NASA, Air Force Perform Rescue Operations On Boeing Starliner
NASA, Air Force Perform Rescue Operations on Boeing Starliner
NASA astronaut Suni Williams cannonballs off a Boeing CST-100 Starliner test article after NASA engineers and Air Force pararescuemen climbed aboard the spacecraft to simulate rescuing astronauts in the event of an emergency during launch or ascent.
The Starliner is designed for land-based returns, but simulating rescue operations at NASA’s Langley Research Center’s Hydro Impact Basin in Hampton, Virginia, ensures flight crew and ground support are versed in what to do during a contingency scenario.
For more information about rescue and safety operations, see Commercial Crew: Building in Safety from the Ground Up in a Unique Way.
Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman
More Posts from Nasalangley and Others
What's Up? - May 2018
What’s Up For May?
The Moon and Saturn meet Mars in the morning as our InSight spacecraft launches to the Red Planet on May 5!
You won’t want to miss red Mars in the southern morning skies this month.
InSight, our first mission to explore Mars’ deep interior, launches on May 5th with a launch window that begins at 4:05 a.m. PDT and lasts for two hours.
Some lucky viewers in central and southern California and even parts of the Mexican Pacific coast will get a chance to see the spacecraft launch with their unaided eyes AND its destination, Mars, at the same time.
Mars shines a little brighter than last month, as it approaches opposition on July 27th. That’s when Mars and the Sun will be on opposite sides of the Earth. This will be Mars’ closest approach to Earth since 2003!
Compare the planet’s increases in brightness with your own eyes between now and July 27th.
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will be washed out by the Moon this month, but if you are awake for the InSight launch anyway, have a look. This shower is better viewed from the southern hemisphere, but medium rates of 10 to 30 meteors per hour MAY be seen before dawn.
Of course, you could travel to the South Pacific to see the shower at its best!
There’s no sharp peak to this shower–just several nights with good rates, centered on May 6th.
Jupiter reaches opposition on May 9th, heralding the best Jupiter-observing season, especially for mid-evening viewing. That’s because the king of the planets rises at sunset and sets at dawn.
Wait a few hours after sunset, when Jupiter is higher in the sky, for the best views. If you viewed Jupiter last month, expect the view to be even better this month!
Watch the full What’s Up for May Video:
There are so many sights to see in the sky. To stay informed, subscribe to our What’s Up video series on Facebook. Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.
On 2/18/1930, 86 years ago, Clyde Tombaugh discovered #Pluto. Happy Anniversary, buddy, we should have sent flowers. Hope you’re happy with #NewHorizons instead!
Just me meeting my hero Katherine Johnson after interviewing her in the newsroom for another article I’m writing. nbd ((VERY BIG DEAL)) •🚀•🚀• Katherine G. Johnson is a pioneer in American space history. A NASA mathematician, Johnson’s computations have influenced every major space program from Mercury through the Shuttle. She even calculated the flight path for the first American mission space. In 1953, Johnson was contracted as a research mathematician at the Langley Research Center with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the agency that preceded NASA. She worked in a pool of women performing math calculations until she was temporarily assigned to help the all-male flight research team, and wound up staying there. Johnson’s specialty was calculating the trajectories for space shots which determined the timing for launches, including the Mercury mission and Apollo 11, the mission to the moon. (at NASA Langley Research Center)
Apollo 10 Audio — Publicly Available Since 1970s
Recent news articles have reported that “newly declassified” audiotapes reveal that Apollo 10 astronauts heard “outer-spacey” music as the spacecraft flew around the far side of the moon in 1969.
Here are the facts:
While listed as ‘confidential’ in 1969 at the height of the Space Race, Apollo 10 mission transcripts and audio have been publicly available since 1973. Since the Internet did not exist in the Apollo era, we have only recently provided digital files for some of those earlier missions. The Apollo 10 audio clips were uploaded in 2012, but the mission’s audio recordings have been available at the National Archives since the early 1970s.
As for the likely source of the sounds, Apollo 10 Lunar Module Pilot Gene Cernan told us on Monday, ‘I don’t remember that incident exciting me enough to take it seriously. It was probably just radio interference. Had we thought it was something other than that we would have briefed everyone after the flight. We never gave it another thought.’
If you’d like to listen to the audio file, it is available HERE (starting at 2:50).
The full transcript is available HERE.
Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com
Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage 101
We need the biggest rocket stage ever built for the bold missions in deep space that NASA's Space Launch System rocket will give us the capability to achieve. This infographic sums up everything you need to know about the SLS core stage, the 212-foot-tall stage that serves as the backbone of the most powerful rocket in the world. The core stage includes the liquid hydrogen tank and liquid oxygen tank that hold 733,000 gallons of propellant to power the stage’s four RS-25 engines needed for liftoff and the journey to Mars.
Image Credit: NASA/MSFC
Maybe NASA Astronomer, @michellethaller , can spread some ‘light’ on this topic. She has spent years studying binary star systems!
Isn’t it beautiful two suns setting over the horizon.
Nebula Images: http://nebulaimages.com/
Astronomy articles: http://astronomyisawesome.com/
It’s incredible what humans can do on and off of our planet. Here is a view from the International Space Station taken by Engineer and NASA Astronaut, Colonel Tim Kopra.
Doha, Bahrain – manmade EarthArt.
February 7, 2016.
Credit: NASA Astronaut Tim Kopra’s Twitter Account
NASA Crash-Test Dummies Make A Splash Landing
Engineers drop a NASA’s Orion Spacecraft test capsule with crash-test dummies inside into 20-foot-deep Hydro Impact Basin to simulate what the spacecraft may experience when splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after deep-space missions.
More: http://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-crash-test-dummies-suit-up-for-action
