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.
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
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
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.
Atlas V is the fifth major version in the Atlas rocket family. It is an expendable launch system originally designed by Lockheed Martin, now being operated by United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing.
Each Atlas V rocket consists of two main stages. The first stage is powered by a Russian RD-180 engine manufactured by RD Amross and burning kerosene and liquid oxygen. The Centaur upper stage is powered by one or two US RL10 engine(s) manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne and burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. AJ-60A strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs) are used in some configurations and will be replaced by GEM-63 SRBs in the near future. The standard payload fairings are 4 or 5 meters in diameter with various lengths.
The Cygnus system is a flight proven design incorporating elements drawn from Northrop Grumman and its partners’ existing, flight-proven spacecraft technologies. Cygnus consists of a service module and a pressurized cargo module. Cygnus is used to carry crew supplies, spare equipment and scientific experiments to the space station. The service module incorporates advanced avionics developed by Northrop Grumman and guidance and navigation components that allow for fully autonomous rendezvous with the space station. The avionics design fully meets all of the demanding NASA safety requirements imposed on human-rated vehicles. The pressurized cargo module is manufactured by Thales Alenia Space specifically for Cygnus.
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