Aerojet, a GenCorp company, announced today its recent selection by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to provide developmental engines for the Ares I crew launch vehicle first stage roll control system. These engines are the first in a series of steps to develop the roll control system to ensure that Ares I stays on its [...]
Using the design from roller coaster amusement parks, NASA officials announced that a roller coaster type escape system may be built to quickly drive astronauts off the launch pad during the new Orion/Ares I space missions. The next generation spacecraft for the U.S. manned space program is called Orion. The Orion fleet will replace the [...]
NASA’s road back to the Moon and onward to Mars is not only technologically challenging but it may also be a proposition that could fall short due to lack of needed funding. As kick-started by President George Bush in January 2004, NASA’s vision of extending the human touch beyond low Earth orbit is being subjected [...]
NASA plans to use a powerful rocket to get astronauts on its new spaceship to safety if an emergency forces the mission to be aborted as the vehicle heads to orbit. A computer system at Mission Control would be able to fire a rocket that would hurl the crew capsule out of harm’s way, says [...]
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has concluded a six-month review of system requirements for its Constellation program. The Constellation project — including the Orion spacecraft, the Ares launch vehicles and other support systems — involves development of a new space transportation system that will take astronauts to Earth’s orbit, the moon, and eventually Mars. [...]
NASA’s Space Shuttle Program successfully fired a reusable solid rocket motor Thursday, May 24, at a Utah test facility. The two-minute test provided important information for continued shuttle launches and for development of the rocket that will carry the next human spacecraft to the moon. The static firing of the full-scale, full-duration flight support motor [...]
NASA this week wrapped up six months of system requirements reviews for the Orion spacecraft, the Ares launch vehicles and other support systems, bringing together the Constellation Program’s list of basic capability needs. The Constellation Program is developing a new space transportation system that will take astronauts to Earth orbit, the moon, and eventually to [...]
NASA is adding a docking ring to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just in case a visit by astronauts aboard a future Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is needed to complete deployment of the multibillion-dollar orbiting observatory. The U.S. space agency made the announcement May 10 during the unveiling of a full-scale model of the [...]
NASA has decided to load the Orion crew launch vehicle with its hypergolic fuels before it reaches the pad and before it reaches the Kennedy Space Center’s vehicle assembly building for stacking on to the Ares I crew launch vehicle. The decision could pose safety challenges during ground processing. Hypergolics are fuels and oxidisers that [...]
Six aquanauts returned to the surface of the Earth Friday after 12 days of mock moonwalks and robotic surgery experiments on the Atlantic Ocean floor. The joint team of NASA astronauts, surgeons and professional divers completed a successful expedition to the Aquarius undersea laboratory, which rests more than 62 feet (18 meters) below the ocean’s [...]