Cygnus OA-9 (CRS-9) - Antares-230 - MARS LP-0A - 21.05.2018 08:44 UTC

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Брифинг "What's On Board" завершен. Кадр с РН на СК, съёмка в реальном времени, цифры в левом нижнем углу: 19.05.2018 (139-й день года) 18:05:22 UTC

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Save Manned Space‏ @SaveMannedSpace 1 ч. назад

Launching Monday to @Space_Station on @OrbitalATK @NASAWallops are fascinating experiments including 0-G fluid separation, space cement, rain measuring #RainCube #AskNASA

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/orbital/2018/05/19/crs-9-cygnus-whats-on-board/

CRS-9 Cygnus: What's On Board?

Rob Garner
Posted May 19, 2018 at 3:23 pm

With a launch scheduled for no earlier than May 21 from Virginia's Eastern Shore, Orbital ATK's Antares rocket will carry the company's Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station. Among the 7,400 pounds of cargo aboard Cygnus on this CRS-9 mission are science experiments, crew supplies and vehicle hardware.

Some of those scientific experiments and technology demonstrations were highlighted in a May 19 "what's on board" briefing.

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Cold Atom Lab

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The new Cold Atom Lab (CAL) facility could help answer some big questions in modern physics. CAL creates a temperature 10 billion times colder than the vacuum of space — down to about a billionth of a degree above absolute zero — then uses lasers and magnetic forces to slow down atoms until they are almost motionless. CAL makes it possible to observe these ultra-cold atoms for much longer in the microgravity environment on the space station than would be possible on the ground. Results of this research could potentially lead to a number of improved technologies, including sensors, quantum computers and atomic clocks used in spacecraft navigation.

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Continuous Liquid-Liquid Separation in Microgravity

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Demonstration of Zaiput Flow Technologies' Continuous Liquid-Liquid Separation in Microgravity investigation. Credit: NASA TV

This experiment would validate a unique liquid separation system that relies on surface forces, rather than gravity, to extract one liquid from another.

This investigation uses a unique liquid separation system which relies on surface forces to accomplish liquid-liquid extraction. By exploring the microgravity effects on the process, the system is further developed and refined for use in chemical production. Andrea Adamo, founder and CEO for Zaiput Flow Technologies, said the technology has potential applications in pharmaceutical production and chemical synthesis in space.

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Microgravity Investigation of Cement Solidification

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This image includes one of the flight assembled Microgravity Investigation of Cement Solidification (MICS) Kits with its contents laid out providing a look at all of the contents and sub-items that make up one MICS Kit. Image courtesy of Leidos MICS Team.

Aleksandra Radlińska, of Penn State,  is the principal investigator for Microgravity Investigation of Cement Solidification (MICS).

To assess the feasibility of cement as a process for constructing potential future space habitat structures, the effects of micgrogravity on the process must be understood, Radlińska said. Astronauts aboard the space station would combine pre-packaged bags of cement and water, then halt the chemical process with an alcohol additive. The samples would then be returned to Earth for comparison with equivalent ground-based samples.

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Small Satellites

Three CubeSats, a class of small satellites — each about the size of a cereal box — are part of the CRS-9 payload.

CubeRRT

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The same interference that causes radio and television static also affects the quality of data that instruments like microwave radiometers collect. As the number of RFI-causing devices increases globally, NASA's satellite instruments — specifically, microwave radiometers that gather data on soil moisture, meteorology, climate and more — will be more challenged in collecting high-quality data.

The CubeSat Radiometer Radio Frequency Interference Technology (CubeRRT) validation project will test a new way for NASA's future radiometer missions to overcome the ever-increasing amount of radio frequency interference that satellites will encounter while collecting data.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=Vt4Eixdn0hY
(video 1:52)

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TEMPEST-D

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Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems – Demonstration (TEMPEST-D) has satellite technology with the potential to measure cloud and precipitation processes on a global basis. These measurements help improve understanding of Earth's water cycle and weather predictions, particularly conditions inside storms that form precipitation.


The Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems – Demonstration (TEMPEST-D) satellite at Blue Canyon Technologies in Boulder, CO. Image courtesy of Blue Canyon Technologies.

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RainCube

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RainCube's umbrella-like antenna deploys during a ground-based test.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

RainCube (Radar in a CubeSat) Principal Investigator Eva Peral of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, said that radars are traditionally very large and very power-hungry.

A main goal of RainCube is to demonstrate the feasibility of a radar payload on a CubeSat platform. To that end, RainCube's distinctive antenna looks a little like an umbrella stuffed into a jack-in-the-box; when open, its ribs extend out of a canister and splay out a golden mesh.

As its name suggests, RainCube will use radar to measure rain and snowfall. Climate and weather models depend on measurements from space-borne satellites to complete model validation and improvements. RainCube is a technology demonstration mission enabling precipitation radar technologies on a low-cost, quick-turnaround platform, demonstrating a small radar and ultra-compact deployable antenna and providing a profile of the Earth's vertically falling precipitation, such as rain and snow. The RainCube mission enables future Earth science missions to improve weather and climate models.

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Antares is scheduled to launch no earlier than May 21 at 4:39 a.m. EDT on the company's CRS-9 resupply mission to the International Space Station. Launch will be from Virginia Space's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

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NASA is sending science, supplies and CubeSats to the International Space Station aboard Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft. Liftoff of their Antares rocket is now scheduled for 4:39 a.m. on Monday, May 21.
Join us live on Facebook with Cygnus and Antares experts, as well as the CubeRRT team who has an experiment on board!

https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.1790-29/10000000_916904648488499_3763269324215681024_n.mp4?_nc_cat=0&efg=eyJybHIiOjc2NSwicmxhIjo0MDk2LCJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InNkIn0%3D&rl=765&vabr=425&oh=8f465ac9ce68b103cb5e4ec6676b1694&oe=5B00B593
(video 13:37)

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Prelaunch Science briefing for Orbital Resupply Mission to the Space Station

NASA Video

Опубликовано: 19 мая 2018 г.

(1:04:40)

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Orbital ATK‏Подлинная учетная запись @OrbitalATK 10 ч. назад

L-2 is coming to a close and all launch operations remain on schedule for Monday's early morning launch. Stay tuned to our accounts tomorrow for an inside look at #Antares, #Cygnus and our involvement with @NASA_Wallops!

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Orbital ATK‏Подлинная учетная запись @OrbitalATK 38 мин. назад

Good morning fr om @VCSFA_MARS Pad 0A wh ere our #OA9 #Antares sits awaiting tomorrow's early morning launch of the S.S. J.R. Thompson #Cygnus! We'll be bringing you behind the scenes of @NASA_Wallops all day, including a closer look at the rocket

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/orbital/2018/05/20/forecast-for-tomorrows-launch-65-percent-favorable-weather/

Forecast for Tomorrow's Launch: 65-Percent Favorable Weather

Rob Garner
Posted May 20, 2018 at 9:29 am

The Range Control Center at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore has forecast 65-percent favorable weather for the May 21 launch of Orbital ATK's Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops.

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The Orbital ATK Antares rocket, with the Cygnus spacecraft aboard, is seen at launch Pad-0A, Saturday, May 19, 2018, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

The main weather concerns for Monday's launch attempt are sky screen (essentially local visibility conditions) and disturbed weather.

A cold front approaches from the northwest for this evening and early Monday morning. The southwesterly surface flow around the area of high pressure to the east will continue to provide a moist airmass over the Wallops region today and tonight.

A cold front will move through the Wallops region tonight, while a weak upper-level disturbance rides along the frontal boundary to provide a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms during the count. The cold front looks to push just south of the Wallops region by the launch window to end thunderstorm chances; however, a rain shower will still be possible in the area during the launch window.

Surface winds will become north to northeast by the launch window due to a weak area of high pressure briefly building into the Wallops region for Monday afternoon.

The Antares rocket, with Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft aboard is scheduled to launch no earlier than May 21 at 4:39 a.m. EDT on the company's CRS-9 resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The mission is the company's ninth contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA. Among the 7,400 pounds of cargo aboard Cygnus are science experiments, crew supplies and vehicle hardware.

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/space-life-and-physical-sciences-orbital-atk-9-experiments-and-payloads

May 18, 2018

Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications Orbital ATK CRS-9 Experiments and Payloads

Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications Enables human spaceflight exploration to expand the frontiers of knowledge, capability, and opportunity in space and Pioneers scientific discovery in and beyond low Earth orbit to drive advances in science, technology, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, and economic vitality.

Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL)

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Artist's concept of a magneto-optical trap and atom chip to be used by NASA's Cold AtomLaboratory (CAL) aboard the International Space Station
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL) is a fundamental physics experiment that will enable scientists to probe the building blocks of nature that make up everything fr om massive galaxies to individual people. CAL produces clouds of ultra-cold atoms called Bose-Einstein Condensates BECs, which are a state of matter in which very cold atoms behave less like particles and more like waves. In a BEC, atoms form a single quantum wave state, and become indistinguishable fr om one another; this state of matter is not thought to form naturally in the universe. On the International Space Station, free from the pull of gravity, scientists will be able to observe these BECs for much longer than what is possible on Earth, and at temperatures colder than what is typically achieved on the ground. Atom clouds will be chilled to about 10 billionths of a degree above absolute zero, or about 10 billion times colder than the "average" temperature of deep space (typically cited as about 3 Kelvin).


The Cold Atom Laboratory instrumentation that will fly to the International Space Station fitsinside two containers, the largest of which is about the size of a cooler
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To make CAL a reality, the team had to drastically reduce the size of the hardware necessary to create BECs, and make it sturdy enough to survive the trip to space. With CAL's capacity for long observation times, ultra-cold temperatures and a weightless environment, researchers will be able to execute a range of experiments that allows them to address some of the most fundamental questions in science, such as the nature of gravity and explorations of how complexity arises in the universe. Research done using CAL could contribute to improved technologies for atomic clocks, which are used in space navigation to determine the precise location of spacecraft. In addition, the technologies CAL uses to produce the ultra-cold atoms in space could help researchers build improved quantum sensors for spacecraft, that has applications ranging from monitoring Earth's changing climate to remote studies of the internal makeup of planets and asteroids. CAL may also provide insights into the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which make up about 95 percent of the universe, and yet remain deeply mysterious to scientists.

Project Manager: Robert Shotwell
Deputy Project Manager: Kamal Oudrhiri
Mission Scientist: Robert Thompson

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Gravitational Effects on Distortion in Sintering (GEDS)

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The Gravitational Effects on Distortion in Sintering (GEDS) Liquid Phase Sintering research focuses on determining the underlying scientific principles on how to predict density, size, shape, and properties for items that are formed from by the sintering processing, a method which compacts a material using heat or pressure without melting it. Liquid phase sintering is an important means to fabricate composite materials for applications in a variety of industries. While the science of liquid phase sintering is about 50 years old, practices date from the 1400's when gold was used to bond platinum in Columbia and Ecuador. Today it is a mainstay in a diversity of fields, such as metal cutting tools, armor piercing projectiles, automotive engine connecting rods, and self-lubricating bearings.


Sample Cartridge Assembly

Critical microgravity sintering experiments will be performed in the Low Gradient Furnace (LGF) within the Materials Science Research Rack (MSRR) utilizing specially designed Sample Cartridge Assemblies (SCAs). Compacted powder cylinder samples containing 70 to 90 wt. % tungsten, and 3.3 to 10 wt. % each of nickel, copper and manganese will be sintered at elevated temperatures in the microgravity environment of space. These experiment samples are contained in alumina crucibles and housed in quartz ampoules, which are ins erted into the SCA. Each assembly will be processed on orbit and returned to Earth for analysis, wh ere results will be compared with similar samples sintered on ground. Using data from both gravity and microgravity experiments, a multi-scale model for liquid phase sintering in gravity and microgravity environments will be developed to better understand sintering behavior. The multi-scale model developed can be used to improve terrestrial processes such as additive manufacturing, and future applications of liquid phase sintering, for in-space fabrication and repair – for example, using metal powder to fabricate replacement components during extraterrestrial exploration, or using lunar regolith to make building blocks on the moon.

Project Manager: Shawn Reagan/Marshall Space Flight Center
Principal Investigator: Randall German, Ph.D., San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Co-Investigator: Eugene Olevsky, Ph.D., San Diego State University, San Diego, CA

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ACME Experiments:

The Flame Design, Burning Rate Emulator (BRE), and s-flame experiments are conducted in the Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR) as part of the Advanced Combustion via Microgravity Experiments (ACME) project.

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Flame Design

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The Flame Design experiment is designed to reduce emissions, increase efficiencies, and reduce equipment costs in practical terrestrial combustion. This could lead to greatly improved burner designs that are efficient and less polluting than current designs.


Flame Design expt. flame from a precursor drop test conducted at NASA Glenn

The primary goal of the Flame Design experiment is to improve our understanding of soot creation and control in order to enable the optimization of combustion and the 'design' of flames that are both robust and soot free. The latter notably facilitates carbon capture which is important in mitigating the effects of climate change. It is also possible that findings from the Flame Design research could aid the development of future space-based combustion devices (e.g., for solid waste processing) or in improving spacecraft fire safety.

Project Manager: Lauren Brown
Project Scientist: Dennis Stocker
Principal Investigator: Richard Axelbaum (Washington U. in St. Louis)
Co-Investigator: Peter Sunderland (U. Maryland), David Urban (NASA Glenn)
Partners/Collaborations: Mikhail Sinev, Sergey Frolov and Pavel Vlasov (N.N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences)

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Burning Rate Emulator (BRE)

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The BRE experiment is focused on spacecraft fire prevention. More specifically, BRE's objective is to improve our fundamental understanding of materials flammability, such as how fires propagate and extinguish, and to assess the relevance of existing flammability test methods for low and partial-gravity environments.


BRE flame from a precursor drop test conducted at NASA Glenn

In this fire safety study, burning gaseous fuels under key conditions corresponding to the solid and liquid materials simulates the flammability of solid and liquid materials. A flat porous burner fed with gaseous fuel simulates the burning of solid and liquid fuels. A small number of gaseous fuels (including mixtures with inert gases) are used to simulate the burning of fuels such as paper, plastic, and alcohol by matching properties such as the heats of combustion and gasification, the surface temperature, and smoke point.

This technique has been demonstrated for a wide variety of materials in normal-gravity and could provide an efficient way to screen and sel ect fire-resistant materials for use in spacecraft if the technique is similarly effective in microgravity. While BRE is focused on improving the process to sele ct fire-resistant spacecraft materials, the research results could yield new understanding that also enables improved fire safety on Earth.

Project Manager: Lauren Brown
Project Scientist: Dennis Stocker
Principal Investigator: James Quintiere (U. Maryland)
Co-Investigators: Peter Sunderland (U. Maryland), John deRis (FM Global, retired)
Partners/Collaborations: Alexander Snegirev (Peter the Great St-Petersburg Polytechnic University, Russia)

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Structure and Response of Spherical Diffusion Flames (s-Flame)

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The Structure and Response of Spherical Diffusion Flames (s-Flame) experiment is designed to advance our ability to predict the structure and dynamics, including extinction and instabilities, of both soot-free and sooty flames. Diffusion flames are the basis for most combustion engines and devices, and the s-Flame results may contribute to the development of engines for improved efficiency and reduced pollutant emissions here on Earth.


s-Flame image from a precursor drop test conducted at NASA Glenn

In this experiment, spherical flames are ignited at non-steady conditions and allowed to transition naturally toward extinction. One experiment objective is to identify the extinction limits for both radiative (flame dies from heat loss) and convective (flame is blown out) extinction. Another objective is to determine the existence, onset, and nature of pulsating instabilities that have been theoretically predicted to occur in flames with certain fuel/inert mixtures. It is possible that findings fr om s-Flame research could aid the development of future space-based combustion devices (e.g., for solid waste processing), or in improving spacecraft fire safety.

Project Manager: Lauren Brown
Project Scientist: Dennis Stocker
Principal Investigator: C.K. (Ed) Law (Princeton U.)
Co-Investigator: Stephen Tse (Rutgers U.), Kurt Sacksteder (NASA Glenn)
Partners/Collaborations: Vladimir Gubernov (N.N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences)

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Plant Habitat-01 (PH-01): An Integrated Omics Guided Approach to Lignification and Gravitational Responses in Plants

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The Plant Habitat-01 (PH-01) investigation will study plant biological responses to spaceflight at multiple times during plant growth using the Advanced Plant Habitat . The PH-01 experiment is designed to provide a complete picture of how microgravity alters the biological processes of an organism, in this case the plant Arabidopsis thaliana. The principal goal of this work will be to determine the role that lignins, important structural molecules that are present in the cell walls of plants, play in the regulation of cellular processes both on Earth and in space.


Harvesting of A. thaliana during the PH-01 Experiment Verification Test

Lignins are what give the cell walls of plants their rigid structure. They provide the support needed for the upward growth of stems and outward growth of branches and are essential for the formation of wood and bark. These molecules, in addition to their structural roles, may also be involved in the regulation of gene and protein expression that occurs in response to changes in the surrounding environment. To test this hypothesis, the science team will use several plants that produce varying amounts of lignin and will describe the plants' responses to spaceflight conditions on the space station. The researchers will study study the changes that occur in gene and protein expression, metabolic regulation, photosynthesis, plant growth and development, water use efficiency, and gravitational adaptations.

This project will be one of NASA's first missions that it will provide integrated multisystem and multilevel, such as genetic, protein, and metabolic levels, analyses to help understand how microgravity alters the basic biology of plants when the influence of gravity is removed or minimized. This mission will serve as the foundation for future projects in subsequent spaceflight experiments, as well as shed new insights into the effects of gravity during plant growth and development.

This work also has the potential to provide insights into how we can grow plants and ensure they thrive in extreme environments on Earth wh ere plant growth is normally limited.

Project Manager: Nicole Dufour
Project Scientist: Howard Levine
Principal Investigator: Norman G. Lewis (Washington State University)
Co-Investigators: Laurence Davin (Washington State University), Michael Costa (Washington State University), David Hanson (University of New Mexico), Mary Lipton (Battelle Memorial Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Richard Sayre (New Mexico Consortium), Shawn Starkenburg (Los Alamos National Security, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

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Last Updated: May 19, 2018
Editor: Carlyle Webb

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NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 18 мин. назад

Early morning visit to Launch Pad 0A. Antares and Cygnus stand ready for launch on Monday, May 21 at 4:39 a.m.