Exploring The Frontier Of Space
Launch of the Cygnus spacecraft was supposed to be the start of the third of Orbital Science Corporation’s eight NASA-contracted resupply missions to the International Space Station. Instead, Orbital and NASA are left picking up this pieces today after the company’s Antares rocket erupted into a roiling ball of fire after liftoff that consumed the […]
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has chosen proposals from 10 universities to study CubeSat concepts that could enhance a Europa mission concept currently under study by NASA. The CubeSat concepts will be incorporated into a JPL study describing how small probes could be carried as auxiliary payloads. The CubeSats would then be released […]
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket stands on the launch pad today, marking a critical and historic milestone of NASA’s plan to launch the first Orion spacecraft later this year. Overnight, workers from Delta IV manufacturer United Launch Alliance rolled the massive three-core booster – minus the upper stage and Orion – from […]
In a meeting Tuesday in Toronto, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), signed two documents to launch a NASA-ISRO satellite mission to observe Earth and establish a pathway for future joint missions to explore Mars. While attending the International Astronautical Congress, the two space agency leaders […]
Engineers took another step forward in preparations for the first test flight of NASA’s new Orion spacecraft, in December. The three primary core elements of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket recently were integrated, forming the first stage of the launch vehicle that will send Orion far from Earth to allow NASA […]
NASA is making steady progress on its Orion spacecraft, completing several milestones this week at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for the capsule’s first trip to space in December. Engineers finished building the Orion crew module, attached it and the already-completed service module to the adapter that will join Orion to its […]
Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are wrapping up acoustic testing on a 5-percent scale model of NASA’s Space Launch System. The Aug.28 test, the 34th in the series, will help NASA engineers understand how loud the SLS vehicle will be during liftoff. Data from the test series will be used […]
NASA officials Wednesday announced they have completed a rigorous review of the Space Launch System (SLS) — the heavy-lift, exploration class rocket under development to take humans beyond Earth orbit and to Mars — and approved the program’s progression from formulation to development, something no other exploration class vehicle has achieved since the agency built […]
NASA officials are calling today’s near-space test flight of the agency’s Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) a success despite the fact that an experimental supersonic parachute failed to deploy during the test, which occurred off the coast of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. The June 28 test was the first of […]
NASA and the National Space Grant Foundation have selected five universities to design systems, concepts and technologies to enhance capabilities for deep space missions for the 2015 Exploration Habitat (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge. The selections are the first milestone in a yearlong design and development effort for these five projects. Throughout the 2014-2015 academic year, […]