THIS WEEK @NASA: Boost in the Right Direction For Artemis, Latest Progress For Supersonic Flight
By Space Coast Daily // June 24, 2020
Latest Happenings around NASA
ABOVE VIDEO: A boost in the right direction for Artemis, closing in on the launch of our next Mars rover, and the latest progress in our quest for quiet supersonic flight, a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!
Rocket Motors for Artemis I Moon Mission Arrive at Spaceport
The rocket boosters that will help power our first Artemis flight test were transported in segments from Northrop Grumman’s manufacturing facility in Promontory, Utah to our Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Crews will now work to assemble and eventually integrate the boosters with our Space Launch System or SLS rocket, which will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the Moon on this mission, known as Artemis I.
It is the first in a series of increasingly complex missions to test Orion and SLS as an integrated system to send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024.
Counting Down to Launch of Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover
The launch window for our Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission opens on July 20. The mission marks humanity’s first step in returning samples from another planet to Earth.
It will also search for signs of past microbial life on Mars, characterize the planet’s climate and geology, and pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
Jim Bridenstine/NASA Administrator:
“We’re moving forward rapidly with these very important Mars robotic precursor missions so that one day when we send humans to Mars, we’re going to know where to go to get the absolute best science and data that we can get.”
The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will land at Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.
Progress on NASA’s X-59 QueSST
The wing and cockpit sections of our X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) are coming together at a Lockheed Martin assembly plant in southern California. When complete, the X-59 will be put through a series of ground and flight tests to ensure its airworthiness, and its ability to create a low-noise sonic boom that can barely be heard – if at all – by people on the ground.
OSIRIS-REx Produces Nightingale Mosaic
This recently released mosaic of Nightingale, the primary sample site on asteroid Bennu for our OSIRIS-REx mission, is comprised of 345 images.
The images were captured by the spacecraft during a reconnaissance pass just 820 feet above the site in early March. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to make its first sample collection attempt at Nightingale on Oct. 20.
That’s what’s up this week @NASA.
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