Endurance testing continues! We completed a shock test last week, introducing our MK1 lunar lander to the environment generated when it separates from New Glenn.
21 accelerometers were positioned around the vehicle to characterize the shock response. All components exceeded survivability requirements during the test.
Next up: Full vehicle separation testing.
USMNT vs Bosnia-Herzegovina tonight.
Every American should watch this match.
It’s not about loving soccer.
It’s not about loving sports.
It’s about loving your country.
The future of deep space exploration starts here. 🚀
From breaking distance records around the Moon to safely bringing astronauts home, @NASA's Orion spacecraft is paving the way for humanity's next era of exploration.
All personnel are accounted for and safe. It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.
No commercial alternative just yet, but the day will surely come, and that is when infrequent crewed missions to the Moon become routine. And just because the agency tolerated externally imposed and self-inflicted inefficiencies in the past does not mean we are willing to tolerate them going forward. The President’s Executive Order made that clear. At NASA, we are on mission, and the clock is running.
We instrumented Endurance with accelerometers at key locations, then applied a small sinusoidal force through a sting shaker to excite the vehicle's natural frequencies and mode shapes. This was the structural data we needed to ensure lander safety at launch. The data we collected did two things: it proved Endurance won't dynamically interact with New Glenn's low-frequency body modes during launch and it validated our structural model with real-world test data. This also marked the first integration of Endurance, the flight New Glenn separation system, and a flight-equivalent GS2 payload adapter stacked together, making the configuration as flight-like as possible.
Here's an inside look at one of the many tests we conducted during Endurance's thermal vacuum chamber (TVAC) testing — the first-ever deployment of its high-gain antenna in the demanding temperature- and vacuum-environment of space. This antenna system will provide high-rate telemetry and video during flight and from the Moon's South Pole. Thank you to the team at @NASA_Johnson and throughout @NASA for the collaboration during these tests. Endurance is now arriving to the Space Coast!
As Artemis II continues its journey, it’s a good moment to recognize the army of a team behind that it takes to undertake such a mission.
From the engineers and technicians who built the systems, to the launch team, Mission Control, and the recovery crews preparing for splashdown - and everyone behind this mission.
Thank you to the workforce making this mission possible every single day.
It's ridiculous that NASA is launching a mission around the Moon this week that will send humans farther into space than ever before and it's getting almost no attention. A landmark moment in the history of our species. History books will care about this moment even if you don't.