Page 6 - Aerotech News AZ Edition 7-3-15

SpaceX rocket destroyed on way to ISS, cargo lost

CZ.BSDJB%VOO 9 rocket around 2 minutes and 19 sec- ences and SpaceX have NASA contracts
Associated Press
onds, he said. to ship cargo.

SpaceX founder and chief executive “Three failures on three different ve-

An unmanned SpaceX rocket carry- Elon Musk later said that the pressure hicles is unusual, but it would be even

ing supplies to the International Space got too high in the liquid-oxygen tank more worrisome if we had only one

Station broke apart June 28 shortly after of the rocket’s upper stage. means of access,” former NASA asso-

liftoff. It was a severe blow to NASA, “That’s all we can say with confi- ciate administrator Scott Pace wrote in

the third cargo mission to fail in eight dence right now,” Musk said via Twitter. an email to The Associated Press.

months. The private company is in charge of In addition to the July 3 scheduled

The accident happened about 21/2 the accident investigation, with oversight Russian launch, Orbital Sciences may
PLQXWHVLQWRWKHÀLJKWIURP&DSH&D- from the Federal Aviation Administra- be able to launch their supply ship at

naveral, Florida. A billowing white WLRQZKLFKOLFHQVHGWKHÀLJKW the end of this year, using another com-

cloud emerged in the sky, growing big- The Dragon capsule, which is de- pany’s rocket. And a Japanese resupply
JHUDQGELJJHUWKHQ¿HU\SOXPHVVKRW signed to eventually carry people, still ship is scheduled for August, Gersten-

out. Pieces of the rocket could be seen sent signals to the ground after the rock- maier said.

IDOOLQJLQWRWKH$WODQWLFOLNHD¿UHZRUNV et broke apart, said SpaceX President The seven previous SpaceX supply

display gone wrong. Gwynne Shotwell. Had astronauts been runs, dating back to 2012, had gone ex-

More than 5,200 pounds of space on board, a still-being tested abort sys- ceedingly well.

station cargo were on board, including tem, would have whisked them away to For a group of students from North RSC-Energia photograph
WKH¿UVWGRFNLQJSRUWGHVLJQHGIRUIX- safety in such a mishap, she said. Charleston, S.C., the failure was a sec-
ond dose of disappointment. Their stu- The ISS Progress 60 spacecraft is seen in its processing facility at the Baikonur
ture commercial crew capsules, a new SpaceX hopes to launch astronauts dent experiment on soldering circuit Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan being prepared for launch July 3.
VSDFHVXLWDQGDZDWHU¿OWUDWLRQV\VWHP from U.S. soil again aboard the Falcon- boards had been on the Orbital launch.
Dragon combination in December 2017. The explosion was so strong and they it can’t function much longer, but there “These things happen,” he said in a
1$6$RI¿FLDOVVDLGWKH\KDYHHQRXJK They still can make that target, Shotwell were so close they could feel the heat is still enough stored water to make it to WZHHW³7KH\ZLOO¿JXUHWKLVRXW´
said. Now NASA buys seats from Russia on their faces back in October, student October or so.
supplies for the three-person crew on to get astronauts to the orbiting lab. Rachel Lindbergh said. Launch spectators lining the beaches
Gerstenmaier said the loss shouldn’t
board the station to last till October and Shotwell assured reporters that the This time, they were in Florida. They postpone plans to send three more men near Cape Canaveral were confused, at
&DOLIRUQLDEDVHGFRPSDQ\ZLOO¿[WKH high fived each other after the rocket WRMRLQWKHFUHZRQ-XO\DÀLJKWDO- ¿UVWE\WKHXQH[SHFWHGSOXPHVLQWKH
still plan to send three more crewmem- SUREOHP±³DQGJHWEDFNWRÀLJKW´ soared off the pad. ready delayed two months.
sky.
bers up in a late July launch. NASA likes Losing this shipment — which in- “We’re not going to let this deter us,” Along with SpaceX, Boeing is also ³,WORRNHG¿QHXQWLOLWZDVDOPRVWRXW
cluded replacements for items lost in the said Lindbergh. “Disappointing, sure. developing crew capsules for NASA.
to have a six-month cushion of food and WZRHDUOLHUIDLOHGVXSSO\ÀLJKWV²ZDVD But this happens in spaceflight. You Boeing designed the new docking sys- of sight. And then, a poof of smoke,”
huge setback for NASA. can’t let things stop you.” WHPWKDWZDVORVWRQWKH6SDFH;ÀLJKW
water, but is now down to four months. said Whitney Jackson of Palm Beach,
“This is a blow to us,” Gerstenmaier
“We’re good from a food and water Fla, watching with her family. “Every-

standpoint,” NASA’s top spaceflight
RI¿FLDO:LOOLDP*HUVWHQPDLHUVDLGDWD

press conference.

This puts added pressure on another

resupply launch scheduled for July 3 by said, citing the docking port, a spacesuit The three space station residents were but a second version is still available to one was cheering and clapping. No one
Russia, its first attempt since losing a DQGFRQVLGHUDEOHVFLHQWL¿FUHVHDUFKWKDW watching the launch live from orbit, in- VHQGXSRI¿FLDOVVDLG
knew it meant failure.”

supply capsule in April. had been on board. He said there was cluding astronaut Scott Kelly. Shotwell said the first stage of the The Air Force later warned people
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket shattered nothing common among the three ac- “Sadly failed,” Kelly said via Twitter. rocket seemed to work well. The com- along the Florida coast not to handle any
cidents, “other than it’s space and it’s pany had planned to try to land the dis- debris washing ashore.
while traveling at 2,900 mph, about 27 GLI¿FXOWWRJRÀ\´ “Space is hard.” carded booster on an ocean platform.
miles up. Everything seemed to be go- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden June 28 was Musk’s 44th birthday.
ing well until the rocket went supersonic. In April, a Russian cargo ship spun Kelly’s identical twin, Mark, a former The SpaceX founder also runs his elec-
out of control and burned up upon re- DQGRWKHURI¿FLDOVVWUHVVHGWKDWWKHVSDFH space shuttle commander who is taking tric car company, Tesla.
“We appear to have had a launch ve- entry. And last October, an Orbital Sci- station crew is in no immediate trouble. part in medical studies on the ground,
hicle failure,” announced NASA com- NASA space station program manager

mentator George Diller. ences Corp. capsule was destroyed in a Mike Suffredini said the water filtra- pointed out that SpaceX, until now, had “Yeah, not the best birthday,” Musk

'DWDVWRSSHGÀRZLQJIURPWKH)DOFRQ launch accident in Virginia. Orbital Sci- tion system is nearing the point where “a great record” with its Falcon 9 rockets. tweeted.
6WXGHQWVVWXG\(DUWKIURP1$6$À\LQJODE

Thirty-two undergraduate students are partici- (small particles suspended in the atmosphere) and data gathered by SARP participants in the previ- resent 32 different colleges and universities from
pating in an eight-week NASA Airborne Science air quality in the Los Angeles basin and in Cali- ous six years. At the conclusion of the program, across the United States and Puerto Rico. They
¿HOGH[SHULHQFHGHVLJQHGWRLPPHUVHWKHPLQWKH fornia’s Central Valley. The students will also use each student will present his or her results and were competitively selected based on their out-
agency’s Earth science research. airborne and ground-based remote-sensing instru- conclusions to an audience of NASA scientists standing academic performance, future career
ments to study forest ecology in the Sierra Nevada and administrators, university faculty members plans and interest in Earth system science.
Now in its seventh year, NASA’s Student Air- and ocean biology along the California coast. and fellow SARP students. Many students go on
borne Research Program provides a unique op- to present their SARP research projects at national The Student Airborne Research Program is
portunity for undergraduate students majoring in Students are mentored by NASA scientists conferences. In 2014, eight students presented one of NASA’s tools for exposing future scien-
WKHVFLHQFHVPDWKHPDWLFVRUHQJLQHHULQJ¿HOGVWR from Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the their research at the American Geophysical Union tists and engineers to the Earth Science missions
participate in all aspects of a NASA Airborne Sci- Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, fall meeting and three were selected for the AGU that support environmental studies and the testing
ence research campaign. and the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Outstanding Student Paper Award. and development of new instruments and future
Calif. Additional mentors are university faculty satellite mission concepts. The program’s goal is
Airborne science research uses aircraft as sky- members, postdoctoral fellows and graduate stu- Students participating in the 2015 SARP rep- to stimulate interest in NASA’s Earth science re-
high platforms for making observations, gather- dents from the University of California in Irvine, search and aid in the recruitment and training of
ing remote-sensing data with instruments or taking San Diego, Santa Cruz and Davis. The University the next generation of scientists and engineers,
samples. These data can be coupled to NASA’s of Colorado in Boulder, the University of Wis- PDQ\RIZKRPZLOOEHJHWWLQJWKHLU¿UVWKDQGVRQ
global satellite observations for a better under- consin and the University of Houston are also research experience during this program.
standing of the complete Earth system. providing mentors.
SARP is managed by NASA’s Ames Research
SARP participants are given the opportunity to 7KHDLUFUDIWZLOORYHUÀ\GDLULHVDQGRLO¿HOGVLQ Center through the Cooperative for Research in
observe and participate in the instrument installa- Earth Science and Technology (ARC-CREST),
WLRQÀLJKWSODQQLQJDQGVFLHQWL¿FGDWDFROOHFWLRQ the San Joaquin Valley, as well as parts of Los An- under the leadership of the National Suborbital
that is the basis of every successful NASA Earth Education and Research Center at the University
science airborne campaign. These campaigns play geles, the Santa Barbara Channel and the Salton of North Dakota with funding and support from
a pivotal role in the acquisition of process-orient- NASA’s Earth Science Division.
ed knowledge about the Earth system, as well as Sea at altitudes as low as 1,000 feet in order to
calibration and validation of NASA’s space-borne NASA uses the vantage point of space to in-
Earth observations, remote-sensing measurements collect air samples, measure aerosols and air qual- crease our understanding of our home planet,
and high-resolution imagery for Earth system sci- LW\7KH'&FDQÀ\DWDOWLWXGHVRIIHHW improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA
ence. FDUU\SRXQGVRIVFLHQWL¿FLQVWUXPHQWVDQG develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s
interconnected natural systems with long-term
Hosted by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research seats up to 45 experimenters and crew. data records. The agency freely shares this unique
Center facility in Palmdale, Calif., SARP kicked 'XULQJWKHODVWWZRÀLJKWVKDOIRIWKHVWXGHQWV knowledge and works with institutions around the
off on June 15 with lectures by university faculty world to gain new insights into how our planet
members, NASA scientists and program manag- ZLOOEHLQWKH¿HOGWDNLQJYDOLGDWLRQRUFRPSOH- NASA photograph is changing.
ers. There will be students aboard the agency’s PHQWDU\PHDVXUHPHQWVZKLOHWKH'&ÀLHVRYHU-
'&RQHDFKRIWKHVL[ÀLJKWVGXULQJWKHZHHNRI For additional information about SARP, visit
June 22 when they will measure pollution, aerosols head. Matthew Irish, a senior Climate Impact http://www.nserc.und.edu/sarp.

6 7KH¿QDOVL[ZHHNVRIWKHSURJUDPZLOOWDNH Engineering major at the University of Michigan, July 3, 2015

place at the University of California in Irvine, attaches tubing to the Whole Air Sampler (WAS)
instrument installed on the NASA DC-8 airborne
where students will analyze and interpret the laboratory for the Student Airborne Research
Program mission.
data they collected aboard the aircraft and in the
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