The inflatable antenna technology concept was originally called the Large Balloon Reflector (LBR) concept when it was picked up by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program in 2013. It may have sounded like a wild idea to some at first, but because NASA gave it a chance this technology could revolutionize high-speed communications. NASA 360 takes a look at a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) that launched a business, became a space mission, and could change the way we communicate on Earth.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-T (GOES-T) satellite spacecraft lifts off from Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 4:38 p.m. EST, March 1, 2022, on a joint effort with NASA to help meteorologists observe and predict local weather events.
NASA’s Psyche mission is preparing for a 1.5 billion-mile (2.4 billion-kilometer) solar-powered trip to the metal-rich asteroid of the same name.
In a cleanroom at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in February 2022, twin solar arrays were attached to the spacecraft body, unfolded lengthwise, and then re-stowed as tests on Psyche continue. The five-panel, cross-shaped solar arrays are the largest ever installed on a spacecraft at JPL, so engineers had to test them one at a time.
Psyche is expected to launch no earlier than August 2022. About an hour after launch, the arrays will deploy and latch into place in a sequential process that will take 7 ½ minutes per array. They will then provide power for the journey to Psyche and for operating the three science instruments. In total, the solar arrays are 37 feet (11.3 meters) long. Only the three center panels can be deployed at JPL; the two cross panels on each wing are deployed using specialized equipment at Maxar Technologies in Palo Alto, California, where the arrays and spacecraft chassis were built. When they deploy fully in flight, the spacecraft will be about the size of a singles tennis court.
Psyche is scheduled to arrive at the asteroid in 2026 and spend nearly two years making increasingly close orbits. Scientists think the asteroid Psyche could be part of the core of a planetesimal, the building block of an early rocky planet, which would provide a unique opportunity to study how planets like our own Earth formed.
NASA teams across the country are preparing for the Artemis I launch to the Moon. When NASA’s mighty Space Launch System rocket launches to the Moon from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, its four RS-25 engines and two solid rocket boosters will produce more than 8.8 million pounds of thrust. The rocket’s flight software and avionics systems act as the brains behind that muscle to guide and steer the rocket beyond Earth’s orbit.
Starship is a fully-reusable and super heavy-lift launch vehicle in development by SpaceX. Both of its stages – Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft – use liquid oxygen and liquid methane as propellant. Starship’s main features are its very high payload mass capability and low potential operating cost. A tanker variant spacecraft is planned that will refuel other Starships in orbit, increasing the 100 t (220,000 lb) transport range to higher energy orbits and destinations, including the Moon and Mars. The earliest Starship variant will deploy satellites, while later variants will also serve space tourists, or be optimised for lunar landings. Starship’s potentially low cost is key in enabling SpaceX’s Mars ambitions as well as making point-to-point rocket travel on Earth possible.
Starship will launch at Starbase, Kennedy Space Center, and two offshore launch platforms. It would launch upright, with the booster’s thirty-three Raptor engines operating in parallel. After Super Heavy separates, the spacecraft fires its three Raptor Vacuum and three sea-level engines, inserting itself into orbit. The booster then controls its descent via its four grid fins, targeting the launch tower’s arms. At the end of the mission, the Starship spacecraft de-orbits and enters the atmosphere, protected by a series of hexagonal heat shield tiles. The spacecraft then glides towards the landing site using its flaps for control and flips to land.
The rocket was first outlined by SpaceX as early as 2005, with frequent design and name changes as the concept matured. In July 2019, Starhopper, a prototype vehicle with extended fins acting as fixed landing legs, performed a 150 m (490 ft) low altitude test flight under the power of a single Raptor engine. In May 2021, Starship SN15 successfully flew to 10 km (6 mi), transitioning to horizontal free-fall before successfully landing for the first time after four failed attempts by previous prototypes. As of February 2022, the BN4 booster and SN20 spacecraft are scheduled for the first full-stack flight in early 2022, though this schedule is subject to change.
The Cygnus spacecraft is an expendable American cargo spacecraft developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation and now manufactured and launched by Northrop Grumman Space Systems as part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. It is launched by Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket or ULA’s Atlas V and is designed to transport supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) following the retirement of the American Space Shuttle.
Since August 2000, ISS resupply missions have been regularly flown by the Russian Progress spacecraft, as well as by the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, and the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle. With the Cygnus spacecraft and the SpaceX Dragon, NASA seeks to increase its partnerships with domestic commercial aviation and aeronautics industry.
The Cygnus spacecraft consists of two basic components: the Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM) and the Service Module (SM). The PCM is manufactured by Thales Alenia Space in Turin, (Italy). The initial PCMs have an empty mass of 1,500 kg and a volume of 18 m3·. The service module is built by Orbital ATK and is based on their GEOStar and LEOStar spacecraft buses as well as components from the development of the Dawn spacecraft. It has a gross mass of 1,800 kg with propulsion provided by thrusters using the hypergolic propellants hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide (the propellant mass is 800 kg). The service module is capable of producing up to 4 kW of electrical power via two gallium arsenide solar arrays. On 12 November 2009, Dutch Space announced it will provide the solar arrays for the initial Cygnus spacecraft.
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