Space

Imagine yourself hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, inside a room the size of a walk-in closet for eight hours with five people you just met. Does that make you sweat? Or maybe make your breathing a little more animated?

For three weeks, 23 volunteers dedicated time to do just that -- sweat and breathe -- inside a test chamber so NASA scientists at Johnson Space Center in Houston could measure the amount of moisture and carbon dioxide absorbed by a new system being developed for future space vehicles. The system is designed to control carbon dioxide and humidity inside a crew capsule to make air breathable and living space more comfortable.

Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated an ultrafast laser that offers a record combination of high speed, short pulses and high average power. The same NIST group also has shown that this type of laser, when used as a frequency comb—an ultraprecise technique for measuring different colors of light—could boost the sensitivity of astronomical tools searching for other Earthlike planets as much as 100 fold.

After safely reaching its launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, space shuttle Discovery now awaits its next major milestone for the upcoming STS-124 mission. A launch dress rehearsal, known as the terminal countdown demonstration test, is scheduled to take place at Kennedy from May 6 to 9.

Discovery arrived at the pad at 4:25 a.m. EDT Saturday on top of a giant crawler-transporter. The crawler-transporter left Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building at 11:47 p.m. Friday, traveling less than 1 mph during the 3.4-mile journey. The shuttle was secured on the launch pad at 6:06 a.m. Saturday.

Navy Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly will command the STS-124 shuttle mission to deliver the Pressurized Module and robotic arm of the Japanese Experiment Module, known as "Kibo" (hope), to the International Space Station. Navy Cmdr. Kenneth T. Ham will serve as the pilot. Mission specialists will include NASA astronauts Karen L. Nyberg; Air Force Col. Ronald J. Garan Jr.; and Air Force Reserve Col. Michael E. Fossum. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide also will serve as a mission specialist.

Space shuttle Discovery’s STS-124 mission is the second of three flights that will launch components to complete the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. The shuttle crew will install Kibo’s large Japanese Pressurized Module, or JPM, and its remote manipulator system, or RMS. The RMS consists of two robotic arms that support operations outside of Kibo. The lab's logistics module, which was installed in a temporary location during STS-123 in March, will be attached to the new lab. Discovery's 13-day flight carries the heaviest payload to the station and will include three spacewalks. The shuttle also will deliver a new crew member and bring back another one after a three-month mission.

Space shuttle Discovery is scheduled to roll out to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Saturday, May 3, as preparations for the STS-124 mission move forward. Discovery is targeted to lift off May 31 on a 13-day mission to the International Space Station.

The first motion of the shuttle out of Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building is scheduled for 12:01 a.m. EDT. The space shuttle vehicle, consisting of the orbiter, external tank and twin solid rocket boosters, was fully assembled on the mobile launcher platform and will be delivered to the pad atop a crawler transporter. The crawler slowly moves the shuttle out to the pad at less than 1 mph during its 3.4-mile journey. The process is expected to take approximately six hours.

The Air Force received the last in a series of GPS IIR(M) satellites from Lockheed Martin during an recent fly-out ceremony at the Lockheed Martin facility in Valley Forge, Penn.

"The IIR satellites have been great," said Lt. Col. Doug Schiess, operations officer for the 2nd Space Operations Squadron. He represented the 50th Space Wing at the ceremony. "One of the things they've done for us is allowed us to reduce our operations tempo. We used to have to do two supports per day on all GPS satellites, but the IIRs have allowed us to go down to one support per day."

NASA has awarded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, a NASA Launch Services contract for the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.

The NASA Launch Services contracts are multiple awards to multiple launch service providers. Twice per year, there is an opportunity for existing and emerging domestic launch service providers to submit proposals if their vehicles meet the minimum contract requirements.

The Wideband Global SATCOM, or WGS, satellite is the first of six satellites that will take over long-haul communications from the legacy constellation, the Defense Satellite Communications System, called DSCS.

In the past when a new communications satellite was needed, Air Force officials would build it, launch it and then other services could use the capabilities it provided. Today, the warfighting community, including Air Force Space Command members, get together and define the requirements for today and into the future and then the engineers go to work to design a capability that will support the warfighter for the estimated life expectancy of the satellite.

NASA has completed the first full-scale rocket motor test for the Constellation Program's Orion spacecraft, a test of a solid rocket that will be used to jettison the craft's launch abort system.

Now under development, Orion will be America's next human spacecraft, designed to fly to the International Space Station and be part of a space flight system to return humans to the moon. The Orion jettison motor will separate the craft's launch abort system from the Orion crew module during launch.