posted 06-23-2020 10:43 AM               

NASA Developing a Plan to Fly Personnel on Suborbital Spacecraft

For the first time in the agency's history, NASA has initiated a new effort to enable NASA personnel to fly on future commercial suborbital spaceflights. NASA's Flight Opportunities program has successfully worked with emerging commercial suborbital transportation systems to fly research payloads to space for short periods of microgravity time. In addition, the Flight Opportunities program recently released a call that allows those non-NASA researchers to propose accompanying their payloads in suborbital space.

Now the Suborbital Crew (SubC) office within NASA's Commercial Crew Program will lay the groundwork for flying NASA personnel on commercial suborbital space transportation systems. The goal of the SubC office is to perform a system qualification, or safety assessment, to enable NASA astronauts, principal investigators and other NASA personnel to take advantage of these unique capabilities. Following the qualification, NASA plans to purchase seats on commercial suborbital space transportation systems for NASA use.

"We've seen how industry can develop innovative crew transportation systems that meet NASA's safety requirements and standards," said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters. "Now we'll be looking at a new way of enabling NASA personnel to fly on commercial suborbital space systems by considering factors such as flight experience and flight history."

Commercial suborbital spaceflight capabilities are anticipated to be more accessible, affordable, and available than missions to the International Space Station and could provide NASA additional commercial human spaceflights to conduct such activities as testing and qualification of spaceflight hardware, human-tended microgravity research, and additional training opportunities for astronauts and other NASA personnel. The agency has developed an intensive, comprehensive training program for astronauts and astronaut candidates, and suborbital crew space transportation services could provide even more training opportunities for NASA astronauts, engineers, scientists, operators, and trainers.

The last time NASA astronauts flew on suborbital missions was at the dawn of American human spaceflight with Project Mercury and the X-15 hypersonic research program. Today, the industry is preparing to offer suborbital flights as a service, and NASA wants to be a buyer.

"Suborbital human spaceflight has the potential to provide NASA a great way to meet the agency's needs and continue our efforts to enable a robust economy in space," said Phil McAlister, director of Commercial Spaceflight Development at NASA Headquarters. "It is notable that no NASA funds were used for the development of suborbital vehicles, but we can participate in the market as a buyer. The U.S. aerospace industry is proving again that it is technically and financially capable of developing safe, reliable, and cost-effective space systems."

One of the initial activities for SubC is to work with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and commercial suborbital space transportation providers to define the approach for system qualification for NASA personnel, as well as identify the specific performance capabilities NASA desires.

NASA is seeking responses to a related Request for Information (RFI) to inform the agency's planning for suborbital crew space transportation systems and plans to hold an industry forum, details for which will be announced via updates to the RFI.

posted 10-14-2020 12:43 PM               

SwRI planetary scientist to fly with NASA-funded research aboard commercial space flight

Suborbital flight to support two "human-tended" experiments

A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) planetary scientist has been chosen to be among the first group to conduct NASA-funded science experiments while flying aboard a commercial spacecraft, the space agency announced today.

Dr. Alan Stern, planetary scientist and associate vice president of SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division, will fly aboard the Virgin Galactic commercial spacecraft called SpaceShipTwo on a yet unscheduled suborbital mission from the Spaceport America launch site in New Mexico.

"This is the first selection of a private-sector researcher to fly with NASA funding on commercial vehicles," Stern said. He called the development a "potential sea change" in NASA-funded space research, opening the door to much more extensive experimentation in space by researchers. The NASA selection made today builds on SwRI's long history of work and internal research funding to capitalize on the new generation of commercial suborbital vehicles like SpaceShipTwo.

"Our commercial suborbital space flight program dates back almost a decade," said SwRI President and CEO Adam L. Hamilton, P.E. "To see the results of SwRI's internal research efforts lead to historic SwRI-tended suborbital experiments is very exciting!"

In 2020, NASA updated the Flight Opportunities Tech Flights solicitation in part to allow "human-tended" experiments on board commercial spacecraft.

"We are proud to be working with NASA and the Southwest Research Institute to fly Dr. Alan Stern on our SpaceShipTwo vehicle from Spaceport America," said Michael Colglazier, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Galactic. "It will be Alan's first time flying to space and we are excited to be involved in such an important milestone. Human-tended research onboard SpaceShipTwo enables scientists to engage actively with their experiments, responding to developments in real time, which is a vital step towards expanding our understanding of space science. We believe there is significant value in conducting scientific experiments on suborbital flights and we look forward to expanding our capabilities in partnership with NASA's Flight Opportunities Tech Flights program."

One SwRI experiment on the just announced flight will involve Stern operating a former space shuttle and NASA F-18 low light level camera to determine how well space astronomical observations can be conducted. In addition, Stern will be fitted with instrumentation that continuously monitors human vital signs from just before the two-hour flight until after its landing as a biomedical experiment. The results of both experiments will be published.

"Going to work in space myself for the first time after having spent so many years sending machines there to do the research for me is going to be a major career highlight, and something I am honored to be selected for," said Stern, who has previously been involved in 29 space mission science teams but had not flown in space. "But I hope this is just the first of a steady stream of flights by SwRI researchers doing work in space in the years and decades ahead."

posted 12-16-2021 03:42 PM               

Reaching space to become a reality for Purdue aerospace engineer

Purdue University's Steven Collicott was 8 years old when he saw Neil Armstrong step onto the moon and dreamed of reaching the stars. Now, both he and his research are going to make a giant leap into space aboard a Virgin Galactic craft.

Above: Steven Collicott, an aerospace engineer in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, was selected by NASA for a suborbital flight to conduct a research experiment aboard a Virgin Galactic aircraft. (Purdue University photo/Rebecca McElhoe)

Collicott, a professor of aerospace engineering in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, was selected Wednesday to receive an award by NASA's Flight Opportunities program giving him the chance to fly into suborbital space and back on a Virgin Galactic craft while conducting a zero-gravity experiment.

Collicott was the only applicant in this round of selections to receive the chance to take a suborbital flight sponsored by NASA. His research was selected as part of a competitive nationwide process.

The selection will make Collicott the first Purdue faculty member to take a trip to space.

"The sudden news that I now get to fly into suborbital space to work in an amazing new zero-gravity laboratory aboard Virgin Galactic is a thrill beyond words," he said. "That I'll be one of the first researchers to fly with their own experiments is an exciting notion that I never bothered to consider before."

Collicott already is known for his high-flying experiment endeavors, having taught a zero-gravity flight experiment course for many years. As part of the course, Collicott and some of his students experience weightlessness while conducting experiments aboard a parabolic aircraft flight, dubbed the "Vomit Comet."

Those flights reach an altitude only in the range of 30,000 feet, significantly less than suborbital rocket altitudes that begin as high as 50 miles.

Known as the Cradle of Astronauts, Purdue has 27 alumni who have flown in space or have been selected for space flight.

The final decision for Collicott's inclusion in the Cradle follows guidelines developed over three years ago when commercial space activities increased. William Crossley, the J. William Uhrig and Anastasia Vournas Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will apply those guidelines after Collicott's flight. Inclusion is possible for alumni, faculty, staff and students who work in space.

Collicott, who recently returned from a zero-gravity aircraft flight, plans to start building the experiment soon.

For the flight, Collicott will conduct an experiment that explores a difficult-to-model phenomenon in how a liquid that wets a solid surface less than perfectly moves in an awkward stick-slip process across that solid surface in weightlessness.

The phenomenon can be found with green rocket propellants and water in life-support systems. In spaceflight, this stick-slip spreading process is important even in meters-long fuel tanks.

The experiment serves to help engineers exploit numerous liquid-solid combinations, such as new green propellants, in future spacecraft. The experiment also will highlight possible ways to automate such measurements in the future, and this automation enables cheaper launches of automated follow-up experiments.

Green propellants are new variations of rocket fuels being researched as non-toxic replacements for long-used traditional fuels, which are dangerously toxic and very difficult to handle.

In recent years, Collicott has flown seven automated experiments on five Blue Origin missions and an automated experiment on a UP Aerospace launch with a second scheduled to happen in 2022. He also has flown automated experiments on numerous Exos Aerospace test flights.

The selection makes Collicott the latest person with Purdue connections to set their sights on suborbital flight. Two School of Aeronautics and Astronautics alumna – Sirisha Bandla and Audrey Powers – flew suborbital this year with fellow graduate Beth Moses, who became the first female commercial astronaut on Virgin Galactic's flight test in February 2019.

Powers flew in October via Blue Origin as the company's vice president of mission and flight operations. Moses and Bandla, Virgin Galactic's vice president of government affairs and research operations, flew in July.

posted 06-18-2024 08:51 AM               

University of Florida scientist to fly on Blue Origin suborbital mission

University of Florida Distinguished Professor Rob Ferl will be the first NASA-funded academic researcher to conduct an experiment as part of a commercial space crew on an upcoming mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket.

Ferl, who is also director of UF's new space institute, has spent his career studying how biology responds to spaceflight, progressing from experiments in his Gainesville lab to parabolic flight tests to projects on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

Now, funded through a grant from NASA's Flight Opportunities program, Ferl has an opportunity to personally conduct experiments on how the transition to and from microgravity impacts gene expression in cells and, more broadly, to develop protocols for future "researcher-tended" suborbital flights.

"The University of Florida is committed to the mission of space exploration and research," UF President Ben Sasse said. "The discoveries that will result from this work will be breathtaking. We're proud of Rob, grateful for our partners, and excited about the work ahead."

Ferl and colleague Anna-Lisa Paul, also a professor of horticultural sciences, have spent their careers seeking to understand plant gene expression in microgravity, but most of their experiments have been done by astronauts in space. As Paul puts it, on launches to the space station, astronauts now generally fly separately from science payloads, meaning that science is done "in space" and not "on the way to space."

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket offers scientists like Ferl the opportunity to conduct science throughout the transition from gravity to microgravity and back.

"As commercial space programs have advanced and access to space has become more available, I always hoped I might be able to conduct our experiments myself in microgravity," said Ferl. "I feel very grateful for this opportunity. After years, decades even, of working with astronauts to conduct our experiments, it's an honor to be at the forefront of researchers conducting their own experiments in space."

Ferl and Paul helped develop experimental devices called Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tubes, or KFTs, that quickly and safely mix test materials (in this case, a model plant called Arabidopsis thaliana) and preservative solutions to "fix" a moment of gene expression so researchers can study what was happening at different stages of the flight. KFTs are often used on the space station to safely and effectively handle solutions in a microgravity environment.

On the New Shepard flight, Ferl will activate KFTs at four different points in the mission: prior to launch, upon reaching microgravity, at the end of the weightless period as the vehicle begins its descent, and upon landing. New Shepard reaches an apogee above the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space (62 miles/100 km). On the ground, Paul and members of the UF Space Plants lab team will receive information from the flight that will trigger four identical "control" KFTs. After the mission, the team will bring all the plant samples back to their lab in Gainesville for analysis.

"The successful use of KFTs enables a wide range of biological experiments in suborbital space, as any biology that can fit inside the KFTs can be sampled at any phases of flight chosen, in real time, by the scientist astronaut," Ferl said.

Blue Origin has not yet announced the full crew or target launch date for Ferl's flight. New Shepard launches from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas.