An exhilarating, pioneering journey came to fruition on July 14, 2015, as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft made its successful flight through the Pluto system, recording 60 gigabits of data that it is beginning to send to Earth. I'm Stuart Robbins, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. While I only came onto …
Hi, I'm Kelsi Singer, a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute, working on NASA's New Horizons mission and specializing in geology and geophysics. One of my areas of expertise is impact cratering. That subject may not seem related to Pluto's atmosphere or nitrogen at first, but let me tell you about research that …
You can watch the post-launch press conference under way on NASA TV.
"This is the result of the effort of a really tight team that's been working really hard," said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden as he congratulated the MAVEN launch teams on Monday's liftoff. "I hope this mission serves as a model for those that come after it."
Courtesy United Launch Alliance
Another roar of applause today as MAVEN deployed its twin solar arrays. The gull-wing-shaped arrays are essential to generate electrical power for the spacecraft and recharge the spacecraft's batteries.
MAVEN is on its own now, headed for Mars! Applause roared up from the control rooms.The Centaur is far behind the scientific spacecraft and getting farther behind. The Centaur will be maneuvered so it doesn't interfere with MAVEN or Mars later. Next up for MAVEN is the unfurling of its gull wing solar arrays so …
The Centaur's small thrusters are positioning the stage and MAVEN into the proper attitude before releasing the 5,410-pound spacecraft to fly on its own.
The Centaur engine shut down as planned after putting MAVEN on a proper course for Mars orbit. MAVEN, with its solar arrays still folded, will spring free of the Centaur stage in about six minutes.