NASA Building a Better Solid Rocket Booster for Space Launch System Rocket The largest and most powerful solid rocket booster ever built for flight is being assembled for NASA’s Space Launch System at ATK Space Systems in Brigham City, Utah, incorporating new cost-savings measures. The SLS will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft and other payloads beyond low Earth orbit, and provide an entirely new capability for human exploration. Although similar to the solid rocket boosters that helped power the space shuttle to orbit, the five-segment SLS boosters include several upgrades and improvements implemented by NASA and ATK engineers. ATK moves a segment of the solid rocket booster for assembly at the company's facility in Promontory, Utah. “America’s next steps in deep space exploration build on the lessons learned from our nation’s rich human spaceflight history. ATK employees at the company's Promontory, Utah facility prepare a segment of a qualification motor for NASA's Space Launch System for transport.
Catalog Page for PIA01907 Click on the image forSpirit's Winter Panorama Labeled Version Since April of 2006, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been sojourning in a place called "Winter Haven," where the robotic geologist spent several months parked on a north-facing slope in order to keep its solar panels pointed toward the sun. During that time, while the rover spent the daylight hours conducting as much scientific research as possible, science team members assigned informal names to rock outcrops, boulders, and patches of soil commemorating exploration sites in Antarctica and the southernmost islands of South America. Antarctic bases are places where researchers, like the rovers on Mars, hunker down for the winter in subzero temperatures. During the past Martian winter, Spirit endured temperatures lower than minus 100 degrees Celsius (minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit). This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.
Orbital Begins Antares Rocket Operations - Commercial Space Watch Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced that has it has commenced Antares launch vehicle operations at the liquid-fuel launch complex at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS). Following a four-year design, development, construction, test and inspection process, the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA), which oversees MARS, has authorized Orbital to begin on-pad operations leading up to flight demonstrations of its Antares medium-class launch vehicle and Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft, the vehicles Orbital will use to fulfill a $1.9 billion NASA contract to deliver essential cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). The MARS launch complex is located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia and is owned and operated by MARS, under the auspices of the VCSFA, which receives its funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia. About Orbital
Final Space Shuttle Crew Leaves Plaque on Atlantis | NASA Space Shuttle Prog... HOUSTON — Chris Ferguson almost forgot to leave it on board. Caught up in the moment of having just landed the space shuttle, ending NASA's 30 year shuttle program after 135 flights, commander Ferguson followed his crew out of shuttle Atlantis and only then realized he had forgotten about the plaque. "If I was as clear thinking as I wish I was right after landing, I would have put it right on there but I had to have someone run back and pull it out of my saddlebag and put it on there for me," Ferguson said Friday (July 22), a day after landing, after his return home to Houston. The small plaque, which was sized to fit perfectly over the center display screen in Atlantis' cockpit, was already a bit of an "afterthought" by the STS-135 crew, one devised with the help of the astronauts' simulator training team. Still it was the thought that counts. "The inscription is from the heart," said Ferguson. Keeping the dream alive “This plaque flew on the final Space Shuttle Mission in July, 2011.
X-43A : l'avion le plus rapide du monde n'emporte pas de comburant ! X-43A : l'avion le plus rapide du monde n'emporte pas de comburant ! - 2 Photos Samedi 27 mars 2004. Les conditions météo sont parfaites. De forts vents en altitude ont failli reporter cet essai qui est en fait la deuxième tentative de vol du X-43A. En juin 2001, il avait été détruit en raison d'un mauvais fonctionnement de la fusée qui le propulsait. Le X-43A ne décolle pas En effet, ce prototype ne décolle pas depuis le sol. En images, voici ces étapes que le second prototype a brillament passées : Crédits Futura-sciences / Nasa 7.700 km/h ! Une fois libéré de sa fusée, la NASA a vraiment pu tester son prototype. Rappelons encore une fois que l'avion (sans pilote) a puisé son comburant directement dans l'atmosphère ! A voir aussi sur Internet Sur le même sujet
NASA Makes Space for Open Source Software by Lisa Hoover - May. 11, 2009Comments (2) Space Shuttle Atlantis launched today on its way to the final Hubble telescope repair mission. There's an old joke originally quipped by astronaut Wally Schirra that NASA spacecraft really is a modern marvel, especially when you consider it's built by the lowest bidders. It's the government's tight purse strings, however, that has helped open source software put its fingerprints all over the space agency. NASA says it has four main reasons for promoting the use and development of open source software: * To increase NASA software quality via community peer review * To accelerate software development via community contributions* To maximize the awareness and impact of NASA research* To increase dissemination of NASA software in support of NASA's education mission NASA's CosmosCode program, launched in 2007, brings open source developers together to create space exploration software. Share Your Comments
Hypersonic X-43A Takes Flight Pegasus booster rocket ignites to send the X-43A on its record setting flight on Nov. 16, 2004. NASA photo It's Official. X-43A Raises the Bar to Mach 9.6 Guinness World Records recognized NASA's X-43A scramjet with a new world speed record for a jet-powered aircraft - Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph. The X-43A set the new mark and broke its own world record on its third and final flight on Nov. 16, 2004. In March 2004, the X-43A set the previous record of Mach 6.8 (nearly 5,000 mph). + View Press Release View QuickTime Movies: X-43A/Pegasus Launch: 2.6 Mb | 5 Mb | 7.3 Mb | 12 Mb B-52B Takeoff: 1.6 Mb | 3.1 Mb | 4.6 Mb | 7.5 Mb Getting Ready for Mach 10: 3.2 Mb | 6 Mb | 8.9 Mb | 14.5 Mb
Elon Musk Elon Musk (/ˈiːlɒn ˈmʌsk/; born 28 June 1971) is a South African-born Canadian-American business magnate, investor and inventor.[5][6] He is currently the CEO & CTO of SpaceX and CEO & Chief Product Architect of Tesla Motors.[7] He was an early investor of multiple companies, most notably SpaceX, PayPal, and Tesla Motors.[8][9] Early life and education[edit] Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971, to a Canadian mother and a South African-born British father.[10][11][12] Elon taught himself computer programming and at age 12 sold the computer code for a video game called Blastar for $500.[13] Career[edit] Zip2[edit] Musk started Zip2, a web software company, with his brother, Kimbal Musk. X.com and PayPal[edit] Elon Musk strongly favored the PayPal brand over the X brand. SpaceX[edit] Musk and President Barack Obama at the Falcon 9 launch site in 2010 In seven years, SpaceX designed the family of Falcon launch vehicles and the Dragon multi-purpose spacecraft from the ground up.
Firestar Selected for SBIR Contract for Green Propulsion System On Thursday, NASA announced the selection of 39 proposals for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II awards. Parabolic Arc will be looking at several of the proposals being undertaken by companies we have been following. This post looks at Firestar Engineering, a company based in Mojave, Calif., that is developing non-toxic propellant that will be tested at the International Space Station next year. Firestar Engineering, LLC Mojave, CA PROPOSAL TITLE: Low Energy Electronic Ignition System for NOFBX ThrustersSUBTOPIC TITLE: Propulsion Technologies Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract: Begin: 3 End: 5 The proposed igniter development is specific to NOFBX™ propellant-based systems. NOFBX technology is currently being developed under a NASA BAA for flight on the International Space Station as a commercial flight experiment. Share
NASA's Juno Spacecraft Headed to Jupiter Friday This Friday a NASA spacecraft is slated to launch on a five-year journey to Jupiter. When it arrives, the craft will probe deeper into the gas giant planet than any previous mission, searching for the unseen core hidden below the thick atmosphere. It will also endure the solar system's strongest radiation zone to study the origins of the giant auroras that dance across Jupiter's poles. The probe—dubbed Juno—will blast off from Florida aboard an Atlas V rocket, starting a 400-million-mile (644-million-kilometer) trek. When it arrives at Jupiter in 2016, the spacecraft will spend about one Earth year making 33 elliptical polar orbits, skimming as close as 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the clouds. Watch NASA video about the Juno mission. Carrying a suite of eight main science instruments, Juno will collect data on Jupiter's atmosphere that may be key to understanding the birth of our cosmic neighborhood. "It has that same feel. Jupiter Water May Offer Clues to Planet Birth
The Prometheus Gas Turbine Project Introduces A New Electric Gas Turbine Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Releases PASADENA, Calif. – After a journey of almost three years, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the Red Planet's Endeavour crater to study rocks never seen before. On Aug. 9, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater's rim. Opportunity drove approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) since climbing out of the Victoria crater. "NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation's story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. Endeavour crater, which is more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. "We're soon going to get the opportunity to sample a rock type the rovers haven't seen yet," said Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.
Warp drive looks more promising than ever in recent NASA studies "Interstellar travel may still be in its infancy, but adulthood is fast approaching, and our descendants will someday see childhood's end." The Starflight Handbook The first steps towards interstellar travel have been taken, but the stars are very far away. The warp drive broke away from being a wholly fictional concept in 1994, when physicist Miguel Alcubierre suggested that faster-than-light (FTL) travel was possible if you remained still on a flat piece of spacetime inside a warp bubble that was made to move at superluminal velocity. An Alcubierre warp drive bubble, showing spatial compression ahead of the bubble, and spatial expansion behind (Image: NASA) The warp effect uses gravitational effects to compress the spacetime in front of a spacecraft, then expand the spacetime behind it. Such a warp bubble could in principle be used to enable subluminal travel (travel slower than light) as well as superluminal travel (travel faster than light). Source: NASA Eagleworks