Tudo a postos para o lançamento da Phoenix

Se tudo correr bem, às 10:26 da manhã de Sábado, 4 de Agosto de 2007, será lançada mais uma missão com destino a Marte.

Uma segunda oportunidade de lançamento será às 11:02 da manhã do mesmo dia. A 'janela de lançamento' durará cerca de 3 semanas. Se dentro destas 3 semanas a Phoenix não puder ter sido lançada, terá de esperar 2 anos por uma nova oportunidade.

Esta missão é a sucessora da malograda Mars Polar Lander, que se perdeu momentos antes de aterrar em Marte.

Actualizações neste link (NASA).

Fonte: MSNBC


Weather delays Mars lander’s launch
Phoenix liftoff reset for Saturday; will look for signs of Martian life
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 4:52 p.m. ET July 31, 2007

LOS ANGELES - The launch of NASA's latest Mars probe has been put off until Saturday at the earliest, due to bad weather back on Earth.

NASA had planned for a Friday liftoff, but on Tuesday, the space agency said severe weather at the launch site in Florida forced a delay in fueling up the second stage of the Delta 2 rocket that would send the Phoenix Mars Lander on its 10-month-long, 423-million-mile trip.

The fueling is expected to be completed on Wednesday, but the delay left "insufficient contingency time in the schedule to move forward with the planned Friday launch," NASA said in a launch update.

NASA has three weeks to launch Phoenix, but in the near term, the launch opportunities may be limited due to the space agency's plans to launch the shuttle Endeavour on Aug. 7 or later. The launch windows are governed by the orbital mechanics for going to Mars. Saturday's opportunities come at 5:26 and 6:02 a.m. ET.

Phoenix's launch marks only the start of the suspense for mission managers. The spacecraft will have to survive landing on the surface of the rocky, dusty Red Planet, which has a reputation of swallowing manmade probes. Of the 15 global attempts to land spacecraft on Mars, only five have made it.

"Mars has the tendency to throw you curveballs," said Doug McCuistion, who heads the Mars program at NASA Headquarters.

Unlike the durable twin rovers near the equator, the Phoenix Mars Lander will sit in one place and extend its long arm to dig trenches in the permafrost and scoop up soil for analysis. Made of aluminum and titanium, the 8-foot-long (2.5-meter) arm acts like a backhoe and can dig down 20 inches (50 centimeters) and rotate.

Looking for life
Although Phoenix lacks the tools to detect past or current life, scientists hope it will shed light on whether Mars' northern arctic possesses the signature ingredients for microbes to exist.

The lander is expected to conduct a three-month mission in Mars' northern plains. If successful, it will be the first time since the Viking missions three decades ago that a robot will drill beneath the Martian surface.

Once it lands, Phoenix will heat the soil samples in miniature ovens to study their chemistry. The lander can detect the presence of organics, although it won't be able to tell if there's DNA or protein, said principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

The landing site was chosen because previous spacecraft found evidence that frozen water lurked below the surface. Some believe the shallow valley measuring about 30 miles wide might be the remnant of an ancient sea. However, Phoenix will look for evidence of liquid water that may have existed as recently as 100,000 years ago.

There's no water on the arid Martian surface today, but Phoenix's job is to find out whether the underground ice may have melted, creating a wetter environment. Scientists generally agree that water, along with the presence of organic materials and a stable heat source, is needed to support life.

To prevent Phoenix from accidentally bringing organisms to Mars, technicians had to take special care while prepping the lander for launch. It underwent dry heat treatment and precision cleaning to reduce the amount of germs on its surface. Its trench-digging arm was also sealed in a special wrapping to prevent contamination.

Phoenix is the first project from NASA's Scout program, a low-cost complement to pricier Mars missions in orbit and on the surface. Managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Phoenix cost $420 million compared to the hardy rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which cost $820 million to launch in 2003.

Rising from ashes
True to its name, Phoenix rose from the ashes of previous missions. It was supposed to fly in 2001 as a sidekick to the Mars Odyssey orbiter. The orbiter reached Mars, but the lander mission was canceled in the wake of back-to-back losses in 1999.

The Mars Climate Orbiter burned up as it neared Mars because Lockheed Martin/NASA mismatched metric and English measurement units. The Mars Polar Lander tumbled to its death after its rocket engine shut off prematurely as it tried to touch down on the south pole. Neither wreckage has been found.

Phoenix, built by Lockheed Martin, carries several science instruments similar to ones that flew on the ill-fated Polar Lander mission. Engineers rigorously tested the spacecraft over the last four years "to drive out any of the problems we might have in the system," said Barry Goldstein, project manager at JPL.

If Phoenix survives its primary mission, it will turn into a weather station and collect data on the atmosphere.

A Cassini irá passar por entre os geisers de Encélado!

No início de 2008, a sonda Cassini, em órbita de Saturno, irá passar a cerca de 30 Kms de distância de Encélado, a lua de Saturno onde recentemente foram descobertos geisers de água líquida. A trajectória prevista irá levar a Cassini para o meio destes jactos de água. Apesar de não estar desenhada para este efeito, os responsáveis pelo projecto não antecipam problemas para a sonda.

A Cassini sobrevoando os geisers de Encélado, em Março de 2008.

Fonte: MSNBC

Probe aims to fly through alien geyser
Cassini orbiter to make closest flyby of Saturnian moon Enceladus in 2008
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior science writer
Space.com
Updated: 10:52 p.m. ET Aug. 1, 2007

The Cassini spacecraft will perform its closest flyby ever of Saturn's ice-spewing moon Enceladus early next year, moving directly into its polar geyser for a deep-space shower.

Cassini's third flyby of Enceladus (en-SELL-ah-dus), set for March 2008, will swing it within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the Saturnian moon — almost six times closer than the spacecraft's closest pass to it in 2005. The tight trajectory will move Cassini directly into the icy geyser at the moon's southern pole, NASA official James Green said during a teleconference today.

"Cassini was never designed to fly this close, but we've just got to get in that plume and look at that material and see what it is and where it's coming from," said Green, director of NASA's Planetary Division in Washington.

Scientists think the geyser is 90 percent fine water-ice crystals, but suspect that ammonia and methane gas are present as well.

Although the flyby isn't without risk, Alan Stern, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said Cassini should fare well.

"It's very exciting because it's something Cassini wasn't designed to do but should be able to do safely," Stern said.

If the planned flyby is approved within a few months, Stern explained that the spacecraft's more delicate instruments will be pointed away from the icy spray before entering the plume, leaving particle analyzers to sniff out its composition.

Green said NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is currently analyzing the geyser's risk to Cassini and will submit a formal assessment before the end of the year.

"We want to be able to safely do science [with Cassini], but push the limit," Green said.

O sucessor do Telescópio Espacial Hubble

Chama-se James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), e entrará ao serviço em 2013

Clique para aumentar.

Ao contrário do Hubble, o JWST não obterá imagens nos comprimentos de onda visíveis, mas apenas em infra-vermelhos.

Também ao contrário do Hubble, não será lançado do Space Shuttle - que em 2013 já deverá estar desactivado - mas da ogiva de um foguetão - o que lhe permitirá também atingir uma órbita (muito) mais elevada.

Teóricamente será capaz de obter imagens de quando o Universo apenas tinha 400 milhões de anos de idade - o que corresponde à sua infância muito precoce, em termos humanos! Com sorte obterá imagens dos primeiros objectos luminosos do Universo!

1 - Espelhos

O JWST é equipado com 18 espelhos hexagonais, de berílio, cada um com 1,29 m de diâmetro. O berílio é mais leve, forte e estável que o vidro. O espelho composto deverá ter metade do peso do espelho do Hubble, mas é 2,5 vezes maior. Cada segmento pode ser orientado em 6 direcções diferentes.

2 - Micro-obturadores

O colector de imagem do JWST tem 62.415 aberturas, cada uma com cerca de 100 x 200 microns de dimensão. Estes poderão captar espetrogramas de 100 galáxias de cada vez. Os obturadores poderão ser abertos independentemente, conforme as galáxias que estejam no campo de visão do JWST.

3 - Dispositivos infra-vermelhos

Existem 4 dispositivos de captação de imagem de muito alta resolução instalados no JWST - semelhantes aos chips das máquinas fotográficas digitais normais. Existe uma camera fotográfica sensível ao espectro próximo do infra-vermelho, um espectrógrafo sensível à mesma gama de comprimentos de onda, uma camera sensível ao meio do espectro infravermelho, e um sensor para orientação de precisão.

4 - Pára-Sol

Destina-se a proteger o JWST da luz e radiação infra-vermelha (calor) do Sol, que invalidaria o trabalho deste telescópio. É composto por 5 camadas de alumínio e silício do tamanho de um court de ténis! São necessárias 5 camadas para proteger o JWST de impactos por micro-meteoritos.

5 - Localização

O JWST ficará localizado num ponto do espaço designado L2 - o ponto Lagrange 2 - onde a gravidade da Terra e do Sol têm a mesma força. Este ponto é a cerca de 1.500.000 kms de distância da Terra. Qualquer missão de serviço, à semelhança das que ocorreram para o Hubble, será impossível com as tecnologias actuais. O JWST estará 5 vezes mais distante da Terra do que a Lua! Qualquer avaria não será reparável. (Ver actualização abaixo).

Fonte: Wired



Actualização em 3 de Agosto de 2007: A NASA vai adicionar um anel de acoplagem ao JWST, para permitir uma possível missão futura de serviço pelas naves Orion!!!

Fonte: MSNBC


NASA to add docking ring to Hubble heir
James Webb Space Telescope could accommodate astronauts’ service call
By Brian Berger
Space.com
Updated: 7:28 p.m. ET May 23, 2007

NASA is adding a docking ring to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just in case a visit by astronauts aboard a future Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is needed to complete deployment of the multibillion-dollar orbiting observatory. The U.S. space agency made the announcement May 10 during the unveiling of a full-scale model of the JWST on the National Mall here.

Billed as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST is slated to launch in mid-2013. By the time it is fully expanded as it is deployed at a gravitationally stable spot some 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, the spacecraft will be about the length of a tennis court. Building, launching and operating the infrared telescope for 10 years is expected to cost $4.5 billion, making it the most expensive science mission NASA has in development.

"We cannot make the James Webb Space Telescope fully serviceable like the Hubble because that would cost so much money that I don't think this country could afford it," said Edward Weiler, director of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Greenbelt, Md., facility in charge of the Webb telescope. "However, what if you have a bad day when you put this thing a million miles out and everything folds out except for an antenna ... it gets stuck? Or a solar panel doesn't fold out completely, and you say, 'gee, I wish we could send an astronaut just to give it a kick'?"

Weiler said NASA Administrator Mike Griffin asked the James Webb team two years ago to examine whether it was worthwhile to design the telescope to accommodate a visit from Orion.

According to Weiler, it is.

"We are going to design for the James Webb Space Telescope a little ring that the Crew Exploration Vehicle could dock with so if we had a bad day the astronauts could go out to James Webb and do minimal, gross things," he said. "They couldn't replace instruments, they couldn't change out things, but they could fix things that were obviously wrong."

Weiler said it is his hope and expectation that an astronaut service call never proves necessary. That point was seconded by Martin Mohan, the JWST program manager at Redondo Beach, Calif.-based Northrop Grumman Space Technology.

"We are spending a great deal of time in testing to make sure that JWST deploys reliably on orbit," Mohan said. "That is one of the core competencies of Northrop Grumman Space Technology. That was, we believe, one of the factors in our selection. That doesn't mean we take it lightly in any stretch of the imagination."

The decision to add a docking ring to the Webb telescope was news to Griffin. Asked about it May 16, he said: "A year or two ago I asked people if it wouldn't be smart to at least have some capability to dock Orion with James Webb such that if people wanted to service it, they could do so. It only seems to me to make sense to not preclude that. I didn't tell them to do it. So if they are doing it, they must have studied it and come to the conclusion that it is a worthwhile thing to do."

Meanwhile, a NASA review board recently determined that all 10 new technologies key to the success of the JWST are mature enough to move into the detailed engineering phase of the program. Among those new technologies are near-infrared detectors, sunshield materials and lightweight cryogenic mirrors.

"The invention is done more than six years ahead of launch," Mohan said. "That's an unprecedented achievement."

Weiler agreed, saying that Hubble's launch was delayed several years because its enabling technologies were not ready, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the project.

Mohan said that thanks to the new technologies, Webb's 6.5-meter mirror will weigh only half of what Hubble's mirror weighs yet will provide nine times as much light-collecting power.

The Ball Aerospace-designed mirror, which is already in fabrication, consists of 18 separate segments that will be unfolded during deployment and held in place by composite structures developed by Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems.

Weiler said the JWST has met every budget and technical milestone in the 20 months since NASA restructured the project, delaying its launch two years and adding $1 billion to the life-cycle cost estimate. The project's next major review is slated for March 2008.

As expensive as JWST might seem, Weiler said, when all is said and done it will cost roughly half of what NASA has spent on Hubble — about $7 billion to $8 billion adjusted for inflation and measured according to the same accounting methods that govern Webb.

Barbara Morgan e a NASA dos nossos dias

Barbara Morgan

Fonte: The Independent

Nasa's great white hope: an American tale

Both were teachers; both dreamt of flying in space. One was rejected; the other flew - and died - on the space shuttle Challenger. Now her friend is to embark on the same journey.
By Andrew Gumbel
Published: 02 August 2007

Nasa, the US space agency, has a big problem and it is hoping against hope that a 55-year-old schoolteacher called Barbara Morgan can provide the solution.

The problem is that the agency can't keep a lid on bad news. Last year, Nasa managers watched in a state of appalled horror as one of their astronauts, Lisa Nowak, embarked on an eccentric, jealousy-crazed journey halfway across the country to try to kidnap a woman she suspected of hitting on the fellow astronaut she loved.

Last week, an independent panel set up to investigate the mental health of Nasa's entire roster of astronauts in the wake of the Nowak fiasco reported that flight pilots were prone to bouts of heavy drinking, and in at least two instances, astronauts were cleared to fly and allowed to take the controls even though they were clearly inebriated.

Now, with the first space shuttle flight since the doomed 2003 Columbia mission scheduled for take-off next week, Nasa is dealing with reports of a deliberately sabotaged computer, the last-minute discovery of a cabin leak it is scrambling to fix, and a non-functioning thermostat that is supposed to control the shuttle's hydraulic systems. There is considerable doubt that the new shuttle, called Endeavour, will in fact blast off from Cape Canaveral next Tuesday as planned.

What all this adds up to is a never-ending nightmare for Nasa, the agency that once epitomised America's pioneer spirit, heroism and sense of adventure. By now, of course, it has lost not one space shuttle but two - both Columbia, which broke up on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere over eastern Texas four years ago, and Challenger, which erupted in a fireball 76 seconds after blast-off in Cape Canaveral in 1986.

Scientists and astronomers have questioned whether the shuttle programme is worth pursuing at all any more, since it is clearly unsafe and based on outdated technology. But Nasa has forged ahead regardless, spending $5bn to build Endeavour in the hope it can still give this particularly fraught story of space exploration a happy ending.

And that's where Barbara Morgan comes in. Morgan is essentially the second coming of Christa McAuliffe, the 36-year-old schoolteacher who took off with the doomed Challenger crew in 1986 and perished alongside them before she could fulfil her mission as Nasa's first Teacher in Space. Morgan will also, with luck, be a teacher in space, although these days the title has been changed to Educator Astronaut, since she has received no fewer than nine years of full astronaut training.

Assuming everything goes according to plan, she'll beam as much as six hours' worth of prepared lessons from Endeavour's flight deck back to planet Earth. As an astronaut, she will also be operating the shuttle's robot arm and overseeing the transfer of about 5,000lbs of cargo from Endeavour to the International Space Station. Curiously, she will also be charged with carrying 10 million basil seeds into space, to see if the shuttle flight will alter the plants' growth patterns or the eventual taste of the herb's leaves. The entire mission is expected to last two weeks.

As a PR hook, it is a potential godsend for Nasa. Just as Sylvester Stallone's Rambo movies revisited the Vietnam War and made sure that, this time, the United States emerged victorious, Nasa is hoping that a successful Barbara Morgan mission can erase, or at least compensate for, the lingering memories of Christa McAuliffe's demise.

No single image of the shuttle programme is more deeply embedded in American minds than the Challenger disaster, and no loss is mourned more keenly than that of McAuliffe, the unwitting civilian (and talented media communicator - she charmed talk-show host after talk-show host in the months before her doomed flight) who died as a result of mistakes made entirely by others.

Already, a considerable PR machine has been rolled out on Morgan's behalf. We have learned about her years teaching seven and eight-year-olds in a small town in Idaho, as well as a two-year overseas assignment she once held in Ecuador. We know about her training as a classical flautist. Most of all, we have heard all about her lifelong passion for space and her determination to end up on a spacecraft someday.

Back in 1985 she applied with great enthusiasm as soon as she heard about the original Teacher in Space programme. "I want to go on the space shuttle," Morgan, then 33, wrote. "I want to get some stardust on me."

She was one of almost 11,000 applicants, of whom 114 were chosen as semi-finalists and 10 as finalists. She ended up as McAuliffe's runner-up, and trained as her understudy. In other words, but for the grace of God - or the muddled wisdom of Nasa's administrators - it could have been her aboard the Challenger flight.

Just weeks after the disaster, Morgan was offered the position of Teacher in Space Designee. It didn't mean a whole lot at the time, since the shuttle programme was suspended indefinitely pending a full investigation into the causes of the Challenger explosion. For three months she toured the country on Nasa's behalf, talking about the space programme and attempting to put a brave face on an effort that was widely interpreted as the biggest rebuff to America's international prestige since the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

She never stopped touring and speaking for Nasa, although she returned to her teaching job in Idaho and led the quietest of lives with her husband, Clay, and their two sons. Then, in 1998, she was offered the chance to train as a full astronaut. She spent two years going through her paces at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, then worked in a variety of jobs, most notably as the communication link between Mission Control and space crews in orbit.

In the past few weeks, she's given a series of interviews in which she has dutifully expressed her excitement about her mission and her commitment to convey the best values of both astronauts and teachers to ordinary Americans back home. "Teachers and astronauts are very much alike and their jobs are very similar," she told the Discovery channel. "It's all about exploring and discovering and sharing and I've enjoyed being both."

When asked about the shuttle disasters, she has explained she doesn't see them entirely in terms of failure but rather as examples of people responding admirably to an unexpected crisis. "We had school kids all over the world looking at adults and watching what adults do in a bad situation," she said, "and I felt it was really important to show them that adults do the right thing."

That sentiment is emphatically not shared by Christa McAuliffe's family, who have blamed Nasa for what they believe was an entirely avoidable death. McAuliffe's father, Edward Corrigan, once wrote: "I have been angry since January 28th, 1986... She didn't die 'for' Nasa; she died because of Nasa. I have no allegiance to Nasa."

It wasn't shared, either, by official investigators who found that project engineers had issued an explicit warning that Challenger's booster rockets might fail on take-off if the air temperature was below freezing, which it was on the morning of the launch.

Nasa's whole problem, in fact, has been its apparent disregard - documented in official reports and investigations for more than 20 years - for warnings issued by its underlings on matters of the utmost importance. The investigation into the Columbia disaster found that engineers had similarly issued warnings about the craft's heat-shield tiles - the part of the craft that failed as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere - but that Nasa administrators, frantic to keep to the pre-arranged schedule, chose to overlook them.

Last week's mental-health report was similarly withering. Doctors and colleagues had repeatedly raised red flags about medical or behavioural problems among Nasa's astronauts, only to have their warnings roundly ignored. The report's lead author, Richard Bachman, said Nasa employees were so demoralised by the scant attention paid to their warnings that they had become disinclined to report them in the first place.

Both Bachman and the chair of the House Science and Technology Committee, Bart Gordon, said sending astronauts into space drunk was just a symptom of a wider malaise.

"Drinking and driving is never a good idea - least of all when the vehicle involved is a multi-billion-dollar space shuttle or a high performance jet aircraft," Gordon said. "But it's not just alcohol abuse. You only have to read the report to know that something clearly seems to be broken in Nasa's system of astronaut oversight."

These are not problems that Barbara Morgan is in any position to fix. But if she does go up into space and - more to the point - comes safely back down again, she will at least be able to smile sweetly and give Nasa a much-needed reason to feel a little better about itself.

Um Endeavour completamente renovado está a postos para ser lançado na noite de Terça para Quarta

Beneficiando do longo período de paragem nos lançamentos do Space Shuttle, na conseguência do trágico acidente do Columbia em 2003, o Endeavour foi profundamente renovado durante os 5 últimos anos, ao ponto de alguns dizerem que se trata de um veículo práticamente novo.

Entretanto, o lançamento, que está previsto para a noite de Terça 7 para Quarta 8 de Agosto (hora de Lisboa) poderá ser adiado, caso seja necessário adiar o lançamento da Phoenix Mars Lander, uma sonda destinada a Marte. A Phoenix tem uma 'janela de lançamento' de três semanas, após as quais só poderá voltar a ser lançada daqui a dois anos. Está a ser considerada a possibilidade de dar prioridade ao lançamento da Phoenix por esse motivo.

O lançamento da Phoenix já foi adiado de Sexta para Sábado, por volta das 10 horas da manhã, hora de Lisboa.

Fonte: MSNBC


Endeavour benefits from high-tech overhaul
Engineers create a ‘like-new’ shuttle during five years of down time
By Tariq Malik
Space.com
Updated: 1:23 p.m. ET Aug. 1, 2007

After almost five years rooted on Earth, NASA's shuttle Endeavour is again being primed for launch after a major overhaul to upgrade and refit the 100-ton space plane.

The shuttle and its STS-118 astronaut crew are slated to launch Aug. 7 on a construction mission to the international space station. The upcoming spaceflight will mark Endeavour's first flight since late 2002 following several years' worth of maintenance and modifications.

"It's like a new space shuttle," Wayne Hale, NASA's shuttle program manager, said of Endeavour, adding that the orbiter has been inspected from stem to stern. "It's like driving a new car off the showroom floor."

During Endeavour's down time engineers inspected 150 miles (241 kilometers) of wiring, enhanced its avionics interface, and added a new power transfer and engine monitoring systems among other upgrades.

About the only current hitch with the orbiter is an apparent cabin leak somewhere inside Endeavour's crew module, its attached payload bay-mounted Spacehab cargo module or their connecting tunnels and hatches. As of Tuesday, engineers were still working to isolate the leak's source.

Endeavour, also known as Orbiter Vehicle-105, is NASA's youngest space shuttle and was commissioned in 1987 as a replacement for its sister ship Challenger following the loss of that older orbiter, its six-astronaut crew and Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe in January 1986. The shuttle rolled out of its then-Rockwell International (now Boeing) hangar in Palmdale, California in 1991 to join NASA's orbiter fleet.

Endeavour is now poised to make its 20th launch into space on NASA's STS-118 mission to deliver cargo, spare parts and a new piece of starboard-side framework to the ISS. Commanded by veteran astronaut Scott Kelly, the mission also features the first flight of teacher-turned-spaceflier Barbara Morgan, who served as McAuliffe's backup in 1986.

Endeavour's new tech
Standing out among Endeavour's nearly 200 modifications is a trio of systems making their first operational appearance on a NASA shuttle flight.

The shuttle is NASA's first to carry a Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System, which is designed to allow Endeavour to siphon electrical power from the station's 120-volt grid via a docking port connection. The system then converts that power to feed the orbiter's 28-volt system. If successful, the new power transfer system will allow the STS-118 astronauts to conserve Endeavour's own fuel cell supplies.

"[A]ssuming that it works, we'll be able to fly a 14-day mission so we can add three extra days to our flight," Kelly said in a NASA interview.

Endeavour also sports the first fully activated Advanced Health Management System to watch over the shuttle's three main engines during launch, as well as a three-string global positioning system for pinpoint navigation during landings, NASA said.

The health management system is designed to monitor vibrations in each of the high-pressure fuel and oxidizer turbopumps — which rotate 34,000 times and 23,000 times per minute, respectively — that feed Endeavour's three main engines with the 526,000 gallons (1,991,126 liters) of propellant required for the 8.5-minute launch into space. If an engine's turbopumps vibrate too much, the new system is designed to shut it down.

"An engine would be shut down before it could progress to any catastrophic situation," Hale said of the monitoring system.

The three-string GPS system, which was tested in part on a shuttle flight last year, replaces Endeavour's 1950s-era TACAN system that is gradually being phased out worldwide, he added.

"We've got a far superior system, far safer, far more accurate to fly our big glider back home with," Hale said.

Other major upgrades
In addition to testing new shuttle technology, Endeavour now also equipped with hardware already installed aboard its sister ships Discovery and Atlantis.

Perhaps the biggest bit of shuttle catch up for Endeavour is the addition of its "glass cockpit," a series of flat screen, full-color multi-functional electronic displays that present flight data to the orbiter's astronaut crew.

"Endeavour was the last orbiter to get that modification," Tassos Abadiotakis, NASA's vehicle flow manager for Endeavour, told Space.com. Atlantis first flew with the upgrade during its STS-101 mission in 2000, followed by Discovery in 2005 during NASA's STS-114 flight.

Like Discovery and Atlantis, Endeavour is also now equipped to carry a 50-foot (15-meter) sensor boom, a vital extension of the orbiter's robotic arm that allows astronauts to scan the orbiter's heat shield in flight to seek out signs of damage, Abadiotakis said.

The sensor boom was added as a safety measure following the 2003 loss of seven astronauts aboard Columbia during landing after the orbiter's heat shield had been damaged by fuel tank debris.

The orbiter's wing leading edge sensors, also a post-Columbia safety measure designed to record any impacts from debris or micrometeorites, sport a new voltage booster to extend their in-flight operations, NASA said.

A team of up to 200 shuttle workers helped upgrade Endeavour, as well as perform vital wiring and structural inspections to once more prepare the spacecraft for flight.

"I would say that it's better than when it first rolled out of the barn in Palmdale," Abadiotakis said of Endeavour. "We basically reset the vehicle, the clock, back to zero."

Trajectória de todos os eclipses solares entre 2001 e 2025

Fonte: NASA

Quem é que atirou o meu laptop pela borda fora???

Não, isto não se passou no meu emprego! Passa-se na NASA!

Aparentemente a NASA controla tão mal o seu inventário de equipamento que andam a desaparecer toneladas de computadores, impressoras e similares, sem que nada seja feito para investigar.

Uma investigação do Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluíu que nos últimos 10 anos desapareceram 94 milhões de dólares de equipamento! Pior, quando a NASA descobriu, em vez de apertar o controlo sobre o equipamento, simplesmente subiu a fasquia acima da qual seria obrigada a investigar esses desaparecimentos!

E ainda pior, cerca de 199 milhões dólares de equipamento nunca foram inventariados!!! Por isso nem se sabe se estão a uso da NASA ou se foram levados para casa de alguém...

Nas investigações feitas a estas discrepâncias, houve explicações absolutamente surreais, como um caso em que um indivíduo afirmou que o seu portátil teria sido levado para a Estação Espacial Internacional, e deitado pela borda fora, para arder na alta atmosfera, quando deixou de funcionar!

Boa! Já viram se eu levasse daqui do meu escritório um portátilzito todo XPTO, e depois me viessem perguntar por ele? Eu dizia que tinha sido levado por engano para a Lua... E ninguém fazia mais perguntas!

Mais uma vez a NASA encara os erros com o mesmo padrão de comportamento - aumentando a margem aceitável para esse erro. Foi assim que perderam o Challenger. E uma tonelada de equipamento de escritório!!!

Fonte: NASAWatch

Link: SpaceRef


Property Management: Lack of Accountability and Weak Internal Controls Leave NASA Equipment Vulnerable to Loss, Theft, and Misuse
STATUS REPORT
Date Released: Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Source: Government Accountability Office

What GAO Found

Over the past 10 years, NASA reported that it lost over $94 million of equipment. The high equipment losses are due mainly to a weak internal control environment. Although some equipment was located during subsequent physical inventories, NASA's failure to keep track of these items leaves them vulnerable to theft and misuse. When faced with high equipment losses, instead of tightening controls, NASA raised its threshold for tracking and controlling equipment. Also, NASA management was unresponsive to prior equipment management recommendations, frequently did not investigate equipment losses, and was reluctant to hold employees accountable for loss--as shown in the following examples.

Explanations Provided for Equipment Loss in Which No One Was Held Accountable

(Equipment description - Equipment value (dollars) - Explanation provided)

• Desktop computer and laser printer - 4,855 - My wife needed a computer at home to perform her work as a real estate broker so I checked one out from the surplus stock available. I turned the computer back in when she was done using it but never received a receipt.
• Laptop computer - 4,265 - This computer, although assigned to me, was being used on board the International Space Station. I was informed that it was tossed overboard to be burned up in the atmosphere when it failed.
• Various missing property, 65 items - 850,321- A thorough and reasonable search was conducted but we were unable to locate the missing property. In general, the missing items consist of older equipment that has been replaced or is no longer necessary for standard operations.

Source: GAO analysis of NASA's fiscal year 2006 equipment loss reports.

NASA also lacks the integrated systems and processes needed to provide reasonable assurance that equipment purchases are recorded in the property management system. As a result, over the past 10 years, NASA reported that it failed to enter $199 million of equipment purchases into its property management system. Equipment not tracked in NASA's property management system is not subject to the same physical inventory procedures as other controlled equipment items and, as a result, is at much higher risk of being lost or stolen without NASA being aware of it. Because NASA uses the amounts recorded in its property records as the basis for reporting equipment amounts in its financial statements, NASA did not report the full cost of this equipment on its financial statements. Although NASA expects its system modernization effort to improve controls for ensuring that equipment purchases are recorded in the property system, NASA cannot rely on technology alone to solve its equipment management problems. These problems are deeply rooted in an agency culture that does not demand accountability or fully recognize the value of effectively managing government assets.

Why GAO Did This Study

For years, GAO and others have reported that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) does not maintain effective control over the $35 billion of property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) and materials that it reports on its financial statements. GAO's report, the first in a planned series, addresses whether NASA's control environment and internal controls over NASA-held equipment provide reasonable assurance that (1) these assets are not vulnerable to loss, theft, and misuse and (2) all equipment costs are appropriately recorded in the agency's financial statements. GAO evaluated the design of NASA's property management controls by reviewing agencywide and local policies, obtaining equipment loss reports for all NASA centers, and evaluating actions taken to hold employees accountable. To confirm its understanding of the design of NASA's property controls, GAO conducted on-site visits at two NASA centers and interviewed property management officials at the remaining seven NASA centers.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is recommending 10 actions aimed at strengthening users' accountability for equipment loss and improving internal controls over equipment. NASA concurred with 8 of GAO's 10 recommendations and partially concurred with 2. NASA also provided technical comments that have been incorporated as www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-432

Futuro dos rovers Spirit e Opportunity em grave risco devido à tempestade global em Marte

A tempestade global de areia em Marte (de que já aqui falei) continua a piorar, e a NASA está a ponderar a possibilidade agora bem real de vir a perder um ou ambos os rovers Spirit e Opportunity.

Esta imagem compara a distribuição do pó na atmosfera de Marte
antes da tempestade (22 de Junho) e agora, durante a tempestade.

Os rovers tinham previstas missões que não iam além dos 90 dias. No entanto já estão a funcionar em Marte há mais de 3 anos! Mas o fim pode estar próximo, já que estes robots dependem da luz solar para carregar as suas baterias, e também para os manter quentes - muitos dos circuitos electrónicos dos rovers não podem ser expostos a temperaturas excessivamente baixas.

Esta tempestade é tão intensa que apenas chega à superfície 1% da radiação solar!

Esta sequência de imagens foi captada a partir do rover Opportunity, entre
14 de Junho e 19 de Julho de 2007. Os números no topo representam a
opacidade da atmosfera.

Links:

• Space.com 1, 2
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory - filme em Quicktime (26Mb), legendado em inglês
  

Mars rovers struggle to weather dust storm
3:05 PM, 7/22/07,

NASA's twin Mars rovers are struggling to weather widespread dust storms that have reduced solar power generation to critically low levels. If conditions worsen, one or both robots could succumb to frigid temperatures and "bite the dust" after three-and-a-half years of unprecedented exploration.

"The team is concerned. We all have very strong bond with these two rovers," said John Callas, rover project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "We think of them as our children and we're worried for them right now because they're in this dangerous environmental condition on Mars.

"We're trying to help them as much as we can, but there's only so much we can do from the ground," he said by telephone Friday. "Ultimately it comes down to that. But these things are such intrepid, feisty vehicles. So the mood is 'guarded optimism.' We're watching the weather every day."

The dust storms flared up over the past month just as engineers were preparing to order Opportunity into Victoria Crater to study exposed bedrock that might hold valuable clues about the role of water on the red planet in the distant past.

Instead, the rover remains parked outside the crater, its electronic systems shut own to conserve power under a deeply overcast sky. Half a world away, the Spirit rover was in much the same state, although slightly more power positive than Opportunity.

"The figure of merit on the weather that we track is atmospheric opacity," Callas said. "The higher that number is (known by the Greek letter tau), the more sunlight is lost. Our last estimates of tau for Opportunity was around 5, which means that less than 1 percent of the direct sunlight is getting through the atmosphere. That means that basically the solar array energy is coming from the diffuse sunlight. So it's like a very overcast day and all you have is diffuse light.

"The tau for Spirit is right now at about 4, so it's not as high but it's still exceedingly high. And these numbers are higher than any numbers ever measured by Viking. The highest number Viking measured was about 4. Mariner 9, when it arrived at (Mars) the entire planet was covered with a massive global dust storm that obscured the surface. This is not quite at that scale, but this is probably the worst we've seen in, I don't know, over a decade, I guess."

Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of Mars three weeks apart in January 2004. They were designed to operate for at least 90 days and while hopes were high they would survive the harsh martian environment beyond their design life, no one expected them to last as long as they have. As of last week, Opportunity had logged some 1,240 days on Mars and the rovers are considered among the most successful interplanetary missions ever launched.

At present, the ongoing martian dust storm is best described as "hemispheric." It doesn't shroud the entire planet but Spirit and Opportunity, on opposite sides of Mars, are both affected.

"A possible outcome of this storm is that one or both rovers could be damaged permanently or even disabled," NASA said in a statement Friday. "Engineers will assess the capability of each rover after the storm clears."

The forecast, Callas said, is "not good. More of the same."

"And it's been variable. We've been spoofed a couple of times where the tau would spike up and then it would turn around and drop down a little bit and we'd think oh, well the worst is past. And then it would just turn around again and spike back up to a new record."

Conditions are slightly worse over Opportunity. Solar panel output stood at around 720 watt hours of electricity before the dust storm began. Seven hundred watt hours is enough electricity to power a 100-watt bulb for seven hours.

When the solar panel output dropped below 400 watt hours a day, Opportunity was parked and its science observations terminated. On July 17, power output dropped to 148 watt hours and one day later, to 128 watt hours, barely enough for the heaters needed to keep the electronics warm enough to prevent problems.

"What we've had to do is pretty much take everything out of the sequence the rover normally does," Callas said. "So it just wakes up and goes back to sleep after being up for a short amount of time. We do have communications sessions, but right now we're sprinkling them about every three days."

Flight controllers sent commands to Opportunity Friday but did not plan to check in again until Monday.

Callas said the electronics in each rover is mounted inside an insulated box and that is thermostatically protected. The avionics system is designed to operate at temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit and to survive, powered down, at temperatures as low as minus 67 degrees. Below that, the rover would be at risk of failures from cracked wires or damage to other components.

So far, ground temperatures near Opportunity are running at around minus 26 degrees. And even if one or both orbiters ultimately had to be powered down and temperatures dropped below allowable limits, "it would not be certain death," Callas said. "There's some expectation that if we got outside of our operating regimes that the hardware would hang together."

When the sky eventually clears, "the rover would power back up, it would wake up on its own and it would boot up and it would start phoning home."

Callas said as long as the rovers remain power positive - generating more electricity than they consume - "we could ride this out forever."

"But if it gets just a little bit worse, then that could tip us over the edge and then we'd start running negative," he said. "What you do is, you're taking more energy out of the batteries each day than you're putting back in."

Eventually, the batteries would be drained and no power would be available for the heaters. Engineers are hopeful it won't come to that.

Antevisão da próxima missão do Space Shuttle

Um pequeno vídeo, que acabei de encontrar, e que fala da próxima missão do Space Shuttle Endeavour, a STS-118, com lançamento previsto para 7 de Agosto. Naturalmente é dado destaque à participação de Barbara Morgan, a professora que em 1986 era a substituta de Christa MacAuliffe para a missão do Challenger que, infelizmente, terminou com a sua destruição.

Uma curiosidade é que Morgan irá voar no Endeavour, que foi o último Space Shuttle a ser construído, precisamente para substituír o Challenger, após a sua perda! Apenas uma coincidência, uma vez que, tanto quanto julgo saber, Morgan deveria voar no Columbia - que infelizmente também foi perdida em 2003.

Novos fatos espaciais a serem desenvolvidos pelo MIT

O fato dos astronautas das missões Apollo à Lua, na década de 60.

Todos se lembram dos fatos enormes que os astronautas usaram quando foram à Lua. Para protegerem os astronautas, estes fatos eram pressurizados a 1/3 da pressão atmosférica normal à superfície da Terra. Isto tinha - e tem ainda - o enorme inconveniente de fazer com que o fato inche como um balão e se torne extremamente rígido, obrigando os astronautas a um esforço enorme apenas para se conseguirem mexer!

O MMU - Manned Maneuvering Unit - ainda usado
nas missões do Space Shuttle. É bem visível a rigidez do fato.

Agora estão a ser desenvolvidos no Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT) novos fatos, que resolvem este problema de uma forma diferente. É o próprio tecido que aplica a pressão sobre o corpo do astronauta, deixando apenas algumas partes a necessitarem de ser pressurizadas, nomeadamente o tronco e a cabeça. Isto confere uma flexibilidade muito maior ao fato, e uma consequente maior facilidade de movimentos.

Fonte: MIT

Links:

• Dava J. Newman
• Cosmic Log
• Space.com
  

One giant leap for space fashion: MIT team designs sleek, skintight spacesuit

Anne Trafton, News Office
July 16, 2007

In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility.

Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, wants to change that.

Newman is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow superior mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the moon. Her spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather's spacesuit--think more Spiderman, less John Glenn.

Traditional bulky spacesuits "do not afford the mobility and locomotion capability that astronauts need for partial gravity exploration missions. We really must design for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic capability," Newman says.

Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm, Trotti and Associates, have been working on the project for about seven years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space travel, but demonstrate what they're trying to achieve--a lightweight, skintight suit that will allow astronauts to become truly mobile lunar and Mars explorers.

Newman anticipates that the BioSuit could be ready by the time humans are ready to launch an expedition to Mars, possibly in about 10 years. Current spacesuits could not handle the challenges of such an exploratory mission, Newman says.


A New Approach

Newman's prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the traditional model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the astronaut's body to protect it from the vacuum of space, the suit relies on mechanical counter-pressure, which involves wrapping tight layers of material around the body. The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.

Over the past 40 years, spacesuits have gotten progressively heavier, and they now weigh in at about 300 pounds. That bulk -- much of which is due to multiple layers and the life support system coupled with the gas-pressurization -- severely constrains astronauts' movements. About 70 to 80 percent of the energy they exert while wearing the suit goes towards simply working against the suit to bend it.

"You can't do much bending of the arms or legs in that type of suit," Newman says.

When an astronaut is in a micro-gravity environment (for example, doing a spacewalk outside the International Space Station), working in such a massive suit is manageable, but, as Newman says, "It's a whole different ballgame when we go to the moon or Mars, and we have to go back to walking and running, or loping."

Another advantage to her BioSuit is safety: if a traditional spacesuit is punctured by a tiny meteorite or other object, the astronaut must return to the space station or home base immediately, before life-threatening decompression occurs. With the BioSuit, a small, isolated puncture can be wrapped much like a bandage, and the rest of the suit will be unaffected.

Newman says the finished BioSuit may be a hybrid that incorporates some elements of the traditional suits, including a gas-pressured torso section and helmet. An oxygen tank can be attached to the back.

The MIT researchers are focusing on the legs and arms, which are challenging parts to design. In the Man-Vehicle Lab at MIT, students test various wrapping techniques, based on 3D models they've created of the human in motion and how the skin stretches during locomotion, bending, climbing or driving a rover.

Key to their design is the pattern of lines on the suit, which correspond to lines of non-extension (lines on the skin that don't extend when you move your leg). Those lines provide a stiff "skeleton" of structural support, while providing maximal mobility.

To be worn in space, the BioSuit must deliver close to one-third the pressure exerted by Earth's atmosphere, or about 30 kPa (kilopascals). The current prototype suit exerts about 20 KPa consistently, and the researchers have gotten new models up to 25 to 30 KPa.


Staying in Shape

The suits could also help astronauts stay fit during the six-month journey to Mars. Studies have shown that astronauts lose up to 40 percent of their muscle strength in space, but the new outfits could be designed to offer varying resistance levels, allowing the astronauts to exercise against the suits during a long flight to Mars.

Although getting the suits into space is the ultimate goal, Newman is also focusing on Earth-bound applications in the short term, such as athletic training or helping people walk.

The new BioSuit builds on ideas developed in the 1960s and 1970s by Paul Webb, who first came up with the concept for a "space activity suit," and Saul Iberall, who postulated the lines of non-extension. However, neither the technology nor the materials were available then.

"Dr. Webb had a great idea, before its time. We're building on that work to try to make it feasible," says Newman.

The project was initially funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts.