By Marc S. Posner
SOAR Magazine

Space Shuttle Discovery lit up the night sky, blasting off on a 13-day mission from Launch Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday night, just 30 seconds before midnight.

While in orbit, Discovery and the orbiter’s seven-member crew will replenish supplies and deliver science experiments to the International Space Station.

Inside the shuttle’s payload bay, Discovery is carrying the Leonardo supply module, which is filled with science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill, named after TV show host Stephen Colbert.

Discovery will celebrate it’s 25th birthday on Sunday when it docks with the International Space Station.

“Liftoff of Discovery celebrating its 25th birthday by bringing up science and supplies to the International Space Station,” said KSC Launch Commentator Mike Curie.

Unlike two previous attempts this week, Friday night’s countdown was smooth and uneventful. The 8.5-minute ride to orbit followed in suit.

Commanded by veteran astronaut Rick “C.J.” Sturckow, the crew also includes Nicole Stott — who is replacing Tim Kopra aboard the the International Space Station. Pilot Kevin Ford and Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez, John “Danny” Olivas and Sweden’s Christer Fuglesang round out the crew.

Nine minutes before liftoff, Launch Director Pete Nickolenko wished Sturckow well: “This time the weather is cooperating. We wish you good luck and God speed.”

“Let’s go step up the science on the International Space Station,” said Sturckow in response. He then in thanked those who had prepared the crew and orbiter for flight.

The 13-day mission will include three spacewalks to replace experiments outside the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory, and install a new ammonia storage tank and return the used one. Ammonia is used to move excess heat from inside the station to the radiators located outside. Discovery also will deliver a new crew member and bring back another after almost two months aboard the space station.

STS-128 is the 128th space shuttle flight, the 30th to the station, the 37th for Discovery and the fourth in
2009.

Following this mission only six flights remain on the schedule before the shuttle fleet is scheduled to be retired next year. All six are slated to head to the International Space Station.

Discovery is about to come out of the T-minus-9-minute hold for an 11:59 p.m., EDT launch. NASA mission managers have given the go ahead for a launch that will be visible up the Eastern coast.

NASA is targeting space shuttle Discovery for a launch attempt Friday morning at 12:22 a.m., mission management team Chairman Mike Moses said. Engineers will evaluate a liquid hydrogen valve that developed problems during tanking operations Tuesday evening. Detailed test data about the valve will be examined before Discovery’s fuel tank is loaded with propellant ahead of Friday morning’s launch attempt.

By Marc S. Posner
SOAR Magazine

NASA has scrubbed the launch of space shuttle Discovery because of multiple weather violations at the Kennedy Space Center launch site.

The space agency will try again tomorrow to get the orbiter off on STS-128 — a mission that will deliver supplies and a famous treadmill to the International Space Station. The piece of exercise equipment was named after comedian Stephen Colbert.

The name Colbert received the most entries in NASA’s online poll to name the station’s Node 3 module, so NASA named its new space station treadmill the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT. NASA named the module Tranquility.

Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” took an interest in the poll and urged his viewers to suggest his name, which received the most entries.

NASA will attempt to launch Discovery and its seven-member crew at 1:10 a.m. EDT
Wednesday, Aug. 26, on a 13-day mission.

Commanded by veteran astronaut Rick “C.J.” Sturckow, the crew also includes Nicole Stott — who is replacing Tim Kopra aboard the the International Space Station. Pilot Kevin Ford and Mission Specialists Patrick Forrester, Jose Hernandez, John “Danny” Olivas and Sweden’s Christer Fuglesang round out the crew.

WASHINGTON — NASA Television has been honored with a Primetime Emmy Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The 2009 Philo T. Farnsworth Award recognizes the agency for engineering excellence and commemorates the 40th anniversary of the technological innovations that made possible the first live TV broadcast from the moon by the Apollo 11 crew on July 20, 1969.

The prestigious Emmy Award, named after the man credited with designing and building the world’s first working television system, honors an agency, company or institution with contributions over a long period of time that have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering.

“I congratulate the many NASA staffers who are being recognized by the academy with this award for contributions to television engineering excellence,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “From the first landing of man on the moon in 1969 to today’s high definition broadcasts of America’s ongoing space exploration initiatives, television has been a powerful communications tool that enables the agency to share its achievements in exploration and discovery with the world.”

In 1927, Farnsworth was the first inventor to transmit a television image comprised of 60 horizontal lines. He developed the dissector tube, the foundation of the modern electronic televisions. In a 1996 interview, his wife Elma, whose nickname was Pem, said the two of them watched with pride the televised Apollo 11 moonwalk. “We were watching it and when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon Phil turned to me and said, ‘Pem, this has made it all worthwhile.’ Before then, he wasn’t too sure.”

Over the agency’s 50-year history, NASA TV has served as a vital engineering and mission support resource and a valuable communications outlet.

“I am honored to have been selected to accept this award on behalf of NASA and the hundreds of engineers and technicians who made the telecast of this historic event possible,” said Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., Nafzger was 28 years old when he worked with the team that brought television from the moon to a world-wide audience estimated at more than 600 million people.

Joining Nafzger in accepting the honor will be Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot and moonwalker Buzz Aldrin.

Today, NASA TV is available on four digital channels, serving the general public, educators and journalists. It also is streamed continuously over the agency’s Internet homepage.

The Primetime Emmys are awarded by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood, Calif. Recipients of the Engineering Awards will receive their statues during a special ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 22, at the Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles.

This is NASA Television’s second Emmy Award for 2009. In January, the Midsouth Chapter of the National Television Academy awarded NASA TV the Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement at a ceremony in Nashville, Tenn.

For more information about NASA TV, including program schedules and how to watch programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov.

For information about the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards, visit: http://www.Emmys.com.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA has completed a two-day review of space shuttle Discovery’s readiness for flight and selected Aug. 25 as the official launch date for the STS-128 mission to the International Space Station. Liftoff is scheduled for 1:36 a.m. EDT from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Discovery’s launch date was announced after a flight readiness review at Kennedy. During the meeting, senior NASA and contractor managers assessed the risks associated with the mission and determined the shuttle’s equipment, support systems and procedures are ready for launch pending the resolution of one remaining issue. An orbiter power controller that failed to operate properly was replaced, and an analysis was completed. The issue is expected to be closed when final data from the analysis is presented at the mission management team meeting on Aug. 23.

The readiness review included a thorough discussion about foam insulation that covers the shuttle’s external fuel tank. The foam helps prevent ice from developing when super-cold propellants are loaded prior to launch. During shuttle Endeavour’s liftoff on July 15, foam separated from the intertank area and the liquid oxygen tank’s ice frost ramps. The foam loss led to a detailed examination that determined Discovery is acceptable to fly.

“There was an excellent discussion on foam loss that included input from multiple teams including our NASA safety and engineering communities,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, who chaired the day and a half meeting. “After examining the foam releases on recent flights and completing a lot of testing and analysis to improve our understanding of the relative risks, we concluded that we’re ready to go fly. The teams are continuing to learn about foam and have planned additional tests and analysis to continue to improve our understanding of foam loss mechanisms and risks.”

The 13-day flight will deliver science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment, an air purification system and a treadmill named after comedian Stephen Colbert. The name Colbert received the most entries in NASA’s online poll to name the station’s Node 3. NASA named the node Tranquility.

Astronaut Rick Sturckow will command Discovery. He will be joined by Pilot Kevin Ford and Mission Specialists Pat Forrester, Jose Hernandez, Danny Olivas and European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang. NASA astronaut Nicole Stott will fly to the complex aboard Discovery to begin a three-month mission as a station resident. She replaces NASA’s Tim Kopra, who will return home on Discovery.

STS-128 will be Discovery’s 37th mission and the 30th shuttle flight dedicated to station assembly and maintenance. For more information about STS-128, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle.

For more information on the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station.

WASHINGTON — NASA has assigned the crew for space shuttle mission STS-134 to the International Space Station. The flight will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, to the station. The AMS is a state-of-the-art cosmic ray particle physics detector designed to examine fundamental issues about matter and the origin and structure of the universe.

Navy Capt. Mark Kelly will command the STS-134 mission. Retired Air Force Col. Gregory H. Johnson will serve as the pilot. Mission Specialists are Air Force Col. Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff and Andrew Feustel. European Space Agency astronaut and Italian Air Force Col. Roberto Vittori also will serve as a mission specialist.

The flight will include three spacewalks and the installation of the AMS to the exterior of the space station using both the shuttle and station arms. The AMS will be attached to the right side of the station’s truss, or backbone.

NASA also has named Air Force Col. Michael Good to replace Karen Nyberg on shuttle Atlantis’ STS-132 mission, targeted to launch in May 2010. Nyberg is being replaced due to a temporary medical condition. Nyberg will be assigned to a technical role while she awaits a future assignment.

Kelly previously served as the pilot of STS-108 in 2001 and STS-121 in 2006, and commander for STS-124 in 2008. He was born in Orange, N.J., and considers West Orange, N.J., to be his hometown. Kelly has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, King’s Point, N.Y., and a master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

Johnson previously flew as a pilot on STS-123 in 2008. He was born in South Ruislip, Middlesex, United Kingdom, but graduated from Park Hills High School in Fairborn, Ohio. Johnson has a bachelor’s from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and master’s degrees from Columbia University and the University of Texas, Austin.

Fincke is a veteran of two long-duration missions aboard the space station. He served as the NASA science officer and flight engineer on Expedition 9, and commander for Expedition 18. He was born in Pittsburgh and considers Emsworth, Pa., his hometown. He has an Associate Science degree from El Camino College in Torrance, Calif., two bachelor’s degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and master’s degrees from Stanford University and the University of Houston - Clear Lake.

Chamitoff, also a veteran of a long-duration spaceflight, served as NASA science officer and a flight engineer on Expeditions 17 and 18. He was born in Montreal and grew up in San Jose, Calif. He holds a bachelor’s degree from California Polytechnic State University, a master’s degree from the California Institute of Technology, a second master’s degree from UHCL and a doctorate from MIT.

STS-134 is the second mission for Feustel, who flew as a mission specialist on STS-125 in May. He has an Associate Science degree from Oakland Community College, Mich., a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., and a doctorate from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Feustel considers Lake Orion, Mich., his hometown.

Vittori is a veteran of two prior spaceflights to the space station aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. He was born in Viterbo, Italy. He received his bachelor’s degree from the Italian Air Force Academy and earned master’s degrees from the University of Naples and University of Perugia.

This will be the second mission for Good, who flew on STS-125. He was born in Parma, Ohio, and considers Broadview Heights, Ohio, to be his hometown. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame.

For complete astronaut biographical information, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios

Video of the STS-134 crew members will air on NASA Television’s Video File. For downlink and scheduling information and links to streaming video, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about NASA’s Space Shuttle Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

For more information about AMS, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/science/experiments/AMS-02.html

NASA’S KEPLER MISSION SPIES CHANGING PHASES IN A DISTANT WORLD

WASHINGTON — NASA’s new exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope has detected the atmosphere of a known giant gas planet, demonstrating the telescope’s extraordinary scientific capabilities. The discovery was published Friday in the journal Science.

The find is based on a relatively short 10 days of test data collected before the official start of science operations. Kepler was launched March 6, 2009, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The observation demonstrates the extremely high precision of the measurements made by the telescope, even before its calibration and data analysis software were finished.

“As NASA’s first exoplanets mission, Kepler has made a dramatic entrance on the planet-hunting scene,” said Jon Morse, director of the Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Detecting this planet’s atmosphere in just the first 10 days of data is only a taste of things to come. The planet hunt is on!”

Kepler team members say these new data indicate the mission is indeed capable of finding Earth-like planets, if they exist. Kepler will spend the next three-and-a-half years searching for planets as small as Earth, including those that orbit stars in a warm zone where there could be water. It will do this by looking for periodic dips in the brightness of stars, which occur when orbiting planets transit, or cross in front of, the stars.

“When the light curves from tens of thousands of stars were shown to the Kepler science team, everyone was awed; no one had ever seen such exquisitely detailed measurements of the light variations of so many different types of stars,” said William Borucki, the principal science investigator and lead author of the paper.

The observations were collected from a planet called HAT-P-7, known to transit a star located about 1,000 light years from Earth. The planet orbits the star in just 2.2 days and is 26 times closer than Earth is to the sun. Its orbit, combined with a mass somewhat larger than the planet Jupiter, classifies this planet as a “hot Jupiter.” It is so close to its star, the planet is as hot as the glowing red heating element on a stove.

The Kepler measurements show the transit from the previously detected HAT-P-7. However, these new measurements are so precise, they also show a smooth rise and fall of the light between transits caused by the changing phases of the planet, similar to those of our moon. This is a combination of both the light emitted from the planet and the light reflected off the planet. The smooth rise and fall of light is also punctuated by a small drop in light, called an occultation, exactly halfway between each transit. An occultation happens when a planet passes behind a star.

The new Kepler data can be used to study this hot Jupiter in unprecedented detail. The depth of the occultation and the shape and amplitude of the light curve show the planet has an atmosphere with a day-side temperature of about 4,310 degrees Fahrenheit. Little of this heat is carried to the cool night side. The occultation time compared to the main transit time shows the planet has a circular orbit. The discovery of light from this planet confirms the predictions by researchers and theoretical models that the emission would be detectable by Kepler.

This new discovery also demonstrates Kepler has the precision to find Earth-size planets. The observed brightness variation is just one and a half times what is expected for a transit caused by an Earth-sized planet. Although this is already the highest precision ever obtained for an observation of this star, Kepler will be even more precise after analysis software being developed for the mission is completed.

“This early result shows the Kepler detection system is performing right on the mark,” said David Koch, deputy principal investigator of NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. “It bodes well for Kepler’s prospects to be able to detect Earth-size planets.”

Kepler is a NASA Discovery mission. Ames is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., is responsible for developing the Kepler flight system and supporting mission operations.

For images, animations and more information about the Kepler mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler.

HOUSTON — NASA astronaut and U.S. Army Col. Tim Kopra has become the first International Space Station crew member to use the social media tool Twitter to discuss living and working in orbit.

Kopra (@Astro_Tim) recently joined the Expedition 20 crew after arriving at the orbiting laboratory July 17 aboard space shuttle Endeavour. He is set to return to Earth on the STS-128 mission, which is targeted to launch Aug. 25. To follow Kopra on Twitter, visit: www.twitter.com/Astro_Tim.

Kopra will provide followers with a unique perspective as an Expedition 20 flight engineer and member of the Army. He is an Army aviator and West Point graduate. He periodically will answer questions submitted on the Army’s Web site. To submit questions and view Kopra’s answers, visit: www.goarmy.com/space.

This is Kopra’s first spaceflight. He completed his first spacewalk July 18 during the STS-127 mission. Kopra is in orbit with station Commander Gennady Padalka and Roman Romanenko — both Russian cosmonauts — and NASA astronaut Mike Barratt, European Space Agency astronaut Frank DeWinne and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Bob Thirsk.

For a detailed biography of Kopra, visit: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/kopra-tl.html.