June 1, 2011

Good Morning,

This issue has a couple articles that serve to outline NASA's shuttle program as it nears its conclusion. The first article describes Endeavour's recent departure from the ISS while the last article talks about Atlantis' pending launch.

Until Next Time,
Erin

Questions? Comments? Email me at: mailto:gizmo@gophercentral.com
Email your comments

P.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the new
Gizmorama forum. Check it out here...
Visit The Archives
------------------------------------------------------------

Shuttle undocks from space station

HOUSTON - The space shuttle Endeavour has undocked from the International Space Station in preparation for its journey back to Earth, NASA said. The undocking Sunday night ended a stay of 11 days, 17 hours and 41 minutes at the orbiting laboratory, a NASA release said Monday. Endeavour, with pilot Greg Johnson at the controls, flew in a circle around the ISS at a distance of about 450 to 650 feet, and crew members took still and video images of the station. After the fly-around and following a separation burn, Endeavour moved about 20,000 feet above and behind the station, then to a point below and behind it in a test of an automated rendezvous and docking system called STORRM, for Sensor Test for Orion Relative Navigation Risk Mitigation. All Endeavour crew members, including mission specialists Mike Fincke, Roberto Vittori, Drew Feustel and Greg Chamitoff, were scheduled for almost 4 hours of STORRM work, NASA said.
Landing is scheduled for 2:35 a.m. EDT Wednesday at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.


CO2 emissions said at historic high

PARIS - Energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions in 2010 were the highest in history, the latest estimates from the International Energy Agency in Paris indicate. After a drop in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis, emissions are estimated to have climbed to a record 30.6 gigatons, a 5 percent jump from the previous record year of 2008, an IEA release said Monday. The IEA estimates 80 percent of projected CO2 emissions from the power sector in 2020 are already locked in, as they will come from power plants currently in place or under construction. "This significant increase in CO2 emissions and the locking in of future emissions due to infrastructure investments represent a serious setback to our hopes of limiting the global rise in temperature to no more than 2 degrees C (3.6 F)," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol said. The target of limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees C had been agreed to by global leaders at the United Nations climate change talks in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010. "Our latest estimates are another wake-up call," Birol said. "The world has edged incredibly close to the level of emissions that should not be reached until 2020 if the 2�C target is to be attained. "Given the shrinking room for maneuver in 2020, unless bold and decisive decisions are made very soon, it will be extremely challenging to succeed in achieving this global goal agreed in Cancun," Birol said.


Students design space mission habitat

RALEIGH, N.C. - Students at a U.S. university say advanced textile materials may be part of the solution to life-support challenges astronauts would face on a mission to Mars. "One of the big issues, in terms of a manned mission to Mars, is creating living quarters that would protect astronauts from the elements -- from radiation to meteorites," says North Carolina State University textile engineering student Brent Carter. "Currently, NASA uses solid materials like aluminum, fiberglass and carbon fibers, which while effective, are large, bulky and difficult to pack within a spacecraft." NCSU students used advanced textile materials, which are flexible and can be treated with various coatings, to design a 1,900-square-foot inflatable living space that could comfortably house four to six astronauts as a home-away-from-home habitat on Mars. The living space is made by layering radiation-shielding materials like Demron -- used in the safety suits for nuclear workers cleaning up Japan's Fukushima plant -- with a gas-tight material made from a polyurethane substrate to hold in air, as well as gold-metalicized film to reflect ultraviolet rays. "We're using novel applications of high-tech textile technology and applying them to aerospace problems," Alex Ray, a textile engineering student and team member, said. "Being able to work with classmates in aeronautical engineering allowed us to combine our knowledge from both disciplines to really think through some original solutions." The student team will present its project at the NASA-sponsored Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage competition June 6-8 in Cocoa Beach, Fla.


Atlantis in place as Endeavour returns

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis was wheeled to the launch pad at Florida's Kennedy Space Center Wednesday as the shuttle Endeavour completed its final mission. Endeavour, with six astronauts led by Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, touched down on the shuttle landing strip at 2:35 a.m. EDT, right around the time Atlantis was to reach its launch site. The Endeavour landing was its 25th nighttime landing. Atlantis, which has circled Earth more than 4,600 times, traveling more than 120 million miles in space, is expected to add 5 million more miles to its record when it makes the 135th and final mission of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program, set to begin July 8, NASA officials said.That 12-day mission to the International Space Station will include a four-person crew -- the smallest of any shuttle mission since April 1983. The commander is to be Christopher Ferguson, a retired U.S. Navy captain who piloted Atlantis on his first mission in September 2006, and Endeavour in November 2008. Other crew members include pilot Douglas Hurley, a U.S. Marine Corps colonel who piloted Endeavour in July 2009, mission specialist Sandra Magnus, an engineer who was part of the Discovery crew in March 2009 after spending 134 days in orbit, and mission specialist Rex Walheim, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who flew Atlantis in April 2002 and again in February 2008. The crew is to bring cargo to the space station in the large, pressurized multipurpose logistics module Raffaello, named by the Italian Space Agency, which built it, after the Renaissance painter and architect Raffaello Sanzio -- better known as Raphael, who with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, formed the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. All Atlantis crew members have been custom-fitted for a Russian Sokol spacesuit and molded Soyuz seat liner should they have to return to Earth in a Soyuz capsule in case Atlantis can't
make the re-entry and land. Atlantis emerged, brightly lit,
from the massive 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building after
sunset Tuesday for the 3.4-mile journey to the Launch Complex 39, the rocket launch site originally built for the
1960s Apollo program and later modified to support shuttle operations. It traveled to the seaside launch site on top of NASA's crawler-transporters, a pair of tracked vehicles used to transport spacecraft since Apollo days along a 100-foot-wide pathway known as the Crawlerway. The Crawlerway was designed to support the weight of a Saturn V rocket and payload and was used since 1981 to transport the lighter shuttle to its launchpad.

------------------------------------------------------------
Check out Viral Videos on the Net at EVTV1.com
http://www.evtv1.com/
EVTV1.com