NEWS

Bob Cabana to be honored for KSC work

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

Bob Cabana has earned plenty of accolades for his contributions as a U.S. Marine Corps colonel and four-time space shuttle pilot and commander for NASA.

A new honor recognizes his work as Kennedy Space Center's 10th center director.

At a ceremony in Houston in April, he'll be awarded the 2015 National Space Trophy by the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation, the foundation announced last week.

His nominators included Ellen Ochoa and Mike Coats, former astronauts who are the current and past directors of Johnson Space Center, and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.

They said Cabana has exhibited "exceptional leadership and executive guidance in leading the evolution of the NASA Kennedy Space Center as the world's premier multi-user spaceport in support of NASA's exploration goals."

Cabana joined KSC in late 2008, as the shuttle program was entering its final few years of flight.

The center is now preparing overhauling a launch pad, Vehicle Assembly Building high bay and other infrastructure to launch the new Space Launch System rocket.

Intended to launch astronauts to deep space in the Orion capsule, the SLS rocket is targeting a first test launch in 2018.

Meanwhile, KSC has turned over several facilities it no longer needs to commercial or government partners, including the lease of launch pad 39A to SpaceX.

Cabana in 2013 won the National Space Club's Debus Award, and in 2008 was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Big booster ready for test

NASA recently test-fired a space shuttle main engine in Mississippi, part of its development of the Space Launch System exploration rocket, which will use four of the engines.

Now a stretched-out version of a shuttle solid rocket booster is positioned on a stand in Utah for a "static-fire" test in March.

Measuring 154 feet long, the five-segment booster is the largest solid rocket motor ever built for flight, according to manufacturer ATK.

That's one segment more than a shuttle booster, which was about five feet shorter.

Labeled Qualification Motor-1, or QM-1, the booster will produce 3.6 million pounds of thrust at its peak during the March 11 test.

"Testing before flight is critical to ensure reliability and safety when launching crew into space," said Charlie Precourt, vice president and general manager of ATK's Space Launch division.

A pair of the more powerful boosters will frame the SLS rocket's core stage for at least the first two flights, which are targeted for 2018 without a crew and perhaps 2022 with a crew.

Combined with four shuttle main engines powering the rocket's core stage, the initial version of the rocket will produce 8.4 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

NASA is studying booster options for subsequent missions.

Showtime for LSP

Kennedy Space Center's Launch Services Program this week is set to launch the first of two NASA science missions early this year that are worth about $2 billion combined.

NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission is scheduled to launch at 9:20 EST Thursday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.

The $916.5 million mission will improve climate models with precise global maps of surface soil moisture.

In March, the program will oversee the launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station of the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, by ULA's Atlas V rocket. The $1.1 billion mission will study how magnetic fields around Earth connect and disconnect.

Launch adds STEAM at McNair

A Kennedy Space Center crowd cheering last Tuesday's launch of a Navy communications satellite by an Atlas V rocket included teachers and administrators from Ronald McNair Magnet Middle School in Rockledge.

Earlier that day, more than 30 representatives from the Navy and Lockheed Martin, which built the Mobile User Objective System satellite, visited McNair to work with 280 seventh- and eighth-graders.

The aerospace professionals discussed their careers and presented the students with a tricky design challenge.

Given limited supplies, the students had to build a rocket that could support the weight of a book, and do so within an imaginary budget.

A piece of paper, for example, was assigned a value of $10 million, and a centimeter of tape $100,000.

"They had to build this structure and they also had to meet cost," said Veronica Raley, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) coordinating teacher at the school. "That really taught them that you don't just go build something, you have to think about cost and efficiency."

The guests were impressed, and plan to return before the launch of the fourth MUOS satellite from Cape Canaveral, tentatively planned in August. Lockheed also donated $500 to the school.

New Spinoffs

NASA has released its annual publication of how the space-related technologies it developed are being applied around the world.

Some examples from "Spinoff 2015": shock absorbers used during space shuttle launches bracing buildings during earthquakes; a coliform bacteria test helping to monitor water quality in rural communities; and cabin pressure monitors alerting pilots to low oxygen levels.

Find more spinoffs at http://spinoff.nasa.gov.

Happy Anniversary, Oppy

Once expected to work for three months, NASA's Opportunity rover last week celebrated its 11th anniversary on Mars.

The rover launched from Cape Canaveral on July 7, 2003, and landed on Mars on Jan. 24, 2004. It has driven 25.9 miles.

NASA marked the anniversary with a picture from the top of "Cape Tribulation" on the rim of 14-mile-wide Endeavour Crater. The image shows a U.S. flag printed on one of Opportunity's tools, a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In other recent news from Mars, NASA reported that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found the United Kingdom's Beagle 2 Mars Lander, which was considered lost after its touchdown on Dec. 25, 2003.

The images showed the small lander had partially deployed its solar arrays.

"Every Christmas Day since 2003 I have wondered what happened to Beagle 2," said Mark Sims of the University of Leicester, U.K. "The images show that we came so close to achieving the goal of science on Mars."

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean.