Tag: Crewed

NASA Outlines Flight Plan for Crewed Artemis II Mission

Aviation Week reports, “NASA used its first Space Launch System rocket to send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a 25-day test flight around the Moon in late 2022, kicking off its Artemis lunar exploration campaign. On Artemis II, the agency will attempt to broaden Orion’s operational envelope by adding a flight crew, with assessments of the spacecraft’s environmental control, life support and astronaut interactive systems on tap.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

Crewed Starliner Launch Scrubbed Due to Valve Issue

Space News reports, “Controllers scrubbed the first attempt to launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner on a crewed test flight May 6 because of a valve problem with the rocket, delaying the launch by at least four days. The launch director for the Atlas 5 rocket called for the scrub a little more than two hours before the scheduled 10:34 p.m. Eastern launch of the Crew Flight Test mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.”
Full Story (Space News)

Boeing to Launch First Crewed Test Flight Tonight

The Washington Post reports, “A decade after NASA awarded Boeing a contract to fly astronauts to the ISS, Boeing will finally attempt to fly its Starliner spacecraft with people onboard. If all goes to plan, at 10:34 p.m. on Monday, the company is set to fly a pair of veteran astronauts, Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, on a mission that will be one of the most significant tests for Boeing’s space division — and for NASA — in years.”
Full Story (Washington Post)

Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engine Could Allow Crewed Trip to Mars

Gizmodo reports that Rolls-Royce Holdings “is getting into the nuclear reactor business.” The British aerospace engineering company “says it’s developing a micro-nuclear reactor that the company hopes could be a source of fuel for long trips to the Moon and Mars.” As humanity begins “to venture back into space, with crewed missions scheduled to visit the Moon and Mars within the next two decades, the technology that moves us throughout the solar system will be a pivotal part of that journey.” Rolls-Royce teased “the design of its Rolls-Royce micro-reactor for spaceflight with a digital mockup posted to Twitter last week:” As the company “explained in a tweet, the reactor will rely on uranium, a common fuel used in nuclear fission.” Nuclear fission “involves bombarding an atom with a neutron.” The splitting atom releases energy, “and that energy could be used to propel a rocket.” Nuclear reactors “have been used to power things like submarines, but its use in spaceflight has often been overlooked in favor of chemical-based propulsion.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)