A Russian Soyuz rocket launched an unmanned cargo freighter to the International Space Station Monday (Feb. 11) to deliver nearly 3 tons of fresh food, water and equipment to the six men living on the orbiting outpost. The robotic Progress 50 resupply ship and its Soyuz rocket lifted off at 9:41 a.m Continue reading
Tag Archives: a-heat-shield
NASA launches hypersonic inflatable heat shield
NASA launched a novel new heat shield prototype on a successful test flight Monday (July 23), a mission that sent a high-tech space balloon streaking through Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 10. The test flight blasted off atop a suborbital rocket at 7:01 a.m. EDT (1101 GMT) from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va Continue reading
Orion space capsule: NASA gets ready for 2014 test launch
NASA has unveied the brand new Orion space capsule, which is expected to have its first test launch in spring 2014. Without a heat shield or wiring, and with only welded metal panels to see, NASA’s new spacecraft designed to take astronauts out beyond Earth and into the solar system doesn’t look like much yet Continue reading
'Seven Minutes of Terror': NASA's Viral Video
At NASA they’ve called it “Seven Minutes of Terror” — the white-knuckle moments as the new Curiosity rover, scheduled to land on Mars on the night of Aug. 5, goes tearing into the Martian atmosphere and, engineers hope, lands safely seven minutes later. NASA made a computer-animated video of the landing sequence, and found it has a hit on its hands. Continue reading
Orion capsule, built for deep space, gets to Florida
NASA’s first Orion vehicle settles in at the Kennedy Space Center to get outfitted for an unmanned test flight in 2014. Continue reading
Landing on Mars: Seven minutes of terror | Bad Astronomy
This. Is. AWESOME! How the bat-guano crazy engineers at NASA and JPL are going to land the Curiosity rover onto the surface of Mars: Holy crap. Continue reading