Monday, August 26, 2013

MAVEN Update...

Testing and launch preparations continue on the MAVEN spacecraft inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida...on August 21, 2013.
NASA / Jim Grossmann

Earlier today, the first and second stage motors for the Atlas V rocket that will launch MAVEN to Mars this November arrived at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. By the start of fall next month, the two motors should be mated together...with NASA's next Mars orbiter, after being encapsulated inside its payload fairing within a few weeks, joining the booster rockets to form the 191-foot-tall vehicle shown in the very last pic of this journal entry. MAVEN itself continues to undergo testing and launch preps at NASA's Kennedy Space Center near CCAFS. It will be around Halloween that the orbiter is brought over to Space Launch Complex 41 (where the Atlas V's pad is located) to begin the final leg of its journey off our world...and the first leg of its voyage to the Red Planet. Can't wait.

The Centaur upper stage (foreground) and the Atlas V first stage motor (background) that will be used to launch the MAVEN spacecraft to Mars arrive at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida...on August 26, 2013.
NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

The Atlas V first stage motor that will be used to launch the MAVEN spacecraft to Mars arrives at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida...on August 26, 2013.
NASA / Dimitri Gerondidakis

An Atlas V 401 rocket, which is the same vehicle configuration that will send MAVEN to Mars this November, launches NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to the Moon on June 18, 2009.
NASA / Tom Farrar & Kevin O'Connell
Posted by Richard Par at 4:25 AM
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