The Earth Departure Stage (EDS) is the name given to the second stages of two Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, the Ares V and the Block II Space Launch System. The EDS is used to boost the rocket's payload into a parking orbit around the Earth and from there send the payload out of low Earth orbit to its destination in a manner similar to that of the S-IVB rocket stage used on the Saturn V rockets that propelled the three-man Apollo missions to the Moon between 1968 and 1972.
Read more about Earth Departure Stage: Space Launch System, Other Uses
Famous quotes containing the words earth, departure and/or stage:
“Let Rome in Tiber melt and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do ‘t, in which I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet
We stand up peerless.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“This house was but a slight departure from the hollow tree, which the bear still inhabits,—being a hollow made with trees piled up, with a coating of bark like its original.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)