Countdown to Launch Live Event from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. – Video


Countdown to Launch Live Event from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.
The "What #39;s New in Aerospace" program is presented from the National Air and Space Museum #39;s Moving Beyond Earth exhibition gallery and showcases NASA #39;s Launch Services--Jim Norman, ...

By: NASA

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Countdown to Launch Live Event from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. - Video

NASA Signs Lease with Planetary Ventures LLC for Use of …

Deal Part of Agency Effort to Reduce Costs, Surplus Property

In an effort to reduce costs and shed surplus property, NASA today signed a lease with Planetary Ventures, LLC to manage Moffett Federal Airfield (MFA), an agency facility located in Moffett Field, California, and rehabilitate its historic Hangar One. NASA estimates the lease will save the agency approximately $6.3 million annually in maintenance and operation costs and provide $1.16 billion in rent over the initial 60-year lease term.

MFA, currently maintained by NASAs Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, includes approximately 1,000 acres of land located on South San Francisco Bay. The land includes Hangars One, Two and Three, an airfield flight operations building, two runways and a private golf course.

"As NASA expands its presence in space, we are making strides to reduce our footprint here on Earth, said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. We want to invest taxpayer resources in scientific discovery, technology development and space exploration not in maintaining infrastructure we no longer need. Moffett Field plays an important role in the Bay Area and is poised to continue to do so through this lease arrangement.

After a fair and open competition, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and NASA selected Planetary Ventures, LLC as the preferred lessee in February 2014 and began lease negotiations. The negotiated lease, which is neither a procurement action nor a government contract, will put Hangar One to new use and eliminate NASA's management costs of the airfield, with the federal government retaining title to the property.

Hangar One is an important landmark in Silicon Valley, said GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini. GSA was proud to support NASA in delivering the best value to taxpayers while restoring this historic facility and enhancing the surrounding community.

Planetary Ventures currently plans to invest more than $200 million in capital improvements to the property and commits, in this lease, to several undertakings that will benefit the public upon completion, including: -- Refurbishing and protecting historic Hangar One in accordance with standards established for historic properties by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior; -- Rehabilitating historic Hangars Two and Three; -- Operating MFA in accordance with the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for public and private use; and, -- Creating an educational facility where the public can explore the sites legacy and the role of technology in the history of Silicon Valley.

We are fortunate to have had significant input from surrounding communities on setting a future path for Moffett Field, said Ames Director S. Pete Worden. With the involvement of the citizens of Mountain View and Sunnyvale, we are confident the results will benefit all parties.

Planetary Ventures will assume operation of the site following the finalization of a joint plan with NASA, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and California Regional Water Quality Control Board to ensure continued environmental stewardship and protection of the existing remedies of the site.

As a tenant to NASA, Planetary Ventures will be required to comply with all applicable laws, regulations and policies, including those on topics of historic preservation, environmental compliance, security, health and safety, and airfield operations to support ongoing missions and other government objectives.

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NASA Signs Lease with Planetary Ventures LLC for Use of ...

NASA Commercial Crew Partners Continue System Advancements

NASA's industry partners continue to complete development milestones under agreements with the agencys Commercial Crew Program. The work performed by Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX during partnership and contract initiatives are leading a new generation of safe, reliable and cost-effective crew space transportation systems to low-Earth orbit destinations.

Blue Origin conducted an interim design review of the subsystems in development for its Space Vehicle spacecraft designed to carry people into low-Earth orbit. The September review was performed under an unfunded Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) agreement with NASA. In October, NASA and Blue Origin agreed to add three additional unfunded milestones to the agreement to continue the development work and partnership. Those milestones will include further testing of Blue Origins propellant tank, BE-3 engine and pusher escape system.

The team at Blue Origin has made tremendous progress in its design, and were excited to extend our partnership to 2016, said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Its important to keep a pulse on the commercial human spaceflight industry as a whole, and this partnership is a shining example of what works well for both industry and the government.

Boeing successfully closed out its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) agreement with NASA, which significantly matured the companys crew transportation system, including the CST-100 spacecraft and Atlas V rocket. Meanwhile, both Boeing and SpaceX began work on the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts the agency awarded them Sept. 16 to develop systems to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station while the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) considers the GAO bid protest filed by Sierra Nevada Corporation.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) continued to perform incremental tests of its reaction control system as it prepares for a CCiCap milestone review for NASA that details the system, which would help maneuver the Dream Chaser spacecraft in space. SNC also is preparing for the CCiCap free-flight milestone test of its Dream Chaser test vehicle at NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center.

SpaceX held several CCiCap meetings with NASA, including one in August that covered the companys launch and mission operations plans and the associated ground systems at Kennedy Space Centers Launch Complex 39A. The company also held a series of technical interchange sessions with the agencys spaceflight experts to discuss the intricacies of the progress, testing and plans associated with the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 v 1.1 rocket.

"Our partners detailed progress on launch and spaceflight capabilities expands domestic access to space and does so in a unique and revolutionary manner," said Lueders. "Their success is a critical part of NASAs integrated approach to advance the frontier of exploration."

NASA's goal for the Commercial Crew Program is to facilitate the development of a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. With the new CCtCap contracts announced Sept. 16, NASAs goal is to certify crew transportation systems in 2017 that will return the ability to launch astronauts from American soil to the International Space Station.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:

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NASA Commercial Crew Partners Continue System Advancements

NASA Opens Registration for 2015 Exploration Rover Challenge

NASA has opened team registration for the 2015 NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge. Organized byNASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the event will be held April 16-18, 2015, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, also in Huntsville.

The challenge engages high school, college and university students in hands-on, experiential learning activities, while also testing potential technologies needed for future deep space exploration. Both U.S. and international teams may register to participate. For U.S. teams, registration closes Feb. 6, 2015. Registration for international teams closes Jan. 9, 2015.

Student teams participating in the Rover Challenge must design, engineer and test a human-powered rover on a mock course designed to simulate the harsh and demanding terrains future NASA explorers may find on distant planets, moons and asteroids.

"Throughout the months-long process, students gain meaningful experience and valuable feedback, while receiving encouragement to pursue technical careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," said Diedra Williams, an education specialist in Marshalls Academic Affairs Office. "Students must use their educational background to apply practical designs and solve engineering problems similar to those encountered by NASA mission teams."

Registration questions may be directed to Diedra Williams at 256-544-5721 ordiedra.a.williams@nasa.gov(U.S. teams) and Amy McDowell at 256-544-8411 oramy.mcdowell@nasa.gov(international teams).

The Human Exploration Rover Challenge encourages research and development in new technologiesand engages students in real-world engineering and problem-solving concepts that may be needed on future exploration missions. Through innovative challenges such as this, NASA continues to demonstrate its commitment to inspiring new generations of scientists, engineers and astronauts.

For more information on the 2015 Human Exploration Rover Challenge and registration, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/14dikMF

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NASA Opens Registration for 2015 Exploration Rover Challenge

NASA OIG: NASA's 2014 Top Management and Performance Challenges

NASA Inspector General Paul Martin today released the Office of Inspector General's (OIG) annual report discussing the most serious management and performance challenges facing NASA. The underlying theme of this year's report is sustainability. Specifically, the OIG noted that NASA's ability to sustain its ambitious exploration, science, and aeronautics programs will be driven in large measure by whether the Agency is able to adequately fund such high-profile initiatives as its commercial cargo and crew programs, Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, James Webb Space Telescope, Mars 2020 Rover, and associated personnel and infrastructure.

Over the past year, the OIG issued reports raising concerns on a variety of issues that could affect the sustainability of NASA projects and missions. For example, because of budget reductions and the loss of expected revenue, NASA's Space Network - part of the Agency's Space Communications and Navigation Program that provides connectivity with NASA spacecraft operating in low Earth orbit - will not have sufficient funding beginning in fiscal year (FY) 2016 to meet all planned service commitments. In addition, while NASA hopes to maintain the International Space Station's budget at between $3 and $4 billion annually through 2024, we believe this estimate overly optimistic and the cost to NASA will likely be higher due in part to increased astronaut transportation costs. In another example, since 2006 NASA has spent or budgeted an average of $62 million annually to address an estimated $1.1 billion in unfunded environmental liabilities. However, soil and groundwater cleanup costs for one project alone - the Santa Susana Field Laboratory outside Los Angeles, California - could easily consume NASA's entire environmental restoration budget.

In what has become something of an unfortunate pattern, NASA began the new fiscal year without a full-year appropriation, making long-range planning more difficult. In addition, the Agency faces significant budgetary challenges given that its "top-line" funding level is likely to remain relatively flat for at least the next several years. Accordingly, the OIG believes the principal challenge facing NASA leaders in FY 2015 will be to effectively manage the Agency's varied programs against the backdrop of an uncertain budget environment. In addition to this overarching challenge, NASA managers must address a myriad of individual Agency-, project-, and facility-related challenges. In the OIG's view, the top seven challenges facing the Agency are:

* Managing NASA's Human Space Exploration Programs: the International Space Station, Commercial Crew Transportation, and the SpaceLaunch System

* Managing NASA's Science Portfolio

* Ensuring the Continued Efficacy of the Space Communications Networks

* Overhauling NASA's Information Technology Governance

* Ensuring the Security of NASA's Information Technology Systems

* Managing NASA's Infrastructure and Facilities

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NASA OIG: NASA's 2014 Top Management and Performance Challenges

NASA: Alaska Shows No Signs of Rising Arctic Methane

Despite large temperature increases in Alaska in recent decades, a new analysis of NASA airborne data finds that methane is not being released from Alaskan soils into the atmosphere at unusually high rates, as recent modeling and experimental studies have suggested. The new result shows that the changes in this part of the Arctic have not yet had enough impact to affect the global methane budget.

This is important because methane is the third most common greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, after water vapor and carbon dioxide. Although there is much less of it in the air, it is 33 times more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere and adding to greenhouse warming.

High concentrations of atmospheric methane have been measured at individual Arctic sites, especially in Siberia. This adds to the concern that massive methane releases are already occurring in the far North. NASA's multiyear Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) is the first experiment to establish emission rates for a large region of the Arctic.

In the new study, researchers analyzed methane measurements made over Alaska from May through September 2012 during the first season of CARVE. They estimated emission rates for the winter months, during most of which no methane was released because the soil was frozen.

Alaska composes about one percent of Earth's total land area, and its estimated annual emissions in 2012 equaled about one percent of total global methane emissions. That means the Alaskan rate was very close to the global average rate.

"That's good news, because it means there isn't a large amount of methane coming out of the ground yet," said lead author Rachel Chang, formerly at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and now an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Atmospheric Science at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Charles Miller of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, the principal investigator for CARVE, noted that results from a single year cannot show how emissions might be changing from year to year. "The 2012 data don't preclude accelerated change in the future," he said.

Vast amounts of carbon are stored in undecayed organic matter -- dead plants and animals -- in Arctic permafrost and peat. Scientists estimate that there is more than twice as much carbon locked in the frozen North as there is in the atmosphere today. The organic material won't decay and release its carbon as long as it stays frozen. But climate change has brought warmer and longer summers throughout the Arctic, and permafrost soils are thawing more and more. If large amounts of undecayed matter were to defrost, decompose and release methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the impact on global temperatures would most likely be enormous.

CARVE is a pioneering regional study of methane and carbon dioxide emissions across Alaska. CARVE makes frequent and sustained science flights across Alaska using NASA's Arctic-tested Sherpa C-23B aircraft. The C-23 carries a variety of research sensors, including gas analyzers that link CARVE methane and carbon dioxide measurements to World Meteorological Organization standards. Flight campaigns occur each month throughout the growing season (May through October), when Arctic carbon emissions are at their highest and change most rapidly. CARVE science flights began in 2012 and will continue through 2015.

Because no other program has made measurements as comprehensive and widespread as CARVE's, Chang said, "One of the challenges is that we have nothing to compare our results to. We can't say whether emissions have already increased or stayed the same. Our measurements will serve as a baseline."

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NASA: Alaska Shows No Signs of Rising Arctic Methane

NASA Successfully Tests 3D-Printed Rocket Engine Parts

Washington: NASA has successfully tested 3D manufactured copper parts for rocket engines and found they could withstand the heat and pressure required for space launches.

Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) at NASA's Glenn Research Centre in partnership with NASA successfully completed the first hot-fire tests on an advanced rocket engine thrust chamber assembly using copper alloy materials.

This was the first time a series of rigorous tests confirmed that 3-D manufactured copper parts could withstand the heat and pressure required of combustion engines used in space launches, NASA said.

In all, NASA and AR conducted 19 hot-fire tests on four injector and thrust chamber assembly configurations, exploring various mixture ratios and injector operability points and were deemed fully successful against the planned test programme.

The work is a major milestone in the development and certification of different materials used in this manufacturing process, NASA said.

According to AR, copper alloys offer unique challenges to the additive manufacturing processes. The micro-structure and material properties can be well below typical copper.

So they have worked through a regimented process to optimise and lock down processing characteristics and have performed rigorous materials tests to know how the alloy performs structurally.

"Additively manufactured metal propulsion components are truly a paradigm shift for the aerospace industry," said Paul Senick, Glenn project manager.

"NASA and its commercial partners continue to invest in additive manufacturing technologies, which will improve efficiency and bring down the cost of space launches and other earth applications," said Mr Senick.

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NASA Successfully Tests 3D-Printed Rocket Engine Parts

NASAs Music and Drama Club presents musical 'Fanny' — Gazette.Net

Photo by Jon Gardner

Katrina Jackson as Fanny, and Roger Porres as Marius dance together in Fanny.

Many of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Centers creative brightest will illustrate the fallout from hard decisions when they put on a production of Fanny through the organizations Music and Drama club.

Set in Marseille, France, Fanny originally comes from a series of Marcel Pagnol films from the 1930s that were adapted into a musical in 1954. Fanny and a young man, Marius, fall in love, but the ocean calls to him, leaving Fanny with child and feeling forced to enter into a marriage with an older man she does not have feelings for, Panisse.

The musical holds special meaning for director Richard Richardson, who proposed the piece for this season as his directing debut. His mother grew up in Marseille, and she had married an American sailor Richardsons father after World War II, instilling an interest in the time period for him.

As a child, my mother would take me back to France to visit her parents, he said. Ive been eight times, and I grew to love the people of Marseille because theyre warm and affectionate, with a great sense of humor. This show brings out all of those qualities.

Richardson hoped the qualities that drew him to the relatively unknown musical would resonate with the group members in charge of planning the next season. They must consider the size of the staff, age-appropriateness and availability before signing off on a production

Luckily, many found the plot as intriguing as Richardson did.

The thing that drew me to the show was that concept of what if, the whole exploration, said producer Kathy Fontaine. We all make choices, and we all act in a way we think is in the best interest of everybody but how much do we really know about that interest? If we could see the consequences, what would we do?

No one had ever heard of it, Richardson added. It was kind of a gamble, they just had to give it a chance.

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NASAs Music and Drama Club presents musical 'Fanny' -- Gazette.Net

The Pee-ew #49: DJ Scotto, Pacha, Page Six, James St. James, NASA – Video


The Pee-ew #49: DJ Scotto, Pacha, Page Six, James St. James, NASA
Michael Alig and Ernie Glam welcome Scotto and discuss his Maskarave party at Pacha and Michael #39;s return to clubland, why James St. James left Scotto out of Disco Bloodbath, Scotto #39;s club NASA...

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The Pee-ew #49: DJ Scotto, Pacha, Page Six, James St. James, NASA - Video

NASAs Orion Spacecraft Set to Roll out to Launch Pad for its First Test Flight – Video


NASAs Orion Spacecraft Set to Roll out to Launch Pad for its First Test Flight
NASA #39;s Orion spacecraft rolled out of the Launch Abort System Facility (LASF) at NASA #39;s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to its launch pad at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station #39;s...

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NASAs Orion Spacecraft Set to Roll out to Launch Pad for its First Test Flight - Video