Long Government Shutdown Could Delay Space Shuttle Launch

If Congress fails to settle on a national budget by midnight tonight (April 8), forcing a partial shutdown of the United States government, the impact on NASA will reverberate all the way into space. A lengthy shutdown could even delay the next space shuttle launch, which NASA has pegged for April 29.

NASA has posted a detailed plan on how it will respond to any government shutdown, should one occur, on its website, with one clear message: While the agency's nonessential government workers would be on forced furlough, all efforts will made to protect life and property on Earth and in space.

But the workers preparing NASA's space shuttle Endeavour for its final launch on April 29 are not on the list of essential personnel.

"If we have a government shutdown, essentially all shuttle launch processing grinds to a halt," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel told SPACE.com from the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Space shuttle snag?

NASA is hoping a shutdown doesn't occur, but the agency does have about nine days of cushion time in its schedule for Endeavour's launch, Beutel said. [What Happens During a Government Shutdown?

That means that if a government shutdown occurs, but is less than nine days long, NASA could still have Endeavour ready to launch on its final mission to the International Space Station.

"We would essentially be running through contingency days," said Stephanie Schierholz, a NASA spokeswoman at the agency's Washington headquarters.

If the shutdown is longer than NASA's schedule cushion, a delay is possible but the space agency would have to re-evaluate its work schedule to see if weekend work could make up for lost time.

A delay may also be prompted by astronaut training needs, since the crew that will fly Endeavour may not be able to practice some tasks as planned during a government shutdown, NASA officials said.

Endeavour's upcoming mission, STS-134, is a 14-day flight to deliver a $2 billion astrophysics experiment to the space station. Four spacewalks are planned.

The mission is commanded by veteran astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and will mark the final flight of Endeavour before NASA retires its shuttle fleet later this year.  Only Endeavour's flight and one other shuttle mission (aboard Atlantis) are planned before the fleet is retired for good.

Some space work would go on

There are, however, some exceptions at NASA to the forced government worker furloughs, should they be required.

The American astronauts on the International Space Station will continue working normally, and will have flight controllers available for support at NASA's Mission Control center in Houston.  NASA's modules on the space station will also remain open for business.

"They're considered essential to operations," Schierholz said.

It also means that ongoing robotic missions, like the Mars rover Opportunity on the Red Planet and Cassini probe orbiting Saturn, won't simply shut down.  The mission managers for NASA's active science probes across the solar system have been meeting all week to identify essential personnel to keep their spacecraft running.

The senior mission managers are deciding how "to keep the spacecraft or assets safe and make sure they are monitored," NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown told SPACE.com. "And if they are sending data, any data that comes down would just be stored." 

You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Juno Marches On

 

 

NASA's Jupiter-bound spacecraft, Juno, is undergoing testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
 

 

NASA's Juno spacecraft has completed its thermal vacuum chamber testing. The two-week-long test, which concluded on March 13, 2011, is the longest the spacecraft will undergo prior to launch.

In the image, a technician is attaching the lifting equipment in preparation for hoisting the 1,588-kilogram (3,500-pound) spacecraft out of the chamber. Prominent in the photo is one of three large, black, square solar array simulators, which reproduced the thermal properties of Juno's large solar arrays. 

The actual solar arrays Juno will use to power the spacecraft during its voyage to, and its exploration of, Jupiter have already been shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The main body of the Juno spacecraft, including its suite of science instruments, is scheduled to ship to Kennedy in early April, where it will undergo final preparations and launch. 

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute at San Antonio. The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency in Rome is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. 

More information about Juno is online at http://www.nasa.gov/juno .

 

 

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Key things to know about Juno

Key things to know about Juno

• Spacecraft launches in August 2011
• Five-year cruise to Jupiter, arriving July 2016
• One year at Jupiter will complete the mission (orbiting the planet 32 times)

Juno will improve our understanding of our solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

Specifically, Juno will…

• Determine how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which helps determine which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed)
• Look deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties
• Map Jupiter’s magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet’s deep structure
• Explore and study Jupiter’s magnetosphere near the planet’s poles, especially the auroras – Jupiter’s northern and southern lights – providing new insights about how the planet’s enormous magnetic force field affects its atmosphere.

Have a question about Juno or Jupiter not covered on this website? Submit it to Juno Outreach!

Giffords staff planning for space shuttle launch

 

PHOENIX – Aides for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords are preparing for her to travel to Florida to watch her husband's space shuttle launch at the end of the month, although doctors have yet to clear her to go, her office said Friday.

Planning has been ongoing for Giffords' "anticipated attendance" of the April 29 launch of the space shuttle Endeavor, which will be commanded by her husband, Capt. Mark Kelly, the congresswoman's office said in a statement.

Giffords has not been seen publicly since she was shot in the head in a Jan. 8 mass shooting in Tucson that killed six and wounded 12 others. She has been undergoing intense therapy at a Houston rehabilitation center since late January.

"The congresswoman wants to go, and Mark very much would like her to be there," her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, said. "They've always been very supportive of each other's careers and that hasn't changed."

The dates of the congresswoman's travel haven't been decided and she will not meet with the media or issue a statement while she is in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Karamargin said. He and Giffords' chief of staff, Pia Carusone, planned to hold a news conference after the launch to discuss "her reaction to her husband's latest mission," Karamargin said.

"The thinking on our part is that it's going to be a potential emotional moment, so we just thought it'd be best for the staff to speak," he said.

Giffords may not be seen publicly if she attends the launch, since she won't meet with the media, and families view launches at Kennedy Space Center from a restricted area. But Karamargin said that was still under discussion.

Giffords has spent the last 2 1/2 months relearning how to speak, walk and take care of herself. She has been singing — as part of musical therapy — asking for her favorite foods and visiting with family, friends and her rabbi.

Kelly returned to training for the shuttle launch in February after taking time off to be at his wife's hospital bedside. He told reporters last month that he's "pretty hopeful" Giffords will make it to his liftoff.

Endeavor's two-week trip will be the last for that shuttle and the next-to-last shuttle mission. Shuttle Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle program this summer. Kelly and five crewmates will deliver a $2 billion physics experiment to the International Space Station, as well as critical spare parts to keep the orbiting outpost running for another decade.

Giffords went to Kelly's last launch in 2008, when he commanded the space shuttle Discovery.

NASA's Jupiter-Bound Spacecraft Arrives in Florida

 

The Juno spacecraft passes in front of Jupiter in this artist's depiction. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Juno spacecraft has arrived in Florida to begin final preparations for a launch this summer. The spacecraft was shipped from Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, to the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla., today. The solar-powered Juno spacecraft will orbit Jupiter's poles 33 times to find out more about the gas giant's origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere. 

"The Juno spacecraft and the team have come a long way since this project was first conceived in 2003," said Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator, based at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "We're only a few months away from a mission of discovery that could very well rewrite the books on not only how Jupiter was born, but how our solar system came into being." Next Monday, Juno will be removed from its shipping container,

the first of the numerous milestones to prepare it for launch. Later that week, the spacecraft will begin functional testing to verify its state of health after the road trip from Colorado. After this, the team will load updated flight software and perform a series of mission readiness tests. These tests involve the entire spacecraft flight system, as well as the associated science instruments and the ground data system. Juno will be carried into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifting off from Launch Complex-41 at the Cape 

Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch period opens Aug. 5, 2011, and extends through Aug. 26. For an Aug. 5 liftoff, the launch window opens at 8:39 a.m. PDT (11:39 am EDT) and remains open through 9:39 a.m. PDT (12:39 p.m. EDT). NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of Southwest Research Institute at San Antonio. 

The Juno mission is part of the New Frontiers Program managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is building the spacecraft. The Italian Space Agency in Rome is contributing an infrared spectrometer instrument and a portion of the radio science experiment. Launch management for the mission is the responsibility of NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about Juno is available at http://www.nasa.gov/juno .

 

 

DC Agle 818-393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle@jpl.nasa.gov

First Image Ever Obtained from Mercury Orbit

 

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington


Of Interest: Early this morning, at 5:20 am EDT, MESSENGER captured this historic image of Mercury. This image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, MESSENGER acquired an additional 363 images before downlinking some of the data to Earth. The MESSENGER team is currently looking over the newly returned data, which are still continuing to come down. Tomorrow, March 30, at 2 pm EDT, attend the NASA media telecon to view more images from MESSENGER's first look at Mercury from orbit.

The dominant rayed crater in the upper portion of the image is Debussy. The smaller crater Matabei with its unusual dark rays is visible to the west of Debussy. The bottom portion of this image is near Mercury's south pole and includes a region of Mercury's surface not previously seen by spacecraft. Compare this image to the planned image footprint to see the region of newly imaged terrain, south of Debussy. Over the next three days, MESSENGER will acquire 1185 additional images in support of MDIS commissioning-phase activities. The year-long primary science phase of the mission will begin on April 4, and the orbital observation plan calls for MDIS to acquire more than 75,000 images in support of MESSENGER's science goals.

On March 17, 2011 (March 18, 2011, UTC), MESSENGER became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet Mercury. The mission is currently in its commissioning phase, during which spacecraft and instrument performance are verified through a series of specially designed checkout activities. In the course of the one-year primary mission, the spacecraft's seven scientific instruments and radio science investigation will unravel the history and evolution of the Solar System's innermost planet. Visit the Why Mercury? section of this website to learn more about the science questions that the MESSENGER mission has set out to answer.