The mighty RS-25 rocket engine

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center intends to buy 18 additional RS-25 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif., to support the agency's new Space Launch System (SLS). The estimated value of this proposed action is $2.2 billion with an estimated period of performance from date of execution through July 15, 2028.

“RS-25” is the generic designation for the staged combustion, liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine system previously known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) and it is the established core stage engine for the new SLS rocket. This proposed effort will be based on a previously existing production line for an engine system with thirty years of human spaceflight history. It is not a new engine development effort. The purchase of 18 additional RS-25s will fullfill the SLS Program engine requirements that are beyond the scope and the period of performance of the current contract, which provides six RS-25 flights engines with a period of performance through Sept. 30, 2024.

The new SLS vehicle uses a “stage-and-a-half” configuration that ignites the four core stage engines seconds before liftoff and then ignites the solid motors (boosters) at liftoff. The boosters burn out approximately two minutes into the flight while the core stage engines continue to burn until the desired cutoff point is achieved. This basic configuration is flexible for both early demonstration flights and for ultimately evolving the SLS vehicle to a configuration with a capability to lift 130 metric tons to low-earth orbit in support of future exploration missions.

NASA's strategy for minimizing the cost for development of the new SLS vehicle is to leverage the assets, capabilities and experience of the Space Shuttle Program. Early SLS flights will utilize 16 RS-25 engines from the Space Shuttle Program with necessary refurbishment and adaptations for SLS. The availability of 16 flights assets was one factor in selecting the RS-25 for the SLS architecture along with the demonstrated performance and extensive experience with this engine. These 16 assests can be used for the first four flights of SLS, with four engines per stage.

In addition to the 16 engines, six new engines were previously procured under the current contract to provide engines for the fifth SLS flight and two risk mitigation spare engines.

For the additional 18 RS-25 engines, it is estimated that each unit will take five years to fabricate and assemble. While it will be the goal of this procurement action to reduce this cycle time, the timeline of five years matches the documents Aerojet Rocketdyne historical norm for this engine.

Aerojet Rocketdyne designed, developed, and matured the RS-25 engine system as the SSME over the past forty-plus years, and has been the only source utilized for the design, development, manufacture, refurbishment, recycle, testing, and flight operations of the RS-25 for the life of the Space Shuttle Program. Further, Aerojet Rocketdyne is the contractor currently responsible for adapting the residual Space Shuttle RS-25 hardware for use as part of the SLS Program. No other contractor has this accumulated knowledge with respect to hands-on technical experience and programmatic history of this engine.

Aerojet Rocketdyne manufacturing is performed at three facilities; machining, welding, assembly and test of subassemblies at the Canoga Park California Strategic Fabrication Center, turbopump assembly operations at the West Palm Beach, Florida facility, and final assembly and test at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. While the NASA Stennis Space Center is a Government-owned facility, the other two facilities are Aerojet Rocketdyne facilities.

Aerojet Rocketdyne (and its predecessor companies) is the only contractor in this country to design and build large liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engines for human spaceflight. They designed and built the first liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engines to ever fly, the RL10, first launched in 1963. They designed and built the J-2 engine used for the second stage of the Saturn IB vehicle and the second and third stage of the Saturn V vehicle. Furthermore, they designed and built the world's largest liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen production engine, the RS-68, for the Delta IV vehicle in support of the Department of Defense. And most recently, they restarted production of six new RS-25 flight engines for the SLS Program.

For the past forty-plus years the RS-25 was, and remains today, the highest performing large staged combustion liquid hydrogen engine in the world. It is a unique engine with unique capabilities that took substantial and prolonged effort to develop and certify for human spaceflight. An attempt to develop a new engine with a new contractor (or the RS-25 engine with a new contractor) would require significantly more engine hot fire testing to certify for flight.

The RS-25 engine design carries with it four decades of development and production activity and three decades of flight experience. As a staged-combustion liquid hydrogen engine, the RS-25 engine design is also the most advanced and complex engine ever built and flown. With over one million seconds of accumulated hot-fire test time and the equivalent of over four hundred human spaceflights, the RS-25 design, production processes, and operational procedures have incorporated within them thousands of lessons learned.

The overall period of performance for the proposed activity in support of the current SLS Program flight manifest is approximately nine years. To support an August 2025 launch of a fifth mission, the first four engines must be delivered no later than July 2025. Based on historical data it takes a lead-time of approximately five years to fabricate and assemble the engine. Based on an ATP of July 2019, the first of four engines would need to be delivered in July 2024. Assuming the engines are delivered every three months, the fourth engine would be delivered in April 2025, with about three months contingency in the schedule. The last of the 18 engines would deliver in the first quarter of fiscal year 2028.

An estimated 6,000 tons of “space junk” orbits Earth each day

At the United Nations Geneva Meeting in 2019, the President and Co-Founder of BlockchainArmy, Erol User, urged all institutions, governments, as well as private sector corporations to join in the initiative called S.O.S, short for Save Our Space. The initiative is an effort to organize a space waste management system.

In his speech at the meeting in Switzerland, Dec. 14, Erol User said that now is the time for everyone to begin cooperating "to guarantee economically vital spaceflight" to facilitate innovative service offerings for the citizens along with future space developments. Continuing further, he stated that we need to keep up the dream of future exploration while also combining continual technological development and environmental awareness.

Not much needs to be said when it comes to how attracted humans have been towards space since the beginning of time. It has always been a very exciting element and has attracted several explorations through spacecraft, rockets, satellites, etc. The intentional or accidental explosion of space objects, flecks of paint from space objects, residual elements from space missions, etc., all end up floating at very high speed (some 18,000 miles per hour) in an orbit that surrounds our earth called "Low Earth Orbit" or LEO. For instance, the deliberate destruction of the Chinese Fengyun-1C spacecraft in 2007 and the accidental collision of an American and a Russian spacecraft in 2009 are two of the main reasons why LEO is turning into a space garbage orbit. These two incidents have dominated LEO's space debris levels by approximately 70 percent.

Over the years, these leftover space objects have contributed to space junk or space debris. Space debris is a growing issue for humankind today, which can have its claws dug deep into the future generations.

Space debris is environmentally bad as we are leaving unnatural objects in space. Eventually, the satellites will need to come down into the earth's atmosphere, which poses a high possibility of them burning into flames. A much worse scenario is dealing with the leftover fuel in those satellites leading them to explode in earth's atmosphere.

For simple purposes such as communication and weather reports, manmade satellites are orbiting earth in geostationary orbit, which is 35,000 kilometers above the planet. These satellites are usually blasted into a "graveyard orbit” when they reach the end of their service life, which is around 36,000 km above earth. In the past, the blasting episodes were less and manageable, but with growing technology, space pollution is only becoming a burdening issue. Researchers from Australia are currently monitoring approximately 29,000 pieces of space junk.

One company looking into the space debris problem is Electro Optic Systems of Australia. The company's Chief Executive and Technical Director Professor Craig Smith is trying to come up with a "high-powered, high-precision laser," according to reports. This laser is under developed at the Space Environment Research Centre. The ambition is to push space junk out of the way and prevent collisions with other satellites. Another use of the laser is to destroy space junk eventually. The laser is expected to be fully functional in three years.

“It is a serious issue. We have oceans and rivers, and we pollute them until they become almost unusable. We have done exactly the same with space. We have left junk everywhere,” Smith said. An approximation from NASA says there is 6,000 tons of space debris orbiting in the LEO.

ABL Space Systems updates RS1 launch vehicle design

On Friday, ABL Space Systems announced design updates to its RS1 launch vehicle, an increase in payload capacity, and a decrease in price.

The upgraded RS1 has a larger six-foot diameter and is powered by a new family of gas generator engines, E1 and E2. The vehicle's design capacity is 1,200 kilograms to 200-kilometer, low inclination orbit, or 875 kg to 500-km sun-synchronous orbit. RS1 is priced at $12 million per launch, or as low as $10,000 per kilogram.

"In both engineering and manufacturing, small launch vehicles are fundamentally simpler than large launch vehicles, and there are many opportunities for efficiency gains," said ABL CEO Harry O'Hanley.

Founded in 2017, ABL recently completed its first development vehicle and conducted a successful tanking test.

ABL is planning an RS1 stage test in the second half of 2019, with a target first launch in 2020. 

"The global launch vehicle market is still missing a truly low-cost option in the 500-1,500 kg capacity range," said ABL CFO Dan Piemont. "We're confident RS1 fills an important role in the market for a variety of mission profiles, including bulk deployment of cubesats, deployment of three to five larger, more capable satellites, or dedicated launch of satellites with aggressive mission requirements."

ABL Space Systems was founded by former SpaceX engineering leaders in 2017 to develop low-cost launch vehicles for the small satellite industry. The company is headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., where it has 30,000 square feet of facilities for research, development, and production. ABL is a privately-owned corporation backed by a premier group of private equity investors.

Study looks at commercialization of low Earth orbit

In May, NASA will be releasing a NASA Research Announcement (NRA) for low Earth orbit (LEO) commercialization, according to contract documents released Tuesday.

The purpose of this NRA is to inform NASA's strategy for enabling the commercialization of human spaceflight in LEO and meeting NASA's long-term LEO needs. The NRA will solicit industry concepts, business plans and viability for habitable platforms, whether using the International Space Station (ISS) or free-flying, that would enable a commercial marketplace in LEO where NASA is one of many customers. Additionally, the study seeks industry input on the role of government and evolution of ISS in the roadmap to commercialization of LEO.

NASA anticipates awarding multiple four-month, fixed priced contracts, up to $1 million per award. Participation is open to U.S. organizations, including industry, educational institutions, and nonprofit institutions, the agency said in documents.

A Pre-Proposal Conference to discuss the study objectives and proposal instructions with prospective respondents is planned for May 1 in the Gilruth Center at Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.

Video: Atlas rocket launches satellite for National Reconnaissance Office

An Atlas V rocket lifts off with the National Reconnaissance Office's NROL-52 payload. This was the 60th Atlas V to launch from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex-41 in Florida.

Video: Preparing to launch Starliner to the International Space Station

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is working with Boeing to launch astronauts aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft atop ULA's Atlas V rocket. Here's what's in store for 2017 as they prepare to launch astronauts to the International Space Station beginning in 2018.

Analysts estimate over 8000 space payloads to be launched between 2017-2036

Coinciding with the Satellite 2017 Conference & Exhibition held in Washington, D.C., this week, Teal Group space analysts have identified 8,607 satellites, probes and capsules to be built and launched to earth or deep space orbits between 2017 and 2036. They estimate the value of these space payloads at more than $250 billion. Teal Group is an aerospace and defense consultancy based in Fairfax, Va.

The payload count for 2017-2036 reflects a 41 percent increase compared to the 5,095 payloads identified last year for 2016-2035 and 46.5 percent more than the 4,067 payloads for the 20-year look forward in 2015.  The trend in the future market for space payloads continues upward, and it is being driven largely by the introduction of thousands of small, nano and pico (mainly "Cubesats") commercial satellites designed to provide everything from broadband and mobile communications to meteorological, imaging and position location & tracking services.

Teal analysts identify 443 payloads "proposed" for launch in 2017, followed by 583 in 2018; 727 in 2019; 926 in 2020; 731 in 2021; 1,222 in 2022; 1,201 in 2023; 968 in 2024; 730 in 2025; and 298 in 2026.

In their latest update by spacecraft type, Teal analysts classified 6,786 (79 percent) of the payloads as commercial, 921 (11 percent) as civil (government non-military), 579 (6.5 percent) as military, and 321 (3.5 percent) as university and non-profit.

Of the payloads, more than 75 percent of them are proposed for low earth orbits; 17 percent for medium earth orbits; six percent to geostationary orbits; and the rest to deep space or elliptical orbits.

US looks to buy more seats aboard Russian spacecraft

NASA is considering contracting with The Boeing Company for crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft, according to contract documents released Tuesday.

Boeing recently entered into an agreement with Russia's RSC Energia, manufacturer of the Soyuz spacecraft. As a part of the agreement, Energia agreed to provide to Boeing two specifically identified seats on the Soyuz spacecraft for long-duration travel to and from the ISS, one on a flight to occur in the fall 2017 timeframe and another on a flight to occur in the spring 2018 timeframe. Additionally, Energia provided Boeing three additional specifically identified seats in the spring 2019 timeframe on two Soyuz spacecraft. Boeing and RSC Energia have agreed that Boeing has full rights to these seats and can sell them to any third party.

NASA is interested in launching one crewmember in the fall of 2017 and one crewmember in the spring of 2018, the agency said in a Presolicitation contract document. The agency is considering purchasing these services from Boeing, without competition, because no other vehicles are currently capable of providing these services. The purchase of these services will increase U.S. crew size on the ISS from three to four crewmembers to maximize science utilization.

NASA has contracts with two U.S. commercial companies for crew transportation to the ISS. However, these vehicles are still in the developmental stage, and not expected to begin fully operational flights to the ISS until 2019. In the event the U.S. commercial crew providers are delayed in demonstrating a fully operational capability to transport humans to space, the risk of de-crewing ISS greatly increases. “The absence of U.S. crewmembers at any point would diminish vehicle operations to an inoperable state,” NASA said in the Presolicitation.

NASA also is considering an option to acquire crew transportation from Boeing for three crewmembers on the Soyuz in 2019, to ensure the availability of back-up transportation capability in the event the U.S. commercial contractor vehicles are delayed or to augment future ISS operations and research.

The Russian Soyuz spacecraft is currently the only vehicle with the operational capability to provide crew services to and from the ISS in 2017 and 2018. There are eight Soyuz launches planned between 2017 and 2018 (four per year). The crew capacity of the Soyuz is limited to a maximum of three crewmembers per vehicle.

Russia recently announced its plans to reduce the Russian crew count onboard ISS from three to two, beginning in 2017. As a result of Russia reducing its crew count by one crewmember, there is now an available Soyuz seat in the 2017-2018 timeframe on each of the two planned spacecraft that would have otherwise had two Russian crew aboard. Of the 24 total Soyuz seats available in 2017-2018, the three seats resulting from the Russian crew decrement are the only available means of transporting additional U.S. crewmembers to ISS during this period.

US spacewalk will work on space station cooling system

On Sept. 1, two NASA astronauts will spacewalk outside the International Space Station for the second time in less than two weeks.

The six-and-a-half hour spacewalk is scheduled to begin about 8 a.m. EDT.

Working on the port side of the orbiting complex's backbone, or truss, Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA will retract a thermal radiator that is part of the station's cooling system. The radiator is a backup that had been deployed previously as part of an effort to fix an ammonia coolant leak. They'll also tighten struts on a solar array joint, and install the first of several enhanced high-definition television cameras that will be used to monitor activities outside the station, including the comings and goings of visiting cargo and crew vehicles.

This will be the 195th spacewalk in support of space station assembly and maintenance, the fifth of Williams' career and the second for Rubins. As was the case for their first spacewalk together Aug. 19, Williams will be designated as extravehicular crew member 1 (EV1), wearing a spacesuit with a red stripe, while Rubins will be EV2, wearing a suit with no stripes.

California space factory to step up production to hundreds of satellites each year

Millennium Space Systems has officially broken ground on Phase-3 of its manufacturing & production plan, building out an additional 35,000 square feet at its existing spacecraft factory in El Segundo, Calif., located two miles south of LAX and adjacent to the Los Angeles Air Force Base and the Aerospace Corporation. The expansion, anticipated to be completed by mid-summer of this year, also encompasses additional space to broaden the company's existing onsite mission operations, rapid prototyping, internal research and development laboratories and high-tech workspace.

Stan Dubyn, Millennium's Chairman & CEO, commented, "with this Phase-3 facility expansion, we're putting into place the additional manufacturing & production processes and infrastructure to build hundreds of satellites each year, sparked by the work started with us by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, on the SeeMe Program, where the demand was to provide a sustaining capability to build 24 satellites on 90-day call-ups. We just hit our second year at the new spacecraft factory - this next big step adds to our capacity to continue designing, manufacturing, testing, delivering, and operating a wide range of satellites and components from our ALTAIR and AQUILA platform lines."

Historic vote supports US companies mining on the Moon

History was made Monday when the U.S. House of Representatives passed landmark legislation recognizing and promoting the rights of United States companies to engage in the exploration and extraction of space resources from the Moon and other celestial bodies. This historic legislation was passed as Title IV of the "U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (or H.R. 2262 as amended)", and provides the first ever codification of private sector mining rights for water and minerals obtained from the Moon.

Moon Express, Bigelow Aerospace, and many other companies are applauding the House for the legislation.

"Our goal is to unlock the resources of the Moon for the benefit of humanity, and Moon Express is grateful to have the backing of the United States in our endeavor," said Moon Express co-founder and CEO, Bob Richards. "We thank the House and its visionary champions of the bill led by Majority Leader McCarthy (R-Calf.) and Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) for their leadership and vision in passing this much-needed legislation, and especially wish to thank Representatives Bill Posey (R-Fla.), Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.) for their support."

Moon Express, Inc., is a privately funded commercial space company blazing a trail to the Moon to unlock its mysteries and resources with robotic spacecraft products & services using exponential technologies.

NASA seeks new director at Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA has named Todd May acting director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., as the agency continues the process of looking for a permanent director.

Patrick Scheuermann, who served as the Marshall director since September 2012, is retiring from the agency, effective Friday. His retirement caps a 27-year career with NASA that began in 1988 as a propulsion test engineer at the agency's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss.

May was appointed Marshall deputy director in August, and previously served as manager of the Space Launch System (SLS) Program since August 2011. May led the SLS Program through a series of milestones, including engine tests and a successful, in-depth critical design review. SLS, now under development, will be the most powerful rocket ever built, able to carry astronauts in NASA's Orion spacecraft on deep space missions, including to an asteroid and ultimately on a journey to Mars.

May's NASA career began in 1991, working in the Materials and Processes Laboratory at Marshall. He was deputy program manager of the Russian Integration Office in the International Space Station Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in 1994, and worked on the team at Marshall that developed and launched the Gravity Probe B mission to test Einstein's Theory of Relativity in 2004. That same year he assumed management of the Discovery and New Frontiers Programs, created to explore the solar system with frequent unmanned spacecraft missions.

May moved to NASA Headquarters in Washington in 2007 as a deputy associate administrator in the Science Mission Directorate. Returning to Marshall in June 2008, May was named Marshall's associate director, Technical, a post he held until being named SLS program manager.

The SLS Program is managed at Marshall, one of NASA's largest field installations, with almost 6,000 civil service and contractor employees, an annual budget of approximately $2.5 billion and a broad spectrum of science and technological missions.

Third Inmarsat-5 communications satellite launched

When the third Boeing-built Inmarsat-5 satellite, which is now in orbit, becomes fully operational later this year it will provide the technology and coverage necessary for worldwide high-speed broadband access.

Officially named Inmarsat-5 F3, Boeing reports the satellite sent signals from space following its launch yesterday on an International Launch Services Proton launch vehicle. After reaching final orbit, the spacecraft will undergo testing and checkout before becoming operational. The spacecraft will support the Inmarsat Global Xpress network.

“The Inmarsat Global Xpress network will be the first high-speed Ka-band broadband network to span the world,” said Rupert Pearce, CEO, Inmarsat. “New technology and engineering design will allow us to steer capacity where it’s needed most and adjust to shifting subscriber usage patterns and evolving demographics over the minimum 15-year life span of the network."

Each of the three Inmarsat-5 satellites provide seamless, global broadband communications coverage to users worldwide on land, at sea, and in the air. The first two Inmarsat-5 Global Xpress satellites were launched December 2013 and February 2015, respectively. A fourth Boeing-built Inmarsat-5 (F4) is scheduled for delivery in mid-2016.

Building a better solar array for deep space missions

NASA's space technology program is seeking proposals to develop solar array systems for space power in high radiation and low solar energy environments.

In the near future, NASA will need solar cells and arrays for multiple applications in robotic and human space exploration missions. Because these systems were traditionally developed for operation near Earth, there is a need to develop new solar array concepts as NASA considers missions that require exposure to more intense radiation environments and travel ever farther from the sun.

NASA hopes to solicit proposals for the development of promising technologies to increase solar cells that will work under low intensity, low temperature and high radiation environments.

Proposals will be accepted from U.S. organizations, including NASA centers and other government agencies, federally funded research and development centers, educational institutions, industry and nonprofit organizations.

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate's (STMD) Game Changing Development (GCD) program expects to make as many as four awards, valued to $400,000 each for the 9-month base requirement; up to two awards for Option I, which is valued at $1.25 million and one award for Option II, with a value of $2 million.

NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., manages the GCD program for STMD.

Fruit in space

NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren corrals the supply of fresh fruit that arrived Tuesday aboard the Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle. Visiting cargo ships often carry a small cache of fresh food for crew members aboard the International Space Station.

Battery charger failure caused weather satellite to rupture in space

Officials from the U.S. Air Force 50th Space Wing have completed their operations review of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Flight 13 that was permanently shut down Feb. 3, 2015, precipitating a debris-causing event. The review determined there were no actions that could have been taken to prevent the incident. The mission is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on behalf of the U.S. Air Force.

The review into the unexpected loss of this satellite determined a failure of the battery charger as the likely cause. Analysis indicates one of the wiring harnesses lost functionality due to compression over a long period of time in the battery charge assembly. Once the harness was compromised, the exposed wires potentially caused a short in the battery power, leading to an overcharge situation with eventual rupture of the batteries.

Currently, the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is tracking 147 pieces of debris from this incident ranging from baseball to basketball-sized objects, where the original satellite was about the size of a one-car garage. There are approximately 110 payloads in the same orbital regime as DMSP Flight 13. The JSpOC has had no reportable conjunctions between the DMSP Flight 13 debris and any of these objects.

"In accordance with our ongoing efforts to protect the space domain, the JSpOC will continue to monitor this debris along with all of the items in the space catalog in order to enhance the long-term sustainability, safety and security of the space environment," said Col. John Giles, JSpOC director.

DMSP Flight 13 was originally launched on March 24, 1995. Despite its original four-year design life, Flight 13 provided service for almost two decades and on Aug. 6, 2014 became the first operational DMSP satellite to reach 100,000 revolutions around the Earth.

Pornhub launches campaign to fund first sex tape in space

Pornhub, an online destination for adult entertainment, announced Wednesday it has officially launched an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund the first ever sex tape in space. The "Sexploration" campaign, which will run through the next 30 days, is looking to raise $3.4 million to fund the maiden voyage set for takeoff in late 2016.

Pornhub is giving its loyal fans the opportunity to be a part of this historic undertaking by providing a way for them to have their own say in how the entire film is put together via campaign contributions. Each donation will in turn be rewarded on a tiered prize level basis depending on the amount of each offering, with the higher tiers reflecting a greater amount of contributor control over production. The campaign's proceeds will go directly towards securing key components, such as the cost of shuttle seating for the crew and performers, as well as state-of-the-art video equipment to broadcast the iconic moment. Conversely, Pornhub will absorb all of the pre- and post-production costs, as well as expenses for promoting, releasing and celebrating the launch of the film.

"This will be a grand experiment in learning how intercourse works after penetrating the Earth's atmosphere," said Corey Price, vice president, Pornhub.

Additional information on the campaign, including the full list of prizes, can be found on the Indiegogo landing page.

Space-based instrument to monitor air pollutants hits milestone

The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, developed by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. is headed toward its Critical Design Review this month following an earlier milestone that included Preliminary Design Review (PDR). Ball is now well into the fabrication of the instrument following the successful PDR and a confirmation review.

TEMPO, an air quality sensor that will provide hourly monitoring of pollution across North America, is the first NASA Earth Venture Instrument mission with a ultraviolet-visible air quality spectrometer to be placed in geostationary orbit.

Ball Aerospace is building the TEMPO instrument under a firm-fixed price contract with NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia. Ball has a long history of providing cost-effective solutions for Earth observation and remote-sensing missions with fixed-price contracts.

The TEMPO instrument is designed to make accurate observations of atmospheric pollution with high spatial and temporal resolution over North America, from Mexico City to the Canadian oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. TEMPO will observe Earth's atmosphere in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to determine concentrations of many key atmospheric pollutants, such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde. TEMPO will share a ride on a yet unidentified commercial satellite as a hosted payload.

In addition to TEMPO, Ball Aerospace is jointly developing a similar geostationary ultraviolet visible spectrometer, the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer, with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, South Korea.

SpaceX rocket now eligible to launch national security satellites

Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center and Air Force Program Executive Officer for Space, has announced the certification of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket for national security space missions.

“SpaceX is now eligible for award of qualified national security space launch missions as one of two currently certified launch providers,” Air Force officials said in a press statement. “The first upcoming opportunity for SpaceX to compete to provide launch services is projected to be in June when the Air Force releases a Request for Proposal for Global Positioning System III launch services.

"SpaceX's emergence as a viable commercial launch provider provides the opportunity to compete launch services for the first time in almost a decade,” said Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James. “Ultimately, leveraging of the commercial space market drives down cost to the American taxpayer and improves our military's resiliency."

The Air Force invested more than $60 million and 150 people in the certification effort which encompassed 125 certification criteria, including more than 2,800 discreet tasks, three certification flight demonstrations, verifying 160 payload interface requirements, 21 major subsystem reviews and 700 audits in order to establish the technical baseline from which the Air Force will make future flight worthiness determinations for launch.

NASA to test booster for new Space Launch System

The largest, most powerful booster ever built for NASA's new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will fire up for a ground test at 11:30 a.m. EDT March 11, at Orbital ATK Propulsion Systems' test facilities in Promontory, Utah.

The two-minute static test is a significant milestone for the SLS as part of NASA's journey to Mars, and follows years of development. It is one of two ground tests to qualify the booster for flight. A second test is planned for early 2016. Once qualification is complete, the hardware will be ready to help send the rocket, along with NASA's Orion spacecraft, on its first flight test.

A public viewing area is available along State Road 83 North approximately 20 miles west of Corinne, Utah. The gate to the public viewing area opens at 9 a.m. EDT March11. Overflow parking is available, if needed.

When completed, two solid-rocket boosters and four RS-25 main engines will power the SLS as it begins its deep space missions. The boosters operate in parallel with the main engines for the first two minutes of flight, providing more than 75 percent of the thrust needed for the rocket to escape Earth's gravitational pull.

The first flight test of the SLS will feature a configuration for a 70-metric-ton (77-ton) lift capacity and carry an uncrewed Orion spacecraft beyond low-Earth orbit to test the performance of the integrated system. As the SLS is updated, it will provide an unprecedented lift capability of 130 metric tons (143 tons) to enable missions even farther into the solar system.