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Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B
Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B) is the second of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39A, was first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle, which at the time was the United States' most powerful rocket. Typically used to launch NASA's crewed spaceflight missions since the late 1960s, the pad is currently configured for use by the agency's Space Launch System rocket, a Shuttle-derived launch vehicle which is currently used in the Artemis program and subsequent Moon to Mars campaigns. The pad had also been leased by NASA to aerospace company Northrop Grumman, for use as a launch site for their Shuttle-derived OmegA launch vehicle, for National Security Space Launch flights and commercial launches, before the OmegA program was cancelled. History Apollo program In 1961, President Kennedy proposed to Congress the goal of landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. Congress ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources and operate facilities on each other's property. Though the first Apollo flights and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from the then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, the Launch Operations Directorate. Starting with the fourth Gemini mission, the NASA launch contro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
On January 28, 1986, the broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39a.m. Eastern Time Zone, EST (16:39 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC). It was the first fatal accident involving an List of space programs of the United States, American spacecraft in flight. The mission, designated STS-51-L, was the tenth flight for the Space Shuttle orbiter, orbiter and the twenty-fifth flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley's Comet while they were in orbit, in addition to taking school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space. The latter resulted in a higher than usual media interest and coverage of the mission; the launch and subsequent disaster were seen live in many schools across the United States. The cause of the disaster was the failure of the two O-ring seals in a joint in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
STS-51-L
STS-51-L was the 25th mission of the NASA Space Shuttle program and the final flight of Space Shuttle ''Challenger''. Planned as the first Teacher in Space Project flight in addition to observing Halley's Comet for six days and performing a routine satellite deployment, the mission never achieved orbit; a structural failure during its ascent phase 73 seconds after launch from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39B on January 28, 1986, killed all seven crew members —Commander Francis R. "Dick" Scobee, Pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik and Ronald E. McNair, and Payload Specialists Gregory B. Jarvis and S. Christa McAuliffe—and destroyed the orbiter. Immediately after the disaster, President Ronald Reagan convened the Rogers Commission to determine the cause of the explosion. The failure of an O-ring seal on the starboard Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was determined to have caused the shuttle to break up in flight. Space Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Space Shuttle Program
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for Space Transportation System, a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. It flew 135 missions and carried 355 astronauts from 16 countries, many on multiple trips. The Space Shuttle—composed of an Space Shuttle orbiter, orbiter launched with two reusable Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster, solid rocket boosters and a disposable Space Shuttle external tank, external fuel tank—carried up to eight astronauts and up to of Payload (air and space craft), payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). When its mission was complete, the orbiter would atmospheric reentry, reenter the Earth's atmosphere and land like a glider (aircr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo–Soyuz
Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The project, and its handshake in space, was a symbol of détente between the two superpowers during the Cold War. The mission was officially known as the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (ASTP; russian: Экспериментальный полёт «Союз» – «Аполлон» (ЭПАС), translit=Eksperimentalniy polyot Soyuz–Apollon (EPAS), lit=Experimental flight Soyuz-Apollo, and commonly referred to in the Soviet Union as Soyuz–Apollo; the Soviets officially designated the mission as Soyuz 19). The unnumbered American vehicle was left over from the canceled Apollo missions, and was the last Apollo module to fly. The three American astronauts, Thomas P. Stafford, Vance D. Brand, and Deke Slayton, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skylab
Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, and hundreds of experiments. Unable to be re-boosted by the Space Shuttle, which was not ready until 1981, Skylab's orbit eventually decayed, and it disintegrated in the atmosphere on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia. Overview Skylab was the only space station operated exclusively by the United States. A permanent station was planned starting in 1988, but funding for this was canceled and replaced with United States participation in an International Space Station in 1993. Skylab had a mass of with a Apollo command and service module (CSM) attached and included a workshop, a solar observatory, and several hundred life sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
S-IVB
The S-IVB (pronounced "S-four-B") was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 (rocket engine), J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth orbit insertion after second stage cutoff, and then for translunar injection (TLI). History The S-IVB evolved from the upper stage of the Saturn I rocket, the S-IV, and was the first stage of the Saturn V to be designed. The S-IV used a cluster of six engines but used the same fuels as the S-IVB – liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. It was also originally meant to be the fourth stage of a planned rocket called the Saturn C-4, C-4, hence the name S-IV. Eleven companies submitted proposals for being the lead contractor on the stage by the deadline of 29 February 1960. NASA administrator T. Keith Glennan decided on 19 April that Douglas Aircraft Company would be awarded the contract. Convair had come a close second but G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobile Launcher Platform
A mobile launcher platform (MLP), also known as mobile launch platform, is a structure used to support a large multistage space vehicle which is assembled (stacked) vertically in an integration facility (e.g. the Vehicle Assembly Building) and then transported by a crawler-transporter (CT) to a launch pad. This becomes the support structure for launch. Alternatives to this method include horizontal assembly and transport to the pad, as used by Russia; and assembling the vehicle vertically on the launch pad, as the United States used for smaller launch vehicles. The use of mobile launcher platform is a part of the Integrate-Transfer-Launch (ITL) system, which involves vertical assembly, transport, and launch of rockets. The concept was first implemented in the 1960s for the United States Air Force's Titan III rocket, and it was later used by NASA for their Saturn V rocket vehicle. Kennedy Space Center From 1967 to 2011, three platforms were used at the LC-39 to support NASA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo 17
Apollo 17 (December 7–19, 1972) was the final mission of NASA's Apollo program, the most recent time humans have set foot on the Moon or traveled beyond low Earth orbit. Commander Gene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt walked on the Moon, while Command Module Pilot Ronald Evans (astronaut), Ronald Evans orbited above. Schmitt was the only professional geologist to land on the Moon; he was selected in place of Joe Engle, as NASA had been under pressure to send a scientist to the Moon. The mission's heavy emphasis on science meant the inclusion of a number of new experiments, including a Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, and Phooey, biological experiment containing five mice that was carried in the command module. Mission planners had two primary goals in deciding on the landing site: to sample Lunar highlands, lunar highland material older than that at Mare Imbrium and to investigate the possibility of relatively recent Volcano, volcanic activity. They therefore selected Taurus– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn V
Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, with three stages, and powered with liquid fuel. It was flown from 1967 to 1973. It was used for nine crewed flights to the Moon, and to launch Skylab, the first American space station. the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Saturn V holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit: , which included the third stage and unburned propellant needed to send the Apollo command and service module and Lunar Module to the Moon. The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; the lead contractors were Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company, and IBM. A total of 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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