NASA'S CENTENNIAL CHALLENGE

TO EXCAVATE MOON DIRT SET FOR MAY 12
William Simon
California Space Authority, Santa Maria, Calif.
MEDIA ADVISORY: M07-48
May 3, 2007

WASHINGTON - On Saturday, May 12, teams from around the nation will
compete for a total of $250,000 from NASA for an autonomously
operating system to excavate simulated "lunar regolith," or the
moon's soil. The Regolith Excavation Challenge, one of NASA's seven
Centennial Challenges, will take place at the Santa Maria Fairpark,
Santa Maria, Calif. The competition on May 12 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
PDT is free and open to media and the public.

NASA is offering $250,000 to the team whose system can excavate and
deliver as much regolith as possible in 30 minutes. Competitors'
machines must use less than 30 W of power, weigh less than 40 kg and
excavate more than 150 kg of the simulated moon dirt. The unique
physical properties of lunar regolith make excavation a difficult
technical challenge, but it is a necessary first step toward
uncovering the moon's resources.

Teams from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., Livermore, Calif., Berkeley,
Calif., Fulks Run, Va., Rolla, Mo., Berkley, Mich., Milwaukee, and
Vancouver, British Columbia, have registered to participate in the
challenge.

The California Space Education and Workforce Institute, an
organization of the California Space Authority, Santa Maria, is
administering the challenge at no cost to NASA.

The California RoboChallenge for students in kindergarten through 12th
grade also will take place at the fairpark, in coordination with the
Regolith Excavation Challenge. The RoboChallenge runs from 9 a.m. to
3:30 p.m. May 12 and features speakers Air Force Col. Stephen Tanous,
30th Space Wing, and Director of NASA's Ames Research Center, S. Pete
Worden.
For more information about the Regolith Excavation Challenge, visit:
http://www.csewi.org/regolith

Centennial Challenges, an element of NASA's Innovative Partnerships
Program, promotes technical innovation through prize competitions to
make revolutionary advances to support the Vision for Space
Exploration and NASA goals. For more information about the Innovative
Partnerships Program and Centennial Challenges, visit:
http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/cc

For more information about NASA and other agency programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov

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STATUS REPORT: SS07-24
John Ira Petty
Johnson Space Center, Houston...
STATUS REPORT: SS07-24
May 4, 2007

HOUSTON - Marking the second week working together, the Expedition 15
crew wrapped up a week of various maintenance tasks, science
experiments and preparations for the May 15 arrival of the Progress
25 supply ship.

To prepare for the new unpiloted cargo carrier's arrival, the
currently docked Progress' engines were used to reboost the station
Saturday. The move increases the number of rendezvous opportunities
for the STS-117 space shuttle mission targeted for next month.
Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineers Oleg
Kotov and Suni Williams also removed the docking mechanism from the
Progress 24 for later use.

The week included work on a wide array of science experiments.
Williams completed the fifth run of the Elastic Memory Composite
Hinge experiment. The experiment studies the performance of a new
hinge composite in space.

Williams also did a test run of a handheld device for rapid detection
of biological and chemical substances on board the station. This
study is meant to provide an early warning system to protect the
health and safety of station crew members. Williams also completed
annual re-certification of the Microgravity Science Glovebox and
performed a checkout of the cardiac defibrillator.

Kotov did maintenance work in the Zarya module and tested the circuits
of a temperature sensor on one of the batteries. He also conducted
the periodic collection of air readings in the station with the
Russian Real-Time Harmful Contaminant Gas Analyzer system.

Other hardware and maintenance tasks included the replacement of a
Common Cabin Air Analyzer, sound level monitoring in the Russian
Service Module and in the U.S. Destiny Laboratory, and charging U.S.
spacesuits batteries.

Crew members wrapped up the week replacing a heat exchanger in the
Zvezda Service Module. They also swapped out computers used in the
U.S. lab racks.

The weekend will consist of mostly off-duty time with routine
housekeeping, family conferences and a HAM radio session.
For more about the crew's activities and station sighting
opportunities, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

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WALTER SCHIRRA DIES
RELEASE: 07-100
David Mould
Headquarters, Washington
May 3, 2007

LA JOLLA, Calif. - Pioneering astronaut Walter "Wally" Schirra, the
only man who flew in all three of America's first human space
projects - Mercury, Gemini and Apollo - died Wednesday. He was 84.
Schirra's family reported he died of natural causes.

Schirra was one of America's original seven astronauts, selected in
1959, and was commander of the first crew to fly into space aboard an
Apollo capsule, Apollo 7, following the tragic launchpad fire that
claimed the lives of the crew of Apollo 1.

"With the passing of Wally Schirra, we at NASA note with sorrow the
loss of yet another of the pioneers of human spaceflight," NASA
Administrator Michael Griffin said. "As a Mercury astronaut, Wally
was a member of the first group of astronauts to be selected, often
referred to as the Original Seven."

Schirra's first space flight was piloting the fifth Mercury mission on
Oct. 3, 1962, orbiting Earth six times in 9 hours and 13 minutes.
During the flight he took hundreds of photos of Earth and space
phenomena. Schirra's capsule, Sigma 7, splashed down only 5 miles
from the recovery carrier.

As commander of Gemini 6-A, which launched on Dec. 15, 1965, Schirra
flew with astronaut Tom Stafford on a mission that included the first
rendezvous of two manned, maneuverable spacecraft. Gemini 6-A and
Gemini 7 flew in formation for five hours, as close as one foot to
one another.

During his 11-day Apollo 7 flight, which began Oct. 11, 1968, he and
fellow crewmembers Walt Cunningham and Donn Eisele tested the Apollo
systems and proved Apollo was ready to take astronauts to the moon.

"We shared a common dream to test the limits of man's imagination and
daring," Schirra wrote of America's early astronauts. "Those early
pioneering flights of Mercury, the performances of Gemini and the
trips to the moon established us once and for all as what I like to
call a spacefaring nation. Like England, Spain and Portugal crossing
the seas in search of their nations' greatness, so we reached for the
skies and ennobled our nation."

Schirra retired from the Navy as a captain and from NASA in 1969 and
became a commentator with CBS News. His enthusiasm and knowledge of
the space program coupled with his charismatic on-the-air presence
made him an even more widely known national and international figure.


He complemented CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and the two became a
powerful space-coverage team. Schirra worked for CBS from 1969 to
1975. He also engaged in a range of business activities and in 1979
formed his own consultant company, Schirra Enterprises.

Walter M. Schirra, Jr., was born in Hackensack, N.J., on March 12,
1923. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945, and from
Naval Flight Training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Fla., in 1947.
After service as a carrier-based fighter pilot and operations
officer, he attended the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River,
Md. During the Korean War he flew F-86 Sabres under an exchange
program with the Air Force.

Schirra was chosen as one of the original "Mercury Seven" from among
110 selected test pilots from the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps
after exhaustive physical and psychological examinations.

Known for lively storytelling and practical jokes, one of his
best-known anecdotes from astronaut training came when he and the
others were continually being examined and subjected to demands for
samples of body fluids. When one nurse insisted he provide a urine
sample, Schirra reportedly filled a 5-gallon jug with warm water,
detergent and iodine and left it on her desk.

"Levity makes life a lot easier," he once told a Houston reporter.

Griffin noted that "It was impossible to know Wally, even to meet him,
without realizing at once that he was a man who relished the lighter
side of life, the puns and jokes and pranks that can enliven a
gathering. But this was a distraction from the true nature of the
man. His record as a pioneering space pilot shows the real stuff of
which he was made. We who have inherited today's space program will
always be in his debt."

The Mercury Seven trained initially at NASA's Langley Research Center
in Hampton, Va. In 1961 they moved to the newly established Manned
Spacecraft Center (now the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center) near
Houston.

Schirra's Sigma 7 mission was called "the perfect flight" by space
reporter and author Howard Benedict. After Schirra's splashdown near
the carrier USS Kearsarge near Midway Island in the Pacific, he
pronounced himself "healthy as a bear" and "happy as a lark."

Schirra's Gemini flight with Stafford was something of an
improvisation. They had been scheduled to rendezvous in orbit with an
unmanned Agena to be launched 90 minutes before the Gemini liftoff.
But six minutes after the Atlas-Agena left the pad it exploded, and
the Gemini 6-A launch was postponed.

Eventually it was decided to use Gemini 7 as a rendezvous target for
Gemini 6-A. Both were to be launched from Pad 19 at Cape Canaveral,
so a record turnaround of the launch pad was necessary. Working
around the clock, crews got the pad ready in just eight days after
the Gemini 7 liftoff.

The Gemini 6-A countdown reached zero on Dec. 12, 1965, and the rocket
engines ignited - then shut down. The two astronauts had to wait
almost half an hour atop the fueled rocket before getting out of the
capsule. The problem turned out to be minor, the failure of an
electrical connection.

Three days later, Gemini 6-A was launched without a hitch. The mission
proved the spacecraft could be readily maneuvered. It was an
encouraging development in the race to reach the moon.

By the launch of Apollo 7 in October 1968, the moon landing seemed to
be coming within reach. The success of the flight proved that it was.
Accomplishments of the mission commanded by Schirra resulted in the
next flight, Apollo 8, being sent around the moon.

Apollo 7 had not been all smooth sailing. All three astronauts had
colds. Schirra was occasionally firm in rejecting requests from the
ground to insert additional events in the already-crowded flight
plan.

"Television will be delayed, without any further discussion, until
after the rendezvous" (with a spent rocket stage), he said. He
subsequently was even more critical of efforts to add events to the
flight plan. Eventually the almost daily television transmissions
from Apollo 7 became popular mainstays of the mission coverage.
Schirra subsequently apologized for the tone of some of his
criticisms, though not for their content.

After leaving NASA, he participated in a number of television
presentations and films, and served as national spokesman for several
organizations and companies. He also held numerous directorships for
a variety of businesses, in addition to his consulting work. He also
wrote two books, "We Seven" published in 1960 and "Schirra's Space"
published in 1988.

Schirra's military awards included the Navy Distinguished Service
Medal, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, three Air Medals, two NASA
Distinguished Service Medals, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal and
the Philippines Legion of Honor.

He was awarded honorary doctorates by several institutions of higher
learning.

He was active in a number of organizations. He was on the Advisory
Committee of the Oceans Foundations, the Advisory Board/Council of
U.S. National Parks, the Advisory Board of International "Up With
People" and was a founding member and director of the Mercury Seven
Foundation.

He also was a director of the San Diego Aerospace Museum, a trustee of
the Scripps Aquarium, and a member of the International Council of
the Salk Institute.

Schirra lived in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. Survivors include his wife
Josephine, his daughter Suzanne and son Walter Schirra III.

Images and video from Schirra's years with NASA can be seen at:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/walter_schirra.html

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JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE

APPROVED EARLY
RELEASE: 07-96
Rob Gutro
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
May 2, 2007

WASHINGTON - More than a year ahead of schedule, a team of independent
experts has approved all ten new technologies developed for NASA's
James Webb Space Telescope. Many of the technologies are
revolutionary and have never before been used on any satellite or
space telescope. The early approval can reduce the risk of increased
costs and schedule delays before the program is approved for further
development.

NASA commissioned the team of engineers, scientists and project
managers to conduct the technical review. The group evaluated the
telescope's near and mid-infrared detectors, sunshield materials,
lightweight cryogenic mirrors, microshutter arrays, cryogenic
detector readout application-specific integrated circuits, cryogenic
heat switches, a large precision cryogenic structure, a cryocooler
for the mid-infrared instrument, and wavefront sensing and control.
They determined the technologies were tested successfully in a
space-like environment and are mature enough to include on the
telescope's upcoming mission.

The actual hardware and software that will fly on the telescope now
can be engineered from working prototypes. These technologies will
allow the observatory to peer back in time to about 400 million years
after the Big Bang, enabling scientists to study the first generation
of stars and galaxies.

"The technology non-advocate review was our attempt to address one
common problem that NASA missions encounter that leads to cost
growth," said Eric Smith, Webb program scientist at NASA
Headquarters, Washington. "That problem is late maturation of
technology in a program's life-cycle. By conducting an external
review of our technologies more than a year ahead of the Preliminary
Design Review - when they are traditionally examined - we hope to
better manage that aspect of the program's costs."

Two examples of the new technologies are the microshutter arrays and
wavefront sensing and control.

Microshutters are tiny doorways, the width of a few hairs, that will
allow scientists to remotely and systematically block out unwanted
light and view the most distant stars and galaxies ever seen. The
telescope will be the first project to employ this technology.

Through a process called wavefront sensing and control, a set of
algorithms and software programs, the optimum position of each of the
telescope mirrors will be computed, and the positions will be
adjusted as necessary, causing the individual mirrors to function as
one very sensitive telescope.

"At the inception of the James Webb Space Telescope program, NASA
adopted a strategy of making significant, early investments in the
development of the diverse and challenging new technologies needed to
conduct the mission," said Phil Sabelhaus, project manager at
Goddard. "Receiving the review board's confirmation that we have met
the goal more than a year early for all of our new technologies is a
major accomplishment for our team and a tribute to the benefits of
the early investment strategy," Sabelhaus said.

Northrop Grumman Corporation, Redondo Beach, Calif.; Ball Aerospace
Corporation, Boulder, Colo.; Teledyne Imaging Systems, Thousand Oaks,
Calif.; Utah State University's Space Dynamics Lab, North Logan,
Utah; Raytheon Vision Systems, Santa Barbara, Calif.; Alliant
Techsystems, Magna, Utah; and Sheldahl, Northfield, Minn., worked
with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., on these and
other technologies.

The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to launch in 2013. The
telescope is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and
the Canadian Space Agency.

For more information about the James Webb Space Telescope, visit:

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov
For related images on this story, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/webb_technologies.html

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