NASA Takes Giant Leaps on the Journey to Mars, Eyes Our Home Planet and the Distant Universe, Tests Technologies and Improves the Skies Above in 2014
In 2014, NASA stepped on the office’s voyage to Mars - testing bleeding edge advances and making exploratory revelations while concentrating on our changing Earth and the boundless universe as the organization gained ground on the up and coming era of air travel.
“We kept on gaining awesome ground on our voyage to Mars this year, honoring contracts to American organizations who will return human space flight dispatches to U.S. soil, propelling space innovation advancement; and effectively finishing the primary flight of Orion, the following profound space shuttle in which our space travelers will travel,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “We pushed ahead on our work to make calmer, greener planes and create advances to make air travel more proficient; and we propelled our investigation of our changing home planet, Earth, while expanding our comprehension of others in our nearby planetary group and past.”
Journey to Mars
NASA accomplished a noteworthy development in December on its adventure to Mars as the office’s Orion rocket finished its first voyage to space amid a four-and-a-half-hour flight test.
Orion is a piece of NASA’s arrangement to grow new advancements and abilities to send space explorers more remote than at any other time, first to a space rock, and ahead to the Red Planet.
Science, innovation, building and math (STEM)- related instruction took off to new statures with an understudy assembled radiation test on board Orion. NASA’s Office of Education, collaborated with the Lockheed Martin Corp., utilized the Exploration Design Challenge to connect with understudies in STEM by welcoming them to handle a standout amongst the most critical risks of human space flight - radiation presentation.
NASA’s parallel way for human spaceflight additionally took a monster jump forward in September when the office declared U.S. space travelers at the end of the day would go to and from the International Space Station (ISS) from the United States on American shuttle under earth shattering contracts worked by NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The organization chose Boeing and SpaceX to transport U.S. groups to and from the space station utilizing their CST-100 and Crew Dragon rocket, separately, with an objective of closure the country’s sole dependence on Russia in 2017. NASA’s parallel way for human spaceflight includes U.S. business organizations giving access to low-Earth circle while NASA gets ready profound space investigation missions with Orion and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
Credits: NASA
The SLS rocket, the most effective ever manufactured, moved from the idea stage to the advancement stage in 2014. Additionally this year, every significant apparatus were introduced at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans where the rocket will be developed.
For a long time, progressively progressed automated wayfarers have considered the conditions on Mars. This has significantly expanded our investigative learning about the planet, and in addition made ready for space travelers on the trip to Mars. In July, NASA reported its Mars Rover 2020, which depends on the effective Curiosity wanderer. Mars 2020 will convey instruments to direct extraordinary science and investigation innovation examinations on the Red Planet, incorporating help with information for a human mission to Mars.
NASA’s most up to date individual from its armada of mechanical Red Planet wayfarers, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), shuttle effectively entered Mars’ circle Sept. 21, where it is starting its investigation of the planet’s upper climate as never done. That broad armada of science resources, especially those circling and meandering Mars, had front column seats to picture and study a rare comet flyby of Mars in October.
Credits: NASA’s
The office’s Curiosity meanderer proceeded with this year to refine our comprehension of Mars. In December, NASA reported Curiosity has measured a tenfold spike in methane, a natural compound, in the climate around it and identified other natural particles in a stone powder test gathered by the mechanical lab’s drill. Interest’s discoveries from breaking down examples of air and shake powder don’t uncover whether Mars has ever harbored living microorganisms, however the discoveries do reveal insight into a synthetically dynamic present day Mars and on ideal conditions for life on old Mars. Perceptions by Curiosity additionally show Mount Sharp close to the meanderer’s arrival site was worked by dregs kept in an extensive lake bed over countless years.
Credits: NASA
NASA keeps on propelling the trip to Mars through advancement on the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which will test various new capacities required for future human endeavors to profound space, including to Mars. This incorporates progressed Solar Electric Propulsion - an effective approach to move substantial load utilizing sun oriented force, which could help pre-position payload for future human missions to the Red Planet. As a major aspect of ARM, an automated shuttle will meet with a close Earth space rock and divert a space rock mass to a steady circle around the moon. Space travelers will investigate the space rock mass in the 2020’s, trying present day spaceflight abilities like new spacesuits and test return methods. Space travelers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston have as of now honed the capacities required for the mission.
Office authorities are concentrating on two automated catch ideas for the mechanical shuttle that will meet with the space rock. One choice would utilize an inflatable system to catch a whole little space rock. Another alternative would utilize mechanical arms to recover a stone from a much bigger space rock. NASA focuses the nation over are progressing and testing advances for both ideas. Mission supervisors inspected the two catch ideas in a December meeting and NASA hopes to choose an idea for the mission in mid 2015.
The organization has recognized three space rocks that could be great possibility for every catch alternative so far and foresees discovering maybe a couple for every year for every choice. Endeavors to distinguish great possibility for the mission are likewise enlarging NASA’s current work to overview close Earth questions and recognize those that could undermine Earth. Notwithstanding the spaceflight abilities ARM will propel, the mission will likewise speak to another open door for planetary safeguard shows, to relieve space rock dangers later on.
NASA has recognized right around 12,000 Near Earth Objects to-date, including 96 percent of close Earth space rocks bigger than .6 miles (1 kilometer) in size. NASA has not distinguished any objects of this size represent an effect risk to Earth in the following 100 years.
Groups at NASA focuses burned through 2014 testing different advances, including sun based electric drive, new spacesuits plans and test accumulation devices, that will be utilized by space explorers on the trip to Mars and showed on ARM.
NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge is a push to achieve past customary limits and energize associations and cooperation with an assortment of associations to locate every single space rock risk to human populace and recognize what to do about them. The test had achievement in 2014 connecting with the general population through an assortment of new associations, for example, ECAST, SpaceGAMBIT and the Asteroid Data Hunter challenge.
International Space Station
NASA’s journey to Mars includes time aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The agency is using the space station to conduct cutting-edge research and technology development and to increase our knowledge about what it takes to live and work for long periods of time in space. 2014 marked 14 years of continuous human presence on the orbiting laboratory. Recognizing the long-term benefits of the space station, the Obama Administration in January announced it intends to extend operations on the ISS until at least 2024.
Credits: NASA
A sum of 12 team individuals lived and worked on board the ISS in 2014. Two of those group individuals, NASA’s Reid Wiseman and Barry Wilmore, did in October the primary spacewalks to start reconfiguring the ISS to oblige future U.S. business maintained rocket. Amid his six months on board the ISS, Wiseman picked up a vast after on online networking, which he used to bring the marvels of human spaceflight straightforwardly to the general population 140 characters at once.
ISS groups have seen eight diverse freight shuttle bring more than 50,000 pounds of supplies and science examination to the station in 2014. Two of those flights were by SpaceX under contract with NASA. Orbital Sciences Corp., additionally under contract with NASA, had two supply missions to the space station this year, however in October, its third flight endured a cataclysmic disappointment amid dispatch. Regardless of the occurrence, NASA stays certain U.S. organizations will keep on driving the best approach to resupply the space station and soon send NASA space travelers there.
Credits: NASA
Science research on board the space station achieved new statures in 2014. Team individuals directed several logical examinations concentrated on human wellbeing and investigation, innovation testing for empowering future investigation, research in essential life and physical sciences, and earth and space science. One such analysis, Veggie, is driving the best approach to permit groups to develop, reap and eat some of their own sustenance. The station’s EXPRESS Rack 1 - a multipurpose rack framework that has housed and bolstered research on board station following 2001 - surpassed 100,000 hours of operation in October. The week of July twentieth, the space station program set a record on what number of team hours utilized for science as a part of a week – only five minutes short of 84 hours.
The space station likewise sparkled for the current year as an innovation test-bed. This included proceeding with work with the rocking the bowling alley ball-sized satellites that work inside the ISS known as SPHERES, Robonaut 2 getting its test legs appended in August and the initial 3-D printing ever in space in November.
Innovation Tech
Innovation drives investigation, and it is a critical piece of NASA’s attempts, including the trip to Mars. In June, the office utilized a rocket-fueled, saucer-formed vehicle called the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator to test innovations required for landing extensive payloads on the surface of Mar

