NASA scientists have built a dynamic little spacecraft in record time. It may someday rendezvous with asteroids, orbit Earth or Mars, and land on the moon -- for roughly one tenth the price of a conventional unmanned mission.
"This spacecraft will allow NASA to launch more missions, for less money," says William Marshall, a member of the team that built the satellite. "In the 1960's landing on the Moon took a team of thousands of people. Today that same task can be done with 30."
The new vehicle is designed around what Marshall's team calls a Modular Common Spacecraft Bus. It has a versatile octagonal box shape that can carry up to fifty kilograms of instruments so long as they can fit within the space sits atop the engine.
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