The star of the show is a dark gray block, about the size of a textbook, and several inches thick. As an audience of reporters watches, an engineer runs a flaming blowtorch over the block until its face heats to a red glow.
Space Exploration
Aug 7, 2018
2
90
Early on an August morning, the sky near Cape Canaveral, Florida, will light up with the launch of Parker Solar Probe. No earlier than Aug. 6, 2018, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy will thunder to space carrying the ...
Space Exploration
Jul 20, 2018
1
703
The launch of Parker Solar Probe, the mission that will get closer to the Sun than any human-made object has ever gone, is quickly approaching, and on June 27, 2018, Parker Solar Probe's heat shield—called the Thermal Protection ...
Space Exploration
Jul 6, 2018
0
31
In 1961, an American astronaut reached space for the first time and soared through the heavens in a gumdrop-shaped capsule.
Space Exploration
Sep 21, 2017
1
9
A fresh approach to designing and manufacturing heat-thwarting thermal protection systems (TPS) for spacecraft is being developed and tested, offering the promise of fabricating larger tile sizes while reducing labor, cost ...
Space Exploration
Apr 12, 2017
1
10
Essential data from the ExoMars Schiaparelli lander sent to its mothership Trace Gas Orbiter during the module's descent to the Red Planet's surface yesterday has been downlinked to Earth and is currently being analysed by ...
Space Exploration
Oct 20, 2016
0
0
NASA on Thursday conducted the second to last splashdown test for its Orion spacecraft as the agency prepares to eventually send humans to Mars.
Space Exploration
Aug 26, 2016
0
0
In the wake of NASA's supremely successful inaugural test flight of the Orion deep space capsule on the EFT-1 mission in Dec. 2014, NASA is beefing up the critical thermal protection system (TPS) that will protect astronauts ...
Space Exploration
Dec 1, 2015
0
5
The harsh buzz of powered cutting tools reverberates in the close air of Building 4705 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as a dozen or so technicians and engineers work to remove burnt ablative ...
Space Exploration
May 29, 2015
0
29
Engineers from three NASA field centers are partnering this month at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to remove and analyze some 180 small squares of an ablative material called Avcoat—the outer ...
Space Exploration
May 13, 2015
0
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