Nov 20 2015
From The Space Library
Release 15-224 NASA Orders SpaceX Crew Mission to International Space Station
NASA took a significant step Friday toward expanding research opportunities aboard the International Space Station with its first mission order from Hawthorne, California based-company SpaceX to launch astronauts from U.S. soil.
This is the second in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts. The Boeing Company of Houston received its first crew mission order in May.
"It’s really exciting to see SpaceX and Boeing with hardware in flow for their first crew rotation missions," said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. "It is important to have at least two healthy and robust capabilities from U.S. companies to deliver crew and critical scientific experiments from American soil to the space station throughout its lifespan."
Determination of which company will fly its mission to the station first will be made at a later time. The contracts call for orders to take place prior to certification to support the lead time necessary for missions in late 2017, provided the contractors meet readiness conditions.
Commercial crew missions to the space station, on the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, will restore America’s human spaceflight capabilities and increase the amount of time dedicated to scientific research aboard the orbiting laboratory.
SpaceX’s crew transportation system, including the Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, has advanced through several development and certification phases. The company recently performed a critical design review, which demonstrated the transportation system has reached a sufficient level of design maturity to work toward fabrication, assembly, integration and test activities.
"The authority to proceed with Dragon's first operational crew mission is a significant milestone in the Commercial Crew Program and a great source of pride for the entire SpaceX team," said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX. “When Crew Dragon takes NASA astronauts to the space station in 2017, they will be riding in one of the safest, most reliable spacecraft ever flown. We're honored to be developing this capability for NASA and our country.”
Commercial crew launches will reduce the cost, per seat, of transporting NASA astronauts to the space station compared to what the agency must pay the Russian Federal Space Agency for the same service. If, however, NASA does not receive the full requested funding for CCtCap contracts in fiscal year 2016 and beyond, the agency will be forced to delay future milestones for both U.S. companies and continue its sole reliance on Russia to transport American astronauts to the space station.
Orders under the CCtCap contracts are made two to three years prior to actual mission dates in order to provide time for each company to manufacture and assemble the launch vehicle and spacecraft. Each company also must successfully complete a certification process before NASA will give the final approval for flight. Each contract includes a minimum of two and a maximum potential of six missions.
A standard commercial crew mission to the station will carry up to four NASA or NASA-sponsored crew members and about 220 pounds of pressurized cargo. The spacecraft will remain at the station for up to 210 days, available as an emergency lifeboat during that time.
“Commercial crew launches are really important for helping us meet the demand for research on the space station because it allows us to increase the crew to seven,” said Julie Robinson, International Space Station chief scientist. “Over the long term, it also sets the foundation for scientific access to future commercial research platforms in low- Earth orbit.”
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manages the CCtCap contracts and is working with each company to ensure commercial transportation system designs and post-certification missions will meet the agency’s safety requirements. Activities that follow the award of missions include a series of mission-related reviews and approvals leading to launch. The program also will be involved in all operational phases of missions to ensure crew safety.
NASA Invites Media to Tour Quantum Computing Lab, Talk to Experts
MEDIA ADVISORY: 15-035AM
For the first time, NASA is inviting members of the news media to tour the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (QuAIL) located at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility on Tuesday, Dec. 8, at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Media will hear from a panel of computer scientists involved in the emerging quantum computing effort at Ames as they speak about its importance, a variety of real-world applications being studied, and where quantum computing may take us in the future.
QuAIL supports a collaborative effort among NASA, Google and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) to explore the potential for quantum computers to tackle optimization problems that are difficult or impossible for traditional supercomputers to handle.
Panelists will include:
- Rupak Biswas, director of Exploration Technology at Ames
- Hartmut Neven, director of Engineering at Google, Inc.
- David Bell, director of the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science for the USRA
Following the panel briefing, media will be given a tour of the NAS facility that houses the 1,097-qubit D-Wave 2X™ quantum computer. The team extensively retrofitted the facility to provide isolation from noise and vibration, as well as the infrastructure required to cool the system to its near-absolute-zero operating temperature.
Researchers on NASA’s QuAIL team are using the system to investigate areas where quantum algorithms might someday dramatically improve the agency's ability to solve difficult optimization problems in aeronautics, Earth and space sciences, and space exploration.
While NASA researchers have given interviews about quantum computing, this is the first time news media will be permitted to take photos. Future media tour requests will be limited to specially scheduled opportunities. Interested members of the news media should contact Kimberly Williams at: kimberly.k.williams@nasa.gov before 5 p.m. (PST) on Dec. 7, for credentials.
Where Alice in Wonderland Meets Albert Einstein
One hundred years ago this month, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity, one of the most important scientific achievements in the last century.
A key result of Einstein’s theory is that matter warps space-time, and thus a massive object can cause an observable bending of light from a background object. The first success of the theory was the observation, during a solar eclipse, that light from a distant background star was deflected by the predicted amount as it passed near the sun.
Astronomers have since found many examples of this phenomenon, known as “gravitational lensing.” More than just a cosmic illusion, gravitational lensing provides astronomers with a way of probing extremely distant galaxies and groups of galaxies in ways that would otherwise be impossible even with the most powerful telescopes.
The latest results from the “Cheshire Cat” group of galaxies show how manifestations of Einstein’s 100-year-old theory can lead to new discoveries today. Astronomers have given the group this name because of the smiling cat-like appearance. Some of the feline features are actually distant galaxies whose light has been stretched and bent by the large amounts of mass, most of which is in the form of dark matter detectable only through its gravitational effect, found in the system.
More specifically, the mass that distorts the faraway galactic light is found surrounding the two giant “eye” galaxies and a “nose” galaxy. The multiple arcs of the circular “face” arise from gravitational lensing of four different background galaxies well behind the “eye” galaxies. The individual galaxies of the system, as well as the gravitationally lensed arcs, are seen in optical light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Each “eye” galaxy is the brightest member of its own group of galaxies and these two groups are racing toward one another at over 300,000 miles per hour. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple) show hot gas that has been heated to millions of degrees, which is evidence that the galaxy groups are slamming into one another. Chandra’s X-ray data also reveal that the left “eye” of the Cheshire Cat group contains an actively feeding supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
Astronomers think the Cheshire Cat group will become what is known as a fossil group, defined as a gathering of galaxies that contains one giant elliptical galaxy and other much smaller, fainter ones. Fossil groups may represent a temporary stage that nearly all galaxy groups pass through at some point in their evolution. Therefore, astronomers are eager to better understand the properties and behavior of these groups.
The Cheshire Cat represents the first opportunity for astronomers to study a fossil group progenitor. Astronomers estimate that the two “eyes” of the cat will merge in about one billion years, leaving one very large galaxy and dozens of much smaller ones in a combined group. At that point it will have become a fossil group and a more appropriate name may be the “Cyclops” group.
A new paper on the Cheshire Cat was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal and appears online. The authors are Jimmy Irwin (University of Alabama), Renato Dupke (National Observatory of Brazil), Rodrigo Carrasco (Gemini Observatory), Peter Maksym (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Lucas Johnson, Raymond White III (Alabama).
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
