In This Week’s Star
- ‘We Lead the Way’: Marshall Director Jody Singer on President’s Proposed FY2020 NASA Budget
- Lori Glaze, Acting Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, Visits Marshall
- FIRST Robotics Competition Returns to Rocket City for Fourth Year
- Marshall’s ‘Ladies Who Launch’ Visit NBC’s Today Show
- Marshall Tech Talk to Focus on In-Space Communication
- Wheelin’ Around Wheeler Dam: Transporting the Saturn I
- Rocket Science in 60 Seconds: Why Testing Matters
- Dr. Wernher von Braun Sculpture Relocated to Front of New Building 4221
- This Week in NASA History: AS-500D Configuration I Testing Ends – March 11, 1967
‘We Lead the Way’: Marshall Director Jody Singer on President’s Proposed FY2020 NASA Budget
Jody Singer, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, speaks to team members March 11 following the presentation of the president’s proposed NASA budget for fiscal year 2020 by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. At her employee all hands meeting, Singer congratulated the Marshall team for all its hard work managing and contributing to delivery of the nation’s next great rocket, the Space Launch System; communications and science operations oversight for the International Space Station; astrophysics and heliophysics achievements helping to rewrite our understanding of our Sun, the solar system and the cosmos beyond; and more. “We’ve seen a lot of first-time-in-history [milestones],” Singer said, lauding the center’s history of expertise and successful partnerships with industry, academia and government. “We are always looking for creative solutions to serve and do right for the country,” she added. “We’re strong, and we lead the way.” Comprehensive information about the proposed fiscal year 2020 budget is available here. (NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given)
Lori Glaze, Acting Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, Visits Marshall
Lori Glaze, acting director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, right, visited NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center March 7 to see firsthand the work done by center scientists and engineers. Glaze, along with Marshall planetary scientists Renee Weber, left; Debra Needham, center; and intern James Mavo, second from right, toured multiple facilities at Marshall – including the Deep Space Habitat facility – to discuss how Marshall is working to advance human exploration, discover the secrets of the universe and inspire the next generation. (Credit: NASA/Emmett Given)
FIRST Robotics Competition Returns to Rocket City for Fourth Year
By Brice Russ
Huntsville will host the regional FIRST Robotics Competition for the fourth consecutive year Friday, March 15, and Saturday, March 16, in the South Hall of the Von Braun Center. More than 2,000 high-school students on 55 teams from 12 U.S. states and Brazil will compete against one another in a new robotics game, “DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE.”
The FIRST Robotics Competition “Rocket City Regional” is supported by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
The FIRST — “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” — Robotics Competition is a worldwide program for students in grades 9-12 that inspires the next generation of explorers to pursue careers in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. FIRST Robotics district and regional competitions are held across the country during March and April, providing teams a chance to qualify for the 2019 championship events at Houston and Detroit.
As NASA goes forward to the Moon to stay, then on to Mars, FIRST Robotics Competition teams will face off on a fictional planet to test their technologies. In “DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE,” which finds teams collecting samples on Planet Primus, two competing alliances will combat unpredictable terrain and weather patterns, making remote robot operation essential to their mission on the planet. With only 2 minutes and 30 seconds until liftoff, the alliances must gather as many cargo pods as possible and prepare their spaceships for departure before the next sandstorm arrives.
In January, each FIRST Robotics Competition team received an identical kit of parts and was given a six-week deadline to design, build and test a robot, with the help of adult mentors. Further details on the game’s rules are available on the FIRST website.
Opening ceremonies for the FIRST Robotics Competition will begin at 8:30 a.m. March 15, with qualification matches starting at 9 a.m. on both March 15 and March 16. The Friday awards ceremony will begin at 5:45 p.m., while the Saturday awards ceremony will begin at 4:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public, with hands-on educational activities provided by sponsors and exhibitors. A livestream of the event will be available at https://www.twitch.tv/firstinspires11.
Russ, an ASRC Federal/Analytical Services employee, supports the Office of Strategic Analysis & Communications.
Marshall’s ‘Ladies Who Launch’ Visit NBC’s Today Show
Women from Marshall Space Flight Center, in red and navy at left, celebrate International Women’s Day with NBC’s Today Show in New York on March 8. Several women from Marshall’s workforce represented NASA, including Marshall’s first female center director, Jody Singer, and were interviewed for the program to promote STEM and engineering careers. Today co-anchor Hoda Kotb helped tell Singer’s story, and introduced the female engineers who serve alongside her. Other guests included women of the Fire Department of New York, as well as the Navy pilots who recently flew the first all-female missing man formation. (NASA)
Marshall Tech Talk to Focus on In-Space Communication
Every month at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the Marshall Tech Talk series features a speaker who works within or outside NASA who discusses innovative projects of interest to the Marshall community. This month’s speaker will be M. Brian Barnett, founder and CEO of Solstar Space Co., an in-flight commercial internet/communications services company for astronauts and payload operators. Barnett previously worked at NASA as a scientist and project manager overseeing the development of multiple scientific payloads flown on the space shuttle to the International Space Station. Marshall team members are invited to hear Barnett discuss commercial wifi and two-way data in space at 1 p.m., March 14, in Building 4220, Room 1103. (NASA)
Wheelin’ Around Wheeler Dam: Transporting the Saturn I
By Will Bryan
Many cruises down the Tennessee River are peaceful and relaxing as the warm air and croaking frogs melt cares away. The cruise on the NASA barge Palaemon on Aug. 5, 1961, was not one of them. Up against the clock to get critical flight hardware to Cape Canaveral to keep alive the goal of landing man on the Moon by the end of the decade, a failure at the Wheeler Dam in North Alabama presented a challenge.
Palaemon carried the first flight stage of a Saturn I rocket and test flight versions of the rocket’s upper stage and payload from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to Cape Canaveral to be assembled and launched. Just 40 miles into the 2,000-mile journey, the barge, its payload and its crew, reached Wheeler Dam where two months prior on June 2, the dam’s lone lock — essentially a doorway in the dam for boats — collapsed. The doorway was closed.
The high priority of the Saturn program — along with the importance of the cargo transportation and operations of the Atomic Energy Commission in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — prompted quick action. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal agency that manages Wheeler Dam, quickly had roads built around the dam, connecting upstream and downstream sections of the river.
While one problem was solved, one was not. The journey from Marshall to Cape Canaveral essentially became two voyages, needing two barges. NASA needed another barge. In its excessed fleet in Pensacola, Florida, the U.S. Navy had a barge used in World War II that would do the job. Teams from Marshall acquired the ship – christened Compromise – and quickly began modifying it to transport the rocket segments.
On Aug. 5, hours after leaving the docks at Marshall, Palaemon approached the damaged lock, and teams were ready. NASA crews unloaded the flight hardware from Palaemon upstream of the dam near Town Creek, Alabama, and transported it downstream on the new roads cut through the North Alabama forest. On the downstream side of the dam, Compromise received the cargo and continued the journey.
The 10-day voyage took Compromise to the open, blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The barge, its cargo and its crew crossed the Gulf of Mexico, rounded the southern tip of Florida and traveled north along the Atlantic coast of Florida to the Saturn dock at Cape Canaveral.
Awaiting the arrival of the Saturn I hardware were teams from Marshall, who on Aug. 15, unloaded the ship and began assembling the first Saturn vehicle for launch. On Oct. 27, the Saturn I rocket – mission designation SA-1 – leapt off of its launch pedestal on a column of flame. The research and development flight tested the Saturn I’s first stage propulsion and verified the rocket’s structure and aerodynamics properties.
While the rocket climbed to its peak altitude of nearly 85 miles, engineers and leaders at Cape Canaveral and at Marshall – including Marshall Center Director Wernher von Braun – carefully watched the launch and continual stream of data. When all was said and done, the mission was a success. The first stage of the Saturn I worked, and the rocket’s aerodynamic and structural properties were verified. The nation’s goal of reaching the Moon was still alive.
That dream was realized less than eight years later as Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin landed at the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon. In the nearly six decades since, many voyages have been made down the Tennessee River, but on Aug. 5, 1961, under tight deadlines to get to the launch pad, teams were forced to take an unconventional route to help put humanity where it had never been before.
To read more about the Marshall’s history, visit here.
Bryan, an ASRC Federal/Analytical Services employee, supports the Office of Strategic Analysis & Communications.
Rocket Science in 60 Seconds: Why Testing Matters
Rocket Science in 60 Seconds gives you an inside look at work being done at NASA to explore deep space. Mike Roberts is the team lead for structural testing for NASA’s Space Launch System core stage at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. In this episode, he explains what structural testing is and why the various structural tests for SLS are important to the success of the mission and its astronauts as the agency sets out to explore Moon, Mars and beyond. For more information about SLS, visit here.
Dr. Wernher von Braun Sculpture Relocated to Front of New Building 4221
Standing in front of the sculpture bust of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center’s first director, Dr. Wernher von Braun, in its new home outside Building 4221, are from left, Aaron Stanfield, Marshall Exhibit Shop model maker; Jack Hood, a retired Marshall employee; and Hood’s son, Raven Hood. The bust, which has been displayed in the Marshall courtyard outside Building 4203 since 1994, was created by the Hoods as part of the center’s commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Apollo program. It was recently repaired and refinished by Stanfield and sits on a new granite base honoring all the Marshall directors, noting the years of their service leading the center. (NASA/Chase Davis)
This Week in NASA History: AS-500D Configuration I Testing Ends – March 11, 1967
This week in 1967, AS-500D configuration I testing ended with a special test to verify the flight control system. The test program included roll, pitch, yaw and longitudinal testing, completed earlier in 1967. AS-500D was a dynamic test article of the Saturn V space vehicle. Here, the Apollo spacecraft leaves the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on its way to the Vehicle Assembly Building where it will be mated with the Saturn launch vehicle. The Saturn V was designed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Now through December 2022, NASA will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Program that landed a dozen astronauts on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972, and the first U.S. crewed mission – Apollo 8 – that circumnavigated the Moon in December 1968. The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage. (NASA)