NASA Chooses "Altair" as Name for Astronauts' Lunar Lander
Image to right: Three crew members work in the area of their lunar lander on the lunar surface in this NASA artist's rendering. Please note that this artwork is not precise. NASA currently is seeking input from industry experts and is developing conceptual designs for Altair. Image credit: NASA+ View hi-res image
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Altair will be capable of landing four astronauts on the moon, providing life support and a base for weeklong initial surface exploration missions, and returning the crew to the Orion spacecraft that will bring them home to Earth. Altair will launch aboard an Ares V rocket into low Earth orbit, where it will rendezvous with the Orion crew vehicle.
Image to left: Orion (right) flies in space while docked with a lunar lander in this NASA artist's rendering. Please note that this artwork is not precise. Image credit: NASA+ View hi-res image
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Altair finds its origins in Arabic and is derived from a phrase that means "the flying one." Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and is the 12th brightest star in the night sky. In Latin, Aquila means "eagle," reminiscent of the historic lunar exploration module Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in 1969.
Altair is a key component in the Constellation Program, which is building the spacecraft, launch vehicles and surface support systems to establish a lunar outpost. This work will provide experience needed to expand human exploration farther into the solar system.
Image to right: Orion (right) flies in space while docked with a lunar lander in this NASA artist's rendering. Please note that this artwork is not precise. Image credit: NASA+ View hi-res image
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NASA currently is seeking input from industry experts and is developing conceptual designs for Altair. Between 2009 and 2011, the project plans to build hardware and test concepts.
The first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft aboard an Ares I rocket is scheduled for no later than 2015, when it will fly to the International Space Station. Altair's first landing on the moon with an astronaut crew is planned for no later than 2020.
Goddard engineer Ben Reed studies a portion of a multi-layer blanket from Hubble, brought back to Earth after Servicing Mission 3A in 1999. Click image for enlargement. Credit: NASA The Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission 4, scheduled for August 2008, aims to complete multiple upgrades and repairs, many of which are crucial for prolonging the telescope’s operational life. One of the mission’s many objectives is the refurbishment of its outer thermal blankets.The Importance of Thermal Blankets
“Thermal blankets are to spacecraft as clothes are to people,” says Mike Weiss, Hubble’s technical deputy program manager. “Just as clothes cover our skin and help protect us from nature's elements…the cold winter wind and the scorching summer sun, thermal blankets protect Hubble from the harsh environment of space.”
Hubble orbits Earth at five miles per second, meaning that it fully circles the planet in 97 minutes and completes about 15 orbits each day. As it travels through Earth’s shadow, over the side lit by the sun and around again, the telescope is exposed to both the extreme cold of deep space and the powerful heat of the sun in rapid and constant cycles.
“The thermal blankets’ outer layer swings about 215 degrees Fahrenheit every 45 minutes,” says Ben Reed, a group leader assigned to the Materials Engineering Branch at Goddard. So the blankets must be able to insulate Hubble’s equipment from such extreme temperature changes.
To provide adequate insulation for Hubble, the blanketing material used on the telescope is essentially 16 layers of dimpled aluminum with an outer Teflon skin. It effectively protects the onboard instruments against extreme temperature swings even though the blanket is incredibly thin, measuring less than one-tenth of an inch thick when laid flat.
Technician Brenda Estavia cuts a piece of aluminum kapton film that will become part of a thermal blanket. Click image for enlargement. Credit: NASA “The space environment is extremely harsh,” Reed says. “It begins to degrade the telescope’s external surfaces from day-one in orbit. Not surprisingly, since Hubble has been up there since 1990, the outer Teflon layer has started to crack.” Thus, it is crucial to repair or replace the blankets from time to time.Goddard’s Unique Role
Tucked away in a basement building at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is a truly unique facility. Workers here precisely measure, cut, and carefully sew custom-made thermal blankets for Hubble and other space missions. The telescope already sports several that astronauts installed on previous servicing missions.
According to Shirley Adams, group leader for blanket fabrication, her employees come from very diverse backgrounds. “Some have designing backgrounds in upholstery work, costume designing, and one even has a background in ice skating costume-making,” said Adams.
Such talents have proven very beneficial since sewing, stitching and custom-fitting the different thermal blankets for the telescope is accomplished in-house at Goddard. Coupled with experts in materials and mechanical engineering, the expertise at Goddard makes the Center the logical home for the development and production of the blankets, as well as analysis of blankets the astronauts have brought back on previous servicing missions.
Repairing and Replacing Blankets
Because the harsh space environment has taken its toll on Hubble’s exterior, astronauts were tasked with temporarily patching cracks on some of the blankets during Servicing Mission 2 in 1997. Several other blankets were removed and replaced with new ones during Servicing Mission 3A in 1999.
The three remaining original sections of blankets on Hubble are now exhibiting cracking and degradation and may be replaced during the next servicing mission in 2008.
After cutting the raw material needed for the thermal blanket, technician Brenda Estavia carefully sews on a piece of Velcro. Click image for enlargement. Credit: NASA Lessons Learned To Benefit Future MissionsKnowledge gained from the thermal blankets returned from Servicing Mission 3A is helping the Goddard engineers to develop more reliable versions, not just for Hubble, but for a host of future space-based missions.
“Certainly the people working on the sunshield for James Webb Space Telescope have read our papers, and they have taken those lessons learned to heart in choosing the appropriate material for their sunshield,” Reed says.
Sharing information and data is just one of several ways the engineers at Goddard are working to ensure future spacecraft are durable enough to survive their mission lifetimes.
“Protecting Hubble from the harsh environmental effects of space with thermal blankets is like protecting a mountain climber ascending to the summit,” Weiss says. “Over time, the wind and elements might crack and tear the outer layer of the hiker's insulated clothing. The clothing might look tattered, but the hiker is still receiving the thermal protection needed to allow him or her to continue their exploration efforts. The same can be said of the thermal blankets currently on Hubble and the ones to be installed on Servicing Mission 4 that will allow Hubble to continue its incredible exploration of the universe.”
Shuttle Team to Modify Fuel Sensors; Jan. 10 launch off
Image above: Workers look at the outside of the external tank on space shuttle Atlantis at Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Photo credit: NASA/Kim ShiflettView Hi-res Image
Dec. 27
The Space Shuttle Program met Thursday to assess the progress made to troubleshoot an issue with the engine cutoff sensor circuit that occurred during the recent launch attempts and tanking test. Instrumentation installed for the tanking test indicate that there are one or more intermittent open circuits in the area of the feed through connector on the external tank’s liquid hydrogen tank.
The external parts of the connector will be removed and replaced with others that have been strategically soldered to ensure pin-to-socket connectivity and allow continuous electrical flow from sensors inside the external tank to the shuttle's computers.
This work will take some time to properly accomplish and to certify the redesigned configuration before flight. While a launch on Jan. 10 is no longer achievable, no launch date has been discussed. The program will take time to assess progress of the work before setting a target launch date.
Apollo: Expandng Our Knowledge of the Solar System
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of sending astronauts to the moon before the end of the decade. Coming just three weeks after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space, Kennedy's bold challenge set the nation on a journey unlike any before in human history.Image left: The massive Saturn V lifts off July 16, 1969, powering Apollo 11 into orbit. Click for high resolution image.
Eight years of hard work by thousands of Americans came to fruition on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module and took "one small step" in the Sea of Tranquility, calling it "a giant leap for mankind."
Innovation and even improvisation were necessary along the way. In December 1968, rather than letting lunar module delays slow the program, NASA changed plans to keep the momentum going. Apollo 8 would go all the way to the moon and orbit without a lunar module; it was the first manned flight of the massive Saturn V rocket.
Six of the missions -- Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 -- went on to land on the moon, studying soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields and solar wind. Apollos 7 and 9 tested spacecraft in Earth orbit; Apollo 10 orbited the moon as the dress rehearsal for the first landing. An oxygen tank explosion forced Apollo 13 to scrub its landing, but the "can-do" problem solving of the crew and mission control turned the mission into a "successful failure."
The program also drew inspiration from Apollo 1 astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, who lost their lives in a fire during a launch pad test in 1967.
Aquarius is a focused satellite mission to measure global sea surface salinity (SSS). Its instruments will measure changes in SSS equivalent to about a "pinch" (i.e., 1/6 of a teaspoon) of salt in 1 gallon of water. By measuring SSS over the globe with such unprecedented precision, Aquarius will answer long-standing questions about how our oceans respond to climate change and the water cycle. For example, monthly SSS maps will give clues about changes in freshwater input and output to the ocean associate
The mission will be led by principal investigator Dr. Gary Lagerloef of Earth & Space Research. Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) will build and calibrate the highly accurate radiometers that are crucial for the detection of ocean salinity. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will design and build the scatterometer that helps to minimize measurement errors due to sea surface roughness. JPL will manage the mission until launch when GSFC assumes this duty. Data processing, dissemination, and archiving tasks will be shared between GSFC and JPL.
NASA will partner with the Argentine space program CONAE on the Aquarius mission, building on a successful long- standing relationship between NASA and Argentina. Multiple universities and corporate and international partners will be involved in the Aquarius mission.
Aquarius is named after the Water Bearer constellation because of its objective to explore the role of the water cycle in ocean circulation and climate. Aquarius will launch in March of 2009 and will orbit the earth for at least three years, repeating its global pattern every 7 days. Within two months, Aquarius will collect as many sea surface salinity measurements as the entire 125-year historical record from ships and buoys, and provide measurements over the 25 percent of the ocean where no previous observations have been made.
The "Astro Observatory" was developed as a system of telescopes that could fly multiple times on the space shuttle. Astro-1 consisted of three ultraviolet telescopes and an X-ray telescope. The primary objectives of this observatory were to obtain (1) imagery in the spectral range 1200-3100 A (Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, UIT); (2) spectrophotometry in the spectral region 425 to 1850 A (Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope, HUT); (3)spectrapolarimetry from 1250 to 3200 A (Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photopolarimetry Experiment, WUPPE); and (4) X-ray data in the bandpass between 0.3 and 12 keV (Broad Band X-ray Telescope, BBXRT). Since many science objectives and selected astronomical targets of the three instrument teams were inter-related, simultaneous observations by all four instruments were planned.
The telescopes were mounted on a Spacelab pallet in the payload bay of the shuttle (flight STS-35). The Spacelab Instrument Pointing System (IPS), pallets, and avionics were utilized for attachment to the Shuttle and for control and data handling. Astro-1 required both mission specialists and payload specialists to control its operations from the Shuttle aft flight deck. Instrument monitoring and quick-look data analysis were performed for real-time ground operations. During the flight both on-board Digital Display Units malfunctioned, and the star guidance system calibration was not possible. The observing sequences were rescheduled during the flight, and instrument pointing was done by hand by the astronauts, and from the ground.
As a result of the numerous technical glitches, the returned data volume was less than half of that originally planned, and the scientific return was about 67% of the stated goals of the mission. Astro-1 was returned to earth 17:54 U.T., December 11, 1990. However, the mission was very successful in that 231 observations of 130 unique astronomical targetrs were made.
The follow-up flight, Astro-2, was dedicated to studies of many astronomical objects, and included increasing participation of guest investigators.
Alternate Names
- STS-35/Astro-1
- 20980
Facts in Brief
Launch Date: 1990-12-02
Launch Vehicle: Shuttle
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral, United States
Mass: 12453.0 kg
Nominal Power: 7.0 W
Funding Agency
- NASA-Office of Space Science (United States)
Disciplines
- Astronomy
- Earth Science
- Planetary Science
Additional Information
- Launch/Orbital information for Astro 1
- PDMP information for Astro 1
- Telecommunications information for Astro 1
Questions or comments about this spacecraft can be directed to: Coordinated Request and User Support Office.
Personnel
| Name | Role | Original Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mr. William Huddleston | Program Manager | NASA Headquarters | |
| Dr. Jack A. Jones | Mission Manager | NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | |
| Dr. Charles A. Meegan | Mission Scientist | NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | charles.meegan@msfc.nasa.gov |
| Dr. Leon B. Allen | Project Manager | NASA Marshall Space Flight Center | |
| Dr. Edward J. Weiler | Program Scientist | NASA Headquarters | eweiler@mail.hq.nasa.gov |
| Dr. Theodore R. Gull | Mission Scientist | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center | gull@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov |
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