NASA

At NASA's Johnson Space Center, STS-133 Mission Specialists Steve Bowen and Alvin Drew will rehearse procedures for the mission's first spacewalk today in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.The Space Shuttle Program will hold its Flight Readiness Review today to assess the readiness of Discovery, the crew, flight and launch control teams, to proceed toward the target launch date of Thursday, Feb. 24. The meeting typically concludes with a recommendation to proceed to the agency Flight Readiness Review scheduled at Kennedy on Friday, Feb. 18.At NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A, teams have completed changing a seal at the ground umbilical carrier plate, or GUCP, on space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank. There is no work planned for the weekend.

 

 

 

NASA says private-sector spaceships will have to satisfy safety standards that the space shuttle can’t meet  and the companies building those spaceships say they'll rise to the challenge.Friday's 25th anniversary of the Challenger shuttle explosion is focusing fresh attention on the issue of spaceflight safety, with good reason. The loss of the shuttle and its crew of seven, including educator-astronaut Christa McAuliffe, dramatically highlighted the risks associated with the world's most complex flying machine.

The latest Robonaut design is the R2, which is capable of moving its arms up to 2 m/s and has a 40 lb. payload capacity. Its hands have a grasping force of roughly 5 lbs. per finger. There are over 350 sensors in the robot.

Robonaut uses telepresence and various levels of robotic autonomy. While not all human range of motion and sensitivity has been duplicated, the robot's hand has 12 degrees of freedom as well as 2 degrees of freedom in wrist.The R2 model also uses touch sensors at the tips of its fingers.

“The 330-pound R2 consists of a head and a torso with two arms and two hands. R2 will launch on space shuttle Discovery as part of the STS-133 mission planned for November, 2010. Once aboard the station, engineers will monitor how the robot operates in weightlessness. Throughout its first decade in orbit, the space station has served as a test bed for human and robotic teamwork for construction, maintenance and science.” says a blog post at NASA.

The next generation of Robonauts was born from a partnership between the automotive company General Motors and NASA. This partnership began in 2007 using a Space Act agreement to ensure both NASA and GM were able to protect and share intellectual property rights. The public release of the partnership between NASA and GM occurred on Thursday, February 4, 2010. 

-WIKIPEDIA                                                                                                         

NASA Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building, technicians will continue installing additional support structures, called radius blocks, to space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank's support beams known as "stringers" through the weekend. The radius blocks are being added to 94 stringers, meaning the entire circumference of the external tank will be strengthened by the time all the repairs and modifications are finished. Teams will be off Monday, Jan. 17, in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

At NASA's Johnson Space Center, STS-133 crew will conduct an integrated simulation of the mission's first spacewalk in the fixed based simulator today.

Discovery is targeted to launch at 4:50 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 24, for its mission to the International Space Station.

Technicians in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida are essentially done with the latest round of X-ray type image scans of space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank.

The computed radiography images of all 108 support beams, called stringers, on the outside of the external tank’s intertank section, which technicians began taking Sunday, are being evaluated by engineers.

However, preliminary analysis indicates small cracks were detected on the tops of three stringers on panel 6, which is on the opposite side of the tank from Discovery.  The newly detected cracks currently are under evaluation and there has been no decisions on what affect, if any, the these cracks will make on future plans.


The new data, along with previous testing and analysis, will help engineers and managers determine what caused other small cracks on the tops of two stringers during Discovery’s launch countdown on Nov. 5.

Space Shuttle Program managers are meeting this afternoon to decide whether testing and analysis indicate modifications are needed on some of the stringers. If required, modifications would begin next Monday (Jan. 3).‬

 

SPACE SHUTTLE STS-133 EXTERNAL FUEL TANK IS UNDER X-RAY SCAN AT NASA CENTRE AND ENGINEERS ARE PERFORMING ADDITIONAL CHECK-UPS OF SPACE SHUTTLE STS-133.TECHNICIANS AT NASA,FLORIDA HAVE REMOVED THE EXTERNAL FOAM FOR FURTHER FINAL CHECK OF THIS SHUTTLE

PASADENA, Calif. -- The EPOXI mission's recent encounter with comet Hartley 2 provided the first images clear enough for scientists to link jets of dust and gas with specific surface features. NASA and other scientists have begun to analyze the images.

The EPOXI mission spacecraft revealed a cometary snow storm created by carbon dioxide jets spewing out tons of golf-ball to basketball-sized fluffy ice particles from the peanut-shaped comet's rocky ends. At the same time, a different process was causing water vapor to escape from the comet's smooth mid-section. This information sheds new light on the nature of comets and even planets.

Scientists compared the new data to data from a comet the spacecraft previously visited that was somewhat different from Hartley 2. In 2005, the spacecraft successfully released an impactor into the path of comet Tempel 1, while observing it during a flyby.

"This is the first time we've ever seen individual chunks of ice in the cloud around a comet or jets definitively powered by carbon dioxide gas," said Michael A'Hearn, principal investigator for the spacecraft at the University of Maryland. "We looked for, but didn't see, such ice particles around comet Tempel 1."

The new findings show Hartley 2 acts differently than Tempel 1 or the three other comets with nuclei imaged by spacecraft. Carbon dioxide appears to be a key to understanding Hartley 2 and explains why the smooth and rough areas scientists saw respond differently to solar heating, and have different mechanisms by which water escapes from the comet's interior.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — President Barack Obama boldly predicted Thursday his new plans for space exploration would lead American astronauts on historic, almost fantastic journeys to an asteroid and then to Mars – and in his lifetime – relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built.

"I expect to be around to see it," he said of pioneering U.S. trips starting with a landing on an asteroid – a colossal feat in itself – before the long-dreamed-of expedition to Mars. He spoke near the historic Kennedy Space Center launch pads that sent the first men to the moon, a blunt rejoinder to critics, including several former astronauts, who contend his planned changes will instead deal a staggering blow to the nation's manned space program.

"We want to leap into the future," not continue on the same path as before, Obama said as he sought to reassure NASA workers that America's space adventures would soar on despite the impending termination of space shuttle flights.






At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians in the Vehicle Assembly Building are removing foam and sensors from space shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank in preparation for additional scans of the entire intertank area.

Next week, crews will take x-ray scans beneath the foam insulation of all 108 support beams, called stringers, on Discovery's external tank.

On Dec. 21 Space Shuttle Program managers also decided to protect the option of performing known and practiced modifications on some of the stringers, if additional testing and analysis indicates that it is necessary.

Managers are expected to decide whether modifications are needed on Dec. 30.