A suborbital rocket outfitted with technology to gather 1,500 images of the sun over its five-minute mission is preparing to launch in early November 2014. Capturing five images per second, the RAISE mission will focus in on the split-second changes that occur near active regions on the sun – areas of intense and complex magnetic fields that can give birth to giant eruptions on the sun that shoot energy and particles out in all directions.
"Even on a five-minute flight, there are niche areas of science we can focus on well," said Don Hassler, a solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and Director of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France. "There are areas of the sun that need to be examined with the high-cadence observations we can provide."
RAISE – short for Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment – creates a kind of data product called a spectrogram, which separates the light from the sun into different wavelengths. The different wavelengths correspond to differing temperatures and velocities of the material. Therefore, analyzing the intensity of light at each wavelength gives scientists much needed information about how material is being heated and moved around on the sun. (10/31)
COM DEV Wins Contract for Asian Telecomm Satellite (Source: SpaceRef)
COM DEV has been awarded a fully-funded contract valued at approximately $6 million to deliver Ku-band equipment, including multiplexers, switches and ancillary equipment to be used on a high throughput communications satellite. The satellite is being built to replace an existing satellite and provide direct-to-home television broadcasting and telecom services throughout Asia. In addition, it will have multiple beams enabling it to provide broadband services in an area encompassing Africa to Russia, Japan and Australia. (10/31)
Grant Anderson Named President and CEO of Paragon Space Development Corp. (Source: SpaceRef)
Just prior to the record-breaking, near space dive by the Paragon StratEx team and Google Executive, Alan Eustace, Paragon’s Board of Directors announced that Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum had resigned from their positions as President and CEO in order to become leaders of World View Enterprises, a space tourism vanguard opportunity incubated within Paragon. Grant Anderson, former Paragon COO, has since been named Paragon’s new President and CEO while Ron Sable was elected Chairman of the Paragon Board. (11/3)
Aerospace Corp. Announces Leadership Changes (Source: SpaceRef)
The Aerospace Corporation has announced several leadership changes, effective Nov. 1, 2014. Kevin Bell, general manager for the Systems Engineering Division in Engineering and Technology Group, will replace Glenn Davis as general manager for the Imagery Programs Division in National Systems Group. As previously announced, Davis was promoted to vice president, Strategic Space Operations.
Todd Nygren, general manager of Developmental Planning and Architectures, Systems Planning Engineering, and Quality, will replace Bell as general manager, SED, ETG. Andrew Dawdy, principal director of the Engineering Directorate, Space Systems Group, will be promoted to general manager and will replace Nygren in Developmental Planning and Architectures. (11/3)
Coburn Includes NASA Projects in 'Wastebook' (Source: Roll Call)
NASA draws criticism from Sen. Coburn in a few areas, with Coburn skeptical of the costs associated with the International Space Station itself, including the presence of experiments designed by students. “Some of the other studies being conducted on the space station are designed by elementary and high school students rather than scientists."
"Fifteen student projects were launched to the space station in July as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP),” the report said. “While encouraging young people to take an interest in science is an important goal, the billions of dollars being borrowed to support space station science fair experiments could make a bigger impact in the lives of these and other children in many other more cost efficient ways.” (10/22)
Manber: Privately-Funded Space Research Leverages Scarce Public Funding (Source: Roll Call)
Roll Call recently reported on Sen. Tom Coburn’s final “Wastebook” with negative descriptions of two of my company’s customers’ use of the International Space Station. Coburn went on to call for canceling the ISS entirely, which he claimed would save $3 billion, not understanding these two projects are mostly privately funded. What the good senator and other readers of Roll Call may not realize is that ISS utilization is changing dramatically. Click here. (10/30)
Hydrogen-Detecting Innovation Earns National Honors (Source: Orlando Sentinel)
A hydrogen-detecting pigment attached to tape, developed by a team of scientists at the University of Central Florida and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, has been selected as one of the year's top new technologies. The invention, called "Intellipigment," is being produced as a safety innovation for use in the aerospace, power-generation and oil- and gas-production industries.
A UCF start-up company called HySense Technology is doing the marketing. The compound detects the presence of hydrogen, which is invisible and odorless. NASA had asked UCF to help develop a hydrogen-leak-detection technology. The process took nearly a decade. Chemical manufacturers and hydroelectric and nuclear power plant operators also evaluated the invention. In June, HySense Technology won the $100,000 grand prize in the CAT5 competition, sponsored by Space Florida and UCF's Office of Research and Commercialization.
Because hydrogen is highly flammable, a leak could cause millions of dollars in damage to equipment, force plant shutdowns, damage the environment and injure or kill workers, said Nahid Mohajeri, a chemist on the team that developed Intellipigment and president and chief executive officer of HySense Technology in Rockledge. (11/3)
'Interstellar' Black Hole is Best Black Hole in Sci-Fi (Source: Discovery)
Christopher Nolan’s movie ‘Interstellar’ will be an epic space adventure encapsulating humanity’s need to explore the Universe, but it’s the visual effects for the movie that are garnering early attention. By combining the help of one of the world’s leading black hole physicists with a cutting-edge visual effects (VFX) team, ‘Interstellar’ will depict the most scientifically accurate black hole in science fiction history. And, during production, some new discoveries were made as to how a black hole would appear if we could view it up close. (11/3)
Test Pilot's Workplace a Cold, Harsh Environment (Source: CNN)
It's an unforgiving place, 45,000 feet above the Earth. It's brutally cold up there, as low as 59 degrees below zero, and there's so little air to breathe, it takes just seconds to pass out. It's at least 10,000 feet above the typical cruising altitude for a passenger jet, a full 3 miles above the peak of Mount Everest, and a staggering 6 miles higher than your typical skydiving altitude.
This is where SpaceShipTwo disintegrated Friday, high above the Southern California desert. Pilot Peter Siebold survived the crash. Co-pilot Michael Tyner Alsbury died. Why one died and the other lived is unknown, said CNN aviation consultant Miles O'Brien. "There's a million things," he said. "What's amazing is that Siebold is alive," he said. "There must be an amazing story of either luck or sheer will that he's living." (11/3)
Exelis Wins Range Support Contract Modification (Source: DOD)
Exelis Systems Corp. has been awarded a $21,341,441 cost-plus-award-fee modification for launch and test range system support to the Eastern and Western Ranges. Work will be performed at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Fiscal 2015 operations and maintenance; research, development, test and evaluation; and other procurement funds in the amount of $13,921,755 are being obligated at the time of award. (10/31)
NASA Alumni League Event Features Update on KSC Visitor Complex (Source: NALFL)
On Nov. 18, the NASA Alumni League will host a meeting at the KSC Visitor Complex. The event features Therrin Protze, who will provide insights into plans for future additions at the Visitor Complex, as well as ideas for how we can work together to better share the NASA story with others. There will be opportunities to become more involved for those who wish to do so, and just plain fun opportunities for all. Click here. (11/3)
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