Latest Posts by nasalangley - Page 2

Landing and Impact Research Facility

From enabling astronauts to practice moon landings to aircraft crash testing to drop tests for Orion, NASA's gantry has come full circle.

The gantry, a 240-foot high, 400-foot-long, 265-foot-wide A-frame steel structure located at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., was built in 1963 and was used to model lunar gravity. Originally named the Lunar Landing Research Facility (LLRF), the gantry became operational in 1965 and allowed astronauts like Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to train for Apollo 11's final 150 feet before landing on the moon.

Because the moon's gravity is only 1/6 as strong as Earth's, the gantry had a suspension system that supported 5/6 of the total weight of the Lunar Excursion Module Simulator (LEMS), the device the astronauts used to perform the tests. This supportive suspension system imitated the moon's gravitational environment. Additionally, many of the tests were conducted at night to recreate lighting conditions on the moon.

Neil Armstrong with the LEMS at the Lunar Landing Research Facility. This picture (below) was taken in February 1969 - just five months before Armstrong would become the first person to set foot on the surface of the moon.

Aircraft Crash Test Research

After the Apollo program concluded, a new purpose emerged for the gantry – aircraft crash testing. In 1972, the gantry was converted into the Impact Dynamics Research Facility (IDRF) and was used to investigate the crashworthiness of General Aviation (GA) aircraft and rotorcraft. The facility performed full-scale crash tests of GA aircraft and helicopters, system qualification tests of Army helicopters, vertical drop tests of Boeing 707 and composite fuselage sections and drop tests of the F-111 crew escape capsule.

The gantry was even used to complete a number of component tests in support of the Mars Sample Return Earth Entry Vehicle.

With features including a bridge and a 72-foot vertical drop tower, the gantry was able to support planes that weighed up to 30,000 pounds. Engineers lifted aircraft as high as 200 feet in the air and released them to determine how well the craft endured the crash. Data from the crash tests were used to define a typical acceleration for survivable crashes as well as to establish impact criteria for aircraft seats. The impact criteria are still used today as the Federal Aviation Administration standard for certification.

In 1985, the structure was named a National Historic Landmark based on its considerable contributions to the Apollo program.

Revitalized Space Mission

The gantry provides engineers and astronauts a means to prepare for Orion's return to Earth from such missions. With its new mission, the gantry also received a new name – the Landing and Impact Research (LandIR) Facility.

Although originally capable of supporting only 30,000 pounds, the new bridge can bear up to 64,000 pounds after the summer 2007 renovations. Other renovations include a new elevator, floor repairs and a parallel winch capability that allows an accurate adjustment of the pitch of the test article. The new parallel winch system increases the ability to accurately control impact pitch and pitching rotational rate. The gantry can also perform pendulum swings from as high as 200 feet with resultant velocities of over 70 miles per hour.

The gantry makes researching for the optimal landing alternative for NASA's first attempted, manned dry landing on Earth possible. Orion's return on land rather than water will facilitate reuse of the capsule. A water landing would make reuse difficult due to the corrosiveness of salt water.

The testing process involves lifting the test article by steel cables to a height between 40 and 60 feet and swinging it back to Earth. Although the airbags appear most promising, the gantry has the capability to perform different kinds of tests, including a retro rocket landing system and a scale-model, water landing test using a four-foot-deep circular pool. So far, three types of tests have been conducted in support of the Orion program, each progressing from the previous to more realistic features.

The first test consisted of dropping a boilerplate test article that was half the diameter of what Orion will be. For the second round of testing, engineers added a welded structure to the top, with a shape more comparable to Orion to examine the article's tendency to flip or remain upright.

Hydro-Impact

The on-going tests for Orion continue with impacts on water. This is to ensure astronaut safety during a return to Earth mission. Similar to the Apollo program, Orion will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at very high speeds and after slowing down, deploy parachutes to further slow the descent into the ocean. At NASA Langley Research Center, engineers use the hydro-impact research to determine the stresses on the vehicle and examine its behavior during a mock splashdown. 

Katherine Johnson Biography

https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

Date of Birth: August 26, 1918 Hometown: White Sulphur Springs, WV Education: B.S., Mathematics and French, West Virginia State College, 1937 Hired by NACA: June 1953 Retired from NASA: 1986 Actress Playing Role in Hidden Figures: Taraji P. Henson

Being handpicked to be one of three black students to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools is something that many people would consider one of their life’s most notable moments, but it’s just one of several breakthroughs that have marked Katherine Johnson’s long and remarkable life. Born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1918, Katherine Johnson’s intense curiosity and brilliance with numbers vaulted her ahead several grades in school. By thirteen, she was attending the high school on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College. At eighteen, she enrolled in the college itself, where she made quick work of the school’s math curriculum and found a mentor in math professor W. W. Schieffelin Claytor, the third African American to earn a PhD in Mathematics. Katherine graduated with highest honors in 1937 and took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia.  

When West Virginia decided to quietly integrate its graduate schools in 1939, West Virginia State’s president Dr. John W. Davis selected Katherine and two male students as the first black students to be offered spots at the state’s flagship school, West Virginia University. Katherine left her teaching job, and enrolled in the graduate math program. At the end of the first session, however, she decided to leave school to start a family with her husband.  She returned to teaching when her three daughters got older, but it wasn’t until 1952 that a relative told her about open positions at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory, headed by fellow West Virginian Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine and her husband, James Goble, decided to move the family to Newport News to pursue the opportunity, and Katherine began work at Langley in the summer of 1953. Just two weeks into Katherine’s tenure in the office, Dorothy Vaughan assigned her to a project in the Maneuver Loads Branch of the Flight Research Division, and Katherine’s temporary position soon became permanent. She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight test, and worked on the investigation of a plane crash caused by wake turbulence. As she was wrapping up this work her husband died of cancer in December 1956.

The 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik changed history—and Katherine Johnson’s life. In 1957, Katherine provided some of the math for the 1958 document Notes on Space Technology, a compendium of a series of 1958 lectures given by engineers in the Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD). Engineers from those groups formed the core of the Space Task Group, the NACA’s first official foray into space travel, and Katherine, who had worked with many of them since coming to Langley, “came along with the program” as the NACA became NASA later that year. She did trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 mission Freedom 7, America’s first human spaceflight. In 1960, she and engineer Ted Skopinski coauthored Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position, a report laying out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified. It was the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report.

In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, DC, Cape Canaveral, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission, from blast off to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Katherine Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine.  “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.

When asked to name her greatest contribution to space exploration, Katherine Johnson talks about the calculations that helped synch Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. She also worked on the Space Shuttle and the Earth Resources Satellite, and authored or coauthored 26 research reports. She retired in 1986, after thirty-three years at Langley. “I loved going to work every single day,” she says. In 2015, at age 97, Katherine Johnson added another extraordinary achievement to her long list: President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor.

Biography by Margot Lee Shetterly

https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Get the latest on women making history at NASA, our Juno mission, the Curiosity rover and move!

1. Women at NASA Making History, Creating the Future

Throughout Women’s History Month, we’ve been presenting profiles of the women who are leading the way in deep space exploration.

+ Meet some of them

2. Juno and the Giant

Our Juno spacecraft made its fifth close flyby over giant Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops.

+ See the latest from the King of Planets

3. When the Road Gets Rough, the Tough Keep Rolling

A routine check of the aluminum wheels on our Curiosity Mars rover has found two small breaks on the rover’s left middle wheel tread–the latest sign of wear and tear as the rover continues its journey, now approaching the 10-mile (16 kilometer) mark. But there’s no sign the robotic geologist won’t keep roving right through its ongoing mission.

+ Get the full report

4. What Do Mars and Dinosaurs Have in Common?

Our research reveals that volcanic activity at the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons ceased about 50 million years ago, around the time of Earth’s Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, when large numbers of plant and animal species (including dinosaurs) went extinct. However, there’s no reason to think the two events were more than a cosmic coincidence.

+ Learn how scientists pieced together the past

5. A Comet in Commotion

Images returned from the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission indicate that during its most recent trip through the inner solar system, the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was a very active place – full of growing fractures, collapsing cliffs and massive rolling boulders.

+ See the many faces of Comet #67P

6. Next Generation Space Robot is Ingenious, Versatile–and Cute

The next rovers to explore another planet might bring along a scout. The Pop-Up Flat Folding Explorer Robot (PUFFER) in development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was inspired by origami. Its lightweight design is capable of flattening itself, tucking in its wheels and crawling into places rovers can’t fit.

+ Meet PUFFER

7. Shadowy Dawn

According to data from our Dawn mission to Ceres, shadowed craters on the dwarf planet may be linked to the history of how the small world has been tilted over time by the gravity of planets like Jupiter.

+ Find out how understanding “cycles of obliquity” might solve solar system mysteries

8. On Orbit and Online

We’re developing a  long-term technology demonstration project of what could become the high-speed internet of the sky. The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) will help engineers understand the best ways to operate laser communications systems, which could enable much higher data rates for connections between spacecraft and Earth, such as scientific data downlink and astronaut communications.

+ See how it will work

9. A Big Role for Small Sats in Deep Space Exploration

We selected 10 studies to develop mission concepts using CubeSats and other kinds of very small satellites to investigate Venus, Earth’s moon, asteroids, Mars and the outer planets. “These small but mighty satellites have the potential to enable transformational science,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division.

+ Get the small details

10. Rings Around the Red Planet?

It’s possible that one of our closest neighbors had rings at one point – and may have them again someday. At least, that’s the theory put forth by NASA-funded scientists at Purdue University.

+ See more details about the once and future rings of Mars

Discover more lists of 10 things to know about our solar system HERE.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Eagle Nebula

via reddit

Museum Exhibit Reveals the NASA Langley Human Computers from "Hidden Figures"

Sam McDonald NASA Langley Research Center

A new display at the Hampton History Museum offers another view of African-American women whose mathematical skills helped the nation’s early space program soar.

“When the Computer Wore a Skirt: NASA’s Human Computers” opens to the public Saturday, Jan. 21, and focuses on three women — Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson — who were illuminated in Margot Lee Shetterly’s book “Hidden Figures” and the major motion picture of the same name. Located in the museum's 20th century gallery, it was created with support from the Hampton Convention and Visitor Bureau and assistance from NASA's Langley Research Center.

“Langley’s West Computers were helping America dominate aeronautics, space research, and computer technology, carving out a place for themselves as female mathematicians who were also black, black mathematicians who were also female,” Shetterly wrote.

The modestly sized exhibit is comprised of four panels with photos and text along with one display case containing artifacts, including a 1957 model Friden mechanical calculator. That piece of equipment represented state-of-the-art technology when then original human computers were crunching numbers. A three-minute video profiling Johnson —a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner — is also part of the exhibit.

A display case at left contains a 1957 Friden STW-10 mechanical calculator, the type used by NASA human computers including Katherine Johnson. "If you were doing complicated computations during that time, this is what you used," said Hampton History Museum Curator Allen Hoilman. The machine weighs 40 pounds.

Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

Museum curator Allen Hoilman said his favorite artifact is a May 5, 1958 memo from Associate Director Floyd Thompson dissolving the West Area Computers Unit and reassigning its staff members to other jobs around the center.

“It meant that the segregated work environment was coming to an end,” Hoilman said. “That’s why this is a significant document. It’s one of the bookends.”

That document, along with several others, was loaned to the museum by Ann Vaughan Hammond, daughter of Dorothy Vaughan. Hoilman said family members of other human computers have been contacted about contributing artifacts as well.

Ann Vaughan Hammond worked hard to find meaningful items for the display. “She really had to do some digging through the family papers,” Hoilman said, explaining that the women who worked as human computers were typically humble about their contributions. They didn’t save many mementos.

“They never would have guessed they would be movie stars,” Hoilman said.

For more information on Katherine Johnson, click here.

Credits:

Sam McDonald NASA Langley Research Center

Langley Research Center Centennial Event

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, right, and Langley Research Center Director, Dr. David E. Bowles, left, poses for a photo with staff dressed in space suits on Langley Research Center's Centennial float on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, at Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA.

Photo Credit: NASA Langley Research Center

Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage 101

We need the biggest rocket stage ever built for the bold missions in deep space that NASA's Space Launch System rocket will give us the capability to achieve. This infographic sums up everything you need to know about the SLS core stage, the 212-foot-tall stage that serves as the backbone of the most powerful rocket in the world. The core stage includes the liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank that hold 733,000 gallons of propellant to power the stage’s four RS-25 engines needed for liftoff and the journey to Mars. 

Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

A Laser-Sharp View of Blended Wing Body Plane Design

Engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, used lasers inside the 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel to map how air flows over a Boeing Blended Wing Body (BWB) model – a greener, quieter airplane design under development. The name for the technique is called particle image velocimetry. If you look closely you can see the light bouncing off tracer particles. Cameras record the movement of those particles as the laser light pulses across the model. This allows researchers to accurately measure the flow over the model once the images are processed. A smoother flow over the wing means less fuel will be needed to power the aircraft.

Image credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

NASA’s Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter's Moon Europa

This composite image shows suspected plumes of water vapor erupting at the 7 o’clock position off the limb of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The plumes, photographed by NASA’s Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. Hubble’s ultraviolet sensitivity allowed for the features -- rising over 100 miles (160 kilometers) above Europa’s icy surface -- to be discerned. The water is believed to come from a subsurface ocean on Europa. The Hubble data were taken on January 26, 2014. The image of Europa, superimposed on the Hubble data, is assembled from data from the Galileo and Voyager missions.Credits: NASA/ESA/W. Sparks (STScI)/USGS Astrogeology Science Center

Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. This finding bolsters other Hubble observations suggesting the icy moon erupts with high altitude water vapor plumes.

The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa’s ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.

“Europa’s ocean is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbor life in the solar system,” said Geoff Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These plumes, if they do indeed exist, may provide another way to sample Europa’s subsurface.”

The plumes are estimated to rise about 125 miles (200 kilometers) before, presumably, raining material back down onto Europa's surface. Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth’s oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness. The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice.

The team, led by William Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore observed these finger-like projections while viewing Europa's limb as the moon passed in front of Jupiter.

The original goal of the team's observing proposal was to determine whether Europa has a thin, extended atmosphere, or exosphere. Using the same observing method that detects atmospheres around planets orbiting other stars, the team realized if there was water vapor venting from Europa’s surface, this observation would be an excellent way to see it.

"The atmosphere of an extrasolar planet blocks some of the starlight that is behind it," Sparks explained. "If there is a thin atmosphere around Europa, it has the potential to block some of the light of Jupiter, and we could see it as a silhouette. And so we were looking for absorption features around the limb of Europa as it transited the smooth face of Jupiter."

In 10 separate occurrences spanning 15 months, the team observed Europa passing in front of Jupiter. They saw what could be plumes erupting on three of these occasions.

This work provides supporting evidence for water plumes on Europa. In 2012, a team led by Lorenz Roth of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, detected evidence of water vapor erupting from the frigid south polar region of Europa and reaching more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) into space. Although both teams used Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph instrument, each used a totally independent method to arrive at the same conclusion.

"When we calculate in a completely different way the amount of material that would be needed to create these absorption features, it's pretty similar to what Roth and his team found," Sparks said. "The estimates for the mass are similar, the estimates for the height of the plumes are similar. The latitude of two of the plume candidates we see corresponds to their earlier work."

But as of yet, the two teams have not simultaneously detected the plumes using their independent techniques. Observations thus far have suggested the plumes could be highly variable, meaning that they may sporadically erupt for some time and then die down. For example, observations by Roth’s team within a week of one of the detections by Sparks’ team failed to detect any plumes.

If confirmed, Europa would be the second moon in the solar system known to have water vapor plumes. In 2005, NASA's Cassini orbiter detected jets of water vapor and dust spewing off the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Scientists may use the infrared vision of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2018, to confirm venting or plume activity on Europa. NASA also is formulating a mission to Europa with a payload that could confirm the presence of plumes and study them from close range during multiple flybys.

“Hubble’s unique capabilities enabled it to capture these plumes, once again demonstrating Hubble’s ability to make observations it was never designed to make,” said Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This observation opens up a world of possibilities, and we look forward to future missions -- such as the James Webb Space Telescope -- to follow up on this exciting discovery.”

The work by Sparks and his colleagues will be published in the Sept. 29 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency.) NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. STScI, which is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, conducts Hubble science operations.

For images and more information about Europa and Hubble, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble & http://hubblesite.org/news/2016/33

Sean Potter / Laurie Cantillo Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1536 / 202-358-1077 sean.potter@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov

Ann Jenkins / Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore 410-338-4488 / 410-338-4514 ​jenkins@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

RELEASE 16-096

Hubble Finds a Lenticular Galaxy Standing Out in the Crowd

A lone source shines out brightly from the dark expanse of deep space, glowing softly against a picturesque backdrop of distant stars and colorful galaxies.

Captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), this scene shows PGC 83677, a lenticular galaxy — a galaxy type that sits between the more familiar elliptical and spiral varieties.

It reveals both the relatively calm outskirts and intriguing core of PGC 83677. Here, studies have uncovered signs of a monstrous black hole that is spewing out high-energy X-rays and ultraviolet light.

Text Credit: ESA (European Space Agency)

Pluto ‘Paints’ its Largest Moon Red

In June 2015, when the cameras on NASA’s approaching New Horizons spacecraft first spotted the large reddish polar region on Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, mission scientists knew two things: they’d never seen anything like it elsewhere in our solar system, and they couldn’t wait to get the story behind it.

Over the past year, after analyzing the images and other data that New Horizons has sent back from its historic July 2015 flight through the Pluto system, the scientists think they’ve solved the mystery. As they detail this week in the international scientific journal Nature, Charon’s polar coloring comes from Pluto itself – as methane gas that escapes from Pluto’s atmosphere and becomes “trapped” by the moon’s gravity and freezes to the cold, icy surface at Charon’s pole. This is followed by chemical processing by ultraviolet light from the sun that transforms the methane into heavier hydrocarbons and eventually into reddish organic materials called tholins.

"Who would have thought that Pluto is a graffiti artist, spray-painting its companion with a reddish stain that covers an area the size of New Mexico?" asked Will Grundy, a New Horizons co-investigator from Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and lead author of the paper. "Every time we explore, we find surprises. Nature is amazingly inventive in using the basic laws of physics and chemistry to create spectacular landscapes."

The team combined analyses from detailed Charon images obtained by New Horizons with computer models of how ice evolves on Charon’s poles. Mission scientists had previously speculated that methane from Pluto’s atmosphere was trapped in Charon’s north pole and slowly converted into the reddish material, but had no models to support that theory.

The New Horizons team dug into the data to determine whether conditions on the Texas-sized moon (with a diameter of 753 miles or 1,212 kilometers) could allow the capture and processing of methane gas. The models using Pluto and Charon’s 248-year orbit around the sun show some extreme weather at Charon’s poles, where 100 years of continuous sunlight alternate with another century of continuous darkness. Surface temperatures during these long winters dip to -430 Fahrenheit (-257 Celsius), cold enough to freeze methane gas into a solid.

“The methane molecules bounce around on Charon's surface until they either escape back into space or land on the cold pole, where they freeze solid, forming a thin coating of methane ice that lasts until sunlight comes back in the spring,” Grundy said. But while the methane ice quickly sublimates away, the heavier hydrocarbons created from it remain on the surface.

The models also suggested that in Charon’s springtime the returning sunlight triggers conversion of the frozen methane back into gas. But while the methane ice quickly sublimates away, the heavier hydrocarbons created from this evaporative process remain on the surface.

Sunlight further irradiates those leftovers into reddish material – called tholins – that has slowly accumulated on Charon’s poles over millions of years. New Horizons’ observations of Charon’s other pole, currently in winter darkness – and seen by New Horizons only by light reflecting from Pluto, or “Pluto-shine” – confirmed that the same activity was occurring at both poles.

“This study solves one of the greatest mysteries we found on Charon, Pluto’s giant moon,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute, and a study co-author. “And it opens up the possibility that other small planets in the Kuiper Belt with moons may create similar, or even more extensive ‘atmospheric transfer’ features on their moons.”

Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

At Hangar, Raptors Find Shelter from the Storm

As Tropical Storm Hermine charged up the East Coast Sept. 2, 2016, Langley Air Force Base reached out to the Research Services Directorate and NASA Langley Research Center hangar manager Dale Bowser to see if NASA Langley could store a few F-22 Raptors. Even though the hangar in Hampton, Virginia, already had a large visitor — a C-130 from the Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore — the hangar was able to carefully sandwich in more than a dozen Air Force fighters and offer them protection from the wind. NASA Langley photographer David C. Bowman captured the image using a fish-eye lens and shooting down from the hangar's catwalk some 70 feet above the building's floor.

The hangar provides 85,200 square feet (7,915 square meters) of open space and large door dimensions that allow for entry of big aircraft such as Boeing 757s and other commercial or military transport-class planes. The hangar normally is home to 13 of NASA Langley's own research aircraft, when they are not out doing atmospheric science or aeronautics research. Still, there is enough space to share with neighboring Langley Air Force Base during emergencies. The facility is rated for at least a Category 2 hurricane. Built in the early 1950s, it was designed to fit a B-36. It can also accommodate the Super Guppy, which visited NASA Langley in 2014. 

Image credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

Vibration test at 80% power of the European Structural Test Article conducted at NASA Glenn’s Space Power Facility at Plum Brook Station, Sandusky, Ohio.

Orion Launch Abort System Motor Gets Fired-up About the Journey to Mars

Applause resounded from NASA and its partners as they watched Orion’s jettison motor generate 40,000 pounds of thrust in just a blink of an eye, preparing the spacecraft for its first integrated mission with the Space Launch System rocket.  

Onlookers had just witnessed a 1.5-second jettison motor test firing at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility in Sacramento, California.

The Orion launch abort system (LAS) is designed to protect astronauts in the unlikely event there is an issue during launch by pulling the spacecraft away from the rocket during a mission. The jettison motor is activated during ascent to separate the launch abort system from the spacecraft after it is no longer needed during a mission.

“This test showed us that the jettison motor can quickly generate the amount of thrust needed to pull the LAS away during an Orion mission,” said Tim Larson, jettison motor principle engineer for Lockheed Martin who has been with the project since inception. “I’m very pleased with how the test went.”

The fifth firing

The jettison motor has now undergone five tests, including two test flights. Each test in the series builds upon each other, moving the nation forward on its journey to Mars.

The motor used for the fifth test was rebuilt from a previous test motor.

“We were able to recycle some of the parts from the second ground test and use it for this test,” said NASA LAS project manager Robert Decoursey. “We not only went green, but we also saved money.”

Inside and around the test motor were instruments that included strain gauges, accelerometers and pressure transducers, which feed engineers high-quality data that show whether the motor design is ready for upcoming flight tests and missions. This motor had more instruments and produced more data than any of the previous tests.

“There are many intricate details in the jettison motor design that are not obvious from the outside, and the consistent orchestration of those details are most important to obtain predictable performance,” said NASA LAS deputy project manager Deborah Crane. “Aerojet Rocketdyne has done an excellent job executing this test on schedule.”

The jettison motor bakery

Creating a jettison motor is like baking two big cakes and making enough batter for some leftover cupcakes, according to Tim Warner, NASA LAS business manager.

The jettison motor being tested in the photo above would be activated during ascent to separate the launch abort system from the spacecraft after it is no longer needed during a mission.Credits: Aerojet Rocketdyne

What’s most exciting for the team, besides the successful test, are the latest upgrades to their baking and mixing tools.

“We were using two mixing batches to make just one motor, but have recently upgraded to a larger mixing bowl, saving us time and money,” Decoursey said.

The new mixing bowl can hold up to 450 whopping gallons of cake batter, or in NASA terms, motor propellant.

The team mixes up the batter in this large mixing bowl and evenly splits the batter into two pots for a perfectly sculpted jettison motor.

Any leftover propellant is used to make small test motors. The smaller motors are used to check the propellant’s combustion capabilities before the motors are accepted for test or flight.

What’s next?

NASA and its partners are expected to perform the last flight test of the launch abort system in 2019 before they begin sending crew to deep space aboard Orion. During the final test, an uncrewed Orion capsule will launch from a modified Peacekeeper missile and demonstrate a successful abort under the highest aerodynamic loads it could experience during a mission.

The jettison motor will be used during Orion’s first integrated mission with SLS, known as Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) in late 2018. The mission will be the second test flight for Orion, and the first for SLS. EM-1 will send Orion on a three-week journey approximately 40,000 miles beyond the moon. The test will demonstrate the integrated performance of the rocket and spacecraft before their second test flight together, Exploration Mission-2, which will carry crew.

The LAS is led out NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia in collaboration with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.

Sasha Ellis

NASA Langley Research Center

Power of Pink Provides NASA with Pressure Pictures

They say you show your true colors when you’re under pressure.

Turns out the old saying works for models being tested in wind tunnels as well, specifically those coated with a unique Pressure-Sensitive Paint (PSP) that NASA engineers have used for more than 25 years.

Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/aero/power-of-pink-provides-nasa-with-pressure-pictures

Nebula Images: http://nebulaimages.com/

Astronomy articles: http://astronomyisawesome.com/

The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is one of the largest buildings in the world (525 ft 10 in tall, 716 ft long, and 518 ft wide) . It was originally built for assembly of Apollo/Saturn vehicles and was later modified to support Space Shuttle operations and now, Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for Exploration Mission 1.

In this view looking up from the floor of the VAB at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, four levels of new work platforms are now installed on the north and south sides of High Bay 3. The G-level work platforms were most recently installed, at about the 14th floor level. Below them are the H, J and K level platforms.

The G-level work platforms are the fourth of 10 levels of work platforms that will surround and provide access to SLS. The Ground Systems Development and Operations Program is overseeing upgrades and modifications to VAB High Bay 3, including installation of the new work platforms, to prepare for NASA’s journey to Mars.

NASA Camera Shows Moon Crossing Face of Earth for 2nd Time in a Year

For only the second time in a year, a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured a view of the moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth. 

The images were captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four-megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth. From its position between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR conducts its primary mission of real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The first image is from July 2016 and the second image (moon traveling diagonally Northeast in the image) is from July 2015

Credits: NASA

NASA Langley researchers and engineers are:

Playing key roles in the development of both the Space Launch System and the Orion crew capsule, which will carry astronauts beyond the moon to an asteroid, and eventually to the dusty surface of the Red Planet.

Leading the aerodynamic design of the Space Launch System by doing analysis and extensive testing in facilities such as the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel and Transonic Dynamics Tunnel.

Performing water impact testing and doing critical aerosciences and structural analyses for the Orion crew capsule. We also assist in analyzing and practicing recovery operations for Orion.

Developing Orion's Launch Abort System, or LAS, which is designed to protect astronauts in the unlikely event a problem arises during launch.

Spearheading work on advanced entry, descent, and landing (EDL) systems for planetary robotic missions and eventual human-scale missions to the surface of Mars. Understanding the aerodynamics and heating of atmospheric entry will enable more precise landing missions, while testing of new technologies will enable much larger missions to reach the Martian surface.

Developing safe and reliable autonomous systems to supplement human operations, including mechanisms that can work in deep space to maneuver, assemble and service structures. In the 2020s, NASA plans to use this kind of technology to retrieve an asteroid.

Leading the development of materials and structures for lightweight and affordable space transportation and habitation systems.

Solving the problems of deep space radiation protection, including leadership of the Human Research Program to develop a better understanding of space radiation on crew health and safety. Langley is also building prototype designs for habitats and storm shelters for use in space.

Working on sensor systems, known as Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT), that will equip future planetary landers with the ability to assess landing hazards and land safely and precisely on many different planetary surfaces, including the moon, Mars and other planetary bodies.

Developing the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, or HIAD, a device that could some day help cargo, or even people, land on another planet. HIAD could give NASA more options for future planetary missions, because it could allow spacecraft to carry larger, heavier scientific instruments and other tools for exploration.

Orion was making waves at @nasalangley this week

Video: Orion Swing Drop at NASA Langley Research Center

A test version of the Orion spacecraft is pulled back like a pendulum and released, taking a dive into the 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Crash-test dummies wearing modified Advanced Crew Escape Suits are securely seated inside the capsule to help engineers understand how splashdown in the ocean during return from a deep-space mission could impact the crew and seats. Each test in the water-impact series simulates different scenarios for Orion’s parachute-assisted landings, wind conditions, velocities and wave heights the spacecraft and crew may experience when landing in the ocean upon return missions in support of the journey to Mars. 

The James Webb Space Telescope

Like your backyard telescope, just MUCH more powerful

In 2018, we’re launching the world’s biggest space telescope ever - the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb will look back in time, studying the very first galaxies ever formed. While Webb doesn’t have a tube like your typical backyard telescope, because it’s also a reflector telescope it has many of the same parts! Webb has mirrors (including a primary and a secondary) just like a small reflector telescope, only its mirrors are massive (6.5 meters across) and coated in gold (which helps us reflect infrared light).

How does a reflector telescope work? Light is bounced from the primary to the smaller secondary mirror, and then directed to your eye:

Webb works pretty much the same way!

Taking the place of your eye to the eyepiece is a package of science instruments, including cameras and spectrographs, which will capture the light directed into them by the telescope’s mirrors.    

In order to install these instruments, we had to move the telescope structure upside down… an impressive sight!

Once Webb was in place on the assembly stand in the cleanroom, the team at Goddard Space Flight Center installed the instrument module (which we call the ISIM, or Integrated Science Instrument Module), with surgical precision. ISIM has four instruments, three of which were contributed by our partners, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. 

All four will detect infrared light from stars and galaxies as far away as 13.6 billion light years. In addition to seeing these first sources of light in the early Universe, Webb will look at stars and planetary systems being formed in clouds of dust and gas. It will also examine the atmospheres of planets around other stars – perhaps we will find an atmosphere similar to Earth’s!

Here is an image with the science instruments being lowered into their spot behind the primary mirror. You can see the golden mirror is face-down.

Here’s another perspective of the instruments being fit into the telescope. 

What you’ve seen come together above is just the telescope part of the James Webb Space Telescope mission – next comes putting together the rest of the observatory. This includes our massive tennis court-sized sunshield (which acts like the tube-part of your backyard telescope, protecting the mirrors from stray light and heat), as well as the parts that do things like power the telescope and let us communicate with it.

It actually takes several weeks for Webb to completely unfold into its full deployment!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for updates on our progress. You can also visit our site for more information: http://jwst.nasa.gov

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Photo Credit #1: NASA/Chris Gunn. Photo Credit #2: NASA/Desiree Stover

A Like for NASA

Hi everyone!

I’m participating in the NASA Aerospace Scholars program at @nasa‘s Langley Research Center ( @nasalangley ). I wanted to share my team’s Facebook page with you, so you can see what we’ve been up to! It would really help my team out if you liked the page on Facebook!

If you’re interested in the opportunity, you can apply here until June 1st! Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the program and I’ll  do my best to answer.

NASA Crash-Test Dummies Make A Splash Landing

Engineers drop a NASA’s Orion Spacecraft test capsule with crash-test dummies inside into 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin to simulate what the spacecraft may experience when splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-crash-test-dummies-suit-up-for-action

Homeschool Day Brings STEM Activities to Virginia Air & Space Center

Jacob Earley, left, Frank Jones and his mother, Maria Jones, learned about the effects of gravity on other planets from NASA intern Jessica Hathaway during Homeschool Appreciation Day, which took place May 6 at the Virginia Air & Space Center (VASC) in Hampton, Virginia. Hathaway was one of several volunteers from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton who taught homeschooled children and their parents interactive lessons about everything from ultraviolet radiation to engineering satellites to navigating a rover on Mars. Approximately 300 people registered for the event, which has a focus on activities involving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The VASC is the official visitor center for NASA Langley.

Joe Atkinson NASA Langley Research Center

The Space Shuttle Endeavour, atop a NASA 747, flies over Texas near the Johnson Space Center, December 11, 2008. (NASA)

Posing in the wind tunnel. Via NASA Langley.

Thanks for the shoutout!

I will be taking a short photography break to attend to a few long-neglected projects. I’ll be back with bone-yard pictures in time for Halloween, or sooner if something interesting crops up first.

Until then, here’s a completely irrelevant parting shot of the vacuum chambers on a hypersonic aeroelasticity wind tunnel at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Later, y'all.