2015 – Page 54 – Spaceflight Now

Video: Falcon 9 nose shroud falls back to Earth

June 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX has released another jaw-dropping video from a camera fastened to a piece of a Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing, showing the nose cone spinning through space after its separation on a recent launch.

Dawn enters new orbit closer to Ceres

June 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Dawn asteroid explorer has arrived at its new perch 2,700 miles from the dwarf planet Ceres, a vantage point scientists say will yield better views as the probe continues to step closer to the surface.

Ground team battling on-and-off communications with LightSail

June 6, 2015 Stephen Clark

After an up-and-down week of intermittent contact with the LightSail satellite, the tiny spacecraft radioed home Saturday, giving engineers hope to deploy the experiment’s solar sail as soon as Sunday.

Soyuz rocket returns to flight with military launch

June 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

Russia successfully launched a Kobalt-type optical reconnaissance satellite Friday aboard a Soyuz rocket, marking the workhorse booster’s first flight since the failure of a resupply launch to the International Space Station in April.

OTD…June 5 and STS-40

June 5, 2015 Justin Ray

#OTD in 1991…The launch of Columbia on Spacelab Life Sciences 1 mission

ESA reveals candidates for new space science missions

June 4, 2015 Stephen Clark

The European Space Agency revealed plans Thursday to build and launch a joint space weather research satellite with China and announced three finalists for Europe’s next standalone science mission.

Hubble shows Pluto’s moons don’t know which end is up

June 3, 2015 William Harwood

As NASA’s New Horizons probe closes in on Pluto, the Hubble Space telescope has been scouting its retinue of five known moons, discovering that at least two are tumbling chaotically in the complex gravity of the dwarf planet and its large moon, Charon, researchers said Wednesday.

Year: 2015