Some fun facts about the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket, which will be powering Perseverance off the pad this morning: “We call it ‘The Dominator,'” United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno said. It has four giant solid rocket boosters (SRBs), each putting out 350,000 pounds of thrust. The rocket has about 200 …
Good morning, and welcome to today’s live blog coverage of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launch! It is a beautiful morning here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We are just over an hour away from today’s scheduled 7:50 a.m. EDT liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41. There is …
By Jim Cawley NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Bursts of Florida afternoon rain showers could not dampen the spirts of NASA leaders on the eve of a much-anticipated mission to Mars. “I’m exceptionally excited about what we’re about to do because we’re going to launch Mars 2020 with the Perseverance robot,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said …
Payloads Droplet Formation Study (DFS): The crew performed the setup and initiation of recording for additional runs of the DFS investigation, followed by data archival to Blue-ray disc. Droplet Formation Studies in Microgravity (Droplet Formation Study, or more simply DFS) evaluates water droplet formation and water flow of Delta Faucet’s H2Okinetic shower head technology. To …
NASA and SpaceX teams remain “Go” for the return of the agency’s SpaceX Demo-2 test flight with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley from the International Space Station following the Return Flight Readiness Review, with the primary factor being weather. NASA and SpaceX are targeting 7:34 p.m. EDT Saturday, Aug. 1, for undocking of the Dragon “Endeavour” …
The Expedition 63 crew checked out SpaceX Crew Dragon suits today and stayed busy with a full slate of space research. The International Space Station also completed the first of three orbital reboosts to get ready for the next crew mission in October. Flight Engineers Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken inspected the suits they will …
With less than 24 hours to go until launch, the weather is doing its part to cooperate. The U.S. Air Force 45th Weather Squadron is continuing to predict an 80% chance of favorable weather conditions for the Thursday, July 30, liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, carrying NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. …
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will conduct a briefing today at noon at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in advance of Thursday’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover launch. Also participating in the briefing are: NASA Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard, Kennedy Deputy Director Janet Petro and NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. The event, scheduled for one hour, …
By Jim Cawley NASA’s Kennedy Space Center With two days to go until NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover blasts off on its seven-month journey to the Red Planet, everything is proceeding as planned. On Tuesday, July 28, the rover made the one-third-mile trek from United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vertical Integration Facility to Cape Canaveral Air …
Payloads Astrobee: Astrobee was activated in support of checkout-2 for the Kibo Robotic Programming Challenge. The goal of the checkout is to confirm good data and voice communication between the 3 space centers involved, ensure the data markers (tags and targets) are in their proper locations, and ensure the files generated during the checkout are …
