There are 2 messages totalling 118 lines in this issue

Topics of the day:

1. SUCCESS CONTINUES AS NASA'S ORION PARACHUTE TESTS GET MORE DIFFICULT
2. NASA ASTRONAUT KAREN NYBERG AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS BEFORE SPACE STATION MISSION

Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 14:01:08 -0500 From: info@JSC NASA GOV Subject: SUCCESS CONTINUES AS NASA'S ORION PARACHUTE TESTS GET MORE DIFFICULT

May 1, 2013

Brandi Dean Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111

Rachel Kraft Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100

Report #13-129

SUCCESS CONTINUES AS NASA'S ORION PARACHUTE TESTS GET MORE DIFFICULT

WASHINGTON -- A test version of NASA's Orion spacecraft safely landed during a simulation of two types of parachute failures Wednesday

In the test, conducted in Yuma, Ariz , the mock capsule was traveling about 250 mph when the parachutes were deployed That is the highest speed the craft has experienced as part of the test series designed to certify Orion's parachute system for carrying humans

Engineers rigged one of the test capsule's two drogue parachutes not to deploy and one of its three main parachutes to skip its first stage of inflation after being extracted from a plane 25,000 feet above the Arizona desert Drogue parachutes are used to slow and reorient Orion while the main parachutes inflate in three stages to gradually slow the capsule further as it descends

The failure scenario, one of the most difficult simulated so far, will provide data engineers need for human rating the parachute system

"The tests continue to become more challenging, and the parachute system is proving the design's redundancy and reliability," said Chris Johnson, NASA's project manager for the Orion parachute assembly system "Testing helps us gain confidence and balance risk to ensure the safety of our crew "

Orion has the largest parachute system ever built for a human-rated spacecraft The canopies of the three main parachutes can cover almost an entire football field After reentering Earth's atmosphere, astronauts will use the parachutes to slow the spacecraft for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean

Testing irregularities allows engineers to verify the parachutes are reliable even when something goes wrong The tests provide information to refine models used to build the system and Orion Changes to the design and materials used in Orion's parachute system already have been made based on previous tests Other government or commercial spacecraft using a similar parachute system also can benefit from the work done to validate Orion

"Parachute deployment is inherently chaotic and not easily predictable," said Stu McClung, Orion's landing and recovery system manager "Gravity never takes any time off -- there's no timeout The end result can be very unforgiving That's why we test If we have problems with the system, we want to know about them now "

Orion's next Earth-based parachute test is scheduled for July, when the test capsule will be released from 35,000 feet, a higher altitude than ever before The first test of the parachutes after traveling in space will be during Exploration Flight Test-1 in 2014, when an uncrewed Orion will be return from 3,600 miles above Earth's surface The spacecraft will be traveling at about 340 mph when the parachutes deploy

For more information about Orion, visit:

http://www nasa gov/orion

-end-

#

NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to listserv@listserver jsc nasa gov In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes) This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@listserver jsc nasa gov with the following command in the body of your e-mail message: "unsubscribe hsfnews" (no quotes) or from another account, besides the account used to subscribe: "unsubscribe hsfnews youremail@yourdomain com" (no quotes)

Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 14:05:09 -0500 From: info@JSC NASA GOV Subject: NASA ASTRONAUT KAREN NYBERG AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS BEFORE SPACE STATION MISSION

April 30, 2013

Jay Bolden Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111

Rachel Kraft Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100

Report #M13-067

NASA ASTRONAUT KAREN NYBERG AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS BEFORE SPACE STATION MISSION

WASHINGTON -- NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg, a Vining, Minn , native who is making final preparations for a launch to the International Space Station, will be available for live satellite interviews from 7- 8 a m EDT Thursday, May 9

The interviews will originate from the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia Before they start, NASA Television will air a video b-roll feed at 6:30 a m , of Nyberg's mission training and previous spaceflight

To participate in the interviews, reporters should contact Seth Marcantel at 281-792-7515 no later than 3 p m Wednesday, May 8

Nyberg earned an undergraduate degree from the University of North Dakota and graduate and doctorate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin A mechanical engineer by training, she served in various engineering roles at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston prior to being selected as an astronaut in 2000 Nyberg previously flew in space as a mission specialist aboard space shuttle Discovery on STS-124 in 2008

Nyberg will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:31 p m EDT May 28 aboard a Soyuz spacecraft along with Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency The trio is scheduled to return to Earth in November

This launch is the second time in two months a piloted Soyuz spacecraft will have launched and docked to the International Space Station within six hours When the Soyuz arrives at the station, the crew will join Expedition 36 NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Pavel Vinogradov, who launched in March The crew will participate in several hundred experiments that cross the fields of biology and biotechnology, physical science, and earth science during their mission, which will last nearly six months

NASA TV's Media Channel 103 will carry the b-roll and will be used to conduct the interviews It is an MPEG-4 digital C-band signal, carried by QPSK/DVB-S modulation on satellite AMC-18C, transponder 3C, at 105 degrees west longitude, with a downlink frequency of 3760 MHz, vertical polarization, data rate of 38 80 MHz, symbol rate of 28 0681 Mbps, and 3/4 FEC A Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) compliant Integrated Receiver Decoder (IRD) is needed for reception The Compression Format is MPEG-4, Video PID = 0x1031 hex / 4145 decimal, AC-3 Audio PID = 0x1035 hex /4149 decimal, MPEG I Layer II Audio PID = 0x1034 hex /4148 decimal

Nyberg's biography is available at:

http://go nasa gov/np5ICw

Follow Nyberg and other NASA astronauts via Twitter at:

@AstroKarenN and @NASA_Astronauts

For more information about Expedition 36 and 37, visit:

http://go nasa gov/139pjnN

For information about the International Space Station, visit:

http://www nasa gov/station

-end-

#

NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to listserv@listserver jsc nasa gov In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes) This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list The system will reply with a confirmation via e-mail of each subscription Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@listserver jsc nasa gov with the following command in the body of your e-mail message: "unsubscribe hsfnews" (no quotes) or from another account, besides the account used to subscribe: "unsubscribe hsfnews youremail@yourdomain com" (no quotes)

End of HSFNEWS Digest - 1 May 2013 to 2 May 2013 (#2013-31)

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