By David Harris NASASpaceFlight.com
By Frank Morring, Jr.
BEIJING- China plans to carry out its first spacewalk in second half of the year, an official of the nation's manned space program said here on Thursday.
Shenzhou VII will be launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern province of Gansu late in the year, and the astronauts will leave their spacecraft for the first time, the official told Xinhua.
The spacecraft will also release a small inspection satellite, which monitors its own performance.
Breakthroughs have been made in significant techniques related to the spacewalk. Research into the development of spacecraft and rockets has been going smoothly, and astronauts have undertaken extensive training, according to the official.
Shenzhou VII will start the second phase of China's three-stage space program, said the official.
In the second stage, China plans further breakthroughs in manned space flight, such as space walks and docking of the capsule and space module. In this phase, China will put into orbit a space laboratory staffed by humans for short periods and establish a fully-equipped space engineering system.
In the third stage, China will build a permanent space station and a space engineering system. Astronauts and scientists will travel between the Earth and the space station to conduct large-scale experiments.
China began its manned space program in 1999. It successfully sent Yang Liwei into orbit on the Shenzhou V spacecraft in 2003.
Two years later, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng completed a Chinese record of five-day flight on the Shenzhou VI. All returned safely.
SHANGHAI - China may live broadcast the first ever spacewalk by its astronauts in the upcoming space mission of Shenzhou VII this year, a scientist involved in the program said here on Friday.
Yuan Jie, president of Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), made the remarks at the ongoing annual session of Shanghai People's Congress, or legislature of the city.
"Our entire approach to building, testing and integrating LCROSS was designed for speed," said Steve Hixson, vice president of Advanced Concepts for Northrop Grumman's Space Technology sector. "We're using innovative techniques to manage the LCROSS schedule, and this latest milestone is an outstanding example of the transparency between the government and industry teams that will be critical to our success. It's coming together very well, so we're already seeing the payoff in terms of schedule."
LCROSS is a fast track spacecraft development project. The Northrop Grumman-NASA team is utilizing streamlined acquisition and production processes to meet the mission's accelerated development schedule and cost constraints. Northrop Grumman expects to deliver the spacecraft about 26 months after the program start, less than half the time of a traditional spacecraft development program.
LCROSS and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scheduled to launch at the end of the year aboard an Atlas V rocket, are the first American missions to return to the moon since the Lunar Prospector mission in 1999. LCROSS is the only current mission to the lunar surface. NASA scientists expect the impact plume will be visible from Earth with a medium-size (10-12 inch) amateur telescope.
LCROSS' nine science instruments, some of which were obtained commercially and qualified at NASA Ames, will analyze the plume from the impact for the presence of water ice or water vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. They consist of five cameras, operating in the visible, near infrared and mid-infrared light regimes; three spectrometers, operating in the ultraviolet, visible and near infrared; and one photometer operating in the visible light regime.
The LCROSS Spacecraft will ship to Florida late this summer for integration aboard the Atlas V launch vehicle. LCROSS will be launched as a secondary payload to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from the NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Northrop Grumman is working under a $56 million contract to NASA Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $32 billion global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.
CONTACT: Sally Koris
Northrop Grumman Space Technology
310.812.4721
sally.koris@ngc.com
Denver (UPI) The U.S. space agency is exhibiting a lunar robot rover equipped with a drill, designed to find water and oxygen-rich soil on the moon. 
Knight Science Journalism Tracker Earthlings have mapped the moon's surface for the past 4,000 years, but NASA's latest view is the best yet.
Scientists have created a new map of the south lunar pole with Earth-based telescopes that is 50 times more detailed than the last version, created with data from the Clementine spacecraft in 1994.
"This data is the highest resolution and the highest accuracy that's ever made of lunar south polar region," said Scott Hensley, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.. Hensley and others announced the new map from the third Space Exploration Conference in Denver.
In detail of 215 square feet (20 square meters) per pixel, the map shows craters four times deeper than the Grand Canyon and hundreds of miles wide.
"It has some of the most incredible topography in the entire solar system," said Eric de Jong, also at JPL, of the region.
CLEVELAND, Feb 27, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- During the 3rd Space Exploration Conference Feb. 26-28 in Denver, NASA will exhibit a robot rover equipped with a drill designed to find water and oxygen-rich soil on the moon.
"Resources are the key to sustainable outposts on the moon and Mars," said Bill Larson, deputy manager of the In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) project. "It's too expensive to bring everything from Earth. This is the first step toward understanding the potential for lunar resources and developing the knowledge needed to extract them economically."
The engineering challenge was daunting. A robot rover designed for prospecting within lunar craters has to operate in continual darkness at extremely cold temperatures with little power. The moon has one-sixth the gravity of Earth, so a lightweight rover will have a difficult job resisting drilling forces and remaining stable. Lunar soil, known as regolith, is abrasive and compact, so if a drill strikes ice, it likely will have the consistency of concrete.
Meeting these challenges in one system took ingenuity and teamwork. Engineers demonstrated a drill capable of digging samples of regolith in Pittsburgh last December. The demonstration used a laser light camera to select a site for drilling then commanded the four-wheeled rover to lower the drill and collect three-foot samples of soil and rock.
"These are tasks that have never been done and are really difficult to do on the moon," said John Caruso, demonstration integration lead for ISRU and Human Robotics Systems at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
In 2008, the team plans to equip the rover with ISRU's Regolith and Environment Science and Oxygen and Lunar Volatile Extraction experiment, known as RESOLVE. Led by engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., the RESOLVE experiment package will add the ability to crush a regolith sample into small, uniform pieces and heat them.
The process will release gases deposited on the moon's surface during billions of years of exposure to the solar wind and bombardment by asteroids and comets. Hydrogen is used to draw oxygen out of iron oxides in the regolith to form water. The water then can be electrolyzed to split it back into pure hydrogen and oxygen, a process tested earlier this year by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"We're taking hardware from two different technology programs within NASA and combining them to demonstrate a capability that might be used on the moon," said Gerald Sanders, manager of the ISRU project. "And even if the exact technologies are not used on the moon, the lessons learned and the relationships formed will influence the next generation of hardware."
Engineers participated in the ground-based rover concept demonstration from four NASA centers, the Canadian Space Agency, the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology in Sudbury, Ontario, and Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh.
Carnegie Mellon was responsible for the robot's design and testing, and the Northern Centre for Advanced Technology built the drilling system. Glenn contributed the rover's power management system. NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., built a system that navigates the rover in the dark. The Canadian Space Agency funded a Neptec camera that builds three-dimensional images of terrain using laser light.
All the elements together represent a collaboration of the Human Robotic Systems and ISRU projects at Johnson. These projects are part of the Exploration Technology Development Program, which is managed by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
To view images of the rover in development, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/lunar_truck.html
For more information about NASA's exploration plans to the moon and beyond, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
SOURCE NASA
One of the developments that will be necessary for Europe's Next Generation Launcher (NGL) is a new design of main engine. The Vulcain engine that powers Ariane 5 is approaching the limits of its design in terms of both thrust and overall performance.
One objective of the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP) is to enable informed decisions about NGL engine technologies to be taken later in the programme.
Choice of technology
Europe has experience with open-cycle engines - Vulcain is an example of this type - and with closed cycle expander engines - the Vinci engine uses this design and has accumulated more than 3000 seconds of hot firing tests.
Part of the work currently being undertaken in the propulsion area of the FLPP is the development of technologies and competencies for the next step: closed-cycle, staged-combustion engines. Why staged-combustion?
The overall efficiency of a rocket engine is measured by its 'specific impulse' - the impulse (the change of momentum - or, put simply, the speed increase of the launch vehicle) that it can achieve per unit quantity of fuel. This is somewhat like the 'miles-per-gallon' or 'litres-per-100km' figures that are quoted for cars.
The specific impulse of an open-cycle gas generator engine such as Vulcain is inherently limited, while for the closed-cycle, staged-combustion design, it increases with the combustion pressure. This provides opportunities for developing engines that need less propellant to perform a given task, reducing the propellant load and, as a consequence, the size and mass of the launch vehicle.
New fuels
Although hydrocarbons contain less energy per kilogram than liquid hydrogen, their higher density and less demanding storage requirements (they remain liquid at much higher temperatures than hydrogen), leads to reduced tank size and mass.
Early success
ESA FLPP main stage propulsion development is being carried out by a consortium and co-contractor comprised of Snecma (France), Avio (Italy), and Astrium (Germany), supported by a team of nine other European companies and research bodies.
Colony Worlds |
New NASA Web Feature To Make Its Case For Space
(Space Travel) The U.S. space agency has added an interactive program to its Web site, allowing users to discover some of the space technologies that now impact daily life. [...]
[NASA Deputy Administrator Shana Dale] said the interactive site takes users on an illustrated tour of the commercial technologies and products in their homes and cities that trace their origins to NASA's space and aeronautics research and development..
NASA has documented more than 1,500 examples of how its technologies have been used for bettering life on Earth.
In preparation for the US led effort to build a lunar outpost, NASA has completed the first lunar truck prototype, named Chariot. Realizing the importance of crew and payload mobility on the lunar surface, the Exploration Technology Development Program's Human-Robotics Systems Project set out, in Apollo-like style, to build a lunar truck and the team that could shepherd future lunar truck efforts. With only one year to design, manufacture, and assemble Chariot, NASA, teamed with companies from all across America, conquered the challenge.
Some preliminary thoughts have come to mind, admittedly from quite a distance from the 3rd Space Exploration Conference in Denver, about Goldstone's radar survey and what NASA has revealed today about the region inside 5 degrees of the Lunar South Pole, particularly what we now appear to know with increased certainty about the elevations and general topography of that historic region.Bangalore - A US team yesterday visited an Indian Space Research Organisation facility where American equipment is being integrated into Chandrayaan-1 to look for water and ice on the moon.
The Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (miniSAR) will help India’s first lunar mission establish whether the permanently shadowed regions of the moon’s poles have water in any form.
The miniSAR has been developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of Johns Hopkins University, and the Naval Air Warfare Centre. The delegation was headed by Ken Ulman, the executive of Howard County in Maryland, where the APL is one of the largest private sector employers.
US space agency Nasa is expected to pay Isro at least $10 million for carrying the miniSAR and tracking its probes, officials said.
“The moon is believed to be very dry, but recent discoveries suggest the existence of water and ice in its polar regions, which are never illuminated by the sun,” a scientist said.
Media Briefing - Goldstone Radar Images Released - Topography and elevation revealedSurvival on the Moon will require water and oxygen, both of which can be refined from the rocks and soil, let alone by harvesting the dirty cometary slurry that may or may not exist in sufficient abundance in the permanent shadow of Lunar north and south pole craters. And as building material? The sheilding available might make the construction of bricks without straw for shelter a viable option. Occam's Razor still applies for me, personally, and I tend toward just barrowing underground, while finding a way to insure the resulting tunnels will hold pressurized atmosphere.
That said, for the moment, I defer to the experts in the conversation, put together today on Colony Worlds, the link to which can be found below:
http://www.colonyworlds.com/2008/02/using-lunar-rock-for-future-moon-bases.html
With NASA preparing to send humans once more to the Moon, many people have been envisioning humans creating lunar space bases out of metals either mined from our Earthen cradle or from the asteroids far away.While building with such materials may add to the beauty of a lunar home, it would also add to the cost, raising the price tag of us settling lunar side. In order to help keep costs down (and the vision from being potentially killed) it may be better for humanity to choose lunar rocks and dirt instead.
While building with such materials may add to the beauty of a lunar home, it would also add to the cost, raising the price tag of us settling lunar side. In order to help keep costs down (and the vision from being potentially killed) it may be better for humanity to choose lunar rocks and dirt instead.
Using lunar rock as a main building block for lunar bases may not only reduce the overall cost of us setting foot abroad, but also help protect ourselves from cosmic radiation (as it would be much easier and cheaper than powering artificial magnetic fields).While these thick lunar walls may be able to resist being penetrated by tiny incoming space rocks from above, it may be wise for NASA to consider "insulating" the walls with inflatable material as an extra precaution.
Space Hobby:Boston Herald Mike Underwood ; Wired John Borland ;
MIT Press Release ; NASA Press Release on full, recent round of long range study contracts.
And MIT's Knight Science Tracker sets the record straight well today HERE.
NewScientist.com news service
David Shiga, Cambridge
Future astronauts should run, not walk, across the lunar surface to conserve energy, new laboratory tests suggest. The tests were done using an MIT-built exoskeleton that mimics the experience of moving around in a spacesuit.
Astronauts move differently on the Moon than on Earth because of the Moon's weaker gravity and the constricting properties of spacesuits. So Christopher Carr and Dava Newman of MIT in Cambridge, US, have devised a way to simulate that motion in the hopes of designing better spacesuits and planning future lunar activities.
They reasoned that walking inside a pressurised spacesuit is like wearing an air-filled balloon. Like balloons, the suits resist bending and tend to want to return to their original shape, making it harder for Moon-walking astronauts to bend their legs at the knee.
So the researchers built an exoskeleton to simulate this, based on a design by another MIT scientist, Hugh Herr, who creates devices to aid people with disabilities. The exoskeleton consists of fibreglass rods that run the length of the wearer's legs and clip into modified cycling shoes.
Like a pressurised spacesuit, the exoskeleton resists bending at the knee, applying a force that tends to straighten the leg again. Intriguingly, this spring-like property makes running more efficient than walking for an exoskeleton-clad person. That's because the extra springiness helps to recover a higher percentage of the energy put into each stride while running.
The researchers believe that the same effect makes running the more efficient choice for space-suited astronauts on the Moon, something they had already suspected from watching videos of Apollo lunar missions. "The spacesuit is storing energy," Carr says, explaining that the air-filled spacesuit legs act like springs.
Less restrictive
Indeed, Apollo astronauts have reported such experiences. "It seems like I could run forever on the Moon and my legs would not get tired," wrote Alan Bean in a book describing his 1969 visit to the lunar surface. And Harrison Schmitt, the last Apollo astronaut to set foot on the Moon, said he skied across the surface, becoming "the fastest man on the Moon."
Knowing that running is more efficient than walking could help future astronauts explore the Moon or Mars, Carr says. "If you're out somewhere stuck in your spacesuit, running low on oxygen, and you have to get back to base, you should run, not walk, because the energy per unit distance is lower for running," he told New Scientist.
It is also an important consideration for mission planners designing safety rules for astronauts, he says. In the Apollo missions, NASA had rules about how far astronauts could venture from the safe haven of their lunar lander, based on how far they could safely walk before their spacesuit oxygen would run out.
"It turns out that walking is not the most efficient way," Carr says. "If you knew that you could run back, then potentially you could be less restrictive in your mission."
For the full effect of Moon walking, the laboratory Carr and Newman used for their research can also simulate lunar gravity. By tying the exoskeleton-clad person to a cord that runs up to the ceiling and is attached to a spring, the researchers can adjust the downward force to match the Moon's surface gravity, which is one-sixth that of Earth.
Last week there were two related bits of news that should cause those who are interested in the human space program to take pause and think a bit. The first was the announcement that Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale was leaving his position to take a new job at Johnson Space Center. The other was the announcement of a new, traveling “Columbia Safety Exhibit” displaying several pieces of debris recovered from the Columbia accident. The creation of that exhibit was due to Wayne Hale. And nobody should be surprised by that.
During the Columbia flight, Hale had tried unsuccessfully to gather more data on the effects of a foam strike on the shuttle’s wing. For many of those who worked for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), Hale was “one of the good guys” and was widely admired (see “Wayne Hale: one of the good guys”, The Space Review, September 25, 2006). There were plenty of people at NASA who had seriously screwed up and who had rather appalling attitudes towards safety. After one impact test on the foam, I remember one NASA engineer loudly bragging about how tough his foam was and how it was not responsible for the accident—exuberance that seemed badly misplaced, if not outright offensive. Although Hale may not have fit the mode of Gene Kranz in the movie Apollo 13, he was really the ideal NASA role model: competent, smart, and thoughtful.
Read the Rest about one of the Best HERE.
Several weeks after launch from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, Jules Verne will reach the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting about 400 km above our heads, and rendezvous and dock with the Russian segment of the ISS. Jules Verne and the Russian Service Module will then form an integrated European/Russian complex that will have to function as one vehicle for up to 6 months.
The ATV and the Russian Service Module will not only support together critical functions such as refuelling in orbit and re-boosting the ISS, but they will also share numerous interfacing systems like power, data handling, thermal and life support systems.
Obviously this requires close links between European and Russian engineering communities, throughout the entire Jules Verne mission. To meet this need, in 2004 ESA set up a small Engineering Support Team (EST-MO) co-located at Moscow Control Centre.
The main function of this group, varying from 8 to 15 people, is to monitor the behaviour of Jules Verne in relation to its Russian components or Russian interfaces, and to interact with the local ISS Russian engineering representatives on any matters requiring direct technical exchanges.
This support group also has to work in close coordination with the main ATV Engineering Support Team based at the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse (ATV-CC).
Experts to monitor Jules Verne's flight
At the ATV-CC, next to the Flight Control Team in charge of the ATV operations, sits the main Engineering Support Team which includes experts from ESA and prime contractor EADS-Astrium, constantly monitoring the data and daily operations planning, and ready to support the flight controllers if anything unexpected happens with the ATV systems.
Since they know all the hardware and systems, they are able to propose quick corrective measures in case of an anomaly or failure.
The official language during ATV operations is English, including communications with Moscow and Houston, but the EST-MO group can also switch to Russian when both parties are Russian. EST-MO experts do not speak directly to flight controllers nor send commands to the ATV.
This complex setup, about to be put to the test for the first time with Jules Verne, has of course required a thorough training programme. Since July 2007, the EST-MO team members, from both ESA and RSC-Energia, have participated in a series of Joint Integrated Simulations (JIS), involving all three main Control Centres in Toulouse, Moscow and Houston.
The JIS programme has covered both nominal and off-nominal mission scenarios. "One example of what the future EST-MO role could be was when the 'trainer' suddenly ordered a failure scenario with the interruption of the docking system probe retraction, shortly after the ATV was captured by the ISS.
At the same time, an unexpected simulator behaviour added further complexity to this training session. This was eventually resolved because the ATV docking system experts were able to establish a direct technical exchange with their ISS counterparts sitting in the next room", said Massimo Cislaghi, ESA's EST-MO Leader.
Although the main EST-MO working location has been and will be the ESA Moscow Support Room (EMSR) located inside the Moscow premises, some of the EST-MO training has taken place directly at ATV-CC in Toulouse, in order to allow the team to get acquainted with that working environment and with their colleagues based there. During actual flight operations they will coordinate mainly through voice exchanges.
At the end of the EST-MO training programme all ESA and RSC-Energia Russian Systems specialists are ready to face the various situations practised in the training exercises.
"At the same time, their wide experience and know-how accumulated through dozens of Russian vehicle rendezvous, docking and attached operations, represent a guarantee of their ability to face unforeseen events that can never be excluded for such a challenging programme," added Cislaghi.
During the Jules Verne mission, the ATV will perform automated manoeuvres which are closely monitored by almost 60 controllers in Toulouse, Houston and Moscow. For the first time in history, three space centres will interact from different sides of the world.
