Mar 8 2016

From The Space Library

CONTRACT RELEASE C16-005 NASA Awards Contract for Test Evaluation, Support

NASA has awarded a contract to Jacobs Technology Inc. of Tullahoma, Tennessee, for continued test and operations support at the agency’s White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The Test Evaluation and Support Team 2 (TEST2) contract is a five-year hybrid, firm-fixed-price baseline with indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, cost-plus-award-fee and firm-fixed-price task orders. The period of performance for this acquisition is five years, from May 1, 2016 through April 30, 2021, which includes a two-year base period and three one-year options. The maximum value is $400 million. This acquisition is a follow-on contract to the current Test Evaluation and Support Team Contract. The contract will cover work at the WSTF and other locations.

Under TEST2, Jacobs Technology will provide expertise and infrastructure in the areas of: propulsion system testing; materials and components testing; hypervelocity impact testing; critical flight hardware processing and refurbishment; composite pressure systems testing and analysis; operation and maintenance of on-site laboratories and facilities, and emergency services.

WSTF is a component of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. A self-contained facility with medical, fire and hazardous rescue personnel, it tests and evaluates potentially hazardous materials, spaceflight components, and rocket propulsion systems for NASA centers, other government agencies, and commercial industry.

RELEASE 16-027 NASA Recognizes Outstanding Small Businesses with Industry Awards

The winners of the Fiscal Year 2015 agency-level Small Business Industry Awards (SBIA) were announced Tuesday during the spring 2016 NASA Industry Forum meeting hosted by the agency’s Office of Small Business Programs at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The SBIA Program awards recognize every fiscal year one small business prime contractor, small business subcontractor, and large business prime contractor for outstanding efforts in support of NASA’s mission. Nominations were received from all 10 agency’s centers.

“American small businesses play a critical role in making space exploration and scientific discovery possible,” said Glenn Delgado, associate administrator of NASA’s Small Business Program. “As NASA continues to reach for new heights, we’re also helping to create jobs and support small businesses right here on Earth.”

Dynetics Technical Services, Inc., of Huntsville, Alabama, was named Agency Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year. The company works with NASA on enterprise information technology services so that the agency has the right tools to reach for new heights.

Arcata Associates, Inc., of Las Vegas, Nevada, was named Agency Small Business Subcontractor of the Year. Managing operations and maintenance for NASA’s Dryden Aeronautical Test Range in Edwards, California, the company ensures NASA can continue its critical work in aviation research and development.

Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., of Huntsville, was named Agency Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year. The company supports the International Space Station Program Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and during the past year, provided more than 8,600 continuous hours of real-time science operations support to the station. This cutting-edge science advances knowledge that benefits people on here on Earth and helps make future human exploration missions possible.

Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International, Inc., and Mathematical Research, Inc. (MRI), of Houston, were the first recipients of the agency’s new Mentor-Protégé Agreement of the Year award. Hamilton Sunstrand provides life support equipment for the space station and works with NASA to make spacewalks safer. Working as a mentor to MRI, Hamilton Sunstrand helped the company create better processes and internal systems, ultimately resulting in lower costs for the government.

MEDIA ADVISORY M16-025 NASA to Discuss Science Launching on Next Commercial Resupply Space Station Flight

NASA astronaut Tim Kopra sets up hardware for the Burning and Suppression of Solids – Milliken, or BASS-M, experiment. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra sets up hardware for the Burning and Suppression of Solids – Milliken, or BASS-M, experiment. The BASS-M investigation tests flame-retardant cotton fabrics to determine how well they resist burning in microgravity. Results benefit research on flame-retardant textiles that can be used on Earth and in space Credits: NASA

NASA is hosting a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Tuesday, March 15, to discuss several science investigations launching on the next Orbital ATK commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station.

The briefing participants will be:

• Marc Fries, principal investigator for Strata-1 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
• Aaron Parness, principal investigator for Gecko Grippers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California
• Matt Napoli, vice president of in-space operations for the Additive Manufacturing Facility for Made In Space in Moffett Field, California
• Gary Ruff, co-investigator for Saffire at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland
• Michael Fortenberry, principal investigator for Meteor at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio

Cygnus is targeted to launch Tuesday, March 22 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, during a 30-minute launch window that opens at approximately 11 p.m. The spacecraft will carry crew supplies, scientific research and hardware to the orbital laboratory to support the Expedition 47 and 48 crews.

This launch is the fifth contracted mission by Orbital ATK under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract and will be followed later this year by an Orbital ATK resupply mission launching from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.

SOFIA Observatory Indicates Star Eruptions Create and Scatter Elements with Earth-like Composition

Observations made with NASA’s flying observatory, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) indicate that nova eruptions create elements that can form rocky planets, much like Earth.

Astronomers occasionally see a nova, which may appear as a “new” star that grows brighter and then fades away after a few weeks. In fact, “nova” (plural, novae) is the Latin word for “new.” We now know that novae are not actually new stars, but rather are associated with stellar old age: explosions occurring on the surfaces of burned-out stars. They are less violent and more common than the star-shattering explosions called supernovae that completely destroy an aging star.

Principal investigator Bob Gehrz of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and collaborators have been using SOFIA to study novae as part of an ongoing research program to understand the role these objects play in creating and injecting elements into the material between the stars called the interstellar medium.

Gerhz and his team found high levels of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, magnesium, aluminum and silicon in the Nova Delphini, which erupted in 2013 in the constellation Delphinum (the Dolphin). Some of these elements can be found in living things, whereas others are important constituents of rocky planets such as Earth.

There is evidence that when the universe began in the Big Bang, only trace amounts of elements other than hydrogen and helium were created. Atoms of heavier elements were made later by processes inside stars, or during star death throes such as nova and supernova explosions.

The observations of the Nova Delphini debris cloud indicate that novae in general may be a major source of medium-weight elements in the universe. Their paper was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

SOFIA’s Program Scientist Pam Marcum noted that “these spectra of Nova Delphinum could only be obtained by SOFIA, not by any observatory on the ground or currently in space, because of SOFIA’s unique access to the specific range of infrared wavelengths needed for these measurements.” She continued, “this research is part of the broad, ongoing effort by astronomers to understand the life cycles of stars, and how the formation of planets like Earth fit into those cycles.”

The observations for these findings were gathered with the FORCAST instrument on SOFIA, the Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope, which can gather images and spectra of planets, stars, interstellar clouds and galaxies at mid-infrared wavelengths. SOFIA is a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 100-inch diameter telescope. NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California manages the SOFIA program. The SOFIA Science Center is based at Ames and managed by NASA in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association of Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft is based at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center facility in Palmdale, California.

RELEASE S16-021 NASA Prepares to Fly – First RS-25 Flight Engine Test Set for March

It is business as usual as NASA engineers prepare for an upcoming RS-25 rocket engine test at Stennis Space Center. They are well-versed on all of the pre-test work to be done, having conducted a very successful series of tests on an RS-25 developmental engine just last year.

Nevertheless, the lead-up to this March 10 engine test on the A-1 Test Stand at Stennis has a very different – and exciting – feel about it.

“Every test is important, but there really is a different energy level associated with flight engines,” said Ronnie Rigney, RS-25 project manager at Stennis. “It’s hard to describe the feeling you get knowing you’re going to see that engine lift off into the sky one day soon. It’s a very exciting time for all of us here.”

The flight certification test of RS-25 engine No. 2059 marks a major milestone in NASA’s return to deep-space exploration and its journey to Mars. Four RS-25 engines – all tested at Stennis – will help power the core stage of NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), being built to carry humans on future deep-space missions.

The RS-25 engines used on the initial SLS missions are flight engines remaining from the Space Shuttle Program. The engines are among the most proven in the world, having logged more than 1 million seconds of hotfire time during ground tests and 135 space shuttle missions. For the SLS vehicle, the engines will be fired at 109 percent thrust level. Together, four SLS engines will provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust and operate in conjunction with a pair of solid rocket boosters to power the SLS launch to space.

The RS-25 engine gives SLS an experienced, high performance main propulsion system for deep space exploration, said Steve Wofford, SLS engines manager. “This year is all about collecting the data we need to adapt these proven engines for SLS’s first flight.”

The early SLS flights are focused on developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s. 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 advanced solid or liquid propellant 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. In that final version, SLS will be the most powerful rocket in the world.

NASA conducted a series of RS-25 developmental tests last year at Stennis to validate the capabilities of a new controller – or “brain” – for the engine and to verify the different operating conditions needed for the SLS vehicle. The test series concluded in August; removal of the developmental engine from the A-1 stand cleared the way for installation of flight engine No. 2059.

After testing is completed, that engine is scheduled to fly on the second SLS exploration mission (EM-2), planned as the first crewed flight of the new space vehicle. It is expected to carry four astronauts into lunar orbit to test key elements of the spacecraft.

“This is what the testing we do is all about – preparing engines to fly into space,” Stennis Space Center Director Rick Gilbrech said. “You can’t help but be excited about the test on A-1, especially when you realize that the engines that carried us to the moon and that carried astronauts on 135 space shuttle missions were tested on this very same stand. We’re just adding to a remarkable history of space exploration.”

There are more chapters to come.

Following the March 10 firing, Stennis will continue to test RS-25 flight engines and conduct a development engine series to test new flight engine controllers. In 2017, Stennis will also test fire the core stage ahead of SLS’s first flight, EM-1 mission. The testing will involve installing the core stage on the B-2 Test Stand and firing its four RS-25 flight engines at the same time.

In addition, NASA is working with Aerojet Rocketdyne, who built the RS-25 engine, to test new RS-25 engines being built for future missions.

“It is a great time to be on this integrated test team, which includes NASA, S3 (Syncom Space Services) and Aerojet Rocketdyne working together,” said Rigney. “We’re not just dreaming of the future. We’re enabling it to happen right now.”