NASA’s mission to reach the Red Planet has accelerated and made great strides in the previous years, and earlier this month NASA announced that it will be launching a monster rocket called the Space Launch System as its first launch in this mission.
NASA has scheduled to send 13 shoe-box sized satellites, called CubeSats to the Moon in 2018 in order to analyze and collect samples of different aspects of life in space and ice deposits on the Moon. The same rocket is planned to be flown for NASA’s future deep-space missions to Mars, and possibly beyond it.
The monster is taller than the Statue of Liberty and boasts the capacity to carry twice the load of any of NASA’S former space shuttles. The launch towards Mars is planned to transport four astronauts at a time, and the first unmanned test flight is scheduled for September 2018.
Below are a series of charts and infographics created by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre to let us marvel at this beast in the world of science and the future of spaceflight.
1. NASA needs a space-rocket more powerful than ever before, and this is not a bad start:
2. A view on past achievements of NASA Spacecrafts, and the enormity of the new rocket:
3. And here’s how the SLS compares to its predecessors:
4.The two rocket boosters on either end are taller than the Statue of Liberty!
5. Check out QM-1, SLS’s rocket booster:
6. 70t (shown on left), will carry over 150,000 pounds (68,038 kg) to space. Its upgraded version 130t version (on right) will be able to transport over 285,000 pounds (129,273 kg) to deep space.
7. Breakdown of the 70t SLS:
8. Breakdown of the more powerful upgrade: the 130t SLS:
Have any more interesting information about these rockets?
Let us know in the comments’ section below!
Mission:
1) Waste taxpayer’s time and money.
2) Create 30 year do-next-to-nothing “jobs”.
3) Give out billions in crony capitalist contracts
Mission accomplished!
Or… pay a tiny fraction for somebody else to do it. Just provide the manpower.