Nasa To Pay Ula To Hasten Atlas 5 Launch Tempo In 2011

摘要

NASA is attempting to resolve a launch conflict between the $1.9 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and the Jupiter-bound Juno mission by considering moving up Juno's launch and paying United Launch Alliance $20 million to pick up the pace of Atlas 5 launches in 2011. The U.S. space agency has struggled to fit MSL onto the Atlas 5 manifest since announcing in December that the rover would not be ready for its long-planned October 2009 launch. Because Earth and Mars are favorably aligned for launch every two years, forfeiting this year's launch window meant postponing liftoff until October 2011. Complicating matters is the scheduled launch of NASA's Juno two months earlier atop an Atlas 5 from the same launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.