Armed with Science | Tag Archive

One Last Endeavour

Filed under Space, STEM by jtozer on September 28, 2012 at 9:11 am {no comments}

An F-35 Lightning II flies over Space Shuttle Endeavour Sept. 20, 2012. The space shuttle landed at Edwards after completing the fourth leg of its ferry flight to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. (Courtesy photo by Matthew Short/Lockheed Martin)

For the Edwards community who has been actively involved in NASA‘s Space Shuttle program since flight testing began in the 1970′s, it was a bittersweet day when Space Shuttle Endeavour arrived one last time Sept. 20, piggy-backed on NASA’s Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

When the SCA departed the following morning to deliver Space Shuttle Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles, Calif., it was an appropriate ending to an epic chapter in American and aviation history that happens to be very personal for so many at Edwards.

While Team Edwards gathered around the base to watch the historic arrival and takeoff, unaccompanied airmen living in the dorms and family members of deployed spouses had the rare opportunity to get up close to the SCA and Space Shuttle Endeavour.

“I enjoyed being a part of something bigger than me, to look up at something that was actually in space and realize the countless hours and effort that went into putting that in motion. That’s what really moved me,” said airman Michael Day, 412th Communications Squadron. “It was cool to see such an iconic piece of history.”

For the young airman, the opportunity to see Space Shuttle Endeavour up close reminded Day of how he was inspired as a child watching the space shuttle with his family.

“I remember growing up and watching various shuttle take offs and landings with my grandma and wanting to do that. She always told me to do my best and I can be whatever it is I wanted to be; even an astronaut,” said Day.

Just as Airman Day continues to be captivated by the shuttle program, people from all over the world have marveled at the country’s space program from 1981 to 2011.

While the world looked on in amazement, the Edwards community continued working with NASA to flight test the space shuttle and subsequently functioned as a critical support system when Edwards was picked as the primary alternate landing site.

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What Happens To The 350 Tons Of Water Vapor Exhaust During A Shuttle Launch?

Filed under Space by jtozer on September 9, 2012 at 7:49 am {no comments}

Water vapor exhaust from the shuttle and other rockets may have led to significant PMC production of the past three decades, complicating the use of PMC occurrence as an indicator of upper atmospheric climate change. (Photo by U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)

This:

Naval Research Laboratory scientist Dr. Michael Stevens is leading an international consortium of scientists in tracking the rapid transport of the exhaust plume from the final launch of the space shuttle in July 2011.

The team has found that the plume moved quickly to the Arctic, forming unusually bright polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) there a day after launch.

Understanding the rapid transport of high altitude exhaust plumes near 105 km is providing new insight into the effects of winds at the bottom edge of the space weather regime towards improved forecasts of the co-located E-region of the ionosphere.

This knowledge is critical for improving models of communication signal propagation and over-the-horizon-radar, explains Dr. Stevens, a Research Physicist in NRL’s Space Science Division.

Current theories suggest that the plumes are rapidly transported because of narrow, high-speed wind shears. These wind shears are also linked to the occurrence of so-called Sporadic E events, thus establishing a possible link between plume transport and the lower ionosphere.

During every launch, the space shuttle injects about 350 tons of water vapor from its three main engines off the east coast of the United States between 100 and 115 km altitude.

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Tracked Raindrops Falling On Our Heads

Filed under Earth Sciences, Featured, STEM by jtozer on July 15, 2012 at 7:19 am {no comments}

The image was obtained as a deep convective cloud system passed over the vertically pointed radar on August 27, 2010. (Graphics image designed by DR. Jerome Schmidt and Ms. Cynthia Karengin)

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientists are leading a multi-agency study which reveals that a very high-resolution Doppler radar has the unique capacity to detect individual cloud hydrometeors in the free atmosphere.

This study will improve scientists’ understanding of the dynamics and structure of cloud systems.

This Doppler radar was previously used to track small debris shed from the NASA space shuttle missions during launch. Similar to the traces left behind on film by sub-atomic particles, researchers observed larger cloud particles leaving well-defined, nearly linear, radar reflectivity “streaks” which could be analyzed to infer their underlying properties.

Scientists could detect the individual particles because of a combination of the radar’s 3MW power, narrow 0.22 degree beamwidth, and an unprecedented range resolution as fine as 0.5m. This combination of radar attributes allows researchers to sample a volume of cloud about the size of a small bus (roughly 14 m³) when operating at a range of 2 km.

With such small pulse volumes, it becomes possible to measure the properties of individual raindrops greater than 0.5mm in diameter due to the low concentration of such drops in naturally occurring cloud systems and the overwhelming dominance such drops have on the measured radar reflectivity when present in a field comprised of smaller particles.

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Discovery’s Final Flight

Filed under Featured, Space by jtozer on April 17, 2012 at 7:43 am {no comments}

By Jessica L. Tozer

A specialized transporter brought the payload canister to Launch Pad 39A in preparation for the Discovery STS-131 mission. (Image Credit: NASA/Amanda Diller)

Today marks the end of an era, friends. The space shuttle Discovery will rise early this morning and make one last trip. The final journey? From Florida to its new home at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

It’s been a long road from space to the Smithsonian, and the Discovery is getting ready to settle down in the world’s biggest aeronautical nursing home.

And she has certainly earned her retirement.

Discovery has flown more missions than any other shuttle – more than any other spacecraft, in fact. After 38 missions to date, and more than 5,600 trips around the Earth, Discovery has carried satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit and sent the Ulysses robotic probe on its way to the Sun. It was the first shuttle to rendezvous with the Russian Mir Space Station, and it delivered the Japanese Kibo laboratory to the International Space Station.

180 people have flown aboard Discovery, including the first female shuttle pilot and the first female shuttle commander (who happen to be the same person – Eileen Collins), the first African American spacewalker (Bernard Harris) and the first sitting member of congress to fly in space (Jake Garn).

The Discovery a seasoned government professional, and after years of service to her country, we’re saying goodbye in style.

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