Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
By European Space Agency
Video: 00:08:21 The first half of 2024 saw hundreds of people across Europe building, cajoling, shipping, lowering, integrating, securing and protecting the precious pieces and parts that came together to create Ariane 6 – Europe’s new heavy-lift rocket.
Huge engines, boosters and outer shells met tiny screws, electrical boards and masses of supercooled fuel. All this came together at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, for the spectacular first launch of Ariane 6 on 9 July 2024, restoring Europe’s access to space.
Get a glimpse at the teamwork, skill and care that went into this moment over many months, in this montage of Ariane 6 images, videos and timelapse photography spanning 30 January to 9 July 2024.
View the full article
-
By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
This June 2021 aerial photograph shows the coastal launch range at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Wallops is the agency’s only owned-and-operated launch range. Courtesy Patrick J. Hendrickson; used with permission A rocket-propelled target is scheduled for launch July 27-28, 2024 from NASA’s launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia in support of a U.S. Navy Fleet Training exercise.
No real-time launch status updates will be available. The launch will not be livestreamed nor will launch status updates be provided during the countdown. The rocket launch may be visible from the Chesapeake Bay region.
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 19, 2024 EditorAmy BarraContactAmy Barraamy.l.barra@nasa.govLocationWallops Flight Facility Related Terms
Wallops Flight Facility Explore More
4 min read Wallops Missions, Programs and Projects
Article 9 years ago 1 min read Field Carrier Landing Practice at Wallops
Article 6 years ago 1 min read Wallops Range Supports First Rocket Lab HASTE Launch
Rocket Lab launched its first-ever Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron, or HASTE, launch vehicle from…
Article 1 year ago
View the full article
-
By NASA
A timelapse of the Twin Rockets to Investigate Cusp Electrodynamics (TRICE-2) mission launching from Andøya Space Center in Andenes, Norway on Dec. 8, 2018. NASA/Jamie Adkins When it comes to discoveries about our upper atmosphere, it pays to know your surroundings.
Using data from the Twin Rockets to Investigate Cusp Electrodynamics (TRICE-2) rocket launch, NASA scientist Francesca Di Mare and Gregory Howes from the University of Iowa studied waves traveling down Earth’s magnetic field lines into the polar atmosphere. These waves were known to accelerate electrons, which pick up speed as they “surf” along the electric field of the wave. But their effect on ions — a more heterogenous group of positively charged particles, which exist alongside electrons — was unknown.
By estimating the ion mixture they were flying through — predominantly protons and singly-charged oxygen ions — the scientists discovered that these waves were accelerating protons as they circle about the Earth’s magnetic field lines as well as electrons as they surf the waves. The findings reveal a new way our upper atmosphere is energized.
Read more about the new results in Physical Review Letters.
View the full article
-
By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
By Wayne Smith
Investigators at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will use observations from a recently-launched sounding rocket mission to provide a clearer image of how and why the Sun’s corona grows so much hotter than the visible surface of Earth’s parent star. The MaGIXS-2 mission – short for the second flight of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer – launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on Tuesday, July 16.
NASA’s MaGIXS-2 sounding rocket mission successfully launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on July 16. United States Navy The mission’s goal is to determine the heating mechanisms in active regions on the Sun by making critical observations using X-ray spectroscopy.
The Sun’s surface temperature is around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit – but the corona routinely measures more than 1.8 million degrees, with active regions measuring up to 5 million degrees.
Amy Winebarger, Marshall heliophysicist and principal investigator for the MaGIXS missions, said studying the X-rays from the Sun sheds light on what’s happening in the solar atmosphere – which, in turn, directly impacts Earth and the entire solar system.
X-ray spectroscopy provides unique capabilities for answering fundamental questions in solar physics and for potentially predicting the onset of energetic eruptions on the Sun like solar flares or coronal mass ejections. These violent outbursts can interfere with communications satellites and electronic systems, even causing physical drag on satellites as Earth’s atmosphere expands to absorb the added solar energy.
“Learning more about these solar events and being able to predict them are the kind of things we need to do to better live in this solar system with our Sun,” Winebarger said.
The NASA team retrieved the payload immediately after the flight and has begun processing datasets.
“We have these active regions on the Sun, and these areas are very hot, much hotter than even the rest of the corona,” said Patrick Champey, deputy principal investigator at Marshall for the mission. “There’s been a big question – how are these regions heated? We previously determined it could relate to how often energy is released. The X-rays are particularly sensitive to this frequency number, and so we built an instrument to look at the X-ray spectra and disentangle the data.”
The MaGIXS-2 sounding rocket team stand on the launchpad in White Sands, New Mexico prior to launch on July 16, 2024. United States Navy Following a successful July 2021 launch of the first MaGIXS mission, Marshall and its partners refined instrumentation for MaGIXS-2 to provide a broader view for observing the Sun’s X-rays. Marshall engineers developed and fabricated the telescope and spectrometer mirrors, and the camera. The integrated instrument was exhaustively tested in Marshall’s state-of-the-art X-ray & Cryogenic Facility. For MaGIXS-2, the team refined the same mirrors used on the first flight, with a much larger aperture and completed the testing at Marshall’s Stray Light Test Facility.
A Marshall project from inception, technology developments for MaGIXS include the low-noise CCD camera, high-resolution X-ray optics, calibration methods, and more.
Winebarger and Champey said MaGIXS many of the team members started their NASA careers with the project, learning to take on lead roles and benefitting from mentorship.
“I think that’s probably the most critical thing, aside from the technology, for being successful,” Winebarger said. “It’s very rare that you get from concept to flight in a few years. A young engineer can go all the way to flight, come to White Sands to watch it launch, and retrieve it.”
NASA routinely uses sounding rockets for brief, focused science missions. They’re often smaller, more affordable, and faster to design and build than large-scale satellite missions, Winebarger said. Sounding rockets carry scientific instruments into space along a parabolic trajectory. Their overall time in space is brief, typically five minutes, and at lower vehicle speeds for a well-placed scientific experiment.
The MaGIXS mission was developed at Marshall in partnership with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Sounding Rockets Program Office, located at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility, provides suborbital launch vehicles, payload development, and field operations support to NASA and other government agencies.
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.932.1940
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 18, 2024 LocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
Marshall Space Flight Center Sounding Rockets Sounding Rockets Program Explore More
15 min read The Marshall Star for July 17, 2024
Article 23 hours ago 4 min read NASA Marshall Engineers Unveil Versatile, Low-cost Hybrid Engine Testbed
Article 6 days ago 15 min read The Marshall Star for July 10, 2024
Article 1 week ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Sounding Rockets
For over 40 years the Sounding Rocket Program has provided critical scientific, technical, and educational contributions to the nation’s space…
White Sands Test Facility
Sun
Overview The Sun’s gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything – from the biggest planets to the smallest particles…
Wallops Flight Facility
View the full article
-
By NASA
Move teams with NASA and Boeing, the SLS (Space Launch System) core stage lead contractor, position the massive rocket stage for NASA’s SLS rocket on special transporters to strategically guide the flight hardware the 1.3-mile distance from the factory floor onto the agency’s Pegasus barge on July 16. The core stage will be ferried to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will be integrated with other parts of the rocket that will power NASA’s Artemis II mission. Pegasus is maintained at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility. Credit: NASA NASA rolled out the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket’s core stage for the Artemis II test flight from its manufacturing facility in New Orleans on Tuesday for shipment to the agency’s spaceport in Florida. The rollout is key progress on the path to NASA’s first crewed mission to the Moon under the Artemis campaign.
Using highly specialized transporters, engineers maneuvered the giant core stage from inside NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge. The barge will ferry the stage more than 900 miles to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where engineers will prepare it in the Vehicle Assembly Building for attachment to other rocket and Orion spacecraft elements.
“With Artemis, we’ve set our sights on doing something big and incredibly complex that will inspire a new generation, advance our scientific endeavors, and move U.S. competitiveness forward,” said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The SLS rocket is a key component of our efforts to develop a long-term presence at the Moon.”
Technicians moved the SLS rocket stage from inside NASA Michoud on the 55th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969. The move of the rocket stage for Artemis marks the first time since the Apollo Program that a fully assembled Moon rocket stage for a crewed mission rolled out from NASA Michoud.
The SLS rocket’s core stage is the largest NASA has ever produced. At 212 feet tall, it consists of five major elements, including two huge propellant tanks that collectively hold more than 733,000 gallons of super-chilled liquid propellant to feed four RS-25 engines. During launch and flight, the stage will operate for just over eight minutes, producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust to propel four astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft toward the Moon.
“The delivery of the SLS core stage for Artemis II to Kennedy Space Center signals a shift from manufacturing to launch readiness as teams continue to make progress on hardware for all major elements for future SLS rockets,” said John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “We are motivated by the success of Artemis I and focused on working toward the first crewed flight under Artemis.”
After arrival at NASA Kennedy, the stage will undergo additional outfitting inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. Engineers then will join it with the segments that form the rocket’s twin solid rocket boosters. Adapters for the Moon rocket that connect it to the Orion spacecraft will be shipped to NASA Kennedy this fall, while the interim cryogenic propulsion stage is already in Florida. Engineers continue to prepare Orion, already at Kennedy, and exploration ground systems for launch and flight.
All major structures for every SLS core stage are fully manufactured at NASA Michoud. Inside the factory, core stages and future exploration upper stages for the next evolution of SLS, called the Block 1B configuration, currently are in various phases of production for Artemis III, IV, and V. Beginning with Artemis III, to better optimize space at Michoud, Boeing, the SLS core stage prime contractor, will use space at NASA Kennedy for final assembly and outfitting activities.
Building, assembling, and transporting the SLS core stage is a collaborative effort for NASA, Boeing, and lead RS-25 engines contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company. All 10 NASA centers contribute to its development with more than 1,100 companies across the United States contributing to its production.
NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.
For more on NASA’s Artemis campaign, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/artemis
-end-
Madison Tuttle/Rachel Kraft
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
madison.e.tuttle@nasa.gov/rachel.h.kraft@nasa.gov
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Jul 16, 2024 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Space Launch System (SLS) Artemis Artemis 2 Common Exploration Systems Development Division Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate Marshall Space Flight Center Michoud Assembly Facility View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.