We're about one minute away from the liftoff of an Alabama built rocket carrying NASA's unmanned Orion capsule.
North Alabama will be watching as NASA prepares again to make that launch. The booster is called a Delta-IV Heavy. It was built at the United Launch Alliance factory near Decatur. The parts were then floated down a barge on the Tennessee River to the Gulf of Mexico for delivery to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Delta will carry the Orion vehicle to orbit to test the capsule’s ability to operate in space and then safely re-enter the atmosphere. The Marshall Space Center in Huntsville also built a connecting ring that links Orion to its Delta rocket.
The Alabama Crimson Tide is gearing up to face the Missouri Tigers in tomorrow’s SEC championship game in Atlanta. The Tigers sealed their spot in the conference championship by beating the Arkansas Razorbacks to win the SEC East. Alabama already had its spot in the west locked up before beating Auburn in the Iron Bowl. Receiver Amari Cooper says the Iron Bowl showed how one key to victory is keeping quarterback Blake Sims focused…
“Yeah, for myself, DeAndrew and Christion we rally behind him when he messes up a little bit, and say he can overcome it, and to play the next play. And so when we did it this time, he believed us, because we’ve been doing it all year, and he just forget about them and made some big plays.”
DeAndrew White and Christion Jones are Cooper’s team mates. After Saturday’s games, the four teams in the championship playoffs will be announced.
A historical marker is being unveiled today in Muscle Shoals Alabama commemorating that city’s connection to The Rolling Stones. APR student reporter Elayne Smith has more…
Forty-Five years ago, The Rolling Stones recorded songs for their album “Sticky Fingers” in the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Songs on that album included “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar.” These songs brought more musicians to seek out this Alabama studio. Allison Stanfield is the assistant director for The Florence Tourism Department. She says the historical marker will serve to commemorate the impact of The Rolling Stones...
“Well it really helped put Muscle Shoals on the map as far as being a mecca for musicians. Internationally, the Muscle Shoals music is still very, very popular.”
The marker is being placed at the sight of the former Holiday Inn the band stayed in. Jimmy Johnson who engineered these sessions will be present at the ceremony. ?
Quick update, that Delta-IV Heavy rocket carrying NASA's Orion crew capsule just blasted off Cape Canaveral, Florida. That vehicle, built here in North Alabama--the rocket anyway, is a Delta-IV rocket, three boosters side by side with Orion perched on top. Now, the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville played a role in connecting the capsule to the rocket. Because they built a adapter that connects the Orion to the Delta-IV. Now, the key with that is that NASA charged engineers at Marshall to create a connector that not would connect the Orion to the Delta-IV, but also connect the Orion to a new rocket called the Space Launch System, which eventually, if it works, will take astronauts out of Earth orbit for the first time since 1972. And if that works, the possibility of manned missions to Mars and possibly an asteroid. We'll keep you up to date on what happens with Orion.
