NASA's pioneering use of prize competitions and innovation challenges is a dramatic departure from government's traditional "business as usual." The agency's innovation and technology challenges include prizes that encourage independent teams to race to achieve bold goals without any upfront government funding. NASA benefits from private sector investments many times greater than the cash value of prizes, and the agency only pays for results. "NASA prize competitions unlock the extraordinary, sometimes untapped potential of U.S. students, private companies of all sizes and citizen inventors," said NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These individuals and teams are providing creative solutions to NASA challenges while fostering new technology, new industries and innovation across the United States."
NASA has a history of broad and successful experiences with prize challenges. The agency is a leader in government-sponsored competitions that solve problems to benefit the space program and nation. Since 2005, NASA has conducted 20 Centennial Challenges in six areas and awarded $4.5 million to 13 teams. Each challenge is managed by non-profit organizations in partnership with NASA. In July, NASA announced three new challenges and is seeking non-profit organizations to manage them. The challenges are: The Nano-Satellite Launch Challenge is to place a small satellite into Earth orbit, twice in one week, for a prize of $2 million. The goals of this challenge are to stimulate innovations in low-cost launch technology and encourage commercial nano-satellite delivery services.
The Night Rover Challenge is to demonstrate a solar-powered exploration vehicle that can operate in darkness using its own stored energy. The prize purse is $1.5 million. The objective of this challenge is to stimulate innovations in energy storage technologies for extreme space environments, such as the surface of the moon, or for electric vehicles and renewable energy systems on Earth. The Sample Return Robot Challenge is to demonstrate a robot that can locate and retrieve geologic samples from varied terrain without human control. This challenge has a prize purse of $1.5 million. The objective is to encourage innovations in automatic navigation and robotic technologies.
For the first time in nearly 50 years of American human spaceflight, Kennedy Space Center could be at the forefront of designing, developing, demonstrating and flying human-rated vehicles. "We're looking to create a robust commercial space program with multiple customers, multiple providers and multiple systems that take Americans to the International Space Station and other low Earth orbit destinations," said Ed Mango, director of the Space Transportation Planning Office. In May, the office sent out a Commercial Crew Initiative Request for Information (RFI). Mango, along with the office's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) Planning Lead Phil McAlister, Deputy Program Planning Manager Brent Jett and Insight Manager Scott Thurston, recently participated in a forum at NASA Headquarters to talk about common themes captured from dozens of industry responses.
ESMD Deputy Administrator Dr. Laurie Leshin, Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program Manager Alan Lindenmoyer and the Space Transportation Office's Deputy Director Maria Collura also were on hand to offer insight. "We have about 50 team members from shuttle, space station, Constellation, the Launch Services Program, the astronaut office, other NASA centers and contractors all coming together and melding our ideas of what commercial crew should be," Mango said. "And we're melding. it's like making gumbo and we just started making the roux." If the Commercial Crew Program is approved by Congress and the White House, it would have several billion dollars within a five- year period to develop humanrating requirements, partner with commercial entities and complete design and development. The program also would include demonstration flights.
"We believe that we could fund up to four providers with that $5.8 billion," McAlister said. "We definitely want competition. That is a key aspect to our strategy. We need multiple providers that are coming forward with innovative solutions." In addition to competition, will be collaboration. Thurston described more in depth about how NASA will take on a more "insight" role than its traditional "oversight" role and it's a change that the team doesn't take lightly. "NASA has to re-examine what has been our traditional identity," said Leshin, "and think about our role in a new way as catalysts of a much broader and more inclusive activity." Another aspect of collaboration would come from industries that are interested in performing science and research in low Earth orbit, whether on board the International Space Station or other future orbiting complexes.
Like an earthquake in space, so called space quakes are temblors in Earth's magnetic meadow caused by plasma flying off the sun that could help make the colorful auroras that dance high in Earth's atmosphere, a new study suggests. While felt most powerfully in Earth orbit, these quakes can also reach all the way down to the surface of Earth it. "Magnetic reverberations have been detected at ground stations all around the globe, much like seismic detectors calculate a large earthquake," said Vassilis Angelopoulos of UCLA, principle researcher of NASA's THEMIS spacecraft.
And this rumble can pack a punch. "The total energy in a spacequake can rival that of an extent 5 or 6 earthquake," according to Evgeny Panov of the Space Research Institute in Austria. Panov is first writer of a paper coverage the results of a study on spacequakes in the April 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Spacequakes aren't the only unearthly temblors around. Scientists have also discovered starquakes, moonquakes and asteroid quakes. In fact, Earth can really stimulate asteroidquakes when wayward space rocks fly too close to our planet. In 2007, THEMIS exposed the precursors of spacequakes.
The action begins in Earth's magnetic tail, which is expanded out like a windsock by the million miles per hour solar wind. Sometimes the tail can become so expanded and tension-filled, it snaps back like an over-torqued rubber band. Solar wind plasma attentive in the tail hurtles toward Earth. On more than one time, the five THEMIS spacecraft were in the line of fire when these "plasma jets" swept by. Clearly, the jets were leaving to hit Earth. But what would happen then? The flotilla moved closer to the planet to find out.
NASA has awarded the Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment project contract to General Dynamics C4 Systems of Scottsdale, Ariz. The cost-plus-award fee, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a total potential value of approximately $642.2 million, including options. The period of performance is from June 21, 2010 through June 20, 2017.
The Space Network Ground Segment is part of NASA's Space Network. The agency's Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) comprise the space segment. The network provides the resources for global space-to-ground telecommunications and tracking coverage for low Earth orbit and near-Earth robotic and human spaceflight missions.
The Space Network Ground Segment includes facilities and systems located at the White Sands Complex at Las Cruces, N.M., Guam Remote Ground Terminal at Guam, and the Space Network Expansion East at Blossom Point, Md. Under the Space Network Ground Segment Sustainment contract, General Dynamics will modernize the ground segment to enable the Space Network to continue to deliver high quality services, meet stakeholder requirements, and significantly reduce required operations and maintenance resources.
