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NASA to announce science, technology missions for first flight of Space Launch System

by IBNS 29 Jan 2016, 07:26 am

California, Jan 29 (IBNS) NASA Television will air the announcement of the selection of a fleet of small satellites to launch on the inaugural flight of the agencys Space Launch System (SLS).

The event, which is at 11 a.m. EST (10 a.m. CST) Tuesday, Feb. 2, from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will announce the CubeSats that will fly as secondary payloads and deploy to conduct science and technology demonstrations in deep space, read the NASA website.

The primary goal of the first integrated launch of NASA’s SLS and Orion spacecraft is to demonstrate the agency’s new capability to launch future crewed, deep space missions, which include missions to an asteroid and Mars. As a bonus, SLS will carry 13 CubeSats on its first flight as secondary payloads.

These small satellites will perform various in-space experiments and demonstrations to advance the technological capabilities needed to take humans farther into space than ever before, NASA said on its website. 

The secondary payloads were selected through a series of announcements of flight opportunities, a public contest, and negotiations with NASA’s international partners.

Image: NASA