NASA News: NASA Television to Air Space Station Cargo Ship Arrival
HOUSTON -- NASA Television will provide live launch coverage of aRussian Progress cargo spacecraft on Sunday, Oct. 30, from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA TV coverage will begin at 5
a.m. CDT, with launch scheduled for 5:11 a.m. (4:11 p.m. Baikonur local time).
The International Space Station (ISS) Progress 45 spacecraft will
deliver almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the space
station three days later.
This will be the first launch of a Progress vehicle and its Soyuz
booster since the ISS Progress 44 vehicle was lost on Aug. 24 due to
a third stage engine failure.
Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi
Furukawa and Sergei Volkov will monitor the spacecraft's automatic
docking to the station's Pirs Docking Compartment at 6:40 a.m. on
Wednesday, Nov. 2. NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 6:15
a.m. on Nov. 2.
The undocking of an older resupply ship, ISS Progress 42, from the
Pirs docking port on Saturday, Oct. 29, will not be broadcast live.
For NASA TV downlink, schedule and streaming video information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For more information about the International Space Station and its
crew, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
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NASA'S NEEMO Mission Ending Early Due To Hurricane Rina
HOUSTON -- Due to the predicted path of Hurricane Rina, the 15th NASAExtreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, ended earlier than
planned. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
operates the Aquarius Undersea Laboratory and the agency determined
Rina posed a risk to the safety of the mission taking place near Key
Largo, Florida.
The six aquanauts of the NEEMO crew left the facility, where they
lived for five days, and returned to the surface of the Florida Keys
National Marine Sanctuary in Key Largo on Wednesday morning.
The six-member NEEMO crew - Commander and NASA astronaut Shannon
Walker; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi;
Canadian Space Agency astronaut David Saint-Jacques; Steven Squyres
of Cornell University; and James Talacek and Nate Bender of the
University of North Carolina Wilmington - kicked off this year's
mission on Oct. 20, after an initial delay caused by another storm in the area.
The NEEMO crew conducted six underwater spacewalks and one day of
scientific research inside the Aquarius habitat. They also completed
four days of scientific asteroid exploration analog operations using
the deep worker submersibles that stood in for the Space Exploration
Vehicle. This year's mission was the first NEEMO to focus on
operational concepts that would be used in human exploration of an asteroid.
"Despite the length, we accomplished a significant amount of
research," said NEEMO Project Manager Bill Todd. "We're already
learning lessons from working in this environment."
The remainder of NEEMO 15 will not be rescheduled, and all media
events are cancelled. The NEEMO 16 mission is tentatively set for the
summer of 2012.
For information about the NEEMO 15 mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/NEEMO
To follow the final activities of the mission via twitter, visit:
http://www.twitter.com/NASA_
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NASA Releases Third Status Report On Commercial Partner Progress
WASHINGTON -- NASA's industry partners continue to meet theirestablished milestones in developing commercial crew transportation
capabilities that will ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the
International Space Station, reducing the amount of time America has
to depend on Russia for launch services. NASA has outlined an
ambitious program moving forward that relies on U.S. private industry
to assume transportation of cargo and crew to the International Space
Station, while the agency focuses on deep space exploration.
NASA has posted the third status report on its Commercial Crew
Development 2 (CCDev2) program to the agency's Commercial Space
Transportation website. The report highlights the progress and
accomplishments for the agency's commercial spaceflight development
efforts. The bi-monthly report is targeted toward non-technical
stakeholders and the American public, to keep them informed of NASA's
achievements in regaining human spaceflight leadership through
American-made access to space.
"There is a lot happening in NASA's commercial crew and cargo programs
and we want to make sure the public and our stakeholders are informed
about the progress industry is making," said Phil McAlister, NASA's
director of commercial spaceflight development. "It's exciting to see
these spaceflight concepts move forward."
NASA's Commercial Crew Development program is investing financial and
technical resources to stimulate efforts within the private sector to
develop and demonstrate safe, reliable, and cost-effective space
transportation capabilities.
For the report and more information about CCDev2, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/
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NASA Plans Media Briefings on NPP Launch from California
WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a series of news briefings fromVandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday, Oct. 26, from 4
to 6 p.m. EDT, to discuss the agency's next Earth-observing satellite mission.
The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System
Preparatory Project (NPP) is scheduled for launch from Vandenberg on
Friday, Oct. 28, during a nine-minute, 10 second window that opens at
5:48 a.m. NPP will collect critical data to improve our understanding
of long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions. The
second of NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellite (ELaNa) missions
also will launch with NPP aboard a Delta II rocket.
Participants in the prelaunch news briefing are:
- Andrew Carson, NPP program executive, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Tim Dunn, NASA launch director, Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
- Vernon Thorp, program manager, NASA missions, United Launch
Alliance, Cape Canaveral, Fla.
- Ken Schwer, NPP project manager, Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
- 2nd Lt. Lisa Cochran, launch weather officer, 30th Operations
Support Squadron, Vandenberg Air Force Base
Participants in the NPP science briefing are:
- Jim Gleason, NPP project scientist, Goddard
- Mitch Goldberg, NOAA Joint Polar Satellite System program scientist,
Silver Spring, Md.
Participants in the ELaNa briefing are:
- Roland Coelho, program lead, California Polytechnic State
University, San Luis Obispo
- Garrett Skrobot, ELaNa mission manager, NASA Launch Services
Program, Kennedy
The briefings will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency's
website with question-and-answer capability available from agency
field centers. Reporters also may email questions for participants
during the briefings to Steve Cole at: stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov
Emailed questions must include the journalist's name, affiliation and
a contact telephone number.
For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv
For more information about the NPP mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/npp
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