Dec 21 2011
From The Space Library
NASA Extends Electrical Systems Engineering Services Contract
GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA has extended the ordering period and increased the maximum ordering value of the Electrical Systems Engineering Services (ESES) interim contract with MEI Technologies, Inc. of Houston.
This contract action has been implemented to sustain performance until the ESES II follow-on contract is awarded. It is anticipated ESES II will be awarded by September 2012.
The ordering period has been extended for six months from February 9, 2012, through August 8, 2012, with an option to extend for an additional three months through November 8, 2012. The maximum ordering value of this indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract has been increased by $64.5 million to a total of $163.5 million, with an additional ordering value of $25.2 million to be added if the three-month option is exercised.
Under this contract, MEI, Inc. performs tasks necessary and incidental for the study, design, development, fabrication, integration, testing, verification, and operations of space flight, airborne, and ground system hardware and software. This includes development and validation of new technologies to enable future space and science missions in support of the Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Task orders issued under the ESES interim contract provide critical support to a wide range of NASA's GSFC missions and projects including: Global Precipitation Measurement, Magnetospheric MultiScale, Landsat Data Continuity, James Webb Space Telescope, Soil Moisture Active-Passive, Soft X-Ray Spectrometer for ASTRO-H, the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System, and others.
Cryogenic Testing Completed For NASA's Webb Telescope Mirrors
GREENBELT, Md. -- Cryogenic testing is complete for the final six primary mirror segments and a secondary mirror that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The milestone represents the successful culmination of a process that took years and broke new ground in manufacturing and testing large mirrors.
"The mirror completion means we can build a large, deployable telescope for space," said Scott Willoughby, vice president and Webb program manager at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. "We have proven real hardware will perform to the requirements of the mission."
The Webb telescope has 21 mirrors, with 18 mirror segments working together as a large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror. Each individual mirror segment now has been successfully tested to operate at 40 Kelvin (-387 Fahrenheit or -233 Celsius).
"Mirrors need to be cold so their own heat does not drown out the very faint infrared images," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element manager for the Webb telescope at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "With the completion of all mirror cryogenic testing, the toughest challenge since the beginning of the program is now completely behind us."
Completed at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF) at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., a ten-week test series chilled the primary mirror segments to -379 degrees Fahrenheit. During two test cycles, telescope engineers took extremely detailed measurements of how each individual mirror's shape changed as it cooled. Testing verified each mirror changed shape with temperature as expected and each one will be the correct shape upon reaching the extremely cold operating temperature after reaching deep space.
"Achieving the best performance requires conditioning and testing the mirrors in the XRCF at temperatures just as cold as will be encountered in space," said Helen Cole, project manager for Webb Telescope mirror activities at the XRCF. "This testing ensures the mirrors will focus crisply in space, which will allow us to see new wonders in our universe."
Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. successfully completed comparable testing on the secondary mirror. However, because the secondary mirror is convex (i.e., it has a domed surface that bulges outward instead of a concave one that dishes inward like a bowl), it does not converge light to a focus. Testing the mirror presented a unique challenge involving a special process and more complex optical measurements.
The Webb telescope is the world's next-generation space observatory and successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It will be most powerful space telescope ever built, provide images of the first galaxies ever formed, and explore planets around distant stars. It is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.
NASA Conducts Orion Parachute Testing For Orbital Test Flight
HOUSTON - NASA successfully conducted a drop test of the Orion crew vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert Tuesday in preparation for its orbital flight test in 2014. Orion will carry astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a safe re-entry and landing.
A C-130 plane dropped the Orion test article from an altitude of 25,000 feet above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Orion's drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 and 20,000 feet, followed by the pilot parachutes, which then deployed two main landing parachutes. This particular drop test examined how Orion would land under two possible failure scenarios.
Orion's parachutes are designed to open in stages, which is called reefing, to manage the stresses on the parachutes after they are deployed. The reefing stages allow the parachutes to sequentially open, first at 54 percent of the parachutes' full diameter, and then at 73 percent. This test examined how the parachutes would perform if the second part of the sequence was skipped.
The second scenario was a failure to deploy one of Orion's three main parachutes, requiring the spacecraft to land with only two. Orion landed on the desert floor at a speed of almost 33 feet per second, which is the maximum designed touchdown speed of the spacecraft. Since 2007, the Orion program has conducted a vigorous parachute air and ground test program and provided the chutes for NASA's successful pad abort test in 2010. Lessons learned from this experience have improved Orion's parachute system.
NASA Selects Student Teams For Microgravity Research Flights
WASHINGTON - NASA has selected 24 undergraduate student teams to test science experiments under microgravity conditions. The teams will fly during 2012 as part of the agency's Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program (RGEFP).
The teams will design and build their experiments at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and conduct tests aboard an aircraft modified to mimic a reduced-gravity environment. The aircraft will fly approximately 30 parabolas with roller-coaster-like climbs and dips to produce periods of weightlessness and hyper-gravity ranging from 0 to 2g's.
"The program provides unique opportunities for students all over the country to experience life as a scientist or engineer in the working world," said Douglas Goforth, RGEFP manager at Johnson. "We hope the experience of performing experiments in microgravity will help inspire students to pursue careers in technical fields."
Ten of the teams will participate through the Systems Engineering Education Discovery (SEED) flight week April 20-28. They will work with NASA scientists and engineers as part of ongoing systems engineering projects pertinent to future agency research and missions.
The 2012 SEED teams are from Carthage College, Georgia Institute of Technology, Northwest Nazarene University, Oklahoma State University, University of Houston-Clear Lake, San Jacinto College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Washington University in St. Louis and Yale University.
The other teams were selected through the Microgravity University program and will conduct their research June 8-16. Those teams are from Arizona State University, University of Southern California, Yale University, University of Florida, Boise State University, Purdue University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Santa Ana Community College, Lamar University, University of Texas-El Paso, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, University of Washington and West Virginia University.
The RGEFP experience includes scientific research, experimental design, test operations and outreach activities. The program supports NASA's goal of strengthening the nation's future workforce.
Trio Heads For Holiday Reunion With Space Station Residents
HOUSTON - NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit, Russian Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers of the Netherlands launched to the International Space Station aboard their Soyuz TMA-03M craft at 7:16 a.m. CST Wednesday, Dec. 21 (7:16 p.m. local time), from Kazakhstan.
Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers are scheduled to dock to the Rassvet module of the station at 9:22 a.m. Friday, Dec. 23. They will receive a holiday welcome from station Commander Dan Burbank of NASA and Russian Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin, who have been aboard the orbital laboratory since mid-November.
NASA Television will provide live docking coverage beginning at 8:45 a.m. Friday. Hatch opening and welcoming ceremonies will occur about three hours later.
Upon arrival, Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers will become members of Expedition 30, restoring the station's crew complement to six. They will continue scientific research and christen a new era of commercial resupply services from the United States, greeting the first SpaceX Dragon spaceship in mid-February. A Russian spacewalk to continue external assembly and maintenance of the station also is planned during Expedition 30.
Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin are scheduled to return to Earth in March, and Pettit, Kononenko and Kuipers will return home in May.
