Spacecraft Assembly and Testing

Pictures of various space modules and telescopes during assembly and testing phases at space centers, highlighting preparations for space missions.

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE CRYOGENIC TEST #4 SIX MIRROR DE-INTEGRATION, JULY 13, 2010, MSFC X-RAY & CRYOGENIC FACILITY

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- In the International Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, senior government officials from 15 countries participating in the space station program signed agreements in Washington D.C. on Jan. 29 to establish the framework of cooperation among the partners on the design, development, operation and utilization of the space station. Acting Secretary of State Strobe Talbott signed the 1998 Intergovernmental Agreement on Space Station Cooperation with representatives of Russia, Japan, Canada, and participating countries of the European Space Agency ESA -- Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Some of these officials then toured Kennedy's Space Station Processing Facility SSPF with NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, at front, sixth from the left. They are, left to right, front to back: Hidetoshi Murayama, National Space Development Agency of Japan NA

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- At Launch Complex 17A, Cape Canaveral Air Station, workers get ready to remove the last piece of the canister surrounding the Mars Climate Orbiter. Targeted for liftoff on Dec. 10, 1998, aboard a Boeing Delta II (7425) rocket, the orbiter will be the first spacecraft to be launched in the pair of Mars '98 missions. After its arrival at the red planet, the Mars Climate Orbiter will be used primarily to support its companion Mars Polar Lander spacecraft, scheduled for launch on Jan. 3, 1999. The orbiter will then monitor the Martian atmosphere and image the planet's surface on a daily basis for one Martian year, the equivalent of about two Earth years. The spacecraft will observe the appearance and movement of atmospheric dust and water vapor, and characterize seasonal changes on the planet's surface

The inaugural Glenn Symposium focused on advancements in aerospace technology including power and propulsion, autonomy and communications, low boom supersonics, hypersonics, and more. Discussion also encompassed humans returning to the moon, including challenges associated with the 2024 mission.

Soyuz TM-10 space capsule

Automated Inter-Planetary Venera-1 Station , the first space probe sent to Venus.

NASAs ER-2 aircraft is prepared for a check flight by Eric Hintsa, scientist of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Chromatograph for Atmospheric Trace Species (UCATS) instrument, on May 13, 2022.

Environmental Portrait of Christine M. Darden. Sonic boom researcher, HSR, High Speed Research

Meteorologist getting ready to launch a weather balloon.

VANDENBERG ABF, Calif. - A look through the inside of the fuselage of the Orbital Sciences L-1011 aircraft called "Stargazer" after arrival at Vandenberg Air Force Base for the upcoming launch of the company's Pegasus XL rocket lifting NASA's IRIS solar observatory into orbit. The aircraft will carry the winged rocket to an altitude of 39,000 feet before releasing the Pegasus so its own motors can ignite to send the IRIS into space. The L-1011 is a modified airliner equipped to hold the Pegasus under its body safely. IRIS, short for Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, is being prepared for launch from Vandenberg June 26. IRIS will open a new window of discovery by tracing the flow of energy and plasma through the chromospheres and transition region into the suns corona using spectrometry and imaging. IRIS fills a crucial gap in our ability to advance studies of the sun-to-Earth connection by tracing the flow of energy and plasma through the foundation of the corona and the region a

John Hudson's third time keeper in the Royal Observatory

MARS BALLOON INFLATION TEST AT THE SPACE POWER FACILITY SPF AT NASA PLUM BROOK STATION

The first stage of the Titan IV expendable launch vehicle that will propel the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn and its moon Titan is lowered into a high bay in the Vertical Integration Building at Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS) to begin stacking operations. The Titan IV is currently scheduled to lift off from Launch Pad 40 at CCAS on October 6. Once deployed from the Titan's Centaur upper stage, Cassini will conduct gravity-assist flybys of the planets Venus and Jupiter, then arrive at Saturn in July 2004. Once there, it will perform an orbital survey of Saturn and send the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe into the dense and seemingly Earthlike atmosphere of Titan. The Cassini project is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California

The ESA service module primary structure, which will propel Orion on the Artemis III flight carrying astronauts to land on the surface of the Moon, is ready to ship from Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy to Airbus in Bremen, Germany. Stefano Rossi, Thales Alenia Space Manufacturing Manager, leads the operation of the transfer of the service module structure to the transportation container on Sept. 30, 2020. Airbus will perform final assembly on the service module ahead of shipment to Kennedy Space Center where it will be integrated with the rest of the Orion spacecraft.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, members of the STS-123 crew learn more about the mission payload, the Kibo Experiment Logistics Module Pressurized Section. They are at the center for a crew equipment interface test, which allows familiarization with equipment they will use during the mission. Crew members are Commander Dominic Gorie, Pilot Gregory Johnson and Mission Specialists Richard Linnehan, Takao Doi, Robert Behnken, Gerrett Reisman and Michael Foreman. Doi represents the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Reisman will remain on the space station after the mission as a flight engineer for Expedition 16. STS-123 will carry and install one of the components of the Japanese Experiment Module, or JEM. Known as Kibo, the JEM comprises six components: two research facilities -- the Pressurized Module and Exposed Facility; a Logistics Module attached to each of them; a Remote Manipulator System; and an Inter-O

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. On Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) in the foreground has been removed from its caged enclosure. The RTG will be installed on the New Horizons spacecraft encapsulated inside the fairing, at right. Designed and integrated at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., New Horizons will launch on a nine-and-a-half-year voyage to Pluto. Typical of RTG-based systems, as on past outer-planet missions, New Horizons does not have a battery for storing power. At the start of the mission, the RTG, which provides power through the natural radioactive decay of plutonium dioxide fuel, will supply approximately 240 watts (at 30 volts of direct current) - the spacecraft’s shunt regulator unit maintains a steady input from the RTG and dissipates power the spacecraft cannot use at a given time. By July 2015 (the earliest Pluto encounter date) that supply decreas

Next Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Multi Thruster Array

ISS027-E-032216 (18 May 2011) --- This close-up view of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) in space shuttle Endeavours payload bay was provided by an Expedition 27 crew member during a survey of the approaching STS-134 vehicle prior to docking with the International Space Station. As part of the survey and part of every mission's activities, Endeavour performed a back-flip for the rendezvous pitch maneuver (RPM). The image was photographed with a digital still camera, using a 400mm lens at a distance of about 600 feet (180 meters).

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- This fish-eye view of the floor of the RLV Hangar shows the grid and configuration of the orbiter on which recovered items are being placed. The Columbia Reconstruction Project Team is identifying pieces and placing them on the grid in an attempt to reconstruct the orbiter as part of the investigation into the accident that caused the destruction of Columbia and loss of its crew as it returned to Earth on mission STS-107.

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