Aug 4 2015
From The Space Library
Release M15-116 NASA Invites Media to Orion Spacecraft Parachute Test in Arizona
NASA is inviting media to attend a test of the Orion spacecraft’s parachutes on Wednesday, Aug. 26 at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. An engineering model of the spacecraft will drop from an airplane 35,000 feet up to evaluate how it fares when the parachute system does not perform as expected.
During the test, Orion engineers will carry out a scenario in which one of the spacecraft’s two drogue parachutes and one of its three main parachutes fail. This high-risk assessment is the penultimate drop test of the scheduled engineering evaluations leading up to next year’s tests to qualify the parachute system for crewed flights.
Media will have the opportunity to interview Orion engineers, see the model up close and view the test from the drop zone.
Orion’s parachutes, critical to the safe return of the spacecraft to Earth, performed flawlessly during the spacecraft’s uncrewed flight test in December 2014, helping slow the capsule from its high-speed re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere from approximately 20,000 mph to about 20 mph when the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
The Orion spacecraft is built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before, including to an asteroid and Mars. The spacecraft will serve as the exploration vehicle that carrier crews to space, provides emergency abort capabilities, sustains the crew during space travel, and provides safe re-entry from deep space. Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System.
Algae Bloom in Lake St. Clair
On July 28, 2015, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite captured images of algal blooms around the Great Lakes, visible as swirls of green in this image of Lake St. Clair and in western Lake Erie.
Earlier in July, NOAA scientists predicted that the 2015 season for harmful algal blooms would be severe in western Lake Erie. They suggest that algae growth in western Lake Erie could rival the blooms of 2011. Algae in this basin thrive when there is an abundance of nutrients (many from agricultural runoff) and sunlight, as well as warm water temperatures. The season runs through summer and peaks in September.
Research confirmed that in 2011, phosphorus from farm runoff combined with favorable weather and lake conditions to produce a bloom three times larger than previously observed. The researchers noted that if land management practices and climate change trends continue, the lake is likely to see more blooms like the 2011 event.
Harmful algal blooms can lead to fish kills. They also can affect the safety of water for recreation and for consumption (as was the case in Toledo, Ohio, and southeast Michigan during a 2014 bloom). As of July 30, 2015, drinking water was reported to be safe in these areas.
In April 2015, NASA and several partners announced a new multi-agency effort to develop an early warning indicator for harmful algal blooms in fresh water. The system is expected to make ocean color satellite imagery more easily available to environmental and water quality managers.
Release M15-117 NASA Deputy Administrator to Tour Composites Technology Center at Marshall
Deputy Administrator Dava Newman will tour NASA’s National Center for Advanced Manufacturing Composites Technology Center at 2:30 p.m. CDT, Thursday, Aug. 6, during a visit to the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. There, she will see a new robotic fiber placement system slated to develop processes for building the largest composite rocket parts ever manufactured.
The tour will take place in building 4707. Journalists must report to the Redstone Arsenal Joint Visitor Control Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout Road/Research Park Boulevard no later than 1 p.m. Thursday. Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. Media will need two forms of photo ID and proof of car insurance.
Newman and Jeffrey Sheehy, senior technical officer in the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, will join Marshall Center Director Patrick Scheuermann; Chris Singer, director of Marshall’s Engineering Directorate; and John Vickers, manager of NASA's National Center for Advanced Manufacturing, to see the robot and other facility equipment for making composite structures.
NASA is developing capabilities that enable more affordable, lightweight materials and processes for infusion into its unique missions, systems and platforms. Lightweight composites have the potential to increase the amount of payload carried by a rocket as well as lowering its total production cost. NASA is conducting composites manufacturing technology development and demonstration projects that are applicable to the Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket designed to take explorers on deep space missions, including to an asteroid and Mars.
