Orion and ESA:

It’s no secret that NASA and ESA have been talking about a European role with Orion, after Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Bill Gersteinmaier was quoted (by Aviation Week) at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) saying that the ATV could transfer from ISS resupply ops into the Orion role.

Such a deal would build on current agreements with ESA, which calls for a number of ATVs to resupply the International Space Station (ISS), as part of their role with the orbital outpost.

Internally, meetings on this subject are starting to involve Orion teams, via strategy meetings relating to development roadmaps and exploration mission content.

“Met with HEOMD AA/W. Gersteinmaier and the Director, Exploration Systems Development (ESD) on MPCV strategy,” noted an Orion (MPCV) memo (L2). “Talking with ESA about potential future partnerships. ESA in for discussions on possible collaborations based on ATV technology.”

The ATV – three times the size of the Russian Progress resupply vehicle – was built with a human rating role in mind from the onset. However, these ranged from a mini space station – involving the mating of two or more ATVs, through to a crewed version of the Cargo Ascent and Return Vehicle (CARV) variant of the ATV.

Built by EADS Astrium, two ATVs have successfully visited the ISS, with three more set to launch as part of the ISS contract. Any potential change of direction for ATV’s evolvability into an Orion role as the Service Module would likely come after 2015. However, a decision on moving forward with this option will come much sooner.

Click here for recent Orion articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/orion/

“(Orion manager) Mark Geyer and MPCV (Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle) are serious about getting ESA to build the Orion Service Module,” added Orion memo notes last week (L2). “There will be an SR (Systems Review) in December and a decision will be made in early spring.”

Orion Elsewhere:

The first real test of Orion will come at the end of 2013, when it’s launched by a Delta IV-Heavy on a multi-hour orbital test. This test was known as the Orion Flight Test (OFT-1).

However, as is commonplace for NASA, the name of this test has changed into the Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1), as much as the entire mission content remains unchanged.

Orion – which will be in a “crew capable” vehicle configuration, as much as it’ll be unmanned – will still ride on a Delta IV-H Upper Stage during the orbital flight, testing all systems through to entry and splashdown.

The test will also be a joint ops mission, carried out by the Orion contractor Lockheed Martin and NASA’s Mission Operations Directorate (MOD). As such, meetings are continuing to set up the flight operation procedures between the two teams.

“Flight Test and Mission Ops is setting up a Joint Program Control Board and the Flight Ops Panel will eventually be charted under this board,” added Orion notes (L2). “The charter for the (test) Flight Ops Panel will stay the same and will be co-chaired with Lockheed.

“The Orion project has requested MOD Flight Ops support for their flight software validation activities. (Management) is looking to make sure that this is in our current budget, and are awaiting more details.”

While the EFT-1 Orion continues construction at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) in New Orleans, major testing is being carried out at Lockheed Martin’s facilities in Denver.

These tests are focusing on the acoustics of Orion in several configurations – including with the Launch Abort System (LAS), a stack known as the Launch Abort Vehicle (LAV).

“Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV)/Orion Acoustics Testing: NASA Flight Structures and Thermal Protection Systems (NE-M5) branch supported another round of MPCV acoustics testing at the Lockheed Martin Denver facilities,” added Orion status notes.

“The two configurations (2 and 2a) tested were with the LAV fillets and ogive panels installed. In the first test configuration (2) ogive panels were preloaded to simulate the launch configuration using bumpers that are extended from the ogive panels to the backshells. These bumpers provide circumferential hard points for load transfer from the ogive panel to the backshells.

“The second test configuration (2a) is with the bumpers fully retracted allowing only the circumferential bulb seals to transfer the vibro-acoustic loads into the backshells. Retracting the bumpers is intended to simulate a flight condition of differential pressure loading on the ogives during ascent unloading the bumpers on one side of the LAV. The loads and dynamics team is reviewing the data and performing model correlations.”

Ironically, given the aforementioned notes on the potential role of ESA’s ATV as the Service Module, Lockheed Martin testing will next move on to an Orion which involves the full stack of the LAS on top and a “simulated” Service Module underneath.

“The next acoustics test configuration (3) is scheduled for late October and adds a simulated service module assembly beneath the LAV assembly.”

(Images: Via L2 content and NASA. This article was collated from L2′s new Orion and Future Spacecraft specific L2 section, which includes, presentations, videos, graphics and internal updates on Orion and other future spacecraft.

(L2 is – as it has been for the past several years – providing full exclusive future vehicle coverage, available no where else on the internet. To join L2, click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/)

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CryoSat-2 Launch Preview:

Dnepr is a converted SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile. Most of the SS-18 missiles, the most powerful weapon in the Soviet arsenal, were decommissioned under the terms of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but could be adapted for civil use. In 1997, Russia and Ukraine formed the International Space Company Kosmotras to convert the missiles into Dnepr launch vehicles.

Dnepr is a three-stage vehicle. The first and second stages are original SS-18 stages, used without any modification. The third stage is a modified standard SS-18 third stage equipped with a liquid propellant, two-mode propulsion unit that operates based on a ‘drag’ scheme in which it flies backwards, dragging the satellite behind it to ensure the most accurate orbit injection.

The overall length is 34 m, and the overall diameter is 3 m. The lift-off mass of the rocket is 211 t. It is launched from a silo, being expelled like a mortar round with a charge of black powder, before the main engine ignition some 30 m above the ground.

Over 30 commercial satellites have been launched by Dnepr. Kosmotras also provides the launch services.

CryoSat-2 will fly in a highly inclined polar orbit, reaching latitudes of 88 degrees north and south, to maximise its coverage of the poles. Its main payload is an instrument called Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL). Previous radar altimeters have been optimised for operations over the ocean and land, but SIRAL is the first sensor of its kind designed for ice.

CryoSat-2′s SIRAL is designed to meet the measurement requirements for ice-sheet elevation and sea-ice ‘freeboard’, which is the height protruding from the water.

Conventional radar altimeters send pulses at intervals long enough that the echoes are ‘uncorrelated’; many such echoes can be averaged to reduce noise. At the typical satellite orbital speed of 7 km/s, the interval between pulses is about 500 microseconds.

However, the CryoSat altimeter sends a burst of pulses at an interval of only about 50 microseconds. The returning echoes are correlated and, by treating the whole burst together, the data processor can separate the echo into strips arranged across the track by exploiting the slight frequency shifts, caused by the Doppler effect, in the forward- and aft-looking parts of the beam.

Each strip is about 250 m wide and the interval between bursts is arranged so that the satellite moves forward by 250 m each time. The strips laid down by successive bursts can therefore be superimposed on each other and averaged to reduce noise. This is known as the SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) mode.

Three startrackers mounted on the antenna support structure each takes five pictures per second. Each image is analysed by the startracker’s built-in computer and compared to a catalogue of star positions.

The altimeter makes a measurement of the distance between the satellite and the surface. However, this measurement cannot be converted into the more useful measure of the height of the surface until the satellite’s position is accurately known.

The Doppler Orbit and Radio Positioning Integration by Satellite (DORIS) radio receiver detects and measures the Doppler shift on signals broadcast from a network of more than 50 radio beacons around the world. Although the full accuracy of this system is obtained only after ground processing, DORIS provides a realtime estimate on board, good to about half a metre.

The DORIS system has been operating for more than a decade, and is used on many satellites, such as ESA’s Envisat.

The small laser retroreflector is attached to the underside of CryoSat. This little device has seven optical corner cubes, which reflect light in exactly the direction it came from. A global network of laser tracking stations fires short laser pulses at CryoSat-2 and times the interval before the pulse arrives back.

With a mission lifetime of three years – potentially extended to five – data will be distributed directly to users from the ground station in Kiruna, Sweden; distribution and mission planning managed via ESA’s Centre for Earth Observation (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy; long-term archive at a dedicated facility at the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in Toulouse, France.

CryoSat-2 is Europe’s first mission dedicated to monitoring Earth’s ice. The advanced observation techniques will provide precise measurements on variations in the thickness of floating marine ice as well as the vast ice sheets that overlie Antarctica and Greenland. This much-awaited information will lead to a better understanding of the relationship between ice and climate change.

CryoSat-1 was lost when its Rockot launch vehicle failed to achieve orbit for the bird, after launching from the Russian Plesetsk Cosmodrome. It fell back to Earth and was lost in the Arctic Ocean.

“Many people think that CryoSat-2 is ‘just a rebuild’ and so it’s dead easy. Things are never so straightforward,” noted Richard Francis, responsible for managing ESA’s CryoSat Project. “There were quite some technical changes, of course, but many of the problems when building a satellite come from unexpected things that go wrong – and, like any project, we’ve had our share of those.

“The problem with CryoSat-2 has always been the small team, both in ESA and in industry. It meant, in practice, that everybody has had to work very hard. But, as I just mentioned, the small team we have are the best and we all benefit from an excellent team spirit.

“Whenever problems have arisen our approach with industry has been that we will solve it together. This sort of thing makes a big difference. CryoSat-2 is known in industry as a good project to work in, and I’m proud of that.”

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Soyuz Launch:

The trio join Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, NASA astronaut Michael Barratt and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, with De Winne becoming Flight Engineer as a member of the Expedition 20 crew, reporting to Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka.

With a rotation of three of the six crewmembers due in October, De Winne will take over as Commander of the Expedition 21 crew until his return to Earth in November. He is the first European to take on this role.

De Winne’s is conducting his second spaceflight after taking part in the Odissea mission to the ISS from 30 October to 10 November 2002. He will be joined on the ISS by Swedish ESA astronaut Christer Fuglesang, who will fly as mission specialist on the 11-day STS-128 mission scheduled for August 2009.

Dr. Thirsk flew as a payload specialist aboard space shuttle mission STS-78 in 1996, the Life and Microgravity Spacelab (LMS) mission. During this 17-day flight aboard Columbia, he and his six crewmates performed 43 international experiments devoted to the study of life and materials sciences.

In 2004, Dr. Thirsk trained at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow and became certified as a Flight Engineer for the Soyuz spacecraft. He served as backup Flight Engineer to European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Roberto Vittori for the Soyuz 10S taxi mission to the ISS in April 2005. During the 10-day mission, Dr. Thirsk worked as Crew Interface Coordinator (i.e. European CapCom) at the Columbus Control Centre in Germany.

“Witnessing this launch is a great moment a moment of accomplishments that opens up new opportunities and projects us all in the full exploitation of the ISS in preparation of new exploration missions to other destinations. I am looking forward to a full 6 crew onboard the ISS for a full exploitation of its scientific potential and to carry out activities in preparation of missions to future destinations,” said Simonetta di Pippo, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight.

“Last year Columbus and the Automated Transfer Vehicle Jules Verne have demonstrated the reliability and the capability of the European Space Agency in the International Space Station endeavour. The European scientific laboratories and instruments on board Columbus are now operated on a daily basis, controlled from the Control Center in Oberpfaffenhofen (Germany),” added said ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain.

“The crew of six will provide much more resources on board to make scientific and technological progress. The presence of two ESA astronauts on board the ISS this year – Frank de Winne and Christer Fuglesang – will bring a European touch to that crew.

“Even more, for the first time, the five partners of the ISS – USA, Russia, Canada, Japan and ESA – are all represented in the crew of six. I wish all of them a successful mission and I am confident that they will give once more proof that space is where international cooperation can express itself at its best, for the benefit of all of us, citizens on the Earth.”

UPA Latest:

The efforts to approve a six person crew was a logistical marathon, with consumables being the main factor to take into consideration. One of specific concerns related to water supplies for the six person crew, and the need to have a green light to consume recycled waste water from the recently installed Urine Process Assembly (UPA) – which finally received a go for crewmembers to use as drinking water.

“UPA In Flight Maintenance (IFM): This week the crew was successful at removing the malfunctioning check valve from the UPA. After reassembling and reconnecting the system components, a test was run and it appears that the UPA is once again fully functional,” noted May 26′s ISS 8th Floor News (MOD memo) on L2.

“This of course is of great interest in terms of supporting the full complement of 6 crew once the 19S Soyuz arrives. Since there is a slight chance of a subsequent failure in the peristaltic pump which could allow backflow of water into the Distillation Assembly, the flight control team will command the system to shutdown between processing cycles which protects the system from this potential backflow.

“A software patch scheduled for May 28th uplink will relieve the flight control team from taking this manual action. After completion of the first processing cycle, the crew disconnected the EDV-U jumper and connected the Waste and Hygiene Compartment (WHC) urine jumper to the UPA. The crew was then given a Go to use the WHC.

“Later in the day, Flight Controllers, Specialists from Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), ISS Management personnel and the Crew made a toast, via videocon and downlinked via space/ground, to the new Water Recovery System (WRS) and the GO for the crew to drink the ISS water. Cheers!”

Dextre Latest:

De Winne – who is taking part in the OasISS mission – will also be the main operator of the Japanese robotic arm and will be one of the two astronauts who will berth the HII-Transfer Vehicle (HTV) to the ISS using the Station’s robotic arm when the Japanese cargo spacecraft arrives at the ISS in September.

Good news was reported on another key robotic element for the Station, via the Canadian Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) “Dextre” – who’s role will be vital for the long-term health of the ISS, with his capabilities including the removal and replacement of dexterous compatible Orbit Replaceable Units (ORUs), along with the servicing of scientific payloads.

Supporting EVA-based maintenance is also part of its role, along with the preposition of ORUs or Integrated Assemblies, the provision of lighting and camera support, actuating external mechanisms, performing inspection tasks, and extending the reach of the SSRMS (Space Station Remote Manipulator System).

“Ground Controllers (ROBO) conducted another SPDM On-Orbit Checkout Requirements (OCR) in preparation for the Remote Power Control Module (RPCM) swap operation currently scheduled for Increment 20,” added the 8th Floor. “The main objective was to perform an automatic grasp operation.

“Ground controllers maneuvered the SPDM body and arm 1, while based on the Mobile Remote Servicer (MRS) Base System (MBS), and positioned the arm1 end-effecter over the Robot Micro Conical Tool (RMCT)-1. After calibrating the arm1 force/moment sensor, ROBO then maneuvered the arm over the micro fixture, and executed an auto-grasp with Force/Moment Accommodation (FMA) enabled.

“The team then opened the grippers, backed off the fixture, and the SPDM arm1 and body were re-stowed. This was the first time that we have actually grappled hardware with the SPDM so this is considered to be a major step on the road to our first R&R. Congratulations to Sarmad Aziz and the entire team for this significant achievement.”

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Attempt One Issue:

“The doors on the launch service tower did not open,” noted ESA. ”Due to this anomaly, the tower was held in position and did not move back as required for a launch.”

The launch was resheduled for Tuesday, which resulted in a successful launch.

Mission preview:

The adaptation of the early 1970s nuclear missile launch vehicle, the Rockot uses the original two lower liquid propellant stages of the ICBM in conjunction with a third stage for commercial payloads called Breeze KM – optimised for delivering up to 1950 kg into low Earth orbit. GOCE will be ultimately placed into a Sun-synchronous, near-circular polar.

Around 150 of the SS-19 missiles were declared as excess in military terms by the Strategic Talks on Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreements signed by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1990 and 1991, but were permitted to be reused as civil launchers.

The SS-19 ICBM has flown over 140 times, with three failures, early on in its operational history. Rockot successfully began commercial launches in 2000 and has since flown eight times, with only one failure.

The overall launch vehicle length is 29 meters; the launch mass is 107 tons. The external diameter of the first, second and third stage is 2.5 m; the payload fairing has an external diameter of 2.6 m and a height of 6.7 m. Rockot is marketed and operated by Eurockot, a German-Russian joint venture.

The GOCE satellite, developed by an industrial consortium of 45 companies distributed over 13 European countries, embodies many world-firsts in its design and use of new technology in space to map Earth’s gravity field in unprecedented detail.

The impressive looking five-metre long satellite is designed to orbit at a very low altitude of just 260 km, due to the gravitational variations are stronger closer to Earth.

GOCE’s main instrument is the Electrostatic Gravity Gradiometer (EGG), a set of six 3-axis accelerometers mounted in a diamond configuration in an ultra-stable structure.

Each accelerometer pair forms a ‘gradiometer arm’ 50 cm long, with the difference in gravitational pull measured between the two ends. Three arms are mounted orthogonally: along-track, cross-track and vertically. The gradiometer will be 100 times more sensitive than any sensor of the same type previously flown in space.

GOCE also carries a GPS receiver to be used as a Satellite-to-Satellite Tracking Instrument (SSTI) to supplement the gradiometer measurements. The SSTI consists of an advanced dual-frequency, 12-channel GPS receiver and an L-band antenna.

GOCE also has a Laser Retroreflector to allow its precise orbit to be tracked by a global network of ground stations through the Satellite Laser Ranging Service. This will provide accurate positioning for orbit determination and data products.

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The launch marks the 42nd launch of the commercial launcher, and is the sixth flight performed by Arianespace in 2008. Five other successful launches that orbited eight telecommunications satellites and the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle for the International Space Station (ISS) took place during the year.

The dual-payload mission was carried out for Eutelsat, the HOT BIRD 9 and W2M satellite passengers will have a combined lift-off weight of approximately 8,340 kg.

HOT BIRD 9 is installed in the upper position of Ariane 5’s dual payload “stack,” and will be released first during the mission sequence.

This spacecraft was produced by EADS Astrium and carries 64 Ku-band transponders for the broadcast of digital and new high-definition TV channels. HOT BIRD 9 will be positioned at Eutelsat’s premium video orbital slot of 13 degrees East after its launch on Ariane 5.

The spacecraft’s broad footprint and high emission power will allow digital and new HDTV channels – along with interactive services – to be received by small DTH antennas and cable and community networks throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

The three-axis stabilized satellite is designed for an operational lifetime of more than 15 years, with an end-of-life power of 14.5 kW.

The HOT BIRD 9 satellite was mounted atop a SYLDA dispenser system, which was installed over the second passenger – W2M – to complete the payload “stack” atop the Ariane 5′s core cryogenic stage.

The W2M satellite, carried in Ariane 5’s lower passenger slot, was built by a European-Indian joint effort involving EADS Astrium and ANTRIX (the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation).

The spacecraft will be located at Eutelsat’s 16 degrees East orbital position, typically providing 26-transponder coverage in Ku-band – with the equivalent of up to 32 transponders depending on operational modes.

It is designed to provide services that range from television broadcasting to data networks and broadband. The satellite’s fixed beam will cover Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, while a steerable beam can be re-oriented in-orbit according to market requirements – notably towards Africa and central Asia.

2009 is set to be a historical year for Arianespace, as they look to start up launch operations in Kourou for their Soyuz vehicles, while Vega is scheduled to enter operation with a target payload lift capability of 1,500 kg.

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