NASA to Take Corrective Action in Spacesuit Contract Protest

NASA has concluded that corrective action is appropriate in the Government Accountability Office (GAO) bid protest of Exploration Systems & Technology, Inc. NASA determined that
a compliance issue requires the termination of the contract for the Constellation Space Suit System with Oceaneering International, Inc. of Houston for the convenience of the government.

NASA anticipates that corrective action will involve reconsideration of its procurement decision. The pending protest litigation is subject to a Government Accountability Office protective order, NASA says.

NASA had awarded the contract on June 12. The spacesuit will protect astronauts during Constellation Program voyages to the International Space Station and, by 2020, the surface of the moon. The Constellation Space Suit System contract is for design, development, test, evaluation and production of equipment to support astronauts aboard the Orion crew exploration vehicle, the Altair lunar lander, and during human exploration of the
surface of the moon.

Suits and support systems will be needed for as many as four astronauts on moon voyages and as many as six space station travelers. For short trips to the moon, the suit design will support a week's worth of moon walks. The system also must be designed to support a significant number of moon walks during potential six-month lunar outpost expeditions. In addition, the
spacesuit and support systems will provide contingency spacewalk capability and protection against the launch and landing environment, such as spacecraft cabin leaks, NASA says.

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Video - Wanted: Astronauts

The European Space Agency is recruiting astronauts for the first time in 15 years. People aged between 27-35, with a pilot's medical certificate and advanced science degree or test pilot background are welcome to apply.

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Astronaut Chooses Quincy Jones' 1969 Recording as Wake-Up Music

When the Space Shuttle Atlantis launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Thursday, Dec. 6 on its mission to deliver the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station, Astronaut Leland Melvin will have in tow a copy of Quincy Jones' 1969 Grammy Award winning recording "Walking in Space," which he will use as his wake-up music during the mission.

Says Melvin, "Quincy Jones is someone who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for and I couldn't think of a more appropriate selection to use as my wake-up music."

Melvin's duties on the Shuttle Atlantis mission will be to support three space walks using the robotic arm and install the Columbus laboratory from Atlantis' payload bay to its permanent home on the International Space Station.

Says Jones, "I am truly honored that Mr. Melvin has chosen one of my pieces of work for this momentous occasion. I was inspired to record the 'Walking in Space' album in 1969 after Buzz Aldrin told me that he had played my arrangement of Frank Sinatra's 'Fly Me To The Moon' during his space flight to the moon, so to have it come full circle like this is quite remarkable and very humbling."

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Astronaut Anderson Returns Home for the Holidays

Home for the holidays has awhole new meaning when home is the planet you returned to just last week. But that is what astronaut Clay Anderson has done, landing Nov. 7 after five months in orbit aboard the International Space Station, just in timefor a holiday season with his family.

"Seeing my family after several months aboard the station has taught me a new meaning of the word 'thanksgiving,'" Anderson says. "We had a tremendously successful expedition during my time aboard the station, andit is really heartwarming to be able to complete my mission, come back to Earth with a great crew and relax and enjoy the season with loved ones."

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First Woman Station Commander Arrives for Historic Spaceflight

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson arrived at the International Space Station Friday to begin her tenure as the first woman to command a station mission.

Whitson, Soyuz Commander and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Malaysian Spaceflight Participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor docked their Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft to the station at 10:50 a.m. ET. The crew launched on Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Whitson officially will become the station commander after a ceremony Friday, Oct. 19, at approximately 3:15 p.m. ET. This change of command event will mark the formal handover of the station to Whitson and Malenchenko, just days before the Expedition 15 crew members and Shukor depart.

"I think it's special that I get the opportunity to play that role," Whitson says when asked about being the first woman station commander. "But I think it's also special to have an opportunity to demonstrate how many other women also work at NASA."

Another female astronaut, space shuttle Discovery Commander Pam Melroy, will reach another milestone in late October when she and her crew arrive at the station. It will mark the first time two women have led space missions at the same time.

To familiarize themselves with station systems and procedures, Expedition 16's Whitson and Malenchenko will conduct more than a week of handover activities with Expedition 15 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov and Expedition 15 and 16 Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson. Whitson and two other crew members will perform three spacewalks during Expedition 16 to prepare the station for the activation of the Harmony node. The Expedition 16 spacewalks also will prepare for the relocations of Harmony and Pressurized Mating Adapter-2, a docking port.

This is Whitson's second six-month rotation aboard the orbiting complex. She previously served as a flight engineer on Expedition 5 in 2002, when she became NASA's first station science officer, conducting 21 investigations in human and life sciences. During that mission, she also used the station's robotic arm to help add two truss segments to the station's backbone and performed a spacewalk to install debris shielding.

Whitson was born and raised in Iowa, where at an early age she was inspired by the men who walked on the moon. "I thought 'what a cool job!'"

She decided she wanted to fly in space after graduating from high school, which was the same year they picked the first set of female astronauts. Whitson knew she wanted to work for NASA, if not as an astronaut, then as a scientist.

Whitson received a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981 and a doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in 1985. From 1989 to 1993, Whitson worked as a research biochemist in the Biomedical Operations and Research Branch at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. For the next several years, she held a number of senior positions within NASA until her selection as an astronaut
in 1996.

When Whitson returns home in April 2008, she will hold yet another distinction, that of having spent more time in space than any other woman.

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NASA, Virgin Galactic to Explore Future Cooperation

NASA officials signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday with a U.S. company, Virgin Galactic, LLC, to explore the potential for collaborations on the development of space suits, heat shields for spaceships, hybrid rocket motors and hypersonic vehicles capable of traveling five or more times the speed of sound, the space agency announced.

Under the terms of the memorandum, NASA Ames Research Center, located in California's Silicon Valley, and Virgin Galactic LLC, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, will explore possible collaborations in several technical areas employing capabilities and facilities of NASA's Ames Research Center.

"As we constantly seek to build upon the advances made by explorers who have come before us, we now embark upon an exciting time in space exploration history that realizes the unlimited opportunities presented by a commercial space economy," says Shana Dale, NASA's deputy administrator. "By encouraging such potential collaborations, NASA supports the development of greater commercial collaboration and applications that will serve to strengthen and enhance the future benefits of space exploration for all of mankind."

Dale is a longtime supporter of commercial space development. As the former staff director of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, she was instrumental in the passage of the Commercial Space Act of 1998. This legislation encourages commercial space development in a variety of areas, including launch vehicles, the International Space Station and the acquisition of space and Earth science data.

"This understanding with Virgin Galactic affords NASA an opportunity to work with an emerging company in the commercial human space transportation industry to support the agency's exploration, science and aeronauticsmission goals," says S. Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames Research Center."Our location in California's Silicon Valley provides a dynamic research and development platform for future potential collaborations with othersuch companies in support of a robust commercial space industry."

The agreement with Virgin Galactic was negotiated through NASA's SpacePortal, a newly formed organization in the NASA Research Park at Ames, which seeks to engage new opportunities for NASA to promote the development of the commercial space economy.

"We are excited to be working with NASA and look forward to future collaborations in exploration and space travel," says Alex Tai, vice president of operations for Virgin Galactic.

The memorandum of understanding will be in effect for two years and stipulates that neither NASA nor Virgin Galactic will be required to pay any fees or provide funds to support the areas of possible collaboration, NASA says.

"This new type of private-public partnership can benefit the agency while helping to foster a new industry," says Dan Coughlin, NASA's lead forthe Virgin Galactic agreement.

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