James Dean

FLORIDA TODAY

Smoke and fire will pour from the most powerful solid rocket booster ever built during a test this week of a key piece of NASA’s next exploration rocket.

In Promontory, Utah, Orbital ATK on Tuesday morning plans to fire the five-segment booster, a pair of which are slated to help lift the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket and an unmanned Orion crew capsule from Kennedy Space Center in late 2018.

The boosters are slightly longer than four-segment SRBs that helped launch space shuttles for 30 years, and will each generate 3.6 million pounds of thrust.

Tuesday’s qualification test will chill a horizontal booster to 40 degrees Fahrenheit to test it performance in colder temperatures. Data will be collected from 530 channels to measure results against 82 test objectives.

The test is planned just after 10 a.m. EDT, with live NASA TV coverage starting at 9:30 a.m. Check out a video of the last year's first qualification test here.

Powerful Atlas V delivers Navy satellite to orbit

Heroes and Legends nears completion

NASA and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex on Thursday morning will host a ceremony to top off the complex’s newest major attraction.

The ceremony will also announce a corporate sponsor for the Heroes and Legends exhibit scheduled to open to the public Nov. 11.

The exhibit located near the complex’s entrance is described as “an immersive storytelling experience” sharing astronauts’ heroic journeys.

The building will also house the new U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, which is being relocated from its former mainland home across the Indian River Lagoon from the Visitor Complex.

SpaceX may face $15,000 port fee for booster return

Bezos wins Heinlein Prize

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has been awarded the Heinlein Prize, named for the late science fiction author whose work has inspired many space enthusiasts.

The prize aims to encourage and reward progress in commercial space activities. Blue Origin recently completed its fourth test flight and landing of the same suborbital New Shepard vehicle, which it is developing to fly space tourists by 2018.

“Under Jeff’s visionary leadership, Blue Origin has developed launch vehicles and a commercially financed line of engines that pave the way to reusability in space transportation,” Art Dula, trustee of the Heinlein Prize Trust, said in a press release.

“Heinlein foresaw a thriving future with humans throughout the solar system,” said Bezos, who as founder and CEO of Amazon.com is one of the world’s wealthiest people. “We won’t stop working to make that vision come true.”

The prize has only two prior winners: Peter Diamandis, creator of the Ansari XPRIZE, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Delta IV Heavy blasts off from Cape Canaveral with spy satellite

Asteroid Day

Uninformed about the threat an asteroid strike poses to humanity? Thursday is your chance to learn more.

It’s Asteroid Day, when the world comes together “to recognize the collective responsibility to address asteroid impacts, the only natural disaster humankind can prevent through increased awareness and education,” according to organizers.

Event co-founders include Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart and Brian May, an astrophysicist and lead guitarist for the rock band Queen.

Asteroid Day is held on the anniversary of the “Tunguska event,” Earth’s largest recorded asteroid impact, which in 1908 wiped out a city-sized swath of Siberian forest.

Visit http://asteroidday.org/ for more information and to find events.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.