Last Mission to Hubble: STS-125

Last Mission to Hubble: STS-125

Posted on May 20, 2009 02:02:35 PM | NASA EDGE

What a great mission so far for the crew of Atlantis. It's been fun the past week watching John Grunsfeld, Drew Feustel, Mike Massimino, and Mike Good work on Hubble. It was also great to see the entire crew (including Scott "Scooter" Altman, Greg "Ray J" Johnson, and Megan McArthur) during the live press conference from space. The NASA EDGE team will never forget this mission because we had the chance to hang out with the crew, especially Drew Feustel and Mike Good. It started back in 2008 when we first met Drew during the Hot Laps event at Daytona International Speedway. NASA was celebrating its 50th anniversary and Daytona was celebrating the 50th running of the Daytona 500. We shot Drew for our "Last Mission to Hubble" vodcast. If you haven't seen it, go to http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/nasaedge/NE00_Last_Mission_Hubble.html.


Chris, Drew, and Blair change a tire at the Daytona Experience. Credit: NASA EDGE/Ron Beard

I still think the training in the above pic helped Drew muscle a tough bolt loose during EVA 1. A couple of weeks later we met Mike Good at the Daytona 500 race. We also shot him for the Hubble vodcast. Mike hung out with us all day and he had a chance to sign autographs.


Chris, Mike Good, and Ron pose for a picture along the track wall. Credit: NASA EDGE/Blair Allen

Mike actually signed the track wall and we have some good close-ups of it. In fact, we are convinced this was part of his training to actually sign his name on Hubble during his last EVA. Still waiting to hear from Mike if he did this.

We shot the rest of the crew at NASA Johnson Space Center. I don't have a picture of it but Mike Massimino scared the daylights out of Blair. Imagine a 6'4" broad shoulder guy standing in front of a 5'0" red headed co-host (very intimidating). But seriously, we all had fun and the crew was very accomodating with our needs.


STS-125 Crew walk out. Credit: NASA EDGE/Chris Giersch

The crew walk out was really a huge deal for us because we heard Mike Good give us a shout out. In fact you can hear it on our latest NASA EDGE vodcast on STS-125. Download it today at http://www.nasa.gov/nasaedge.


STS-125 launch. Credit: NASA EDGE/Chris Giersch

The launch says it all. We have been very privileged to have worked with this fine crew and get the chance to spend some time with each of them. I know we've covered other shuttle missions in the past and probably will cover more in the future but I believe this will be a NASA EDGE favorite. This is our adopted crew and mission. They did it right and everyone should be proud of their accomplishments.

I do have one final wish. Scooter is responsible for "buzzing the tower" during the movie "Top Gun." Will he buzz the tower or VAB one final time?

Congratulations to the STS-125 crew and have a safe reentry and landing on Friday.

The Host

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NASA EDGE: LRO and LCROSS

Posted on May 04, 2009 05:43:33 PM | NASA EDGE

Here is a nice little piece of advice. Download the LRO/LCROSS vodcast (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/nasaedge/NE00_LRO_LCROSS.html), watch intently, save up some money, go buy a nice lawn chair, a good 10-12 inch telescope and invite over some friends for one of the coolest scientific events since JJ Abrams decided to make the prequel to the Star Trek TV series. My friends, witness LRO and LCROSS.

Of course, the LCROSS impact won't happen for a few months, and by that time LRO will have plowed through many of its objectives. But what you might be able to see (I'm probably not correct about the specifics of my party preparation advice) is the impact plume of LCROSS's Centaur module after it slams into the surface of the Moon. Ordinarily this kind of destructive behavior is limited to Mythbusters, but NASA stands to gain tons of scientific data that will help us understand more about our Moon. Perhaps we will bust a few myths in the process.

When you see the show, you'll know a little bit more about what I mean. Be sure to check it out. Of course, if you have questions and comments, please leave them here. I'll be checking. I'm trying to plan my own LRO/LCROSS impact party, and I could use a few good ideas.

The Co-Host

BTW, for more info:

LRO: http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/
LCROSS: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/

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Everyone's a Goofy Co-Host

Posted on Apr 29, 2009 09:14:18 AM | NASA EDGE

AstroJournalist Keith Cowing and Astronaut Scott Parazynski at Everest Base Camp. Photo: Yeti

Wow! Apparently, we have a small contingent of fans in Nepal!

Or course, they are not there for NASA EDGE. These two Everest Insiders and Outsiders are at Mount Everest base camp preparing to make their epic ascent to the summit. You can follow their progress, along with their entire team, at http://OnOrbit.com/Everest. And even though they have their very own goofy co-host, we expect nothing but success.

Stay safe guys!

The NASA EDGE Goofy Co-Host

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SPB takes the Mission Madness Trophy

Posted on Apr 08, 2009 10:30:04 AM | NASA EDGE

Congratulations to the 2009 Mission Madness winner - Superpressure Balloon. The Balloon Program Office is based out of Wallops Flight Facility on the eastern shore of Virginia. They did a great job of rallying their fan base to dominate the competition. Mars Rovers, Mars Odyssey, Expedition 1, Orion, New Horizons, and SOHO all fell victim to the mouse clicking of the SPB troops. I thought Orion had a shot to deflate SPB in the quarterfinals but they stopped voting on the second day around 6:45 PM. Then when New Horizons took a 2,500 vote lead going into day 2 of the semifinal round I thought for sure SPB was done. Not so fast my friends. SPB did one thing that none of the other mission voters were able to do and that is play each round for the full 39 hours.

Thank you to all who participated in the tournament, commented on the blog, and provided feedback on our social networking sites - Facebook and Twitter. We will compile all your suggestions and use them for next year's competition. Here's the breakdown of the votes count by round.

Round 1: 128,898

Round 2: 122,558

Round 3: 125,843

Quarterfinals: 156,594

Semifinals: 130,135

Finals: 78,417

Total Vote Count: 742,445

Is SPB the greatest NASA mission of all time? In my opinion - absolutely not, but there are a ton of people who now know about the Superpressure Balloon. In fact (and be honest), how many missions in the field of 64 did you learn about? How many didn't have a clue about some of the missions? Some of the objectives of the madness:

1. Allow the public and internal NASA to learn about 64 different missions. We tend to focus on one mission at a time.

2. Provide a fun and exciting way for the public to learn more about NASA in general.

3. Receive feedback from the public to see what types of missions they are interested in.

There are a few lessons learned from this experience and I am sure next year's competition will be even better. We'll have a new field of 64 with great missions that didn't get included this year. So start lobbying for your mission today so that they may have the chance to do what SPB did....shock the world.

And don't forget to keep watching NASA EDGE (http://www.nasa.gov/nasaedge), an inside and outside look at all things NASA. On tap down the road:

1. LRO/LCROSS

2. Orion simulators

3. STS-125 Launch

4. Launch Abort System

5. Apollo 40th Anniversary Vodcast

6. Desert Rats

7. Arex I-X flight test

8. Pad Abort-1 test

9. Superpressure Balloon????

All the best,

Chris

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SOHO Hanging Tough Against SPB

Posted on Apr 06, 2009 01:43:41 PM | NASA EDGE

"SOHO For the Win!!!" Credit: SOHO Supporter

SOHO supporter answers with her own pic. What say you?

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Congratulations and Good Luck to SPB and SOHO

Posted on Apr 04, 2009 12:04:04 AM | NASA EDGE

SPB is so confident of their victory that they voted for their chosen opponent!

No matter how you feel about how this competition has gone so far, SPB is in the driver seat, and they are daring anyone to challenge them. The only question left is whether or not SOHO can find enough supporters to vote for them for the entire 39 hours of the final round.

LRO, Apollo 11, Freedom 7 all had leads going into the final hour of voting before losing to late voting surges. Even Orion was competitive until the final 4 hours of their round against SPB.

SPB, soak your clicking fingers in palmolive for the weekend... wait, you guys don't need that. You have hardened callouses.

For all of you SOHO supporters, stretch, soak, rub, jazzercise... whatever you need to do. In roughly 57 hours, you'll need every mouse, mainframe and monitor you can access to deflate SPB.

Again, congratulations and good luck. And may the best* mission win.

The Co-Host

*I recognize that many people have contested the notion that this competition could actually reveal the best NASA mission. This is dramatic hyperbole for the sake of inspiring enthusiasm and the spirit of competition.

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A picture from an SPB supporter

Posted on Apr 01, 2009 03:00:27 PM | NASA EDGE

This was emailed to me from an SPB supporter.

Apparently this is how they are getting the job done.

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Round 4 - SPB Stays Aloft over Competition

Posted on Apr 01, 2009 12:17:53 AM | NASA EDGE

SPB, New Horizons, LRO and SOHO All Advance!

I'm speechless. My bracket is trash, I am 0-4 when it comes to picking against SPB and no one at JPL will speak to me. I guess I will leave the analysis up to those who have some credibility left.

The good news is that the final contests are fairly simple to size up.

SPB vs New Horizons
LRO vs SOHO

I would give my predictions, but I DO NOT want to take the blame for sending a mission packing.

The Co-Host

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Correction - Multiple Voting vs. Single Voting

Posted on Mar 31, 2009 12:01:28 AM | NASA EDGE

I want to correct myself in an earlier post about multiple/single voting. After reading the initial post again, I realized I threw my great co-workers at NASA HQ under the bus unintentionally. It was not my intent to put "blame" on NASA HQ for not putting controls in place to prevent multiple voting. The privacy policy is a Federal Government policy from OMB and applies to any .gov site. So in essence it's out of everyone's hands. I want to thank them for clarifying the regulations (thanks Jim, you're the man!).

All the best,

Chris

NE Host

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Round 3 - Results! Future Trumps History

Posted on Mar 28, 2009 08:30:32 AM | NASA EDGE

Where have you gone, Neil Armstrong?!!!!!!!!

Yes, Freedom 7 is still alive. But history took a hit in the late hours last night as LRO blasted past Apollo 11 at 10 minutes to midnight. LRO, the satellite that will eventually launch and study the Moon, beat the monumental, historic, manned mission to the Moon. LRO will not deliver America's most profound quote regarding accomplishment. It will, however, bring boatloads of scientific data, images, and possibly a tournament trophy.

After sleeping for a few hours, I am over the shock. It looks like SPB may have some real competition afterall.

I would love to talk about some of the other matchups, however, my analysis is becoming increasingly irrelavent as the competition progresses. The only mission still alive on my bracket is Expedition 16, but I had them losing to STS-1.

Check out the match ups and then get ready to vote.

NEBULA
LRO vs Freedom 7

GALAXY
Vikings I & II vs SOHO

STELLAR
SPB vs Orion

HORIZON
Expedition 16 vs New Horizons

See the results for yourself here: http://mission-madness.nasa.gov/mm/results.html?1

I'm so tempted to comment on these matchups, but I don't want to jinx a mission.

Lift off the earth

3, 2, 1, Liftoff!
Image above: NASA's LRO and LCROSS spacecraft on top of the Atlas V rocket launch from Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Photo credit: United Launch Alliance/Pat Corkery
› View High-res

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft are on their way to the moon atop the same Atlas V rocket, although they will use vastly different methods to study the lunar environment. LRO will go into orbit around the moon, turning its suite of instruments towards the moon for thorough studies. The spacecraft also will be looking for potential landing sites for astronauts.

LCROSS, on the other hand, will guide an empty upper stage on a collision course with a permanently shaded crater in an effort to kick up evidence of water at the moon's poles. LCROSS itself will also impact the lunar surface during its course of study.

Liftoff occurred at 5:32 p.m. EDT. Mission managers used the last launch opportunity due to storms surrounding the launch site.

Additional Resources
› LRO Fact Sheet
› LRO/LCROSS Press Kit
› LRO/LCROSS Launch Coverage Events

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Turning the Tide to Energy: New Concept Could Harness the Power of Ocean Waves

Turning the Tide to Energy: New Concept Could Harness the Power of Ocean Waves

03.05.09

In the proposed hydrokinetic energy transfer system, the flow of water current causes turbine blades to rotate. The rotor's rotational speed is increased through a gearbox, which drives a high-pressure fluid pump. The high-pressure fluid would be transported though flexible tubes to a larger pipe and then to an efficient, onshore hydroelectric power plant.
>Larger Image NASA researchers who developed a new way to power robotic underwater vehicles believe a spin-off technology could help convert ocean energy into electrical energy on a much larger scale. The researchers hope that clean, renewable energy produced from the motion of the ocean and rivers could potentially meet an important part of the world's demand for electricity.

Many different methods already exist for using moving water to create power. Hydroelectric plants, for example, are among the most established and least expensive sources of electricity. They benefit from the large hydrostatic pressure difference between the water surface behind the dam and the turbines that can be harnessed to produce power. But the power that can be produced in this manner is limited, because most of the suitable rivers already have hydroelectric dams.

Other technologies have been designed -- and are being developed -- to turn the energy of ocean currents, tides, and flowing rivers into another kind of power, called hydrokinetic energy. Many of these hydrokinetic energy systems use underwater turbines, similar to those in wind farms. Ocean currents or tides turn the turbines, which generate electricity that can be transferred by cable to shore.

Jack Jones, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Yi Chao, a JPL scientist, have designed a new kind of underwater hydrokinetic energy system. It uses water motion to generate a high-pressure liquid rather than electricity. That liquid is then transported to shore and used to produce electricity on land. Caltech, which operates JPL for NASA, holds the patent on this innovative energy technology.

The JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy system is a spin-off from a research project to find a new way to power robotic underwater vehicles. Most robotic underwater vehicles run on batteries and have to be recovered by ship to have their batteries recharged or replaced.

In this project, initiated by Pat Beauchamp of JPL's Center for In Situ Exploration and Sample Return, Jones was asked to develop a way to use temperature differences in the ocean to power submersibles. He had previously developed thermally controlled balloons for Venus, Mars and Titan. Jones was teamed up with Chao, who uses underwater gliders in his oceanographic research. "I saw we could extend the lives of these vehicles significantly by harvesting energy from the ocean environment," Chao says.

In the the energy transfer system Jones and Chao propose, ocean tides and waves, as well as river flows, would provide the energy source to create a high-pressure liquid. Jones and Chao designed a system that takes advantages of changes in ocean temperature to create a high-pressure fluid that can be used to generate power. "The trick was to find a special substance known as a phase change material that changes from a solid to a liquid as the temperature in the environment changes from cold to warm," Chao says. "When the material melts, it expands, compressing a central tube in which another liquid is stored. This liquid, now under high pressure, is used to generate electricity to charge the battery underwater."

While they were working on this project, the researchers realized that they could employ the same concept -- using an environmental pump to generate a high-pressure liquid -- to produce electricity from the world's ocean.

Going with the flow

In the large-scale JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system Jones and Chao propose, ocean tides, currents and waves, as well as river flows, would provide the energy source to create the high-pressure liquid. As the water turns underwater turbine blades, the rotor's rotational speed would be increased through a gearbox, which drives a high-pressure fluid pump. The high-pressure fluid would be transported though flexible tubes to a larger pipe and then to an efficient, onshore hydroelectric power plant.

"If we use fresh water in a closed cycle and recycle the fluid, there would be no direct impact to the ocean or river's ecosystem," Chao adds.

"A major advantage of this design," says Jones, "is that it eliminates all submerged electrical components, which are subject to corrosion." In addition, other tidal turbine energy systems, such as the one now in operation in Manhattan's East River, transfer the power generated by the turbines to the surface through buried electrical cables. These are expensive, hard to maintain, and can be dangerous, Jones says. Similar issues exist with two other types of hydrokinetic systems in use in the United Kingdom and planned for South Korea.

"The JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system combines a simple, corrosion-resistant subsurface design with the least expensive electrical energy generation system onshore," says Jones."The JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system combines a simple, corrosion-resistant subsurface design with the least expensive electrical energy generation system onshore," says Jones.

"Our proposed system has another advantage," he says. "The pressurized hydraulic energy can be stored in an elevated onshore reservoir and can be used to generate electricity when it is needed to respond to energy-demand. Most environmentally friendly energy systems produce power intermittently."

"This type of hydraulic energy transfer system is potentially applicable to many types of hydrokinetic energy from rivers, ocean waves, tides and currents," Chao says. Scientists can use state-of-the-art computer models of winds, river flows, ocean currents and tides to determine any location's potential for energy production, he adds. They can also predict how much energy could be produced in the future to help in planning energy use and storage.

"As with all such technologies, the ultimate arbiter is the end result of systems-engineering studies, overall efficiency, and costs in terms of dollars per output watt capacity and cents per kilowatt-hour produced," says Paul Dimotakis, JPL's chief technologist. "Such studies and preliminary development efforts also need to be performed for the JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy systems, and if these are promising, then the next phase in development can be undertaken."

Jones and Chao will be presenting a paper on the JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering this summer in Honolulu, Hawaii.

For more information about NASA climate research, news, and technology, visit Global Climate Change.