Nov 23 2015
From The Space Library
Release C15-049 NASA Awards Contract to Restart Development of Engines to Power Agency’s Journey to Mars
NASA selected Aerojet Rocketdyne of Sacramento, California, to restart production of the RS-25 engine for the agency's Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in the world, and deliver a certified engine. SLS will use four RS-25 engines to carry the agency’s Orion spacecraft and launch explorers on deep space missions, including to an asteroid placed in lunar orbit and ultimately to Mars.
Part of NASA’s strategy to minimize costs of developing the SLS rocket was to leverage the assets, capabilities, and experience of the Space Shuttle Program, so the first four missions will be flown using 16 existing shuttle engines that have been upgraded.
Under the $1.16 billion contract, Aerojet Rocketdyne will modernize the space shuttle heritage engine to make it more affordable and expendable for SLS. The contract runs November 2015 and continues through Sept. 30, 2024.
The new RS-25 engine developed under this contract will have fewer parts and welds and will be certified to a higher operational thrust level. The new engine benefits from improvements in materials and manufacturing techniques such as five-axis milling machines, 3-D manufacturing and digital X-rays.
The contract restarts the firm’s production capability including furnishing the necessary management, labor, facilities, tools, equipment and materials required for this effort, implementing modern fabrication processes and affordability improvements, and producing hardware required for development and certification testing.
The contract also allows for a potential future modification that would enable NASA to order six flight engines.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the SLS Program for the agency. Engine testing will be performed at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the SLS will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA's Next Ozone Layer Instrument Arrives at Launch Site
RELEASE: 15-062
NASA's Next Ozone Layer Instrument Arrives at Launch Site
A NASA instrument to monitor aerosols, the ozone layer, and other gases in our atmosphere from space arrived Friday, Nov. 20 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instrument will now begin final preparations for launch to the International Space Station.
The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III on the International Space Station, or SAGE III on ISS, was shipped to Florida from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The SAGE III instrument, developed at NASA Langley, will undergo final tests before being stowed aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of a NASA space station SpaceX resupply mission. That mission will be launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station no earlier than June 2016.
"It's an important time to add this SAGE III Earth observing instrument for studying atmospheric gases from orbit," said Mike Cisewski, SAGE III on ISS project manager. "The SAGE III data will help scientists get a better idea of the state of recovery in the ozone layer along with other key aerosol measurements that will provide further insight into the trends and processes influencing global climate change."
The SAGE III instrument will be used primarily to study ozone, a gas found in the upper atmosphere that acts as Earth's sunscreen by blocking much of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation. More than 30 years ago, scientists discovered that our planet's protective coat of ozone was thinning. Since then, NASA has orbited a series of increasingly sophisticated SAGE instruments to make accurate measurements of ozone amounts in the upper atmosphere.
In 1975, the Stratospheric Aerosol Measurement on-orbit experiment was conducted as part of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The SAGE II instrument was launched aboard NASA's Earth Radiation Budget Satellite in October 1984 and collected measurements of stratospheric ozone until 2005. A NASA-supplied SAGE III instrument was launched on the Russian Meteor-3M spacecraft in December 2001 and ended service in March 2006. SAGE measurements have played a key role in monitoring the ozone recovery resulting from the 1987 Montreal Protocol's internationally mandated policy changes regulating production of chlorine-containing chemicals.
The newest SAGE III Earth-observing instrument will be mounted on a Nadir Viewing Platform, which was also developed by NASA Langley, shipped to Kennedy Space Center in January 2015, and will be launched along with SAGE III in mid-2016. Once they arrive at the ISS, the Nadir Viewing Platform and SAGE III will be robotically installed on the space station's ExPress Logistics Carrier – an unpressurized payload platform – where SAGE III will operate alongside experiments from other countries.
The SAGE III instrument measures light intensities observed at the space station after passing through the Earth's atmosphere during sunsets, sunrises, moonsets and moonrises. As the ISS goes behind the Earth relative to the sun or moon, the instrument measures the dimming of the sunlight or moonlight caused by the Earth's atmosphere. This dimming, in turn, changes with changing atmospheric aerosol and ozone levels. By making these measurements, SAGE III will provide a long-term data record of key components of the Earth's atmosphere vital for improved understanding of climate change and ozone chemistry.
SAGE III on ISS is a partnership between NASA Langley and the International Space Station Program Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, with support from the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Other mission partners include the Kennedy Space Center, Ball Aerospace Technologies Corp., the European Space Agency, Thales Alenia Space-Italy, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; SpaceX; and Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.
