The space shuttle Endeavour as it launches from NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad on July 15, 2009. By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer for Space.com 2014-03-26 16:30:08 UTC

NEW YORK Space tourism and commercial space mining projects are ushering in a new era of human spaceflight, but the success of private spaceflight will depend on ensuring safety and reducing the cost, experts say.

Spaceflight companies such as SpaceX or Space Adventures, Ltd., could make the dream of space travel a reality for some, and may take on the role NASA once had in pushing the frontier of space, a panel of experts said during the 2014 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate debate March 19 at the American Museum of Natural History.

Some speakers looked to U.S. history for comparison to the potential of private spaceflight today.

The 19th-century adventurers Lewis and Clark, for example, weren't the actual people who colonized Montana, said Michael Gold, director of Washington, D.C., operations and business growth for the Bigelow Aerospace, a company that is developing private inflatable space stations. It was the homesteaders, the farmers and the businessmen who followed later.

"You can't just go to space like Montana homesteaders and pitch a tent," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the museum's Hayden Planetarium and the host of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey." Tyson moderated the evening's debate, which had the theme of "Selling Space."

In addition to Gold, the panel included several luminaries in human spaceflight, including Wanda Austin, president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation; John Logsdon, space policy analyst and professor emeritus at George Washington University; Elliot Pulham, CEO of the Space Foundation; Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, Ltd. and Robert Walker, former chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Like all new forms of travel, private spaceflight carries significant risks. But the panelists said they didn't see the risks as insurmountable.

Ultimately, a bad safety record would hurt companies. "There's a perception that commercial space is less safe," Gold said. But "if we have a bad day, we lose everything."

But beyond having a good safety record, it's important to understand the risks, Austin said. "It doesn't matter how safe [a spaceship] has been, it matters what one you're sitting on."

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Private Space Flight Is Worth the Risk, Experts Say

Dead Space 3 Epic Space Flight! Part 4 Wookie Does Horror
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Dead Space 3 Epic Space Flight! Part 4 Wookie Does Horror - Video

The political acrimony following Russia's annexation of Crimea hasn't extended into Earth's orbit, as a US astronaut and two Russian astronaut prepare to fly to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

The tense political relationship between the United States and Russia will not affect the planned launch of a NASA astronaut and two cosmonauts to the International Space Station Tuesday (March 25), NASA officials reiterated last week.

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The situation in the Ukraine has led to heightened tensions between Russia and the United States recently. Russian President Vladimir Putin annexedCrimea, a region of the Ukraine, making the peninsula a part of Russia on Friday (March 21). President Barack Obama and other world leaders have condemned Putin's decision, bringing sanctions against Russia in response.

NASA's Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev are set to launch atop a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station Tuesday, and thepolitical climatewill not disturb this event, NASA officials have said. The political situation has not affected the relationship between the Russian and U.S. space programs, NASA spokesman Josh Byerly wrote in an email to Space.com Friday (March 21). [See views of Earth taken by astronauts in space]

"We have a great relationship with all of our international partners, and the crew is focused on launch," Byerly told Space.com.

Since the end of NASA's space shuttle program, the agency has relied on Russia'sSoyuz spacecraftto ferry astronauts to and from the space station. By 2017, NASA officials hope to start using private spacecraft now under development in the United States to deliver astronauts to orbit.

International cooperation plays a huge role in the space station program, Mike Fossum, deputy director of flight crew operations for the International Space Station, said during an interview on March 23.

"I think the international cooperation of the 15 nations we have participating in the International Space Station program is really important," Fossum said. "It's great as we share our resources from the different countries, our skills and our teamwork, our experience come together to make these kinds of things happen. It's important to us now to have the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our way of getting people to and from theInternational Space Station."

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Despite US-Russia tensions, space station launch to go as planned

NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is set to begin a series of structural and pressure tests on one of the largest composite cryogenic fuel tanks ever manufactured. Advanced composite cryotanks will help enable NASA's future deep space exploration missions.

Media are invited to view the unloading of the 18-foot-diameter (5.5-meter) composite cryotank from NASAs Super Guppy aircraft onMarch 27 at 7 a.m. CDTat Redstone Army Airfield. In addition, journalists are invited to interview John Vickers, NASA project manager, Composite Cryotank Technology Demonstration (CCTD), and Dan Rivera, Boeing program manager for CCTD.

For more than 50 years, metal tanks have carried fuel to launch rockets and propelled them into space. NASA is pursuing composite cryogenic fuel tanks, a potentially game-changing technology, because the tanks could yield significant cost and weight reductions on future launch vehicles. Once installed in Marshalls test facility, the composite cryotank will undergo a series of tests at extreme pressures and temperatures, similar to those experienced during spaceflight.

Reporters interested in covering the tank arrival should contact Janet Anderson (janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov) of the Marshall Public & Employee Communications Office at256-544-0034.

Journalists must report to the Redstone Visitor Center at Gate 9, Interstate 565 interchange at Rideout Road/Research Park Boulevard no later than6 a.m., Thursday, March 27, for escort to the Redstone Army Airfield.

Vehicles are subject to a security search at the gate. Journalists will need a photo identification and proof of car insurance.

For more information about how the Composite Cryotank Technologies and Demonstration project will revolutionize tank design, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2014/14-043.html

The project is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA's future missions. For more information about NASA's investment in space technology, visit:

spacetech

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NASA Marshall Kicks Off Game Changing Composite Cryotank Testing

Last Updated Mar 25, 2014 10:53 PM EDT

Soyuz TMA-12M commander Alexander Skvortsov, flight engineer Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:17 p.m. EDT, kicking off a planned four-orbit six-hour rendezvous with the station.

NASA astronaut Steven Swanson and two Russian cosmonauts on their way to the International Space Station, March 25, 2014.

NASA

Skvortsov and his crewmates had hoped to be the fifth crew to carry out a four-orbit rendezvous. They executed the first two rendezvous firings on schedule, but the third firing was not carried out, apparently because the spacecraft was not in the expected attitude, or orientation.

With the rendezvous sequence interrupted, Russian flight controllers defaulted to the more traditional two-day sequence while engineers reviewed telemetry and stood by for additional passes over Russian ground stations to collect more data.

"Right now, we don't understand exactly what happened," a Russian flight controller radioed the crew. "So we'll analyze and review all the telemetry. On the next orbit, there will be a comm pass. ... During this comm pass, we'll download the whole mass of telemetry and we will analyze it and review it and we'll try to figure out what happened."

The two-day rendezvous profile will be familiar to Skvortsov, who followed the same set of procedures during his first flight to the space station in 2010.

Assuming the problem can be resolved in time, Skvortsov will oversee an automated docking at the station's upper Poisk module around 7:58 p.m. Thursday. Josh Byerly, NASA's mission control commentator, said the crew was in no danger, and that more than enough supplies were on board to support a two-day 34-orbit rendezvous.

Whenever they arrive, Skvortsov and his crewmates will be welcomed aboard the space station by Expedition 39 commander Koichi Wakata, cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio.

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Delay in docking of Soyuz craft with International Space Station

Colorado native Steve Swanson is scheduled to lift off for space on Tuesday.

Swanson, who grew up in Steamboat Springs and graduated from the University of Colorado, will launch on a Soyuz spacecraft with two Russian cosmonauts. He's expected to spend the next six month on the International Space Station.

Swanson has flown into space twice before on NASA Space Shuttles, before that program was retired.

"Each time I was up there with my shuttle flights, it was only two weeks long and I just wanted to stay," Swanson told 7NEWS.

To prepare for the upcoming six-month expedition, Swanson has spent years in training. Although he and his fellow cosmonauts will spend just a few days aboard the Soyuz, Swanson spent months traveling between the United States and Russia to train for the trip.

"It's like starting a roller coaster ride," said Swanson describing the launch he has trained for.

After the Soyuz carries the crew to the ISS, hundreds of miles above the Earth, Swanson will assume the role of flight engineer for Expedition 39. Every crew visiting the station overlaps and when Expedition 39's members depart a few weeks later, Swanson will become the commander of Expedition 40.

-- This trip begins long before takeoff

"I just always loved to explore," the graduate of Steamboat Springs High School said.

"I'd just go hike around, you know, the areas where we were camping, and I used to love doing that, I think that's kind of the same idea, I love to explore," he added.

Original post:

Coloradan blasts off today for 6-month space job

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Despite tensions on the ground between the United States and Russia, officials say that its business as usual on the International Space Station. The three people launching to space today, in fact, are from both countries:Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), andSteve Swanson from NASA.

As has been the habit lately, the Expedition 39/40 crew will take a faster route to the International Space Station that see launch and docking happen in the same day, should all go to plan. It all begins with the launch at 5:17 p.m. EDT (9:17 p.m. UTC) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with docking scheduled to happen at 11:04 p.m. EDT (3:04 a.m. UTC).

Bear in mind that schedules are subject to change, so its a good idea to watch NASA TV (see video above) well before each milestone to see if things are happening on time. Once the crew arrives at station, one big question is if theyll do spacewalks when they get there.

Last July, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano experienced a severe water leak in his NASA spacesuit that sent the crew scrambling back to the station. While Parmitano emerged physically all right, the agency opened an investigation and suspended all non-essential activities. A report was issued in February and the agency pledged to deal with all the urgent items quickly.

Spacewalks are planned for Expedition 40, but only if these urgent items are cleared in time for that. (That expedition begins in May and will include NASA astronauts Alex Gerst, Reid Wiseman andMaxim Suraev.)

Steve Swanson, commander of Expedition 40, during a spacewalk on 2007 shuttle mission STS-117. Credit: NASA

Elizabeth Howell is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for SPACE.com, Astronomers Without Borders, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter @howellspace or contact her at her website.

Tagged as: alexander skvortsov, expedition 39, expedition 40, oleg artemyev, Roscosmos, steve swanson

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Launch Alert! Three People Set For Space Station Flight Today Heres How To Watch Live

WASHINGTON The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency expects to spend some $800 million on space programs from 2015 through 2018, an increase of $130 million over what was projected at this time last year, Defense Department budget documents show.

Nearly all of the targeted increase for DARPA's Space Programs and Technology Office is backloaded into the outyears, the documents show. For 2015, the office is seeking nearly $180 million, only $7.5 million more than this years funding level.

DARPA's budget books break out funding on a program-by-program basis for the upcoming fiscal year only; outyear projections are provided only at the department level. [NASA Space Tech, Science & Exploration Goals in 2015 (Gallery)]

DARPA's mission, generally speaking, is to pursue high-risk, high-payoff technology development projects that could someday benefit the military. These projects are taken on with the understanding that many, if not most, will fail. Defense Department officials often talk about "DARPA-hard" programs to describe their degree of difficulty.

For example, the 2015 request includes $27 million for XS-1, a concept for a reusable space planethat could ultimately fly 10 times in 10 days and boost payloads into low-Earth orbit for less than $5 million per launch. The program received $10 million in 2014.

"Technologies derived from the XS-1 program will enable routine space launch capabilities with aircraft-like cost, operability and reliability," a DARPA announcement from November 2013 reads. "The long-term intent is for XS-1 technologies to be transitioned to support not only next-generation launch for Government and commercial customers, but also global reach hypersonic and space access aircraft."

The agency hopes to select a single vendor next year for the final design and development of the vehicle, which could make its initial test flight in 2018.

DARPA sees the program potentially transitioning to the Air Force, the Navy or a commercial operator, the budget documents said.

The budget request also includes $55 million for the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program, which is intended to field a system to launch satellites weighing up to 100 lbs (45 kilograms) for $1 million each. The agency requested $42 million for the program in fiscal year 2014.

DARPA awarded ALASA system concept studies contracts last year to Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Virgin Galactic, and technology-development contracts to three other companies.

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US Military's XS-1 Space Plane Project Seeks $27 Million in 2015 Funding

10 Questions for Michelle
Carl Sagan or Brad Pitt? And other urgent questions for our beloved Michelle Thaller. Michelle Thaller is an astronomer at NASA #39;s Goddard Space Flight Center...

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MiG-29 "Edge of Space" Flight
From our friends over at MiGFlug http://www.migflug.com/en/ MiGFlug facilitates civilian jet fighter flights all over the world including the MiG-29 in Nizhn...

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MiG-29 "Edge of Space" Flight - Video

Written by: Cole Peterson on August 8, 2011.

Costly manned space program ends with return of Atlantis

On July 21st, the space shuttle Atlantis touched down at NASAs Kennedy Space Center, signaling the end of the shuttle program and, for a time, Americas adventures in manned space flight.

The event garnered a great deal of media attention as articles and interviews called up great feelings of nostalgia, sadness and disappointment over the fact that NASA and the Bush administration had brought an end to our glorious era in space and shattered all those dreams that had been born from the moon landing so long ago.

The loss of the shuttle program is not, however, something to be mourned. Rather, it should be celebrated as something long overdue that desperately needed to be done.

The space shuttle should have easily been recognizable as a flop within the first decade of its inception. It was painfully expensive, costing an average of $450 million to launch rather than the predicted $55 million. It was inefficient, averaging five launches a year, rather than a predicted 65. Finally, it was incredibly unsafe.

Press releases from NASA indicated the risk of catastrophe was one in 100,000, but some engineers put the number closer to one in a hundred and, for earlier models, a terrifying one in nine. Its a wonder that the history of the space program is not littered with more Challenger- and Columbia-level tragedies.

On top of being a fiscal and safety nightmare, the shuttle program also failed to do much in expanding our presence in space. It was capable of ferrying goods to and from the space station and it provided a platform for certain experiments, but none of that is terribly exciting, revolutionary or even something only the shuttle was capable of.

We havent even bothered to return to the moon or explore much farther than the immediate area outside our atmosphere except with robots. Robots and probes have been far more useful in expanding our knowledge of our solar system, and even a tiny sliver of the galaxy beyond. Weve put a robot on Mars and Japan landed one on the side of a moving asteroid.

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The little space shuttle that couldn't

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Sensors aboard NASAs Terra satellite are aiding the search for vanished flight MH 370. Credit: NASA

NASA has actively joined the hunt for the missing Malaysian Airline flight MH-370 that mysteriously disappeared without a trace more than two weeks ago on March 8, 2014.

Sensors aboard at least two of NASAs unmanned Earth orbiting global observation satellites as well as others flying on the manned International Space Station (ISS) are looking for signs of the jetliner that could aid the investigators from a multitude of nations and provide some small measure of comfort to the grieving families and loved ones of the passengers aboard.

Obviously NASA isnt a lead agency in this effort. But were trying to support the search, if possible, Allard Beutel, NASA Headquarters, Office of Communications director, told Universe Today this evening.

NASAs airplane search assistance comes in two forms; mining existing space satellite observing data and retargeting space based assets for new data gathering since the incident.

The Malaysian Airline Boeing 777-2H6ER jetliner went missing on March 8 while cruising en route from Kuala Lampur, Malaysia to Beijing, China. See cockpit photo below.

Accurate facts on why MH-370 vanished with 239 passengers aboard have sadly been few and far between.

Chinese satellite image of possible debris of MH 370. Credit: China/SASTIND

Last week, the search area shifted to a wide swath in the southern Indian Ocean when potential aircraft debris was spotted in a new series of separate satellite images from Australia and China government officials.

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NASA Targeting Earth Observing Satellites and ISS Sensors to Aid Missing Malaysian Airline Search

Xcor Lynx Suborbital Space Flight HD
http://www.flyfighterjet.com/xcor-lynx-space-flight Suborbital space flight in the Xcor Lynx spacecraft. Become an astronaut by flying higher than 100km or 3...

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Xcor Lynx Suborbital Space Flight HD - Video

Edge of Space flight in the MiG 29 Fulcrum HD
http://www.flyfighterjet.com/edge-of-space-flight The famous Edge of Space video in the Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrum supersonic jet. The Edge of Space flight takes...

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Edge of Space flight in the MiG 29 Fulcrum HD - Video

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Two of the three United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV heavy boosters for NASAs upcoming Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission were unveiled during a media event inside the Horizontal Integration Facility at Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana spoke to the media along with NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot and Tony Taliancich, ULA director of East Coast Launch Operations. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL Production and assembly of virtually all of the key hardware elements for NASAs eagerly anticipated Orion EFT-1 uncrewed test flight are either complete or nearing completion at the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.

Two of the three first stage boosters comprising the mammoth Delta IV Heavy rocket that will propel Orion to high Earth orbit have arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and were unveiled this week by top NASA managers at a media briefing attended by Universe Today.

The triple barreled Delta IV Heavy rocket is currently the most powerful rocket in Americas fleet and the only one capable of launching the Orion EFT-1 capsule to its intended orbit of 3600 miles altitude above Earth.

Due to urgent US national security requirements, the maiden blastoff of the unmanned Orion pathfinder capsule that will one day send humans back to the Moon and beyond Earths realm has just been postponed about three months from September to December 2014 in order to make way for the accelerated launch of recently declassified US Air Force Space Surveillance satellites as I reported here.

Two of the three United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV heavy boosters for NASAs upcoming Orion Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission were unveiled during a media event inside the Horizontal Integration Facility at Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on March 17, 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer kenkremer.com

The center and starboard side boosters recently arrived at the Cape aboard a barge from Decatur, Alabama where they were manufactured by United Launch Alliance (ULA).

The remaining port side booster and the Centaur upper stage are due to be shipped by ULA to Cape Canaveral in April.

Its great to see Orion, the next step in our journey of exploration, said NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot. And its very exciting to see the engines integrated into the booster.

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NASA Unveils Orions Powerful Delta IV Heavy Rocket Boosters for Dec. 2014 Blastoff

(CNN) -

Malaysia Airline Flight 370, a Boeing 777 on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, simply vanished from the sky on March 8. In the two weeks since, the mystery of what happened to its 227 passengers and 12 crew members has set off a frenzy of speculation and conspiracy theory hatching.

It was a rogue pilot. Or was it a hero pilot? Terrorists took over the plane. Or were they air pirates? Space aliens? Maybe the crew flew the plane into Pakistan. Or a black hole? Somebody shot it down. Aha! We can't see the plane because it's invisible! No, it's a sign from God that the Rapture is coming! The Illuminati are behind this! And last but not, least here's that old Internet standby so popular among conservative conspiracy theorists: It's Obama's fault.

Pop-culture aficionados have weighed in, too, with comparisons to the television series "Lost" and "Fantasy Island." Singer Courtney Love went to her Facebook fan page and posted a helpful map drawn on a satellite photo; she said it showed the wreckage in the waters near the island of Palau Perak.

And YouTube commenters suggested that Pitbull and Shakira might have foreseen the trouble, pointing to their 2012 song "Get it Started." They ponder this lyric: "Now it's off to Malaysia," Pitbull sings, "Two passports, three cities, two countries, one day."

Hmmmm.

Outlandish as some of these theories sound, they are so much more comforting than the truth. The truth is unfathomable. The truth is, we just don't know. We can't know yet and we might never know. Highly trained professionals can't figure it out, even with all their satellites and radar and pingy things. Think people don't just disappear from the sky? Tell that to folks who have spent a lifetime trying to figure out what happened to Amelia Earhart or D.B. Cooper.

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 "is going to be a long haul," Malaysia's acting transportation minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said on Friday. "The focus is to reduce the area of search." Right now, it follows two possible flight paths: One arcs over parts of Cambodia, Laos, China and Kazakhstan, and the other over the Indian Ocean. No signs of the plane or a crash site have been spotted on land. And one official compared searching the ocean for the plane to "looking for a needle in a stack of needles."

Searchers and investigators from two dozen countries have pitched in but are left scratching their heads. They're checking data from satellites, running passenger background checks, dispatching ships and flying planes low over thousands of square miles of ocean, looking for a speck of something, anything, among all that rolling blue and gray. The aerial searchers are doing it the old-fashioned way, by peering out the window.

The most promising development has focused on a possible debris sighting in a remote spot in the Indian Ocean more than 1,400 miles southwest of Perth, Australia. That's roughly 6,000 miles from where Flight 370 should have landed. It takes so long to get there and back, the aerial crews can only search the vast open ocean for a two hours at a stretch. China and Japan are dispatching ships, but it will take them several days to get there. A Norwegian commercial ship that was already in the area is looking for signs of survivors. Other merchant ships are on their way, and these are practically uncharted waters.

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Flight 370: Facts few, imaginations run wild

Image Caption: Technicians and scientists check out one of the Webb telescope's first two flight mirrors in the clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

Rob Gutro, NASA

When you think of a mirror, there really isnt that much needed to describe it, but when you look at a mirror that will fly aboard NASAs next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, theres a lot to the anatomy of a mirror.

NASAs Webb telescope includes a primary, secondary and tertiary mirror. Although the relatively small secondary and tertiary mirrors are unique, its the expansive primary mirror that has the most complicated anatomy with a number of components operating together to make the telescope work.

The mirrors were built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Ball is the principal subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for the optical technology and lightweight mirror system. Ball Aerospace also developed the secondary mirror, tertiary mirror and fine-steering mirror.

The raw power of any telescope is determined by the size of its main optic the bigger the first or primary optic, the betterand in the case of large telescopes, the optic is a mirror. Webbs primary mirror measures 6.5 meters (21 feet, 4 inches) across, and although thats respectable by ground-based telescope standards, it is absolutely huge for a space telescope. A mirror this large and in space is needed to capture the light from the most distant galaxies and stars in the universe, but it would too big to launch into space if it were one single piece, so thats why Webbs is composed of 18 smaller lightweight segments that can be folded up to fit into the nosecone of a rocket. Each of Webbs 18 hexagonal-shaped primary mirror segments measures just over 1.3 meters (4.2 feet) across, and weighs approximately 40 kilograms (88 pounds). All of the 18 primary mirror segment assemblies that will fly aboard NASAs James Webb Space Telescope have already arrived at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Each of the 18 mirror segments is not just a mirror but is a complex assembly of technologies that allows all of them to work together as one. Each mirror has an anatomy of many parts, from the reflective gold-coated Beryllium substrate or layer, down to a Beryllium structure of whiffles and a Delta frame, plus precision actuators to position and shape the mirror, mounted on Backplane Interface Flexures.

The complexity of the mirror assemblies comes from the fact that they are designed to be very lightweight, work at cryogenic temperatures below -400F, survive launch vibration and forces, be align-able on-orbit via actuators, and then stay aligned for up to two weeks as though they are a single large mirror, said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Beryllium Mirror Substrate (Smooth mirror surface)

The Beryllium Mirror Substrate is the part of each mirror segment that acts as a mirror in the classic sense. Each substrate is nearly 2 inches thick with a highly-polished and exquisitely smooth front reflective side and a back side that is precision machined into a sort of egg crate-looking structure to make it lighter weight than it would be if solid. The reflective surface is polished to an average roughness of only 20 nanometers (i.e., 20 billionths of a meter) and coated with a microscopically thin layer of pure gold to maximize its ability to reflect infrared light. Beryllium is the material of choice because is it extremely stiff and lightweight, and it behaves very stably and predictably at Webbs extremely cold operating temperatures.

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Amazing Anatomy Of The James Webb Space Telescope Mirrors

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Mar-2014

Contact: Lynn Chandler Lynn.chandler-1@nasa.gov 301-286-2806 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

When you think of a mirror, there really isn't that much needed to describe it, but when you look at a mirror that will fly aboard NASA's next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, there's a lot to the anatomy of a mirror.

NASA's Webb telescope includes a primary, secondary and tertiary mirror. Although the relatively small secondary and tertiary mirrors are unique, it's the expansive primary mirror that has the most complicated anatomy with a number of components operating together to make the telescope work.

The mirrors were built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Ball is the principal subcontractor to Northrop Grumman for the optical technology and lightweight mirror system. Ball Aerospace also developed the secondary mirror, tertiary mirror and fine-steering mirror.

The raw power of any telescope is determined by the size of its main optic the bigger the first or "primary" optic, the betterand in the case of large telescopes, the optic is a mirror. Webb's primary mirror measures 6.5 meters (21 feet, 4 inches) across, and although that's respectable by ground-based telescope standards, it is absolutely huge for a space telescope. A mirror this large and in space is needed to capture the light from the most distant galaxies and stars in the universe, but it would too big to launch into space if it were one single piece, so that's why Webb's is composed of 18 smaller lightweight "segments" that can be folded up to fit into the nosecone of a rocket. Each of Webb's 18 hexagonal-shaped primary mirror segments measures just over 1.3 meters (4.2 feet) across, and weighs approximately 40 kilograms (88 pounds). All of the 18 primary mirror segment assemblies that will fly aboard NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have already arrived at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Each of the 18 mirror segments is not "just a mirror" but is a complex assembly of technologies that allows all of them to work together as one. Each mirror has an "anatomy" of many parts, from the reflective gold-coated Beryllium substrate or layer, down to a Beryllium structure of "whiffles" and a "Delta frame," plus precision actuators to position and shape the mirror, mounted on Backplane Interface Flexures.

"The complexity of the mirror assemblies comes from the fact that they are designed to be very lightweight, work at cryogenic temperatures below -400F, survive launch vibration and forces, be align-able on-orbit via actuators, and then stay aligned for up to two weeks as though they are a single large mirror," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Beryllium Mirror Substrate (Smooth mirror surface)

See more here:

The amazing anatomy of James Webb Space Telescope mirrors

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Delta 4 Heavy rocket and super secret US spy satellite roar off Pad 37 on June 29, 2012 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASAs Orion EFT-1 capsule will blastoff atop a similar Delta 4 Heavy Booster in December 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer- kenkremer.com Stroy updated

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL The urgent need by the US Air Force to launch a pair of previously classified Space Situational Awareness satellites into Earth orbit this year on an accelerated schedule has bumped the inaugural blastoff of NASAs highly anticipated Orion pathfinder manned capsule from September to December 2014.

Its a simple case of US national security taking a higher priority over the launch of NASAs long awaited unmanned Orion test flight on the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) mission.

The EFT-1 flight is NASAs first concrete step towards sending human crews on Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) missions since the finale of the Apollo moon landing era in December 1972.

Final assembly of Orion is underway at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

The very existence of the covert Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, was only recently declassified during a speech by General William Shelton, commander of the US Air Force Space Command.

Shelton made the announcement regarding the top secret GSSAP program during a Feb. 21 speech about the importance of space and cyberspace at the Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium and Technology exposition, in Orlando, FL.

US national security requirements forced NASAs Orion EFT-1 mission to swap launch slots with the GSSAP satellites which were originally slated to launch later in 2014.

An artist concept shows Orion as it will appear in space for the Exploration Flight Test-1 attached to a Delta IV second stage. Credit: NASA

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US Air Force Space Surveillance Satellite Bumps NASAs long awaited Orion Launch to Dec. 2014

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES -- 15 MAR 2014
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES -- 15 MAR 2014 (BEST SEEN, FULL SCREEN!) LINK TO MY TALK AT NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on 6 December: http://mediastrea...

By: drkstrong

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SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES -- 15 MAR 2014 - Video