ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope... ========= *)HUGE THANKS TO: https://www.teslarati.com/ *) SOURCE OF MUSIC: -.Mokka - No Copyright Music: null -Sirius Beat - The Cosmos Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkg08NvtvBU -Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music. Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F68sQYaS9XA *) SOURCES OF VIDEO AND IMAGES: -Starship Gazer: null https://twitter.com/StarshipGazer https://www.patreon.com/StarshipGazer -The Late Show with Stephen Colbert -NASA's Goddard -Rseferino Orbiter Filmmaker: null -LESIA - Observatoire de Paris: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzPLngWE_6JVuJ4szh8U-RQ -L3Harris Technologies: null -Spaceflight Now: null -@WHarper10: https://twitter.com/WHarper10 ============ ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope... SpaceX's Falcon Heavy will come back with a bunch of missions in 2022 after almost 3 years of absence! It is especially likely that SpaceX’s monster will launch the second most expensive NASA telescope this decade. All this and more in today's episode of Alpha Tech! ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope... On the heels of what will likely be NASA’s most significant telescope launch for at least a decade, the space agency appears to be about to select the launch provider for its next most expensive space telescope. Notably, this is a contract that SpaceX seems all but guaranteed to win. As Tory Bruno, CEO of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) - SpaceX’s chief competitor, revealed on February 15th that they won’t even attempt to compete for the contract to launch NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (NGRST; formerly the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope or WFIRST), potentially be the second most expensive NASA spacecraft launched this decade after James Webb. ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope... WFIRST was made possible when the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) chose to donate one of two Hubble-class spy telescopes it had merely sitting around and gathering dust to NASA in the mid-2010s. From a mechanical perspective, the telescope will be very similar to Hubble. However, in the decades since HST’s launch, electronics and sensor technology have dramatically improved, allowing NASA to pack instruments capable of simultaneously imaging 100 times the field of view HST is capable of into a similar package. ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope... Additionally, instead of the Hubble’s primary focus on ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, the Roman Space Telescope will observe in infrared wavelengths, making it a perfect complement to the brand-new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is also exclusively focused on the infrared spectrum. Combined, they could operate hand in hand, with NGRST acting like a surveyor or scout and JWST enabling a much closer look at noteworthy discoveries. Additionally, thanks to the inclusion of an unprecedentedly capable in-space coronagraph instrument, NGRST will be able to block out the light of stars, making it a game-changing tool for exoplanet discovery – exoplanets that JWST may then be able to image in even more detail with its much larger mirror. However, the telescope must first be built and then make it to orbit. ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope... In this case, that competitor is SpaceX, whose Falcon Heavy rocket is certified for even the most risk-averse NASA LSP (Launch Service Program) missions. In just the last two years, SpaceX has won contracts to launch NASA’s Psyche asteroid explorer (Aug 2022), VIPER Moon rover (Q4 2023), GOES-U weather satellite (Q2 2024), Europa Clipper (Q4 2024), and the PPE and HALO modules of the Gateway lunar space station (Q4 2024). ULA gives up! NASA awards SpaceX Falcon Heavy new contracts to launch NASA's telescope...