Tag: Exploration Mission-1
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First moon-bound Orion crew capsule declared complete, major tests remain
Vice President Mike Pence speaks at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, with the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission in the background. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett Teams working at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week connected a U.S.-built Orion crew module with its European-made power and propulsion element for the first time,…
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Final assembly and test milestones on tap for NASA’s first Orion moon ship
The Orion crew module for the Artemis 1 mission, an unpiloted test flight to lunar orbit and back, completed a direct field acoustic test earlier this year inside the Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA The pressurized crew module and European-built service module for NASA’s first Orion…
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SLS mobile launcher moves to pad 39B for final exams
The Space Launch System’s Mobile Launcher rolls down the crawlerway Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida toward pad 39B. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now A towering mobile platform for the agency’s Space Launch System arrived at launch pad 39B Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a sequence of water and propellant…
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NASA begins outlining roadmap for 2024 moon landing
Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA’s human spaceflight programs, speaks April 8 during a meeting at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani A senior NASA official said Tuesday that the Space Launch System, a huge heavy-lift rocket years behind schedule, could launch astronauts on a moon landing mission in 2024 on just its…
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Pence calls for NASA to land astronauts on the moon within five years
Vice President Mike Pence speaks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in 2017. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that NASA should land astronauts near the south pole of the moon within five years “by any means necessary,” calling for “new urgency” in the U.S. space program and sounding a warning for entrenched…
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Facing more delays, NASA opens door to launching lunar mission with commercial rockets
Artist’s illustration of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and its European-built service module, powered toward the moon by an upper stage engine. Credit: NASA In a major shift, NASA is considering using two commercial launchers to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule and its European-built service module on a test flight around the moon next year, maintaining…
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Photos: SLS mobile launch platform rolls to pad 39B
The Space Launch System’s mobile launch platform approaches a fork in the crawlerway leading to launch pad 39B, in the background. Credit: NASA/Jamie Peer The towering structure to be used for liftoffs of NASA’s Space Launch System rolled from a construction site to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week,…
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SLS mobile launch platform to go on the move this week
The Space Launch System’s mobile launch platform is pictured with a crawler-transporter during a lift procedure earlier this year. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett The mobile platform intended to carry NASA’s Space Launch System will trek to the mega-rocket’s launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as Thursday, before heading inside the spaceport’s…
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Space Launch System, planetary exploration get big boosts in NASA budget
Artist’s illustration of the Space Launch System. Credit: NASA NASA’s planned rocket to send humans back to the moon and the agency’s solar system exploration program were big winners in a $20.7 billion budget passed by Congress and signed by President Trump on Friday. The NASA funding was part of a $1.3 trillion federal spending…
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NASA expects first Space Launch System flight to slip into 2020
Artist’s illustration of the Space Launch System on launch pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA The maiden unpiloted flight of NASA’s Space Launch System, a heavy-lift human-rated rocket and one of the agency’s core programs, will likely not be ready for takeoff until 2020, officials said recently. NASA officials until…