TW@N FINAL for 11/5/2010
This Week @ NASA…
“Disappointed for the team today for sure. But, as we always say, and it’s’ absolutely
the truth, we’re going to fly when we’re ready and clearly we’re not ready to fly
today.”
The 35th shuttle mission to the International Space Station has been scrubbed until the
end of the month according to Mission Managers. Originally scheduled to lift off on Nov.1,
the STS-133 mission was postponed several times due to a series of problems including
a circuit breaker problem in the shuttle’s cockpit, improbable weather, and a hydrogen
gas leak detected while filling the external tank in preparation for a third attempt to
launch Discovery on Friday, November 5.
STS-133’s Mission Management Team discussed their decision to select a new window of opportunity
– November 30 through Dec. 5, during a news conference at the Kennedy Space Center.
“Right now the 30th is the first time that beta opens back up to allow us to allow us
to launch. We’ll go make sure that’s really the date we want, and we’ll work that through
the normal change process of the shuttle program:”
STS-133, with crew members Commander Steve Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists
Alvin Drew, Tim Kopra, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott, is the last planned mission
for 2010, and Discovery's final flight to the complex.
The EPOXI mission spacecraft made its planned flyby of comet Hartley 2 – and the pictures
it sent back to investigation team members at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory did not disappoint.
“Deep Impact,” so named for the 2005 mission it initially served as the “in-flight”
spacecraft, flew by Hartley 2 about 435 miles above its surface, close enough to image the
heart of the comet, its nucleus. “Congratulations on a fantastic flyby. God
job everybody! ”
“The data we have, I am convinced, the comic Hartley will have increased our knowledge
of how comments work by at least three Hartleys. The Hartley is a real unit of information
and three Hartley’s is about a factor of ten.”
EPOXI, an acronym combining the names of its two extended missions, is expected to shed
new light on how our solar system formed some 4-point-six billion years ago.
“I always like to tell people that you all are incredible ambassadors as you’re there
representing just two of the many nations that are partners in the International Space
Station. What you do is actually a modern-day Star Trek, if you will; kids are excited about
watching you.”
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden helped mark the tenth anniversary of a continuous human
presence aboard the International Space Station by discussing life aboard the complex with
its current residents, the Expedition 25 crew.
“Everyday there’s new excitement and new adventure as we venture out with some of the
science that we’re doing. And, of course, being here in space never ceases to amaze
us of the surprises it has in store for us.”
Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock and Flight Engineers Alexander Kaleri, Oleg Skripochka,
Scott Kelly, Fyodor Yurchikhin, and Shannon Walker are the latest of almost 200 men and
women who, over the past decade, have called the ISS home while away from Earth.
“I want to thank you for what you’ve done and for what you represent, and congratulate
you on being the occupants of the station as we celebrate its tenth anniversary.”
Discovery’s scheduled liftoff provided a launch pad for other events at the Kennedy
Space Center. Some 150 people from 35 states and six countries,
including Australia and the Philippines, participated in a Tweetup at KSC. The Tweeps, as devotees
of the social messaging medium, Twitter, are known, met informally and spoke with astronauts,
shuttle managers, technicians and engineers, as well as members of NASA's social media
team.
For nearly eighty years, the LEGO “brick” has helped enhance children’s creativity
through playing and learning. Now, NASA is teaming up with LEGO to develop innovative
educational and outreach activities to interest youngsters in science, technology, engineering
and mathematics. The collaboration, called “Build the Future, kicked off at Kennedy
with youngsters building their vision of the future in space.
“What can we build together? That’s beautiful!”
On hand for the event was a woman long associated with future space travel, actress Nichelle
Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura of “Star Trek”
Something as simple as LEGO used to be used as a pacifier and fun for kids. Here they
have specific work; it’s fascination that drives the creative spirit.”
“Building the Future” will strive to educate youngsters about NASA’s research in exploration,
technologies, science and aeronautics.
“We're working on the technology that will enable the next generation of supersonic aircraft
that the public can fly on. But we don't want to do that in a way that creates a disturbance.
So, the technology that we're developing will result in quiet supersonic aircraft."
NASA recently conducted flight experiments at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California
to examine the effect of low-amplitude sonic booms on large office buildings.
"We're simulating what we anticipate will be the boom level of a new aircraft by using
an existing F-18 airplane. To do that, we have to dive the airplane in a unique manner,
and that creates both a quiet boom at the location where we want to measure, but also
some loud booms in the vicinity.” As part of the Sonic Booms on Big Structures
effort, two NASA F/A-18 aircraft from the Dryden Flight Research Center flew a series
of supersonic runs that caused multiple sonic booms of varying intensity over Edwards.
“Edwards is an ideal place to do this because there's a lot of open land, we have the supersonic
corridor, and people are generally experienced with sonic booms, so we don't create a negative
reaction with those loud booms, while we're trying to focus on getting the data from the
quiet booms.” NASA engineers are now reviewing data from
sensitive instrumentation installed in a recently-constructed office building at Edwards to determine the
building's structural response to the momentary pressure caused by the sonic shockwaves.
Thirty years ago, on November 12, 1980, the Voyager spacecraft flew by Saturn about 78,000
miles above the planet’s cloud tops. The result was a series of spectacular photos
like these, as well as the discovery of five new moons, including Titan and Enceladus.
Also revealed: a ring system consisting of thousands of bands. Voyager 1 is a NASA mission
that keeps on giving. Forging ahead towards the boundaries of our solar system at a speed
of almost 36-thousand miles an hour, Voyager 1 continues to collect unprecedented data
about the giant outer planets -- and beyond.
And that’s This Week @ NASA.
For more on these and other stories, log onto: www.nasa.gov