May 18 2016
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY M16-055 NASA Invites Media, Social Media to June Deep Space Rocket Booster Test
Media and social media followers are invited to watch as NASA tests the largest, most powerful booster in the world for the agency's new deep space rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), on June 28 at Orbital ATK Aerospace System's test facility in Promontory, Utah. SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft will launch astronauts on missions to explore multiple destinations on the journey to Mars.
A test version of the booster for NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System, will fire up for the second of two qualification ground tests June 28 at prime contractor Orbital ATK's test facility in Promontory, Utah. The test will provide NASA with critical data to support booster qualification for flight. When completed, two five-segment boosters and four RS-25 main engines will power the world's most powerful rocket, with the Orion spacecraft atop, to achieve human exploration to deep-space destinations, including our journey to Mars.
NASA social media followers can apply for credentials to attend the booster test firing as part of a NASA Social event. A maximum of 45 participants will be selected to attend events on June 27, which include tours of the Orbital ATK facilities and opportunities for interviews with NASA and Orbital ATK officials. Participants also will have the opportunity to view, and feel, the powerful test firing on June 28.
Social media followers can apply to attend the event at: [[1]]
Registration is for U.S. citizens only and closes Monday, May 23. All social media accreditation applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Details and rules for social media accreditation also are listed on the website.
Members of the U.S. media interested in covering the June 27 events and June 28 test can request credentials by contacting Orbital ATK's Kay Anderson at 435-230-2787 or kay.anderson@orbitalatk.com.
This is the second two-minute, full-duration qualification test for the booster, and will provide NASA with critical data to support booster qualification for flight. It also will be the last time the booster is fired in a test environment before the first flight of SLS and Orion in 2018.
During the test, 82 qualification test objectives will be measured through more than 530 instrumentation channels on the booster at a target initial temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit – the colder end of its accepted propellant temperature range.
The first, full-scale booster qualification test was successfully completed in March 2015 and demonstrated acceptable performance of the booster design at 90 degrees Fahrenheit -- the highest end of the booster’s accepted propellant temperature range. Testing at the thermal extremes experienced by the booster on the launch pad is important to understanding the effects of temperature on the performance of the propellant.
Two five-segment solid rocket boosters and four RS-25 main engines will power the SLS. Solid rocket boosters operate in parallel with the main engines for the first two minutes of flight, providing more than 75 percent of the thrust needed for the rocket to overcome Earth’s gravitational pull.
The SLS Block I configuration will have a minimum 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capability and be powered by twin boosters and four RS-25 engines. The next planned upgrade of SLS, Block 1B, would use a more powerful exploration upper stage for more ambitious missions with a 105-metric-ton (115-ton) lift capacity. Block 2 will add a pair of more powerful boosters to provide a 130-metric-ton (143-ton) lift capacity. In each configuration, SLS will continue to use the same core stage and four RS-25 engines.
Goddard Visitor Center, Celebrating its Big 4-0, Is Ready for Its Close-Up with Google
Practically everyone on the planet has accessed Google Maps at one time or another. OK, maybe not EVERYONE, but quite a few people, you know who you are! What is so amazing about Google Maps is its ability to help the user find his or her way from HERE to THERE, but for its ability to take the user directly THERE from their computer screen. Google Street View collection has made it possible for users to virtually visit hundreds of thousands of streets, museums, cultural centers, landmarks, hidden gems and roadside attractions. You can virtually visit the Taj Mahal, the canals of Venice, even underwater at the Great Barrier Reef and get up close and personal.
The Goddard Space Flight Center’s Visitor Center located in Greenbelt, Maryland, was treated to a visit from a Google Street View Collection team on Aug. 4, 2014. Goddard was eager to share its own amazing collection of space memorabilia, life-sized satellite models of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scale models of the Hubble, even our very own moon rock, as well as interactive exhibits and awe-inspiring images of space. And today, coincidentally, the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Goddard Visitor Center on May 18, 1976, the Google Street View team released to the public its street view of the Visitor Center!
Back in August 2014, the Google Street View Collection Team of Janson Lo and Alan Chau brought both the Street View Trolley, which is a camera mounted on a sophisticated dolly to capture the interior of the Visitor Center, as well as the Google Trekker to capture the Rocket Garden located in back of the Visitor Center. The Rocket Garden has such highlights as a Delta Rocket, an Apollo space capsule and sounding rockets in all shapes and sizes. The Google Trekker is a backpack camera that films a 360 degree view as the camera operator moves through the landscape capturing images. At 50 pounds of hardware, it is not exactly something you’d want to take on a hike! The Google camera dolly, used mainly for indoor shooting, is pushed through the exhibit area by an operator and images are collected at zero, 90, 180 and 270 degrees as the camera swings around to each location for a shot. These images are then sent back to Google, and engineers there are able to stitch together the images for a full 360 degree view.
They were also able to capture the Science on a Sphere exhibit at Goddard, which is a mesmerizing visualization system developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that uses computers and video projectors to display animated data on the outside of a suspended, six-foot diameter, white sphere. Four strategically placed projectors work in unison to coat the sphere with data such as "3-D surface of the Earth and Nighttime Lights," "Moon and Mars" and "X-ray Sun."
Now that the street view has been released please feel free to visit it at: Goddard Visitor Center Google Street View
Or if you’re in the neighborhood, by all means, come on by and see it in person. We love visitors! Admission to the Visitor Center and parking is free.
IRIS Releases New Imagery of Mercury Transit
On May 9, 2016, a NASA solar telescope called the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, observed Mercury crossing in front of the sun — an astronomical phenomenon known as a Mercury transit. During the transit, IRIS focused on Mercury in order to help calibrate its telescope. By observing the planet — a region that ideally should appear completely dark — the team could determine just how the optics focus incoming light. IRIS can then be recalibrated to accommodate any changes that may have happened during launch into space.
IRIS tracks a small portion of the sun — in incredibly high resolution — at any given time, so IRIS was able to track Mercury for 50-minute chunks of time after which the telescope was repointed. Repointing takes about 10 minutes during which time no data can be gathered, so IRIS was not able to see Mercury during its whole transit. The inset shows a blend of IRIS observations with SDO filling in the gaps while IRIS was repointing.
The thin, dark line that appears in the IRIS imagery is a slit that helps focus incoming light for an instrument called a spectrograph. The spectrograph analyzes the wavelengths present in one thin slice of the telescope's view at a time. Information about the wavelengths helps IRIS determine the temperature and movement of the material hovering in the lower solar atmosphere, the chromosphere — a dynamic region of the sun that is is mysteriously hotter than the surface of the sun itself. Understanding why the atmosphere gets hotter the farther away it gets from the original source of heat is a key area of study for IRIS.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Explorer Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin designed the IRIS observatory and manages the mission for NASA.
