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By NASA
Media are invited to learn about a unique series of flight tests happening in Virginia in partnership between NASA and GE Aerospace that aim to help the aviation industry better understand contrails and their impact on the Earth’s climate. Contrails are the lines of clouds that can be created by high-flying aircraft, but they may have an unseen effect on the planet – trapping heat in the atmosphere.
The media event will occur from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 25 at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. NASA Langley’s G-III aircraft and mobile laboratory, as well as GE Aerospace’s 747 Flying Test Bed (FTB) will be on site. NASA project researchers and GE Aerospace’s flight crew will be available to discuss the Contrail Optical Depth Experiment (CODEX), new test methods and technologies used, and the real-world impacts of understanding and managing contrails. Media interested in attending must contact Brittny McGraw at brittny.v.mcgraw@nasa.gov no later than 12 p.m. EST, Friday, Nov. 22.
Flights for CODEX are being conducted this week. NASA Langley’s G-III will follow GE Aerospace’s FTB in the sky and scan the aircraft wake with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology. This will advance the use of LiDAR by NASA to generate three-dimensional imaging of contrails to better characterize how contrails form and how they behave over time.
For more information about NASA’s work in green aviation tech, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/aeronautics/green-aero-tech
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David Meade
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia
757-751-2034 davidlee.t.meade@nasa.gov
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By NASA
The unpiloted Roscosmos Progress spacecraft pictured on Feb. 7, 2023, from the International Space Station.Credit: NASA NASA will provide live launch and docking coverage of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft delivering nearly three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the Expedition 72 crew aboard the International Space Station.
The unpiloted Progress 90 spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 7:22 a.m. EST (5:22 p.m. Baikonur time) Thursday, Nov. 21, on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Live launch coverage will begin at 7 a.m. on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
After a two-day in-orbit journey to the station, the spacecraft will dock autonomously to the space-facing port of the orbiting laboratory’s Poisk module at 9:35 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 23. NASA’s coverage of rendezvous and docking will begin at 8:45 a.m. on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
The Progress 88 spacecraft will undock from the Poisk module on Tuesday, Nov. 19. NASA will not stream undocking.
The spacecraft will remain docked at the station for approximately six months before departing for a re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere to dispose of trash loaded by the crew.
The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation that enables research not possible on Earth. For more than 24 years, NASA has supported a continuous U.S. human presence aboard the orbiting laboratory, through which astronauts have learned to live and work in space for extended periods of time. The space station is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including missions to the Moon under Artemis and, ultimately, human exploration of Mars.
Get breaking news, images and features from the space station on Instagram, Facebook, and X.
Learn more about the International Space Station, its research, and its crew, at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
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Claire O’Shea / Josh Finch
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov / joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Nov 18, 2024 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
International Space Station (ISS) Humans in Space ISS Research Johnson Space Center View the full article
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By NASA
NASA/Ben Smegelsky & Virgil Cameron In this image from Aug. 26, 2023, participants from the 14th First Nations Launch High-Power Rocket Competition watch NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 launch at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Students and advisors from University of Washington, University of Colorado-Boulder, and an international team from Queens University – the 2023 First Nations Launch grand prize teams – traveled to Kennedy for a VIP tour, culminating in viewing the Crew-7 launch.
Grand prize teams also went on a guided tour of historic Hangar AE, led by James Wood (Osage Nation and Loyal Shawnee), chief engineer of NASA’s Launch Services Program, technical advisor for the Crew-7 launch, and First Nations mentor and judge.
One of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges, the First Nations Launch competition comprises students from tribal colleges and universities, Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions, and collegiate chapters of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society who design, build, and launch a high-powered rocket from a launch site in Kansasville, Wisconsin.
Explore more Minority University Research and Education Project opportunities and resources here.
Image credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky & Virgil Cameron
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Wayne Smith
As NASA plans for humans to return to the Moon and eventually explore Mars, a laser beam welding collaboration between NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and The Ohio State University in Columbus aims to stimulate in-space manufacturing.
Scientists and engineers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, participating in the laser beam welding study in August, stand in front of the parabolic plane used for testing. From left, Will Evans, Louise Littles, Emma Jaynes, Andrew O’Connor, and Jeffrey Sowards. Not pictured: Zachary Courtright.Casey Coughlin/Starlab-George Washington Carver Science Park The multi-year effort seeks to understand the physical processes of welding on the lunar surface, such as investigating the effects of laser beam welding in a combined vacuum and reduced gravity environment. The goal is to increase the capabilities of manufacturing in space to potentially assemble large structures or make repairs on the Moon, which will inform humanity’s next giant leap of sending astronauts to Mars and beyond.
“For a long time, we’ve used fasteners, rivets, or other mechanical means to keep structures that we assemble together in space,” said Andrew O’Connor, a Marshall materials scientist who is helping coordinate the collaborative effort and is NASA’s technical lead for the project. “But we’re starting to realize that if we really want strong joints and if we want structures to stay together when assembled on the lunar surface, we may need in-space welding.” The ability to weld structures in space would also eliminate the need to transport rivets and other materials, reducing payloads for space travel. That means learning how welds will perform in space.
To turn the effort into reality, researchers are gathering data on welding under simulated space conditions, such as temperature and heat transfer in a vacuum; the size and shape of the molten area under a laser beam; how the weld cross-section looks after it solidifies; and how mechanical properties change for welds performed in environmental conditions mimicking the lunar surface.
“Once you leave Earth, it becomes more difficult to test how the weld performs, so we are leveraging both experiments and computer modeling to predict welding in space while we’re still on the ground,” said O’Connor.
In August 2024, a joint team from Ohio State’s Welding Engineering and Multidisciplinary Capstone Programs and Marshall’s Materials & Processes Laboratory performed high-powered fiber laser beam welding aboard a commercial aircraft that simulated reduced gravity. The aircraft performed parabolic flight maneuvers that began in level flight, pulled up to add 8,000 feet in altitude, and pushed over at the top of a parabolic arc, resulting in approximately 20 seconds of reduced gravity to the passengers and experiments.
While floating in this weightless environment, team members performed laser welding experiments in a simulated environment similar to that of both low Earth orbit and lunar gravity. Analysis of data collected by a network of sensors during the tests will help researchers understand the effects of space environments on the welding process and welded material.
NASA Marshall engineers and scientists, along with their collaborators from Ohio State University, monitor laser beam welding in a vacuum chamber during a Boeing 727 parabolic flight. From left, Andrew O’Connor, Marshall materials scientist and NASA technical lead for the project; Louise Littles, Marshall materials scientist; and Aaron Brimmer, OSU graduate student.Tasha Dixon/Zero-G “During the flights we successfully completed 69 out of 70 welds in microgravity and lunar gravity conditions, realizing a fully successful flight campaign,” said Will McAuley, an Ohio State welding engineering student.
Funded in part by Marshall and spanning more than two years, the work involves undergraduate and graduate students and professors from Ohio State, and engineers across several NASA centers. Marshall personnel trained alongside the university team, learning how to operate the flight hardware and sharing valuable lessons from previous parabolic flight experiments. NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, developed a portable vacuum chamber to support testing efforts.
The last time NASA performed welding in space was during the Skylab mission in 1973. Other parabolic tests have since been performed, using low-powered lasers. Practical welding and joining methods and allied processes, including additive manufacturing, will be required to develop the in-space economy. These processes will repurpose and repair critical space infrastructure and could build structures too large to fit current launch payload volumes. In-space welding could expedite building large habitats in low Earth orbit, spacecraft structures that keep astronauts safe on future missions, and more.
The work is also relevant to understanding how laser beam welding occurs on Earth. Industries could use data to inform welding processes, which are critical to a host of manufactured goods from cars and refrigerators to skyscrapers.
“We’re really excited about laser beam welding because it gives us the flexibility to operate in different environments,” O’Connor said.
There has been a resurgence of interest in welding as we look for innovative ways to put larger structures on the surface of the Moon and other planets.
Andrew O’Connor
Marshall Space Flight Center materials scientist
This effort is sponsored by NASA Marshall’s Research and Development funds, the agency’s Science Mission Directorate Biological and Physical Sciences Division of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, and NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, including NASA Flight Opportunities.
For more information about NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/marshall
Joel Wallace
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256.544.0034
joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Nov 07, 2024 Related Terms
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