KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Astrotech Space Operations facilities near KSC, workers begin to rotate the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft on the turnover fixture. Workers will perform the propulsion system phasing test - firing gas through the thrusters in order to verify that the right thrusters fire when expected - as part of prelaunch testing at the site. Launch is scheduled for May 11 from Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The spacecraft will fly past Venus three times and Mercury twice before starting a year-long orbital study of Mercury in July 2009. KSC-04pd0673

Similar

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – Inside an environmental enclosure at Vandenberg Air Force Base's processing facility in California, technicians monitor NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, secured inside a turnover rotation fixture, as it moves toward interface with its Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket. The technicians are dressed in clean room attire, known as bunny suits. The conjoining of the spacecraft with the rocket is a major milestone in prelaunch preparations. After processing of the rocket and spacecraft are complete, they will be flown on Orbital's L-1011 carrier aircraft from Vandenberg to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on the Pacific Ocean’s Kwajalein Atoll for launch. The high-energy x-ray telescope will conduct a census of black holes, map radioactive material in young supernovae remnants, and study the origins of cosmic rays and the extreme physics around collapsed stars. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar. Photo credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin, VAFB KSC-2012-1521

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) ROTATION & LIFT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At Astrotech in Titusville, Fla., the payload transportation canister is lowered over the GLAST spacecraft for installation. The spacecraft will be moved to pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. At the pad, NASA's Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope will be lifted into the mobile service tower and encapsulated in the fairing for launch. GLAST is a powerful space observatory that will explore the Universe's ultimate frontier, where nature harnesses forces and energies far beyond anything possible on Earth; probe some of science's deepest questions, such as what our Universe is made of, and search for new laws of physics; explain how black holes accelerate jets of material to nearly light speed; and help crack the mystery of stupendously powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts. The launch date is targeted no earlier than June 3. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett KSC-08pd1400

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- The STS-109 payload sits in place inside Columbia’s payload bay. On mission STS-109, the seven-member crew will capture the Hubble Space Telescope using the Shuttle's robotic arm and secure it on a workstand in Columbia’s payload bay. Four mission specialists will perform five scheduled spacewalks to complete system upgrades to the telescope. More durable solar arrays, a large gyroscopic assembly to help point the telescope properly, a new telescope power control unit, and a cooling system to restore the use of a key infrared camera and spectrometer unit, which has been dormant since 1999, will all be installed. In addition, the telescope's view of the Universe will be improved with the addition of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which replaces the Faint Object Camera, the last of Hubble's original instruments. The STS-109 crew includes Commander Scott D. Altman, Pilot Duane G. Carey, and Mission Specialists John M. Grunsfeld, Nancy J. Currie, James H. Newman, Richard M. Linnehan and Michael J. Massimino. Launch is scheduled for Feb. 28, 2002, at 6:48 a.m. EST (11:48 GMT). KSC-02pd0167

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Astrotech Space Operations facilities near KSC, workers begin to rotate the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft on the turnover fixture. Workers will perform the propulsion system phasing test - firing gas through the thrusters in order to verify that the right thrusters fire when expected - as part of prelaunch testing at the site. Launch is scheduled for May 11 from Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The spacecraft will fly past Venus three times and Mercury twice before starting a year-long orbital study of Mercury in July 2009. KSC-04pd0673

description

Summary

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- Astrotech Space Operations facilities near KSC, workers begin to rotate the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft on the turnover fixture. Workers will perform the propulsion system phasing test - firing gas through the thrusters in order to verify that the right thrusters fire when expected - as part of prelaunch testing at the site. Launch is scheduled for May 11 from Pad 17-B, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The spacecraft will fly past Venus three times and Mercury twice before starting a year-long orbital study of Mercury in July 2009.

date_range

Date

26/03/2004

place

Location

Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida

create

Source

NASA

link

Link

https://images.nasa.gov/

Public Domain Dedication (CC0)

Similar

Related

Explore more