Workers who have stitched together parachutes for the military for decades are deeply woven into the country’s mission to Mars. It was from the work of this Marion County town that came the parachutes allowing for the safe landing of NASA’s Mars Spirit rover on Jan. 3. “If the parachute doesn’t work, there is no mission,” said Pioneer Aerospace Mars Exploration Rover program manager Al Witkowski.
January 17th, 2004
Nuclear power may get us to Mars faster St. Louis Post-Dispatch
As scientists mull President George W. Bush’s bold new space proposal, nuclear power stands out as one of NASA’s best understood and most controversial options for powering the next generation of spacecraft. Included in Bush’s space initiative, still vague in the details, is a call for “new power generation (and) propulsion” systems for a ship the President has called the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
January 15th, 2004
NASA tinkering to make space travel a go The Seattle Times
While NASA and White House policy-makers have been kicking around space destinations and science goals, engineers at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville have been working on making rocket fuel from space rocks, using a planet’s atmosphere to slow a spaceship and developing better engines to cut trip times. “The technology for space is there; it’s been worked on for years,” said Charles Vick, an aerospace expert formerly with the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville and now a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C.
January 15th, 2004
Navy Enlists Microbes To Cut Costs
Microbes have been exploited for thousands of years to help us make bread and alcohol, and more recently, to make antibiotics and clean up toxic spills. Now the Office of Naval Research is hoping the one-celled organisms will reduce the costs of producing a missile propellant, and in the process, lead to a new age of “bioproduction.”
January 14th, 2004
Digital Secrets: How Spirit Makes Great Photos
NASA’s Spirit Rover is providing a lesson to aspiring digital photographers: Spend your money on the lens, not the pixels. Anyone who has ever agonized over whether to buy a 3-megapixel or 4-megapixel digital camera might be surprised to learn that Spirit’s stunningly detailed images of Mars are made with a 1-megapixel model, a palm-sized 9-ounce marvel that would be coveted in any geek’s shirt pocket. Spirit’s images are IMAX quality, mission managers say.
January 3rd, 2004
Nukes may launch NASA on long-range missions
Nuclear power may give NASA’s long-range missions the speed and range that combustion engines cannot, but research is sputtering for lack of funds. NASA’s head of the Prometheus program, Al Newhouse, said the agency has $US3 billion for the next five years. “Beyond that, we know we need more money,” Mr Newhouse told AFP. “We are at a very early stage of this program. It has been in existence for slightly under a year.”
December 30th, 2003
Ion Engine Design Passes Key Test
A team of engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif, successfully tested a new ion propulsion engine design, one of several candidate propulsion technologies under study by NASA’s Project Prometheus. The event marked the first performance test of the Nuclear Electric Xenon Ion System (NEXIS) engine at the high- efficiency, high-power, and high-thrust operating conditions needed for use in large-scale nuclear electric propulsion applications.
December 26th, 2003
Fabric from N.H. protects Mars craft The Boston Globe
The most-traveled product ever to leave New Hampshire has, scientists hope, completed a second trip from New Ipswich to Mars, and a couple more will be on the way early next year. The product is a fabric of high-strength Vectran fibers in an incredibly tight weave used by NASA to create giant airbags to protect three craft as they bounce onto the Red Planet, just as the airbags protected the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. It was made by Warwick Mills.
December 23rd, 2003
NASA Awards Boeing Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Contract Extension Boeing
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has extended a contract to a Boeing-led [NYSE: BA] team to study development of a deep space exploration vehicle for the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission, scheduled to launch no earlier than 2011. The Boeing Phantom Works-led engineering team that includes Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and BWX Technologies Inc., is studying technology options for the reactor, power conversion, electric propulsion and other subsystems of the JIMO spacecraft meant to explore the Jovian moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. NASA plans to select an industry prime contractor in fall 2004 to work with JPL to develop, launch and operate the spacecraft.
December 22nd, 2003
New Composite Hydrogen Fuel Tank For RLVs Successfully Tested
A team of engineers from Northrop Grumman and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. Have demonstrated that a new, specially designed fuel tank made from composite materials can safely hold and contain liquid hydrogen under simulated launch conditions.