The record-breaking simulated mission to Mars has ended with smiling faces after 17 months. Mars500’s six brave volunteers stepped out of their ‘spacecraft’ today to be welcomed by the waiting scientists – happy that the venture had worked even better than expected.
 
Mars500, the first full-length, high-fidelity simulation of a human mission to our neighbouring planet, started 520 days ago, on 3 June 2010, at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow.

The international crew were isolated in their interplanetary spacecraft mock-up, faithfully following the phases of a real mission: a long flight to Mars, insertion into orbit around the planet, landing, surface exploration, return to orbit, a monotonous return flight and arrival at Earth.

During the ‘flight’, the crew performed more than 100 experiments, all linked to the problems of long-duration missions in deep space.  
 

To add to their isolation, communications with mission control were artificially delayed to mimic the natural delays over the great distances on a real Mars flight.

The crew of three Russians, one Chinese and two Europeans have performed exceptionally well. They have kept together and showed that motivation and team spirit can keep humans going under very difficult conditions. Scientists are pleased at their exceptional discipline.

“Thank you very much for your outstanding effort,” said ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain in his greeting from Paris after the crew stepped from their module.

“I welcome the courage, determination and generosity of these young people who have devoted almost two years of their lives to this project, for the progress of human space exploration.”
 

Touching reunions
 
The hatch was opened at 14:00 local time (11:00 CET, 10:00 GMT) and the ‘marsonauts’ walked out from their modules and greeted the mission directors.

After their first taste of freedom, they were led to meet doctors and their families and close friends.

“It is great to see you all again,” said Diego Urbina, ESA’s Italian crewmember, after emerging.
 

“On the Mars500 mission we have accomplished on Earth the longest space voyage ever so that humankind can one day greet a new dawn on a distant but reachable planet.

“And, as a European Space Agency crewmember, I am honoured to have been part of this remarkable challenge together with five of the most professional, friendly and resilient individuals I have ever worked with.

“I’ll be forever thankful to those who, even from a distance, always stood close to me during this space odyssey.”
 Romain Charles, ESA’s French crewmember, noted: “One year and a half ago, I was selected by the European Space Agency to be part of the Mars500 crew. Today, after a motionless trip of 520 days, I'm proud to prove, with my international crewmates, that a human journey to the Red Planet is feasible.

“We have all acquired a lot of valuable experience that will help in designing and planning future missions to Mars.

“We're ready to embark on the next spaceship going there!”

During their first few days of liberty, the crew will undergo extensive medical checks and psychological evaluation. They will also enjoy some private time and relaxation before talking to the media on 8 November in Moscow.

Their mission continues into early December, as they go through an exhaustive series of debriefings, tests and evaluations to collect the mission’s final data.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - Driving down the price of taking people and cargo into space or to the other side of the world in two hours will depend on developing a system so reliable and reusable that a thousand flights or more can take place in a year, a space launch expert told a group of engineers and others Aug. 31 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

It's not a launch scenario envisioned for the immediate future, but it could develop in the decades afterward, Jay Penn of Los Angeles-based The Aerospace Corporation said during his "Beyond Next Generation Access to Space" presentation. The company studied potential business cases for pursuing different launch strategies.

The cost of taking a pound of anything into space ran about $10,000 aboard the space shuttle, but that price tag would fall dramatically if space agencies and companies model their research on developing launch systems on the commercial airline and air cargo industries, Penn said.

"Commercial aircraft operate at $2 to $3 per pound of payload around the world, but space is 5,000 times that," Penn said.

Getting the space transportation business down to that cost means building vehicles that are designed for operability – that is much less maintenance between flights with rapid turnaround to support much higher flight rates. Evolving systems that deliver people and cargo to anywhere on the planet in less than two hours, for example, will need to make multiple trips in the same day and operate out of three or more hubs around the world.

His study has shown that some new applications could emerge in the coming years to accelerate the demand for frequent and lower cost access to space. In fact, the development of such reusable and operable systems will require the promise of higher demand to justify their development. Among the markets that could provide that spark are orbital space tourism, even limited demand for space-based solar power generation, and high speed transport services to travel from point-to-point on the planet.

"That's where you need to spend your energy, to make aircraft-like operations for these kinds of vehicles," Penn said.

Kennedy, with unique facilities such as the Vehicle Assembly Building and a runway long enough to host space-going vehicles, could find itself in key support roles for the new spacecraft.

Jim Ball, the deputy of Kennedy's Center Planning and Development Office, said his office is leading the effort to craft a future development concept and revised master plan for KSC to position it for future needs. The plan will provide a guide for the overall development of the center for the next several decades, Ball said.

Penn's study was not necessarily a prediction of where the space launch industry will be in the coming decades as much as a look at what it could be. For now, NASA is focused on a budding commercial industry aiming to launch cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station. The agency is also working toward a launch and space infrastructure supporting astronauts on missions to an asteroid, the moon or Mars.

So what would the spacecraft look like that could accomplish an unprecedented flight rate? Well, it would have a large first stage booster with wings and landing gear so it could land on a runway. It would weigh about as much as today's jumbo jets but may be a bit smaller.

The booster's main engines would operate on existing fuels, either kerosene or liquid hydrogen and it might even make its own oxygen in flight. Penn emphasized using fuels that can be handled easily on Earth between flights, and both kerosene and hydrogen have a long history of safe handling and remote loading.

The second stage would be either a similar winged booster with a small cargo bay, or a second stage holding a satellite. If the design is versatile enough, then two first stage boosters could be combined to launch a particularly large payload.

Getting that kind of design will start with combining new technologies rather than trying to come up with a single revolutionary invention, Penn said. Pulse detonation engines powering a Waverider-type craft made from carbon nanotubes would be a possible combination.

Designers also must focus on modular concepts that give operators flexibility. But mostly, they need to come up with space-worthy craft that operate like airplanes, with one kind designed for space operations and another destined to fly in and out of the atmosphere without going into orbit for carrying passengers and cargo between destinations on earth.

"It's going to be very challenging to build one vehicle to do both roles," Penn said.

In both cases, Penn said it is not necessarily an advantage to design a spacecraft that takes off from a runway like an airplane because additional weight would mean the craft would weigh up to three times more than a 747 or A380.

There is also the prospect of space tourism, he believes, with most of the demand being for going into orbit instead of just going into space briefly.

"We think there's a sweet spot where you can have 1,000 flights a year and get the ticket prices down to the point where people will want to pay," Penn said.

His advice for the future development of KSC? Be flexible and ready to adapt to these potential future markets that could dramatically increase flight rates and spur the development of vehicle systems that require much faster turnaround, and efficient ground servicing.

A reliable and reusable booster that encompasses several emerging technologies will be crucial to developing a space launch architecture that drives down the price of delivering passengers and payloads into space or for carrying cargo around the world in two hours or less, according to a study of spaceflight's future. NASA artist concept.

Steven Siceloff
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

HOUSTON - The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] today announced it has selected the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket to launch the Boeing Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft from Florida’s Space Coast.

"This selection marks a major step forward in Boeing's efforts to provide NASA with a proven launch capability as part of our complete commercial crew transportation service,” said John Elbon, vice president and program manager of Commercial Crew Programs and the source selection official for Boeing.

If NASA selects Boeing for a development contract with sufficient funding, ULA will provide launch services for an autonomous orbital flight, a transonic autonomous abort test launch, and a crewed launch, all in 2015.

The addition of ULA to the Boeing team enables the start of detailed design work on an integrated system for launch and spacecraft operations. The team also will refine launch abort operations that will meet NASA's stringent human rating requirements to safely transport crew and cargo to the International Space Station. Boeing conducted a best-value competition among U.S. launch service providers prior to selecting the Atlas V.

"We are pleased Boeing selected the Atlas V rocket and believe it is the right vehicle to help usher in the new commercial era in human spaceflight,” said George Sowers, ULA vice president of Business Development. “The Atlas V is a cost-effective, reliable vehicle and ULA stands ready to support Boeing's commercial human spaceflight program."

Boeing plans to begin wind tunnel testing of the Atlas V and the CST-100 this year and will use the results to complete a preliminary design review of the integrated system in 2012 under the second round of its Commercial Crew Development Space Act Agreement with NASA.

The Commercial Crew program consists of developing, manufacturing, testing and evaluating, and demonstrating the CST-100 spacecraft, launch vehicle and ground/mission operations – all part of Boeing’s Commercial Crew Transportation System – for NASA’s new Commercial Crew human spaceflight program that will provide access to the International Space Station.

The CST-100 is a reusable, capsule-shaped spacecraft that includes a crew module and a service module. It relies on proven, affordable materials and subsystem technologies that can transport up to seven people, or a combination of people and cargo.

A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is one of the world's largest defense, space and security businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world’s largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft. Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is a $32 billion business with 64,000 employees worldwide. Follow us on Twitter: @BoeingDefense.

DENVER -- Through a new agreement, United Launch Alliance (ULA) will provide technical information to NASA about using the Atlas V rocket to launch astronauts into space. The announcement was made Monday at ULA headquarters in Denver.

"I am truly excited about the addition of ULA to NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program team," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "Having ULA on board may speed the development of a commercial crew transportation system for the International Space Station, allowing NASA to concentrate its resources on exploring beyond low Earth orbit."

NASA and ULA's unfunded Space Act Agreement requires ULA to provide data on the Atlas V, a flight-proven expendable launch vehicle used by NASA and the Department of Defense for critical space missions.

NASA will share its human spaceflight experience with ULA to advance crew transportation system capabilities and the draft human certification requirements. ULA will provide NASA feedback about those requirements, including providing input on the technical feasibility and cost effectiveness of NASA's proposed certification approach.

"This unfunded SAA will look at the Atlas V to understand its design risks, its capabilities, how it can be used within the context of flying our NASA crew and maturing ULA's designs for the Emergency Detection System and launch vehicle processing and launch architectures under a crewed configuration," said Ed Mango, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program which is based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The majority of the work will be completed by the end of this year. As part of the agreement, NASA will:
-- participate in milestone and technical review briefings and provide technical feedback on milestone completion
-- assist in identification of risks and possible mitigation strategies

ULA will:
-- continue to advance the Atlas V CTS concept, including design maturation and analyses
-- conduct ULA program reviews as planned
-- perform a Design Equivalency Review
-- develop Hazard Analyses unique for human spaceflight
-- develop a Probabilistic Risk Assessment
-- document an Atlas V CTS certification baseline
-- conduct Systems Requirements Review

"We believe this effort will demonstrate to NASA that our systems are fully compliant with NASA requirements for human spaceflight," said George Sowers, ULA's vice president of business development. "ULA looks forward to continued work with NASA to develop a U.S. commercial crew space transportation capability providing safe, reliable, and cost effective access to and return from low Earth orbit and the International Space Station."

Credit: ULA

In 2010, NASA awarded $6.7 million to ULA to accompany its own $1.3 million investment to develop an Emergency Detection System prototype test bed. The EDS will monitor critical launch vehicle and spacecraft systems and issue status, warning and abort commands to crew during their mission to low Earth orbit. EDS is the sole significant element necessary for flight safety to meet the requirements to certify ULA's launch vehicles for human spaceflight.

 

HOUSTON - On the heels of a routine fire drill aboard the International Space Station, an actual emergency event of a possible conjunction with a piece of unidentified space debris that later passed by harmlessly took center stage of the Expedition 28 crew’s activities Tuesday.

The station’s six residents began their workday conducting a periodic fire drill to review their roles and responsibilities in the event of a fire aboard the orbiting outpost.

After the drill, the crew received late notification that an unknown object of undetermined size was expected to make its closest approach to the station at 8:08 a.m. EDT, and predictions indicated it could come within 820 feet (250 meters) of the station.

After closing the hatches to the various modules, Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko, and Flight Engineers Ron Garan, and Alexander Samokutyaev took shelter in their Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft, docked to the station’s Poisk module. Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov, Mike Fossum and Satoshi Furukawa took shelter in their Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft, docked to the Rassvet module.

At 8:11 a.m., Capcom Kjell Lindgren at Mission Control gave the “all clear” to the crew to leave the shelter of the Soyuz spacecraft after the unidentified space junk passed. The crew returned to its regular schedule after having spent about a half hour sheltered in the two Soyuz craft.

This was only the second time that a space station crew had been required to take shelter in the Soyuz spacecraft. The first time was March 12, 2009.

Mission Control can coordinate what is known as a debris avoidance maneuver to move the station out of the debris path when the prediction of a possible orbital meeting is made far enough in advance. In this case, flight controllers did not receive word of the close pass until about 14 hours before the time of closest approach.

Also on Tuesday, the Expedition 28 crew prepared for the spacewalk that Fossum and Garan will perform when the STS-135 crew aboard space shuttle Atlantis visits the station during the final mission of the shuttle program. That launch is currently planned for July 8. Fossum and Garan reviewed procedures for a tag-up later with spacewalk specialists on the ground.

On Wednesday beginning at 8:15 a.m., the engines of the ISS Progress 43 cargo craft docked to the aft port of the station’s Zvezda service module will fire for 33 minutes and six seconds. This reboost will increase the station’s altitude and refine docking opportunities with Atlantis. Progress 43 docked to the station Thursday, bringing around three tons of fuel, air and supplies for the Expedition 28 crew.