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This Week at NASA...
The Orion crew capsule as it completed the last
in a series of water drop tests at the Langley
Research Center's Hydro Impact Basin.
Testing of the 18,000-pound capsule, which began
last summer, simulates various water landing scenarios.
This one represented a worst-case landing
in rough seas after a launch abort.
The test impact conditions simulated all parachutes
being deployed as the capsule, traveling
about 47 miles per hour, hits the water at an extreme
angle before rolling over into what's called
"the Stable 2 position". As with the Apollo capsule,
Orion will have an onboard, up-righting system.
This type of scenario is highly unlikely during
actual vehicle operation, but is essential for
the Orion's validation as NASA's next deep space
exploration vehicle to carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.
"At this time the reconfiguration of the spacecraft
for the post LOI has begun ..."
The project team at the Jet Propulsion Lab reacts
to telemetry reporting that the first of NASA's twin
GRAIL spacecraft has achieved lunar orbit. The Gravity
Recovery And Interior Laboratory mission's A spacecraft
reached its near-polar elliptical orbit at 5 p.m. Eastern
New Year's Eve, followed by GRAIL-B on New Year's Day
at 5:43 p.m. EST. GRAIL data will enable scientists to better
understand the moon's gravitational field as well
as what goes on below its surface. Those crust-to-core
data are also expected to increase our knowledge about
how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system
developed into the diverse worlds we see today.
This year's season of FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition
of Science and Technology, kicks off this week with its initial
regional robotics contests. Some 60-thousand high school
students will vie for college scholarships using robots
built in six weeks from a common kit of parts.
The finalists of the 24-hundred competing teams will meet
at the FIRST Championships in April
at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.
Leaders from more than 70 aerospace companies attended
the Space Launch System's Advanced Booster Industry Day
held at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
NASA is seeking proposals from the aerospace industry
for engineering demonstrations and/or strategies to reduce
risk on an advanced booster for the SLS.
Marshall is leading the design and development of the SLS,
the new heavy-lift launch vehicle that'll propel the Orion
crew vehicle on new missions of exploration across the solar system.
In case you missed it, here's your chance to marvel at the
unprecedented images of comet Lovejoy captured in late December
by Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank
from the International Space Station's Cupola.
Burbank described what he saw in an interview with Detroit's WDIV-TV.
"It's probably the most spectacular thing you could imagine
and from the vantage point of space, it's different than seeing
it from planet Earth because there's no intervening atmosphere to see."
NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center recently completed
a research study at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California
designed to gauge public attitudes toward sonic booms.
"Rolling in 3, 2, 1 now ... copy mark."
The Waveforms and Sonic boom Perception and Response project,
gathered data for more than 100 volunteer
Edwards residents about their reactions to low-noise booms
created by NASA F/A-18 test aircraft.
"With Whisper (WSPR) we're trying to get a read back from
people on the ground to some kind of annoyance level.
How annoying was this low boom, how annoying was this moderate boom?"
NASA and industry are working on technology that will reduce
the noise and annoyance associated with sonic booms,
so they won't disturb the peace. Aviation and governmental
authorities may then consider lifting current prohibitions
on aircraft flying over land at supersonic speeds.
"Currently we're limited by over land sonic booms.
There's no regulation stipulating what kind of sonic booms
can be projected over land – right now
the rule is no sonic booms over land.
Data from the recent study will be a valuable guide
for future public perception studies in communities
that normally don't experience sonic booms.
"People here at the Edwards Air Force Base, they're obviously
very familiar with sonic booms. Eventually we want to take this
to a broader level to where people that's never heard a sonic boom –
but we need to figure out how to do that."
The research was sponsored by the Supersonics Project
in NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission
Directorate's Fundamental Aeronautics Program.
NASA's car-sized Curiosity rover may be on cruise control
to Mars, but that doesn't mean it's not working hard along
the 8-month-long trip. The Mars Science Laboratory rover
is busy monitoring space radiation with its Radiation Assessment
Detector, or RAD. The instrument detects high-energy atomic
and subatomic particles from the sun, distant supernovas
and other sources that might impact humans
on future long duration spaceflights.
"Measuring the radiation environment in space is not new.
But what is new is that RAD will measure for the first time
the radiation environment inside the spacecraft.
Which will be very similar to the environment to what a future
astronaut would see inside their spacecraft on a future mission to Mars."
Officials from NASA's Johnson Space Center and Texas A&M
University signed an agreement certifying the transfer
of the space shuttle launch and landing trainer,
the Shuttle Motion Simulator, to Texas A&M.
"This isn't going to go just to Texas A&M just as a museum piece.
It's going to be able to be used for the educational material
for and research facilities for future
generations of engineers."
We're counting on all of those bright minds – those young people
with the big ideas and the dreams and the willingness to work
hard to turn them into realities –
we're counting on it and looking forward to it."
The Shuttle Motion Simulator began operations at JSC in 1977
and was used in training for all 135 space shuttle missions.
"Five feet, 210 looking good, let it settle ... ok, chutes, stand by ..."
Installation of the SMS at Texas A&M will take place in early 2012.
"Go 12th man ... woooo."
NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore celebrated the holidays
by participating in pre-game ceremonies of the clash
of his hometown Tennessee Titans with the visiting Jacksonville
Jaguars in Nashville on Christmas Eve.
Wilmore, who was selected as a pilot by NASA in 2000,
was honored with this Jumbotron video at LP Field.
Wilmore made other appearances in the Nashville area to spread
holiday cheer and share his experiences aboard
space shuttle Atlantis and the
International Space Station on STS-129 in 2009.
Fifteen years ago, on January 12, 1997, the crew of space
shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center on STS-81.
About 66 hours later, Atlantis made the fifth docking
of a space shuttle to the Mir space station.
During five days of mated operations, nearly 6,000 pounds of water,
U.S. science equipment and Russian logistical equipment
were transferred from Atlantis to the Russian complex.
STS-81's 10-day mission brought home astronaut John Blaha
after an 118-day stay aboard Mir. Among the seven-person Atlantis
crew was mission specialist John Grunsfeld, who's just taken
over as the new head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
And that's This Week @ NASA!
For more on these and other stories, log on to: www.nasa.gov.