Space

Parachute failure only blemish in successful Ares test flight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A preliminary look at data from NASA's Ares I-X test flight Wednesday shows the towering rocket performed as well or better than computer modeling predicted during the climb out of the dense lower atmosphere, a senior NASA manager said Friday.

One of three huge parachutes failed to inflate during the spent booster's descent to the Atlantic Ocean and a second chute only inflated halfway, resulting in a hard splash down that caused the rocket's case to buckle.

But Mission Manager Bob Ess said the parachute system, flying for the first time, was designed for NASA's planned Ares 1 rocket, which is 15 percent lighter than the test version, and that engineers will have plenty of time to correct whatever went wrong.

"No one is concerned about it," Ess said. "In fact, the parachute guys were ecstatic, was their words, (about) the information they got from this flight. They really wanted to test this out."

The Ares I-X rocket was designed to match the characteristics of NASA's planned shuttle replacement, the more powerful Ares I. The test version featured a four-segment shuttle booster, a dummy fifth segment housing guidance and control equipment and an unpowered mockup of the rocket's upper stage and crew capsule.

The 327-foot-tall test rocket was launched Wednesday from shuttle complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. The major goals of the unmanned six-minute flight were to collect engineering data on how the tall, slender rocket flew through the lower atmosphere, how the structure responded to aerodynamic and acoustic forces and how the new parachute system, scaled for the planned Ares I, performed.

During the initial seconds of flight, the rocket's nozzle moved 1 degree as planned to help the booster "walk off" the pad, preventing its hot exhaust plume from hitting the upper sections of the shuttle service gantry. As expected, the plume caused minor damage to the lower sections of the gantry, but Ess said that would not be a problem for the new service tower that will be used for Ares rockets.… Read more

Ares I-X rocket chalks up successful test flight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--Running a day late, NASA launched its 33-story Ares I-X rocket on a $445 million unmanned test flight Wednesday, a spectacular six-minute sub-orbital mission to collect data needed for the design of NASA's proposed shuttle replacement.

"Oh, man! Well, how impressive is that?" Program Manager Jeff Hanley told the launch team after the spent rocket fell back to the Atlantic Ocean. "I hope you appreciate that you've accomplished a great step forward for exploration."

Said Launch Director Ed Mango: "Think about what we just did. Our first flight test, … Read more

NASA's Ares I-X test flight delayed by weather

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--Launch of NASA's Ares I-X rocket on a planned $445 million test flight was delayed 24 hours Tuesday because of bad weather and an errant freighter that briefly strayed into the off-shore danger area.

"For everyone, great job today. You gave it a great shot," Launch Director Ed Mango told the team. "We had some opportunities and just couldn't get there, weather didn't cooperate. But good work today."

Launch was rescheduled for 8 a.m. Wednesday. Forecasters are predicting a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather during a four-hour … Read more

Piloting a lunar rover

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For a few minutes Thursday, as I steered one of NASA's K10 intelligent robots across a small field of rocky, sandy terrain, I could almost imagine myself piloting the rover across the surface of Mars or the moon.

Until, that is, I realized I had pretty much no idea what I was doing, and saw that my struggles to steer the rover forward were actually sending it backward. Given that this little robot is worth at least as much as a mid-range Mercedes, I was relieved to see the eagle-eyed scientist standing a few feet away … Read more

NASA iPhone app full of surprises for space geeks

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for iPhone.

OK, that's probably a little overly dramatic, but the new NASA iPhone app, which was released Friday, is pretty cool.

Designed to provide information, updates, and images on all current and scheduled NASA missions, the app--which can be found in Apple's App Store under the name "NASA app for iPhone--nicely allows you to search for any specific mission, say, Constellation, and then find information and images just for that project.

"Users can access NASA countdown clocks, the NASA Image of the Day, Astronomy Image … Read more

Presidential panel reports on manned space options

Amid work to ready NASA's Ares I-X rocket for a long-awaited test flight next week, a presidential panel charged with reviewing the nation's manned space program submitted its completed report Thursday, concluding NASA's planned shuttle replacement will cost too much and take too long to build to be a viable option.

Even so, panel members said they looked forward to the $445 million test flight Tuesday and the data it will generate to help validate computer models and processes that will be useful in any future rocket design efforts.

"We do think it's appropriate to … Read more

NASA addresses Balloon Boy dad's end-of-the-world theory

I have tried to avoid the Balloon Boy, his dad, and all who sail in this online/offline/out-of-line clattermaran.

However, thanks to CBS News, I have learned that Richard Heene once appeared on a fine YouTube extravaganza called The Psyience Detectives and offered 15 reasons why our haggard old world will end on December 21, 2012.

I have no idea if the world will end in 2012, though I suspect Richard Heene doesn't know either. And yet there is something quite eerie that he should assault our eyes and ears in the same week that a movie called &… Read more

Ares I-X rocket hauled to launch pad for critical test flight

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--NASA's towering Ares I-X rocket was hauled to the launch pad early Tuesday for blastoff October 27 on a $445 million unmanned test flight that likely will play a major role in the ongoing debate about NASA's post-shuttle manned space program.

The slow trip to pad 39B began at 1:39 a.m. EDT Tuesday when a powerful crawler-transporter carrying the Ares I-X rocket and its mobile launch platform slowly pulled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center. Powerful spotlights illuminated the vehicle as it emerged from the VAB, providing … Read more

Cirque founder, station fliers return to Earth

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying commander Gennady Padalka, flight engineer Michael Barratt, and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté undocked from the International Space Station on Saturday and plunged to a successful landing in Kazakhstan early Sunday.

Descending under a big orange-and-white parachute, the Soyuz TMA-14's descent module settled to a jarring rocket-assisted touchdown at 12:32 a.m. EDT (10:32 a.m. local time) Sunday to close out a 50-minute descent from orbit. Russian recovery forces, including U.S. and Russian flight surgeons, monitored the final stages of the descent before moving in to provide assistance, … Read more

Kamikaze moon mission kicks up dust, maybe ice?

In a brute-force search for ice on the moon, an empty 5,000-pound rocket stage traveling twice as fast as a rifle bullet crashed into a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole Friday, presumably blasting out tons of debris for examination by an instrumented probe that carried out its own kamikaze plunge four minutes later.

While the initial impact at 4:31 a.m. PDT did not prove especially dramatic--it was not even visible in real-time video from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)--scientists said a camera sensitive to temperature variations clearly recorded the … Read more