OrbitalHub

Wikipedia dicit:

The RL10 is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine used on the Centaur, S-IV, and Delta Cryogenic Second Stage upper stages. Built in the United States by Aerojet Rocketdyne (formerly by Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne), the RL10 burns cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants, with each engine producing 64.7 to 110 kN (14,545–24,729 lbf) of thrust in vacuum depending on the version in use. The RL10 was the first liquid hydrogen rocket engine to be built in the United States, and development of the engine by Marshall Space Flight Center and Pratt & Whitney began in the 1950s, with the first flight occurring in 1961. Several versions of the engine have been flown, with three, the RL10A-4-2, the RL10B-2, and the RL10C-1 still being produced and flown on the Atlas V and Delta IV.

The engine produces a specific impulse (Isp) of 373 to 470 s (3.66–4.61 km/s) in a vacuum and has a mass ranging from 131 to 317 kg (289–699 lb) (depending on version). Six RL10A-3 engines were used in the S-IV second stage of the Saturn I rocket, one or two RL10 engines are used in the Centaur upper stages of Atlas and Titan rockets, and one RL10B-2 is used in the upper stage of Delta IV rockets.

Video Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne

Wikipedia dicit:

A marsquake is a quake which, much like an earthquake, would be a shaking of the surface or interior of the planet Mars as a result of the sudden release of energy in the planet’s interior, such as the result of plate tectonics, which most quakes on Earth originate from, or possibly from hotspots such as Olympus Mons or the Tharsis Montes. The detection and analysis of marsquakes could be informative to probing the interior structure of Mars, as well as identifying whether any of Mars’s many volcanoes continue to be volcanically active or not.

Quakes have been observed and well-documented on the Moon, and there is evidence of quakes on Venus, but very little is known about the current seismic activity of Mars, with some estimations suggesting that marsquakes occur as rarely as once every million years or more. Nevertheless, compelling evidence has been found that Mars has in the past been seismically active, with clear magnetic striping over a large region of southern Mars. Magnetic striping on Earth is often a sign of a region of particularly thin crust splitting and spreading, forming new land in the slowly separating rifts; a prime example of this being the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. However, no clear spreading ridge has been found in this region, suggesting that another, possibly non-seismic explanation may be needed.

The 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) long canyon system, Valles Marineris, has been suggested to be the remnant of an ancient Martian strike-slip fault. However, even if it was at some point an active fault, it is unknown whether the fault is still active, or if it has “frozen” into place.

Video Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s only manned, amateur space program, 100% crowdfunded and nonprofit. In the future, one of us will fly to space on a home built rocket. Support the project!

Video Credit: Copenhagen Suborbitals

NASA GLOBE Observer dicit:

A new tool in the GLOBE Observer app allows citizen scientists to take tree height measurements, information that can be compared with data from NASA missions.

Video Credit: NASA

Wikipedia dicit:

The constellation of WGS satellites increases the communications capabilities of the militaries of the United States, Canada, and Australia by providing additional bandwidth and communications capabilities for tactical command and control, communications, and computers; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR); battle management; and combat support information. Canada has also signed on to become a partner.

WGS also augments the current Ka-band Global Broadcast Service (on UHF F/O satellites) by providing additional information broadcast capabilities as well as providing new two-way capability on that band. It provides services to the US DoD and Australian Department of Defence. The IWS System supports continuous 24-hour-per-day wideband satellite services to tactical users and some fixed infrastructure users. Limited protected services will be provided under conditions of stress to selected users employing terrestrial modems capable of providing protection against jamming.

Video Credit: ULA

NASA dicit:

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket launched April 17 from the Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, carrying the unpiloted Cygnus cargo spacecraft to orbit for its journey to deliver several tons of supplies and scientific experiments to the International Space Station. Dubbed the “SS Roger Chaffee” in honor of the NASA astronaut who died in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire in January 1967, Cygnus is scheduled to arrive at the station on April 19. It will remain at the space station until July 23, when it will depart, deploy NanoRacks customer CubeSats, and then have an extended mission in orbit until December. This will be the final mission under Northrop Grumman’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-1) contract with NASA before starting the CRS-2 contract missions this fall.

Video Credit: NASA