Melissa Jones | |
|---|---|
 Melissa Jones official Kennedy Space Center photo | |
| Born | |
| Alma mater | University of Central Florida |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Kennedy Space Center |
Melissa Jones is the NASA landing and recovery director for the Exploration Ground Systems Program. She leads retrieval of NASA flight crew and module hardware.
Jones was born in Oak Hill, Florida. [1] Her parents and grandparents worked in different aspects of space programs at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. [2] During junior high school, Jones was an intern at the Kennedy Space Center, where she worked on processing for Unity node. [2] She studied electrical engineering at the University of Central Florida. She returned in 2016 and earned a master's degree in engineering management. [1]
Jones join the Space Shuttle program as a contractor in 2004. [1] In 2007 she was appointed as lead orbiter project engineering for Space Shuttle Endeavour. [1] In this role she looked to get Endeavour in a fit state to fly. [1]
She led system engineering for NASA Ground and Mission Operations the Commercial Crew Program. This included ensuring operations were ready for the launch and integrated systems verification. [1] Jones was part of the New Horizons flyby team in 2015. [3] [4]
In 2017 Jones was awarded a Rotary International National Award for Space Achievement Stellar Award. [1] She serves as an expert for The Planetary Society. [5]
Jones will lead the recovery team of Artemis 1 (previously Exploration Mission-1) that will work with the United States Navy to recover the Orion crew module. [1] The recovery will take place in the ocean near San Diego, and Jones is responsible for the creation of a ship, with a landing platform, that can recover flight crews from open water. [5] She has worked for the Underway Recovery Test 5 (URT-5). Jones was involved with the USS John P. Murtha Orion spacecraft recovery tests. [6]
Jones is married with two children. [1]
Space Shuttle Columbia (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the first American ship to circumnavigate the upper North American Pacific coast and the female personification of the United States, Columbia was the first of five Space Shuttle orbiters to fly in space, debuting the Space Shuttle launch vehicle on its maiden flight on April 12, 1981. As only the second full-scale orbiter to be manufactured after the Approach and Landing Test vehicle Enterprise, Columbia retained unique features indicative of its experimental design compared to later orbiters, such as test instrumentation and distinctive black chines. In addition to a heavier fuselage and the retention of an internal airlock throughout its lifetime, these made Columbia the heaviest of the five spacefaring orbiters; around 1,000 kilograms heavier than Challenger and 3,600 kilograms heavier than Endeavour. Columbia also carried ejection seats based on those from the SR-71 during its first six flights until 1983, and from 1986 onwards carried an imaging pod on its vertical stabilizer.
A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed to fly in outer space and operate there. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo. All spacecraft except single-stage-to-orbit vehicles cannot get into space on their own, and require a launch vehicle.
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips.
John Watts Young was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. He is the only astronaut to fly on four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo Lunar Module and the Space Shuttle.
The Constellation program was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a "return to the Moon no later than 2020" with a crewed flight to the planet Mars as the ultimate goal. The program's logo reflected the three stages of the program: the Earth (ISS), the Moon, and finally Mars—while the Mars goal also found expression in the name given to the program's booster rockets: Ares. The technological aims of the program included the regaining of significant astronaut experience beyond low Earth orbit and the development of technologies necessary to enable sustained human presence on other planetary bodies.
USS Anchorage (LPD-23) is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock and the second ship of the United States Navy to be namesake of the U.S. city of Anchorage, Alaska.
Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS), or Advanced Crew Transportation System (ACTS), was a proposed design for a crewed spacecraft for low Earth orbit operations such as servicing the International Space Station, but also capable of exploration of the Moon and beyond. It was originally a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Roscosmos, but later became solely an ESA project. This study was conceived as a basic strategic plan to keep a viable European human spaceflight program alive.
A boilerplate spacecraft, also known as a mass simulator, is a nonfunctional craft or payload that is used to test various configurations and basic size, load, and handling characteristics of rocket launch vehicles. It is far less expensive to build multiple, full-scale, non-functional boilerplate spacecraft than it is to develop the full system. In this way, boilerplate spacecraft allow components and aspects of cutting-edge aerospace projects to be tested while detailed contracts for the final project are being negotiated. These tests may be used to develop procedures for mating a spacecraft to its launch vehicle, emergency access and egress, maintenance support activities, and various transportation processes.
Robert Louis Behnken is an American engineer, a former NASA astronaut, and former Chief of the Astronaut Office.
The Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building (O&C) is a historic building on Merritt Island, Florida, United States. The five-story structure is in the Industrial Area of NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Its has twin-block facilities that include the crew quarter dormitories for astronauts, suit-up preparations prior to their flights, and the other is a large spacecraft workshop used for manufacturing and checking activities on crewed spacecraft. On January 21, 2000, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
John P. Healey was an American aerospace executive manager. He was best known for his role in the redesign and manufacture of the command modules for the Apollo program after the catastrophic launch pad fire that took the lives of Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee on January 27, 1967. He died in March 2019 at the age of 97.
The space policy of the Barack Obama administration was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama on April 15, 2010, at a major space policy speech at Kennedy Space Center. He committed to increasing NASA funding by $6 billion over five years and completing the design of a new heavy-lift launch vehicle by 2015 and to begin construction thereafter. He also predicted a U.S.-crewed orbital Mars mission by the mid-2030s, preceded by the Asteroid Redirect Mission by 2025. In response to concerns over job losses, Obama promised a $40 million effort to help Space Coast workers affected by the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program and Constellation program.
The retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011. Discovery was the first of the three active Space Shuttles to be retired, completing its final mission on March 9, 2011; Endeavour did so on June 1. The final shuttle mission was completed with the landing of Atlantis on July 21, 2011, closing the 30-year Space Shuttle program.
Orion is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space. Capable of supporting a crew of four beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Orion is intended to be launched atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.
Exploration Flight Test-1 or EFT-1 was the first test flight of the crew module portion of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. Without a crew, it was launched on December 5, 2014, at 12:05 UTC, by a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37B at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The European Service Module (ESM) is the service module component of the Orion spacecraft, serving as its primary power and propulsion component until it is discarded at the end of each mission. In January 2013, NASA announced that the European Space Agency (ESA) will contribute the service module for Artemis 1, based on the ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV). It was delivered by Airbus Defence and Space in Bremen, in northern Germany to NASA at the end of 2018. After approval of the first module, the ESA will provide the ESMs from Artemis 2 to Artemis 6.
NASA's Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program is one of three programs based at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. EGS was established to develop and operate the systems and facilities necessary to process and launch rockets and spacecraft during assembly, transport and launch. EGS is preparing the infrastructure to support NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its payloads, such as the Orion spacecraft for Artemis I. Artemis I is the first to launch in a series of increasingly complex missions that will enable human exploration to the Moon and Mars.
The Artemis program is a Moon exploration program that is led by the United States' National Aeronoautics and Space Administration (NASA) and was formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The Artemis program is intended to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 moon mission in 1972. The program's stated long-term goal is to establish a permanent base on the Moon to facilitate human missions to Mars.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson is an American engineer. Blackwell-Thompson is the launch director for NASA's Exploration Ground Systems Program, based at NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC). She oversaw the countdown and liftoff of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft during its first flight test, called Artemis 1.