NASA's J-2X Engine Reaches Testing Stage

J-2X E10001 Assembly Complete.
 (Image Credit: NASA/MSFC)

The next generation of space exploration has begun with the testing of the new engine planned to carry humans to deep space.  Tests start at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi, bringing NASA one step closer to the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be developed in 40 years.

William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate said "The testing will help ensure that a key propulsion element is ready to support exploration across the solar system."

J-2X is an efficient and versatile advanced rocket engine designed with the thrust and performance to power the upper stage of NASA's Space Launch System, a new heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

Fuelled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the J-2X builds on experience with previous designs, relying  on nearly a half-century of NASA spaceflight experience and technological and manufacturing advances to deliver up to 294,000 pounds of thrust, powering exploration to new destinations in our solar system.

NASA Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier Receives AIAA Von Karman Award

Bill Gerstenmaier

The American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) has honored Bill Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate with the Von Karman Lectureship in Astronautics.

The award is given annually to someone who has performed notably and distinguished themselves technically in the field of astronautics. Gerstenmaier was recognized for his 30 years of accomplishment in human spaceflight, culminating in the leadership of the Space Shuttle and International Space Station Programs.

As part of the award, Gerstenmaier delivered the speech "Global Outpost in Space: A Platform for Discovery -- The International Space Station" Wednesday during the AIAA's 50th Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Nashville, Tenn. The award honors Theodore von Karman, an early astronautics pioneer responsible for breakthroughs in understanding supersonic and hypersonic airflow characterization and the value of the swept wing design.

Gerstenmaier said "It is truly an honor to receive this special recognition from the AIAA and to have the opportunity to speak at this year's conference about the International Space Station and its importance to the future of human exploration."

NASA Twin Spacecraft On Final Approach For Moon Orbit

Artist's impression of the GRAIL Spacecraft
(Image Credit NASA)

NASA's twin spacecraft to study the moon from crust to core will make New Year's Eve and New Year's Day main-engine burns to place the duo in lunar orbit. The Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft are scheduled to be placed in orbit beginning at 1:21 p.m. PST (4:21 p.m. EST) for GRAIL-A on Dec. 31, and 2:05 p.m. PST (5:05 p.m. EST) on Jan. 1 for GRAIL-B.

The Earth is approximately 250,000 miles (402,336 kilometers) from the Moon and NASA's Apollo crews took about three days but the GRAIL craft are taking about 30 times that long, covering more than 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) using a low-energy, long-duration trajectory. This has allowed the spacecraft's Ultra Stable Oscillator to be continuously powered for several months to reach a stable operating temperature long before it begins making science measurements in lunar orbit.

The spacecraft will transmit radio signals precisely defining the distance between them as they orbit the moon. As they fly over areas of greater and lesser gravity, caused both by visible features such as mountains and craters and by masses hidden beneath the lunar surface. they will move slightly toward and away from each other. An instrument aboard each spacecraft will measure the changes in their relative velocity very precisely and scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the Moon's gravitational field.

The data will allow mission scientists to understand what goes on below the surface. This information will increase our knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today. Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said "This mission will rewrite the textbooks on the evolution of the moon."

Super-Sized Lunar Eclipse on December 10th - last until 2014

NASA Ready For Launch Of 'Curiosity' Mars Rover

Mars Rover (artists impression)
(Image courtesy of NASA)

NASA's Mars Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is in final preparations for launch from Florida's Space Coast at 10:25 am (EST) on November the 25th.

The MSL mission will carry 'Curiosity', a mobile rover with more scientific capability than any ever before sent to another planet. The rover is now on an Atlas V rocket awaiting liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Scheduled to land on Mars in August 2012, the one-ton rover will examine Gale Crater during a nearly two-year prime mission. Curiosity will land near the base of a layered mountain 3 miles (5 kilometers) high inside the crater. The rover will investigate whether environmental conditions ever have been favorable for development of microbial life and preserved evidence of those conditions.

Curiosity is twice as long and five times as heavy as earlier Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. The rover will carry a set of 10 science instruments weighing 15 times as much as its predecessors' science payloads.

The mission is challenging and risky because Curiosity is too heavy to use an air-bag cushioned touchdown. The mission will therefore use a new rocket-powered descent stage lowering the rover on a tether like a kind of sky-crane.

The mission will pioneer these precision landing methods during the spacecraft's crucial dive through Mars' atmosphere next August to place the rover onto a smaller landing target than any previously for a Mars mission. The target inside Gale Crater is 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) by 15.5 miles (25 kilometers). Rough terrain just outside that area would have disqualified the landing site without the improved precision.

No mission to Mars since the Viking landers in the 1970s has sought a direct answer to the question of whether life has existed on Mars. Curiosity is not designed to answer that question by itself, but its investigations for evidence about prerequisites for life will steer potential future missions toward answers.

Deep Space Exploration: Orion Spacecraft Test Flight Proposed For 2014

Artists impression of the Orion Spacecraft
(Image courtesy of NASA) 

NASA has confirmed plans for an unmanned test flight of the Orion spacecraft in 2014. This test supports the new Space Launch System (SLS) that aims to take astronauts deeper into space.

The Exploration Flight Test will launch from Cape Canaveral and is planned to include two orbits to a high-apogee, with a high energy re-entry through Earth's atmosphere. Orion will make a water landing and be recovered using operations planned for future human exploration missions.

NASA is developing the Orion spacecraft to launch astronauts to asteroids, the moon, Mars and other destinations using SLS, the new heavy launch vehicle.  EFT-1 will provide data needed to inform design decisions and act as a pathfinder for new approaches to space systems development.

Herschel Space Observatory Provides Clues To Creation of Oceans

The Herschel Mission is a partnership between the European Space Agency and NASA. NASA's contribution was to develop two of the mission's three instruments and supporting data and science analysis.

The Mission has now identified a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans.   New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that a comet known as "Hartley 2" from the distant Kuiper Belt contains water with the same chemical signature as Earth's oceans.

The Kuiper Belt is a remote region of the solar system, 50 times as far away as the distance between Earth and the sun.  As well as Pluto, the belt has other dwarf planets and numerous comets.

Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena said "Our results with Herschel suggest that comets could have played a major role in bringing vast amounts of water to an early Earth. This finding substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water in the solar system to now include icy bodies originating in the Kuiper Belt."