Countdown to the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing: We’re proud to join NASA’s quest to return to the Moon! We’re contributing Canadarm3, a smart robotic system that will help maintain the Lunar Gateway, a small space station in lunar orbit!
Video: CSA/NASA
X3 is a powerful ion thruster that could one day propel humans beyond Earth. The thruster was successfully tested few months ago, and could be selected by NASA as a crucial component of propulsion system for future Mars missions.
X3 is a Hall-effect thruster—a type of ion thruster in which the propellant (most commonly xenon) is accelerated by electric and magnetic fields. Such thrusters are safer and more fuel efficient than engines used in traditional chemical rockets. However, they currently offer relatively low thrust and acceleration. Therefore, engineers are still working to make them more powerful.
Nearly 31.5 inches (80 centimeters) in diameter and weighing around 507 lbs. (230 kilograms), X3 is a three-channel nested thruster designed to operate at power levels up to 200 kW. The thruster is jointly developed by the University of Michigan (U-M), NASA and the U.S. Air Force. The project is funded through NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnership (NextSTEP).
50 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. It took 4 days and an incredible mid-flight rotation to accomplish.
50 years after the first Moon landing, humanity is getting ready to go back. Countries and companies are planning dozens of lunar missions—for research, for resources and even for tourism, which begs the question: who, if anyone, owns the Moon?
Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy
As the world celebrates the landing of American astronauts to the Moon, a crown just landed on the head of a Filipina conquering the Universe! #Apollo11 #Apollo50th #MissUniverse
Spaceflight is hard. Blasting heavy cargo, spacecraft, and maybe people to respectable speeds over interplanetary distances requires an amount of propellant too massive for current rockets to haul into the void. That is, unless you have an engine that can generate thrust without fuel.
It sounds impossible, but scientists at NASA’s Eagleworks Laboratories have been building and testing just such a thing. Called an EmDrive, the physics-defying contraption ostensibly produces thrust simply by bouncing microwaves around inside a closed, cone-shaped cavity, no fuel required.
The device last made headlines in late 2016 when a leaked study reported the results of the latest round of NASA testing. Now, independent researchers in Germany have built their own EmDrive, with the goal of testing innovative propulsion concepts and determining whether their seeming success is real or an artifact.
It’s been almost 42 years since NASA sent its two Voyager spacecraft on record-breaking missions, and both of the decades-old robots are still alive. Voyager 1 and 2 are 13.5 billion and 11.1 billion miles from Earth, respectively, and it’s up to NASA engineers to ensure they remain up and running for as long as possible.
As the agency reveals in a new update, mission managers recently decided to shut down one of the heaters on Voyager 2 which is designed to keep its cosmic ray subsystem (CRS) instrument at a comfortable temperature. This was done to conserve energy, but the CRS itself miraculously still works, despite dipping well below the temperatures it was tested at over four decades ago.
The cause of a SpaceX explosion that resulted in the destruction of a crew capsule and sent orange smoke into Space Coast skies has been pinpointed, the spaceflight company confirmed Monday.
Just 100 milliseconds before an uncrewed Crew Dragon capsule fired its eight SuperDraco thrusters during a test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 20, the capsule exploded, leaving Landing Zone 1 littered with fire, debris and chemicals. The cause, SpaceX said, was traced down in recent weeks to a reaction between a liquid oxidizer – nitrogen tetroxide, or NTO – and a titanium check valve, which caused an ignition and the subsequent explosion.
According to accident investigators, a component allowed nitrogen tetroxide to leak into the spacecraft’s pressurization system tubes well before testing began. When the pressurization system activated and attempted to simulate a firing of the SuperDraco thrusters, a “slug” of the NTO that had leaked into the tubes was blasted through at high speed, resulting in ignition with the titanium valve.
Tuesday marks 50 years since three men in space suits set off on the greatest scientific adventure of all time. As the astronauts of Apollo 11 headed to the moon, the women of NASA were blazing new trails on Earth. “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell has their story.
Watch Full Episodes of the “CBS Evening News” HERE: http://cbsn.ws/23XekKA
Watch the latest installment of “On the Road,” only on the “CBS Evening News,” HERE: http://cbsn.ws/23XwqMH
Follow “CBS Evening News” on Instagram: http://bit.ly/1T8icTO
Like “CBS Evening News” on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1KxYobb
Follow the “CBS Evening News” on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1O3dTTe
Follow the “CBS Evening News” on Google+ HERE: http://bit.ly/1Qs0aam
Continue reading “Meet the women behind NASA’s historic Apollo 11 launch” »
Fifty years ago on July 16, 1969, a three-man crew launched into space from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft.
