NASA’s retired space shuttle Atlantis, the last orbiter to fly, is unveiled to the general public at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. The $100 million exhibit showcases the orbiter as it looked while on-orbit, tilted at 43.21 degrees with her payload bay doors open. A giant screen behind Atlantis depicts the motion […]
NASA Announces New Grand Challenge Aimed At Finding Asteroids
WASHINGTON, DC – NASA announced Tuesday a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them. The challenge, which was announced at an asteroid initiative industry and partner day at NASA Headquarters in Washington, is a large-scale effort that will use multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety […]
Educational CubeSat Demonstrations Take To The Skies Aboard Prospector Rocket
Four tiny spacecraft soared over the California desert June 15, 2013 in a high-altitude demonstration flight that tested the sensor and equipment designs created by NASA engineers and student launch teams. The satellites, known as CubeSats, lifted off from the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch site in the Mojave Desert aboard a Prospector 18 rocket, […]
NASA’s Space Launch System (Finally) Enters Preliminary Design Review
NASA is beginning a preliminary design review for its Space Launch System (SLS). This major program assessment will allow development of the agency’s new heavy-lift rocket to move from concept to initial design. The preliminary design review process includes meticulous, detailed analyses of the entire launch vehicle. Representatives from NASA, its contractor partners and experts […]
Mars As You’ve Never Seen It Before In A BILLION Pixels!
PASADENA, CA. – A billion-pixel view from the surface of Mars, from NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, offers armchair explorers a way to examine one part of the Red Planet in great detail. The first NASA-produced view from the surface of Mars larger than one billion pixels stitches together nearly 900 exposures taken by cameras onboard […]
NASA Commercial Crew Partner Boeing Completes New Spacecraft, Rocket Milestones
HOUSTON, TX – The Boeing Company of Houston, a NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) partner, recently performed wind tunnel testing of its CST-100 spacecraft and integrated launch vehicle, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. The testing is part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, intended to make commercial human spaceflight services […]
Another American High Frontier First: 3-D Manufacturing In Space
WASHINGTON, DC – In preparation for a future where parts and tools can be printed on demand in space, NASA and Made in Space Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., have joined to launch equipment for the the first 3-D microgravity printing experiment to the International Space Station. If successful, the 3-D Printing in Zero G […]
Data From NASA Rover’s Voyage to Mars Aids Planning
PASADENA, CA – Measurements taken by NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission as it delivered the Curiosity rover to Mars in 2012 are providing NASA the information it needs to design systems to protect human explorers from radiation exposure on deep-space expeditions in the future. Curiosity’s Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) is the first instrument to measure […]
NASA’s GRAIL Mission Solves Mystery of Moon’s Surface Gravity
PASADENA, CA – NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission has uncovered the origin of massive invisible regions that make the moon’s gravity uneven, a phenomenon that affects the operations of lunar-orbiting spacecraft. Because of GRAIL’s findings, spacecraft on missions to other celestial bodies can navigate with greater precision in the future. GRAIL’s twin […]
Pebbly Rocks Testify to Old Streambed on Mars
PASADENA, CA – Detailed analysis and review have borne out researchers’ initial interpretation of pebble-containing slabs that NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity investigated last year: They are part of an ancient streambed. The rocks are the first ever found on Mars that contain streambed gravels. The sizes and shapes of the gravels embedded in these conglomerate […]