Monthly Archives: June 2020

Boeings John Mulholland gives a briefing to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine during a visit to the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 2018. Hardware for Boeings CST-100 Starliner space taxi can be seen in the background. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

As a new commercial-centric era dawns for the International Space Station, Boeing is realigning its top managers for the space station program and for the program thats working to send Starliner capsules there and back.

Mark Mulqueen, who has served as Boeings space station program manager since 2015, will be retiring July 2. During his 35 years at Boeing, Mulqueen has served in a variety of management positions for example, as deputy program manager for the space station and deputy program manager for the commercial crew program.

Boeing has served as the prime contractor for the U.S. segment of the International Space Station since its inception. The orbital outpost will mark 20 years of continuous occupation this November.

Mark has made an immense contribution to Boeings human spaceflight programs, and his legacy will endure well beyond his departure, Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch, said in an email to employees announcing todays management changes.

John Mulholland will take on the role of vice president and program manager for the International Space Station, effective June 26. Since 2011, Mulholland has led the design and development of the CST-100 Starliner space taxi, which is meant to ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion fixed-price contract in 2014 to develop the Starliner as part of a commercial space transport system in the wake of the space shuttle fleets retirement in 2011. SpaceX won a similar contract worth $2.6 billion for the development of its Crew Dragon capsule, which sent NASA astronauts to the station for the first time last month.

Starliner took on an uncrewed test flight to orbit last December, but a timing glitch foiled Boeings plan to go all the way to the space station and back. A joint NASA-Boeing independent review turned up dozens of fixes that had to be made. Another uncrewed trial is expected later this year and assuming that flight goes well, Starliners first crewed trip to the station would take place next year.

In a financial report issued in January, Boeing said it would take a $410 million pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the cost of a second uncrewed flight.

Before taking on his role with the Starliner program, Mulholland was vice president and program manager for Boeings part of the space shuttle program. (The prime contractor for the shuttle program was United Space Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture.)

Effective June 26, John Vollmer will take on Mulhollands role as vice president and program manager for the CST-100 Starliner program.

Vollmer joined the Starliner program this year to support the implementation of recommendations from the independent review team. Vollmer previously served as chief engineer on the space station program.

His experience with the space station goes back 33 years, to Boeings first contract award for the program. He was a member of the station redesign team in 1993, when Space Station Freedom was reworked to accommodate Russian participation. Vollmer also served as the launch package stage manager for the stations first U.S. element, which was launched in 1998 and is now known as the Unity node.

Their leadership will help us rise to the challenges before us and the opportunities ahead as we advance Boeings 60-year legacy in human spaceflight, Chilton said.

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Later this year, if all goes well, the International Space Station will receive a very important delivery: a new and improved toilet system.

It has a fancier name, of course; officially, the commode is NASA's Universal Waste Management System (UWMS). The system is designed to bridge the gap between current lavatorial space technology and what humans will need to make extended visits to, say, Mars, in comfort. But there's nothing like a plumbing problem to make any trip seem much longer than it is, so before engineers take UWMS that far from the comforts of home, they want to test it in orbit.

The launch is targeted for no earlier than the fall, a NASA spokesperson confirmed to Space.com, although the agency is still determining what spacecraft will carry the new plumbing up.

Related: International Space Station at 20: A photo tour

In the long term, the new toilet is meant to prepare waste-management engineers for some of the challenges experts anticipate on future missions, Jim Broyan, a deputy program manager for Environmental Control and Life Support Technology and Crew Health and Performance at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during a meeting of the Committee on Space Research, or COSPAR, on May 20.

The meeting focused on what human missions to Mars mean for planetary protection, the practice of looking to protect both Earth and the rest of the solar system from cross-contamination by living organisms. Waste collection and storage are ripe for such cross-contamination, of course, since human waste is full of microbes. So future Mars visitors won't necessarily be able to take the approach of Apollo astronauts on the moon, who simply left bags of human waste on the lunar surface.

For Mars missions, which by necessity will be much longer flights, volume is another challenge. Broyan said that current estimates suggest Mars missions would need to manage about 600 lbs. (270 kilograms) of solid waste, about 75% of which is water.

Those challenges mean that before humans head to Mars, waste-management experts have, well, a bucket list, Broyan said. "Our future goals are to stabilize and dry the metabolic waste to make it microbially inactive and possibly reuse that water, reduce the amount of consumables for the potty, because it does really accumulate on a long mission, and we're also looking at, Can we reuse some of the waste?"

And while the current standard practice of adding stench-dampening charcoal to fecal containers and storing those containers on the ship works now, for longer missions it is less appealing and may require too much mass.

The new station-bound toilet won't tackle all of those challenges single-handedly, but it will improve on previous NASA designs for the shuttle and space station and incorporate crew feedback about those systems. The UWMS is also crucial to support the larger population on the U.S. side of the space station that the coming rise in commercial crew missions will facilitate, according to NASA.

The toilet currently on offer on the U.S. side of the space station was designed in the 1990s and based on its shuttle counterpart, according to a detailed review of space toiletry. But the apparatus has its flaws. It can be clunky to use, particularly for women, and it is "sensitive to crew alignment on the seat," sometimes resulting in messes, according to that review.

So NASA has tried to keep the aspects that have gotten positive reviews while trimming mass and volume and making some design changes, like adjusting the shape of the seat and replacing the apparatus that compresses the waste.

Another change mimics a feature of the toilet on the Russian side of the space station, where astronauts simply hook their feet into toe bars, rather than the thigh bars used on the American equivalent to anchor the astronaut in the microgravity environment.

The UWMS will remain on the space station for the rest of the orbiting laboratory's lifetime, and a second toilet of the same model will fly on the Orion capsule that astronauts use to fly around the moon on the first crewed Artemis mission in NASA's ambitious lunar return plan, according to the agency.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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The International Space Station is getting a new toilet this year - Space.com

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was a pure flying machine compared to the space shuttle, according to the astronauts who rode it into space.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken piloted the first manned flight of the Falcon 9 on May 30. Each astronaut had previously been onon two space shuttle missions, and they spoke of their surprise at how comparatively smooth the SpaceX launch was.

From the time the engines lit, the first two-and-a-half minutes to staging was about like we expected, except you can never simulate the Gs, so as the Gs built you could certainly feel those, Hurley toldSpaceflight Now. What I thought was really neat was how sensitive we were to the throttling of the Merlin engines. That was really neat. You could definitely sense that as we broke Mach 1.

He added: We didnt even need to look at the speed. You could tell just by how the rocket felt, so its a very pure flying machine.

Remember, [the]shuttle had solid rocket boosters to start with, Hurley said. Those burned very rough for the first two-and-a-half minutes. The first stage with Falcon 9 were the nine Merlin engines. It was a much smoother ride, obviously, because it was a liquid engine ascent.

Liquid engine ascent is a reference to the mix of super-chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen propellants consumed by the Merlin engines.

After the smooth launch, the astronauts said the second stage felt a bitrougher.

The biggest difference is just the dynamics that are involved, the vibration, the experiences that we felt actually riding a real rocket, Behnken said.

It will be interesting to walk with the SpaceX folks to find out why it was a little bit rougher ride on the second stage than it was for shuttle on those three main engines, Hurley added.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft was developed to largely function autonomously, handling all prep and docking with the International Space Station following the 19-hour flight.

NASA is also working with Boeing on itsmanned Starlinercapsule, which is expected to launch early next year.

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Astronauts: Falcon 9 rocket was totally different ride than the space shuttle - WITI FOX 6 Milwaukee

Astronauts and NASA have taken to social media to commemorate today's Juneteenth holiday from Earth and space.

Juneteenth, also known as African American Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, marks the date June 19, 1865 when tens of thousands of Africa-Americans in Texas were emancipated. While President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 freed slaves in U.S., many of the Confederate states ignored it.

But, two years later, Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, a Union Army general, issued orders to free the enslaved people in what was then the reclaimed confederate territory of Texas, which was one of the final acts of emancipation in the country.

NASA, former NASA astronauts Mae Jemison, Leland Melvin and current NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps are memorializing the day and their thoughts online.

Related:Charles Bolden, NASA's 1st Black administrator, speaks out on systemic racism

NASA shared an image of Texas from spaceof Galveston, Texas with a caption commemorating the holiday. "#Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned of their emancipation. In this view from space, Galveston is seen from the @Space_Station. Today we reflect on how far we've come and how much further we have to go," the agency wrote on Twitter.

More: NASA's SpaceX launch is not the cure for racial injustice on Earth

Melvin, who served as a mission specialist on two Space Shuttle missions STS-122 and STS-129, shared a beautiful tribute to the day that included not only a short history lesson but a snapshot with a number of people of color who have had a significant, lasting impact on the space sector and on the world.

Melvin wrote on Twitter: "Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when General Major Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and read a federal order abolishing the institution of chattel slavery in the state."

He also shared a photo of himself standing with people including NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who is set to become the first black astronaut to join the International Space Station Crew when he launches with SpaceX's Crew-1 mission later this year; Epps; NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson and even Nichelle Nichols, who famously played Nyota Uhura in the original "Star Trek" series.

Epps retweeted Melvin's sentiment and added "Happy Juneteenth! Its a very important day to celebrate."

Jemison also included important historical details in her tribute to the holiday. On Twitter she wrote: "#Juneteenth recognizes & celebrates Black peoples freedom and the end of slavery in the US! 19 Jun 1865 Union Army General issued orders to free enslaved people in the retaken confederate territory of Texas 2 years after Lincoln signed the #EmancipationProclamation 1 Jan 1863."

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Astronauts and NASA pay homage to Juneteenth - Space.com

FP TrendingJun 19, 2020 14:29:52 IST

Astronomers have identified a green glow in the Martian atmosphere,not unlike the glow observed by astronauts from the space station when they look towards the Earth.

According to a BBC report, the glow comes from oxygen atoms when they get excited by sunlight. While it has long been predicted to occur on other planets, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which is a joint European-Russian satellite at Mars, is the first to make the observation outside Earth.

"Youd never plan a mission to go look for this kind of thing. Today, we have to be very clear about the science were going to do before we get to Mars," Dr Manish Patel from UK's Open University said, speaking aboutthe finding."But having got there, we thought, well, lets have a look. And it worked."

Artist's impression of the TGO at Mars. The TGO detects the excited oxygen not with an imaging camera (hence no pretty pictures) but with its Nomad spectrometer package. This instrument sees the oxygen at very particular altitudes. Image: ESA

The study's results, published in the journalNature Astronomy,add that the emissions are a consequence of collisions between atmospheric molecules and charged particles that are racing away from the Sun. On Earth, these interactions are heavily influenced by theplanet's strong magnetic field, which pulls the particles down towards the two magnetic poles.

In a statement by the European Space Agency, lead author Jean-Claude Gerard of the Universite de Liege in Belgium said, One of the brightest emissions seen on Earth stems from night glow. More specifically, from oxygen atoms emitting a particular wavelength of light that has never been seen around another planet.

The statement also points out that this emission has been predicted to exist at Mars for around 40 years.

Astronauts aboard the ISS in 2011 saw a green band of oxygen glow is visible over Earths curve. On the surface, portions of northern Africa are visible, with evening lights shining along the Nile river and its delta. Image: NASA

Jean-Claude and the team were able to spot the emission using NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery) and including the ultraviolet and visible spectrometer (UVIS).

Co-author of the study Ann Carine Vandaele, Principal Investigator of NOMAD, said that the study's authors decided to point at the edge of Mars and found emission at an altitude of around 80 kilometres, which also depended on the changing distance between Mars and the Sun.

Understanding the properties of the Mars atmosphere is key towards operating missions to the planet, USA Todayreported.

According to theESA, studying the glow of the planetary atmospheres can provide a host of information about its composition and dynamics,even revealing how energy is deposited in it by both the suns light and solar wind.

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Green glow seen in the atmosphere of Mars, similar to Earth's from space station - Firstpost