Orion Medical Blog

Today, the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics heard from a panel of expert witnesses who addressed workforce challenges faced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), due to shifts in priorities in order to accommodate new mission challenges.

“The workforce is so vital to NASA’s mission,” said Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), Ranking Member of the full committee. “NASA must constantly evaluate its future needs, and be ready and able to take pre-emptive actions when necessary to ensure the right people are there to do the exciting and challenging missions, and continue to accomplish extraordinary scientific discoveries.” Read more

Dear Senator Hutchison:

As leaders of our nation’s largest aerospace and technology companies, we employ hundreds of thousands of Americans and know first hand the formidable challenges in today’s global marketplace. We write to thank you for your past support of NASA and to urge you to enact a top-line increase for NASA’s FY 2008 budget. Without this increase, our nation faces the very real risk of losing our uniquely critical industrial base and human space access capability.

NASA plays a crucial role in advancing our nation’s innovation agenda. NASA programs promote our scientific, economic and educational interests, and contribute to our national and homeland security requirements. In the past few years, we have witnessed the rise of strong national space programs in China, India, and Japan, and a resurgence in Russia. We face major challenges to our space leadership and our national security.

In 2010, as the Shuttle is retired and we make the transition to the next generation of human spaceflight systems, the United States will become temporarily reliant on foreign human space transportation capabilities, if domestic commercial orbital space transportation does not emerge. In order to minimize this potential gap of independent American access to space, it is critical that we maintain funding and program stability for Orion and Ares I, sufficient to ensure a rapid and safe transition for American human space exploration. Future U.S. leadership in space is at stake.   Read more

NASA has selected Aerojet-General Corp. of Redmond, Wash., to provide developmental engines for the Ares I crew launch vehicle first stage roll control system.

These engines are the first in a series of steps to develop the roll control system to manage the amount of rotation by the first stage solid rocket from liftoff to its separation from the second stage, ensuring that Ares I stays on the designated trajectory for the first two minutes of flight. The engines being developed by Aerojet under this contract will be used to mature the roll control system that will be used on the Ares I tests program.

The Ares I crew launch vehicle will transport the Orion crew exploration vehicle, its crew or other small cargo payloads to low-Earth orbit. The first stage will consist of a single solid rocket booster similar to those used on the space shuttle, but with a fifth motor segment added. An upper stage consisting of a J-2X liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen engine and the associated propellant tanks and fuel distribution systems will complete the trip to orbit.   Read more

An unprecedented coalition of nearly two dozen U.S. aerospace corporations told the Congress on Friday, May 11, that NASA is in urgent need of a boost to its fiscal year 2008 budget or America’s space leadership could be lost for a generation.

The group, which includes the chairmen, presidents and chief executives of such industry giants as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, asked the Congress to support an increase to NASA’s FY08 budget of $1.4 billion. The budget is currently under review on Capitol Hill.

The industry leaders wrote on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Americans they employ, predicting dire consequences for the nation if Congress and the White House don’t act immediately to make the increase.   Read more

What goes up must come down.

And when coming down means descending from the moon, the difference between a controlled fall and a fiery crash is in the details.

Research by cadets at the Air Force Academy this year has helped NASA learn how its planned Orion manned space capsule will handle the fall from space.

“You want to make sure it’s right,” deadpanned senior cadet Christopher Oravetz as he stood near the wind tunnel where he’s spent long hours over the past several months testing the aerodynamic qualities of the coneshaped craft.  Read more

NASA is considering an alternate stage separation scheme for its Ares I rocket that would use struts driven by compressed gas rather than the modified shuttle hardware in the current design, and is asking industry to weigh in.

The current design uses Space Shuttle Booster Separation Motors (renamed Booster Deceleration Motors, or BDMs) to separate the Ares I after the first stage has spent its fuel and prior to upper-stage ignition.

The gas strut system has been suggested “as a preferable alternative with cost, additional payload mass to orbit, reduction in hardware and operations complexity, and safety cited as potential advantages,” NASA said in a request for information (RFI). The current thinking is that the six-foot struts would need to exert a force of about 7,000 pounds, driven by the expansion of compressed gas within a cylinder surrounding the strut and its piston. NASA is conducting a trade study comparing this process to the baseline BDM design.  Read more

NASA announced Friday it selected The Boeing Company and Textron Systems to develop alternate heat shield materials for the Orion crew exploration spacecraft.

The two contracts for Alternate Block 2 Thermal Protection System (TPS) Materials and Heat Shield Systems Advanced Development will support development and testing of three alternative heat shield materials. The companies are challenged with developing technologies can be used as backups for the primary material, according to NASA.

Orion is scheduled to carry astronauts to the International Space Station by 2015, with a goal of landing astronauts on the moon by 2020. The Orion TPS Advanced Development Project, led by Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA was established to develop a heat shield to protect Orion during its return from low-Earth orbit or the moon.  Read more

Raytheon Co. officials are looking to use its Huntsville engineering and management experience with missile defense to win a NASA rocket guidance contract.

Raytheon is pursuing the Ares I Instrument Unit Avionics ring contract, which is planned to be awarded to an aerospace contractor by Marshall Space Flight Center in November. Similar to the Apollo-era Saturn program guidance ring, the instrument unit will be a separate stage that is located between the upper stage and the Orion crew vehicle.   Read more

NASA engineers have successfully completed testing of subscale main injector hardware, an early step in development of the RS-68 engine that will power the core stage of NASA’s Ares V – the cargo launch vehicle that will deliver large-scale hardware and systems to space for exploration missions to the moon.

Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., recently conducted multiple hot-fire tests on the injector hardware. The injector is a major component of the engine that injects and mixes liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants in the combustion chamber, where they are ignited and burned to produce thrust.   Read more

NASA will display a full scale model of the agency’s next generation space telescope and host exhibits that showcase the many faces of NASA during Public Service Recognition Week. NASA’s exhibits are free and open to visitors of all ages May 10-11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. EDT and May 12 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibits will be on the National Mall between 7th and 4th streets, NW. The agency also will provide opportunities to speak with experts.

One of the exhibit’s biggest attractions will be the model of the James Webb Space Telescope. The model, approximately 80 feet long, 40 feet wide and 40 feet tall, will give visitors a better understanding of the size, scale and complexity of this orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope is targeted for launch in 2013 and is built by Northrop Grumman, Los Angeles.   Read more