I was going to append this to today's APOD installment (https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180131.html) which features the first Explorer mission, launched sixty years ago today. But I didn't want it to get lost in the extended length of that thread.
Just a small brag about the view from the window of my office:


The "smallish" missile on the right is a Explorer-mounted Jupiter C. The next to the left is the Redstone (named for Redstone Arsenal where it was developed). The rather large one is the Saturn I-B, and the smaller one (hard to pick out) just in front of the Saturn I-B is a Jupiter (one of which carried the monkeys Able and Baker into space). Not visible due to the blue roof in the foreground are a Hermes, and a V-2 donated to the US Army in 1944 (the donator was under some duress at the time).
Yesterday, NASA allowed anyone working here at Marshall Space Flight Center the opportunity to see a piece of flight hardware which will be part of the first SLS launch next year. Below are pictures of the Orion Stage Adapter, which mounts between the second stage (Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage), and the Orion Command and Service Module. To maximize space utilization, the adapter incorporates fourteen canisters for launching CubeSats (6U and 12U sizes) once the Orion module has separated from the ICPS. My current job is to develop electronics for the 6U CubeSat NEA Scout. It will be pushed from its canister at a point between the Earth and Moon designated as "Bus Stop 2", somewhere outside the Van Allen belts. Enough talk, more pictures:
Orion Stage Adapter:
Outside view:

Inside view:

One of these scrawls is my signature so the aliens know who to blame:


Pictures of the CubeSat to come later.

dave boling

_________________
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.
-- Douglas Adams

'Bundinn er bátlaus maðu'.

Way friggin' cool !

Here's a couple of pictures of the 3D-printed model of the NEA Scout. Keep in mind that being a 6U CubeSat, the outside dimensions (including the space it takes to fold up the solar panels, is 10cm x 20cm x 30cm (3.9" x 7.9" x 11.8"), or about the size of a shoe box. The silver square is the sail. The blue bits at the corners are mounting points for the model, and not part of the spacecraft.
This is a scale model showing the relative sizes of the solar sail to the box it is dragging along. The model is ~12" x 12", so it could easily be passed about at a meeting.


Here's a view of the bottom side of the spacecraft, showing the solar panels deployed. The gold area represents a planar antenna used once the craft is outside the range of its omnidirectional antenna.


This is the view from the side. The open bit just to the left of the gold box attached to the solar panels is where the solar sail is spooled. With the sail being 84 square meters, and the booms being 6.8m long, the decision was made early on that they would be left out of this model Also, the security guard in the background is not flight rated, and will not be flow on this launch.


For the really geeky one's out here is a math problem: If a 84 square meter solar sail produces 9uN per square meter of thrust at 1 AU from the sun, and the load is 12kg, what is the delta v after 2.5 years?

dave boling

_________________
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.
-- Douglas Adams

'Bundinn er bátlaus maðu'.

Okay, I give up.

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano

I get 5 km per second.

Fascinating, thanks for those inside pics Dave.

I get:

delta-v of 3.1 km/sec

delta-range of 1 AU

(assuming pure radial motion, neglecting initial orbital motion and any stow-away security guards)

trill

I ignored that F was a function of range... Ok for a first-order approximation, but not good enough to get me to Mars, it seems

Faskinating stuff! Thank you, DB!

_________________
Wizard needs whiskey, badly!

[Thread revival. - Mod]

An update on this thread.
NASA produces a YouTube video each week called, oddly enough, "This Week @ NASA". The "@" is to let you know they're up with the times enough that they don't use blueline machines anymore to create blueprints (Who's old enough to remember those, and the wonderful ammonia smell..?).
Anyway, in the August 14 edition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHv5lQD ... e=youtu.be), beginning at 0:38, NEA Scout has a short feature where the mission is described, along with a CGI graphic of the spacecraft in flight, and a video of our flight sail deployment test. The deployment test didn't use the complete spacecraft, just the sail deployer, sail, and my motor driver board. If you look closely, you can easily pick me out:

dave boling

_________________
I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg.
Ron stole Meggie's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.
-- Douglas Adams

'Bundinn er bátlaus maðu'.

Caption:

"What happens if I do this?"

_________________
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles

"I remain not entirely convinced of it." - Nano