alcoholism. Visit us on Nov. 12 in Building 32, Room 135 from 12 noon to 12:45 p.m. Event Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2014   Event Start Time:12:00 PM   Event End Time:12:45 PM Event Location: b. 32, room 135 Add to Calendar Employee Assistance Program x36130 http://sashare.jsc.nasa.gov/EAP/Pages/default.aspx [top] Aerodynamics of Airplanes, Birds & Fish: Nov. 19 You are invited to JSC's SAIC/Safety and Mission Assurance speaker forum featuring Dr. John Lienhard, writer and host of "The Engines of Our Ingenuity," which is heard nationally on public radio. This event is free and open to the public. Please feel free to bring your family/friends (teens and older) and enjoy a night out! Subject: Aerodynamics of Airplanes, Birds and Fish Date/Time: Wednesday, Nov. 19, from 7 to 8 p.m. CDT Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom Lienhard will look at the following question and, using photographic evidence, discuss: Does human flight really emulate avian flight? Please share with your friends and add this event to your calendar. Event Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2014   Event Start Time:7:00 PM   Event End Time:8:00 PM Event Location: Gilruth Alamo Ballroom Add to Calendar Della Cardona/Juan Traslavina 281-335-2074/281-335-2272 [top]    Jobs and Training Project Management and Systems Engineering Forum The next JSC Project Management and Systems Engineering Forum will be Thursday, Nov. 20, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Building 1, Room 360. Dr. Beverly Sauer will be presenting the topic "Communication Matters: Lessons in System Safety from the BP/Deepwater Horizons Disaster." This presentation will revisit the BP disaster from the point of view of system safety fundamentals to answer the question: What role does communication play in anticipating and mitigating disaster? Sauer was formerly an associate professor of English and rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon University and a professor of management in the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business. All civil servant and contractor project managers and systems engineers are invited to attend. Event Date: Thursday, November 20, 2014   Event Start Time:11:30 AM   Event End Time:12:30 PM Event Location: Building 1, Room 360 Add to Calendar Danielle Bessard x37238 [top]    Community America Recycles Day Events Art Contest: Show off your creative side AND environmental side by participating in the Recycled Art Contest. Team up or individually create art using recycled materials. Drop off artwork in the Teague Auditorium lobby today, Nov. 6, from 9 a.m. to noon, or Monday, Nov. 10, from 9 a.m. to noon. Contact Alexandra Moore-VanDyke for more information and submission details if you are interested in participating. All artwork will be displayed in the Teague Auditorium lobby from Nov. 10 to 13. Book Swap Event: There is a book drop box in the Building 11 café, and there will be a collection table at the Building 3 café's west entrance from Nov. 10 to 12 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Bring new and used books and magazines for all ages and categories to the drop-off locations. On Nov. 13, come to Teague Auditorium lobby to pick up new reads. PLUS, there will be NASA STEM teaching materials available for free! Event Date: Thursday, November 13, 2014   Event Start Time:9:00 AM   Event End Time:2:00 PM Event Location: Teague Lobby and Auditorium Add to Calendar Alexandra Moore-VanDyke x28255 http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/ja/ja13/index.cfm [top] Astronomy Day Needs Your Help Be an ambassador for JSC this weekend by staffing an exhibit at the 2014 Astronomy Day celebration at the George Observatory. This family-oriented event is on Saturday, Nov. 8. No astronomy background required—just your knowledge about NASA, JSC, your own job and a willingness to share with the public! OR .. do you know ISS? We still need a volunteer to engage with children at the South Houston Branch of the Harris County Public Library on Thursday, Nov. 6, and/or with teens on Monday, Nov. 10. Not able to commit to one of these? Check out all of the amazing opportunities in V-CORPs. Questions? Contact the V-CORPs administrator. Lisa Spence x25859 https://nasajsc.secure.force.com/vcorps [top] Astronomy Day - Nov. 8 Astronomy Day is Nov. 8 at the George Observatory (inside Brazos Bend State Park). Daytime activities for the kids include face painting and learning the phases of the moon by eating Oreo cookies. There are also outdoor and indoor speakers on various astronomy-related topics, a how-to-make-a-comet demo and telescopes set up to safely observe the sun. Once nighttime arrives, out come all the telescopes! Up to 35 telescopes will be set up for observing the moon, star clusters and nebulae, and there's an opportunity to go inside the observatory's three telescope domes. The Astronomy Day event starts at 3 p.m. and goes (clouds or shine) until 10:30 p.m., but telescope viewing may be impacted by weather. Come have a fun-filled day/night and learn a little astronomy in the process. It's a great time for the whole family! Normal park entry fees apply, but Astronomy Day is FREE! Event Date: Saturday, November 8, 2014   Event Start Time:3:00 PM   Event End Time:10:30 PM Event Location: George Observatory inside Brazos Bend State Park Add to Calendar Jim Wessel x41128 http://www.astronomyday.net/ [top]

 

JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.

 

 

 

NASA and Human Spaceflight News

Thursday – November 6, 2014

HEADLINES AND LEADS

U.S. Desire To Keep ISS Going 'Noted' for the Record

Peter B. de Selding – Space News

The heads of the five space agencies that own the international space station on Nov. 5 "noted" that the United States wants to operate the facility through at least 2024 but made no commitment to do likewise, citing ongoing efforts in some of their governments to secure commitments to 2020.

 

Republicans Seize Control of Senate, Add to House Majority

Marcia S. Smith - Spacepolicyonline.com

 

The results of some congressional races are still not final, but as of 6:00 am ET November 5, it is clear that Republicans will control the Senate in the 114th Congress and added to their majority in the House.

Engineers recommend changes to Orion heat shield

Stephen Clark - Spaceflightnow.com

Lessons learned during preparations leading up to the first orbital test flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft in December have prompted engineers to recommend changing the design of the crew capsule's heat shield for future missions to the moon, Mars, or an asteroid, according to Lockheed Martin officials.

Orbital Drops AJ-26 After Failure, Looking for Alternate Launcher to ISS

Frank Morring Jr. - Aviation Week & Space Technology

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to re-engine its Antares launch vehicle and use one or two alternate launch vehicles initially to meet its International Space Station resupply commitments to NASA after last week's launch failure with an Antares powered by two Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 engines.

 

Orbital To Accelerate Upgraded Antares, Use Other Vehicles for Cygnus

Jeff Foust – Space News

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. announced Nov. 5 it would accelerate the introduction of an upgraded version of its Antares launch vehicle after an Oct. 28 launch failure, and would use other launch vehicles for Cygnus missions to the international space station until the new Antares is ready.

 

Soviet-Era Engine Is Blamed for Antares Rocket Explosion

Kenneth Chang – New York Times

Substantiating suspicions right after the spectacular fireball that destroyed a rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station, the manufacturer of the rocket said Wednesday that the fault most likely lay in Soviet-era rocket engines that powered the first stage.

Virgin Galactic pilot defied the odds to survive crash

Ralph Vartebedian and Melody Petersen – Los Angeles Times

The Virgin Galactic rocket plane had just broken the sound barrier and was shooting toward the heavens when it began disintegrating, battered by powerful aerodynamic forces.

Curiosity Finds Tantalizing Mineral Clues for Mars Habitability

Ian O'Neill – Discovery.com

For the first time in its continuing mission to better understand the past habitability of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected a mineral drilled out of a Martian rock that matches orbital data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The Surreal Task of Landing on a Comet

Caleb A. Scharf - Scientific American

 

On November 12th 2014 the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission will eject the small robotic lander Philae on a trajectory that should take it down to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (or 67P/C-P for short). Already Rosetta is maneuvering from its 10 kilometer orbit to get into the right place to deploy Philae.

 

COMPLETE STORIES

 

U.S. Desire To Keep ISS Going 'Noted' for the Record

Peter B. de Selding – Space News

The heads of the five space agencies that own the international space station on Nov. 5 "noted" that the United States wants to operate the facility through at least 2024 but made no commitment to do likewise, citing ongoing efforts in some of their governments to secure commitments to 2020.

 

Meeting in Paris at the 20-nation European Space Agency, the heads of the U.S., Russian, Japanese and Canadian space agencies, as well as ESA's director-general, issued a statement saying the space station is increasing its scientific output.

 

They reaffirmed that the station "is the foundation for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit."

 

ESA governments are expected to approve at least partial funding to permit Europe to remain a space station partner through 2020 when its government ministers meet Dec. 2. The heads of ESA and Japan's space agency have both said station operating costs need to come down. Europe already has cut its annual operational costs by at least a third. Like the United States and Russia, both Europe and Japan have their own laboratory modules at the station.

 

Russian government officials in recent months have said tensions with the United States, Europe and Canada over Russia's incursion into Ukraine have put into the deep freeze Russian deliberations about a prolonged space station partnership, although current operations have not been affected.

 

"The ISS partner agencies are working through their respective governmental procedures for continued ISS utilization through at least 2020 and noted the U.S. commitment to extend ISS utilization to at least 2024," the agencies' joint statement says. "They also noted the ongoing work by other governments for a similar extension. In reviewing the strong commitment that enabled 14 years of continuous human presence on ISS in low-Earth orbit, the agency leaders noted the stable, solid, and robust ISS partnership that will serve as the basis for working together in future human exploration."

 

Republicans Seize Control of Senate, Add to House Majority

Marcia S. Smith - Spacepolicyonline.com

 

The results of some congressional races are still not final, but as of 6:00 am ET November 5, it is clear that Republicans will control the Senate in the 114th Congress and added to their majority in the House.

With Senate races in three states (Alaska, Louisiana, and Virginia) still not over, Republicans have at least 52 seats in the Senate, one more than needed to control the chamber. Democrats have 43 and there are 2 Independents. In the House, Republicans will have at least 242 seats, a gain of 13, and there will be at least 174 Democrats. Results from the remaining districts are pending.

For space policy and programs, the biggest impact likely will be in funding. Republicans have been pressing for cutbacks in government spending to reduce the deficit, while Democrats have argued for a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. Republicans oppose tax increases.

Congress returns to work next Tuesday (November 12). Little legislation is likely to be passed in the lame duck session knowing that party control of the Senate will change in January.

The one must-pass piece of legislation is FY2015 appropriations. FY2015 began on October 1 and the government is operating under a Continuing Resolution that expires on December 11.

Whether a bill will pass to cover the rest of FY2015 (through September 30, 2015) or only for a few weeks or months to provide funding through the beginning of the next Congress when Republicans will have more power to shape its contents is an open question. NASA was poised to receive a significant increase over the President's request for FY2015 in bills that passed the House and cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis, so it is possible that the increase will survive, but if reducing the deficit becomes the driving force, it could be endangered. NOAA's satellite programs similarly fared reasonably well in FY2015 budget action so far. A major issue in the DOD space policy and budget realm is whether to add money to begin development of a U.S. rocket engine to replace Russia's RD-180, used for the Atlas V, which is a very complex issue and it is difficult to assess how much that will be affected by the Republican gains.

 

Engineers recommend changes to Orion heat shield

Stephen Clark - Spaceflightnow.com

Lessons learned during preparations leading up to the first orbital test flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft in December have prompted engineers to recommend changing the design of the crew capsule's heat shield for future missions to the moon, Mars, or an asteroid, according to Lockheed Martin officials.

The change centers on how technicians put together the Orion crew module's heat shield, which protects the capsule during its descent through the atmosphere. The heat shield can endure temperatures of up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, conditions the Orion capsule would see when returning from deep space missions to the moon, asteroids or Mars.

The heat shield is one of the key components of the crew capsule to be demonstrated on Exploration Flight Test 1, a four-hour orbital mission set for launch Dec. 4 aboard a Delta 4-Heavy rocket.

Engineers are gearing up to move the Orion spacecraft next week from an assembly building at Kennedy Space Center to the Delta 4 launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Orion heat shield's titanium skeleton and carbon fiber skin was fabricated by Lockheed Martin — the craft's prime contractor — in Colorado. The skeleton was shipped to Textron Defense Systems in Massachusetts for installation of a fiberglass-phenolic honeycomb structure.

More than 330,000 individual cells make up the honeycomb, and Textron technicians — using a special dispensing gun — filled the cells by hand with a material called Avcoat.

The Avcoat insulation is supposed to ablate away during the Orion spacecraft's re-entry, protecting the underlying structure from searing temperatures. The Apollo moon capsule used the same type of manually-applied material for its heat shield, and it worked so well Lockheed Martin and NASA decided to dust off the design.

Engineers scaled up the heat shield for the Orion crew capsule, which is about four meters wider at its base than the Apollo command module.

"That's what worked for Apollo, and that's what we'll work with for this mission," Bray said, referring to the EFT-1 launch in December.

But a review of the heat shield on the Orion spacecraft set for launch Dec. 4 revealed the Avcoat was slightly more uneven than expected, according to Jim Bray, crew module director at Lockheed Martin, Orion's prime contractor.

A statement from a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the company is recommending changes to the heat shield's design that allows for different contraction rates between the Avcoat and the composite heat shield substrate.

"This wouldn't change the heat shield material, but it would change the manufacturing approach, which will resolve thermal contraction/expansion differences," the statement said.

The spokesperson said a final decision on the recommended design change was expected soon. The heat shield modification will not be implemented on the December flight.

"When we fabricated the entire heat shield, we didn't get the full-up properties that we expected to get with individual gunner variability," Bray said in a presentation last month at the International Astronautical Congress in Toronto. "By going to a block architecture, we will be able to get the properties in advance before we adhere it to the substrate of the heat shield."

For Orion's next unmanned test flight set for launch in 2017 — known as Exploration Mission 1 — engineers plan to switch from a honeycomb design to a monolithic heat shield, Bray said.

"On the heat shield that we've got right now, we have a composite substrate, and we attach a honeycomb structure to that," Bray said. "It takes us about six months to fill 330,000 holes with individual gunners."

It turns out the Avcoat applied by hand did not meet expectations, Bray said.

"There was variability between gunners, and we haven't determined the root cause of that yet," Bray said. "The heat shield is good for this mission. There's no question about that. It has credentials to fly, but we really need it to better for the missions farther out for the higher-speed returns, so the question that we had to deal with was how can we prove the material to make sure we know what we're getting before you finish the heat shield.

"We have decided to move to a block architecture where we can gun the blocks in advance," Bray said.

After adding the Avcoat ablator, Textron engineers examined each cell under X-ray and a robot sanded off fractions of an inch of the material to meet specifications, according to a NASA website describing the heat shield.

"By going to a block architecture, we will be able to get the properties (of the Avcoat) in advance before we adhere it to the substrate of the heat shield," Bray said.

Textron will remain Lockheed Martin's heat shield subcontractor for the Orion program, according to Bray. Data collected on the thermal insulator's performance on the EFT-1 mission Dec. 4 will still be useful even though future Orion missions will fly with a modified heat shield, he said.

"It's still Avcoat, so what we will test on the first mission and with the second mission is the difference in the rescission rate," Bray said. "It's an ablative material. We expect it to ablate. Whether it ablates the same as a block or a little bit different than the honeycomb — you might expect minor variations, but you wouldn't expect major variations."

The sides of the Orion crew module are covered with black tiles borrowed from the space shuttle. They are rated to withstand temperatures greater than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but the Avcoat will take the brunt of the heat during the capsule's fall back to Earth.

Lockheed Martin proposed the EFT-1 mission to NASA as a risk reduction flight for the agency's next-generation crew vehicle, which is designed to fly to destinations in deep space.

Piloted missions — and the next unmanned flight in 2017 — will blast off on the Space Launch System, an enormous rocket NASA is developing to launch crews and massive cargo loads farther than low Earth orbit, where space shuttle missions went and the International Space Station flies today.

Orion's first space mission — riding a Delta 4 rocket's upper stage — will reach a peak altitude of 3,600 miles and dive back into Earth's atmosphere at about 20,000 mph, just shy of the speed the capsule would reach when returning from the moon.

Officials bill the mission as an opportunity to test the performance of the heat shield during the high-speed re-entry, which will be faster than space shuttles encountered at the end of their missions.

"We're interested in seeing the performance of the heat shield," Bray said. "We have arc jet test facilities where we test the heat shield for the thermal environments, but we can't do it at the same time as we do thermal and pressure, and it's really one of the most critical systems that we've got.

"It's about 80 percent the velocity of what we'll have on the other missions, but we'll get a pretty good test of its maximum capability with temperature and pressure," Bray said. "We can't quite get that using modeling on the ground."

Computers, guidance systems, software, and the Orion spacecraft's launcher adapter and separation systems will also be put to the test on the Dec. 4 mission.

"This mission is a compelling mission in that we have 16 events you can't fully test as an integrated system on the ground," Bray said. "We'll use this test flight to verify 10 of those system major events."

NASA and Lockheed Martin will incorporate results from the EFT-1 mission into a critical design review planned next year, when officials will decide whether the program is ready to proceed into the final stage of development.

"EFT-1's purpose was to leverage the lessons learned from actually building the spacecraft, and we are implementing that already into the design for the EM-1 spacecraft (set to fly in 2017)," Bray said.

Orbital Drops AJ-26 After Failure, Looking for Alternate Launcher to ISS

Frank Morring Jr. - Aviation Week & Space Technology

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. plans to re-engine its Antares launch vehicle and use one or two alternate launch vehicles initially to meet its International Space Station resupply commitments to NASA after last week's launch failure with an Antares powered by two Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-26 engines.

 

David Thompson, Orbital chairman and CEO, told analysts Wednesday the surplus Russian-built engines have a "fundamental reliability issue" and probably were responsible for the Oct. 28 mishap, which destroyed an Orbital Cygnus cargo vehicle loaded with 4,883 lb. of consumables, hardware and science equipment for the ISS.

 

However, he declined to specify which engine will replace the AJ-26, repeating an earlier statement that Antares remains in contention for "a number of new launch contracts" that may ride on the engine choice. Russian news outlets have identified the new RD-193, kerosene-fueled engine as Orbital's pick, and other possibilities include a single Russian RD-180, a solid-fuel rocket motor proposed by ATK, and even restarting production of the Russian NK-33 that is the basis for the AJ-26.

 

Thompson said Orbital is in discussions with three launch services providers for one or two flights next year with the upgraded Cygnus that was already in preparation for the company's next mission to the ISS. While he declined to identify those companies, they apparently are SpaceX, United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Arianespace, based on Thompson's description of them as two U.S. companies and one in Europe.

 

The SpaceX Falcon 9 already is delivering cargo to the space station in that company's Dragon cargo carrier. ULA has said it is ready to deliver more Delta II launch vehicles that would approximate the Antares capability. Arianespace markets Russian-built Soyuz rockets flying from the European Space Center in French Guiana and Baikonur Cosmodrome, where Russia's Progress cargo-carriers are launched on Soyuz vehicles.

 

Thompson said preliminary evidence from telemetry and debris recovered at the state-owned Antares launch complex on Wallops Island, Virginia, "strongly suggests" that one of the two AJ-26s on the vehicle failed 15 sec. after ignition. The engine had passed a hot-fire acceptance test at Stennis Space Center, where last May another AJ-26 failed when its oxygen turbopump essentially "came apart," in the words of William Gerstenmaier, associate NASA administrator for human exploration and operations.

 

Initial evidence also points to the turbomachinery as the site of the more recent AJ-26 failure, Thompson said. The ensuing explosion, which was triggered by range safety officers shortly before the fuel-filled vehicle fell back to Earth, caused "relatively limited damage" to the pad, and should be repairable at a "small fraction" of the time and money that went into the pad's initial construction.

An initial assessment by NASA found the transporter/erector that lifts the Antares into the vertical position was damaged by the blast, as were fuel lines, wiring and the pad's lightning protection system. Thompson said equipment owned by Orbital is covered by insurance.

 

"From a financial standpoint, the impacts to Orbital are not expected to be material on an annual basis in 2015, although the exact magnitude and timing of quarterly changes will depend on which of several specific variations on the overall plan we settle on," Thompson said. "And in any event, I do not expect any significant adverse financial impacts in 2016 or in future years."

 

Thompson credited contingency planning for Orbital's hoped-for ability to return to flight quickly, and to be able to fulfill its commitment to launch 20,000 kg of cargo to the ISS under its $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA by the end of 2016. That will be done with the upgraded Cygnus vehicle, which can carry as much as 3,300 kg of versus the 2,600-2,700 kg of the initial configuration.

 

With the launch failure, Orbital wants to drop one of the five remaining flights under its CRS contract and make all of its deliveries in four with the larger cargo vehicle. Thompson said his company has started discussions with NASA on that proposal.

 

Orbital To Accelerate Upgraded Antares, Use Other Vehicles for Cygnus

Jeff Foust – Space News

 

Orbital Sciences Corp. announced Nov. 5 it would accelerate the introduction of an upgraded version of its Antares launch vehicle after an Oct. 28 launch failure, and would use other launch vehicles for Cygnus missions to the international space station until the new Antares is ready.

 

Under the "go-forward" plan the company announced, Orbital will perform one or two launches of Cygnus cargo vehicles using a launch vehicle yet to be announced. Orbital Chief Executive David W. Thompson said in a conference call with financial analysts that the company is in discussions with three companies, two American and one European, to perform those launches.

 

"Indications at this point are favorable that these launch operators do have available capacity that is suitable for Cygnus launches as early as the second quarter of 2015," Thompson said. That capacity, he said, extends through late 2016.

 

He declined to identify the specific companies or vehicles, but did rule out using the lower position of an Ariane 5 vehicle. While the Ariane 5 could accommodate the Antares, he said those launches go to different orbits not compatible with missions to the ISS. A decision on the launch vehicle they will use will be made within a month, he said.

 

Thompson said that Orbital would also accelerate the introduction of an upgraded version of Antares with a new first-stage propulsion system. Thompson declined to identify the engine they have selected because "Antares continues to be in contention for a number of new launch contracts," which would likely include the competition for the follow-on to the company's current Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) cargo contract for the ISS.

 

The new Antares would begin launches some time in 2016, Thompson said. With the increased capacity of the upgraded Antares, coupled with the capacity on the alternative launch vehicles Orbital is considering, he said Orbital believes it can transport the cargo planned for the remaining five flights under its CRS contract with NASA on four missions.

 

"The Cygnus capacity will expand, on average, to about 3,300 kilograms," he said, compared to 2,600 to 2,700 kilograms of cargo planned for each of the remaining Cygnus missions using the original Antares.

 

Thompson said that Orbital will not ask NASA for additional funding for its CRS contract for using these alternative launch options and would offer only "modest, if any, short-term delays" for cargo delivery. He said Orbital has discussed its plans with NASA "at a conceptual level" but that details were still subject to change.

 

The investigation into the Oct. 28 Antares failure is ongoing, but Thompson said the failure is likely linked to the rocket's main engines. "Current evidence strongly suggests that one of the two AJ-26 main engines that powered Antares' first stage failed about 15 seconds after ignition," he said.

 

That failure, he said, appears to have been caused by a problem with the engine's turbopump machinery, although more analysis is needed before making a definitive assessment of the failure.

 

Orbital said it is highly unlikely they will use the AJ-26, a refurbished version of the Soviet-era NK-33 engine provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne, on future launches. "We will likely discontinue the use of the AJ-26 rocket engines," he said, "unless and until those engines can be conclusively shown to be flight-worthy."

 

The AJ-26 had been at the center of speculation about the accident prior to Orbital's announcement. An AJ-26 failed during a test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi in May, and another failed due to a fuel leak during a test there in 2011.

 

Asked during the conference call if the decision to discontinue the AJ-26 was linked to a "fundamental reliability issue" with the engine, Thompson responded, "I would say that's a good assessment."

 

Soviet-Era Engine Is Blamed for Antares Rocket Explosion

Kenneth Chang – New York Times

Substantiating suspicions right after the spectacular fireball that destroyed a rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station, the manufacturer of the rocket said Wednesday that the fault most likely lay in Soviet-era rocket engines that powered the first stage.

On Oct. 28, the Antares rocket, loaded with about 5,000 pounds of supplies, equipment and experiments, exploded about 15 seconds after rising off a launching pad at Wallops Island, Va. Nobody was injured.

The Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., which has a $1.9 billion contract with NASA to take cargo to the space station, said Wednesday that its preliminary analysis pointed to a failure of a turbopump, which pushes high-pressure fluid into the engine's combustion chamber. The first stage of the rocket uses two AJ26 engines, which are refurbished from ones originally built in the 1970s for a Soviet moon mission.

In a conference call on Wednesday with financial analysts, David W. Thompson, Orbital's chief executive, described what he called the company's "go-forward approach." He said Orbital would probably discontinue the use of the AJ26 engines and accelerate the development of a next-generation Antares rocket using a different engine. The first flight of the revised Antares would be in 2016. The company did not say which engine it would use, but one possibility is a solid-fuel rocket motor from Alliant Techsystems, also known as ATK, which Orbital is seeking to merge with.

In the meantime, Orbital intends to fulfill its NASA contract by launching its Cygnus cargo spacecraft on top of another company's rocket. Mr. Thompson said Orbital was talking to three such companies, two American and one European. The change would incur no additional cost for NASA, he said.

Mr. Thompson said he also did not expect "any significant adverse financial impacts" on Orbital.

With a more powerful rocket, more cargo could be delivered aboard the Cygnus, and Orbital is looking to consolidate the launchings remaining on its contract, from five to four.

"We expect to work with NASA to determine the most favorable combination for one or two gap-filler missions using third-party launch vehicles," Mr. Thompson said, "and are aiming to make final decisions on the best way forward over the course of the coming month."

On Monday, Orbital announced the investigation board that will look at the Antares failure. David Steffy, chief engineer of Orbital's advanced programs group, will lead the group. The six other members include Wayne Hale, a former program manager for NASA's space shuttles.

Virgin Galactic pilot defied the odds to survive crash

Ralph Vartebedian and Melody Petersen – Los Angeles Times

The Virgin Galactic rocket plane had just broken the sound barrier and was shooting toward the heavens when it began disintegrating, battered by powerful aerodynamic forces.

The pilots were strapped into their seats as entire pieces were torn from SpaceShipTwo. At more than 10 miles high, with fingers no doubt numb from the cold, Peter Siebold somehow escaped from the hurtling wreckage.

Siebold, who had been flying Virgin Galactic's spaceships for a decade, had to rely on his experience and his instincts. He had a parachute but no spacesuit to protect him from the lethal environment as he plunged toward Earth at close to the speed of a bullet.

At almost twice the height of Mt. Everest, the air is dangerously thin and the temperature is about 70 degrees below zero. It was a real world case of survival in the face of disaster, like the movie "Gravity."

Siebold managed to deploy his parachute and land in the Mojave Desert. His shoulder was smashed and a fellow pilot described him as "pretty banged up." He was discharged from the hospital Monday.

"The fact that he survived a descent of 50,000 feet is pretty amazing," said Paul Tackabury, a veteran test pilot who sat on the board of directors of Scaled Composites until it was sold to Northrop Grumman Corp. "You don't just jump out of aircraft at Mach 1 at over 50,000 feet without a spacesuit."

Siebold's partner, 39-year-old copilot Michael Alsbury, was found dead, strapped into his seat in the wreckage.

Hundreds of test pilots, like Alsbury, have died in their work over the last century. Edwards Air Force Base, where some of the nation's most secret planes are tested, is named for pilot Capt. Glen Edwards, who died in an experimental craft in 1948.

But Siebold's jump is part of a long history of extraordinary feats of survival by test pilots who have defied the odds through skill, faith or luck.

Perhaps nobody can appreciate Siebold's gift for survival more than Bob Hoover, the famed 92-year-old test pilot who survived five crashes and lives in Palos Verdes.

"I have been broken up from head to toe," he said. "It is the reason I am all crippled up now."

In October 1947, he ejected out of one of the first combat jets, the Republic F-84, and hit the tail at 500 mph, breaking both legs and busting his face. Several years later, he was trapped in a disabled F-100 Super Sabre that slammed into the desert, bounced 200 feet back into the air and then slammed down again. It broke his back. Rescue crews had to chop him out of the wreckage. His career continued for decades longer and he eventually flew 300 types of aircraft.

As for Siebold, Hoover said, "It is a miracle he got out. At 50,000 feet, your survival time is very limited, and for him to pull the rip cord in those conditions is pretty surprising. I am so happy for him."

The exact details of Siebold's more than 10-mile fall are still unknown. On Monday night, federal investigators said they still had not been able to interview him.

"We don't know how he got out," National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss said Tuesday.

Ken Brown, a photographer and avionics engineer who was taking shots of the test flight Friday, said his pictures show that the rocket plane was in pieces in a few moments.

SpaceShipTwo was released from its WhiteKnightTwo ferry craft at somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000 feet. Then the rocket motor ignited, blasting the craft over the next 13 seconds to more than Mach 1, NTSB investigators said. The rocket plane malfunctioned after its tail, known as a feather, deployed at the wrong time. The NTSB said it could take up to a year to unravel the cause.

Brown said he believes the plane may have been at 60,000 feet or higher when it broke apart.

"Peter is a lucky guy," Brown said. "The vehicle disintegrated around him. He would have found himself falling."

In such thin air, Hoover said it is almost impossible to inhale or exhale.

"It is the most horrible feeling in the world," Hoover recalled.

Exactly when Siebold pulled his rip cord is unknown. He may have fallen freely for miles to exit the cold as fast as possible. Brown believes Siebold may not have deployed his parachute until well under 20,000 feet.

SpaceShipTwo pilots wear thin flight jumpsuits, offering little protection against the bitter cold of the upper atmosphere. It was a decision made early in the program by aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who designed the predecessor SpaceShipOne, Tackabury said. The craft was made by winding composite fibers into a strong pressure vessel, and Rutan wanted small hatches to preserve the strength of that structure, meaning large spacesuits would not fit, Tackabury said.

Friday's test flight was crucial to Virgin Galactic's program, which aims to ferry wealthy tourists to the edge of space. The WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo both had grown over their designed weight, Tackabury said, meaning the spacecraft would have to launch from a lower altitude than the planned 50,000 feet. To compensate, Scaled Composites was testing a new hybrid solid rocket motor that used a faster burning fuel producing greater thrust.

The need to test experimental aircraft has always taken pilots to the edges of safety.

In 1966, Lockheed test pilot Bill Weaver was flying an SR-71 at 3.2 times the speed of sound at 78,000 feet when it began to disintegrate around him, just like SpaceShipTwo. He blacked out under the severe forces. When he regained awareness, his plane was gone and he was flying through the air strapped to his seat. The absurdity of his situation led Weaver to think, "Therefore I must be dead," he wrote later.

In fact, he came to his senses and parachuted to a New Mexico cattle ranch, where the owner rescued him.

Test pilot Chuck Yeager, the man who first broke the sound barrier, had his own fall from space in 1963 when his Lockheed NF-104A lost control at 108,700 feet, 21 miles above the Earth. The plane went into a spin and plunged to 7,000 feet while Yeager desperately tried to restart the plane's engine. Finally, Yeager ejected. But the exit was far from clean, and rocket fuel from the ejection seat leaked over Yeager, giving him second- and third-degree burns, according to written accounts. When rescuers arrived, Yeager was reportedly standing with his helmet in the crook of his arm and his parachute properly rolled up.

Siebold, the father of two children, has flown 35 different aircraft and holds a license as a glider pilot as well, according to his biography. His official company portrait shows a man with dense wavy black hair squinting against bright desert sunlight and wearing a sly smile. He has an engineering degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has worked at Scaled Composites since 1996.

"I just think it was a miracle," said his Tehachapi neighbor Maureen Cornyn. "I'm very thankful for them. But again, you're torn because there's somebody else's father and son that's been lost."

Curiosity Finds Tantalizing Mineral Clues for Mars Habitability

Ian O'Neill – Discovery.com

For the first time in its continuing mission to better understand the past habitability of the Red Planet, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected a mineral drilled out of a Martian rock that matches orbital data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Hematite, an iron-oxide mineral, was detected by the MRO's CRISM (Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars) instrument in 2010 before Curiosity's 2012 landing site was selected. Inside Gale Crater, where mission scientists eventually decided to land Curiosity, hematite was detected, one of the reasons why the mission is studying the geology there.

NEWS: Mars Rover Curiosity Drills into Mount Sharp

"This connects us with the mineral identifications from orbit, which can now help guide our investigations as we climb the slope and test hypotheses derived from the orbital mapping," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif.

The detection of hematite by Curiosity's on-board chemistry lab — the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument — not only provides the "ground truth" by connecting orbital data with the mineralogy measured on the ground, it also provides a tool so we can better understand the environmental conditions — potentially habitable conditions — the hematite formed in.

"We've reached the part of the crater where we have the mineralogical information that was important in selection of Gale Crater as the landing site," said Ralph Milliken of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and member of Curiosity's science team. "We're now on a path where the orbital data can help us predict what minerals we'll find and make good choices about where to drill. Analyses like these will help us place rover-scale observations into the broader geologic history of Gale that we see from orbital data."

NEWS: Ancient Mars Water? Mineral Find Makes It a Slam-Dunk

Hematite is formed when another mineral, magnetite, is exposed to oxidizing conditions. This happens when the mineral is exposed to Mars' atmosphere and water. Interestingly, this tiny CRISM sample contains magnetite, hematite and olivine in a range of oxidization states. This is suggestive of an oxidization gradient through the rock sample, a gradient that may have been used by hypothetical Mars microbes as an energy source.

This latest sample of rock was drilled from a location dubbed "Confidence Hills" at the base of Mount Sharp (a.k.a. Aeolis Mons) at an outcrop called "Pahrump Hills." The drilled rock dust was then dropped into CheMin, which uses X-ray diffraction to detect the chemical fingerprint of minerals locked in the rock.

During Curiosity's first year of operations on the Martian surface, the rover spent much of its time investigating drilled samples from "Yelloknife Bay" located on the plain approaching the base of Mount Sharp. The Yellowknife Bay rock samples are markedly different from this first Mount Sharp sample, suggesting that the two locations had different environmental conditions as the rocks formed. In Yellowknife Bay, which was discovered to be an ancient lake bed, quantities of clay minerals were uncovered inside the rock — minerals that had not been detected by the MRO's CRISM instrument. Its non-detection from orbit was likely caused by a surface layer of dust that coated the rocky surface, obscuring the signal.

ANALYSIS; Opportunity Finds More Hints of Mars Habitability

The discovery of clays on Mars is an important one as it is further evidence that Mars was once wetter than it is now. The fact that water was much more prevalent in Mars' history bolsters the possibility that Mars may have once hosted microbial life.

The sample drilled from Confidence Hills contains more hematite than the Yellowknife Bay samples. "There's more oxidation involved in the new sample," said CheMin Deputy Principal Investigator David Vaniman of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz.

The study of these minerals at the base of Mount Sharp is a key step in understanding the oxidation levels in Mars' ancient past. NASA's Opportunity rover, which as been exploring Mars' Meridiani Planum since 2004, also discovered hematite spherules that provided more clues about Mars' wet past, but they formed in different conditions to the hematite detected in Confidence Hills.

This latest discovery underlines the need for surface operations on Mars — if we are to truly understand the Red Planet's habitable past, we need wheels, or even boots, on the ground.

The Surreal Task of Landing on a Comet

Caleb A. Scharf - Scientific American

 

On November 12th 2014 the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission will eject the small robotic lander Philae on a trajectory that should take it down to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (or 67P/C-P for short). Already Rosetta is maneuvering from its 10 kilometer orbit to get into the right place to deploy Philae.

 

The landing site is on the 'head' of the rubber-duck shaped cometary nucleus (although it might also be likened to a half-eaten, and rather rotten apple core). This target area has now been named 'Agilkia' after an island in the Nile river here on Earth – a place where the ancient Temple of Isis was moved to after its original island home of Philae was flooded during the construction of the Aswan dam.

 

It represents a remarkable stage in the history of space exploration, but perhaps equally extraordinary is the tangible sense of just how alien and surreal this place is. Here is an image from 27 kilometers away, showing the landing site atop the bizarre tower of the cometary nucleus.

During November 11-12th a go/no-go decision will be made on the release of Philae. With a 28 minute one-way light travel time from Earth this will be an entirely autonomous operation if given the 'go'.

It'll take Philae about 7 hours to drop towards Agilkia – and here's one of the trickiest and most nerve-wracking pieces of the landing. The nucleus of 67P/C-P is spinning, like an end-over-end dumbbell (yep, rubber duck, apple core, dumbbell, no single description quite captures the nature of this object). If that spin holds steady at about 12.4 hours per rotation Philae should hit the right spot – but as the comet heats up and loses material the spin rate may shift by tiny amounts.

With some luck it should all work out fine, but if you watch the following ESA video you'll see (around 0:50) that it's a bit like a fairground game where you try to hit a crazily tumbling target for the prize (except here you really want the prize).

If Philae lands successfully it'll fire up a host of experiments and instruments – using up the energy of its primary battery over the course of about 64 hours.

After that point Philae's life-expectancy hinges on how well its solar panels can recharge those batteries – hopefully well enough to take it through 67P/C-P's closest approach to the Sun in March 2015.

 

END

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