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ASA’s first completed Orion crew module sits atop its service module at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has been assigned to manage the development of the agency’s new heavy-lift vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS). A portion of this assignment requires MSFC to design and test a “sound suppression” system to mitigate acoustic damage to the vehicle, the launch facility, and the crew during launch.

The heat shield on NASA’s Orion spacecraft gets all the glory when it comes to protecting the spacecraft from the intense temperature of reentry. Although the blunt, ablative shield will see the highest temperatures – up to 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its first flight this December – the rest of the spacecraft is hardly left […]

When completed, SLS will be capable of taking crew and cargo on deep space missions, including to an asteroid and eventually to Mars. The SLS 70-metric-ton (77-ton) initial configuration will launch an un-crewed Orion spacecraft to demonstrate the integrated system performance of the SLS rocket and spacecraft prior to a crewed flight.

On August 27, NASA officials announced they have completed a rigorous review of the Space Launch System (SLS) — the heavy-lift, exploration class rocket under development to take humans beyond Earth orbit and to Mars — and approved the program’s progression from formulation to development, something no other exploration class vehicle has achieved since the agency built the space shuttle.