Tag Archives: NASA

According to NASA they are making steady progress on building the Orion spacecraft which will take astronauts deeper into space than ever before. Presented here is the latest achievements and milestones as Orion gets ready for its first orbital test flight in 2014.

At 10:02 a.m. Eastern time on a beautiful fall day a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), otherwise known as the Mars Curiosity rover, was launched on its nine month journey to Mars. On board is a Canadian contribution in the form of the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument.

Expedition 29 Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov, NASA Flight Engineer Dan Burbank and Russian Flight Engineer Anatoly Ivanishin launched on the Russian Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft on November 14, 2011, (November 13 in the United States) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to begin a two-day journey to the International Space Station.

The NASA’s National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite was launched into orbit October 28, 2011 on a Delta 2 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base.

A video recap of the top events at NASA this past week including three new flight directors at Mission Control in Houston, the latest on micro-gravity experiments aboard the ISS, Lifetime achievement awards for the Mars Rovers and more.

Ashwin Vasavada the Deputy Project Scientist from the NASA’s Jet Propulsions Laboratory talks about how NASA’s next Mars Rover Curiosity on how it gets it power.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Johnson Space Center Director Mike Coats visit the Orion facilities inside Johnson’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility on Monday, Sept. 26. The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Module is being developed by NASA as the nation’s deep space exploration spacecraft. In conjunction with NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), Orion will carry astronauts to asteroids, Mars and other destinations in the solar system.

Yesterday NASA announced its long awaited plan to develop a Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV) for its Space Launch System (SLS). Based on NASA’s history and most recent experience in developing the Constellation program I think it’s fair to ask the question, will NASA’s HLV ever fly?

This morning at 11:24 a.m. EDT an Atlas V will launch NASA’s Juno spacecraft on a five year voyage to the gas giant Jupiter to learn more about its magnetic fields. SpaceRef’s Randy Attwood was on the CBC to explain the mission.

At 5:57:54 a.m EDT the orbiter Atlantis came to a wheels stop at the Kennedy Space Center runway 15 marking the end of the Space Shuttle era.