Month: November 2006

I ventured over to NASA’s section about the space shuttle and saw where the Ares rocket, or part of it, had been successfully test fired. I mentioned the Ares and the Orion back in October.

Rocket Motor Test Helps NASA’s Shuttle and Ares I

PROMONTORY, Utah – NASA’s Space Shuttle Program successfully fired a reusable solid rocket motor Thursday, Nov. 16, at a Utah facility. The two-minute test provided important information for nighttime shuttle launches and for the development of the rocket that will carry the next human spacecraft to the moon.

The static firing of the full-scale, full-duration flight support motor was performed at 6 p.m. MST at ATK Launch Systems Group, a unit of Alliant Techsystems Inc. in Promontory, Utah, where the shuttle’s solid rocket motors are manufactured.

The flight support motor, or FSM-13, burned for approximately 123 seconds, the same time each reusable solid rocket motor burns during an actual space shuttle launch. The Reusable Solid Rocket Motor Project Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages these tests to qualify any proposed changes to the rocket motor and to determine whether new materials perform as well as those now in use.

The motor firing also provided the Space Shuttle Program with data on how image quality is affected by night launch conditions. The data will help determine camera settings and techniques that are most suitable for future night shuttle launches and those which could possibly enhance imagery gathered during a day launch.

full article

I think the Orion concept (part of the Constellation Program) is a step backwards in space flight. Instead of re-working the shuttle and maintaining the controlled landing aspect, they retreated back in time. But hey, I can only hope that they know what they are doing. I’ve always had great faith in NASA. I agree they got too relaxed about the shuttle program which lead to the loss of the Columbia. But the wake-up call and the resulting house cleaning, was handled well.

First, more bad news about the Mars Global Surveyor from the Planetary Society:

Mars Global Surveyor Update: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Fails to Spot Missing Spacecraft

By Emily Lakdawalla
November 21, 2006

As was reported here last week, NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft has been missing in action since November 5, three days after the spacecraft first reported a problem with one of its solar panels. In a press conference held today at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mission managers reported that their effort to locate Mars Global Surveyor using several cameras on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has not been successful. “Our preliminary analysis has not so far yielded any definitive sighting,” stated JPL Mars Program Manager Fuk Li.

With this failure to sight the spacecraft, but more importantly with Mars Global Surveyor’s continued silence, hope is now ebbing for its recovery, Li continued. “In the past two weeks we have sent up 800 command files. None have been successful. While we have not exhausted everything we could do, we believe that the prospect of recovery of MGS is not looking very good at all. However, MGS has been a good friend; it has had an illustrious career. We are holding out hope, but we are prepared in our hearts that we may never hear from the spacecraft again.” Still, the recovery efforts aren’t over. Li reported that they are still continuously using a 34-meter antenna at the Deep Space Network stations to send commands to and listen for signals from the missing spacecraft.

full article

related BBCNews article
NASA Press Release
***

Another post at WheelchairJunkie.com provided a link to a Technological Review article on a way cool concept that is becoming real.

Driving a Wheelchair with Your Shirt

Garments printed with flexible sensors could help people with severely limited mobility control assistive devices.

By Emily Singer

Adaptive, sensor-laden garments could provide a new way for quadriplegics to control their wheelchairs. The system, which is still in an early stage of development, identifies the ideal set of movements that can be employed as control commands for each individual user. “We think this will benefit the most difficult patients, such as those who can move only their head or shoulders,” says Alon Fishbach, a scientist at Northwestern who is among those developing the device.

People with high-level spinal-cord injuries often lose control of their hands, but they may still be able to move their shoulders or chests. More and more such patients survive their injuries, thanks to respiratory devices that help them breathe. But these people have limited options when selecting devices to control their wheelchairs or computers. They might use a sip/puff switch, which converts the user’s sip or puff of air into a specific command, or a headswitch, which records head movements via a switch on the back of the wheelchair. “But the disadvantage of these devices is that patients must fit the capacities of the machine, rather than the other way around,” says Ferdinando Mussa-Ivaldi, another Northwestern scientist working on the device. “If a patient can move their right side more than their left, an intelligent interface could pick up on this.” Mussa-Ivaldi directs the Robotics Laboratory of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where the research took place.

full article