A design by North American/Rockwell for the same contract as the TRW 'Solar Electric Multi Mission Spacecraft'. Unlike that vehicle, which was intended for use for a variety of missions, this spacecraft was optimised for untargeted asteroid belt exploration, though with it's particle and fields...
1970
cold war
deepspaceprobes
early 1970s
hughes aircraft company
hughes research labs
ion thruster
jet propulsion laboratory
nasa
north american rockwell
solar-powered
space age
spaceprobesspace race
united states
vietnam war
Proposed design for a Multi-Mission bus using ion engines for propulsion. Suggested missions included an untargeted asteroid belt flyby, a targeted asteroid belt flyby, a Jupiter flyby (With or without use of gravity assist to reach an out-of-ecliptic orbit following the flyby.) and a...
1970
cold war
deepspaceprobes
early 1970s
ion thruster
jet propulsion laboratory
nasa
nuclear power
solar-powered
space age
spaceprobesspace race
trw
united states
The Dawn spacecraft continues to orbit the asteroid Ceres after a successful mapping mission to the asteroid Vesta. These two asteroids are the largest ones in the asteroid belt. There is a mysterious array of bright spots on Ceres (see image) which have yet to be explained. Anyone have a clue...
On July 14th the New Horizons spacecraft will flyby Pluto to give us our first good look at this far off world.
For more information go to New Horizons.com -SP
One of the more interesting results of the various NASA space engineering projects.
Designed by a team from the University of Auburn, this Saturn V launched probe, which would have been launched sometime between 1975 -1980 had it been built.
Upon arrival at Jupiter (After an 800-900 day trip...
1971 design for a Jupiter Entry Probe designed to sample the atmosphere of Jupiter down to a level equivalent to 17 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth. The proposed carrier vehicles were, TOPS, which would had the medium gain antenna from the baseline design replaced with one that could...
I've seen references to Jupiter drop probes dating back to the mid 1960's, but this upper atmosphere probe dating from the early 1970's is the earliest detailed design I know of, to quote the abstract:
1. The Jovian turbopause probe. Part 1 - The scientific requirements for the Jovian...
http://www.space.com/20313-voyager-1-leaves-solar-system.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/9944080/Voyager-1-becomes-first-man-made-object-to-leave-the-Solar-System.html
Voyager I passing the rings of Saturn (Daily Telegraph)
apollo applications program
apollo program
apollo x
cold war
deepspaceprobes
manned venus flyby
manned venus orbiting mission
nasa
space race
united states
Preliminary Mission Study of a Single-Launch Manned Venus Flyby with Extended Apollo Hardware, MSC Internal Note No. 67-FM-25, Jack Funk and James J. Taylor, Advanced Mission Design Branch, Mission Planning and Analysis Division, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, February 13, 1967...
In this months Spaceflight, there is an article on Starships of the Future (mostly Daedalus and Icarus) that mentions a suggestion by G H Stein published in Analog, October 1973 called "A Program for Star Flight".
'A full program of exploration was proposed which would utilise a fleet of no...
USAF interplanetary spacecraft concept model using Space Power Unit Reactor (SPUR) found on EBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Spacecraft-Concept-Contractor-Desk-Model-NASA-USAF_W0QQitemZ110459822900QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item19b7eb2334
Description from EBay:
cold war
deepspaceprobes
nuclear microreactor
nuclear power
nuclear rockets
small nuclear reactors
space race
united states
united states air force
usaf
From a researcher at Johns Hopkins U Applied Physics Lab:
http://techdigest.jhuapl.edu/td2703/mcNutt.pdf
Fun facts:
-- 100 year plan for solar system exploration, starting with manned mission to Callisto in 2050 and culminating in a manned mission to Pluto in 2110.
-- multiple in-space...
Advanced Transportation System Studies Technical Area 2(TA-2): Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle Development. Executive Summary; Volume 1 prepared by Lockheed Martin Missiles & Space Company for the Launch Systems Concepts Office of the George C. Marshall Space Fllight Center, July 1995.
Abstract...
Apollo Telescope Mount 01, "Stellar ATM" (Space World magazine, June 1972 (vol I-6-102), "Lunar Module Derivatives for Future Space Missions," pp.58)
Apollo Telescope Mount 02 (Kenneth Gatland, "The Pocket Encyclopedia of Spaceflight in Color: Manned Spacecraft," 1967, p.230)
Apollo...
PARSECS stands for "Program for Astronomical Research and Scientific Experiments Concerning Space". It was a major effort by Boeing starting from the late 1957 to at least 1960 under the Model 854, 855 and 856 designations. Boeing envisioned, with input from preminent scientists and astronomers...
I am looking for information on Project Orion/Daedalus[British name for roughly the same thing]
this was an early nuclear powered spacecraft that used focused nuclear explosions for thrust.
air defense command
british interplanetary society
cold war
deepspaceprobes
general atomics
great britain
nasa
nuclear battlefield
nuclear rockets
space age
space race
space weapons
strategic air command
united states
united states air force
better know as
Mission Engineering Study of Electrically Propelled Manned Planetary Vehicles
GE began the study for MSFC in July 1966.
they proposed to uses both nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric propulsion.
Nuclear ionengine give mission flexibility also for unfavorable opportunities
and...
cold war
deepspaceprobes
general electric
late 1960s
marshall space flight center
nasa
nasa marshall space flight center
nuclear power
nuclear rockets
space race
united states
Philip Bono master piece
"Reusable Orbital Module-Booster & Utility Shuttle"from 1964
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rombus.htm
is SSTO (VTOVL) with payload 450 tons in 185 km Orbit.
with a plug nozzle rocket engine design, used also as heat shield during atmospheric reentry.
most of LH2 fuel...
cold war
deepspaceprobes
douglas aircraft company
douglas aircraft company missile & space division
heavy lift vehicle
mars
moon
moonbase
nasa
single-stage-to-orbit
space age
space race
ssto
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