NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Conducts Full-Scale Test Firing of Orion Jettison Motor

A full-scale rocket motor recently fires from the Aerojet facility in Sacramento, Calif. This test will help in the development of NASA's Orion jettison motor that is being designed to separate the spacecraft's launch abort system from the crew module during launch. Image Credit: Aerojet

NASA has completed a full-scale rocket motor test of the Orion jettison motor, which will separate the spacecraft's launch abort system from the crew module during launch. Orion, the Constellation Program's crew exploration vehicle now under development, will fly to the International Space Station and be part of the spaceflight system to conduct sustained human exploration of the moon. NASA's Langley Research Center manages the Orion launch abort system design and development effort with partners and team members from the Marshall Center.

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Space Shuttle External Tank ET-127 Arrives at Kennedy Center

ET-127 moves into the Vehicle Assembly building at the Kennedy Space Center July 15. Image Credit: NASA

External tank ET-127, which will fly with space shuttle Atlantis for the STS-125 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, arrived at Port Canaveral, Fla., on July 15. After it was unloaded from a barge, ET-127 was moved into the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center where processing is under way to prepare for a targeted launch date of Oct. 8.

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A New Way to Weigh Giant Black Holes

Color composite image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope (blue) of the giant elliptical galaxy, NGC 4649. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of California Irvine/P.Humphrey et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI

Astronomers have developed a new way to precisely weigh the largest supermassive black holes in the universe. Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, they can measure the peak in temperature of the hot gas near the center of a galaxy, revealing how massive the black hole is. The Marshall Center manages the Chandra program.

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Space Station Astronauts to Visit Marshall Center July 22

International Space Station crew members of Expeditions 15, 16 and 17, including Expedition 16 Commander Peggy Whitson, will visit the Marshall Center on July 22. The crews helped with the first expansion of the station's living and working space in more than six years.

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Irwin Selected for Falkenberg Award

Daniel E. Irwin Image Credit: NASA

This year’s Charles S. Falkenberg Award was presented July 16 to Daniel E. Irwin, an Earth scientist from the Marshall Center in for creating an unprecedented monitoring and visualization system that’s shared among scientists, scientific agencies, and governments in Central America and the Dominican Republic and that harnesses Earth imagery from space for the benefit of that part of the developing world.

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Space Shuttle External Tank ET-128 Sets New Performance Standard During STS-124 Mission

An external tank separation image of ET-128, captured with a hand-held camera by the STS-124 astronauts aboard Discovery. Image Credit: NASA

Postflight analysis of external tank ET-128 revealed no observed foam loss from the tank's liquid oxygen feedline brackets and hydrogen tank ice frost ramps. These redesigned areas on the external tank flew the first time on the STS-124 mission, which launched May 31 from the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. The design changes were made to improve performance and flight safety.

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Neither Rain Nor Sleet Will Stop NASA's Ares Rockets

Kevin McGrath, left, a terrestrial environments engineer at the Marshall Center, and Barry Roberts, a Marshall rocket scientist, check weather station equipment. Image Credit: NASA/MSFC

Barry Roberts wants to help build a better rocket -- one that can fly despite record low temperatures, one that hail and rain can’t stop. Roberts, a rocket scientist at the Marshall Center, leads a team of scientists that studies terrestrial and planetary environments. But he isn't your typical weatherman.

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