Monthly Archives: January 2014

Call of Duty: Ghosts Gameplay – Team Deathmatch on Prison Break – Ground War – W/Commentar – Video

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Call of Duty: Ghosts Gameplay - Team Deathmatch on Prison Break - Ground War - W/Commentar
See The Full Call of Duty Ghosts Series Here: http://goo.gl/hJVF5k Next Call of Duty Ghosts Episode: Today [23rd January] Call of Duty Ghosts: Hunted on Stri...

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Call of Duty: Ghosts Gameplay - Team Deathmatch on Prison Break - Ground War - W/Commentar - Video

International Space Station Expedition 39 Crew Members Discuss Upcoming Mission [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

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Swanson and Skvortsov have both been in space while it will be the first space mission for Artemyev. Swanson previously completed two space shuttle missions and will take over as the Expedition 40 commander in May. Ahead of the March launch, the Expedition 39/40 crew members discussed their upcoming ISS mission with the International Business Times.

Skvortsov was previously an Expedition 23/24 crew member and served as the Expedition 24 commander. Discussing what being a commander entails, Skvortsov said, "As a station commander I have the greatest responsibility of all. Of course, all crew members are professionally prepared but the commander has two significant jobs to do. The first is to make sure all tasks are completed and the second is being fully responsible for the safety of all the crew members."

For his second ISS mission, Skvortsov said his role will be different but will rely on his past experience to aid his fellow crew members. It will be Swanson's first time as commander and he says the role requires an individual to focus on the entire operation as well as the happiness of each of crew member.

"This time I won't be the commander of the entire station, I'll be the commander of the Russian segment so the scope of my responsibilities is slightly diminished. Since I've had the experience of being commander of the space station I'll do my best to assist Steve Swanson and his job as the ISS commander," Skvortsov continues, "I think my experience as commander will be invaluable because I'll be able to assist him in certain issues and, hopefully, my advice will help him and help our crew resolve any issues that may arise and I understand that this mission is going to be intensive for both the Russian and American sides."

Swanson said, "For being a commander the big difference, I think, in that aspect, is keeping the big picture of what's going on, how the levels of oxygen, carbon dioxide, water and all the consumables. Talking to ground about any issues and keeping all of that going and making sure everyone is up to date and on the same page and making sure your crew is happy and everything is going smoothly."

As for how he will spend his time aboard the ISS, Skvortsov and Swanson both discuss the various tasks and daily jobs that are required of each crew member. "We have a list of jobs to be done and I hope that all of them will be completed and that we'll be able to fulfill this mission without any extraordinary events or situations, especially given the circumstances of the previous mission when we had a problem, with the pump failure, that led to three spacewalks," said Skvortsov.

Swanson agrees, saying, "The responsibilities are pretty much the same for all crew members and that is to maintain the station and do the science we are assigned to do. That can involve many different things depending on what task you get each day but it will range from fixing things that are broken to cleaning the station on a weekly basis."

For Swanson, he will use his previous shuttle mission experience during the upcoming station mission but he said there are some important differences between the two types of space missions.

"The big difference between a shuttle mission and a station mission is, of course, a time difference but it's very alike to going to a foreign country," Swanson continues,"You stay there for two weeks, you get to vacation there and you know it a little bit and you get to cruise around but you don't really get to see the details or feel the real culture of it, I think, versus living there for six months. That's the same thing with the station, you're there for six months, you really get to know what it is to live and adapt to an environment like that because you are doing it for so long. For two weeks, you can do it relatively quickly and you can live through almost anything but for six months you have to adapt and become comfortable in that environment."

Artemyev said he is lucky to have his first space mission with astronauts who have several missions under their belt. "I will be there as a flight engineer and will be working closely with Steve and Alex. I've been blessed because those are very experienced astronaut and cosmonaut, who have a wealth of experience and I've been able to learn from them and will be very happy to be on the same crew as them," said Artemyev.

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International Space Station Expedition 39 Crew Members Discuss Upcoming Mission [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

Florida: Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building tour to end

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NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is going to end behind-the-scenes tours of the huge Vehicle Assembly Building where space vehicles -- from the first Saturn V rocket in the 1960s to the last space shuttle Atlantis flight in 2011 -- were prepared for launch.

Tours stop Feb. 11 as the building is transformed into a working site for new Space Launch Systems vehicles in the future, the space center visitor complex in Titusville announced Tuesday.

For the next few weeks, the three-hour KSC Up-Close VAB Tour (which includes general admission to the visitor complex) costs $75 for adults, $59 for children 3 to 11. It features:

--A guided tour inside the VAB, as it's called, which covers eight acres; --A stop at the NASA Causeway to see to a view of all the launch pads; --The Kennedy Space Center Bus Tour; --Exhibits on the space shuttle Atlantis and the Shuttle Launch Experience; --The Angry Birds Space Encounter; --IMAX 3-D films; and more.

The VAB turned 50 last year. It has 456-foot-high bay doors to accommodate cranes and hoists needed to move, process and stack rocket stages. The Space Center has taken tourists inside the building since November 2011.

"Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has been honored to give our guests rare access to the VAB for the past two years, yet we knew that the day would come when preparations for the SLS would take precedent," Therrin Protze, chief operating officer for the complex, said in a statement.

Other Up-Close tours of the launch pad and the Launch Control Center will continue for now, but may be subject to change as the center prepares for its new role.

Info: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, (866) 737-5235

Mary.Forgione@latimes.com Follow us on Twitter @latimestravel, like us on Facebook @Los Angeles Times Travel.

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Florida: Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building tour to end

Astronaut visits Marshall Space Flight Center

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Chris Cassidy

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy speaks at Marshall Space Flight Center Wednesday.

Posted: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:01 am

Astronaut visits Marshall Space Flight Center

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAAY) - Chris Cassidy, an astronaut on Expedition 36 to the International Space Station, visited Marshall Space Flight Center Wednesday.

Cassidy toured Marshall and spoke with workers there about the 166 days he spent aboard the space station. Cassidy returned to Earth in September 2013.

Cassidy was part of the first expedited trip in the space station's 12-year history. The Soyuz spacecraft he was on docked at the station in six hours instead of the usual two days.

Cassidy also went to the International Space Station in 2009 on the STS-127 mission.

Posted in Local, Nasa on Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:01 am. | Tags: Human Spaceflight, Disaster_accident, Chris Cassidy, Soyuz, Marshall Space Flight Center, Manned Spacecraft, Sts-127, Soyuz Tma-9, Nikolai Budarin, Environment, Expedition 36, Nasa, Astronaut, Space Station, Cassidy, Alabama, Huntsville, Marshall Space, Christopher Cassidy, Sts-127 Mission

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Astronaut visits Marshall Space Flight Center

Signed, Sealed and Delivered: New NASA Video Shows GPM’s Journey to Japan

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Pack it up, put it on a plane and fly it to Japan. It sounds simple enough, but a new video from NASA shows when your package is a satellite, it's anything but.

NASA's new video, "GPM's Journey to Japan," highlights the unique shipment of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission's Core Observatory by air, land and sea. Built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the GPM spacecraft travelled roughly 7,300 miles (11,750 kilometers) to its launch site at Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island, Japan, where it is scheduled for liftoff on Feb. 27, 2014, at 1:07 p.m. EST.

GPM's Core Observatory is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to study rainfall and snowfall around the globe, including the type of weather and storms that the Core Observatory previewed on its trans-Pacific journey.

During the video, viewers will see that unlike missions launching from the United States that are trucked or flown to their launch site, GPM traveled by truck, plane and boat to get to the launch site in Japan. Its shipping container went through half-a-dozen transfers among the various modes of transportation. GPM's transportation was unique because of the complexity of the journey, said Art Azarbarzin, GPM's project manager at Goddard.

The logistics took more than two years to plan, with hundreds of details from customizing GPM's container and the truck that transferred it to the U.S. Air Force Super Galaxy C-5 cargo plane; arranging the flight, the cargo ship and cranes to move the container; lining up wide-load permits in the United States and Japan; and working with Japanese customs. Then there was the task of organizing people involved. The GPM mechanical team worked with the U.S. Air Force crew to load and unload the C-5, then worked with Japanese contractors who managed the cranes and transported the support equipment.

"It was above and beyond the mundane stuff," said Jean Manall, of Goddard's Logistics and Project Support Branch, who led the effort. "I can ship a spacecraft down to Kennedy [Space Center in Florida] with my eyes closed, you know, but this involved a lot more."

In its big white shipping container, the GPM spacecraft traveled by truck from Goddard to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland where it was loaded aboard a U.S. Air Force Super Galaxy C-5 cargo plane. On Nov. 21, 2013, the C-5 took off from Maryland, flying north. When strong headwinds prevented the originally planned in-flight refuel, the C-5 landed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, to gas up. Then a winter storm swept in, and the two-hour stopover turned into two days.

The unexpected landing threw off GPM's timetable, and Manall was on the phone as soon as the plane landed, calling ahead to adjust the arrangements already in place in Japan. Two members of her team, Mike Miller and Neil Patel of Goddard, were busy setting up a different sort of refuel: diesel for the generator that ran the environmental control unit on the shipping container. Anchorage was at below-freezing temperatures, and despite the satellite being designed for space, the GPM engineering team wanted to avoid any condensation inside the shipping container.

"It's the relative humidity that's the driving concern," said Miller. He and Patel had customized the shipping container for GPM and were responsible for monitoring the spacecraft conditions 24/7 throughout the journey. Humidity and any subsequent condensation of water are bad for the electronics, so the air conditioners and heaters on the environmental control unit are programmed to keep the humidity below 60 percent and the temperature, which contributes to how much moisture the air can hold, between 60 F and 80 F.

Sensors inside the shipping container sent real-time data to a laptop that monitored conditions throughout the trip. They also recorded shock and vibration to see if the spacecraft was getting shaken up at all. It wasn't. In fact, said Miller, the readings were steady and within their specifications for the entire flight.

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Signed, Sealed and Delivered: New NASA Video Shows GPM's Journey to Japan

NASA Pressing Towards Fall 2014 Orion Test Flight – Service Module Complete

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Engineers prepare Orions service module for installation of the fairings that will protect it during launch this fall when Orion launches on its first mission. The service module, along with its fairings, is now complete. Credit: NASA Story Updated

2014 is the Year of Orion.

Orion is NASAs next human spaceflight vehicle destined for astronaut voyages beyond Earth and will launch for the first time later this year on its inaugural test flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The space agency is rapidly pressing forward with efforts to finish building the Orion crew module slated for lift off this Fall on the unmanned Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1) mission.

NASA announced today that construction of the service module section is now complete.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and science chief Astronaut John Grunsfeld discuss NASAs human spaceflight initiatives backdropped by the service module for the Orion crew capsule being assembled at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

The Orion module stack is comprised of three main elements the Launch Abort System (LAS) on top, the crew module (CM) in the middle and the service module (SM) on the bottom.

With the completion of the service module, two thirds of the Orion EFT-1 mission stack are now compete.

LAS assembly was finalized in December.

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NASA Pressing Towards Fall 2014 Orion Test Flight – Service Module Complete

Nasa says Mars mystery rock that ‘appeared’ from nowhere is ‘like nothing we’ve seen before – Video

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Nasa says Mars mystery rock that #39;appeared #39; from nowhere is #39;like nothing we #39;ve seen before
2 photographs of the same spot on Mars 12 days apart and a "rock" or something doughnut shaped appears! NASA themselves are confused by this. Check it out: h...

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Nasa says Mars mystery rock that 'appeared' from nowhere is 'like nothing we've seen before - Video