This Week @ NASA
"Today I am happy to announce that the Boeing company has
selected Florida for its commercial crew office"...clapping
A new partnership has been formed between NASA
and Space Florida to occupy, use and modify the Kennedy
Space Center's Orbiter Processing Facility, OPF 3,
the Space Shuttle Main Engine Processing Facility
and Processing Control Center. The 15-year use permit deal
is the latest step Kennedy is making in its transition
from a historically government-only
launch complex to a multi-user spaceport.
Deputy Admin. Lori Garver: "Kennedy and the entire space
coast have been synonymous with NASA's historic 30 year
shuttle program as well as America's first 50 years
in human space flight and the agreement that we have
reached today with Spaceport Florida
will help set-up an even brighter future."
Space Florida, the state's aerospace economic
development agency, is leasing OPF-3 to the Boeing
Company to manufacture and test the company's Crew
Space Transportation spacecraft.
Development of the CST-100, a reusable capsule-shaped
spacecraft to transport up to seven people,
or a combination of people and cargo to space,
is expected to create as many as 550 jobs along the Space Coast.
"40 meters away from docking, the Progresses' Cores
automated rendezvous antenna has been retracted"
The Russian Progress 45 cargo ship docked to the International
Space Station, delivering almost three tons of food,
fuel and supplies to the residents of the complex.
Capture we have indicator mode – Docking confirmed
The unmanned resupply ship automatically linked up
to the Pirs Docking Compartment
on the Russian segment of the station.
And liftoff of the Soyuz booster on the Progress 45
resupply ship bound for the ISS
The arrival of the spacecraft came three days after
its launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
in a successful comeback from the failure of a similar
Soyuz booster on Aug. 24 that resulted in the loss of Progress 44.
It also happened eleven years to the day after the docking
of Expedition 1, when NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian
cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev arrived
at the orbiting outpost aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule,
becoming the first inhabitants of the ISS.
There has been an uninterrupted human presence there ever since.
The Space Shuttle Atlantis crew of, from left, Doug Hurley,
Sandy Magnus, Commander Chris Ferguson and Rex Walheim
was welcomed to the White House by President Obama.
The President was presented with the coat from STS-135,
the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program,
by former astronaut Janet Kavandi, now Director
of Flight Crew Operations at the Johnson Space Center.
One of the latest recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics
is now the latest to receive one of NASA's most prestigious awards.
Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, joined with Maryland Senator,
Barbara Mikulski, in presenting the agency's Exceptional
Scientific Achievement Medal to Adam Riess
of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
The award is given for contributions to NASA's
aeronautical or space exploration goals. Riess was among three
scientists who provided evidence that
the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
The Shaw Prize, won by Riess five years ago, goes this year
to NASA astrophysicist, Gerald Fishman,
of the Marshall Space Flight Center. Fishman and another scientist
share the award and million-dollar cash prize for research
on gamma-ray bursts -- the brightest, most explosive
events known to occur in the universe.
Fishman, a NASA astrophysicist since 1974, is a co-investigator
on the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, a key instrument
aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
As for Fermi, it has discovered the youngest known millisecond
gamma-ray pulsar in an old globular cluster of stars named NGC 6624.
Millisecond pulsars are highly-magnetized neutron stars
that rotate every one- to ten-milliseconds,
or one one-thousandth of a second. Animation shows a neutron
star to scale with the island of Manhattan –
and all pulsars detected by Fermi,
blinking at one fiftieth their actual speed.
The economic impact of the Wallops Flight Facility
was the topic of the day as members of the Federal
Reserve Bank in Richmond toured the facility.
The day included a roundtable discussion on the importance
of Wallops economically to the area with 20 regional economic
development leaders and also a tour of several of the facilities
at Wallops including NASA's sounding rocket
facility and range control center.
They also received an overview on Orbital Sciences Corp.
Taurus II launch vehicle that will begin carrying supplies
to the International Space Station in 2012 and also
the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport's new pad
from which the Taurus II will launch.
"We were interested just for its implications for the economy.
You guys are doing great things, innovation is the key to growth
in our standard of living over time but you're doing good
things for the country as well, so keep up the good work."
Admin Charlie Bolden: "NASA couldn't achieve the big things
were it not for small business."
Administrator Charlie Bolden led the list of speakers
at NASA's 4th Annual Small Business Symposium and Awards Ceremony.
The two-day event once again helped inform company executives
and employment specialists about opportunities the agency
provides for small businesses in exploration
and science missions, as well as other programs.
"It's really a new chapter, and one of the things that's
going to fuel that chapter as you know is innovation and our entrepreneurs."
The Fourth Annual Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium featured
several NASA speakers providing updates on the
Marshall Space Flight Center and various agency missions and programs.
The three-day event held at the University of Alabama, Huntsville
also hosted panel discussions on a wide range of topics,
including NASA's Exploration Roadmap, energizing commercial space,
integrating robotic and human exploration, and national space policy.
The von Braun Symposium is organized by the American Astronautical
Society in conjunction with UAHuntsville, the Huntsville National
Space Club and the Marshall Space Flight Center
Admin Charlie Bolden: "Today we are going to recognize some
of our extraordinary colleagues. I want to thank all of you
for your outstanding efforts over the past year."
The Headquarters Honor Awards ceremony recognized employees
who've made significant contributions to the Headquarters community.
Eighteen teams and individuals were so honored
for their exemplary efforts over the past year.
"Station Houston on two for Mike, your guest is entering
the room and we will be calling up shortly."
Singer and musician Dusty Hill of ZZ Top toured
the Johnson Space Center at the invitation
of Expedition 29 commander, Mike Fossum.
I'm at the end of my tour, I guess you near the end of your tour,
but, I am closer to home than you are."
Hill visited the Mission Control Center, where he spoke with Fossum
and Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa
aboard the International Space Station.
Astronauts Cady Coleman, Dottie Metcalf Lindenberger,
and Steve Robinson, who moonlight as amateur musicians
for the band Max Q, showed Hill where astronauts train
and engineers are developing the next generation of NASA spacecraft.
In the early days of soaring, gliders used to look like this –
a reproduction of a Wright Glider once tested in the Full Scale Tunnel
at NASA's Langley Research Center. Then along came a Langley researcher
in the 1940's and 50's - Frances Rogallo and his Rogallo Wing.
The so-called father of hang gliding's design can be seen
in the skies today --- piloted by soaring
enthusiasts and wowing spectators.
Many of the faithful commemorated a century of soaring
on North Carolina's Outer Banks –where on October 24th in 1911
Orville Wright made an historic nine minute and 45 second glider flight.
The goal of Soaring 100 – to celebrate that birth of modern soaring.
At the Wright Brothers Memorial NASA Langley technicians
demonstrated how the science of flight has changed.
One of the things on the Harrier is the vectored engines –
they would turn and the same thing as the Osprey and they would
turn the engines and vector the thrusting to give it the take off
and landing and it's doing the same thing with this
and turns and varies its thrust as it does on the Osprey also.
Nearby - at Jockey's Ridge State Park - an exhibit from NASA's
Johnson Space Center helped visitors soar
far above the clouds and into space.
They even had a chance to feel a piece of the moon.
You touch the Earth rocks all the time and you don't think much about it,
but then when you touch something that comes
from outer space – that's pretty neat.
Another Soaring 100 attraction that participants found pretty neat –
a man dressed up as one of the Tusken Raiders from the movie Star Wars.
And that's This Week @NASA!
For more on these and other stories, log onto www.nasa.gov.