Space Station Team takes on 'EPIC' occasion

Expedition 30 Flight Engineer Don Pettit, operational in singing group with the International Space Station team in Houston’s Mission Control Center, inspects hardware as he install a set of Enhanced Processor and Integrated Communications (EPIC) processor cards in one of seven primary computers aboard. Anyone who has ever been concerned in a computer improve knows that they can be complex, and that you have to take your time, be cautious, and go step-by-step if you want to be winning.

That’s precisely what the journey 30 crew and International Space Station team in Mission Control are responsibility as they fit a set of Enhanced Processor and Integrated Communications (EPIC) computer cards in the seven main computers on the station.

EPIC is the shorthand name the team is using to explain this improve of the main processor cards. The seven computers, which are officially called Multiplexer/Demultiplexers, are second-hand for Guidance, Navigation, & Control; Command and Control; and Payload, or experiment, control. The innovative cards have faster processors, more memory, and an Ethernet connection for data output. Astronauts use laptop computers to control station systems from side to side these main computer.

Europe's automatic move Vehicle is incorporated on Ariane 5

The third European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for open by Arianespace was installing atop its Ariane 5 at the Spaceport, mark one of the final steps in arrangements for a March 9 liftoff on a service mission to the International Space Station.

Named after Italian physicist Edoardo Amaldi, the ATV will take dry cargo (including food, clothing, experiments and spare parts), along with water, gas and propellant for delivery to the crewed orbital ability.

This latest ATV flight in support of International Space Station operations will utilize an Ariane 5 ES version of Arianespace's heavy-lift workhorse, underscoring the launcher's suppleness in meeting a full range of mission requirements. The launch of ATV Edoardo Amaldi follows Arianespace missions with Europe's first two Automated Transfer Vehicles, perform in February 2011 and March 2008 from the Spaceport in French Guiana.

An industry consortium led by Astrium produces the ATVs in a program manage by the European Space Agency.

Mars Science Laboratory Mission rank account

Engineers have established the root reason of a computer rearrange that occur two months ago on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory and have strong-minded how to right it.

The fix involves altering how certain vacant data-holding locations, called registers, are configured in the memory management of the kind of computer chip used on the spacecraft. Billions of run on a test computer with the personalized register pattern yielded no repeat of the reset behavior. The assignment team made this software change on the spacecraft's PC last week and long-established this week that the update is winning.

Three days after launch, during use of the craft's star scanner. The cause has been recognized as a previously unknown design peculiarity in the memory organization unit of the Mars Science Laboratory computer processor. In rare set of situation unique to how this mission uses the processor, cache access errors could occur, resulting in instructions not being executed properly. This is what happen on the spacecraft.

"Good police officer work on thoughtful why the rearrange occurred has yielded a way to avert it from occurring again," said Mars Science Laboratory Deputy Project Manager Richard Cook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The winning resolution of this difficulty was the ending of productive teamwork by engineers at the computer producer and JPL."

Vega rocket prepared for first flight

 The primary Vega launch campaigns begin in November with the fitting of the P80 first stage on the launch pad. The two solid-propellant second and third stages were additional to the vehicle; follow by the AVUM – Attitude & Vernier Upper component – liquid-propellant fourth stage.  

All four stages have undergone concluding acceptance, counting the difficult of the avionics, leadership, telemetry, propulsion, division pyrotechnics and safety systems.

These steps culminate on 13 January with Vega’s ‘mixture control checks’, where all systems were put into launch mode for the vehicle’s final acceptance. This included pressurising the AVUM propulsion systems that actuate the thruster valves.

The rocket’s elements were switch on from the manage bench to replicate the launch countdown. The onboard software then took in excess of and replicated the diverse stages of a flight. The interface between the vehicle and the control bench were also tested.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope: A time of accomplishment and achievement

Manufacturing and difficult of all flight mirrors was finished in a final test at the X-ray and Calibration Facility at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. through these tests mirror segment were chilled to temperature similar to those Webb will see in space, around minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

It was the conclusion of work started in 2003. Heed lessons learned from the Hubble Space Telescope, the program adopted the plan of tackling the most difficult technical challenges first. That decision proved to be the right one. In June, all 18 flight main mirror segment, plus the secondary, tertiary and fine steering mirrors, were refined and coated soft beautiful surfaces that will enable Webb to image the most far-away galaxies.

Two of Webb's behind and leader structures were also completed. To assemble the flight telescope on the ground, a 139,000 pound structure will install the flight mirrors using an below track system supporting a robotic arm. The huge display place has been completed and assembled in the ultra-clean room used for telescope assembly at Goddard.

Also over was the pathfinder backplane, a full-scale engineering model of the middle section of the flight backplane. The backplane holds the mirror segment in place to form a single primary mirror. The full pathfinder constituent will consist of 12 of the 18 hexagonal cells (the center section of the primary mirror) of the telescope and contain a subset of two primary mirror segment assemblies, the secondary mirror, and the subsystem contain the tertiary and fine direction-finding mirrors. It will show integration and test actions that will be used on the flight reduce in size.

Webb's giant sunshield moved onward into a new testing phase last year, the last step before fabrication of the flight sunshield. Sunshield layer three became the first of five full-size flight-like layers stretched out in a fully replicated flight pattern. This enables engineers to make 3-D shape capacity that will tell them how the full-size sunshield layers will behave in space. Implementation this test is a critical step in the sunshield's progress and gives the engineers confidence and experience needed to manufacture the five flight layers.

An important sunshield use flight structure also completed fabrication in 2011. The space-qualified graphite composite tubes that will enable the sunshield to deploy in space have finished fabrication. The telescoping tube system was intended at Astro Aerospace, a industry unit of Northrop Grumman.

Capping the year's achievement, Webb's spacecraft also moved onward. The force system's 16 monopropellant rocket engine thrusters, which manage momentum and station-keeping on orbit, were upgraded to accept senior heat loading from the sunshield. Propulsion engineers also completed building four flight secondary combustion increased thrusters which maintain orbit after the launch vehicle finishes its burns. Engineers also established the flight software accountable for ground commands and science data liberation.

Successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope is the world's next-generation space observatory. It is the most influential space telescope ever built. Webb will observe the most remote objects in the universe, provide images of the very first galaxies ever formed and study planets around distant stars. The Webb reduce in dimension is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.