05.15.12

Kathy Barnstorff
757-864-9886/344-8511
kathy.barnstorff@nasa.govRELEASE: 12-035

NASA LANGLEY SCIFLI TEAM TO TAKE IMAGES OF SPACEX C2 LAUNCH



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HAMPTON, Va. -- A team from NASA's Langley Research Center will have 
its eyes, cameras and telescopes trained on the skies for the launch 
of the first commercial spaceflight carrying cargo to the 
International Space Station.

The SCIFLI (Scientifically Calibrated In Flight Imagery) team, based 
at NASA Langley, is preparing to capture visual and thermal snapshots 
of the SpaceX launch as the Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon capsule 
climb through the atmosphere on their way to the ISS. The launch is 
scheduled for Saturday, May 19.
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Click to enlarge



A NASA Langley team will capture long range images of the SpaceX 
launch with the help of a sophisticated camera and telescope system 
that's on a gyro-stablized tracking mount.
Credit: NASA/Cory Huston




Click to enlarge



The Freedom Star, a former space shuttle solid rocket booster recovery 
ship, is now a floating high tech camera and radar platform that will 
be stationed in the North Atlantic to track and capture images of the 
first commercial spacecraft carrying cargo to the International Space 
Station.
Credit: NASA

The team will have sophisticated optical systems stationed on the 
ground in northern Florida and for the first time ever on board a 
ship, the Freedom Star. The Freedom Star and its sister ship, Liberty 
Star, originally built to recover space shuttle solid rocket 
boosters, will also monitor the spacecraft during the mission using 
NASA diagnostic radar systems. Both ships will be off the coast of 
the northeastern United States. They are normally home ported at the 
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station adjacent to Kennedy Space Center in 
Florida.

"We're looking at getting very high spatial resolution, high 
definition quality visual imaging during the launch as well as high 
spatial resolution thermal imaging from an infrared camera," said Tom 
Horvath, SCIFLI principal investigator at NASA Langley.

NASA contracted with Celestial Computing Incorporated in Boston, 
Mass., to equip the Freedom Star with a special gyro-stabilized 
tracking mount and hardware -- turning the ship into a floating 
high-tech radar, camera and long-range telescope platform.

"This ship-based imaging capability is unique," said Horvath. "NASA 
does not possess a shipboard gyro-stabilized tracker with the large 
aperture/long focal length optics coupled to state-of-the-art 
detectors."

NASA will train the two imaging systems at the spacecraft to help 
monitor its performance and capture key events during ascent, 
including release of the Dragon capsule and solar panel deployments. 
This will be the first use of a ship-based high definition visual and 
infrared imaging system to support Commercial Orbital Transportation 
System (COTS) project flights. The COTS project is part of the 
Commercial Crew and Cargo Program, led out of NASA's Johnson Space 
Center in Houston.

This may be the first time NASA Langley has used a ship to try to 
capture images of a spacecraft in flight, but it's not the first time 
the SCIFLI team has trained its sites on fast moving objects. The 
SCIFLI team builds upon the success of what used to be the Hypersonic 
Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements (HYTHIRM) team, which has had a 
history of capturing challenging thermal images at speeds as high as 
Mach 18. The project successfully recorded the space shuttle heat 
signature during re-entry on seven different Shuttle missions, using 
ground and airborne systems.

For more information about NASA Langley, please go to:

www.nasa.gov/langley



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