Other News NASA is ready to perform a long-awaited static-fire test of the Space Launch System core stage Saturday. The test firing, scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern at the Stennis Space Center, will complete the overall Green Run test campaign for the stage. NASA officials said this week that, if the test went well, they still hoped that the stage could be delivered to the Kennedy Space Center and integrated with the vehicle's other components to support a launch before the end of the year. In Saturday's test, the engines are scheduled to fire for 485 seconds, but engineers will get most of the data they need after about 250 seconds. [SpaceNews] China's main space contractor has announced progress on a rocket engine for its future heavy-lift rocket. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) said this week that it had made progress on an engine that will be used in the second stage of the Long March 9 heavy-lift rocket, expected to make its first launch in 2030. The engine is an upgraded version of the YF-77 engine used on the Long March 5, with greater thrust and efficiency. [SpaceNews] The Orion spacecraft that will fly on the Artemis 1 mission has been handed over to teams at the Kennedy Space Center for final launch preparations. Lockheed Martin said Thursday it formally completed assembly and testing of the spacecraft and transferred it to NASA's Exploration Ground Systems program, which will be responsible for fueling the spacecraft and installing it on the SLS. NASA will soon move the spacecraft out of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at KSC to other facilities there for that launch processing work. [Lockheed Martin] Scientists are developing proposals for replacing the main radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory. After the telescope's observing platform collapsed last month, observatory officials and outside researchers brainstormed potential concepts for rebuilding or replacing it. One proposal would be to replace the 305-meter main dish with a platform holding more than 1,000 individual dishes, each nine meters across. That next-generation system would be nearly twice as sensitive as the original Arecibo, and have a planetary radar transmitter four times as powerful. How much that telescope would cost, and how it would be funded, are uncertain. [Science] |
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