OrbitalHub

NASA dicit:

Engineers at Northrop Grumman’s facility in Elkton, Maryland successfully conducted the third and final test of the attitude control motor (ACM) that provides steering for the Launch Abort System (LAS) on NASA’s Orion spacecraft, qualifying the motor for Artemis II, Orion’s first mission with astronauts. The LAS, consisting of three solid rocket motors, is designed to carry crew to safety in the event of an emergency during launch or ascent atop the agency’s Space Launch System rocket.

During the 30-second test, eight high pressure valves directed more than 7,000 pounds of thrust in multiple directions while firing at freezing conditions. All three motors on the LAS will be qualified for crewed flights ahead of Artemis II, another step that brings NASA closer to sending the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024.

Video credit: NASA Johnson

NASA dicit:

Dragon 2 is a class of reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by U.S. aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, intended as the successor to the Dragon cargo spacecraft. The spacecraft launches atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket and returns via ocean splashdown. When compared to Dragon, Crew Dragon has larger windows, new flight computers and avionics, redesigned solar arrays, and a modified outer mold line.

The spacecraft has two planned variants – Crew Dragon, a human-rated capsule capable of carrying up to seven astronauts, and Cargo Dragon, an updated replacement for the original Dragon. Crew Dragon is equipped with an integrated launch escape system in a set of four side-mounted thruster pods with two SuperDraco engines each. Crew Dragon has been contracted to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with crew under the Commercial Crew Program, with the initial award occurring in October 2014 alongside Boeing CST-100 Starliner. Crew Dragon’s first non-piloted test flight to the ISS launched in March 2019.

SpaceX conducted an in-flight abort test from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A in Florida on 19 January 2020 at 15:30 UTC. The Crew Dragon test capsule was launched in an atmospheric flight to conduct a separation and abort scenario in the troposphere at transonic velocities, at max Q, where the vehicle experiences maximum aerodynamic pressure. The test objective was to demonstrate the ability to safely move away from the ascending rocket under the most challenging atmospheric conditions of the flight trajectory, imposing the worst structural stress of a real flight on the rocket and spacecraft. The abort test was performed using a regular Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket.

Video credit: NASA/SpaceX

Blue Origin dicit:

We’re currently testing the newest member of the BE-3 family, BE-3U (upper stage), a variant of the BE-3PM propelling New Shepard. With a back-to-back turbine assembly and a larger nozzle, BE-3U is optimized to operate in the vacuum of space and generates 710 kN (160,000 lbf) thrust in vacuum.

Two BE-3U engines power New Glenn’s restartable upper stage, enabling the full range of customer missions including direct injection to geostationary orbit. Building on years of operational experience and rigorous testing, BE-3U will be one of the best understood rocket engines when it launches into space.

Video Credit: Blue Origin

NASA dicit:

LISA Pathfinder, a mission led by ESA (the European Space Agency) that included NASA contributions, successfully demonstrated technologies needed to build a future space-based gravitational wave observatory, a tool for detecting ripples in space-time produced by, among other things, merging black holes. A team of NASA scientists leveraged LISA Pathfinder’s record-setting sensitivity for a different purpose much closer to home — mapping microscopic dust shed by comets and asteroids.

Most of these particles, known as micrometeroids, have masses measured in micrograms, similar to a small grain of sand. But at speeds reaching 40,000 mph (64,000 kph), even micrometeoroids pack a punch.

The NASA team, led by Ira Thorpe at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, detected 54 impacts during the mission, which lasted from 2015 to 2017. Modeling the strikes allowed the researchers to determine what kinds of objects shed the dust. The findings are broadly consistent with existing ideas of what generates micrometeroids found near Earth. The dusty culprits are mostly short-period comets whose orbits are determined by Jupiter. Comets with longer periods, like Halley’s comet, also contributed dust that LISA Pathfinder sensed.

The new measurements could help refine dust models used by researchers in a variety of studies, from understanding the physics of planet formation to estimating impact risks for current and future spacecraft.

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer/Francis Reddy (University of Maryland College Park): Lead Science Writer/Tom Bridgman (GST): Lead Visualizer/James Ira Thorpe (NASA/GSFC): Scientist/Walt Feimer (KBRwyle): Animator/Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Narrator

NASA dicit:

In October 2019, technicians and engineers successfully performed a critical test on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope by fully deploying and properly tensioning each of its five uniquely sized sunshield layers, putting them into the same positions they will have in space. To observe distant parts of the universe humans have never seen before, the Webb observatory is equipped with an arsenal of revolutionary technologies, making it the most sophisticated and complex space science telescope ever created. Among the most challenging of these technologies is the five-layer sunshield, designed to protect the observatory’s mirrors and scientific instruments from light and heat, primarily from the Sun. Due to the telescope’s size, shape and thermal performance requirements, the sunshield must be both big and complex. As if that’s not challenging enough, it also must be very lightweight, fit inside a standard 5-meter (16-foot) diameter rocket fairing, survive the perils of launch, and accurately deploy into its required shape, with only a single chance to get it right. Following Webb’s successful sunshield test within Northrop Grumman’s Redondo Beach, California facility, team members have begun the long process of perfectly folding the sunshield back into its stowed configuration for flight, which occupies a drastically smaller volume than when it is fully deployed.

Video Credit: Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mike McClare/Michael Starobin/Mike Menzel/Sophia Roberts

Wikipedia dicit:

The Space Launch System (SLS) is a US super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle, which is under development as of 2019. It is the primary launch vehicle of NASA’s deep space exploration plans, including the planned crewed lunar flights of the Artemis program and a possible follow-on human mission to Mars. SLS replaces the previous Ares V launch vehicle of 2005, although it shares a number of technologies and systems.

The initial SLS Block 1 is required by the US Congress to lift a payload of 95 metric tons (209,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO), and will launch Artemis 1 and Artemis 2. The later Block 1B is intended to debut the Exploration Upper Stage and launch the Artemis 3 and the notional Artemis 4-8. Block 2 is planned to replace the initial Shuttle-derived boosters with advanced boosters and would have a LEO capability of more than 150 metric tons (330,000 lb), again as required by Congress. Block 2 is intended to enable crewed launches to Mars. The SLS will launch the Orion spacecraft and use the ground operations and launch facilities at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Video Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne