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Ariane 6: Europe’s next big rocket in a nutshell
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By NASA
NASA/Kevin O’Brien NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) solid rocket boosters are the largest, most powerful solid propellant boosters to ever fly. Standing 17 stories tall and burning approximately six tons of propellant every second, each booster generates 3.6 million pounds of a thrust for a total of 7.2 million pounds: more thrust than 14 four-engine jumbo commercial airliners. Together, the SLS twin boosters provide more than 75 percent of the total thrust at launch. Each booster houses eight booster separation motors which are responsible for separating the boosters from the core stage during flight.
At the top of each booster is the frustum—a truncated cone-shaped structure that, along with the nose cone, forms the aerodynamic fairing. This frustum houses four of the separation motors, while the remaining four are located at the bottom within the aft skirt.
Image Credit: NASA/Kevin O’Brien
For more information on the Artemis Campaign, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/artemis/
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256-544-0034
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By NASA
At COSI’s Big Science Celebration on Sunday, May 4, 2025, a young visitor uses one of NASA Glenn Research Center’s virtual reality headsets to immerse herself in a virtual environment. Credit: NASA/Lily Hammel NASA’s Glenn Research Center joined the Center for Science and Industry (COSI) Big Science Celebration on the museum’s front lawn in Columbus, Ohio, on May 4. This event centered on science activities by STEM professionals, researchers, and experts from Central Ohio — and despite chilly, damp weather, it drew more than 20,000 visitors.
At COSI’s Big Science Celebration on Sunday, May 4, 2025, a young visitor steps out of the rain and into NASA Glenn Research Center’s booth to check out the Graphics and Visualization Lab’s augmented reality fluid flow table that allows users to virtually explore a model of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Lily Hammel NASA’s 10-by-80-foot tent housed a variety of information booths and hands-on demonstrations to introduce guests to the vital research being performed at the Cleveland center. Popular attractions included a mini wind tunnel and multiple augmented and virtual reality demonstrations. Visitors also engaged through tangram puzzles and a cosmic selfie station. NASA Glenn’s astronaut mascot made several appearances to the delight of young and old alike.
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Artist concept highlighting the novel approach proposed by the 2025 NIAC awarded selection of the TFINER concept.NASA/James Bickford James Bickford
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.
The Thin-Film Nuclear Engine Rocket (TFINER) is a novel space propulsion technology that enables aggressive space exploration for missions that are impossible with existing approaches. The concept uses thin layers of energetic radioisotopes to directly generate thrust. The emission direction of its natural decay products is biased by a substrate to accelerate the spacecraft. A single stage design is very simple and can generate velocity changes of ~100 km/s using a few kilograms of fuel and potentially more than 150 km/s for more advanced architectures.
The propulsion system enables a rendezvous with intriguing interstellar objects such as ‘Oumuamua that are on hyperbolic orbits through our solar system. A particular advantage is the ability to maneuver in deep space to find objects with uncertainty in their location. The same capabilities also enable a fast trip to the solar gravitational focus to image multiple potentially habitable exoplanets. Both types of missions require propulsion outside the solar system that is an order of magnitude beyond the performance of existing technology. The phase 2 effort will continue to mature TFINER and the mission design. The program will work towards small scale thruster experiments in the near term. In parallel, isotope production paths that can also be leveraged for other space exploration and medical applications will be pursued. Finally, advanced architectures such as an Oberth solar dive maneuver and hybrid approaches that leverage solar sails near the Sun, will be explored to enhance mission performance.
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Last Updated May 27, 2025 EditorLoura Hall Related Terms
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
How big is space?
Space is really big. Thinking about our solar system, let’s imagine you could get in a car and drive to Pluto at highway speeds. It would take you about 6,000 years to get there.
When we start to think about other stars outside of our solar system, we need to think about
another unit of distance. This is why astronomers use the unit light-years.
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. One light year is about 6 trillion miles. The closest star to our Sun is about four light years away.
Our own Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across.
We know from deep field images of the universe that there are hundreds of billions, perhaps a trillion other galaxies.
Using some of the deepest images yet from the James Webb Space Telescope, we’ve been able to see galaxies that emitted their light about 13 and a half billion years ago.
Now, here’s a really important thing. Because the universe is expanding, those most distant galaxies are actually much further away than 13 and a half billion light years.
I’m glossing over some math here, but we can estimate that the observable universe is about 92 billion light-years across. But we’re pretty sure that the universe is even bigger than what we can see.
And here’s where things get really weird, we don’t actually know if the universe is finite or infinite.
As much as we’ve learned about the universe, science has no reliable estimate of the actual size of the entire universe.
[END VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]
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Last Updated May 21, 2025 Related Terms
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