The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off Thursday night with NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale satellite quartet in a successful flight from Cape Canaveral.
Credit: NASA TV
Mission Reports
Crucial first fueling test on tap for SLS core stage later this month
If all goes according to plan, engineers in southern Mississippi later this month will load cryogenic propellants into the core stage of a rocket NASA says will launch astronauts back to the moon, exposing its tankage and internal plumbing to extreme operating conditions hundreds of degrees below zero for the first time. The fueling test — a major milestone in its own right — is a precursor to a high-stakes eight-minute test-firing of the Space Launch System’s four shuttle-era main engines planned as soon as November.
