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Space News Update — May 6, 2014 —

Contents

In the News

Story 1:

Court Injunction Blocks Russian Engine Purchase by ULA for US National Security – Win for SpaceX Yields Uncertainty

Story 2:

Target on Mars Looks Good for NASA Rover Drilling

Story 3:

Private Team Wants to Bring 36-Year-Old NASA Probe Out of Retirement

Departments

The Night Sky

ISS Sighting Opportunities

NASA-TV Highlights

Space Calendar

Food for Thought

Space Image of the Week

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1. Court Injunction Blocks Russian Engine Purchase by ULA for US National

Security – Win for SpaceX Yields Uncertainty

United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket – powered by Russian made RD-180 engines – and Super-Secret NROL-67

intelligence gathering payload poised for launch at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, in

March 2014. Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

A US Federal Court has now issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the purchase and importation of

Russian rocket engines by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for its Atlas V rocket used in National Security

launches for the US Air Force after a filing by SpaceX. But what are the implications?

The US Federal Court of Federal Claims order was issued late Wednesday, April 30, by US Judge Susan G.

Braden of the US Court of Federal Claims. The court order is in response to a protest filed by SpaceX against

ULA and the US Air Force relating to the uncontested $11 Billion “block buy” launch contract purchase in

December of 36 rocket cores for US National Security launches and is also related to US sanctions imposed

after Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine and seizing and annexing the Crimea.

The temporary injunction marks a big win for SpaceX but immediately throws future National Security spy

satellite and NASA science launches into uncertainty and potential disarray.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk declared his firms intent to file suit against ULA and the Air Force on Monday, April 28

to break the launch monopoly.

Judge Braden’s injunction followed barely two days later.

Musk said the recent ‘block buy’ launch contract was unfair in blocking SpaceX from competing for launches of

surveillance satellites, would cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in coming years and should be re-

competed.

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“The national security launches should be put up for competition and they should not be awarded on a sole

source, un-competed basis,” Musk said at the April 25 briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

ULA quickly vowed today that they will respond to resolve the injunction and further stated that “This

opportunistic action by SpaceX … ignores the potential implications to our National Security.”

Federal Judge Braden’s order specifically states the following; “The preliminary injunction prohibits the United

States Air Force and United Launch Alliance, from making any purchases from or payment of money to NPO

Energomash or any entity, whether governmental, corporate or individual, that is subject to the control of

Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin.”

The engines at the heart of the Federal preliminary injunction are the RD-180 liquid fueled engines which

power ULA’s Atlas V rocket and are manufactured in Russia by NPO Energomash – which is majority state

owned by the Russian Federation and subject to the control of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin, who is

specifically named on the US economic sanctions target list.

In response, Rogozin said that sanctions could “boomerang” against the US space program. He said that

perhaps NASA should “deliver their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline.”

Thanks to the utter folly of US politicians in shutting down the Space Shuttle program before a replacement

crew vehicle was available and repeatedly slashing NASA’s commercial crew budget, American astronauts are

now 100% dependent on the Russian Soyuz capsule for rides to the ISS and back for several more years

ahead.

NASA has NO immediate alternatives to Russia’s Soyuz – period.

The rocket engine injunction is just the latest fallout impacting a vast swath of US space programs from

National Defense to NASA stemming from the dangerously escalating crisis between Ukraine and the Russian

Federation in the worst confrontation with the West since the Cold War era.

In response to the worsening Ukraine crisis, Western nations have instituted waves of increasingly harsh

economic sanctions against Russia and several key members of the Russian government.

Judge Braden’s injunction stands until she receives clarification otherwise from US government entities that

the engine purchase is not covered by the Federal government sanctions.

The order remains in effect “unless and until the court receives the opinion of the United States Department of

the Treasury, and the United States Department of Commerce and United States Department of State, that

any such purchases or payments will not directly or indirectly contravene Executive Order 13,661.”

ULA issued a swift statement today – from ULA’s general counsel Kevin G. MacCary, in response to Judge

Braden’s preliminary injunction. “ULA is deeply concerned with this ruling and we will work closely with the

Department of Justice to resolve the injunction expeditiously. In the meantime, ULA will continue to

demonstrate our commitment to our National Security on the launch pad by assuring the safe delivery of the

missions we are honored to support.”

“SpaceX’s attempt to disrupt a national security launch contract so long after the award ignores the potential

implications to our National Security and our nation’s ability to put Americans on board the International Space

Station.”

The Atlas V rocket, powered by the Russian made RD-180 engines, will also be used as the launch vehicle by

two of the three companies vying for the next round of commercial crew contracts aimed at launching US

astronauts to the ISS. The contracts will be awarded by NASA later this year. The RD-180, manufactured by

Energomash of Moscow, is powered by a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen and generates nearly 1 million

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pounds of thrust. It is imported and sold to ULA by RD-Amross, a joint venture of Energomash and United

Technologies Corp.

“This opportunistic action by SpaceX appears to be an attempt to circumvent the requirements imposed on

those who seek to meet the challenging launch needs of the nation and to avoid having to follow the rules,

regulations and standards expected of a company entrusted to support our nation’s most sensitive missions,”

said ULA.

ULA is a joint venture between aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin, formed in 2006. It has

conducted 81 consecutive launches with 100% mission success – including many NASA science and mission

probes like Orion EFT-1, Curiosity, MAVEN, TDRS and more.

Judge Braden furthermore made clear that her order did not include prior RD-180 engine purchases.

“The scope of this preliminary injunction does not extend to any purchase orders that have been placed or

moneys paid to NPO Energomash prior to the date of this

Order [April 30, 2014].”

ULA has a two and a half year inventory supply of RD-180s on hand at its factory in Decatur, Alabama, and is

expected to receive five engines in 2014 and six in 2015. It also has blueprints to begin production, if needed.

However in the event of a cutoff by Russia or US court injunctions, it would take ULA at least three-to-five

years to start and certify RD-180 engine production somewhere in the US, a ULA spokesperson told me

recently at Cape Canaveral.

This possibly leaves a 1-to-3 year gap with no Atlas V 1st stage engine supply.

SpaceX claims they can fill part of the launch gap. But their Falcon rockets are not yet certified for National

Security launches.

“So far we are most of the way through the certification process. And so far there have been zero changes to

the rocket. Mostly it’s just been a paperwork exercise.”

“In light of international events, this seems like the wrong time to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the

Kremlin,” said Musk during the April 25 press briefing at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

Source: Universe Today Return to Contents

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2. Target on Mars Looks Good for NASA Rover Drilling

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover completed a shallow "mini drill" test April 29, 2014, in preparation for full-depth drilling at a

rock target called "Windjana." This image from Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager shows the hole resulting from the test,

0.63 inch across and about 0.8 inch deep.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover performed a "mini-drill" operation Tuesday, April 29, on the rock target under

consideration for the mission's third sample-collection drilling. This preparatory activity produced a hole about eight-tenths of an inch (2 centimeters) deep, as planned, in the target called "Windjana." The rover team plans to decide whether to proceed with deeper drilling of this rock in coming days.

The team operating NASA's Curiosity Mars rover plans to proceed in coming days with the third-ever drilling into a rock on Mars to collect a sample for analysis.

The rover used several tools to examine the candidate site over the weekend, including a wire-bristle brush -- the Dust Removal Tool -- to clear away dust from a patch on the rock. The target slab of sandstone has been given the informal name "Windjana," after a gorge in Western Australia.

"In the brushed spot, we can see that the rock is fine-grained, its true color is much grayer than the surface dust, and some portions of the rock are harder than others, creating the interesting bumpy textures," said Curiosity science team member Melissa Rice of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "All of these traits reinforce our interest in drilling here in order understand the chemistry of the fluids that bound these grains together to form the rock."

Before Curiosity drills deeply enough for collection of rock-powder sample, plans call for a preparatory "mini-drill" operation on the target, as a further check for readiness.

Curiosity's hammering drill collects powdered sample material from the interior of a rock, and then the rover prepares and delivers portions of the sample to laboratory instruments onboard. The first two Martian rocks drilled and analyzed this way were mudstone slabs neighboring each other in Yellowknife Bay, about 2.5 miles

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(4 kilometers) northeast of the rover's current location at a waypoint called "The Kimberley." Those two rocks yielded evidence last year of an ancient lakebed environment with key chemical elements and a chemical energy source that provided conditions billions of years ago favorable for microbial life.

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

_________________________________________________________________ MAVEN Status Update: May 1, 2014

As of Thursday, May 1st, MAVEN is at a distance of 57,540,121 km (35,753,774 miles) from Earth with an Earth-centered velocity of 11.4 km/s (7.1 mi/s or 25,538 mph) and a Sun-centered velocity of 25.1 km/s (15.6 mi/s or 56,100 mph). MAVEN’s distance to Mars is decreasing at a rate of one-half million km per day. On its Type-II Hohmann Transfer path to Mars, MAVEN has traveled a total of 427,988,332 km (265,939,110 mi). The spacecraft is currently at a distance of 44,629,475 km (27,731,470 mi) from Mars, and 194,717,071 km (120,991,579 mi or 1.302 astronomical units) from the Sun. With the next trajectory correction maneuver (TCM-3) scheduled for July 23rd, the spacecraft remains on schedule for Mars orbit insertion on September 21, 2014 at 10 p.m. EDT.

Source: NASA Facebook

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3. Private Team Wants to Bring 36-Year-Old NASA Probe Out of Retirement

Artist's concept of the ISEE-3 probe's anticipated lunar flyby on Aug. 10, 2014. Credit: Mark Maxwell / ISEE-3 Reboot Project

The golden years may be about to end for a 1970s-era NASA spacecraft.

A crowd-funded team of engineers, programmers and citizen scientists aims to bring out of retirement the

International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 probe (ISEE-3), which launched in 1978 and ceased science operations in

1997.

In the coming months, the group intends to move ISEE-3 from its orbit around the sun to a stable spot close

to Earth. The probe could stay there and study space weather, or it could jump off to chase down a comet, as

it did several other times during its working life.]

The ISEE-3 Reboot Project could return useful data and help get the public excited about space science,

organizers say. They also hope it inspires similar spacecraft-salvaging efforts down the road.

"There's so much stuff up there. It's inevitable that somebody's going to say, 'OK, you're done with it; can I

use it?" said ISEE-3 Reboot Project co-lead Keith Cowing. "I'm hoping that this will have a prompting effect in

that regard, to get people to think differently."

ISEE-3, a joint effort involving NASA and the European Space Agency (as well as its predecessor, the European

Space Research Organization), blasted off in 1978. It used 13 different science instruments to study cosmic

rays and the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from the sun.

ISEE-3 initially operated from the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 1 (ES-1), a gravitationally stable spot about

930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet's surface.

In the early 1980s, the probe was given a new mission, a new orbit (around the sun) and a new name — the

International Cometary Explorer, or ICE. In 1985, ICE chased down Comet Giacobini-Zinner, becoming the first

spacecraft ever to fly through the tail of one of these icy objects. The spacecraft then flew by the famous

Comet Halley in March 1986.

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ISEE-3's mission was revised again in 1991, when the probe was tasked with studying the sun, particularly

large explosions of superheated plasma known as coronal mass ejections. The spacecraft continued this work

until 1997, when NASA ended the mission. But the space agency didn't turn ISEE-3 off. The probe still has a

fair amount of fuel left, and at least some parts of it still function, Cowing said.

"The instruments may or may not work; we're not sure," he told Space.com. "But both transmitters work

exactly as they should, which is a good indication that a lot of it works. You just wouldn't get the signals

unless a lot of the spacecraft still worked."

Cowing, fellow project co-leader Dennis Wingo and their colleagues are optimistic that they can contact the

ISEE-3 spacecraft, order it to fire its engines and bring it close to Earth. But they know it won't be easy.

For starters, the equipment that NASA used to command the probe no longer exists. So the reboot team has

been combing through the ISEE-3 mission files, gathering information needed to create a virtual version of this

communications hardware.

"You can create a functional simulation of how that thing worked in software," Cowing said. The effort is akin

to building a website that allows users to run older versions of computer operating systems, he added.

The team is doing all of this research with the help of some active and retired NASA personnel, though the

space agency isn't throwing its weight behind the project.

"NASA has told us officially that there is no funding available to support an ISEE-3 effort — nor is this work a

formal priority for the agency right now," Cowing, Wingo and their colleagues write in a description of the

project on the crowd-funding site RocketHub. "But NASA does feel that the data that ISEE-3 could generate

would have real value and that a crowd-funded effort such as ours has real value as an education and public

outreach activity."

The team seeks to raise $125,000 through RocketHub by May 18. The money will be used to help develop the

virtual communications gear, contact and control ISEE-3 using a large radio dish at Morehead State University

in Kentucky and find and analyze old documents, project leaders said.

As of Thursday evening (May 1), the ISEE-3 Reboot effort had secured about $73,000 from more than 1,100

donors.

Time is of the essence for the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, which Cowing and Wingo — who previously co-led a

project to digitize the NASA moon photos taken by five Lunar Orbiter missions in the 1960s — first started

dreaming up about three months ago.

The spacecraft is cruising past Earth soon and won't be back again for 30 to 40 years, Cowing said. The team

needs to contact ISEE-3 by the end of May at the latest, he added, and command the probe to perform some

engine burns by mid-June.

If all goes according to plan, these trajectory-altering maneuvers will send ISEE-3 back to the ES-1 point, after

a close flyby of the moon on Aug. 10 that will bring the probe within 30 miles (50 km) or so of the lunar

surface.

At that point, the team would decide what to do with the spacecraft. The top two options would likely be

leaving ISEE-3 at ES-1 to study space weather, or having it fly by another comet, Cowing said.

To learn more about the ISEE-3 revival crowd-funding project, visit:

www.rockethub.com/projects/42228-isee-3-reboot-project-by-space-college-skycorp-and-spaceref

Source: Space.com Return to Contents

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The Night Sky

Saturn, Mars, and all the bright planets are never far from the ecliptic, which is the plane of Earth's orbit projected onto

the night sky. It also traces the Sun's path among the stars. Sky & Telescope Diagram

Source: Sky and Telescope Return to Contents

Tuesday, May 6

First-quarter Moon (exactly so at 11:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). The Moon shines in Cancer

above the dim head of Hydra. Well to the Moon's upper left is Regulus, forming the bottom of the

Sickle of Leo.

Wednesday, May 7

Just above the Moon at nightfall are Regulus and the Sickle of Leo.

Thursday, May 8

Sometime late this evening (roughly 10 p.m. depending on where you live), bright Capella declining

in the northwest will be exactly as high as bright Vega climbing in the northeast. How accurately

can you time their altitude balance? Each day it will come four minutes earlier.

Friday, May 9

The waxing gibbous Moon forms a curving line tonight with Mars to its left and Spica to Mars's

lower left.

Saturday, May 10

Bright Mars shines left of the Moon. Although they look rather close together, Mars is 260 times as

far away — and twice as big in diameter.

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ISS Sighting Opportunities

Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information

NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone)

May 6, Tuesday

11:55 a.m. - ISS Expedition 39 In-Flight Educational Event with Boise State University, ID - JSC (All

Channels)

May 7, Wednesday

10 a.m. - Video File of the ISS Expedition 40/41 Qualification Training Simulation Runs at Star City, Russia -

JSC (All Channels)

12 p.m. - ISS Mission Control On-Console Interview with the Digital Learning Network - JSC (All Channels)

May 8, Thursday

12:55 p.m. - ISS Expedition 39 In-Flight Interview with Fox Business News – JSC (All Channels)

2 p.m. - Video File of the ISS Expedition 40/41 Crew News Conference at Star City, Russia and Ceremonial

Visit to Red Square in Moscow- JSC (All Channels)

May 9, Friday

5:30 a.m. - Video B-roll Feed of Expedition 40/41 NASA Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman of NASA - JSC (All

Channels)

6 - 7 a.m. - Live Interviews with ISS Expedition 40/41 Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman of NASA from Star City,

Russia - JSC (All Channels)

Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents

Not visible at Denver until Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Artist concept shows Orion as it will appear in space for the Exploration Flight Test-1 attached to a Delta IV second stage. The flight is scheduled for December 2014 Credit: NASA

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Space Calendar

May 06 - Comet 209P/LINEAR Perihelion (0.969 AU)

May 06 - Comet 191P/McNaught Perihelion (2.044 AU)

May 06 - Comet C/2013 G9 (Tenagra) Closest Approach To Earth (4.661 AU)

May 06 - Asteroid 2014 HX164 Near-Earth Flyby (0.003 AU)

May 06 - Asteroid 2014 HB177 Near-Earth Flyby (0.003 AU)

May 06 - Asteroid 1031 Arctica Closest Approach To Earth (1.948 AU)

May 06 - Asteroid 2041 Lancelot Closest Approach To Earth (2.776 AU)

May 07 - Quasar 19 (NROL-33) Atlas 5 Launch

May 07 - Comet 51P/Harrington At Opposition (2.871 AU)

May 07 - Asteroid 2014 HK4 Near-Earth Flyby (0.080 AU)

May 07 - Asteroid 2062 Aten Closest Approach To Earth (0.335 AU)

May 07 - Asteroid 232 Russia Closest Approach To Earth (1.137 AU)

May 07 - Asteroid 42981 Jenniskens Closest Approach To Earth (1.170 AU)

May 07 - Asteroid 12542 Laver Closest Approach To Earth (2.215 AU)

May 08 - Asteroid 2014 HT178 Near-Earth Flyby (0.015 AU)

May 08 - Asteroid 2014 HE177 Near-Earth Flyby (0.049 AU)

May 08 - Asteroid 65803 Didymos Closest Approach To Earth (1.983 AU)

May 08 - Asteroid 11998 Fermilab Closest Approach To Earth (2.329 AU)

May 09 - Comet C/2013 P2 (PANSTARRS) At Opposition (2.286 AU)

May 09 - Comet P/2013 EW90 (Tenagra) Closest Approach To Earth (3.137 AU)

May 09 - Comet C/2014 F2 (Tenagra) At Opposition (4.049 AU)

May 09 - Asteroid 2014 JD Near-Earth Flyby (0.020 AU)

May 09 - Asteroid 1197 Rhodesia Closest Approach To Earth (1.457 AU)

May 09 - Asteroid 3000 Leonardo Closest Approach To Earth (1.685 AU)

May 09 - Asteroid 35165 Quebec Closest Approach To Earth (2.211 AU)

May 09 - Asteroid 8721 AMOS Closest Approach To Earth (2.941 AU)

May 09 - Asteroid Grand Challenge Virtual Seminar

May 10 - Astronomy Day

May 10 -Orbcomm 2 (FM45-FM50) Falcon 9 Launch

May 10 - Saturn At Opposition

Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents

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Food for Thought

Hubble Astronomers Use Supernovae to Gauge Power of Cosmic Lenses

Remote supernova Magnified by massive galaxy cluster MACSJ1720 as seen by Hubble.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, et al.

Distant exploding stars observed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are providing astronomers with a

powerful tool to determine the strength of naturally-occurring "cosmic lenses" that are used to magnify objects

in the remote universe.

Two teams of astronomers, working independently, observed three such exploding stars, called supernovae.

Their light was amplified by the immense gravity of massive galaxy clusters in the foreground -- a

phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Astronomers use the gravitational lensing effect to search for distant

objects that might otherwise be too faint to see, even with today's largest telescopes.

"We have found supernovae that can be used like an eye chart for each lensing cluster," explained Saurabh

Jha of Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., a member of the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with

Hubble (CLASH) team. "Because we can estimate the intrinsic brightness of the supernovae, we can measure

the magnification of the lens."

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At least two of the supernovae appear to be a special type of exploding star called Type Ia supernovae, prized

by astronomers because they have a consistent level of peak brightness that makes them a reliable tool for

estimating distances.

Astronomers from the CLASH team and the Supernova Cosmology Project are using these supernovae in a

new method for measuring the magnification, or prescription, of the gravitational lenses. With these

prescriptions, astronomers are now equipped to make increasingly accurate observations of objects in the

distant, early universe and better understand the structure of galaxy clusters including its distribution of dark

matter.

The power of a galaxy cluster as a gravitational lens depends on the total amount of matter in the cluster,

including dark matter, which is the source of most of a cluster's gravity. Astronomers develop maps that

estimate the location and amount of dark matter in a cluster by looking at the amount of distortion seen in

more distant lensed galaxies. The maps provide the prescriptions -- how much distant objects behind the

cluster are magnified when their light passes through the cluster.

The three supernovae in the Hubble study were each gravitationally lensed by a different cluster of galaxies.

The teams measured the brightness of each supernova, with and without the effects of lensing. The difference

between the two measurements constitutes the amount of magnification because of gravitational lensing.

From the final measurements, one of the three supernovae stood out, with an apparent magnification of about

two times.

The supernovae were discovered in the CLASH survey, a Hubble census that probed the distribution of dark

matter in 25 galaxy clusters. The three supernovae exploded between 7 billion and 9 billion years ago, when

the universe was slightly more than half its current age of 13.8 billion years old.

To perform their analyses, both teams used observations in visible light, made by Hubble's Advanced Camera

for Surveys, and in infrared light, made by the telescope's Wide Field Camera 3. Each team then compared its

results with independent theoretical models of the clusters' dark-matter content, concluding that the

predictions fit the models.

Now that researchers have proven the effectiveness of this method of cosmic magnification, they are

searching for more Type Ia supernovae hiding behind large galaxy clusters. Astronomers estimate they would

need about 20 supernovae, spread out behind a single cluster, to create a map of an entire cluster of galaxies.

They are optimistic Hubble and future telescopes, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, will identify

more of these unique exploding stars.

The CLASH team's results will appear in the May 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal and the Supernova

Cosmology Project's findings will be published in the May 1 edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal

Astronomical Society.

Source: NASA Return to Contents

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Space Image of the Week

Aurora Dog over Alaska Image Credit & Copyright: John Chumack

Explanation: Sometimes it is hard to believe what you see in the sky. While leading his annual aurora tour

last month near Fairbanks in central Alaska, astrophotographer John Chumack and his company saw a most

unusual aurora. This bright aurora appeared to change into the shape of a jumping dog, complete with a curly

tail. He was able to capture the fleeting natural apparition in the above image with a 15-second exposure

through a wide-angle lens. By coincidence, he also captured a background sky filled with familiar highlights.

Planets visible include bright Jupiter through the dog's front legs and reddish Mars below the dog's hind legs.

Stars visible include the Big Dipper stars above the dog's midsection and reddish Betelgeuse shining on the far

right. This dog would not be following him home, however, and within a few minutes morphed into other

shapes before the geomagnetic storm particles that created it shifted to strike the Earth elsewhere.

Source: NASA APOD Return to Contents