Topic: Orion spacecraft

NASA’s Plans for traveling to the Moon Coming Together

March 12, 2019 |

NASA Headquarters  

Washington, D.C. – NASA will soon return humans to the Moon for decades to come, and the system that will transport astronauts from Earth to the Gateway Lunar Outpost near the Moon is literally coming together.

Building on progress in 2018, most of the major manufacturing for the first mission is complete, and this year, teams will focus on final assembly, integration, and testing, as well as early work for future missions.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS). (NASA)

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NASA partners Boeing and SpaceX complete latest round of Parachute Tests

April 2, 2018 |

Written by Marie Lewis
NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center

Florida – Crew safety is paramount in the return of human spaceflight launches from Florida’s Space Coast, and the latest round of parachute testing is providing valuable data to help industry partners Boeing and SpaceX meet NASA’s requirements for certification.

On March 4th, SpaceX performed its 14th overall parachute test supporting Crew Dragon development. This exercise was the first of several planned parachute system qualification tests ahead of the spacecraft’s first crewed flight and resulted in the successful touchdown of Crew Dragon’s parachute system.

At left, Boeing conducted the first in a series of parachute reliability tests its Starliner flight drogue and main parachute system Feb. 22, 2018, over Yuma Arizona. (NASA) At right, SpaceX performed its fourteenth overall parachute test supporting Crew Dragon development March 4, 2018, over the Mojave Desert in Southern California. The test demonstrated an off-nominal, or abnormal, situation, deploying only one of the two drogue chutes and three of the four main parachutes. (SpaceX)

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NASA Engineers successfully use 3-D Printed Part on RS-25 Rocket Engine

December 27, 2017 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – Engineers successfully hot-fire tested an RS-25 rocket engine with a large 3-D printed part for the first time on December 13th, marking a key step toward reducing costs for future engines that power NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System.

During flight, a rocket may experience powerful up-and-down vibrations mainly due to the engines and propellant in the feed lines. This is called the pogo effect and is similar to the up-and-down motion of bouncing on a pogo stick. The 3-D printed part tested, called the pogo accumulator, is a beachball-sized piece of hardware that acts as a shock absorber by regulating liquid oxygen movement in the engine to prevent the vibrations that can destabilize a rocket’s flight.

The successful hot-fire test of an RS-25 development engine at NASA’s Stennis Space Center on Dec. 13 included NASA’s largest 3-D printed rocket engine component to date, the pogo accumulator assembly. The test was the first of 50 for NASA’s restart of RS-25 engine production. (NASA/Stennis)

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NASA to do feasibility study on manning Orion Spacecraft’s first flight

February 25, 2017 |

Written by Cheryl Warner
NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – NASA is assessing the feasibility of adding a crew to the first integrated flight of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1). NASA is building new deep space capabilities to take humans farther into the solar system than we have ever traveled, and ultimately to Mars.

Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot announced February 15th that he had asked William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate in Washington, to conduct the study, and it is now underway. NASA expects it to be completed in early spring.

NASA Continues Progress to Send Humans to Deep Space. Pictured is NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. (NASA)

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NASA to test Space Launch System’s Largest Fuel Tank

January 11, 2017 |

Written by Tracy McMahan
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

Huntsville, AL – Major construction is complete on NASA’s largest new Space Launch System structural test stand, and engineers are now installing equipment needed to test the rocket’s biggest fuel tank.

The stand is critical for ensuring SLS’s liquid hydrogen tank can withstand the extreme forces of launch and ascent on its first flight, and later on the second flight, which will carry up to four astronauts in the Orion spacecraft on a journey around the moon, into the deep-space proving ground for the technology needed for the journey to Mars.

Robert Bobo, left, and Mike Nichols talk beneath the 221-foot-tall Test Stand 4693, the largest of two new Space Launch System test stands at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Bobo manages SLS structural strength testing, and Nichols is lead test engineer for the SLS liquid hydrogen tank, which the stand will subject to the forces it must endure during launch and flight. (NASA/MSFC/Emmett Given)

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NASA says Machines of the future will Self Diagnosis themselves

March 4, 2016 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington,D.C. – In the future, machines will monitor their own health and request help, themselves, when something’s wrong, predicts David Cirulli, engineering vice president and cofounder of CEMSol LLC.

“There’s going to be an integrated system-health engine as part of every system out there, and it will be able to interface with other systems and components,” says Cirulli. “That’s what’s missing today.” He compares the capability to how sick human patients can verbalize symptoms to a doctor, giving them the crucial information they need to diagnose a problem.

The IMS that CEMSol licensed from Ames Research Center to develop its ISHM software has also been applied to the Black Hawk helicopter engine. (U.S. Navy)

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NASA prepares Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket for first test flight

November 28, 2015 |

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. – NASA is hard at work building the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the ground systems needed to send astronauts into deep space. The agency is developing the core capabilities needed to enable the journey to Mars.

Orion’s first flight atop the SLS will not have humans aboard, but it paves the way for future missions with astronauts. Ultimately, it will help NASA prepare for missions to the Red Planet. During this flight, currently designated Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), the spacecraft will travel thousands of miles beyond the moon over the course of about a three-week mission.

NASA¹s Space Launch System rocket will launch with Orion atop it from Launch Complex 39B at NASA¹s modernized spaceport at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA)

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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter discovers large new Crater on Mars

May 23, 2014 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Researchers have discovered on the Red Planet the largest fresh meteor-impact crater ever firmly documented with before-and-after images. The images were captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The crater spans half the length of a football field and first appeared in March 2012. The impact that created it likely was preceded by an explosion in the Martian sky caused by intense friction between an incoming asteroid and the planet’s atmosphere.

This is the largest fresh impact crater anywhere ever clearly confirmed from before-and-after images. It is 159 feet across. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

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NASA Astronauts Test Tools Underwater for Asteroid Mission

May 11, 2014 |

NASA’s Johnson Space Center

Houston, TX – NASA is planning to send astronauts to an asteroid in the 2020s, and preparations are already being made.

Stan Love and Steve Bowen have between them spent more than 62 hours in the vacuum of space on nine shuttle mission spacewalks, and they’re putting that experience to use here on Earth by helping engineers determine what astronauts will need on NASA’s next step toward Deep Space.

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captures first ever photo of Asteroids from the surface of Mars

April 25, 2014 |

Written by Guy Webster
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A new image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is the first ever from the surface of Mars to show an asteroid, and it shows two: Ceres and Vesta.

These two — the largest and third-largest bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — are the destinations of NASA’s Dawn mission. Dawn orbited Vesta in 2011 and 2012, and is on its way to begin orbiting Ceres next year. Ceres is a dwarf planet, as well as an asteroid.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has caught the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars. The image includes two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars’ moon Deimos in a circular, exposure-adjusted inset and square insets at left from other observations the same night.

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