VAB Teams Prepare to Welcome Discovery Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:46:22 AM EDT Space shuttle Discovery has been connected to its 76-wheel, custom-built transporter ahead of its move from Orbiter Processing Facility-3 to the Vehicle Assembly Building. That move is scheduled to take place Sept. 8. The transporter is one of several specialized vehicles that serve the shuttle fleet at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Some move payloads and solid rocket booster segments, this one moves the 100-ton orbiters. The kings are, of course, the huge, tracked crawler-transporters that carry a stacked shuttle to the launch pad. One thing they all have in common: they move really slowly, especially when carrying precious national assets on their backs. In the VAB, the 52-story-tall landmark building at Kennedy, the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters have been assembled on the mobile launch platform and are waiting for Discovery's arrival to complete the stack. The astronauts who will fly Discovery to the International Space Station on the upcoming STS-133 mission are also at Kennedy today for a Crew Equipment Interface Test, known as the CEIT. They will check out the Permanent Multipurpose Module and the Express Logistics Carrier that will carry critical spare parts to the International Space Station. The STS-133 crew members are Commander Steven Lindsey, Pilot Eric Boe and Mission Specialists Alvin Drew, Michael Barratt, Tim Kopra and Nicole Stott. Discovery will deliver and install the Permanent Multipurpose Module, the Express Logistics Carrier 4 and provide critical spare components to the International Space Station. This will be the 35th shuttle mission to the station.

United Launch Alliance Atlas V Successfully Launches First AEHF Mission Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., (Aug. 14, 2010) – A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket successfully launched the Advanced Extremely High Frequency-1 (AEHF-1) satellite for the Air Force at 7:07 a.m. EDT today from Space Launch Complex- 41.  The AEHF constellation of four satellites will provide 10 times greater capacity and channel data rates six times higher than that of the existing Milstar II communications satellites. AEHF-1 will be joined by the next two AEHF satellites to be launched during the next two years by ULA. This launch marks the fifth mission overall and third Atlas V mission for ULA in 2010.  AEHF-1 represents the latest “one-at-a-time” mission success which has been accomplished 43 times since ULA was formed on Dec. 1, 2006.  “ULA is proud to have played an important role in the successful launch of the first of three AEHF satellites for this critical constellation that will directly support the war fighter on the battlefield,” said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Mission Operations. “This was a tremendous launch campaign highlighted by close teamwork between the U.S. Air Force, the ULA launch team and our many mission partners that made today’s successful launch possible. We look forward to launching AEHF-2 in 2011.” This mission was launched aboard an Atlas V 531 launch vehicle configuration. The mission used an Atlas V common core booster powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180 engine, three Aerojet solid rocket motors, a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RL10A upper stage engine and a 5.4-meter diameter Ruag composite payload fairing.

July 14, 2010 External Tank #138 Arrives at KSC External Tank-138 (ET-138), designated as the ‘last tank scheduled to fly’, may, indeed be the very last tank to fly. NASA officials are currently discussing the advantages of swapping the missions currently assigned to ET-138 and ET-122. At present, ET-138 is scheduled for the STS-134 mission with ET-122, the Katrina-damaged tank that has been re-certified for flight, to be the LON (STS-335) for the STS-134 mission. Should Congress authorize the STS-135 mission, then ET-122 would fly on that mission. That all might change. Discussions among the managers should reach a conclusion at the end of the month and if the new assignments are approved, ET-122 will fly on STS-134 with ET-138 as the LON tank. With only a very small chance of needing the LON mission, the tank, in all liklihood, would be assigned the STS-135 mission. The reasoning for the ET swap is that should a LON mission be required it would be prudent to use the latest and very best tank design on such a program-ending mission. The question could be asked, then, about the quality of ET-122. Nothing about the tank, say officials, is below the current flight criteria for External Tanks. There is full confidence in the flightworthiness of ET-122. But when you consider the experience accrued by the team at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility between the manufacture of ET-122 and ET-138 it is easy to see the truth to the team’s slogan, ‘The Last One will be the Best One’. On that reasoning, if a LON mission was required, NASA would want the best of the best for that critical mission. Lacking that mission, we have ET-138 as the ‘final tank to fly’ on an increasingly likely STS-135 mission.

NASA'S ARES I-X ROCKET COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL FLIGHT TEST CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The test flight lasted about six minutes from its launch from the newly modified Launch Complex 39B until splash down of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles down range. "This is a huge step forward for NASA's exploration goals," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Ares I-X provides NASA with an enormous amount of data that will be used to improve the design and safety of the next generation of American spaceflight vehicles -- vehicles that could again take humans beyond low Earth orbit." The 327-foot tall Ares I-X test vehicle produced 2.6 million pounds of thrust to accelerate the rocket to nearly 3 g's and Mach 4.76, just shy of hypersonic speed. It capped its easterly flight at a suborbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster. Parachutes deployed for recovery of the booster and the solid rocket motor will be recovered at sea for later inspection. The simulated upper stage, Orion crew module, and launch abort system will not be recovered. "The most valuable learning is through experience and observation," said Bob Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. "Tests such as this -- from paper to flight -- are vital in gaining a deeper understanding of the vehicle, from design to development." Wednesday's flight offered an early opportunity to test and prove hardware, facilities, and ground operations - important data for future space vehicles. During the flight, a range of performance data was relayed to the ground and also stored in the onboard flight data recorder. The 700 sensors mounted on the vehicle provide flight test engineering data to correlate with computer models and analysis. The rocket's sensors gathered information in several areas, including assembly and launch operations, separation of the vehicle's first and second stages, controllability and aerodynamics, the re-entry and recovery of the first stage and new vehicle design techniques.