The International Space Station has three new residents. Expedition 37/38 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov, Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins arrived six hours after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They’ll spend a portion of their five-and-a-half months in space with station Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano who’ve been on the station since late May. Also, Heartbeat Finder, Orion Simulations, SLS Model Tested, Lander Prototype, Seeing Shockwaves, a very special NASA Anniversary and more.

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Three New Residents- JSC

#ISS

The International Space Station has three new residents. Expedition 37/38 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov, Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy and NASA Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins arrived six hours after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They’ll spend a portion of their five-and-a-half months in space with station Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and Flight Engineers Karen Nyberg of NASA and Luca Parmitano who’ve been on the station since late May.

Heartbeat Finder – HQ/JPL

@NASA_Technology

NASA and The Department of Homeland Security demonstrated a new radar technology named FINDER – short for Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response — designed to detect heartbeats of victims trapped in wreckage.

Mason Peck, NASA Chief Technologist:
“We used NASA Technology that’s normally for science for finding; let’s say the surface of waves or even traveling spacecraft and we’ve turned that to the use of saving lives here on Earth.”

In demonstrations, like the one held recently for the media in northern Virginia, FINDER has located people covered in 30 feet of crushed materials, hidden behind 20 feet of concrete, and from a distance of 100 feet in open spaces.

Orion Simulations – JSC

@NASA_Orion

At Johnson Space Center the first ascent and abort simulations with the Orion spacecraft are underway. The exercises include “sims” of normal and aborted launches, so astronauts can evaluate Orion’s 3-screen display and control console – which – compared to the 10 screen-1,000-plus switch console in a space shuttle – is pretty scaled down.

SLS Model Tested – LARC

@nasa_sls

And liftoff transition testing was conducted with a six-foot model of the Space Launch System at Langley Research Center’s subsonic wind tunnel. Four different payload configurations of the SLS were evaluated. The next-generation heavy-lift rocket will carry Orion to lunar orbit on Exploration Mission-1 in 2017 to check out Orion’s systems.

Lander Prototype – MSFC

@NASA_Marshall

The Mighty Eagle prototype lander successfully completed a test flight to help validate software. The Mighty Eagle and its larger counterpart, the Project Morpheus lander, are being used to mature the technology needed to develop a new generation of small, smart and versatile robotic landers that can accomplish scientific and exploration goals on the surface of planetary bodies.

Seeing Shockwaves – DFRC

#NASAAero

An imaging system being tested at Dryden Flight Research Center can see the shockwaves produced by supersonic aircraft and help better characterize sonic booms.

Ed Haering, Principal Investigator, Ground-to-Air Schlieren Photography System (GASPS):
“We can take those pictures and visualize where all the shockwaves are from the aircraft.”

The images can also provide clues about how strong the shockwaves are. The effort is part of NASA’s work to make commercial supersonic flight over land practical.

NASA Anniversary: Tuesday, October 1, 1958: NASA’s first day of operation

@NASAhistory

NASA’s 55th birthday is October 1. On that day in 1958, the agency officially opened for business with five facilities inherited from its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. Since then, NASA’s put footprints on the moon, tire tracks on Mars, provided stunning views of Earth, our solar system and beyond and helped build – in space – the most advanced spacecraft ever. With even bolder plans for the future, NASA is committed to maintaining America’s leadership in space exploration and scientific discovery for years to come.

Space Movie – HQ

#NASA

For her role in the new movie Gravity, actress Sandra Bullock got pointers from real-life NASA astronaut Cady Coleman, who was onboard the ISS at the time. The two chatted during a September 16 interview.

Sandra Bullock, Actress:
“The thing that resonated the most was you said something about, your hair – you could take one strand of hair and push off the wall with that hair and it would propel you backwards.”

Cady Coleman, NASA Astronaut:
“And I had bigger hair up there than the guys, so it worked a little bit better for me and I let it grow because I wanted it to scream, zero-g – there is a woman in space.”

Sandra Bullock, Actress:
“It did!”

Both hope that seeing women in space will inspire females to continue reaching new heights.

And that’s This Week @NASA.