“The hot firing of the development model of the P120C solid fuel rocket motor at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 16 July 2018, proves the design for use on Vega-C next year and on Ariane 6 from 2020. The P120C is 13.5 m long and 3.4 m in diameter, and uses solid fuel in a case made of carbon composite material built in a single segment. It will replace the current P80 as the first stage motor of Vega-C. Two or four P120Cs will be strapped onto Ariane 6 as boosters for liftoff. This test was a collaboration between ESA, France’s CNES space agency, and Europropulsion under contract to Avio and ArianeGroup. ”
“Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.
In order to unlock the mysteries of the Sun’s atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus’ gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. The spacecraft will fly through the Sun’s atmosphere as close as 3.8 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before. (Earth’s average distance to the Sun is 93 million miles.)
Flying into the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona, for the first time, Parker Solar Probe will employ a combination of in situ measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and expand our knowledge of the origin and evolution of the solar wind. It will also make critical contributions to our ability to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment that affect life and technology on Earth.
Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. The spacecraft will fly close enough to the Sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly though the birthplace of the highest-energy solar particles.
To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 F (1,377 C).”
“New Shepard flew for the ninth time on July 18, 2018. During this mission, known as Mission 9 (M9), the escape motor was fired shortly after booster separation. The Crew Capsule was pushed hard by the escape test and we stressed the rocket to test that astronauts can get away from an anomaly at any time during flight. The mission was a success for both the booster and capsule. Most importantly, astronauts would have had an exhilarating ride and safe landing. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this type of extreme testing on New Shepard. In October of 2012, we simulated a booster failure on the launch pad and had a successful escape. Then in October of 2016, we simulated a booster failure in-flight at Max Q, which is the most physically strenuous point in the flight for the rocket, and had a completely successful escape of the capsule. This test on M9 allowed us to finally characterize escape motor performance in the near-vacuum of space and guarantee that we can safely return our astronauts in any phase of flight. Also on M9, New Shepard carried science and research payloads from commercial companies, universities and space agencies.”
“The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope developed in collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency that will be the scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST will offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity, and will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology. One of its major goals is observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies. These types of targets are beyond the reach of current ground and space-based instruments. Other goals include understanding the formation of stars and planets, and direct imaging of exoplanets and novas.
The JWST’s primary mirror is composed of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-coated beryllium that combine to create a mirror with a diameter of 6.5 meters (21 ft 4 in) – a large increase over the Hubble’s 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror. The telescope will be deployed in space near the Earth–Sun L2 Lagrangian point, and a large sunshield made of five sheets of silicon- and aluminum-coated Kapton will keep JWST’s mirror and four science instruments below 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F). Unlike the Hubble—which observes in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra—the JWST will observe in the long-wavelength (orange to red) visible light through the mid-infrared (0.6 to 27 μm) range. This will allow the JWST to observe high redshift objects that are too old and too distant for the Hubble and other earlier instruments to observe.
In development since 1996, the telescope is named after James E. Webb, the American government official who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 and played an integral role in the Apollo program. The project has had numerous delays and cost overruns, and underwent a major redesign during 2005. In December 2016, NASA announced that construction of the JWST was complete and that its extensive testing phase would begin. In March 2018, NASA delayed the JWST’s launch an additional year after the telescope’s sunshield ripped during a practice deployment and the sunshield’s cables did not sufficiently tighten. It was further delayed on June 27, 2018 based on recommendations by an Independent Review Board. The JWST is scheduled to launch on March 30, 2021.”
“The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope developed in collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency that will be the scientific successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The JWST will offer unprecedented resolution and sensitivity, and will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology. One of its major goals is observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe, such as the formation of the first galaxies. These types of targets are beyond the reach of current ground and space-based instruments. Other goals include understanding the formation of stars and planets, and direct imaging of exoplanets and novas.
The JWST’s primary mirror is composed of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-coated beryllium that combine to create a mirror with a diameter of 6.5 meters (21 ft 4 in) – a large increase over the Hubble’s 2.4-meter (7.9 ft) mirror. The telescope will be deployed in space near the Earth–Sun L2 Lagrangian point, and a large sunshield made of five sheets of silicon- and aluminum-coated Kapton will keep JWST’s mirror and four science instruments below 50 K (−220 °C; −370 °F). Unlike the Hubble—which observes in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared spectra—the JWST will observe in the long-wavelength (orange to red) visible light through the mid-infrared (0.6 to 27 μm) range. This will allow the JWST to observe high redshift objects that are too old and too distant for the Hubble and other earlier instruments to observe.
In development since 1996, the telescope is named after James E. Webb, the American government official who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 and played an integral role in the Apollo program. The project has had numerous delays and cost overruns, and underwent a major redesign during 2005. In December 2016, NASA announced that construction of the JWST was complete and that its extensive testing phase would begin. In March 2018, NASA delayed the JWST’s launch an additional year after the telescope’s sunshield ripped during a practice deployment and the sunshield’s cables did not sufficiently tighten. It was further delayed on June 27, 2018 based on recommendations by an Independent Review Board. The JWST is scheduled to launch on March 30, 2021.”
Credits Music: Expanding Time and Space by Daniel jay Nielsen
Credits Video: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Sophia Roberts
“Orbital ATK’s vision for the next step toward human space missions to Mars employs our flight-proven Cygnus advanced maneuvering spacecraft as a human habitat in cislunar space, the region between the Moon and Earth. In the early 2020s we would launch the initial habitat on NASA’s SLS rocket. Featuring a modular design, the habitat would serve both as a destination for crewed missions and as an unmanned testbed to prove-out the technologies needed for long-duration human space missions. The habitat is also envisioned as a base for lunar missions by international partners or commercial ventures. With additional habitation and propulsion modules, the habitat could be outfitted for a Mars pathfinder mission.”
Subscribe to blog posts using RSS
