By Ellen Gray /NASA'S WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, VIRGINIA/ After a cloudy and rainy morning, by 1:50 pm the sun had come out and the skies were clear for take-off at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The P-3 Orion research aircraft outfitted with eleven instruments to measure conditions inside snow clouds was heading north to …
Tests to measure the center of gravity and moments of inertia for the Mars 2020 rover aeroshell were performed on the spin table inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rover is being manufactured at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and, once complete, will be delivered to …
NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and United Launch Alliance (ULA) have adjusted the launch date of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft to Friday, Feb. 7, from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida due to the rescheduling of the mission’s Wet Dress Rehearsal. Solar Orbiter will launch aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41. The two-hour launch window opens at 11:15 p.m. EST. Solar Orbiter is an international cooperative mission between ESA and NASA. The spacecraft has been developed by Airbus Defence and Space.
By Ellen Gray /NASA'S WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, VIRGINIA/ The IMPACTS team is what makes the field campaign happen. Over 200 people are contributing to the project from aircraft crews and managers, to support and logistics staff, to the scientists running the instruments and asking the big questions. They include veteran pilots and mission managers, university …
The payload fairing that will provide a protective, aerodynamic cover for Solar Orbiter during launch is now in place. The two halves of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V fairing were moved into position and installed around the spacecraft on Jan. 20 inside a cleanroom at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida.
Lift activities for the Mars 2020 rover aeroshell were conducted inside Kennedy Space Center's Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility. The activities included installing the inverted lift fixture and lifting the aeroshell assembly to the spin table for mass properties measurements. The Mars 2020 rover mission will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket …
NASA's Parker Solar Probe began its fourth solar encounter on Jan 23, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. EST, at a distance of about 23.3 million miles from the Sun's surface.
By Ellen Gray / NASA'S WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY, VIRGINIA/ Nothing to be done. When your field campaign depends on chasing winter storms you have to wait for the weather to arrive in its own time. For the science team of the Investigation of Microphysics Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms, or IMPACTS, campaign that means carefully …
The rocket that will launch a new spacecraft to study the Sun is beginning to take shape at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The first-stage booster for the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is "on stand," meaning it has been raised to a vertical position inside the complex's Vertical Integration Facility. In the coming days, the one solid rocket booster needed for the mission will be added to the booster, followed by the single-engine Centaur upper stage.
On Dec. 26, Parker Solar Probe successfully completed its second flyby of Venus.
