Today in NASA History: Apollo 17 Launches to the Moon

Mission Objective

The lunar landing site was the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area. This site was picked for Apollo 17 as a location where rocks both older and younger than those previously returned from other Apollo missions, as well as from Luna 16 and 20 missions, might be found.

The mission was the final in a series of three J-type missions planned for the Apollo Program. These J-type missions can be distinguished from previous G- and H-series missions by extended hardware capability, larger scientific payload capacity and by the use of the battery-powered Lunar Roving Vehicle, or LRV.

Scientific objectives of the Apollo 17 mission included, geological surveying and sampling of materials and surface features in a preselected area of the Taurus-Littrow region; deploying and activating surface experiments; and conducting in-flight experiments and photographic tasks during lunar orbit and transearth coast. These objectives included deployed experiments, such as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, or ALSEP, with a heat flow experiment; lunar seismic profiling, or LSP; lunar surface gravimeter, or LSG; lunar atmospheric composition experiment, or LACE; and lunar ejecta and meteorites, or LEAM. The mission also included lunar sampling and lunar orbital experiments. Biomedical experiments included the Biostack II experiment and the BIOCORE experiment.

"We came in peace for all mankind..."

Crew

Eugene A. Cernan Commander

Harrison H. Schmitt Lunar Module Pilot

Ronald E. Evans Command Module Pilot

Backup Crew

John W. Young Commander

Charles M. Duke Jr. Lunar Module Pilot

Stuart A. Roosa Command Module Pilot


Payload

America (CM-114)

Challenger (LM-12)

Prelaunch Milestones

12/21/70 - S-IVB ondock at Kennedy 5/11/72 - S-IC ondock at Kennedy

6/20/72 - S-IU ondock at Kennedy

10/27/72 - S-II ondock at Kennedy

Launch


Dec. 7, 1972; 12:33 a.m. EST

Launch Pad 39A

Saturn-V SA-512

High Bay 3

Mobile Launcher Platform-3

Firing Room 1

The CSM, LM and S-IVB booster stage were inserted 11 minutes, 53 seconds after launch into an Earth parking orbit of 91.2 by 92.5 nautical miles. After two revolutions, at 8:45:37 a.m. GMT, Apollo 17 was inserted into translunar coast.

Orbit Altitude: 105.86 miles Inclination: 28.526 degrees Orbits: 75 revolutions Duration: 12 days, 13 hours, 52 minutes Surface Time: 75 hours Distance: 1,484,933.8 miles Lunar Location: Taurus-Littrow Lunar Coordinates: 20.16 degrees north, 30.77 degrees east Landing Dec. 19, 1972 Pacific Ocean Recovery Ship: USS Ticonderoga

Mission Highlights

At 9:15:29 a.m. GMT Dec. 7, 1972, the command and service module, or CSM, was separated from the S-IVB. Approximately 15 min later, the CSM docked with the lunar module, or LM. After CSM/LM extraction from the S-IVB, the S-IVB was targeted for lunar impact, which occurred Dec. 10, at 8:32:43 p.m. The impact location was approximately 84 nautical miles northwest of the planned target point and the event was recorded by the passive seismic experiments deployed on the Apollos 12, 14, 15 and 16 missions.

Only one of the four planned midcourse corrections was required during translunar coast. A midcourse correction made at 5:03 p.m. Dec. 8, was a 1.6 second service propulsion system burn resulting in a 10>:5 feet/second velocity change. Lunar orbit insertion was accomplished at 7:47:23 p.m. Dec. 10, placing the spacecraft into a lunar orbit of 170 by 52.6 nautical miles. Approximately four hours, 20 minutes later, the orbit was reduced to 59 by 15 nautical miles.

The spacecraft remained in this low orbit for more than 18 hours, during which time the CSM/LM undocking and separation were performed. The CSM circularization maneuver was performed at 6:50:29 p.m. Dec. 11, which placed the CSM into an orbit of 70.3 by 54.3 nautical miles. At 2:35 p.m. Dec. 11, the commander and lunar module pilot entered the LM to prepare for descent to the lunar surface. At 6:55:42 p.m. Dec. 11, the LM was placed into an orbit with a perilune altitude of 6.2 nautical miles. Approximately 47 minutes later, the powered descent to the lunar surface began. Landing occurred at 7:54:57 p.m. Dec. 11, at lunar latitude 20 degrees, 10 minutes north, and longitude 30 degrees 46 minutes east.

Apollo 17 was the last lunar landing mission. Three extravehicular activities, or EVAs, lasted a total of 22 hours, four minutes on the lunar surface. EVA No. 1 began at 11:54:49 p.m. Dec. 11, with Eugene Cernan egressing at 12:01 a.m. Dec. 12. The first EVA was seven hours, 12 minutes long and was completed at 7:06:42 a.m. Dec. 12. The second EVA began at 11:28:06 p.m. Dec. 12, and lasted seven hours, 37 minutes, ending at at 7:05:02 a.m. Dec. 13. The final EVA began at 10:25:48 p.m. Dec. 13, and ended at 5:40:56 a.m. Dec. 14.

The LM ascent stage lifted off the moon at 10:54:37 p.m. Dec. 14. After a vernier adjustment maneuver, the ascent stage was inserted into a 48.5 by 9.4 nautical mile orbit. The LM terminal phase initiation burn was made at 11:48:58 p.m. Dec. 14. This 3.2 second maneuver raised the ascent stage orbit to 64.7 by 48.5 nautical miles. The CSM and LM docked at 1:10:15 a.m. The LM ascent stage was jettisoned at 4:51:31 a.m. Dec. 15. Deorbit firing of the ascent stage was initiated at 6:31:14 a.m. Dec. 15, and lunar impact occurred 19 minutes, seven seconds later approximately 0.7 nautical miles from the planned target at latitude 19 degrees, 56 minutes north, and longitude 30 degrees, 32 minutes east. The ascent stage impact was recorded by the four Apollo 17 geophones, and by each ALSEP at Apollos 12, 14, 15 and 16 landing sites.

Ronald Evans performed a transearth EVA at 8:27:40 p.m. Dec. 17, that lasted one hour, six minutes, during which time the Command Module Pilot Stuart A. Roosa retrieved the lunar sounder film, as well as the panoramic and mapping camera film cassettes.

Apollo 17 hosted the first scientist-astronaut to land on moon: Harrison Schmitt. The sixth automated research station was set up. The lunar rover vehicle traversed a total of 30.5 kilometers. Lunar surface-stay time was 75 hours, and lunar orbit time 17 hours. Astronauts gathered 110.4 kilograms, or 243 pounds, of material.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo17.html

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

ISS021-E-015710 (27 Oct. 2009) --- Pearl Harbor, Hawaii is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 21 crew member on the International Space Station. This detailed view illustrates the southern coastline of the Hawaiian island of Oahu including Pearl Harbor.

On Dec. 7, 1941 -- 68 years ago -- a surprise attack by the Japanese Navy on Pearl Harbor and other targets on the island of Oahu precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. Today, Pearl Harbor is still in use as a major United States Navy installation, and with Honolulu is one of the most heavily developed parts of the Island. Comparison between this image and a detailed astronaut photograph of Pearl Harbor taken in 2003 suggests that little observable land use or land cover change has occurred in the area over the past six years. The most significant change is the addition of more naval vessels to the Reserve Fleet anchorage in Middle Loch (center). The urban areas of Waipahu, Pearl City, and Aliamanu border the Harbor to the northwest, north, and east. The built-up areas, recognized by linear streets and white rooftops, contrast sharply with the reddish volcanic soils and green vegetated hillslopes of the surrounding areas.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/pearl_harbor.html

Geminids Meteor Shower: Nature's 'Holiday Light Show'

The Geminids are one of the best meteor showers of the year and never seem to disappoint observers! Join Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office, located at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in a live web chat on Friday, December 11 from 3:00-4:00 EST to learn more about the Geminids meteor shower.

This meteor shower gets the name "Geminids" because it appears to radiate from the constellation Gemini. For the best viewing opportunity, go outside, take a blanket and something hot to drink, lay on your back and look up into the night sky. Best viewing time is between midnight and dawn on December 13-14.

Star trails and a Geminids meteor over Georgia in 1985. Image credit and copyright: Jimmy Westlake

An observer in the Northern hemisphere can start seeing the Geminids meteors as early as December 6, when one meteor every hour or so could be visible. During the next week, rates increase until a peak of 50-80 meteors per hour is attained on the night of December 13-14. The last Geminids are seen on December 18, when an observer might see a rate of one or so every hour.

History of the Geminids

The initial appearance of the Geminids meteor shower came fairly sudden during the 1860s. The first notation of the shower occurred in 1862 at Manchester, England. During the 1870s, observations of the Geminids became more numerous as astronomers realized a new annual shower was active.

The first estimate of the strength of Geminids came in 1877 with an hourly rate given at about 14. Rates increased slightly during the remainder of the 19th century to about 23 an hour. Reported rates continued to increase through most of the 20th century. During the 1900s, rates averaged about 20 per hour. The rates averaged near 50 per hour during the 1930s, 60 per hour during the 1940s and 1950s, 65 per hour during the 1960s and 80 per hour during the 1970s. The rates stayed near 80 per hour during the remainder of that century.

Media Contact:
Janet Anderson, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
Janet.L.Anderson@nasa.gov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/connect/chat/geminids09.html

Hitch A Ride On The Glory Satellite

Want to hitch a ride on NASA's next climate monitoring satellite? Join the Glory mission, which will launch no earlier than Oct. 1, by surfing over to the Send Your Name Around the Earth web page. Names will be recorded on a microchip built into the satellite, and you will get a printable certificate from NASA acknowledging your participation. There are already 225,155 names on the chip, but there's plenty more room. (You cannot submit your name more than once.)

The website is located at: http://polls.nasa.gov/utilities/sendtospace/jsp/sendName.jsp.

Artist's rendition of Glory in orbit. Credit: NASA

Glory carries two scientific sensors dedicated to understanding the effects of aerosols and the sun's variability on Earth's climate. The Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor will collect information about tiny liquid and solid particles suspended in the atmosphere that absorb or reflect sunlight. The Total Irradiance Monitor will measure the intensity of incoming sunlight which can vary over time.

Want to learn more? Read the stories about measuring solar variability and aerosols.

Adam Voiland
Goddard Space Flight Center

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/glory-name.html

Watch Live as Kids Test Their Inventions in Annual Challenge

Tune in to see middle- and high-school teams showcase their inventions -- cardboard bridges capable of carrying up to 235 pounds (107 kilograms) -- in this year's Invention Challenge hosted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The live event will air on the "NASAJPL" channel available on Ustream TV at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl on Dec. 11 starting at 11:30 a.m. PST (2:30 p.m. EST and 1930 UTC).

Twenty student teams from throughout Southern California will watch to see if their bridges remain standing as bricks get piled on during the annual Invention Challenge at JPL. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Twenty student teams from throughout Southern California will watch to see if their bridges remain standing as bricks get piled on. Ten teams of JPL engineers and scientists will also compete in this friendly but challenging contest.

The bridges must meet certain requirements: they must be made of cardboard or paper products, use reasonable amounts of glue, span a 1.2 meter (48 inch) gap, and be no more than 45.7 centimeters (18 inches) wide. The bridges must carry standard-sized bricks (between one and 44) that weigh about 2.42 kilograms (5.35 pounds) each.

More information about the Invention Challenge is available at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/inventionchallenge/2009/.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is managed by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Carolina Martinez 818-354-9382
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
carolina.martinez@jpl.nasa.gov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/invention20091207.html

Version 1.1 of the NASA App Is Now Available!

The first official NASA App invites you to discover a wealth of NASA information right on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The NASA App collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated information, images and videos from various online NASA sources in a convenient mobile package. Come explore with us.

Features:

• NASA Mission Information
• Launch Information & Countdown clocks
• Sighting Opportunities (Visible Passes for ISS, Space Shuttle)
• Mission Orbit Trackers
• NASA Image of the Day
• Astronomy Picture of the Day
• NASA Videos
• NASA Twitter Feeds/Mission Updates

Missions

Images

Videos

Updates

What's New In This Version:

• Visible sighting opportunities listed for the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle, by home location and through search for location
• Richer Mission details and more content
• Enhancements to Videos and Updates panels
• High-resolution image option (configured in device settings)
• Status updates on upcoming launches
• Prevent sleep mode setting for tracking launches (configured in device settings)

The Application Features These Screens:

For more information about the NASA's App for iPhone or iPod touch, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/iphone

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/iphone-V-1-1.html

This Month in Exploration - December

Visit "This Month in Exploration" every month to find out how aviation and space exploration have changed throughout the years, improving life for humans on Earth and in space. While reflecting on the events that led to NASA's formation and its rich history of accomplishments, "This Month in Exploration" will reveal where the agency is leading us -- to the moon, Mars and beyond.

100 Years Ago

December 5, 1909: George Taylor made the first manned glider flight in Australia in an aircraft that he designed.

80 Years Ago

December 12, 1929: The Smithsonian Institution presented the Langley Medal to Adm. Richard E. Byrd for his flights over the North and South poles and a posthumous Langley Medal to Charles M. Manly for his pioneering development of radial piston airplane engines.

75 Years Ago

December, 1934: December 23: Sylvanus Albert Reed gave an endowment to the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (IAS) to be used for an annual award. The Sylvanus Albert Reed Award is given to individuals whose experimental or theoretical investigations have a beneficial influence on the development of practical aeronautics.

An Aerobee rocket assembly in the shop. Credit: NASA

60 Years Ago

December 2, 1949: The United States Air Force first fired the Aerobee research rocket (RTV-A-1a) at Holoman Air Force Base.

50 Years Ago

December 10, 1959: U.S. Ambassador Lodge presented a resolution to the Assembly of the United Nations (U.N.) recommending that an international conference on the peaceful uses of outer space be convened within the next year or two. Two days later, the United Nations created a permanent 24-nation committee for this purpose.

45 Years Ago

December 8, 1964: A United Airlines Caravelle made the U.S.A.’s first computer controlled landing at Dulles International Airport.

The Concorde supersonic transport airplane. Credit: NASA

40 Years Ago

December 17, 1969: The U.S. Air Force closed its 22-year investigation into sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), otherwise known as Project Blue Book.

35 Years Ago

Dec 2, 1974: NASA’s Pioneer 11 spacecraft flew by Jupiter, passing 26,725 miles above Jupiter's cloud top. The spacecraft returned dramatic images of Jupiter's famous Great Red Spot and determined the mass of Jupiter's moon, Callisto.

30 Years Ago

December 16, 1979: The British Airways supersonic transport airplane, Concorde, flew from New York to London in just under three hours at an average speed of 1,172 mph.

25 Years Ago

December 27, 1984: Members of the ANSMET (Antarctic Search for Meteorites) Project discovered meteorite ALH 84001 in the Allen Hills region of Antarctica. ALH 84001 is the famous Mars meteorite that sparked excitement in 1996 about past life on Mars.

20 Years Ago

December 26, 1989: A U.S. patent was awarded for the invention and construction method for the Miniature Traveling Wave Tube (TWT). This technology allowed satellites to carry a greater number of messages in a particular radio frequency signal, and resulted in commercial television applications.

10 Years Ago

December 18, 1999: NASA launched Terra, a weather satellite project undertaken jointly with Japan and Canada, on an Atlas rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The 4,864 kg spacecraft was part of an international program and was intended to enable new research into the ways that Earth's lands, oceans, air, ice, and life function as a total system.

Present Day

December 9, 2009: NASA will launch the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) aboard the Delta II 7320 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base between 6:10 – 6:23 a.m. PST. This mission will survey the entire sky in the mid-infrared range, producing over a million images from which hundreds of millions of astronomical objects will be cataloged using far greater sensitivity than any previous mission or program.

Lee A. Jackson (Analex Corporation)

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/thismonth/this_month_dec09.html

Ares Rocket Roll Control

The Ares I-X test rocket lifted off from the newly-modified Launch Complex 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The roll control system for Ares I-X consisted of two modules containing engines originally used on now-decommissioned Peacekeeper missiles.

Image credit: NASA

The Ares I-X test flight lasted about six minutes from its launch until splash down of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles down range. This shot was taken from the rocket looking back at the launch pad. The roll control motors were used to control the vehicle during flight.

The Ares I first prototype thruster test was conducted at Aerojet in Sacramento, Calif. These small control rockets can be turned on and off for brief periods of time. This particular design can be pulsed for 1/10th of one second or may be fired 30 or 40 seconds at a time.

Engineers with the Marshall Center and Aerojet of Sacramento, Calif., conducted hot-fire testing for the first of two prototype Ares I roll control thrusters at Aerojet’s state-of-the-art engine test facility in Sacramento.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/ares/ares_roll_control.html

Guide to the International Space Station Laboratory Racks Interactive

The International Space Station hosts astronauts, gear and science from around the world. Three laboratories from Europe, Japan and the United States bring them all together for the most advanced research and development. More than 150 experiments involving researchers from around the world are active at any given time.

While the space station is the most advanced spacecraft ever built, its coordinate system is labeled like any sea-faring vessel on Earth using traditional nautical terms. Understanding this coordinate system will help you use this interactive and understand the relative positions of the onboard experiment facilities.

Image above: The International Space Station’s coordinate system. Credit: NASA

The orbiting laboratory’s left and right sides are designated as port and starboard respectively. The rear of the station is the aft section where the Russian Zvezda service module is located. The front of the station, where the U.S. Harmony module is located, is labeled the forward section. The side of the station facing the Earth is the deck and the opposite side is the overhead.

Inside the station’s three international laboratory modules are numerous racks that support science, environmental and electrical systems. Depending on which side the laboratory is facing in the station’s coordinate system the racks’ locations are labeled using nautical terms. The International Space Station Laboratory Racks interactive depicts these racks and their locations inside the orbiting lab.


The Columbus laboratory is on the station’s port side and the Kibo laboratory is on the starboard side. Their labs are set up with the racks in the aft, forward and overhead, deck configuration. Both labs are attached to the U.S. Harmony node which is in the forward section of the space station.

The U.S. Destiny laboratory is just behind the Harmony Node. Its racks are set up in the port, starboard and overhead, deck configuration.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/iss_labs_guide.html

Brown Dwarf Comparison

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, will uncover many "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs, in infrared light. This diagram shows a brown dwarf in relation to Earth, Jupiter, a low-mass star and the sun.

Stars with less mass than the sun are smaller and cooler, and hence much fainter in visible light. Brown dwarfs are the smallest and coolest of stars. They have less than eight percent of the mass of the sun, which is not enough to sustain the fusion reaction that keeps the sun hot. These cool orbs are nearly impossible to see in visible light, but stand out when viewed in infrared. Their diameters are about the same as Jupiter's, but they can have up to 80 times more mass and are thought to have planetary systems of their own.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The mission's principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCB

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/pia12462.html

Mission STS-129: Delivering the Goods

Space shuttle Atlantis' STS-129 mission was an ambitious and demanding undertaking that began Nov. 16, 2009, with a spectacular and on-time liftoff at 2:28 p.m. EST from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Aboard were Commander Charles O. Hobaugh, Pilot Barry E. Wilmore, Mission Specialists Leland Melvin, Mike Foreman, Robert L. Satcher Jr. and Randy Bresnik. In addition to the crew, there were nearly 30,000 pounds of replacement parts packed in the Express Logistics Carriers, or ELCs, secured inside Atlantis' payload bay.

With a picture-perfect launch behind them, the first task at hand on Nov. 17 was checking the shuttle's wing leading edges and nose cap using the orbiter boom sensor system. The end of the boom consists of cameras and lasers, giving experts on the ground 3-D views of the shuttle's heat shield to ensure there wasn't any damage from launch.

Image above: Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off from the exhaust cloud building on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell

Later in the day while the shuttle was catching up with the International Space Station, Bresnik, Foreman and Satcher checked out the two spacesuits they would use for the three planned spacewalks.

Once in range of the station on Nov. 18, the shuttle was delicately maneuvered into the rendezvous pitch maneuver, or "backflip," where Expedition 21 Flight Engineers Jeffrey Williams and Nicole Stott took photos from their vantage point.

Images from the first and second inspection were sent back to Earth for experts to review, making sure the shuttle would have a safe flight back through Earth's atmosphere.

Hobaugh then carefully guided Atlantis closer to the station until it was locked into the station's docking port on the Harmony node. It took a couple hours for a series of hatch leak checks to be performed and once accomplished, the hatches were opened and the Atlantis crew was enthusiastically greeted and welcomed aboard the station by the Expedition 21 team.

Image above: Backdropped by Earth's horizon, a partial view of Atlantis' payload bay, vertical stabilizer, orbital maneuvering system pods and docking mechanism are featured in this image. Photo credit: NASA/JSC

As the hatch opened, Nicole Stott's responsibilities as station flight engineer officially ended and she became an STS-129 mission specialist for the remainder of her time in space. Stott is the last NASA astronaut to experience the rotation of launching from and being returned to Earth by a space shuttle. In the future, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be used for station crew rotations.

With a demanding to-do list ahead of them, the two crews began with the first task at hand. ELC 1 was grappled from Atlantis' payload bay by Melvin and Bresnik with the shuttle's robotic arm and handed off to the station's robotic arm controlled by Wilmore and Williams. The platform was permanently installed to the outside of the station to store large cargo.

That evening Foreman and Satcher spent the night camping out in the Quest airlock preparing for their first spacewalk. After stepping out into space the next day, Foreman and Satcher completed all major tasks almost two hours ahead of schedule. In addition, Foreman was able to successfully connect a cable on the Unity node -- one that was uncooperative for the STS-128 crew in September.

Image above: STS-129 and Expedition 21 crew members greet each other shortly after space shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station docked in space and the hatches were opened. Photo credit: NASA/JSC

Inside the station, work was ongoing to prepare for the arrival of the Tranquility node, which will be flown on shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission targeted for early 2010.

Overnight, a false depressurization alarm sounded and woke the crew, but flight control teams on the ground determined there was no danger to the station or crew. In the STS-129 post-landing crew press conference, said, "The training the crew members received helped them deal with the false alarms that went off a few times during their stay on the orbiting outpost."

The relocation of supplies and equipment between Atlantis and the station continued Nov. 20, in addition to tackling a variety of maintenance, troubleshooting and science activities -- keeping both station and shuttle crews busy.

Early the next morning, the second carrier with almost 10,000 pounds of large spare parts, including an attitude-control gyroscope, was moved from the shuttle's cargo bay to its permanent location on the S3 side of the station's truss, or backbone.

Image above: Mission Specialist Randy Bresnik, near the Columbus laboratory, participates in the STS-129 mission's second spacewalk. Photo credit: NASA/JSC

The two platforms that were attached to the station allow additional storage space for the mountain of supplies and equipment needed for the smooth and efficient running of the orbiting laboratory, now and well into the future after the shuttles are retired.

A little later, Foreman and Bresnik made their way into the emptiness of space for the second successful spacewalk of the mission. They not only completed their tasks ahead of schedule but also accomplished some get-ahead jobs -- all in six hours, eight minutes.

Meanwhile, another success story was in the making. On the morning of Nov. 22, Bresnik was told by the Mission Control Center in Houston that his wife, Rebecca, had given birth to their daughter, Abigail Mae Bresnik. He was assured that both baby and mother were doing just fine. Atlantis' crew members were given a well-earned, half day off to celebrate. The rest of day was dedicated to preparing for the third spacewalk on Nov. 23, featuring Satcher and Bresnik.

Image above: STS-129 and Expedition 21 crew members gather for a formal portrait. Photo credit: NASA/JSC

The space excursion began more than an hour later than planned because a drinking-water valve in Satcher's spacesuit became dislodged and the helmet had to be opened to reattach the valve. With the fix behind them, Bresnik and Satcher completed all the tasks in just five hours, 42 minutes -- almost on time, regardless of the late start.

Later, the last of the mission's spare hardware was moved thanks to the combined effort of all 12 shuttle and station crew members.

On Nov. 22, the shuttle and station crew members said their final farewells before the hatches between shuttle Atlantis and the station were securely closed -- after which the shuttle crew prepared for undocking.

Wilmore eased the shuttle away from the station circling around the outpost. Crew members videoed and snapped photos of the orbiting laboratory in order to assess its exterior condition.

One more survey was in store for the shuttle's heat shield with Wilmore and Melvin using the orbiter boom sensor system -- a five-hour process.

Image above: Space shuttle Atlantis touches down on the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Tim Terry

Atlantis crew members spent part of Thanksgiving preparing for their Nov. 27 landing date. They tested the thruster jets that control the shuttle's orientation in space and during early re-entry, as well as the flaps and rudders that guide it through the atmosphere.

The day didn't pass without a surprise, though. A traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings found its way aboard Atlantis before undocking -- compliments of the Expedition 21 crew members.

It was a perfect end to a nearly perfect mission. After the twin sonic booms echoed and Atlantis came out of a clear-blue sky, the vehicle and crew touched down on Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility on Nov. 27 at 9:44 a.m. EST.

After winding up a successful 11-day flight to deliver spare parts, other equipment and supplies to the International Space Station, the crew took their last walk around the vehicle that served them well from start to finish.

After a short ride to crew quarters, the astronauts were given a thorough medical exam and met with their families. On Nov. 28, the crew flew home to Houston, and on Nov. 30, they were honored at a homecoming ceremony held at nearby Ellington Field.

Atlantis' STS-129 mission was the 31st flight dedicated to space station assembly, resupply and maintenance -- one that should help keep the station supplied well into the future.

Elaine M. Marconi
NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts129/launch/129_overview.html

Off-Duty Day for Station Crew

Expedition 22 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Max Suraev of the two-person International Space Station crew enjoyed their second of two off-duty days Wednesday.

Three more crew members, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi and NASA astronaut T.J. Creamer, all flight engineers, are scheduled to launch on the Soyuz TMA-17 Dec. 20 and will arrive at the station Dec. 23.

Meanwhile, Expedition 21 crew members Frank De Winne, Roman Romanenko and Bob Thirsk arrived in Star City, Russia about 10 a.m. EST (about 6 p.m. Moscow time) Wednesday and were reunited with their families.

De Winne, Romanenko and Thirsk returned to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft at 2:15 a.m. Tuesday, landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Erg Iabes, Algeria

Vast, windswept plains of sand dunes (ergs), occasionally interrupted by rocky outcrops, stretch across much of Algeria in a giant C-shape. Except for exceedingly rare oases, these seas of sand are usually empty of life, including human civilization.

This natural-color image from the Landsat 5 satellite shows the emptiness of the Erg Iabès in western Algeria’s Adrar province. This rather small erg (compared to the country’s Grand Ergs) occupies the wide gap between the El Eglab Massif to the west and the Tademaït Plateau to the northeast.

Long, linear dunes such as the ones pictured here align in the direction of the prevailing winds, and they usually form under the influence of strong winds. However, linear dunes are not the only types of dunes that are found in ergs. For example, weaker winds blowing over a linear dune in the non-prevailing wind direction may create star dunes. Barchan dunes are shaped like a crescent, with a more gradual slope on the windward side, and a steeper slope on the downwind side.

For more information visit http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=41476

Suzaku Spies Treasure Trove of Intergalactic Metal

Every cook knows the ingredients for making bread: flour, water, yeast, and time. But what chemical elements are in the recipe of our universe?

Most of the ingredients are hydrogen and helium. These cosmic lightweights fill the first two spots on the famous periodic table of the elements.

Less abundant but more familiar to us are the heavier elements, meaning everything listed on the periodic table after hydrogen and helium. These building blocks, such as iron and other metals, can be found in many of the objects in our daily lives, from teddy bears to teapots.

The Perseus galaxy cluster contains 190 galaxies and lies about 225 million light-years away. Credit: Robert Lupton and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Consortium

Recently astronomers used the Suzaku orbiting X-ray observatory, operated jointly by NASA and the Japanese space agency, to discover the largest known reservoir of rare metals in the universe.

Suzaku detected the elements chromium and manganese while observing the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster. The metallic atoms are part of the hot gas, or "intergalactic medium," that lies between galaxies.

"This is the first detection of chromium and manganese from a cluster," says Takayuki Tamura, an astrophysicist at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency who led the Perseus study. "Previously, these metals were detected only from stars in the Milky Way or from other galaxies. This is the first detection in intergalactic space."

The cluster gas is extremely hot, so it emits X-ray energy. Suzaku's instruments split the X-ray energy into its component wavelengths, or spectrum. The spectrum is a chemical fingerprint of the types and amounts of different elements in the gas.

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 1275, a galaxy located in the center of the Perseus cluster. The red threadlike filaments are composed of cool gas suspended by a magnetic field. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

The portion of the cluster within Suzaku's field of view is some 1.4 million light-years across, or roughly one-fifth of the cluster's total width. It contains a staggering amount of metal atoms. The chromium is 30 million times the sun's mass, or 10 trillion times Earth's mass. The manganese reservoir weighs in at about 8 million solar masses.

Exploding stars, or supernovas, forge the heavy elements. The supernovas also create vast outflows, called superwinds. These galactic gusts transport heavy elements into the intergalactic void.

Harvesting the riches of the Perseus Cluster is not possible. But researchers will mine the Suzaku X-ray data for scientific insights.

"By measuring metal abundances, we can understand the chemical history of stars in galaxies, such as the numbers and types of stars that formed and exploded in the past," Tamura says.

The Suzaku study data show it took some 3 billion supernovas to produce the measured amounts of chromium and manganese. And over periods up to billions of years, superwinds carried the metals out of the cluster galaxies and deposited them in intergalactic space.

This image from the Japanese Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics shows the X-ray glow of the 100-million-degree Fahrenheit gas that fills the Perseus cluster. The white box indicates the area explored by the Suzaku X-ray telescope to detect chromium and manganese. The image is about two degrees wide, or four times the apparent width of a full moon. Credit: JAXA

A complete history of the universe should include an understanding of how, when, and where the heavy elements formed -- the chemical elements essential to life itself. The Suzaku study contributes to a larger ongoing effort to take a chemical census of the cosmos. "It's a part of learning the entire history of chemical element formation in the universe," notes Koji Mukai, who heads the Suzaku Guest Observer program at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

With more than 10,000 galaxy clusters known, astronomers have just barely begun their work. "The current Suzaku result cannot answer these big questions immediately," Tamura says, "but it is one of the first steps to understand the chemical history of the universe."

The study appeared in the November 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Related links:

Suzaku Snaps First Complete X-ray View of a Galaxy Cluster
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/astro-e2/news/xray_cluster.html

Daniel Pendick
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/astro-e2/news/intergalactic_metal.html

Expedition 21 Crew Lands in Kazakhstan

Expedition 21 Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency Flight Engineer Frank De Winne and Canadian Space Agency Flight Engineer Robert Thirsk have returned to Earth, landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft. Landing occurred at 2:15 a.m. EST Tuesday, 1:15 p.m. Kazakhstan time.

All three crew members were reported to be in good condition. Due to icy conditions at the landing site, the landing support team recalled its helicopters to their bases in Kustanai and Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. Instead the team arrived in all-terrain vehicles from nearby Arkalyk to extract the Expedition 21 crew members from the Soyuz crew module.

Romanenko, De Winne and Thirsk spent 188 days in space, 186 of those aboard the orbiting International Space Station. The three arrived at the station in May as part of Expedition 20, which marked the start of six-person crew operations aboard the station. With their arrival, all five of the international partner agencies – NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – were represented on orbit for the first time.

Romanenko, a cosmonaut with Roscosmos, served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21. He was selected as a test-cosmonaut candidate of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center Cosmonaut Office in December 1997. The son of veteran Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko, he qualified as a test cosmonaut in November 1999.

Image above: The Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft carrying Flight Engineers Frank De Winne, Roman Romanenko and Robert Thirsk lands in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Credit: Roscosmos/NASA TV

De Winne, an ESA astronaut, served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21 and commander for Expedition 21. He spent nine days aboard the station in 2002 as a member of the Odissea mission arriving on a new spacecraft, the Soyuz TMA-1, then leaving on an older Soyuz TM-34.

Thirsk, a CSA astronaut, served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 20 and 21. In 1996, Thirsk flew as a payload specialist astronaut aboard space shuttle mission STS-78, the Life and Microgravity Spacelab mission.

After traveling back to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, the crew members will be reunited with their families and start their reorientation to a gravity environment after a half year off the planet.

Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Maxim Suraev remain on the station, comprising the Expedition 22 crew as a two-man contingent for three weeks until the arrival Dec. 23 of Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, NASA’s T.J. Creamer, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, who will launch to the station Dec. 20 on the Soyuz TMA-17 craft.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition21/exp21_land.html

NASA Uses Twin Processes to Develop New Tank Dome Technology

NASA has partnered with Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colo., and MT Aerospace in Augsburg, Germany, to successfully manufacture the first full-scale friction stir welded and spun formed tank dome designed for use in large liquid propellant tanks.

The NASA and Lockheed Martin team traveled to Germany to witness the first successful aerospace application of two separate manufacturing processes: friction stir welding, a solid-state joining process, and spin forming, a metal working process used to form symmetric parts.

The twin processes were used by MT Aerospace to produce an 18-foot-diameter tank dome using high-strength 2195 aluminum-lithium. The diameter of this development dome matches the tank dimensions of the upper stage of the ARES I launch vehicle under development by NASA, as well as the central stage of the European Ariane V launcher.

A full-scale spherical tank dome measuring 18 feet in diameter was produced from high-strength 2195 aluminum-lithium using twin manufacturing processes. Image credit: MT Aerospace

"This new manufacturing technology allows us to use a thinner, high-strength alloy that will reduce the weight of future liquid propellant tanks by 25 percent, compared to current tank designs that use a lower-strength aluminum alloy that weighs more," said Louis Lollar, project lead for the Friction Stir Weld Spun Form Dome Project at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The concave net shape spin forming process, patented by MT Aerospace, drastically simplifies the manufacturing of large tank domes and reduces cost by eliminating manufacturing steps, such as machining and assembly welding, that are required when manufacturing traditional gore panel - a pie-shaped section of the tank dome --construction domes.

"The success of this project is proof positive that when innovation, partnership and expertise are brought together, we can deliver new capabilities at lower cost with greater reliability for NASA and the nation's space program," said Jeb Brewster, project manager of the Friction Stir Welded Spun Formed Dome project at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. "This team has pushed the envelope by using existing commercial materials combined with cutting edge technology. The results provide the potential for a significant improvement over the current processes and materials being used today."

The spherical tank dome was manufactured from a flat plate "blank" made of the 2195 alloy. The blank was constructed by friction stir welding together two commercial off-the-shelf plates in order to produce a large starting blank, reducing the cost of raw materials. The welded plate blank was then spun formed to create the single-piece tank dome.

This is the first time this combination of twin manufacturing processes has been successfully applied to produce a full-scale 2195 aluminum-lithium dome.

The spherical tank dome was manufactured from a flat plate "blank" made of the 2195 alloy. The blank was constructed by friction stir welding together two commercial off-the-shelf plates in order to produce a large starting blank. The welded plate blank was then spun formed to create the single-piece tank dome. Image credit: MT Aerospace

"This achievement also demonstrates that international cooperation between the United States and Europe can achieve very promising and concrete results with mutual benefits for future space programs," said Judith Watson, program manager at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "Lockheed Martin and MT Aerospace have set up a very efficient and effective development team."

Two additional, full-scale development tank domes are scheduled for manufacture and testing in coming months as part of the joint, two-year technology demonstration program.

NASA has invested in the Friction Stir Weld Spun Form Dome Project since 2006, which is managed by the Exploration Technology Development Program for NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington.

Media Contact:
Kim Newton, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
kimberly.d.newton@nasa.gov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/twin_dome.html

Orbiter Puts Itself Into Safe Standby

Mars Odyssey Mission Status Report

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter put itself into a safe standby mode on Saturday, Nov. 28, and the team operating the spacecraft has begun implementing careful steps designed to resume Odyssey's science and relay operations within about a week.

Engineers have diagnosed the cause of the Nov. 28 event as the spacecraft's proper response to a memory error with a known source. The likely cause is an upset in the orbiter's "memory error external bus," as was the case with a similar event in June 2008.

In safe mode over the weekend, Odyssey remained in communication with ground controllers and maintained healthy temperatures and power. To clear the memory error, the team commanded Odyssey today to perform a cold reboot of the orbiter's onboard computer. The spacecraft reported that the reboot had been completed successfully.

"This event is a type we have seen before, so we have a known and tested path to resuming normal operations," said Odyssey Project Manager Philip Varghese of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Artist concept of Mars Odyssey. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Odyssey has been orbiting Mars since 2001. In addition to its own major scientific discoveries and continuing studies of the planet, the Odyssey mission has played important roles in supporting the missions of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity and the Phoenix Mars Lander.

Until Odyssey is available again as a communications relay, Spirit and Opportunity will be operating with direct communications to and from Earth.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Mars Odyssey for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. Additional information about Odyssey is at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey.

Media contact: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/odyssey/odyssey-20091130.html

Another Stall of Right-Rear Wheel Ends Drive

Spirit's right-rear wheel stalled again on Sol 2099 (Nov. 28, 2009) during the first step of a two-step extrication maneuver. This stall is different in some characteristics from the stall on Sol 2092 (Nov. 21). The Sol 2099 stall occurred more quickly and the inferred rotor resistance was elevated at the end of the stall. Investigation of past stall events along with these characteristics suggest that this stall might not be result of the terrain, but might be internal to the right-rear wheel actuator. Rover project engineers are developing a series of diagnostics to explore the actuator health and to isolate potential terrain interactions. These diagnostics are not likely to be ready before Wednesday. Plans for future driving will depend on the results of the diagnostic tests.

This blink comparison aids evaluation of a drive by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit during the rover's 2,099th Martian day, or sol (Nov. 28, 2009). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Before the Sol 2099 drive ended, Spirit completed 1.4 meters of wheel spin and the rover's center moved 0.5 millimeters (0.02 inch) forward, 0.25 millimeters (0.01 inch) to the left and 0.5 millimeters (0.02 inch) downward. Since Spirit began extrication on Sol 2088, the rover has performed 9.5 meters (31 feet) of wheel spin and the rover's center, in total, has moved 16 millimeters (0.63 inch) forward, 10 millimeters (0.39 inch) to the left and 5 millimeters (0.20 inch) downward.

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/mer-20091201.html

Scientists Explain Puzzling Lake Asymmetry on Titan

PASADENA, Calif. -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and other institutions suggest that the eccentricity of Saturn's orbit around the sun may be responsible for the unusually uneven distribution of lakes over the northern and southern polar regions of the planet's largest moon, Titan. A paper describing the theory appears in the Nov. 29 advance online edition of Nature Geoscience.

Saturn's oblong orbit around the sun exposes different parts of Titan to different amounts of sunlight, which affect cycles of precipitation and evaporation in those areas. Similar variations in Earth's orbit also drive long-term ice-age cycles on our planet.

As revealed by Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, liquid methane and ethane lakes in Titan's northern high latitudes cover 20 times more area than lakes in the southern high latitudes. The Cassini data also show there are significantly more partially filled and now-empty lakes in the north. (In the radar data, smooth features -- like the surfaces of lakes -- appear as dark areas, while rougher features -- such as the bottom of an empty lake-appear bright.) The asymmetry is not likely to be a statistical fluke because of the large amount of data collected by Cassini in its five years surveying Saturn and its moons.

Scientists initially considered the idea that "there is something inherently different about the northern polar region versus the south in terms of topography, such that liquid rains, drains or infiltrates the ground more in one hemisphere," said Oded Aharonson of Caltech, lead author of the Nature Geoscience paper.

However, Aharonson notes that there are no substantial known differences between the north and south regions to support this possibility. Alternatively, the mechanism responsible for this regional dichotomy may be seasonal. One year on Titan lasts 29.5 Earth years. Every 15 Earth years, the seasons of Titan reverse, so that it becomes summer in one hemisphere and winter in the other. According to this seasonal variation hypothesis, methane rainfall and evaporation vary in different seasons -- recently filling lakes in the north while drying lakes in the south.

The problem with this idea, Aharonson said, is that it accounts for decreases of about one meter per year in the depths of lakes in the summer hemisphere. But Titan's lakes are a few hundred meters deep on average, and wouldn't drain (or fill) in just 15 years. In addition, seasonal variation can't account for the disparity between the hemispheres in the number of empty lakes. The north polar region has roughly three times as many dried-up lake basins as the south and seven times as many partially filled ones.

"How do you move the hole in the ground?" Aharonson asked. "The seasonal mechanism may be responsible for part of the global transport of liquid methane, but it's not the whole story." A more plausible explanation, say Aharonson and his colleagues, is related to the eccentricity of the orbit of Saturn -- and hence of Titan, its satellite -- around the sun.

The northern and southern hemispheres of Titan, showing the great disparity between the abundance of lakes in the north and their paucity in the south. The hypothesis presented favors long-term flux of volatile hydrocarbons, predominantly methane, from hemisphere to hemisphere. Recently, the direction of transport has been from south to north, but the effect would have reversed tens of thousands of years ago. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech/UA/SAR

Like Earth and other planets, Saturn's orbit is not perfectly circular, but is instead somewhat elliptical and oblique. Because of this, during its southern summer, Titan is about 12 percent closer to the sun than during the northern summer. As a result, northern summers are long and subdued; southern summers are short and intense.

"We propose that, in this orbital configuration, the difference between evaporation and precipitation is not equal in opposite seasons, which means there is a net transport of methane from south to north," said Aharonson. This imbalance would lead to an accumulation of methane -- and hence the formation of many more lakes -- in the northern hemisphere.

This situation is only true right now, however. Over very long time scales of tens of thousands of years, Saturn's orbital parameters vary, at times causing Titan to be closer to the sun during its northern summer and farther away in southern summers, and producing a reverse in the net transport of methane. This should lead to a buildup of hydrocarbon -- and an abundance of lakes -- in the southern hemisphere.

"Like Earth, Titan has tens-of-thousands-of-year variations in climate driven by orbital motions," Aharonson said. On Earth, these variations, known as Milankovitch cycles, are linked to changes in solar radiation, which affect global redistribution of water in the form of glaciers, and are believed to be responsible for ice-age cycles. "On Titan, there are long-term climate cycles in the global movement of methane that make lakes and carve lake basins. In both cases we find a record of the process embedded in the geology," he added.

"We may have found an example of long-term climate change, analogous to Milankovitch climate cycles on Earth, on another object in the solar system," he said.

The paper's co-authors are Caltech graduate student Alexander G. Hayes; Jonathan I. Lunine, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Tucson, Ariz.; Ralph D. Lorenz, Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Md.; Michael D. Allison, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York; and Charles Elachi, director of JPL. The work was partially funded by the Cassini Project.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini or http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm . The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C.


Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jia-rui.c.cook@jpl.nasa.gov

Stephen Cole 202-657-2194
Headquarters, Washington
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20091130.html

Expedition 21 Crew Lands in Kazakhstan; Space Junk No Threat to Station

As the International Space Station’s smaller, two-person, Expedition 22 crew enjoyed its first full day alone in orbit Tuesday, Mission Control monitored a small piece of space junk until tracking updates showed it would not come close enough to require precautions.

At 11:25 a.m. EST, Flight Director Dana Weigel decided not to awaken the crew based on the latest tracking data on the piece of a Russian Cosmos satellite, estimated to be less than four inches in diameter. Mission Control determined the probability of a collision was so low that there was no need to have the crew make a precautionary move into their Soyuz spacecraft, close hatches and be ready to depart the station.

The debris had been so small that tracking sensors initially had trouble providing reliable information about how close it might come to the station, but best estimates were that the closest approach would be about 1 kilometer away at 1:19 p.m.

Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Max Suraev were informed of the possible close pass before they went to bed at 2:30 a.m. following the departure of crewmates Frank De Winne, Roman Romanenko and Bob Thirsk who returned to Earth aboard their Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan at 2:15 a.m. (1:15 p.m. Kazakhstan time). Williams and Suraev were scheduled to enjoy the first of two full days off Tuesday.

The U.S. Space Command routinely tracks space debris in orbit around the Earth, and reports to NASA any possible "conjunctions" or close passes to the space station.

NASA has a set of long-standing guidelines that are used to assess whether the threat of such a close pass is sufficient to warrant evasive action or precautions to ensure the safety of the crew.

These guidelines essentially draw an imaginary box, known as the "pizza box" because of its flat, rectangular shape, around the space station. This box is about half a mile deep by 15 miles across by 15 miles tall (0.75 x 25 x 25 kilometers). When predictions indicate that the debris will pass close enough for concern and the quality of the tracking data is deemed sufficiently accurate, Mission Control centers in Houston and Moscow work together to develop a prudent course of action.

Image above: Kazakh authorities give a warm welcome to the Expedition 21 crew members following their return to Earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft. Pictured, left to right, are Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk, flight engineer; Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, flight engineer; and European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne. Photo credit: ESA/Stephane Corvaja

Sometimes these encounters are known well in advance and there is time to move the station slightly, known as a "debris avoidance maneuver" to keep the debris outside of the box. Other times, the tracking data isn’t precise enough to warrant such a maneuver or the close pass isn’t identified in time to make the maneuver. In those cases, the control centers may agree that the best course of action is to move the crew into the Soyuz spacecraft that are used to transport crew members to and from the station so that they could isolate those spaceships from the station by closing hatches, and then leave the station if the debris were to collide with the station and cause a loss of pressure in the life-supporting module. The Soyuz act as lifeboats for crew members in the event of an emergency.

Mission Control also has the option of taking additional precautions, such as closing hatches between some of the station’s modules, if the likelihood of a collision is great enough.

If the tracking data indicates any extra precautions are needed updates will be provided on the web and NASA TV as appropriate.

Meanwhile, De Winne, Romanenko and Thirsk were met by the Russian Search and Recovery Forces in all-terrain vehicles and were extracted quickly from the upright Soyuz. Russian helicopters normally used for recovery operations were grounded due to low clouds and freezing temperatures.

After being extracted from the Soyuz, the crew was then driven back to Arkalyk to spend the night. On Wednesday (Tuesday night, U.S. time), the crew will helicopter from Arkalyk to Kustanai, and then fly on the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center plane to Chkalovsky Airfield near their training base in Star City, Russia, outside Moscow for reunions with their families and dignitaries and the start of a rehabilitation period. Flight surgeons report that the crew is in excellent shape.

For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html