AIMM Executives attend Maryland Space Roundtable with Barbara Mikulski

On April 18, AIMM executives attended the Maryland Space Roundtable (MSBR) luncheon where speaker Barbara Mikulski delivered a compelling message about her remarkable career as the longest serving woman in the history of the United States Congress.

The Maryland Space Business Roundtable (MSBR) is a nonprofit organization for aerospace and technology businesses, universities, and individuals in Maryland as well as the surrounding national capital region that share a mutual interest in promoting a robust space community. The Roundtable provides a common ground for these companies to meet, interact, learn, and act on initiatives for future growth. Invited speakers and guests include prominent government agency leaders, elected officials and their staff, and aerospace industry leaders. These luncheons offer members the opportunity to host government guests in a one-on-one setting at their member table.

Senator Mikulski, the keynote as this month’s luncheon and a significant supporter for NASA and NOAA funding, spoke of her curiosity in science at an early age. An eruption of laughter soon followed when she spoke about the laws of gas. She noted, “Gas takes the size and shape of its container, which is a good lesson to know if you are in the United States Senate.”

You can view highlights of Mikulski’s keynote address here:

Mikulski was first elected to the federal House of Representatives in 1976, and in 1986 became the first woman elected to the United States Senate from Maryland. In 2013, Mikulski introduced the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2013, which passed in the Senate. The bill would reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 to provide block grants to the states to help low-income parents find childcare for their children. One of her most recent accomplishments, the Paycheck Fairness Act, was introduced on April 1, 2014, as a measure that aims to strengthen the Fair Labor Standards Act’s protections against pay inequalities based on gender. After serving five terms on the Senate, Mikulski retired March 2015.

Each month, the MSBR holds a luncheon event with invited government guests and speakers. To learn more about MSBR please visit. http://mdspace.org

 

AIMM Community Outreach – VIDEO

On March 23rd, AIMM supported a visit to the Nasa Kennedy Center with the Urban Youth Impact Academy.

The children learned about Earth and space science and had an opportunity for hands on training and the chance to imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut.

About Urban Youth Impact:

Through our programs, we seek to reverse troubling trends and fulfill our mission by offering programs designed to develop critical life-skills that result in less juvenile crime, fewer teen pregnancies, less substance abuse, less child abuse/domestic violence, and fewer school drop-outs.

The primary goal of The Leadership Academy (TLA) is to prepare the students it serves to succeed in life by providing academic assistance, character development and spiritual enrichment through the students’ formative years.
TLA serves up to 150 students in grades K-9 daily during the school year through tutoring, computer-based literacy learning, faith-based instruction, life-skills and character building lessons, mentoring relationships, performing arts, field trips, and recreation.

President Obama Recognizes Astronaut Scott Kelly

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly stands as he is recognized by President Barack Obama, while First Lady Michelle Obama (lower left corner) and other guests applaud. The President recognized Kelly during the State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 20, 2015. This March, Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will launch to the International Space Station and become the first crewmembers to live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory for a year-long mission. While living on the International Space Station, Kelly, Kornienko and the rest of the crew will carry out hundreds of research experiments and work on cutting-edge technology development that will inspire students here at home in science, technology, engineering and math. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

ANTARES ORB-3 LAUNCH VIEWING MAP

ORB-3 Launch Viewing Map

Can you see the Antares launch from your location? The Antares launch scheduled Oct. 27 will be visible to residents in the mid-Atlantic, weather permitting. Lift-off of the Antares rocket is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. (EDT), with rendezvous and berthing with the ISS early in the morning on November 2. Taking advantage of Cygnus’ operational capabilities, Orbital is launching the Orb-3 mission to orbit several days earlier than necessary to preserve schedule flexibility and time its arrival at the station to conform to other visiting vehicle operations.

AIMM Heads to Wallops Flight Facility for Orbital Resupply Mission to Space Station

Orbital Sciences Corp. will launch its next mission to resupply the International Space Station Monday, Oct. 27, and AIMM will assist NASA Television in the broadcast live coverage of the event, including pre- and post-launch briefings and arrival at the station.

Orbital Science’s Cygnus cargo carrier is transported Oct. 16, 2014 from the NASA fueling facility on Wallops Island, Virginia to the Horizontal Integration Facility where it will be mated to the Antares rocket for the Orbital CRS-3 cargo mission to the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA/Jamie Lee Adkins

Orbital’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 6:45 p.m. EDT from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Launch Pad 0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Launch coverage begins at 5:45 p.m.

A prelaunch status briefing will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26, followed at 2 p.m. by a briefing to preview the mission’s science cargo. A post-launch briefing will be held approximately 90 minutes after liftoff.
Media who wish to ask questions remotely during the briefing must respond to Rachel Kraft at rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov no later than 30 minutes before the start of each briefing. The public may submit questions via Twitter using the hashtag #askNASA.

Cygnus will transport almost 5,000 pounds of supplies, including science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and experiment hardware. It will arrive at the station Sunday, Nov. 2. Expedition 41 crew members Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore of NASA will be ready in the station’s cupola to capture the resupply craft with the station’s robotic arm and install it on the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony module.

NASA TV coverage of capture and installation will begin at 3:30 a.m. Nov. 2, followed by grapple at 4:58 a.m. Coverage of the installation of Cygnus onto the International Space Station will begin at 7 a.m. The capsule is scheduled to depart the station Wednesday, Dec. 3, and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere during reentry.

Continuing the tradition of naming its spacecraft after astronauts who have made significant contributions to spaceflight, Orbital dubbed this Cygnus resupply ship the SS Deke Slayton. The name is a tribute to original Mercury 7 astronaut Donald “Deke” K. Slayton, who flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission in 1975 and championed commercial space endeavors after retiring from NASA in 1982. Slayton passed away in 1993.
This mission is the third of eight Orbital flights NASA contracted with the company to resupply the space station, and the fourth trip by a Cygnus spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory.
For a full media schedule and more information about the Orbital CRS-3 mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/orbital
For video b-roll and media resources on the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/stationnews
For more information about the International Space Station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station

NASA Lunar Mission Wins 2014 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award

NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission has received the Popular Mechanics 2014 Breakthrough Award for innovation in science and technology. The 10th annual Breakthrough Awards recognize innovators, engineers and scientists responsible for changing our world.

The award acknowledges LADEE’s modular flexible construction and laser data transfer capability, which can send and receive data more than six times faster than the quickest space-based radio signals.
“We’re proud of the LADEE mission’s accomplishments and this recognition,” said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, which designed, developed, built, integrated, tested and controlled the spacecraft. “LADEE may have been the first Ames-built spacecraft, but after the Kepler mission’s win in 2009 and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission’s win in 2010, it’s the third Ames mission to be honored with this award.”
LADEE launched in September 2013, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The car-sized lunar orbiter gathered detailed information on the structure and composition of our moon’s thin atmosphere and data to determine whether dust is being lofted into the lunar sky. A thorough understanding of these characteristics of our nearest celestial neighbor will help researchers understand other bodies in the solar system, such as large asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of outer planets.
The first Ames-built spacecraft enjoyed many other firsts throughout its mission. The occasion of its launch was the first flight of a converted U.S. Air Force Minotaur V rocket, an excess ballistic missile converted into a space launch vehicle and operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia. It also was the first launch beyond Earth orbit from the agency’s Virginia launch facility.
Hosted aboard LADEE for its ride to lunar orbit was the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) terminal. From a distance of almost a quarter-of-a-million miles, LLCD demonstrated record-breaking upload and download speeds. The cooperative mission with a team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory revealed the possibility of expanding broadband capabilities in future space communications development.
LADEE was built using an Ames-developed Modular Common Spacecraft Bus architecture — a general purpose spacecraft design that allows NASA to develop, assemble and test multiple spacecraft modules at the same time. The LADEE bus structure was a lightweight carbon composite weighing 547.2 pounds unfueled and 844.4 pounds when fully fueled.
“This mission put the innovative common bus design to the test and proved the spacecraft could perform well beyond our most conservative estimates,” said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames. “This same common bus can be used on future missions to explore other destinations, including voyages to orbit and land on the moon, low-Earth orbit, near-Earth objects and objects in deep space.”
The successful mission was concluded April 18 when ground controllers at Ames confirmed the spacecraft impacted the surface of the moon, as planned. LADEE was designed for a relatively short mission, as the science goals only required 100 days of data collection.
“From beginning to end, LADEE was a testament of unparalleled teamwork and unique innovation,” said Joan Salute, LADEE program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington.” The mission established a new technology paradigm, opening a new chapter for spacecraft design and construction.”
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington funded the LADEE mission. Ames managed the overall mission. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, managed the science instruments, technology demonstration payload and science operations center, and provided overall mission support. Wallops was responsible for launch vehicle integration, launch services and operations. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, managed LADEE within the Lunar Quest Program Office.

For more information about the LADEE mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ladee

Rocket Launches Scheduled between August 12 and September 24 from Wallops

UPDATE: The scheduled launch of a Terrier-Lynx suborbital rocket for the Department of Defense Saturday, Aug. 16, from NASA’s launch range at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia has been postponed. The new launch date is 9 to 11:30 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Aug. 23.

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. – Two Terrier-Lynx suborbital rockets are scheduled for launch between August 12 and September 24 for the Department of Defense from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The rockets will be launched on separate days. The second rocket is expected to be launched about two weeks after the first rocket. The launch windows are (all times are EDT):
11:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m. August 12/13
10:30 p.m. – 12:30 a.m. August 16/17
9:00 – 11:00 p.m. August 23
7:30 – 9:30 p.m. August 27
5:30 – 7:30 a.m. September 20
4:00 – 6:00 a.m. September 24
The rockets may be visible to residents in the mid-Atlantic region.

VISIBILITY MAP FOR THE TWO SURROUNDING ROCKET MISSIONS

At the request of DoD project managers, no real-time launch status updates will be available. The launches will not be shown live on the Internet nor will launch status updates be provided on social media once the countdown begins. The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will not be open for viewing the launches.

Smartphone users can download the “What’s Up at Wallops” app, which contains information on the launches as well as a compass showing the precise direction for launch viewing.

The app is available for download at: http://go.nasa.gov/17veCYT.

AIMM attends National Veterans Conference

The National Veterans Small Business Conference  was held this year in St. Louis, Missouri.  There were 3800 attendees.  The conference gave veteran business owners the opportunity to meet procurement decision makers in small groups, at lunch, training sessions and in seminars. There were over 400 exhibitors.

Rich Porter, President, AIMM attended all three days of the convention and made some tremendous contacts that should result in new business opportunities.

Rudy Watley, Associate Director, Supplier Diversity Program, Smithsonian Institution and Melissa Hong, Managing Partner, LH Solutions Group share lunch at the National Veterans Conference in St. Louis.  Rudy is a strong advocate for minority business opportunities at the Smithsonian and throughout the federal government.