Aug 30 2012

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 12-303 NASA DAWN SPACECRAFT PREPARES FOR TREK TOWARD DWARF PLANET

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to become the first probe to orbit and study two distant destinations to help scientists answer questions about the formation of our solar system. The spacecraft is scheduled to leave the giant asteroid Vesta on Sept. 5 EDT (Sept. 4 PDT) to start its 2 1/2-year journey to the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn began its 3-billion-mile odyssey to explore the two most massive objects in the main asteroid belt in 2007. Dawn arrived at Vesta in July 2011 and will reach Ceres in early 2015. These two members of the asteroid belt have been witness to much of our solar system's history. The valuable evidence Dawn gathered from examining the first of these cosmic fossils up close improved our understanding of asteroids and provided context for a future human mission to visit an asteroid. The spacecraft will spiral away from Vesta as gently as it arrived, using a special, hyper-efficient system called ion propulsion. The ion propulsion system uses electricity to ionize xenon to generate thrust. The 12-inch-wide ion thrusters provide less power than conventional engines but can maintain thrust for months at a time. "Thrust is engaged and we now are climbing away from Vesta atop a blue-green pillar of xenon ions," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "We are feeling somewhat wistful about concluding a fantastically productive and exciting exploration of Vesta, but now we have our sights set on dwarf planet Ceres." Dawn provided close-up views of Vesta and unprecedented detail about the giant asteroid. Findings revealed that the asteroid had completely melted in the past, forming a layered body with an iron core. The spacecraft also revealed the collisions Vesta suffered in its southern hemisphere. The asteroid survived two colossal impacts in the last 2 billion years. Without Dawn, scientists would not have known about the dramatic troughs sculpted around Vesta, which are ripples from the two south polar impacts. "We went to Vesta to fill in the blanks of our knowledge about the early history of our solar system," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "Dawn has filled in those pages and more, revealing to us how special Vesta is as a survivor from the earliest days of the solar system. We now can say with certainty that Vesta resembles a small planet more closely than a typical asteroid." JPL manages the mission to Vesta and Ceres for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for the overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission's team.

CONTRACT RELEASE: C12-046 NASA SELECTS RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND LOGISTICAL SERVICES CONTRACT

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected TechTrans International Inc. of Houston to provide Russian language and logistical services for the International Space Station Program at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Under the contract, TechTrans will provide Russian interpretation, translation and language training, as well as office management and administration, international travel processing, ground transportation and other related services to support the International Space Station Program. The work will be performed primarily in Houston, Russia and Kazakhstan. The two-year base contract valued at $19.9 million begins Oct. 1 and extends through Sept. 30, 2014. Four potential options, totaling approximately $62.9 million would extend the contract through Sept. 30, 2020. The contract provides for possible additional work not to exceed $20 million. The total potential value of the contract is $102.8 million.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M12-166 NASA'S CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST TO ATTEND UTEP SPACE TECH CENTER OPENING

WASHINGTON -- NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck will join officials from The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), along with state and local leaders, for the official opening of the Center for Space Exploration Technology Research (cSETR) and the NASA Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Education Laboratory at 12:30 p.m. EDT (10:30 a.m. MDT), Thursday, Sept. 6. The opening will take place in the foyer of the university's engineering building. The NASA-funded cSETR conducts analytical, experimental and computational research in energy and propulsion engineering. With a particular focus on green propulsion, cSETR will conduct research and testing of technologies in relevant environments, space structures, clean power generation, solar energy and carbon dioxide management studies. Peck also will kick off the UTEP Centennial Lecture Series at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2:30 p.m. MDT), in the university's Undergraduate Learning Center, room 126, as the first presenter for the academic year. In 2014, UTEP will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Leading up to that milestone, the Centennial Lecture Series brings in speakers to provide perspective on a broad range of contemporary topics that impact society, culture and lives.

RELEASE: 12-289 NASA LAUNCHES RADIATION BELT STORM PROBES MISSION

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), the first twin-spacecraft mission designed to explore our planet's radiation belts, launched into the predawn skies at 4:05a.m. EDT Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. "Scientists will learn in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles, what causes them to change and how these processes affect the upper reaches of the atmosphere around Earth," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington. "The information collected from these probes will benefit the public by allowing us to better protect our satellites and understand how space weather affects communications and technology on Earth." The two satellites, each weighing just less than 1,500 pounds, comprise the first dual-spacecraft mission specifically created to investigate this hazardous regions of near-Earth space, known as the radiation belts. These two belts, named for their discoverer, James Van Allen, encircle the planet and are filled with highly charged particles. The belts are affected by solar storms and coronal mass ejections and sometimes swell dramatically. When this occurs, they can pose dangers to communications, GPS satellites and human spaceflight. "We have never before sent such comprehensive and high-quality instruments to study high radiation regions of space," said Barry Mauk, RBSP project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "RBSP was crafted to help us learn more about, and ultimately predict, the response of the radiation belts to solar inputs." The hardy RBSP satellites will spend the next 2 years looping through every part of both Van Allen belts. By having two spacecraft in different regions of the belts at the same time, scientists finally will be able to gather data from within the belts themselves, learning how they change over space and time. Designers fortified RBSP with special protective plating and rugged electronics to operate and survive within this punishing region of space that other spacecraft avoid. In addition, a space weather broadcast will transmit selected data from those instruments around the clock, giving researchers a check on current conditions near Earth. "The excitement of seeing the spacecraft in orbit and beginning to perform science measurements is like no other thrill," said Richard Fitzgerald, RBSP project manager at APL. "The entire RBSP team, from across every organization, worked together to produce an amazing pair of spacecraft." RBSP was lifted into orbit aboard an Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex-41, as the rocket's plume lit the dark skies over the Florida coast. The first RBSP spacecraft is scheduled to separate from the Atlas rocket's Centaur booster 1 hour, 18 minutes, 52 seconds after launch. The second RBSP spacecraft is set to follow 12 minutes, 14 seconds later. Mission controllers using APL's 60-foot satellite dish will establish radio contact with each probe immediately after separation. During the next 60 days, operators will power up all flight systems and science instruments and deploy long antenna booms, two of which are more than 54 yards long. Data about the particles that swirl through the belts, and the fields and waves that transport them, will be gathered by five instrument suites designed and operated by teams at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark; the University of Iowa in Iowa City; University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; and the University of New Hampshire in Durham; and the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Va. The data will be analyzed by scientists across the nation almost immediately. RBSP is the second mission in NASA's Living With a Star (LWS) program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. APL built the RBSP spacecraft and will manage the mission for NASA. NASA's Launch Services Program at Kennedy is responsible for launch management. United Launch Alliance provided the Atlas V launch service.