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GREENBELT, Md. — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has
transmitted its first images since reaching lunar orbit June 23. The
spacecraft has two cameras — a low resolution Wide Angle Camera and
a high resolution Narrow Angle Camera. Collectively known as the
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, they were activated
June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a
region a few kilometers east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands
south of Mare Nubium.

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up
photographic maps of the lunar surface. To view these first
calibration images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

“Our first images were taken along the moon’s terminator — the
dividing line between day and night — making us initially unsure of
how they would turn out,” said LROC Principal Investigator Mark
Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. “Because of the deep
shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and
inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region
where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these
are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is
nearly ready to begin its mission.”

LRO will help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers,
locate potential resources, describe the moon’s radiation environment
and demonstrate new technologies.

The satellite also has started to activate its six other instruments.
The Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector will look for regions with
enriched hydrogen that potentially could have water ice deposits. The
Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation is designed to
measure the moon’s radiation environment. Both were activated on June
19 and are functioning normally.

Instruments expected to be activated during the next week and
calibrated are the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, designed to build
3-D topographic maps of the moon’s landscape; the Diviner Lunar
Radiometer Experiment, which will make temperature maps of the lunar
surface; and the Miniature Radio Frequency, or Mini-RF, an
experimental radar and radio transmitter that will search for
subsurface ice and create detailed images of permanently-shaded
craters.

The final instrument, the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project, will be
activated after the other instruments have completed their
calibrations, allowing more time for residual contaminants from the
manufacture and launch of LRO to escape into the vacuum of space.
This instrument is an ultraviolet-light imager that will use
starlight to search for surface ice. It will take pictures of the
permanently-shaded areas in deep craters at the lunar poles.

“Accomplishing these significant milestones moves us closer to our
goals of preparing for safe human return to the moon, mapping the
moon in unprecedented detail, and searching for resources,” said LRO
Project Scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md.

While its instruments are being activated and tested, the spacecraft
is in a special elliptical commissioning orbit around the moon. The
orbit takes less fuel to maintain than the mission’s primary orbit.
The commissioning orbit’s closest point to the lunar surface is about
19 miles over the moon’s south pole, and its farthest point is
approximately 124 miles over the lunar north pole.

After the spacecraft and instruments have completed their initial
calibrations, the spacecraft will be directed into its primary
mission orbit in August, a nearly-circular orbit about 31 miles above
the lunar surface.

Goddard built and manages LRO, a NASA mission with international
participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia
provides the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft.

For more information about LRO’s cameras and to view the first images,
visit:

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu

For more information about the LRO mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

The LRO mission is providing regular updates via Twitter. To follow
the spacecraft, visit:

http://www.twitter.com/LRO_NASA

HOUSTON — As America celebrates its 233rd birthday this holiday weekend, there will be an extra light in the sky along with the fireworks. Across the country, Americans will be treated to
spectacular views of the International Space Station as it orbits 220 miles above Earth.

Many locations will have unusually long sighting opportunities of as much as five minutes, weather permitting, as the station flies almost directly overhead.

To find out when to see the station from your city, visit:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings

The largest spacecraft ever built, the station also is the most reflective. It will be brighter than most stars at dawn and dusk, appearing as a solid, glowing light, slowly traversing the predawn or
evening sky. It is visible when lit by the sun while the ground below is not in full daylight. It moves across the sky too fast for conventional telescopes, but a good set of binoculars can enhance the
viewing experience, even revealing some detail of the station’s structure.

The station circles Earth every 90 minutes. It is 357 feet long, about
the length of a football field including the end zones, and 45 feet tall. Its reflective solar arrays are 240 feet wide, a wingspan greater than that of a jumbo jet, and have a total surface area of more than 38,000 square feet.

An international crew of six astronauts, including American flight engineer Michael Barratt, is aboard the complex conducting research and continuing its assembly. Other crew members are from Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan.

HOUSTON — After reviewing more than 3,500 applications, NASA has
selected nine people for the 2009 astronaut candidate class. They
will begin training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston this
August.

“This is a very talented and diverse group we’ve selected,” said Bill
Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA
Headquarters in Washington. “They will join our current astronauts
and play very important roles for NASA in the future. In addition to
flying in space, astronauts participate in every aspect of human
spaceflight, sharing their expertise with engineers and managers
across the country. We look forward to working with them as we
transcend from the shuttle to our future exploration of space, and
continue the important engineering and scientific discoveries aboard
the International Space Station.”

The new astronaut candidates are:

Serena M. Aunon, 33, of League City, Texas; University of Texas
Medical Branch flight surgeon for NASA’s Space Shuttle, International
Space Station and Constellation Programs; born in Indianapolis. Aunon
holds degrees from George Washington University, University of Texas
Health Sciences Center in Houston and the University of Texas Medical
Branch.

Jeanette J. Epps, 38, of Fairfax, Va.; technical intelligence officer
with the Central Intelligence Agency. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., Epps
holds degrees from LeMoyne College in Syracuse and the University of
Maryland.

Jack D. Fischer, major, U.S. Air Force, 35, of Reston, Va.; test
pilot; U.S. Air Force Strategic Policy intern, Joint Chiefs of Staff,
at the Pentagon. Born in Boulder, Colo., Fischer is a graduate of the
U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Co., and MIT.

Michael S. Hopkins, lieutenant colonel, U.S. Air Force, 40, of
Alexandria, Va.; special assistant to the Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs
of Staff, at the Pentagon. Born in Lebanon, Mo., Hopkins holds
degrees from the University of Illinois and Stanford University.

Kjell N. Lindgren, 36, of League City, Texas; University of Texas
Medical Branch flight surgeon for NASA’s Space Shuttle, International
Space Station and Constellation Programs. Born in Taipei, Taiwan,
Lindgren has degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado State
University, the University of Colorado, the University of Minnesota
and the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Kathleen (Kate) Rubins, 30, of Cambridge, Mass.; principal
investigator and fellow, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
at MIT. Born in Farmington, Conn., Rubins conducts research trips to
the Congo and has degrees from the University of California-San Diego
and Stanford University.

Scott D. Tingle, commander, U.S. Navy, 43, of Hollywood, Md.; test
pilot and assistant program manager-Systems Engineering at Naval Air
Station Patuxent River. Born in Attleboro, Mass., Tingle holds
degrees from Southeastern Massachusetts University (now the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) and Purdue University.

Mark T. Vande Hei, lieutenant colonel, U.S. Army, 42, of El Lago,
Texas; flight controller for the International Space Station at the
Johnson Space Center as part of the U.S. Army NASA Detachment. Born
in Falls Church, Va., Vande Hei is a graduate of Saint John’s
University in Collegeville, Minn., and Stanford University.

Gregory R. (Reid) Wiseman, lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy, 33, of
Virginia Beach, Va.; test pilot; department head, Strike Fighter
Squadron 103, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Oceana, Va. Born in
Baltimore, Wiseman is a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute and Johns Hopkins University.

For more on each astronaut candidates, their photos and details on the
astronaut selection process, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ascans2009

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. — The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing
Satellite, or LCROSS, successfully completed its most significant
early mission milestone Tuesday with a lunar swingby and calibration
of its science instruments. The satellite will search for water ice
in a permanently shadowed crater at the moon’s south pole.

With the assist of the moon’s gravity, LCROSS and its attached Centaur
booster rocket successfully entered into polar Earth orbit at 6:20
a.m. PDT on June 23. The maneuver puts the spacecraft and Centaur on
course for a pair of impacts near the moon’s south pole on Oct. 9.

“The successful completion of the LCROSS swingby proves the science
instruments are functioning as expected. It is a testament to the
hard work and dedication of the entire team” said Dan Andrews, LCROSS
project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field,
Calif. “We are elated at the results from the maneuver and eagerly
anticipate the impacts in early October.”

During its swing by the moon, the spacecraft’s instruments were turned
on and calibrated by scanning three sites on the lunar surface. These
sites were the craters Mendeleev, Goddard C and Giordano Bruno. They
were selected because they offer a variety of terrain types,
compositions and illumination conditions. The spacecraft also scanned
the lunar horizon to confirm its instruments are aligned in
preparation for observing the Centaur’s debris plume.

“Each instrument returned good data that the science team will spend
the next few weeks analyzing,” said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project
scientist at Ames. “These data will ensure we are as prepared as
possible for monitoring and interpreting data we receive during
impact.”

LCROSS and its attached Centaur upper stage rocket are now in a long,
looping polar orbit around Earth and the moon. Each orbit will be
roughly perpendicular to the moon’s orbit around Earth and take about
37 days to complete. Before impact, the spacecraft and Centaur will
make approximately three orbits.

LCROSS and the Centaur separately will collide with the moon at
approximately 7:30 a.m. EDT on Oct. 9, creating a pair of debris
plumes that will be analyzed for the presence of water ice or water
vapor, hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The spacecraft and
Centaur are targeted to impact the moon’s south pole near the Cabeus
region. The exact target crater will be identified 30 days before
impact, after considering information collected by NASA’s Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter and observatories on Earth.

Nine hours before impact, about 54,000 miles above the surface, LCROSS
and the Centaur will separate. LCROSS will spin 180 degrees to turn
its science payload toward the moon and fire thrusters to create
distance from the Centaur. The spacecraft will observe the flash from
the Centaur’s impact and fly through the debris plume. Data will be
collected and streamed to Earth for analysis. Four minutes later,
LCROSS also will impact, creating a second debris plume.

The LCROSS mission is providing mission updates on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/lcross_nasa

For more information about NASA’s LCROSS mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lcross

GREENBELT, Md. — After a four and a half day journey from the Earth, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has successfully entered orbit around the moon. Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., confirmed the spacecraft’s lunar orbit insertion at 6:27 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

During transit to the moon, engineers performed a mid-course correction to get the spacecraft in the proper position to reach its lunar destination. Since the moon is always moving, the spacecraft shot for a target point ahead of the moon. When close to the moon, LRO used its rocket motor to slow down until the gravity of the moon caught the spacecraft in lunar orbit.

“Lunar orbit insertion is a crucial milestone for the mission,” said Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. “The LRO mission cannot begin until the moon captures us. Once we enter the moon’s orbit, we can begin to buildup the dataset needed to understand in greater detail the lunar topography, features and resources. We are so proud to be a part of this exciting mission and NASA’s planned return to the moon.”

A series of four engine burns over the next four days will put the satellite into its commissioning phase orbit. During the commissioning phase each of its seven instruments is checked out and brought online. The commissioning phase will end approximately 60 days after launch, when LRO will use its engines to transition to its primary mission orbit.

For its primary mission, LRO will orbit above the moon at about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, for one year. The spacecraft’s instruments will help scientists compile high resolution, three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths.

The satellite will explore the moon’s deepest craters, examining permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans. LRO will return more data about the moon than any previous mission.

For more information about the LRO mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

GREENBELT, Md. — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT Thursday aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.

The orbiter, known as LRO, separated from the Atlas V rocket carrying it and a companion mission, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and immediately began powering up the components necessary to control the spacecraft. The flight operations team established communication with LRO and commanded the successful deployment of the solar array at 7:40 p.m. The operations team continues to check out the spacecraft subsystems and prepare for the first mid-course correction maneuver. NASA scientists expect to establish communications with LCROSS about four hours after launch, at approximately 9:30 p.m.

“This is a very important day for NASA,” said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington, which designed and developed both the LRO and LCROSS missions. “We look forward to an extraordinary period of discovery at the moon and the information LRO will give us for future exploration missions.”

The spacecraft will be placed in low polar orbit about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, above the moon for a one-year primary mission. LRO’s instruments will help scientists compile high resolution three-dimensional maps of the lunar surface and also survey it at many spectral wavelengths. The satellite will explore the moon’s deepest craters, exploring permanently sunlit and shadowed regions, and provide understanding of the effects of lunar radiation on humans.

“Our job is to perform reconnaissance of the moon’s surface using a suite of seven powerful instruments,” said Craig Tooley, LRO project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “NASA will use the data LRO collects to design the vehicles and systems for returning humans to the moon and selecting the landing sites that will be their destinations.”

High resolution imagery from LRO’s camera will help identify landing sites for future explorers and characterize the moon’s topography and composition. The hydrogen concentrations at the moon’s poles will be mapped in detail, pinpointing the locations of possible water ice. A miniaturized radar system will image the poles and test communication capabilities.

“During the 60-day commissioning period, we will turn on spacecraft components and science instruments,” explained Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. “All instruments will be turned on within two weeks of launch, and we should start seeing the moon in new and greater detail within the next month.”

“We learned much about the moon from the Apollo program, but now it is time to return to the moon for intensive study, and we will do just that with LRO,” said Richard Vondrak, LRO project scientist at Goddard.

All LRO initial data sets will be deposited in the Planetary Data System, a publicly accessible repository of planetary science information, within six months of launch.

Goddard built and manages LRO. LRO is a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia provides the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft.

The LRO mission is providing updates via @LRO_NASA on Twitter. To follow, visit:

http://www.twitter.com/lro_nasa

For more information about the LRO mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, rolled aboard their Atlas V rocket to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Wednesday morning in preparation for launch on Thursday. The spacecraft left its processing facility at 10:02 EDT and arrived at the pad about 35 minutes later.

The spacecraft are scheduled to lift off together on Thursday, June 18, with three attempts possible at 5:12 p.m., 5:22 p.m. and 5:32 p.m. If launch slips to Friday, June 19, the launch opportunities would be 6:41 p.m., 6:51 p.m. and 7:01 p.m.

LRO is scheduled for a one-year exploration mission at a polar orbit of about 31 miles, or 50 kilometers, the closest any spacecraft has orbited the moon. Its primary objective is to conduct investigations to prepare for future explorations of the moon. LCROSS will search for water ice on the moon by sending the spent upper-stage Centaur rocket to impact part of a polar crater in permanent shadows. LCROSS will fly into the plume of dust left by the impact and measure the properties before also colliding with the lunar surface.

NASA TV coverage of the launch will begin at 2 p.m. June 18. For information about NASA TV streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the LRO and LCROSS missions, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/lro

Hawthorne, CA – (June 16, 2009) – Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) announces Ken Bowersox as vice president of the newly formed Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance Department. He will be co-located in Houston, Texas, and SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Bowersox joins SpaceX with over 19 years of experience at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Selected to the astronaut corps in 1987, he has flown five times on NASA’s Space Shuttle, serving as pilot, commander and mission specialist, and once on a Russian Soyuz, where he served as the flight engineer during descent. During his five orbital missions, Bowersox has logged over 211 days in space, including five and a half months aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where he was the mission commander of the 6th expedition. He was also a crew member for the first two Hubble Space Telescope repair flights and two United States Microgravity Laboratory flights.

Subsequent to his mission aboard the ISS, Bowersox served as the director of the Johnson Space Center’s Flight Crew Operations Directorate, where he was responsible for the NASA Astronaut Office and all aircraft operations at the Johnson Space Center. Most recently, Bowersox has been working as an independent aerospace consultant, serving on the NASA standing review boards for Space Shuttle, ISS, Constellation, Orion and the Constellation Suit System.

“Ken Bowersox is a critical asset to the SpaceX team, as we prepare for crewed missions aboard our Dragon spacecraft,” said Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of SpaceX. “His experience in the U.S. astronaut corps, and aboard the International Space Station, will be invaluable in shaping the future of commercial manned spaceflight.”

About SpaceX

SpaceX is revolutionizing access to space with a family of launch vehicles and spacecraft designed to increase the reliability and reduce the cost of both manned and unmanned space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten. As a winner of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition (COTS), SpaceX will conduct three flights of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, culminating in Dragon berthing with the ISS. In addition, NASA recently selected the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for the ISS Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract award.

The contract includes 12 flights between 2010 and 2015 and represents a guaranteed minimum of 20,000 kg to be carried to the ISS.

Founded in 2002, the SpaceX team now numbers more than 700 full time employees, located primarily in Hawthorne, California, with additional locations, including 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.

Space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-127 launch today was officially scrubbed at 1:55 a.m. EDT when the same type of gaseous hydrogen leak was detected at the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate, or GUCP. This is the same location where a similar leak resulted in a launch scrub on June 13.

“We’re going to step back and figure out what the problem is and go fix it,” said Deputy Space Shuttle Program Manager LeRoy Cain during a briefing afterward. “Once we get it fixed and we’re confident that we have a solution that’s going to work and allow us to go fly safely, then we’ll proceed forward.”

Teams followed the same repair method as they did for the GUCP leak encountered during the STS-119 countdown. The STS-119 and STS-127 leaks will both be evaluated in order to determine the cause. Data collected during fueling is expected to help the troubleshooting effort.

Endeavour’s next launch attempt for its STS-127 mission is targeted for July 11 at 7:39 p.m. EDT.

The 16-day mission will feature five spacewalks and complete construction of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory. Astronauts will attach a platform to the outside of the Japanese module that will allow experiments to be exposed to space.

The STS-127 crew members are Commander Mark Polansky, Pilot Doug Hurley and Mission Specialists Dave Wolf, Christopher Cassidy, Tom Marshburn, Tim Kopra and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette. Kopra will join the space station crew and replace Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Wakata will return to Earth on Endeavour to conclude a three-month stay at the station.

Aboard the space station, Koichi Wakata, who was slated to come home on Endeavour, said gleefully, ”Another month for me!”

Space shuttle Endeavour’s external fuel tank is being filled with more than 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The three-hour operation began at 11:04 p.m. EDT. The Liquid Hydrogen Low Level Cutoff (LLCO) sensors will go “wet” at about 11:49 p.m. The tank will be completely filled, known as stable replenish, at about 2:04 a.m.

The launch countdown currently is holding at T-3 hours, which will last until 1:45 a.m. EDT.

There still is a 80 percent chance that weather will not affect the 5:40 a.m. launch of STS-127.

During its STS-127 mission, Endeavour will travel to the International Space Station to deliver and install the final segment of the Kibo lab. The seven-member crew will conduct 5 space walks in support of the effort.

Endeavour’s visit will also mark the first time that 13 people have occupied the ISS at the same time.

This is the second launch attempt for STS-127, with the previous effort scrubbed to address and repair a leak in a hydrogen vent line. The delay also bumped the launch of the LRO/LCROSS lunar exploration mission from Wednesday to Thursday.

NASA has two remaining opportunities to get STS-127 underway before July. If Endeavour is unable to launch this morning, the next attempt will be Saturday. That represents the final shuttle launch opportunity of the month.