Jul 8 2009
From The Space Library
Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that NASA’s GSFC had selected Orbital Sciences to design, manufacture, integrate, and test a new low-Earth-orbit space-science satellite for GSFC’s GEMS mission. The purpose of the GEMS mission was to help answer fundamental questions about the universe. The mission aimed to find energy released near black holes, locate the origin of x-ray emissions from pulsars, and identify the magnetic field structure in high-energy nebulae. Under the US$40 million contract, which GSFC had awarded through NASA’s SMEX Program, Orbital Sciences would provide the spacecraft bus and conduct mission operations. Orbital’s proven spacecraft bus, LEOStar 2TM, would provide the design for the GEMS bus. GEMS would be the eighth satellite modeled after LEOStar 2 and the fifth SMEX satellite to use that platform. Previous space-based x-ray observatories had been insensitive to polarization but, for the GEMS mission, Orbital planned to design the first observatory able to measure x-ray polarization systematically. This capability would enable scientists to use the GEMS observatory to study scattering, magnetic fields, and strong gravitational fields. The GEMS team planned to make the mission data accessible to the astrophysics community and to the public via NASA’s High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center Web site.
Orbital Sciences Corporation, “Orbital Selected by NASA To Build New Space Science Satellite To Study X-ray Polarization,” news release, 8 July 2009, http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=700 (accessed 16 August 2011).
NASA announced that it had named PETI-330 the NASA Commercial Invention of 2008. PETI- 330 was a high-temperature resin used in the development of advanced composite-fabrication technology for NASA’s aeronautics supersonics program. The resin was the first commercially available, off-the-shelf, high-temperature resin with processing characteristics useful for resin infusion, resin-transfer molding, and vacuum-assisted resin-transfer molding manufacturing processes. Researchers at NASA’s LaRC had designed PETI-330 with the strength and the high- temperature properties ideal for large structures exposed to hot temperatures—high-performance aerospace vehicles, for example. NASA’s general counsel had selected the winning invention, with technical assistance from NASA’s Inventions and Contributions Board.
NASA, “Supersonic Technology Named NASA Commercial Invention of 2008,” news release 09-157, 8 July 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-157_Invention_of_Year.html (accessed 10 August 2011).
NASA announced that it had successfully demonstrated the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS), an alternative system enabling astronauts to escape their launch vehicle in an emergency. In a simulated launch at 6:26 a.m. (EDT), staged at NASA’s WFF in Virginia, NASA had tested the concept—a system that could safely propel a crew away from a launch vehicle during an emergency on the launchpad or during ascent. For the Orion spacecraft, NASA had selected an LAS that used a single solid launch-abort motor. By contrast, the MLAS used four solid rocket- abort motors. The motors were inside a bullet-shaped composite fairing attached to a full-scale mockup of a crew module. For the test, NASA launched the 33-foot-high (10-meter-high) MLAS vehicle to an altitude of 1 mile (1.6 kilometers), with the demonstration beginning after the four solid-rocket motors had burned out. The mock crew module separated from the launch vehicle approximately 7 seconds into flight and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean. The test demonstrated the unpowered flight of the MLAS along a stable trajectory; the MLAS’s reorientation and stabilization; the separation of the crew module from the abort motors; and the stabilization and parachute recovery of the crew module. The test represented NASA’s first demonstration of a passively stabilized LAS using a vehicle of this size and weight class. This was also NASA’s first attempt to acquire full-scale aero-acoustic data from a faired capsule in flight. NASA planned to use data from the parachute element to help validate the simulation tools and the techniques for developing Orion’s parachute system. The test also provided staff of NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) with experience flight-testing a spacecraft concept.
NASA, “NASA Tests Alternate Launch Abort System for Astronaut Escape,” news release 09-156, 8 July 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ09_156_MLAS_launch_successful.html (accessed 10 August 2011).
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