6/16/2023 0 Comments Youtube nasa space shuttle launchThis second landing would feature an enhanced Starship lunar lander with the capability of longer stays on the surface of the Moon. Last year, NASA extended this contract to include a second lunar landing for Starship, which would come on Artemis IV. However, this date has now slipped to late 2025, and it is likely to slip further. This mission will be Artemis III, and back in 2021 the agency was targeting late 2024 for that landing. SpaceX’s Starship was selected in 2021 to be the lunar lander for the agency’s first mission to the surface of the moon since Apollo 17. NASA has finally announced the second lander it’ll use for the Artemis program. Stratolaunch has plans for another expendable Talon-A vehicle to fly in the late summer of this year, but this time it would be performing a powered flight. The video of separation posted on Stratolaunch's LinkedIn: /pnrWCRwdcAįor this drop test, the Talon-A vehicle was not planned to be recovered, and it glided into the ocean intentionally. On the May 13th flight test, Roc was flying for an eleventh time, and Talon-A was flying on its fourth captive flight. In preparation for actual powered flights, Stratolaunch has been preparing both Roc, Talon-A, and the structures connecting both by flying them multiple times. After the tests are completed, Talon-A would then glide back to a runway landing to be reused on a later flight. Roc would then carry Talon-A to a high altitude to be dropped.Īfter the drop, Talon-A would ignite its single Hadley engine provided by Ursa Major and power through the speed of sound up to hypersonic speeds. To test these capabilities, Talon-A would be carried under Startolaunch’s Roc plane - the largest airplane by wingspan. The little rocketplane would be used for companies or agencies that would like to test certain capabilities in a real-world hypersonic environment. Stratolaunch has been working on developing its reusable hypersonic testbed, Talon-A. Stratolaunch has finally conducted a drop test of their Talon-A vehicle. A spectacular liftoff was the reward for each processing flow, and upon landing, the sequence began once again.Reviewing the week in spaceflight and upcoming events, it’s been another busy period, including NASA announcing a second lunar lander for Artemis, SpaceX’s Raptor breaking records, and Stratolaunch drop testing Talon-A. Finally, the completed launch vehicle and its mobile launcher platform rolled out to the launch pad atop a sturdy, slow-moving crawler-transporter. The shuttle then was towed to the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building, where it was joined to its tank and boosters. Once a shuttle was returned to its bay in the orbiter processing facility after landing, teams checked, refurbished or installed hardware for the flight ahead. Multiple vehicles could be in various stages of processing at any given time. To meet the rigorous demands of spaceflight, each vehicle element - the orbiter, external fuel tank and boosters - and all subsystems underwent meticulous maintenance and preparation before each flight. Because a returning shuttle orbiter was essentially an unpowered glider, there were no second chances - every touchdown had to be perfect. Missions typically lasted one to two weeks, concluding with an hourlong reentry descent through Earth's atmosphere and a precision landing. Of those missions, 78 ended with a Kennedy landing 54 concluded with a touchdown on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base in California and one landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.Įach mission began with a thundering liftoff as the shuttle's twin solid rocket boosters ignited, pushing the vehicle with its crew and cargo beyond the bounds of gravity and into the hostile environment of space. Each one began at Kennedy's Launch Complex 39. › View larger image NASA's shuttle fleet - Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour - flew a total of 135 missions. Image above: Shuttle Discovery touches down on Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility, completing the STS-133 mission. Image above: Shuttle Endeavour is silhouetted against the dawn sky as it rolls to Launch Pad 39A for STS-130 launch preparations. Space shuttle Atlantis completed the program on July 21, 2011, wrapping up the STS-135 mission with a predawn touchdown on the same runway where Columbia first arrived more than 30 years earlier. Image credit: NASA › View larger imageīeginning with space shuttle Columbia's 1979 delivery to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the center has been home to each of the five flown shuttle orbiters for the duration of the Space Shuttle Program. Image above: Space shuttle Atlantis launches Jon the STS-135 mission, the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program.
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