NASA pushes first launch of its Mars rocket to 2019

A NASA official confirmed the delay in a letter appended to a Government Accountability Office report noted that the rocket most likely wouldn’t make its November 2018 first launch deadline. That flight will test the SLS and Orion capsule attached to it, which the agency plans to use to house humans on missions to the Moon and Mars.

Last September, independent analysis deemed the Orion program behind schedule and in danger of going over budget, which is one factor in pushing back the combined launch. The program requires 12 months of work to integrate the Orion in with the crew capsule before delivering it for launch, according to SpaceNews.

While planning for an unmanned debut launch was already strenuous, NASA announced in February that it would consider adding humans to the initial test flight. Officials admitted that adding humans to the equation would likely delay the launch anyway, but it’s unclear if this was a prime factor in the latest decision to suspend the first flight until 2019. If it’s pushed back any farther, it might run behind SpaceX’s planned launch mission, which was itself recently delayed until 2020.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sling TV streams live broadcasts to your LG Smart TV

This isn’t Sling’s first TV integration , but it’s an important one. It’s helping to create a future where you can assume that your TV set can handle any kind of live broadcast, whether it’s online or from a cable box. And of course, it’s important for Sling as well — this opens the doors to people who might not even realize that Sling TV exists, or aren’t willing to pay for a separate device just to get live channels.
Keep reading

Nike’s SNKRS app uses AR to help you buy limited-edition shoes

Image
Once you do that, a 3D model of the Dunks will pop up and you’ll have the chance to buy a pair for yourself. There are also posters, like the one above, outside of Momofuku restaurants in NYC which can trigger the app’s AR feature — in case you’re looking for a more adventurous experience. This seems to be yet another effort by Nike to combat bots, a powerful tool for resellers that’s become a major problem in sneaker culture . Last month, the company introduce Stash, a way for people to unlock exclusive products in the SNRKS app based on their location. The SNKRS AR functionality only works for iOS users at the moment, though Nike says Android support is coming soon.
Keep reading

WSJ: Bixby Voice won’t debut on Galaxy S8 until late June

“Bixby Voice benefits from time to further enhance natural language understanding, and we are currently growing our user testing in the US to prepare for launch,” the company told WSJ . Last month, Google debuted updates to its own Assistant, including those that mimic or outright surpass Bixby’s computer vision capabilities. We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment.
Keep reading