Jun 19 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-189 - NASA'S SPACE LAUNCH SYSTEM PROGRAM KICKS OFF PRELIMINARY DESIGN REVIEW --WASHINGTON -- NASA is beginning a preliminary design review for its Space Launch System (SLS). This major program assessment will allow development of the agency's new heavy-lift rocket to move from concept to initial design. The preliminary design review process includes meticulous, detailed analyses of the entire launch vehicle. Representatives from NASA, its contractor partners and experts from across the aerospace industry validate elements of the rocket to ensure they can be safely and successfully integrated. This phase of development allows us to take a critical look at every design element to ensure it's capable of carrying humans to places we've never been before, said Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development in Washington. "This is the rocket that will send humans to an asteroid and Mars, so we want to be sure we get its development right." The review process will take several weeks and is expected to conclude this summer. The preliminary design review is incredibly important, as it demonstrates the SLS design meets all system requirements within acceptable risk constraints, giving us the green light for proceeding with the detailed design, said Todd May, manager of the SLS Program at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "We are on track and meeting all the milestones necessary to fly in 2017." The SLS is targeted for a test launch with no crew aboard in 2017, followed by a mission with astronauts to study an asteroid by as early as 2021. NASA is developing the SLS and its new Orion spacecraft to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. It will be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, expand human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration in the solar system.

MEDIA ADVISORY: M13-099 - NASA TELEVISION TO AIR JUNE 24 SPACE STATION SPACEWALK --WASHINGTON -- NASA Television will provide live coverage when two members of the Expedition 36 crew venture outside the International Space Station on Monday, June 24. The pair will conduct a six-hour spacewalk in preparation for the addition of a new Russian module later this year. NASA TV coverage of the spacewalk by Russian flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin will begin at 9 a.m. EDT. Yurchikin and Misurkin will begin the spacewalk about 9:35 a.m. when they open the hatch to the space station's Pirs docking compartment and float outside. They will replace a fluid flow control panel on the station's Zarya module and install clamps for future power cables as an early step toward swapping the Pirs airlock with a new multipurpose laboratory module. The Russian Federal Space Agency plans to launch a combination research facility, airlock and docking port late this year on a Proton rocket. Yurchikhin and Misurkin also will retrieve several science experiments on the outside of the Zvezda service module. The spacewalk will be the 169th in support of space station assembly and maintenance, the sixth for Yurchikhin and the first for Misurkin. Yurchikhin will wear an Orlan-MK spacesuit with red stripes while Misurkin will wear a suit with blue stripes. Both spacewalkers will be equipped with NASA helmet cameras to provide close-up views of their work. This is the second of up to six Russian spacewalks planned for this year. Two U.S. spacewalks by NASA's Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency are scheduled in July.