The Marshall Space Flight Center is responsible for designing and building the life support systems that provide the crew of the International Space Station with a comfortable environment in which to live and work. Scientists and engineers are working together to provide the space station with systems that are safe, efficient and cost-effective. For example, the water recovery system reduces crew dependence on delivered water by 65 percent. These compact and powerful systems are collectively called the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems, ECLSS. This is an exterior view of the U.S. Laboratory Module Simulator containing the ECLSS Internal Thermal Control System (ITCS) testing facility at the center. At the bottom right is the data acquisition and control computers (in the blue equipment racks) that monitor the testing in the facility. The ITCS simulator facility duplicates the function, operation, and troubleshooting problems of the ITCS. The main function of the ITCS is to control the temperature of equipment and hardware installed in a typical ISS Payload Rack.

Image credit: NASA

More about space station research:

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

View more photos like this in the "Space Station Research Affects Lives" Flickr photoset:

www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157634178107799/

_____________________________________________

These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...

The Astrobotic lunar lander is seen, Friday, May 31, 2019, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Md. Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and OrbitBeyond have been selected to provide the first lunar landers for the Artemis program's lunar surface exploration. Photo credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

PictionID:44808910 - Catalog:14_014222 - Title:Atlas Payload Component - Filename:14_014222.TIF - - Image from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

Kennedy Space Center employees Matthew Hancock, left, and Janine Captain work with MSolo (Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations) test hardware at the Florida spaceport on July 13, 2021. MSolo is a commercial off-the-shelf mass spectrometer modified by the team at Kennedy to work in the harsh, rigorous conditions of the Moon. MSolo is heading to the Moon on four of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative or CLPS missions, including the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) and NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER. Kennedy is working in partnership with INFICON, of Syracuse, New York, to develop the mass spectrometer. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA image use policy.

Kennedy Space Center employee Chris Johnson, left, and Jamie Winfield of INFICON work with MSolo (Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations) test hardware at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 13, 2021. MSolo is a commercial off-the-shelf mass spectrometer modified by the team at Kennedy to work in the harsh, rigorous conditions of the Moon. MSolo is heading to the Moon on four of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative or CLPS missions, including the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) and NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER. Kennedy is working in partnership with INFICON, of Syracuse, New York, to develop the mass spectrometer. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA image use policy.

The IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, installed on its payload adapter, is being prepared for launch, at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 27 January 2015.

IXV will be launched 320 km into space on top of a Vega rocket, VV04, climbing up to 420 km before beginning a long glide back through the atmosphere. In the process, IXV will gather data on reentry conditions to help guide the design of future spaceplanes.

Credit: ESA–M. Pedoussaut, 2015

More about IXV: www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Launchers/IXV

Connect with IXV on Twitter: www.twitter.com/esa_ixv

On 19 November 2024 at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, Earth-observer Sentinel-1C and its payload adapter were encapsulated inside the Vega-C rocket fairing that will protect the spacecraft on the launch pad and on its ascent towards space.

Earth-observer Sentinel-1C is set to launch on Vega-C rocket flight VV25. At 35 m tall, Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant-powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of Sentinel-1C into its orbit.

The fairing is a nose-cone that splits vertically in two once the rocket has passed Earth's atmosphere, revealing Sentinel-1C to space.

Carrying advanced radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface, the ambitious Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has raised the bar for spaceborne radar.

The mission benefits numerous Copernicus services and applications such as those that relate to Arctic sea-ice monitoring, iceberg tracking, routine sea-ice mapping, glacier-velocity monitoring, surveillance of the marine environment including oil-spill monitoring and ship detection for maritime security as well as illegal fisheries monitoring.

Europe’s Vega-C rocket can launch 2300 kg into space, such as small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.

Credits: ESA - M. Pédoussaut

Marshall Space Flight Center International Space Station Payload Operations Director Stephanie Dudley shows Vice President Mike Pence, and Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., right, the Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center as Marshall Space Flight Center Human Exploration Development and Operations Manager Bobby Watkins, left, Marshall Space Flight Center International Space Station Payload and Mission Operations Manager Daryl Woods, Lt. Gen. Edward Daly, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Director Todd May look on, Monday, Sept. 25, 2017 in Huntsville, Alabama. The Vice President visited the space center to view test hardware for NASA’s Space Launch System, America’s new deep space rocket and to call the crew onboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

ARES has a unique design that allows it to adapt to multiple missions with interchangeable payloads; including medical evacuation units, cargo pods, a tactical ground vehicle, troops, and armed scout, reconnaissance and strike capabilities.

Presentations on the ExoMars payload by Daniil Rodionov (ACS, FREND) IKI Moscow, Manish Patel (NOMAD) Uni Padua, and Gabriele Cremonese, Co-PI for CASSIS, Astronomical Observatory, Padua.

Images credit: ESA/R. Palmari

Atlas Centaur Payload--Please tag these photos so information can be recorded.---Note: This material may be protected by Copyright Law (Title 17 U.S.C.)--Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.

Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Space Shuttle Enterprise:

Manufacturer:

Rockwell International Corporation

Country of Origin:

United States of America

Dimensions:

Overall: 57 ft. tall x 122 ft. long x 78 ft. wing span, 150,000 lb.

(1737.36 x 3718.57 x 2377.44cm, 68039.6kg)

Materials:

Aluminum airframe and body with some fiberglass features; payload bay doors are graphite epoxy composite; thermal tiles are simulated (polyurethane foam) except for test samples of actual tiles and thermal blankets.

The first Space Shuttle orbiter, "Enterprise," is a full-scale test vehicle used for flights in the atmosphere and tests on the ground; it is not equipped for spaceflight. Although the airframe and flight control elements are like those of the Shuttles flown in space, this vehicle has no propulsion system and only simulated thermal tiles because these features were not needed for atmospheric and ground tests. "Enterprise" was rolled out at Rockwell International's assembly facility in Palmdale, California, in 1976. In 1977, it entered service for a nine-month-long approach-and-landing test flight program. Thereafter it was used for vibration tests and fit checks at NASA centers, and it also appeared in the 1983 Paris Air Show and the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans. In 1985, NASA transferred "Enterprise" to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Transferred from National Aeronautics and Space Administration

• • •

Quoting from Wikipedia | Space Shuttle Enterprise:

The Space Shuttle Enterprise (NASA Orbiter Vehicle Designation: OV-101) was the first Space Shuttle orbiter. It was built for NASA as part of the Space Shuttle program to perform test flights in the atmosphere. It was constructed without engines or a functional heat shield, and was therefore not capable of spaceflight.

Originally, Enterprise had been intended to be refitted for orbital flight, which would have made it the second space shuttle to fly after Columbia. However, during the construction of Columbia, details of the final design changed, particularly with regard to the weight of the fuselage and wings. Refitting Enterprise for spaceflight would have involved dismantling the orbiter and returning the sections to subcontractors across the country. As this was an expensive proposition, it was determined to be less costly to build Challenger around a body frame (STA-099) that had been created as a test article. Similarly, Enterprise was considered for refit to replace Challenger after the latter was destroyed, but Endeavour was built from structural spares instead.

Service

Construction began on the first orbiter on June 4, 1974. Designated OV-101, it was originally planned to be named Constitution and unveiled on Constitution Day, September 17, 1976. A write-in campaign by Trekkies to President Gerald Ford asked that the orbiter be named after the Starship Enterprise, featured on the television show Star Trek. Although Ford did not mention the campaign, the president—who during World War II had served on the aircraft carrier USS Monterey (CVL-26) that served with USS Enterprise (CV-6)—said that he was "partial to the name" and overrode NASA officials.

The design of OV-101 was not the same as that planned for OV-102, the first flight model; the tail was constructed differently, and it did not have the interfaces to mount OMS pods. A large number of subsystems—ranging from main engines to radar equipment—were not installed on this vehicle, but the capacity to add them in the future was retained. Instead of a thermal protection system, its surface was primarily fiberglass.

In mid-1976, the orbiter was used for ground vibration tests, allowing engineers to compare data from an actual flight vehicle with theoretical models.

On September 17, 1976, Enterprise was rolled out of Rockwell's plant at Palmdale, California. In recognition of its fictional namesake, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and most of the principal cast of the original series of Star Trek were on hand at the dedication ceremony.

Approach and landing tests (ALT)

Main article: Approach and Landing Tests

On January 31, 1977, it was taken by road to Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, to begin operational testing.

While at NASA Dryden, Enterprise was used by NASA for a variety of ground and flight tests intended to validate aspects of the shuttle program. The initial nine-month testing period was referred to by the acronym ALT, for "Approach and Landing Test". These tests included a maiden "flight" on February 18, 1977 atop a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) to measure structural loads and ground handling and braking characteristics of the mated system. Ground tests of all orbiter subsystems were carried out to verify functionality prior to atmospheric flight.

The mated Enterprise/SCA combination was then subjected to five test flights with Enterprise unmanned and unactivated. The purpose of these test flights was to measure the flight characteristics of the mated combination. These tests were followed with three test flights with Enterprise manned to test the shuttle flight control systems.

Enterprise underwent five free flights where the craft separated from the SCA and was landed under astronaut control. These tests verified the flight characteristics of the orbiter design and were carried out under several aerodynamic and weight configurations. On the fifth and final glider flight, pilot-induced oscillation problems were revealed, which had to be addressed before the first orbital launch occurred.

On August 12, 1977, the space shuttle Enterprise flew on its own for the first time.

Preparation for STS-1

Following the ALT program, Enterprise was ferried among several NASA facilities to configure the craft for vibration testing. In June 1979, it was mated with an external tank and solid rocket boosters (known as a boilerplate configuration) and tested in a launch configuration at Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39A.

Retirement

With the completion of critical testing, Enterprise was partially disassembled to allow certain components to be reused in other shuttles, then underwent an international tour visiting France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the U.S. states of California, Alabama, and Louisiana (during the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition). It was also used to fit-check the never-used shuttle launch pad at Vandenberg AFB, California. Finally, on November 18, 1985, Enterprise was ferried to Washington, D.C., where it became property of the Smithsonian Institution.

Post-Challenger

After the Challenger disaster, NASA considered using Enterprise as a replacement. However refitting the shuttle with all of the necessary equipment needed for it to be used in space was considered, but instead it was decided to use spares constructed at the same time as Discovery and Atlantis to build Endeavour.

Post-Columbia

In 2003, after the breakup of Columbia during re-entry, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board conducted tests at Southwest Research Institute, which used an air gun to shoot foam blocks of similar size, mass and speed to that which struck Columbia at a test structure which mechanically replicated the orbiter wing leading edge. They removed a fiberglass panel from Enterprise's wing to perform analysis of the material and attached it to the test structure, then shot a foam block at it. While the panel was not broken as a result of the test, the impact was enough to permanently deform a seal. As the reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) panel on Columbia was 2.5 times weaker, this suggested that the RCC leading edge would have been shattered. Additional tests on the fiberglass were canceled in order not to risk damaging the test apparatus, and a panel from Discovery was tested to determine the effects of the foam on a similarly-aged RCC leading edge. On July 7, 2003, a foam impact test created a hole 41 cm by 42.5 cm (16.1 inches by 16.7 inches) in the protective RCC panel. The tests clearly demonstrated that a foam impact of the type Columbia sustained could seriously breach the protective RCC panels on the wing leading edge.

The board determined that the probable cause of the accident was that the foam impact caused a breach of a reinforced carbon-carbon panel along the leading edge of Columbia's left wing, allowing hot gases generated during re-entry to enter the wing and cause structural collapse. This caused Columbia to spin out of control, breaking up with the loss of the entire crew.

Museum exhibit

Enterprise was stored at the Smithsonian's hangar at Washington Dulles International Airport before it was restored and moved to the newly built Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport, where it has been the centerpiece of the space collection. On April 12, 2011, NASA announced that Space Shuttle Discovery, the most traveled orbiter in the fleet, will be added to the collection once the Shuttle fleet is retired. When that happens, Enterprise will be moved to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City, to a newly constructed hangar adjacent to the museum. In preparation for the anticipated relocation, engineers evaluated the vehicle in early 2010 and determined that it was safe to fly on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft once again.

On 21 January 2025, engineers at ESA’s technical heart (ESTEC) connected the two main parts of the Smile spacecraft, putting it into its final flight configuration.

In the centre of this image we see the spacecraft platform, which contains one of the four science instruments, as well as everything else that the spacecraft needs to function, including the modules responsible for powering, steering and controlling the spacecraft. The platform is covered in a red silky cloth to protect it from falling bolts and other objects that could be dropped when the payload module is lowered on top of the platform.

Coming in from the top right is the payload module, which hosts the other three science instruments. Engineers from Airbus and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are guiding the payload module extremely carefully. Some are up on aerial platforms to monitor and support the positioning and attachment of the two spacecraft parts.

Find out more about the testing and integration of Smile at ESTEC

Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a 50–50 collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

[Image description: Activity in a cleanroom. In the centre is a spacecraft covered in a red cloth. From the top right comes a second part of the spacecraft, ready to be attached to the first part. A man crouches on an aerial platform looking at the place where the two spacecraft will be connected. Other engineers stand around on the ground, watching closely. One of them holds up a wire attached to the second part of the spacecraft.]

Credits: ESA–A.Conigli; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

NASA Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, left, speaks to, Chairman of the Board of Intuitive Machines, Kam Ghaffarian, right, and VP of Research and Development of Intuitive Machines, Tim Crain, second from right, about their lunar lander, Friday, May 31, 2019, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Md. Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Orbit Beyond have been selected to provide the first lunar landers for the Artemis program's lunar surface exploration. Photo credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Astronaut John M. Grunsfeld, payload commander, signals readiness for the first of his STS-109 spacewalks to perform work on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Astronauts Grunsfeld and Richard M. Linnehan later donned their helmets and Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuits and egressed the Space Shuttle Columbia to replace the telescope’s starboard solar array.

Credit: NASA

Payload processing workers in Kennedy Space Center's Vertical Processing Facility (VPF) prepare to integrate the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), suspended at center, into the Orbiter Replacement Unit (ORU) Carrier and Scientific Instrument Protective Enclosure (SIPE). STIS replaced the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) on the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Four of the seven STS-82 crew members performed a series of spacewalks to replace two scientific instruments with two new instruments, including STIS, and performed other tasks during the second HST servicing mission. HST was deployed in 1990 and was initially serviced in 1993.

Credit: NASA

Inside the Multi-Operations Support Building near the Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians are putting on Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble (SCAPE) suits inside a changing room on Aug. 16, 2019. SCAPE technicians are practicing by putting on the suits for a test simulation of loading propellants into a replicated test tank for Orion. Exploration Ground Systems is preparing for Artemis 1 with a series of hazardous hyper test events at the MPPF. After donning their suits, the technicians will complete a tanking to test the system before Orion arrives for processing. During preparations for launch, these teams will be responsible for loading the Orion vehicle with propellants prior to transportation to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be secured atop the Space Launch System rocket. SCAPE suits are used in operations involving toxic propellants and are supplied with air either through a hardline or through a self-contained environmental control unit. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson

NASA image use policy.

Technicians prepare NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for encapsulation in the SpaceX payload fairing inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite is scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 16. The satellite is the next step in NASA's search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Orbital ATK, NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Space Telescope Science Institute. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program is responsible for launch management. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA image use policy.

PictionID:44808664 - Title:Atlas Payload Component - Catalog:14_014202 - Filename:14_014202.TIF - - - Image from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, United Launch Alliance engineers and technicians encapsulate the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, or TDRS-L, spacecraft in its payload fairing. TDRS-L will then be transported to Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Photo credit: NASA/Daniel Casper

Inside the Multi-Operations Support Building near the Multi-Payload Processing Facility (MPPF) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians put on Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble (SCAPE) suits inside a changing room on Aug. 16, 2019. SCAPE technicians are practicing putting on the suits for a test simulation of loading propellants into a replicated test tank for Orion. Exploration Ground Systems is preparing for Artemis 1 with a series of hazardous hyper test events at the MPPF. After donning their suits, the technicians will complete a tanking to test the system before Orion arrives for processing. During preparations for launch, these teams will be responsible for loading the Orion vehicle with propellants prior to transportation to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where it will be secured atop the Space Launch System rocket. SCAPE suits are used in operations involving toxic propellants and are supplied with air either through a hardline or through a self-contained environmental control unit. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson

NASA image use policy.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Yakovlev Yak-38 (Russian: Яковлева Як-38; NATO reporting name: "Forger") was the Soviet Naval Aviation's first and only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft, in addition to being its first operational carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. It was developed specifically for and served almost exclusively on the Kiev-class aircraft carriers.

Officially, all Ukrainian Yak-138 were scrapped until 1994, even though rumor has it that one or two airframes had been sold behind the scenes to China. In Russia only five specimen had survived, and since the spares situation was doubtful none could be kept in flying condition. One Yak-138 was eventually handed over to the Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum, while the rest was either mothballed or scrapped, too. Unfortunately, the sole museum exhibit was lost in 1995 in a fire accident.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length (incl. pitot): 15.84 m (51 ft 10 1/2 in)

Wingspan: 8,17 m (26 ft 9 in)

Height: 4.19 m (14 ft 3 in)

Wing area: 24.18 m² (260.27 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,385 kg (16,281 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 11,300 kg (28,700 lb)

Powerplant:

1x Kuznetsov NK-32L-2 turbofan engine, rated at 137 kN (31,000 lbf)

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,176 km/h (730 mph; 635 knots) at sea level

Combat radius: 230 mi (200 nmi, 370 km) lo-lo-lo with 4,400 lb (2,000 kg) payload

Ferry range: 2,129 mi (1,850 nmi, 3,425 km)

Endurance: 1 hr 30 min (combat air patrol – 115 mi (185 km) from base)

Service ceiling: 51,200 ft (15,600 m)

Time to climb to 40,000 ft (12,200 m): 2 min 23 s

Armament:

1x GSh-23L 23mm machine cannon with 250 RPG under the fuselage

5 hardpoints with a total external capacity of

- 3.000 kg (6,600 lb) for C/STOL operations and

- 2.000 kg (4.400 lb) in VTOL mode

Provisions to carry combinations of various types of unguided rockets (up to 240 mm), anti-ship

or air-to-surface Kh-23 (AS-7 Kerry) missiles (together with a Delta N guidance pod), R-60,

R-60M (AA-8 Aphid) or R-73 (AA-11 Archer) air-to-air missiles; tactical nuclear bombs, general

purpose bombs of up to 500 kg (1.100 lb) caliber, or incendiary ZB-500 napalm tanks or up to

three PTB-800 drop tanks under the fuselage and the inner pair of wing pylons

The kit and its assembly:

Sixth contribution to the “Soviet” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com in early 2017, on pretty short notice since the GB had been coming to its end. This totally fictional aircraft was inspired CG illustrations that had been roaming the WWW for some time: a hybrid between a Yak-38 (mostly the tail section), mated with an AV-8B Harrier II (cockpit, wings, landing gear). This did not look bad at all, yet a bit weird, with lift engines added in front of the fin. Certainly not conformal with a good CG balance – but I liked the idea of a single-engine Forger. And actually, OKB Yakovlev had been considering this.

So, the basic idea was a Harrier/Yak-38 kitbash. But the more I thought about the concept, the more additional donor parts came into play. One major addition was the nose section from a MiG-27 – with its slanted nose it would offer the pilot an excellent field of view, and the aircraft would, as a front line attack plane like the Harrier, not carry a radar, so the Flogger’s nose shape was perfect.

Therefore, initial ingredients for the Yak-138 were:

- Rear fuselage, wings and tail from a Tsukuda Hobby/Kangnam/Revell Yak-38

- Mid-fuselage with air intakes and front vectoring nozzles from a Matchbox Sea Harrier

- Cockpit from an Academy MiG-27

Work started with the MiG-27 cockpit, which was more or less taken OOB (except for side consoles in the cockpit and different seat), and the Yak-38 the tail section, built in parallel. To my surprise the Forger fuselage was easier to combine with the Harrier than expected, even though the position of the right cuts took multiple measurements until I came up with a proper solution. Since the Harrier is overall shorter than the Yak-38, the latter’s fuselage had to be shortened. I retained the tail cone, the Forger’s vectoring nozzles and the landing gear wells – and a 2cm plug was taken out between them. Instead of the Harrier’s tandem landing gear arrangement with outriggers under the outer wings, this one was to receive a conventional landing gear for optional C/STOL operations with a higher ordnance load, so that the Yak-38 parts were a welcome basis. Once the fuselage’s underside was more or less complete, the upper rest of the Yak-38 fuselage could be cut to size and integrated into the lower half and the Harrier parts.

After the rear end was settled, the MiG-27 cockpit could be mounted to the front end, which was slightly shortened by 2-3mm (since the Flogger’s is markedly longer than the short Harrier nose). In order to change the overall look of the aircraft, I eventually dropped the Harrier intakes and decided to use the Flogger’s boxy air intakes instead. These are considerably smaller than the gaping Harrier holes, and blending the conflicting shapes into each other for a more or less consistent look took several PSR turns. But it worked, better than expected, and it changes the aircraft’s look effectively, so that almost anything Harrier-esque was gone.

Once the fuselage was completed, I realized that I could not use the Yak-38 wings anymore. They are already pretty small, but with the more voluminous Harrier and Flogger parts added to the aircraft, they’d just be too small!

What to do...? I checked the donor bank and – in order to add even more individual flavor – used a pair of double delta wings from a PM Model Su-15! But only the core of them was left after considerable modifications: The inner delta wing sections were cut off, as well as the tip sections and parts of the trailing edge (for a planform similar to the Yak-38’s wings). On the underside, the landing gear openings were filled up and wing tips from the Yak-38, with puffer jet nozzles, transplanted. The inner leading edges had to be re-sculpted, too. The Su-15 wing fences were kept - a welcome, very Soviet design detail.

A lot of work, but I think it paid out because of the individual shape and look of these “new” wings?

As a consequence of the new, bigger wings, the little Yak-38 stabilizers could not be used anymore, either. In order to keep the square wing shape, I used modified stabilizers from an Intech F-16C/D – their trailing edges were clipped, but the bigger span retained. Together with the characteristic OOB Yak-38 fin they work well, and all of the aerodynamic surfaces IMHO blend well into the overall design of the aircraft.

After the hull was complete, work on smaller things could start. Under the fuselage, a GSh-23-2 pod from a MiG-21 was added, as well as pylons from the Tsukuda Yak-38 under the wings and a donor part from the scrap box in ventral position.

The landing gear is a mix, too: the main struts come from the Yak-38, the balloon wheels from the Matchbox Harrier. The front landing gear comes from the Academy MiG-27, including the wheels with mudguards. It was just mounted in a fashion that it now retracts forward.

The Harrier vectoring nozzles were modified, too, the exhaust “grills” replaced by square, simple ducts, scratched from styrene profile and putty. Care was taken that the nozzles would remain moveable in the fuselage flanks – for later hover pictures. The Yak-38’s nozzles were retained, but since they can OOB only be mounted in a single, fixed position, I added a simple pin to each nozzle, together with two holes in the hull, so that positions can now be switched between hover and level flight.

All around the hull, finally some small details like pitots, blade antennae and air scoops were finally added, and the ordnance consists of a pair of unguided 57mm rocket pods and a pair of Kh-23 (AS-7 Kerry) guided missiles – the latter come from the Yak-38 kit, but they are very crude and their tail sections were modified in order to come (slightly) closer to reality.

Painting and markings:

As an aircraft of the Soviet Frontal Aviation in the late Eighties, I settled upon a typical, disruptive four-tone camouflage with blue undersides. Very conventional, but with an exotic VTOL model I thought that a subtle look would be appropriate – and also separate it from the Naval Yak-38 cousin.

Design benchmark is the scheme on a contemporary MiG-21bis from a Soviert Frontal Aviation unit, chosen because of the disruptive pattern. The tones are guesstimates, though, based on various similar aircraft in more or less weathered condition. I settled for:

- Humbrol 195 (Dark Satin Green)

- Humbrol 78 (RAF Interior Green)

- Modelmaster 2005 (Burnt Umber)

- Humbrol 119 (Light Earth)

- Humbrol 115 (Russian Blue) for the undersides

The cockpit was painted in Russian Cockpit Green, opf course. The landing gear and their respective wells in a mix of Aluminum and Khaki Drab (Humbrol 56 & 26), and the wheel discs became bright green (Humbrol 131). Several di-electric panels and antennae were painted in Humbrol 106 (RAF Ocean Grey).

The kit received a thin black ink wash, in order to emphasize the panel lines, and panel post-shading with subtly lighter tones of the basic colors. National markings, codes and emblems come from several aftermarket sheets, mostly from High Decal Line and Begemot.

After some soot stains (grinded graphite) had been added, the kit was sealed with matt acrlyic varnish (Italeri) and the ordnace added.

Messy work, but I am surprised how consistent and normal the resulting aircraft appears? From certain angles, my Yak-138 creation reminds a good deal of the stillborn Hawker P.1154 (no similarity intended, though), the SEPECAT Jaguar or rather exotic Soko J-22 Orao/IAR-93 Vultur fighter bomber. IMHO, there’s also some A-4 Skyhawk style to it, esp. in planview? Anyway, there’s still some good Yak-38 heritage recognizable, and the tactical Frontal Aviation paint scheme suits the aircraft well - looks like a serious mud mover.

A model of the JWST, which should launch and unfold in 2018 [update... still not done as of 2021]. It is an enormous structure the size of a tennis court when unfolded from the cylindrical rocket payload bay.

The primary mirror must unfold in space, and engineers have to be able to align each piece to form one smooth surface. Each mirror moves on three axes, and must function at roughly -400°F for the infrared telescope sensor to remain low-noise, so its mirrors must be freezing cold as well. The sensor is a Teledyne HgCdTe sensor that goes to 5.6 micron IR.

Seen on the Sentinel Mission tour of Ball Aerospace.

C&R Developments' Payloader 350 dump truck number 26 has a full load of sand on board as it begins the short journey to the dumping site.

I H Wedding & Sons (Waikato) Ltd's sand quarry at Te Kowhai.

NASA Press Officer Felicia Chou, introduces a pre-recorded video announcement by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine about the companies selected to provide the first commercial lunar landers, Friday, May 31, 2019, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Md. Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic, and Orbit Beyond have been selected to provide the first lunar landers for the Artemis program's lunar surface exploration. Photo credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

Rocket goes up, booster comes down: At 10:25am (ET) Thursday January 13, 2022, #SpaceX launched the #Transporter3 payload atop a 10x flown #Falcon9 booster. It was a spectacular morning for a launch.

The Spanish high-resolution land imaging mission, known as SEOSAT-Ingenio, being fuelled in room S5A of the Payload Processing Facility of Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on 15 October, 2020.

The mission will provide high-resolution multispectral images of the environment for applications such as cartography, monitoring land use, urban management, water management, risk management and security.

While SEOSAT–Ingenio is a Spanish national mission, it has resulted thanks to an international collaborative effort. The mission is funded by Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) but developed and managed by ESA in the context of the European Earth Observation Architecture.

Read full story

Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG - JM Guillon

Though the A-4 Skyhawk was by no means outdated by 1962, the US Navy began work on a replacement with better range and heavier payload. The designs submitted would be necessarily heavier than the A-4, but this was not seen as much of a problem, nor was a lack of speed: the Navy was willing to trade subsonic performance for increased range and more bombs. Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) submitted a design based loosely on its successful F-8 Crusader fighter, which was enough to beat out three other designs, and it was ordered into production as the A-7A Corsair II, named for the successful Chance-Vought fighter of World War II.

Though the A-7 was based on the F-8, the two shared very little other than basic configuration: the A-7 was stubby and wide, and definitely subsonic as intended, though it initially used the same powerplant as the F-111 Aardvark. Turn performance was excellent, if acceleration was indifferent, but the centerpiece of the Corsair II was its integrated bomb delivery system. This included the APQ-116 radar, a heads-up display, traveling map display below the radarscope, and a digital computer. Ease of maintenance was also emphasized. With no problems encountered in flight testing, the A-7A entered fleet service in 1967.

It was immediately committed to fighting in Vietnam. Though A-7s would only see action in the tail end of Operation Rolling Thunder, they were to be used extensively in South Vietnam, due to their accuracy: A-7s were capable of putting ordnance within sixty feet of friendly troops, making it well-liked. The Navy liked the USAF's A-7D variant, and subsequently adopted it, with changes for naval operations, as the A-7E. This was to be the definitive model of the Corsair II, and surviving A-7As and A-7Bs were converted to E standard.

It was a mixed batch of A-7 models that finished the war in Vietnam: A-7Bs were mostly used in the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) Wild Weasel role, and increasingly Corsair IIs were armed with precision weapons such as the AGM-62 Walleye, which proved capable enough to destroy the infamous Thanh Hoa Bridge—albeit temporarily—in 1972. The workhorse A-7 also struck targets in the Hanoi area extensively, making it second only to the B-52 in amount of ordnance dropped on the North Vietnamese capital. Navy A-7s from USS Coral Sea participated in the last combat missions of the Vietnam War, the Mayaguez rescue mission in May 1975. 98 Navy A-7s were shot down during the conflict.

Following the end of the Vietnam War, the A-7 replaced the A-4 in Navy light attack squadrons, standardizing on the A-7E. Aside from minor upgrades, this would remain the type used by Navy units for the duration of the Corsair II’s career. A-7s would go on to participate in every military operation undertaken by the United States in the 1980s—attacks on Lebanon and the invasion of Grenada in 1983, operations against Libya in 1985, during the “Tanker War” in the Persian Gulf in 1987, and finally in the First Gulf War in 1991. In these operations, the A-7 was able to use its pinpoint bombing ability to good use; in Libya and the Persian Gulf, Corsair IIs attacked and sank numerous Libyan and Iranian patrol boats with unguided bombs. It also was the Navy’s Wild Weasel of choice during the 1980s, using the Vietnam-era Shrike before upgrading to the far superior HARM.

In Operation Desert Storm, two A-7 squadrons from John F. Kennedy were used both to attack fixed targets with “iron” bombs and Walleyes in “tank plinking”—knocking out Iraqi tanks with precision weapons. Despite there being less than 30 A-7s in theater, these aircraft were able supplements to the USAF’s A-10s and F-111s.

The First Gulf War was the A-7’s swan song. The last squadrons gave up their Corsair IIs for F/A-18 Hornets by May 1991, ending nearly thirty years of operations. Some ex-Navy A-7s were passed on to Greece, Portugal, and Thailand, and some still remain in service with Thailand and Greece. Of the 1569 A-7s built, about half were Navy types, and today 20 former US Navy A-7s are on display as gate guards and museum pieces.

This TA-7C was built as Bureau Number 154544, an A-7B; it was delivered in 1971 to VA-56 ("Champions") and immediately saw combat over Vietnam during Operation Linebacker while assigned to the USS Midway (CVA-41). After a stint with VA-215 ("Barn Owls") aboard the USS Oriskany (CVA-34), 154544 was converted to a TA-7C two-seater and served out the rest of its career with the Naval Air Test Center and Pacific Missile Test Range at NAS Point Mugu, California. It was retired in 1991 and went into storage, before being obtained by one of the museums in Chino, California (either Yanks or Planes of Fame). Sometime recently, 154544 was sold to the Inde Motorsports Ranch, where it is today.

Though its gray camouflage has faded quite a bit under the Southwest sun, 154544 is very much intact and will probably get refurbished before long. We saw it in June 2023.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, left, and NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, answer questions during an event where nine U.S. companies where named as eligible to bid on NASA delivery services to the lunar surface through Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The companies will be able to bid on delivering science and technology payloads for NASA, including payload integration and operations, launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon. NASA expects to be one of many customers that will use these commercial landing services. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Technicians prepare NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for encapsulation in the SpaceX payload fairing inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The satellite is scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 16. The satellite is the next step in NASA's search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Dr. George Ricker of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research serves as principal investigator for the mission. Additional partners include Orbital ATK, NASA’s Ames Research Center, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Space Telescope Science Institute. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program is responsible for launch management. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA image use policy.

Moving cordwood from the steam-powered sawmill.

At the 2012 Nittany Antique Machinery Association Fall show on September 7, 2012 at Penns Cave, Pennsylvania.

PictionID:44811748 - Title:Atlas Payload Component - Catalog:14_014455 - Filename:14_014455.TIF - - - - Image from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

Workers remove cover plates from a mock Orion crew module inside the Multi-Payload Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Dec. 6, 2018. The crew module will be used during a full stress test of the Launch Abort System (LAS), called Ascent Abort-2 (AA-2), scheduled for April 2019. During the test, the booster will launch from Space Launch Complex 46, carrying a fully functional LAS and the 22,000-pound Orion test vehicle to an altitude of 31,000 feet and traveling at more than 1,000 miles an hour. The test will verify the LAS can steer the crew module and astronauts aboard to safety in the event of an issue with the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket when the spacecraft is under the highest aerodynamic loads it will experience during a rapid climb into space. Photo Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett NASA image use policy.

Balloon and payloads just after launch. In order from top to bottom: Parachute, Primary tracking system, secondary tracking system, photography payload, Cosmic Radiation Detector payload. For scale, balloon is about 10-12 ft. across. (Photo courtesy Dr. Jamey Jacob)

PictionID:44808627 - Title:Atlas Payload Component - Catalog:14_014199 - Filename:14_014199.TIF - - - Image from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

The jumbo dart used as part of NASA's drogue parachute test on April 14, 2010, at the U. S. Army Yuma Proving Grounds near Yuma, Ariz., is one of the heaviest single loads ever extracted out of an Air Force C-17 during flight. A specialized trailer was used to handle the 77,000-pound weight.

Credit: U. S. Army Yuma Proving Ground

About the drop test:

Under a brilliant early morning Arizona sky, NASA conducted a successful, record-breaking test of a drogue parachute being designed to return next-generation space vehicles safely to Earth. The 77,000-pound payload used in the test was dropped from the back of a U.S. Air Force C-17 at an altitude of 25,000 feet, setting a record for the heaviest single load ever extracted out of a C-17 during flight. NASA conducted the drop test, April 14, at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground near Yuma, Ariz.

Read more:

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/H10-134.html

Watch the video on YouTube:

www.youtube.com/user/NASAMarshallTV#p/a/u/0/whPBctYHtNg

twitter.com/KeltruckLtd/status/981579054909415427

#McAdamTransport 's new #Scania G410 8x4 #tipper #Gloucester #Gloucestershire #Glos #GL2 #ScaniaTippers #payload #SaveOnFuel #tippers

Well done, Tony Biddlestone!

#SuppliedByKeltruck keltruckscania.com/suppliedbykeltruck

Encapsulated in its payload fairing, NASA's Parker Solar Probe is transported out of the Astrotech processing facility in Titusville, Florida, near the agency's Kennedy Space Center, on Monday, July 30, 2018. The spacecraft is beginning a trek to Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station where it will be mated atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket. The mission will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.

Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA image use policy.

2013 Deming Logging Show

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was one of the largest and heaviest fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single piston engine. It was heavily armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per wing. When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to eight tons, and in the fighter-bomber ground-attack roles could carry five-inch rockets or a significant bomb load of 2,500 pounds; it could carry over half the payload of the B-17 bomber on long-range missions (although the B-17 had a far greater range).

Twelve P-47H were lost in operational crashes with the 358th Group resulting in 11 deaths, two after VE Day, and two (44-21134 on 13 April 1945 and 44-21230 on 16 April 1945) were shot down in combat, both by ground fire.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 39 ft 2 in (11.96 m)

Wingspan: 40 ft 9 in (12.42 m)

Height: 14 ft 8 in (4.47 m)

Wing area: 300 ft² (27.87 m²)

Empty weight: 10,000 lb (4,535 kg)

Loaded weight: 13,300 lb (6,032 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 17,500 lb (7,938 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Chrysler XIV-2220-2 sixteen-cylinder inverted Vee liquid-cooled engine, rated at 2.450 hp.

Performance:

Maximum speed: 503 mph at 30,000 ft (810 km/h at 9,145 m)

Range: 920 mi combat, 2.175 ml ferry (1.480 km / 3.500 km)

Service ceiling: 43,000 ft (13,100 m)

Rate of climb: 3,120 ft/min (15.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 44.33 lb/ft² ()

Power/mass: 0.19 hp/lb (238 W/kg)

Armament:

8× .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns (3.400 rounds)

Up to 2,500 lb (1,134 kg) of bombs, drop tanks and/or 10× 5 in (127 mm) unguided rockets

The kit and its assembly:

I had the (X)P-47H on the agenda for some time, and even the respective MPM kit stashed away. But it took some time to start this project - one reason actually being the, well, crudeness of the MPM offering. Anyway, I wanted to build a service aircraft, and I wondered how this would have looked like, way beyond 1944? That brought me towards the late bubble canopy versions of the P-47D - and suddenly the idea was born to convert the XP-47H into a respective service aircraft which would not only carry the Chrysler XIV-2220-1 V16 engine, but also other improvements of the type. This eventually led to the decision to make this build a kitbash, as a spine implantation would be the easiest way to incorporate the lowered back - or so I thought...

I chose the ancient Heller P-47(N) as donation kit. Not because it was “good”, it just had the right ingredients and was cheap and easy to procure. What sounded like a simple plan turned into a twisted route to vague success. I took the front fuselage and the lower belly from the MPM kit, as well as the horizontal stabilizers and mated it with the upper and rear fuselage of the Heller Thunderbolt. This could have been easy, if both kits would not have had different fuselage diameters - the Heller kit is about 1mm too narrow, even though the length is fine. In order to compensate, I built two new fuselage halves from the salvaged pieces, and once these were stable and more or less sanded even, put together. Inside, the cockpit was taken from the Heller kit, but the seat comes from the MPM kit, and a pilot figure was added. Another problem is the fact that the MPM kit features engraved panel lines, while the Heller kit has old school, raised details and lots of rivets.

The propeller from the MPM kit is a joke, so I built a replacement from scratch - from a drop tank front half from an ancient Revell F4U, and the individual propeller blades were taken from an Italeri F4U. Inside the fuselage, a styrene tube was implanted which holds the new propeller on a metal axis, so it can spin freely.

Other personal mods include lowered flaps and the large cooler intake was opened, with foamed styrene placed inside which mimics some mesh. The same method was also used inside of the intercooler outlets (primarily in order to block any light from shining through). Inside of the landing gear wells I added some structure made from styrene profiles.

Another bigger challenge was the wing attachment - Heller and MPM kit differ considerably in this aspect, so that swapping parts is not easy. The MPM kit has the wing roots molded onto the fuselage halves, while the Heller wings are, more or less, directly attached to the fuselage. As a consequence the Heller wings hold the complete landing gear wells, while the MPM solution has divided sections. I decided to get rid of the MPM wing roots, about 3mm of material, and onto these stubs the Heller wings were attached. The landing gear came from the Heller kit, but the main wheels come from a (new) Revell Me 262 - both MPM and Heller parts are not recommended for serious use... Finally, the many exhausts and cooler flaps were either sanded away and replaced by scratched parts, or added - e. g. the vents behind the cockpit. While the Heller kit features bomb and missile hardpoints under the wings I decided to leave them away - this is supposed to be a fast interceptor, not a train-hunting plough.

Painting and markings:

As this was to be a very late WWII aircraft, NMF was certain, and I wanted to place the service P-47H into the European conflict theatre, where its speed would IMHO be best used against German jet threats. I wanted a colorful aircraft, though, and settled for a machine of the 358th FG. This group actually flew Thunderbolts in the 365-367th Squadrons, and I found several profiles of these gaudy things.

Common to all of them was an orange tail and a dark blue back, while the engine cowling would be decorated with a red front and the air outlets would carry bands in red, white and blue, with lots of tiny stars sprinkled upon. Furthermore, I found specimen with white cowlings behind the red front end, or even yellow cowlings. Pretty cool.

I tried to mimic this look. The model was basically painted with Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol 27002) overall. The effect is really good, even without rubbing treatment. Some panels were contrasted with Aluminium Plate and Polished Steel Metallizer (Modelmaster), as well as with Aluminum (Humbrol 56, which is rather a metallic grey). The latter was also used on the landing gear. The anti-glare panel in front of the cockpit was painted with Olive Drab (ANA 613 from Modelmaster).

Since there is no air intake opening on the inline engine I decided to paint the spinner in bright red (Humbrol 19), and tried to incorporate the white and blue theme with stars decoration to the rest of the nose. As a convenient coincidence, I found decals from an Italeri B-66 in the stash: it features a version with dark blue jet air intake decorations in the right size, colors and style for what I had been looking for. So, instead of painting everything by hand I decided to incorporate this decal option.

The area behind the spinner was painted white and then the B-66 decals applied to the front flanks. The radiator air intake scoop had to be cut out, but the overall size and shape were a very good match. Even the transition into the blue spine and cockpit area worked well!

The tail was painted with Humbrol 18, later some shading with Humbrol 82 was added. The blue spine was done with a mix of Humbrol 104 and 15 (Oxford Blue and Midnight Blue) - not a perfect match for the B-66 decal colors, but after some dirt and weathering these differences would blur.

Cockpit interior was painted in Humbrol 159 (Khaki Drab) and Zinc Chromate Green from Model Master. The landing gear wells received a chrome yellow primer (Humbrol 225 - actually RAF Mid Stone but a perfect match for the task) finish.

For weathering the kit received a rubbing treatment with grinded graphite, which adds a dark, metallic shine and emphasizes the kit’s raised panel lines. Some dry painting with Aluminum was added, too, simulating chipped paint on the leading edges. I also added some oil stains around the engine, and serious soot stains at the exhaust.

Decals were, beyond the B-66 decoration, puzzled together. The aircraft' code 'CH-F[bar]' is another exotic twist, in two ways. The bar under the letter marks a second use of that code within the squadron, and as a difference from normal code placement (normally exclusively on the fuselage) I placed the aircraft's individual code letter on the fin, a practice on some P-51s and a consequence of the relatively large letter decals.

The nose art is a fictional puzzle, consisting of a Czech MiG-21 pin-up from the Pardubice '89 meeting. The “Ohio Express” tag comes from a Tamiya 1:100 F-105 Thunderchief. A neat combination that even matches the overall colors well!

As a final step, a coat of semi matt acrylic varnish was applied, with the exception of the anti glare panel, which became purely matt.

A better XP-47H? Hard to tell, since this kitbashing was a messy and rather crude work, so the overall finish does not look as good as I hoped for. But the lowered spine and the fin root extension adds to a fast look of this thing, more elegant (if that's possible in this case?) than the Razorback prototypes. I can't help, but the finished article looks like an Evel Knievel stunt vehicle? The red spinner looks a bit odd, but I'll leave it this way.

AEHF-4 undergoes the vehicle mate process at Lockheed Martin’s satellite manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California. During vehicle mate, the satellite’s system module is lowered by a crane onto its propulsion core in order to be integrated and tested. The system module weighs around the same as a truck and contains the bus and payload electronics.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was one of the largest and heaviest fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single piston engine. It was heavily armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per wing. When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to eight tons, and in the fighter-bomber ground-attack roles could carry five-inch rockets or a significant bomb load of 2,500 pounds; it could carry over half the payload of the B-17 bomber on long-range missions (although the B-17 had a far greater range).

Twelve P-47H were lost in operational crashes with the 358th Group resulting in 11 deaths, two after VE Day, and two (44-21134 on 13 April 1945 and 44-21230 on 16 April 1945) were shot down in combat, both by ground fire.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 39 ft 2 in (11.96 m)

Wingspan: 40 ft 9 in (12.42 m)

Height: 14 ft 8 in (4.47 m)

Wing area: 300 ft² (27.87 m²)

Empty weight: 10,000 lb (4,535 kg)

Loaded weight: 13,300 lb (6,032 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 17,500 lb (7,938 kg)

Powerplant:

1× Chrysler XIV-2220-2 sixteen-cylinder inverted Vee liquid-cooled engine, rated at 2.450 hp.

Performance:

Maximum speed: 503 mph at 30,000 ft (810 km/h at 9,145 m)

Range: 920 mi combat, 2.175 ml ferry (1.480 km / 3.500 km)

Service ceiling: 43,000 ft (13,100 m)

Rate of climb: 3,120 ft/min (15.9 m/s)

Wing loading: 44.33 lb/ft² ()

Power/mass: 0.19 hp/lb (238 W/kg)

Armament:

8× .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns (3.400 rounds)

Up to 2,500 lb (1,134 kg) of bombs, drop tanks and/or 10× 5 in (127 mm) unguided rockets

The kit and its assembly:

I had the (X)P-47H on the agenda for some time, and even the respective MPM kit stashed away. But it took some time to start this project - one reason actually being the, well, crudeness of the MPM offering. Anyway, I wanted to build a service aircraft, and I wondered how this would have looked like, way beyond 1944? That brought me towards the late bubble canopy versions of the P-47D - and suddenly the idea was born to convert the XP-47H into a respective service aircraft which would not only carry the Chrysler XIV-2220-1 V16 engine, but also other improvements of the type. This eventually led to the decision to make this build a kitbash, as a spine implantation would be the easiest way to incorporate the lowered back - or so I thought...

I chose the ancient Heller P-47(N) as donation kit. Not because it was “good”, it just had the right ingredients and was cheap and easy to procure. What sounded like a simple plan turned into a twisted route to vague success. I took the front fuselage and the lower belly from the MPM kit, as well as the horizontal stabilizers and mated it with the upper and rear fuselage of the Heller Thunderbolt. This could have been easy, if both kits would not have had different fuselage diameters - the Heller kit is about 1mm too narrow, even though the length is fine. In order to compensate, I built two new fuselage halves from the salvaged pieces, and once these were stable and more or less sanded even, put together. Inside, the cockpit was taken from the Heller kit, but the seat comes from the MPM kit, and a pilot figure was added. Another problem is the fact that the MPM kit features engraved panel lines, while the Heller kit has old school, raised details and lots of rivets.

The propeller from the MPM kit is a joke, so I built a replacement from scratch - from a drop tank front half from an ancient Revell F4U, and the individual propeller blades were taken from an Italeri F4U. Inside the fuselage, a styrene tube was implanted which holds the new propeller on a metal axis, so it can spin freely.

Other personal mods include lowered flaps and the large cooler intake was opened, with foamed styrene placed inside which mimics some mesh. The same method was also used inside of the intercooler outlets (primarily in order to block any light from shining through). Inside of the landing gear wells I added some structure made from styrene profiles.

Another bigger challenge was the wing attachment - Heller and MPM kit differ considerably in this aspect, so that swapping parts is not easy. The MPM kit has the wing roots molded onto the fuselage halves, while the Heller wings are, more or less, directly attached to the fuselage. As a consequence the Heller wings hold the complete landing gear wells, while the MPM solution has divided sections. I decided to get rid of the MPM wing roots, about 3mm of material, and onto these stubs the Heller wings were attached. The landing gear came from the Heller kit, but the main wheels come from a (new) Revell Me 262 - both MPM and Heller parts are not recommended for serious use... Finally, the many exhausts and cooler flaps were either sanded away and replaced by scratched parts, or added - e. g. the vents behind the cockpit. While the Heller kit features bomb and missile hardpoints under the wings I decided to leave them away - this is supposed to be a fast interceptor, not a train-hunting plough.

Painting and markings:

As this was to be a very late WWII aircraft, NMF was certain, and I wanted to place the service P-47H into the European conflict theatre, where its speed would IMHO be best used against German jet threats. I wanted a colorful aircraft, though, and settled for a machine of the 358th FG. This group actually flew Thunderbolts in the 365-367th Squadrons, and I found several profiles of these gaudy things.

Common to all of them was an orange tail and a dark blue back, while the engine cowling would be decorated with a red front and the air outlets would carry bands in red, white and blue, with lots of tiny stars sprinkled upon. Furthermore, I found specimen with white cowlings behind the red front end, or even yellow cowlings. Pretty cool.

I tried to mimic this look. The model was basically painted with Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol 27002) overall. The effect is really good, even without rubbing treatment. Some panels were contrasted with Aluminium Plate and Polished Steel Metallizer (Modelmaster), as well as with Aluminum (Humbrol 56, which is rather a metallic grey). The latter was also used on the landing gear. The anti-glare panel in front of the cockpit was painted with Olive Drab (ANA 613 from Modelmaster).

Since there is no air intake opening on the inline engine I decided to paint the spinner in bright red (Humbrol 19), and tried to incorporate the white and blue theme with stars decoration to the rest of the nose. As a convenient coincidence, I found decals from an Italeri B-66 in the stash: it features a version with dark blue jet air intake decorations in the right size, colors and style for what I had been looking for. So, instead of painting everything by hand I decided to incorporate this decal option.

The area behind the spinner was painted white and then the B-66 decals applied to the front flanks. The radiator air intake scoop had to be cut out, but the overall size and shape were a very good match. Even the transition into the blue spine and cockpit area worked well!

The tail was painted with Humbrol 18, later some shading with Humbrol 82 was added. The blue spine was done with a mix of Humbrol 104 and 15 (Oxford Blue and Midnight Blue) - not a perfect match for the B-66 decal colors, but after some dirt and weathering these differences would blur.

Cockpit interior was painted in Humbrol 159 (Khaki Drab) and Zinc Chromate Green from Model Master. The landing gear wells received a chrome yellow primer (Humbrol 225 - actually RAF Mid Stone but a perfect match for the task) finish.

For weathering the kit received a rubbing treatment with grinded graphite, which adds a dark, metallic shine and emphasizes the kit’s raised panel lines. Some dry painting with Aluminum was added, too, simulating chipped paint on the leading edges. I also added some oil stains around the engine, and serious soot stains at the exhaust.

Decals were, beyond the B-66 decoration, puzzled together. The aircraft' code 'CH-F[bar]' is another exotic twist, in two ways. The bar under the letter marks a second use of that code within the squadron, and as a difference from normal code placement (normally exclusively on the fuselage) I placed the aircraft's individual code letter on the fin, a practice on some P-51s and a consequence of the relatively large letter decals.

The nose art is a fictional puzzle, consisting of a Czech MiG-21 pin-up from the Pardubice '89 meeting. The “Ohio Express” tag comes from a Tamiya 1:100 F-105 Thunderchief. A neat combination that even matches the overall colors well!

As a final step, a coat of semi matt acrylic varnish was applied, with the exception of the anti glare panel, which became purely matt.

A better XP-47H? Hard to tell, since this kitbashing was a messy and rather crude work, so the overall finish does not look as good as I hoped for. But the lowered spine and the fin root extension adds to a fast look of this thing, more elegant (if that's possible in this case?) than the Razorback prototypes. I can't help, but the finished article looks like an Evel Knievel stunt vehicle? The red spinner looks a bit odd, but I'll leave it this way.

Www.mikefarrelldeveau.com

#art #artist #bristol #bristolart #londonart #london #newyork #newyorkart #contemporaryart #war

PictionID:44808702 - Catalog:14_014205 - Title:Atlas Payload Component - Filename:14_014205.TIF - - Image from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

Looking like some kind of prehistoric monster. At the 2014 Fall show of the Nittany Antique Machinery Association at Penns Cave, PA on Sept. 7, 2014.

“Rockwell art concept view of Shuttle in orbit with open cargo bay showing the Global Positioning System sortie pallet.”

What’s a GPS “sortie” pallet??? All I know is that it was a term used earlier during the consideration/development of shuttle payloads.

www.dvidshub.net/image/701710/rockwell-art-concept-view-s...

Credit: DVIDS website

This is an absolutely exquisite piece of shuttle-related artwork…seriously. And the photo surface has a super-fine satin sheen to it, which really accentuates the aesthetic appeal.

But, by whom? Henry Lozano maybe? Manuel Alvarez? Somebody else? It almost looks like the interesting cloud formations may contain cleverly jumbled letters. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯