Power-driven by an RD-180 main engine delivering 860,000 pounds of shove, the first stage is fixed as the Kitsch Fix Shot. It houses tanks to sustain 50,000 gallons of frozen gooey oxygen and 25,000 gallons of RP-1 gasoline, a suitably attentive to detail collection of kerosene, for the RD-180 engine's four-minute scorch to extend the cap atmosphere.
Technicians wished-for to add an interstage adapter upfront hoisting the Atlas 5's Centaur cap stage atop the vaccination Monday, finishing the build-up of the two-stage explosive.
Sequence photo of an Atlas 5 first stage lifted atop its signifying set up viewpoint. Credit: NASA
The set up of NASA's Mars Consider and Nervous Advance, or MAVEN, post only this minute requires the most indigence book of the Atlas 5 explosive. Called the "401" constitution, the Atlas 5 explosive for MAVEN elevation no vast explosive boosters, a Centaur stage in the manner of a evidence RL10 engine, and a four-meter freight fairing.
ULA can add strap-on boosters, a twinkling RL10 engine and a outsized five-meter rummage conceal for payloads requiring the extra carrying out.
The set up of MAVEN drive be the seventh Atlas 5 flight of the blind date, and the sixth from Aspect Canaveral's seaside set up pad. ULA masses are in the immutable up front of integrating and hardship a Delta 4 explosive and its freight, a U.S. Air Waves GPS navigation satellite, at Indirect 37B for set up Oct. 23, less than than 4 miles from the Atlas 5 rocket's set up pad.
Measures for MAVEN's set up stay fresh in spite of the skewed seizure of the national government. On one occasion a two-day vacation in the spacecraft's organization last week, NASA contracted an invulnerability to restage work on MAVEN, which is in a time wallop to set up in a lean window between Nov. 18 and mid-December.
Mars missions can only this minute set up while the planets are precisely linked, and the launch crack to set up MAVEN after December comes in antediluvian 2016.
But glory to its invulnerability from the government seizure, MAVEN is on mess to set up Nov. 18 in a two-hour set up window captivate at 1:28 p.m. EST (1828 GMT).
The 671 million post drive extend Mars in September 2014, internal an egg-shaped field dipping wearing the intense layers of the Martian atmosphere to guide its do and stretch its advice to stimuli from solar activity.
Scientists trance MAVEN drive back home worries in how Mars evolved from a planet in the manner of a warmer, thicker atmosphere in the manner of water wearing the despondent world observed today.
Technicians from Lockheed Martin Corp., MAVEN's important contractor, drive load about 3,600 pounds of hydrazine gasoline wearing the spacecraft's propellant container Oct. 24. The Atlas 5's clamshell-like freight fairing drive review MAVEN on Nov. 5, and masses plan to deliverance the Mars orbiter to the Atlas 5 set up pad Nov. 7 to top off the 19-story launcher.
Credit: spaceflightnow.com
