Aviation Week reports that advanced models of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), “could be used in the long term to carry out a human Mars flyby and dispatch an interstellar probe to study the realm beyond the Solar System.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Tag: Astronautical
NASA to Launch DART Planetary Defense Mission November 23
CNN reports that NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will “lift off at 10:20 p.m. PT on November 23 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.” After launching in November, “NASA will test its asteroid deflection technology in September 2022 to see how it impacts the motion of a near-Earth asteroid in space.” The Daily Mail (UK) reports that NASA “said on Monday that its mission to deflect an asteroid in deep space using a spacecraft is targeting a late November launch.”
Full Story (CNN)
More Info (Daily Mail)
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Completes Design Review
ExecutiveGov reports that NASA has announced that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope “has concluded its developmental engineering stage after passing the critical design review. According to Julie McEnery, the Roman Space Telescope senior project scientist, the team will move forward to building and testing the observatory after completing the groundwork, NASA said Wednesday.””
Full Story (ExecutiveGov)
NASA Selects Companies to Work on Artemis Program
The AP reported that NASA “has selected five U.S. companies to help the agency enable a steady pace of crewed trips to the lunar surface under the agency’s Artemis program.” The five companies that received awards are Blue Origin, Dynetics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX.
Full Story (Associated Press)
Russian Cosmonauts Discover New Cracks in ISS Segment
Reuters reports that Energia Chief Engineer Vladimir Solovyov announced Monday that Russian cosmonauts have discovered fissures in the Zarya module of the ISS. Solovyov said, “This is bad and suggests that the fissures will begin to spread over time.”
Full Story (Reuters)
