With only two days remaining until the scheduled launch of NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft, launch and mission managers will hold a prelaunch briefing today, May 3, at 4 p.m. EDT (1 p.m. PDT) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Watch the InSight Prelaunch Briefing live on …
Meteorologists with the U.S. Air Force 30th Space Wing predict a 20 percent chance of favorable weather for liftoff of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket with NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft. The overall probability of violation will be 80 percent with the Range Safety constraint of launch …
On May 1, 2018, NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for the next stage of its journey to launch, scheduled for June 15 from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands (in the continental United States the launch date is June 14).
Launch week is underway at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where NASA's InSight spacecraft is being prepared for its upcoming flight to Mars. Mission and launch officials gathered Monday for the InSight flight readiness review. Teams are preparing to launch InSight on its United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Saturday, May 5, at 4:05 …
You don't get to swim in the Sun's atmosphere unless you can prove you belong there. And Parker Solar Probe's Faraday cup, a key sensor on the spacecraft, earned its stripes on April 19 by enduring testing in a homemade contraption designed to simulate the Sun.
NASA's Parker Solar Probe will carry 1,137,202 submitted and confirmed names on its journey to the Sun. Submissions opened on March 6, 2018, and closed on April 27 at 11:59 p.m. EDT. A chip containing the names will be installed onto the spacecraft before launch.
NASA's next Mars lander is one significant step closer to beginning its journey. Secured inside its payload fairing, the agency's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft was transported from the Astrotech facility to Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The payload fairing was hoisted up …
NASA's Parker Solar Probe is rotated down to a horizontal position during pre-launch processing and testing on April 10, 2018, at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, just outside Kennedy Space Center. Once horizontal, the integration and testing team will measure the alignment of the heat shield mounting points with respect to the spacecraft structure. This is done to assure that the umbra (or shadow) cast by the heat shield – called the Thermal Protection System – protects the spacecraft and instruments.
On the morning of Tuesday, April 17, 2018, crews from United Launch Alliance raised the 170-foot tall Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle – the largest and most powerful rocket currently used by NASA – at Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This Delta IV Heavy will carry Parker Solar Probe, humanity's first mission to the Sun's corona, on its journey to explore the Sun's atmosphere and the solar wind. Launch is scheduled for approximately 4 a.m. EDT on July 31, 2018.
The Thermal Protection System — also known as the heat shield — for NASA's Parker Solar Probe arrived in Titusville, Florida, on April 18, 2018, bringing it one step closer to reuniting with the spacecraft that will be the first to "touch" the Sun.
