View allAll Photos Tagged cleanroom
On 14 March, the launch window opens for ExoMars 2016, ESA’s next mission to Mars, composed of the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli.
Last month, the two spacecraft left Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France, where they had been for the final few months of assembly and testing, and headed towards the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
With both now in Baikonur, preparations are under way for the launch on a Russian Proton rocket during a window that remains open until 25 March.
The 600 kg Schiaparelli – pictured here being unpacked in a cleanroom in the cosmodrome – will ride to Mars on the Trace Gas Orbiter. Three days before they reach the Red Planet, Schiaparelli will separate from the orbiter, which will then enter orbit for a five-year mission of studying atmospheric gases potentially linked to present-day biological or geological activity.
Schiaparelli will enter the atmosphere at 21 000 km/h and slow by aerobraking in the upper layers, then deploying a parachute, followed by liquid-propellant thrusters that will brake it to less than 5 km/h about 2 m above the surface.
At that moment, the thrusters will be switched off and it will drop to the ground, where the impact will be cushioned by its crushable structure.
Less than eight minutes will have elapsed between hitting the atmosphere and touching down in a region known as Meridiani Planum.
Scientific sensors on Schiaparelli will collect data on the atmosphere during entry and descent, and others will make local measurements at the landing site for a short period determined by its battery capacity.
Schiaparelli will remain a target for laser ranging from orbiters using its reflector.
The module is named in honour of the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who mapped the Red Planet’s surface features in the 19th century.
Credit: TsENKI
This new image fresh from the Northrop Grumman cleanroom shows #NASAWebb nearly fully packed up into the same formation it will have for launch. Only a few tests remain before the team transitions into shipment operations.
More on Webb’s recent progress can be found here: go.nasa.gov/3hX7l2q
Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The towering primary mirror of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope stands inside a cleanroom at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where it will undergo its last cryogenic test before it is launched into space in 2018. In preparation for testing, the “wings” of the mirror (which consist of the three segments on each side) were spread open. This photo shows one fully deployed wing, and one that is moments from being fully deployed. An engineer observes the move.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s most advanced space observatory. This engineering marvel is designed to unravel some of the greatest mysteries of the universe, from discovering the first stars and galaxies that formed after the big bang to studying the atmospheres of planets around other stars. It is a joint project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
Image Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
Here on Earth, under the protection of the layers of our atmosphere, we can still find the heat from the Sun sometimes almost unbearable. This is also a problem for space-based telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Once in its operational orbit, JWST will be exposed directly to the Sun’s intense glare – not ideal when most of JWST needs to be kept at very cool, infrared-friendly temperatures. To cater for this, the observatory needs to be equipped with a protective parasol.
The kite-shaped piece of foil shown here is the sunshield test unit for JWST. This image captures the first time the deployment of the sunshield was fully and successfully tested, at a cleanroom in the Northrop Grumman facility in Redondo Beach, California, USA, during the first week of July 2014.
This sunshield is the largest part of JWST and offers intense protection from the Sun, letting through less than a millionth of the Sun’s heat! This massive parasol is as long as a tennis court, but incredibly light. It is composed of five super-thin membranes that will separate and unfurl into a precise arrangement once the telescope is in space. During launch, this shield will be folded up like an umbrella to fit neatly around the telescope’s mirrors and other instruments within the Ariane 5 rocket fairing.
When unfurled, the sunshield will protect JWST’s ‘cold’ side, where very sensitive infrared instruments are located inside the Integrated Science Instruments Module, maintaining a thermally stable cold environment, around –233 ºC!
Thanks to the sunshield, these low temperatures are reached passively, without the help of any active cooling system, by radiating heat into deep space. Just one of JWST's instruments, the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), will be cooled even further by a dedicated cryogenic cooler, reaching around –266 ºC. Although parts of JWST will reach such low temperatures, the shield will create a thermal barrier so that on JWST’s ‘hot’ side, the spacecraft electronics can work at room temperature.
Unlike its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST does not have a baffle protecting its optics from unwanted incoming light. This makes the sunshield’s role even more important because it will not only block heat, but also unwanted light, allowing JWST to operate to the best of its near-infrared capabilities.
When completed, JWST will be the most powerful space observatory ever built. JWST is an international collaboration between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency.
Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
Preparations continue for the James Webb Space Telescope's upcoming trip to NASA Johnson for testing. Here the telescope is lifted to a stand in the giant cleanroom at NASA Goddard, so it can be rotated. The mirror's two "wings" are folded back, and its secondary mirror is stowed. This is the position the mirrors will be in for launch - as well as for the trip to Johnson Space Center.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The largest vacuum chamber of ESA’s Propulsion Laboratory is used for testing different types of thrusters for space.
Some 2 m in diameter and 5 m in length, this Small Plasma Facility is large enough to contain sections of a satellite as well as the thruster to be tested to study how its firing interacts with nearby surfaces. Thrust force can be measured down to micronewton levels.
The Propulsion Lab has seven vacuum chambers and elaborate multistage pumping can take the air inside them down to 11 orders of magnitude below atmospheric pressure.
As a cleanroom, temperature and humidity are rigorously controlled, and the Lab is served by an uninterruptible power supply, resting on a 160 tonne seismic block that sits in turn on pneumatic dampers, to cut out external vibration.
Sited at ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands, the Lab has underpinned ESA’s adoption of electric propulsion, crucial to missions such as the gravity-mapping GOCE and next year’s BepiColombo mission to Mercury.
Credit: ESA-A. Le Floc'h
My son shows one of the masks that will be used in building a 4 qbit chip in the UCSB clean lab. The mask will be reduced 5X and used with other masks to build up the exotic chip used in quantum computing research. It looks a bit like a skull and crossbones to me but he assures me it's not used in piracy! ;-)
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View my - Most Interesting according to Flickr
After a 5,800-mile move, the James Webb Space Telescope has unpacked and settled into its temporary home...
The James Webb Space Telescope has safely made it inside the cleanroom at its launch site at Guiana Space Center, in French Guiana! Read more about why this location was selected for launch: jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/launch.html
After its arrival, Webb was carefully lifted from its packing container and then raised vertical. This is the same configuration Webb will be in when it is inside its launch vehicle, the Ariane 5 rocket.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
A test model of the main imager for Europe’s forthcoming Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite being lifted towards Europe’s largest vacuum chamber for simulated space testing.
Developed by Thales Alenia Space, this is a ‘structural and thermal model’ test version of the mammoth Flexible Combined Instrument, which will provide state of the art measurements of Earth’s atmosphere across 16 visible and infrared channels.
The flight version of this instrument will serve aboard the Meteosat Third Generation-series of imaging satellites, dubbed MTG-I. Developed in conjunction with Eumetsat, Europe’s weather satellite organization, these satellites will be accompanied by additional MTG ‘sounding’ satellites in geostationary orbit to provide simultaneous vertical profiles of the atmosphere.
Some 15 m high and 10 m in diameter, the Large Space Simulator – located at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands – is cavernous enough to accommodate an upended double decker bus. Once the top and side hatches are sealed, high-performance pumps create a vacuum a billion times less dense than standard sea-level atmosphere, and this is held for weeks at a time during test runs. A Sun simulator shines intense light on the test item at the same time that liquid nitrogen is pumped through the walls to recreate the cold of space in the shade.
See a slideshow of FCI test images here.
Credits: ESA–G. Porter, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
After a 5,800-mile move, the James Webb Space Telescope has unpacked and settled into its temporary home...
The James Webb Space Telescope has safely made it inside the cleanroom at its launch site at Guiana Space Center, in French Guiana! Read more about why this location was selected for launch: jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/launch.html
After its arrival, Webb was carefully lifted from its packing container and then raised vertical. This is the same configuration Webb will be in when it is inside its launch vehicle, the Ariane 5 rocket.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
After it's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of launch, the James Webb Space Telescope is unboxed inside a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility where it will be examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - P.Piron
“APOLLO CLEANROOM -- Spacecraft command module (lower left) in which three astronauts could travel to the moon, is readied for test and checkout in world’s largest cleanroom at North American Rockwell’s Space Division, Downey, Calif. Room has 2,322,300 cubic feet of air space and 45,000 square feet of floor space. It is longer and wider than a football field.
112968”
Other than the specifications pertaining to building 290, and what I’m interpreting to be the date, the above is lame.
Remember - here, at this time - 107 identifies the future Apollo 11 spacecraft, so…
note the three different 107 “signs” affixed to what I’m naively/ignorantly identifying as the “end” work station (2D?), or work stand (as they’re referenced to in NAA/NAR-derived literature) on the far left.
Affixed to it, on the far left, the “S/M 107” placard pertains to Service Module (SM) 107, which can be seen behind/to the right of it. The half-circle, white scimitar antenna slightly above/to the right of the placard provides context as to the SM’s position/placement.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_command_and_service_module#/...
Credit: Wikipedia
Above it, note the white triangular, conical actually (I think) object. Possibly the Command Module’s (CM) forward Boost Protective Cover (BPC)? Or, an “apex cover” of some sort? Did such even exist…for a Block II CM…beneath the BPC? Hmmm.
Below it, an artist’s concept “poster” bearing “SC 107” can be seen. Is this the same one?
www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=694980414031670&set=oa.3...
Credit: Stephen Isherwood/”Apollo Spacecraft History” FB group
And, just above, slightly to the right of the CM, the placard of “S/C 107”. To me, the letters & numbers appear to be embossed…like a giant license plate. Is that cool?! I really hope it’s in the possession of a descendent of an NAA/NAR (NR) employee…even a lowly collector…and NOT at a depth of ~75’ in some Los Angeles county landfill.
Finally, is it reasonable to assume that this CM is Columbia/CM-107, since it’s on the workstation/stand side of the aisle, directly across from SM-107? However, would it be at this stage of assembly/completion on November 29, 1968??? That is, if I’ve interpreted the photo date correctly. CSM-107 was shipped to KSC late January 1969. So…who knows.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Note also the Launch Escape Tower (LET) segment of a Launch Escape System (LES), on its side, on the dolly to the right of the CM. And what’s that cylindrical/circular thing immediately to the left of the CM?
Oh yeah...one more...I think that's the blue protective covering on the CM. Maybe.
www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/001922.html
Credit: collectSPACE website
Handwritten in pencil & machine printed (typed?) on the verso of the photo (behind the affixed description) is “Story of California - Reject”. So, apparently, this was considered, but not used in some story, article, feature, book? etc.
What became of this historic building is a crying shame. Check for yourself if so inclined.
The James Webb Space Telescope, configured for flight, was moved from the cleanroom to the payload preparation facility for fuelling at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 11–12 November 2021.
Webb will be loaded with propellants before being mounted on top of the rocket and then encapsulated by the Ariane 5 fairing.
Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. As part of an international collaboration agreement, ESA is providing the telescope’s launch service using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace.
Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Find out more about Webb in ESA’s launch kit and interactive brochure.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Vidéo du CSG - P Baudon
As preparations for the launch of ESA’s latest Earth Explorer continue on track, the team at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana has bid farewell to the Aeolus satellite as it was sealed from view in its Vega rocket fairing. Liftoff is set for 21 August at 21:20 GMT (23:20 CEST). Aeolus carries one of the most sophisticated instruments ever to be put into orbit. The first of its kind, the Aladin instrument includes revolutionary laser technology to generate pulses of ultraviolet light that are beamed down into the atmosphere to profile the world’s winds – a completely new approach to measuring the wind from space.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG - J Durrenberger
ESA’s Biomass satellite pictured on show in the cleanroom at Airbus in Toulouse, France. The satellite is ready to be shipped to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana for liftoff in spring.
ESA’s Biomass mission will soon play a key role in delivering novel information about the state of our forests, how they are changing over time, and advance our knowledge of the carbon cycle. It is the first satellite to carry a fully polarimetric P-band synthetic aperture radar for interferometric imaging. Thanks to the long wavelength of P-band, around 70 cm, the radar signal can slice through the whole forest layer to measure the ‘biomass’, meaning the woody trunks, branches and stems, which is where trees store most of their carbon.
Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja
The solar arrays that will provide electricity to the Orion spacecraft were put through launch-day paces at ESA’s Test Centre in the Netherlands to verify that they can handle the rigours of the trip around the Moon.
The wings are seen here on the shaking table that vibrates with the full force of a rumbling rocket. They were also placed in front of enormous speakers that recreate the harsh conditions they can expect on launch day. The solar arrays passed with flying colours.
The wings will be tested on how they deploy before shipping to Bremen, Germany, for integration with the European service module. ESA’s contribution to the Orion mission will provide power, propulsion, water, and air.
The first mission will take Orion around the Moon without astronauts and is scheduled for a 2019 launch. The solar panels will be folded inside the rocket fairing, once released from NASA’s Space Launch System rocket they will unfold and rotate towards the Sun to start delivering power.
With solar wings tested and fuel tanks installed, Orion is one step closer to its maiden voyage.
Credits: ESA–M. Cowan
ESA microwave engineers took apart an entire Galileo satellite to reassemble its navigation payload on a laboratory test bench to run it as though it were in orbit – available to investigate the lifetime performance of its component parts, recreate satellite anomalies, and test candidate technologies for Galileo’s future evolution.
Located in the cleanroom environment of the Galileo Payload Laboratory – part of ESA’s Microwave Lab based at its ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands – the new Galileo IOV Testbed Facility was inaugurated this week with a ceremony attended by Paul Verhoef, ESA Director of Navigation and Franco Ongaro, ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality.
Paul Verhoef congratulated the team and underlined the importance of ESA having these capabilities: ”Such a navigation payload laboratory does not exist in industry. We foresee the testing and validation a number of very innovative ideas for the next series of Galileo satellites, before entering into discussions with industry in the context of the procurement of the Galileo Transition Satellites that has recently begun. This shows the added value of ESA as the design agent and system engineer of the Galileo system.”
“Our Lab has always been very responsive to the testing needs of the Navigation Directorate,’ comments microwave engineer César Miquel España.
“Now this unique facility allows performance of end-to-end testing of a Galileo payload as representatively as possible, using actual Galileo hardware. We can also support investigations of any problems in orbit or plug in future payload hardware as needed. And because each item of equipment is separately temperature controlled we can see how environmental changes affect their performance.”
The Testbed began as an ‘engineering model’ of a first-generation Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space in Italy for ground-based testing. It was delivered to ESTEC in August 2015, along with four truckloads of ground support equipment and other hardware.
That began a long three-year odyssey to first take the satellite apart, then put it back together – akin at times to space archaeology, since the satellite had been designed more than 15 years ago.
“We found lots of documentation on how to integrate the satellite, but nothing on how to take it apart,” adds technician Gearóid Loughnane. “We had to dismantle it very carefully over several weeks to remove the smaller items safely and take out the electrical harness, which ended up as a big spaghetti pile on the floor.”
The next step was to extricate the navigation payload from the satellite platform, and then begin to lay it out to connect it up again. A parallel effort tracked down supporting software from the companies involved, to be able to operate the payload once it was complete, as if it is orbiting in space.
Valuable help came from Surrey Satellite Technology Limited in the UK, Dutch aerospace company Terma that developed Galileo software, and Rovsing in Denmark, supplying ground support equipment.
“A big challenge was tailoring the spacecraft control and monitoring system to work only with the payload units while having to emulate the platform equipment” comments technician Andrew Allstaff.
Comprising equipment produced by companies in seven separate European companies, the Testbed generates navigation signals using actually atomic clocks co-located in the lab, which are then upconverted, amplified and filtered as if for transmission down to Earth.
The idea came from a GIOVE Payload Testbed already in the Lab, which simulates the performance of a test satellite that prepared the way for Galileo. As a next step the team hopes they can one day produce a Galileo ‘Full Operational Capability’ Payload Testbed – the current follow-on to the first-generation IOV satellites.
The next four Galileo FOC satellites are due to be launched by Ariane 5 in July.
Credits: ESA–Cesar Miquel Espana
This image shows the James Webb Space Telescope entering the cleanroom airlock at its launch site.
Read more about its journey to Kourou: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/how-to-ship-the-world-s...
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
This group photo of engineers and technicians in the cleanroom at NASA Goddard, was captured in the spring of 2017, before the telescope was transported to NASA Johnson for cryogenic testing.
Image credit: NASA/Desiree Stover
After it's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of launch, the James Webb Space Telescope is unboxed inside a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility where it will be examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - P.Piron
Deputy Project Scientist (technical) Paul Geithner stands in front of the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror in the cleanroom at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. This is a legacy photo, taken back when the mirrors were still at Goddard.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
An infrared view of a laser-based test campaign – taking place at Redwire Space in Kruibeke, Belgium – which represents crucial preparation for ESA’s precision formation flying mission, Proba-3.
Later this year, two satellites will be launched together into orbit to maintain formation relative to each other down to a few millimetres, creating an artificial solar eclipse in space. Proba-3’s ‘Occulter’ spacecraft will cast a shadow onto the other ‘Coronagraph’ spacecraft to block out the fiery face of the Sun and make the ghostly solar corona available for sustained observation for up to six hours per 19.5 hour orbit.
However to maintain the position of a shadow just a few centimetres across on the Coronagraph satellite from the Occulter satellite around 150 m away, the two satellites rely on a suite of sensors, including intersatellite radio links, GNSS, visual imaging and – for the most precise positioning at closest range – a laser metrology (or ‘measurement of measurement’) system. This system will shoot a laser from the Occulter spacecraft toward a corner cube retroreflector placed on the face of the Coronagraph spacecraft for tracking of relative position and attitude (pointing direction), achieving millimetre precision.
“To calibrate Proba-3’s laser metrology system, its performance was tested within the 60-m long Redwire cleanroom,” explains Damien Galano, Proba-3’s mission manager. “The Coronagraph’s laser was reflected off a retroreflector and the resulting positioning measurements checked against absolute ‘ground truth’ using a separate laser tracking system.”
This mission is being put together for ESA by a consortium led by Spain’s Sener, with participation by more than 29 companies from 14 countries. The Proba-3 platforms have been designed by Airbus Defence and Space in Spain and satellite integration by Redwire in Belgium. GMV in Spain is responsible for Proba-3’s formation flying subsystem while its main coronagraph instrument comes from Belgium’s Centre Spatial de Liège, CSL. Proba-3 is due to be launched by PSLV-XL launcher from India in September.
Credits: ESA - M. Pédoussaut
The instrumentation of Hungarian folk bands, based on Transylvanian communities, included a fiddle on lead with violin, a kontra (a 3-string viola also called a brácsa), and bowed double bass, and sometimes a cimbalom as well.
MMS Four Separate – View of all four spacecraft in the MMS Cleanroom getting prepared for stacking operations.
Learn more about MMS at www.nasa.gov/mms
Credit NASA/Chris Gunn
The Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, will study how the sun and the Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, an explosive process that can accelerate particles through space to nearly the speed of light. This process is called magnetic reconnection and can occur throughout all space.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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We pass through Billings, Montana on my Pan-American Trek using Google Street View.
Clean rooms, good rate. Lewis & Clark Inn.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
Electrical technicians work diligently to build the connector harnessing for the Command and Data Handling (C&DH) unit, (black box with two red handles) that is installed on spacecraft Deck for MMS #4.
Learn more about MMS at www.nasa.gov/mms
Credit NASA/Goddard
The Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, will study how the sun and the Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, an explosive process that can accelerate particles through space to nearly the speed of light. This process is called magnetic reconnection and can occur throughout all space.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Three primary Webb telescope mirror segments sit in shipping cannisters and await opening. A mechanical integration engineer and technicians vent and prepare the mirror canisters for inspection. The mirrors have arrived at their new home at NASA, where they will be residing at the giant cleanroom at Goddard for a while as technicians check them out. Previously on Sept. 17, 2012, two other primary mirror segments arrived at Goddard and are currently being stored in the center's giant clean room.
Credit: NASA/Desiree Stover
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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Two titanium plaques etched with thousands of miniaturised drawings made by children have been fixed to the CHaracterizing ExOPlanets Satellite, Cheops. Each plaque measures nearly 18 cm across and 24 cm high.
The plaques, prepared by a team at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Burgdorf, Switzerland, were unveiled in a dedicated ceremony at RUAG on 27 August 2018.
Credits: G. Bucher – Bern University of Applied Sciences
The gold-covered primary mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope, revealed in the cleanroom at NASA Goddard. Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/james-webb-space-telesc...
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) integrated on the GPM Core Observatory in a cleanroom at Goddard Space Flight Center.
Credit: NASA/Goddard
The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is an international partnership co-led by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that will provide next-generation global observations of precipitation from space.
GPM will study global rain, snow and ice to better understand our climate, weather, and hydrometeorological processes.
As of Novermber 2013 the GPM Core Observatory is in the final stages of testing at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The satellite will be flown to Japan in the fall of 2013 and launched into orbit on an HII-A rocket in early 2014.
For more on the GPM mission, visit gpm.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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The ExoMars rover, Rosalind Franklin, unpacked in the Thales Alenia Space facilities in Cannes, France.
Credits: Thales Alenia Space
We cleaned and re-organized my daughter's room today. It is gradually becoming an undersea/turtle room. The main part is under the ocean, the area on the right is the island area - Hawaii.
After it's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of launch, the James Webb Space Telescope is unboxed inside a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility where it will be examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - P.Piron
By Architectus
The new Sydney Nanoscience Hub will promote research and innovation and contribute to the reputation of the University of Sydney's Physics School as the leading Physics school in Australia. The Sydney Nanoscience Hub at the University of Sydney is a world class research and teaching facility. Designed to meet the demanding requirements of nanoscience research, the facility is the only building in Australia to house such an advanced research capability alongside comprehensive undergraduate and postgraduate teaching facilities.
The new facility integrates with the existing heritage Physics building (which you can see reflected in the glass facade) and provides:
Specialist research laboratories:Precision metrology laboratories
Suite for 2 aberration corrected Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEM)
High-performance electronics and optics laboratories
700m2 cleanroom (ISO Class 5 and 7, upgradable to Class 4)
General laboratories for research
Teaching and learning spaces:
300 person lecture theatre
Flexible, flat-floor learning studio
2 x flat-floor seminar spaces
Video Conference (VC) facilities
Teaching laboratory
Informal student common space
Source: Architectus
Inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building high bay at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, assembly continues on Orion's Artemis II crew module on Feb. 5, 2021. The capsule will house astronauts during its mission around the Moon. Recently, teams removed the spacecraft from its clean room environment, where they have been performing the buildup of the Environmental Control and Propulsion System (ECPS) assemblies prior to their installation into the crew module. It will return to the clean room to complete ECPS final welds and assemblies. Artemis II will confirm all of the Orion spacecraft's systems operate as designed in the actual environment of deep space with astronauts aboard. As part of the Artemis Program, NASA will send the first woman and next man to the Moon. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
A ground penetrating radar antenna for ESA’s ExoMars 2020 rover being pre-cleaned in an ultra-cleanroom environment in preparation for its sterilisation process, in an effort to prevent terrestrial microbes coming along for the ride to the red planet.
Part of the Agency’s Life, Physical Sciences and Life Support Laboratory based in its Netherlands technical centre, This 35 sq. m ‘ISO Class 1’ cleanroom is one of the cleanest places in Europe. It is equipped with a dry heat steriliser used to reduce the microbial ‘bioburden’ on equipment destined for alien worlds.
The item seen here is the WISDOM (Water Ice Subsurface Deposit Observation on Mars) radar antenna flight model, designed to sound the subsurface of Mars for water ice.
“After pre-cleaning and then the taking of sample swabs, the antenna was placed into our dry heat steriliser, to target the required 99.9% bioburden reduction to meet ExoMars 2020’s cleanliness requirements,” explains technician Alan Dowson.
“To check the effectiveness of this process, the swabs are subjected to a comparable heat shock and then cultivated for 72 hours, to analyse the number of spores and bacteria able to survive. The viable bioburden is then calculated for the surface area of the WISDOM antenna. If this level is below the mission’s maximum then it is cleared for delivery.”
All the cleanroom’s air passes through a two-stage filter system. Anyone entering the chamber has to gown up in a much more rigorous way than a hospital surgeon, before passing through an air shower to remove any remaining contaminants.
The chamber’s cleanliness is such that it contains less than 10 particles smaller than a thousandth of a millimetre per cubic metre. A comparable sample of the outside air could well contain millions.
By international planetary protection agreement, space agencies are legally required to prevent terrestrial microbes hitchhiking to other planets and moons in our Solar System where past or present alien life is a possibility.
Credits: ESA–A. Dowson
After a 5,800-mile move, the James Webb Space Telescope has unpacked and settled into its temporary home...
The James Webb Space Telescope has safely made it inside the cleanroom at its launch site at Guiana Space Center, in French Guiana! Read more about why this location was selected for launch: jwst.nasa.gov/content/about/launch.html
After its arrival, Webb was carefully lifted from its packing container and then raised vertical. This is the same configuration Webb will be in when it is inside its launch vehicle, the Ariane 5 rocket.
Image credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth
After arrival at the cleanroom at ESTEC, the European Space Agency’s Plato spacecraft was moved to a tent providing the clean air needed for its sensitive optical instruments. Here it is still covered by a protective film. The spacecraft can be seen in horizontal transport configuration on a rolling platform.
[Image description: Inside a cleanroom, several individuals wearing protective clothing and hairnets are working around a large spacecraft. The spacecraft has gold and black colours and is wrapped in plastic sheeting, and mounted on a white transport platform. The background features metallic walls, blue structural elements, and various pieces of laboratory equipment, contributing to the high-tech, clean environment.]
Credits: ESA-SJM Photography
After it's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of launch, the James Webb Space Telescope is unboxed inside a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility where it will be examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - P.Piron
ESA’s Sentinel-2B Earth-observing satellite being lowered into Europe’s largest vacuum chamber, at the start of a test campaign to ensure it is ready to serve in space.
The satellite is now in ESA’s 15 m-diameter Large Space Simulator, where high-performance pumps will remove all air within the chamber to create an orbital-quality vacuum. Meanwhile, liquid nitrogen circulates through the black walls to mimic the cold of sunless space.
Sentinel-2B arrived by lorry on the night of 15 June, making the first time any of the Sentinel family of satellites serving the Copernicus initiative for global environmental monitoring has visited ESA’s technical heart, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
Sentinel travelled from Airbus Defence and Space’s Friedrichshafen facility in Germany, where it was first assembled and then all of its main elements underwent detailed testing.
Sentinel-2B is a twin of Sentinel-2A, launched a year ago. The two satellites together will provide global multispectral coverage, extracting valuable environmental data from the colours of land vegetation and coastal waters. They are equipped with laser communications to return data quickly to Earth.
The largest centre of its kind in Europe, ESA’s test facilities simulate every aspect of the space environment. Everything is housed under a single roof within a controlled cleanroom environment to avoid contaminating flight hardware.
A sequence of tests will be conducted on Sentinel-2B between now and the end of October.
The current thermal-vacuum testing will be followed by electromagnetic compatibility testing within the Maxwell chamber, to ensure the satellite can operate safely with its ground station – as well as with its launcher during its crucial first moments of life – without harmful interference.
Next, Sentinel will be blasted inside the Large European Acoustic Facility to simulate the extreme noise experienced atop the launcher during liftoff and its early climb to orbit.
A final set of performance tests will then check that all of its systems have survived exposure to these simulated mission environments.
Credit: ESA-G. Porter CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Unity module, right, and the U.S. Destiny laboratory, for the International Space Station were manufactured in the high bay clean room of the space station manufacturing facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Unity, serves as a connecting passageway to space station modules. The U.S. built Unity module was launched aboard the orbiter Endeavour (STS-88 mission) on December 4, 1998 and connected to Zarya, the Russian-built module. Destiny was launched aboard the orbiter Atlantis (STS-98 mission) on February 7, 2001.
Image credit: NASA/JSC
Original image:
mix.msfc.nasa.gov/abstracts.php?p=1601
More about space station research:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html
Space Station Research Affects Lives, Flickr photoset:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157634178107799/
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The first MetOp Second Generation A-type satellite (MetOp-SG-A1), which is also equipped with the Copernicus Sentinel-5 instrument, being transferred for fuelling at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The first MetOp Second Generation A-type satellite (MetOp-SG-A1), which also carries the Copernicus Sentine-5 instrument, in the cleanroom at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou with a proud team. With launch for August on an Ariane 6 rocket, the satellite is currently being prepared for liftoff.
The MetOp-SG mission comprises three successive pairs of satellites to deliver data for weather forecasting and climate prediction for over 20 years. Working as a pair in polar orbit, the A-type and the B-type satellites are equipped with complementary suites of instruments to provide high-resolution measurements of temperature, precipitation, clouds, winds, and more.
The A-type satellites also carry the Copernicus Sentinel-5 spectrometer for the European Commission. This new instrument measure the distribution of atmospheric trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde, glyoxal, carbon monoxide, and methane, as well as aerosols and ultraviolet radiation.
Credits: ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE/Optique vidéo du CSG–S. Martin
ESA’s Aeolus satellite ready to be encapsulated in the Vega rocket fairing. Liftoff is set for 21 August at 21:20 GMT (23:20 CEST) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Aeolus carries one of the most sophisticated instruments ever to be put into orbit. The first of its kind, the Aladin instrument includes revolutionary laser technology to generate pulses of ultraviolet light that are beamed down into the atmosphere to profile the world’s winds – a completely new approach to measuring the wind from space.
Credits: ESA
ESA’s Biomass satellite pictured on show in the cleanroom at Airbus in Toulouse, France. The satellite is ready to be shipped to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana for liftoff in spring.
ESA’s Biomass mission will soon play a key role in delivering novel information about the state of our forests, how they are changing over time, and advance our knowledge of the carbon cycle. It is the first satellite to carry a fully polarimetric P-band synthetic aperture radar for interferometric imaging. Thanks to the long wavelength of P-band, around 70 cm, the radar signal can slice through the whole forest layer to measure the ‘biomass’, meaning the woody trunks, branches and stems, which is where trees store most of their carbon.
Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja
This image was captured during a dynamic balancing test of the ExoMars 2022 descent module. The image is slightly blurred because the module is spinning. (Click here for movie
). Inside the descent module is the Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok surface platform that will fly to Mars.
The dynamic balancing test is necessary to ensure the spacecraft is perfectly balanced when spinning in space.
The tests were conducted in the anechoic chamber in Thales Alenia Space’s facilities in Cannes, France. The cleanroom conditions provide a controlled environment to prevent contamination, and where temperature, pressure, humidity and dust concentration are all continuously monitored and recorded.
Credits: Thales Alenia Space