NASA Awards Financial and Business Management Services Contract

NASA has selected Wichita Tribal Enterprises, LLC, of Houston to provide financial and business management services for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and other entities at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The new contract calls for a three-year base period and two one-year options. The maximum potential value of the contract is $45 million. Under the contract, Wichita Tribal Enterprises will provide program and resources management and process improvement services.

The work will be performed at Johnson and other locations, as required. The three-year base period of performance for the contract is scheduled to begin Jan. 1, 2012, and continue through Dec. 31, 2014, with two one-year options available. The contract is an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with cost-plus-fixed-fee and firm-fixed-price task orders.Significant subcontractors on the contract are Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies of Greenbelt, Md., and Barrios Technologies of Houston.

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T-38s Soar as Spaceflight Trainers

Years before the space shuttle would glide home to a safe touchdown on runways in California and Florida, astronauts pitched the noses of T-38 jet trainers toward the same runways to find out what it would look like to land a spacecraft in such a way.

The T-38 remains a fixture for astronaut training more than 30 years later because the sleek, white jets make pilots and mission specialists think quickly in changing situations, mental experiences the astronauts say are critical to practicing for the rigors of spaceflight.

"It's actually our most important training that we do as astronauts," said Terry Virts, who flew as the pilot of STS-130 aboard shuttle Endeavour. "It’s the one place where we're not in a simulator. It's real flying and if you make a mistake, you can get hurt or break something or run out of gas. There are a lot of things that happen real-world in a T-38 that don't happen in the simulator."

"You're in a different world, a dynamic world, it doesn't matter whether it's a shuttle or a T-38," said Story Musgrave, a six-time shuttle flyer who posted thousands of hours in the T-38 and instructed others how to fly it, too. "It's understanding the rules, how to live within the rules."

Powered by two afterburning General Electric J85 engines, a T-38 can reach Mach 2 and soar above 40,000 feet, about 10,000 feet higher than airliners typically cruise. The plane can wrench its pilots through more than seven Gs, or seven times the force of gravity. That's enough to make simply lifting hands a feat of strength and breathing a labored chore. It'll make one's neck feel like it is balancing a cinder block. It's also more than enough to make the average person black out.

"The T-38 is a great aircraft for what we need at NASA because it's fast, it's high-performance and it's very simple," Virts said. "It's safe and it's known. So compared to other airplanes, it's definitely one of the best."

› Watch video as Terry Virts approaches thunderstorm in T-38

Made by Northrop, the T-38 was first fielded by the U.S. Air Force in 1961 as an advanced jet trainer, and it still serves the Air Force in that capacity. It was the preferred aircraft of the Air Force Thunderbirds during the 1970s, when the T-38s starred as the feature performers in air shows around the world.

A T-38's NASA paint scheme is largely white with a blue stripe down the length of its narrow fuselage, earning it the occasional nickname "white rocket." But mostly they're called T-38s or just "38s." NASA's small fleet is housed mainly at Ellington Field outside NASA's Johnson Space Center where a team of mechanics looks after them.

"Staying ahead of the jet" is the pilot-speak for constantly calculating fuel needs, navigation points, mission requirements and dozens of other things needed to fly successfully.

The Air Force pilots who would become astronauts and fly the shuttle learned the finer points of jet aircraft at the controls of T-38s. Virts, for example, learned to fly a T-38 when he was a 21-year-old lieutenant.

"It pulls Gs not quite like a frontline fighter," Virts said. "It's fast, but frontline fighters are faster, but the one thing the T-38 can do amazingly well is roll. You jam the stick to the side and it rolls really, really fast. That's something that on your first flight they always want to demo to you. At first, you're like, 'Oh, cool!' and then after a bunch of rolls, you're like, 'Alright, that's enough rolling the airplane.' "

Anyone who didn't fly a T-38 before they got to NASA learned to fly it once they joined the astronaut corps. Basic astronaut training includes T-38 courses, and mission specialists, who do not sit at the controls of a space shuttle, have to record four hours a month at the stick of a T-38. Commanders and pilots are required to fly the T-38 for 15 hours a month to keep up their proficiency.

"It requires you to think fast," Virts said.

The jet, with its thin, 25-foot-long wings, is seen most often flying the astronauts to NASA's Kennedy Space Center the week of launch. On their way to the Shuttle Landing Facility, the crews typically fly by the shuttle stack on the launch pad, banking slightly so the astronauts can look over their shoulders from about 1,500 feet and see their ride into space.

"One of the most fun things to do is to fly down to the Cape and see your space shuttle," Virts said.

But there is more to the planes than transportation. The aircraft roar around Kennedy on launch and landing day when astronauts use them to scout weather conditions in the hours before liftoff.

Any footage of early shuttle landings includes more than a glimpse of a few T-38s as they followed the shuttle down to a runway. From their vantage points around the shuttle, the chase pilots could radio the shuttle crews about the condition of the spacecraft and what to expect in the approach. They also could mirror the shuttle all the way through its approach on a glide path that is seven times steeper than an airliner's.

Taking a lightweight, nimble aircraft designed to teach pilots to fly high-performance fighters and making it into something with as much drag as a 110-ton glider took some modification and plenty of certification flights to prove it was safe. For the T-38, the modifications included and extra-large set of airbrakes on the bottom of the aircraft. Then astronauts had to prove it could fly safely with the landing gear down and those airbrakes open.

With those steps in place, astronauts could point a T-38s nose down at the ground and fly toward the runway faster than 300 mph. The flying is not an exact physical simulation; the astronauts use the Shuttle Training Aircraft, or STA, for that. But flying the approach in a T-38 shows them what a landing in the shuttle will look like, time and time again.

"As pilots we fly in the STA to learn how to land the shuttle, but the most important flying that we do as astronauts is in the T-38, because the skills we learn there apply generically to all aspects of our jobs," Virts said.

The rules of flying also cross from T-38 to spacewalking, even though mechanically there are no similarities. After all, a spacesuit doesn't have a control stick and rudder pedals.

However, on the mental side, a T-38 and a spacesuit have critical supplies that cannot be allowed to run out. That means the operators in both cases have to follow their progress carefully and make sure they aren't using too much fuel, in the case of the T-38, or running low on oxygen, in the case of the spacesuit.

"It's not the same, but it's being an operator," Musgrave said. "It's procedures, and it's checklists. It's getting on with it and it's learning the program and it's doing it right. It's all those things. It'll help you there, it'll help you everywhere else, too."

Joining the agency in 1967, Musgrave would take the planes on checkout flights to make sure a jet could handle the demanding requirements of flying at the hands of test pilots.

"It's the best flying to me because you do absolutely everything the airplane can do," Musgrave said. "That's very good flying."

The T-38 is hailed by the astronauts for its simplicity, safety and reliability. It has surprised its pilots on a few occasions, though.

One of Musgrave's experiences came during a T-38 check flight when the aircraft was supposed to hold itself level in a stall, which is when the wings are no longer providing lift. In Musgrave's case, the aircraft rolled over onto its back.

"To be fully stalled and inverted with the wheels pointing skyward in a swept-wing, high-performance aircraft is more than uncomfortable, it's frightening ," he wrote in his book, "The NASA Northrop T-38 Talon."

Musgrave released the control stick and let the jet flop around in the air and sort itself out until it pointed its nose down and once again became flyable. He performed the same test in the same jet with the same results repeatedly after the mechanics could not find out what was wrong. He took the same plane out again years later and it passed the stall test completely.

For astronauts, the seating arrangement, with one pilot behind the other, is the same as they encounter on the flight deck of a shuttle, where a pair of mission specialists, one serving as flight engineer, sit behind the commander and pilot.

Just as they would during a shuttle launch and landing, the astronaut in the front seat of the T-38 handles the flying and the mission specialist in the back seat passes on important information, talks to the control towers and takes care of aspects of navigation.

"The reason for the T-38 is spaceflight readiness training," Virts said.

Musgrave describes the T-38 as "a classic, timeless beauty."

"If you didn't know what a shark was and I showed you a picture of a shark and asked you, 'Can it swim?' Of course it can," Musgrave said. "A thousand years from now, you'd say the T-38's a classic, but it'll be beautiful then, too."

Mission Into Ice Clouds: Q&A with MACPEX Pilot Bill Rieke

The Mid-latitude Airborne Cirrus Properties Experiment (MACPEX) is a NASA field campaign that is investigating cirrus cloud properties and the processes that affect their impact on solar radiation. The campaign uses NASA's WB-57 research aircraft based at Ellington, Texas, to conduct science flights over Oklahoma, the southeastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico this month.

Research pilot William Rieke from NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, has flown more than 3,500 hours in numerous aircraft, including the F/A 18 Hornet strike fighter when he was in the United States Navy. Since then, Rieke has been a flight engineer on Boeing 727's and 737-200's for a major airline. As a pilot for NASA since 2004, he has flown the NorthropT-38N Talon jet, the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, which NASA uses to transport Space Shuttle orbiters, and the WB-57.

There are numerous high altitude aircraft, so why was the NASA WB-57 selected for this mission? Is there any advantage to a two-seater aircraft for missions? Does a project scientist sit in the other seat, and what kinds of instruction do you receive while in flight?

William Rieke: The WB-57 aircraft is a very good high-altitude platform that can take more than 6,000 lbs. of experiments very high into the atmosphere . There are two aircrew in the WB-57, a pilot and a Sensor Equipment Operator (SEO). The SEO is usually very busy taking care of the science instruments and communicating to scientists on the ground the status of our flight. Both the pilot and SEO have a preflight brief with the scientists who decide where the aircraft needs to be positioned to collect the desired atmospheric data. In flight, the WB-57 has the capability to communicate via radio or satellite phone to the mission scientist on the ground to communicate the real-time weather picture. With their input, the aircrew then plans an appropriate course.

Have you flown similar airborne missions?

WR: The WB-57 program has completed many similar missions to MACPEX. I have flown several campaigns to Costa Rica, Hawaii and England, to name a few.

What is your biggest concern when flying these missions?

Anywhere we go, NASA ensures the safety of the people first. They are the most treasured assets NASA has. The mission managers ensure that the airfield has the proper equipment available to take care of the WB-57, or we bring it ourselves. While flying, my concern is to keep the aircraft within the requested boundaries. Sometimes they can be very restrictive which makes it difficult to maneuver to collect data.

What’s it like to fly the WB-57 through ice clouds? Are ice clouds dense? If you’re flying through clouds, isn’t your visibility distorted? Can you hear the ice crystals hit the plane? Are the ice crystals microscopic or big, like hailstones? How fast are you flying? Does the density or visibility of the clouds slow down your flights?

WR: Flying through clouds is similar to driving through fog in a car – you just can’t see as well! Aircraft have confidently been flying through clouds ever since we learned to trust our instruments. When the pilot cannot see the horizon, they need to rely on accurate instrumentation to get the aircraft through it. At high altitudes, ice crystals can sometimes be very apparent. The ice crystals that I have flown through have a shimmery look to them as the sun is reflected off each tiny particle when it zips by the aircraft. However, the crystals are very small and therefore, not a danger to the aircraft.

NASA Astronaut Mark Kelly Resumes Training For STS-134 Mission

NASA astronaut Mark Kelly will resume training as commander of the STS-134 space shuttle mission on Monday, Feb. 7. With the exception of some proficiency training, Kelly has been on personal leave since Jan. 8 to care for his wife, congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded in a Tucson, Ariz. shooting.

"I am looking forward to rejoining my STS-134 crew members and finishing our training for the mission," Kelly said.


"We have been preparing for more than 18 months, and we will be ready to deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station and complete the other objectives of the flight. I appreciate the confidence that my NASA management has in me and the rest of my space shuttle crew." "We are glad to have Mark back," said Peggy Whitson, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "He is a veteran shuttle commander and knows well the demands of the job.

We are confident in his ability to successfully lead this mission, and I know I speak for all of NASA in saying 'welcome back'. A news briefing will be held at 2 p.m. CST today at Johnson to discuss Kelly's return. The briefing will be broadcast on NASA Television. Questions will be taken from reporters at Johnson, NASA Headquarters and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Participants will include:

-- Mark Kelly, commander, STS-134
-- Peggy Whitson, chief, Astronaut Office
-- Brent Jett, chief,

Flight Crew Operations Directorate Because of winter weather conditions, Johnson will be closed until noon.

However, the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111 is staffed to receive calls from journalists requesting credentials. On Monday, Feb. 7, NASA TV will broadcast video b-roll of Kelly's first training session with his crew at 11:30 a.m. CST. Additional b-roll of his first day of training will air at 3 p.m. The training sessions will not be available for filming by news media.

NASA Sets Coverage for COTS 1 Launch Targeted for Dec. 7

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The first SpaceX Falcon 9 demonstration launch for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program is targeted for liftoff on Tuesday, Dec. 7. Liftoff will occur from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The launch window extends from 9:03 a.m. to 12:22 p.m. EST. If necessary, launch opportunities also are available on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 with the same window.

Known as COTS 1, the launch is the first flight of the Dragon spacecraft and the first commercial attempt to re-enter a spacecraft from orbit. This is the first of three test launches currently planned in the Falcon 9 test flight series. It is intended as a demonstration mission to prove key capabilities such as launch, structural integrity of the Dragon spacecraft, on-orbit operation, re-entry, descent and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA established the COTS program to procure a commercial launch service to stimulate the commercial space industry, to facilitate a private industry cargo capability to the International Space Station as soon as achievable, and to achieve cost-effective access to low Earth orbit that will attract private customers.

PRELAUNCH NEWS CONFERENCE


The prelaunch news conference for the COTS 1 Falcon 9 launch is planned for L-1, currently Monday, Dec. 6, at 1:30 p.m., at the press site at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA Television will provide live coverage, and the briefing will be streamed at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

The prelaunch news conference participants will be:

* Phil McAlister, acting director, Commercial Space Flight Development
NASA Headquarters, Washington

* Alan Lindenmoyer, manager, Commercial Crew and Cargo Program
NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston

* Gwynne Shotwell, president
SpaceX, Hawthorne, Calif.

* Mike McAleenan, Falcon 9 Launch Weather Officer
45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

A post-mission news conference will be held at Kennedy approximately one hour after splashdown occurs.

Audio of the prelaunch and post-mission news conferences also will be carried on the NASA "V" circuits, which can be accessed directly by dialing 321-867-1220, 1240, 1260 or 7135.

President Obama and NASA Administrator Bolden Recognize Employees for Roles in Chilean Miner Rescue

President Barack Obama welcomed NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and a NASA team that assisted trapped Chilean miners to the Oval Office on Thursday for a ceremony that recognized Americans involved in the rescue.

After the White House event, Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver presented NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal to five agency employees who supported the rescue effort. The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is awarded for a significant, specific accomplishment or substantial improvement in operations, efficiency, service, financial savings, science, or technology that contributes to NASA's mission.

“We’re greatly honored by the president’s recognition of these extraordinary NASA employees who assisted the Chilean miners,” Bolden said. “I’m sure they would be the first to tell you they were just doing their jobs and nothing out of the ordinary, but the men and women of NASA do extraordinary things each and every day.”

The medal recipients are:

- Dr. Michael Duncan, deputy chief medical officer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and team leader
- Dr. Albert Holland, operational psychologist at Johnson
- Dr. James Polk, medical officer at Johnson
- Clint Cragg, principal engineer for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
- Albert Condes, deputy associate administrator of the Office of International and Interagency Affairs at NASA Headquarters in Washington

The employees from Johnson and Langley traveled to Chile Aug. 30 - Sept. 5 and visited the mine after discussions between the Chilean government and Condes. The team consulted with a number of organizations in Chile, including the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Mining, the Chilean Navy and the Chilean Space Agency.

NASA provided technical advice to the Chilean government based on the agency's long experience in protecting humans in the hostile environment of space. NASA's initial support included recommendations on medical care, nutrition and psychological support. The request for later NASA support was broadened to include recommendations on the design of a Chilean vehicle used to extract the miners. Consultations continued between members of the NASA team and Chilean government officials until the miners were rescued.

Discovery Readied for Evening Rollout

Space shuttle Discovery, joined to its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters, is standing on its mobile launcher platform inside the Vehicle Assembly Building today as technicians get ready to move it to the launch pad this evening. A crawler-transporter has been positioned just outside the VAB's mammoth doors and will move inside later today so the stack can be placed on its sizeable back for the move. The rollout at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida will take about six hours.

Discovery's crew of six astronauts are to perform an integrated entry simulation today at their training base at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA TV will cover the rollout this evening beginning at 8 p.m. Coverage will continue until it gets dark at Kennedy.

NASA Presents Challenge to Top Chef Contestants

NASA Presents Challenge to Top Chef Contestants: A new dish is being prepared for astronauts working in space. Bravo TV's Emmy-award winning reality show "Top Chef" will feature a special challenge for the five remaining "chef'testants." The winning contestant will have his or her recipe prepared by NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and flown on a future space shuttle mission.

Food preparation and taste have come a long way since the Apollo era. Today, the menu for astronauts includes 180 food and beverage items. These include tomato basil soup, chicken fajitas, shrimp cocktail, scrambled eggs and beef tips with mushrooms. They can also munch on nuts, granola bars and cookies. Beverages come in powdered form and include coffee, tea, apple cider, orange juice and lemonade.

As much as possible, NASA tries to provide astronauts with meals that look and taste like those on Earth. Crew members continually say that when they're in such an unfamiliar environment so far away, food is one of the main things that reminds them of home.

On Sept. 1, the chefs will participate in a challenge to create a tasty meal for the astronauts. They will be restricted by the same nutritional guidelines that NASA food scientists follow in the Space Food Systems Laboratory in Houston.

This episode will feature the space program with portions shot at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The “Top Chef” production crew, accompanied by head judge Tom Colicchio and the five contestants, visited Goddard and filmed in the Network Integration Center.

Rumor has it that former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin and current astronauts Sandy Magnus and Leland Melvin will make appearances.