GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 163, Lanham, MD 20703-0163

IMPORTANT DATES

COMMENTS FROM RON BROWNING, GRAA PRESIDENT: William Wrobel, Director of the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) and its Suborbital and Special Orbital Projects Directorate, and David Pierce, WFF’s Deputy Director, brought us up-to-date on the multiple ongoing programs there. Many of us remember WFF as a relatively quiet place for management training and numerous periodic sounding rocket launches (and super-sized mosquitoes), but not so these days. At any given time there is a variety of scientific, engineering, and operational activities that focus on WFF’s core business functions: launch range, sounding rockets, scientific balloons, airborne science and special programs. It takes a workforce of about 270 civil servants, 800 or so contractors, and some 600 tenant personnel to meet the growing demands of operations. Strong partnerships with other federal agencies and commercial entities are also maintained on a continual basis.

WFF was established in 1945 and is the only NASA-owned and -operated launch range. Examples of its range versatility include a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission to deep space (which successfully executed a planned crash landing on the Moon in mid-April), and now they are even considering the feasibility of a sun synchronous mission. The success rate of many sounding rocket missions over the years stands at 96 percent, a remarkable accomplishment. A recent sounding rocket was launched into an aurora from Poker Flats, Alaska, to study classic curls in the aurora night sky. Scientific balloons with payloads of 3600 kilograms float to 45 kilometers for greater than 50 days. WFF has two aircraft doing global investigations in support of NASA’s scientists. NASA’s P-3 IceBridge flights gather data on changing polar ice in northern latitudes to maintain data continuity between the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-1 (ICESat-1) and ICESat-2. ICESat-1 was launched in 2003 and operated for seven years before being decommissioned in 2010 after its scientific equipment shut down and scientists were unable to repair it and ICESat-2 is currently expected to launch in 2017. The US Navy trains pilots at a special WFF facility for aircraft carrier landings. The pilots must master 100 landings at WFF before landing on an actual carrier. Special projects encompass everything from Mars entry/descent tests, hurricane and severe storm monitoring, and Global Positioning Measurement ground validations to participating in NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (i.e., CubeSats are miniature payloads of about four inches long, a volume of about one quart, and weight of about three pounds) that are designed to be flown as auxiliary payloads on previously planned missions. Bill closed the presentation by inviting us to WFF for a tour and to see its beach that was restored by the US Army Corps of Engineers after Hurricane Sandy.

NEW EDITION OF GRAA MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY : The 2014 edition of the GRAA Membership Directory accompanies this month’s newsletter. Although we made our best effort to deliver a good product, we know there are assuredly contact information errors contained within its pages. Please bring errors to the attention of Strat Laios or David Moulton (using their contact information from the directory). Although we won’t be able to print another edition until 2016, we can at least update our Master List.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES – IT HAPPENED IN JUNE: On June 24, 1999, a Delta II rocket launched the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite from Cape Canaveral, FL. FUSE was a NASA-supported astrophysics satellite/telescope, the purpose of which was to explore the Universe using the technique of high-resolution spectroscopy in the far-ultraviolet spectral region. The Johns Hopkins University had the lead role in developing the mission in collaboration with the University of Colorado at Boulder as well as international and corporate partners. FUSE’s original, three-year mission was so successful that it was extended for five additional years and was decommissioned in mid-October 2007.

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

•  Barney J. Conrath, of Charlottesville, VA, passed away on April 23^rd. He was an Astrophysicist at Goddard. Among several different assignments during his career, he worked in the Aeronomy & Meteorology Division of the Office of Space Science & Satellite Applications and the Planetary Systems Branch of the Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics. His studies of planetary atmospheres included experiments on the Voyager 1 and 2 missions, the Mars Global Surveyor, and most recently on the NASA/European Space Agency Cassini mission.

•  Robert M “Bob” Keefe, of Rockville, MD, passed away on May 3^rd from complications related to recent heart surgery. He was a Procurement Officer/Specialist and each procurement-related position to which he was assigned during his career required more management responsibility. For example, in 1963 he was assigned to the Space Applications Negotiations Branch of the Procurement Division and in his last assignment prior to retiring he was Chief of the Institutional Procurement Division.

•  Lola M. Olsen, of Greenbelt, MD, passed away on April 19^th. She was hired by Goddard in 1986 as an Aerospace Technologist, Earth Sciences Remote Sensing. She later served in the Global Change Data Center as Manager of the Global Change Master Directory, a position to which she was still assigned at the time of her passing.

•  Stanley D. Rubin, of Murrells Inlet, SC, passed away on May 7^th. He was a Communications Specialist at Goddard, during which time he was assigned to several different organizations such as the NASA Communications Division of the Mission Operations & Data System Directorate and the Systems Management Division of the Information Technology & Communications Directorate and while in that assignment was Goddard’s interface with NASA Headquarters on communications matters related to the development of the Orion spacecraft.

•  Bruce E. Woodgate, of Edgewater, MD, passed away on April 28^th after suffering several strokes during the previous month. He was an Aerospace Engineer at Goddard for nearly 40 years. He worked in several organizations during his career, including the Stellar & Cosmic Astronomy Branch of the Laboratory for Astronomy & Solar Physics and the Exoplanets & Stellar Astrophysics Lab of the Exploration of the Universe Division of the Sciences & Exploration Directorate. As a tireless inventor of new technologies, he was arguably best known as Principal Investigator for the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). In that capacity, he led the design and development of the instrument, which was installed on the HST in 1997 and operated for seven years until a power supply failure occurred, but later repaired in 2009.

NIMBUS-1 50^th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION BEING PLANNED: August 28, 2014, will mark the 50^th Anniversary of the Nimbus-1 satellite launch. Now in the planning stage, NASA will be commemorating the Nimbus Program at Goddard’s Visitor Center in the early fall. The event, which will be free and open to the public, will review highlights and benefits derived from the seven Nimbus missions carrying 33 different experiments dedicated to meteorology, atmospheric sciences, and other purposes. A detailed announcement will be published once the agenda for this special celebratory event is finalized.

DRYDEN FLIGHT RESEARCH CENTER RENAMED: Made possible by legislation signed into law by President Obama on January 16^th, the Dryden Flight Research Center was officially renamed the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center on March 1^st. At the same time, the Center’s Western Aeronautical Test Range officially became the Hugh L. Dryden Aeronautical Test Range. Administrator Charles Bolden noted that Hugh Dryden was considered an aeronautical genius who pushed the boundaries of high speed flight and that his organizational leadership was at the root of Neil Armstrong’s most spectacular flight achievements, from the X-15 to his 1969 first steps onto the Moon’s surface.

ALBERTA MORAN NEEDS YOUR HELP: Alberta Moran would like to hear from any GRAA members who worked at or are otherwise familiar with the establishment and/or operation of the tracking station in Canberra, Australia. The folks in Canberra have dedicated a new library and Alberta is helping the staff there do some research on the old tracking station. Members having information to share should call Alberta at 301-910-0177 or send her an email at mdspacebr@aol.com

EXTENSION OF THE ISS UNTIL AT LEAST 2024: In January, Administrator Bolden announced that the Obama Administration approved an extension of the ISS until at least 2024. That was great news until, according to media reports in mid-May, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that Russia will close the ISS in 2020 in response to US sanctions implemented as a result of the Russian annexation of Crimea and its military posturing at/near the borders of the Ukraine. Cooperation between the US and Russia has seen setbacks of late in other than ISS-related activities, but rhetoric on both sides of the issue is apparently on the rise. All we can likely do is keep our fingers crossed and patiently wait and see how the situation turns out.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Treasurer Bob Wigand received tax-deductible contributions from the following members: James Andary, Dedra Billings, William Cooper, Thomas Cygnarowicz, Ellen Herring, William Jones, David Manges, Thomas Underwood, and Schuyler & Betty Wardrip.

THOUGHT FOR MAY: Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves for we shall never cease to be amused.