Kennedy Celebrates A 'Nifty Fifty'
While employees at Kennedy Space Center celebrated the first 50
years of NASA in 2008, they also were working on missions and
projects that will carry the space agency into the next five
decades and beyond.
NASA commemorated its 50th anniversary on Oct. 1 and the Kennedy
Space Center Visitor Complex helped the public mark the golden
milestone by hosting three weeks of live concerts with the music
from America's space eras. The 2008 Fall Concert Series featured
music from the 1960's, 70's and 80's, spanning the time of the
Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle Programs. The series
culminated with Kennedy's second Space & Air Show in November,
which was highlighted by the precision flying of U.S. Navy Blue
Angels.
About the same time NASA was celebrating the anniversary,
Kennedy was welcoming a new center director. Bob Cabana assumed the
role as the center's tenth director Oct. 26. Cabana, who is a
former space shuttle astronaut, came to Kennedy from NASA's Stennis
Space Center in Mississippi where he was director for the past
year. He also was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in
May. Cabana succeeded William W. Parsons who left the agency Oct.
11 to pursue opportunities in the private sector.
Kennedy teams were involved in launching seven different
missions into space in 2008, four on space shuttles and three on
expendable launch vehicles. Atlantis' STS-122 mission started the
year's shuttle flights with a February trip to the International
Space Station.
Atlantis' seven astronauts attached the European Space Agency's
Columbus science lab. The following month, Endeavour's STS-123
mission brought to the space station the first section of the Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory and the Canadian
Space Agency's two-armed robotic system, known as Dextre. In May,
Discovery's STS-124 mission delivered and installed JAXA's Kibo
pressurized module and the Japanese Remote Manipulator System to
the station. Finally in November, shuttle Endeavour's STS-126
mission brought up supplies and equipment that will allow the space
station to expend from its current three-person crew to a
six-person crew in May 2009.
The shuttle program's emphasis on NASA's and America's
international partners in 2008 was exemplified early in the year at
Kennedy Space Center. NASA and the U.S. Department of State
welcomed ambassadors from more than 45 countries to the center. The
visit, one of the largest tours undertaken by the diplomatic corps,
provided dignitaries an overview of the United States' space
exploration programs and showed them various facilities at the
center.
Two of the three NASA science missions sent into space aboard
expendable launch vehicles this year took place in June. NASA's
Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, or GLAST, launched from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. on June 11. GLAST is exploring
the universe's ultimate frontier and studying gamma-ray bursts. On
June 20, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 launched
Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The satellite is on a
globe-circling voyage to continue charting sea levels, a vital
indicator of global climate change. Then on Oct. 20, NASA's
Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission, or IBEX, successfully
launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. IBEX will
be the first spacecraft to image and map dynamic interactions
occurring in the outer solar system.
Solar interactions with the Earth were the focus of a new
partnership between NASA and Florida Power & Light, or FPL,
signed in June. Kennedy and the state's largest electric utility
teamed up to provide Florida residents and America's space program
with new sources of "green power." The agreement will permit FPL to
lease 60 acres of NASA Kennedy Space Center's approximately 140,000
acres for a solar photovoltaic power generation system. The
facility will produce an estimated 10 megawatts of electrical
power, which is enough energy to serve roughly 3,000 homes. As part
of the agreement, FPL will build a separate one megawatt solar
power facility at Kennedy that will support the electrical needs of
the center. Groundbreaking for the one megawatt facility will be
early in 2009.
The first major flight hardware pieces of the Ares I-X rocket
started arriving in Florida in November for the inaugural test
flight of the agency's next-generation launch system. The Ares I-X
upper stage simulator and the forward skirt are being prepared for
the targeted July 11, 2009 test flight. During the next few months,
all of the additional hardware needed to complete the test vehicle
will be delivered to Kennedy, beginning with a piece that simulates
a fifth segment for the four-segment solid rocket booster and
concluding with delivery of the complete motor set in January
2009.
The Ares I-X rocket is a combination of existing and simulator
hardware that will resemble the Ares I crew launch vehicle in size,
shape and weight. It will provide valuable data to guide the final
design of the Ares I, which will launch astronauts in the Orion
crew exploration vehicle. The test flight also will bring NASA one
step closer to its exploration goals of returning humans to the
moon for sustained exploration of the lunar surface and missions to
destinations beyond.
In May, Kennedy Space Center awarded a contract for the
construction of the Ares I mobile launcher platform for the
Constellation Program. The new platform will be used in the
assembly, testing and servicing of Ares I at existing Kennedy
facilities. The space shuttle mobile launcher platform that will be
used for Discovery's targeted February 2009 mission to the
International Space Station will be turned over to the
Constellation Program and modified for the Ares I-X test
flight.
After more than four decades of use, Kennedy's Launch Pad 39A
sustained significant damage during the launch of space shuttle
Discovery on May 31. It occurred to an area of the pad known as the
flame trench. The damage was analyzed and repair by August. The fix
is expected to last through the remainder of the space shuttle
program.
Shortly after the repairs were complete, Tropical Storm Fay
slowly made its way across the state. Although Kennedy was closed
Aug. 19-21 because of heavy rain and wind, the center sustained
minimal damage.
In May, NASA entered into two agreements to help the work force
and regional economy with the transition from the Space Shuttle
Program to the Constellation Program. Kennedy management singed a
Space Act Agreement and renewed its partnership with the Economic
Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast to strengthen,
retain and expand Brevard County as the prime location for the
aerospace industry. Then Kennedy management signed the center's
first Space Act Agreement with the Brevard Workforce Development
Board to help support existing and future missions at the space
center.
The Space Gateway Support 10-year Joint Base Operations Services
Contract ended Sept. 30. New contractors officially began the
transition Oct. 1, resuming operations and services to the
center.