June 2015 Vol. 2 No. 6 National Aeronautics and Space Administration KENNEDY SPACE CENTER’S magazine NASA Robotic Mining Competition The Future is Here KSC transforms its workforce and infrastructure for the Journey to Mars Earth Solar Aeronautics Mars Technology Right ISS System & Research Now Beyond NASA’S National Aeronautics and Space Administration LAUNCH KENNEDY SPACE CENTER’S SCHEDULE SPACEPORT MAGAZINE Date: No Earlier Than June 2, 12:30 p.m. EDT CONTENTS Mission: Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) Flight Test 4 ...................Director updates path toward spaceport’s goals Description: NASA’s LDSD project is designed to investigate and test 5 ...................Reorg realigning work force toward strategic goals breakthrough technologies for landing future robotic and human Mars missions and safely returning ...................Collegiate miners dig Robotic Mining Competition 8 large payloads to Earth. The test, performed over the Pacific Ocean, ................Input wantedon sustained human presence on Mars 15 will simulate the supersonic entry and descent speeds at which the ................NASA announces progress on asteroid initiative 22 spacecraft would be traveling through the Martian atmosphere. 24 ................Additional information for ARM spacecraft http://go.nasa.gov/1BsoVgf SAMANTHA FONDER 26 ................SpaceX tests astronaut escape system for Dragon Date: June 26, 11:09 a.m. EDT am the flight operations engineer for NASA’s Launch Mission: SpaceX CRS-7 Resupply I Services Program (LSP). I work to ensure data from 28 ................New small class vehicle launch site takes shape Mission to the International Space the launch vehicle returns to the customers in real Station time for all of the unmanned NASA launches. I use the ................NASA names Steve Horn Attorney of the Year 32 Description: Launching from Cape trajectory and sequence of events to understand which Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, antennas around the world can be used to capture data ................U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame welcomes quartet 36 SpaceX’s seventh commercial from the rocket while it is in flight. Depending on the resupply mission under NASA results, I may work with other countries or private ................Gemini IV — Learning to walk in space 44 contract to the International Space companies to gain access to their antennas. These Station will deliver several tons of antennas may be satellites in space, a dish in the middle ................DHS, NASA technology helps save four in Nepal 50 supplies, including new science of the desert, or a transportable hardware that can be experiments and technology outfitted on a boat or a plane. research. http://go.nasa.gov/WQkyJf This issue brings the reader inside the gates of Kennedy Space Center to discover the I have been in this role for four years, and I still find it changes the center is making to its workforce, mission and infrastructure to enable the very exciting and challenging. Every mission is differ- journey to Mars in the coming decades. NASA is currently working on the challenges Date: July ent, so there always is something new to figure out. My of how to get to Mars, how to land and, ultimately, how people will live and work once Mission: Progress 60P Cargo Craft favorite part of my job is interacting with the public. they arrive on the Red Planet. NASA’s Robotic Mining Competition is a stepping stone Description: In early July, the on this path as NASA engineers are able to watch, first-hand, how students from 46 Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind, Progress 60P resupply vehicle ó- colleges and universities propose to solve the challenge of mining on Mars, while but nearly every time I tell someone outside the gate simultaneously inspiring the next generation of engineers and scientists. NASA is an automated, unpiloted version of that I work for NASA, their face lights up and a slew paving the way to Mars; please continue reading to join us on the journey. the Soyuz spacecraft that is used to bring supplies and fuel ó- launches of space questions start to flow. In fact, I usually end to ISS. up learning a new fun fact about Pluto’s moons or the largest asteroid on record. Space has a special way of Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest Kennedy Space Center updates. Date: July inspiring people’s curiosity, and I feel really fortunate to play a small role in that. www.facebook.com/ www.twitter.com/nasakennedy Mission: Expedition 44 Launch to the ISS Description: In late July, Kjell THE SPACEPORT MAGAZINE TEAM Lindgren of NASA, Kimiya Yui of JAXA and Oleg Kononenko of Editorial Writers Group Graphics Group Roscosmos launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Managing Editor ........... Amanda Griffin Anna Heiney Bob Granath Richard Beard Amy Lombardo Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan to the Editor ............................ Frank Ochoa-Gonzales Kay Grinter Linda Herridge Lynda Brammer Matthew Young ISS. http://go.nasa.gov/1BspAy1 Assistant Editor ............. Linda Herridge Frank Ochoa-Gonzales Steven Siceloff Greg Lee Copy Editor ................... Kay Grinter www.nasa.gov SPACEPORT Magazine 3 GETTING THERE Kennedy director updates path toward spaceport’s goals BY STEVEN SICELOFF FORGING AHEAD Reorg realigning work force toward strategic goals xploration requires bold initiative a presence in low-Earth orbit aboard the a Kennedy-based effort to involve private BY STEVEN SICELOFF Eand unflinching drive, Kennedy International Space Station, but it’s time to industry more deeply than ever before in Space Center Director Bob Cabana told move on and establish that presence further the development and operation of spacecraft ne of the most far-reaching Traditionally, commercial entities facilities function within engineering an audience at the Florida chapter of out into the solar system.” capable of carrying astronauts to the space Oreorganizations Kennedy Space are on much tighter schedules and is already enabling efficiencies across a the National Space Club recently as he The three programs based at Kennedy station. The new spacecraft by Boeing Center has ever undertaken has aligned budgets than government operations, so number of projects including critical underscored the steps already taken to the are central to meeting the agency’s overall and SpaceX will allow the station crew to the work force to the needs of a multi- Kennedy has to react quicker to private modifications to High Bay 3 in the convert the center to a multi-user spaceport. mission, Cabana said, and the center’s grow by one, which is enough to double user spaceport while preserving the needs if it is to make the most of the Vehicle Assembly Building.” Performing the next series of steps correctly transition to meet the diverse needs of the scientific time crew members devote to unique character of the Florida center chance to diversify its opportunities. This was not the first time the is just as critical to establish the nation’s commercial enterprises in aerospace and research on the orbiting laboratory. and placing employees in posts more “We focused on how we work with center has reset itself. The federal premiere launch site on a successful course other research fields is just as critical in “Why Mars?” Cabana queried, “It’s the befitting their abilities and interests our customers to be that preferred workforce averages about five years for the next 50 years, he added. making a complete center that serves NASA’s one planet in our solar system aside from said those who helped envision and spaceport for people,” said Digna between reorganizations. This one is implement the changes. Carballosa, director of Kennedy’s seen as more far-reaching because of “I think it’s been received very Human Resources. the changes that are happening in the “We’ve established well,” said Pat Simpkins, director aerospace industry and approaches of Engineering at Kennedy and the “In the context of the last that are likely to accelerate in the near a presence in low- leader of the team that performed the five or six years, I think future. For example, the next humans Earth orbit aboard the reorganization. “It was a significant this is revolutionary, but in scheduled to launch from Kennedy and change at the end of a very significant Cape Canaveral will ride commercial International Space program. I think we set up the right the context of the history rockets and spacecraft as part of the Station, but it’s time to structure for these efficiencies to be of Kennedy Space Center, Commercial Crew Program, not NASA made. It’s still up to the organizations I think it’s evolutionary.” vehicles. move on and establish to find more efficiencies and we’ll be “In the context of the last five or that presence further out keeping the pressure on a little bit to PAT SIMPKINS six years, I think this is revolutionary,” accomplish them.” Director of Engineering at Simpkins said, “but in the context of into the solar system.” It took more than a year to Kennedy Space Center, the history of Kennedy Space Center, I establish the reorganization structure leader of reorg team think it’s evolutionary.” BOB CABANA which impacted nearly every federal The payoff is already coming into Director, Kennedy Space Center employee at the center in one regard focus in a few places such as the Shuttle or another and became official May 17. Several directorates were combined Landing Facility and in the Thermal Simpkins said one of the goals was to in the reorganization in an effort to tear Protection Support Facility (TPSF), More than a mission to firm-up needs as well as those of industry. Earth that has the most possible resources streamline processes where possible in down walls that can create unintended the shop where shuttle heat shield tiles Kennedy’s position, Cabana, a former The Launch Services Program pushes that can sustain humans.