A Mars transfer vehicle propulsively capturing into orbit over Mars. Three nuclear-thermal engines glow purple as they fire. An Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle is docked to an inflatable habitat module at the front of the craft

MTV Copernicus braking into Mars orbit, ahead of rendezvous with the lander that will take its crew to the surface

Ares V's payload fairing split into 4 pieces and falls away from the second stage, carrying a nuclear propulsion module

Ares V's 12 meter diameter payload fairing separates, exposing the propulsion module of a Copernicus Mars Transfer Vehicle on its way to orbit

Too busy watching history happen

Is there video of this? I really hope one of the crew had a camera out when it happened

Has there ever been a JOFOC or similar pre-award public document that gives a price?

Less for low-energy injections (LEO through TLI), more for very high-energy (past about trans-Jupiter injection), but much longer duration (days or weeks vs hours). And its more capable to all orbits than ICPS

An Orion spacecraft capturing into a low lunar orbit, propelled by a long-duration Centaur V upper stage. Orion's solar array wings are canted backwards while Centaur's engines fire

With Centaur V being designed for several-day missions, it is possible that (especially if refueled) the new SLS configuration could place Orion directly in low lunar orbit, rather than just TLI

"Get it together" you're the one going into random stranger's threads having imaginary arguments about unrelated topics

People on bsky just be saying words

Don't care, didn't ask

For MOL, the hatch was on the heat shield side, under the seats. On "reusable MOL", there'd be a docking port on the end of the lab section as well

For other Gemini variants, there were proposals to simply have the crew EVA over to a station, or use an inflatable tunnel fitted over the side hatch

Well just don't sign up to be an astronaut then

Initial Manned Orbital Laboratories would be single-use, but later missions could leave the lab and KH-10 imaging system or other module in orbit for reuse. Later missions could either use a Gemini alone to revisit the station, or add on additional modules

I know this stuff usually isn't very rational, but you are one of the cooler people I've met if it helps. I'm probably not the person to give life advice but don't hurt yourself please

Also +1 for plushies

Every rocket looks cooler with photogrammetry checkers

No, JIMO

Prior to Earth departure, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter's nuclear reactor is not active. Two Delta Cryogenic Propulsion stages, launched separately and modified with docking and extended-duration flight capabilities, boost the probe most of the way to transjupiter injection

Tbh NS never really interested me much, beyond the minimum baseline of any rocket. But yeah SpaceX is being driven into the ground, hopefully they at least get far enough to not invalidate the ideals of rapid full reuse in the eyes of their competitors. If Blue and Stoke stay on course it'll be fine

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter maneuvers during a close pass of Europa. Its ion engines consume nearly 200 kilowatts of power, generated by an onboard nuclear reactor

Its probably specifically an issue with restarts when the propellant level is already near-zero, way more likely to get bubble ingestion then. So even missions with multiple burns prior to deorbit wouldn't experience it

A Turtle Orbital Transfer Vehicle in high-Earth orbit

All the pressurized modules are on the bottom, roughly comparable to ISS's volume, and then the rest is just a huge hangar bay. The top side has a fixed solar array, and radiators and reboost engines are on the other 2 sides

I can't remember the name of the paper its from, but its from a JSC study in the early 80s looking at different structural concepts for stations, with an emphasis on supporting assembly of very large in-space vehicles and satellite servicing

An Orbital Transfer Vehicle with an aerocapture heat shield docking to a space station, next to a Space Shuttle orbiter

A Turtle Orbital Transfer Vehicle docks to Delta Station after returning from lunar orbit, alongside a Space Shuttle orbiter

I actually prefer Boeing's, though it doesn't get much attention. HL-20 was meant only as a generally-inferior backup for Shuttle, mainly a crew taxi, but Boeing's could do nearly all Shuttle-equivalent missions and many new capabilities, including GEO and lunar missions

The two main proposals for the Personnel Launch System: JSC/Rockwell's HL-20, and Boeing's biconic capsule

The paper I mainly used as a reference is from November 1990

itself for easier crew access, and they wanted a big volume underneath for a rideshare payload. So thats the geometry you get

this still avoids the need for an upper stage for LEO missions and keeps the booster/core stage highly common. So thats why its asymmetrical. For the hammerhead forward part, PLS's design needed to be LV-agnostic during this stage of development, and they wanted to avoid encapsulating the capsule

kept 2 reusable engine pods side-by-side. One pod drops off early (reduces dry mass+increases average ISP), but now you have to support a significant offset between center of mass vs thrust. If you're doing that anyway, for heavy missions you can only have to use one side booster instead of 2+, and