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NASA Awards Bridge Contract For Flight Dynamics Support Services

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NASA has awarded the Flight Dynamics Support Services (FDSS) Bridge contract for engineering services to a.i. solutions Inc.,Lanham, Md.This contract is necessary to continue performance at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center inGreenbelt, Md.until the Flight Dynamics Support Services II contract is awarded.

The cost-plus-fixed-fee, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity basic contract has a minimum ordering value of$500,000and a maximum ordering value of$20 millionwith a period of performance fromMarch 14 through March 13, 2015. There is also an option to extend the period of performance fromMarch 14, 2015, throughJune 13, 2015, with a maximum ordering value of$5.4 million.

The contractor will continue to provide flight dynamics and attitude control operations engineering support and analysis and related work to the Mission Engineering and Systems Analysis Division's Navigation and Mission Design Branch and Attitude Control Systems Engineering Branch, including the Flight Dynamics Facility, and related organizations, as required, for both in-house and out-of-house spacecraft programs.

Task orders issued under the FDSS Bridge contract provide critical support to a wide range of NASA's missions and projects including: James Webb Space Telescope, the Magnetosphere Multi-scale Mission, the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, Deep Space Climate Observatory and the Mars Atmosphere Volatile Evolution (MAVEN).

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NASA Awards Bridge Contract For Flight Dynamics Support Services

NASA Extends Cargo Mission Contract at Johnson Space Center

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NASA has exercised a $22 million, one-year extension option for a contract with Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems of Houston to provide support to International Space Station activities at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.The contract provides support consisting of analytical and physical processing activities to support pressurized cargo requirements for visiting vehicle flights to and from the International Space Station, including cargo mission planning, cargo coordination, stowage integration, cargo processing, international shipping and the capability to build hardware to support pressurized and unpressurized cargo transportation, as needed.The contract also provides for the performance of flight crew equipment processing activities necessary to provide and maintain flight and training hardware and services in support of the space station and other programs.This cost-plus-award-fee contract option continues services from April 1, 2014, through March 31, 2015. Work under the contract will be performed at Johnson.Significant subcontractors on the contract are Bastion Technologies of Houston; GHG of Webster, Texas; LZ Technology of Houston; Rothe Enterprises of San Antonio; TechTrans International of Houston; Stress Guys of Houston; and University of Texas El Paso.For more information about NASA's Johnson Space Center, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/johnsonFor more information on NASA and its programs, visit:http://www.nasa.gov

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NASA Extends Cargo Mission Contract at Johnson Space Center

NASA's Latest Smartphone Satellite Ready for Launch

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NASA's preparing to send its fifth in a series of smartphone-controlled small spacecraft into orbit. PhoneSat 2.5 will ride into space as part of the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. SpaceX-3 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 4:41 a.m. EDT Sunday, March 16. Once in Earth orbit, the tiny spacecraft will demonstrate the power of smartphone components to support space-based communications systems and survive the radiation environment of low Earth orbit -- as high as 220 miles above Earth. The technology demonstration mission also will pave the way for a constellation of cooperative small satellites scheduled to launch later this year. "If I showed PhoneSat to you, you'd ask, 'where's the phone?'," said Bruce Yost, program manager for NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "That's because although we buy a smartphone off the shelf, much like the one in your pocket or purse, we take it apart and repackage it to fit in the cubesat form and work in space. This differs from the first PhoneSat, that packed in the entire smartphone." Selected for launch as part of NASA's Cubesat Launch Initiative, PhoneSat 2.5 is a one-unit (1U) cubesat spacecraft measuring 10 centimeters square (approximately four inches on each side), using commercially available smartphones. The mission has three objectives: determine if a low-cost commercially available attitude determination and control system can work in space; verify if a smartphone can support space-based communications systems; and provide further confidence in the PhoneSat concept and components by investigating its ability to survive long-term in the radiation environment of space. "NASA is using these pioneering small spacecraft missions to gauge the use of consumer-grade smartphone technology as the main control electronics of a capable, yet very low-cost, satellite," said Andrew Petro, program executive for the Small Spacecraft Technology Program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, which funds the PhoneSat series. PhoneSat 2.5 is equipped with a higher-gain S-Band antenna, which serves as a pathfinder for future NASA missions, including the Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN) mission scheduled to launch later this year. The EDSN mission plans to launch eight identical 1.5U cubesats (10-by-10-by-15 centimeters and 2.5 kilograms), based on the PhoneSat architecture, to demonstrate the concept of using many small spacecraft working together in a cooperative manner. EDSN will fly the cubesats in a loose formation. Each satellite will be able to cross-link communicate with the others so that engineers can study space-to-space communications and how small, low-cost, powerful satellites can perform space weather monitoring duties. In addition to the large memory, fast processors, GPS receivers, gyroscope and magnetometer sensors and high-resolution cameras commonly found in smartphones, the PhoneSat 2.5 also houses a low-cost commercial attitude determination and control system that contains reaction wheels that by slowing down or speeding up, can rotate the satellite. Engineers hope to determine if this control system can orient PhoneSat in space, a critical capability for satellites that may need to point towards a specific object of scientific interest like an asteroid, star or features on Earth. The missions also gather further information about the orbital lifespan of the smartphone components. "By advancing the price performance of nanosatellites using consumer electronics, we can make some of the more radical ideas become economically viable," said Jasper Wolfe, PhoneSat Control System lead at NASA Ames. PhoneSat 2.5 builds upon the successful flights of previous NASA smartphone satellites launched last year. PhoneSat 2.4 launched last November and achieved its primary mission objectives, demonstrating a smartphone can serve as an avionics controller. It also demonstrated the use of its magnetometer and an Ames-designed magnetorquer to actively align the satellite's orientation with Earth's magnetic fields. This was a first for Ames small satellites, which to date have used passive, permanent magnetic torque rods. PhoneSat 2.4 continues to transmit data, which means its solar arrays, battery charging circuit, Arduino watchdog and data router are still operating correctly. In early January, however, the Phonesat 2.4 smartphone began to experience recurring resets coinciding with a period of numerous solar flares. As a result, the satellite no longer executes flight application software. "We expect PhoneSat 2.5's orbital lifetime to be as long as six weeks" said Cedric Priscal, PhoneSat software lead at Ames. "This operation time will help us demonstrate that the system can survive being exposed to the doses of space radiation all satellites must endure in low Earth orbit, and help us gather data on the effects radiation has on the satellite." What kind of smartphone has a battery life of six weeks? NASA equipped the six sides of the PhoneSats with solar panels to help replenish the batteries and keep the spacecraft alive. PhoneSat 2.5 also includes a higher-gain two-way S-band radio communications capability. Engineers will test the radio's capability to send commands to the spacecraft and telemetry back to ground station on Earth, in preparation for NASA's Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN) mission, scheduled for launch late this year. While orbiting Earth, ground station controllers at Santa Clara University in California, also will attempt to command PhoneSat 2.5 to transmit photographs of what it sees using the smartphone's camera to gather information for future low cost onboard camera systems and star trackers. "We're answering the question, how useful are consumer grade electronics for atmospheric or Earth science, communications, or other space-born applications," said Ken Oyadomari, PhoneSat communications lead at Ames. "The next step is to add a propulsion system to pave the way for cubesats to explore further into the solar system," said Oriol Tintore, PhoneSat mechanical lead at Ames. Though it's unlikely you'll find one of those on your smartphone anytime soon. The PhoneSat series of technology demonstration missions is funded by the Small Spacecraft Technology Program, in NASAs Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters and the Engineering Directorate at Ames. For more information about NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program and the PhoneSat series of cubesats, visit: http://go.usa.gov/KWRP

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NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Safe After Unplanned Computer Swap

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NASA's long-lived Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a precautionary safe standby mode March 9 after an unscheduled swap from one main computer to another. The mission's ground team has begun restoring the spacecraft to full operations.

"The spacecraft is healthy, in communication and fully powered," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We have stepped up the communication data rate, and we plan to have the spacecraft back to full operations within a few days."

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's science observations and its relaying of communications from NASA's two active Mars rovers have been suspended. The rovers continue to use NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter as a communications relay.

Entry into safe mode is the prescribed response by a spacecraft when it detects conditions outside the range of normal expectations. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has experienced unplanned computer swaps triggering safe-mode entry four times previously, most recently in November 2011. The root cause of the previous events has not been determined. The spacecraft has also experienced safe-mode entries that have not involved computer swaps.

Unlike any previous safe-mode entries experienced in this mission, the March 9 event included a swap to a redundant radio transponder on the orbiter. While the mission resumes operations with this transponder, engineers are investigating the status of the one that is now out of service.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter entered orbit around Mars eight years ago, on March 10, 2006. Since then, it has returned more data than all other past and current interplanetary missions combined. The mission met all its science goals in a two-year primary science phase. Three extensions, the latest beginning in 2012, have added to the science returns. The longevity of the mission has given researchers tools to study seasonal and longer-term changes on the Red Planet.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter and collaborates with JPL to operate it. For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ .

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NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Safe After Unplanned Computer Swap

NASA Needs Coders to Help Prevent Asteroid Armageddon

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Savvy coders can soon help NASA defend Earth against asteroid threats and win some cash prizes in the bargain. The U.S. space agency has joined forces with an asteroid-mining company to recruit programmers who can help identify asteroids in the slew of images taken by ground-based telescopes.

TheAsteroid Data Huntercontest scheduled for launch on 17 March will offer a total of US $35000 over the next six months to anyone with the coding chops to create new asteroid-hunting algorithms. Winning solutions must boost detection sensitivity, minimize false positives, overlook imperfections in the telescope imaging data, and run well on all computer systems. Such efforts could help NASA's sky surveys find even smaller asteroids that still pose a threat to human populations.

"For the past three years, NASA has been learning and advancing the ability to leverage distributed algorithm and coding skills through the NASA Tournament Lab to solve tough problems," said Jason Crusan, NASA Tournament Lab director, in apress release. "We are now applying our experience with algorithm contests to helping protect the planet from asteroid threats through image analysis."

NASA set up the crowd-sourced challenge in partnership withPlanetary Resources, an asteroid mining startup backed byHollywood director James Cameron and Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. Planetary Resources will help contest participants access NASA-funded sky survey data and also review the contest results. NASA's role includes managing the contest and figuring out how to use winning solutions to improve asteroid survey programs.

Such a partnership provides a possible win-win for both public and private entities. NASA gets to learn more about Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and track potential threats to Earth, whereas Planetary Resources gets to identify newasteroid mining targets for future missions to harvest space resources.

The new contest is part of NASA's Asteroid Grand Challengethat focuses on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and figuring out how to handle such threats. It also falls under the broader NASA Asteroid Initiative, whichincludes the U.S. space agency's proposal to send a robotic mission to capture a near-Earth asteroid for closer study.

NASA's asteroid-hunting efforts so far have helped find 95percent of near-Earth asteroids larger than 1kilometer within the last 15years. But the Asteroid Grand Challenge aims to find even smaller asteroids such as the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia last year. Researchers estimate they have found less than 10percent of asteroids smaller than 300meters in diameter, and less than 1percent of objects smaller than 100meters in diameter.

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NASA Space Technology Grants for Early Career University Faculty

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NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is seeking proposals from accredited U.S. universities on behalf of outstanding early career faculty members who are beginning their independent careers. The grants will sponsor research in specific, high-priority areas of interest to America's space program.NASA expects to award about five grants this fall, funded up to $200,000 each per year for as many as three years, based on the merit of proposals and availability of funds. Funded research will investigate unique, disruptive or transformational space technologies in areas such as soft machines for robotic mobility and manipulation, science-based digital materials and manufacturing, and low -size, -weight and -power lasers.The deadline to submit final proposals to the Early Career Faculty Appendix of NASA's Research Announcement "Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration and Infusion 2014 (SpaceTech-REDDI-2014)" isMarch 14, 2014.For information on the solicitation, including specific technology areas of interest and how to submit notices of intent and proposals, visithttp://tinyurl.com/kcglhca.This solicitation is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is responsible for innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in future missions. For more information about the directorate and Space Technology Research Grants Program, visithttp://www.nasa.gov/spacetech.Please email any questions about this opportunity to Bonnie F. James atHQ-STMD-SpaceTech-REDDI-2013@nasa.gov.

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