Now that we’re this close to sending humans to Mars, NASA thought it best to start preparing for one of its biggest goals: deep space exploration. Three NASA Ames Research Center studies that aim to explore the effects of deep space exploration on astronauts’ health just got a total of $17 million in funding.
NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) will have the largest cryogenic fuel tanks ever used on a rocket. Stands to test the tanks and other hardware to ensure that these huge structures can withstand the incredible stresses of launch will be built at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Technicians install Developmental Flight Instrumentation Data Acquisition Units in Marshall’s Systems Integration and Test Facility. The units are part of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) core stage avionics, which will guide the biggest, most powerful rocket in history to deep space missions.
Adaptive controls tests are conducted to help engineers working on the development of the SLS at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., ensure the Space Launch System can adjust to the environment it faces as it makes its way to space.
A comparison of images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in November 2010 and May 2013 reveal the formation of a new gully channel on a crater-wall slope in the southern highlands of Mars.
NASA hopes to launch an Orion crew capsule into space for the first time before the end of this year — two or three months later than previously planned.
Once targeted for September or October, the mission called Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1, is now shooting for an early December launch atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.