 KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - The Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been a landmark to the technological advancements of sending men to the moon and astronauts into space for more than 45 years. But the VAB, as it is best known, is due for major renovations to continue processing launch vehicles and support the subsequent launching of a new generation of astronauts into orbit and deeper into space than ever before.
"This is home improvement, VAB style," said Jose Lopez, who is managing the effort to refurbish a structure that was once the biggest in the world. "We're going for more flexibility and reliability with modern equipment. That building has many systems that haven't been touched up since it was built (in 1965)."
Although the work is massive simply because of the scale of the VAB, Lopez said now is the time to do it and take advantage of the pause in rocket processing that is to end in a couple years.
"When the shuttle program was in place, you couldn't take down the cranes for a long period of time, or take on heavy infrastructure projects," Lopez said.
Before another generation of rocket processing kicks in, Lopez said, the VAB must be outfitted with everything it needs to host these rockets and spacecraft assembly for another 40 years.
The effort will touch most areas of the architectural behemoth in one way or other. For instance, High Bay 3 will see the seven work platforms designed for the Apollo/Saturn V removed. In their place will be a series of 10 platforms that can be relocated and fitted with inserts designed for processing different kinds of rockets.
Like everything else inside the VAB, the platforms are not run-of-the-mill items. They are expected to weigh about 90,000 pounds and be outfitted with commodities essential for rockets, such as nitrogen and helium along with electrical and networking cables.
Simply put, no longer will a high bay be suitable for only one kind of rocket design.
"If you can fit in the big rocket, you can definitely fit in the smaller rockets,” Lopez said.
The VAB is slated to host NASA's Space Launch System, or SLS, as it is readied for test flights in 2017 and 2021. The SLS will rival the Saturn V for sheer size and power and is designed for several variations that the platforms would have to accommodate. Commercial companies with much smaller rockets also are expected to use the VAB's unique facilities.
"The main thing we're doing there is an evolvable approach where we can handle any one of these SLS vehicles, but also handle any of the commercial vehicles," said Scott Colloredo, chief architect of the Ground Systems Development and Operations Program that is overseeing the VAB modifications. "By supporting one, it helps us to support the other."
The five primary overhead cranes in the VAB will see their antiquated control systems modernized, too. The cranes, anchored to the VAB's framework at the top of the structure, were used to lift the shuttles and rocket stages from the floor of the transfer aisle to their place on the launch platforms. They routinely hoisted the 100-ton shuttles more than 16 stories off the ground safely and lowered them onto the side of the external fuel tank for launch.
Two of the cranes can lift 325 tons, another two are rated for 250-ton loads and the fifth one is designed to hold 175 tons. They will be crucial again in the future to stack the SLS components into a launch configuration.
The doors, the largest in the world, are due for new braking systems and other modifications that will reduce wear-and-tear on the tracks and systems.
The renovation calls for removing a great deal of the infrastructure inside the VAB, some of which was installed when the structure was built in 1965. New systems, all up to modern building and safety codes, are to be installed.
More than 50 miles of Apollo-era cabling will be removed during the work and replaced with modern lines. About 70,000 feet of cabling already has come out. In some cases, that means replacing thick bundles of copper wiring with a few fiber-optic lines no wider than a pinky finger.
The fire suppression system has corroded in many important areas and is not big enough under current regulations. So its vast network of pipes, spigots and pumps, will be taken out entirely beginning next year and replaced with new equipment and piping. The work should be finished by the end of 2014, Lopez said.
There is plenty of evidence that other water and drainage pipes in the VAB are also corroding, so they will be replaced, along with boilers and chillers that feed hot and cold water into the facility.
Battery backups for the electrical system also are slated for replacement.
The renovation is focusing on the building interior systems, but the building itself is in very good shape.
The work would have had to be done at some point soon whether rockets were being processed or not, Lopez said. Doing it all while keeping the structure's systems up and able to handle normal processing demands would have been an exceptional and expensive challenge, though.
"It would have been like putting a new car engine in your trunk while keeping the same engine in the front still going," Lopez said.
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| High-Bay configured for the Space Shuttle. Photo Credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann |
|  HUNTSVILLE, Ala - NASA has successfully tested the solid rocket booster avionics for the first two test flights of the Space Launch System, America's next heavy-lift launch vehicle. This avionics system includes electrical components for the SLS' solid rocket boosters, which provide propulsion to augment the core stage main engines of the rocket. The first qualification test of the five-segment SLS booster is slated for spring 2013.
The test dubbed Flight Control Test 1, FCT-1, included heritage thrust vector control (TVC) actuators -- electro-hydraulic mechanisms previously used on the space shuttle that direct the booster propulsion system -- with a new SLS booster avionics subsystem. ATK of Brigham City, Utah, the SLS booster prime contractor for the first two test flights, conducted the test at its Promontory, Utah, test facility.
The test successfully demonstrated the new avionics subsystem's interface and control of the heritage shuttle Thrust Vector Control system and performed an SLS launch simulation. In addition to the new avionics subsystem, the test included new electronic ground support equipment which monitored and coordinated activities between the test facilities, avionics subsystem and TVC system. The test is one in a series of tests to reduce risk and demonstrate the avionics subsystem design early in the development life cycle.
"We were pleased to see how the avionics system functioned outside the lab," said Todd May, Space Launch System program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "This test provides an insightful first look at how the booster thrust vector control system will operate and interface with flight hardware."
The booster avionics design has incorporated lean manufacturing and continuous improvement principles. For example, the design includes a common, ruggedized chassis design, 14 common programmable circuit cards and standardized cable designs.
Two additional tests are planned for the avionics and controls system.
The Space Launch System will provide an entirely new heavy-lift launch capability for human exploration beyond Earth orbit and will take crew and cargo farther into space than ever before.
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| The avionics subsystem and hardware are cleared for Flight Control Test 1. (ATK) |
|  HUNTSVILLE, ALA - America's next heavy-lift launch vehicle -- the Space Launch System -- is one step closer to its first launch in 2017, following the successful completion of the first phase of a combined set of milestone reviews.
The SLS Program has completed step one in a combined System Requirements Review and System Definition Review -- both extensive NASA-led reviews that set requirements to further narrow the scope of the system design and evaluate the vehicle concept based on top-level program requirements. The reviews include setting launch vehicle requirements for crew safety and interfacing with the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to carry it to deep space as well as the ground operations and launch facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Additionally, the reviews set cost and schedule requirements to provide on-time development.
"It's exciting to see how far this program has come in such a short time," said Todd May, SLS program manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "Completion of this first step of reviews moves the nation's first deep space rocket from concept development to preliminary design."
The milestone reviews are two in a series of life-cycle reviews advancing the vehicle from concept design to flight readiness. Step one included a focused technical review of the program requirements with information on cost, schedule and risk. A standing review board comprised of technical experts from across the agency evaluated SLS program documents including vehicle requirements, specifications, plans, studies and reports. The board ensured specific criteria were met and confirmed that requirements are complete, validated and responsive to mission requirements.
The combination of the two reviews as well as safety and reliability analyses is a fundamentally different way of conducting program reviews. The SLS team is streamlining processes to provide a safe, affordable and sustainable rocket.
"This checkpoint gives us a mature understanding of the requirements, solidifies the vehicle concept design will meet all the requirements of the program and mission and signals that SLS is ready to begin engineering design activities," added May. "We're moving forward to deliver a new national capability to get America exploring space again."
Step two, which will begin in early summer, will include an integrated assessment of the technical and programmatic components fully evaluating cost, schedule and risk involved with the program.
The Space Launch System will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond Earth orbit, taking astronauts farther into space than ever before. It also can back up commercial and international partner transportation services to the International Space Station. Designed to be flexible for crew or cargo missions, the SLS will continue America’s journey of discovery from the unique vantage point of space. The Marshall Space Flight Center is leading the design and development of the rocket that can take us to the asteroids, Lagrange points – positions in space where a satellite or science instrument could be stationed in a relative steady state –the moon, and eventually to Mars.
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| NASA's Space Launch System Photo Credit: NASA |
|  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - Workers recently began cutting and coating the first thermal protection system tiles – part of the heat shield that will protect an Orion spacecraft during an upcoming flight test which will simulate the re-entry speed and heating of returning from deep space.
The tiles are made of the same material and coating as those used on the space shuttle's belly. On Orion, however, the tiles will be placed along the sides and top of the conical spacecraft. A separate heat shield akin to the ablative design used during Apollo is being developed to protect the bottom of the spacecraft, which will encounter the highest temperatures.
The manufacturing work at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., marks an important time in the progression of the spacecraft following the shuttle's retirement in 2011, said Thermal Protection System, or TPS, engineers Joy Huff and Sarah Cox.
"We're making something that's going to fly again, which is what we were doing for years," Huff said.
There are about 40 people involved in the tile work: 20 to make the tiles and 20 to install them.
"We're at the starting line," Cox said. "It's going to take some time to get all the parts fabricated."
The same shop that manufactured space shuttle tiles will make the 1,300 tiles needed for the Orion flight.
It is not fast work. In fact, workers will spend about 11 months shaping the insulating blocks and laying on a heat-resistant, ceramic coating. They use a 5-axis mill loaded with precise dimensions to cut blank tiles to their shapes. So far, the shop has finished 33 tiles.
Many of the tiles will have special cutouts for instruments to collect data during the flight test. Many fewer cutouts will be needed for future missions.
In an advancement from the shuttle days, each tile's dimensions are sent over digitally from Orion builder Lockheed Martin and the final tile is photographed with a 3-D camera so computers can fit the pieces together virtually before they are placed together physically, Huff said. The details are far more exact than in the past.
"They've had such good success that (technicians) are going to eliminate one pre-fit step," Huff said.
The comparisons with the tile work for the space shuttles are plentiful. For example, the smaller Orion uses tiles that average 8-inches by 8-inches compared to the shuttle's 6-inches by 6-inches. Also, Orion's design allows for many of the tiles to be the same dimensions with the same part number, but each shuttle tile was a unique configuration unto itself, with individual part numbers.
"That's a huge improvement over shuttle," Huff said. "Even having nine or 10 of the same part is a big improvement."
Perhaps the biggest comparison, though, is the sheer number of tiles involved. A space shuttle heat shield required more than 23,000 tiles to the Orion's 1,300.
"It's smaller, so there's less parts," Cox said.
However, Orion's tiles will be used only once because the spacecraft will splashdown in the ocean, drenching the absorbent tiles. That means that technicians will make and install all 1,300 tiles between Orion missions. Shuttles required 100 to 150 new tiles between flights, Cox said.
Technicians who applied the tiles for the shuttle will bond Orion's tiles, too. That work will start sometime in the summer. The tiles will be connected to nine panels that will be connected to the spacecraft to make the outer skin of the spacecraft.
Although it's a new spacecraft with a new mission, it still calls for many of the same skills the work force at Kennedy used for 30 years of shuttle preparation.
Orion is expected to see significantly hotter re-entry temperatures because it will be slowing down from about 25,000 mph when returning from the moon or some other deep space destination. Space shuttles used their heat shields to slow down from about 17,000 mph, the speed required to stay in orbit around Earth.
"The heat shield has been a very technological challenge and it will continue to be," said Huff, who has been working Orion's TPS development since 2005.
To get to this point, when tiles are being cut that will be used on a mission in space, has given the project more of a sense of being real, the engineers said. They know there is plenty of hard work ahead, but they are happy to see it start.
Huff said, "It's almost a sprint feeling, but it's a marathon length.”
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NASA's Orion spacecraft is seen here under construction. Photo Credit: NASA
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|  SALT LAKE CITY -- ATK (NYSE: ATK) today began conversion of the main abort motor for NASA's first Exploration Flight Test of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle slated for 2014 from Kennedy Space Center. The inert system was recently returned to ATK's facility in Salt Lake City, Utah from Lockheed Martin's (NYSE: LMT) Waterton facility in Denver where the system successfully completed a series of rigorous acoustic and modal tests. The abort motor is part of Orion's Launch Abort System, which is designed to safely lift the Orion crew module away from the launch vehicle in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during initial ascent phase of NASA's Space Launch System. Standing more than 17 feet tall and measuring three feet in diameter, the abort motor was manufactured in 2008. The motor is an early prototype that was used to better understand the design and to aid in the build-up and acoustic testing of the Orion capsule. "In new developmental programs, we reduce risk by building an inert prototype to better understand the design and manufacturing processes," said Charlie Precourt, ATK General Manager and Vice President of Space Launch Systems. "In the case of the abort motor, it will now be reconfigured to support the first orbital test flight of the Orion crew vehicle." A few modifications will be incorporated into the abort motor, including replacing the manifold with a flight design, performing structural tests, adding case brackets for raceway and attachment points for Orion's shroud, and adding flight instrumentation to collect environmental and flight data during the test launch. "This test flight is an extremely important milestone as we move forward with America's new human exploration spacecraft and heavy-lift launch system, enabling our human space flight program to conduct missions beyond Earth's orbit," said Precourt. The Orion, with its abort system, will fly aboard NASA's Space Launch System, the rocket currently being developed to expand America's capability in space exploration. The launch system will be powerful enough to take crew and cargo into an orbit that enables missions to the Moon, asteroids and eventually to Mars. In addition to the main abort motor, ATK also makes the Attitude Control Motor for the abort system at its Elkton, Md. facility. The control motor provides steering for the launch abort vehicle during an abort sequence. The control motor to be used on EFT-1 is an inert motor also delivered in 2008, but requires no modifications for the flight test. The launch abort system sits at atop the Orion spacecraft and was successfully tested during Orion's Pad Abort-1 flight test in 2010. The abort motor operational design utilizes a composite case and titanium manifold exhaust turn-flow technology, resulting in weight savings and improved performance. The control motor design includes eight proportional-valve thrusters with a redundant control system, which provide unparalleled control and safety.
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| Orion Launch Abort System. Photo Credit: NASA |
Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion spacecraft. The industry team includes major subcontractors, such as ATK, as well as a nationwide network of minor subcontractors, small businesses and suppliers across the United States. ATK is an aerospace, defense, and commercial products company with operations in 22 states, Puerto Rico, and internationally, and revenues of approximately $4.8 billion. News and information can be found on the Internet at www.atk.com. |  STENNIS SPACE CENTER: Engineers at NASA's Stennis Space Center conducted an initial test of the J-2X engine powerpack Feb. 15, kicking off a series of key tests in development of the rocket engine that will carry humans deeper into space than ever before. WATCH THE VIDEO HERE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N7coG7WmV8&list=UUOvp8B42Fi3spnO4xFhw00Q&feature=player_detailpage
This test is the first of about a dozen various powerpack tests that will be conducted throughout the year at Stennis. The initial test was designed to ensure powerpack and facility control systems are functioning properly. It also marked the first step in establishing start sequencing for tests and was the first time cryogenic fuels were introduced into the powerpack to ensure the integrity of the facility and the test article in preparation for full power, longer duration testing.
The powerpack is a system of components on the top portion of the J-2X engine, including the gas generator, oxygen and fuel turbopumps, and related ducts and valves. On the full J-2X engine, the powerpack system feeds the thrust chamber system which produces engine thrust.
The J-2X is being developed by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It is the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be developed in 40 years. The J-2X will provide upper-stage power for NASA's Space Launch System, a new heavy-lift vehicle capable of missions beyond low-Earth orbit.
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| J-2X powerpack test lights up the night. (NASA/SSC) |
|  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - The 355-foot-tall mobile launcher, or ML, behaved as expected during its move to Launch Pad 39B at NASA"s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in November 2011, an analysis of multiple sensors showed. The top of the tower swayed less than an inch each way.
"I would think you would have perceived it," said NASA's Chris Brown, the lead design engineer for the ML.
The tests showed that computer models used in designing the massive structure were correct. The actual results varied less than 5 percent of what was predicted.
"This gives us much higher confidence in the models," Brown said. "We know that our approach is valid."
The computer models for the launch support structures will be used with those for NASA's Space Launch System, or SLS, a huge rocket envisioned to launch astronauts into deep space, to fine tune both designs.
Engineers had the tower wired with dozens of accelerometers and strain gauges along with wind sensors to record the launcher's movement during its slow ride atop a crawler-transporter from a park site beside the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad.
The ML is expected to make the same trip numerous times during its career as the support structure for SLS. The move and testing was planned to show designers whether the structure and crawler would be up to the challenge.
Crawler drivers performed several speed changes during the six-mile journeys to and from the pad. While at the pad, which is being refurbished after decades of hosting space shuttles, workers connected ventilation, fire support and alarm systems, and other water lines.
The instruments used in the testing are very precise, accurate enough to record even the most subtle of vibrations and movements.
"We were measuring milli-g's," Brown said.
The readings also will be used for determining how fast the crawler will be allowed to go as it carries the rocket to the launch pad. For instance, there is substantial vibration at 0.8 mph, so engineers want drivers to stay away from that particular speed. But that does not necessarily mean the crawler will be ordered to slow it down.
The ML, designed for the Ares I rocket of the cancelled Constellation program, is due for major modifications in the coming few years as it is strengthened to support the much-heavier SLS. It took two years to build and was completed in August 2010.
A structural design contract is expected to be awarded this year and a construction contractor in 2013. Umbilical arms reaching from the tower to the rocket are scheduled to be installed in 2015.
The ML is the biggest structure of its kind since the Launch Umbilical Towers were constructed to support the Apollo/Saturn V rocket. Those towers saw numerous modifications through their lives as trial-and-error showed where changes were needed, Brown said.
"Our goal here is to have less of those kinds of problems," Brown said.
Computer models also were used when NASA designed the Apollo towers, but those models were much simpler than today's versions by virtue of the computing power available now, Brown said.
"We can run in five minutes what would have taken them days to run," Brown said.
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| The mobile launcher was returned to its park site beside the Vehicle Assembly Building in November 2011 following checkouts at Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett |
|  STENNIS SPACE CENTER - A new series of tests on the engine that will help carry humans to deep space will begin next week at NASA's Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi. The tests on the J-2X engine bring NASA one step closer to the first human-rated liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be developed in 40 years.
Tests will focus on the powerpack for the J-2X. This highly efficient and versatile advanced rocket engine is being designed to power the upper stage of NASA's Space Launch System, a new heavy-lift launch vehicle capable of missions beyond low-Earth orbit. The powerpack comprises components on the top portion of the engine, including the gas generator, oxygen and fuel turbopumps, and related ducts and valves that bring the propellants together to create combustion and generate thrust.
"The J-2X upper stage engine is vital to achieving the full launch capability of the heavy-lift Space Launch System," said William Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. "The testing today will help insure that a key propulsion element is ready to support exploration across the solar system."
About a dozen powerpack tests of varying lengths are slated now through summer at Stennis' A-1 Test Stand. By separating the engine components -- the thrust chamber assembly, including the main combustion chamber, main injector and nozzle -- engineers can more easily push the various components to operate over a wide range of conditions to ensure the parts’ integrity, demonstrate the safety margin and better understand how the turbopumps operate.
"By varying the pressures, temperatures and flow rates, the powerpack test series will evaluate the full range of operating conditions of the engine components," said Tom Byrd, J-2X engine lead in the SLS Liquid Engines Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "This will enable us to verify the components' design and validate our analytical models against performance data, as well as ensure structural stability and verify the combustion stability of the gas generator."
This is the second powerpack test series for J-2X. The powerpack 1A was tested in 2008 with J-2S engine turbomachinery originally developed for the Apollo Program. Engineers tested these heritage components to obtain data to help them modify the design of the turbomachinery to meet the higher performance requirements of the J-2X engine.
"The test engineers on the A-1 test team are excited and ready to begin another phase of testing which will provide critical data in support of the Space Launch System," said Gary Benton, J-2X engine testing project manager at Stennis.
J-2X is being developed for Marshall by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif
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Stennis Space Center engineers in southern Mississippi lower the J-2X powerpack assembly in at A-1 test stand. (NASA/SSC)
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|  YUMA - NASA successfully conducted a drop test of the Orion crew vehicle's parachutes high above the Arizona desert Tuesday, Dec. 20, in preparation for its orbital flight test in 2014. Orion will carry astronauts deeper into space than ever before, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and ensure a safe re-entry and landing.
› View parachute test gallery
A C-130 plane dropped the Orion test article from an altitude of 25,000 feet above the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Grounds. Orion's drogue chutes were deployed between 15,000 and 20,000 feet, followed by the pilot parachutes, which then deployed two main landing parachutes. This particular drop test examined how Orion would land under two possible failure scenarios.
Orion's parachutes are designed to open in stages, which is called reefing, to manage the stresses on the parachutes after they are deployed. The reefing stages allow the parachutes to sequentially open, first at 54 percent of the parachutes' full diameter, and then at 73 percent. This test examined how the parachutes would perform if the second part of the sequence was skipped.
The second scenario was a failure to deploy one of Orion's three main parachutes, requiring the spacecraft to land with only two. Orion landed on the desert floor at a speed of almost 33 feet per second, which is the maximum designed touchdown speed of the spacecraft.
Since 2007, the Orion program has conducted a vigorous parachute air and ground test program and provided the chutes for NASA's successful pad abort test in 2010. Lessons learned from this experience have improved Orion's parachute system.
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| A test article that mimics the Orion spacecraft is seen under parachutes Tuesday, Dec. 20, as NASA engineers conducted a drop test above Yuma, Ariz. The Orion team was examining how the spacecraft would land under only two parachutes, instead of the normal three. Image Credit: NASA |
|  HUNTSVILLE, Ala - On Dec. 15, more than 120 aerospace industry leaders from more than 70 companies attended the Space Launch System's Advanced Booster Industry Day held at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The event focused on a NASA Research Announcement for the Space Launch System's (SLS) advanced booster.
Marshall is leading the design and development of the SLS on behalf of the agency. The new heavy-lift launch vehicle will expand human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration across the solar system.
For explorations beyond the first two test flights, the SLS vehicle will require an advanced booster with a significant increase in thrust over existing U.S. liquid or solid boosters.
"As we are forging ahead with Space Launch System development, we are pleased to have such a strong response from industry and look forward to their ideas and hardware demonstrations for advance boosters concepts," said Todd May, SLS program manager. "Together, our expertise will enable an entirely new U.S. booster capability -- the largest and highest performing booster system ever produced -- to begin the journey to deep space safely and affordably."
Through this research announcement, NASA is seeking proposals for engineering demonstrations and/or risk reduction strategies for advanced booster concepts. The aim is to reducing risks while enhancing affordability, improving reliability and meeting our performance goals during an initial 30-month phase prior to the full and open Design Development Test and Evaluation (DDTE) competition. The total award value for the research announcement is $200 million with multiple awards anticipated.
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| Space Launch System in it's cargo configuration Photo Credit: NASA |
Presentation charts (PDF, 19 Mb)
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|  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - The mobile launcher is making the longest trip of its young life today to begin a two-week series of structural tests at Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In anticipation of launching the Space Launch System later this decade, engineers wanted to check the mobile launcher, or ML, in a number of categories ranging from how it would behave moving atop a crawler-transporter to how well its systems mesh with the infrastructure at Pad B, which has undergone extensive renovations during the past year.
"We have the time and will be able to gain significant knowledge that will assist in the development of the ML," said Larry Schultz, ML project manager. NASA's 21st Century Ground Systems Program is overseeing the ML's construction and modifications.
The ML began its 14-hour move at 9:15 a.m. on Nov. 16. The trip will cover about 4.2 miles from a work site beside the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad.
Schultz said the team will get its first look at the information after the move is complete.
Rising 400 feet above the rocky crawlerway, the mobile launcher is substantially different than the mobile launcher platforms that carried space shuttles to the launch pads for 30 years. The dominant feature is the ML's tower, a 355-foot-high gray, steel tower reminiscent of the ones that serviced the Saturn V rockets headed to the moon in the 1960s and 70s.
In fact, not since 1975 has a launch structure as tall as the ML stood at either of Kennedy's launch pads.
The ML had been moved once before, but not very far. It was repositioned at its worksite beside the Vehicle Assembly Building in October 2010.
Although it was originally envisioned to host a slim rocket, the structure's design was flexible enough that it can be modified to support the Space Launch System, or SLS, a rocket that is in the same lifting category as the Saturn V.
The modifications to come include strengthening the supports in the base and widening the exhaust port the rocket will stand over. The ML's exhaust port now is a 22-foot square. It will be made into a 60-foot-by-30-foot rectangle.
Swing arms will be added to the tower in the 2015 time frame to provide fueling and venting, along with electrical and communication links, to the different stages of the rocket. A crew access arm also will be added to reach out to NASA’s new Orion spacecraft at the top of the rocket. Even with the modifications, the structure will be lighter than the shuttle's mobile launcher platform.
The tower was built atop a 47-foot-tall base of steel that is 165 feet long and 135 feet wide. Altogether, the ML weighs in at 6.75 million pounds.
The tower's destination for the move is Launch Pad 39B, which has undergone its own staged makeover since it last hosted a space shuttle. The tower that stood at the pad, which was specifically built for the shuttle, was removed recently and workers refurbished the pad complex's network of lines and plumbing.
The tests of the ML will see whether any of the support fittings at the pad need to be realigned, while also assessing future needs for the pad to permit the ML to perform its work of preparation and launch.
The launch pad still has plenty of modifications to work through, including a likely redesign of the flame deflector and refurbishment of the flame trench. Unlike other pad designs at Kennedy, Pad B is envisioned to have a flexible concept so it can host several kinds of rockets, including the SLS and commercial boosters and spacecraft.
After two weeks at Pad B, the ML will be moved back to its worksite. Many of the structures that will be added to the ML will see their designs tested at Kennedy first at the Launch Equipment Test Facility, or LETF. The laboratory is built so full-size segments of ground support equipment can be evaluated under realistic conditions.
Once the ML has been outfitted with its swing arms and other modifications are completed, it will be taken again to the pad for more testing. The ML will carry an SLS to the pad in 2017, ahead of the rocket's first test mission. That unmanned flight is intended to evaluate the design before the rocket and spacecraft are used to take astronauts to deep space.
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| The mobile launcher moves down the crawlerway on the top of a crawler-transporter. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett |
|  STENNIS - NASA conducted a successful 500-second test firing of the J-2X rocket engine on Wednesday, Nov. 9, marking another important step in development of an upper stage for the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS).
SLS will carry the Orion spacecraft, its crew, cargo, equipment and science experiments to destinations in deep space. SLS will be safe, affordable and sustainable to continue America's journey of discovery from the unique vantage point of space.
"The J-2X engine is critical to the development of the Space Launch System," Dan Dumbacher, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development, said after the test at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. "Today's test means NASA is moving closer to developing the rocket it needs if humans are to explore beyond low-Earth orbit."
Data from the test will be analyzed as operators prepare for additional engine firings. The J-2X and the RS-25D/E engines for the SLS core stage will be tested for flight certification at Stennis. Both engines use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. The core stage engines were developed originally for the space shuttle.
"The J-2X engine team and the SLS program as a whole are extremely happy that we accomplished a good, safe and successful test today," said Mike Kynard, Space Launch System Engines Element Manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "This engine test firing gives us critical data to move forward in the engine's development."
Stennis has tested engines that carried Americans to space in both the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. The J-2X engine is being developed for Marshall by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, Calif.
"We look forward to adding to the legacy as we fulfill our responsibility to test engines that will power America's next launch vehicle," said Stennis Director Patrick Scheuermann.
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| NASA conducted a successful J-2X 500-second test firing on Nov. 9 at the A-2 test stand at Stennis Space Center. (NASA/SSC) View the video here |
|  LANGLY RESEARCH CENTER - NASA's Langley Research Center completed another successful test of the Orion spacecraft's landing capabilities in their Hydro Impact Basin.
While workers prepared the 18,000-pound (8,165 kg) Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle to take a dive into the 115-feet-long, 90-feet-wide, 20-feet-deep water basin (35.1 x 27.4 x 6.1 meters), media sat inside a conference room overlooking the action.
Langley offered experts to explain the process and importance of the test.
"It was the second in a series of six that would help predict conditions for a safe water landing," said Dave Bowles, the head of Langley's Space Exploration Directorate. Following this round of testing, a new Orion capsule will be delivered to Langley for another series of tests that will capture additional data using sensors. The new vehicle more closely resembles the capsule that will eventually carry astronauts into space.
"What goes up must come down," Bowles said to the group.
Members of the media grabbed hard hats on their way downstairs to the Gantry floor to witness the drop up close.
More questions followed for the Langley experts until all were asked to step back in preparation for the capsule to be raised into position for the drop. Reporters also wanted to know how everyone played a part.
Lynn Bowman, the manager of Orion's SPLASH project, spoke about preparation and testing. Steve Gayle, the principal investigator for Orion, talked about the architecture of the boilerplate test article (BTA).
A two-minute warning sounded as people and their cameras grew still and focused on the test capsule.
Finally, a countdown from 15 seconds led into the lowest water basin drop in this series of tests. From a 17-degree angle and a 30-degree roll, the capsule splashed into the basin with a bounce before it was caught by the basin's arresting system of foam blocks and straps.
"From that angle, the BTA responded as the analysts predicted it would," Bowman said.
After the collar ceased swinging about 20 minutes later, the capsule was retrieved from the pool by a crane, placed onto a platform and transported to a nearby building where it will remain until its next scheduled test on November 8.
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| Oct. 27, 2011, Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) water landing drop test at the Hydro Impact Basin (HIB) at NASA's Langley Research Center. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith |
Denise Lineberry
The Researcher News
NASA Langley Research Center
|  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida recently made way for a new generation of rockets when workers took down the gantry that stood in support of space shuttles for 30 years and replaced it with, well, not much really.
But that was the idea.
Whatever rocket heads out to the pad in the future, it's going to bring its support structure with it. With that in mind, Pad B will provide all the fluids, electrical, and communications services to the launch platform.
"This is progress," said Regina Spellman, deputy project manager for the pad's makeover.
NASA decided to use the Mobile Launcher, or ML, to carry the new Space Launch System rocket to the pad, and use one of the Mobile Launcher Platform, or MLP, for commercial vehicles, Spellman said that “all Pad systems are being designed to support both the ML and the MLP.”
Construction will start soon to build two electric elevators at the pad to replace the aged one there now. The new ones will be sized to reach all levels of the ML, which is being used as the platform that carries the new Space Launch System rocket to the pad, and the MLP. The MLP will be used for any commercial rocket that will be interested to fly from the Pad B.
"Pretty much everything that's staying is for access to the ML and the MLP," Spellman said. "What we're trying to do is not preclude a mobile launcher or mobile launcher platform because there are a number of scenarios with commercial companies possibly using the MLP. With anything we do, we want to make it so you can still use the Pad with an ML or MLP."
Along with the dramatic changes on top of the pad that removed the shuttle structures, there is a considerable amount of refurbishment under way inside the launch pad perimeter.
A million feet of cables already have been removed, as have the storage tanks for hypergolic fuels, the corrosive chemicals that powered the shuttle's thrusters in space. Instrumentation that monitors and controls the facility and ground systems as well as the communications systems have been replaced with new state-of-the-art equipment. A new weather instrumentation system has been installed at the pad that monitors meteorological conditions and detects lightning.
“We are also going to spend a large amount of funds upgrading the existing infrastructure” said Regina.
Chipped and damaged concrete pedestals supporting propellant lines running from storage tanks to the pad's surface are being fixed and sealed to handle at least 25 more years beside the ocean.
The huge white spheres that held liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen have been emptied, too. They will be repainted, but not taken down. The old liquid oxygen water-cooled vaporizer will be replaced with modern, air-cooled one that is far more efficient than the water-cooled system used the past 30 years.
The reworking of the pad began while the shuttle fleet was still active. Three large lightning towers, each taller than the Vehicle Assembly Building, were completed in time for the shuttle Endeavour to be positioned on the pad as a backup for Atlantis ahead of the STS-125 mission to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Pad B was the starting line for the astronauts of Apollo 10 and on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission before it hosted space shuttle liftoffs and then the Ares I-X flight test on Oct. 28, 2009.
The flame trench, lined with fireproof bricks and concrete, also will see significant changes. For one, the flame deflector, which is the pyramid in the middle of the trench, may need to be moveable, as it was during Apollo. That's because the launch pad is to be set up to serve different rockets, and each one needs a different flame deflector arrangement.
The flame deflector splits the exhaust from the rocket into different directions of the flame trench. The water that is dumped into it at liftoff keeps sound waves from reverberating directly back on the rocket.
"I think the flame deflector's going to be our biggest challenge if we have to make it moveable," Spellman said.
While Pad B undergoes its extensive work, its twin, Pad A, will be put into a mothball state, the pad may be reactivated if a commercial company decides to launch from it.
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The flame trench at Launch Pad 39B will be refurbished and the flame deflector in the middle could become portable to handle future rockets. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann
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Steven Siceloff, KSC |  CANOGA PARK, Calif – In an impressive display of power and technology, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne successfully completed a series of hot-fire tests on the certified RS-68A engine, the world's most powerful hydrogen-fueled engine. The tests demonstrated the capability of the engine to operate for 4,800 seconds of cumulative run time – four times the design life of the engine and more than 10 times what’s needed to boost a United Launch Alliance heavy-lift rocket into space. The tests took place at John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE:UTX) company. “We are proud to celebrate this success with our United Launch Alliance customer on a test series that went above and beyond in demonstrating the robustness and reliability of the RS-68A engine,” said Dan Adamski, RS-68 program manager, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne. “The RS-68A performed beautifully and as expected, and test results indicate no issues with the engine hardware, further demonstrating its readiness as a heavy-lift engine. The tests also provided invaluable data that improves our ability to predict the performance of the engine on launch day.” The RS-68A is a liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen booster engine designed to provide increased thrust and improved fuel efficiency for the Delta IV family of launch vehicles. It evolved from the RS-68 engine, which was developed and certified for commercial use entirely on private company funds. Each RS-68A will provide 702,000 pounds of lift-off thrust, or 39,000 more pounds of thrust than the RS-68 engine, with increased combustion efficiency as well. In addition to the successful margin demonstration testing of the RS-68A engine, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, together with NASA, has begun testing on the upper-stage J-2X engine. To date, five hot-fire tests have been conducted on the J-2X, which could be used to boost humans beyond low-Earth orbit.
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| Test fire of an RS-68 engine Photo Credit: Rocketdyne |
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, a part of Pratt & Whitney, is a preferred provider of high-value propulsion, power, energy and innovative system solutions used in a wide variety of government and commercial applications, including the main engines for the space shuttle, Atlas and Delta launch vehicles, missile defense systems and advanced hypersonic engines. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne is headquartered in Canoga Park, Calif., and has facilities in Huntsville, Ala.; Kennedy Space Center, Fla.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Stennis Space Center, Miss; and Carlstadt, N.J. For more information about Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, go to www.prattwhitneyrocketdyne.com. Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and commercial building industries.
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