Building a spacecraft!

A spacecraft is a vehicle, or machine designed to fly in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo.

How to build a spacecraft: The beginning

Building a spacecraft can be surprisingly simple. You can buy a kit off the Internet for about the cost of a used car and make something that will function in orbit around the Earth for a few weeks or months.

Building a NASA flight-quality spacecraft that can fly millions of miles across the void of space to another planet is much more difficult, and the process is far different than building anything else most people are familiar with.

Arizona State University’s team leading a 2018 moon mission kicked off their first group meeting this month, but it will be years before you can see parts on a table in a lab.

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