Tag: NASA Marshall

NASA, Public Marks Assembly of SLS Stage with Artemis Day

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NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine gives remarks on the agency’s Artemis program, Monday, Dec. 9, 2019, in front of the core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. (Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NEW ORLEANS (NASA PR) — On Monday, Dec. 9, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine showed off the Space Launch System liquid-fueled rocket stage that will send the first Artemis mission to space. The core stage, built at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, is the largest NASA has produced since the Apollo Program.

NASA and the Michoud team will shortly send the first fully assembled, 212-foot-tall core stage to the agency’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi aboard the Pegasus barge for final tests.

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NASA Engineers Break SLS Test Tank on Purpose to Test Extreme Limits

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The Dec. 5 test pushed the tank to its limits to see how much force it would take to cause the tank’s structure to fail. This image shows the resulted buckling of the structure when the tank failed after exposure to more than 260% of expected flight loads over 5 hours. (Credits: NASA/Dennis Olive)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) — Engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on Dec. 5 deliberately pushed the world’s largest rocket fuel tank beyond its design limits to really understand its breaking point. The test version of the Space Launch System rocket’s liquid hydrogen tank withstood more than 260% of expected flight loads over five hours before engineers detected a buckling point, which then ruptured. Engineers concluded the test at approximately 11 p.m. 

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NASA Will Push Exploration Rocket Test Hardware Beyond Its Limits

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Engineers are preparing to push a test article identical to the world’s largest rocket fuel tank beyond its design limits and find its breaking point during upcoming tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This will be the largest-ever controlled test-to-failure of a NASA rocket stage fuel tank. (Credits: NASA/MSFC)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) — Engineers are preparing to push a test article identical to the world’s largest rocket fuel tank beyond its design limits and find its breaking point during upcoming tests at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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NASA Shares Mid-Sized Robotic Lunar Lander Concept with Industry

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Illustration shows the mid-sized lander on the lunar surface. (Credits: NASA)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) — As NASA presses forward with the agency’s mission to the Moon, Mars and beyond, the development of top-tier technology is critical to success. With emphasis on lunar exploration and scientific investigation, the desire to deliver a wide variety of payloads to the Moon has increased.

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NASA Faces Billions in Deferred Maintenance & Repairs

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by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Although NASA has made some progress in repairing and rebuilding its aging infrastructure, the space agency faces a deferred maintenance backlog of $2.65 billion, according to a new report by the Office of Inspector General (IG).

NASA is one of the biggest managers of property in the federal government, with 5,000 buildings and structures in 14 states. More than 83 percent of the structures are beyond their original design life, the review found.

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NASA Certifies SLS Rocket Laboratory To Test Flight Software for Artemis I

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The Systems Integrations Lab at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, includes flight computers and avionics identical to the core stage avionics for NASA’s powerful Space Launch System rocket. Engineers working inside the lab create real-time launch vehicle simulations for the rocket’s extensive and incredibly intricate flight software and avionics hardware.The lab was certified for final integrated avionics and flight software testing Nov. 14. (Credits: NASA/Tyler Martin)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) — To launch the Artemis I Moon mission, NASA’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket must go from 0 to more than 17,000 miles per hour. The rocket’s flight software and avionics systems control all that power to ensure the rocket and NASA’s Orion spacecraft make it to space. The SLS avionics and flight software came a step closer to the Artemis I mission when NASA certified the Systems Integration Laboratory for final integrated avionics and flight software testing Nov. 14.

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NASA, Industry Partner for Space-based Study of Potential Alzheimer’s Key

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The Ring-Sheared Drop experiment hardware, installed inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox, will help investigators understand protein aggregation associated with devastating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. (Credits: NASA/Kevin Depew)

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NASA PR) — An innovative experiment underway on the International Space Station could help researchers make new progress in the fight against aggressive neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

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NASA’s Lucy Mission Clears Critical Milestone

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An artist’s concept of the Lucy Mission. (Credit: SwRI)

LITTLETON, Colo. (NASA PR — NASA’s Lucy mission successfully completed its Critical Design Review on Oct. 18. 

During this review, Lucy team members presented the completed mission design, demonstrating that the team has met all the technical challenges of the mission and is ready to begin building hardware. After the review completion, NASA’s independent review board provided a green light for proceeding into the fabrication/manufacturing stage of the mission.

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NASA Commits to Future Artemis Missions With More SLS Rocket Stages

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NASA finished assembling the main structural components for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stage on Sept. 19. Engineers at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans fully integrated the last piece of the 212-foot-tall core stage by adding the engine section to the rest of the previously assembled structure. Boeing technicians bolted the engine section to the stage’s liquid hydrogen propellant tank. (Credit: NASA/Steven Seipel)

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has taken the next steps toward building Space Launch System (SLS) rocket core stages to support as many as 10 Artemis missions, including the mission that will carry the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024.

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Boeing Starliner Commercial Crew Delay: ~3 Years

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Boeing’s first crewed Starliner finished initial production at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. and is readied for its cross-country trip. (Credit: Boeing)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

On March 26, Vice President Mike Pence went to Huntsville, Ala., to declare that the Trump Administration would use “any means necessary” to accelerate the return of American astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2024 — four years earlier than planned.

Pence was putting Huntsville-based Marshall Space Flight Center and prime contractor Boeing on notice to get the delayed, over budget Space Launch System (SLS) being built to accomplish that goal back on track. If they didn’t, the administration would find other rockets to do the job.

In his effort to accelerate the Artemis lunar program, however, Pence unintentionally contributed to delays in NASA’s behind schedule effort to launch astronauts to a much closer location: low Earth orbit.

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Aerojet Rocketdyne Teams with NASA to Develop Novel Rocket Engine Technology

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LOS ANGELES, Calif., Oct. 8, 2019 (Aerojet Rocketdyne PR) – Aerojet Rocketdyne has entered into a Space Act Agreement with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to design and manufacture a lightweight rocket engine thrust chamber assembly using innovative additive manufacturing processes and materials. The goal of the project is to reduce manufacturing costs and make a thrust chamber that is easily scalable to support a variety of missions, including America’s return to the Moon and subsequent missions to explore Mars.

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NASA’s InSight ‘Hears’ Peculiar Sounds on Mars

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PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Put an ear to the ground on Mars and you’ll be rewarded with a symphony of sounds. Granted, you’ll need superhuman hearing, but NASA’s InSight lander comes equipped with a very special “ear.”

The spacecraft’s exquisitely sensitive seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), can pick up vibrations as subtle as a breeze. The instrument was provided by the French space agency, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), and its partners.

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NASA Announces New Tipping Point Partnerships for Moon and Mars Technologies

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Astrobotic is one of 14 companies selected for NASA’s Tipping Point solicitation. This illustration depicts CubeRover, an ultra-light, modular and scalable commercial rover.(Credit: Astrobotic/Carnegie Mellon University)

Astrobotic, Blue Origin, ExoTerra, Paragon and SpaceX among contract awardees for advanced technologies

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has selected 14 American companies as partners whose technologies will help enable the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

The selections are based on NASA’s fourth competitive Tipping Point solicitation and have a combined total award value of about $43.2 million. This investment in the U.S. space industry, including small businesses across the country, will help bring the technologies to market and ready them for use by NASA.

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Asteroid Bennu’s Features to be Named After Mythical Birds

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This image shows boulder formations on asteroid Bennu’s surface. It was taken by the PolyCam camera on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on April 11, 2019 from a distance of 2.8 miles (4.5 km). (Credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona)

Greenbelt, Md. (NASA PR) — Working with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx team, the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) approved the theme “birds and bird-like creatures in mythology” for naming surface features on asteroid (101955) Bennu.

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Newt’s Back in Town, Pushing a Moon Prize

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Newt Gingrich (Credit: Gage Skidmore)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Many of you know that I am not a big fan of President Donald Trump. But, occasionally I think he is capable of doing something smart.

One of those smart acts was to appoint Callista Louise Gingrich as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See in Rome. The smart aspect has nothing to do with her qualifications for the job, but rather what her presence in Rome would spare the United States.

I’m referring, of course, to getting her husband, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, out of the country. Unless the union has become a sham, and he was hooking up with a mistress in the U.S. as he had with Callista during marriage no 2, Newt would be out of the headlines and out of everyone’s line of sight for long periods of time.

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