Astronauts had a tradition of giving astronauts the opportunity to name spacecraft beginning with Gemini program spaceships and ending with Skylab station missions. Now, NASA’s craft are named by a committee, although their names must still evoke an air of poetic profundity. A spacecraft is a type of spacecraft. Spacecraft are vehicles or vessels specifically…
Unmanned spacecraft include satellite communications, weather and military surveillance satellites as well as telescopes. Landing on Mars can be an enormously complex challenge. NASA’s Curiosity rover demonstrated how difficult this task could be in 2012 by performing flawlessly through an incredibly complex sequence, including successfully deploying an elaborate sky crane system to lower itself onto…
Most rockets can withstand considerable friction and heat during launch, yet occasionally one will explode on either the launch pad or in space. Millions of students watched as the Challenger disaster played out live on television, and seven astronauts lost their lives as a result of its explosion. Could such an outcome have been avoided?…
SpaceCraft can transform any sound into a musical instrument with its use of granular synthesis to generate textures, soundscapes and arpeggiated rhythms. Furthermore, its note grid enables control via either MIDI or MPE. Granite’s revolutionary engine combines cutting-edge granular processing technology with per-grain FX. This powerful virtual instrument facilitates creative flow while yielding immediate results,…
New Horizons spacecraft became the first to visit one of the Kuiper belt objects, an area in the outer Solar System where frozen objects reside, and thus revolutionized our understanding of Pluto and its satellites, among many others. The spacecraft comprises a central thrust tube and triangular structures on either side. It contains seven instruments…
After years of development, Orion will finally launch into space this month on December 4. On that date it will embark on its Exploration Flight Test 1 mission without human assistance. NASA will use their Space Launch System rocket, the same one which may one day transport humans to Mars, to launch this experiment. The…
Cassini was a highly complex interplanetary spacecraft. Featuring 12 scientific instruments like imaging cameras, radar, spectrometers, magnetometers and spectrographs – its primary mission was to conduct in-depth studies of Saturn, its rings, and moons. Its orbiter was powered by three radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). These produced electricity using plutonium-238 decay. It was a joint NASA/ESA…
Spacecraft dynamics is an engineering discipline encompassing rigid-body and multi-body analyses as well as orbital mechanics and attitude control. The Spacecraft Dynamics block supports expansion of all input ports except Moon libration angles and Spin axis right ascension at J2000 (when Central body is Custom). This enables the model to accurately simulate gravity gradient effects…
Point Nemo serves as a global spacecraft graveyard since 1971, when nations began leaving old satellites and spacecraft there for disposal. To reduce space junk that could endanger working satellites or humans if it falls back down, they are purposefully put into graveyard orbit or sent directly over an ocean surface. How They Are Disposed…
