What would it take to build this state-of-the-art space habitat?
Category: space – Page 692
One of the final pieces for the first test flight of NASA’s huge Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket recently arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, joining other elements already at the Florida spaceport awaiting shipment of the SLS core stage once it completes testing at a NASA facility in Mississippi.
The Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter, or LVSA for the first SLS test launch arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge July 29. Early the next day, hours before the liftoff of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from a launch pad a few miles away, ground crews transferred the LVSA from the Pegasus barge into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Florida spaceport.
The LVSA is the second-to-last element of the first Space Launch System rocket to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center. The biggest piece of the rocket, known as the core stage, is expected to arrive at Kennedy after test-firing of its four main engines on a test stand in Mississippi later this year.
Beck Hyperspace: Saw Lightening
Posted in space
A dust devil, an avalanche, a moon and a crater all made the cut of top Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images.
Vast lava tubes pock the surface of the moon and Mars, and could protect explorers from the elements. But first someone needs to explore them.
One of Arecibo’s supporting cables snapped early Monday morning (Aug. 10), ripping a 100-foot-long (30 meters) gash in the giant radio dish.
This week, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft practiced the maneuvers it will need to touchdown on the asteroid Bennu and collect a sample from it in October, which will be returned to Earth in 2023.
It’s not a strobe light at a nightclub, but data from our MAVEN spacecraft reveal that the Martian sky pulses in ultraviolet light at night. The results are bein… See More.
A recent column in The Atlantic magazine, “The Most Overhyped Planet in the Galaxy” implored the research community to expand its robotic exploration horizons beyond Mars. But despite arguments for rethinking what the article’s author, Marina Koren, terms the U.S.’ scientific “Mars monopoly” in favor of some of our solar system’s less-visited outer moons, scientific understanding of the Red Planet is arguably still decades away.
Rest assured, Mars should and will remain a scientific Valhalla for decades to come.
Headed to the Red Planet with the Perseverance rover, the pioneering helicopter is powered up for the first time in interplanetary space as part of a systems check.
NASAs Ingenuity Mars Helicopter received a checkout and recharge of its power system on Friday, August 7, one week into its near seven-month journey to Mars with the Perseverance rover. This marks the first time the helicopter has been powered up and its batteries have been charged in the space environment.
During the eight-hour operation, the performance of the rotorcraft’s six lithium-ion batteries was analyzed as the team brought their charge level up to 35%. The project has determined a low charge state is optimal for battery health during the cruise to Mars.