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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA’s Kennedy Space Center will be closed Tuesday, Aug. 19, because of the potential threat from Tropical Storm Fay. Current plans call for the center to be closed for 24 hours, starting with workers’ first-shift Tuesday morning. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex also is closed Tuesday.

Kennedy managers are scheduled to meet again at 5 p.m. EDT to reevaluate the storm’s status and its impact on the center.

Fay made landfall Tuesday morning along Florida’s southwest coast. It is forecast to affect Kennedy Tuesday afternoon with heavy rain and possible tropical storm force wind.

While most of Kennedy’s almost 15,000 employees will not be at work, the center will have a small group of emergency personnel, known as a “ride-out crew,” who will stay at the center to provide real-time assessments of the storm situation. There are about 200 people on the ride-out crew.

All three space shuttles have been secured in their Orbiter Processing Facilities. The shuttles have been powered down in their hangars and their payload bay doors have been closed to protect them from possible damage. Critical Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station flight hardware has been protectively covered.

Kennedy workers should check with the center’s hurricane information phone line for the latest status at 321-861-7900 or 1-866-572-4877

Center storm updates also will be available online at the agency’s emergency operation center Web site at: http://www.nasa.gov/eoc

By Marc S. Posner
SOAR Magazine

The first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket essentially crashed into the second stage as the two were attempting to separate during Saturday’s launch, the company’s founder said in a statement released in the last few minutes.

Under the heading “Timing is Everything,” Elon Musk said the origin of the problem stems from the shift to a new first-stage motor used during the launch — the third attempt for the Los Angeles-area company.

The issue deals with a “thrust transient” in which the first-stage’s unburned fuel “combined with a small amount of residual oxygen to produce a small thrust,” SpaceX said.

That surge from the first stage was stronger than the thrust produced by the mechanism used to separate the two stages, causing the “first stage to recontact the second stage”

“As it turned out, a very small increase in the time between commanding main engine shutdown and stage separation would have been enough to save the mission,” Musk said in the statement.

The company was aware of the potential, but simply didn’t compensate enough for the issue, Musk said.

SpaceX’s conclusion was reached through four methods of analysis, the statement said.

Resolving the issue does not require a change in technology — as was the case with the switch in rocket engines from flight 2 to flight 3 — and, thus, the turnaround between launch attempts will be short, Musk said.

The company’s second flight attempt was made on March 20, 2007. According to SpaceX, the Falcon 1 rocket reached space, but not orbit. Issues identified in the failed attempt resulted in the complete re-design of the first-stage engine.

“It looks like we may have flight four on the launch pad as soon as next month,” Musk said in Wednesday night’s statement. “The long gap between flight two and three was mainly due to the Merlin 1C regen engine development, but there are no technology upgrades between flight three and four.”

Musk took seven positives from Saturday’s launch:

However, Musk said, because of when the failure happened in the flight sequence, the company was unable to test changes made to resolve the issue leading to the loss of the second flight.

Still, he said “I feel confident that this will not be an issue for the upcoming flight four.”

The first flight, on March 24, 2006, ended when a fuel leak caused the rocket to catch fire about 25 seconds into the flight.

Earlier this week, the privately-held Hawthorne, CA-based company announced a $20 million equity investment from Founders Fund, a San Francisco venture capital firm. The Founders Fund’s existing portfolio includes Facebook, Powerset, Slide and Quantcast, and Managing Partner Luke Nosek will join the SpaceX board as part of the financing, SpaceX said in an August 4 news release.

Musk prevously co-founded PayPal, the world’s leading electronic payment system, which was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. In 1995, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2, which sold to Compaq Computer Corporation for more than $300 million.

In a message to SpaceX employees, the Southern California company’s founder Elon Musk addressed the third consecutive launch failure by the private company hoping.

The memo, titled “Plan Going Forward” was shared this evening after the company’s Falcon 1 rocket failed to reach orbit when the second stage didn’t separate from the first.

Here is the text of Musk’s memo:

It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight [Falcon 1, Flight 3]. On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened.

–Elon–

The Falcoln 1 lifted off at a 8:33 p.m., but SpaceX reported “an anomoly” at 8:37 p.m., PDT. — just seconds after a live video feed of the launch cut off abruptly.

Video of the first Falcon 1 launch also cut off when that vehicle was lost during ascent.

This was the third Falcon 1 launch attempt by SpaceX.

The company said updates would be available on their website.

UPDATE: From SpaceX, “Posted August 2, 2008 - 20:38 PDT

We have heard from launch control that there has been an anomaly. More details will be posted to the website as available.”

SpaceX’s Falcoln 1 rocket aborted at the T-0 mark this evening, but the company says everything is fine with the spacecraft and that another countdown may be possible tonight.

The countdown clock currently shows a hold with 1-hour, 30-minutes and counting upward.

SpaceX says: “Engineers are reviewing data. No decision has been made yet, but it is looking promising that we will recycle and reset the clock to T-10 minutes. We have 50 minutes left in today’s launch window.”

UPDATE: T-10 minutes and counting. Posted 8:25 p.m. PDT

Launch attempt, the third for the Falcon series, has been pushed back from 4 p.m. PDT to 8 p.m.

Live coverage is available at http://www.spacex.com.

The first Falcon 1 launch was lost during ascent, while the second reached space, but not orbit.

Lift-off of the vehicle will occur from SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch site at the Kwajalein Atoll, about 2500 miles southwest of Hawaii. Falcon 1 launch facilities are situated on Omelek Island, part of the Reagan Test Site (RTS) at United States Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific.

Designed from the ground up by SpaceX at headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., Falcon 1 is a two-stage, liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene powered launch vehicle. The first stage is powered by a single SpaceX Merlin 1C Regenerative engine – flying for the first time on this Flight 3 mission. A “hold before liftoff” system enhances reliability by permitting all systems to be verified as functioning nominally before launch is initiated. The Falcon 1 second stage is powered by a single SpaceX Kestrel engine.

Falcon 1 is the first new orbital rocket in more than a decade. Merlin is the first new American hydrocarbon engine for an orbital booster to be flown in more than 40 years and only the second new American engine of any kind in more than a quarter century. After achieving orbit, Falcon 1 will be the first privately developed, liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth.

The primary customers for the Falcon 1 launch are the Department of Defense, Government of Malaysia and NASA. Falcon 1 is carrying a payload stack of three separating satellites that will orbit at an inclination of 9 degrees.

SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles intended to increase the reliability and reduce the cost of both manned and unmanned space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten. With its Falcon line of launch vehicles, powered by internally-developed Merlin engines, SpaceX offers light, medium and heavy lift capabilities to deliver spacecraft into any altitude and inclination, from low-Earth to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions. SpaceX currently has 12 missions on its manifest, excluding the two previous Falcon 1 demonstration flights, plus indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts with NASA and the US Air Force.

As a winner of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition (COTS), SpaceX is in a position to help fill the gap in American spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires in 2010. Under the existing Agreement, SpaceX will conduct three flights of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for NASA, culminating in Dragon berthing with the ISS. NASA also has an option to demonstrate crew services to the ISS using the Falcon 9 / Dragon system. SpaceX is the only COTS contender that has the capability to return pressurized cargo and crew to Earth. The first Falcon 9 will arrive at the SpaceX launch site (complex 40) at Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008 in preparation for its maiden flight.

Founded in 2002, the SpaceX team now numbers over 500, located primarily in Hawthorne, California, with four additional locations: SpaceX’s Texas Test Facility in McGregor near Waco; offices in Washington DC; and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander’s robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.”

With enticing results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ends in late August. The mission extension adds five weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission.

“Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars,” said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday’s sample had been exposed to the air for two days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.

“Mars is giving us some surprises,” said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. “We’re excited because surprises are where discoveries come from. One surprise is how the soil is behaving. The ice-rich layers stick to the scoop when poised in the sun above the deck, different from what we expected from all the Mars simulation testing we’ve done. That has presented challenges for delivering samples, but we’re finding ways to work with it and we’re gathering lots of information to help us understand this soil.”

Since landing on May 25, Phoenix has been studying soil with a chemistry lab, TEGA, a microscope, a conductivity probe and cameras. Besides confirming the 2002 finding from orbit of water ice near the surface and deciphering the newly observed stickiness, the science team is trying to determine whether the water ice ever thaws enough to be available for biology and if carbon-containing chemicals and other raw materials for life are present.

The mission is examining the sky as well as the ground. A Canadian instrument is using a laser beam to study dust and clouds overhead.

“It’s a 30-watt light bulb giving us a laser show on Mars,” said Victoria Hipkin of the Canadian Space Agency.

A full-circle, color panorama of Phoenix’s surroundings also has been completed by the spacecraft.

“The details and patterns we see in the ground show an ice-dominated terrain as far as the eye can see,” said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, lead scientist for Phoenix’s Surface Stereo Imager camera. “They help us plan measurements we’re making within reach of the robotic arm and interpret those measurements on a wider scale.”

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane. This makes Titan the only body in our solar system beyond Earth known to have liquid on its surface.

Scientists made the discovery using data from an instrument aboard the Cassini spacecraft. The instrument identified chemically different materials based on the way they absorb and reflect infrared light. Before Cassini, scientists thought Titan would have global oceans of methane, ethane and other light hydrocarbons. More than 40 close flybys of Titan by Cassini show no such global oceans exist, but hundreds of dark lake-like features are present. Until now, it was not known whether these features were liquid or simply dark, solid material.

“This is the first observation that really pins down that Titan has a surface lake filled with liquid,” said Bob Brown of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Brown is the team leader of Cassini’s visual and mapping instrument. The results will be published in the July 31 issue of the journal Nature.

Ethane and several other simple hydrocarbons have been identified in Titan’s atmosphere, which consists of 95 percent nitrogen, with methane making up the other 5 percent. Ethane and other hydrocarbons are products from atmospheric chemistry caused by the breakdown of methane by sunlight.

Some of the hydrocarbons react further and form fine aerosol particles. All of these things in Titan’s atmosphere make detecting and identifying materials on the surface difficult, because these particles form a ubiquitous hydrocarbon haze that hinders the view. Liquid ethane was identified using a technique that removed the interference from the atmospheric hydrocarbons.

The visual and mapping instrument observed a lake, Ontario Lacus, in Titan’s south polar region during a close Cassini flyby in December 2007. The lake is roughly 7,800 square miles in area, slightly larger than North America’s Lake Ontario.

“Detection of liquid ethane confirms a long-held idea that lakes and seas filled with methane and ethane exist on Titan,” said Larry Soderblom, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Ariz. “The fact we could detect the ethane spectral signatures of the lake even when it was so dimly illuminated, and at a slanted viewing path through Titan’s atmosphere, raises expectations for exciting future lake discoveries by our instrument.”

The ethane is in a liquid solution with methane, other hydrocarbons and nitrogen. At Titan’s surface temperatures, approximately 300 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, these substances can exist as both liquid and gas. Titan shows overwhelming evidence of evaporation, rain, and fluid-carved channels draining into what, in this case, is a liquid hydrocarbon lake.

Earth has a hydrological cycle based on water and Titan has a cycle based on methane. Scientists ruled out the presence of water ice, ammonia, ammonia hydrate and carbon dioxide in Ontario Lacus. The observations also suggest the lake is evaporating. It is ringed by a dark beach, where the black lake merges with the bright shoreline. Cassini also observed a shelf and beach being exposed as the lake evaporates.

“During the next few years, the vast array of lakes and seas on Titan’s north pole mapped with Cassini’s radar instrument will emerge from polar darkness into sunlight, giving the infrared instrument rich opportunities to watch for seasonal changes of Titan’s lakes,” Soderblom said.

Launched in Oct. 1997, Cassini’s 12 instruments have returned a daily stream of data from Saturn’s system. The mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

NASA celebrates this year’s 50th anniversary with the creation of an educational card game, “You’ve Been Sentenced! - NASA 50th Anniversary Special Edition.” NASA and McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds formed a partnership in April of 2008 to create the game, which bears a few similarities to Scrabble.

NASA and McNeill Designs collaborated to create the Add-on Deck which will present NASA terminology while promoting greater interest and understanding of NASA’s history and future. The 50th Anniversary Special Edition Add-on Deck will contain words not only used in space exploration, but also terminology from the past, current and future explorers, missions, and programs. “You’ve Been Sentenced!” delivers a unique way to understand these terms that is both fun and memorable for students.

“As part of our 50th anniversary celebration, this is an informal and fun venue to educate folks on American’s space program, past and present,” said Gregg Buckingham, chief, Education Programs and University Research Division at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “We will also learn more about the effectiveness of this kind of education tool from McNeill.”

The purpose of this project is to build a strategic partnership among informal education providers, community groups, formal educators and families to promote literacy, particularly focusing in the areas of space, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The game “You’ve Been Sentenced!” can be used in classrooms to aid educators in teaching curriculum based upon space and space exploration at NASA.

For additional information about “You’ve Been Sentenced! - NASA 50th Anniversary Special Edition” and McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds, visit: http://www.mcneilbrighterminds.com.

The end is in sight for NASA’s 28-year-old space shuttle program as the agency today announced that it has set launch dates for all ten of the remaining flights.

If the schedule holds, Endeavour — NASA’S newest orbiter — will make the 35th mission to the International Space Station to bring the program to a close in June, 2010. It will be the 25th flight for Endeavour, which was built to replace Challenger, the orbiter that exploded during a 1986 launch attempt.

President Bush called for an end to the shuttle program following the destruction of Columbia during re-entry in 2003. The shuttles, which also include Discovery and Atlantis, are to be replaced by a more traditional rocket as part of NASA’s Constellation program.

Eight shuttle missions received launch dates following a detailed, integrated assessment by NASA. The missions will fly in 2009 and 2010. Rounding out the remaining 10 flights are two which are slated for later this year, including the lone flight not scheduled for docking at the International Space Station.

The current launch manifest manifest includes a flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, seven assembly flights to the International Space Station, and two station contingency flights, planned to be completed before the end of fiscal year 2010. The agency previously selected Oct. 8 and Nov. 10 as launch dates for Atlantis’ STS-125 mission to service Hubble and Endeavour’s STS-126 / ULF-2 mission to supply the space station and service both Solar Alpha Rotary Joints on the port and starboard end of its truss backbone that supports equipment and solar arrays.

The approved target dates are subject to change based on processing and other launch vehicle schedules. They reflect the agency’s commitment to complete assembly of the station and to retire the shuttle fleet as transition continues to the new launch vehicles, including Ares and Orion.

SHUTTLE FLIGHTS IN 2009

Feb. 12 — Discovery (STS-119 / 15A) will kick off a five-flight 2009 with its 36th mission to deliver the final pair of U.S. solar arrays to be installed on the starboard end of the station’s truss. The truss serves as the backbone support for external equipment and spare components, including the Mobile Base System. Lee Archambault will command the 14-day flight that will include four planned spacewalks. Joining him will be pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists John Phillips, Steve Swanson, Joseph Acaba, Richard Arnold and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will replace Sandy Magnus on the station as a flight engineer. STS-119 marks the 28th shuttle flight to the station.

May 15 — Endeavour (STS-127 / 2JA) sets sail on its 23rd mission with the Japanese Kibo Laboratory’s Exposed Facility and Experiment Logistics Module Exposed Section, the final permanent components of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s contribution to the station program. During the 15-day mission, Endeavour’s crew will perform five spacewalks and deliver six new batteries for the P6 truss, a spare drive unit for the Mobile Transporter and a spare boom assembly for the Ku-band antenna. Mark Polansky will be Endeavour’s commander with Doug Hurley as pilot. Mission specialists will be Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Dave Wolf, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will become a station flight engineer replacing Koichi Wakata, who will return home with the STS-127 crew. It will be the 29th shuttle flight to the station.

July 30 — Atlantis (STS-128 / 17A) launches on its 31st flight, an 11-day mission carrying science and storage racks to the station. In the payload bay will be a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module holding science and storage racks. Three spacewalks are planned to remove and replace a materials processing experiment outside the European Space Agency’s Columbus module and return an empty ammonia tank assembly. The mission includes the rotation of astronaut Nicole Stott for Tim Kopra, who will return to Earth with the shuttle crew. The remaining crew members have yet to be named. STS-128 marks the 30th shuttle flight dedicated to station assembly and outfitting.

Oct. 15 — Discovery’s (STS-129 / ULF-3) 37th mission will focus on staging spare components outside the station. The 15-day flight includes at least three spacewalks. The payload bay will carry two large External Logistics Carriers holding two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly, a spare latching end effector for the station’s robotic arm, a spare trailing umbilical system for the Mobile Transporter and a high-pressure gas tank. Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk will return home aboard Discovery with its crew, which has yet to be named. STS-129 marks the 31st shuttle mission devoted to station assembly.

Dec. 10 — Endeavour (STS-130 / 20A) will close 2009 with its 24th mission to deliver the final connecting node, Node 3, and the Cupola, a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and another in the center that provides a 360-degree view around the station. At least three spacewalks are planned during the 11-day mission. The 32nd station assembly mission by a shuttle does not yet have a crew named.

SHUTTLE FLIGHTS IN 2010

Feb. 11 — Atlantis (STS-131 / 19A) begins its 32nd mission as the first flight in 2010, carrying a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module filled with science racks that will be transferred to laboratories of the station. The 11-day mission will include at least three spacewalks to attach a spare ammonia tank assembly outside the station and return a European experiment that has been outside the Columbus module. It will be the 33rd shuttle mission to the station. The crew has yet to be named.

April 8 — Discovery’s (STS-132 / ULF-4) 38th mission will carry an integrated cargo carrier to deliver maintenance and assembly hardware, including spare parts for space station systems. In addition, the second in a series of new pressurized components for Russia, a Mini Research Module, will be permanently attached to the bottom port of the Zarya module. The Russian module also will carry U.S. pressurized cargo. The first Russian Mini Research Module to go to the station is scheduled to launch on a Russian rocket in the summer of 2009.

Additionally, at least three spacewalks are planned to stage spare components outside the station, including six spare batteries, a boom assembly for the Ku-band antenna and spares for the Canadian Dextre robotic arm extension. A radiator, airlock and European robotic arm for the Russian Multi-purpose Laboratory Module also are payloads on the flight. The laboratory module is scheduled for launch on a Russian rocket in 2011. The mission marks the 34th mission to the station. The STS-132 crew has yet to be named.

May 31 — Endeavour’s (STS-133 / ULF-5) 25th mission will carry critical spare components that will be placed on the outside of the station. Those will include two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, additional spare parts for Dextre and micrometeoroid debris shields. At least three spacewalks are planned to be carried out by the crew, which has yet to be named. The 15-day mission will be the 35th to the station.

SOAR Magazine’s Marc S. Posner contributed to this report.