Posted on 03/23/2018 10:30:12 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Ground crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California raised a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on its launch pad earlier this month in preparation for liftoff May 5 with NASA’s InSight lander heading to Mars.
The two-stage rocket was assembled in three pieces, beginning with the stacking of the Atlas 5’s first stage booster March 3 at Space Launch Complex 3-East. The first stage’s RD-180 main engine will burn a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen to send the InSight spacecraft out of the Earth’s atmosphere during the first four minutes of the flight.
The Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage, powered by an Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engine, was installed on top of the first stage March 6. The Centaur engine, consuming liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, will dispatch the InSight probe with enough velocity to escape Earth’s gravity and head for Mars.
Two days later, on March 8, a boattail structure was added to the top of the Centaur stage. The boattail provides an aerodynamic and structural connection between the Centaur and the Atlas 5’s payload fairing, which will be lifted on top of the rocket with the InSight spacecraft next month.
Liftoff is scheduled for May 5 during two-hour launch window that opens at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT; 1105 GMT). The InSight mission has until June 8 to depart Earth, a month-long period determined by the planetary positions of Earth and Mars in the solar system.
(Excerpt) Read more at spaceflightnow.com ...
A launch window to Mars only opens every two years. I would think at least one mission would be planned. There won’t be another until 2020.
Both closed loop cycle designs of the 60s , and while the Russian RD180/170 design is more complicated , it is less limited in size and fuels, and more powerful and efficient apparently.
We are still struggling to make a similar Soviet complex self sufficient design, almost as if it was driven by ideology and genius to make it work at the same time.
If the hardware is not hard working, you ain’t pushing, but I suppose that kind of engine is not reusable.
Probably the future in efficiency is in light and equal or slightly less strong materials but lower pressures and not heavy
What a waste of opportunity! Why don't they drill down to extract soil deep beneath the top layor to examine it under a microscope for possible life forms and its mineral composition. This would add to the findings of the Curiosity rover. It would be great if they found gold in that soil or lithium for lithium ion batteries to be used for manned exploration.
And so a competitor beats Musk to Mars ...
Atlas 5 with the Russian engines.
The Atlas was used to put John Glenn into orbit in 1962, and a variant is still being used today.
The Atlas ranks right up there with the KC-135, B-52, and C-130 for design longevity.
All they need to do is fire a small missile from orbit with an explosive warhead and then send a rover to analyze the ejects from the crater. The nerd idiots are probably afraid of being accused of “declaring war on Mars!“.
Look at it from the perspective of the Martians.
I believe the Atlas had a high failure rate back then, too.
I found out that the launch is from Vandenberg because it had more open launch dates back in 2016, when this mission was originally scheduled.
Thanks BenLurkin. We're lucky Mars doesn't shoot back! :^)
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