This follows the directives of President Sheikh Mohamed to allocate $15 million in aid to the country
uae1 hour ago
Engineers have attached a launch-abort system to the nose of the capsule and will subject the combined spacecraft to a series of experiments to see if it can withstand the rigors of blastoff, Lockheed Martin said Friday.
The launch-abort system, essentially a rocket attached to the nose of the capsule, could lift the capsule off its booster rocket and carry it to safety if a problem developed before or during launch.
Lockheed Martin, of Bethesda, Maryland, is building the capsule, called the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, under a $7.5 billion NASA contract issued in 2006.
The capsule was originally part of President George W. Bush’s $100 billion program to return astronauts to the moon, called Constellation. President Barack Obama canceled the program last year, saying the US would concentrate on developing new rocket technology instead.
Obama then revived the Orion portion of the program amid criticism that his plan lacked details and put US space leadership at risk.
Orion doesn’t yet have a destination. NASA has said it could service the space station in low Earth orbit or take four astronauts on more distant missions of up to 21 days. Lockheed Martin officials have said Orion could explore the far side of the moon, land humans on asteroids or take them to one of the moons of Mars, where they could control robotic instruments on the surface.
In the next round of tests, the capsule and launch-abort system will be subjected to sound vibrations at a Lockheed Martin facility in Waterton Canyon south of Denver.
The 55-foot(16.7-meter)-tall assembly will be lifted by a crane into a tall, elevator shaft-like chamber. Inside, more than a dozen horns powered by compressed nitrogen will create a thunderous low-pitch noise at 150 decibels. That will trigger vibrations like the ones generated by a launch or deployment of the abort system.
‘It sounds like a freight train and a tornado all at once,’ Lockheed Martin’s Paul Sannes.
Instruments on the capsule and abort system will tell engineers how well they hold up.
The abort system was successfully tested in May 2010 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. An Orion mock-up was rocketed about a mile into the air at speeds of about 450 mph (724 kph) in just 2.5 seconds. The capsule then deployed parachutes and floated to the ground.
It landed about a mile north of the launch site.
After the vibration tests are finished, the spacecraft will be taken to the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for landing tests. It would land in the ocean.
This follows the directives of President Sheikh Mohamed to allocate $15 million in aid to the country
uae1 hour ago
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh is not contesting a seat in the ongoing elections after he was denied a ticket by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party
sports1 hour ago
Crew members said the vessel was in 'severe disrepair and with limited power for 12 consecutive days'
uae2 hours ago
Initiative will ensure preserving the environment, public health and safety and also reduce need for deploying tankers to drain flood water
uae2 hours ago
Acknowledging the violation, Sarwa reportedly reversed all committed subscriptions upon being informed of the authority's concerns
business3 hours ago
Symbolic Aura’s possession scheduled for March 2026
realty3 hours ago
After his recent win in China and a shot at the USPGA Dubai based Adrian Otaegui heads East
sports3 hours ago